Climate Articles
NASA: Easily the hottest spring - and Jan-May - in temperature record
Plus another record 12-month global temperature
Last month tied May 1998 as the hottest on record in the NASA dataset. More significantly, following fast on the heels of easily the hottest April — and hottest Jan-April — on record, it's also the hottest Jan-May on record [click on figure to enlarge].
Also, the combined land-surface air and sea-surface water temperature anomaly for March-April-May was 0.73°C above the 1951-1980 mean, blowing out the old record of 0.65°C set in 2002.
The record temperatures we're seeing now are especially impressive because we've been in "the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century." It's just hard to stop the march of manmade global warming, well, other than by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that is.
Most significantly, the 12-month global temperature grew to 0.66°C — easily the highest on record.
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Warm spring cuts New York maple syrup yield
The quick warmup this spring switched sugar maples from sap-making to bud-popping, bringing New York's maple syrup production down nearly 30 percent from last year's unusually high level.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported Thursday that syrup production in New York state is estimated at 312,000 gallons for 2010, down from the 439,000 gallons produced in 2009.
However, the USDA's Marisa Reuber says the 2010 production level was above the five-year average of 294,000 gallons.
The 2010 United States maple syrup production totaled 1.96 million gallons, down 19 percent from 2009. Vermont led all States with 890,000 gallons, a decrease of 3 percent from 2009. Production in Maine, at 310,000 gallons, decreased 22 percent from last season.
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With biomass, green and not-so-green lines blur
Wisconsin power projects spark questions about emissions from biomass vs. fossil fuels
How green can the energy produced by a biomass power plant be if it releases carbon dioxide into the air just like a coal or natural gas-fueled plant?
That's the question being raised about biomass projects, including one proposed by We Energies in Rothschild and another Xcel Energy Corp. is considering in Ashland.
"You can't assume that biomass is carbon-neutral. It depends on how many trees you plant and how fast they grow, and all sorts of variables," said Katie Nekola, energy program director at the conservation group Clean Wisconsin. "It's right to look at it case by case to see exactly what the carbon balance is going to be for any plant."
The issue is dividing renewable energy advocates and conservationists in Washington, D.C., as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Congress wrestle with the thorny issue of regulating emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants and factories.
In announcing its plan this month to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions in 2011, the EPA ruled that it does not consider biomass to be carbon-neutral. At the same time, the agency left the door open to reversing that decision in the future.
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Royal Society to publish guide on climate change to counter claims of 'exaggeration'
The Royal Society is to issue an official guide on climate change to better reflect the uncertainties around the science.
The most prestigious group of scientists in the country was forced to act after fellows complained that doubts over man made global warming were not being communicated to the public.
In particular they were unhappy that the long term effects of greenhouse gases were being oversimplified.
Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, admitted that the case for man-made global warming has been exaggerated in the past.
He emphasised that the basic science remains sound but agreed to issue guidance so that it better reflects the uncertainties.
"Climate change is a hugely important issue but the public debate has all too often been clouded by exaggeration and misleading information," he said. "We aim to provide the public with a clear indication of what is known about the climate system, what we think we know about it and, just as importantly, the aspects we still do not understand very well."
In recent months the debate about global warming has been marred by a series of scandals. Emails stolen from the University of East Anglia appeared to show scientists were willing to manipulate the data to exaggerate warming. The individuals involved were cleared from any wrongdoing but the scandal known as 'climategate' knocked public confidence.
At the same time the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that advises the United Nations on global warming, came under doubt after wrongly claiming the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.
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"This is What the End of the Oil Age Looks Like."
We have the Deepwater Horizon oil spill now precisely because the easy to obtain oil is already tapped. You don't drill in mile deep waters if you have somewhere else you could go.
The worst is yet to come. If we don't kick oil now, we will see more disasters as oil companies move to the Arctic offshore, clear more forests for tar sands, and rape the American West to develop oil shale. Worldwide droughts, floods and dead seas will also ensue from global warming caused from burning oil.
Richard Heinberg of Post Carbon Institute said it best: "This is what the end of the oil age looks like. The cheap, easy petroleum is gone; from now on, we will pay steadily more and more for what we put in our gas tanks-more not just in dollars, but in lives and health, in a failed foreign policy that spawns foreign wars and military occupations, and in the lost integrity of the biological systems that sustain life on this planet. The only solution is to do proactively, and sooner, what we will end up doing anyway as a result of resource depletion and economic, environmental, and military ruin: end our dependence on the stuff."
