Monday, May 19, 2014 6:48:21 AM
Weathergirl goes rogue
Published on Sep 3, 2012 by Deep Rogue Ram [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9M654rIW_hnr-mqxoWz1ZQ ]
Arctic ice cover just reached its lowest point in recorded history. Pippa goes off script and drops some science. For more, check out http://www.deeprogueram.tumblr.com
Filmed at Strut Studios in Vancouver: http://www.strutstudios.com/
Starring Pippa Mackie and Kai Nagata. Written by Heather Libby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmfcJP_0eMc [with comments]
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"CHASING ICE" captures largest glacier calving ever filmed - OFFICIAL VIDEO
Published on Dec 14, 2012 by exposurelabs [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYCUC2JThqiVNzq5D3KXTGQ ]
On May 28, 2008, Adam LeWinter and Director Jeff Orlowski filmed a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes and the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water and the rest below water.
Chasing Ice won the award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary from the International Press Association. It has won over 30 awards at festivals worldwide. Still playing in theaters worldwide.
"CHASING ICE" is NOMINATED for an Academy Award: Best Original Song
"Before My Time" by J. Ralph featuring Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell.
Hear the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4UEQzUmWc
And watch the TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZTMVNBjc4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU [with (over 4,000) comments] [at/see (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82499392 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92858721 and preceding (and any future following)]
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The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change
Published on May 2, 2013 by University of California Television (UCTV) [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh6KFtW4a4Ozr81GI1cxaBQ ]
(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/ ) Distinguished Professor Emeritus Richard Somerville, a world-renowned climate scientist and author of "The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change," discusses the scientific case for urgent action to limit climate change. Series: "Perspectives on Ocean Science" [5/2013] [Science] [Show ID: 24910]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Q271UaNPo [with comments]
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James Hansen explains Climate Change and the Solution
Published on May 22, 2013 by ClimateState [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXy9Efp5QoTGGxmpKBujLLQ ]
Welcome to the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) Virtual Workshop live stream channel. Stay tuned to listen to featured keynote speakers covering research themes from climate modeling to remote sensing applications and high performance computing in Earth Sciences - Watch them live or browse through lectures from the video library.
Dr. James E. Hansen
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
Citizens Climate Lobby | Creating the political
http://citizensclimatelobby.org/
350.org is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis
http://350.org/
Original
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/33143473/theater
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM5-recP7-E [with comments]
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Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?
Permafrost zones occupy nearly a quarter of the exposed land area of the Northern Hemisphere. NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment is probing deep into the frozen lands above the Arctic Circle in Alaska to measure emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane from thawing permafrost - signals that may hold a key to Earth's climate future.
June 10, 2013
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130610.html
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NASA Finds ‘Amazing’ Levels Of Arctic Methane And CO2, Asks ‘Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?’
June 13, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/13/2138531/nasa-finds-amazing-levels-of-arctic-methane-and-co2-asks-is-a-sleeping-climate-giant-stirring-in-the-arctic/ [with comments]
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ScienceCasts: The "Sleeping Giant" in Arctic Permafrost
Published on Jun 21, 2013 by ScienceAtNASA [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKt6dYzHqHfpcp1lgj4bl1A ]
Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for breaking science news.
Arctic permafrost soils contain more accumulated carbon than all the human fossil-fuel emissions since 1850 combined. Warming Arctic permafrost, poised to release its own gases into the atmosphere, could be the "sleeping giant" of climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZSM8GcmJKg [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKJykIsarBw (with comments)]
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East Antarctic glaciers could be much more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.
Glacier retreat (red) and advance (blue) in the East Antarctic from 1974-2010.
August 28, 2013
[...]
Reference:
“Rapid, climate-driven changes in outlet glaciers on the Pacific coast of East Antarctica”
B. W. J. Miles, C. R. Stokes, A. Vieli & N. J. Cox
Nature 500, 563–566 (29 August 2013) doi:10.1038/nature12382 Received 08 November 2012 Accepted 14 June 2013 Published online 28 August 2013
[ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7464/full/nature12382.html ]
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/08/28/east-antarctic-glaciers-could-be-much-more-vulnerable-to-climate-change-than-previously-thought/ [with comments]
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The SPY PHOTOS that reveal the world's largest ice sheet could be more at risk from global warming than first feared
The world's largest ice sheet could be more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than previously thought, according to new research by Durham University
British scientists used satellite imagery to create the first long-term record of changes of where glaciers meet the sea on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet
Durham University researchers used measurements from 175 glaciers to show they advanced and retreated to coincide with cooling and warming
They warned parts of the ice sheet could be more susceptible to changes in air temperatures and sea-ice than was originally believed
28 August 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2404286/The-SPY-PHOTOS-reveal-worlds-largest-ice-sheet-risk-global-warming-feared.html [with comments]
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East Antarctic ice sheet 'vulnerable' to temperature changes
The researchers looked at the ebb and flow of huge glaciers like this one in the Transantarctic Mountains as it enters the Ross Ice Shelf
29 August 2013
The world's thickest ice sheet may be at greater risk from variations in the climate than previously believed.
Scientists found that glaciers on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) advance and retreat in synch with changes in temperature.
Since it contains enough water to raise global sea levels by over 50m, there is an urgent need to study the threat the researchers said.
The research has been published [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7464/full/nature12382.html ] in the journal Nature.
Scientists have long been worried about the threat to sea levels from the prospect of melting in Greenland and in West Antarctica.
Greenland has had an annual loss of 140 billion tonnes over the past 20 years. Recent studies have indicated that Greenland will be much greener [ http://phys.org/news/2013-08-greener-greenland.html ] by 2100 thanks to global warming.
Researchers are also concerned about West Antarctica, where scientists have recently concluded that warming waters are causing [ http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130613.html ] a loss of ice from the shelf.
But most scientists have dismissed concerns over East Antarctica, the world's biggest ice sheet. Temperatures there can get down to minus 30C, meaning that it was essentially impervious to small, cyclical changes.
Now a new analysis questions that assumption.
[...]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23868841
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Huge canyon discovered under Greenland ice
Scientists are surprised the feature has not been worn away by successive glaciations
29 August 2013
One of the biggest canyons in the world has been found beneath the ice sheet that smothers most of Greenland.
The canyon - which is 800km long and up to 800m deep - was carved out by a great river more than four million years ago, before the ice arrived.
It was discovered by accident as scientists researching climate change mapped Greenland’s bedrock by radar.
The British Antarctic Survey said it was remarkable to find so huge a geographical feature previously unseen.
The hidden valley is longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It snakes its way from the centre of Greenland up to the northern coastline and before the ice sheet was formed it would have contained a river gushing into the Arctic Ocean. Now it is packed with ice.
The ice sheet, up to 3km (2 miles) thick, is now so heavy that it makes the island sag in the middle (central Greenland was previously about 500m above sea level, now it is 200m below sea level).
The canyon still runs “downhill”, though, and meltwater from the ice sheet seeps out below sea level at the northern end – at a relative trickle, rather than a torrent. Glaciologists think the canyon plays an important role in transporting sub-glacial meltwater produced at the bed towards the ocean.
The canyon was discovered by researchers working on one of the great scientific puzzles – how much will the Greenland ice sheet contribute to sea level rise if, as predicted, the Arctic continues to warm as greenhouse gases increase?
[...]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23866810 [with embedded video report]
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Giant Canyon Discovered Under Greenland Ice Sheet
Summer meltwater has drained through a snow-covered channel in Greenland. Scientists say that the Greenland Ice Sheet sits atop a canyon twice as long as the Grand Canyon.
The subglacial bedrock canyon is nearly twice as long as the Grand Canyon.
August 29, 2013
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130829-glacier-canyon-greenland-ice-global-warming-environment/ [with comments]
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Study finds rapid warming in depths of Greenland Sea
Deep waters in the Greenland Sea are warming.
Abysmal sea temps in region rising 10 times faster than global average
September 25, 2013
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2013/09/25/study-finds-rapid-warming-in-depths-of-greenland-sea/ [with comments]
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Scientists Measure Bubbling Sounds of Melting Glaciers
Published on Nov 29, 2013 by ClimateState [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiPa-5SJuXzdJpVt9xDV7dw ]
Follow ClimateState on facebook for climate research https://www.facebook.com/ClimateState
A short piece about using underwater acoustics to study glaciers.
Scientists Measure Bubbling Sounds of Melting Glaciers http://guardianlv.com/2013/11/scientists-measure-bubbling-sounds-of-melting-glaciers-video/
Project website ICE exploring, learning, teaching http://ice.gi.alaska.edu
Video release from Hilary Hudson http://vimeo.com/36255841
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXZPI6M0eIg [with comments]
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Geophysicist studies the loud crackling noise of glaciers melting
The sound of bubbles escaping from melting ice is so loud that scientists report the glacial fjords where the melting occurs are one of the loudest natural marine environments on Earth.
(Photo : via Flickr user Roshan Panjwani)
[ http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5115/20131128/popping-air-bubbles-create-loudest-underwater-world-earth.htm ]
by Olivia Solon
28 November 13
The crackling, popping sounds of ice melting in underwater glacial fjords -- caused by trapped air bubbles escaping -- are responsible for the loudest natural marine environments on Earth.
Geophysicist Erin Pettit [ http://ice.gi.alaska.edu/ ] from the University of Alaska has studied and recorded the phenomenon using underwater microphones in order to help us better monitor fast-changing polar environments.
Pettit had often heard the sounds while out kayaking, before she set up a network of underwater hydrophones off the Alaskan coast. These are suspended around 100 metres from the ocean floor. Underwater, the sound was much louder.
"If you were underneath the water in a complete downpour, with the rain pounding the water, that's one of the loudest natural ocean sounds out there," she explained in a press release. "In glacial fjords we record that level of sound almost continually."
Suspecting the din was caused by the ice melting, Pettit devised a more controlled experiment, teaming up with acoustics experts Kevin Lee and Preston Wilson from the University of Texas [ http://www.utexas.edu/ ]. She sent the pair chunks of the glacier, which were placed into a tank of chilled water. They then recorded video and audio of the melting process and could match the sound to the sight of the bubbles escaping.
Lee and Wilson found that most of the sound came from bubbles oscillating as they are ejected from the ice. "A bubble when it is released from a nozzle or any orifice will naturally oscillate at a frequency that's inversely proportional to the radius of the bubble," Lee said.
The bubbles get formed because layers of snow crystals trap little pockets of air. As more snow falls on top of those layers, the snow becomes compacted into ice, trapping pressurised bubbles of air.
The researchers believe that they could use sound recordings taken in glacial fjords to monitor the melting of ice to complement time-lapse photography.
The research will be presented at the 166th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America [ http://acousticalsociety.org/content/program-166th-meeting-acoustical-society-america ].
© Condé Nast UK 2013
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/28/glacier-melting-noise [with the Vimeo of the YouTube just above embedded; no comments yet]
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Underwater sound radiated by bubbles released by melting glacier ice
Kevin M. Lee, Preston S. Wilson and Erin C. Pettit
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134, 4172 (2013)
http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/134/5/10.1121/1.4831292
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Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, The Climate Change Scorecard
December 17, 2013
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175785/tomgram%3A_dahr_jamail%2C_the_climate_change_scorecard/ [also at http://dahrjamail.net/are-we-falling-off-the-climate-precipice , http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dahr-jamail/climate-change-science_b_4459037.html (with comments), http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37194.htm (with comments)]
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NASA | Earthrise: The 45th Anniversary
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/nasa-brings-earthrise-photo-video_n_4481605.html ]
Published on Dec 20, 2013 by NASA Goddard [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAY-SMFNfynqz1bdoaV8BeQ ]
In December of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to leave our home planet and travel to another body in space. But as crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders all later recalled, the most important thing they discovered was Earth.
Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this video commemorates the 45th anniversary of Apollo 8's historic flight by recreating the moment when the crew first saw and photographed the Earth rising from behind the Moon. Narrator Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon, sets the scene for a three-minute visualization of the view from both inside and outside the spacecraft accompanied by the onboard audio of the astronauts.
The visualization draws on numerous historical sources, including the actual cloud pattern on Earth from the ESSA-7 satellite and dozens of photographs taken by Apollo 8, and it reveals new, historically significant information about the Earthrise photographs. It has not been widely known, for example, that the spacecraft was rolling when the photos were taken, and that it was this roll that brought the Earth into view. The visualization establishes the precise timing of the roll and, for the first time ever, identifies which window each photograph was taken from.
The key to the new work is a set of vertical stereo photographs taken by a camera mounted in the Command Module's rendezvous window and pointing straight down onto the lunar surface. It automatically photographed the surface every 20 seconds. By registering each photograph to a model of the terrain based on LRO data, the orientation of the spacecraft can be precisely determined.
This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4129
Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html
Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC
Or find us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-vOscpiNc [with comments]
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Message in a Bottle Found Near a Canadian Glacier Leads to Startling Revelation about Climate Change
Dec 21, 2013
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/message-bottle-global-warming-20131220 [with comments]
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'Massive' reservoir of melt water found under [sic - within] Greenland ice
Researchers were surprised to see liquid water coming up through the drill hole as temperatures were below freezing
22 December 2013
Researchers say they have discovered a large reservoir of melt water that sits under [sic - within] the Greenland ice sheet all year round.
The scientists say the water is stored in the air space between particles of ice, similar to the way that fruit juice stays liquid in a slush drink.
The aquifer, which covers an area the size of Ireland, could yield important clues to sea level rise.
The research is published [ http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n2/full/ngeo2043.html ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2043 )] in the journal, Nature Geoscience.
The melting of the Greenland ice sheet has been a significant contributor to a rise in sea levels over the past 100 years.
According to the latest report [ http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session36/p36_doc3_approved_spm.pdf ] from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the ice sheet lost 34 billion tonnes of ice per year between 1992 and 2001 - but this increased to 215 billion tonnes [per year] between 2002 and 2011.
[...]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25463647
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Greenland's Snow Hides 100 Billion Tons of Water
A drill rig was used to extract old snow (firn) cores from within the Greenland snow aquifer.
Credit: Evan Burgess
Surface melt water rushed along the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet through a supra-glacial stream channel, southwest of Ilulissat.
via. Ian Joughlin/Associated Press.
[ http://io9.com/a-huge-reservoir-of-meltwater-has-been-discovered-benea-1488508774 ]
Image: Beeld: Universiteit Utrecht.
[id.]
Water from the Greenland snow aquifer draining from a drill core extracted 40 feet (12 meters) below the surface of the ice sheet in April, before the summer surface melt, with air temperatures of 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius).
Credit: Ludovic Brucker
By Becky Oskin, Staff Writer | December 22, 2013 01:00pm ET
Big surprises still hide beneath the frozen surface of snowy Greenland. Despite decades of poking and prodding by scientists, only now has the massive ice island revealed a hidden aquifer.
In southeast Greenland [ http://www.livescience.com/topics/arctic/ ], more than 100 billion tons of liquid water soaks a slushy snow layer buried anywhere from 15 to 160 feet (5 to 50 meters) below the surface. This snow aquifer covers more than 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) — an area bigger than West Virginia — researchers report today (Dec. 22) [ http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n2/full/ngeo2043.html ] in the journal Nature Geoscience.
"We thought we had an understanding of how things work in Greenland, but here is this entire storage system of water we didn't realize was there," said Richard Forster, lead study author and a glaciologist at the University of Utah.
The discovery will help scientists better understand the fate of Greenland's annual surface melt, which contributes to sea level rise [ http://www.livescience.com/39891-sea-level-rise-ipcc-report.html ]. When the summer sun warms the Arctic island, a giant water world of stunning blue lakes and streams appears atop the ice. Tracking this surface runoff helps scientists account for ice lost to melting each year. Until now, researchers thought most of this water went to the ocean or refroze on the ice. Now they've found a new hiding place.
"This throws an additional complexity into the system," Forster told LiveScience.
There is enough water in the snow aquifer to raise global sea level by 0.015 inches (0.4 millimeters), according to a separate study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058083/abstract ] by the same team published Nov. 30 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). Every year, Greenland adds 0.03 inches (0.7 mm) of water to global sea level rise from melting snow and ice, Forster said. [Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming [ http://www.livescience.com/11350-top-10-surprising-results-global-warming.html ]]
Where water flows
No one yet knows how old the water in the aquifer is, and whether it stays trapped in the snow or reaches the ocean in slow streams or catastrophic floods. However, the top of the water table rose after Greenland's huge surface melt in 2012 [ http://www.livescience.com/22387-greenland-melting-breaks-record.html , http://io9.com/5928966/greenlands-ice-sheet-melting-faster-than-weve-ever-seen ], the researchers report in their GRL study.
The group will return to southeast Greenland in the coming years to answer these and other questions, Forster said. "Just seeing how old it is would answer a lot of questions," he said.
The final destination of Greenland's melt water is also key to understanding how the ice sheet ebbs and flows, because water under the ice sheet lubricates flowing glaciers [ http://www.livescience.com/38244-greenland-melt-speeds-ice-flow.html ]. Researchers know some melt water goes to the bottom of the ice, trickling through cracks and racing through vertical pipes called moulins. Some of the water also simply refreezes on the surface when winter comes. Liquid water sitting in buried snow layers can also slowly warm and melt the ice sheet.
"The existence of this rather flavorless natural snow cone has many implications for the future of the ice sheet, some that may make the ice go away faster and others that help keep the ice a little longer," said Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the study. "We would like to understand these implications better so we can help reduce the uncertainties about future changes."
Soppy surprise
Forster and his colleagues discovered the aquifer in 2011, when a drill punched into sopping wet snow, as mushy as a summer snow cone treat or a Slurpee. (This was a year before the big surface melt of 2012.) "Water was pouring out of the core," Forster said — not what one wants to find when all the electronics are mounted outside the drill. A video of the event reveals both excitement and a few choice words among the scientists. [Watch: Discover Greenland's Hidden Aquifer [ http://www.livescience.com/42136-27-000-square-mile-aquifer-discovered-in-greenland-video.html ]]
[video linked just above embedded]
The water was stored in hard, compacted snow called firn — the remains of the previous year's snowfall. Forster thinks the aquifer went undiscovered because so much snow falls in this corner of Greenland.
In Southeast Greenland, frequent storms crash into tall mountains, dumping more winter snow there than anywhere else on the icy island. The thick, insulating snow blanket keeps the watery firn liquid during the freezing winter, like a down coverlet, Forster said.
Many drillers have skipped over this part of Greenland because the snow layers are so thick, Forster said, and most people who are drilling cylinders of ice from the ice sheet are looking to see the layers compacted over hundreds and thousands of years. "People who extract ice cores don't want to go through high accumulation layers," he said. But Forster's team was interested in the past 10 years of snowfall, so the southeast was a good research spot, he said.
Ground-penetrating radar, towed by snowmobile, helped the researchers locate more water nearby, which the group confirmed by drilling in 2011 and 2013. When the researchers returned home, they searched airborne radar data from NASA's Operation IceBridge and discovered the true extent of the buried snow aquifer [ http://www.livescience.com/39625-aquifers.html ], all in areas with heavy snowfall. Most of the water is in the southeast, but a few pockets appeared in the south and southwest, Forster said. "It all corresponds to these areas of high snow accumulation," he said.
Greenland's future
Researchers estimate Greenland has lost more than 200 million tons of ice and snow each year since 2003. The ice sheet will completely disappear when the planet's average temperature rises by 2 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 4 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial temperatures, as predicted by the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in September.
Earth's surface temperatures are already up 1.3 F (0.7 C) from preindustrial temperatures, with average temperatures rising faster in Greenland [ http://www.livescience.com/40676-arctic-temperatures-record-high.html ].
"This doesn't change our knowledge that too much carbon dioxide in the air will melt Greenland's ice, but it will help us make better estimates of how much and how fast," Alley said.
*
Related
Giant Ice: Photos of Greenland's Glaciers
http://www.livescience.com/20081-images-greenland-glaciers.html
The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
http://www.livescience.com/19466-climate-change-myths-busted.html
Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice
http://www.livescience.com/25120-melt-images-vanishing-polar-ice.html
*
Copyright © 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company
http://www.livescience.com/42172-greenland-snow-aquifer-found.html [with comments] [also at http://www.weather.com/news/science/100-billion-tons-water-discovered-beneath-greenland-ice-20131223 (no comments yet)]
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Explaining the presence of perennial liquid water bodies in the firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet
P. Kuipers Munneke, S. R. M. Ligtenberg, M. R. van den Broeke, J. H. van Angelen and R. R. Forster
Article first published online: 21 JAN 2014 DOI: 10.1002/2013GL058389
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058389/abstract
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Greenland Ice Sheet Loses Its Last Grip
Open water in northeast Greenland.
Major ice drainages in Greenland overlain on a map of measured ice surface velocities. The northeast Greenland ice stream (NEGIS), Jakobshavn Isbræ (JI), Helheim Glacier (HG) and Kangerdlugssuaq (KG) catchments are shown.
March 16, 2014
http://www.livescience.com/44129-northeast-greenland-ice-sheet-melting.html [with comments] [also at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/greenland-ice-sheet-loses-its-last-grip/ (with comments)]
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Researchers: Northeast Greenland Ice Loss Accelerating
Open water in northeast Greenland, where ice loss is accelerating.
Photo by Finn Bo Madsen, courtesy of The Ohio State University.
All margins of ice sheet now unstable—and contributing to sea level rise
3/17/14
COLUMBUS, Ohio — An international team of scientists has discovered that the last remaining stable portion of the Greenland ice sheet is stable no more.
The finding, which will likely boost estimates of expected global sea level rise in the future, appears in the March 16 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html ] [DOI:10.1038/NCLIMATE2161 [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n4/full/nclimate2161.html ]].
The new result focuses on ice loss due to a major retreat of an outlet glacier connected to a long “river” of ice—known as an ice stream—that drains ice from the interior of the ice sheet. The Zachariae ice stream [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachariae_Isstrom ] retreated about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) over the last decade, the researchers concluded. For comparison, one of the fastest moving glaciers, the Jakobshavn ice stream [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakobshavn_Glacier ] in southwest Greenland, has retreated 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) over the last 150 years.
Ice streams [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_stream ] drain ice basins, the same way the Amazon River [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River ] drains the very large Amazon water basin [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Basin ]. Zachariae is the largest ice stream in a drainage basin that covers 16 percent of the Greenland ice sheet—an area twice as large as the one drained by Jakobshavn.
This paper represents the latest finding from GNET [ http://polenet.org/?page_id=179 ], the GPS [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System ] network in Greenland that measures ice loss by weighing the ice sheet as it presses down on the bedrock.
“Northeast Greenland is very cold. It used to be considered the last stable part of the Greenland ice sheet,” explained GNET lead investigator Michael Bevis [ http://www.earthsciences.osu.edu/faculty_bios.php?id=79 ] of The Ohio State University. “This study shows that ice loss in the northeast is now accelerating. So, now it seems that all of the margins of the Greenland ice sheet are unstable.”
Historically, Zachariae drained slowly, since it had to fight its way through a bay choked with floating ice debris. Now that the ice is retreating, the ice barrier in the bay is reduced, allowing the glacier to speed up—and draw down the ice mass from the entire basin.
“This suggests a possible positive feedback mechanism whereby retreat of the outlet glacier, in part due to warming of the air and in part due to glacier dynamics, leads to increased dynamic loss of ice upstream. This suggests that Greenland's contribution to global sea level rise may be even higher in the future,” said Bevis, who is also the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Geodynamics and professor of earth sciences [ http://www.earthsciences.osu.edu/ ] at Ohio State.
Study leader Shfaqat Abbas Khan [ http://www.dtu.dk/english/Service/Phonebook/Person?id=38314 ], a senior researcher at the National Space Institute [ http://www.space.dtu.dk/english ] at the Technical University of Denmark [ http://www.dtu.dk/english ], said that the finding is cause for concern.
“The fact that the mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet has generally increased over the last decades is well known,” Khan said, “but the increasing contribution from the northeastern part of the ice sheet is new and very surprising.”
GNET, short for “Greenland GPS Network,” uses the earth’s natural elasticity to measure the mass of the ice sheet. As previous Ohio State studies revealed, ice weighs down bedrock, and when the ice melts away, the bedrock rises measurably in response. More than 50 GNET stations along Greenland’s coast weigh the ice sheet like a giant bathroom scale.
Khan and his colleagues combined GNET data with ice thickness measurements taken by four different satellites: the Airborne Topographic Mapper [ https://airbornescience.nasa.gov/instrument/ATM ] (ATM), the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite [ http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] (ICESat), and the Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor [ http://lvis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] (LVIS) from NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ]; and the Environmental Satellite [ https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/missions/esa-operational-eo-missions/envisat ] (ENVISAT) from the European Space Agency [ https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/home ].
They found that the northeast Greenland ice sheet lost about 10 billion tons of ice per year from April 2003 to April 2012.
According to previous measurements and aerial photographs, the northeast Greenland ice sheet margin appeared to be stable for 25 years—until 2003. Around that time, a string of especially warm summers triggered increased melting and calving events, which have continued to the present day.
A large calving event at the Zachariae glacier made the news in May 2013, and Khan and his team witnessed and filmed a similar event in July.
Increased ice flow in this region is particularly troubling, Khan said, because the northeast ice stream stretches more than 600 kilometers (about 373 miles) into the center of the ice sheet, where it connects with the heart of Greenland’s ice reservoir.
“This implies that changes at the margin can affect the mass balance deep in the center of the ice sheet. Furthermore, due to the huge size of the northeast Greenland ice stream, it has the potential of significantly changing the total mass balance of the ice sheet in the near future,” he added.
Bevis agreed: “The fact that this ice loss is associated with a major ice stream that channels ice from deep in the interior of the ice sheet does add some additional concern about what might happen.”
The Greenland ice sheet is thought to be one of the largest contributors to global sea level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 millimeters of the current total of 3.2 millimeters of sea level rise per year.
Coauthors on the paper hailed from the University of Copenhagen [ http://www.ku.dk/english/ ]; University of Bristol [ http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ ]; University of Colorado, Boulder [ http://www.colorado.edu/ ]; University of Kansas [ http://www.ku.edu/ ]; Utrecht University [ http://www.uu.nl/en/pages/default.aspx ]; The Chinese University of Hong Kong [ http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/english/index.html ]; and Aarhus University [ http://www.au.dk/en/ ].
This research was supported by the Danish Research Council [ http://fivu.dk/en/research-and-innovation/councils-and-commissions/the-danish-council-for-independent-research/the-council-1/the-danish-council-for-independent-research-natural-sciences ], the Danish National Research Foundation [ http://dg.dk/en/ ] and the Villum Foundation [ http://villumfoundation.dk/C12576AB0041F11B/0/A6D0DB69F825E72DC12576E10048F651?OpenDocument ]. GNET is a collaboration of Ohio State University, the National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark, and the University of Luxembourg [ http://wwwen.uni.lu/ ], and it receives technical support from UNAVCO Inc. [ http://www.unavco.org/ ] and logistical support from CH2M HILL Polar Services [ http://cpspolar.com/ ]. The American component of GNET was funded by the US National Science Foundation [ http://www.nsf.gov/ ].
Contacts:
Michael Bevis, (614) 247-5071; Bevis.6@osu.edu
Shfaqat Abbas Khan, +45-45-25-97-75; abbas@space.dtu.dk
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
Editor's note: Images and video are available from Pam Frost Gorder.
© 2014 The Ohio State University
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/negreenmelt.htm
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Greenland ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate
The ice-covered, cloud-shrouded mountains of NE Greenland, where the ice is melting far faster than previously known.
Photo: Visit Greenland via Flickr.com.
[ http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2312123/stable_ne_greenland_ice_sheet_is_melting_away.html ]
by Shfaqat Abbas Khan
17 March 2014, 2.02pm GMT
Warming in the Arctic has now reached the northernmost sections of the Greenland ice sheet. After a long period of stability (more than 25 years), we have found in a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n4/full/nclimate2161.html ] of the region that the northeast section of the ice sheet is no longer stable. This means global sea levels may rise even faster than was previously anticipated.
The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. The northeast portion has one of the longest ice streams (rivers of ice) and drains a huge area. It was previously thought to be very cold and therefore stable.
Our new study shows how, over the past eight years, it has actually lost an increasing amount of ice. Satellite images show that the ice loss rate here is now the second largest in Greenland – only exceeded by the Jakobshavn Glacier.
Pointing out mis-predictions
This means that other models have underestimated the total mass loss and thus Greenland’s future contributions to global sea level change. To date, calculations of future rises in sea levels have not accounted for the large contribution of ice flowing into the ocean from this part of Greenland. Published in Nature Climate Change, our new study points out this mis-prediction.
Many modelling approaches used to assess future sea level rises have suggested that the northeastern sector of the ice sheet is relatively stable and therefore not contributing to any significant ice mass loss. They have used data from the last decade to model the Greenland ice sheet’s contribution [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7448/full/nature12068.html ] to sea level rise by 2100, but they assume no mass loss in northeast Greenland, which is incorrect.
Declines in the ice sheet can be seen in recent years.
Shfaqat A. Khan et al.
[ http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2312123/stable_ne_greenland_ice_sheet_is_melting_away.html ]
Our study used a combination of old aerial photographs from 1978, and modern satellite observations to measure the thinning of Greenland’s glaciers. Together, they show that the thinning from 1978 to 2003 in the northeast was very limited. But, since 2006 there has clearly been a sustained mass loss in this section.
This increased loss is due to a combination of warmer summer air temperatures and warmer sea temperatures. This regional warming has reduced the extent of sea ice around the ice sheet, which has a stabilising effect on the glacier margins.
Unlike other large glaciers in Greenland, the Northeast ice sheet has an ice stream, which reaches more than 600km directly into its interior. This implies that changes at the marginal can affect the mass balance deep in the centre of the ice sheet. The fact that this ice loss is associated with a major ice stream that channels ice from deep in the interior of the ice sheet does add additional concern about what might happen. Due to the huge size of the Northeast Greenland ice stream, it has the potential to significantly change the total balance of the ice sheet overall in the near future.
New and surprising
The fact that the overall decline of the Greenland ice sheet has generally increased over the past few decades is well known. But the increasing contribution from the very cold northeastern part of the ice sheet during the last seven to eight years is new and very surprising. Over the past decade the front of the glacier has retreated by about 20km from the coast. This compares with a 35km retreat of the Jakobshavn glacier [ http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003374/index.html ] in warmer, western Greenland over the last 150 years.
The Greenland ice sheet has contributed more than any other ice mass to sea-level rise over the past two decades. It accounts for an increase in average levels around the world of 0.5mm per year, out of a total increase of 3.2mm per year. If completely melted, the ice sheet has the potential to raise global sea level by more than seven metres.
Copyright © 2014, The Conversation Trust (UK)
http://theconversation.com/greenland-ice-sheet-is-melting-at-an-accelerating-rate-24444 [with comments] [also at http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2312123/stable_ne_greenland_ice_sheet_is_melting_away.html ]
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Unrecognized Rapid Ice Loss in Northeast Greenland Due to Warming
Helicopter near the front of the Helheim glacier in southeast Greenland.
Catchments of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS), Jakobshavn Isbræ (JI), Helheim Glacier (HG) and Kangerdlugssuaq (KG) draped onto measured ice surface velocities.
Major outlet glaciers in northeast Greenland disintegration into the ocean.
11 April 2014
http://www.unavco.org/science/snapshots/cryosphere/2014/khan.html
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White House Unveils Plans to Cut Methane Emissions
A worker at a hydraulic fracturing operation in Rifle, Colo. Natural gas production releases methane, which contributes to greenhouse gas pollution.
Credit Brennan Linsley/Associated Press
By CORAL DAVENPORT
MARCH 28, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday announced a strategy to start slashing emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas released by landfills, cattle, and leaks from oil and natural gas production.
The methane strategy is the latest step in a series of White House actions aimed at addressing climate change without legislation from Congress. Individually, most of the steps will not be enough to drastically reduce the United States’ contribution to global warming. But the Obama administration hopes that collectively they will build political support for more substantive domestic actions while signaling to other countries that the United States is serious about tackling global warming.
In a 2009 United Nations climate change accord, President Obama pledged that by 2020 the United States would lower its greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels. “This methane strategy is one component, one set of actions to get there,” Dan Utech, the president’s special assistant for energy and climate change, said on Friday in a phone call with reporters.
Environmental advocates have long urged the Obama administration to target methane emissions. Most of the planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution in the United States comes from carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning coal, oil and natural gas. Methane accounts for just 9 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution — but the gas is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on future global warming.
And methane emissions are projected to increase in the United States, as the nation enjoys a boom in oil and natural gas production, thanks to breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing technology. A study [ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/us/study-finds-methane-leaks-negate-climate-benefits-of-natural-gas.html ] published in the journal Science last month found that methane is leaking from oil and natural gas drilling sites and pipelines at rates 50 percent higher than previously thought. As he works to tackle climate change, Mr. Obama has generally supported the natural gas production boom, since natural gas, when burned for electricity, produces just half the greenhouse gas pollution of coal-fired electricity.
Environmental groups like the Sierra Club have campaigned against the boom in natural gas production, warning that it could lead to dangerous levels of methane pollution, undercutting the climate benefits of gas. The oil and gas industry has resisted pushes to regulate methane leaks from production, saying it could slow that down.
A White House official said on Friday that this spring, the Environmental Protection Agency would assess several potentially significant sources of methane and other emissions from the oil and gas sector, and that by this fall the agency “will determine how best to pursue further methane reductions from these sources.” If the E.P.A. decides to develop additional regulations, it would complete them by the end of 2016 — just before Mr. Obama leaves office.
Among the steps the administration announced on Friday to address methane pollution:
- The Interior Department will propose updated standards to reduce venting and flaring of methane from oil and gas production on public lands.
- In April, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will begin to gather public comment on the development of a program for the capture and sale of methane produced by coal mines on lands leased by the federal government.
- This summer, the E.P.A. will propose updated standards to reduce methane emissions from new landfills and take public comment on whether to update standards for existing landfills.
- In June, the Agriculture Department, the Energy Department and the E.P.A. will release a joint “biogas road map” aimed at accelerating adoption of methane digesters, machines that reduce methane emissions from cattle, in order to cut dairy-sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
Advocates of climate action generally praised the plan. “Cutting methane emissions will be especially critical to climate protection as the U.S. develops its huge shale gas reserves, gaining the full greenhouse gas benefit from the switch away from coal,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former White House climate change aide under President Bill Clinton, now with the German Marshall Fund.
Howard J. Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs for the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil and gas companies, said he hoped the steps would not lead to new regulations on his industry. “We think regulation is not necessary at this time,” he said. “People are using a lot more natural gas in the country, and that’s reducing greenhouse gas.”
Since cattle flatulence and manure are a significant source of methane, farmers have long been worried that a federal methane control strategy could place a burden on them. But Andrew Walmsley, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that his group was pleased that, for now, the administration’s proposals to reduce methane from cattle were voluntary.
“All indications are that it’s voluntary,” he said, “but we do see increased potential for scrutiny for us down the line, which would cause concern.”
© 2014 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/us/politics/white-house-unveils-plans-to-to-cut-methane-emissions.html
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A Strategy to Cut Methane Emissions
March 28, 2014
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/03/28/strategy-cut-methane-emissions
===
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis
The Working Group I contribution provides a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change. The report includes a detailed assessment of climate change observations throughout the climate system; dedicated chapters on sea level change, biogeochemical cycles, clouds and aerosols, and regional climate phenomena; extensive information from models, including near-term and long-term climate projections; and a new comprehensive atlas of global and regional climate projections for 35 regions of the world.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
The Working Group II contribution considers the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation. The chapters of the report assess risks and opportunities for societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change
The Working Group III contribution assesses the options for mitigating climate change and their underlying technological, economic and institutional requirements. It transparently lays out risks, uncertainty and ethical foundations of climate change mitigation policies on the global, national and sub-national level, investigates mitigation measures for all major sectors and assesses investment and finance issues.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/
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Cities on frontline of climate change struggle
Half of the world's population now lives in cities - a proportion that's set to rise to two-thirds by 2050. Yet cities are vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change precisely because their locations are fixed. As the UN's climate panel meets in Berlin, how are urban centres coping with the test?
10 April 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26922654
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At-risk cities hold solutions to climate change: UN report
Buildings near the ocean as reports indicate that Miami-Dade county could be one of the most susceptible cities to rising water levels associated with global warming.
Smart choices by cities such as Miami in planning and investment could hold key to cutting emissions, IPCC draft says
11 April 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/11/cities-solution-climate-change-ipcc
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IPCC report: world must urgently switch to clean sources of energy
An open-cast coal mine and power station near Grevenbroich, Germany. After concluding that global warming is almost certainly man-made and poses a grave threat to humanity, the UN-sponsored expert panel on climate change is moving on to the next phase: what to do about it.
UN panel's third report explains how global dependence on fossil fuels must end in order to avoid catastrophic climate change
11 April 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/12/ipcc-report-world-must-switch-clean-sources-energy [with comments]
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Shift to green energy will be tiny brake on growth: U.N.
By Alister Doyle, Environment Corrrespondent
BERLIN Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:52pm EDT
(Reuters) - A radical shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy would slow world economic growth by only a tiny fraction every year, a new draft U.N. report on tackling global warming said on Friday.
Many governments had complained that an earlier draft was not clear in its estimate of the costs of low-carbon energy, which include solar or wind, nuclear and fossil fuels whose greenhouse gas emissions are captured and buried underground.
The new draft, which is being edited by government officials and scientists in Berlin before publication on Sunday, indicates that world economic losses would be small compared to projected costs of heatwaves, floods, storms and rising sea levels.
The study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a main guide for governments working on a U.N. pact due to be agreed in Paris at the end of 2015 to slow global warming, which the IPCC says is extremely likely to be man-made.
The new text, obtained by Reuters, says that tough action to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions would slow rising world consumption of goods and services by 0.06 percentage point per year in this century, in a range of 0.04 to 0.14.
Economists say the changes in consumption measured by the IPCC are almost identical to changes in the more common yardstick of gross domestic product (GDP). Consumption excludes investments included in GDP.
The earlier draft said consumption losses could be up to 12 percent by 2100 but omitted to clarify that the number is the cumulative result of a small brake every year over a century, rather than a hint of economic slump in 2100.
The new draft also adds context that losses are tiny compared to soaring wealth - consumption is set to rise by anywhere from 300 to 900 percent this century, it says.
Several nations said the losses of 12 percent by 2100 cited in the earlier draft sounded alarming and wanted further clarification.
Britain had said the number "could easily be taken out of context by those opposed to climate action", referring to those who are not convinced that climate change is a man-made problem requiring an urgent fix.
The IPCC draft says trillion-dollar shifts in investments are needed to make low-carbon energies the dominant source of energy by 2050, up from 17 percent now, in a shift from conventional fossil fuels.
CLIMATE CASINO
The WWF conservation group set up a mock casino outside the Berlin hotel where the IPCC is meeting, urging governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and to shift to renewables.
"We can't continue to gamble with the future of the world we depend on," Stefan Singer of the WWF said.
Environmental group Greenpeace said China's rush to develop dirty coal seemed to be coming to an end in a shift that would avert annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of Australia and Poland combined by 2020.
"Over half of world carbon dioxide emission growth in the past decade has been from China's coal," said Li Shuo of Greenpeace. "China's concern about air pollution may have broken that trend."
Greenpeace projected that curbs adopted by 12 provinces would reduce coal burn by about 350 million metric tons (385. 81 million tons) by 2017 and 655 million tons by 2020, below projected levels.
