-
-
related tags:
- Arctic
- Sea Level Rise
- Himalayas
- Climate Science
- Climate Change
- Greenland
- Glaciers
- Anthropogenic Climate Change
- Glacial lakes
- Water Scarcity
- NSIDC
- Moral Imperative
- tipping point
- Climate Crisis
- Antarctica
- Arctic Ice
- Political Will
- Global Warming
- Drought
- Environment
- Polar Ice Caps
- Black carbon
- glacier melting
- positive feedback loop
- ocean conveyor belt
- An Inconvenient Truth
- Methane
- Global Water Crisis
- Climate Refugees
- Antarctic
- Planetary Emergency
- Albedo
- Earth
- Moral Will
- Icebergs
- tipping points
- perennial ice
- sea ice extent
- Artic Ice Caps
- feedback loops
- Rising Sea Levels
- positive feedback loops
- Current Environmental News
- biodistress
- Greenhouse Gas
- CO2 Emissions
- Earth and Science
- CO2
- Water
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions
tagged w/ Glacier Melt
-
Melting Away In The Andes
Climate change is all too real in the Peruvian Andes.-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 12 months ago
- |
- 10 comments
-
-
Arctic Ocean freshwater will cause "unpredictable" changes in climate
A vast expanse of freshwater in the midst of the Arctic Ocean is set to wreak unpredictable changes on the climate in Europe and North America, new scientific analysis has shown.
The water – comprising meltwater from the ice cap and run off from rivers – is at least twice the volume of Lake Victoria in Africa, and is continuing to grow. At some point huge quantities of this water are likely to flush out of the Arctic Ocean and into the Atlantic, which could have significant impacts on the climate. Scientists say they cannot predict when this will happen though.
"This could have an influence on ocean circulation," said Benjamin Rabe of the Alfred Wengener Institute. "It could have an influence on the Gulf Stream."
At present, the freshwater acts as a "lid", preventing the warmer salty water below from meeting the ice, which would melt if the two mixed, according to Rabe. But while it is currently stable, this situation is likely to change as atmospheric circulation patterns shift, and as greater quantities of meltwater spill into the "lake". There were signs of an atmospheric change in 2009 that could have precipitated such an outflow, but that episode did not last.
Laura de Steur, an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said: "The volume of water discharged into the Arctic Ocean, largely from Canadian and Siberian rivers, is higher than usual due to warmer temperatures in the north causing ice to melt. Sea ice is also melting quickly – another new record low for ocean area covered was recently documented by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, adding even more freshwater to the relatively calm Arctic Ocean."
She added: "Sea ice that is thinner is more mobile and could exit the Arctic faster. In the worst case, these Arctic outflow surges can significantly change the densities of marine surface waters in the extreme North Atlantic. What happens then is hard to predict."
Such an outflow would probably have a measurable impact on the "conveyor belt" or thermohaline circulation, a system of deep ocean and wind-driven currents, including the Gulf Stream, which carries heat from the tropics, said Rabe. An influx of dense, cold freshwater could slow the conveyor belt. If the effect were marked, it would be felt in the form of a change of weather in Europe and America, he said. Europe could find itself cooling, particularly around the Western edges, as the circulations tend to bring warmer air to the continent.
cont.A vast expanse of freshwater in the midst of the Arctic Ocean is set to wreak... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 68 comments
-
-
In the shadow of a melting glacier
Climate change causes glacial lake to burst its banks seven times in three years.
The Cachet 2 glacial lake in Chile has drained and refilled seven times in three years.
CECS and Jonathan Leidich (PAEX), 2008.The people living beside the Colonia River in the Aysén region of Chilean Patagonia are under constant threat of a sudden catastrophic flood sweeping down from the mountains above them.
The region has experienced an unprecedented seven events called glacial-lake outburst floods since April 2008. Each time, Lake Cachet 2, which lies on the Colonia glacier, has drained its 200 million cubic metres of water in a matter of hours into the Colonia Lake and River, sending the water on to the river's confluence with Baker River, Chile's largest in terms of volume, and generating a wave as far as 25 kilometres upstream and 100 kilometres downstream to the Pacific Ocean.
"You can review the scientific literature and you will notice that these phenomena are known worldwide in the Himalayas, the Alps, but the difference here, and what is striking, is its recurrence," says Fabián Espinoza, regional director of the country's Bureau of Water Management.
The most recent flood was on 4 March this year. The water level in Colonia Lake rose 3.5 metres in just 28 hours and divided the region in two after cutting across the Austral Highway, the main north-south route in Aysén. The Baker River doubled in volume.
Glaciologist Gino Casassa of the Center for Scientific Studies (CECS) in Valdivia has studied the floods in collaboration with the Chilean Meteorological Office. After three years, he has a clear culprit in mind: the repeated opening and closing of a tunnel 8 kilometres beneath the Colonia glacier, connecting Lake Cachet 2 above the glacier and Colonia Lake below it1.
But why has this phenomenon occurred repeatedly over the past few years in Cachet 2? Casassa's answer is climate change: "The glaciers of Patagonia in general have receded and thinned greatly during the past decades," he says. "The lakes grow at the expense of the ice and generate situations in which there is a danger of draining. In the case of the Colonia glacier, this thinning has weakened the natural dam the glacier constitutes."
César Portocarrero, head of the Department of Glaciology and Water Resources at the National Water Authority of Peru, has studied this phenomenon elsewhere in the Andes. He agrees with Casassa. "We can affirm that there is a direct relation between climate change and the phenomena that have been occurring," he says. "The water generated by the melting of the glaciers circulates between the glacier and rock and serves as a lubricant for the shifting of the ice mass."
continuedClimate change causes glacial lake to burst its banks seven times in three years.... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 3 comments
-
-
Flooded Bolivia faces long term water woes
Widespread flooding in Bolivia, which prompted the government to declare a national emergency last week, shows the vulnerability of one of South America's poorest countries to changing weather patterns linked to climate change.
