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Anthropogenic Climate Change
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- Public Topic: Everyone is invited to contribute to Anthropogenic Climate Change
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The UN launched a programme that it hopes could be the foundation for a system in which rich countries would pay poor ones to slow climate change by protecting and planting forests.
The new programme, called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Program, or UN-REDD, will assist nine developing countries, including Bolivia, Indonesia and Zambia, in establishing systems to monitor, assess and report forest cover.
"Forests are worth more alive than dead... and their ecosystem services and benefits are worth billions if not trillions of dollars if only we capture these in economic models," said Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme.
Clearing forests for timber and farmland in developing nations emits nearly 20 per cent of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, according to the UN's climate science panel. Trees store heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they rot or are burned.
Tropical countries are pushing to include UN-REDD in the successor to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Delegates representing countries around the globe are scheduled to meet in Copenhagen at the end of next year in hopes of hammering out a successor to the pact, which expires in 2012.
Under such a plan, the tropical countries would generate tradable carbon credits by saving and planting trees. Indonesia, for example, has the potential to be compensated €682 million a year if its deforestation rate was reduced to one million hectares annually, the UN estimated.
Presumably, rich countries would buy the credits to meet their own emission limits, like the way EU countries have invested in credits representing emissions cuts generated by clean energy projects in poor countries.
Not everyone agrees such a programme would be a good idea. Barry Gardiner, British Prime Minister special envoy for forests, said in an interview earlier this month that the model of avoided deforestation is flawed and risks alienating voters in rich countries.
Mr Gardiner proposed instead that rich countries should simply make payments to tropical nations based on the size of existing forests. If countries continued to log or burn they could be expelled from the scheme.
The UN launched a programme that it hopes could be the foundation for a system in which rich countries would pay poor ones to slow... more
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Global warming is already leading to widespread disruptions of the Earth's natural systems, according to a study published in the journal Nature and conducted by some of the climate scientists who were involved in the influential 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
"[This] is the first [study] to formally link observed global changes in physical and biological systems to human-induced climate change, predominantly from increasing greenhouse gases," said study reviewers Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada and Gabriele Hegerl of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
The scientists catalogued more than 29,500 reports of changes to the Earth's natural systems. Some of these changes were physical, such as the melting of Patagonia's ice fields of Arctic permafrost, or the earlier break-up of Mongolian river ice and unprecedented coastal erosion. Others were behavioral, such as the earlier arrival of migratory birds to Australia, and others dealt with changes in populations, such as the decline of Antarctic krill stocks and overall productivity of Lake Tanganyika. Even genetic changes, such as those in North America's pitcher plant mosquitoes, were included.
The researchers found that more than 90 percent of the documented changes were to be expected from a scenario of rising regional temperatures. Global warming, rather than other human causes such as deforestation or pollution, seemed to be the major force behind the changes.
more at the link.
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This must now become more than just a political wedge issue. This must be the end of governments and groups placating flatearthers and special interests who are using their $$$$$ to control the conversation. This must be the end of governments and organizations like the World Bank using this crisis as an impetus to benefit themselves and to foment war. They are all leading us over the cliff. Global warming/climate change is doing damage to the many ecosystems that support the life of humans and other species.
There are currently six degrees of climate change that represent the effects this planet will suffer from due to global warming/climate change. Currently, we are at the third degree... we are already HALFWAY THERE. As the last quote in this article states, we have to get our act together. And it is not overly dramatic to state that we are running out of time regarding the future sustainability of this planet. This is not something that is just occurring through natural means nor has it been ordained by God. This is not just some fluke of nature that will reverse itself. This is not a myth or an illusion. This is real, it is happening, and we are contributing to it not only by our behavior but by our retiscence in taking the action necessary to mitigate it.
How many 'meetings' are world leaders going to have before they realize that they have run out the clock? How many political candidates will continue to spew the same 80% by 2050 line? I recently wrote to my Senator about the need for 100% renewable energy in 10 years... know the response I got? The same form letter with that same 80% by 2050 line! Where is the political will? Where is the urgency? And people dare to criticize those who scale coal plants to unfurl a dire warning as to the truth of the state of the only planet that can sustain us to wake people up?
Just what is it going to take?Global warming is already leading to widespread disruptions of the Earth's natural systems, according to a study published in... more
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Kivalina's precarious situation has been worsened by a changing climate. Historically, the Chukchi Sea had turned solid by early winter, with slush forming along the shore in the fall, creating a kind of bumper cushion that protected the island from autumn storms. Over the past half century, however, the average annual temperature here has risen more than three degrees Fahrenheit, to 23.5, with a wintertime increase of almost seven. Last year it rained in January for the first time in memory, and in summer 2007 the thermometer approached 80 degrees. As a result, sea ice forms later in the year, while storms occur earlier: a literal double whammy.