The IPCC draft does not attempt a formal cost-benefit analysis of action to keep temperatures to any given level.
(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/11/us-climate-growth-idUSBREA3A1BA20140411 [no comments yet]
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UN urges huge increase in green energy to avert climate disaster
The Conservatives have been planning to block further onshore windfarm construction.
'Triple or quadruple renewables', say experts, as pressure grows for UK to deliver on eco priorities
12 April 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/12/un-urges-increase-green-energy-avert-climate-disaster-uk [with comments]
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Leaked climate change report: Scientific body warns of 'devastating rise of 4-5C if we carry on as we are'
The Independent on Sunday has seen a draft of the latest IPCC report, which says the world is not doing enough to combat problem. But, with sufficient political will, all is not lost
Sarah Morrison
Sunday 13 April 2014
Global greenhouse gas emissions over the past decade were the "highest in human history", according to the world's leading scientific body for the assessment of climate change. Without further action, temperatures will increase by about 4 to 5C, compared with pre-industrial levels, it warns, a level that could reap devastating effects on the planet.
The stark findings are to be revealed in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today, the last in a trilogy written by hundreds of scientists on what is considered the definitive take on climate change.
The experts were working on the report until the early hours of yesterday morning. Although the thrust of the report is dramatic, it does say that it is not too late to limit global warming to less than 2C, which experts regard as the minimum needed to avoid radical global shifts. But its suggested scenarios would mean slashing global emissions by 40 to 70 per cent by 2050 from 2010 levels.
This would include "fundamental changes in energy systems and potentially the land", the draft found, such as a move towards renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil energy whose carbon emissions are captured or stored.
"These reports make it crystal clear what is at stake, and no government can justifiably say the case hasn't been made for strong and urgent action," said Bob Ward, the policy director for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "It's affordable and, frankly, the benefits are not even just in terms of climate risks. Shutting down coal-fired power stations in China, for example, will improve local air quality. The only thing standing in our way now is political will. The evidence is conclusive: the current pledges made by governments will be insufficient to get us to our targets."
It was in 2010 that hundreds of governments agreed to reduce emissions so as not to breach the 2C warming mark – the point at which it is thought the risk to food and water supplies would be high, as well as a risk of irreversible changes, such as a meltdown of Greenland's ice sheet.
At this level, we could lose 20 to 30 per cent of our wildlife, as well as face more extreme weather, according to Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth. At 4C of warming, there could be a "devastating" impact on agriculture, wildlife and human civilisation, he added.
But despite global attempts to mitigate climate change picking up in recent years, greenhouse gas emissions grew more rapidly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the previous three decades, according to the final draft of the IPCC report seen by The Independent on Sunday. The main contributors were a "growing energy demand and an increase of the share of coal in the global fuel mix", the draft found.
It estimated that if mitigation efforts are delayed until 2030, it would "substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer-term emission levels".
Almost 80 per cent of the emissions growth between 1970 and 2010 was caused by fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes, according to the report. To reach the 2C target, the experts warned that the global energy supply must dramatically change, with at least a tripling of the use of "zero and low-carbon" energy, such as renewables, nuclear and fossil energy. It added that a growing number of renewable technologies had achieved a level of "technical and economic maturity to enable deployment at significant scale".
The report found that emissions could be "reduced significantly" by replacing coal-fired power plants with more efficient alternatives. It added that the decarbonisation of the electricity system would be a "key component" of cost-effective strategies – but the Government voted down a plan to do this by 2030.
Caroline Flint, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, said that the report "provides overwhelming and compelling scientific evidence that climate change will have a devastating impact if urgent action is not taken to reduce our carbon emissions and invest in mitigation". She added: "It highlights the need for a global, legally binding treaty to cut carbon emissions at the Paris conference in 2015. But to have influence abroad we must show leadership at home. That's why the next Labour government will set a decarbonisation target for the power sector for 2030, unshackle the Green Investment Bank and reverse the decline in investment in clean energy we have seen under David Cameron."
Kaisa Kosonen, senior political adviser at Greenpeace International, said the report should encourage a move from "a decade of coal to the century of renewables". She added: "The solutions are clear. Our energy system needs to undergo a fundamental transformation from fossil fuels to renewable and smart energy. In recent years, the transition has already started, but it must scale up and speed up. Dirty energy industries are sure to put up a fight, but it's only a question of time before public pressure and economics dictate that they either change or go out of business."
The report also concludes that the next decade could be a "window of opportunity" for mitigating global warming in cities, through locating residential areas in spaces of high employment, achieving diversity of land uses, increasing accessibility and investing in public transport.
Where there's a will...
The world can reach its global warming targets if it reduces its emissions by 40 to 70 per cent. It is about transforming our energy supply and the way we use our land. After The Independent on Sunday viewed a final draft of the findings, we asked some climate change experts what we can do now to mitigate against global warming, before it is too late.
Mark Lynas, author and environmentalist, said: "It is important to remember that every measure of climate-change reduction is still worth it. This report is a like a climate-change version of a suspended sentence. The 5C rise would be catastrophic, but we still have time to avoid the permanent rise in sea levels, for example, and we could avoid losing large agricultural zones. The important thing for people to understand is that it doesn't mean going back to living in caves; we can make many of these changes without making enormous changes to our lifestyles."
Darren Johnson, the chair of the London Assembly, who has been working in the field for a quarter of a century, is less hopeful. "I'm desperately worried about the timescale we have to turn things around," he said. "I'm appalled by the lack of will of previous governments and the coalition." But he still believes there is a chance to reduce emissions and prevent the "worst-case scenario". He added: "We need politicians to grasp this. We need a massive switch to renewables, a big investment in wind and solar power, and to reduce energy and reduce vehicles. This has to be made an absolute priority."
As for Sian Berry, Green Party member and part of the Campaign for Better Transport, she thought it was more about behavioural change. "People can stand up against the construction of large supermarkets, and out-of-town developments that would require people to drive more. They can vote for people who are going to improve public transport. They should be planning their lives around driving less."
[with] Joe Kavanagh and Sarah Kavacs
© independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/leaked-climate-change-report-scientific-body-warns-of-devastating-rise-of-45c-if-we-carry-on-as-we-are-9256708.html [with comments]
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Greenland ice cores show industrial record of acid rain, success of U.S. Clean Air Act
Ice core drilling at Summit, Greenland.
April 11, 2014
The rise and fall of acid rain is a global experiment whose results are preserved in the geologic record.
By analyzing samples from the Greenland ice sheet, University of Washington atmospheric scientists found clear evidence of the U.S. Clean Air Act. They also discovered a link between air acidity and how nitrogen is preserved in layers of snow, according to a paper [ http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/03/1319441111.abstract ] published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [ http://www.pnas.org/ ].
Forty-five years ago, acid rain was killing fish and dissolving stone monuments on the East Coast. Air pollution rose beginning with the Industrial Revolution and started to improve when the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1970 required coal power plants and other polluters to scrub sulfur out of their smokestacks.
[...]
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/04/11/greenland-ice-cores-show-industrial-record-of-acid-rain-success-of-u-s-clean-air-act/
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How Climate Change Will Affect Our Ancient Relationship With Our Most Important Grain
(Photo: Alix Kreil/Shutterstock)
At a time when the worldwide wheat supply needs to grow, we might not even be able to keep it from diminishing.
By Michael White • April 11, 2014 • 12:00 PM
There was not much good news was in last week’s IPCC assessment [ http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/ ] of the consequences of climate change. The negative impact of climate change is already discernible “on all continents and across the oceans,” and it turns out that a few potential benefits mentioned in the previous IPCC report were false hopes. That report, issued in 2007, suggested that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might make crops grow better. But research conducted since then shows that any beneficial effects of more carbon dioxide on crops are likely to be wiped out by the negative effects of a warmer world. The implications are clear: We have to adapt our agriculture. How easy will this be? Not very. One way to see the challenges we face is to look at our 10,000-year relationship with wheat.
The recent paleo-diet craze notwithstanding, wheat provides about 20 percent of the world’s food calories [ http://www.wheatinitiative.org/about/objectives ]. Humans have cultivated wheat for nearly 10,000 years, and it is now grown on more of the world’s arable land [ http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4011e/y4011e04.htm ] than any other crop. But wheat’s success as a staple crop is not simply a matter of planting more land with wheat. Wheat plays a major role in the world’s diet because, over the millennia, we’ve made continual upgrades that yield more calories per acre.
It may seem surprising that, like wheeled transportation, today’s wheat varieties are the result of thousands of years of R&D. On the surface, growing a crop like wheat seems straightforward. You plant your seeds, provide them with enough water, sunlight, and fertilizer, keep the pests away, and in a few months you harvest. Next year you repeat the process. But if we replaced today’s major wheat varieties with those that were grown only a century ago, we’d plunge much of the world into famine. Without sustained improvements to wheat and other staple crops, there wouldn’t be enough land area in the world to grow the calories needed to feed seven billion people.
THE FIRST MAJOR IMPROVEMENT to wheat occurred without human intervention nearly half a million years ago, when a chance encounter between wild wheat and goat grass [ http://www.genetics.org/content/171/1/323.long ] resulted in a new hybrid form, wild emmer wheat. Wild emmer wheat was gathered as early as 19,000 years ago by people who lived near the Sea of Galilee. Ten thousand years later people began cultivating first wild emmer, and then, following another goat grass hybridization, spelt, the direct ancestor of modern bread wheat. Early farmers in the Fertile Crescent selected wheat plants that grew well, had larger grains, and were easy to thresh. Over the millennia, new spring and winter wheat varieties that could be planted in new environments and in new seasons were created: dwarf wheats with short stalks that that didn’t collapse under the weight of large grain heads and wheats that resist rust and other disease. Major improvements in wheat cultivation were made during the mid-20th century Green Revolution. New varieties introduced by Norman Borlaug [ http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1970/borlaug-bio.html ] and his colleagues led to the quadrupling of wheat yields in Mexico between 1950 and 1985. Over the past 50 years, worldwide production of wheat and other grains has tripled [ http://britishhallmarkingcouncil.gov.uk/assets/goscience/docs/a/article-article-in-science-aaa-mag-food-security.pdf ] (PDF), despite only a nine-percent increase in arable land.
These stunning improvements in agriculture have made it possible for our food production capacity to keep pace with a growing population. But now climate change is beginning to push back. As last week’s report [ http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/report/final-drafts/ ] describes it, while the previous assessment “concluded with medium confidence that in mid- to high-latitude regions moderate warming will raise crop yields, new knowledge suggests that temperate wheat yield decreases are about as likely as not for moderate warming.” Some of that new knowledge is summarized in a study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n4/full/nclimate2153.html ] in this month’s issue of Nature Climate Change. The researchers, led by Andrew Challinor at the University of Leeds, looked at the results of 1,700 studies of crop yields, and found that yields of wheat, maize, and rice are expected to fall as local temperatures go up. By making some improvements in planting time, irrigation methods, and the varieties planted, farmers can mitigate some of the negative effects of climate change over the next few decades. But the authors project that, as the century progresses and the world heats up, “more systemic or transformational adaptations may be needed to avoid the risk of significant reductions in mean yield.”
And even if we can find ways to stave off a decline in crop yields, what we harvest may not deliver the calories we depend on. A study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2183.html ] published this week by a team of scientists at the University of California-Davis provides new evidence that high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes wheat plants to make less protein. “Consequently,” the authors write, “protein available for human consumption may diminish by about 3% as atmospheric CO2 reaches the levels anticipated during the next few decades.”
As the world population grows to nine billion in the next few decades, we should be thinking about the next crop upgrades that will grow our food supply—a task that is challenging enough on its own. But instead of growing our capacity to feed the world, climate change is forcing us to worry about how to prevent our food supply from shrinking.
Michael White is a systems biologist at the Department of Genetics and the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he studies how DNA encodes information for gene regulation. He co-founded the online science pub The Finch and Pea. Follow him on Twitter @genologos.
Copyright 2014 Pacific Standard (emphasis in original)
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/nature-and-technology/climate-change-will-affect-ancient-relationship-important-grain-78848/
===
The Statistical Probability That Climate Change Is Not Manmade Is 0.1 Percent
by Jason Koebler
April 11, 2014 // 04:45 PM EST
That climate science relies too heavily on models is one of the last arguments that climate change deniers [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/congresss-scientific-illiterates-are-resigning-the-world-to-ruin ] cling to—many of them argue that proving climate change is manmade [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dystopia-report-the-globe-is-getting-scorched-the-rich-can-buy-votes ] is impossible. But one researcher says he’s basically just done the opposite: he used statistics, actual observed data, and, most importantly, no computer models at all to prove that climate change has not been a natural phenomenon.
“There’s a difference between trying to prove a theory is correct and trying to prove something incorrect,” said Shaun Lovejoy, a nonlinear physicist at McGill University. “If we can’t prove the theory, we can reject the hypothesis that all we have is natural variability. I’ve rejected that with a 99.9 percent level of confidence [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/scientists-to-americans-were-not-divided-on-climate-change ].”
In a paper published in Climate Dynamics [ http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/neweprint/Anthro.climate.dynamics.13.3.14.pdf , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2128-2 , Lovejoy eschews computer models in exchange for empirical data found in ice cores, lake sediment records, Greenland ice cap information, and other commonly used (and commonly published) paleodata dating back to the 16th century, before humans contributed greenhouse gases to the atmosphere [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-800000-year-old-footprint-of-man ].
Lovejoy says that the computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others are extremely useful, but says that climate skeptics aren't totally off base to raise their doubts, when nearly every paper published on the subject relies on one model or another.
“The main rational argument held by climate skeptics is that, the global warming hypothesis depends on these giant models—they say, if the evidence is so strong, we shouldn’t need supercomputers to demonstrate it,” he said. “Well, it turns out, we don’t. Without supercomputers, I got quite similar results, and I can use this paleodata to suggest the probabilities [that climate change falls within established natural variation].”
To do that, Lovejoy used surface air temperature measures from NASA, NOAA, and and the Climate Research Unit, and the paleodata proxies (at 100-year time intervals, where they are believed to be most accurate) to complete a statistical analysis of whether what we saw happen prior to human pollution matches up at all with what we’ve seen since humans began putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It doesn’t.
“Even if you allow for very, very extreme natural fluctuations, the worst you can do is reject the hypothesis [of natural variation] with 99.8 percent certainty,” Lovejoy said. “This study will be a blow to any remaining climate change-deniers … their two most convincing arguments—that the warming is natural in origin, and that the computer models are wrong—are either directly contradicted by this analysis, or simply do not apply to it.”
Of course, scientists haven't been split on that fact in a long, long time—just .01 percent of climate scientists reject global warming [ http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/now-just-001-percent-of-climate-scientists-reject-global-warming ]. Given the level of willful ignorance we’ve seen at places like Fox News [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/28-percent-of-fox-news-climate-coverage-was-accurate-in-2013a-huge-improvement ] and on Capitol Hill [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/congresss-scientific-illiterates-are-resigning-the-world-to-ruin ], I’m not so sure any climate deniers will concede so easily—but here’s one more piece of evidence, with a completely different methodology, that proves far beyond a reasonable doubt that what’s happening is not natural. Still want to gamble humanity's future on it?
© 2014 Vice Media Inc.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-statistical-probability-that-climate-change-is-natural-is-01-percent [with comments]
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Study: Little chance that global warming is natural
Warmer than average temperatures prevailed across most of the globe in March 2014.
Statistical analysis of temperature data affirms climate models
by Bob Berwyn
Posted on April 12, 2014
FRISCO — A new statistical analysis of temperature records dating back to 1500 suggests it’s more than 99 percent certain that the past century of global warming is caused by the emission of heat-trapping, industrial-age greenhouse gases. The study [ http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/neweprint/Anthro.climate.dynamics.13.3.14.pdf , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2128-2 ] was published online April 6 in the journal Climate Dynamics [ http://link.springer.com/journal/382 ].
In a press release, the McGill University [ http://www.mcgill.ca/ ] researchers said the study doesn’t use complex computer models to estimate the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions. Instead, it examines historical data to assess the competing hypothesis that warming over the past century is due to natural long-term variations in temperature. The results all but rule out the possibility that global warming in the industrial era is just a natural fluctuation in the earth’s climate.
“This study will be a blow to any remaining climate-change deniers,” said McGill University physics professor Shaun Lovejoy. “Their two most convincing arguments – that the warming is natural in origin, and that the computer models are wrong – are either directly contradicted by this analysis, or simply do not apply to it.”
Lovejoy’s study applies statistical methodology to determine the probability that global warming since 1880 is due to natural variability. His conclusion: The natural-warming hypothesis may be ruled out “with confidence levels great than 99%, and most likely greater than 99.9 percent.”
To assess the natural variability before much human interference, the new study uses “multi-proxy climate reconstructions” developed by scientists in recent years to estimate historical temperatures, as well as fluctuation-analysis techniques from nonlinear geophysics. The climate reconstructions take into account a variety of gauges found in nature, such as tree rings, ice cores, and lake sediments. And the fluctuation-analysis techniques make it possible to understand the temperature variations over wide ranges of time scales.
For the industrial era, Lovejoy’s analysis uses carbon-dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels as a proxy for all man-made climate influences – a simplification justified by the tight relationship between global economic activity and the emission of greenhouse gases and particulate pollution, he says.
“This allows the new approach to implicitly include the cooling effects of particulate pollution that are still poorly quantified in computer models,” he added.
While his new study makes no use of the huge computer models commonly used by scientists to estimate the magnitude of future climate change, Lovejoy’s findings effectively complement those of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he says. His study predicts, with 95 percent confidence, that a doubling of carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere would cause the climate to warm by between 2.5 and 4.2 degrees Celsius. That range is more precise than — but in line with — the IPCC’s prediction that temperatures would rise by 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius if CO2 concentrations double.
“We’ve had a fluctuation in average temperature that’s just huge since 1880 – on the order of about 0.9 degrees Celsius,” Lovejoy said. “This study shows that the odds of that being caused by natural fluctuations are less than one in a hundred and are likely to be less than one in a thousand. While the statistical rejection of a hypothesis can’t generally be used to conclude the truth of any specific alternative, in many cases – including this one – the rejection of one greatly enhances the credibility of the other,” he concluded.
Copyright 2014 The Summit County Citizens Voice
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/04/12/study-little-chance-that-global-warming-is-natural/ [with comment]
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EPA drastically underestimates methane released at drilling sites
A well pad in southwestern Pennsylvania.
(Photo courtesy of Dana Caulton)
By Neela Banerjee
April 14, 2014
Drilling operations at several natural gas wells in southwestern Pennsylvania released methane into the atmosphere at rates that were 100 to 1,000 times greater than federal regulators had estimated, new research shows.
Using a plane that was specially equipped to measure greenhouse gas emissions in the air, scientists found that drilling activities at seven well pads in the booming Marcellus shale formation emitted 34 grams of methane per second, on average. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that such drilling releases between 0.04 grams and 0.30 grams of methane per second.
The study [ http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/10/1316546111 ], published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to a growing body of research that suggests the EPA is gravely underestimating methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The agency is expected to issue its own analysis of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector as early as Tuesday, which will give outside experts a chance to assess how well regulators understand the problem.
Carbon dioxide released by the combustion of fossil fuels is the biggest contributor to climate change, but methane — the chief component of natural gas — is about 20 to 30 times more potent when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. Methane emissions make up 9% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions and are on track to increase, according to the White House.
The Pennsylvania study was launched in an effort to understand whether the measurements of airborne methane matched up with emissions estimates based on readings taken at ground level, the approach the EPA and state regulators have historically used.
Researchers flew their plane [ http://science.purdue.edu/shepson/research/bai/alar.html ] about a kilometer above a 2,800 square kilometer area in southwestern Pennsylvania that included several active natural gas wells. Over a two-day period in June 2012, they detected 2 grams to 14 grams of methane per second per square kilometer over the entire area. The EPA’s estimate for the area is 2.3 grams to 4.6 grams of methane per second per square kilometer.
Since their upper-end measurements were so much higher than the EPA’s estimates, the researchers attempted to follow the methane plumes back to their sources, said Paul Shepson, an atmospheric chemist at Purdue University who helped lead the study. In some cases, they were able to quantify emissions from individual wells.
The researchers determined that the wells leaking the most methane were in the drilling phase, a period that has not been known for high emissions. Experts had thought that methane was more likely to be released during subsequent phases of production, including hydraulic fracturing, well completion or transport through pipelines.
The airborne readings were a snapshot over two days, Shepson cautioned, and further research over a longer period and at other sites are needed to know whether the Pennsylvania measurements are typical.
Much of the natural gas drilling in southwestern Pennsylvania goes through coal beds, which contain methane that might be leaking out, according to the study. The researchers speculated that underbalanced drilling methods — in which the pressure in the well-bore is lower than the surrounding geology — allows fluids and gases to enter the well-bore and travel to the surface. Energy producers use underbalanced drilling because it allows them to capture valuable supplies of ethane and butane, Shepson said.
The disparity between the researchers’ measurements and the EPA’s data illustrates the limits of the methods used by regulators, Shepson said. The EPA’s approach puts regulators at the mercy of energy companies, which control access to the wells, pipelines, processing plants and compressor stations where methane measurements should be made.
“It’s tough,” Shepson said.
Last year, researchers from Stanford, Harvard and elsewhere reported in PNAS that methane emissions in the continental U.S. might be 50% greater [ http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-emissions-higher-than-estimated-epa-20131127,0,320051.story ] than the EPA's official estimates. Another study by Stanford researchers, published in February in the journal Science, also concluded that the EPA underestimates methane leakage [ http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-leaks-20140213,0,359951.story ] from the natural gas industry and other sources.
[Updated 10 a.m. PDT, April 15: The EPA said it was aware that non-government scientists had come to “different conclusions about the level of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.” Some of those estimates are higher than the EPA’s and some are lower, the agency said in a statement.
A slew of new data about methane and drilling is expected over the next few years, and EPA officials will be reviewing all of it and updating its emissions estimates as necessary, according to the statement.]
The new study comes two weeks after the White House ordered the EPA to identify ways to cut methane from oil and gas production. If the agency decides to issue new rules, they must be in place by the end of 2016.
In February, Colorado became the first state to regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, requiring the industry to detect and fix leaks and install equipment to capture 95% of methane emissions. Last week, Ohio adopted rules to get companies to reduce methane leakage from above-ground equipment used in natural gas development, like valves and pipelines. Those rules do not appear to address leaks during drilling.
Copyright 2014 Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/14/science/la-sci-sn-methane-emissions-natural-gas-fracking-20140414
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Cold Case Closed: Girls Missing Since 1971 Killed In Car Crash
Cheryl Miller (left) and Pamella Jackson.
FILE - In this undated file photo provided by the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office shows a Studebaker with skeletal remains found in Brule Creek near Elk Point, S.D. Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson were last seen May 29, 1971, driving a 1960 Studebaker Lark on their way to a party. The attorney general, sheriffs from Union and Clay counties, and the Union County state's attorney scheduled a news conference Tuesday, April 15, 2014, in Elk Point where they plan plan to release test results and update the investigation into the 1971 disappearance of the two girls near Alcester. (AP Photo/South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, File)
[ http://news.yahoo.com/car-accident-killed-sd-girls-missing-since-1971-194013896.html ]
04/16/2014
ELK POINT, S.D. (AP) — Two South Dakota girls on their way to an end-of-school-year party at a gravel pit in May 1971 drove off a country road and into a creek where their remains lay hidden until last fall when a drought brought their car into view, authorities said Tuesday.
State and local officials held a news conference Tuesday afternoon confirming that the 1960 Studebaker unearthed in September included the remains of Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson, both 17-year-olds who attended Vermillion High School.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/16/cheryl-miller-pamella-jackson-found_n_5158584.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
===
More, bigger wildfires burning western U.S., study shows
The Las Conchas Fire burned 150,874 acres in New Mexico in 2011. The wildfire was one of hundreds of fires looked at in a new study that found large wildfires in the western U.S. have increased in number and size over the past 30 years.
Credit: Jayson Coil
A satellite image of the 2011 Las Conchas Fire in New Mexico shows the 150,874 acres burned in magenta and the unburned areas in green. This image was created with data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Project that the authors of a new study used to measure large wildfires in the western United States.
Credit: Philip Dennison/MTBS
AGU and University of Utah - Joint Release
17 April 2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Wildfires across the western United States have been getting bigger and more frequent over the last 30 years – a trend that could continue as climate change causes temperatures to rise and drought to become more severe in the coming decades, according to new research.
The number of wildfires over 1,000 acres in size in the region stretching from Nebraska to California increased by a rate of seven fires a year from 1984 to 2011, according to a new study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL059576/abstract ] accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal published by the American Geophysical Union.
The total area these fires burned increased at a rate of nearly 90,000 acres a year – an area the size of Las Vegas, according to the study. Individually, the largest wildfires grew at a rate of 350 acres a year, the new research says.
“We looked at the probability that increases of this magnitude could be random, and in each case it was less than one percent,” said Philip Dennison, an associate professor of geography at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and lead author of the paper.
The study’s authors used satellite data to measure areas burned by large fires since 1984, and then looked at climate variables, like seasonal temperature and rainfall, during the same time.
The researchers found that most areas that saw increases in fire activity also experienced increases in drought severity during the same time period. They also saw an increase in both fire activity and drought over a range of different ecosystems across the region.
“Twenty eight years is a pretty short period of record, and yet we are seeing statistically significant trends in different wildfire variables—it is striking,” said Max Moritz, a co-author of the study and a fire specialist at the University of California-Berkeley Cooperative Extension.
These trends suggest that large-scale climate changes, rather than local factors, could be driving increases in fire activity, the scientists report. The study stops short of linking the rise in number and size of fires directly to human-caused climate change. However, it says the observed changes in fire activity are in line with long-term, global fire patterns that climate models have projected will occur as temperatures increase and droughts become more severe in the coming decades due to global warming.
“Most of these trends show strong correlations with drought-related conditions which, to a large degree, agree with what we expect from climate change projections,” said Moritz.
A research ecologist not connected to the study, Jeremy Littell of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the Alaska Climate Science Center in Anchorage, AK, said the trends in fire activity reported in the paper resemble what would be expected from rising temperatures caused by climate change. Other factors, including invasion of non-native species and past fire management practices, are also likely contributing to the observed changes in fire activity, according to the study. Littell and Moritz said increases in fire activity in forested areas could be at least a partial response to decades of fire suppression.
“It could be that our past fire suppression has caught up with us, and an increased area burned is a response of more continuous fuel sources,” Littell said. “It could also be a response to changes in climate, or both.”
To study wildfires across the western U.S., the researchers used data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Project (MTBS). The project, supported by the U.S. Forest Service and USGS, uses satellite data to measure fires that burned more than 1,000 acres.
While other studies have looked at wildfire records over longer time periods, this is the first study to use high-resolution satellite data to examine wildfire trends over a broad range of landscapes, explained Littell. The researchers divided the region into nine distinct “ecoregions,” areas that had similar climate and vegetation. The ecoregions ranged from forested mountains to warm deserts and grasslands.
Looking at the ecoregions more closely, the authors found that the rise in fire activity was the strongest in certain regions of the United States: across the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada and Arizona- New Mexico mountains; the southwest desert in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas; and the southern plains across western Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and eastern Colorado. These are the same regions that would be expected to be most severely affected by changes in climate, said Dennison.
© 2014 American Geophysical Union
http://news.agu.org/press-release/more-bigger-wildfires-burning-western-u-s-study-shows/
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Wildfires really are on the rise in West, Utah researchers say
Research » U. geographers link climate change to more, bigger fires in the West.
Apr 17 2014
Over the past three decades, wildfires in the western United States have been getting larger and more frequent, according to new research from the University of Utah.
This trend, which U. geographers documented with satellite images, could reflect the increasing temperatures and drought severity associated with climate change [ http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54409427-78/climate-wildfires-dry-utah.html.csp ], according to lead author Philip Dennison.
Dennison’s team examined every fire of at least 1,000 acres from central Nebraska to the Cascades between 1984 and 2011, nearly 7,000 in all. The number of such fires rose by seven per year over the 28 years, and they burned 90,000 more acres a year.
"Fire is really complex. A lot of things contribute to fire in the West," Dennison said.
These findings don’t support the notion, popular among many Utah political leaders, that the federal government has done a poor job managing national forests in the past two decades.
This is because the research documented increased fire in all sorts of ecosystems, not just mountain forests where logging has been sharply reduced, Dennison said.
"There has been a lot of fire supression in the past in the mountains and there has been a build up of fuels. This build up could be leading to more fires and larger fires," said Dennison, an associate professor of geography.
"But we are seeing a trend across the region. We are seeing it in deserts and grassland. The fact that we are seeing it in so many different ecosystems tells us something bigger is going on here."
That bigger thing could be climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions accumulating in the atmosphere because of fossil fuel use. In addition to measuring the number and size of fires, the team looked at seasonal temperatures and precipitation.
The places with the most severe droughts had the biggest increases in fire: western mountain ranges, southwest deserts and grasslands.
[...]
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57832831-78/fire-dennison-fires-acres.html.csp [with comments]
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After Dry Winter In California, Preparations Begin For Harsh Wildfire Season
Western snow pack, 2013 and 2014.
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sten-odenwald/when-no-one-is-to-blame-r_b_5291288.html ]
U.S. Forest Service crew members work to restore terrain that was bulldozed for a firebreak in the battle against Rim Fire near Tuolumne City, California in September, 2013.
April 17, 2014
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/17/3428231/california-wildfires-early-season-cal-fire/ [with comments]
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Drought Leads To Lake Discovery & Possible Cold Case Resolution
A photo of missing North Texas wife and mother Helen Holladay.
April 18, 2014
LAKE GRANBURY (CBS 11 NEWS) – It’s a mystery nearly 35 years in the making. Now investigators in Granbury think they may have a break in the disappearance of Helen Holladay, who vanished September 29, 1979.
In a way, the ongoing drought played a part in the discovery. Lake Granbury only reluctantly gave up its secret, because the water level is way down. But Thursday a truck cab poked up through the water, and when authorities retrieved it they found not only inches of muck, but something else.
“We did come across the skeletal remains with some other identifying information in there to lead us to know this could be Helen Holladay,” Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds told CBS 11 News. The ID information was found in a purse next to the skeleton, which was still partially clothed.
[...]
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/04/18/drought-leads-to-lake-discovery-possible-cold-case-resolution/ [with embedded video report]
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3-Million-Year-Old Landscape Found Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet
Source: Paul Bierman, University of Vermont
Mark Strauss
4/18/14 8:00am
Scientists have found organic soil 10,000 feet beneath the ice sheet that stretches across 80 percent of Greenland. The discovery reveals that the central region of Greenland's tundra—once covered with forests—was locked away and preserved, as if in an icebox.
"The traditional knowledge about glaciers is that they are very powerful agents of erosion and can effectively strip a landscape clean," says Lee Corbett, a University of Vermont (UVM) graduate student who is a co-author of a study [ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/04/16/science.1249047 ] appearing in Science. "We demonstrate that the Greenland Ice Sheet is not acting as an agent of erosion; in fact, at its center, it has performed incredibly little erosion since its inception almost three million years ago."
"Rather than scraping and sculpting the landscape, the ice sheet has been frozen to the ground, like a giant freezer that's preserved an antique landscape," adds Paul Bierman, a UVM geologist, who is the lead author of the study.
Greenland is a place of great interest to scientists and policymakers studying global climate change, since its huge ice sheet can reveal how other ice sheets in Alaska and Antarctica will melt and grow in response to changes in global temperature. The magnitude and rate of sea level rise caused by the melting of ice remain uncertain factors in climate models.
The ice sheet covering Greenland's tundra has not disappeared during the span of time in which human beings emerged a species. "But if we keep on our current trajectory, the ice sheet will not survive," says Bierman. "And once you clear it off, it's really hard to put it back on."
Copyright 2014 io9
http://io9.com/researchers-have-found-a-3-million-year-old-landscape-f-1564648460 [with comments]
===
40 years of science destroyed by one old magazine article
by gjohnsit
Wed Apr 30, 2014 at 10:22 AM PDT
You can't fool George Will. Scientists are just progressives who are looking to consolidate power [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-29/george-will-knocks-out-another-instant-climate-classic.html ] in Washington.
“The whole point of global warming is it's a rationalization for progressives to do what progressives want to do, which is concentrate more and more power in Washington, more and more Washington power in the executive branch, more and more executive branch power in independent czars and agencies, to micromanage the lives of the American people. Our shower heads, our toilets, our bathtubs, our garden hoses -- everything becomes involved in the exigencies of rescuing the planet.”
Sounds like an open and shut case to me. Scientists from all around the world are in a global conspiracy to seize power in the United States. Perfectly logical.
What? You want proof? George Will has proof [ http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2014/01/newsweek-global-cooling-reporter ]!
Gwynne was the science editor of Newsweek 39 years ago when he pulled together some interviews from scientists and wrote a nine-paragraph story [ http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2014/01/Newsweek%20cooling.jpg (next below)]
about how the planet was getting cooler.
Ever since, Gwynne's "global cooling" story – and a similar Time Magazine piece – have been brandished gleefully by those who say it shows global warming is not happening, or at least that scientists – and often journalists – don't know what they are talking about.
Fox News loves to cite it. So does Rush Limbaugh. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has quoted the story on the Senate floor [ http://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-prediction-perils-111927 ].
That one article in 1975 was so brilliant, that it has managed to disprove over 33,000 scientifically researched papers written since.
Forbes used it as evidence of what the magazine called "The Fiction of Climate Science [ http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html ]."
If one magazine article from 39 years ago, buried on page 64, doesn't prove that the world was paralyzed in fear of a new ice age, what does?
Just recently:
Lou Dobbs on Fox News: "This cycle of science… if we go back to 1970, the fear then was global cooling."
Rush Limbaugh: "I call [global warming] a hoax… A 1975 Newsweek cover was gonna talk about the ice age coming. So they're really confused how to play it."
Sean Hannity on Fox News: "If you go back to Time Magazine, they actually were proclaiming the next ice age is coming, now it's become global warming… How do you believe the same people that were predicting just a couple decades ago that the new ice age is coming?"
Donald J. Trump: "This very expensive global warming bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing.…"
Just recently the Washington Times has announced the frightening discovery that it gets cold in the winter [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/16/another-year-of-global-cooling/ ].
I don't want to sound alarmist, but isn't it about time that we become a little concerned that if the scientific community is in such a united, global konspiracy to seize power in the United States, that they would fake their research data on such a massive scale, that there is simply nothing they aren't capable of?
Never before in history has the scientific community engaged in such a complex, long-term plot against one nation.
When you think about it, there is only one logical conclusion: we must declare war on scientists before it is too late.
12:40 PM PT: I need to point out two things:
a) That this is a global scientific konspiracy. Thus scientisits in Brazil, England, South Africa, Germany, etc., instead of trying to overthrow their own countries are trying to overthrow the government of the United States.
That's diabolical!
b) There are 34 peer-reviewed papers saying that humans aren't the cause of global warming. Not one or two, but Thirty-four!
Anyone that knows anything about science knows that all scientific opinion is unanimous when it comes to theories.
© Kos Media, LLC (emphasis in original)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/30/1295885/-40-years-of-science-destroyed-by-one-old-magazine-article [with comments]
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Arctic Methane Emissions ‘Certain to Trigger Warming’
Permafrost terraces in Alaska.
Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildife Service Alaska [ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfws_alaska/6757752485/sizes/l ]/flickr
Coastal erosion reveals the ice-rich permafrost underlying the Arctic Coastal Plain in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
Credit: USGS [ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgeologicalsurvey/12116729705/sizes/l ]
By Bobby Magill
Published: May 1st, 2014
As climate change melts Arctic permafrost and releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, it is creating a feedback loop that is "certain to trigger additional warming," according to the lead scientist of a new study investigating Arctic methane emissions.
The study released this week [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12580/abstract ] examined 71 wetlands across the globe and found that melting permafrost is creating wetlands known as fens, which are unexpectedly emitting large quantities of methane. Over a 100-year timeframe, methane is about 35 times as potent as a climate change-driving greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and over 20 years, it's 84 times more potent.
Methane emissions come from agriculture, fossil fuel production and microbes in wetland soils [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sources-of-methane-emissions-still-uncertain-study-17010 ], among other sources. The study says scientists have assumed that methane emissions from wetlands are high in the tropics, but not necessarily in the Arctic because of the cold temperatures there.
But a spike in global methane concentrations in the atmosphere seen since 2007 can be partly traced back to the formation of fens in areas where permafrost once existed, according to the study, led by University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) biology professor Merritt Turetsky.
The methane emissions stemming from melting permafrost could be critical to determining how fast the climate will change in the future.
“Methane emissions are one example of a positive feedback between ecosystems and the climate system,” Turetsky said. “The permafrost carbon feedback is one of the important and likely consequences of climate change, and it is certain to trigger additional warming.”
Warming and thawing permafrost stimulate methane release, which enhances the greenhouse effect, creating a feedback loop, she said.
“Even if we ceased all human emissions, permafrost would continue to thaw and release carbon into the atmosphere,” Turetsky said. “Instead of reducing emissions, we currently are on track with the most dire scenario considered by the IPCC. There is no way to capture emissions from thawing permafrost as this carbon is released from soils across large regions of land in very remote spaces.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in its fifth assessment on climate change report that the earth’s average temperatures could warm by as much as 8.64°F above 1986-2005 temperatures [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/major-greenhouse-gas-reductions-needed-to-curtail-climate-change-ipcc-17300 ] if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Turetsky’s study shows that fens in the northern latitudes created when permafrost thaws can have emissions similar to wetlands in the tropics. Emissions from fens are generally higher than bogs and some other wetland types because fens, fed by groundwater, have higher nutrient levels and more grasses than bogs, leading to more methane production.
“Our study highlights that northern wetlands without permafrost emit more methane than wetlands with permafrost,” U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist and study co-author Kimberly Wickland said.
“When permafrost is absent, wetlands can be more connected to groundwater, allowing for wetter conditions — the main ingredient for methane production,” she said. “It is possible that methane emissions from wetlands will continue to increase with continued permafrost thaw, but that will depend primarily on whether wetlands stay wet. If they dry, then methane emissions will decline.”
Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goodard Institute for Space Studies in New York and not part of the study, said it's too soon to draw conclusions about how much wetland methane emissions will impact global warming, though scientists widely agree that the amplified feedback is generally going to increase.
The paleo record shows that the Arctic was several degrees warmer during the last interglacial period 120,000 years ago, and there is no evidence of increased levels of methane in the atmosphere during that period, he said.
"It's not to say at some point it won't become an issue," Schmidt said, adding that there is evidence of many "methane burps" across the globe in the very distant past.
"The planet is very capable of surprising us," he said.
By surveying many wetland sites across the globe as Turetsky and her team have, scientists can gain a much broader understanding of the source of methane emissions from melting permafrost and their role in the feedback loop, Schmidt said. Many previous studies have examined just a single site whereas Turetsky's team examined numerous sites across the globe.
"The work these people are doing in terms of trying to synthesize that information and bring it all together, I think it's certainly going in the right direction," he said.
Turetsky's study, “A synthesis of methane emissions from 71 northern, temperate, and subtropical wetlands,” was published this week in the journal Global Change Biology.
*
Related
Huge Methane Leaks Add Doubt on Gas as ‘Bridge’ Fuel
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/huge-methane-leaks-add-doubt-on-natural-gas-as-a-bridge-fuel-17309
Nearing a Tipping Point on Melting Permafrost?
