Climate Articles

No Matter How Well You Model it, Humans are to Blame
Climate models confirm more moisture in atmosphere attributed to humans
LIVERMORE, Calif. - When it comes to using climate models to assess the causes of the increased amount of moisture in the atmosphere, it doesn't much matter if one model is better than the other.
They all come to the same conclusion: Humans are warming the planet, and this warming is increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.
In new research appearing in the Aug. 10 online issue of the Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and a group of international researchers found that model quality does not affect the ability to identify human effects on atmospheric water vapor.
“Climate model quality didn't make much of a difference,” said Benjamin Santer, lead author from LLNL's Program for Climate Modeling and Intercomparison. “Even with the computer models that performed relatively poorly, we could still identify a human effect on climate. It was a bit surprising. The physics that drive changes in water vapor are very simple and are reasonably well portrayed in all climate models, bad or good.”
The atmosphere's water vapor content has increased by about 0.4 kilograms per square meter per decade since 1988, and natural variability alone can't explain this moisture change, according to Santer. “The most plausible explanation is that it's due to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases,” he said.
More water vapor - which is itself a greenhouse gas - amplifies the warming effect of increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.
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Warming Of Arctic Current Over 30 Years Triggers Release Of Methane Gas
ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2009) — The warming of an Arctic current over the last 30 years has triggered the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from methane hydrate stored in the sediment beneath the seabed.
Scientists at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton working in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, Royal Holloway London and IFM-Geomar in Germany have found that more than 250 plumes of bubbles of methane gas are rising from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin in the Arctic, in a depth range of 150 to 400 metres.
Methane released from gas hydrate in submarine sediments has been identified in the past as an agent of climate change. The likelihood of methane being released in this way has been widely predicted.
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Increased Ocean Acidification In Alaska Waters, New Findings Show
ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2009) — The same things that make Alaska's marine waters among the most productive in the world may also make them the most vulnerable to ocean acidification. According to new findings by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist, Alaska's oceans are becoming increasingly acidic, which could damage Alaska's king crab and salmon fisheries.
This spring, chemical oceanographer Jeremy Mathis returned from a cruise armed with seawater samples collected from the depths of the Gulf of Alaska. When he tested the samples' acidity in his lab, the results were higher than expected. They show that ocean acidification is likely more severe and is happening more rapidly in Alaska than in tropical waters. The results also matched his recent findings in the Chukchi and Bering Seas.
"It seems like everywhere we look in Alaska's coastal oceans, we see signs of increased ocean acidification," said Mathis.
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First-Ever Islanding Application of an Energy Storage System
Smart Grid Solutions CHICAGO, IL August 12, 2009 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- AEP’s Balls Gap Station Distributed Energy Storage System was commissioned and placed on-line earlier this year in Milton, West Virginia. The system fulfills a DOE goal to implement energy storage as a Smart Grid technology, and is the first US application of a battery serving radially-fed distribution system loads during periods when they are isolated from the grid (or “islanded”) by a fault that locks out normal service. The 152-mile-long, 34.5-kV Balls Gap feeder is situated in very challenging terrain, and is not one of AEP’s most dependable. The installation—controlled by S&C’s unique IntelliTEAM II® Automatic Restoration System—includes an S&C Smart Grid Storage Management System, a 2-MVA NGK sodium-sulfur battery, four S&C Scada-Mate® Switches with 5801 Automatic Switch Controls, and two reclosers equipped with S&C Universal Interface Modules. IntelliTEAM II operates the feeder devices to automatically engage the battery as an alternate source, serving as many customers as the battery can carry for up to seven hours.
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S&C installs Smart Grid Storage Management System for Xcel Energy Wind-to-Battery Project
Integrating variable wind and solar power production with the needs of the power grid is an ongoing issue for the utility industry. Xcel Energy has begun testing battery-storage technology that captures wind energy and moves it to the electricity grid when needed. This is the first U.S. application of the battery as a direct wind energy storage device.
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Warming Of Arctic Current Over 30 Years Triggers Release Of Methane Gas ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2009) — The warming of an Arctic current over the last 30 years has triggered the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from methane hydrate stored in the sediment beneath the seabed.
Scientists at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton working in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, Royal Holloway London and IFM-Geomar in Germany have found that more than 250 plumes of bubbles of methane gas are rising from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin in the Arctic, in a depth range of 150 to 400 metres.
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Graphene Has High Current Capacity, Thermal Conductivity
ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2009) — Recent research into the properties of graphene nanoribbons provides two new reasons for using the material as interconnects in future computer chips. In widths as narrow as 16 nanometers, graphene has a current carrying capacity approximately a thousand times greater than copper – while providing improved thermal conductivity.
The current-carrying and heat-transfer measurements were reported by a team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The same team had previously reported measurements of resistivity in graphene that suggest the material’s conductance would outperform that of copper in future generations of nanometer-scale interconnects.