Kivalinans know they have to move. In the 1990s, even before global warming was widely recognized, they targeted a pair of potential relocation sites to the east and south, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found geological problems with both. Now the village is fast running out of time. "Before, leaving was optional," Swan says. "Now it's an emergency situation."
After another storm forced an evacuation of the island in the fall of 2007, you might say that Kivalina reached the end of its rope. Which is why, on February 26, 2008, this community of 400 Native Americans filed suit in federal court against 24 oil, electricity, and coal companies, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, Chevron, and Shell. Demanding up to $400 million in damages-the estimated cost of moving the village out of reach of the rising sea-the lawsuit accuses the companies of contributing to global warming and creating a public nuisance that has harmed property in the town.
It's an audacious move-after all, even snowmobile-using Kivalinans bear some responsibility for climate change. But the lawsuit goes further, charging that some of the corporations "conspired to create a false scientific debate about global warming in order to deceive the public."
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Hmm, and I wonder, just what is the Governor of Alaska doing about this? Oh yes, I forgot, she is too much into being tutored to play the Washington political game now to care about her own state. And she thinks climate change is not manmade? And she thinks thst Alaska should actually pump out more oil in order to continue to precipitate the crisis? I for one am pleased that Kivalina is suing oil companies for their part in climate change because they have been part of an all out deceptive PR campaign as tobacco companies were to make people believe climate change is not as serious as it really is in order to protect their profits. So, Governor Palin claims to be tough on oil companies? Sorry, that claim doesn't fly when you look at the Kivalinas of this world. And it is said that she stood up to them as far as taxing them? Then where did all that money go since the native people of Kivalina in her state don't even have enough money to move their village due to the effects of climate change? Kivalina is indeed the canary in the coal mine for climate change. Too bad their leader is too busy being a media star to care. Kivalina's precarious situation has been worsened by a changing climate. Historically, the Chukchi Sea had turned solid by... more
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Could our coastlines disappear underwater much sooner than we think? The controversial view that sea levels could rise at a rate of more than 1 metre per century has found support from a new study of a long-melted ice sheet.
In reconstructing the events at the end of the last ice age, Anders Carlson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues found that the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered most of North America between 95,000 and 7000 years ago, rapidly disintegrated.
The researchers began by studying beryllium isotopes in rocks to determine how the outer edges of the two final chunks of the Laurentide ice sheet retreated. They found that the ice retreated rapidly between 9000 and 8500 years ago, stabilised, and then made its final rapid retreat between 7600 and 6800 years ago.
The team calculated the volume of water that would have been released in each of these melting stages, and the rate at which it must have raised sea levels. They concluded that levels would have climbed 1.3 metres per century in the earlier period, and 0.7 metres per century in the final melt.
Carlson then used a sophisticated computer model – one that is used to forecast future climate change – to check the results. The model predicted an average sea level rise of 1.3 metres per century.
Different times
"The forces that led to the demise of the Laurentide ice sheet in a very rapid way are comparable to the forces the same computer models predict we will experience this century if we do not rapidly curb greenhouse gas emissions," says Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who collaborated with Carlson on the study.
For Mark Siddall of the University of Bristol, UK, and Michael Kaplan of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, however, there remain many differences between what happened nearly 10,000 years ago and the climate change Earth is currently experiencing.
"To what extent this dynamic response of the Laurentide ice sheet to past temperature change can be considered analogous to present and future reduction of the Greenland ice sheet remains unresolved," they say in an associated commentary. "But their work suggests that future reductions of the Greenland ice sheet on the order of one metre per century are not out of the question."
If Carlson's estimates are correct, they show that 2007 predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a sea-level rise of between 18 centimetres and 59 cm by 2100 – are very conservative, as the IPCC acknowledged at the time.
Millions at risk
Sea-level rises of at least a metre per century were also predicted by the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen. Hansen believes that our climate will soon hit tipping points – points of no return – beyond which the ice sheets will rapidly disintegrate.
Carlson says his team's findings are proof that large ice sheets can disintegrate very rapidly. What's more, he says the forces that caused the Laurentide ice sheet to disintegrate are equivalent to the ones that threaten the Greenland ice sheet today.
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Will the US and other industrialized nations then step up to the plate in Copenhagen next year? Will the US Congress do so as well? The way I feel today I would say it would have to take Greenland falling into the ocean before that happens. How irresponsible of them to not be making this the priority issue it must be.Could our coastlines disappear underwater much sooner than we think? The controversial view that sea levels could rise at a rate... more
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THE world's reefs, including Australia's Great Barrier Reef, will be dead within 30 years unless human activity changes quickly, a leading researcher says.
Addressing the 11th international River symposium in Brisbane, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg said it was crunch time for the world's reefs.
Let's say we delay another 10 years on having stern actions on emissions at a global level, we will not have coral reefs in about 30 to 50 years, he said.