Landlocked Bolivia, which runs from the rugged Andes to the Amazon jungle, faces a variety of climate change-related pressures, from disappearing glaciers to worsening droughts and more intense and unpredictable rainfall. Combined with rising urban demand for water, the problems suggest a long-term water crisis ahead for the country, analysts say.
The latest disaster has killed at least 50 people and left thousands homeless in Bolivia after weeks of heavy rain triggered flooding and mudslides, with 400 houses destroyed in the capital La Paz alone in a mudslide.
In Cochabamba, southeast of La Paz, schools and stadiums were sheltering hundreds of families whose homes were destroyed. In lowland Santa Cruz department, Bolivia's major grain growing region, floods damaged soy, corn and wheat crops. Rivers burst their banks and major roads were unusable.
"We've declared a state of emergency on different levels in different areas of the country," Defence Minister Ruben Saavedra said last week.
The government has allocated $20 million to help survivors.
Defence Minister Saavedra put the crisis in the Cochabamba, Beni, Santa Cruz, La Paz, Chuquisaca and Tarija departments (administrative regions) down to the La Niña weather phenomenon, linked to abnormally cool ocean temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific.
Changing ocean temperatures and increased evaporation linked to climate change may be increasing the frequency and intensity of La Nina and El Nino events, some scientists believe.
snip
Perhaps the most worrying threat to the country’s water supplies, however, has been glacier retreat. Chacaltaya, which at 5,300 m was once the world's highest ski run, is now a rocky, icy slope with a redundant lift.Widespread flooding in Bolivia, which prompted the government to declare a national... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 7 comments
-
-
Climate change halves Peru glacier in 23 years
A glacier on Peru's Huaytapallana Moutain shed half its surface ice in just 23 years, officials said Wednesday, reinforcing concerns of climate change's growing threat to fresh water resources.
"Recent scientific studies indicate that between June 1983 and August 2006, the glacier has lost 50 percent of its surface ice," Erasmo Meza, manager of natural resources and the environment in the central Andean region of Junin, told the official Andina news agency.
He said the five square kilometers (1.9 square miles) of ice shrinkage on Huaytapallana, whose steep, jagged glacier and breathtaking lakes are popular tourist draws, was caused by global warming and presents growing problems in agriculture, health, fresh water resources and disaster mitigation.
To prevent further deterioration on the 5,557-meter (18,230-foot) mountain, the regional government of Junin is developing a project to declare Huaytapallana a natural conservation area -- a move Meza said could help prevent damage from a mining company doing a feasibility study in the area.
Glacier studies are often carried out in the Andes, the so-called "Roof of the Americas" region comprising more than 100 peaks above 5,000 meters (16,500 feet).
But the Huaytapallana studies show a sharper rate of glacial melt than other major findings.
cont.A glacier on Peru's Huaytapallana Moutain shed half its surface ice in just 23... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 11 comments
-
-
Climate 2010: the graph that should be on the front page of every newspaper
Climate change is worsening, fast.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.
The National Climate Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just announced that for the entire planet, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005. And the period 2001 to 2010 is the hottest decade on record for the globe. The actual data are here.
This graph and this information should be on the front page of every newspaper in the world. Every Congressional representative should see it.
And the hottest 10 years on record in order?
2010
2005
1998
2003
2002
2009
2006
2007
2004
2001
How often do you have to get hit on the head before you say “ouch.” Or before you even say “stop hitting me on the head”? For climate deniers, probably forever. We can expect them to talk about how cold the winter is, here or there.But for the rest of us, enough should be enough. The planet has a fever and it’s getting worse.
Peter Gleick
___________________
But by all means, let's just keep burying our heads in the sand.Climate change is worsening, fast. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Peter Gleick is... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 376 comments
-
-
Where will the climate refugees go?
This is not something that we can continue to talk about as happening in the future as if planning for it can be put off. The world has already seen close to half a million people affected by climate change in ways that have made them have to move from their homes and homelands due to sea level rise, drought, and water scarcity which has also effected agriculture. With events becoming more severe and pronouced as the fires In Russia, the flooding in Pakistan and now Australia and severe droughts as we now see in much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, what does happen when a land is so devastated by continuing climate change that its inhabitants can no longer live there? Where do they go?How does it effect their culture?
This particular video is from a documentary called King Tide and deals with the people of Tuvalu, a small island nation that is already seeing the effects of rising sea levels. In climate conference after climate conference however, the effects of climate change on water have been continually ignored. This even though much of these effects revolve around water and the hydrologic cycle being interfered with by the human actions of fossil fuel use, deforestation, unsustainable agricultural practices (irrigation), dams, water waste, privitization and pollution resulting in sea level rise, glacier melt affecting water scarcity, floods, drought, stronger storms, erratic rainfall, etc.
I don't think it can be stressed enough based on what we are now seeing taking place globally that planning for the future regarding climate refugees is of paramount importance. We can no longer afford to act as though this is going to go away. It isn't. The socio-economic impacts alone of millions of refugees with no place to call home and no where that wants them aside from the inability to provide for them in a world where potable water and available land is shrinking are huge and cannot wait until the floods completely wash out a country or drought dries it into desert. Lives will be lost. This goes beyond politics. This truly is the moral challenge of our generation.This is not something that we can continue to talk about as happening in the future as... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 2 comments
-
-
This year will be a challenge for water
We have seen unsettling changes in the hydrologic cycle and in the world of water in general this past year which have affected economy, health, and agriculture as well as water access. Climate events were the big news in 2010 with droughts, floods, glacier melt and stronger storms (both rain and snow) leading us to the reality that we indeed have entered a period of consequences regarding our climate.