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nearing-a-tipping-point-on-melting-permafrost-15636
*
Copyright © 2014 Climate Central
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-methane-emissions-certain-to-trigger-warming-17374 [with comments]
===
'We Don't Know What Normal Is Anymore': Confronting Extreme Weather on U.S. Farms
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claire-oconnor/we-dont-know-what-normal-_b_5256595.html [the YouTubes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7IB-uIotAw (with comments) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qe0tiAaEGU (no comments yet), embedded; with comments]
===
The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth
The origins of Planet Earth are revealed.
Cosmos: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY
Presented by FOX Sun 9/8c and National Geographic Mon 9/8c
Season: 1 Episode: 9
Sun May 4, 2014
http://www.hulu.com/watch/630892
http://www.cosmosontv.com/watch/244543555624
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Finally, Neil deGrasse Tyson and "Cosmos" Take on Climate Change
Looked at in the context of our planet's history, what we're doing to Earth appears dire indeed.
May 5, 2014
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/neil-tyson-cosmos-global-warming-earth-carbon [with comments] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/cosmos-climate-change_n_5268839.html (with embedded video report, and comments)]
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Neil deGrasse Tyson 'Goes There' on Climate Change: Creationists and Right-Wingers Freak Out
Answers in Genesis refute science with the Bible and lose. Again.
May 7, 2014
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/neil-degrasse-tyson-goes-there-global-warming-creationist-and-right-wing-crowd [ http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/neil-degrasse-tyson-goes-there-global-warming-creationist-and-right-wing-crowd?paging=off ] [with comments]
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The Day the Earth Nearly Died
Uploaded on Jan 15, 2012 by Dewi Griffiths [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKj8RedFhs3UjuKq8I51LNw ]
BBC Horizon programme on the Permian Mass Extinction.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/dayearthdied.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn62AjIpWMw [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ps0h_oXQkQ (with comments)]
===
East Antarctica more at risk than thought to long-term thaw: study
Steve Allen via Getty Images
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/antarctic-ice-melt_n_5263660.html ]
By Alister Doyle
Mon May 5, 2014 1:22pm EDT
OSLO (Reuters) - Part of East Antarctica is more vulnerable than expected to a thaw that could trigger an unstoppable slide of ice into the ocean and raise world sea levels for thousands of years, a study showed on Sunday.
The Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica, stretching more than 1,000 km (600 miles) inland, has enough ice to raise sea levels by 3 to 4 meters (10-13 feet) if it were to melt as an effect of global warming, the report said.
The Wilkes is vulnerable because it is held in place by a small rim of ice, resting on bedrock below sea level by the coast of the frozen continent. That "ice plug" might melt away in coming centuries if ocean waters warm up.
"East Antarctica's Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant. Once uncorked, it empties out," Matthias Mengel of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, lead author of the study in the journal Nature Climate Change, said in a statement.
Co-author Anders Levermann, also at Potsdam in Germany, told Reuters the main finding was that the ice flow would be irreversible, if set in motion. He said there was still time to limit warming to levels to keep the ice plug in place.
Almost 200 governments have promised to work out a U.N. deal by the end of 2015 to curb increasing emissions of man-made greenhouse gases that a U.N. panel says will cause more droughts, heatwaves, downpours and rising sea levels.
Worries about rising seas that could swamp low-lying areas from Shanghai to Florida focus most on ice in Greenland and West Antarctica, as well as far smaller amounts of ice in mountain ranges from the Himalayas to the Andes.
Sunday's study is among the first to gauge risks in East Antarctica, the biggest wedge of the continent and usually considered stable. "I would not be surprised if this (basin) is more vulnerable than West Antarctica," Levermann said.
BIG THAW
Antarctica, the size of the United States and Mexico combined, holds enough ice to raise sea levels by some 57 meters (188 feet) if it ever all melted.
The study indicated that it could take 200 years or more to melt the ice plug if ocean temperatures rise. Once removed, it could take between 5,000 and 10,000 years for ice in the Wilkes Basin to empty as gravity pulled the ice seawards.
"It sounds plausible," Tony Payne, a professor of glaciology at Bristol University who was not involved in the study, said of the findings. The region is not an immediate threat, he said, but "could contribute meters to sea level rise over thousands of years."
The United Nations panel on climate change says it is at least 95 percent probable that human activities such as burning fossil fuels, rather than natural swings in the climate, are the dominant cause of warming since the 1950s.
Sea levels are likely to rise by between 26 and 82 centimeters (0.85 to 2.7 feet) by the late 21st century, after a rise of 19 cm (0.62 feet) since 1900, it says. Antarctica is the biggest uncertainty.
Click here [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html ] to see the study.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-climatechange-antarctica-idUSKBN0DK0HM20140505 [with comment] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/antarctic-ice-melt_n_5263660.html (with embedded video report, and comments)]
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East Antarctica significantly more at risk of melting than earlier thought
Antarctica is pictured in this undated image.
(NASA/Reuters)
The Wilkes Basin, which is shaded blue, is the largest region with topography below sea level in East Antarctica, the study says.
(Courtesy of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.)
By Terrence McCoy
May 6, 2014 at 6:05 am
Scientists have long contended that some of the most vulnerable ice sheets are in the West Antarctic. In 1998, Nature published an article [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v393/n6683/abs/393325a0.html ] warning that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet “poses the most immediate threat of a large sea-level rise, owing to its potential instability.”
The reports have only gotten worse. In 2012, another paper [ http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n2/full/ngeo1671.html ] said that temperatures in the West Antarctic had risen dramatically more than scientists had earlier thought — 4.4 degrees since 1958. Then just last month, more bad news hit: The West Antarctic is shedding ice at a faster rate than ever [ http://mashable.com/2014/03/28/west-antarctic-ice-melting-sea-level/ , http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL059069/full ], with six regional glaciers disgorging roughly as much ice as the entire Greenland ice sheet.
Now comes the news that the West Antarctic isn’t the only concern. In fact, it may not even be the biggest one.
In the much larger East Antarctica, where melting has the potential to raise sea level by 53 meters (174 feet) [ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140504-antarctica-sea-level-rise-climate-change-science/ ], there’s a small ice volume called the Wilkes Basin. It carries significance well beyond its size. According to a study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html ] published this week in Nature Climate Change, if it melts, it would trigger an “irreversible discharge” of the entire basin, causing an unstoppable sea level rise of up to 4 meters. “East Antarctica may become a large contributor to future sea-level rise on timescales beyond a century,” the study says.
“East Antarctica’s Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant,” lead author Matthias Mengel said [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140505104435.htm ]. “Once uncorked, it empties out.”
The most jarring conclusion? Once the ice begins its flow out of the broken “ice cork,” there’s no stopping it.
“Until recently, only West Antarctica was considered unstable, but now we know that its 10 times bigger counterpart in the East might also be at risk,” explained Anders Levermann [ http://www.science20.com/news_articles/melting_east_antarctica_ice_could_mean_thousands_of_years_of_unstoppable_sea_level_rises-135620 ], another author on the study.
The findings come at a time when scientists from the United Nations to the National Climate Assessment are warning of the looming effects of global warming. ”Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” a recent National Climate Assessment says [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/04/climate-change-present-us-national-assessment ].
Last month, the U.N. also released a report saying that it is nearly too late to reverse global warming. “The window is shutting very rapidly on [limiting global warming to] the 2 degrees target,” Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, told Reuters [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/06/global-warming-un_n_5099769.html ]. “The debate is drifting to ‘maybe we can adapt to 2 degrees, maybe 3 or even 4.’”
Until now the East Antarctic has been considered the more stable of the two. “The East Antarctic ice sheet has long been considered to be stable even under a warmer climate, in contrast to its West Antarctic counterpart,” Mengel said in a statement [ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/east-antarctica-melt-could-cause-a-global-coastal-destruction-9324364.html ]. “We have now shown that this may not be true. … The future sea-level contribution of the East Antarctic ice sheet may be significantly higher than previously estimated.”
“It sounds plausible,” Tony Payne, a professor of glaciology at Bristol University, told Reuters [ http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-climatechange-antarctica-idUSKBN0DK0HM20140505 (just above)]. East Antarctica “could contribute meters to sea level rise over thousands of years,” he said.
Indeed, the process, though significant, appears to be slow. The study found that it may take as many as 200 years for the cork to melt. And after it goes, it will take another several thousand years for the basin to empty into the sea.
Still, with many of the world’s most populous cities — Mumbai, Tokyo, New York — near the ocean, every inch in sea rise counts.
“Once started, it becomes unstoppable,” Levermann said. “At the moment it’s still stable but if it melts then the ice plug alone will result in a global sea-level rise of between 5 and 8 centimeters, but the ice that it will release is going to cause 80 times that amount of sea-level rise.”
© 2014 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/06/east-antartica-significantly-more-at-risk-of-melting/ [with comments]
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Climate change is clear and present danger, says landmark US report
Cattle at a ranch in drought-hit New Mexico last summer.
Photograph: Greg Sorber/Zuma Press/Corbis
National Climate Assessment, to be launched at White House on Tuesday, says effects of climate change are now being felt
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
theguardian.com, Sunday 4 May 2014 10.50 EDT
Climate change [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-change ] has moved from distant threat to present-day danger and no American will be left unscathed, according to a landmark report due to be unveiled on Tuesday.
The National Climate Assessment, a 1,300-page report compiled by 300 leading scientists and experts, is meant to be the definitive account of the effects of climate change on the US. It will be formally released at a White House event and is expected to drive the remaining two years of Barack Obama's environmental agenda.
The findings are expected to guide Obama as he rolls out the next and most ambitious phase of his climate change plan in June – a proposal to cut emissions from the current generation of power plants, America's largest single source of carbon pollution.
The White House is believed to be organising a number of events over the coming week to give the report greater exposure.
"Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present," a draft version of the report says. The evidence is visible everywhere from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean, it goes on.
"Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between."
The final wording was under review by the White House but the basic gist remained unchanged, scientists who worked on the report said.
On Sunday the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said the world needed to try harder to combat climate change. At a meeting of UN member states in Abu Dhabi before a climate change summit in New York on 23 September, Ban said: "I am asking them to announce bold commitments and actions that will catalyse the transformative change we need. If we do not take urgent action, all our plans for increased global prosperity and security will be undone."
Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University and vice-chair of the NCA advisory committee, said the US report would be unequivocal that the effects of climate change were occurring in real-time and were evident in every region of the country.
"One major take-home message is that just about every place in the country has observed that the climate has changed," he told the Guardian. "It is here and happening, and we are not cherrypicking or fearmongering."
The draft report notes that average temperature in the US has increased by about 1.5F (0.8C) since 1895, with more than 80% of that rise since 1980. The last decade was the hottest on record in the US.
Temperatures are projected to rise another 2F over the next few decades, the report says. In northern latitudes such as Alaska, temperatures are rising even faster.
"There is no question our climate is changing," said Don Wuebbles, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and a lead author of the assessment. "It is changing at a factor of 10 times more than naturally."
Record-breaking heat – even at night – is expected to produce more drought and fuel larger and more frequent wildfires in the south-west, the report says. The north-east, midwest and Great Plains states will see an increase in heavy downpours and a greater risk of flooding.
"Parts of the country are getting wetter, parts are getting drier. All areas are getting hotter," said Virginia Burkett, chief scientist for global change at the US Geological Survey. "The changes are not the same everywhere."
Those living on the Atlantic seaboard, Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska who have weathered the effects of sea level rise and storm surges can expect to see more. Residents of coastal cities, especially in Florida where there is already frequent flooding during rainstorms, can expect to see more. So can people living in inland cities sited on rivers.
Some changes are already having a measurable effect on food production and public health, the report will say.
John Balbus, senior adviser at the National Institute of Environmenal Health Science and a lead author of the NCA report, said rising temperatures increased the risk of heat stroke and heat-related deaths.
Eugene Takle, convening lead author of the agriculture chapter of the NCA report, and director of the Climate Science programme at Iowa State University, said heatwaves and changes in rainfall had resulted in a levelling off in wheat and corn production and would eventually cause declines.
In California, warmer winters have made it difficult to grow cherries. In the midwest, wetter springs have delayed planting. Invasive vines such as kudzu have spread northward, from the south to the Canadian border.
Some of the effects on agriculture, such as a longer growing season, are positive. But Takle said: "By mid-century and beyond the overall impacts will be increasingly negative on most crops and livestock."
The assessments are the American equivalent of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. This year's report for the first time looks at what America has done to fight climate change or protect people from its consequences in the future.
Under an act of Congress the reports were supposed to be produced every four years, but no report was produced during George W Bush's presidency.
© 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/04/climate-change-present-us-national-assessment
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White House To Make Another Big Push On Climate With New Report On Impacts
Senior White House counselor John Podesta speaks during the daily briefing at the White House on Monday.
05/05/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/white-house-climate-resea_n_5268626.html [with comments]
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Podesta touts White House record on oil and gas, climate change
May 5, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/05/05/podesta-touts-white-house-record-on-oil-and-gas-climate-change/ [with comments]
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John Podesta: Congress won’t stop EPA’s climate rules
'So they may try, but there are no takers at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue,' Podesta says.
5/5/14
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/john-podesta-epa-congress-106351.html [with comments]
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National Climate Assessment
Climate Change Impacts In The United States
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/
*
National Climate Assessment
Climate Change Impacts In The United States
Highlights
The Highlights provides a concise version of the full report including an Overview, select evidence for the 12 Report Findings, and summaries of the impacts of climate change on every region of the United States.
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights
*
National Climate Assessment
Climate Change Impacts In The United States
Full Report
The full report of the National Climate Assessment provides an in-depth look at climate change impacts on the U.S. It details the multitude of ways climate change is already affecting and will increasingly affect the lives of Americans.
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report
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Climate Change Is Already Here, Says Massive Government Report
05/06/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/national-climate-assessment_n_5270541.html [with embedded video report, and (over 4,000) comments]
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U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods
MAY 6, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/science/earth/climate-change-report.html [with embedded video, and comments]
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Earth Could Warm 11 Degrees By 2100: U.S. Climate Assessment
May 6, 2014
http://ens-newswire.com/2014/05/06/earth-could-warm-11-degrees-by-2100-u-s-climate-assessment/ [no comments yet]
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Statement on the 2014 National Climate Assessment Report
Al Gore
May 6, 2014 : 10:24 AM
The latest National Climate Assessment provides clear evidence of what many Americans are already experiencing in their daily lives: the growing impact of extreme weather events linked to global warming.
When Pensacola, Florida, gets two feet of rain in 26 hours, that is exactly the kind of extreme and destructive event that scientists have long warned will become way more common.
From stronger and more frequent storms that take lives and damage infrastructure, to deeper droughts and heat waves that hurt agriculture and threaten water supplies, to rising seas that threaten our coastal cities -- the way Miami Beach is ALREADY threatened -- the costs of carbon are growing rapidly.
The good news is that we now have the technologies and alternatives we need to really solve the climate crisis -- but we must start acting now.
More and more businesses and governments around the world understand this and have started working to stop recklessly dumping global warming pollution into the atmosphere, as if it is an open sewer. And under the leadership of President Obama, the United States has also now finally begun to make important changes to our energy infrastructure and start reducing emissions of pollution—but we can and must do more. It’s time for Congress to step up and enact legislation to make it easier to shift to a more efficient and competitive -- and job rich -- renewable, low carbon economy.
We have no time to waste. We must end our addiction to dirty fossil fuels and transition to clean, renewable energy in order to ensure a prosperous and sustainable future.
Copyright 2014 Al Gore
http://blog.algore.com/2014/05/statement_on_the_2014_national.html [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/national-climate-assessment_b_5279943.html (with comments)]
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Top Republicans Blast Obama For Secretive Climate Change Agenda
Patrick Howley, Political Reporter
3:27 PM 05/06/2014
Top Republican lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee blasted the White House Tuesday for keeping details from the American public about the executive actions that it plans to force through on the climate change front “in an attempt to continue advancing an agenda” against fossil fuels.
“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” according to a White House report released Tuesday about the impact of climate change. The report includes data from thirteen agencies and was promoted Monday by Obama counselor John Podesta, who said that the report will help the administration enact its Climate Action Plan, which can be implemented through executive action.
But the report is short on details about the president’s plans, according to a joint statement made by House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, Energy and Power Subcommittee chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield, and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee head Rep. Tim Murphy.
“This lengthy report is short on details about the policy responses that the president and his advisors are seeking to unilaterally impose on the American people. These are the same details that this committee has been seeking for months, and that the administration is keeping from the public in an attempt to continue advancing an agenda against affordable and reliable energy,” according to the statement.
“EPA Administrator McCarthy testified that it is ‘unlikely [ http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/subcommittee-examines-administration%E2%80%99s-climate-agenda ]‘ that any of EPA’s rules will have a meaningful impact on the global climate. But we do know that it is likely that these rules will have a significant impact on jobs, the economy, and energy reliability. Moreover, the Obama administration and its federal agencies are already spending billions of dollars annually on global warming activities, and it is still largely unclear what these programs have accomplished and how they will change the weather,” according to the statement.
“This committee will remain vigilant in its oversight of the president’s climate agenda, to help the public understand the effects of these actions and their benefits to the climate. This is the same agenda that was rejected by the Democratic Senate in the 111th Congress and is being pared back in Europe and other regions as the consequences on consumers and competitiveness are starting to be realized,” according to the statement.
Copyright 2014 The Daily Caller
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/06/top-republicans-blast-obama-for-secretive-climate-change-agenda/ [with comments]
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Louie Gohmert blasts 800-page WH report: ‘This climate change was global freezing in the 1970s’
May 8, 2014
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/08/louie-gohmert-blasts-800-page-wh-report-this-climate-change-was-global-freezing-in-the-1970s/ [with embedded audio, and comments]
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The Next Frontier In The War Over Science
05/06/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/war-on-science_n_5269527.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
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The U.S. Faces Longer Summers of Worsening Ozone Pollution
Los Angeles hides behind a curtain of haze.
(Rennett Stowe / Flickr [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/2344713782/in/photostream/ ])
Scientists have linked a warmer climate to a 70 percent increase in unhealthy summertime ozone levels.
John Metcalfe | May 6, 2014
The public soundtrack of the United States of the future could be a discordant symphony of hacking, wheezing, and curses. That's because as the world continues to warm [ http://www.citylab.com/topics/climate-change/ ], the number of troublesome high-ozone days throughout the country will likely pile up, say researchers.
Ozone, a principal ingredient in urban smog, forms when sunlight interacts with chemicals emitted by things like factories, power plants, and car engines, as well as vegetation. Using a fancy, new IBM supercomputer [ http://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/resources/yellowstone ], scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder simulated atmospheric conditions over dozens of coming summers right down to the hour, and what they found was worrisome. The models showed a steady upward trend in ozone levels based on current rates of emissions for its source-chemicals, leading by 2050 to as much as a 70 percent increase in unhealthy ozone pollution during U.S. summers.
There are a few reasons for this projected leap, which is described in a study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD020932/abstract ] funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. The atmospheric reactions that create ozone happen at a quicker pace in warmer temperatures (the kind of temperatures, for instance, that've defined the world's recent onslaught of record-hot years [ http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/january/nasa-finds-2013-sustained-long-term-climate-warming-trend/ ]). Plants also play a role because sweltering weather prompts them to release more volatile organic compounds, substances that help produce ozone. Methane, another ozone-enabler, has seen a global rise in prevalence; the potent climate-bending gas has more than doubled [ http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/ghg-concentrations.html ] in atmospheric concentration since the pre-industrial era.
As ozone is most likely [ http://www.epa.gov/air/ozonepollution/basic.html ] to soar to harmful levels in already polluted, heat island-shrouded urban environments, these findings do not bode well for America's major cities. Although the threat affects the country broadly, the scientists see certain regions that already struggle with foul air at risk of long stretches of unhealthy ozone. They say [ http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/11540/climate-change-threatens-worsen-us-ozone-pollution ]:
Unless emissions of specific pollutants that are associated with the formation of ozone are sharply cut, almost all of the continental United States will experience at least a few days with unhealthy air during the summers, the research shows. Heavily polluted locations in parts of the East, Midwest, and West Coast in which ozone already frequently exceeds recommended levels could face unhealthy air during most of the summer.
"It doesn’t matter where you are in the United States – climate change has the potential to make your air worse," said NCAR scientist Gabriele Pfister, the lead author of the new study. "A warming planet doesn't just mean rising temperatures, it also means risking more summertime pollution and the health impacts that come with it."
Those health impacts range from chest pain to congestion to coughing to shortness of breath. Ozone can worsen serious conditions like emphysema and bronchitis, and is especially harmful for children who have asthma. Breathing in ozone on a regular basis "may permanently scar lung tissue," says the EPA [ http://www.epa.gov/air/ozonepollution/health.html ]. The damage even stretches over to the world of trees, as certain species exposed to the stuff manifest stunted growth and messed-up leaves [ http://www.epa.gov/air/ozonepollution/ecosystem.html ], like these guys:
Courtesy of the National Park Service [ http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/pubs/bioindicators/yellowpoplar.cfm ]
Copyright 2014 The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.citylab.com/weather/2014/05/us-faces-longer-summers-worsening-ozone-pollution/9041/ [with comments]
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Climate change could worsen ozone levels across the U.S., study says
Smog could get worse by mid-century as climate change boosts summer temperatures and accelerates the formation of ozone, a new study says. Above, a hazy day in Los Angeles.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Climate change will make it harder to control smog, experts warn
If present trends continue, the number of days with unhealthy air will jump by 70% by mid-century
Warmer temperatures will accelerate the formation of ozone, study says
By Tony Barboza
May 6, 2014, 6:05 AM
Smog could worsen across the United States in the coming decades as climate change boosts summer temperatures and makes ozone levels more difficult to control, a new study says.
Americans can expect the number of days with unhealthy air to jump 70% by mid-century unless emissions of smog-forming pollutants are slashed, according to a study led by the federally funded National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Higher temperatures accelerate the formation of lung-searing ozone, the main ingredient of smog, and could set back decades of improvements in air quality, the study says.
"It will hinder our progress,” said Gabriele Pfister, a scientist at NCAR and lead author of the study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD020932/abstract ] published this week.
Pollution regulators, however, could keep the warming climate from degrading air quality if they adopt stringent emissions controls, the research showed.
To reach their conclusions, scientists used a supercomputer to simulate pollution levels across the country as the planet warms.
They found a widespread increase in the number of days above federal health standards for ozone by 2050 if emissions of smog-forming pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, remain at their current levels.
Under that scenario, almost the entire continental U.S. would have at least a few days of unhealthy air a year while the most heavily polluted metropolitan areas would see ozone levels exceed health standards for most of the summer, the research shows.
Cutting smog-forming emissions by 60% to 70% however, would achieve big reductions in ozone pollution even as the climate warms, the analysis found, with the number of days above federal health standards falling to below 1% of current levels.
“If we can really cut back on our local emissions then we can clean up our air,” Pfister said.
The link between higher temperatures and ozone was already known, but Pfister said it was the first fine-grain analysis of how the warming climate could affect air quality in all regions of the country.
Ozone is a harmful gas that forms when pollutants from vehicle tailpipes, power plants and factories react in sunlight. Heat speeds up those reactions, so it will become increasingly difficult to keep ozone levels in check as temperatures rise from the human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Contributing to the problem is methane, a greenhouse gas emitted by oil and gas activity, landfills and livestock that is contributing to higher ozone levels globally. Higher temperatures also cause plants to release more volatile organic compounds, which can boost smog formation when they mix with man-made pollutants.
Ozone can inflame and damage the airways, trigger respiratory problems and aggravate asthma and bronchitis. Children are at the highest risk from ozone pollution because their lungs are still developing.
Current federal health standards limit concentrations of ozone to 75 parts per billion over an 8-hour period.
Based on robust scientific evidence that ozone is harmful at lower levels than previously thought, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering stricter health standards that would force state and local regulators to make further emissions cuts.
Recent reports by local air agencies [ http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-california-air-pollution-officers-20140423,0,2814744.story ] and the American Lung Assn. [ http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-0430-air-pollution-20140430,0,2614465.story ] have also warned of the effects of climate change on smog, particularly in California, where residents of Greater Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley breathe the dirtiest air in the nation.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-ozone-smog-20140505-story.html [with comments]
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Miami Finds Itself Ankle-Deep in Climate Change Debate
Scenes of street flooding, like this one on Alton Road in Miami Beach in November, are becoming increasingly common.
MAY 7, 2014
MIAMI BEACH — The sunny-day flooding was happening again. During high tide one recent afternoon, Eliseo Toussaint looked out the window of his Alton Road laundromat and watched bottle-green saltwater seep from the gutters, fill the street and block the entrance to his front door.
“This never used to happen,” Mr. Toussaint said. “I’ve owned this place eight years, and now it’s all the time.”
Down the block at an electronics store it is even worse. Jankel Aleman, a salesman, keeps plastic bags and rubber bands handy to wrap around his feet when he trudges from his car to the store through ever-rising waters.
A new scientific report on global warming [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html ] released this week, the National Climate Assessment [ http://www.globalchange.gov/ncadac ], named Miami as one of the cities most vulnerable to severe damage as a result of rising sea levels. Alton Road, a commercial thoroughfare in the heart of stylish South Beach, is getting early ripples of sea level rise caused by global warming — even as Florida’s politicians, including two possible contenders for the presidency in 2016, are starkly at odds over what to do about it and whether the problem is even real.
“The theme of the report is that climate change is not a future thing, it’s a ‘happening-now’ thing,” said Leonard Berry, a contributing author of the new report and director of the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at Florida Atlantic University. “Alton Road is one of the now things.”
Sea levels have risen eight inches since 1870, according to the new report, which projects a further rise of one to four feet by the end of the century. Waters around southeast Florida could surge up to two feet by 2060, according to a report by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact [ http://southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/pdf/Regional%20Climate%20Action%20Plan%20FINAL%20ADA%20Compliant.pdf ]. A study by the Florida Department of Transportation concluded that over the next 35 years, rising sea levels will increasingly flood and damage smaller local roads in the Miami area.
The national climate report found that although rapidly melting Arctic ice is threatening the entire American coastline, Miami is exceptionally vulnerable because of its unique geology. The city is built on top of porous limestone, which is already allowing the rising seas to soak into the city’s foundation, bubble up through pipes and drains, encroach on fresh water supplies and saturate infrastructure. County governments estimate that the damages could rise to billions or even trillions of dollars.
In and around Miami, local officials are grappling head on with the problem.
[...]
Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, supports carbon-cutting efforts, even as he acknowledges that they will come with some economic cost. In April, he convened a packed hearing at the Miami Beach City Hall on the encroaching waters.
“With sea level rise, you’ve got to get to core of the problem,” Mr. Nelson said at the hearing. “You have to lessen the amount of CO2. It’s politically treacherous and costly. But at the end of the day, something like that is going to have to get passed. Otherwise the planet is going to continue to heat up.”
But three prominent Florida Republicans — Senator Marco Rubio [ http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/r/marco_rubio/index.html ], former Gov. Jeb Bush [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/jeb_bush/index.html ] and the current governor, Rick Scott [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/richard_l_scott/index.html ] — declined repeated requests to be interviewed on the subject. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Bush are viewed as potential presidential candidates. Political analysts say the reluctance of the three men to speak publicly on the issue reflects an increasingly difficult political reality for Republicans grappling with the issue of climate change, particularly for the party’s lawmakers from Florida. In acknowledging the problem, politicians must endorse a solution, but the only major policy solutions to climate change — taxing or regulating the oil, gas and coal industries — are anathema to the base of the Republican Party. Thus, many Republicans, especially in Florida, appear to be dealing with the issue by keeping silent.
“Jeb likes to take positions on hot-button issues, the same with Rubio,” said Joseph E. Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami. “On immigration they are further mainstream on that than the rest of the G.O.P. But on this, Republicans are dead set against taking action on climate change on the national level. If you have political aspirations, this is not something you should talk about if you want to win a Republican primary.”
[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/us/florida-finds-itself-in-the-eye-of-the-storm-on-climate-change.html [with comments]
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Global Warming Report
05/07/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-szep/the-daily-szep-global-war_1_b_5282467.html [with comments]
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"Follow the leaders." (a/k/a "Politicians discussing global warming")
[ https://www.flickr.com/photos/isaacordal/5717242910/in/photostream/ , http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/140325/street-art-politicians-discussing-global-warming ]
May 07, 2014
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/07/1297486/-The-Most-Striking-Climate-Change-Sculpture-You-ll-Ever-See [with comments]
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Study: Weld Co. methane levels triple state estimates
A natural gas structure sits in a field in Windsor on March 28.
(Photo: V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan)
Ryan Maye Handy, The Coloradoan
9:55 a.m. MDT May 8, 2014
Boulder scientists measuring greenhouse gas levels over the Denver-Julesburg basin have found triple the amount of methane floating over Weld County than government estimates show.
Most of the methane is coming from oil and gas operations within the county, which in 2012 had 24,000 wells scattered across its prairies, according to a study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD021272/abstract ] released Wednesday by the University of Colorado Boulder [ http://cires.colorado.edu/news/press/2014/airbornemeasurements.html ] and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with 21 times the impact of carbon dioxide on climate change, according to the study. It is also a common byproduct of oil and gas operations, which release methane in relatively unknown quantities.
Using an airborne measuring device during two days of testing in May 2012, the Boulder scientists measured methane levels in the atmosphere. Their study found that oil and gas operations over the Denver-Julesburg basin in northeastern Colorado produced about 19 metric tons of methane per hour, three times the amount reported in the Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.
"These discrepancies are substantial," Gabrielle Petron, the study's lead author, said in a written statement. "Emission estimates or 'inventories' are the primary tool that policy makers and regulators use to evaluate air quality and climate impacts of various sources, including oil and gas sources. If they're off, it's important to know."
According to the study, levels of benzene and volatile organic compounds were also higher than government estimates.
As potent as methane is, it's a natural element in Weld County. Natural gas, one of the main commodities being extracted from the shale formations in Northern Colorado, is 90 percent methane, said Ken Carlson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Colorado State University.
There are a half a million head of cattle in Weld; the manure they produce is also a source of methane. The coal seams in Weld County, formed millions of years ago, also contain methane.
Until recently, the amount of methane being released by oil and gas operations has been difficult to track, and it is likely not limited to one part of the extraction and production process, said Carlson. The Boulder study is one of many over the years that has tried to pin down the amount of methane emissions and where they come from — the study estimates 75 percent of Weld County commissions come from oil and gas development.
With the support of its three largest oil and gas operators — Anadarko, Encana and Noble Energy — Colorado recently approved new air quality standards meant to tackle and limit methane emissions. The standards should go into full effect by the end of the year. The regulations were heralded as the first of their kind in the nation, Carlson said.
While the Boulder study's findings are significant, Carlson said they were not exhaustive when it comes to studying how methane emissions can be limited.
"It certainly shouldn't be discounted," Carlson said of the study on Wednesday. "It seems like this issue is more complicated than a two-day flyover."
"We need more data," he added.
Since last spring, a group of CSU researchers have pursued that task — gathering data on methane emissions from all aspects of the oil and gas production process, said Dan Zimmerle, a scientist working on the project. The researchers are running two of five studies commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund, which they expect to release in six to eight months.
Zimmerle couldn't discuss the preliminary findings of the study due to confidentiality agreements, nor could he discuss the methods being used, although he said they are different from those used in the Boulder study.
The CSU study is "the first really major update to methane emissions" from the Colorado oil and gas industry since 1996, Zimmerle said.
"As for where we think it will be used? Hopefully by the industry to improve their reduced emissions," he said.
At a glance
A study by University of Colorado Boulder and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists found levels of methane, benzene and volatile organic compounds exceeded government estimates during two days of measurements in May 2012. The findings of emissions from oil and gas activities:
• Methane: 19 metric tons per hour (three times the estimate)
• Benzene: 380 pounds per hour (estimated at 50 pounds)
• Volatile organic compounds: 25 metric tons per hour (estimated at 13.1 tons)
Copyright 2014 The Coloradoan
http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/local/2014/05/07/study-weld-co-methane-levels-triple-state-estimates/8829179/ [with comments]
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Swelling CO2 Cuts Nutrition in Food
Carbon dioxide is known to promote plant growth, but its effects on other aspects of crops are poorly understood. In many cases, the benefits of increased CO2 in the atmosphere will be offset by heat stress, drought and extreme weather tied to climate change.
Credit: Schellack via Wikimedia Commons [ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baray_rice_paddies.jpg ]
Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere equals less vital nutrients in crops like rice and soybeans
By Tiffany Stecker and ClimateWire
May 8, 2014
A carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere could strip important food crops of their nutrients, a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13179.html ] suggests.
Wheat, rice, barley and certain legumes like soybeans are classified as C3 plants, which corresponds to their ability as plants to convert carbon dioxide into energy. These C3 grasses and legumes have been shown to lose up to 15 percent of zinc and iron, the top two minerals in the human body, in experiments that artificially enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide. These elements are crucial for a healthy immune system, cell development, hemoglobin production and brain function.
"Global iron and zinc deficiencies are an enormous public health problem," said Samuel Myers, lead author of the paper and a physician and research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. A lack of sufficient zinc and iron in the diet has led to the loss of about 63 million life years annually, Myers said.
The researchers placed C3 crops, as well as C4 crops like corn and sorghum, into open-top chambers in free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments in the United States, Australia and Japan. The FACE chambers were filled with CO2-laden air with concentrations of up to 584 parts per million. The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is around 400 ppm.
Carbon dioxide is known to promote plant growth, but its effects on other aspects of crops are poorly understood. In many cases, the benefits of increased CO2 in the atmosphere will be offset by heat stress, drought and extreme weather tied to climate change. A recent paper [ http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/3/034011/article ] in Environmental Research Letters found that hotter-than-normal weather during a corn crop's critical flowering period could wipe out any benefits tied to CO2 (ClimateWire [ http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059996407/ ], March 20).
Although C4 crops were less affected than C3 crops, the nutritional values of the latter were still affected. C3 crop yields tend to increase more with CO2 concentration, as they are less efficient in using carbon dioxide than C4 plants and benefit more from the boost. But the increase in production is not likely linked to a lower relative amount of nutrients, because the responses from different varieties were so different.
Some types of rice became slightly more nutritious, for example.
"It is not as simple as it being a dilution," said Andrew Leakey, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of plant physiology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Other unknown factors involved
This means there are other factors at play, Leakey said, although they remain a mystery and an area of promising future research. This paper represents the first large-scale data set for such an experiment to come out of the University of Illinois.
About 2.4 billion people derive at least 60 percent of their food from C3 crops, Myers said. The breakdown between C3 and C4 plants in terms of global calories consumed depends on one's geographic location. Americans and Africans eat more C4 crops like corn, sorghum and millet, while Asian diets consist primarily of rice, a C3 grass.
"Having identified the problem, this is something we should direct energy toward solving," Leakey said.
Efforts are underway to develop crops that deliver more iron and zinc, as well as other necessary nutrients, Myers said. But it's a complex process to fortify crops using plant breeding techniques, genetic engineering and better crop management practices.
Mourad Moursi, a fellow with the nonprofit research organization HarvestPlus, said biofortification of crops with nutrients has made strides in the past few years. HarvestPlus has successfully developed a sweet potato high in vitamin A, iron-rich beans, and wheat and rice with higher levels of zinc for consumers in Africa and Asia. In some cases, the level of nutrients can increase by 70 percent.
"We were not out to specifically counter the effects of climate change," said Moursi, explaining the development of these crops. "It was really to provide another tool in the box of tools for reducing malnutrition in the developing world."
HarvestPlus received $29.5 million from donors in 2012. Restrictions on genetic engineering can limit the advances, Moursi said.
"We would like to drive [nutrient levels] up as high as we can," Moursi said, but HarvestPlus uses conventional methods because of regulatory and trade restrictions on sending genetically modified crops to Asia and Africa.
The paper was published yesterday in Nature.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. http://www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
© 2014 E&E Publishing, LLC
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/swelling-co2-cuts-nutrition-in-food/ [with comments]
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Marco Rubio: I Don't Believe Humans Are Causing Climate Change
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual conference in National Harbor, Md., Thursday, March 6, 2014. Rubio said the US is the one nation that can rally people around the globe against the rise of totalitarian governments.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
by Sam Stein
Posted: 05/11/2014 9:43 am EDT Updated: 05/12/2014 10:59 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- Of all the states that stand to suffer from climate change, Florida is facing potentially the bleakest consequences. A New York Times report [ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/us/florida-finds-itself-in-the-eye-of-the-storm-on-climate-change.html (excerpted, fourth item above)] noted last week that global warming was already having an effect on everyday life, like leading to flooding on streets that never used to flood.
Meanwhile, a National Climate Assessment has named Miami as the city most vulnerable to damage from rising sea levels, while a Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact paper warned that water in the area could rise by as much as two feet by the year 2060 [ http://southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/pdf/Sea%20Level%20Rise.pdf ].
On Sunday, one of the state's U.S. senators, Marco Rubio (R), was pressed about the general subject of climate change, and despite the warnings outlined above, he argued that there was nothing lawmakers could or should do to reverse the climate trends (whose origins he also questioned).
"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," Rubio said, according to excerpts released by ABC "This Week [ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/sen-marco-rubio-yes-im-ready-to-be-president/ ]," "and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy."
"The fact is that these events that we're talking about are impacting us, because we built very expensive structures in Florida and other parts of the country near areas that are prone to hurricanes. We've had hurricanes in Florida forever. And the question is, what do we do about the fact that we have built expensive structures, real estate and population centers near those vulnerable areas?" he asked. "I have no problem with taking mitigation activity."
The transcript does not indicate what Rubio's "mitigation activity" would consist of, but his assessment that the laws currently being proposed to address climate change won't help, and will only hurt the economy, is at odds with his own history as a politician.
As the leader of the Florida House in 2008, Rubio helped pass a law directing the state Department of Environmental Protection to develop a carbon emissions capping system. He has since distanced himself from that vote, arguing that he never supported cap and trade, only the idea that the state should look into such a system. And when the system ultimately did not pass, he cheered its failure.
But those who worked on that bill in Florida have called him an opportunist and a flip-flopper on the topic.
"For Rubio to say that all along he knew it wouldn't really come to pass is illogical," Jay Liles of the Florida Wildlife Federation, who lobbied for the bill, told the Miami Herald in 2009 [ http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/rubio-now-assails-cap-and-trade-plan-though-he-earlier-backed-legislation/1057950 ]. "He set the stage for (cap and trade) to happen."
Copyright ©2014 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/11/rubio-climate-change_n_5305082.html [the YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91YibqaE__g (with comments); with (separate) embedded video report, and (over 6,000) comments]
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Runaway Glaciers in West Antarctica
Published on May 12, 2014 by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCryGec9PdUCLjpJW2mgCuLw ]
Glaciologist Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine, narrates this animation depicting the processes leading to the decline of six rapidly melting glaciers in West Antarctica. A new study by Rignot and others finds the rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea. Full press release at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQMtb1Pd07E [with comments] [version without the sound/narration, for some reason the version embedded in many of the related articles, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adh86ma3oxw (with comments)]
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Antarctic Glacier Loss Is ‘Unstoppable,’ Study Says
Thwaites Glacier is a huge ice stream draining into the Amundsen Bay
[ http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27381010 ]
Recent European Space Agency satellite data has also recorded the glaciers' thinning and retreat
[id.]
West Antarctica bed topography. Areas colored brown are below sea level. Sea level itself is colored yellow, and green areas are above sea level.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SVS
[ http://www.livescience.com/45534-west-antarctica-collapse-starts.html ]
The glaciers studied by Rignot's research team. Red indicates areas where flow speeds have increased over the past 40 years. The darker the color, the greater the increase. The increases in flow speeds extend hundreds of miles inland.