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, from the Centre for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland, said rising CO2 levels and melting ice caps meant the ocean was becoming uninhabitable for reefs.
This worldwide change in climatic conditions was in addition to land-based pollution spilling from Queensland's coastal river systems, a symposium session into the impacts of river systems on the reef was told.
We're rapidly rising to (CO2) levels which will be unsustainable for reefs in the very near future, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.
If you ask the question, `Will we have coral reefs in 30 years' time?', I would say at the current rate of change and what we're doing to them, we won't. But it's all up to us right now.
We're at the fork in the road. If we take one road - the one we're on right now - we won't have coral reefs.
If we make some very, very, very aggressive actions, if we reform how we do things, both at the global and local level, we'll have a really good chance of bringing coral reefs through in some shape or form, which will still provide the basis for the 100 million people that they support.
He said ice core samples showed CO2 levels were the highest for at least a million years, possibly 20 million years.
That changes the circumstances under which corals form their skeletons, so they become less vibrant, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.
Then if you keep hitting them with things like bleaching events, they just don't bounce back as much.
So we're changing essentially the rules under which biology is trying to operate, and that's the problem.
He also warned that an increasing incidence of coral bleaching was a growing threat.
If we have them (bleaching events) now every four to five years, we're getting to a point where reefs no longer have time to recover.
The impact on Queensland's $6 billion-a-year earnings from reef-based tourism would be enormous, he said.
So we might have an industry that's half the size, but it certainly won't have the pull that it does today, he said.
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This is not natural.THE world's reefs, including Australia's Great Barrier Reef, will be dead within 30 years unless human activity changes... more
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The bears were spotted in open ocean off the northwest coast of Alaska, miles from their normal hunting area by US government oil survey scientists flying over the Chukchi sea.
Although land was initially only 60 miles away from the bears' former home, they were driven north by their homing instinct towards the edge of the Arctic ice shelf.
Polar bears are renowned as strong swimmers but the 'lost' bears now face an epic 400-mile swim back to shore.
According to WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature, one group of bears is known to have swum 100 miles but they arrived exhausted and several drowned on the way.
In May, the US Department of the Interior listed polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because the Arctic ice they hunt on is melting so quickly.
"The Arctic is a vast ocean and to find nine bears swimming in one area is extremely worrying because it means that dozens more are probably in the same predicament," said Margaret Williams, Director of WWF's Alaska office.
Dr Williams said animal groups were considering asking the US government to send a Coast Guard ship, like a modern Noah's ark, to rescue some of the bears.
Arctic scientists said they feared the annual ice-melt had passed its 'tipping point' where not enough freezes each winter to make up for what melted the previous summer.
As less ice freezes, the winter sea remains warmer, and becomes hotter the following summer causing even more ice to melt. Senior scientist Dr Mark Serreze said: "The summer melting used to slow down by the beginning of September.
"We thought it was slowing this year, but it's suddenly sped up instead.'
The Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast is home to one of two populations of Alaska polar bears. Professor Richard Steiner, of the University of Alaska's Marine Advisory Programme, said: 'The bottom line here is that polar bears need sea ice, sea ice is decaying, and the bears are in very serious trouble.'
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Yet, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska does not believe man is contributing to global warming. She thinks the excelerated and unprecedented melting we are seeing worldwide is a "natural" variance. Yet, she sites no evidence for this. She is simply another person whose family makes money off of oil, so of course, what would she think even with the evidence staring her in the face. How totally ignorant and irresponsible on her part. Perhaps Sarah Palin like all those who believe they shouldn't have to be responsible for others on this planet should actually look beyond their own selfish needs and greed to actually reading a scientific report. Or does she like most flatearthers believe that science is a myth as well? She may be Vice Presidential material to John McCain (well actually, I don't really think she is to him, she was just the convenient choice based on circumstances) but she is certainly not qualified by putting her own needs before those of her state and this planet. There is absolutely no way this could just be a "natural" variance, Ms. Palin and it has been proven. I think you need to do a bit of research on this topic rather than parrotting the political ideology of those who only see the scales tipped with gold bars, because you like them are accomplices in the slow suicide of the human species and those other species powerless to speak out for themselves. Shame on you.The bears were spotted in open ocean off the northwest coast of Alaska, miles from their normal hunting area by US government oil... more
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Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday.
And according to one commentary on the research, current models of climate change have not taken this extra source of greenhouse gas into account.
Scientists have long known that organic carbon trapped inside a blanket of frozen permafrost covering one fifth of the world's land mass would, if thawed, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
But until now they simply did not have a good idea of how much carbon is actually locked inside this Arctic freezer.
To find out, a team of American researchers led by Chien-Lu Ping of the University of Alaska Fairbanks examined a wide range of landscapes across North America.
