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Sea level rises could far exceed IPCC estimates: scientists
Could our coastlines disappear underwater much sooner than we think? The controversial view that sea levels could rise at a rate of more than 1 metre per century has found support from a new study of a long-melted ice sheet.
In reconstructing the events at the end of the last ice age, Anders Carlson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues found that the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered most of North America between 95,000 and 7000 years ago, rapidly disintegrated.
The researchers began by studying beryllium isotopes in rocks to determine how the outer edges of the two final chunks of the Laurentide ice sheet retreated. They found that the ice retreated rapidly between 9000 and 8500 years ago, stabilised, and then made its final rapid retreat between 7600 and 6800 years ago.
The team calculated the volume of water that would have been released in each of these melting stages, and the rate at which it must have raised sea levels. They concluded that levels would have climbed 1.3 metres per century in the earlier period, and 0.7 metres per century in the final melt.
Carlson then used a sophisticated computer model – one that is used to forecast future climate change – to check the results. The model predicted an average sea level rise of 1.3 metres per century.
Different times
"The forces that led to the demise of the Laurentide ice sheet in a very rapid way are comparable to the forces the same computer models predict we will experience this century if we do not rapidly curb greenhouse gas emissions," says Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who collaborated with Carlson on the study.
For Mark Siddall of the University of Bristol, UK, and Michael Kaplan of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, however, there remain many differences between what happened nearly 10,000 years ago and the climate change Earth is currently experiencing.
"To what extent this dynamic response of the Laurentide ice sheet to past temperature change can be considered analogous to present and future reduction of the Greenland ice sheet remains unresolved," they say in an associated commentary. "But their work suggests that future reductions of the Greenland ice sheet on the order of one metre per century are not out of the question."
If Carlson's estimates are correct, they show that 2007 predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a sea-level rise of between 18 centimetres and 59 cm by 2100 – are very conservative, as the IPCC acknowledged at the time.
Millions at risk
Sea-level rises of at least a metre per century were also predicted by the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen. Hansen believes that our climate will soon hit tipping points – points of no return – beyond which the ice sheets will rapidly disintegrate.
Carlson says his team's findings are proof that large ice sheets can disintegrate very rapidly. What's more, he says the forces that caused the Laurentide ice sheet to disintegrate are equivalent to the ones that threaten the Greenland ice sheet today.
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Will the US and other industrialized nations then step up to the plate in Copenhagen next year? Will the US Congress do so as well? The way I feel today I would say it would have to take Greenland falling into the ocean before that happens. How irresponsible of them to not be making this the priority issue it must be. Could our coastlines disappear underwater much sooner than we think? The controversial view that sea levels could rise at a rate of mo... more -
Global warming time bomb trapped in Arctic soil: study
Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday.
And according to one commentary on the research, current models of climate change have not taken this extra source of greenhouse gas into account.
Scientists have long known that organic carbon trapped inside a blanket of frozen permafrost covering one fifth of the world's land mass would, if thawed, release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
But until now they simply did not have a good idea of how much carbon is actually locked inside this Arctic freezer.
To find out, a team of American researchers led by Chien-Lu Ping of the University of Alaska Fairbanks examined a wide range of landscapes across North America.
They took soil samples from 117 sites, each to a depth of at least one metre, in order to provide a full assessment of the region's so-called "carbon pool."
Previous estimates of the Arctic carbon pool relied heavily on a relative handful of measurements conducted outside of the Arctic, and only to a depth of 40 centimetres (15.5 inches).
The study, published in the British journal Nature Geoscience, found that the stock of organic carbon "is considerably higher than previously thought" -- 60 percent more than the previously estimated.
This is roughly equivalent of one sixth of the entire carbon content in the atmosphere.
And that is just for North America. The size and mix of landscapes in the northern reaches of Europe and Russia are about the same, and probably contain a comparable amount of carbon-dioxide producing matter currently held in check only by the cold, the study said.
And the danger of a thaw is real, note climate scientists.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71485028@N00/206612972/
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This has not been taken into account in climate models. Ten years now seems like a long time to wait to do something about climate change. I say, if we count on politicians to see the moral urgency of this in time to act accordingly, we're screwed. Time for them to have their feet held to the fire. Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle o... more -
Purdue researcher identifies climate change hotspots
A study using one of the most complete climate modeling systems in the world points to southern California, northern Mexico and western Texas as climate change hotspots for the 21st century.
