Climate Articles
Climate: Author Lester Brown explains climate change's impact on food security
Today's OnPointAs shifting weather patterns and weather-related disasters become more prevalent, food insecurity is a growing concern. During today's OnPoint, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the updated book, "Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization," explains why he believes food security is "the weak link" for our civilization. Brown also discusses recent worldwide progress on renewables, including solar, wind and geothermal energy.
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Report: Increased Transit Use Reduced Carbon Emissions by 37 Million Tons
In 2008, people in America saved 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline by riding transit in record numbers -- the amount consumed by 7.2 million cars in a year. Transportation is responsible for more than two-thirds of our dependence on oil, and about one-third of our carbon dioxide pollution, as Environment America outlined in their new report "Getting On Track: Record Transit
Ridership Increases Energy Independence."
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Explorers: North Pole summers ice free in 10 years
LONDON – A team of British explorers says that within a decade the North Pole will be virtually ice-free during the summer.
The Catlin Arctic Survey trekked an average of about 11 kilometers (six miles) per day and swam in freezing water to take measurements of the ice and snow.
Measurements during the three month research project showed that most of the ice is first year ice that measures about 1.8 meters (six feet) thick. Peter Wadhams with the University of Cambridge said Wednesday the ice is too thin to survive next summer's ice melt.
The results come ahead of the UN climate Summit in Copenhagen this December.
For some, US remains villain at UN climate talks
BANGKOK - The honeymoon appears to be over for the United States at U.N. climate talks.
After being applauded for re-engaging in negotiations this year, the American delegation at talks in Bangkok finds themselves being tagged like their Bush Administration predecessors
- as villains who aren't serious about reaching an ambitious global warming treaty when leaders from 120 countries meet in Copenhagen in December. The deal would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The delegation hasn't brought much to the table - partly because climate change legislation hasn't passed the U.S. Congress - while angering some developing countries by insisting
they must show proof they are taking action to reduce heat-trapping emissions.
"We must attack this problem with a sense of urgency and ambition and quite frankly we are not seeing the level of urgency and ambition from the U.S.," said Selwin Hart, a delegate from
Barbados who was speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States, who fear they'll be swamped by rising seas caused by global warming. "This process will go nowhere if we don't see
leadership from the U.S."
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Warmer Weather Threatens Moose in Minnesota
Moose Declining in Minnesota's Northwoods, Among Their Few Strongholds in Lower 48 States
The moose calf didn't seem to want to get out of the water. But its mother, perhaps concerned about approaching boats, decided it was time to leave. She waded back into the reeds along the Sea Gull River and nudged her light brown offspring. Then she bounded through the thick brush into the forest, her calf struggling to keep up. In moments, both were gone.
Researchers say such sightings of moose, an icon in Minnesota's northwoods, are likely to become more rare. A special advisory committee warned last month that climate change threatens moose in Minnesota and recommended several steps to help them.
Minnesota is one of the few strongholds for moose in the lower 48 states. Among other states with moose, only Alaska and parts of New England and the Rocky Mountains have large,
stable populations.
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Warming Ocean Melts Greenland Glaciers
With whale fins splashing in the distance, Ruth Curry hauls up her catch from the blustery deck of an icebreaker.
An orange tube fixed to a metal frame breaks the surface as the motorized winch stops groaning. Inside: data on the water temperature deep down in this glacial fjord off southeast Greenland.
"If you were to dip your hand in it, it doesn't seem that warm," says Curry, an American climate scientist. "But it is. It's warm enough to melt ice. And that's the important thing here."
Curry and her colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts zigzagged between majestic icebergs in the Sermilik fjord last month in search of proof that waters from warmer latitudes, or subtropical waters, are flushing through this remote and frigid region.
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Let's Have a Grown-Up Debate About Climate Change
If, like me, you have been confused, frustrated, dispirited or all of the above by the health care debate in Congress, get ready for more as the U.S. Senate prepares to take up climate-change legislation. The stakes are high. The debate will not be high-minded.
Expect opponents of mandatory carbon regulation to distort the science and economics of global warming, predicting an economic catastrophe if the bill passes, even as environmentalists promise a green jobs nirvana and warn of an environmental catastrophe if it doesn't.