They took soil samples from 117 sites, each to a depth of at least one metre, in order to provide a full assessment of the region's so-called "carbon pool."
Previous estimates of the Arctic carbon pool relied heavily on a relative handful of measurements conducted outside of the Arctic, and only to a depth of 40 centimetres (15.5 inches).
The study, published in the British journal Nature Geoscience, found that the stock of organic carbon "is considerably higher than previously thought" -- 60 percent more than the previously estimated.
This is roughly equivalent of one sixth of the entire carbon content in the atmosphere.
And that is just for North America. The size and mix of landscapes in the northern reaches of Europe and Russia are about the same, and probably contain a comparable amount of carbon-dioxide producing matter currently held in check only by the cold, the study said.
And the danger of a thaw is real, note climate scientists.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71485028@N00/206612972/
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This has not been taken into account in climate models. Ten years now seems like a long time to wait to do something about climate change. I say, if we count on politicians to see the moral urgency of this in time to act accordingly, we're screwed. Time for them to have their feet held to the fire.Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious... more
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Devastating die-offs of amphibians are a sign that a “mass extinction” is underway on our planet—brought on by us, two scientists say.
“Many scientists argue that we are either entering or in the midst of [Earth’s] sixth great mass extinction,” wrote the researchers in a paper published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species support that claim, they added.
“There’s no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm,” said David Wake, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley and a co-author of the study. “Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn’t. The fact that they’re cutting out now should be a lesson.”
New species arise and old species die off all the time, but sometimes the extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species. Extreme cases of this are called mass extinctions. There have been five in our planet’s history before now.
The new one is different—it’s apparently caused by us, Wake said. The study is co-authored by Wake and biologist Vance Vredenburg of the university at Berkeley and San Francisco State University.
When the current extinction started is debatable, Wake said. It may have been 10,000 years ago, when humans first came from Asia to the Americas and hunted many of the large mammals to extinction. It may have started after the Industrial Revolution, when the human population exploded. Or, we might be seeing the start right now, Wake said. But no matter what the start date, extinction rates have undeniably dramatically increased over the last few decades, Wake declared.
The global amphibian extinction is a particularly bleak example, he added. In 2004, researchers found that nearly one-third of amphibian species are threatened, and many of the non-threatened species are on the wane. Wake studies amphibians in the Sierra Nevada in the United States. The picture is as grim there as elsewhere, he said. “We have these great national parks here that are about as close as you can get to absolute preserves, and there have been really startling drops in amphibian populations there, too,” Wake said.
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Global warming and habitat constriction are two other major killers of frogs around the world, Wake said. And the Sierra Nevada amphibians are also susceptible to poisonous winds carrying pesticides from Central Valley croplands. “The frogs have really been hit by a one-two punch,” Wake said, “although it’s more like a one-two-three-four punch.”
The frogs are not the only victims in this mass extinction, Wake added. Scientists studying other organisms have seen similarly dramatic effects. “Our work needs to be seen in the context of all this other work, and the news is very, very grim,” Wake said. The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health helped support the study.
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Are we next?Devastating die-offs of amphibians are a sign that a “mass extinction” is... more
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A study using one of the most complete climate modeling systems in the world points to southern California, northern Mexico and western Texas as climate change hotspots for the 21st century.
The research team, led by Purdue University associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences Noah S. Diffenbaugh, developed a new technique to identify hotspots based on the magnitude of temperature and precipitation response to greenhouse gas emissions.
Diffenbaugh said more detailed information about human-driven climate change is necessary to create effective strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare for the possible effects of climate change.
"It is estimated that there will be a global warming of 1 to 6 degrees by the end of the century, and we examined how this could manifest at smaller spatial scales and within shorter time periods," said
Diffenbaugh, who also is a member of the Climate Change Research Center within Purdue's Discovery Park. "We identified areas likely to be most responsive to changes in greenhouse gas emissions. This study provides information at the state-scale, as opposed to a global or regional average, which could be useful for climate change policy."
Such information could feed the trend of state governments entering into emissions agreements independent of federal action, he said. Last year more than one quarter of U.S. governors entered into agreements such as The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative and the Midwest Greenhouse Gas Accord.
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These changes are already happening in the areas defined.
A study using one of the most complete climate modeling systems in the world points to southern California, northern Mexico and... more
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As the globe continues to warm, the rainiest parts of the world are very likely to get wetter, according to a new study in Science. Desert dwellers, however, are likely to see what little rain they receive dry up, as the rain becomes even more concentrated in high-precipitation areas.
Atmospheric scientists Richard Allan of the University of Reading in England and Brian Soden of the University of Miami looked at satellite records of daily rainfall stretching back to 1987 to see how warmer temperatures had affected precipitation. That's one of the key climate changes expected from rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. The researchers specifically focused on El Niño, the warming of the waters of the tropical Pacific that raises air pressure, changes winds, and recurs every few years.