The BP Gulf Oil Ecocide that is now virtually forgotten is still working its evil on the Gulf, with an 80 mile stretch all the way to the bottom of oil with no life present. The Arctic also saw its second lowest ice extent this past November and the melting is affecting ocean currents in line with a La Nina weather event.
Floods are now taking place in the North of Australia that cover an area as big as France and Germany combined that have stranded 200,000 people, with people saying it is now a catastrophe of "biblical" proportions. Pakistan, India, China, Latin America, the Southwest and Northeast US, all examples recently of climate events where the reality of what we are doing to affect the hydrologic cycle is becoming more evident and that is also related to oversaturation of land and oceans with CO2. The proliferation of dams globally is also a factor that we must now also consider regarding our concerns about water access and availability.
As climate change bears down on us water will be affected drastically regarding both access and quality in relation as well to pollution, privitization, politics and outdated infrastructure (which led to Ireland's current water woes.) Yet, governments of the world (Cancun the most recent example with water left out again) are woefully unprepared for the effects bearing down on us as we continue to push out 90 million tons of Co2 along with other GHGs daily which exacerbates the release of methane from permafrost, which then effects the atmosphere, glaciers, all the way to ocean currents which effect our climate in both extremes. And that does not even take into consideration climate refugees which are already beginning to leave lands due to sea level rise, drought, dying of crops, livestock, etc.
How are events like these not in the consciousness of all sentient beings? How can we say Happy New Year unless we are truly resigned to changing the factors that lead us to disasters like these?
In the coming year we must become more involved in seeking water justice, food security and climate justice for all peoples of the world. We can no longer leave it just in the hands of governments in collusion with corporations seeking to profit off the misery of others. The challenges we now face regarding our global water resources are challenges that if not addressed now will bring nothing but hardship for those feeling the effects of climate change the worst, and those who are the prey of interests using land and water for profit at the expense of our planet's sustainability and the cultural/economic sovereignty of those nations.
Therefore, in reviewing the year gone by and looking ahead we must all become part of the Water Justice Movement in whatever way we can. Whether it is in protest, in writing, in educating, in conserving, it is incumbant upon us all to become part of the solution. Seventy percent of our planet is now is some stage of environmental stress. The signs are evident, the message is clear. We can no longer afford to close our eyes, ears and hearts to the work at hand.
In this year I will be working to provide potable water to those in need through organizations that make a difference, as well as standing up for indigenous people of the world in regards to their land and water, writing my book in earnest and doing all I can to conserve. Whatever you do however small you may think it is, just remember that many raindrops together make a flood, only this flood should be one that turns the tide for true water justice, food sovereignty, climate balance and peace.
This year, let's make it happen.
Thank you for all of the support on this blog.We have seen unsettling changes in the hydrologic cycle and in the world of water in... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 7 comments
-
-
Arctic sees second lowest ice extent in November
This is also affected by the Beaufort Gyre.-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 174 comments
-
-
Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”
That bold statement may seem like hyperbole, but there is now a very clear pattern in the scientific evidence documenting that the earth is warming, that warming is due largely to human activity, that warming is causing important changes in climate, and that rapid and potentially catastrophic changes in the near future are very possible. This pattern emerges not, as is so often suggested, simply from computer simulations, but from the weight and balance of the empirical evidence as well.
The great cryo-scientist Lonnie Thompson has a must-read paper, “Climate Change: The Evidence and Our Options.” Thompson has been the Paul Revere of glacier melt.
I wrote about his important 2008 work “Mass loss on Himalayan glacier endangers water resources” (see Another climate impact comes faster than predicted: Himalayan glaciers “decapitated”). It concluded ominously:
If Naimona’nyi is characteristic of other glaciers in the region, alpine glacier meltwater surpluses are likely to shrink much faster than currently predicted with substantial consequences for approximately half a billion people.
The study notes that Naimona’nyi is the highest glacier (6 kilometers above sea level) “documented to be losing mass annually.” MSNBC reported:
Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University and a team of researchers traveled to central Himalayas in 2006 to study the Naimona’nyi glacier, expecting to find some melting…. But when the team analyzed samples of glacier, what they found stunned them….
In fact, the glacier had melted so much that the exposed surface of the glacier dated to 1944….
“At the highest elevations, we’re seeing something like an average of 0.3 degrees Centigrade warming per decade,” Thompson said….
“I have not seen much as compelling as this to demonstrate how some glaciers are just being decapitated,” Shawn Marshall of the University of Calgary said….
“You can think of glaciers kind of like water towers, ” he said. “They collect water from the monsoon in the wet season, and release it in the dry season. But how effective they are depends on how much water is in the towers.”
In his new paper, he joins the climate hawks and the legion of uncharacteristically blunt scientists. He explains something that is really understood only by those who read the scientific literature and/or talk to the leading climatologists — we are in big, big trouble:
Climatologists, like other scientists, tend to be a stolid group. We are not given to theatrical rantings about falling skies. Most of us are far more comfortable in our laboratories or gathering data in the field than we are giving interviews to journalists or speaking before Congressional committees. Why then are climatologists speaking out about the dangers of global warming? The answer is that virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.
