Climate Articles

Earth Policy Institute New Website and Book
 Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
Lester R. Brown
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Welcome to Earth Policy Institute, dedicated to planning a sustainable future as well as providing a roadmap of how to get from here to there.
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Imagine a World without Fish: Deadly ocean acidification
 Global warming is "capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the harvest of the seas" (see Ocean dead zones to expand, "remain for thousands of years"). A post on ocean acidification from the new Conservation Law Foundation blog has brought to my attention that the first documentary on the subject, A Sea Change: Imagine a World without Fish, is coming out.
Ocean acidification must be a core climate message, since it is hard to deny and impervious to the delusion that geoengineering is the silver bullet. Indeed, a major 2009 study GRL study, "Sensitivity of ocean acidification to geoengineered climate stabilization" (subs. req'd), concluded:
The results of this paper support the view that climate engineering will not resolve the problem of ocean acidification, and that therefore deep and rapid cuts in CO2 emissions are likely to be the most effective strategy to avoid environmental damage from future ocean acidification.
U.S. TELECAST Sat., Sept. 26, 2009, 8 pm, Planet Green Network. Look for this channel on cable, Direct TV, and more. It's the first & only 24-hour eco-lifestyle TV network. A Sea Change airs as part of Planet Green's "Reel Impact" series. We're in terrific company: also airing are An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car, and No-Impact Man.
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Our best guess about global warming may be wrong
 Scientists wonder whether rising CO2 may trigger something else that further warms the climate
They're missing something - and that something may be key to understanding what happens after atmospheric CO2 increases beyond an unknown threshold. At some point, rising CO2 may trigger something else that further warms the climate. In other words, we may have significantly underestimated the effects of the CO2 now being released into the atmosphere. If the Eocene is any indication, the world is probably in for more warming than suspected.
A new study in the journal Nature highlights the mystery. Just before the PETM, CO2 levels were already gradually rising. Then, in a geological instant - a few thousand years - average global temperatures rose about 7 degrees C (13 degrees F.).
From chemical signatures found in ocean sediments, scientists infer that carbon dioxide increased by some 70 percent during the PETM. But when they use that figure in their climate model, they can produce only half the warming they know occurred.
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The Sermilik fjord in Greenland: a chilling view of a warming world
 'We all live on the Greenland ice sheet now. Its fate is our fate'
It is calving season in the Arctic. A flotilla of icebergs, some as jagged as fairytale castles and others as smooth as dinosaur eggs, calve from the ice sheet that smothers Greenland and sail down the fjords. The journey of these sculptures of ice from glaciers to ocean is eerily beautiful and utterly terrifying.
The wall of ice that rises behind Sermilik fjord stretches for 1,500 miles (2,400km) from north to south and smothers 80% of this country. It has been frozen for 3m years. Now it is melting, far faster than the climate models predicted and far more decisively than any political action to combat our changing climate. If the Greenland ice sheet disappeared sea levels around the world would rise by seven metres, as 10% of the world's fresh water is currently frozen here.
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How Sunlight Controls Climate
 New computer models begin to suggest how changes in the sun's strength might change weather patterns
Small changes in the sun's brightness can have big impacts on our planet's weather and climate. And now scientists have detailed how that process might work, according to a new study published August 28 in Science.
For decades some scientists have noted that certain climate phenomena-warmer seas, increased tropical rainfall, fewer clouds in the subtropics, stronger trade winds-seem to be connected to the sun's roughly 11-year cycle, which causes ebbs and flows in sunspots that result in variations in solar output.
That variation is roughly equal to 0.2 watt per meter squared-far too little to explain, for instance, actual warming sea-surface temperatures. A variety of theories have been proposed to explain the discrepancy: ozone chemistry changes in the stratosphere, increased sunlight in cloudless areas, even cosmic rays. But none of these theories, on its own, explains the phenomenon.
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Global warming, California, and "What a 1-Degree Temperature Increase Means for Wildfires"
 The scientific literature paints a hellish future if we don't quickly reverse greenhouse gas emissions trends. Even the watered down, consensus-based 2007 IPCC report acknowledged the danger:
A warming climate encourages wildfires through a longer summer period that dries fuels, promoting easier ignition and faster spread. Westerling et al. (2006 - see here) found that, in the last three decades, the wildfire season in the western U.S. has increased by 78 days, and burn durations of fires >1000 ha have increased from 7.5 to 37.1 days, in response to a spring-summer warming of 0.87oC. Earlier spring snowmelt has led to longer growing seasons and drought, especially at higher elevations, where the increase in wildfire activity has been greatest. In the south-western U.S., fire activity is correlated with ENSO positive phases, and higher Palmer Drought Severity Indices....