The weather pattern causes floods in some areas and droughts in others while changing climate across the globe over time—and thus is a pretty good stand-in for global warming.
"For the period we examined, 1987 to 2004, there was a clear relationship between warm El Niño events and increased occurrence of heavy precipitation," Soden says. Such "events will certainly become more frequent in a warmer climate."
For example, other research has shown that monsoon storms that dump six inches (150 millimeters) or more of rain on India have become more common since the 1950s.
The satellite observations agree with the predictions of various computer models. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects that such changes will wreak havoc on agriculture, human health and the natural environment.
But the Science study also reveals that the computer projections may be underestimating how severe such downpours may become. Warmer seas resulted in three times as many heavy rainstorms as the models would have predicted—and other studies have shown that such models fail to account for the rapid increase in water vapor in the atmosphere.
"It is very likely that heavy rainfall will become more common and more intense in a warming world," Allan says. "It is too early to say by how much real world changes in rainfall will surpass projections from the climate models."
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The effects of this will have devastating effects on agriculture in areas that need rain but do not receive it, and areas that will receive heavier rains. This will also bring with it health risks such as disease carrying insects and waterborne diseases as well as many more displaced people. It is studies like this that must be taken into account in any new global climate treaty.
As the globe continues to warm, the rainiest parts of the world are very likely to get wetter, according to a new study in... more
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Anyone keeping up with current affairs could be forgiven for thinking scientists are riven with doubt over climate change. Climate sceptics have enjoyed a resurgence as the federal Coalition danced around the introduction of carbon trading and heavy-polluting industries began an intensive lobbying effort to convince the Federal Government of their special needs.
The Page Research Centre, a think tank associated with the Nationals, last week hosted a forum that concluded that the science behind global warming was shaky. Backbench MPs in both major parties have reportedly questioned the science on which the Federal Government's recent green paper is based.
The noise has been loudest on the internet, where websites give voice to people who believe scientists are suppressing evidence to protect their careers.
Unfortunately for the sceptics, and for everyone else, the evidence for human-induced climate change is stronger than ever. Scientists the Herald spoke to were candid in their assessment that there was little room for doubt that global warming is happening and that the only changes in the past few months have been political changes.
"It looks as though the population believes climate change is serious and there seems to be momentum behind the issue, and there are some people who don't like that," says Chris Mitchell, head of the CSIRO's Climate, Weather and Ocean Prediction group. "There are still plenty of creationists around, and there are people who believe tobacco is not linked to serious health effects, and so there are still people who choose to ignore or doubt the amount of evidence for climate change."
Andy Pitman, an editor of the prestigious international Journal Of Climate, says there are good reasons why global warming sceptics cannot get a run in peer-reviewed scientific literature. "We would kill, literally kill, for a good paper that proved the science on global warming was wrong," Pitman says. "Then I could retire and accept my chair at Harvard. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, and there's vast amounts of evidence why."
Pitman, who is also a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ABC) and director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, says the reasons are simple: "In essence, the models we use to predict climate have been proven right." In the past decade, he says, refinements in computer simulations have allowed scientists to accurately predict climate in four dimensions: time, latitude, longitude and depth of the atmosphere.
"You feed in the greenhouse gas concentrations that we've seen, and the models predict extremely well the climate variations we've seen. If you don't do that, you get nothing. The mathematical probability of it being a chance mistake, or the wrong numbers, is astronomical."
The claim, often cited by sceptics, that atmospheric temperature did not appear to match the levels predicted by climate models was revised by a reassessment of the data last year. The research, partly carried out in Australia, ended up reinforcing the accuracy of existing climate models. Claims that solar activity may be causing recent global warming, reinforced in State Parliament by the Treasurer, Michael Costa, have been comprehensively demolished in peer-reviewed journals.
Anyone keeping up with current affairs could be forgiven for thinking scientists are riven with doubt over climate change. Climate... more
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A natural ice dam in southern Argentina broke open spectacularly on Wednesday -- the first time it has burst in winter, prompting experts to say climate change was the reason.
The 60-meter (200-foot) high wall of ice from the Perito Moreno glacier that usually divides Lake Argentina in Patagonia bursts from time to time under the built-up pressure of the held-back water.
The event is one of the prime tourist attractions of Argentina.
But until now it had occurred in warmer seasons.
This year's breaking of the dam was forecast well in advance, though the exact day was unknown, so relatively few visitors -- around 300 -- were on hand to photograph the phenomenon.
Experts' predictions that the rupture could still be days away meant Argentine television stations were caught unprepared and were forced to air images of the last collapse.
An Internet broadcast, however, caught this year's rupture live for an estimated 150,000 viewers.