The fact is, any meaningful effort to regulate carbon will carry real but not catastrophic costs for businesses and consumers -- that's part of the point, to raise the price of burning fossil fuels -- and that the transition to a clean-energy economy will be disruptive, under the best of circumstances. Solar-power manufacturers in China will gain at the expense of coal miners in West Virginia. That makes the politics of the bill a challenge, but so be it.
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Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
This report summarizes the science and the impacts of climate change on the United States.
The report examines climate change impacts in different regions of the U.S. and on various aspects of society and the economy such as energy, water, agriculture and health.
The report also highlights the choices available in responding to human-induced climate change.
A free copy the report and other information about the study can be downloaded at:
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NASA Ice Satellite Maps Profound Polar Thinning
Researchers have used NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) to compose the most comprehensive picture of changing glaciers along the coast of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
The new elevation maps show that all latitudes of the Greenland ice sheet are affected by dynamic thinning -- the loss of ice due to accelerated ice flow to the ocean. The maps also show surprising, extensive thinning in Antarctica, affecting the ice sheet far inland. The study, led by Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, was published September 24 in Nature.
ICESat's precise laser altimetry instrument, launched in 2003, has provided a high-density web of elevation measurements repeated year after year across the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. With the dense coverage, the research team could distinguish which changes were caused by fast-flowing ice and which had other causes, such as melt.
The maps confirm that the profound ice sheet thinning of recent years stems from fast-flowing glaciers that empty into the sea. This was particularly the case in West Antarctica, where the Pine Island Glacier was found to be thinning between 2003 and 2007 by as much as 6 meters per year. In Greenland, fast-flowing glaciers were shown to thin by an average of nearly 0.9 meters per year.
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Worlds Oceans Warmest on Record This Summer
Summer, August Post World's Warmest Ocean Temperatures on Record
The world's in hot water. Sea-surface temperatures worldwide have been the hottest on record over the last three months, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.
Ocean temperatures averaged 62.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the June-August period, 1.04 degree higher than normal for the period.
And for August the world sea-surface average was 62.4 degrees, 1.03 higher than usual, also the warmest for August on record, NOAA's National Climatic Data
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More Oxygen - Colder Climate
Using a completely new method, researchers have shown that high atmospheric and oceanic oxygen content makes the climate colder. In prehistoric times, the earth experienced two periods of large increases and fluctuations in the oxygen level of the atmosphere and oceans. These fluctuations also lead to an explosion of multicellular organisms in the oceans, which are the predecessors for life as we know it today. The results are now being published in Nature.
Everybody talks about CO2 and other greenhouse gases as causes of global warming and the large climate changes we are currently experiencing. But what about the atmospheric and oceanic oxygen content? Which role does oxygen content play in global warming?
This question has become extremely relevant now that Professor Robert Frei from the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with colleagues from Departamento de Geologi'a, Facultad de Ciencias in Uruguay, Newcastle University and the University of Southern Denmark, has established that there is a historical correlation between oxygen and temperature fluctuations towards global cooling.
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Planetary Boundaries and The Failure of Environmentalism
Planetary boundaries are the natural limits on humanity's use of the planet. Strikingly, until recently, no one had made a serious effort to quantify these limits in measurable ways. That's why a new report from the Stockholm Resilience Center, attempting to give hard numbers for most of these boundaries, is so crucial.
The Resilience Center focused in on nine boundaries: climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. These are each critical in their own ways:
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What Could 4 Degree Warming Mean For The World?
ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2009) - A leading climate scientist has presented new research findings on the increasing potential for a 4 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures if the current high emissions of greenhouse gases continue.
Speaking at the international conference called '4 degrees and beyond' at Oxford University, Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, described the possibility of a 4 degree warming happening ‘before the end of the century'. He added that a scenario of very intensive fossil fuel burning could bring this forward by 20 years.
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Is Garbage The Solution To Tackling Climate Change?
ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2009) - Converting the rubbish that fills the world's landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, reveals how replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed waste could cut global carbon emissions by 80%.
Biofuels produced from crops have proven controversial because they require an increase in crop production which has its own severe environmental costs. However, second-generation biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol derived from processed urban waste, may offer dramatic emissions savings without the environmental catch.