Insects and diseases are a natural part of ecosystems. In forests, periodic insect epidemics kill trees over large regions, providing dead, desiccated fuels for large wildfires. These epidemics are related to aspects of insect life cycles that are climate sensitive.
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Real Climate Change Costs Could Triple Early Estimates
 LONDON, UK, August 27, 2009 (ENS) - United Nations climate change negotiations are based on "substantial" underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to global warming, scientists led by a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned today.
The real costs of adaptation are likely to be two to three times greater than estimates for the year 2030 made by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2007, say Professor Martin Parry and colleagues in a new report published by the International Institute for Environment and Development and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London. Launched today at a news conference in London, the report finds that costs will be even greater when the full range of climate impacts on human activities is considered.
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Mercury Found in Blood of One-Third of American Women
 LOS ANGELES, California, September 1, 2009 (ENS) - The level of inorganic mercury in the blood of American women has been increasing since 1999 and it is now found in the blood of one in three women, according to a new analysis of government data for more than 6,000 American women.
"My study found compelling evidence that inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is a cumulative process, increasing with age and overall in the population over time," said author Dan Laks, a neuroscience researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In a separate statistical analysis, he found that older women had more inorganic mercury in their blood than younger women, indicating that mercury accumulates in the blood over time.
"My findings also suggest a rise in risks for disease associated with mercury over time," Laks said.
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Vast shift in bird species expected from warming
 Birds of a feather will no longer flock together, and some California species will face extinction as a result of global warming, according to a study released Tuesday by PRBO Conservation Science.
The study, which predicts how birds in California will adapt to changing climatic conditions, says there will be a dramatic change in the pecking order of the avian world over the next 60 years.
In one fell swoop, the changes in bird habitats and behavior between now and 2070 will equal the evolutionary and adaptive shifts that normally occur over tens of thousands of years, according to researchers with PRBO, also known as the Point Reyes Bird Observatory.
"What we found is that not only will species shift and communities change, but the composition of communities in certain places will not resemble anything we see today," said Diana Stralberg, a landscape ecologist and the lead author of the report, "Reshuffling of Species With Climate Disruption: A No-Analog Future for California Birds?"
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Arctic climate change may be forcing faster warming on entire globe: report
 A new report says Arctic climate change is happening faster than anyone anticipated and may soon be forcing more rapid warming on the rest of the planet. "It is a tipping point," said Craig Stewart of the World Wildlife Fund, which was to release the report Wednesday in London.
"It is a tipping point," said Craig Stewart of the World Wildlife Fund, which was to release the report Wednesday in London.
The report is an attempt to update the work of scientists involved in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as world leaders prepare to gather in Copenhagen next December to discuss how to deal with the issue. The conclusion of many of those same top researchers is that changes are occurring much more quickly - especially in the Arctic - than was believed even two years ago.
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Change is seen in Atlantic from climate, fishing
 The basic makeup of the ocean waters off the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic region has fundamentally changed in the past 40 years because of climate change, commercial fishing pressures and growing coastal populations, according to a new report.
The 2009 Ecosystem Status Report says fish populations in U.S. waters from North Carolina to Maine have moved from their traditional home grounds because of a changing environment and human activities.
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People won't change lifestyle for planet: straw poll
 LONDON (Reuters) - People want to save the planet but are unwilling to make radical lifestyle changes like giving up air travel or red meat to reduce the effects of climate change, a straw poll by Reuters showed.
As leaders gear up for another round of climate change talks later this month in New York, motivating people to change their lifestyles will be crucial in ensuring cuts in planet-warming greenhouse gases, experts say.
Over 40 percent of Britain's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the main greenhouse gas causing climate change, come from the energy we use at home and in traveling. A straw poll of 15 British men and 15 British women between the ages of 25-75 in central London, showed all were willing to make small changes for the environment, such as recycling, but few would commit to more fundamental changes to behavior.
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A Bad Mix: Exposure May be "Safe" Only With One Chemical at a Time.