Credit: Eric Rignot
[id.]
Although the Amundsen Sea region is only a fraction of the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet, NASA estimates the region contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4 feet.
Source: NASA/GSFC/SVS via Bloomberg
[ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-12/antarctic-glacier-melt-appears-unstoppable-nasa-says.html ]
New data has scientists at the University of California and NASA convinced we've "passed the point of no return" with a slab of ice that makes up 10% of Antarctica's total land ice volume, enough to raise the global sea level by 15 feet if it melts
by Bryan Walsh
May 12, 2014
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the keys to global sea level rise. Running up against the Amundsen Sea, it contains an estimated 527,808 cu. miles (2.2 million cu. km) of ice, about 10% of Antarctica’s total land ice volume. That’s enough ice to raise global sea level by more than 15 ft. (4.6 m) were it all to melt, collapse and flow into the ocean, which in turn would swamp coastal cities [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205142132.htm ] as far inland as Washington, D.C.
And according to new research, that’s exactly what’s beginning to happen.
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract ] that the group of six glaciers on the ice sheet directly draining into the Amundsen Sea are rapidly melting, as warming ocean water eats away at the base of the ice shelf. That’s making the ice around the West Antarctic Ice Sheet increasingly unstable—and the researchers could find no clear geographical obstacle that would slow down the retreat of the glaciers. Essentially, that means these glaciers—which collectively hold enough ice to boost sea levels by 4 ft (1.2 m)—”have passed the point of no return,” Eric Rignot, a glaciologist with UC-Irvine and NASA and the lead author on the paper, said in a statement. “The retreat of this ice seems to be unstoppable.”
Another new study [ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/735.abstract ] in the journal Science by researchers at the University of Washington gives us an idea of how long that irreversible decline might take—and the news isn’t good. The researchers estimate that the Thwaites Glacier—one of the six Antarctic glaciers also studied in the NASA paper—could collapse within 200 to 500 years. And the collapse of the Thwaites and its bordering glaciers could lead to the loss of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, like removing the keystone from a bridge
It’s not news that the ice sheets of Antarctica are melting as the glaciers that border the sea retreat, adding to sea-level rise. (Sea levels only rise when land ice melts into the oceans—the loss of floating ocean ice, like the shrinking Arctic sea ice on the North Pole, makes no difference on sea level.) But both of these new studies provide far more precise data on just what’s happening in Antarctica—and what will likely happen in the future. The NASA/UC-Irvine study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, is based on some 40 years of observation of the glaciers, chiefly using radar data from satellites. The researchers found that the grounding line—the point where the glacier first loses contact with the land as it moves into the sea—is retreating as the flow rate of the glaciers increases [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXVWGGmNRiI (next below)].
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had projected [ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/sea-level-in-the-5th-ipcc-report/ ] that sea level will rise by about 35.5 in (98 cm) at most by 2100, but that prediction will likely need to be revisited in the wake of these new studies. As the Science study shows, it will likely be a few hundred years before the glaciers along West Antarctica fully collapse and melt into the sea. That does give us plenty of time to figure out a way to rapidly reduce carbon emissions and slow the pace of climate change, which in turn can give us more time to deal with sea level rise.
But these studies are sobering—the warming we have already baked into the climate system seems to have put into motion a physical changes that will utterly remake the planet we live on.
© 2014 Time Inc.
http://time.com/96173/antarctic-glacier-loss-is-unstoppable-study-says/ [with comments]
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Scientists warn of FOUR-FOOT sea level rise from GLACIER melt
Collapse of ice sheets is 'unstoppable,' boffins claim
By Iain Thomson, 12 May 2014
Scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine have concluded that the glaciers of West Antarctica are now in terminal decline and the resultant ice loss could raise global sea levels by up to four feet over the next few centuries.
"The collapse of this sector of West Antarctica appears to be unstoppable," said UC Irvine glaciologist Eric Rignot, who is also with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"The fact that the retreat is happening simultaneously over a large sector suggests it was triggered by a common cause, such as an increase in the amount of ocean heat beneath the floating parts of the glaciers. At this point, the end appears to be inevitable."
The research, published [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract ] in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, examines 40 years of measurement data from the Western Antarctic and uses data from two European Remote Sensing satellites that have been measuring glacial changes between 1992 and 2011 with radar that maps surface movement to within a quarter of an inch.
Predictions on the rate of melting have been based on two data sets: the amount of the glaciers that are floating in the ocean and melting and the ground topography that they flow over. The team determined that the amount of floating ice has increased markedly, and the grounding point, where the glacier rests on bedrock, has retreated inland.
In March, research by UC Irvine showed that the flow rate of Western Antarctic glaciers into the ocean has increased by 77 per cent from 1973 to 2013 and this, coupled with the latest research, suggests that the glaciers "have passed the point of no return."
"This sector will be a major contributor to sea level rise in the decades and centuries to come," Rignot said. "A conservative estimate is that it could take several centuries for all of the ice to flow into the sea."
He suggested that the amount of sea-level rise from these glaciers could be difficult for humans to cope with, but also that if these Western glaciers let go then this will accelerate ice loss from the rest of the continent.
© Copyright 2014 The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/scientists_warn_of_fourfoot_sea_level_rise_as_west_antarctic_glaciers_melt/ [with embedded video (same as the YouTube included with the item next below), and comments]
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NASA spots 'unstoppable' Antarctic ice sheet melt
Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica.
NASA
Flow rates of the glaciers; red is where the rate has increased over the past 40 years, and the darker the color, the higher the increase. Note the scalebar; this is happening over a vast area.
Photo by NASA
[ http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/05/12/global_warming_antarctic_glacier_collapse_may_now_be_inevitable.html ]
Two new studies indicate that part of the huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting a slow collapse in an unstoppable way. Alarmed scientists say that means even more sea level rise than they figured.
A high-resolution map of the Thwaites Glacier's thinning ice shelf. The glacier now appears to be in the early stages of collapse, with full collapse potentially occurring within a few centuries.
(Photo Credit: David Shean / University of Washington)
[ http://www.sciencecodex.com/airborne_radar_surveys_and_databased_models_indicate_west_antarctic_ice_sheet_collapse_is_underway-133483 ]
Originally published May 12, 2014 at 10:55 AM | Page modified May 13, 2014 at 6:44 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — The huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting a glacially slow collapse in an unstoppable way, two new studies show. Alarmed scientists say that means even more sea level rise than they figured.
The worrisome outcomes won't be seen soon. Scientists are talking hundreds of years, but over that time the melt that has started could eventually add 4 to 12 feet to current sea levels.
A NASA study looking at 40 years of ground, airplane and satellite data of what researchers call "the weak underbelly of West Antarctica" shows the melt is happening faster than scientists had predicted, crossing a critical threshold that has begun a domino-like process.
"It does seem to be happening quickly," said University of Washington glaciologist Ian Joughin, lead author of one study. "We really are witnessing the beginning stages."
It's likely because of man-made global warming and the ozone hole which have changed the Antarctic winds and warmed the water that eats away at the feet of the ice, researchers said at a NASA news conference Monday.
"The system is in sort of a chain reaction that is unstoppable," said NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot, chief author of the NASA study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "Every process in this reaction is feeding the next one."
Curbing emissions from fossil fuels to slow climate change will probably not halt the melting but it could slow the speed of the problem, Rignot said.
Rignot, who also is a scientist at the University of California Irvine, and other scientists said the "grounding line" which could be considered a dam that stops glacier retreat has essentially been breached. The only thing that could stop the retreat in this low-altitude region is a mountain or hill and there is none. Another way to think of it is like wine flowing from a horizontal uncorked bottle, he said.
Rignot looked at six glaciers in the region with special concentration on the Thwaites glacier, about the size of New Mexico and Arizona combined. Thwaites is so connected to the other glaciers that it helps trigger loss elsewhere, said Joughin, whose study was released Monday by the journal Science.
Joughin's study uses computer simulations and concludes "the early-stage collapse has begun." Rignot, who used data that showed a speed up of melt since the 1990s, said the word "collapse" may imply too fast a loss, it would be more the start of a slow-motion collapse and "we can't stop it."
Several outside experts in Antarctica praised the work and said they too were worried.
"It's bad news. It's a game changer," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who wasn't part of either study. "We thought we had a while to wait and see. We've started down a process that we always said was the biggest worry and biggest risk from West Antarctica."
The Rignot study sees eventually 4 feet (1.2 meters) of sea level rise from the melt. But it could trigger neighboring ice sheet loss that could mean a total of 10 to 12 feet of sea level rise, the study in Science said, and Rignot agreed.
The recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change don't include melt from West Antarctic or Greenland in their projections and this would mean far more sea level rise, said Sridhar Anandakrishnan, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. That means sea level rise by the year 2100 is likely to be about three feet, he said.
Even while the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting, the much larger East Antarctic ice sheet seems stable because it is cooler, Scambos said [but see East Antarctica-related items above].
Climate change studies show Antarctica is a complicated continent in how it reacts. For example, just last month Antarctic sea ice levels -- not the ice on the continent -- reached a record in how far they extended. That has little or no relation to the larger more crucial ice sheet, Scambos and other scientists say.
© 2014 Associated Press
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2023590735_apxsciantarcticmelt.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3mxy8G978 (comments disabled), as embedded; with comments] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/west-antarctic-ice-sheet-melting_n_5310679.html (with embedded video report, and comments) and http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-05-12/nasa-spots-worrisome-antarctic-ice-sheet-melt (no comments yet)]
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What Does U.S. Look Like With 10 Feet of Sea Level Rise?
May 13th, 2014
New research indicates that climate change has already triggered an unstoppable decay [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/melt-of-key-antarctic-glaciers-unstoppable-studies-find-17426 ] of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The projected decay will lead to at least 4 feet of accelerating global sea level rise within the next two-plus centuries, and at least 10 feet of rise in the end.
What does the U.S. look like with an ocean that is 10 feet higher? The radically transformed map would lose 28,800 square miles of land, home today to 12.3 million people.
[...]
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/u.s.-with-10-feet-of-sea-level-rise-17428 [with various interactive maps embedded/linked, and comments] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/sea-level-rise_n_5318769.html (with the same various interactive maps embedded/linked, and comments)]
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Here's the Obvious Response to Climate Change Everyone Is Ignoring
by Dr. Reese Halter
Posted: 05/13/2014 10:12 pm EDT Updated: 05/14/2014 5:59 pm EDT
It's 96 degrees (Fahrenheit) in Los Angeles as I pen this story. We are in the midst of yet another vicious heatwave. It's tinderbox-dry outside and this is the third consecutive drought year throughout California. We are in extreme fire danger. Again.
Yesterday the epic [ http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4003812.htm ] news on the wire was based upon 20 years of NASA satellite data showing very clearly that six glaciers in Western Antarctica are rapidly melting into the Amundsen Sea. It will raise ocean levels worldwide by a minimum of four feet. "The retreat of these glaciers seems to be unstoppable," says glaciologist Professor Eric Rignot of University of California at Irvine and NASA.
A massive slab of ice about 10 percent of Antarctica is melting. It contains enough water to raise global sea levels by an astounding 15 feet.
Photo credit: businessinsider.com
[full-size image at http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-14-WesternAntarticasMeltingGlaciersEarthDrReeseHalter ]
This comes on the heels of the previous day's discovery of unprecedented rising greenhouse gases strengthening winds, that normally bring rainfall to southern Australia, instead those winds are now driving that much needed precipitation southward toward Antarctica.
In fact, temperatures have risen so dramatically that the Southern Ocean winds are stronger now than at any other time in the past 1,000 years [ http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/05/12/4001608.htm ]. This is terrible news for agriculture in southern Australia. "As greenhouse gases continue to rise we'll get fewer storms chased up into Australia," says paleo-climatologist Dr Nerilie Abram of the Australian National University.
In our ever-warming world, trillions of indigenous bark beetles [ https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-insatiable-bark-beetle/id470261399 ] have killed over 30 billion mature conifers throughout Western North America. In mountain areas where cold temperatures previously prevented these insects from thriving, our once-healthy but now water-starved trees are becoming more and more vulnerable to the voracious appetite of these deadly pests.
Photo credit: Warren Carlton.
[full-size image at http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-14-BarkBeetlesEarthDrReeseHalter.jpg ]
Last week, the National Climate Assessment [ http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/ ] revealed the following: Human-induced climate disruption is being felt in every corner of the United States. Water is becoming scarcer in dry regions. Torrential rainfalls are increasing in wet regions. Heatwaves are becoming more common and more severe. Wildfires are growing worse. Thirty billion mature pines are dead across the western mountains from heat-loving insect epidemics.
And all this has occurred from an average warming of just slightly less than 2 degrees (Fahrenheit) over most land areas across America. "Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of summer heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced," concluded a panel of eminent scientists that contributed to the National Climate Assessment.
Meanwhile at the North Pole the Arctic Ocean is missing an astonishing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/missing-sea-ice-ameg-and-_b_1753994.html ] amount of older, thicker ice as well as summer ice cover as evidence by these two pictures.
Photo credit: Google Earth.
It's not only melting icecaps that are an irrefutable harbinger of a run-away warming Earth, tree rings [ http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/06/3423860.htm ] are showing my colleagues that wild weather is vividly on the rise in southeastern Australia and New Zealand.
More droughts and more flooding are seen from New Zealand's Kauri tree ring growth patterns as researchers have glimpsed 4,000 years back in time. The last 100 years have brought the most El Ninos (droughts) and La Ninas (floods) that these sentinels of nature have experienced in four millenniums. This undeniable trend directly correlates with the increased burning of fossil fuels in the Anthropocene by Homo sapiens.
Bleached corals are lifeless. It takes a minimum of several thousand years for coral like those of the Great Barrier Reef to accumulate in size to form exquisite habitat, and crucial spawning and nursery areas. It's been about 30 years since bleaching was first discovered on Australia's reefs and today three quarters of the largest reef on the globe is dead. Why is the Australian government not doing everything within its means to protect [ http://www.smh.com.au/comment/great-barrier-reef-on-brink-of-devastation-in-relentless-quest-for-coal-20140203-31x6q.html ] the remaining live one quarter of the reef?
Photo credit: telegraph.uk.co
Earlier this spring, the United Nations (UN) Climate Report warned [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/climate-change-report-ipcc-governments-unprepared-live-coverage ] the worst is yet to come. It noted that human-induced climate disruption has begun to thwart farmers growing food, thus impinging upon the global food supply. It specifically pointed out that the oceans (which provides three out of every four breaths of oxygen for 7.2 billion humans) are in dire trouble with warming temperatures and ocean acidification having already killed three quarters of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef on the globe. The UN has issued a clarion wake-up call stating that the forthcoming climate disruption is unprecedented in type and scale to the wellbeing, health and survival of the human race.
In the early 1980s the annual price tag [ http://news.yahoo.com/losses-extreme-weather-rise-200-billion-over-past-130504043--business.html ] from wild weather cost the giant reinsurer Munich Re $50B, in the past decade that sticker price has increased fourfold to almost $200 billion per annum.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund conservatively calculated that fossil fuel industry, the makers of climate disruption, receive at least $2 trillion [ http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/fossil-fuel-subsidies-causing-fiscal-instability-unep/5419822 ] in taxpayer subsidies each year.
Mountains [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/the-last-great-coal-rush_b_4463291.html ] of coal are being barged down the polluted Mahakam River every few moments. Indonesia is racing to supply the insatiable demand for coal from China and India.
Photo credit: greenpeace.org
[full-size image at http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-14-BorenoCoalMinesEarthDrReeseHalter ]
This autumn there is about a 75 to 80 percent [ http://www.businessinsider.com/el-nino-weather-2014-4 ] probability of a fierce El Nino as the Western Pacific is currently off the charts hot. Some experts are predicting that it could be biggest global weather story of 2014.
I strongly suggest that it would be far more prudent to spend $2 trillion annually on future-proofing every town and city on planet Earth from the pending wrath of wild weather rather than subsidizing the demise of the human race and most other life-forms, too.
Wouldn't you agree?
Earth Dr Reese Halter is a broadcaster, biologist, educator and author of the upcoming book Shepherding the Sea: The Race to Save Our Oceans.
Copyright ©2014 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/saving-planet-earth_b_5320139.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6RtbTesKNY (with comments), embedded; with comments]
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Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat by Military Researchers
Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that a report’s findings on the rate of climate change would influence foreign policy.
Credit Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency
By CORAL DAVENPORT
MAY 13, 2014
WASHINGTON — The accelerating rate of climate change poses a severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict, a report published Tuesday [ http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks , http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/news/FlipBooks/MAB2014_web/flipviewerxpress.html , http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/MAB_2014.pdf , graphics http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks/graphics , videos http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks/videos ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsWlMukvp0k {with comments} and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4BF7X2M8ZM {with comments}, next below, respectively)]
The CNA Corporation [ http://www.cna.org/ ]'s Military Advisory Board [ http://www.cna.org/centers/military-board ] found that climate change-induced drought in the Middle East and Africa is leading to conflicts over food and water and escalating longstanding regional and ethnic tensions into violent clashes. The report also found that rising sea levels are putting people and food supplies in vulnerable coastal regions like eastern India, Bangladesh and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam at risk and could lead to a new wave of refugees.
In addition, the report predicted that an increase in catastrophic weather events around the world will create more demand for American troops, even as flooding and extreme weather events at home could damage naval ports and military bases.
In an interview, Secretary of State John Kerry signaled that the report’s findings would influence American foreign policy.
“Tribes are killing each other over water today,” Mr. Kerry said. “Think of what happens if you have massive dislocation, or the drying up of the waters of the Nile, of the major rivers in China and India. The intelligence community takes it seriously, and it’s translated into action.”
Mr. Kerry, who plans to deliver a major speech this summer on the links between climate change and national security, said his remarks would also be aimed at building political support for President Obama’s climate change agenda, including a new regulation to cut pollution from coal-fired power plants that the administration will introduce in June.
“We’re going to try to lay out to people legitimate options for action that are not bank-breaking or negative,” Mr. Kerry said.
Pentagon officials said the report would affect military policy. “The department certainly agrees that climate change is having an impact on national security, whether by increasing global instability, by opening the Arctic or by increasing sea level and storm surge near our coastal installations,” John Conger, the Pentagon’s deputy under secretary of defense for installations and environment, said in a statement. “We are actively integrating climate considerations across the full spectrum of our activities to ensure a ready and resilient force.”
The report on Tuesday follows a recent string of scientific studies that warn that the effects of climate change are already occurring and that flooding, droughts, extreme storms, food and water shortages and damage to infrastructure will occur in the near future.
In March, the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review [ http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf ], the agency’s main public document describing the current doctrine of the United States military, drew a direct link between the effects of global warming — like rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns — and terrorism.
“These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad, such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability and social tensions — conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence,” the review said.
Tuesday’s report is an update of a report by the center’s Military Advisory Board in 2007, the first major study to draw the link between climate change and national security. The report’s authors said the biggest change in the seven years between the two studies was the increase in scientific certainty about global warming, and of the link between global warming and security disruptions.
The 2007 report [ http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/National%20Security%20and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change%20-%20Print.pdf ] also described climate change as a “threat multiplier” or a problem that could enhance or contribute to already existing causes of global disruption. The 2014 report updates that language, calling climate change a “catalyst for conflict” — a phrase intentionally chosen, the report’s authors said, to signal that climate change is an active, driving force in starting conflict.
“In the past, the thinking was that climate change multiplied the significance of a situation,” said Gen. Charles F. Wald, who contributed to both reports and is retired from the Air Force. “Now we’re saying it’s going to be a direct cause of instability.”
The most recent scientific reports on climate change warn that increasing drought in Africa is now turning arable land to desert. The national security report’s authors conclude that the slow but steady expansion of the Sahara through Mali, which is killing crops and leaving farmers starving, may have been a contributing force in the jihadist uprising in that African country in 2012. Since then, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has seized control of northern Mali and remains in conflict with the Malian government.
The report warns that rising sea levels in the United States imperil many of the Navy’s coastal installations. Last week, the White House released a National Climate Assessment [ http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report ] report citing Norfolk, Va., as one of the cities most vulnerable to damage by rising sea levels. Norfolk is home to the world’s largest naval base as well as a nuclear submarine construction yard — all of which are vulnerable to destruction by rising sea levels, found in Tuesday’s report.
“Norfolk is so big, it’s so important to the Navy, it’s important to Virginia for jobs, and it would go,” General Wald said.
A scientific report released this week found that global warming has contributed to the melting of a large section of a West Antarctica ice sheet, which could lead to a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more.
Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a vocal skeptic of the established science that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming, scoffed at the idea that climate change is linked to national security threats.
“There is no one in more pursuit of publicity than a retired military officer,” he said of the report’s authors. “I look back wistfully at the days of the Cold War. Now you have people who are mentally imbalanced, with the ability to deploy a nuclear weapon. For anyone to say that any type of global warming is anywhere close to the threat that we have with crazy people running around with nuclear weapons, it shows how desperate they are to get the public to buy this.”
Rear Adm. David Titley, a co-author of the report and a meteorologist who is retired from the Navy, said political opposition would not extinguish what he called the indisputable data in the report.
“The ice doesn’t care about politics or who’s caucusing with whom, or Democrats or Republicans,” said Admiral Titley, who now directs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk [ http://solutions2wxrisk.psu.edu/ ] at Pennsylvania State University.
© 2014 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/us/politics/climate-change-deemed-growing-security-threat-by-military-researchers.html [with comments]
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Catalyst for Chaos
Joshua Davies - US Navy
Climate change threatens American security, military brass say, and Congress is AWOL on the issue.
BY Keith Johnson
MAY 13, 2014
A brass-studded group of former generals and admirals warned Tuesday that the accelerating pace of climate change poses a real and growing risk to U.S. security, and expressed frustration at political polarization that makes it harder for the United States to address the issue.
The report, released [ http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks ] late Tuesday by the CNA Corporation's Military Advisory Board, is an update to the group's 2007 study that first highlighted in a significant way the possible security risks posed by extreme weather, food and water shortages, and melting ice that is opening the Arctic. The authors, sixteen former three- and four-star generals and admirals, said the update was prompted by "growing concern over the lack of comprehensive action by both the United States and the international community" on climate change.
"Politically charged debate has silenced sound public discourse," the group said, adding "we believe that congressional action is warranted -- and it is needed now." Taking aim at those who have criticized the Pentagon under the Obama administration for making energy and climate change core concerns for the Defense Dept., the officers said that "political concerns and budgetary limitations cannot be allowed to dominate what is essentially a salient national security concern for our nation."
The report highlights a number of worries about the security impacts of climate change that have gone from hypothetical to happening. That includes the rapid opening of the Arctic Ocean--where neither the United States nor the rest of the international community is prepared for the pace of change, the report notes-- drought and water stresses that drive instability in already shaky parts of the world, and the threat to the U.S. military's domestic bases and installations from extreme weather and rising sea levels.
The dire predictions come just a week after Pentagon officials and a bevy of former high-ranking officers, some of whom are also on the advisory board, said that the Obama administration's latest National Climate Assessment underscored the here-and-now threats [ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/06/a_clear_and_present_danger ] that climate change poses to U.S. security.
One example of the way that climate change is helping create fresh security headaches is found in Mali, the report says. The triple whammy of climate change, desertification, and resulting ethnic tension overwhelmed the Malian government in recent years. As a result, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an offshoot off the terror group that had once been confined to North Africa, took over the northern part of the country, where it remains today.
Another way in which climate change is shaping the military's mission, the report said, is found in the Asia-Pacific region. Stronger and more frequent storms, coupled with densely populated coastlines, are turning natural-disaster response into a core part of U.S. Pacific Command's responsibilities, and becoming a crucial element of the U.S. military "rebalancing" to Asia. Joint humanitarian assistance and disaster response drills with Asian militaries are becoming part and parcel of the Pentagon's pivot to Asia.
And that's the easy part; "the volatile mixture of population growth, instability due to the growing influence of nonstate actors, and the inevitable competition over scarce resources will be multiplied and exaggerated by climate change," the report said.
"I am afraid we will soon start getting into varsity-level instability," retired Adm. David Titley, the first chair of the Navy's task force on climate change, said in the report.
Among the members of the advisory board [ http://www.cna.org/solution-centers/institute-public-research/military-advisory-board/board-members ] who signed off on the study, titled "National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change," are former senior officers from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, as well as retired Royal Navy Adm. Neil Morisetti, recently the climate-change envoy for the British Foreign Secretary.
Copyright 2014 Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/13/catalyst_for_chaos [no comments yet]
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Rubio’s 2016 launch dominated by climate
All In with Chris Hayes
May 14, 2014
Chris Hayes talks to his panel about Marco Rubio’s evolving statements on climate change.
©2014 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/55178741/#55178741 [with transcript], http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/rubios-2016-launch-dominated-by-climate-256190019951 [with comments] [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKtGjqxkubk (with comments)]
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New U.S.G.S. National Climate Change Viewer Focuses on Watersheds
May 14, 2014
http://www.decodedscience.com/new-u-s-g-s-national-climate-change-viewer-focuses-watersheds/45584 [no comments yet]
*
National Climate Change Viewer (NCCV)
http://www.usgs.gov/climate_landuse/clu_rd/apps/nccv_viewer.asp
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Ground-breaking study: Hurricanes reaching peak strength farther north as globe warms, tropics expand
Visualization of Hurricane Sandy
(NASA)
By Jason Samenow
May 14, 2014 at 1:32 pm
As the Earth’s oceans have warmed over the last three decades, the grounds for destructive hurricanes have crept northward finds a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7500/abs/nature13278.html ], published by three of the world’s leading tropical weather experts. This observed poleward jog could reflect the first robust signal that the build-up of greenhouse gases from human activity is influencing tropical storms, the authors say.
Identifying a firm connection between hurricane activity and manmade global warming has proven elusive. The 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [ http://ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ ] stated there was “low confidence” in any link between observed changes in tropical storms and human activity.
But this poleward shift in the peak strength of tropical storms could be the smoking gun linking human-induced climate change and hurricane behavior.
The study, to be published in the journal Nature Thursday, analyzed where tropical storms around the world reached peak intensity between 1982 and 2012. It finds this location of maximum storm strength leaped poleward about 33 miles per decade in the Northern Hemisphere and 38 miles per decade in the Southern Hemisphere.
“The absolute value of the latitudes at which these storms reach their maximum intensity seems to be increasing over time, in most places,” says Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor and co-author of the new paper. “The trend is statistically significant at a pretty high level.”
The author team of James Kossin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), MIT’s Emanuel, and Gabriel Vecchi of NOAA links the storm shift to an expansion of the Hadley Cell – a massive atmospheric circulation that transports heat from the tropics to the mid-latitudes and drives the easterly trade winds. In other words, the tropics are occupying a larger area. The expansion “is likely due largely to human influences” or the heating effect of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the study says.
As the subtropics are now becoming more tropical, this is reflected in an observed increase in the ingredients required for hurricanes to flourish the study finds. To intensify, hurricanes need warm ocean waters as fuel and a lack of vertical wind shear – or shifting winds with altitude – which otherwise can rip apart their thunderstorm complexes. Toasty water and weak wind shear have become more common in the subtropics over time the authors say, which they analyze by investigating changes in a metric called the genesis potential index – trends shown below.
Changes in the hurricane “genesis potential index”. Increases are shown in red, decreases in blue.
(Kossin et al., 2014)
This “genesis potential index” – a proxy for favorable storm environments – has ticked up in the subtropics (red shades) while declining some in the equatorward extremes (southern section in Northern Hemisphere) of the tropics (blue shades).
The authors warn the shift in storms may have significant implications for major coastal regions in the mid-latitudes, including the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S.
“[It would have] potentially profound consequences to life and property,” the study says. ”Any related changes to positions where storms make landfall will have obvious effects on coastal residents and infrastructure. Increasing hazard exposure and mortality risk from tropical cyclones may be compounded in coastal cities outside of the tropics, while possibly being offset at lower latitudes.”
Tom Knutson, a NOAA scientist not involved in the study, says the study is interesting but that verdict is still out as to whether this northward shift continues.
“We can’t regard it as a prediction of what will happen in coming decades,” Knutson says. ”It is more a call for further study to understand the changes to date.”
Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at WeatherBell who has published work on global hurricane trends, says the research is “consistent with other climate research” suggesting an “expansion” of the tropics. But Maue also cautioned “our understanding of the behavior of tropical cyclones within our current climate is still incomplete”.
Hurricane activity varies significantly year-to-year owing to a complex array of atmospheric cycles. Human influences can only be detected over long time horizons of at least a few decades.
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1. A fairly quiet season is predicted due to the likely development of El Niño, which generates hostile wind shear in the tropical Atlantic [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/04/11/forecasters-predict-lackluster-hurricane-season-thanks-to-el-nino-forecast/ ]. Today, AccuWeather released its hurricane season outlook [ http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/atlantic-hurricane-season-forecast-2014/26660844 ] projecting 10 named storms and four hurricanes, compared to the recent average of 12 and 6, respectively.
© 2014 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/05/14/ground-breaking-study-hurricanes-reaching-peak-strength-farther-north-as-globe-warms-tropics-expand/ [with comments]
--
The Tropics are Moving, And They’re Bringing Their Cyclones With Them
Hurricanes Since 1851
Every known hurricane and tropical storm since 1851. http://uxblog.idvsolutions.com/
Photo: John Nelson / IDV Solutions / NOAA
[ https://www.flickr.com/photos/idvsolutions/7823589446/in/photostream/ ]
Over the past 30 years hurricanes have been hitting their peak intensities nearer to the poles
By Colin Schultz
May 15, 2014
Hurricanes tend to occur in two big bands, with the big spiraling storms spinning up near the boundary between the tropics and sub-tropics on either side of the equator. Over the past 30 years, however, tropical conditions have been expanding, pushing out towards the poles at a rate of around 0.5 to 1 degree latitude per decade, says Roger Harrabin for the BBC [ http://http//www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27408964 ]--a shift possibly motivated by greenhouse gases or other pollutants. As the tropics have pushed outward, suggests a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7500/abs/nature13278.html ], so too have the hurricanes.
Over the past 30 years hurricane tracks have been on the move, says the study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's James Kossin, with the latitude at which hurricanes have been hitting their peak strength shifting towards the planet's poles.
From 1982 to 2012, says Jason Samenow for the Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/05/14/ground-breaking-study-hurricanes-reaching-peak-strength-farther-north-as-globe-warms-tropics-expand/ (just above)], the “location of maximum storm strength leaped poleward about 33 miles per decade in the Northern Hemisphere and 38 miles per decade in the Southern Hemisphere.”
The exact rate of the change varies for different ocean basins, with there being only a muted, or even non-existent, effect in the North Atlantic ocean, says NPR [ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=312481700 ]. But, for the hurricane-active regions in the north and south Pacific, the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, the shift has had important consequences, says NPR:
In the region where Japan tracks cyclones, they are peaking 42 miles farther north each decade. That means cyclones that used to hit their strongest around the same latitude as the northern Philippines are now peaking closer to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Shanghai, Japan and South Korea, Kossin said. There are about 60 million people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo alone.
Increasingly, strong winds and surging seas are buffeting regions unaccustomed to dealing with them.
Extrapolating the drifting hurricane tracks into the future, however, isn't something we can really do right now says NOAA scientist Tom Knutson [ http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/tom-knutson-homepage ] to the Washington Post:
“We can’t regard it as a prediction of what will happen in coming decades,” Knutson says. ”It is more a call for further study to understand the changes to date."
Copyright 2014 Smithsonian.com
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tropics-are-moving-and-theyre-bringing-their-cyclones-them-180951473/ [no comments yet]
===
Control methane now, greenhouse gas expert warns
By Blaine Friedlander
May 13, 2014
As the shale gas boom continues, the atmosphere receives more methane, adding to Earth’s greenhouse gas problem. A Cornell ecology professor fears that we may not be many years away from an environmental tipping point – and disaster.
“We have to control methane immediately, and natural gas is the largest methane pollution source in the United States,” said Robert Howarth, the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology, who explains in an upcoming journal article that Earth may reach the point of no return if average global temperatures rise by 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius in future decades. “If we hit a climate-system tipping point because of methane, our carbon dioxide problem is immaterial. We have to get a handle on methane, or increasingly risk global catastrophe.”
Howarth’s study, “A Bridge to Nowhere: Methane Emissions and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ese3.35/abstract ],” will be published May 20 in the journal Energy Science and Engineering.
Natural gas – that once seemingly promising link between the era of oil and coal to the serenity of sustainable solar, wind and water power – is a major source of atmospheric methane, due to widespread leaks as well as purposeful venting of gas. Howarth points to “radiative forcing,” a measure of trapped heat in Earth’s atmosphere from man-made greenhouse gases. The current role of methane looms large, he says, contributing over 40 percent of current radiative forcing from all greenhouse gases, based on the latest science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The role of methane as a driver of global warming is even more critical than this 40 percent value might indicate, Howarth notes. The climate system responds much more quickly to reducing methane than to carbon dioxide. If society aggressively controlled carbon dioxide emissions, but ignored methane emissions, the planet would warm to the dangerous 1.5 to 2.0 degree Celsius threshold within 15 to 35 years. By reducing methane emissions, society buys some critical decades of lower temperatures.
“Society needs to wean itself from the addiction to fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” Howarth said. “But to replace some fossil fuels (coal, oil) with another (natural gas) will not suffice as an approach to take on global warming. Rather, we should embrace the technologies of the 21st century and convert our energy systems to ones that rely on wind, solar and water power.”
In 2011, Anthony Ingraffea, Cornell’s Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering; Renee Santoro, research technician in ecology and evolutionary biology; and Howarth published “Methane and the Greenhouse-Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations [ http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-011-0061-5#page-1 , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-011-0061-5 ],” in Climate Change Letters, where they explained that extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale will aggravate global warming more than mining and burning coal.
In this latest work, Howarth said that societies have run out of time and must pursue technological changes for sustainable energy now. “If we can control the methane, we have a chance to reverse course,” he said.
*
Related
Errant methane plumes detected over Marcellus wells
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/04/errant-methane-plumes-detected-over-marcellus-wells
*
©2014 Cornell Chronicle
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/05/control-methane-now-greenhouse-gas-expert-warns
--
Shale gas won't reduce greenhouse emissions, researchers say
By Bob Downing
Published: May 14, 2014
From Duke University [ http://energy.duke.edu/news/4683 ]:
DURHAM, N.C. -- While natural gas can reduce greenhouse emissions when it is substituted for higher-emission energy sources, abundant shale gas is not likely to substantially alter total emissions without policies targeted at greenhouse gas reduction, a pair of Duke researchers find.
If natural gas is abundant and less expensive, it will encourage greater natural gas consumption and less of fuels such as coal, renewables and nuclear power. The net effect on the climate will depend on whether the greenhouse emissions from natural gas -- including carbon dioxide and methane -- are lower or higher than emissions avoided by reducing the use of those other energy sources.
Most evidence indicates that natural gas as a substitute for coal in electricity production, gasoline in transport, and electricity in buildings decreases greenhouse gases. But natural gas production and consumption has higher emissions than renewables and nuclear power.
“Over the range of scenarios that we examine, abundant natural gas by itself is neither a climate hero nor a climate villain,” said Richard Newell, Gendell Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics and director of the Duke University Energy Initiative.
The findings are published [ http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4046154 ] in a special issue of Environmental Science and Technology, “Understanding the Risks of Unconventional Shale Gas Development.”
Natural gas from shale formations is favored by proponents as a cleaner, inexpensive replacement for fuels such as coal and oil that emit more carbon dioxide and local air pollutants. But extracting, processing and transporting the fuel can result in emissions of methane -- itself a potent greenhouse gas. The precise level of these methane emissions is uncertain, and extensive research on the subject is under way.
“We find that so far increased natural gas has mostly taken the place of coal, but looking forward there also may be increased consumption for sectors such as industry, as well as some degree of displacement of zero-emission sources such as renewables and nuclear,” said Daniel Raimi, associate in research at the Energy Initiative. “The net effect on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions appears likely to be small in the absence of policies specifically directed at greenhouse gas mitigation.”
Newell and Raimi draw on a range of evidence, including modeling of two hypothetical futures: one where natural gas production and prices follow a “reference case” scenario, and another where increased shale gas production lowers prices and encourages increased consumption. They also account for a range of methane emissions scenarios, ranging from 25 percent below to 50 percent above the levels estimated by the U.S. Environmental Production Agency.
“The fact that increased shale gas doesn’t have a huge climate impact on its own doesn’t mean it’s not important. If broad climate policy is enacted, having abundant natural gas could be very helpful by making it cheaper for society to achieve climate goals,” Newell said. “If natural gas is expensive, then it will be more costly to switch away from fuels that have higher greenhouse gas emissions, such as coal and oil. But keeping methane emissions low is essential to maximizing the potential benefits of natural gas.”
The climate benefits of natural gas are reduced if there are a lot of methane emissions, but while “recent evidence suggests methane emissions may be higher than the EPA currently estimates, it’s not clear how this new information will affect those estimates,” Raimi said. “Reducing methane emissions is important, but even if methane emissions from natural gas systems are significantly higher than current EPA estimates, we did not find this significantly alters the impact of abundant natural gas on long-term national or global greenhouse gas emissions pathways.”
© 2014 Duke University
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/shale-gas-won-t-reduce-greenhouse-emissions-researchers-say-1.487931 [no comments yet]
===
This Intense Video Shows Just How Bad The California Wildfires Are Right Now
by William Goodman
Posted: 05/15/2014 3:32 pm EDT Updated: 05/15/2014 5:59 pm EDT
WARNING: This video contains strong language.
Footage has surfaced online providing an intense, up close and personal perspective on the wildfires currently raging through southern California.
The clip, posted by Jeb Durgin [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTueBWYLQjatmHULW8W_fDQ ], was allegedly shot in San Diego County, where tens of thousands of residents have currently been evacuated [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/san-diego-wildfire-evacua_n_5326133.html ]. Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency for San Diego County.
Copyright ©2014 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/intense-video-california-wildfires_n_5332745.html [the YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYril_YyaQM (with comments), as embedded; with (separate) embedded video report "Fire Tornado Rips Through San Diego", and comments]
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Thousands of people evacuated in San Diego as brush blazes and high winds form a string of FIRENADOES
An aggressive wildfire generated a frightening tornado of flames as it tore through parts of Southern California Wednesday, forcing thousands to flee their homes.
The terrifying pillar of fire - which is being dubbed a 'firenado' - was caught on camera in the city of Carlsbad
At least two structures burned to the ground and some 15,000 homes and businesses were told to evacuate
That Carlsbad blaze was one of several wildfires that firefighters in San Diego County were battling yesterday
The wildfires are caused by hot, dry and windy conditions across the lower part of the state of California
15 May 2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2628218/Multiple-fires-burning-San-Diego-County.html [with many more photos, embedded videos, and comments]
===
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Published on Sep 3, 2012 by Deep Rogue Ram [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9M654rIW_hnr-mqxoWz1ZQ ]
Arctic ice cover just reached its lowest point in recorded history. Pippa goes off script and drops some science. For more, check out http://www.deeprogueram.tumblr.com
Filmed at Strut Studios in Vancouver: http://www.strutstudios.com/
Starring Pippa Mackie and Kai Nagata. Written by Heather Libby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmfcJP_0eMc [with comments]
===
"CHASING ICE" captures largest glacier calving ever filmed - OFFICIAL VIDEO
Published on Dec 14, 2012 by exposurelabs [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYCUC2JThqiVNzq5D3KXTGQ ]
On May 28, 2008, Adam LeWinter and Director Jeff Orlowski filmed a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in Western Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes and the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water and the rest below water.
