Clipmarks | jetcloud's 'global warming' clips

Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:54:47 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: 'The latest images, taken by Envisat's radar, say fractures have now opened up in this bridge and adjacent areas of the plate are disintegrating, creating large icebergs.
The Antarctic peninsula -- the tongue of land that juts northward from the white continent towards South America -- has had one of the highest rates of warming anywhere in the world in recent decades.

But this latest stage of the breakup occurred during the Southern Hemisphere's winter, when atmospheric temperatures are at their lowest.

One idea is that warmer water from the Southern Ocean is reaching the underside of the ice shelf and thinning it rapidly from underneath.

"Wilkins Ice Shelf is the most recent in a long, and growing, list of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula that are responding to the rapid warming that has occurred in this area over the last fifty years," researcher David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said.

"Current events are showing that we were being too conservati

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming

Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread" to Charcot Island, one of the plate's key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.

"Since the connection to the island... helps stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk," it said.

Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century, covering around 16,000 square kilometres (6,000 square miles), or about the size of Northern Ireland, before it began to retreat in the 1990s.

Since then several large areas have broken away, and two big breakoffs this year left only a narrow ice bridge about 2.7 kilometres (1.7 miles) wide to connect the shelf to Charcot and nearby Latady Island.

Scientists are puzzled and concerned by the event, ESA added.

Tags: antarctica, ice shelf, breaking up, winter!, omg

Insects 'will be climate change's first victims'

Tue, 06 May 2008 03:05:33 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

Tropical insects rather than polar bears could be among the first species to become extinct as a result of global warming, a study has found.

Insects in the tropics are already living at the limit of their temperature range and any further increases could quickly kill them off with huge repercussions for tropical habitats, which rely on insects for everything from pollination to waste disposal. Scientists have found that a rise in average temperatures in the tropics of just 1C or 2C could be enough to exert a significant and harmful effect on the survival of a wide variety of important insects.

Climate scientists predict that the polar regions will experience the greatest increases in average temperatures this century as a result of climate change, but the latest study suggests that even the smaller predicted change in the tropics could have a far more serious impact on local wildlife.

Thousands of Pacific walruses die; global warming blamed

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:25:42 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: And then, along comes a Polar Bear...

Clip Source: canadianpress.google.com

In what some scientists see as another alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers.

The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia.

"It was a pretty sobering year - tough on walruses," said Joel Garlach-Miller, a walrus expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely. The giant, tusked mammals typically clamber onto the sea ice to rest, or haul themselves onto land for just a few weeks at a time.

But ice disappeared in the Chukchi Sea this year because of warm summer weather, ocean currents and persistent eastern winds, Garlach-Miller said.

walruses came ashore earlier and stayed longer

with herds as big as 40,000 at Point Shmidt

Tags: pacific walruses, arctic circle, killed- in- stampedes, climate change

Red Cross warns of global warming role in disasters

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:09:18 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "Disaster costs were estimated at $34.5 billion (SFr39 billion) for 2006, a much lower figure than in 2005 - $210 billion - the year of the devastating Hurricane Katrina.
"The figures confirm the trend of the past years," Niskala told reporters. By October 2007, 410 disasters had been tallied, 56 per cent of which were weather-related.

Overall, the agency noted that in the past ten years (1997-2006) the number of natural disasters had increased by 60 per cent compared with the previous decade.

The number of dead doubled during this period to 1.2 million people.

Although some of the figures could be due to better reporting, said the Federation, there was no doubt that "severe disasters are also on the increase"."

Clip Source: www.swissinfo.ch

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has pointed to the growing role of global warming in causing natural disasters.

The Swiss-based humanitarian agency made the comments as it published its World Disasters Report 2007, which this year focuses on tackling discrimination of women, people with disabilities and the elderly during catastrophes.

Federation secretary-general Markku Niskala said that overall disasters killed fewer people in 2006 and caused less financial damage around the world than in 2005.

There were 427 disasters in 2006 compared with 433 in 2005. In the same period, the number of affected people dropped ten per cent, while the number of deaths plunged by 75 per cent to 23,833.

However, the annual report also noted that more than two thirds of natural disasters last year were caused by floods or by extreme weather and pointed to global warming as a main factor.

Tags: climate change, global warming, environment, red cross, red crescent

Arctic Impact Crater Lake Reveals Interglacial Cycles in Sediments

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:38:01 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "The coring equipment and other instrumentation was set up using a tripod over the hole in the ice. The scientists were able to extract a core of the topmost 8.5 meters of sediment.

The international team of researchers in the field included Guillaume St-Onge; Reinhard Pienitz, principal investigator; Veli-Pekka Salonen of the University of Helsinki, Finland; and Richard Niederreiter, coring expert. Please visit http://www.cen.ulaval.ca/pingualuit/index.html for more information."

Clip Source: dailyheadlines.uark.edu

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A University of Arkansas researcher and a team of international scientists have taken cores from the sediments of a Canadian Arctic lake and found an interglacial record indicating two ice-free periods that could pre-date the Holocene Epoch.