We Can Do That. I said in my recent Peak Oil article "The End of the World as We Know It" that we need to adapt to Peak Oil, but we can do that. This article explains how.
How Do We Use Oil? To know why we are addicted to oil and where we might most readily save it, we must know how we use it. The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes data on oil use, yet typically in broad categories such as commercial, residential, industrial, and transportation. In a seminal 2002 work Ending the Oil Age consultant Charles Komanoff poured over thousands of lines of raw EIA data to get more detail on our actual end uses of oil, shown below:
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Cameras to monitor melting Everest
KATHMANDU: Five special time-lapse cameras have been installed for the first time in the Mount Everest region to monitor the melting of the glaciers. The cameras were installed last week by the technical team of an organisation -Extreme Ice Survey - a world-renowned American organisation.
Confirming the installation of cameras, an EIS source said, "Our technicians have just returned to USA after the successful installation of five cameras to monitor the melting of the glaciers."According to EIS, four cameras will monitor the Khumbu Glacier and one Nare Glacier on the south side of Ama Dablam.
EIS is the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography that uses time-lapse photography, conventional photography and video to document the rapid changes occurring on the earth's glacial ice. EIS has already installed 27 time-lapse cameras at 15 sites in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, and the Rocky Mountains.
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KPC said to work out new strategy on global warming 'Stocktaking of all emissions planned'
KUWAIT CITY, May 30, (KUNA): Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said on Sunday its board of directors had worked out a new strategy on the management of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and climate change.
The KPC board of directors, led by Minister of Oil and Minister of Information Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah, took such a step during its meeting on Thursday, the KPC said in a release.
"The phenomena of global warming and climate change have become key environmental issues in our present age," it said.
The strategy provides for a complete stocktaking of all carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions in Kuwait, and determines the involvement of various economic sectors, including oil, power, water desalination and transport ones, in the creation of such emissions.
The oil sector shares over 35 percent of overall emissions in Kuwait, the KPC said, citing recent relevant figures.
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Air Traffic Poised to Become a Major Factor in Global Warming, Scientists Predict
ScienceDaily (May 31, 2010) - The first new projections of future aircraft emissions in 10 years predict that carbon dioxide and other gases from air traffic will become a significant source of global warming as they double or triple by 2050.
The study is in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.
Bethan Owen and colleagues note that aviation is not now one of the main drivers of global warming, with international aviation (source of 60 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft) not even included in the Kyoto Protocol. Global air traffic currently contributes to between 2 and 3 percent of carbon dioxide emissions -- the main "greenhouse" gas linked to global warming.
The scientists' computer model forecast that emissions of carbon dioxide will likely double or triple within the next 50 years. By 2100, carbon dioxide emissions could increase by up to seven times the current levels, they say.
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As climate changes, Minnesota's fish feel heat
BRAINERD, MINN. - This spring's summerlike weather may be embraced by Minnesotans, but it spells trouble for ciscoes, a cold-water fish that serves as food for gamefish such as walleyes, northerns, muskies and lake trout.
Large ciscoe dieoffs -- likely caused by higher water temperatures and surface runoff that robs lakes of oxygen -- have become more common in recent years, and their populations have declined sharply in some lakes, including popular Gull Lake near Brainerd.
Researcher Andy Carlson calls ciscoes the "canary in the coal mine,'' an indicator that Minnesota lakes are changing. Ciscoes -- also known as tullibees -- will be among the first fish to feel the impact if Minnesota's summer climate becomes more like that of present-day Kansas over the next 85 years, as some studies have predicted.
"They're getting squeezed," said Carlson, a Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist. The trends mean dieoffs could become more common and their populations could "blink out" in some lakes. This year already is off to an ominous start: Many northern lakes set records for early-ice out, and air temperatures already have hit 90 degrees.
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Night-time temperatures could rise above 25C because of climate change
The number of sweltering nights when the temperature in cities stays above 20C (68F) and the elderly become vulnerable to heat exhaustion will increase fivefold because of climate change, a Met Office study has found.
Opening the windows will make no difference because the outside temperature will be too warm for the heat in homes to escape. The "urban heat island effect", in which buildings and roads absorb heat during the day and release it at night, could result in the temperature on the hottest nights remaining above 25C.
