From Real Climate (I didn't note the date)
In a recent paper in Science, Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam present new satellite observations of the speed of glaciers of Greenland, and find that they are sliding towards the sea almost twice as fast as previously thought. Additionally, between 1996 and 2005, they detected a widespread glacier acceleration and consequently an increased rate of ice discharge from the Greenland ice sheet. However, previous papers have recently noted an increase in snow accumulation in the interior (i.e. Johanessen et al., 2005), so how do these different measurements fit into the larger picture of Greenland's net mass balance?
The measurements by Rignot & Kanagartnam were made with interferometers which measure the movement of the surface horizontally, and so is complimentary to the altimeter data published previously (which measures the absolute height of the ice). Overall, they found widespread increases in glacier speeds, and increases of about 30% in ice discharge rates. (Note that the satellite image shows that the glaciers in the east tend to slide far into the sea whereas on the western coast that happens less).
The higher velocity of the ice is thought to be related to higher temperatures causing increased melt-water which can penetrate to the base of the glacier and hence reduce the ground friction. However, this accelerated movement is not necessarily tied to an increased rate of melting of the Greenland ice, although it can be related. Surges of ice streams from the ice sheet can also occur due to increased accumulation at the head of the glacier. However, when the increased ice velocity is matched to a decreasing thickness that can be sign of net mass loss. These ideas are consistent with observations of surface melting which had a record extent in 2005, and has been increasing steadily (though with significant interannual variability) since 1993. Using the analysis of Hanna et al (2005) (based on the reanalysis datasets) for the surface mass balance, Rignot & Kanagartnam estimate that Greenland is on balance losing mass, and over the period of their study the ice sheet mass deficit (the amount of ice lost to the sea) has doubled increasing from 90 to 220 km3/year (an increase of 0.23 to 0.57 mm/yr sea level equivalent - SLE).
In the earlier Science paper, Johanessen et al. found increased snow accumulation on the top of the interior Greenland ice sheet between 1992 and 2003. Above 1500m a.s.l in much of the interior Greenland they estimated an increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 cm/year and below 1500m they observed a decreasing trend of -2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year. Hence, growth in the interior parts and a thinning of the ice nearer the edges. However, Johanessen et al. were not able to measure all of the coastal ranges. Indeed, the thinning of the margins and growth in the interior Greenland is an expected response to increased temperatures and more precipitation in a warmer climate. These results present no contradiction to the accelerated sliding near the coasts, but both will affect the ice/snow (fresh water) mass estimate. Whereas the finding of Rignot & Kanagaratnam suggests a larger sink of the frozen Greenland fresh water budget (the ice is dumped into the sea), the snow deposition in Greenland interiors is a source term (increases the amount of frozen fresh water). It does not matter for the general sea level in which form the water exists (liguid or solid/frozen) when it is discharged into the sea: The same mass of liquid water and immersed ice affect the water level equally (Archimede's principle).
A third relevant study is a recent paper in the Journal of Glaciology by Zwally et al. (2005) on the ice mass changes on Greenland and Antarctica. They use the same satellite obsevations (ERS 1 & 2) as Johanessen et al. and again find that the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins (-42 ± 2 Gt/year = -46 ± 2 km3/year below the equilibrium-line altitude - ELA), but growing in the inland (+53 ± 2 Gt/year = 58 ± 2 km3/year). The mass estimates have been converted to volume estimates here, assuming the density of ice is 0.917 g/cm3 at 0°C, so that the mass of one Gt of ice is roughly equivalent to 1.1km3 ice*. This means that the Greenland ice has an overall mass gain by +11 ± 3 Gt/year (=10 ± 2.7 km3/year) which they estimated implied a -0.03 mm/year SLE over the period 1992-2002.
The critical point for Greenland is whether the increased rate of glacier motion more than compensates for the greater accumulation on the surface. While the broad picture of what is happening is consistent between these papers, the bottom-line value for Greenland's mass balance is different in all three cases. Looking just at the dynamical changes observed by Rignot & Kanagaratnam, there is an increased discharge of about 0.28 mm/year SLE from 1996 to 2005, well outside the range of error bars. This is substantially more than the opposing changes in accumulation estimated by Johannessen et al and Zwally et al, and is unlikely to have been included in their assessments. Thus, the probability is that Greenland has been losing ice in the last decade. We should be careful to point out though that this is only for one decade, and doesn't prove anything about the longer term. As many of the studies make clear, there is a significant degree of interannual variability (related to the North Atlantic Oscillation, or the response to the cooling associated with Mt. Pinatubo) such that discerning longer term trends is hard.