 Exposure to a mixture of environmental chemicals is far more harmful to male rats than exposure to the individual chemicals would predict, even when the level of each contaminant in the mixture causes no effect by itself. The results indicate that assessing the risk of chemicals one-compound-at-a-time will underestimate potential harm. People are exposed to hundreds of chemicals at a time, if not more. People could be affected by mixtures of chemicals that are currently considered "safe" based on their individual toxicities.
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Methane Gas Likely Spewing Into The Oceans Through Vents In Sea Floor
 ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2009) - Scientists worry that rising global temperatures accompanied by melting permafrost in arctic regions will initiate the release of underground methane into the atmosphere. Once released, that methane gas would speed up global warming by trapping the Earth's heat radiation about 20 times more efficiently than does the better-known greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
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Climate change: Enough science, now for the politics
 Science can prove global climate change is happening, but it won't tell us what to do about it, says professor of climate change, Mike Hulme.
Climate change raises many questions about development goals and practices. These can only be resolved through widespread social deliberation and hard political negotiation. Simply more or 'better' science won't be enough.
The idea that humans are changing the global climate system was first developed, elaborated and demonstrated by natural scientists. The scientific evidence backing this basic idea is now overwhelming, even if scientific predictions of future climate changes are still shrouded in uncertainty.
But although science is very good at revealing how things are, and suggesting what physical manifestations might follow a particular course of action, it has limited relevance and reach when deciding what should be done in the face of complex dilemmas - such as climate change.
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Has runaway Arctic warming already begun?
 Runaway warming of the Arctic threatens to spread climate havoc across the globe in the coming decades, according to a new study by the environment group WWF. But has the process already begun? Climate scientists meeting at the World Climate Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, where the report was launched today, are in two minds.
Some reckon the WWF report may understate future events. The report's author, climate adviser Martin Sommerkorn, reckons 90 per cent of the Arctic's surface permafrost could be lost by 2100. But Jerry Meehl of the US government's National Center for Atmospheric Research at Boulder, Colorado, told the conference that unless humans curb their greenhouse gas emissions "there will be zero permafrost by 2100".
Melting permafrost is likely to release huge volumes of methane, accelerating global warming faster than previous predictions, according to many speakers at the conference. Fears of such releases prompted another US government agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this week to start regular research flights over Alaska, sniffing for methane.
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Next Ice Age Delayed by Global Warming, Study Says
 Humans are putting the brakes on the next ice age, according to the most extensive study to date on Arctic climate change.
The Arctic may be warmer than it's been in the past 2,000 years-a trend that is reversing a natural cooling cycle dictated by a wobble in Earth's axis.
Previously, researchers had looked at Arctic temperature data that went back just 400 years. (See photos of how climate change is transforming the Arctic.)
That research showed a temperature spike in the 20th century, but it was unclear whether human-caused greenhouse gas emissions or natural variability was the culprit, noted study co-author Gifford Miller of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
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Exceptionally Warm Winter Temperatures at Barrow, Alaska Baseline Observatory
 The NOAA ESRL Barrow, Alaska, Atmospheric Baseline Observatory located on the most northerly habited point of land in the U.S, has been continuously measuring meteorological parameters since 1977. In November of this year, the average temperature at the observatory was +14.3F (+8C) warmer than the monthly norm. From December 1-10, 2007, the average temperature has been +22.2 F (+12.3C) warmer than the long term average for December. These exceptionally warm temperatures are likely due to heat from the warmer Arctic Ocean off shore from Barrow that is still not frozen for this winter. The Barrow Observatory chief, Dan Endres, who has been at the Barrow observatory for 23 years, notes that in the 1980s the ocean would generally freeze by the middle of October. In recent years, freeze-up has been occurring progressively later.
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'Climate change is here, it is a reality'
 As one devastating drought follows another, the future is bleak for millions in east Africa. John Vidal reports from Moyale, Kenya
We met Isaac and Abdi, Alima and Muslima last week in the bone-dry, stony land close to the Ethiopia-Kenya border. They were with five nomad families who have watched all their animals die of starvation this year in a deep drought, and who have now decided their days of herding cattle are over.
