Climate Articles

Antarctic glacier 'thinning fast'
One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago, according to research seen by the BBC.
A study of satellite measurements of Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica reveals the surface of the ice is now dropping at a rate of up to 16m a year. Since 1994, the glacier has lowered by as much as 90m, which has serious implications for sea-level rise.
The work by British scientists appears in Geophysical Research Letters.
The team was led by Professor Duncan Wingham of University College London (UCL).
alculations 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.
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Ocean Temperatures Are Highest on Record
Average temperatures of waters at the oceans' surface in July were the highest ever recorded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The agency said the average sea surface temperature was 1.06 degrees higher than the 20th-century average of 61.5 degrees. Though July was unusually cool in some areas, like the eastern United States, analysts at the NOAA Climate Data Center said the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.03 degrees higher than the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees, the fifth warmest since worldwide record keeping began in 1880. The agency also said that, on average, Arctic sea ice covered 3.4 million square miles in July, 12.7 percent below the 1979-2000 average and the third lowest on record, after 2007 and 2006.
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I remind people, in the argument of Global Warming, to remember their physics. . .it takes much more energy to warm water than air.
In hot water: World's ocean temps warmest recorded
WASHINGTON - The world's oceans this summer are the warmest on record.
The National Climatic Data Center, the government agency that keeps weather records, says the average global ocean temperature in July was 62.6 degrees. That's the hottest since record-keeping began in 1880. The previous record was set in 1998.
Meteorologists blame a combination of a natural El Nino weather pattern on top of worsening manmade global warming. The warmer water could add to the melting of sea ice and possibly strengthen some hurricanes.
The result has meant lots of swimming at beaches in Maine with pleasant 72-degree water. Ocean temperatures reached 88 degrees as far north as Ocean City, Md., this week. The Gulf of Mexico, where warm water fuels hurricanes, has temperatures dancing around 90. Most of the water in the Northern Hemisphere has been considerably warmer than normal. The Mediterranean is about three degrees warmer than normal. Higher temperatures rule in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
It's most noticeable near the Arctic, where water temperatures are as much as 10 degrees above average.
Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land. That's because water takes longer to heat up and doesn't cool off as easily, said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
"This is another yet really important indicator of the change that's occurring," Weaver said.
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Climate Change Could Deepen Poverty In Developing Countries, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2009) - Urban workers could suffer most from climate change as the cost of food drives them into poverty, according to a new study that quantifies the effects of climate on the world's poor populations.
A team led by Purdue University researchers examined the potential economic influence of adverse climate events, such as heat waves, drought and heavy rains, on those in 16 developing countries. Urban workers in Bangladesh, Mexico and Zambia were found to be the most at risk.
"Extreme weather affects agricultural productivity and can raise the price of staple foods, such as grains, that are important to poor households in developing countries," said Noah Diffenbaugh, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and interim director of Purdue's Climate Change Research Center who co-led the study. "Studies have shown global warming will likely increase the frequency and intensity of heat waves, drought and floods in many areas. It is important to understand which socioeconomic groups and countries could see changes in poverty rates in order to make informed policy decisions."
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Plastics In Oceans Decompose, Release Hazardous Chemicals, Surprising New Study Says
ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2009) - In the first study to look at what happens over the years to the billions of pounds of plastic waste floating in the world's oceans, scientists are reporting that plastics - reputed to be virtually indestructible - decompose with surprising speed and release potentially toxic substances into the water. Reporting at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the researchers termed the discovery "surprising." Scientists always believed that plastics in the oceans were unsightly, but a hazard mainly to marine animals that eat or become ensnared in plastic objects.
"Plastics in daily use are generally assumed to be quite stable," said study lead researcher Katsuhiko Saido, Ph.D. "We found that plastic in the ocean actually decomposes as it is exposed to the rain and sun and other environmental conditions, giving rise to yet another source of global contamination that will continue into the future."
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World's Last Great Forest Under Threat: New Study
ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2009) - The world's last remaining "pristine" forest -- the boreal forest across large stretches of Russia, Canada and other northern countries -- is under increasing threat, a team of international researchers has found.