"It was like an explosion. Everything shook. It was stirring, rousing," one unidentified woman witness said on television.
"I was overjoyed. I didn't know what to do. I screamed and clapped like a crazy person, and I think I even cried," she said.
The glacier's ice dam does not break with any regularity, on average just once every four to six years.
It remained intact for 16 years until the last time it broke, on March 14, 2006, when 10,000 visitors and millions of television viewers watched the awesome show put on by nature.
Los Glaciares National Park director Carlos Corvalan said of the latest breaking of the dam: "This is the first time the glacier has broken up in winter. It could be related to global warming as rising temperatures affects ice friction."
Francisco Ferrando, a geographer and glaciology professor at the University of Chile, said global warming was probably causing the ice dam to become thinner.
A natural ice dam in southern Argentina broke open spectacularly on Wednesday -- the first time it has burst in winter, prompting... more
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"For eons, the world’s oceans have been sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and releasing it again in a steady inhale and exhale. The ocean takes up carbon dioxide through photosynthesis by plant-like organisms (phytoplankton), as well as by simple chemistry: carbon dioxide dissolves in water. It reacts with seawater, creating carbonic acid. Carbonic acid releases hydrogen ions, which combine with carbonate in seawater to form bicarbonate, a form of carbon that doesn’t escape the ocean easily.
Crew members aboard the R/V Roger Revelle retrieve a CTD rosette from the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean. As the device is lowered into the ocean, electronic instruments measure salinity, temperature, and depth. Each of the white bottles collects seawater at different depths for detailed analysis. (Photograph ©2008 Brett longworth.)
As we burn fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels go up, the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide to stay in balance. But this absorption has a price: these reactions lower the water’s pH, meaning it’s more acidic. And the ocean has its limits. As temperatures rise, carbon dioxide leaks out of the ocean like a glass of root beer going flat on a warm day. Carbonate gets used up and has to be re-stocked by upwelling of deeper waters, which are rich in carbonate dissolved from limestone and other rocks.
In the center of the ocean, wind-driven currents bring cool waters and fresh carbonate to the surface. The new water takes up yet more carbon to match the atmosphere, while the old water carries the carbon it has captured into the ocean.
The warmer the surface water becomes, the harder it is for winds to mix the surface layers with the deeper layers. The ocean settles into layers, or stratifies. Without an infusion of fresh carbonate-rich water from below, the surface water saturates with carbon dioxide. The stagnant water also supports fewer phytoplankton, and carbon dioxide uptake from photosynthesis slows. In short, stratification cuts down the amount of carbon the ocean can take up."
Good article about the scientific research that goes into determining the natural and human factors behind Co2 absorption and balance in our oceans. And as this article illustrates, humans will have to mitigate their emissions of Co2 in order for our oceans to continue to be able to balance Co2 in a way that sustains them, our planet, and all species that depend on them for life."For eons, the world’s oceans have been sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and releasing it again in a steady... more
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At first glance, they look like a couple of giant inflatable garden chairs that have washed out to sea
But they are, apparently, the ultimate solution to rapidly rising sea levels.
This computer-generated image shows two floating cities, each with enough room for 50,000 inhabitants.
Based on the design of a lilypad, they could be used as a permanent refuge for those whose homes have been covered in water. Major cities including London, New York and Tokyo are seen as being at huge risk from oceans which could rise by as much as 3ft by the end of this century.
This solution, by the award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut, is designed to be a new place to live for those whose homelands have been wiped out.
The 'Lilypad City' would float around the world as an independent and fully self-sustainable home. With a lake at its centre to collect and purify rainwater, it would be accessed by three separate marinas and feature artificial mountains to offer the inhabitants a change of scenery from the seascape.
Power for the central accommodation hub is provided through a series of renewable energy sources including solar panels on the mountain sides, wind turbines and a power station to harness the energy of the waves.
Mr Callebaut said: 'The design of the city is inspired by the shape of the great Amazonia Victoria Regia lilypad. Some countries spend billions of pounds working on making their beaches and dams bigger and stronger.
'But the lilypad project is actually a long-term solution to the problem of the water rising.'
The architect, who has yet to estimate a cost for his design, added: 'It's an amphibious city without any roads or any cars. The whole city is covered by plants housed in suspended gardens.
'The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of humans and nature.'
'And it has the other objective of providing housing for refugees from islands that have been submerged.'
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Well, it certainly is innovative, but I would have many questions about them if it ever came to be. Firstly, only holding 50,000 people, who would get picked to go on them? Also, what about security and provisions? Let us hope it doesn't get this far, although islands like Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and islands near Bangladesh are already dangerously close to getting there. Would you live on one?
At first glance, they look like a couple of giant inflatable garden chairs that have washed out to sea
But they are,... more
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During the European heat wave of 2003 that killed tens of thousands, the temperature in parts of France hit 104 degrees. Nearly 15,000 people died in that country alone. During the Chicago heat wave of 1995, the mercury spiked at 106 and about 600 people died.