"Our results suggest that fuel from processed waste biomass, such as paper and cardboard, is a promising clean energy solution," said study author Associate Professor Hugh Tan of the National University of Singapore. "If developed fully this biofuel could simultaneously meet part of the world's energy needs, while also combating carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency."
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'Killer' Southeast U.S. Drought Low On Scale, Says Study
ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2009) - A 2005-2007 dry spell in the southeastern United States destroyed billions of dollars of crops, drained municipal reservoirs and sparked legal wars among a half-dozen states-but the havoc came not from exceptional dryness but booming population and bad planning, says a new study.
Researchers from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory defied conventional wisdom about the drought by showing that it was mild compared to many others, and in fact no worse than one just a decade ago. According to the study, climate change has so far played no detectable role in the frequency or severity of droughts in the region, and its future effects there are uncertain; but droughts there are essentially unpredictable, and could strike again at any time. The study appears in the October edition of the Journal of Climate.
"The drought that caused so much trouble was pathetically normal and short, far less than what the climate system is capable of generating," said lead author Richard Seager, a climate modeler at Lamont. "People were saying that this was a 100-year drought, but it was pretty run-of-the-mill. The problem is, in the last 10 years population has grown phenomenally, and hardly anyone, including the politicians, has been paying any attention."
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Governor's Climate Summit2
Lisa Jackson: Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Lisa P. Jackson leads EPA's efforts to protect the health and environment for all Americans. She and a staff of more than 17,000 professionals are working across the nation to usher in a green economy, address health threats from toxins and pollution, and renew public trust in EPA's work.
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1,000 U.S. Mayors Have Signed Climate Protection Pledge
SEATTLE, Washington, September 30, 2009 (ENS) - U.S. Conference of Mayors President Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels says that by Friday, 1,000 mayors, representing 85 million Americans, will have signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement since it was introduced in February 2005.
The announcement of the 1,000th mayoral signatory and his or her city will take place during the Conference's Leadership Meeting, from October 1-3 in Seattle, where more than 60 U.S. mayors will discuss the continuing recession and "green" economic recovery with White House and Obama Cabinet Officials.
At their Leadership Meeting Thursday, the mayors will release a Climate Protection City Profile report that outlines specific actions mayors are taking to make their cities more energy efficient and meet the goals of the Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement.
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Four degrees of warming 'likely'
In a dramatic acceleration of forecasts for global warming, UK scientists say the global average temperature could rise by 4C (7.2F) as early as 2060.
The Met Office study used projections of fossil fuel use that reflect the trend seen over the last 20 years.
Their computer models also factored in new findings on how carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans and forests.
The finding was presented at an Oxford University conference exploring the implications of a 4C rise.
The results show a "best estimate" that 4C (measured from pre-industrial times) will be reached by 2070, with a possibility that it will come as early as 2060.
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Earth's Climate Outside 'Safe Operating Space'
Sept. 24, 2009 -- We are on the verge of pushing nature into a state of instability like nothing humanity has seen before, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
The study, which attempted for the first time to come up with real numbers for a set of conditions beyond which Earth may not be able to recover, found that we may have already crossed several tipping points.
"This is all about our health and security," said Jonathon Foley, a climatologist and ecologist at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
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6-foot Sea-level Rise Called Inevitable
The world warmed by about 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.26 Fahrenheit) over the past century, and most scientists expect it will rise another degree or two in the next century. Even if it goes up just 1.5 degrees C, seas will rise 2 meters (6 feet), a scientist said Tuesday at a climate conference at Oxford University.
"The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at Germany's Potsdam Institute and a widely recognized sea level expert. "There is no way I can see to stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero emissions."
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Alaska Coast Eroding Fast
The sea is eating away at Alaska's northern coast with alarming speed, a new video of time-lapse photographs shows.
Although the Beaufort Sea coastline has been receding for millennia, a marked increase in the rate of erosion over the last century is a concern, scientists say.
A research team rigged a camera on top of a pipe wedged into the seafloor about 15 or 20 feet (4.6 to 6 meters) offshore.
The camera was set to photograph the coast several times every day for a little more than a month this summer, capturing the sea forming a hollow niche at the base of the bluff pictured.
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