The research team, led by Purdue University associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences Noah S. Diffenbaugh, developed a new technique to identify hotspots based on the magnitude of temperature and precipitation response to greenhouse gas emissions.
Diffenbaugh said more detailed information about human-driven climate change is necessary to create effective strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare for the possible effects of climate change.
"It is estimated that there will be a global warming of 1 to 6 degrees by the end of the century, and we examined how this could manifest at smaller spatial scales and within shorter time periods," said
Diffenbaugh, who also is a member of the Climate Change Research Center within Purdue's Discovery Park. "We identified areas likely to be most responsive to changes in greenhouse gas emissions. This study provides information at the state-scale, as opposed to a global or regional average, which could be useful for climate change policy."
Such information could feed the trend of state governments entering into emissions agreements independent of federal action, he said. Last year more than one quarter of U.S. governors entered into agreements such as The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative and the Midwest Greenhouse Gas Accord.
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These changes are already happening in the areas defined. A study using one of the most complete climate modeling systems in the world points to southern California, northern Mexico and wester... more -
Seals helping humans unlock secrets of the frozen sea
Led by Dr Jean-Benoit Charrassin, a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum in Paris, researchers in France, the UK, Australia and the US have attached electronic dataloggers to 70 seals at the four most important breeding colonies of southern elephant seals.
The animals can dive as deep as 2km in search of food while ranging across much of the Southern Ocean. The transmitters feed data about the ocean back to the researchers
Thanks to the technology, the only remaining area with limited coverage is the Pacific sector, which contains no islands for the seals to breed on.
Prof Fedak said: "I think this is an extremely exciting new approach for ocean observation which has now been extended to seals roaming the seas around both Poles."
The team behind the on-going MEOP project (Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole), which has equipped 100 seals of three polar species with oceanographic sensors, said the animals routinely send large quantities of near real-time information from the undersampled polar regions.
Prof Fedak added: "The MEOP animals have contributed over 35,000 observations from the polar seas in the past year, and I think it is really fantastic to see how large a contribution the animals can make, sending data from below the ice in near real time.
"The idea that these animals have become our partners in providing real time data about the state of our climate while simultaneously helping us to understand their ecological requirements has captured the imagination of biologists, oceanographers and the public."
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Enlisting the aid of other species to help humans find the answers and solutions to the climate crisis and its effects on the ocean will hopefully in the end benefit all species who depend on it for existence. I think that is pretty wonderful. Led by Dr Jean-Benoit Charrassin, a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum in Paris, researchers in France, the UK, Australia ... more -
Climate change in action in Greenland
You can't see climate change in action, much to the disappointment of photographers and magazine art directors. Warming is a function of time, and we see it only as time passes. Years go by, we add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, temperatures rise, glaciers retreat and deserts expand. One of the essential facts about climate science is that unlike, say, weather forecasting, the farther ahead we look into the future, the more confident we can be of our predictions. So we know that burning enough fossil fuel to raise the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to 550 parts per million twice preindustrial levels will virtually guarantee a temperature increase of at least 3 F, with all the consequences that will carry. By contrast, we can't look at a hurricane, or at an iceberg melting, and say, "Yes, this is global warming, and we did this." Climate change is change, and change happens over time.
In some places of the world, that change is happening more quickly than in others, so quickly that our "fast-thinking human mind," as the University of Copenhagen geologist Minik Rosing says, can almost catch it. One of those places is the coastal town of Ilulissat, the last stop on our climate tour of Greenland. It's home to the Ilulissat ice fjord, a basin-shaped wound in the rocky coast, through which the massive Sermeq Kujalleq glacier churns toward the sea. As the glacier moves at the hardly glacial speed of over 100 ft. a day the ice melts and cracks into cathedrals of blue and white that bob in the harbor beyond the isfledsbanken, or iceberg bank. Sermeq Kujalleq, which is fed by the 1.8 million cubic miles of solid ice that cover central Greenland, is the most productive glacier on the island, calving icebergs with dramatic regularity. The iceberg that sank the Titanic may well have come from Sermeq, and looking upon Ilulissat's harbor, choked with sheer cliffs of ice that dwarf even the stately cruise liners, I can believe it.