Chasing Ice won the award for Excellence in Cinematography at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary from the International Press Association. It has won over 30 awards at festivals worldwide. Still playing in theaters worldwide.
"CHASING ICE" is NOMINATED for an Academy Award: Best Original Song
"Before My Time" by J. Ralph featuring Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell.
Hear the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB4UEQzUmWc
And watch the TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIZTMVNBjc4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU [with (over 4,000) comments] [at/see (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82499392 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92858721 and preceding (and any future following)]
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The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change
Published on May 2, 2013 by University of California Television (UCTV) [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh6KFtW4a4Ozr81GI1cxaBQ ]
(Visit: http://www.uctv.tv/ ) Distinguished Professor Emeritus Richard Somerville, a world-renowned climate scientist and author of "The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change," discusses the scientific case for urgent action to limit climate change. Series: "Perspectives on Ocean Science" [5/2013] [Science] [Show ID: 24910]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Q271UaNPo [with comments]
===
James Hansen explains Climate Change and the Solution
Published on May 22, 2013 by ClimateState [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXy9Efp5QoTGGxmpKBujLLQ ]
Welcome to the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) Virtual Workshop live stream channel. Stay tuned to listen to featured keynote speakers covering research themes from climate modeling to remote sensing applications and high performance computing in Earth Sciences - Watch them live or browse through lectures from the video library.
Dr. James E. Hansen
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
Citizens Climate Lobby | Creating the political
http://citizensclimatelobby.org/
350.org is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis
http://350.org/
Original
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/33143473/theater
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM5-recP7-E [with comments]
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Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?
Permafrost zones occupy nearly a quarter of the exposed land area of the Northern Hemisphere. NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment is probing deep into the frozen lands above the Arctic Circle in Alaska to measure emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane from thawing permafrost - signals that may hold a key to Earth's climate future.
June 10, 2013
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130610.html
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NASA Finds ‘Amazing’ Levels Of Arctic Methane And CO2, Asks ‘Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?’
June 13, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/13/2138531/nasa-finds-amazing-levels-of-arctic-methane-and-co2-asks-is-a-sleeping-climate-giant-stirring-in-the-arctic/ [with comments]
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ScienceCasts: The "Sleeping Giant" in Arctic Permafrost
Published on Jun 21, 2013 by ScienceAtNASA [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKt6dYzHqHfpcp1lgj4bl1A ]
Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for breaking science news.
Arctic permafrost soils contain more accumulated carbon than all the human fossil-fuel emissions since 1850 combined. Warming Arctic permafrost, poised to release its own gases into the atmosphere, could be the "sleeping giant" of climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZSM8GcmJKg [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKJykIsarBw (with comments)]
===
East Antarctic glaciers could be much more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.
Glacier retreat (red) and advance (blue) in the East Antarctic from 1974-2010.
August 28, 2013
[...]
Reference:
“Rapid, climate-driven changes in outlet glaciers on the Pacific coast of East Antarctica”
B. W. J. Miles, C. R. Stokes, A. Vieli & N. J. Cox
Nature 500, 563–566 (29 August 2013) doi:10.1038/nature12382 Received 08 November 2012 Accepted 14 June 2013 Published online 28 August 2013
[ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7464/full/nature12382.html ]
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/08/28/east-antarctic-glaciers-could-be-much-more-vulnerable-to-climate-change-than-previously-thought/ [with comments]
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The SPY PHOTOS that reveal the world's largest ice sheet could be more at risk from global warming than first feared
The world's largest ice sheet could be more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than previously thought, according to new research by Durham University
British scientists used satellite imagery to create the first long-term record of changes of where glaciers meet the sea on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet
Durham University researchers used measurements from 175 glaciers to show they advanced and retreated to coincide with cooling and warming
They warned parts of the ice sheet could be more susceptible to changes in air temperatures and sea-ice than was originally believed
28 August 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2404286/The-SPY-PHOTOS-reveal-worlds-largest-ice-sheet-risk-global-warming-feared.html [with comments]
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East Antarctic ice sheet 'vulnerable' to temperature changes
The researchers looked at the ebb and flow of huge glaciers like this one in the Transantarctic Mountains as it enters the Ross Ice Shelf
29 August 2013
The world's thickest ice sheet may be at greater risk from variations in the climate than previously believed.
Scientists found that glaciers on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) advance and retreat in synch with changes in temperature.
Since it contains enough water to raise global sea levels by over 50m, there is an urgent need to study the threat the researchers said.
The research has been published [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7464/full/nature12382.html ] in the journal Nature.
Scientists have long been worried about the threat to sea levels from the prospect of melting in Greenland and in West Antarctica.
Greenland has had an annual loss of 140 billion tonnes over the past 20 years. Recent studies have indicated that Greenland will be much greener [ http://phys.org/news/2013-08-greener-greenland.html ] by 2100 thanks to global warming.
Researchers are also concerned about West Antarctica, where scientists have recently concluded that warming waters are causing [ http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130613.html ] a loss of ice from the shelf.
But most scientists have dismissed concerns over East Antarctica, the world's biggest ice sheet. Temperatures there can get down to minus 30C, meaning that it was essentially impervious to small, cyclical changes.
Now a new analysis questions that assumption.
[...]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23868841
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Huge canyon discovered under Greenland ice
Scientists are surprised the feature has not been worn away by successive glaciations
29 August 2013
One of the biggest canyons in the world has been found beneath the ice sheet that smothers most of Greenland.
The canyon - which is 800km long and up to 800m deep - was carved out by a great river more than four million years ago, before the ice arrived.
It was discovered by accident as scientists researching climate change mapped Greenland’s bedrock by radar.
The British Antarctic Survey said it was remarkable to find so huge a geographical feature previously unseen.
The hidden valley is longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It snakes its way from the centre of Greenland up to the northern coastline and before the ice sheet was formed it would have contained a river gushing into the Arctic Ocean. Now it is packed with ice.
The ice sheet, up to 3km (2 miles) thick, is now so heavy that it makes the island sag in the middle (central Greenland was previously about 500m above sea level, now it is 200m below sea level).
The canyon still runs “downhill”, though, and meltwater from the ice sheet seeps out below sea level at the northern end – at a relative trickle, rather than a torrent. Glaciologists think the canyon plays an important role in transporting sub-glacial meltwater produced at the bed towards the ocean.
The canyon was discovered by researchers working on one of the great scientific puzzles – how much will the Greenland ice sheet contribute to sea level rise if, as predicted, the Arctic continues to warm as greenhouse gases increase?
[...]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23866810 [with embedded video report]
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Giant Canyon Discovered Under Greenland Ice Sheet
Summer meltwater has drained through a snow-covered channel in Greenland. Scientists say that the Greenland Ice Sheet sits atop a canyon twice as long as the Grand Canyon.
The subglacial bedrock canyon is nearly twice as long as the Grand Canyon.
August 29, 2013
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130829-glacier-canyon-greenland-ice-global-warming-environment/ [with comments]
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Study finds rapid warming in depths of Greenland Sea
Deep waters in the Greenland Sea are warming.
Abysmal sea temps in region rising 10 times faster than global average
September 25, 2013
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2013/09/25/study-finds-rapid-warming-in-depths-of-greenland-sea/ [with comments]
===
Scientists Measure Bubbling Sounds of Melting Glaciers
Published on Nov 29, 2013 by ClimateState [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiPa-5SJuXzdJpVt9xDV7dw ]
Follow ClimateState on facebook for climate research https://www.facebook.com/ClimateState
A short piece about using underwater acoustics to study glaciers.
Scientists Measure Bubbling Sounds of Melting Glaciers http://guardianlv.com/2013/11/scientists-measure-bubbling-sounds-of-melting-glaciers-video/
Project website ICE exploring, learning, teaching http://ice.gi.alaska.edu
Video release from Hilary Hudson http://vimeo.com/36255841
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXZPI6M0eIg [with comments]
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Geophysicist studies the loud crackling noise of glaciers melting
The sound of bubbles escaping from melting ice is so loud that scientists report the glacial fjords where the melting occurs are one of the loudest natural marine environments on Earth.
(Photo : via Flickr user Roshan Panjwani)
[ http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5115/20131128/popping-air-bubbles-create-loudest-underwater-world-earth.htm ]
by Olivia Solon
28 November 13
The crackling, popping sounds of ice melting in underwater glacial fjords -- caused by trapped air bubbles escaping -- are responsible for the loudest natural marine environments on Earth.
Geophysicist Erin Pettit [ http://ice.gi.alaska.edu/ ] from the University of Alaska has studied and recorded the phenomenon using underwater microphones in order to help us better monitor fast-changing polar environments.
Pettit had often heard the sounds while out kayaking, before she set up a network of underwater hydrophones off the Alaskan coast. These are suspended around 100 metres from the ocean floor. Underwater, the sound was much louder.
"If you were underneath the water in a complete downpour, with the rain pounding the water, that's one of the loudest natural ocean sounds out there," she explained in a press release. "In glacial fjords we record that level of sound almost continually."
Suspecting the din was caused by the ice melting, Pettit devised a more controlled experiment, teaming up with acoustics experts Kevin Lee and Preston Wilson from the University of Texas [ http://www.utexas.edu/ ]. She sent the pair chunks of the glacier, which were placed into a tank of chilled water. They then recorded video and audio of the melting process and could match the sound to the sight of the bubbles escaping.
Lee and Wilson found that most of the sound came from bubbles oscillating as they are ejected from the ice. "A bubble when it is released from a nozzle or any orifice will naturally oscillate at a frequency that's inversely proportional to the radius of the bubble," Lee said.
The bubbles get formed because layers of snow crystals trap little pockets of air. As more snow falls on top of those layers, the snow becomes compacted into ice, trapping pressurised bubbles of air.
The researchers believe that they could use sound recordings taken in glacial fjords to monitor the melting of ice to complement time-lapse photography.
The research will be presented at the 166th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America [ http://acousticalsociety.org/content/program-166th-meeting-acoustical-society-america ].
© Condé Nast UK 2013
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/28/glacier-melting-noise [with the Vimeo of the YouTube just above embedded; no comments yet]
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Underwater sound radiated by bubbles released by melting glacier ice
Kevin M. Lee, Preston S. Wilson and Erin C. Pettit
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134, 4172 (2013)
http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/134/5/10.1121/1.4831292
===
Tomgram: Dahr Jamail, The Climate Change Scorecard
December 17, 2013
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175785/tomgram%3A_dahr_jamail%2C_the_climate_change_scorecard/ [also at http://dahrjamail.net/are-we-falling-off-the-climate-precipice , http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dahr-jamail/climate-change-science_b_4459037.html (with comments), http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37194.htm (with comments)]
===
NASA | Earthrise: The 45th Anniversary
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/nasa-brings-earthrise-photo-video_n_4481605.html ]
Published on Dec 20, 2013 by NASA Goddard [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAY-SMFNfynqz1bdoaV8BeQ ]
In December of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to leave our home planet and travel to another body in space. But as crew members Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders all later recalled, the most important thing they discovered was Earth.
Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this video commemorates the 45th anniversary of Apollo 8's historic flight by recreating the moment when the crew first saw and photographed the Earth rising from behind the Moon. Narrator Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon, sets the scene for a three-minute visualization of the view from both inside and outside the spacecraft accompanied by the onboard audio of the astronauts.
The visualization draws on numerous historical sources, including the actual cloud pattern on Earth from the ESSA-7 satellite and dozens of photographs taken by Apollo 8, and it reveals new, historically significant information about the Earthrise photographs. It has not been widely known, for example, that the spacecraft was rolling when the photos were taken, and that it was this roll that brought the Earth into view. The visualization establishes the precise timing of the roll and, for the first time ever, identifies which window each photograph was taken from.
The key to the new work is a set of vertical stereo photographs taken by a camera mounted in the Command Module's rendezvous window and pointing straight down onto the lunar surface. It automatically photographed the surface every 20 seconds. By registering each photograph to a model of the terrain based on LRO data, the orientation of the spacecraft can be precisely determined.
This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4129
Like our videos? Subscribe to NASA's Goddard Shorts HD podcast:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/iTunes/f0004_index.html
Or find NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC
Or find us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-vOscpiNc [with comments]
===
Message in a Bottle Found Near a Canadian Glacier Leads to Startling Revelation about Climate Change
Dec 21, 2013
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/message-bottle-global-warming-20131220 [with comments]
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'Massive' reservoir of melt water found under [sic - within] Greenland ice
Researchers were surprised to see liquid water coming up through the drill hole as temperatures were below freezing
22 December 2013
Researchers say they have discovered a large reservoir of melt water that sits under [sic - within] the Greenland ice sheet all year round.
The scientists say the water is stored in the air space between particles of ice, similar to the way that fruit juice stays liquid in a slush drink.
The aquifer, which covers an area the size of Ireland, could yield important clues to sea level rise.
The research is published [ http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n2/full/ngeo2043.html ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2043 )] in the journal, Nature Geoscience.
The melting of the Greenland ice sheet has been a significant contributor to a rise in sea levels over the past 100 years.
According to the latest report [ http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session36/p36_doc3_approved_spm.pdf ] from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the ice sheet lost 34 billion tonnes of ice per year between 1992 and 2001 - but this increased to 215 billion tonnes [per year] between 2002 and 2011.
[...]
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25463647
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Greenland's Snow Hides 100 Billion Tons of Water
A drill rig was used to extract old snow (firn) cores from within the Greenland snow aquifer.
Credit: Evan Burgess
Surface melt water rushed along the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet through a supra-glacial stream channel, southwest of Ilulissat.
via. Ian Joughlin/Associated Press.
[ http://io9.com/a-huge-reservoir-of-meltwater-has-been-discovered-benea-1488508774 ]
Image: Beeld: Universiteit Utrecht.
[id.]
Water from the Greenland snow aquifer draining from a drill core extracted 40 feet (12 meters) below the surface of the ice sheet in April, before the summer surface melt, with air temperatures of 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius).
Credit: Ludovic Brucker
By Becky Oskin, Staff Writer | December 22, 2013 01:00pm ET
Big surprises still hide beneath the frozen surface of snowy Greenland. Despite decades of poking and prodding by scientists, only now has the massive ice island revealed a hidden aquifer.
In southeast Greenland [ http://www.livescience.com/topics/arctic/ ], more than 100 billion tons of liquid water soaks a slushy snow layer buried anywhere from 15 to 160 feet (5 to 50 meters) below the surface. This snow aquifer covers more than 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) — an area bigger than West Virginia — researchers report today (Dec. 22) [ http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n2/full/ngeo2043.html ] in the journal Nature Geoscience.
"We thought we had an understanding of how things work in Greenland, but here is this entire storage system of water we didn't realize was there," said Richard Forster, lead study author and a glaciologist at the University of Utah.
The discovery will help scientists better understand the fate of Greenland's annual surface melt, which contributes to sea level rise [ http://www.livescience.com/39891-sea-level-rise-ipcc-report.html ]. When the summer sun warms the Arctic island, a giant water world of stunning blue lakes and streams appears atop the ice. Tracking this surface runoff helps scientists account for ice lost to melting each year. Until now, researchers thought most of this water went to the ocean or refroze on the ice. Now they've found a new hiding place.
"This throws an additional complexity into the system," Forster told LiveScience.
There is enough water in the snow aquifer to raise global sea level by 0.015 inches (0.4 millimeters), according to a separate study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058083/abstract ] by the same team published Nov. 30 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). Every year, Greenland adds 0.03 inches (0.7 mm) of water to global sea level rise from melting snow and ice, Forster said. [Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming [ http://www.livescience.com/11350-top-10-surprising-results-global-warming.html ]]
Where water flows
No one yet knows how old the water in the aquifer is, and whether it stays trapped in the snow or reaches the ocean in slow streams or catastrophic floods. However, the top of the water table rose after Greenland's huge surface melt in 2012 [ http://www.livescience.com/22387-greenland-melting-breaks-record.html , http://io9.com/5928966/greenlands-ice-sheet-melting-faster-than-weve-ever-seen ], the researchers report in their GRL study.
The group will return to southeast Greenland in the coming years to answer these and other questions, Forster said. "Just seeing how old it is would answer a lot of questions," he said.
The final destination of Greenland's melt water is also key to understanding how the ice sheet ebbs and flows, because water under the ice sheet lubricates flowing glaciers [ http://www.livescience.com/38244-greenland-melt-speeds-ice-flow.html ]. Researchers know some melt water goes to the bottom of the ice, trickling through cracks and racing through vertical pipes called moulins. Some of the water also simply refreezes on the surface when winter comes. Liquid water sitting in buried snow layers can also slowly warm and melt the ice sheet.
"The existence of this rather flavorless natural snow cone has many implications for the future of the ice sheet, some that may make the ice go away faster and others that help keep the ice a little longer," said Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the study. "We would like to understand these implications better so we can help reduce the uncertainties about future changes."
Soppy surprise
Forster and his colleagues discovered the aquifer in 2011, when a drill punched into sopping wet snow, as mushy as a summer snow cone treat or a Slurpee. (This was a year before the big surface melt of 2012.) "Water was pouring out of the core," Forster said — not what one wants to find when all the electronics are mounted outside the drill. A video of the event reveals both excitement and a few choice words among the scientists. [Watch: Discover Greenland's Hidden Aquifer [ http://www.livescience.com/42136-27-000-square-mile-aquifer-discovered-in-greenland-video.html ]]
[video linked just above embedded]
The water was stored in hard, compacted snow called firn — the remains of the previous year's snowfall. Forster thinks the aquifer went undiscovered because so much snow falls in this corner of Greenland.
In Southeast Greenland, frequent storms crash into tall mountains, dumping more winter snow there than anywhere else on the icy island. The thick, insulating snow blanket keeps the watery firn liquid during the freezing winter, like a down coverlet, Forster said.
Many drillers have skipped over this part of Greenland because the snow layers are so thick, Forster said, and most people who are drilling cylinders of ice from the ice sheet are looking to see the layers compacted over hundreds and thousands of years. "People who extract ice cores don't want to go through high accumulation layers," he said. But Forster's team was interested in the past 10 years of snowfall, so the southeast was a good research spot, he said.
Ground-penetrating radar, towed by snowmobile, helped the researchers locate more water nearby, which the group confirmed by drilling in 2011 and 2013. When the researchers returned home, they searched airborne radar data from NASA's Operation IceBridge and discovered the true extent of the buried snow aquifer [ http://www.livescience.com/39625-aquifers.html ], all in areas with heavy snowfall. Most of the water is in the southeast, but a few pockets appeared in the south and southwest, Forster said. "It all corresponds to these areas of high snow accumulation," he said.
Greenland's future
Researchers estimate Greenland has lost more than 200 million tons of ice and snow each year since 2003. The ice sheet will completely disappear when the planet's average temperature rises by 2 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 4 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial temperatures, as predicted by the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in September.
Earth's surface temperatures are already up 1.3 F (0.7 C) from preindustrial temperatures, with average temperatures rising faster in Greenland [ http://www.livescience.com/40676-arctic-temperatures-record-high.html ].
"This doesn't change our knowledge that too much carbon dioxide in the air will melt Greenland's ice, but it will help us make better estimates of how much and how fast," Alley said.
*
Related
Giant Ice: Photos of Greenland's Glaciers
http://www.livescience.com/20081-images-greenland-glaciers.html
The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
http://www.livescience.com/19466-climate-change-myths-busted.html
Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice
http://www.livescience.com/25120-melt-images-vanishing-polar-ice.html
*
Copyright © 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company
http://www.livescience.com/42172-greenland-snow-aquifer-found.html [with comments] [also at http://www.weather.com/news/science/100-billion-tons-water-discovered-beneath-greenland-ice-20131223 (no comments yet)]
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Explaining the presence of perennial liquid water bodies in the firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet
P. Kuipers Munneke, S. R. M. Ligtenberg, M. R. van den Broeke, J. H. van Angelen and R. R. Forster
Article first published online: 21 JAN 2014 DOI: 10.1002/2013GL058389
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058389/abstract
===
Greenland Ice Sheet Loses Its Last Grip
Open water in northeast Greenland.
Major ice drainages in Greenland overlain on a map of measured ice surface velocities. The northeast Greenland ice stream (NEGIS), Jakobshavn Isbræ (JI), Helheim Glacier (HG) and Kangerdlugssuaq (KG) catchments are shown.
March 16, 2014
http://www.livescience.com/44129-northeast-greenland-ice-sheet-melting.html [with comments] [also at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/greenland-ice-sheet-loses-its-last-grip/ (with comments)]
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Researchers: Northeast Greenland Ice Loss Accelerating
Open water in northeast Greenland, where ice loss is accelerating.
Photo by Finn Bo Madsen, courtesy of The Ohio State University.
All margins of ice sheet now unstable—and contributing to sea level rise
3/17/14
COLUMBUS, Ohio — An international team of scientists has discovered that the last remaining stable portion of the Greenland ice sheet is stable no more.
The finding, which will likely boost estimates of expected global sea level rise in the future, appears in the March 16 issue of the journal Nature Climate Change [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html ] [DOI:10.1038/NCLIMATE2161 [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n4/full/nclimate2161.html ]].
The new result focuses on ice loss due to a major retreat of an outlet glacier connected to a long “river” of ice—known as an ice stream—that drains ice from the interior of the ice sheet. The Zachariae ice stream [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachariae_Isstrom ] retreated about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) over the last decade, the researchers concluded. For comparison, one of the fastest moving glaciers, the Jakobshavn ice stream [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakobshavn_Glacier ] in southwest Greenland, has retreated 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) over the last 150 years.
Ice streams [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_stream ] drain ice basins, the same way the Amazon River [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River ] drains the very large Amazon water basin [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Basin ]. Zachariae is the largest ice stream in a drainage basin that covers 16 percent of the Greenland ice sheet—an area twice as large as the one drained by Jakobshavn.
This paper represents the latest finding from GNET [ http://polenet.org/?page_id=179 ], the GPS [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System ] network in Greenland that measures ice loss by weighing the ice sheet as it presses down on the bedrock.
“Northeast Greenland is very cold. It used to be considered the last stable part of the Greenland ice sheet,” explained GNET lead investigator Michael Bevis [ http://www.earthsciences.osu.edu/faculty_bios.php?id=79 ] of The Ohio State University. “This study shows that ice loss in the northeast is now accelerating. So, now it seems that all of the margins of the Greenland ice sheet are unstable.”
Historically, Zachariae drained slowly, since it had to fight its way through a bay choked with floating ice debris. Now that the ice is retreating, the ice barrier in the bay is reduced, allowing the glacier to speed up—and draw down the ice mass from the entire basin.
“This suggests a possible positive feedback mechanism whereby retreat of the outlet glacier, in part due to warming of the air and in part due to glacier dynamics, leads to increased dynamic loss of ice upstream. This suggests that Greenland's contribution to global sea level rise may be even higher in the future,” said Bevis, who is also the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Geodynamics and professor of earth sciences [ http://www.earthsciences.osu.edu/ ] at Ohio State.
Study leader Shfaqat Abbas Khan [ http://www.dtu.dk/english/Service/Phonebook/Person?id=38314 ], a senior researcher at the National Space Institute [ http://www.space.dtu.dk/english ] at the Technical University of Denmark [ http://www.dtu.dk/english ], said that the finding is cause for concern.
“The fact that the mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet has generally increased over the last decades is well known,” Khan said, “but the increasing contribution from the northeastern part of the ice sheet is new and very surprising.”
GNET, short for “Greenland GPS Network,” uses the earth’s natural elasticity to measure the mass of the ice sheet. As previous Ohio State studies revealed, ice weighs down bedrock, and when the ice melts away, the bedrock rises measurably in response. More than 50 GNET stations along Greenland’s coast weigh the ice sheet like a giant bathroom scale.
Khan and his colleagues combined GNET data with ice thickness measurements taken by four different satellites: the Airborne Topographic Mapper [ https://airbornescience.nasa.gov/instrument/ATM ] (ATM), the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite [ http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] (ICESat), and the Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor [ http://lvis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] (LVIS) from NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ]; and the Environmental Satellite [ https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/missions/esa-operational-eo-missions/envisat ] (ENVISAT) from the European Space Agency [ https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/home ].
They found that the northeast Greenland ice sheet lost about 10 billion tons of ice per year from April 2003 to April 2012.
According to previous measurements and aerial photographs, the northeast Greenland ice sheet margin appeared to be stable for 25 years—until 2003. Around that time, a string of especially warm summers triggered increased melting and calving events, which have continued to the present day.
A large calving event at the Zachariae glacier made the news in May 2013, and Khan and his team witnessed and filmed a similar event in July.
Increased ice flow in this region is particularly troubling, Khan said, because the northeast ice stream stretches more than 600 kilometers (about 373 miles) into the center of the ice sheet, where it connects with the heart of Greenland’s ice reservoir.
“This implies that changes at the margin can affect the mass balance deep in the center of the ice sheet. Furthermore, due to the huge size of the northeast Greenland ice stream, it has the potential of significantly changing the total mass balance of the ice sheet in the near future,” he added.
Bevis agreed: “The fact that this ice loss is associated with a major ice stream that channels ice from deep in the interior of the ice sheet does add some additional concern about what might happen.”
The Greenland ice sheet is thought to be one of the largest contributors to global sea level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 millimeters of the current total of 3.2 millimeters of sea level rise per year.
Coauthors on the paper hailed from the University of Copenhagen [ http://www.ku.dk/english/ ]; University of Bristol [ http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ ]; University of Colorado, Boulder [ http://www.colorado.edu/ ]; University of Kansas [ http://www.ku.edu/ ]; Utrecht University [ http://www.uu.nl/en/pages/default.aspx ]; The Chinese University of Hong Kong [ http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/english/index.html ]; and Aarhus University [ http://www.au.dk/en/ ].
This research was supported by the Danish Research Council [ http://fivu.dk/en/research-and-innovation/councils-and-commissions/the-danish-council-for-independent-research/the-council-1/the-danish-council-for-independent-research-natural-sciences ], the Danish National Research Foundation [ http://dg.dk/en/ ] and the Villum Foundation [ http://villumfoundation.dk/C12576AB0041F11B/0/A6D0DB69F825E72DC12576E10048F651?OpenDocument ]. GNET is a collaboration of Ohio State University, the National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark, and the University of Luxembourg [ http://wwwen.uni.lu/ ], and it receives technical support from UNAVCO Inc. [ http://www.unavco.org/ ] and logistical support from CH2M HILL Polar Services [ http://cpspolar.com/ ]. The American component of GNET was funded by the US National Science Foundation [ http://www.nsf.gov/ ].
Contacts:
Michael Bevis, (614) 247-5071; Bevis.6@osu.edu
Shfaqat Abbas Khan, +45-45-25-97-75; abbas@space.dtu.dk
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
Editor's note: Images and video are available from Pam Frost Gorder.
© 2014 The Ohio State University
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/negreenmelt.htm
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Greenland ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate
The ice-covered, cloud-shrouded mountains of NE Greenland, where the ice is melting far faster than previously known.
Photo: Visit Greenland via Flickr.com.
[ http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2312123/stable_ne_greenland_ice_sheet_is_melting_away.html ]
by Shfaqat Abbas Khan
17 March 2014, 2.02pm GMT
Warming in the Arctic has now reached the northernmost sections of the Greenland ice sheet. After a long period of stability (more than 25 years), we have found in a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n4/full/nclimate2161.html ] of the region that the northeast section of the ice sheet is no longer stable. This means global sea levels may rise even faster than was previously anticipated.
The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. The northeast portion has one of the longest ice streams (rivers of ice) and drains a huge area. It was previously thought to be very cold and therefore stable.
Our new study shows how, over the past eight years, it has actually lost an increasing amount of ice. Satellite images show that the ice loss rate here is now the second largest in Greenland – only exceeded by the Jakobshavn Glacier.
Pointing out mis-predictions
This means that other models have underestimated the total mass loss and thus Greenland’s future contributions to global sea level change. To date, calculations of future rises in sea levels have not accounted for the large contribution of ice flowing into the ocean from this part of Greenland. Published in Nature Climate Change, our new study points out this mis-prediction.
Many modelling approaches used to assess future sea level rises have suggested that the northeastern sector of the ice sheet is relatively stable and therefore not contributing to any significant ice mass loss. They have used data from the last decade to model the Greenland ice sheet’s contribution [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7448/full/nature12068.html ] to sea level rise by 2100, but they assume no mass loss in northeast Greenland, which is incorrect.
Declines in the ice sheet can be seen in recent years.
Shfaqat A. Khan et al.
[ http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2312123/stable_ne_greenland_ice_sheet_is_melting_away.html ]
Our study used a combination of old aerial photographs from 1978, and modern satellite observations to measure the thinning of Greenland’s glaciers. Together, they show that the thinning from 1978 to 2003 in the northeast was very limited. But, since 2006 there has clearly been a sustained mass loss in this section.
This increased loss is due to a combination of warmer summer air temperatures and warmer sea temperatures. This regional warming has reduced the extent of sea ice around the ice sheet, which has a stabilising effect on the glacier margins.
Unlike other large glaciers in Greenland, the Northeast ice sheet has an ice stream, which reaches more than 600km directly into its interior. This implies that changes at the marginal can affect the mass balance deep in the centre of the ice sheet. The fact that this ice loss is associated with a major ice stream that channels ice from deep in the interior of the ice sheet does add additional concern about what might happen. Due to the huge size of the Northeast Greenland ice stream, it has the potential to significantly change the total balance of the ice sheet overall in the near future.
New and surprising
The fact that the overall decline of the Greenland ice sheet has generally increased over the past few decades is well known. But the increasing contribution from the very cold northeastern part of the ice sheet during the last seven to eight years is new and very surprising. Over the past decade the front of the glacier has retreated by about 20km from the coast. This compares with a 35km retreat of the Jakobshavn glacier [ http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003374/index.html ] in warmer, western Greenland over the last 150 years.
The Greenland ice sheet has contributed more than any other ice mass to sea-level rise over the past two decades. It accounts for an increase in average levels around the world of 0.5mm per year, out of a total increase of 3.2mm per year. If completely melted, the ice sheet has the potential to raise global sea level by more than seven metres.
Copyright © 2014, The Conversation Trust (UK)
http://theconversation.com/greenland-ice-sheet-is-melting-at-an-accelerating-rate-24444 [with comments] [also at http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2312123/stable_ne_greenland_ice_sheet_is_melting_away.html ]
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Unrecognized Rapid Ice Loss in Northeast Greenland Due to Warming
Helicopter near the front of the Helheim glacier in southeast Greenland.
Catchments of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS), Jakobshavn Isbræ (JI), Helheim Glacier (HG) and Kangerdlugssuaq (KG) draped onto measured ice surface velocities.
Major outlet glaciers in northeast Greenland disintegration into the ocean.
11 April 2014
http://www.unavco.org/science/snapshots/cryosphere/2014/khan.html
===
White House Unveils Plans to Cut Methane Emissions
A worker at a hydraulic fracturing operation in Rifle, Colo. Natural gas production releases methane, which contributes to greenhouse gas pollution.
Credit Brennan Linsley/Associated Press
By CORAL DAVENPORT
MARCH 28, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday announced a strategy to start slashing emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas released by landfills, cattle, and leaks from oil and natural gas production.
The methane strategy is the latest step in a series of White House actions aimed at addressing climate change without legislation from Congress. Individually, most of the steps will not be enough to drastically reduce the United States’ contribution to global warming. But the Obama administration hopes that collectively they will build political support for more substantive domestic actions while signaling to other countries that the United States is serious about tackling global warming.
In a 2009 United Nations climate change accord, President Obama pledged that by 2020 the United States would lower its greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels. “This methane strategy is one component, one set of actions to get there,” Dan Utech, the president’s special assistant for energy and climate change, said on Friday in a phone call with reporters.
Environmental advocates have long urged the Obama administration to target methane emissions. Most of the planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution in the United States comes from carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning coal, oil and natural gas. Methane accounts for just 9 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution — but the gas is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on future global warming.
And methane emissions are projected to increase in the United States, as the nation enjoys a boom in oil and natural gas production, thanks to breakthroughs in hydraulic fracturing technology. A study [ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/us/study-finds-methane-leaks-negate-climate-benefits-of-natural-gas.html ] published in the journal Science last month found that methane is leaking from oil and natural gas drilling sites and pipelines at rates 50 percent higher than previously thought. As he works to tackle climate change, Mr. Obama has generally supported the natural gas production boom, since natural gas, when burned for electricity, produces just half the greenhouse gas pollution of coal-fired electricity.
Environmental groups like the Sierra Club have campaigned against the boom in natural gas production, warning that it could lead to dangerous levels of methane pollution, undercutting the climate benefits of gas. The oil and gas industry has resisted pushes to regulate methane leaks from production, saying it could slow that down.
A White House official said on Friday that this spring, the Environmental Protection Agency would assess several potentially significant sources of methane and other emissions from the oil and gas sector, and that by this fall the agency “will determine how best to pursue further methane reductions from these sources.” If the E.P.A. decides to develop additional regulations, it would complete them by the end of 2016 — just before Mr. Obama leaves office.
Among the steps the administration announced on Friday to address methane pollution:
- The Interior Department will propose updated standards to reduce venting and flaring of methane from oil and gas production on public lands.
- In April, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management will begin to gather public comment on the development of a program for the capture and sale of methane produced by coal mines on lands leased by the federal government.
- This summer, the E.P.A. will propose updated standards to reduce methane emissions from new landfills and take public comment on whether to update standards for existing landfills.
- In June, the Agriculture Department, the Energy Department and the E.P.A. will release a joint “biogas road map” aimed at accelerating adoption of methane digesters, machines that reduce methane emissions from cattle, in order to cut dairy-sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
Advocates of climate action generally praised the plan. “Cutting methane emissions will be especially critical to climate protection as the U.S. develops its huge shale gas reserves, gaining the full greenhouse gas benefit from the switch away from coal,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former White House climate change aide under President Bill Clinton, now with the German Marshall Fund.
Howard J. Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs for the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil and gas companies, said he hoped the steps would not lead to new regulations on his industry. “We think regulation is not necessary at this time,” he said. “People are using a lot more natural gas in the country, and that’s reducing greenhouse gas.”
Since cattle flatulence and manure are a significant source of methane, farmers have long been worried that a federal methane control strategy could place a burden on them. But Andrew Walmsley, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation, said that his group was pleased that, for now, the administration’s proposals to reduce methane from cattle were voluntary.
“All indications are that it’s voluntary,” he said, “but we do see increased potential for scrutiny for us down the line, which would cause concern.”
© 2014 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/us/politics/white-house-unveils-plans-to-to-cut-methane-emissions.html
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A Strategy to Cut Methane Emissions
March 28, 2014
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/03/28/strategy-cut-methane-emissions
===
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis
The Working Group I contribution provides a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change. The report includes a detailed assessment of climate change observations throughout the climate system; dedicated chapters on sea level change, biogeochemical cycles, clouds and aerosols, and regional climate phenomena; extensive information from models, including near-term and long-term climate projections; and a new comprehensive atlas of global and regional climate projections for 35 regions of the world.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
The Working Group II contribution considers the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation. The chapters of the report assess risks and opportunities for societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/
*
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change
The Working Group III contribution assesses the options for mitigating climate change and their underlying technological, economic and institutional requirements. It transparently lays out risks, uncertainty and ethical foundations of climate change mitigation policies on the global, national and sub-national level, investigates mitigation measures for all major sectors and assesses investment and finance issues.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/
===
Cities on frontline of climate change struggle
Half of the world's population now lives in cities - a proportion that's set to rise to two-thirds by 2050. Yet cities are vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change precisely because their locations are fixed. As the UN's climate panel meets in Berlin, how are urban centres coping with the test?
10 April 2014
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26922654
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At-risk cities hold solutions to climate change: UN report
Buildings near the ocean as reports indicate that Miami-Dade county could be one of the most susceptible cities to rising water levels associated with global warming.
Smart choices by cities such as Miami in planning and investment could hold key to cutting emissions, IPCC draft says
11 April 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/11/cities-solution-climate-change-ipcc
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IPCC report: world must urgently switch to clean sources of energy
An open-cast coal mine and power station near Grevenbroich, Germany. After concluding that global warming is almost certainly man-made and poses a grave threat to humanity, the UN-sponsored expert panel on climate change is moving on to the next phase: what to do about it.
UN panel's third report explains how global dependence on fossil fuels must end in order to avoid catastrophic climate change
11 April 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/12/ipcc-report-world-must-switch-clean-sources-energy [with comments]
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Shift to green energy will be tiny brake on growth: U.N.
By Alister Doyle, Environment Corrrespondent
BERLIN Fri Apr 11, 2014 1:52pm EDT
(Reuters) - A radical shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy would slow world economic growth by only a tiny fraction every year, a new draft U.N. report on tackling global warming said on Friday.
Many governments had complained that an earlier draft was not clear in its estimate of the costs of low-carbon energy, which include solar or wind, nuclear and fossil fuels whose greenhouse gas emissions are captured and buried underground.
The new draft, which is being edited by government officials and scientists in Berlin before publication on Sunday, indicates that world economic losses would be small compared to projected costs of heatwaves, floods, storms and rising sea levels.
The study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a main guide for governments working on a U.N. pact due to be agreed in Paris at the end of 2015 to slow global warming, which the IPCC says is extremely likely to be man-made.
The new text, obtained by Reuters, says that tough action to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions would slow rising world consumption of goods and services by 0.06 percentage point per year in this century, in a range of 0.04 to 0.14.
Economists say the changes in consumption measured by the IPCC are almost identical to changes in the more common yardstick of gross domestic product (GDP). Consumption excludes investments included in GDP.
The earlier draft said consumption losses could be up to 12 percent by 2100 but omitted to clarify that the number is the cumulative result of a small brake every year over a century, rather than a hint of economic slump in 2100.
The new draft also adds context that losses are tiny compared to soaring wealth - consumption is set to rise by anywhere from 300 to 900 percent this century, it says.
Several nations said the losses of 12 percent by 2100 cited in the earlier draft sounded alarming and wanted further clarification.
Britain had said the number "could easily be taken out of context by those opposed to climate action", referring to those who are not convinced that climate change is a man-made problem requiring an urgent fix.
The IPCC draft says trillion-dollar shifts in investments are needed to make low-carbon energies the dominant source of energy by 2050, up from 17 percent now, in a shift from conventional fossil fuels.
CLIMATE CASINO
The WWF conservation group set up a mock casino outside the Berlin hotel where the IPCC is meeting, urging governments to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and to shift to renewables.
"We can't continue to gamble with the future of the world we depend on," Stefan Singer of the WWF said.
Environmental group Greenpeace said China's rush to develop dirty coal seemed to be coming to an end in a shift that would avert annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of Australia and Poland combined by 2020.
"Over half of world carbon dioxide emission growth in the past decade has been from China's coal," said Li Shuo of Greenpeace. "China's concern about air pollution may have broken that trend."
Greenpeace projected that curbs adopted by 12 provinces would reduce coal burn by about 350 million metric tons (385. 81 million tons) by 2017 and 655 million tons by 2020, below projected levels.
The IPCC draft does not attempt a formal cost-benefit analysis of action to keep temperatures to any given level.
(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/11/us-climate-growth-idUSBREA3A1BA20140411 [no comments yet]
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UN urges huge increase in green energy to avert climate disaster
The Conservatives have been planning to block further onshore windfarm construction.