Sonja Hausmann, assistant professor of geosciences in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas, and her colleagues will report their preliminary findings at the American Geophysical Union meeting this week.

Sonja Hausmann, professor of geosciences at the University of Arkansas (center) and her colleagues prepare to ride Ski-doos to get their equipment to Lac Pingualit. They took a core of sediments from the crater lake and found evidence of two ice-free periods that could pre-date the Holocene Epoch.

The researchers had to pull the equipment into the crater-fed lake using sleds.

spent three weeks traveling back and forth to the lake in sub-zero temperatures to gather their data.

Tags: arctic, climate change, global warming, last ice age, meteorite, canadian arctic lake, sonja hausmann

Bali Baird in Flip-Flops? Canada's Youth Delegation Tells It like It Is

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 08:43:25 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: www.desmogblog.com

The first bit of this video provides some great insight into just how bad things are going for Canada's Minister of Environment, John Baird at the United Nation's climate conference underway in Bali, Indonesia.

[Video]

Tags: canadian youth delegation, bali, bali global warmin unfccc, john baird, climate change, global warming

Fires undo forests' climate benefits, scientists find

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 09:53:59 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "Fire activity more than doubled since the '70s across Canada," Flannigan says. And the mountain pine beetle, which has proliferated because of warmer winters, has killed vast track of boreal forest in British Columbia that is also becoming a source of CO2.

"I used to say this is what we'll expect with climate change," Flannigan says, pointing to the increasing rate of fires and insect infestation.

"Now I say climate change is here."

Flannigan says the new study builds on previous Canadian research, and provides a more detailed picture of how the forest's carbon budget is changing.

"It's a real concern," Flannigan says. "We were hoping our forests would be a carbon sink. But the more work we do the more we see they are a becoming a source because of things like disturbances."

Clip Source: www.canada.com

Northern wildfires in Prairie provinces blamed for rising carbon in atmosphere

A huge swath of Canada's boreal forest, one of the largest storehouses of carbon on the planet, is now spewing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than it soaks up, scientists say.

"The sink has become a source," says forest ecologist Tom Gower, at the University of Wisconsin, whose team has documented an ominous shift in the "carbon balance" of the forest blanketing northern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

"These boreal forests not too long ago were helping offset rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by taking up carbon dioxide and storing it," Gower said in an interview.

But with an increase in the frequency and size of fires in recent years, "that is no longer the case," he says.

"In fact, these wildfires are actually contributing to the rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere," Gower says.

A 2001 forest fire about 200 km north of Edmonton near the town of Chisholm.

Tags: canada, bushfire, climate change, environment, boreal forest, global warming

Jet traffic affecting climate

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:31:05 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "I remember walking to and from my office [during that time] and thinking how incredibly clear the skies were," recalls Carleton. He mentioned this to a colleague and former Ph.D. student of his, David Travis of the University of Wisconsin, who had noticed the same thing. "Then we started thinking that we should look at the temperature conditions" during those days in September and compare them to years past, Carleton says.

Looking at daytime highs and nighttime lows, Carleton and Travis found the average daily temperature range across the no-fly period to be almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit larger than when jets do fly. This implies, Carleton explains, that contrails lower daytime maximum temperatures and increase nighttime low temperatures—probably in the same way that cirrus clouds do, by blocking some solar radiation from reaching earth's surface during the day, and insulating against heat loss at night.

Since finding this association, Carleton has used contrails as a sort of metr

Clip Source: www.rps.psu.edu

Young (narrow) contrails as well as older ones expand laterally across the sky. Photo by David Travis

Is this atmospheric graffiti a problem? Research by Penn State geography professor Andrew Carleton suggests it could be. Contrails "can extend the natural cirrus cover," Carleton explains, and unlike most clouds, cirrus tend to warm the surface overall because they trap heat more than they reflect the Sun's radiation. "This is a concern to climate scientists because it could mean that a lot more contrails would make global warming worse."

Although scientists had suspected that contrails affect regional temperatures, there was no way to truly test the idea until the tragic attacks on September 11, 2001. In the enforced no-fly period following the collapse of the World Trade Center, air traffic was completely stopped for three days and scientists were able to directly compare temperatures logged in the presence of contrails against temperature data collected with contrail-free skies.

Tags: aircraft, contrails, climate change, global warming

NASA video: astounding arctic sea ice melt

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:38:31 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: www.desmogblog.com

[Video]

Here's new NASA satellite video showing the astounding loss of Arctic sea ice

From NASA: The 2007 Arctic summer sea ice has reached the lowest extent of perennial ice cover on record - nearly 25% less than the previous low set in 2005.

The area of the perennial ice has been steadily decreasing since the satellite record began in 1979, at a rate of about 10% per decade. But the 2007 minimum, reached on September 14, is far below the previous record made in 2005 and is about 38% lower than the climatological average. Such a dramatic loss has implications for ecology, climate and industry.

Tags: climate change, global warming, arctic sea ice.

The 11th Hour

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:48:10 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: 11thhouraction.com

he 11th Hour is the last moment when change is possible. The film explores how we’ve arrived at this moment -- how we live, how we impact the earth’s ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolsey and sustainable design experts William McDonough and Bruce Mau in addition to over 50 leading scientists, thinkers and leaders who discuss the most important issues that face our planet and people.