And, as noted in the quote at the top, this isn’t just based on models of the future, but on observations and analysis of the past:
Ice cores retrieved from shrinking glaciers around the world confirm their continuous existence for periods ranging from hundreds of years to multiple millennia, suggesting that climatological conditions that dominate those regions today are different from those under which these ice fields originally accumulated and have been sustained. The current warming is therefore unusual when viewed from the millennial perspective provided by multiple lines of proxy evidence and the 160-year record of direct temperature measurements. Despite all this evidence, plus the well-documented continual increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, societies have taken little action to address this global-scale problem. Hence, the rate of global carbon dioxide emissions continues to accelerate. As a result of our inaction, we have three options: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering.
In that final sentence, Thompson picks up the formulation that science advisor John Holdren likes to use (see “Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery: Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable suffering for billions”).
The paper does a good job of running through the science, and then discussing the key impacts, including the ones that don’t get enough attention:
Global warming is expanding arid areas of the Earth. Warming at the equator drives a climate system called the Hadley Cell. Warm, moist air rises from the equator, loses its moisture through rainfall, moves north and south, and then falls to the Earth at 30u north and south latitude, creating deserts and arid regions. There is evidence that over the last 20 years the Hadley Cell has expanded north and south by about 2u latitude, which may broaden the desert zones (Seidel, Fu, Randel, & Reichler, 2008; Seidel & Randel, 2007). If so, droughts may become more persistent in the American Southwest, the Mediterranean, Australia, South America, and Africa.
snip
Clearly mitigation is our best option, but so far most societies around the world, including the United States and the other largest emitters of greenhouse gases, have done little more than talk about the importance of mitigation. Many Americans do not even accept the reality of global warming. The fossil fuel industry has spent millions of dollars on a disinformation campaign to delude the public about the threat, and the campaign has been amazingly successful. (This effort is reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s effort to convince Americans that smoking poses no serious health hazards.)
But all the lies in the world — and the election of a slate of climate zombies in this country — can’t stop the reality of human-caused global warming. Only an aggressive effort to slow and then reverse greenhouse gas emissions trends can. Failure to do so would be immoral:
Unless large numbers of people take appropriate steps, including supporting governmental regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our only options will be adaptation and suffering. And the longer we delay, the more unpleasant the adaptations and the greater the suffering will be.
Sooner or later, we will all deal with global warming. The only question is how much we will mitigate, adapt, and suffer.
Kudos to Thompson for not pulling any punches.That bold statement may seem like hyperbole, but there is now a very clear pattern in... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 22 comments
-
-
The Warming of Antarctica: A Citadel of Ice Begins to Melt
The fringes of the coldest continent are starting to feel the heat, with the northern Antarctic Peninsula warming faster than virtually any place on Earth. These rapidly rising temperatures represent the first breach in the enormous frozen dome that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice.
by fen montaigne
In 1978, when few researchers were paying attention to global warming, a prominent geologist at Ohio State University was already focused on the prospect of fossil fuel emissions trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. His name was John H. Mercer, and when he contemplated what might be in store for the planet, his thoughts naturally gravitated to the biggest chunk of ice on Earth — Antarctica.
“If present trends in fossil fuel consumption continue...” he wrote in Nature, “a critical level of warmth will have been passed in high southern latitudes 50 years from now, and deglaciation of West Antarctica will be imminent or in progress... One of the warning signs that a dangerous warming trend is under way in Antarctica will be the breakup of ice shelves on both coasts of the Antarctic Peninsula, starting with the northernmost and extending gradually southward.”
Mercer’s prediction has come true, and a couple of decades before he anticipated. Since he wrote those words, eight ice shelves have fully or partially collapsed along the Antarctic Peninsula, and the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than virtually any place on Earth.
The question as humanity pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, is not whether Antarctica will begin to warm in earnest, but how rapidly. The melting of Antarctica’s northernmost region — the Antarctic Peninsula — is already well underway, representing the first breach in an enormous citadel of cold that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice.
Much attention has rightly been paid to the precipitous warming of the Arctic, where Arctic Ocean ice is rapidly shrinking and thinning, Greenland’s large ice sheets are steadily melting, and permafrost is thawing from Alaska, to Scandinavia, to Siberia.
But none of the earth’s ice zones, or cryosphere, can compare with Antarctica, which is 1 ½ times the size of the United States — including Alaska — and is almost entirely covered in ice, in places to a depth of three miles. The Antarctic accumulated this unfathomable volume of ice because it is a continent surrounded by ocean — the Southern Ocean — which acts like a great, insulating moat around the South Pole. The Arctic, by contrast, is an ocean surrounded by continents, whose landmasses moderate the polar climate.
How cold is the Antarctic? How about -128.6 degrees F cold, which is the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth, as measured at the Soviet Antarctic base, Vostok, on July 21, 1983. The polar plateau, where legendary explorers such as Robert Falcon Scott perished, routinely records temperatures of -70 or -80 degrees F in winter. So it will be quite some time before the heart of Antarctica’s vast ice dome begins to melt.
The periphery, however, is another matter, and steady warming there has the potential to raise global sea levels many feet and to affect global ocean circulation.
No place on the fringes of Antarctica has warmed with the swiftness of the Antarctic Peninsula, a crooked, 900-mile finger of land that juts toward the tip of South America. A 60-year temperature record on the
‘We are going to get to a point where sea ice won’t form anymore, and that could be catastrophic.’northwestern Antarctic Peninsula, taken at a research base originally built by the British and now run by the Ukrainians, paints a stark picture: Winter temperatures have increased by 11 degrees F and annual average temperatures by 5 degrees F. Ninety percent of 244 glaciers along the western Antarctic Peninsula have retreated since 1940. Sea ice now blankets the Southern Ocean off the western Antarctic Peninsula three fewer months a year than in 1979, according to satellite data.