'Triple or quadruple renewables', say experts, as pressure grows for UK to deliver on eco priorities
12 April 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/12/un-urges-increase-green-energy-avert-climate-disaster-uk [with comments]
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Leaked climate change report: Scientific body warns of 'devastating rise of 4-5C if we carry on as we are'
The Independent on Sunday has seen a draft of the latest IPCC report, which says the world is not doing enough to combat problem. But, with sufficient political will, all is not lost
Sarah Morrison
Sunday 13 April 2014
Global greenhouse gas emissions over the past decade were the "highest in human history", according to the world's leading scientific body for the assessment of climate change. Without further action, temperatures will increase by about 4 to 5C, compared with pre-industrial levels, it warns, a level that could reap devastating effects on the planet.
The stark findings are to be revealed in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today, the last in a trilogy written by hundreds of scientists on what is considered the definitive take on climate change.
The experts were working on the report until the early hours of yesterday morning. Although the thrust of the report is dramatic, it does say that it is not too late to limit global warming to less than 2C, which experts regard as the minimum needed to avoid radical global shifts. But its suggested scenarios would mean slashing global emissions by 40 to 70 per cent by 2050 from 2010 levels.
This would include "fundamental changes in energy systems and potentially the land", the draft found, such as a move towards renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil energy whose carbon emissions are captured or stored.
"These reports make it crystal clear what is at stake, and no government can justifiably say the case hasn't been made for strong and urgent action," said Bob Ward, the policy director for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "It's affordable and, frankly, the benefits are not even just in terms of climate risks. Shutting down coal-fired power stations in China, for example, will improve local air quality. The only thing standing in our way now is political will. The evidence is conclusive: the current pledges made by governments will be insufficient to get us to our targets."
It was in 2010 that hundreds of governments agreed to reduce emissions so as not to breach the 2C warming mark – the point at which it is thought the risk to food and water supplies would be high, as well as a risk of irreversible changes, such as a meltdown of Greenland's ice sheet.
At this level, we could lose 20 to 30 per cent of our wildlife, as well as face more extreme weather, according to Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth. At 4C of warming, there could be a "devastating" impact on agriculture, wildlife and human civilisation, he added.
But despite global attempts to mitigate climate change picking up in recent years, greenhouse gas emissions grew more rapidly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the previous three decades, according to the final draft of the IPCC report seen by The Independent on Sunday. The main contributors were a "growing energy demand and an increase of the share of coal in the global fuel mix", the draft found.
It estimated that if mitigation efforts are delayed until 2030, it would "substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer-term emission levels".
Almost 80 per cent of the emissions growth between 1970 and 2010 was caused by fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes, according to the report. To reach the 2C target, the experts warned that the global energy supply must dramatically change, with at least a tripling of the use of "zero and low-carbon" energy, such as renewables, nuclear and fossil energy. It added that a growing number of renewable technologies had achieved a level of "technical and economic maturity to enable deployment at significant scale".
The report found that emissions could be "reduced significantly" by replacing coal-fired power plants with more efficient alternatives. It added that the decarbonisation of the electricity system would be a "key component" of cost-effective strategies – but the Government voted down a plan to do this by 2030.
Caroline Flint, the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, said that the report "provides overwhelming and compelling scientific evidence that climate change will have a devastating impact if urgent action is not taken to reduce our carbon emissions and invest in mitigation". She added: "It highlights the need for a global, legally binding treaty to cut carbon emissions at the Paris conference in 2015. But to have influence abroad we must show leadership at home. That's why the next Labour government will set a decarbonisation target for the power sector for 2030, unshackle the Green Investment Bank and reverse the decline in investment in clean energy we have seen under David Cameron."
Kaisa Kosonen, senior political adviser at Greenpeace International, said the report should encourage a move from "a decade of coal to the century of renewables". She added: "The solutions are clear. Our energy system needs to undergo a fundamental transformation from fossil fuels to renewable and smart energy. In recent years, the transition has already started, but it must scale up and speed up. Dirty energy industries are sure to put up a fight, but it's only a question of time before public pressure and economics dictate that they either change or go out of business."
The report also concludes that the next decade could be a "window of opportunity" for mitigating global warming in cities, through locating residential areas in spaces of high employment, achieving diversity of land uses, increasing accessibility and investing in public transport.
Where there's a will...
The world can reach its global warming targets if it reduces its emissions by 40 to 70 per cent. It is about transforming our energy supply and the way we use our land. After The Independent on Sunday viewed a final draft of the findings, we asked some climate change experts what we can do now to mitigate against global warming, before it is too late.
Mark Lynas, author and environmentalist, said: "It is important to remember that every measure of climate-change reduction is still worth it. This report is a like a climate-change version of a suspended sentence. The 5C rise would be catastrophic, but we still have time to avoid the permanent rise in sea levels, for example, and we could avoid losing large agricultural zones. The important thing for people to understand is that it doesn't mean going back to living in caves; we can make many of these changes without making enormous changes to our lifestyles."
Darren Johnson, the chair of the London Assembly, who has been working in the field for a quarter of a century, is less hopeful. "I'm desperately worried about the timescale we have to turn things around," he said. "I'm appalled by the lack of will of previous governments and the coalition." But he still believes there is a chance to reduce emissions and prevent the "worst-case scenario". He added: "We need politicians to grasp this. We need a massive switch to renewables, a big investment in wind and solar power, and to reduce energy and reduce vehicles. This has to be made an absolute priority."
As for Sian Berry, Green Party member and part of the Campaign for Better Transport, she thought it was more about behavioural change. "People can stand up against the construction of large supermarkets, and out-of-town developments that would require people to drive more. They can vote for people who are going to improve public transport. They should be planning their lives around driving less."
[with] Joe Kavanagh and Sarah Kavacs
© independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/leaked-climate-change-report-scientific-body-warns-of-devastating-rise-of-45c-if-we-carry-on-as-we-are-9256708.html [with comments]
===
Greenland ice cores show industrial record of acid rain, success of U.S. Clean Air Act
Ice core drilling at Summit, Greenland.
April 11, 2014
The rise and fall of acid rain is a global experiment whose results are preserved in the geologic record.
By analyzing samples from the Greenland ice sheet, University of Washington atmospheric scientists found clear evidence of the U.S. Clean Air Act. They also discovered a link between air acidity and how nitrogen is preserved in layers of snow, according to a paper [ http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/03/1319441111.abstract ] published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [ http://www.pnas.org/ ].
Forty-five years ago, acid rain was killing fish and dissolving stone monuments on the East Coast. Air pollution rose beginning with the Industrial Revolution and started to improve when the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1970 required coal power plants and other polluters to scrub sulfur out of their smokestacks.
[...]
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/04/11/greenland-ice-cores-show-industrial-record-of-acid-rain-success-of-u-s-clean-air-act/
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How Climate Change Will Affect Our Ancient Relationship With Our Most Important Grain
(Photo: Alix Kreil/Shutterstock)
At a time when the worldwide wheat supply needs to grow, we might not even be able to keep it from diminishing.
By Michael White • April 11, 2014 • 12:00 PM
There was not much good news was in last week’s IPCC assessment [ http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/ ] of the consequences of climate change. The negative impact of climate change is already discernible “on all continents and across the oceans,” and it turns out that a few potential benefits mentioned in the previous IPCC report were false hopes. That report, issued in 2007, suggested that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might make crops grow better. But research conducted since then shows that any beneficial effects of more carbon dioxide on crops are likely to be wiped out by the negative effects of a warmer world. The implications are clear: We have to adapt our agriculture. How easy will this be? Not very. One way to see the challenges we face is to look at our 10,000-year relationship with wheat.
The recent paleo-diet craze notwithstanding, wheat provides about 20 percent of the world’s food calories [ http://www.wheatinitiative.org/about/objectives ]. Humans have cultivated wheat for nearly 10,000 years, and it is now grown on more of the world’s arable land [ http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4011e/y4011e04.htm ] than any other crop. But wheat’s success as a staple crop is not simply a matter of planting more land with wheat. Wheat plays a major role in the world’s diet because, over the millennia, we’ve made continual upgrades that yield more calories per acre.
It may seem surprising that, like wheeled transportation, today’s wheat varieties are the result of thousands of years of R&D. On the surface, growing a crop like wheat seems straightforward. You plant your seeds, provide them with enough water, sunlight, and fertilizer, keep the pests away, and in a few months you harvest. Next year you repeat the process. But if we replaced today’s major wheat varieties with those that were grown only a century ago, we’d plunge much of the world into famine. Without sustained improvements to wheat and other staple crops, there wouldn’t be enough land area in the world to grow the calories needed to feed seven billion people.
THE FIRST MAJOR IMPROVEMENT to wheat occurred without human intervention nearly half a million years ago, when a chance encounter between wild wheat and goat grass [ http://www.genetics.org/content/171/1/323.long ] resulted in a new hybrid form, wild emmer wheat. Wild emmer wheat was gathered as early as 19,000 years ago by people who lived near the Sea of Galilee. Ten thousand years later people began cultivating first wild emmer, and then, following another goat grass hybridization, spelt, the direct ancestor of modern bread wheat. Early farmers in the Fertile Crescent selected wheat plants that grew well, had larger grains, and were easy to thresh. Over the millennia, new spring and winter wheat varieties that could be planted in new environments and in new seasons were created: dwarf wheats with short stalks that that didn’t collapse under the weight of large grain heads and wheats that resist rust and other disease. Major improvements in wheat cultivation were made during the mid-20th century Green Revolution. New varieties introduced by Norman Borlaug [ http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1970/borlaug-bio.html ] and his colleagues led to the quadrupling of wheat yields in Mexico between 1950 and 1985. Over the past 50 years, worldwide production of wheat and other grains has tripled [ http://britishhallmarkingcouncil.gov.uk/assets/goscience/docs/a/article-article-in-science-aaa-mag-food-security.pdf ] (PDF), despite only a nine-percent increase in arable land.
These stunning improvements in agriculture have made it possible for our food production capacity to keep pace with a growing population. But now climate change is beginning to push back. As last week’s report [ http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/report/final-drafts/ ] describes it, while the previous assessment “concluded with medium confidence that in mid- to high-latitude regions moderate warming will raise crop yields, new knowledge suggests that temperate wheat yield decreases are about as likely as not for moderate warming.” Some of that new knowledge is summarized in a study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n4/full/nclimate2153.html ] in this month’s issue of Nature Climate Change. The researchers, led by Andrew Challinor at the University of Leeds, looked at the results of 1,700 studies of crop yields, and found that yields of wheat, maize, and rice are expected to fall as local temperatures go up. By making some improvements in planting time, irrigation methods, and the varieties planted, farmers can mitigate some of the negative effects of climate change over the next few decades. But the authors project that, as the century progresses and the world heats up, “more systemic or transformational adaptations may be needed to avoid the risk of significant reductions in mean yield.”
And even if we can find ways to stave off a decline in crop yields, what we harvest may not deliver the calories we depend on. A study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2183.html ] published this week by a team of scientists at the University of California-Davis provides new evidence that high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes wheat plants to make less protein. “Consequently,” the authors write, “protein available for human consumption may diminish by about 3% as atmospheric CO2 reaches the levels anticipated during the next few decades.”
As the world population grows to nine billion in the next few decades, we should be thinking about the next crop upgrades that will grow our food supply—a task that is challenging enough on its own. But instead of growing our capacity to feed the world, climate change is forcing us to worry about how to prevent our food supply from shrinking.
Michael White is a systems biologist at the Department of Genetics and the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he studies how DNA encodes information for gene regulation. He co-founded the online science pub The Finch and Pea. Follow him on Twitter @genologos.
Copyright 2014 Pacific Standard (emphasis in original)
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/nature-and-technology/climate-change-will-affect-ancient-relationship-important-grain-78848/
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The Statistical Probability That Climate Change Is Not Manmade Is 0.1 Percent
by Jason Koebler
April 11, 2014 // 04:45 PM EST
That climate science relies too heavily on models is one of the last arguments that climate change deniers [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/congresss-scientific-illiterates-are-resigning-the-world-to-ruin ] cling to—many of them argue that proving climate change is manmade [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dystopia-report-the-globe-is-getting-scorched-the-rich-can-buy-votes ] is impossible. But one researcher says he’s basically just done the opposite: he used statistics, actual observed data, and, most importantly, no computer models at all to prove that climate change has not been a natural phenomenon.
“There’s a difference between trying to prove a theory is correct and trying to prove something incorrect,” said Shaun Lovejoy, a nonlinear physicist at McGill University. “If we can’t prove the theory, we can reject the hypothesis that all we have is natural variability. I’ve rejected that with a 99.9 percent level of confidence [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/scientists-to-americans-were-not-divided-on-climate-change ].”
In a paper published in Climate Dynamics [ http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/neweprint/Anthro.climate.dynamics.13.3.14.pdf , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2128-2 , Lovejoy eschews computer models in exchange for empirical data found in ice cores, lake sediment records, Greenland ice cap information, and other commonly used (and commonly published) paleodata dating back to the 16th century, before humans contributed greenhouse gases to the atmosphere [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-800000-year-old-footprint-of-man ].
Lovejoy says that the computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others are extremely useful, but says that climate skeptics aren't totally off base to raise their doubts, when nearly every paper published on the subject relies on one model or another.
“The main rational argument held by climate skeptics is that, the global warming hypothesis depends on these giant models—they say, if the evidence is so strong, we shouldn’t need supercomputers to demonstrate it,” he said. “Well, it turns out, we don’t. Without supercomputers, I got quite similar results, and I can use this paleodata to suggest the probabilities [that climate change falls within established natural variation].”
To do that, Lovejoy used surface air temperature measures from NASA, NOAA, and and the Climate Research Unit, and the paleodata proxies (at 100-year time intervals, where they are believed to be most accurate) to complete a statistical analysis of whether what we saw happen prior to human pollution matches up at all with what we’ve seen since humans began putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It doesn’t.
“Even if you allow for very, very extreme natural fluctuations, the worst you can do is reject the hypothesis [of natural variation] with 99.8 percent certainty,” Lovejoy said. “This study will be a blow to any remaining climate change-deniers … their two most convincing arguments—that the warming is natural in origin, and that the computer models are wrong—are either directly contradicted by this analysis, or simply do not apply to it.”
Of course, scientists haven't been split on that fact in a long, long time—just .01 percent of climate scientists reject global warming [ http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/now-just-001-percent-of-climate-scientists-reject-global-warming ]. Given the level of willful ignorance we’ve seen at places like Fox News [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/28-percent-of-fox-news-climate-coverage-was-accurate-in-2013a-huge-improvement ] and on Capitol Hill [ http://motherboard.vice.com/read/congresss-scientific-illiterates-are-resigning-the-world-to-ruin ], I’m not so sure any climate deniers will concede so easily—but here’s one more piece of evidence, with a completely different methodology, that proves far beyond a reasonable doubt that what’s happening is not natural. Still want to gamble humanity's future on it?
© 2014 Vice Media Inc.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-statistical-probability-that-climate-change-is-natural-is-01-percent [with comments]
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Study: Little chance that global warming is natural
Warmer than average temperatures prevailed across most of the globe in March 2014.
Statistical analysis of temperature data affirms climate models
by Bob Berwyn
Posted on April 12, 2014
FRISCO — A new statistical analysis of temperature records dating back to 1500 suggests it’s more than 99 percent certain that the past century of global warming is caused by the emission of heat-trapping, industrial-age greenhouse gases. The study [ http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/neweprint/Anthro.climate.dynamics.13.3.14.pdf , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-014-2128-2 ] was published online April 6 in the journal Climate Dynamics [ http://link.springer.com/journal/382 ].
In a press release, the McGill University [ http://www.mcgill.ca/ ] researchers said the study doesn’t use complex computer models to estimate the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions. Instead, it examines historical data to assess the competing hypothesis that warming over the past century is due to natural long-term variations in temperature. The results all but rule out the possibility that global warming in the industrial era is just a natural fluctuation in the earth’s climate.
“This study will be a blow to any remaining climate-change deniers,” said McGill University physics professor Shaun Lovejoy. “Their two most convincing arguments – that the warming is natural in origin, and that the computer models are wrong – are either directly contradicted by this analysis, or simply do not apply to it.”
Lovejoy’s study applies statistical methodology to determine the probability that global warming since 1880 is due to natural variability. His conclusion: The natural-warming hypothesis may be ruled out “with confidence levels great than 99%, and most likely greater than 99.9 percent.”
To assess the natural variability before much human interference, the new study uses “multi-proxy climate reconstructions” developed by scientists in recent years to estimate historical temperatures, as well as fluctuation-analysis techniques from nonlinear geophysics. The climate reconstructions take into account a variety of gauges found in nature, such as tree rings, ice cores, and lake sediments. And the fluctuation-analysis techniques make it possible to understand the temperature variations over wide ranges of time scales.
For the industrial era, Lovejoy’s analysis uses carbon-dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels as a proxy for all man-made climate influences – a simplification justified by the tight relationship between global economic activity and the emission of greenhouse gases and particulate pollution, he says.
“This allows the new approach to implicitly include the cooling effects of particulate pollution that are still poorly quantified in computer models,” he added.
While his new study makes no use of the huge computer models commonly used by scientists to estimate the magnitude of future climate change, Lovejoy’s findings effectively complement those of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he says. His study predicts, with 95 percent confidence, that a doubling of carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere would cause the climate to warm by between 2.5 and 4.2 degrees Celsius. That range is more precise than — but in line with — the IPCC’s prediction that temperatures would rise by 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius if CO2 concentrations double.
“We’ve had a fluctuation in average temperature that’s just huge since 1880 – on the order of about 0.9 degrees Celsius,” Lovejoy said. “This study shows that the odds of that being caused by natural fluctuations are less than one in a hundred and are likely to be less than one in a thousand. While the statistical rejection of a hypothesis can’t generally be used to conclude the truth of any specific alternative, in many cases – including this one – the rejection of one greatly enhances the credibility of the other,” he concluded.
Copyright 2014 The Summit County Citizens Voice
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2014/04/12/study-little-chance-that-global-warming-is-natural/ [with comment]
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EPA drastically underestimates methane released at drilling sites
A well pad in southwestern Pennsylvania.
(Photo courtesy of Dana Caulton)
By Neela Banerjee
April 14, 2014
Drilling operations at several natural gas wells in southwestern Pennsylvania released methane into the atmosphere at rates that were 100 to 1,000 times greater than federal regulators had estimated, new research shows.
Using a plane that was specially equipped to measure greenhouse gas emissions in the air, scientists found that drilling activities at seven well pads in the booming Marcellus shale formation emitted 34 grams of methane per second, on average. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that such drilling releases between 0.04 grams and 0.30 grams of methane per second.
The study [ http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/10/1316546111 ], published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to a growing body of research that suggests the EPA is gravely underestimating methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The agency is expected to issue its own analysis of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector as early as Tuesday, which will give outside experts a chance to assess how well regulators understand the problem.
Carbon dioxide released by the combustion of fossil fuels is the biggest contributor to climate change, but methane — the chief component of natural gas — is about 20 to 30 times more potent when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. Methane emissions make up 9% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions and are on track to increase, according to the White House.
The Pennsylvania study was launched in an effort to understand whether the measurements of airborne methane matched up with emissions estimates based on readings taken at ground level, the approach the EPA and state regulators have historically used.
Researchers flew their plane [ http://science.purdue.edu/shepson/research/bai/alar.html ] about a kilometer above a 2,800 square kilometer area in southwestern Pennsylvania that included several active natural gas wells. Over a two-day period in June 2012, they detected 2 grams to 14 grams of methane per second per square kilometer over the entire area. The EPA’s estimate for the area is 2.3 grams to 4.6 grams of methane per second per square kilometer.
Since their upper-end measurements were so much higher than the EPA’s estimates, the researchers attempted to follow the methane plumes back to their sources, said Paul Shepson, an atmospheric chemist at Purdue University who helped lead the study. In some cases, they were able to quantify emissions from individual wells.
The researchers determined that the wells leaking the most methane were in the drilling phase, a period that has not been known for high emissions. Experts had thought that methane was more likely to be released during subsequent phases of production, including hydraulic fracturing, well completion or transport through pipelines.
The airborne readings were a snapshot over two days, Shepson cautioned, and further research over a longer period and at other sites are needed to know whether the Pennsylvania measurements are typical.
Much of the natural gas drilling in southwestern Pennsylvania goes through coal beds, which contain methane that might be leaking out, according to the study. The researchers speculated that underbalanced drilling methods — in which the pressure in the well-bore is lower than the surrounding geology — allows fluids and gases to enter the well-bore and travel to the surface. Energy producers use underbalanced drilling because it allows them to capture valuable supplies of ethane and butane, Shepson said.
The disparity between the researchers’ measurements and the EPA’s data illustrates the limits of the methods used by regulators, Shepson said. The EPA’s approach puts regulators at the mercy of energy companies, which control access to the wells, pipelines, processing plants and compressor stations where methane measurements should be made.
“It’s tough,” Shepson said.
Last year, researchers from Stanford, Harvard and elsewhere reported in PNAS that methane emissions in the continental U.S. might be 50% greater [ http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-emissions-higher-than-estimated-epa-20131127,0,320051.story ] than the EPA's official estimates. Another study by Stanford researchers, published in February in the journal Science, also concluded that the EPA underestimates methane leakage [ http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-leaks-20140213,0,359951.story ] from the natural gas industry and other sources.
[Updated 10 a.m. PDT, April 15: The EPA said it was aware that non-government scientists had come to “different conclusions about the level of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.” Some of those estimates are higher than the EPA’s and some are lower, the agency said in a statement.
A slew of new data about methane and drilling is expected over the next few years, and EPA officials will be reviewing all of it and updating its emissions estimates as necessary, according to the statement.]
The new study comes two weeks after the White House ordered the EPA to identify ways to cut methane from oil and gas production. If the agency decides to issue new rules, they must be in place by the end of 2016.
In February, Colorado became the first state to regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, requiring the industry to detect and fix leaks and install equipment to capture 95% of methane emissions. Last week, Ohio adopted rules to get companies to reduce methane leakage from above-ground equipment used in natural gas development, like valves and pipelines. Those rules do not appear to address leaks during drilling.
Copyright 2014 Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/14/science/la-sci-sn-methane-emissions-natural-gas-fracking-20140414
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Cold Case Closed: Girls Missing Since 1971 Killed In Car Crash
Cheryl Miller (left) and Pamella Jackson.
FILE - In this undated file photo provided by the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office shows a Studebaker with skeletal remains found in Brule Creek near Elk Point, S.D. Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson were last seen May 29, 1971, driving a 1960 Studebaker Lark on their way to a party. The attorney general, sheriffs from Union and Clay counties, and the Union County state's attorney scheduled a news conference Tuesday, April 15, 2014, in Elk Point where they plan plan to release test results and update the investigation into the 1971 disappearance of the two girls near Alcester. (AP Photo/South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, File)
[ http://news.yahoo.com/car-accident-killed-sd-girls-missing-since-1971-194013896.html ]
04/16/2014
ELK POINT, S.D. (AP) — Two South Dakota girls on their way to an end-of-school-year party at a gravel pit in May 1971 drove off a country road and into a creek where their remains lay hidden until last fall when a drought brought their car into view, authorities said Tuesday.
State and local officials held a news conference Tuesday afternoon confirming that the 1960 Studebaker unearthed in September included the remains of Cheryl Miller and Pamella Jackson, both 17-year-olds who attended Vermillion High School.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/16/cheryl-miller-pamella-jackson-found_n_5158584.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
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More, bigger wildfires burning western U.S., study shows
The Las Conchas Fire burned 150,874 acres in New Mexico in 2011. The wildfire was one of hundreds of fires looked at in a new study that found large wildfires in the western U.S. have increased in number and size over the past 30 years.
Credit: Jayson Coil
A satellite image of the 2011 Las Conchas Fire in New Mexico shows the 150,874 acres burned in magenta and the unburned areas in green. This image was created with data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Project that the authors of a new study used to measure large wildfires in the western United States.
Credit: Philip Dennison/MTBS
AGU and University of Utah - Joint Release
17 April 2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Wildfires across the western United States have been getting bigger and more frequent over the last 30 years – a trend that could continue as climate change causes temperatures to rise and drought to become more severe in the coming decades, according to new research.
The number of wildfires over 1,000 acres in size in the region stretching from Nebraska to California increased by a rate of seven fires a year from 1984 to 2011, according to a new study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL059576/abstract ] accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal published by the American Geophysical Union.
The total area these fires burned increased at a rate of nearly 90,000 acres a year – an area the size of Las Vegas, according to the study. Individually, the largest wildfires grew at a rate of 350 acres a year, the new research says.
“We looked at the probability that increases of this magnitude could be random, and in each case it was less than one percent,” said Philip Dennison, an associate professor of geography at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and lead author of the paper.
The study’s authors used satellite data to measure areas burned by large fires since 1984, and then looked at climate variables, like seasonal temperature and rainfall, during the same time.
The researchers found that most areas that saw increases in fire activity also experienced increases in drought severity during the same time period. They also saw an increase in both fire activity and drought over a range of different ecosystems across the region.
“Twenty eight years is a pretty short period of record, and yet we are seeing statistically significant trends in different wildfire variables—it is striking,” said Max Moritz, a co-author of the study and a fire specialist at the University of California-Berkeley Cooperative Extension.
These trends suggest that large-scale climate changes, rather than local factors, could be driving increases in fire activity, the scientists report. The study stops short of linking the rise in number and size of fires directly to human-caused climate change. However, it says the observed changes in fire activity are in line with long-term, global fire patterns that climate models have projected will occur as temperatures increase and droughts become more severe in the coming decades due to global warming.
“Most of these trends show strong correlations with drought-related conditions which, to a large degree, agree with what we expect from climate change projections,” said Moritz.
A research ecologist not connected to the study, Jeremy Littell of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the Alaska Climate Science Center in Anchorage, AK, said the trends in fire activity reported in the paper resemble what would be expected from rising temperatures caused by climate change. Other factors, including invasion of non-native species and past fire management practices, are also likely contributing to the observed changes in fire activity, according to the study. Littell and Moritz said increases in fire activity in forested areas could be at least a partial response to decades of fire suppression.
“It could be that our past fire suppression has caught up with us, and an increased area burned is a response of more continuous fuel sources,” Littell said. “It could also be a response to changes in climate, or both.”
To study wildfires across the western U.S., the researchers used data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Project (MTBS). The project, supported by the U.S. Forest Service and USGS, uses satellite data to measure fires that burned more than 1,000 acres.
While other studies have looked at wildfire records over longer time periods, this is the first study to use high-resolution satellite data to examine wildfire trends over a broad range of landscapes, explained Littell. The researchers divided the region into nine distinct “ecoregions,” areas that had similar climate and vegetation. The ecoregions ranged from forested mountains to warm deserts and grasslands.
Looking at the ecoregions more closely, the authors found that the rise in fire activity was the strongest in certain regions of the United States: across the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada and Arizona- New Mexico mountains; the southwest desert in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas; and the southern plains across western Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and eastern Colorado. These are the same regions that would be expected to be most severely affected by changes in climate, said Dennison.
© 2014 American Geophysical Union
http://news.agu.org/press-release/more-bigger-wildfires-burning-western-u-s-study-shows/
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Wildfires really are on the rise in West, Utah researchers say
Research » U. geographers link climate change to more, bigger fires in the West.
Apr 17 2014
Over the past three decades, wildfires in the western United States have been getting larger and more frequent, according to new research from the University of Utah.
This trend, which U. geographers documented with satellite images, could reflect the increasing temperatures and drought severity associated with climate change [ http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54409427-78/climate-wildfires-dry-utah.html.csp ], according to lead author Philip Dennison.
Dennison’s team examined every fire of at least 1,000 acres from central Nebraska to the Cascades between 1984 and 2011, nearly 7,000 in all. The number of such fires rose by seven per year over the 28 years, and they burned 90,000 more acres a year.
"Fire is really complex. A lot of things contribute to fire in the West," Dennison said.
These findings don’t support the notion, popular among many Utah political leaders, that the federal government has done a poor job managing national forests in the past two decades.
This is because the research documented increased fire in all sorts of ecosystems, not just mountain forests where logging has been sharply reduced, Dennison said.
"There has been a lot of fire supression in the past in the mountains and there has been a build up of fuels. This build up could be leading to more fires and larger fires," said Dennison, an associate professor of geography.
"But we are seeing a trend across the region. We are seeing it in deserts and grassland. The fact that we are seeing it in so many different ecosystems tells us something bigger is going on here."
That bigger thing could be climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions accumulating in the atmosphere because of fossil fuel use. In addition to measuring the number and size of fires, the team looked at seasonal temperatures and precipitation.
The places with the most severe droughts had the biggest increases in fire: western mountain ranges, southwest deserts and grasslands.
[...]
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57832831-78/fire-dennison-fires-acres.html.csp [with comments]
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After Dry Winter In California, Preparations Begin For Harsh Wildfire Season
Western snow pack, 2013 and 2014.
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-sten-odenwald/when-no-one-is-to-blame-r_b_5291288.html ]
U.S. Forest Service crew members work to restore terrain that was bulldozed for a firebreak in the battle against Rim Fire near Tuolumne City, California in September, 2013.
April 17, 2014
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/17/3428231/california-wildfires-early-season-cal-fire/ [with comments]
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Drought Leads To Lake Discovery & Possible Cold Case Resolution
A photo of missing North Texas wife and mother Helen Holladay.
April 18, 2014
LAKE GRANBURY (CBS 11 NEWS) – It’s a mystery nearly 35 years in the making. Now investigators in Granbury think they may have a break in the disappearance of Helen Holladay, who vanished September 29, 1979.
In a way, the ongoing drought played a part in the discovery. Lake Granbury only reluctantly gave up its secret, because the water level is way down. But Thursday a truck cab poked up through the water, and when authorities retrieved it they found not only inches of muck, but something else.
“We did come across the skeletal remains with some other identifying information in there to lead us to know this could be Helen Holladay,” Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds told CBS 11 News. The ID information was found in a purse next to the skeleton, which was still partially clothed.
[...]
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/04/18/drought-leads-to-lake-discovery-possible-cold-case-resolution/ [with embedded video report]
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3-Million-Year-Old Landscape Found Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet
Source: Paul Bierman, University of Vermont
Mark Strauss
4/18/14 8:00am
Scientists have found organic soil 10,000 feet beneath the ice sheet that stretches across 80 percent of Greenland. The discovery reveals that the central region of Greenland's tundra—once covered with forests—was locked away and preserved, as if in an icebox.
"The traditional knowledge about glaciers is that they are very powerful agents of erosion and can effectively strip a landscape clean," says Lee Corbett, a University of Vermont (UVM) graduate student who is a co-author of a study [ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/04/16/science.1249047 ] appearing in Science. "We demonstrate that the Greenland Ice Sheet is not acting as an agent of erosion; in fact, at its center, it has performed incredibly little erosion since its inception almost three million years ago."
"Rather than scraping and sculpting the landscape, the ice sheet has been frozen to the ground, like a giant freezer that's preserved an antique landscape," adds Paul Bierman, a UVM geologist, who is the lead author of the study.
Greenland is a place of great interest to scientists and policymakers studying global climate change, since its huge ice sheet can reveal how other ice sheets in Alaska and Antarctica will melt and grow in response to changes in global temperature. The magnitude and rate of sea level rise caused by the melting of ice remain uncertain factors in climate models.
The ice sheet covering Greenland's tundra has not disappeared during the span of time in which human beings emerged a species. "But if we keep on our current trajectory, the ice sheet will not survive," says Bierman. "And once you clear it off, it's really hard to put it back on."
Copyright 2014 io9
http://io9.com/researchers-have-found-a-3-million-year-old-landscape-f-1564648460 [with comments]
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40 years of science destroyed by one old magazine article
by gjohnsit
Wed Apr 30, 2014 at 10:22 AM PDT
You can't fool George Will. Scientists are just progressives who are looking to consolidate power [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-29/george-will-knocks-out-another-instant-climate-classic.html ] in Washington.
“The whole point of global warming is it's a rationalization for progressives to do what progressives want to do, which is concentrate more and more power in Washington, more and more Washington power in the executive branch, more and more executive branch power in independent czars and agencies, to micromanage the lives of the American people. Our shower heads, our toilets, our bathtubs, our garden hoses -- everything becomes involved in the exigencies of rescuing the planet.”
Sounds like an open and shut case to me. Scientists from all around the world are in a global conspiracy to seize power in the United States. Perfectly logical.
What? You want proof? George Will has proof [ http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2014/01/newsweek-global-cooling-reporter ]!
Gwynne was the science editor of Newsweek 39 years ago when he pulled together some interviews from scientists and wrote a nine-paragraph story [ http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2014/01/Newsweek%20cooling.jpg (next below)]
about how the planet was getting cooler.
Ever since, Gwynne's "global cooling" story – and a similar Time Magazine piece – have been brandished gleefully by those who say it shows global warming is not happening, or at least that scientists – and often journalists – don't know what they are talking about.
Fox News loves to cite it. So does Rush Limbaugh. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has quoted the story on the Senate floor [ http://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-prediction-perils-111927 ].
That one article in 1975 was so brilliant, that it has managed to disprove over 33,000 scientifically researched papers written since.
Forbes used it as evidence of what the magazine called "The Fiction of Climate Science [ http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html ]."
If one magazine article from 39 years ago, buried on page 64, doesn't prove that the world was paralyzed in fear of a new ice age, what does?
Just recently:
Lou Dobbs on Fox News: "This cycle of science… if we go back to 1970, the fear then was global cooling."
Rush Limbaugh: "I call [global warming] a hoax… A 1975 Newsweek cover was gonna talk about the ice age coming. So they're really confused how to play it."
Sean Hannity on Fox News: "If you go back to Time Magazine, they actually were proclaiming the next ice age is coming, now it's become global warming… How do you believe the same people that were predicting just a couple decades ago that the new ice age is coming?"
Donald J. Trump: "This very expensive global warming bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing.…"
Just recently the Washington Times has announced the frightening discovery that it gets cold in the winter [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/16/another-year-of-global-cooling/ ].
I don't want to sound alarmist, but isn't it about time that we become a little concerned that if the scientific community is in such a united, global konspiracy to seize power in the United States, that they would fake their research data on such a massive scale, that there is simply nothing they aren't capable of?
Never before in history has the scientific community engaged in such a complex, long-term plot against one nation.
When you think about it, there is only one logical conclusion: we must declare war on scientists before it is too late.
12:40 PM PT: I need to point out two things:
a) That this is a global scientific konspiracy. Thus scientisits in Brazil, England, South Africa, Germany, etc., instead of trying to overthrow their own countries are trying to overthrow the government of the United States.
That's diabolical!
b) There are 34 peer-reviewed papers saying that humans aren't the cause of global warming. Not one or two, but Thirty-four!
Anyone that knows anything about science knows that all scientific opinion is unanimous when it comes to theories.
© Kos Media, LLC (emphasis in original)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/30/1295885/-40-years-of-science-destroyed-by-one-old-magazine-article [with comments]
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Arctic Methane Emissions ‘Certain to Trigger Warming’
Permafrost terraces in Alaska.
Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildife Service Alaska [ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfws_alaska/6757752485/sizes/l ]/flickr
Coastal erosion reveals the ice-rich permafrost underlying the Arctic Coastal Plain in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
Credit: USGS [ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgeologicalsurvey/12116729705/sizes/l ]
By Bobby Magill
Published: May 1st, 2014
As climate change melts Arctic permafrost and releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, it is creating a feedback loop that is "certain to trigger additional warming," according to the lead scientist of a new study investigating Arctic methane emissions.
The study released this week [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12580/abstract ] examined 71 wetlands across the globe and found that melting permafrost is creating wetlands known as fens, which are unexpectedly emitting large quantities of methane. Over a 100-year timeframe, methane is about 35 times as potent as a climate change-driving greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and over 20 years, it's 84 times more potent.
Methane emissions come from agriculture, fossil fuel production and microbes in wetland soils [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sources-of-methane-emissions-still-uncertain-study-17010 ], among other sources. The study says scientists have assumed that methane emissions from wetlands are high in the tropics, but not necessarily in the Arctic because of the cold temperatures there.
But a spike in global methane concentrations in the atmosphere seen since 2007 can be partly traced back to the formation of fens in areas where permafrost once existed, according to the study, led by University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) biology professor Merritt Turetsky.
The methane emissions stemming from melting permafrost could be critical to determining how fast the climate will change in the future.
“Methane emissions are one example of a positive feedback between ecosystems and the climate system,” Turetsky said. “The permafrost carbon feedback is one of the important and likely consequences of climate change, and it is certain to trigger additional warming.”
Warming and thawing permafrost stimulate methane release, which enhances the greenhouse effect, creating a feedback loop, she said.
“Even if we ceased all human emissions, permafrost would continue to thaw and release carbon into the atmosphere,” Turetsky said. “Instead of reducing emissions, we currently are on track with the most dire scenario considered by the IPCC. There is no way to capture emissions from thawing permafrost as this carbon is released from soils across large regions of land in very remote spaces.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in its fifth assessment on climate change report that the earth’s average temperatures could warm by as much as 8.64°F above 1986-2005 temperatures [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/major-greenhouse-gas-reductions-needed-to-curtail-climate-change-ipcc-17300 ] if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Turetsky’s study shows that fens in the northern latitudes created when permafrost thaws can have emissions similar to wetlands in the tropics. Emissions from fens are generally higher than bogs and some other wetland types because fens, fed by groundwater, have higher nutrient levels and more grasses than bogs, leading to more methane production.
“Our study highlights that northern wetlands without permafrost emit more methane than wetlands with permafrost,” U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist and study co-author Kimberly Wickland said.
“When permafrost is absent, wetlands can be more connected to groundwater, allowing for wetter conditions — the main ingredient for methane production,” she said. “It is possible that methane emissions from wetlands will continue to increase with continued permafrost thaw, but that will depend primarily on whether wetlands stay wet. If they dry, then methane emissions will decline.”
Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goodard Institute for Space Studies in New York and not part of the study, said it's too soon to draw conclusions about how much wetland methane emissions will impact global warming, though scientists widely agree that the amplified feedback is generally going to increase.
The paleo record shows that the Arctic was several degrees warmer during the last interglacial period 120,000 years ago, and there is no evidence of increased levels of methane in the atmosphere during that period, he said.
"It's not to say at some point it won't become an issue," Schmidt said, adding that there is evidence of many "methane burps" across the globe in the very distant past.
"The planet is very capable of surprising us," he said.
By surveying many wetland sites across the globe as Turetsky and her team have, scientists can gain a much broader understanding of the source of methane emissions from melting permafrost and their role in the feedback loop, Schmidt said. Many previous studies have examined just a single site whereas Turetsky's team examined numerous sites across the globe.
"The work these people are doing in terms of trying to synthesize that information and bring it all together, I think it's certainly going in the right direction," he said.
Turetsky's study, “A synthesis of methane emissions from 71 northern, temperate, and subtropical wetlands,” was published this week in the journal Global Change Biology.
*
Related
Huge Methane Leaks Add Doubt on Gas as ‘Bridge’ Fuel
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/huge-methane-leaks-add-doubt-on-natural-gas-as-a-bridge-fuel-17309
Nearing a Tipping Point on Melting Permafrost?