"Much world attention has focused on the loss and degradation of tropical forests over the past three decades, but now the boreal forest is poised to become the next Amazon," says Associate Professor Bradshaw, from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute.
"Historically, fire and insects have driven the natural dynamics of boreal ecosystems," says Associate Professor Warkentin. "But with rising demand for resources, human disturbances caused by logging, mining and urban development have increased in these forests during recent years, with extensive forest loss for some regions and others facing heavy fragmentation and exploitation."
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MIT study: Heavier rainstorms ahead
Analysis shows climate change to yield more extreme rainfall
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Heavier rainstorms lie in our future. That's the clear conclusion of a new MIT and Caltech study on the impact that global climate change will have on precipitation patterns.
But the increase in extreme downpours is not uniformly spread around the world, the analysis shows. While the pattern is clear and consistent outside of the tropics, climate models give conflicting results within the tropics and more research will be needed to determine the likely outcomes in tropical regions.
Overall, previous studies have shown that average annual precipitation will increase in both the deep tropics and in temperate zones, but will decrease in the subtropics. However, it's important to know how the frequency and magnitude of extreme precipitation events will be affected, as these heavy downpours can lead to increased flooding and soil erosion. It is the frequency of these extreme events that was the subject of this new research, which will appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of Aug. 17. The report was written by Paul O'Gorman, assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, and Tapio Schneider, professor of environmental science and engineering at Caltech.
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Global Boiling: Filibustering Our Farmers' Future
As we've seen, the USDA has found economic benefits of climate bill for farmers 'easily trump' the costs. And that's no surprise since unrestricted GHG emissions will be catastrophic to U.S. farmers (see Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11^oF warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90^oF some 120 days a year - and that isn't the worst case, it's business as usual!). In this Wonk Room post, however, Brad Johnson explains that many leading Senators from farm states still don't get it.
U.S. Senators are attacking the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act as threatening farmers even though America is suffering from the ravages of a climate out of control - heat waves, floods, storms, droughts, and seasonal shifts. Scientific studies show global warming has already hurt American agriculture, and that the damages will grow catastrophic if action is not taken.
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Don't Think Humans Can Affect the Planet?
BEFORE-AND-AFTER PHOTOS: Vast Aral Sea Vanishing
August 5, 2009-Talk about a sea change.
From 2006 through 2009, Central Asia's vast Aral Sea dramatically retreated, with its eastern section losing about 80 percent of its water in just four years (above, an animation made with newly released satellite images from the European Space Agency shows the regression).
The immense body of water, which straddles Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (see map), was once the world's fourth largest freshwater lake.
But in the past 30 years, 60 percent of the lake has disintegrated, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
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EARTH DAYS - OPENING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU
Visually stunning, vastly entertaining and awe-inspiring, Earth Days looks back to the dawn and development of the modern environmental movement-from its post-war rustlings in the 1950s and the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's incendiary bestseller Silent Spring, to the first wildly successful 1970 Earth Day celebration and the subsequent firestorm of political action.
Earth Days' secret weapon is a one-two punch of personal testimony and rare archival media. The extraordinary stories of the era's pioneers-among them Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall; biologist/Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich; Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand; Apollo Nine astronaut Rusty Schweickart; and renewable energy pioneer Hunter Lovins-are beautifully illustrated with an incredible array of footage from candy-colored Eisenhower-era tableau to classic tear-jerking 1970s anti-litterbug PSAs. Directed by acclaimed documentarian Robert Stone (Oswald's Ghost, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst) Earth Days is both a poetic meditation on humanity's complex relationship with nature and an engaging history of the revolutionary achievements-and missed opportunities-of groundbreaking eco-activism.
Watch the trailer and visit the EARTH DAYS website
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Romantic, Candle-lit Dinners: An Unrecognized Source Of Indoor Air Pollution
ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2009) - Burning candles made from paraffin wax -- the most common kind used to infuse rooms with romantic ambiance, warmth, light, and fragrance -- is an unrecognized source of exposure to indoor air pollution, including the known human carcinogens, scientists report.