We take a boat out for a tour amid the ice. In the Arctic summer Ilulissat is cool but not cold, maybe 65 F, but as we near the ice fjord, the temperature drops, as if cold is emanating from the icebergs themselves. As we leave the port, at first we encounter a slurry of ice in the water, which is sapphire blue because of the cold. But soon we near the giants, and they are easily over 100 ft. tall and that's just above the water. (More than 80% of an iceberg's mass is beneath the surface, and the water in Ilulissat's port is more than a mile deep.) We can't get too close to the big icebergs as they melt all the time in the salty sea, without warning, they can crack and cave in, loosing waves big enough to topple or even crush small boats. But even from a distance, they are breathtaking: natural cathedrals of white, lined by unmappable crevices, leaking pure glacial meltwater that pours into the sea as if from a fountain. It's easy to see why UNESCO made Ilulissat a World Heritage site and why tourist numbers have been growing steadily.
But we're not here as tourists. After the boat docks, our group boards a helicopter piloted by a sprite of a Greenlandic woman for a tour of the fjord and glacier, which is retreating fast. Before we leave, we are shown a map of the glacier. As pressure from the central ice cap builds up behind the glacier, it pushes its way to the sea through the ice fjord. The glacier ends where melting causes icebergs to calve off, and we see that each year the glacier has retreated farther and farther away from the sea. Sermeq Kujalleq is shrinking so fast (on a geological scale) that we can almost see it.
This is global warming as close as we can get to it in action. There's no doubt here, no room for skeptics: temperatures have warmed in Greenland, and as they have warmed, the ice has melted. It is as simple as that. You can't see climate change in action, much to the disappointment of photographers and magazine art directors. Warming is a func... more -
Climate Change Equals Stronger Rains
As the globe continues to warm, the rainiest parts of the world are very likely to get wetter, according to a new study in Science. Desert dwellers, however, are likely to see what little rain they receive dry up, as the rain becomes even more concentrated in high-precipitation areas.
Atmospheric scientists Richard Allan of the University of Reading in England and Brian Soden of the University of Miami looked at satellite records of daily rainfall stretching back to 1987 to see how warmer temperatures had affected precipitation. That's one of the key climate changes expected from rising greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. The researchers specifically focused on El Niño, the warming of the waters of the tropical Pacific that raises air pressure, changes winds, and recurs every few years.
The weather pattern causes floods in some areas and droughts in others while changing climate across the globe over time—and thus is a pretty good stand-in for global warming.
"For the period we examined, 1987 to 2004, there was a clear relationship between warm El Niño events and increased occurrence of heavy precipitation," Soden says. Such "events will certainly become more frequent in a warmer climate."
For example, other research has shown that monsoon storms that dump six inches (150 millimeters) or more of rain on India have become more common since the 1950s.
The satellite observations agree with the predictions of various computer models. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects that such changes will wreak havoc on agriculture, human health and the natural environment.
But the Science study also reveals that the computer projections may be underestimating how severe such downpours may become. Warmer seas resulted in three times as many heavy rainstorms as the models would have predicted—and other studies have shown that such models fail to account for the rapid increase in water vapor in the atmosphere.
"It is very likely that heavy rainfall will become more common and more intense in a warming world," Allan says. "It is too early to say by how much real world changes in rainfall will surpass projections from the climate models."
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The effects of this will have devastating effects on agriculture in areas that need rain but do not receive it, and areas that will receive heavier rains. This will also bring with it health risks such as disease carrying insects and waterborne diseases as well as many more displaced people. It is studies like this that must be taken into account in any new global climate treaty. As the globe continues to warm, the rainiest parts of the world are very likely to get wetter, according to a new study in Science. De... more -
Despite sceptics' noise on climate change, scientific consensus is growing
Anyone keeping up with current affairs could be forgiven for thinking scientists are riven with doubt over climate change. Climate sceptics have enjoyed a resurgence as the federal Coalition danced around the introduction of carbon trading and heavy-polluting industries began an intensive lobbying effort to convince the Federal Government of their special needs.
The Page Research Centre, a think tank associated with the Nationals, last week hosted a forum that concluded that the science behind global warming was shaky. Backbench MPs in both major parties have reportedly questioned the science on which the Federal Government's recent green paper is based.
The noise has been loudest on the internet, where websites give voice to people who believe scientists are suppressing evidence to protect their careers.