During the 2003 heatwave, which killed 2,000 people in Britain, the hottest nights were around 20C. Daytime temperatures reached 30C for 10 days in a row, but it was the hot, airless nights that proved fatal because people were unable to cool down and recover from the stress of the daytime heat before the sun rose again.
The Met Office study found that, by 2040, it could need to issue heatwave warnings for urban areas four times more frequently. The warning system was established after the 2003 heatwave to help people to protect those at risk, including the elderly, young children and those suffering with poor health caused by respiratory diseases.
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Hundreds die in Indian heatwave
Death toll expected to rise as India faces record temperatures of up to 122F in hottest summer on record
Record temperatures in northern India have claimed hundreds of lives in what is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s.
The death toll is expected to rise with experts forecasting temperatures approaching 50C (122F) in coming weeks. More than 100 people are reported to have died in the state of Gujarat where the mercury topped at 48.5C last week. At least 90 died in Maharashtra, 35 in Rajasthan and 34 in Bihar.
Hospitals in Gujarat have been receiving around 300 people a day suffering from food poisoning and heat stroke, ministers said. Officials admit the figures are only a fraction of the total as most of the casualties are found in remote rural villages.
Wildlife and livestock has also suffered with voluntary organisations in Gujarat reporting the deaths of bats and crows and dozens of peacocks reported dead at a forest reserve in Uttar Pradesh.
"Because of the heat, lakes and other water bodies have been reduced to parched land, making dehydration common in such birds," said Neeraj Srivastava, a wildlife campaigner.
Even India's northern hill stations – historically a refuge from the heat – have not escaped. Temperatures in Shimla, recorded a peak temperature of 32.4 Celsius, eight degrees hotter than the seasonal average.
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Temperatures reach record high in Pakistan
Meteorologists record a temperature of 53.7C (129F) in Mohenjo-daro as heatwave continues across Pakistan and India
Mohenjo-daro, a ruined city in what is now Pakistan that contains the last traces of a 4,000-year-old civilisation that flourished on the banks of the river Indus, today entered the modern history books after government meteorologists recorded a temperature of 53.7C (129F). Only Al 'Aziziyah, in Libya (57.8C in 1922), Death valley in California (56.7 in 1913) and Tirat Zvi in Israel (53.9 in 1942) are thought to have been hotter.
Temperatures in the nearest town, Larkana, have been only slightly lower in the last week, with 53C recorded last Wednesday. As the temperatures peaked, four people died, including a prisoner serving a life sentence for murder and an elderly woman. Dozens are said to have fainted.
The extreme heat was exacerbated by chronic power cuts which have prevented people from using air-conditioning. The electricity has cut out for eight hours each day as part of a severe load-shedding regime that has caused riots in other parts of Pakistan where cities are experiencing a severe heatwave with temperatures of between 43C and 47C.
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Top Ten Driest Cities Identified
A new study has compiled a "Top Ten Drought-Riskiest Cities"
With predictions of serious water shortage problems in the US around the corner, a new study compiled a "Top Ten Drought-Riskiest Cities." The metropolitan areas were selected based not only on climate changes, but also human impact such as growing populations and outdated water infrastructures that fail to meet rising demands.
1. Los Angeles metropolitan area
2. San Diego metropolitan area
3. Oxnard-Thousand Oak, CA
4. Riverside, CA
5. Salt Lake City, UT
6. Nashville, TN
7. Chattanooga, TN
8. Birmingham, AL
9. Greenville, NC
10. Knoxville, TN
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New Study Finds Ocean Warmed Significantly Since 1993
The upper layer of Earth's ocean has warmed since 1993, indicating a strong climate change signal, according to a new international study co-authored by oceanographer Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The energy stored is enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet continuously over the 16-year study period.
"We are seeing the global ocean store more heat than it gives off," said John Lyman, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, who led the study that analyzed nine different estimates of heat content in the upper ocean from 1993 to 2008.
The team combined the estimates to assess the size and certainty of growing heat storage in the ocean. Their findings will be published in the May 20 edition of the journal Nature. The scientists are from NASA, NOAA, the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom, the University of Hamburg in Germany and the Meteorological Research Institute in Japan.
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Greenland on the Rise
Greenland's ice sheet is melting so fast that surprised scientists say they can almost watch the ground rise as it is relieved of the overlying weight.