In addition, ice shelves — large slabs of ice that flow off the land or out of submarine basins and float atop the ocean — have been disintegrating up and down the peninsula. The most notable breakup occurred in early 2002, when several summers of warm weather heated up the surface of the Larsen B Ice Shelf, creating countless melt ponds that enabled warmer water to seep down into the ice shelf. That led in March 2002 to what’s known as a “catastrophic” break-up; the ice shelf, once the size of Connecticut, shattered in a matter of days.
“We are already at the point where the changes we’re seeing in this part of Antarctica are unprecedented throughout the entire period of human civilization,” said Ted Scambos, the lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
The level of warming in Antarctica is far more severe than global warming of the past century, which has been about 1.4 degrees F. One major cause is that the warming of landmasses and oceans to the north has set up a sharper contrast with Antarctica’s intense cold. That has led to a strengthening of northerly winds, pulling far warmer air down from the south Pacific and south Atlantic onto the Antarctic Peninsula.
“One of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics is that heat always goes from warm to cold,” said Douglas Martinson, an oceanographer and Antarctic specialist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
cont.The fringes of the coldest continent are starting to feel the heat, with the northern... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 245 comments
-
-
Analysis: Despite a Drying and Flooding Planet, Cancun Climate Negotiators Anticipate Scant Progress
On November 29 representatives from 190 countries will be in Cancun, Mexico for the 16th Conference of the Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Late last week, following a two-day Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Washington, the Obama administration’s chief climate negotiator told reporters not to expect too much.
More than 125,000 demonstrators convened in the streets of Copenhagen last year, hoping their cheers and compelling testimonies would encourage swifter, more comprehensive action from negotiators.“I would describe myself right now as neither an optimist nor a pessimist,” said Todd Stern, the State Department’s special envoy on climate, adding that there won’t be any “enormous leaps forward” in Cancun but “real and concrete steps” can be made.
Exactly what those could be has not come into focus, though Stern and other negotiators also noted that unless something tangible occurs at the Cancun meeting, the credibility of the UN process will weaken. “The process can’t continually stalemate and remain the locus of activity,” Stern said.
A year ago, of course, global anticipation of a diplomatic breakthrough was high enough to attract the American president, the Chinese premier, and over 100 other heads of state to the Copenhagen climate summit. More than 125,000 people from all over the world marched for climate action on a cold and sunny Saturday afternoon. Thousands of journalists and producers filed reports from a crowded media room at the Bella Center, itself so full that security forces limited access.
Yet what was clear in Copenhagen, just as it was plain in the two other international climate conferences I’ve attended — in Barcelona in 2009 and in Tianjin last month — is this: The very same governments that produced a near stalemate on a climate treaty are simultaneously supporting global alliances of powerful energy companies to develop and consume the planet’s remaining reserves of fossil fuels.
Let’s just put it this way. The executives of those companies are perfectly content with the grudging pace of climate negotiations. Nobody else should be. The equatorial regions of east Africa are drying up as fast as the tinderbox hills and water-scarce fields of Australia’s Murray Darling Basin. Both poles are melting along with the glaciers of Greenland and the Himalayas. South Dakota this year experienced floods and hail and fierce storms that formed the most erratic and dangerous weather in its recorded history.
The damage to freshwater supplies is the most personal consequence of climate change around the world. Climate change, in fact, is producing an emergency, except in the front offices of the world’s major fossil fuel companies and the legions of elected and appointed officials they’ve helped to install in public office. And as Circle of Blue reports in its Choke Point: U.S. series this year, and in its other projects, there is no more visible evidence than the effect climate change is having on the planet’s reserves of fresh water. In the U.S., persistent drought on the Colorado Plateau has so significantly lowered water levels in the Colorado River and Lake Mead that Hoover Dam is fast approaching the day when it will no longer produce any power. In Myanmar and Bangladesh, record floods this year displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
The damage to freshwater supplies is the most personal consequence of climate change around the world. It’s true that a number of nations have initiated important industrial programs to lower carbon emissions by fostering the switch to cleaner energy sources. China, for instance, has gained international renown for the speed at which it’s developed an alternative fuels manufacturing and power-generating sector.
It’s not nearly enough, though, to slow the planet’s warming. That’s because the bigger money in the industrialized world involves producing and consuming carbon-emitting coal, oil, and natural gas.
cont.On November 29 representatives from 190 countries will be in Cancun, Mexico for the... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 11 comments
-
-
NASA Study Quantifies Role Of Melt In Loss Of Old Arctic Sea Ice
A NASA analysis of satellite data quantified for the first time the amount of older and thicker "multiyear" sea ice lost from the Arctic through melt. A mosaic of satellite images show the movement of fragmented ice away from ice edge, which scientists use to track the loss of multiyear ice due to melt.
Since the start of the satellite record in 1979, scientists have observed the continued disappearance of older "multiyear" sea ice that survives more than one summer melt season. Some scientists suspected that this loss was due entirely to wind pushing the ice out of the Arctic Basin - a process that scientists refer to as "export."
In this study, Ron Kwok and Glenn Cunningham at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used a suite of satellite data to clarify the relative role of export versus melt within the Arctic Ocean.
Kwok and Cunningham show that between 1993 and 2009, a significant amount of multiyear ice - 1,400 cubic kilometers (336 cubic miles - was lost due to melt, not export. "The paper shows that there is indeed melt of old ice within the Arctic basin and the melt area has been increasing over the past several years," Kwok said. "The story is always more complicated - there is melt as well as export - but this is a another step in calculating the mass and area balance of the Arctic ice cover."