Unfortunately for the sceptics, and for everyone else, the evidence for human-induced climate change is stronger than ever. Scientists the Herald spoke to were candid in their assessment that there was little room for doubt that global warming is happening and that the only changes in the past few months have been political changes.
"It looks as though the population believes climate change is serious and there seems to be momentum behind the issue, and there are some people who don't like that," says Chris Mitchell, head of the CSIRO's Climate, Weather and Ocean Prediction group. "There are still plenty of creationists around, and there are people who believe tobacco is not linked to serious health effects, and so there are still people who choose to ignore or doubt the amount of evidence for climate change."
Andy Pitman, an editor of the prestigious international Journal Of Climate, says there are good reasons why global warming sceptics cannot get a run in peer-reviewed scientific literature. "We would kill, literally kill, for a good paper that proved the science on global warming was wrong," Pitman says. "Then I could retire and accept my chair at Harvard. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, and there's vast amounts of evidence why."
Pitman, who is also a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ABC) and director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, says the reasons are simple: "In essence, the models we use to predict climate have been proven right." In the past decade, he says, refinements in computer simulations have allowed scientists to accurately predict climate in four dimensions: time, latitude, longitude and depth of the atmosphere.
"You feed in the greenhouse gas concentrations that we've seen, and the models predict extremely well the climate variations we've seen. If you don't do that, you get nothing. The mathematical probability of it being a chance mistake, or the wrong numbers, is astronomical."
The claim, often cited by sceptics, that atmospheric temperature did not appear to match the levels predicted by climate models was revised by a reassessment of the data last year. The research, partly carried out in Australia, ended up reinforcing the accuracy of existing climate models. Claims that solar activity may be causing recent global warming, reinforced in State Parliament by the Treasurer, Michael Costa, have been comprehensively demolished in peer-reviewed journals. Anyone keeping up with current affairs could be forgiven for thinking scientists are riven with doubt over climate change. Climate sce... more -
Wintertime disintegration of Wilkins ice shelf
On the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins Ice Shelf (roughly 70 degrees south and 75 degrees west) historically extended toward Charcot Island in the northwest and Latady Island in the southwest. By July 2008, the ice shelf’s connection to Charcot Island, which had helped to hold the shelf in place, was nearly gone.
The Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) on the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite observed the ice shelf between May 30 and July 17, 2008. These ASAR images show the eastern part of the ice shelf on July 17 (top), June 28 (middle), and May 30 (bottom). Not pictured, Charcot Island is in the northwest (upper left).
The image acquired on May 30, 2008, captured the ice shelf at the beginning of a disintegration event. In this image, large slices of the ice shelf appear in the lower left corner. These long, thin blocks have broken off the shelf and are moving away toward the southwest. To the northeast, in the middle of the image, is what glaciologists describe as mélange—a stuck-together mass of ice blocks, snow, and sea ice. This portion of the shelf actually disintegrated in 1998, but the ice remained frozen in place for a decade. Farther to the east, the ice is in larger blocks. To the north is a mixture of very thin sea ice, ice blocks from earlier rifting, and open water.
The image acquired on June 28, 2008, shows several changes. In the southwest, the large slices of ice visible on May 30 have moved away. The portion of the ice shelf connecting to Charcot Island has narrowed, assuming an almost hourglass shape. Immediately northeast of this skinny stretch of shelf, the darker parts of the ice mélange appear to be melting. Farther northeast, the large blocks of ice have begun to drift apart.
The image acquired on July 17, 2008, shows the continued breakup of the ice shelf. The ice mélange is even darker than it was in late June. Large, relatively intact plates of ice drift toward the northeast from the thin piece of shelf that still stretches toward the nearby island. The large blocks of ice in the northeast continue their northward drift, some separated by areas of open water.
These images focus on events in the eastern portion of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, The western portion of the shelf rapidly disintegrated between February 28 and March 6, 2008. That event had occurred during the Southern Hemisphere summer, when summertime warmth and sunshine can drive surface melt processes that lead to disintegration. In contrast, the events occurring from late May to early July 2008 occurred in the Southern Hemisphere winter.