The melting and the resulting rise in sea level is one of the hallmarks of global warming, but researchers are having to resort to some novel methods to overcome different seasonal and regional signals that obstruct their ability to measure the effect of rising temperatures.
Rather than focusing on the ice itself, researchers at the University of Miami are using high-precision satellite-borne Global Positioning System instruments to measure changes in the height of the underlying land mass. Relieved of the weight of the ice, the land rebounds.
But measuring the problem is not so straightforward, because this process of rising land height has been going on for eons around the Northern Hemisphere. Most of Canada and much of the northern United States still is rebounding from the ice load of the last ice age, for example.
A new study published online in the journal Nature Geoscience gets around this problem in an interesting way. Instead of measuring the rise of Greenland's land, they are measuring the rate of change.
"We focus on vertical accelerations rather than velocities to avoid the confounding effects of past events," writes Yan Jiang and colleagues. "Our data show an acceleration of uplift over the past decade that represents an essentially instantaneous, elastic response to the recent accelerated melting of ice throughout the North Atlantic region."
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Smoke over the U.S. from Spring Burning
Spring is a time for planting, and one very common tool for preparing the ground is fire. Smoke from agricultural burning can drift over wide areas, as it did in mid-May 2010. As this image shows, the smoke raised carbon monoxide concentrations slightly in parts of Mexico, southern Canada, and the U.S. Great Plains and New England.
Areas that are red show the highest concentrations of carbon monoxide, while yellow areas show lighter concentrations. Carbon monoxide is released when carbon in fuel-both plants and fossil fuels like gasoline-burns incompletely. In the United States, the vast majority of carbon monoxide released into the atmosphere comes from vehicles and other gas-burning equipment, but fires also contribute. In mid-May, smoke from agricultural burning brought higher carbon monoxide concentrations to three regions in North America.
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Record Low April Snow
Winter 2009-2010 was much colder than normal for the United States, and it delivered a string of record-breaking snowstorms that began on the winter solstice.
The snow and cold didn't linger far into the spring, however. By the end of April, North American snow cover had retreated to the lowest extent in the 1967–2010 record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's April 2010 State of the Climate Report. This map shows percent snow cover across North America in April 2010 based on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. Percent snow cover ranges from just above zero (light blue) to 100 percent (white). Land areas with no detectable snow cover during the month are gray.
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NRC Reports: United States Should Act Now to Cut Greenhouse Gases
The United States should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change, according to three new reports from the National Research Council (NRC). The three new NRC reports, issued on May 19, examine the science of climate change, ways to limit future climate change, and ways to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The first report finds that multiple lines of evidence support the scientific understanding of climate change, and it concludes that climate change is occurring, is largely caused by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems. The report also notes that many climate change impacts are already evident.
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Air Sampling Finds a Compound in Toxic Dispersant Is Also in the Air
Faced with limited data [1], we've been careful not to attribute a causal relationship between dispersant use and illness in cleanup workers. But McClatchy notes that the dispersants' toxins may be making their way into the air that workers are breathing. Air sampling data gathered to ensure the safety of cleanup workers has identified a chemical compound in the air that is also in the dispersants BP is applying to the Gulf [2]:
Little-noticed data posted on BP's website and the Deepwater Horizon site show that 32 air samples taken near workers have indicated the presence of butoxyethanol, a component listed as present in an oil spill dispersant used by BP, known as Corexit. The Environmental Protection Agency considers it toxic.
The BP document said the data demonstrates "that there are no significant exposures occurring." OSHA is monitoring the data and has said the workers haven't been exposed to harmful levels.
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Search Engine Ecosia Helps generate money for Forests
The search engine Ecosia does just that. Its unusual financial model means that at least 80% of the income generated through advertisers and sponsored links is ploughed into forest protection initiatives via a partnership with WWF. For Tim Jackson, author of Prosperity without Growth, this is a prime example of business redefining success in the private sector. It's largely thanks to the company's environmental 'slant' that this new entrant has been able to make its mark on a highly competitive market, dominated by long-established global players.
Enterprises like Ecosia are a sign that, while Copenhagen left us disappointed, there's still an appetite in the private sector for change. And not just incremental change but the innovative disruption that's needed to meet global sustainability challenges.