In a few decades, people will look back at those heat waves "and we will laugh," said Andreas Sterl, author of a new study. "We will find (those temperatures) lovely and cool."
Sterl's computer model shows that by the end of the century, high temperatures for once-in-a-generation heat waves will rise twice as fast as everyday average temperatures. Chicago, for example, would reach 115 degrees in such an event by 2100. Paris heat waves could near 109 with Lyon coming closer to 114.
Sterl, who is with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, projects temperatures for rare heat waves around the world in a study soon to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
His numbers are blistering because of the drying-out effect of a warming world. Most global warming research focuses on average daily temperatures instead of these extremes, which cause greater damage.
His study projects a peak of 117 for Los Angeles and 110 for Atlanta by 2100; that's 5 degrees higher than the current records for those cities. Kansas City faces the prospect of a 116-degree heat wave, with its current all-time high at 109, according to the National Climactic Data Center.
During the European heat wave of 2003 that killed tens of thousands, the temperature in parts of France hit 104 degrees. Nearly... more
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Twenty years ago today, James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Energy Committee — in a room kept intentionally warm by committee staff — that the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and forests was already perceptibly influencing Earth’s climate.
Then, as now, Dr. Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was pushing beyond what many of his colleagues in climatology were willing to say — at least publicly. His supporters say that, given how science and events appear to be catching up with his projections of two decades ago, the world had better heed his new recommendations. (Here’s a useful deconstruction of Dr. Hansen’s testimony by Grist and the Worldwatch Institute.)
His critics show few signs of ever accommodating the ideas he now presses, which include a prompt moratorium on new coal-burning power plants until they can capture and store carbon dioxide and a rising tax on fuels contributing greenhouse-gas emissions, with the revenue passed back directly to citizens, avoiding the complexities of “cap and trade” bills.
I encourage you to watch a short video I shot of my parts of my interview Dr. Hansen in his cluttered office on Friday. Here’s the print story. He says that 2009 may present the last chance we have to defuse what he calls the “global warming time bomb.” Twenty years ago today, James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Energy Committee — in a room kept intentionally warm by... more
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Bangladesh, the most crowded nation on earth, is set to disappear under the waves by the end of this century – and we will be to blame. Johann Hari took a journey to see for himself how western profligacy and indifference have sealed the fate of 150 million peoplewent to see for himself the spreading misery and destruction as the ocean reclaims the land on which so many millions depend
Friday, June 20, 2008
This spring, I took a month-long road trip across a country that we – you, me and everyone we know – are killing.
One day, not long into my journey, I travelled over tiny ridges and groaning bridges on the back of a motorbike to reach the remote village of Munshigonj. The surviving villagers – gaunt, creased people – were sitting by a stagnant pond. They told me, slowly, what we have done to them.
Ten years ago, the village began to die. First, many of the trees turned a strange brownish-yellow colour and rotted. Then the rice paddies stopped growing and festered in the water. Then the fish floated to the surface of the rivers, gasping. Then many of the animals began to die. Then many of the children began to die.
The waters flowing through Munshigonj – which had once been sweet and clear and teeming with life – had turned salty and dead.
Arita Rani, a 25-year-old, sat looking at the salt water, swaddled in a blue sari and her grief. "We couldn't drink the water from the river, because it was suddenly full of salt and made us sick," she said. "So I had to give my children water from this pond. I knew it was a bad idea. People wash in this pond. It's dirty. So we all got dysentery." She keeps staring at its surface. "I have had it for 10 years now. You feel weak all the time, and you have terrible stomach pains. You need to run to the toilet 10 times a day. My boy Shupria was seven and he had this for his whole life. He was so weak, and kept getting coughs and fevers. And then one morning..."
Her mother interrupted the trailing silence. "He died," she said. Now Arita's surviving three-year-old, Ashik, is sick, too. He is sprawled on his back on the floor. He keeps collapsing; his eyes are watery and distant. His distended stomach feels like a balloon pumped full of water. "Why did this happen?" Arita asked.
It is happening because of us. Every flight, every hamburger, every coal power plant, ends here, with this. Bangladesh is a flat, low-lying land made of silt, squeezed in between the melting mountains of the Himalayas and the rising seas of the Bay of Bengal. As the world warms, the sea is swelling – and wiping Bangladesh off the map.
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But hey, let's keep on pumping out that coal.Bangladesh, the most crowded nation on earth, is set to disappear under the waves by the end of this century – and we will... more
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Thursday's report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program is a synthesis of the latest research on extreme weather in the U.S. and comes after nearly six months that saw a record number of tornadoes, unusual winter warmth and record-setting precipitation in many regions.