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nearing-a-tipping-point-on-melting-permafrost-15636
*
Copyright © 2014 Climate Central
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-methane-emissions-certain-to-trigger-warming-17374 [with comments]
===
'We Don't Know What Normal Is Anymore': Confronting Extreme Weather on U.S. Farms
05/03/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claire-oconnor/we-dont-know-what-normal-_b_5256595.html [the YouTubes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7IB-uIotAw (with comments) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qe0tiAaEGU (no comments yet), embedded; with comments]
===
The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth
The origins of Planet Earth are revealed.
Cosmos: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY
Presented by FOX Sun 9/8c and National Geographic Mon 9/8c
Season: 1 Episode: 9
Sun May 4, 2014
http://www.hulu.com/watch/630892
http://www.cosmosontv.com/watch/244543555624
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Finally, Neil deGrasse Tyson and "Cosmos" Take on Climate Change
Looked at in the context of our planet's history, what we're doing to Earth appears dire indeed.
May 5, 2014
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/neil-tyson-cosmos-global-warming-earth-carbon [with comments] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/cosmos-climate-change_n_5268839.html (with embedded video report, and comments)]
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Neil deGrasse Tyson 'Goes There' on Climate Change: Creationists and Right-Wingers Freak Out
Answers in Genesis refute science with the Bible and lose. Again.
May 7, 2014
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/neil-degrasse-tyson-goes-there-global-warming-creationist-and-right-wing-crowd [ http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/neil-degrasse-tyson-goes-there-global-warming-creationist-and-right-wing-crowd?paging=off ] [with comments]
--
The Day the Earth Nearly Died
Uploaded on Jan 15, 2012 by Dewi Griffiths [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKj8RedFhs3UjuKq8I51LNw ]
BBC Horizon programme on the Permian Mass Extinction.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/dayearthdied.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn62AjIpWMw [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ps0h_oXQkQ (with comments)]
===
East Antarctica more at risk than thought to long-term thaw: study
Steve Allen via Getty Images
[ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/antarctic-ice-melt_n_5263660.html ]
By Alister Doyle
Mon May 5, 2014 1:22pm EDT
OSLO (Reuters) - Part of East Antarctica is more vulnerable than expected to a thaw that could trigger an unstoppable slide of ice into the ocean and raise world sea levels for thousands of years, a study showed on Sunday.
The Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica, stretching more than 1,000 km (600 miles) inland, has enough ice to raise sea levels by 3 to 4 meters (10-13 feet) if it were to melt as an effect of global warming, the report said.
The Wilkes is vulnerable because it is held in place by a small rim of ice, resting on bedrock below sea level by the coast of the frozen continent. That "ice plug" might melt away in coming centuries if ocean waters warm up.
"East Antarctica's Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant. Once uncorked, it empties out," Matthias Mengel of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, lead author of the study in the journal Nature Climate Change, said in a statement.
Co-author Anders Levermann, also at Potsdam in Germany, told Reuters the main finding was that the ice flow would be irreversible, if set in motion. He said there was still time to limit warming to levels to keep the ice plug in place.
Almost 200 governments have promised to work out a U.N. deal by the end of 2015 to curb increasing emissions of man-made greenhouse gases that a U.N. panel says will cause more droughts, heatwaves, downpours and rising sea levels.
Worries about rising seas that could swamp low-lying areas from Shanghai to Florida focus most on ice in Greenland and West Antarctica, as well as far smaller amounts of ice in mountain ranges from the Himalayas to the Andes.
Sunday's study is among the first to gauge risks in East Antarctica, the biggest wedge of the continent and usually considered stable. "I would not be surprised if this (basin) is more vulnerable than West Antarctica," Levermann said.
BIG THAW
Antarctica, the size of the United States and Mexico combined, holds enough ice to raise sea levels by some 57 meters (188 feet) if it ever all melted.
The study indicated that it could take 200 years or more to melt the ice plug if ocean temperatures rise. Once removed, it could take between 5,000 and 10,000 years for ice in the Wilkes Basin to empty as gravity pulled the ice seawards.
"It sounds plausible," Tony Payne, a professor of glaciology at Bristol University who was not involved in the study, said of the findings. The region is not an immediate threat, he said, but "could contribute meters to sea level rise over thousands of years."
The United Nations panel on climate change says it is at least 95 percent probable that human activities such as burning fossil fuels, rather than natural swings in the climate, are the dominant cause of warming since the 1950s.
Sea levels are likely to rise by between 26 and 82 centimeters (0.85 to 2.7 feet) by the late 21st century, after a rise of 19 cm (0.62 feet) since 1900, it says. Antarctica is the biggest uncertainty.
Click here [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html ] to see the study.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-climatechange-antarctica-idUSKBN0DK0HM20140505 [with comment] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/antarctic-ice-melt_n_5263660.html (with embedded video report, and comments)]
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East Antarctica significantly more at risk of melting than earlier thought
Antarctica is pictured in this undated image.
(NASA/Reuters)
The Wilkes Basin, which is shaded blue, is the largest region with topography below sea level in East Antarctica, the study says.
(Courtesy of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.)
By Terrence McCoy
May 6, 2014 at 6:05 am
Scientists have long contended that some of the most vulnerable ice sheets are in the West Antarctic. In 1998, Nature published an article [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v393/n6683/abs/393325a0.html ] warning that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet “poses the most immediate threat of a large sea-level rise, owing to its potential instability.”
The reports have only gotten worse. In 2012, another paper [ http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n2/full/ngeo1671.html ] said that temperatures in the West Antarctic had risen dramatically more than scientists had earlier thought — 4.4 degrees since 1958. Then just last month, more bad news hit: The West Antarctic is shedding ice at a faster rate than ever [ http://mashable.com/2014/03/28/west-antarctic-ice-melting-sea-level/ , http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL059069/full ], with six regional glaciers disgorging roughly as much ice as the entire Greenland ice sheet.
Now comes the news that the West Antarctic isn’t the only concern. In fact, it may not even be the biggest one.
In the much larger East Antarctica, where melting has the potential to raise sea level by 53 meters (174 feet) [ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140504-antarctica-sea-level-rise-climate-change-science/ ], there’s a small ice volume called the Wilkes Basin. It carries significance well beyond its size. According to a study [ http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html ] published this week in Nature Climate Change, if it melts, it would trigger an “irreversible discharge” of the entire basin, causing an unstoppable sea level rise of up to 4 meters. “East Antarctica may become a large contributor to future sea-level rise on timescales beyond a century,” the study says.
“East Antarctica’s Wilkes Basin is like a bottle on a slant,” lead author Matthias Mengel said [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140505104435.htm ]. “Once uncorked, it empties out.”
The most jarring conclusion? Once the ice begins its flow out of the broken “ice cork,” there’s no stopping it.
“Until recently, only West Antarctica was considered unstable, but now we know that its 10 times bigger counterpart in the East might also be at risk,” explained Anders Levermann [ http://www.science20.com/news_articles/melting_east_antarctica_ice_could_mean_thousands_of_years_of_unstoppable_sea_level_rises-135620 ], another author on the study.
The findings come at a time when scientists from the United Nations to the National Climate Assessment are warning of the looming effects of global warming. ”Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” a recent National Climate Assessment says [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/04/climate-change-present-us-national-assessment ].
Last month, the U.N. also released a report saying that it is nearly too late to reverse global warming. “The window is shutting very rapidly on [limiting global warming to] the 2 degrees target,” Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, told Reuters [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/06/global-warming-un_n_5099769.html ]. “The debate is drifting to ‘maybe we can adapt to 2 degrees, maybe 3 or even 4.’”
Until now the East Antarctic has been considered the more stable of the two. “The East Antarctic ice sheet has long been considered to be stable even under a warmer climate, in contrast to its West Antarctic counterpart,” Mengel said in a statement [ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/east-antarctica-melt-could-cause-a-global-coastal-destruction-9324364.html ]. “We have now shown that this may not be true. … The future sea-level contribution of the East Antarctic ice sheet may be significantly higher than previously estimated.”
“It sounds plausible,” Tony Payne, a professor of glaciology at Bristol University, told Reuters [ http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-climatechange-antarctica-idUSKBN0DK0HM20140505 (just above)]. East Antarctica “could contribute meters to sea level rise over thousands of years,” he said.
Indeed, the process, though significant, appears to be slow. The study found that it may take as many as 200 years for the cork to melt. And after it goes, it will take another several thousand years for the basin to empty into the sea.
Still, with many of the world’s most populous cities — Mumbai, Tokyo, New York — near the ocean, every inch in sea rise counts.
“Once started, it becomes unstoppable,” Levermann said. “At the moment it’s still stable but if it melts then the ice plug alone will result in a global sea-level rise of between 5 and 8 centimeters, but the ice that it will release is going to cause 80 times that amount of sea-level rise.”
© 2014 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/06/east-antartica-significantly-more-at-risk-of-melting/ [with comments]
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Climate change is clear and present danger, says landmark US report
Cattle at a ranch in drought-hit New Mexico last summer.
Photograph: Greg Sorber/Zuma Press/Corbis
National Climate Assessment, to be launched at White House on Tuesday, says effects of climate change are now being felt
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
theguardian.com, Sunday 4 May 2014 10.50 EDT
Climate change [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-change ] has moved from distant threat to present-day danger and no American will be left unscathed, according to a landmark report due to be unveiled on Tuesday.
The National Climate Assessment, a 1,300-page report compiled by 300 leading scientists and experts, is meant to be the definitive account of the effects of climate change on the US. It will be formally released at a White House event and is expected to drive the remaining two years of Barack Obama's environmental agenda.
The findings are expected to guide Obama as he rolls out the next and most ambitious phase of his climate change plan in June – a proposal to cut emissions from the current generation of power plants, America's largest single source of carbon pollution.
The White House is believed to be organising a number of events over the coming week to give the report greater exposure.
"Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present," a draft version of the report says. The evidence is visible everywhere from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean, it goes on.
"Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between."
The final wording was under review by the White House but the basic gist remained unchanged, scientists who worked on the report said.
On Sunday the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said the world needed to try harder to combat climate change. At a meeting of UN member states in Abu Dhabi before a climate change summit in New York on 23 September, Ban said: "I am asking them to announce bold commitments and actions that will catalyse the transformative change we need. If we do not take urgent action, all our plans for increased global prosperity and security will be undone."
Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University and vice-chair of the NCA advisory committee, said the US report would be unequivocal that the effects of climate change were occurring in real-time and were evident in every region of the country.
"One major take-home message is that just about every place in the country has observed that the climate has changed," he told the Guardian. "It is here and happening, and we are not cherrypicking or fearmongering."
The draft report notes that average temperature in the US has increased by about 1.5F (0.8C) since 1895, with more than 80% of that rise since 1980. The last decade was the hottest on record in the US.
Temperatures are projected to rise another 2F over the next few decades, the report says. In northern latitudes such as Alaska, temperatures are rising even faster.
"There is no question our climate is changing," said Don Wuebbles, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and a lead author of the assessment. "It is changing at a factor of 10 times more than naturally."
Record-breaking heat – even at night – is expected to produce more drought and fuel larger and more frequent wildfires in the south-west, the report says. The north-east, midwest and Great Plains states will see an increase in heavy downpours and a greater risk of flooding.
"Parts of the country are getting wetter, parts are getting drier. All areas are getting hotter," said Virginia Burkett, chief scientist for global change at the US Geological Survey. "The changes are not the same everywhere."
Those living on the Atlantic seaboard, Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska who have weathered the effects of sea level rise and storm surges can expect to see more. Residents of coastal cities, especially in Florida where there is already frequent flooding during rainstorms, can expect to see more. So can people living in inland cities sited on rivers.
Some changes are already having a measurable effect on food production and public health, the report will say.
John Balbus, senior adviser at the National Institute of Environmenal Health Science and a lead author of the NCA report, said rising temperatures increased the risk of heat stroke and heat-related deaths.
Eugene Takle, convening lead author of the agriculture chapter of the NCA report, and director of the Climate Science programme at Iowa State University, said heatwaves and changes in rainfall had resulted in a levelling off in wheat and corn production and would eventually cause declines.
In California, warmer winters have made it difficult to grow cherries. In the midwest, wetter springs have delayed planting. Invasive vines such as kudzu have spread northward, from the south to the Canadian border.
Some of the effects on agriculture, such as a longer growing season, are positive. But Takle said: "By mid-century and beyond the overall impacts will be increasingly negative on most crops and livestock."
The assessments are the American equivalent of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. This year's report for the first time looks at what America has done to fight climate change or protect people from its consequences in the future.
Under an act of Congress the reports were supposed to be produced every four years, but no report was produced during George W Bush's presidency.
© 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/04/climate-change-present-us-national-assessment
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White House To Make Another Big Push On Climate With New Report On Impacts
Senior White House counselor John Podesta speaks during the daily briefing at the White House on Monday.
05/05/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/white-house-climate-resea_n_5268626.html [with comments]
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Podesta touts White House record on oil and gas, climate change
May 5, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/05/05/podesta-touts-white-house-record-on-oil-and-gas-climate-change/ [with comments]
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John Podesta: Congress won’t stop EPA’s climate rules
'So they may try, but there are no takers at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue,' Podesta says.
5/5/14
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/john-podesta-epa-congress-106351.html [with comments]
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National Climate Assessment
Climate Change Impacts In The United States
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/
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National Climate Assessment
Climate Change Impacts In The United States
Highlights
The Highlights provides a concise version of the full report including an Overview, select evidence for the 12 Report Findings, and summaries of the impacts of climate change on every region of the United States.
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights
*
National Climate Assessment
Climate Change Impacts In The United States
Full Report
The full report of the National Climate Assessment provides an in-depth look at climate change impacts on the U.S. It details the multitude of ways climate change is already affecting and will increasingly affect the lives of Americans.
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report
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Climate Change Is Already Here, Says Massive Government Report
05/06/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/national-climate-assessment_n_5270541.html [with embedded video report, and (over 4,000) comments]
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U.S. Climate Has Already Changed, Study Finds, Citing Heat and Floods
MAY 6, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/science/earth/climate-change-report.html [with embedded video, and comments]
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Earth Could Warm 11 Degrees By 2100: U.S. Climate Assessment
May 6, 2014
http://ens-newswire.com/2014/05/06/earth-could-warm-11-degrees-by-2100-u-s-climate-assessment/ [no comments yet]
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Statement on the 2014 National Climate Assessment Report
Al Gore
May 6, 2014 : 10:24 AM
The latest National Climate Assessment provides clear evidence of what many Americans are already experiencing in their daily lives: the growing impact of extreme weather events linked to global warming.
When Pensacola, Florida, gets two feet of rain in 26 hours, that is exactly the kind of extreme and destructive event that scientists have long warned will become way more common.
From stronger and more frequent storms that take lives and damage infrastructure, to deeper droughts and heat waves that hurt agriculture and threaten water supplies, to rising seas that threaten our coastal cities -- the way Miami Beach is ALREADY threatened -- the costs of carbon are growing rapidly.
The good news is that we now have the technologies and alternatives we need to really solve the climate crisis -- but we must start acting now.
More and more businesses and governments around the world understand this and have started working to stop recklessly dumping global warming pollution into the atmosphere, as if it is an open sewer. And under the leadership of President Obama, the United States has also now finally begun to make important changes to our energy infrastructure and start reducing emissions of pollution—but we can and must do more. It’s time for Congress to step up and enact legislation to make it easier to shift to a more efficient and competitive -- and job rich -- renewable, low carbon economy.
We have no time to waste. We must end our addiction to dirty fossil fuels and transition to clean, renewable energy in order to ensure a prosperous and sustainable future.
Copyright 2014 Al Gore
http://blog.algore.com/2014/05/statement_on_the_2014_national.html [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/national-climate-assessment_b_5279943.html (with comments)]
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Top Republicans Blast Obama For Secretive Climate Change Agenda
Patrick Howley, Political Reporter
3:27 PM 05/06/2014
Top Republican lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee blasted the White House Tuesday for keeping details from the American public about the executive actions that it plans to force through on the climate change front “in an attempt to continue advancing an agenda” against fossil fuels.
“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” according to a White House report released Tuesday about the impact of climate change. The report includes data from thirteen agencies and was promoted Monday by Obama counselor John Podesta, who said that the report will help the administration enact its Climate Action Plan, which can be implemented through executive action.
But the report is short on details about the president’s plans, according to a joint statement made by House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, Energy and Power Subcommittee chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield, and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee head Rep. Tim Murphy.
“This lengthy report is short on details about the policy responses that the president and his advisors are seeking to unilaterally impose on the American people. These are the same details that this committee has been seeking for months, and that the administration is keeping from the public in an attempt to continue advancing an agenda against affordable and reliable energy,” according to the statement.
“EPA Administrator McCarthy testified that it is ‘unlikely [ http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/subcommittee-examines-administration%E2%80%99s-climate-agenda ]‘ that any of EPA’s rules will have a meaningful impact on the global climate. But we do know that it is likely that these rules will have a significant impact on jobs, the economy, and energy reliability. Moreover, the Obama administration and its federal agencies are already spending billions of dollars annually on global warming activities, and it is still largely unclear what these programs have accomplished and how they will change the weather,” according to the statement.
“This committee will remain vigilant in its oversight of the president’s climate agenda, to help the public understand the effects of these actions and their benefits to the climate. This is the same agenda that was rejected by the Democratic Senate in the 111th Congress and is being pared back in Europe and other regions as the consequences on consumers and competitiveness are starting to be realized,” according to the statement.
Copyright 2014 The Daily Caller
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/06/top-republicans-blast-obama-for-secretive-climate-change-agenda/ [with comments]
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Louie Gohmert blasts 800-page WH report: ‘This climate change was global freezing in the 1970s’
May 8, 2014
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/08/louie-gohmert-blasts-800-page-wh-report-this-climate-change-was-global-freezing-in-the-1970s/ [with embedded audio, and comments]
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The Next Frontier In The War Over Science
05/06/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/war-on-science_n_5269527.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
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The U.S. Faces Longer Summers of Worsening Ozone Pollution
Los Angeles hides behind a curtain of haze.
(Rennett Stowe / Flickr [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/2344713782/in/photostream/ ])
Scientists have linked a warmer climate to a 70 percent increase in unhealthy summertime ozone levels.
John Metcalfe | May 6, 2014
The public soundtrack of the United States of the future could be a discordant symphony of hacking, wheezing, and curses. That's because as the world continues to warm [ http://www.citylab.com/topics/climate-change/ ], the number of troublesome high-ozone days throughout the country will likely pile up, say researchers.
Ozone, a principal ingredient in urban smog, forms when sunlight interacts with chemicals emitted by things like factories, power plants, and car engines, as well as vegetation. Using a fancy, new IBM supercomputer [ http://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/resources/yellowstone ], scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder simulated atmospheric conditions over dozens of coming summers right down to the hour, and what they found was worrisome. The models showed a steady upward trend in ozone levels based on current rates of emissions for its source-chemicals, leading by 2050 to as much as a 70 percent increase in unhealthy ozone pollution during U.S. summers.
There are a few reasons for this projected leap, which is described in a study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD020932/abstract ] funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. The atmospheric reactions that create ozone happen at a quicker pace in warmer temperatures (the kind of temperatures, for instance, that've defined the world's recent onslaught of record-hot years [ http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/january/nasa-finds-2013-sustained-long-term-climate-warming-trend/ ]). Plants also play a role because sweltering weather prompts them to release more volatile organic compounds, substances that help produce ozone. Methane, another ozone-enabler, has seen a global rise in prevalence; the potent climate-bending gas has more than doubled [ http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/ghg-concentrations.html ] in atmospheric concentration since the pre-industrial era.
As ozone is most likely [ http://www.epa.gov/air/ozonepollution/basic.html ] to soar to harmful levels in already polluted, heat island-shrouded urban environments, these findings do not bode well for America's major cities. Although the threat affects the country broadly, the scientists see certain regions that already struggle with foul air at risk of long stretches of unhealthy ozone. They say [ http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/11540/climate-change-threatens-worsen-us-ozone-pollution ]:
Unless emissions of specific pollutants that are associated with the formation of ozone are sharply cut, almost all of the continental United States will experience at least a few days with unhealthy air during the summers, the research shows. Heavily polluted locations in parts of the East, Midwest, and West Coast in which ozone already frequently exceeds recommended levels could face unhealthy air during most of the summer.
"It doesn’t matter where you are in the United States – climate change has the potential to make your air worse," said NCAR scientist Gabriele Pfister, the lead author of the new study. "A warming planet doesn't just mean rising temperatures, it also means risking more summertime pollution and the health impacts that come with it."
Those health impacts range from chest pain to congestion to coughing to shortness of breath. Ozone can worsen serious conditions like emphysema and bronchitis, and is especially harmful for children who have asthma. Breathing in ozone on a regular basis "may permanently scar lung tissue," says the EPA [ http://www.epa.gov/air/ozonepollution/health.html ]. The damage even stretches over to the world of trees, as certain species exposed to the stuff manifest stunted growth and messed-up leaves [ http://www.epa.gov/air/ozonepollution/ecosystem.html ], like these guys:
Courtesy of the National Park Service [ http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/pubs/bioindicators/yellowpoplar.cfm ]
Copyright 2014 The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.citylab.com/weather/2014/05/us-faces-longer-summers-worsening-ozone-pollution/9041/ [with comments]
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Climate change could worsen ozone levels across the U.S., study says
Smog could get worse by mid-century as climate change boosts summer temperatures and accelerates the formation of ozone, a new study says. Above, a hazy day in Los Angeles.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Climate change will make it harder to control smog, experts warn
If present trends continue, the number of days with unhealthy air will jump by 70% by mid-century
Warmer temperatures will accelerate the formation of ozone, study says
By Tony Barboza
May 6, 2014, 6:05 AM
Smog could worsen across the United States in the coming decades as climate change boosts summer temperatures and makes ozone levels more difficult to control, a new study says.
Americans can expect the number of days with unhealthy air to jump 70% by mid-century unless emissions of smog-forming pollutants are slashed, according to a study led by the federally funded National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Higher temperatures accelerate the formation of lung-searing ozone, the main ingredient of smog, and could set back decades of improvements in air quality, the study says.
"It will hinder our progress,” said Gabriele Pfister, a scientist at NCAR and lead author of the study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD020932/abstract ] published this week.
Pollution regulators, however, could keep the warming climate from degrading air quality if they adopt stringent emissions controls, the research showed.
To reach their conclusions, scientists used a supercomputer to simulate pollution levels across the country as the planet warms.
They found a widespread increase in the number of days above federal health standards for ozone by 2050 if emissions of smog-forming pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, remain at their current levels.
Under that scenario, almost the entire continental U.S. would have at least a few days of unhealthy air a year while the most heavily polluted metropolitan areas would see ozone levels exceed health standards for most of the summer, the research shows.
Cutting smog-forming emissions by 60% to 70% however, would achieve big reductions in ozone pollution even as the climate warms, the analysis found, with the number of days above federal health standards falling to below 1% of current levels.
“If we can really cut back on our local emissions then we can clean up our air,” Pfister said.
The link between higher temperatures and ozone was already known, but Pfister said it was the first fine-grain analysis of how the warming climate could affect air quality in all regions of the country.
Ozone is a harmful gas that forms when pollutants from vehicle tailpipes, power plants and factories react in sunlight. Heat speeds up those reactions, so it will become increasingly difficult to keep ozone levels in check as temperatures rise from the human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Contributing to the problem is methane, a greenhouse gas emitted by oil and gas activity, landfills and livestock that is contributing to higher ozone levels globally. Higher temperatures also cause plants to release more volatile organic compounds, which can boost smog formation when they mix with man-made pollutants.
Ozone can inflame and damage the airways, trigger respiratory problems and aggravate asthma and bronchitis. Children are at the highest risk from ozone pollution because their lungs are still developing.
Current federal health standards limit concentrations of ozone to 75 parts per billion over an 8-hour period.
Based on robust scientific evidence that ozone is harmful at lower levels than previously thought, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering stricter health standards that would force state and local regulators to make further emissions cuts.
Recent reports by local air agencies [ http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-california-air-pollution-officers-20140423,0,2814744.story ] and the American Lung Assn. [ http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-0430-air-pollution-20140430,0,2614465.story ] have also warned of the effects of climate change on smog, particularly in California, where residents of Greater Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley breathe the dirtiest air in the nation.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-ozone-smog-20140505-story.html [with comments]
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Miami Finds Itself Ankle-Deep in Climate Change Debate
Scenes of street flooding, like this one on Alton Road in Miami Beach in November, are becoming increasingly common.
MAY 7, 2014
MIAMI BEACH — The sunny-day flooding was happening again. During high tide one recent afternoon, Eliseo Toussaint looked out the window of his Alton Road laundromat and watched bottle-green saltwater seep from the gutters, fill the street and block the entrance to his front door.
“This never used to happen,” Mr. Toussaint said. “I’ve owned this place eight years, and now it’s all the time.”
Down the block at an electronics store it is even worse. Jankel Aleman, a salesman, keeps plastic bags and rubber bands handy to wrap around his feet when he trudges from his car to the store through ever-rising waters.
A new scientific report on global warming [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html ] released this week, the National Climate Assessment [ http://www.globalchange.gov/ncadac ], named Miami as one of the cities most vulnerable to severe damage as a result of rising sea levels. Alton Road, a commercial thoroughfare in the heart of stylish South Beach, is getting early ripples of sea level rise caused by global warming — even as Florida’s politicians, including two possible contenders for the presidency in 2016, are starkly at odds over what to do about it and whether the problem is even real.
“The theme of the report is that climate change is not a future thing, it’s a ‘happening-now’ thing,” said Leonard Berry, a contributing author of the new report and director of the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at Florida Atlantic University. “Alton Road is one of the now things.”
Sea levels have risen eight inches since 1870, according to the new report, which projects a further rise of one to four feet by the end of the century. Waters around southeast Florida could surge up to two feet by 2060, according to a report by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact [ http://southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/pdf/Regional%20Climate%20Action%20Plan%20FINAL%20ADA%20Compliant.pdf ]. A study by the Florida Department of Transportation concluded that over the next 35 years, rising sea levels will increasingly flood and damage smaller local roads in the Miami area.
The national climate report found that although rapidly melting Arctic ice is threatening the entire American coastline, Miami is exceptionally vulnerable because of its unique geology. The city is built on top of porous limestone, which is already allowing the rising seas to soak into the city’s foundation, bubble up through pipes and drains, encroach on fresh water supplies and saturate infrastructure. County governments estimate that the damages could rise to billions or even trillions of dollars.
In and around Miami, local officials are grappling head on with the problem.
[...]
Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, supports carbon-cutting efforts, even as he acknowledges that they will come with some economic cost. In April, he convened a packed hearing at the Miami Beach City Hall on the encroaching waters.
“With sea level rise, you’ve got to get to core of the problem,” Mr. Nelson said at the hearing. “You have to lessen the amount of CO2. It’s politically treacherous and costly. But at the end of the day, something like that is going to have to get passed. Otherwise the planet is going to continue to heat up.”
But three prominent Florida Republicans — Senator Marco Rubio [ http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/r/marco_rubio/index.html ], former Gov. Jeb Bush [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/jeb_bush/index.html ] and the current governor, Rick Scott [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/richard_l_scott/index.html ] — declined repeated requests to be interviewed on the subject. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Bush are viewed as potential presidential candidates. Political analysts say the reluctance of the three men to speak publicly on the issue reflects an increasingly difficult political reality for Republicans grappling with the issue of climate change, particularly for the party’s lawmakers from Florida. In acknowledging the problem, politicians must endorse a solution, but the only major policy solutions to climate change — taxing or regulating the oil, gas and coal industries — are anathema to the base of the Republican Party. Thus, many Republicans, especially in Florida, appear to be dealing with the issue by keeping silent.
“Jeb likes to take positions on hot-button issues, the same with Rubio,” said Joseph E. Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami. “On immigration they are further mainstream on that than the rest of the G.O.P. But on this, Republicans are dead set against taking action on climate change on the national level. If you have political aspirations, this is not something you should talk about if you want to win a Republican primary.”
[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/us/florida-finds-itself-in-the-eye-of-the-storm-on-climate-change.html [with comments]
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Global Warming Report
05/07/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-szep/the-daily-szep-global-war_1_b_5282467.html [with comments]
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"Follow the leaders." (a/k/a "Politicians discussing global warming")
[ https://www.flickr.com/photos/isaacordal/5717242910/in/photostream/ , http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/culture-lifestyle/140325/street-art-politicians-discussing-global-warming ]
May 07, 2014
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/07/1297486/-The-Most-Striking-Climate-Change-Sculpture-You-ll-Ever-See [with comments]
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Study: Weld Co. methane levels triple state estimates
A natural gas structure sits in a field in Windsor on March 28.
(Photo: V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan)
Ryan Maye Handy, The Coloradoan
9:55 a.m. MDT May 8, 2014
Boulder scientists measuring greenhouse gas levels over the Denver-Julesburg basin have found triple the amount of methane floating over Weld County than government estimates show.
Most of the methane is coming from oil and gas operations within the county, which in 2012 had 24,000 wells scattered across its prairies, according to a study [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013JD021272/abstract ] released Wednesday by the University of Colorado Boulder [ http://cires.colorado.edu/news/press/2014/airbornemeasurements.html ] and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with 21 times the impact of carbon dioxide on climate change, according to the study. It is also a common byproduct of oil and gas operations, which release methane in relatively unknown quantities.
Using an airborne measuring device during two days of testing in May 2012, the Boulder scientists measured methane levels in the atmosphere. Their study found that oil and gas operations over the Denver-Julesburg basin in northeastern Colorado produced about 19 metric tons of methane per hour, three times the amount reported in the Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.
"These discrepancies are substantial," Gabrielle Petron, the study's lead author, said in a written statement. "Emission estimates or 'inventories' are the primary tool that policy makers and regulators use to evaluate air quality and climate impacts of various sources, including oil and gas sources. If they're off, it's important to know."
According to the study, levels of benzene and volatile organic compounds were also higher than government estimates.
As potent as methane is, it's a natural element in Weld County. Natural gas, one of the main commodities being extracted from the shale formations in Northern Colorado, is 90 percent methane, said Ken Carlson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Colorado State University.
There are a half a million head of cattle in Weld; the manure they produce is also a source of methane. The coal seams in Weld County, formed millions of years ago, also contain methane.
Until recently, the amount of methane being released by oil and gas operations has been difficult to track, and it is likely not limited to one part of the extraction and production process, said Carlson. The Boulder study is one of many over the years that has tried to pin down the amount of methane emissions and where they come from — the study estimates 75 percent of Weld County commissions come from oil and gas development.
With the support of its three largest oil and gas operators — Anadarko, Encana and Noble Energy — Colorado recently approved new air quality standards meant to tackle and limit methane emissions. The standards should go into full effect by the end of the year. The regulations were heralded as the first of their kind in the nation, Carlson said.
While the Boulder study's findings are significant, Carlson said they were not exhaustive when it comes to studying how methane emissions can be limited.
"It certainly shouldn't be discounted," Carlson said of the study on Wednesday. "It seems like this issue is more complicated than a two-day flyover."
"We need more data," he added.
Since last spring, a group of CSU researchers have pursued that task — gathering data on methane emissions from all aspects of the oil and gas production process, said Dan Zimmerle, a scientist working on the project. The researchers are running two of five studies commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund, which they expect to release in six to eight months.
Zimmerle couldn't discuss the preliminary findings of the study due to confidentiality agreements, nor could he discuss the methods being used, although he said they are different from those used in the Boulder study.
The CSU study is "the first really major update to methane emissions" from the Colorado oil and gas industry since 1996, Zimmerle said.
"As for where we think it will be used? Hopefully by the industry to improve their reduced emissions," he said.
At a glance
A study by University of Colorado Boulder and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists found levels of methane, benzene and volatile organic compounds exceeded government estimates during two days of measurements in May 2012. The findings of emissions from oil and gas activities:
• Methane: 19 metric tons per hour (three times the estimate)
• Benzene: 380 pounds per hour (estimated at 50 pounds)
• Volatile organic compounds: 25 metric tons per hour (estimated at 13.1 tons)
Copyright 2014 The Coloradoan
http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/local/2014/05/07/study-weld-co-methane-levels-triple-state-estimates/8829179/ [with comments]
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Swelling CO2 Cuts Nutrition in Food
Carbon dioxide is known to promote plant growth, but its effects on other aspects of crops are poorly understood. In many cases, the benefits of increased CO2 in the atmosphere will be offset by heat stress, drought and extreme weather tied to climate change.
Credit: Schellack via Wikimedia Commons [ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baray_rice_paddies.jpg ]
Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere equals less vital nutrients in crops like rice and soybeans
By Tiffany Stecker and ClimateWire
May 8, 2014
A carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere could strip important food crops of their nutrients, a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13179.html ] suggests.
Wheat, rice, barley and certain legumes like soybeans are classified as C3 plants, which corresponds to their ability as plants to convert carbon dioxide into energy. These C3 grasses and legumes have been shown to lose up to 15 percent of zinc and iron, the top two minerals in the human body, in experiments that artificially enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide. These elements are crucial for a healthy immune system, cell development, hemoglobin production and brain function.
"Global iron and zinc deficiencies are an enormous public health problem," said Samuel Myers, lead author of the paper and a physician and research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. A lack of sufficient zinc and iron in the diet has led to the loss of about 63 million life years annually, Myers said.
The researchers placed C3 crops, as well as C4 crops like corn and sorghum, into open-top chambers in free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments in the United States, Australia and Japan. The FACE chambers were filled with CO2-laden air with concentrations of up to 584 parts per million. The current concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is around 400 ppm.
Carbon dioxide is known to promote plant growth, but its effects on other aspects of crops are poorly understood. In many cases, the benefits of increased CO2 in the atmosphere will be offset by heat stress, drought and extreme weather tied to climate change. A recent paper [ http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/3/034011/article ] in Environmental Research Letters found that hotter-than-normal weather during a corn crop's critical flowering period could wipe out any benefits tied to CO2 (ClimateWire [ http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059996407/ ], March 20).
Although C4 crops were less affected than C3 crops, the nutritional values of the latter were still affected. C3 crop yields tend to increase more with CO2 concentration, as they are less efficient in using carbon dioxide than C4 plants and benefit more from the boost. But the increase in production is not likely linked to a lower relative amount of nutrients, because the responses from different varieties were so different.
Some types of rice became slightly more nutritious, for example.
"It is not as simple as it being a dilution," said Andrew Leakey, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of plant physiology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Other unknown factors involved
This means there are other factors at play, Leakey said, although they remain a mystery and an area of promising future research. This paper represents the first large-scale data set for such an experiment to come out of the University of Illinois.
About 2.4 billion people derive at least 60 percent of their food from C3 crops, Myers said. The breakdown between C3 and C4 plants in terms of global calories consumed depends on one's geographic location. Americans and Africans eat more C4 crops like corn, sorghum and millet, while Asian diets consist primarily of rice, a C3 grass.
"Having identified the problem, this is something we should direct energy toward solving," Leakey said.
Efforts are underway to develop crops that deliver more iron and zinc, as well as other necessary nutrients, Myers said. But it's a complex process to fortify crops using plant breeding techniques, genetic engineering and better crop management practices.
Mourad Moursi, a fellow with the nonprofit research organization HarvestPlus, said biofortification of crops with nutrients has made strides in the past few years. HarvestPlus has successfully developed a sweet potato high in vitamin A, iron-rich beans, and wheat and rice with higher levels of zinc for consumers in Africa and Asia. In some cases, the level of nutrients can increase by 70 percent.
"We were not out to specifically counter the effects of climate change," said Moursi, explaining the development of these crops. "It was really to provide another tool in the box of tools for reducing malnutrition in the developing world."
HarvestPlus received $29.5 million from donors in 2012. Restrictions on genetic engineering can limit the advances, Moursi said.
"We would like to drive [nutrient levels] up as high as we can," Moursi said, but HarvestPlus uses conventional methods because of regulatory and trade restrictions on sending genetically modified crops to Asia and Africa.
The paper was published yesterday in Nature.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. http://www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
© 2014 E&E Publishing, LLC
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/swelling-co2-cuts-nutrition-in-food/ [with comments]
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Marco Rubio: I Don't Believe Humans Are Causing Climate Change
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual conference in National Harbor, Md., Thursday, March 6, 2014. Rubio said the US is the one nation that can rally people around the globe against the rise of totalitarian governments.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
by Sam Stein
Posted: 05/11/2014 9:43 am EDT Updated: 05/12/2014 10:59 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- Of all the states that stand to suffer from climate change, Florida is facing potentially the bleakest consequences. A New York Times report [ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/us/florida-finds-itself-in-the-eye-of-the-storm-on-climate-change.html (excerpted, fourth item above)] noted last week that global warming was already having an effect on everyday life, like leading to flooding on streets that never used to flood.
Meanwhile, a National Climate Assessment has named Miami as the city most vulnerable to damage from rising sea levels, while a Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact paper warned that water in the area could rise by as much as two feet by the year 2060 [ http://southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/pdf/Sea%20Level%20Rise.pdf ].
On Sunday, one of the state's U.S. senators, Marco Rubio (R), was pressed about the general subject of climate change, and despite the warnings outlined above, he argued that there was nothing lawmakers could or should do to reverse the climate trends (whose origins he also questioned).
"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," Rubio said, according to excerpts released by ABC "This Week [ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/sen-marco-rubio-yes-im-ready-to-be-president/ ]," "and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy."
"The fact is that these events that we're talking about are impacting us, because we built very expensive structures in Florida and other parts of the country near areas that are prone to hurricanes. We've had hurricanes in Florida forever. And the question is, what do we do about the fact that we have built expensive structures, real estate and population centers near those vulnerable areas?" he asked. "I have no problem with taking mitigation activity."
The transcript does not indicate what Rubio's "mitigation activity" would consist of, but his assessment that the laws currently being proposed to address climate change won't help, and will only hurt the economy, is at odds with his own history as a politician.
As the leader of the Florida House in 2008, Rubio helped pass a law directing the state Department of Environmental Protection to develop a carbon emissions capping system. He has since distanced himself from that vote, arguing that he never supported cap and trade, only the idea that the state should look into such a system. And when the system ultimately did not pass, he cheered its failure.
But those who worked on that bill in Florida have called him an opportunist and a flip-flopper on the topic.
"For Rubio to say that all along he knew it wouldn't really come to pass is illogical," Jay Liles of the Florida Wildlife Federation, who lobbied for the bill, told the Miami Herald in 2009 [ http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/rubio-now-assails-cap-and-trade-plan-though-he-earlier-backed-legislation/1057950 ]. "He set the stage for (cap and trade) to happen."
Copyright ©2014 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/11/rubio-climate-change_n_5305082.html [the YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91YibqaE__g (with comments); with (separate) embedded video report, and (over 6,000) comments]
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Runaway Glaciers in West Antarctica
Published on May 12, 2014 by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCryGec9PdUCLjpJW2mgCuLw ]
Glaciologist Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine, narrates this animation depicting the processes leading to the decline of six rapidly melting glaciers in West Antarctica. A new study by Rignot and others finds the rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea. Full press release at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQMtb1Pd07E [with comments] [version without the sound/narration, for some reason the version embedded in many of the related articles, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adh86ma3oxw (with comments)]
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Antarctic Glacier Loss Is ‘Unstoppable,’ Study Says
Thwaites Glacier is a huge ice stream draining into the Amundsen Bay
[ http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27381010 ]
Recent European Space Agency satellite data has also recorded the glaciers' thinning and retreat
[id.]
West Antarctica bed topography. Areas colored brown are below sea level. Sea level itself is colored yellow, and green areas are above sea level.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SVS
[ http://www.livescience.com/45534-west-antarctica-collapse-starts.html ]
The glaciers studied by Rignot's research team. Red indicates areas where flow speeds have increased over the past 40 years. The darker the color, the greater the increase. The increases in flow speeds extend hundreds of miles inland.