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Unique Computer Model Used to Predict Active 2010 Hurricane Season
ScienceDaily (June 2, 2010) - Florida State University scientists who have developed a unique computer model with a knack for predicting hurricanes with unprecedented accuracy are forecasting an unusually active season this year.
Associate Scholar Scientist Tim LaRow and his colleagues at FSU's Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) say there will be an average of 17 named storms with 10 of those storms developing into hurricanes in the Atlantic this season, which begins June 1, and runs through Nov. 30. The historical seasonal average is 11 tropical storms with six of them becoming hurricanes.
"It looks like it will be a very busy season, and it only takes one hurricane making landfall to have devastating effects," LaRow said. "The predicted high number of tropical systems means there is an increased chance that the eastern United States or Gulf Coast will see a landfall this year."
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2010 on track to become warmest year ever
Figures from US scientists show Arctic sea ice is at a record low, while land temperatures are likely to hit new highs
New data from some of the world's leading climate researchers and institutions suggest that 2010 is shaping up to be one of the warmest years ever recorded.
Scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Centre Data Centre (NSIDC) report today that Arctic sea ice – frozen seawater that floats on the ocean surface – is now at its lowest physical extent ever recorded for the time of year, suggesting that it is on course to break the previous record low set in 2007.
Satellite monitoring by the NSIDC in Boulder, Colorado, shows that the melting of sea ice has been unusually fast this year, with as much as 40,000 sq km now disappearing daily.
The melt season started almost a month later than normal at the end of March and is not expected to end until September.
Meanwhile, research from the polar science centre at the University of Washington suggests that the volume of sea ice in March 2010 was 20,300 cubic km, 38% below the 1979 level when records began.
Global surface temperatures may also be at a record high, according to leading climate scientist James Hansen and colleagues at the National Aeronautic Space Administration (Nasa).
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New greenhouse gases accumulating 'rapidly'
It is windy, cold and isolated. Cape Grim is at the most north-west point in Tasmania.
It is also home to some of the cleanest air on the planet and for that reason, it is the most important air measuring station in the southern hemisphere.
The Cape Grim research station, perched on the cliffs overlooking the Southern Ocean, is recording the most precise account of the earth's changing atmosphere.
But it is not all good news - over the last 12 months scientists have identified two potent greenhouse gases that are accelerating rapidly.
Paul Fraser from the CSIRO has been coming to the station since it opened in 1976 and he says that over the last 30 years, carbon dioxide levels have increased by 15 per cent.
"Almost entirely that increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is due to fossil fuels and that's entirely man-made," he said.
In fact, 40 different types of greenhouse gases are measured at Cape Grim.
But it is two new gases recently identified that are accelerating rapidly.
One, nitrogen trifluoride, is used in the manufacture of plasma televisions. The other is sulphuryl fluoride, a fumigant used on crops.
Mr Fraser says in the long-term, the two gases will have climate-warming potential.
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Climate Change Commitment II
A couple of months ago, we discussed a short paper by Matthews and Weaver on the 'climate change commitment' – how much change are we going to see purely because of previous emissions. In my write up, I contrasted the results in M&W (assuming zero CO2 emissions from now on) with a constant concentration scenario (roughly equivalent to an immediate cut of 70% in CO2 emissions), however, as a few people pointed out in the comments, this exclusive focus on CO2 is a little artificial.
I have elsewhere been a big advocate of paying attention to the multi-faceted nature of the anthropogenic emissions (including aerosols and radiatively and chemically active short-lived species), both because that gives a more useful assessment of what it is that we are doing that drives climate change, and also because it is vital information for judging the effectiveness of any proposed policy for a suite of public issues (climate, air pollution, public health etc.). Thus, I shouldn't have neglected to include these other factors in discussions of the climate change commitment.
Luckily, some estimates do exist in the literature of what happens if we ceased all human emissions of climatically important factors. One such estimate is from Hare and Meinshausen (2006), whose results are illustrated here:
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Climate denial activists' parallel to anti-relativity movement of 1920s
"This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political party affiliation."
So wrote Albert Einstein in a letter to his one time collaborator, the mathematician Marcel Grossmann in 1920.
Jeroen van Dongen of the Institute for History and Foundations of SAcience at Utrecht University in Holland, writing in a recent edition of the journal, 'Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics,' describes the effectiveness of the movement that grew up to oppose Einstein's theory. There are some striking parallels with today's climate debate.