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Kick the Disposable Battery Habit
Americans buy about three billion household batteries (about 10 per person) annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency—and nearly all of them end up in landfills. The next time you need to power up your gadgets, choose rechargeable batteries instead. Unlike disposable alkaline batteries, rechargeable batteries can be reused hundreds of times, which not only saves money and resources, but also reduces global warming pollution associated with battery manufacturing and transport. An independent study conducted for battery manufacturer UNIROSS estimates that using a disposable battery to create 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity has a global warming impact equivalent to driving a car 283 miles; using a rechargeable battery is equivalent to driving 10 miles.
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Sewage Breeds Bigger, Faster Mosquitoes
Aug. 10, 2009 -- Add this to the list of things that make sewage stink: Mosquitoes thrive on it.
A new study, presented at the meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Albuquerque, found far more mosquitoes in sewage-contaminated streams than in clean ones. Sewage-bred mosquitoes were also bigger and faster than those in purer waters.
Mosquitoes carry West Nile virus and other dangerous diseases. The new study suggests that sewage is a public health hazard in more ways than one.
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Acid In The Oceans: A Growing Threat To Sea Life
Biologists are now coming to realize that rising acid levels in the ocean can affect many other forms of sea life as well.
Visit Moss Landing, Calif., in the spring and at first blush it seems marine life is flourishing. Sea lions, weighing in at 600 pounds or more, jostle for space and spar with one another as they try to cram themselves onto docks that groan under their weight.
Marine biologist Eric Pane looks on approvingly at what seems to be part of a Pacific success story. Up and down the coast, biologists see healthy populations of marine mammals, fish and other wildlife.
But as we cross the street and head into his laboratory at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Pane's outlook about the future of life in the sea takes a dark turn. His budding career as a marine biologist is framed by an ominous trend: civilization is venting carbon dioxide from tailpipes, smokestacks and chimneys at a prodigious rate.
"And at least a third of it so far, has actually ended up in our oceans," Pane says. "(That's) sort of good and bad news because it has prevented more CO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere but it comes at a price. More CO2 in the ocean leads to it being acidified."
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Large Antarctic glacier thinning 4 times faster than it was 10 years ago:

“Nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier.”
A BBC story on the new study, “The spatial and temporal evolution of Pine Island Glacier thinning, 1995 – 2006,” (subs. req’d) explains:
Calculations based on the rate of melting 15 years ago had suggested the glacier would last for 600 years. But the new data points to a lifespan for the vast ice stream of only another 100 years.
The rate of loss is fastest in the centre of the glacier and the concern is that if the process continues, the glacier may break up and start to affect the ice sheet further inland.
One of the authors, Professor Andrew Shepherd of Leeds University, said that the melting from the centre of the glacier would add about 3cm to global sea level.
“But the ice trapped behind it is about 20-30cm of sea level rise and as soon as we destabilise or remove the middle of the glacier we don’t know really know what’s going to happen to the ice behind it,” he told BBC News.
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Study looks at warming’s effect on Beartooth glaciers
Dr. Edward Chatelain was a teenager when he first climbed the 12,604-foot Castle Mountain and peered down at the glacier below. Even then, in the mid-1970s, he was awed by the size of the glacier and the deep crevasses that sliced into its core.
But when he returned two decades later, flying over the Absaroka and Beartooth mountains from the west, he could barely recognize the glacier of his memory.
"We were absolutely aghast to see what was left," he said.
The experience prompted Chatelain, now a professor of geology at Valdosta State University in Georgia, to spend the intervening years searching for photographic records and weather data to explain what's happening in the Beartooths.
Chatelain's research, along with that of forest service scientists and other academics, was merged in a study titled "Monitoring Climate Change in the Beartooth Mountains of the Custer National Forest."
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Researchers: shrinking Teton glaciers will affect Utah water
Cheyenne, Wyo. » Glaciers on the iconic Teton Range are shrinking, researchers say, joining a growing list of glaciers in North America and beyond that are losing their surface area and potentially reducing the water supply for nearby regions.
Two of the Tetons' biggest glaciers have lost more than 20 percent of their surface area since the late 1960s, three University of Wyoming researchers concluded after comparing old and new aerial photographs of the glaciers.
The glaciers are a fairly substantial source of irrigation water, meaning the findings have wider implications than simply what the mountains look like to tourists by late summer. People in Wyoming and Idaho and to a lesser extent Utah use water from the glaciers.
"From an engineering-water supply perspective, we look at them as frozen reservoirs," said Glenn Tootle, a University of Tennessee-Knoxville assistant professor and co-principal investigator of the study funded by the Wyoming Water Development Commission.
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French Winemakers Sound Alarm Over Climate Change
Pascal Guyot/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesExperts warn that France could lose its famous wine vineyards because of global warming.
Leading figures from the French wine and food industries are urging their government to push for a strong global agreement at a United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December, warning that failure to cut greenhouse gases will devastate their sector.
“The jewels of our cultural heritage, French wines, elegant and refined, are today in danger,” a group of 50 winemakers, sommeliers and chefs wrote in an opinion piece published on Aug. 12 in the newspaper Le Monde and addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“Changes in the climate are leaving our vineyards increasingly vulnerable. Summer heat waves, recent hail storms in the Bordeaux region, new diseases coming from the south — these disturbances will soon be much more serious,” the piece continued.