The results have implications for understanding how Arctic sea ice gets redistributed, where melt occurs in the Arctic Ocean and how the ocean, ice and atmosphere interact as a system to affect Earth's climate. The study was published October 2010 in Geophysical Research Letters.
Scientists track the annual cycle of Arctic sea ice coverage as it melts through the summer to reach a minimum extent each September, before refreezing through fall and winter. Much of that ice is seasonal, meaning that it forms and melts within the year.
But multiyear ice that survives more than one season has also been declining, as noted in previous work by Joey Comiso of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who shows a loss of about 10 percent per decade since the beginning of the satellite record in 1979. Scientists want to know where this loss is occurring.
"The decline of the multiyear ice cover of the last several decades has not been quantitatively explained," Kwok said.
To investigate the loss of multiyear ice, Kwok and Cunningham looked at a 17-year span of data from 1993 to 2009 from a range of polar-observing satellites and instruments including NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat); the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat); the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR); and the European Space Agency's ERS-1 and ERS-2. Some instruments track ice coverage, while others track motion and concentration.
The team collected satellite images and tracked pixels of multiyear ice from April 1, prior to the onset of seasonal melt, and into the summer. Pixels that deviate away from images of the ice edge were considered lost to melt.
The team compared summertime melt of multiyear ice in the Beaufort Sea with estimates of ice lost from the Arctic basin through Fram Strait - a major passage through which ice can exit the Arctic Ocean. The comparison revealed how much multiyear ice was lost to export and how much was lost to melt.
They found that over the 17-year period, an area of 947,000 square kilometers (365,639 square miles), or about 32 percent of the decline in multiyear sea ice area, was lost in the Beaufort Sea due to melt.
A similar calculation using thickness estimates from NASA's ICESat from 2004 to 2009 show a volume loss of 1,400 cubic kilometers (336 cubic miles), or about 20 percent of the total loss by volume.
How and where multiyear ice is lost has impacts on the Arctic system. For example, more loss by melt means more freshwater remains in local Arctic waters rather than being transported southward.
"These results also show that thick multiyear sea ice is not immune to melt in the Pacific sector of the Arctic Ocean in today's climate," Kwok said.
cont.A NASA analysis of satellite data quantified for the first time the amount of older... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 0 comments
-
-
Increased Arctic Shipping Could Accelerate Climate Change
Ship traffic diverting from current routes to new routes through the Arctic is projected to reach 2 percent of global traffic by 2030 and to 5 percent in 2050. In comparison, shipping volumes through the Suez and Panama canals currently account for about 4 percent and 8 percent of global trade volume, respectively.
As the ice-capped Arctic Ocean warms, ship traffic will increase at the top of the world. And if the sea ice continues to decline, a new route connecting international trading partners may emerge - but not without significant repercussions to climate, according to a U.S. and Canadian research team that includes a University of Delaware scientist.
Growing Arctic ship traffic will bring with it air pollution that has the potential to accelerate climate change in the world's northern reaches. And it's more than a greenhouse gas problem - engine exhaust particles could increase warming by some 17-78 percent, the researchers say.
James J. Corbett, professor of marine science and policy at UD, is a lead author of the first geospatial approach to evaluating the potential impacts of shipping on Arctic climate. The study, "Arctic Shipping Emissions Inventories and Future Scenarios," is published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
Corbett's coauthors include Daniel A. Lack, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.; James J. Winebrake, of the Rochester Institute of Technology; Susie Harder of Transport Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia; Jordan A. Silberman of GIS Consulting in Unionville, Pa.; and Maya Gold of the Canadian Coast Guard in Ottawa, Ontario.
"One of the most potent 'short-lived climate forcers' in diesel emissions is black carbon, or soot," says Corbett, who is on the faculty of UD's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. "Ships operating in or near the Arctic use advanced diesel engines that release black carbon into one of the most sensitive regions for climate change."
Produced by ships from the incomplete burning of marine fuel, these tiny particles of carbon act like 'heaters' because they absorb sunlight - both directly from the sun, and reflected from the surface of snow and ice. Other particles released by ship engines also rank high among important short-lived climate forcers, and this study estimates their combined global warming impact potential.
To better understand the potential impact of black carbon and other ship pollutants on climate, including carbon dioxide, methane and ozone, the research team produced high-resolution (5-kilometer-by-5-kilometer) scenarios that account for growth in shipping in the region through 2050, and also outline potential new Arctic shipping routes.
Among the research team's most significant findings:
+ Global warming potential in 2030 in the high-growth scenario suggests that short-lived forcing of ~4.5 gigatons of black carbon from Arctic shipping may increase the global warming potential due to ships' carbon dioxide emissions (~42,000 gigagrams) by some 17-78 percent.
+ Ship traffic diverting from current routes to new routes through the Arctic is projected to reach 2 percent of global traffic by 2030 and to 5 percent in 2050. In comparison, shipping volumes through the Suez and Panama canals currently account for about 4 percent and 8 percent of global trade volume, respectively.
+ A Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage through the Arctic Ocean would provide a distance savings of about 25 percent and 50 percent, respectively, with coincident time and fuel savings. However, the team says tradeoffs from the short-lived climate forcing impacts must be studied.
+ To calculate possible benefits of policy action, the study provides "maximum feasible reduction scenarios" that take into account the incorporation of emissions control technologies such as seawater scrubbers that absorb sulfur dioxide emitted during the burning of diesel fuel. Their scenario shows that with controls, the amount of Arctic black carbon from shipping can be reduced in the near term and held nearly constant through 2050.
contShip traffic diverting from current routes to new routes through the Arctic is... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 1 comment
-
-
Montana's melting glaciers:The poster-child for climate change
As recently as 100 years ago, Montana's Glacier National Park had more than 150 glaciers throughout its more than one million acres.