At a time when The Guardian just reported another poll showing a drop in concern about climate change, and a New York Times front page this week described Britons' growing doubts about the science, its worth taking a look at that anti-science campaign, which was waged by Einstein's critics because like today's climate denial movement, the anti-relativity movement had some success too.
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The Microbe Factor and Its Role in Our Climate Future
Within the planet's oceans and soils are trillions of bacteria that store and release far more carbon dioxide than all of the Earth's trees and plants. Now, scientists are attempting to understand how the world's bacteria will influence - and be influenced by - a warming climate.
When new reports about global warming come out, they typically include a picture of the land and sky, with arrows marking the movement of carbon dioxide around the planet. Some arrows rise up from cities and farmland, while other arrows plunge down to forests and oceans. This sort of diagram does a great job of illustrating the big picture. Thanks to human activity, carbon dioxide is rising into the atmosphere faster than the planet can draw it down. But the giant scale of this picture hides some of the most important players in the global warming story, which are as crucial to the future of the planet as factories and forests: the planet's vast swarms of microbes.
A single bacterium, measuring a few millionths of an inch across, may not seem like much compared to a coal-fired power plant. But taken together, microbes are a force to be reckoned with. Some scientists estimate that our planet is home to about 5 trillion trillion bacteria They pack the oceans and the soils; they live just about everywhere they can find even a trace of liquid water. Together, microbes lock up - and release - a huge amount of carbon. The world's soils - the product of bacteria and fungi breaking down plant matter - contain more than 2.5 trillion tons of carbon. "If you look at all the trees and the grass and the flowers and add all that up, there's four times as much carbon in the soil," says Steven Allison, a biologist at the University of California at Irvine.
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Melting glaciers unearth new challenges
Roads, buildings, rail lines and airports will cost more to replace as their foundations turn into sludge
At first sight, it seems to stretch forever: a vast river of white ice, rising up into the sky, its edges framed by a translucent blue piping.
Sixteen kilometres north of this picturesque Alaskan fishing village, Exit Glacier is rare - the only one in Kenai Fjords National Park that you can reach on foot. A rock-bordered path cuts through an area of recently glaciated terrain, a spur trail lined with indigenous fireweed continuing to the glacier's edge. To stand at its base is to be in awe.
The glacier is fed by the enormous Harding Icefield, which accumulates 400 to 800 inches of snow each year. It takes between 30 and 50 years for that snow to compress into glacial ice. Looking around, there are no obvious indications of a glacier in retreat.
The evidence, however, lines the path to the glacier's edge.
You notice them on the ascent, small wooden signs with numbers: 1921, 1955, 1967. They represent where the front of the glacier existed that year.
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Warmer sea turned cyclone Phet ominous
Two weeks ago, cyclone Laila tore into Andhra Pradesh. Now there is cyclone Phet in the Arabian Sea.
When the India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced that the monsoon had set in over Kerala on May 31, it also noted the development of a depression in the Arabian Sea. By next day, the storm had intensified into a cyclone and been given a name. On June 2, cyclone Phet grew ominously, becoming a 'very severe cyclonic storm' and even threatening to turn into a 'super cyclone,' the most powerful sort of storm.
(The IMD mow forecasts that the storm will cross the Oman coast and weaken. It would then curve back onto the sea and head off towards Pakistan.)
There have been cyclones before at this time of year in the Arabian Sea, pointed out J. Srinivasan, chairman of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. "But I don't recall that any of them intensified this rapidly."
One important reason could be that the sea surface temperatures in the Arabian Sea are exceptionally high this year.
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Climate Change Linked to Major Vegetation Shifts Worldwide
ScienceDaily (June 9, 2010) - Vegetation around the world is on the move, and climate change is the culprit, according to a new analysis of global vegetation shifts led by a University of California, Berkeley, ecologist in collaboration with researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.
In a paper published June 7 in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, researchers present evidence that over the past century, vegetation has been gradually moving toward the poles and up mountain slopes, where temperatures are cooler, as well as toward the equator, where rainfall is greater.
Moreover, an estimated one-tenth to one-half of the land mass on Earth will be highly vulnerable to climate-related vegetation shifts by the end of this century, depending upon how effectively humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the study.
The results came from a meta-analysis of hundreds of field studies and a spatial analysis of observed 20th century climate and projected 21st century vegetation.
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