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Look to the glaciers and the oceans for your signs of climate change. Will ten years even be enough time? On the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins Ice Shelf (roughly 70 degrees south and 75 degrees west) historically extended toward Charcot ... more -
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack On James Hansen
Dr. James Hansen is widely regarded as the leading climate change scientist in the country. For the past twenty-five years, he has headed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Just over a year ago, Dr. Hansen went public with a charge that made headlines around the world — that the Bush administration had been trying to silence his warnings about the urgent need to address climate change. His story is detailed in a new book by author Mark Bowen titled Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming. Dr. James Hansen is widely regarded as the leading climate change scientist in the country. For the past twenty-five years, he has hea... more
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NASAS Hansen: Humans Still Loading Climate Dice
Twenty years ago today, James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Energy Committee — in a room kept intentionally warm by committee staff — that the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and forests was already perceptibly influencing Earth’s climate.
Then, as now, Dr. Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was pushing beyond what many of his colleagues in climatology were willing to say — at least publicly. His supporters say that, given how science and events appear to be catching up with his projections of two decades ago, the world had better heed his new recommendations. (Here’s a useful deconstruction of Dr. Hansen’s testimony by Grist and the Worldwatch Institute.)
His critics show few signs of ever accommodating the ideas he now presses, which include a prompt moratorium on new coal-burning power plants until they can capture and store carbon dioxide and a rising tax on fuels contributing greenhouse-gas emissions, with the revenue passed back directly to citizens, avoiding the complexities of “cap and trade” bills.
I encourage you to watch a short video I shot of my parts of my interview Dr. Hansen in his cluttered office on Friday. Here’s the print story. He says that 2009 may present the last chance we have to defuse what he calls the “global warming time bomb.” Twenty years ago today, James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Energy Committee — in a room kept intentionally warm by committee ... more -
Joint NASA-French satellite to track trends in sea level, climate
A satellite that will help scientists better monitor and understand rises in global sea level, study the world's ocean circulation and its links to Earth's climate, and improve weather and climate forecasts is undergoing final preparations for a June 15 launch from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason 2 is a partnership of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the French Space Agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). The mission will extend into the next decade the continuous record of sea-surface height measurements started in 1992 by the NASA-French Space Agency's TOPEX/Poseidon mission and extended by the NASA-French Space Agency Jason 1 mission in 2001.
The satellite will continue monitoring trends in sea-level rise, one of the most important consequences and indicators of global climate change. Measurements from TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason 1 have shown that mean sea level has risen by about three millimeters (0.12 inches) a year since 1993, twice the rate estimated from tide gauges in the past century. But 15 years of data are not sufficient to determine long-term trends.
"OSTM/Jason 2 will help create the first multi-decadal global record for understanding the vital roles of the ocean in climate change," said OSTM/Jason 2 project scientist Lee-Lueng Fu of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Data from the new mission will allow us to continue monitoring global sea-level change, a field of study where current predictive models have a large degree of uncertainty." A satellite that will help scientists better monitor and understand rises in global sea level, study the world's ocean circulatio... more -
Climate change having 'worldwide, widespread effects'
Many physical and ecological systems are being affected by the world's warming climate, researchers say.
Scientists from across the world applied statistical models to published data on changes in 829 physical systems and around 28,800 plant and animal systems —on both global and continental scales — some with data going back to 1970.
Their analysis, published in Nature last week (15 May), looked at whether these changes were related to temperature increase, other factors such as land use change, or simply natural variability.
Around 95 per cent of the physical systems studied responded to the world's warming trend. The analysis found that glaciers in every continent have been shrinking, permafrost is melting, the peak of river levels in spring is shifting, and lake and river temperatures are rising.
And 90 per cent of the changes in plants and animals were consistent with responses to temperature rise, including earlier blooming and leaf unfolding.
The authors found little evidence that natural variability or other environmental factors were significant, and conclude that climate change is affecting these systems.
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It's time to stop debating this and get down to work. Otherwise, we will have nothing to debate over. It will be gone. Many physical and ecological systems are being affected by the world's warming climate, researchers say. ... more -
Greenhouse gases highest for 800,000 years
"We can firmly say that today's concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are 28 and 124 percent higher respectively than at any time during the last 800,000 years," said Thomas Stocker, an author of the report at the University of Berne. "We can firmly say that today's concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are 28 and 124 percent higher respectively than... more
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The Denial Machine (update)
In the past few years, a rhetorical firestorm has engulfed the debate about global warming, pitting science against spin, with inflammatory words on both sides. That debate only intensifed recently when former Vice-President Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his populist environmental campaign.
Last season, the fifth estate's Bob McKeown investigated the roots of another kind of campaign--one to negate the science and the threat of global warming. You can watch The Denial Machine again, more timely than ever, with new, updated information.