In 2005 only 27 remained. Today the total is down to a just 25 and those that are left are mere remnants of their former frozen selves.
With warmer temperatures and changes to the water cycle, scientists predict Glacier National Park will be glacier-free by 2030.
Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ecologist who works at the national park believes that even those estimates are too conservative and says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of their predicted demise.
--Chas Cartwright, Glacier National Park Superintendent. "The glaciers have been around for the last seven thousand years," he told CNN, "and if we are going to lose them in the next 10 or 20 years that is a pretty radical shift."
The rapid melting of glaciers has led scientists to believe that mountains are more susceptible to global warming than the lowlands beneath them.
"Mountain ecosystems have been changing about twice as fast as the rest of the globe. We have had temperature increases that are two times greater than the average," said Fagre.
Many scientists are now concerned about the cascading effects on the landscape and the consequences for all species -- including humans.
"Many people are directly dependent on the water coming out of mountains and in the arid western United States that figure is much larger, it is about 85 percent," said Fagre.
"So even if you live a long ways a way you are tied to the water in mountains and so we have a lot of concerns of future climate change scenarios."
Fagre says mountains are the "water towers of the world" with 70 percent of the world's fresh water frozen in glaciers.
CNN traveled to the edge of Grinnell glacier that is at an altitude averaging 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) and was named after George Bird Grinnell, an early American conservationist and explorer.
"When George Grinnell came here in 1887 he described this place as being a thousand foot high in ice and this entire basin was filled to the mountaintop," said Fagre. "Now I stand beside a lake that is 65 meters or 187 feet deep."
We could see chunks of ice falling off, and others just dripping away. Fagre bent down to show us what's underneath the thin edge of the glacier.
Many people are directly dependent on the water coming out of mountains. In the arid western United States that figure is much larger, it is about 85 percent.
"Look under here and you can see there is a lot of mucky sauce stuff and this is a lot of the rock flour ground by the glacier because it has been dragging rocks across the underlying rock layer and rubbing those two together creating this very fine material," he said.
"Many people would not be impressed by this little dirty glacier that seems to be obviously falling apart, that has become very tiny and decrepit -- and people often think about glaciers as these beautiful white expansive, blue colors - but those are healthy glaciers and this one is not. This one is on its last legs."
In 1997, USGS Physical Scientist Lisa McKeon and Fagre started the Repeat Photography Project at Glacier National Park tracking down old photographs of the park's glaciers taken by first explorers in the 1900s and comparing them with their own images. View the historical images here
McKeon and other USGS scientists try to re-photograph the exact spot where the historic photograph was taken, though it's not always possible when the original photographer was standing on ice that is now long gone.
"If you look at these pictures, you cannot say they haven't changed over time. It's very obvious," says McKeon.As recently as 100 years ago, Montana's Glacier National Park had more than 150... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 0 comments
-
-
Countries lay claim to Arctic in battle for oil and gas reserves
Shrinking polar ice has opened up new opportunities, with five nations – Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the US – claiming jurisdiction over parts of the polar region which could contain as much of one quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves of oil and gas.
Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, will attend the Arctic Forum in Moscow today as the stakes in the battle for control of the Arctic become ever higher. Russia, Canada and Denmark have all said they will file claims to the UN over an undersea mountain range called the Lomonosov Ridge, an area which some Russian scientists say could hold 75 billion barrels of oil. They all say the ridge is an underwater extension of their continental shelves.
Russia first submitted a claim in 2001, which was rejected. But now the Russians say they have gathered more evidence to support their Arctic claim, including a set of samples taken from the seabed, collected by an expedition that journeyed to the Arctic this year.
Alexander Bedritsky, the Russian president's adviser on climate change, said Russia would file its claim to the UN within the next two or three years. He said he believed the Russians had a "strong chance" of their bid being approved. Canada and Denmark are also readying claims.
As the ice continues to melt, Russia is also interested in exploiting the Northern Sea Route, which could slash journey times and costs from Europe to Asia. Currently ships travelling on the route across the top of Russia have to be accompanied by nuclear-powered ice breakers. Mr Bedritsky told reporters yesterday: "We will protect our interests in the Arctic with all civilised instruments envisaged by international agreements."
Tensions over the Arctic peaked three years ago when a Russian expedition to the North Pole led by the celebrated explorer Artur Chilingarov travelled over two miles down to the seabed in titanium capsules and planted a Russian flag there, a clear sign of Russia's intent to make the Arctic its own. The mission drew an angry response from Canada.
The mood at the conference yesterday was conciliatory, with world leaders urging negotiations rather than conflict.
"The Cold War times, when the Arctic was a region of tension, have passed," said Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson in Moscow yesterday.
The conference follows a historic accord signed by Russia and Norway last week that solves a decades-old dispute over the Barents Sea. The two countries agreed to split the difference between their two claims, and divided the disputed area in half. If any natural resources are found straddling the newly delineated boundary, the two states will co-manage them.Shrinking polar ice has opened up new opportunities, with five nations – Russia,... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 11 comments
-
-
Going to Greenland: Vanguard Travel
Vanguard correspondent Adam Yamaguchi talks about his travels to Greenland, one of the most remote and difficult destinations on the globe.
"Vanguard," airing weekly on Current TV Wednesdays at 10/9c, is a no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Kaj Larsen, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.