After three years of disastrous rains, the families from the Borana tribe, who by custom travel thousands of miles a year in search of water and pasture, have unanimously decided to settle down. Back in April, they packed up their pots, pans and meagre belongings, deserted their mud and thatch homes at Bute and set off on their last trek, to Yaeblo, a village of near-destitute charcoal makers that has sprung up on the side of a dirt road near Moyale. Now they live in temporary "benders" - shelters made from branches covered with plastic sheeting. They look like survivors from an earthquake or a flood, but in fact these are some of the world's first climate-change refugees.
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Fall Colors Fade In U.S. West As Aspen Trees Die
 SALMON, Idaho - The American West is losing its autumn colors as global warming begins to bite and there is far more at stake than iconic scenery.
Aspen, the white-barked trees with golden leaves that gave their name to the famed Colorado ski resort, have been dying off across the Rocky Mountain states. The die-off is puzzling but some foresters point to climate change.
This disaster coincides with beetle outbreaks that have laid waste to millions of acres of pine and spruce forest in the American and Canadian west. They too have been linked to warmer winters since extremely cold temperatures are needed to kill the insects.
Recent droughts and other factors linked to global warming are seen as likely causes for "sudden aspen decline," or SAD, so named because it can strike a forest so quickly. "Assuming climate predictions are true, it probably is a sign of things to come," said Jim Worrall, forest pathologist with the U.S. Forest Service.
Dwindling aspen would spell trouble for mountain towns like Aspen, Colorado, where tourists flock each autumn to see their spade-shaped leaves turn from green to gold before skiers arrive for the winter.
Failing aspen forests also hurt sawmills and threaten large animals such as elk seeking food with consequences for hunting and other outdoor industries.
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Climate change: melting ice will trigger wave of natural disasters
 Scientists at a London conference next week will warn of earthquakes, avalanches and volcanic eruptions as the atmosphere heats up and geology is altered. Even Britain could face being struck by tsunamis.
Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way - by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions. Reports by international groups of researchers - to be presented at a London conference next week - will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.
Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods and mud flows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.
At the same time the disappearance of ice caps will change the pressures acting on the Earth's crust and set off volcanic eruptions across the globe. Life on Earth faces a warm future - and a fiery one.
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Is There a Climate-Change Tipping Point?
 Global warming - the very term sounds gentle, like a bath that grows pleasantly hotter under the tap. Many people might assume that's how climate change works too, the globe gradually increasing in temperature until we decide to stop it by cutting our carbon emissions. It's a comforting notion, one that gives us time to gauge the steady impact of warming before taking action.
There's just one problem: that's not how climate change is likely to unfold. Instead, scientists worry about potential tipping points - triggers that, once reached, could lead to sudden and irrevocable changes in the climate, almost without warning. It's the same phenomenon of sudden collapse that can be seen in any number of complex systems that seem perfectly stable, until they're not - ecosystems, financial markets, even epileptic seizures. The trick is to identify the warning signs that indicate a tipping point - and collapse - are about to be reached and to take action to avoid them.
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Early Warning Signals Of Change: 'Tipping Points' Identified Where Sudden Shifts To New Conditions Occur
 ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2009) - What do abrupt changes in ocean circulation and Earth's climate, shifts in wildlife populations and ecosystems, the global finance market and its system-wide crashes, and asthma attacks and epileptic seizures have in common?
According to a paper published this week in the journal Nature, all share generic early-warning signals that indicate a critical threshold of change dead ahead.
In the paper, Martin Scheffer of Wageningen University in The Netherlands and co-authors, including William Brock and Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., found that similar symptoms occur in many systems as they approach a critical state of transition.
"It's increasingly clear that many complex systems have critical thresholds -- 'tipping points' -- at which these systems shift abruptly from one state to another," write the scientists in their paper.
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Long-term Cooling Trend In Arctic Abruptly Reverses, Signaling Potential For Sea Rise
 ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2009) - Warming from greenhouse gases has trumped the Arctic's millennia-long natural cooling cycle, suggests new research. Although the Arctic has been receiving less energy from the summer sun for the past 8,000 years, Arctic summer temperatures began climbing in 1900 and accelerated after 1950.
The decade from 1999 to 2008 was the warmest in the Arctic in two millennia, scientists report in the journal Science. Arctic temperatures are now 2.2 degrees F (1.2 degrees C) warmer than in 1900.
To track Arctic temperatures 2,000 years into the past, the research team analyzed natural signals recorded in lake sediments, tree rings and ice cores. The natural archives are so detailed the team was able to reconstruct past Arctic temperatures decade by decade.
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