Watch the original story online.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/video_player.html?denial In the past few years, a rhetorical firestorm has engulfed the debate about global warming, pitting science against spin, with inflamm... more -
The American Denial of Global Warming
Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science. Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warmin... more
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Global warming 'is three times faster than worst predictions'
My site is collection of news articles, videos and documentaries from across the net. I have made it easy by putting the info at your finger tips. I cover Global warming , climate change , abrupt climate change, state of the planet -oceans, Arctic, Greenland, Antarctic, Forest, Biofuels, Peak oil and more My site is collection of news articles, videos and documentaries from across the net. I have made it easy by putting the info at your ... more
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Abrupt Climate Change
Are we going into an ice age from a slowing conveyor belt or are we headed for accelerated global warming from melting permafrost and methane frozen in the oceans. Which is likely to come first? You decide. I have a collection of links to articles and videos on my site covering both topics. Are we going into an ice age from a slowing conveyor belt or are we headed for accelerated global warming from melting permafrost and ... more
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Aviation first: Boeing plane flies on hydrogen, fuel cells
Engineers from across Europe have successfully developed and flown a manned airplane powered by hydrogen and fuel cells — a first in history and a step towards cleaner and more energy-efficient aviation, Boeing announced Thursday.
The breakthrough is "full of promises for a greener future," Boeing Chief Technology Officer John Tracy told reporters at the company's research center in Ocana, Spain, where the aircraft was on display.
Given rising fuel costs and concerns about climate change, the air industry is keen to find ways to cut energy bills and emissions tied to global warming. While hydrogen is still expensive to produce as an energy carrier, it emits no pollutants.
more at the link... Engineers from across Europe have successfully developed and flown a manned airplane powered by hydrogen and fuel cells — a first in h... more -
Arctic Summer Ice Gone By 2013
Dramatic graph showing ice loss and feedback up to 2007, which shows the most dramatic decline of all. 2013, yet politicians think we have until 2050? We don't. Professor Wieslaw Maslowski speaks about what is driving this and the underestimated projections. Dramatic graph showing ice loss and feedback up to 2007, which shows the most dramatic decline of all. 2013, yet politicians think we ... more
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Senate Report on Climate Change Skepticism
This report sounds like something the German Parliament would issue during WW2 to tell the people that the Holocaust in not happening, and if it is the Nazis are not responsible for it. Personally, I have no political biases regarding my views on climate change. I don't support Al Gore's view because I am a "Democrat." I support his view on climate change and that of the PEER REVIEWED scientists across this globe who are actually posting the data and connecting the dots, because I have armed myself with the knowledge I need to see with my own eyes... the very thing this report aims to stop because of course, to those in Congress an enlightened and informed citizenry is indeed the biggest threat to them. And unlike them my wallet does not hold sway over my beliefs. Like Senators by the name of Inhofe and others who do nothing but issue reports at opportune moments to coincide with their own personal petty political grudges.The rate of ice melt in the Arctic and Greenland alone is three times faster than ever predicted. It is unprecedented. Again, unprecedented. It has been proven by PEER REVIEWED scientists (not weathermen or Senators with no scientific background) that CO2 forcings on this planet along with other gases and sources together with anthropogenic climate change are changing our relationship with this planet. Now, we can "debate" all day until we are blue in the face but it doesn't change the reality of what this planet is becoming regardless of what you may personally believe is responsible for it. It is as if this report is then telling the American people not to care about this planet or their responsibility as stewards to her or to try to understand what is now occurring. I suppose they also believe that air and water pollution are not caused by humans either? Poisoning our water and air thus leading to diseases is not human induced? How about poverty? How about war? We aren't responsible for that either? Water scarcity, deforestation... Who is cutting down all the trees thus exacerbating the effects of this crisis? God? To me, this report is nothing more than a timed trashing of a man they fear the most. The one man who came out with a movie that explained what is happening to our planet in a way those whom they wished to keep in the dark for their own selfish reasons understand, and they are more afraid of it hurting their financial bottomlines than anything else. And in my view, telling people that there is "nothing to worry about" regardless of your belief when we can see otherwise just to protect your wallet and political standing is not only morally bankrupt, it is criminal. This report sounds like something the German Parliament would issue during WW2 to tell the people that the Holocaust in not happening,... more
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