Read reviews of The 11th Hour

[Video]

Tags: climate change, global warming

Europe, Mediterranean at greatest risk from climate change

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:34:44 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "The change is also being felt at sea level, with a surface temperature increase of 1.08°F every decade, said Vincenzo Ferrara, an Italian government adviser on climate.

“The Mediterranean is becoming warmer and saltier” due to increased evaporation, Ferrara told the conference, which was held at the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ferrara said this could disrupt the flow at the Strait of Gibraltar, a key gateway to the Mediterranean. The higher salt concentration in the Mediterranean would cause water to flow out into the Atlantic Ocean, as opposed to Atlantic water coming into the Mediterranean, which serves as the sea’s lifeline."

Clip Source: oltnweatherupdates.worldresearch.net

Climate change is affecting Europe faster than the rest of the world and rising temperatures could transform the Mediterranean into a salty and stagnant sea, Italian experts said Wednesday.

Warmer waters and increased salinity could doom many of the sea’s plant and animal species and ravage the fishing industry, warned participants at a two-day national climate change conference that brought together some 2,000 scientists and officials in Rome.

“Europe and the Mediterranean are warming up faster than the rest of the world,” said climatologist Filippo Giorgi. “It’s a climate change hot spot, one of the areas where we actually see the change happening.”

Giorgi said the effects would be similar to those felt during the deadly summer of 2003, when the extraordinary heat was blamed for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Europe

“That was a one-in-a-million freak event, but in the future it will be the norm for the summer,” said Giorgi,

Tags: climate change, global warming

Satellite Applications and Research (STAR)

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:46:00 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "STAR supports NESDIS and NOAA in their mission to assess current conditions and predict future changes on the Earth, and to understand long-term changes in the environment."

Clip Source: www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov

The Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) is the science arm of the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS), which acquires and manages the nation's operational Earth-observing satellites. NESDIS provides data from these satellites, and conducts research to make that possible.

To transfer satellite observations of the land, atmosphere, ocean, and climate from scientific research and development into routine operations, and to offer state-of-the-art data, products and services to decision-makers.

The United States invests billions of dollars every year in satellites and data, in order to monitor the ever-changing environment of Earth. The Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) uses the data from satellites to offer sound information about the Earth.

STAR is the science arm of the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS), which acquires and manages the nation's Earth-observing satellites.

Tags: star, climate change, clouds, cloud-watching, contrails, global warming

Engineer's work may reduce jet travel's role in global warming

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:55:54 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: Backed by government and industry grants, Dryer is leading two new research efforts to advance these technologies. The first, a major project funded by the U.S. Air Force, is focused on developing computational and kinetic models that accurately simulate the burning of jet fuel, a complex and poorly characterized mix of chemicals.

Clip Source: www.princeton.edu

Dryer and his MURI collaborators, including Princeton Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Yiguang Ju, will develop methods to predict and evaluate how jet fuels will behave in actual engines and characterize the emissions they will produce. While current guidelines specify some overall properties of jet fuels, they do not spell out the actual chemical composition. Depending on the source and processing method, jet fuel typically consists of hundreds to thousands of molecular structures that behave in a variety of ways.

The models developed by the team will represent and characterize the behavior of this broad range of jet fuel species using only a few types of molecular structures as surrogates for the larger whole. Dryer previously developed similar "surrogate fuel" models to represent gasoline, which are now being used for engine design by the automotive industry.

"The composition of fuels changes with the geographic source

the refining process

the season,"

Tags: aircraft, climate change, clouds, contrails, global warming, jetcloud, military, weather modification, worldwide

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:29:43 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud

Clip Source: gristmill.grist.org

Below is a complete listing of the articles in "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic," a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by:

Stages of Denial,
Scientific Topics,
Types of Argument, and
Levels of Sophistication.

Individual articles will appear under multiple headings and may even appear in multiple subcategories in the same heading.

Tags: climate change, clouds, global warming

CLIMATE CHANGE: Nobel Prize Recognises Scientific Community

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:37:32 GMT

clipped by: jetcloud
clipper's remarks: "I suppose the award is a recognition of the linkage between climate change and the potential for disruption of peace in the future," Pachauri said.

Clip Source: www.ipsnews.net

GENEVA, Oct 12 (IPS) - Climate change is linked to world peace because the effects of global warming can threaten stability and harmony in the world, according to Rajendra Pachauri, one of thousands of international scientists who are to share the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

Pachauri, from India, is the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group created by the United Nations in 1988 to assess scientific, technical and economic information relevant to comprehending climate change, its potential effects, and the options for mitigation and adaptation.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced in Oslo on Friday the award of this year’s Peace Prize to the IPCC and Gore, an eminent environmentalist who was vice president of his country for two consecutive terms (1993-2001).

"I'm very happy to see that the Nobel Prize committee has viewed the issue of climate change within that context,"

Pachauri told correspondents in Geneva

Tags: climate change, global warming, nobel prize, pachauri, global peace