It comes as the most extreme weather event so far this year, the Midwestern floods, continues to unfold.
The report said there is strong evidence the increasing frequency of extreme rain, heat, drought and tropical storms is caused by global climate change.
Most scientists believe that human activity is causing or accelerating global warming.
"Changes in some weather and climate extremes are attributable to human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases," the study authors concluded.
The report also concluded that:
• Human-caused warming likely has caused much of the increase in average and extreme temperatures observed in the U.S. over the past 50 years.
• Heavy precipitation events have increased over the past 50 years. That's consistent with increases in atmospheric water vapor associated with human-caused increases in greenhouse gases.
• Droughts are becoming more severe in some regions, though there are no clear national trends.
• The power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased substantially in recent decades, likely driven by human-caused increases in sea-surface temperatures.
However, the number of hurricanes making landfall does not appear to have increased over the past century.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0620WeatherSplit0620.html
For some reason Current is stating this url could not be found. So I'm posting it here.
Edit: The Washington Post printed the same story so I posted that link in the original space.Thursday's report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program is a synthesis of the latest research on extreme weather in... more
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Australia could be totally reliant on solar energy by 2030 if the current obstacles of technical inertia, lack of political will and entrenched interests can be overcome, a leading CSIRO scientist says. ''Australia should be building a solar backbone,'' atmospheric physicist Mike Raupach told a national climate change conference at the Australian National University yesterday.
Pursuing large-scale geosequestration projects to reduce Australia's rising greenhouse emissions was not the answer and ''is fighting against the way the Earth's systems want us to go'', he said.
Dr Raupach, a contributing author to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, said Australia's greenhouse emissions were growing faster than in any other developed nation in the world, driven by increasing per capita wealth and the ''aggressive consumption'' of the average urban lifestyle.
''We need a cap on total emissions at around 500 billion tonnes of carbon, which means an 80 per cent reduction in emissions for developed countries, and perhaps a 90 per cent reduction for Australia.''
The climate-change threat was ''somewhere between severe and extreme''. A gap was emerging between ''what the economists tells us is possible'' and what scientists insisted was necessary to tackle the problem, Dr Raupach said.
Significant reductions in Australia's greenhouse emissions were ''technically achievable and affordable'', with low-cost mitigation measures including improved refrigeration, lighting, heating and car fuel efficiencies, better building insulation and reduced travel, with carbon offsets invested in renewable energy rather than biosequestration or tree-planting projects, he said. The director of the University of Adelaide's climate research institute, Professor Barry Brook, told the conference that ''to have a reasonable chance'' of avoiding a future increase of 2 degrees of global warming, developed nations must achieve ''at least an 80 per cent reduction in emissions'' by 2050 and begin levelling off emissions ''by no later than 2015''.
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And if Australia can do it, so can the United States.
Australia could be totally reliant on solar energy by 2030 if the current obstacles of technical inertia, lack of political will... more
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Trees in warm places might be able to shrug off global warming better than those in the UK and colder climes because they contain a remarkable "thermostat" that keeps them the same temperature.
Leaves shed new light on earlier arrival of spring
More proof of global warming?
Greenhouse gases can cause ecological chaos
The temperature inside a healthy tree leaf is affected much less by outside temperature than originally believed, from England to the Caribbean, according to biologists at the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers found that all tree leaves maintain a near constant temperature
They are concerned that trees in colder regions, such as Britain, could overheat as the climate warms as a result of this hitherto unrecognised mechanism. However, species adapted to warmer climates are likely to take their place.
Surveying 39 tree species ranging in location from subtropical to northerly climates, researchers found a nearly constant temperature in tree leaves.
The conversion of light into chemical energy - photosynthesis - most likely occurs when leaf temperatures are about 21°C, and the outside temperature plays little, if any, role. This means that in colder climates leaf temperatures are elevated and in warmer climates tree leaves cool to keep the temperature just right.
"It is not surprising to think that a polar bear in northern Canada and a black bear in Florida have the same internal body temperature," says Dr Brent Helliker, who reports the work with Suzanna Richter in the journal Nature. "Like us, they generate their own heat.
"However, to think that a black spruce in Canada and a Caribbean Pine in Puerto Rico have the same average leaf temperature is quite astonishing.
"Our research suggests that they use a combination of purely physical phenomena - like the cooling from water evaporation or the warming caused by packing a lot of leaves together - to maintain leaf temperature, a phenomenon we call homeostatisis."
He stresses that this does not mean tree canopies maintain a constant temperature through a day or a season, but rather that this ideal temperature is a long-term target value.
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If true, we then need to be planting more trees in Africa and the Amazon instead of chopping them down. I think this is an interesting find and can lead us to solutions regarding CO2 mitigation.
Trees in warm places might be able to shrug off global warming better than those in the UK and colder climes because they contain... more
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