For more, go to http://current.com/vanguard.Vanguard correspondent Adam Yamaguchi talks about his travels to Greenland, one of the... more-
- Adam_Yamaguchi
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 5 comments
-
-
Scientist Watches Glacier Melt Beneath His Feet
Lonnie Thompson, a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, led a team of scientists drilling for ice cores atop the Puncak Jaya glacier in Papua, Indonesia. Here, their base camp sits below a massif bearing one of the upper ice fields.
text size A A A September 4, 2010 Earlier this summer, a group of scientists spent two weeks in Indonesia atop a glacier called Puncak Jaya, one of the few remaining tropical glaciers in the world. They were taking samples of ice cores to study the impacts of climate change on the glacier.
Lonnie Thompson, a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, led the team and what he witnessed shocked him: The glacier was literally melting under their feet.
Thompson tells NPR's Guy Raz he has conducted 57 expeditions around the world, but this trip was unusual. It was the first one where he experienced rain on the glacier every day.
"Rain is probably the most effective way to ... cause the ice to melt," Thompson says. "So this was the first time you could see the surface actually lowering around you."
While Thompson and his team were there drilling cores, he says, they witnessed the glacier drop 12 inches in just two weeks.
"If that's representative of the annual ice loss on these glaciers," he says, "you're looking at losing over seven meters of ice in a year. Unfortunately, that glacier's going to disappear in as little as five years if that rate continues."
Puncak Jaya is one of the few tropical glaciers remaining in the world, and it's especially vulnerable to climate change. This makes it especially important to researchers.
"Well, it's located about 4 degrees south of the equator. It's the only glacier on western side of the Pacific warm pool, the warmest waters on earth," Thompson says. "For looking at the history of El Nino, it's a wonderful location."
Losing the glacier wouldn't have much environmental impact for the local people, Thompson says, but it would have a deep spiritual impact.
"For the tribes that live in that area, the glaciers are the head of the skull of the god and the mountains are the arms and the legs," he says. "If they lose the glaciers then they’re going to lose part of their soul."
The Canary In The Coal Mine
Just because the melting of the glacier won't have a devastating impact on Indonesia doesn't mean it should be ignored, Thompson says. Rather, it's like the canary in the coal mine — an indicator of changes in the planet's warming trends. And one that should be seen with boots on.
"When we look at what's happening to the ice on the planet, we use satellites. The problem with the satellite or aerial photography is you don't see the vertical thinning that's taking place," Thompson says. "Consequently there'll come a year in the future that there'll appear to be a glacier but it will disappear the next year because of the thinning from the top down. And to me, that's very sobering."Lonnie Thompson, a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, led a team of... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 31 comments
-
-
Best Worst Old Advert
Boing Boing found this advert from 1962 of a oil company saying how many Glaciers they can melt. There's been some great adverts from the 60s online, this is defiantly one of the depressingly hilarious.
"This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies- if converted into heat- could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second!"Boing Boing found this advert from 1962 of a oil company saying how many Glaciers they... more -
Bring Water Into Climate Change Negotiations
Longer periods of drought, decreased river flow, higher rainfall variability and lower soil moisture content: water is at the heart of the impacts of climate change. Yet the precious commodity scarcely features in climate negotiations.
Three hundred million Africans lack access to clean water; 500 million lack access to proper sanitation, according to Bai-Mass Taal, Executive Secretary from the African Ministers’ Council on Water.
"Lack of water security will be exacerbated by climate change, which directly threatens food security," says Dr Ania Grobicki, head of the Global Water Partnership (GWP).
Yet there is no focus on water in climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"There is no United Nations agency for water, and there's no international convention regulating water resource management and there is no water focus under the UNFCCC," says Grobicki. "Water also evaporated from the text of the Copenhagen Accord."
Grobicki and her colleagues argue for a focus on adaptation measures on the ground. Rehabilitation and maintenance of existing infrastructure is one place to start.
"With our local partners, we cleaned up a water course that was polluted by waste water from a sugar cane plantation in Swaziland," says Alex Simalabwi from GWP's Partnership for Africa's Water Development project. "As a result 10,000 smallholder farmers have access to clean water."
Burkina Faso, where 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture for a living, has invested in the construction of more than 1,500 small dams since 1998. These reservoirs - built at relatively low-cost, often with local communities contributing labour to their construction - are a vital protection against drought.
Most African agriculture is rain-fed, says Grobicki. "As climate variability increases and temperatures rise, water security drops radically. Dams ensure water is available throughout the year."
The scale and operation of water infrastructure needs to be carefully planned. "Using water from the river for irrigation might benefit a farming community, but it could have damaging effects downstream. That’s why it is important to have shared decision-making. In this process there will be trade-offs, but also shared benefits," she says.
Other adaptation measures include shifting to more drought-resistant crops and the use of satellite imaging to reveal moisture content of soil and guide farmers' irrigation efforts: pilot projects in several countries already send out such information via text messages to farmers' phones.
Water-saving technologies can further maximise the benefits of these strategies. "Drip irrigation offers huge potential for saving water in rural areas, while remote sensing can be used to inform farmers about the moisture content of the soil so they know how much water they need to use to grow their crops," says Grobicki.
Drip irrigation is a highly efficient means of watering crops and applying fertiliser via tubing spread throughout the field.
In Zimbabwe and Malawi, smallholder farmers are coping with drought with simple drip systems consisting of a couple of large plastic containers on a raised platform, and 100-odd metres of plastic tubes delivering the water to vegetable gardens.
snip
The call is for water to be recognised in climate change negotiations as both the transmitter of climate change impacts and an important vehicle for strengthening social, environmental and economic resilience to them.
continuedLonger periods of drought, decreased river flow, higher rainfall variability and lower... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
- |
- 24 comments
-