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Best wines will come from Scotland if climate change is not stopped, French chefs say
A group of chefs, sommeliers and chateaux has issued a call to action, urging the country to secure ambitious targets in the months ahead to limit global warming.
President Nicolas Sarkozy was posed a stark choice: save French wine by clinching a deal at the international climate conference in Copenhagen in December, or see generations of viticulture slowly die out as vineyards cross the Channel and head north.
"As flagships of our common cultural heritage, elegant and refined, French wines are today in danger," 50 leading names from the world of French wine and food wrote in an open letter. "Marked by higher alcohol levels, over-sunned aromatic ranges and denser textures, our wines could lose their unique soul."
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NASA: Second hottest July on record Fast on the heels of the second hottest June on record, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports that July is also the second hottest on record.
NASA just quietly updates its data set (here). NASS GISS is much more low-key than NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which issues a major report on the climate every month (see NCDC: Second hottest June on record — and once El Nino really kicks in, expect global temperatures “to threaten previous record highs”). I’ll wait for that report (out in a few days) for a longer discussion of July.
What I think is interesting about the NASA month-by-month data is that you can compare it to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) data and see that it typically takes 3 to 6 months before an El Niño seriously starts warming up the whole planet (see page 24 here). So we have a ways to go before we see the full effect of this El Niño.
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Study links drought with rising emissions
DROUGHT experts have for the first time proven a link between rising levels of greenhouse gases and a decline in rainfall.
A three-year collaboration between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO has confirmed that the drought is not just a natural dry stretch but a shift related to climate change.
Scientists working on the $7 million South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative said the rain had dropped away because the subtropical ridge - a band of high pressure systems that sits over the country's south - had strengthened over the past 13 years.
Last year, using sophisticated computer climate models in the United States, the scientists ran simulations with only the ''natural'' influences on temperature, such as differing levels of solar activity.
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June's record ocean warmth worries fishermen, environmentalists
WASHINGTON — Ocean surface temperatures around the world were the warmest on record for the month of June, according to federal scientists, though they caution that one month doesn't necessarily imply global warming.
The warmer temperatures do confirm that an ocean phenomenon known as El Nino is building in the Pacific Ocean.
Some scientists think that the rising temperatures hint at broader changes, perhaps resulting from global climate change. Environmentalists and fishermen are wary of what it may mean.
"It's really kind of disturbing," said Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, based in San Francisco. "What we've seen right offshore here is a real variation in temperature. But we don't know what to expect in the future."
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Kindling For Climate Change
Toolik scientists study the long-term impact of a raging fire in the Arctic
The word "Arctic" tends to conjure images of glaciers, polar bears, icy waters, and frozen tundra. And indeed, all of those are common features of Alaska's North Slope. But as climate change alters the atmosphere and landscape in the Arctic, another image might need to be added to that list: fire. Researchers at Toolik Field Station, the National Science Foundation's Arctic long-term ecological research site located about 150 miles south of the Arctic Ocean, are studying the impact of severely burned tundra on the local and global environment.
Though scientists have for years examined burns in Alaska's boreal forest, where fire is a natural part of the growing cycle, the idea of a blazing fire in the tundra is hard to imagine. After all, not too long ago, it was a rarity to see a lightning strike—the source of most forest fires—that far north. John Hobbie, one of the founders of Toolik, remembers a professor at Dartmouth College, where he was an undergraduate in the mid-1950s, telling the class there were no cumulous clouds in the Arctic.
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Wheat gets worse as CO2 rises
You may have thought that the silver lining of rising carbon dioxide levels would be a boost in crop yields. But evidence is mounting that we may trade quantity for quality.
The discovery that staple crops like wheat have less protein when grown in high concentrations of CO2 has already caused concern, but the bad news doesn't stop there.
Ramping up CO2 also changes the balance of amino acids and several trace elements, says Petra Högy from the University of Hohenheim in Germany. Together with Andreas Fangmeier, also at the University of Hohenheim, and his team, Högy grew wheat in open fields over three years while blowing extra CO2 over the plots to achieve the concentrations of the gas that are expected to be reached by around 2050. They found several changes in the wheat grains, including an 8 per cent drop in iron and a 14 per cent increase in lead. "Both of these changes would be bad for human health. The drop in iron is particularly worrisome as half of the world's population are already iron deficient, and this is going to get worse," says Högy.
The team also looked again at the drop in protein that had already been seen and found that essential amino acids – including those important for children – are affected by it, not just non-essential protein components.
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Survey finds coastal Maine residents wary of climate change
BELFAST, Maine — An overwhelming majority of southern and midcoast Maine coastal property owners surveyed by researchers expressed serious concerns about the potential impact of climate change on their area. But in an indication of the challenge facing both scientists and policymakers, most respondents said they were unsure what can and should be done to prevent loss of valuable coastal land due to more rapid erosion, sea-level rise and stronger storms. And property owners expressed little interest in digging deeply into their own pockets to mitigate the effects of climate change, preferring grants or that local towns take the lead.
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