Levels can build up in closed rooms, and be reduced by ventilation, they indicated in a study presented at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). In the study, R. Massoudi Ph.D., and Amid Hamidi , Ph.D., said that that candles made from bee's wax or soy, although more expensive, apparently are healthier. They do not release potentially harmful amounts of indoor air pollutants while retaining all of the warmth, ambience and fragrance of paraffin candles (which are made from petroleum).
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Mountaintop Removal Mining
Mountaintop removal mining is a form of strip mining in which coal companies use explosives to blast as much as 800 to 1000 feet off the tops of mountains order to reach the coal seams that lie underneath.
The resulting millions of tons of waste rock, dirt, and vegetation are then dumped into surrounding valleys, burying miles and miles of streams under piles of rubble hundreds of feet deep.
Unfortunately, while Congress is moving to act, mountaintops are still being blown up all over Appalachia. But with your help, we can put a stop to it.
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�Banner' sockeye year turns dismal
It was expected to be a banner year for sockeye salmon, with more than 10 million fish predicted to make their way up the Fraser River. All that changed last Friday, Aug. 14, when the Pacific Salmon Commission revised estimates to about 1.7 million.
More importantly, the cause of the sharp decline in sockeye is unknown.
Finger pointers have their choice of potential factors to explain the sharp decline in sockeye salmon stocks, including overfishing and open-cage salmon farms and a variety of climate change related issues such as higher water temperatures, impacts to plankton communities and an increase in new predators.
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Rising acidity erodes Alaska's fisheries
Alaska's marine waters - source of 60 percent of the United States' seafood harvest - show surprising impact as greenhouse emissions undermine the base of the food web. New research from the University of Alaska Fairbanks suggests Arctic oceans are particularly susceptible to acidification, with potentially dire consequences to Alaska's rich crab and salmon fisheries.
"Everything is acting in unison on the environment � it's not just the ice loss or the warming or the acidification," said UAF chemical oceanographer Jeremy Mathis. "The Arctic is taking a multilateral hit."
Mathis' newest data from the Gulf of Alaska show that acidity levels far higher than expected might already be impacting the food web. In several sites the increasing acidity has changed ocean chemistry so significantly that organisms are unable to pull crucial minerals out of the water to build shells, he said.
Ocean acidification, often called the sister problem to climate change, refers to the rising acidity of the world's seas as seawater absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
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Climate Change Bathtub Simulation
Why we need to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050, explained using an animated simulation of a bathtub. Simulation is based on a system dynamics model of the global carbon cycle and climate system.
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Global warming could change Earth's tilt
Warming oceans could cause Earth's axis to tilt in the coming century, a new study suggests. The effect was previously thought to be negligible, but researchers now say the shift will be large enough that it should be taken into account when interpreting how the Earth wobbles.
The Earth spins on an axis that is tilted some 23.5^o from the vertical. But this position is far from constant � the planet's axis is constantly shifting in response to changes in the distribution of mass around the Earth. "The Earth is like a spinning top, and if you put more mass on one side or other, the axis of rotation is going to shift slightly," says Felix Landerer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The changing climate has long been known to move Earth's axis. The planet's north pole, for example, is migrating along 79^oW � a line of longitude that runs through Toronto and Panama City � at a rate of about 10 centimetres each year as the Earth rebounds from ice sheets that once weighed down large swaths of North America, Europe, and Asia.
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Climate Change Threatens Central American Coffee
CERRO DE ORO - Scientists expect climate change to dramatically affect coffee production in Central America in the coming decades, but some lowland farmers in Guatemala say they are already feeling the effects.
The United Nations forecasts temperatures will rise one to six degrees over the next century, which will make some lower-lying coffee producing areas enviable, forcing farmers to move to higher altitudes.
Academics conducting a four-year study of the effects of climate change on small coffee growers in Guatemala have found that many in lowland areas are struggling to continue. "In the eastern department of Santa Rosa, the problem is the dryness and farmers there are complaining about a lack of water, particularly this year," said Edwin Castellanos, the scientist leading the study.
Guatemalan coffee exports have been largely consistent over the last five years, hovering between 3.3 million and 3.8 million 60-kg bags per season and never varying by more than 10 percent a year because farmers in higher altitude microclimates have been less affected.
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