Credit: Eric Rignot
[id.]
Although the Amundsen Sea region is only a fraction of the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet, NASA estimates the region contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4 feet.
Source: NASA/GSFC/SVS via Bloomberg
[ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-12/antarctic-glacier-melt-appears-unstoppable-nasa-says.html ]
New data has scientists at the University of California and NASA convinced we've "passed the point of no return" with a slab of ice that makes up 10% of Antarctica's total land ice volume, enough to raise the global sea level by 15 feet if it melts
by Bryan Walsh
May 12, 2014
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the keys to global sea level rise. Running up against the Amundsen Sea, it contains an estimated 527,808 cu. miles (2.2 million cu. km) of ice, about 10% of Antarctica’s total land ice volume. That’s enough ice to raise global sea level by more than 15 ft. (4.6 m) were it all to melt, collapse and flow into the ocean, which in turn would swamp coastal cities [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205142132.htm ] as far inland as Washington, D.C.
And according to new research, that’s exactly what’s beginning to happen.
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract ] that the group of six glaciers on the ice sheet directly draining into the Amundsen Sea are rapidly melting, as warming ocean water eats away at the base of the ice shelf. That’s making the ice around the West Antarctic Ice Sheet increasingly unstable—and the researchers could find no clear geographical obstacle that would slow down the retreat of the glaciers. Essentially, that means these glaciers—which collectively hold enough ice to boost sea levels by 4 ft (1.2 m)—”have passed the point of no return,” Eric Rignot, a glaciologist with UC-Irvine and NASA and the lead author on the paper, said in a statement. “The retreat of this ice seems to be unstoppable.”
Another new study [ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/735.abstract ] in the journal Science by researchers at the University of Washington gives us an idea of how long that irreversible decline might take—and the news isn’t good. The researchers estimate that the Thwaites Glacier—one of the six Antarctic glaciers also studied in the NASA paper—could collapse within 200 to 500 years. And the collapse of the Thwaites and its bordering glaciers could lead to the loss of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, like removing the keystone from a bridge
It’s not news that the ice sheets of Antarctica are melting as the glaciers that border the sea retreat, adding to sea-level rise. (Sea levels only rise when land ice melts into the oceans—the loss of floating ocean ice, like the shrinking Arctic sea ice on the North Pole, makes no difference on sea level.) But both of these new studies provide far more precise data on just what’s happening in Antarctica—and what will likely happen in the future. The NASA/UC-Irvine study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, is based on some 40 years of observation of the glaciers, chiefly using radar data from satellites. The researchers found that the grounding line—the point where the glacier first loses contact with the land as it moves into the sea—is retreating as the flow rate of the glaciers increases [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXVWGGmNRiI (next below)].
As the grounding line retreats, more of the glacier lifts off the land and floats, becoming an ice shelf. As more of the glacier becomes waterborne, there’s less friction, which in turn speeds the flow of the glacier. At the same time, the glacier beds slope deeper below sea level, which further speeds the glaciers, like a roller coaster going down a hill. “They all reinforce each other to make the retreat unstoppable,” Rignot said.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had projected [ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/sea-level-in-the-5th-ipcc-report/ ] that sea level will rise by about 35.5 in (98 cm) at most by 2100, but that prediction will likely need to be revisited in the wake of these new studies. As the Science study shows, it will likely be a few hundred years before the glaciers along West Antarctica fully collapse and melt into the sea. That does give us plenty of time to figure out a way to rapidly reduce carbon emissions and slow the pace of climate change, which in turn can give us more time to deal with sea level rise.
But these studies are sobering—the warming we have already baked into the climate system seems to have put into motion a physical changes that will utterly remake the planet we live on.
© 2014 Time Inc.
http://time.com/96173/antarctic-glacier-loss-is-unstoppable-study-says/ [with comments]
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Scientists warn of FOUR-FOOT sea level rise from GLACIER melt
Collapse of ice sheets is 'unstoppable,' boffins claim
By Iain Thomson, 12 May 2014
Scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine have concluded that the glaciers of West Antarctica are now in terminal decline and the resultant ice loss could raise global sea levels by up to four feet over the next few centuries.
"The collapse of this sector of West Antarctica appears to be unstoppable," said UC Irvine glaciologist Eric Rignot, who is also with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"The fact that the retreat is happening simultaneously over a large sector suggests it was triggered by a common cause, such as an increase in the amount of ocean heat beneath the floating parts of the glaciers. At this point, the end appears to be inevitable."
The research, published [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract ] in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, examines 40 years of measurement data from the Western Antarctic and uses data from two European Remote Sensing satellites that have been measuring glacial changes between 1992 and 2011 with radar that maps surface movement to within a quarter of an inch.
Predictions on the rate of melting have been based on two data sets: the amount of the glaciers that are floating in the ocean and melting and the ground topography that they flow over. The team determined that the amount of floating ice has increased markedly, and the grounding point, where the glacier rests on bedrock, has retreated inland.
In March, research by UC Irvine showed that the flow rate of Western Antarctic glaciers into the ocean has increased by 77 per cent from 1973 to 2013 and this, coupled with the latest research, suggests that the glaciers "have passed the point of no return."
"This sector will be a major contributor to sea level rise in the decades and centuries to come," Rignot said. "A conservative estimate is that it could take several centuries for all of the ice to flow into the sea."
He suggested that the amount of sea-level rise from these glaciers could be difficult for humans to cope with, but also that if these Western glaciers let go then this will accelerate ice loss from the rest of the continent.
© Copyright 2014 The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/12/scientists_warn_of_fourfoot_sea_level_rise_as_west_antarctic_glaciers_melt/ [with embedded video (same as the YouTube included with the item next below), and comments]
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NASA spots 'unstoppable' Antarctic ice sheet melt
Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica.
NASA
Flow rates of the glaciers; red is where the rate has increased over the past 40 years, and the darker the color, the higher the increase. Note the scalebar; this is happening over a vast area.
Photo by NASA
[ http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/05/12/global_warming_antarctic_glacier_collapse_may_now_be_inevitable.html ]
Two new studies indicate that part of the huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting a slow collapse in an unstoppable way. Alarmed scientists say that means even more sea level rise than they figured.
A high-resolution map of the Thwaites Glacier's thinning ice shelf. The glacier now appears to be in the early stages of collapse, with full collapse potentially occurring within a few centuries.
(Photo Credit: David Shean / University of Washington)
[ http://www.sciencecodex.com/airborne_radar_surveys_and_databased_models_indicate_west_antarctic_ice_sheet_collapse_is_underway-133483 ]
Originally published May 12, 2014 at 10:55 AM | Page modified May 13, 2014 at 6:44 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — The huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting a glacially slow collapse in an unstoppable way, two new studies show. Alarmed scientists say that means even more sea level rise than they figured.
The worrisome outcomes won't be seen soon. Scientists are talking hundreds of years, but over that time the melt that has started could eventually add 4 to 12 feet to current sea levels.
A NASA study looking at 40 years of ground, airplane and satellite data of what researchers call "the weak underbelly of West Antarctica" shows the melt is happening faster than scientists had predicted, crossing a critical threshold that has begun a domino-like process.
"It does seem to be happening quickly," said University of Washington glaciologist Ian Joughin, lead author of one study. "We really are witnessing the beginning stages."
It's likely because of man-made global warming and the ozone hole which have changed the Antarctic winds and warmed the water that eats away at the feet of the ice, researchers said at a NASA news conference Monday.
"The system is in sort of a chain reaction that is unstoppable," said NASA glaciologist Eric Rignot, chief author of the NASA study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "Every process in this reaction is feeding the next one."
Curbing emissions from fossil fuels to slow climate change will probably not halt the melting but it could slow the speed of the problem, Rignot said.
Rignot, who also is a scientist at the University of California Irvine, and other scientists said the "grounding line" which could be considered a dam that stops glacier retreat has essentially been breached. The only thing that could stop the retreat in this low-altitude region is a mountain or hill and there is none. Another way to think of it is like wine flowing from a horizontal uncorked bottle, he said.
Rignot looked at six glaciers in the region with special concentration on the Thwaites glacier, about the size of New Mexico and Arizona combined. Thwaites is so connected to the other glaciers that it helps trigger loss elsewhere, said Joughin, whose study was released Monday by the journal Science.
Joughin's study uses computer simulations and concludes "the early-stage collapse has begun." Rignot, who used data that showed a speed up of melt since the 1990s, said the word "collapse" may imply too fast a loss, it would be more the start of a slow-motion collapse and "we can't stop it."
Several outside experts in Antarctica praised the work and said they too were worried.
"It's bad news. It's a game changer," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who wasn't part of either study. "We thought we had a while to wait and see. We've started down a process that we always said was the biggest worry and biggest risk from West Antarctica."
The Rignot study sees eventually 4 feet (1.2 meters) of sea level rise from the melt. But it could trigger neighboring ice sheet loss that could mean a total of 10 to 12 feet of sea level rise, the study in Science said, and Rignot agreed.
The recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change don't include melt from West Antarctic or Greenland in their projections and this would mean far more sea level rise, said Sridhar Anandakrishnan, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. That means sea level rise by the year 2100 is likely to be about three feet, he said.
Even while the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting, the much larger East Antarctic ice sheet seems stable because it is cooler, Scambos said [but see East Antarctica-related items above].
Climate change studies show Antarctica is a complicated continent in how it reacts. For example, just last month Antarctic sea ice levels -- not the ice on the continent -- reached a record in how far they extended. That has little or no relation to the larger more crucial ice sheet, Scambos and other scientists say.
© 2014 Associated Press
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2023590735_apxsciantarcticmelt.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3mxy8G978 (comments disabled), as embedded; with comments] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/west-antarctic-ice-sheet-melting_n_5310679.html (with embedded video report, and comments) and http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2014-05-12/nasa-spots-worrisome-antarctic-ice-sheet-melt (no comments yet)]
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What Does U.S. Look Like With 10 Feet of Sea Level Rise?
May 13th, 2014
New research indicates that climate change has already triggered an unstoppable decay [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/melt-of-key-antarctic-glaciers-unstoppable-studies-find-17426 ] of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The projected decay will lead to at least 4 feet of accelerating global sea level rise within the next two-plus centuries, and at least 10 feet of rise in the end.
What does the U.S. look like with an ocean that is 10 feet higher? The radically transformed map would lose 28,800 square miles of land, home today to 12.3 million people.
[...]
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/u.s.-with-10-feet-of-sea-level-rise-17428 [with various interactive maps embedded/linked, and comments] [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/sea-level-rise_n_5318769.html (with the same various interactive maps embedded/linked, and comments)]
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Here's the Obvious Response to Climate Change Everyone Is Ignoring
by Dr. Reese Halter
Posted: 05/13/2014 10:12 pm EDT Updated: 05/14/2014 5:59 pm EDT
It's 96 degrees (Fahrenheit) in Los Angeles as I pen this story. We are in the midst of yet another vicious heatwave. It's tinderbox-dry outside and this is the third consecutive drought year throughout California. We are in extreme fire danger. Again.
Yesterday the epic [ http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4003812.htm ] news on the wire was based upon 20 years of NASA satellite data showing very clearly that six glaciers in Western Antarctica are rapidly melting into the Amundsen Sea. It will raise ocean levels worldwide by a minimum of four feet. "The retreat of these glaciers seems to be unstoppable," says glaciologist Professor Eric Rignot of University of California at Irvine and NASA.
A massive slab of ice about 10 percent of Antarctica is melting. It contains enough water to raise global sea levels by an astounding 15 feet.
Photo credit: businessinsider.com
[full-size image at http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-14-WesternAntarticasMeltingGlaciersEarthDrReeseHalter ]
This comes on the heels of the previous day's discovery of unprecedented rising greenhouse gases strengthening winds, that normally bring rainfall to southern Australia, instead those winds are now driving that much needed precipitation southward toward Antarctica.
In fact, temperatures have risen so dramatically that the Southern Ocean winds are stronger now than at any other time in the past 1,000 years [ http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/05/12/4001608.htm ]. This is terrible news for agriculture in southern Australia. "As greenhouse gases continue to rise we'll get fewer storms chased up into Australia," says paleo-climatologist Dr Nerilie Abram of the Australian National University.
In our ever-warming world, trillions of indigenous bark beetles [ https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-insatiable-bark-beetle/id470261399 ] have killed over 30 billion mature conifers throughout Western North America. In mountain areas where cold temperatures previously prevented these insects from thriving, our once-healthy but now water-starved trees are becoming more and more vulnerable to the voracious appetite of these deadly pests.
Photo credit: Warren Carlton.
[full-size image at http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-14-BarkBeetlesEarthDrReeseHalter.jpg ]
Last week, the National Climate Assessment [ http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/ ] revealed the following: Human-induced climate disruption is being felt in every corner of the United States. Water is becoming scarcer in dry regions. Torrential rainfalls are increasing in wet regions. Heatwaves are becoming more common and more severe. Wildfires are growing worse. Thirty billion mature pines are dead across the western mountains from heat-loving insect epidemics.
And all this has occurred from an average warming of just slightly less than 2 degrees (Fahrenheit) over most land areas across America. "Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of summer heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced," concluded a panel of eminent scientists that contributed to the National Climate Assessment.
Meanwhile at the North Pole the Arctic Ocean is missing an astonishing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/missing-sea-ice-ameg-and-_b_1753994.html ] amount of older, thicker ice as well as summer ice cover as evidence by these two pictures.
Photo credit: Google Earth.
It's not only melting icecaps that are an irrefutable harbinger of a run-away warming Earth, tree rings [ http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/06/3423860.htm ] are showing my colleagues that wild weather is vividly on the rise in southeastern Australia and New Zealand.
More droughts and more flooding are seen from New Zealand's Kauri tree ring growth patterns as researchers have glimpsed 4,000 years back in time. The last 100 years have brought the most El Ninos (droughts) and La Ninas (floods) that these sentinels of nature have experienced in four millenniums. This undeniable trend directly correlates with the increased burning of fossil fuels in the Anthropocene by Homo sapiens.
Bleached corals are lifeless. It takes a minimum of several thousand years for coral like those of the Great Barrier Reef to accumulate in size to form exquisite habitat, and crucial spawning and nursery areas. It's been about 30 years since bleaching was first discovered on Australia's reefs and today three quarters of the largest reef on the globe is dead. Why is the Australian government not doing everything within its means to protect [ http://www.smh.com.au/comment/great-barrier-reef-on-brink-of-devastation-in-relentless-quest-for-coal-20140203-31x6q.html ] the remaining live one quarter of the reef?
Photo credit: telegraph.uk.co
Earlier this spring, the United Nations (UN) Climate Report warned [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/climate-change-report-ipcc-governments-unprepared-live-coverage ] the worst is yet to come. It noted that human-induced climate disruption has begun to thwart farmers growing food, thus impinging upon the global food supply. It specifically pointed out that the oceans (which provides three out of every four breaths of oxygen for 7.2 billion humans) are in dire trouble with warming temperatures and ocean acidification having already killed three quarters of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef on the globe. The UN has issued a clarion wake-up call stating that the forthcoming climate disruption is unprecedented in type and scale to the wellbeing, health and survival of the human race.
In the early 1980s the annual price tag [ http://news.yahoo.com/losses-extreme-weather-rise-200-billion-over-past-130504043--business.html ] from wild weather cost the giant reinsurer Munich Re $50B, in the past decade that sticker price has increased fourfold to almost $200 billion per annum.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund conservatively calculated that fossil fuel industry, the makers of climate disruption, receive at least $2 trillion [ http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/fossil-fuel-subsidies-causing-fiscal-instability-unep/5419822 ] in taxpayer subsidies each year.
Mountains [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/the-last-great-coal-rush_b_4463291.html ] of coal are being barged down the polluted Mahakam River every few moments. Indonesia is racing to supply the insatiable demand for coal from China and India.
Photo credit: greenpeace.org
[full-size image at http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-05-14-BorenoCoalMinesEarthDrReeseHalter ]
This autumn there is about a 75 to 80 percent [ http://www.businessinsider.com/el-nino-weather-2014-4 ] probability of a fierce El Nino as the Western Pacific is currently off the charts hot. Some experts are predicting that it could be biggest global weather story of 2014.
I strongly suggest that it would be far more prudent to spend $2 trillion annually on future-proofing every town and city on planet Earth from the pending wrath of wild weather rather than subsidizing the demise of the human race and most other life-forms, too.
Wouldn't you agree?
Earth Dr Reese Halter is a broadcaster, biologist, educator and author of the upcoming book Shepherding the Sea: The Race to Save Our Oceans.
Copyright ©2014 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/saving-planet-earth_b_5320139.html [the YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6RtbTesKNY (with comments), embedded; with comments]
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Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat by Military Researchers
Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that a report’s findings on the rate of climate change would influence foreign policy.
Credit Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency
By CORAL DAVENPORT
MAY 13, 2014
WASHINGTON — The accelerating rate of climate change poses a severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict, a report published Tuesday [ http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks , http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/news/FlipBooks/MAB2014_web/flipviewerxpress.html , http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/MAB_2014.pdf , graphics http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks/graphics , videos http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks/videos ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsWlMukvp0k {with comments} and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4BF7X2M8ZM {with comments}, next below, respectively)]
by a leading government-funded military research organization concluded.
The CNA Corporation [ http://www.cna.org/ ]'s Military Advisory Board [ http://www.cna.org/centers/military-board ] found that climate change-induced drought in the Middle East and Africa is leading to conflicts over food and water and escalating longstanding regional and ethnic tensions into violent clashes. The report also found that rising sea levels are putting people and food supplies in vulnerable coastal regions like eastern India, Bangladesh and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam at risk and could lead to a new wave of refugees.
In addition, the report predicted that an increase in catastrophic weather events around the world will create more demand for American troops, even as flooding and extreme weather events at home could damage naval ports and military bases.
In an interview, Secretary of State John Kerry signaled that the report’s findings would influence American foreign policy.
“Tribes are killing each other over water today,” Mr. Kerry said. “Think of what happens if you have massive dislocation, or the drying up of the waters of the Nile, of the major rivers in China and India. The intelligence community takes it seriously, and it’s translated into action.”
Mr. Kerry, who plans to deliver a major speech this summer on the links between climate change and national security, said his remarks would also be aimed at building political support for President Obama’s climate change agenda, including a new regulation to cut pollution from coal-fired power plants that the administration will introduce in June.
“We’re going to try to lay out to people legitimate options for action that are not bank-breaking or negative,” Mr. Kerry said.
Pentagon officials said the report would affect military policy. “The department certainly agrees that climate change is having an impact on national security, whether by increasing global instability, by opening the Arctic or by increasing sea level and storm surge near our coastal installations,” John Conger, the Pentagon’s deputy under secretary of defense for installations and environment, said in a statement. “We are actively integrating climate considerations across the full spectrum of our activities to ensure a ready and resilient force.”
The report on Tuesday follows a recent string of scientific studies that warn that the effects of climate change are already occurring and that flooding, droughts, extreme storms, food and water shortages and damage to infrastructure will occur in the near future.
In March, the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review [ http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf ], the agency’s main public document describing the current doctrine of the United States military, drew a direct link between the effects of global warming — like rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns — and terrorism.
“These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad, such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability and social tensions — conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence,” the review said.
Tuesday’s report is an update of a report by the center’s Military Advisory Board in 2007, the first major study to draw the link between climate change and national security. The report’s authors said the biggest change in the seven years between the two studies was the increase in scientific certainty about global warming, and of the link between global warming and security disruptions.
The 2007 report [ http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/National%20Security%20and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change%20-%20Print.pdf ] also described climate change as a “threat multiplier” or a problem that could enhance or contribute to already existing causes of global disruption. The 2014 report updates that language, calling climate change a “catalyst for conflict” — a phrase intentionally chosen, the report’s authors said, to signal that climate change is an active, driving force in starting conflict.
“In the past, the thinking was that climate change multiplied the significance of a situation,” said Gen. Charles F. Wald, who contributed to both reports and is retired from the Air Force. “Now we’re saying it’s going to be a direct cause of instability.”
The most recent scientific reports on climate change warn that increasing drought in Africa is now turning arable land to desert. The national security report’s authors conclude that the slow but steady expansion of the Sahara through Mali, which is killing crops and leaving farmers starving, may have been a contributing force in the jihadist uprising in that African country in 2012. Since then, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has seized control of northern Mali and remains in conflict with the Malian government.
The report warns that rising sea levels in the United States imperil many of the Navy’s coastal installations. Last week, the White House released a National Climate Assessment [ http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report ] report citing Norfolk, Va., as one of the cities most vulnerable to damage by rising sea levels. Norfolk is home to the world’s largest naval base as well as a nuclear submarine construction yard — all of which are vulnerable to destruction by rising sea levels, found in Tuesday’s report.
“Norfolk is so big, it’s so important to the Navy, it’s important to Virginia for jobs, and it would go,” General Wald said.
A scientific report released this week found that global warming has contributed to the melting of a large section of a West Antarctica ice sheet, which could lead to a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more.
Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a vocal skeptic of the established science that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming, scoffed at the idea that climate change is linked to national security threats.
“There is no one in more pursuit of publicity than a retired military officer,” he said of the report’s authors. “I look back wistfully at the days of the Cold War. Now you have people who are mentally imbalanced, with the ability to deploy a nuclear weapon. For anyone to say that any type of global warming is anywhere close to the threat that we have with crazy people running around with nuclear weapons, it shows how desperate they are to get the public to buy this.”
Rear Adm. David Titley, a co-author of the report and a meteorologist who is retired from the Navy, said political opposition would not extinguish what he called the indisputable data in the report.
“The ice doesn’t care about politics or who’s caucusing with whom, or Democrats or Republicans,” said Admiral Titley, who now directs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk [ http://solutions2wxrisk.psu.edu/ ] at Pennsylvania State University.
© 2014 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/us/politics/climate-change-deemed-growing-security-threat-by-military-researchers.html [with comments]
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Catalyst for Chaos
Joshua Davies - US Navy
Climate change threatens American security, military brass say, and Congress is AWOL on the issue.
BY Keith Johnson
MAY 13, 2014
A brass-studded group of former generals and admirals warned Tuesday that the accelerating pace of climate change poses a real and growing risk to U.S. security, and expressed frustration at political polarization that makes it harder for the United States to address the issue.
The report, released [ http://www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks ] late Tuesday by the CNA Corporation's Military Advisory Board, is an update to the group's 2007 study that first highlighted in a significant way the possible security risks posed by extreme weather, food and water shortages, and melting ice that is opening the Arctic. The authors, sixteen former three- and four-star generals and admirals, said the update was prompted by "growing concern over the lack of comprehensive action by both the United States and the international community" on climate change.
"Politically charged debate has silenced sound public discourse," the group said, adding "we believe that congressional action is warranted -- and it is needed now." Taking aim at those who have criticized the Pentagon under the Obama administration for making energy and climate change core concerns for the Defense Dept., the officers said that "political concerns and budgetary limitations cannot be allowed to dominate what is essentially a salient national security concern for our nation."
The report highlights a number of worries about the security impacts of climate change that have gone from hypothetical to happening. That includes the rapid opening of the Arctic Ocean--where neither the United States nor the rest of the international community is prepared for the pace of change, the report notes-- drought and water stresses that drive instability in already shaky parts of the world, and the threat to the U.S. military's domestic bases and installations from extreme weather and rising sea levels.
The dire predictions come just a week after Pentagon officials and a bevy of former high-ranking officers, some of whom are also on the advisory board, said that the Obama administration's latest National Climate Assessment underscored the here-and-now threats [ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/06/a_clear_and_present_danger ] that climate change poses to U.S. security.
One example of the way that climate change is helping create fresh security headaches is found in Mali, the report says. The triple whammy of climate change, desertification, and resulting ethnic tension overwhelmed the Malian government in recent years. As a result, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an offshoot off the terror group that had once been confined to North Africa, took over the northern part of the country, where it remains today.
Another way in which climate change is shaping the military's mission, the report said, is found in the Asia-Pacific region. Stronger and more frequent storms, coupled with densely populated coastlines, are turning natural-disaster response into a core part of U.S. Pacific Command's responsibilities, and becoming a crucial element of the U.S. military "rebalancing" to Asia. Joint humanitarian assistance and disaster response drills with Asian militaries are becoming part and parcel of the Pentagon's pivot to Asia.
And that's the easy part; "the volatile mixture of population growth, instability due to the growing influence of nonstate actors, and the inevitable competition over scarce resources will be multiplied and exaggerated by climate change," the report said.
"I am afraid we will soon start getting into varsity-level instability," retired Adm. David Titley, the first chair of the Navy's task force on climate change, said in the report.
Among the members of the advisory board [ http://www.cna.org/solution-centers/institute-public-research/military-advisory-board/board-members ] who signed off on the study, titled "National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change," are former senior officers from the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, as well as retired Royal Navy Adm. Neil Morisetti, recently the climate-change envoy for the British Foreign Secretary.
Copyright 2014 Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/13/catalyst_for_chaos [no comments yet]
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Rubio’s 2016 launch dominated by climate
All In with Chris Hayes
May 14, 2014
Chris Hayes talks to his panel about Marco Rubio’s evolving statements on climate change.
©2014 NBCNews.com
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/55178741/#55178741 [with transcript], http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/rubios-2016-launch-dominated-by-climate-256190019951 [with comments] [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKtGjqxkubk (with comments)]
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New U.S.G.S. National Climate Change Viewer Focuses on Watersheds
May 14, 2014
http://www.decodedscience.com/new-u-s-g-s-national-climate-change-viewer-focuses-watersheds/45584 [no comments yet]
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National Climate Change Viewer (NCCV)
http://www.usgs.gov/climate_landuse/clu_rd/apps/nccv_viewer.asp
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Ground-breaking study: Hurricanes reaching peak strength farther north as globe warms, tropics expand
Visualization of Hurricane Sandy
(NASA)
By Jason Samenow
May 14, 2014 at 1:32 pm
As the Earth’s oceans have warmed over the last three decades, the grounds for destructive hurricanes have crept northward finds a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7500/abs/nature13278.html ], published by three of the world’s leading tropical weather experts. This observed poleward jog could reflect the first robust signal that the build-up of greenhouse gases from human activity is influencing tropical storms, the authors say.
Identifying a firm connection between hurricane activity and manmade global warming has proven elusive. The 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [ http://ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ ] stated there was “low confidence” in any link between observed changes in tropical storms and human activity.
But this poleward shift in the peak strength of tropical storms could be the smoking gun linking human-induced climate change and hurricane behavior.
The study, to be published in the journal Nature Thursday, analyzed where tropical storms around the world reached peak intensity between 1982 and 2012. It finds this location of maximum storm strength leaped poleward about 33 miles per decade in the Northern Hemisphere and 38 miles per decade in the Southern Hemisphere.
“The absolute value of the latitudes at which these storms reach their maximum intensity seems to be increasing over time, in most places,” says Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor and co-author of the new paper. “The trend is statistically significant at a pretty high level.”
The author team of James Kossin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), MIT’s Emanuel, and Gabriel Vecchi of NOAA links the storm shift to an expansion of the Hadley Cell – a massive atmospheric circulation that transports heat from the tropics to the mid-latitudes and drives the easterly trade winds. In other words, the tropics are occupying a larger area. The expansion “is likely due largely to human influences” or the heating effect of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the study says.
As the subtropics are now becoming more tropical, this is reflected in an observed increase in the ingredients required for hurricanes to flourish the study finds. To intensify, hurricanes need warm ocean waters as fuel and a lack of vertical wind shear – or shifting winds with altitude – which otherwise can rip apart their thunderstorm complexes. Toasty water and weak wind shear have become more common in the subtropics over time the authors say, which they analyze by investigating changes in a metric called the genesis potential index – trends shown below.
Changes in the hurricane “genesis potential index”. Increases are shown in red, decreases in blue.
(Kossin et al., 2014)
This “genesis potential index” – a proxy for favorable storm environments – has ticked up in the subtropics (red shades) while declining some in the equatorward extremes (southern section in Northern Hemisphere) of the tropics (blue shades).
The authors warn the shift in storms may have significant implications for major coastal regions in the mid-latitudes, including the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S.
“[It would have] potentially profound consequences to life and property,” the study says. ”Any related changes to positions where storms make landfall will have obvious effects on coastal residents and infrastructure. Increasing hazard exposure and mortality risk from tropical cyclones may be compounded in coastal cities outside of the tropics, while possibly being offset at lower latitudes.”
Tom Knutson, a NOAA scientist not involved in the study, says the study is interesting but that verdict is still out as to whether this northward shift continues.
“We can’t regard it as a prediction of what will happen in coming decades,” Knutson says. ”It is more a call for further study to understand the changes to date.”
Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at WeatherBell who has published work on global hurricane trends, says the research is “consistent with other climate research” suggesting an “expansion” of the tropics. But Maue also cautioned “our understanding of the behavior of tropical cyclones within our current climate is still incomplete”.
Hurricane activity varies significantly year-to-year owing to a complex array of atmospheric cycles. Human influences can only be detected over long time horizons of at least a few decades.
This year’s Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1. A fairly quiet season is predicted due to the likely development of El Niño, which generates hostile wind shear in the tropical Atlantic [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/04/11/forecasters-predict-lackluster-hurricane-season-thanks-to-el-nino-forecast/ ]. Today, AccuWeather released its hurricane season outlook [ http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/atlantic-hurricane-season-forecast-2014/26660844 ] projecting 10 named storms and four hurricanes, compared to the recent average of 12 and 6, respectively.
© 2014 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/05/14/ground-breaking-study-hurricanes-reaching-peak-strength-farther-north-as-globe-warms-tropics-expand/ [with comments]
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The Tropics are Moving, And They’re Bringing Their Cyclones With Them
Hurricanes Since 1851
Every known hurricane and tropical storm since 1851. http://uxblog.idvsolutions.com/
Photo: John Nelson / IDV Solutions / NOAA
[ https://www.flickr.com/photos/idvsolutions/7823589446/in/photostream/ ]
Over the past 30 years hurricanes have been hitting their peak intensities nearer to the poles
By Colin Schultz
May 15, 2014
Hurricanes tend to occur in two big bands, with the big spiraling storms spinning up near the boundary between the tropics and sub-tropics on either side of the equator. Over the past 30 years, however, tropical conditions have been expanding, pushing out towards the poles at a rate of around 0.5 to 1 degree latitude per decade, says Roger Harrabin for the BBC [ http://http//www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27408964 ]--a shift possibly motivated by greenhouse gases or other pollutants. As the tropics have pushed outward, suggests a new study [ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v509/n7500/abs/nature13278.html ], so too have the hurricanes.
Over the past 30 years hurricane tracks have been on the move, says the study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's James Kossin, with the latitude at which hurricanes have been hitting their peak strength shifting towards the planet's poles.
From 1982 to 2012, says Jason Samenow for the Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/05/14/ground-breaking-study-hurricanes-reaching-peak-strength-farther-north-as-globe-warms-tropics-expand/ (just above)], the “location of maximum storm strength leaped poleward about 33 miles per decade in the Northern Hemisphere and 38 miles per decade in the Southern Hemisphere.”
The exact rate of the change varies for different ocean basins, with there being only a muted, or even non-existent, effect in the North Atlantic ocean, says NPR [ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=312481700 ]. But, for the hurricane-active regions in the north and south Pacific, the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, the shift has had important consequences, says NPR:
In the region where Japan tracks cyclones, they are peaking 42 miles farther north each decade. That means cyclones that used to hit their strongest around the same latitude as the northern Philippines are now peaking closer to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Shanghai, Japan and South Korea, Kossin said. There are about 60 million people in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo alone.
Increasingly, strong winds and surging seas are buffeting regions unaccustomed to dealing with them.
Extrapolating the drifting hurricane tracks into the future, however, isn't something we can really do right now says NOAA scientist Tom Knutson [ http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/tom-knutson-homepage ] to the Washington Post:
“We can’t regard it as a prediction of what will happen in coming decades,” Knutson says. ”It is more a call for further study to understand the changes to date."
Copyright 2014 Smithsonian.com
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/tropics-are-moving-and-theyre-bringing-their-cyclones-them-180951473/ [no comments yet]
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Control methane now, greenhouse gas expert warns
By Blaine Friedlander
May 13, 2014
As the shale gas boom continues, the atmosphere receives more methane, adding to Earth’s greenhouse gas problem. A Cornell ecology professor fears that we may not be many years away from an environmental tipping point – and disaster.
“We have to control methane immediately, and natural gas is the largest methane pollution source in the United States,” said Robert Howarth, the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology, who explains in an upcoming journal article that Earth may reach the point of no return if average global temperatures rise by 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius in future decades. “If we hit a climate-system tipping point because of methane, our carbon dioxide problem is immaterial. We have to get a handle on methane, or increasingly risk global catastrophe.”
Howarth’s study, “A Bridge to Nowhere: Methane Emissions and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ese3.35/abstract ],” will be published May 20 in the journal Energy Science and Engineering.
Natural gas – that once seemingly promising link between the era of oil and coal to the serenity of sustainable solar, wind and water power – is a major source of atmospheric methane, due to widespread leaks as well as purposeful venting of gas. Howarth points to “radiative forcing,” a measure of trapped heat in Earth’s atmosphere from man-made greenhouse gases. The current role of methane looms large, he says, contributing over 40 percent of current radiative forcing from all greenhouse gases, based on the latest science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The role of methane as a driver of global warming is even more critical than this 40 percent value might indicate, Howarth notes. The climate system responds much more quickly to reducing methane than to carbon dioxide. If society aggressively controlled carbon dioxide emissions, but ignored methane emissions, the planet would warm to the dangerous 1.5 to 2.0 degree Celsius threshold within 15 to 35 years. By reducing methane emissions, society buys some critical decades of lower temperatures.
“Society needs to wean itself from the addiction to fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” Howarth said. “But to replace some fossil fuels (coal, oil) with another (natural gas) will not suffice as an approach to take on global warming. Rather, we should embrace the technologies of the 21st century and convert our energy systems to ones that rely on wind, solar and water power.”
In 2011, Anthony Ingraffea, Cornell’s Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering; Renee Santoro, research technician in ecology and evolutionary biology; and Howarth published “Methane and the Greenhouse-Gas Footprint of Natural Gas from Shale Formations [ http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-011-0061-5#page-1 , http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-011-0061-5 ],” in Climate Change Letters, where they explained that extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale will aggravate global warming more than mining and burning coal.
In this latest work, Howarth said that societies have run out of time and must pursue technological changes for sustainable energy now. “If we can control the methane, we have a chance to reverse course,” he said.
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Related
Errant methane plumes detected over Marcellus wells
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/04/errant-methane-plumes-detected-over-marcellus-wells
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©2014 Cornell Chronicle
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/05/control-methane-now-greenhouse-gas-expert-warns
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Shale gas won't reduce greenhouse emissions, researchers say
By Bob Downing
Published: May 14, 2014
From Duke University [ http://energy.duke.edu/news/4683 ]:
DURHAM, N.C. -- While natural gas can reduce greenhouse emissions when it is substituted for higher-emission energy sources, abundant shale gas is not likely to substantially alter total emissions without policies targeted at greenhouse gas reduction, a pair of Duke researchers find.
If natural gas is abundant and less expensive, it will encourage greater natural gas consumption and less of fuels such as coal, renewables and nuclear power. The net effect on the climate will depend on whether the greenhouse emissions from natural gas -- including carbon dioxide and methane -- are lower or higher than emissions avoided by reducing the use of those other energy sources.
Most evidence indicates that natural gas as a substitute for coal in electricity production, gasoline in transport, and electricity in buildings decreases greenhouse gases. But natural gas production and consumption has higher emissions than renewables and nuclear power.
“Over the range of scenarios that we examine, abundant natural gas by itself is neither a climate hero nor a climate villain,” said Richard Newell, Gendell Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics and director of the Duke University Energy Initiative.
The findings are published [ http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4046154 ] in a special issue of Environmental Science and Technology, “Understanding the Risks of Unconventional Shale Gas Development.”
Natural gas from shale formations is favored by proponents as a cleaner, inexpensive replacement for fuels such as coal and oil that emit more carbon dioxide and local air pollutants. But extracting, processing and transporting the fuel can result in emissions of methane -- itself a potent greenhouse gas. The precise level of these methane emissions is uncertain, and extensive research on the subject is under way.
“We find that so far increased natural gas has mostly taken the place of coal, but looking forward there also may be increased consumption for sectors such as industry, as well as some degree of displacement of zero-emission sources such as renewables and nuclear,” said Daniel Raimi, associate in research at the Energy Initiative. “The net effect on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions appears likely to be small in the absence of policies specifically directed at greenhouse gas mitigation.”
Newell and Raimi draw on a range of evidence, including modeling of two hypothetical futures: one where natural gas production and prices follow a “reference case” scenario, and another where increased shale gas production lowers prices and encourages increased consumption. They also account for a range of methane emissions scenarios, ranging from 25 percent below to 50 percent above the levels estimated by the U.S. Environmental Production Agency.
“The fact that increased shale gas doesn’t have a huge climate impact on its own doesn’t mean it’s not important. If broad climate policy is enacted, having abundant natural gas could be very helpful by making it cheaper for society to achieve climate goals,” Newell said. “If natural gas is expensive, then it will be more costly to switch away from fuels that have higher greenhouse gas emissions, such as coal and oil. But keeping methane emissions low is essential to maximizing the potential benefits of natural gas.”
The climate benefits of natural gas are reduced if there are a lot of methane emissions, but while “recent evidence suggests methane emissions may be higher than the EPA currently estimates, it’s not clear how this new information will affect those estimates,” Raimi said. “Reducing methane emissions is important, but even if methane emissions from natural gas systems are significantly higher than current EPA estimates, we did not find this significantly alters the impact of abundant natural gas on long-term national or global greenhouse gas emissions pathways.”
© 2014 Duke University
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/shale-gas-won-t-reduce-greenhouse-emissions-researchers-say-1.487931 [no comments yet]
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This Intense Video Shows Just How Bad The California Wildfires Are Right Now
by William Goodman
Posted: 05/15/2014 3:32 pm EDT Updated: 05/15/2014 5:59 pm EDT
WARNING: This video contains strong language.
Footage has surfaced online providing an intense, up close and personal perspective on the wildfires currently raging through southern California.
The clip, posted by Jeb Durgin [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTueBWYLQjatmHULW8W_fDQ ], was allegedly shot in San Diego County, where tens of thousands of residents have currently been evacuated [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/san-diego-wildfire-evacua_n_5326133.html ]. Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency for San Diego County.
Copyright ©2014 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/intense-video-california-wildfires_n_5332745.html [the YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYril_YyaQM (with comments), as embedded; with (separate) embedded video report "Fire Tornado Rips Through San Diego", and comments]
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Thousands of people evacuated in San Diego as brush blazes and high winds form a string of FIRENADOES
An aggressive wildfire generated a frightening tornado of flames as it tore through parts of Southern California Wednesday, forcing thousands to flee their homes.
The terrifying pillar of fire - which is being dubbed a 'firenado' - was caught on camera in the city of Carlsbad
At least two structures burned to the ground and some 15,000 homes and businesses were told to evacuate
That Carlsbad blaze was one of several wildfires that firefighters in San Diego County were battling yesterday
The wildfires are caused by hot, dry and windy conditions across the lower part of the state of California
15 May 2014
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2628218/Multiple-fires-burning-San-Diego-County.html [with many more photos, embedded videos, and comments]
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
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