The largest contributions to sea level rise so far are estimated to have come from thermal expansion, with the melting of mountain glaciers and icecaps being of second order. Looking forward, the current (small) imbalance (whether positive or negative) of the Greenland ice sheet is not terribly important. What matters is if the melting were to increase significantly. Ongoing observations (most promisingly from the GRACE gravity measurements, Velicogna et al, 2005) will be useful in monitoring trends, but in order to have reasonable projections into the future, we would like to be able to rely on ice sheet models. Unfortunately, the physics of basal lubrication and the importance of ice dynamics highlighted in the Rignot & Kanagaratnam results are very poorly understood and not fully accounted for in current ice sheet models. Until those models include these effects, there is a danger that we may be under-appreciating the dynamic nature of the ice sheets.
References:
Hanna, E; Huybrechts, P; Janssens, I; Cappelen, J; Steffen, K; Stephens, A (2005) J. Geophys. Res.Vo. 110, D13108, doi:10.1029/2004JD005641
Johanessen, O.M; Khvorostovsky, K; Miles, M.W; Bobylev, L.P. (2005) ScienceVo. 310 no. 5750, pp 1013-1016
Ringnot, E; Kanagaratnam, P (2006) ScienceVo. 311 no. 5763, pp 986-990
Velicogna, I; Wahr, J; Hanna, E; Huybrechts, P. (2005) Geophys. Res. Lett.Vo. 32, L05501, doi:10.1029/2004GL021948
Zwally, H. Jay; Giovinetto, Mario B.; Li, Jun; Cornejo, Helen G.; Beckley, Matthew A.; Brenner, Anita C.; Saba, Jack L.; Yi, Donghui (2005), Journal of Glaciology, Volume 51, Number 175, December, pp. 509-527(19)
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Ocean warming impacts on seabirds
This came in on one of my birding Listservs
Warmer Waters Disrupt Pacific Food Chain
Steep decline of one bird species for the second straight year has rekindled
scientists' fears that global warming could be undermining the coastal food
supply.
July 24, 2006 — By Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press
FARALLON NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Calif. — On these craggy, remote islands
west of San Francisco, the largest seabird colony in the contiguous United
States throbs with life. Seagulls swarm so thick that visitors must yell to be
heard above their cries. Pelicans glide.
But the steep decline of one bird species for the second straight year has
rekindled scientists' fears that global warming could be undermining the
coastal food supply, threatening not just the Farallones but entire marine
ecosystems.
Tiny Cassin's auklets live much of their lives on the open ocean. But in
spring, these gray-and-white relatives of the puffin venture to isolated Pacific
outposts like the Farallones to dig deep burrows and lay their eggs.
Adult auklets usually feed their chicks with krill, the minuscule
shrimp-like crustaceans that anchor the ocean's complex food web.
But not this year. Almost none of the 20,000 pairs of Cassin's auklets
nesting in the Farallones will raise a chick that lives more than a few days, a
repeat of last year's "unprecedented" breeding failure, according to Russ
Bradley, a seabird biologist with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory who monitors
the birds on the islands.
Scientists blame changes in West Coast climate patterns for a delay in the
seasonal upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters from the ocean's depths for
the second year in a row. Weak winds and faltering currents have left the Gulf
of the Farallones without krill, on which Cassin's auklets and a variety of
other seabirds, fish and mammals depend for food.
"The seas are warmer. And the number of krill being produced is lower," said
Bradley as he held a Cassin's auklet chick, the only one from a study of 400
nests he expected to survive.
"Normally we would have hundreds," he said.
The failure of last year's Pacific upwelling killed seabirds from California
to British Columbia. Scientists had hoped the change was just a natural
temperature fluctuation in what is known as the California Current.
But the return of higher ocean temperatures and scarce food resources this
year has scientists wondering whether last year's erratic weather was not a
fluke but the emergence of a troubling trend.
"How many years in a row do you see this before you start raising your
eyebrows?" said Frank Schwing, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration in Pacific Grove.
Climatologists describe global warming as a worldwide rise in temperatures
caused by the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses thought to
trap heat in the atmosphere. Predictions of global warming's effects include
rising sea levels, fiercer storms, more wildfires and warmer oceans.
Without long-term data, scientists have so far found it difficult to make
direct links between specific natural events and global warming.
But the Farallones present a special case. Researchers have kept Cassin's
auklet counts there every day since 1967. Never before have they seen such a
drop-off in numbers. That decline comes as California ocean temperatures hover
three to five degrees above average.
"One of the things that the climate models predict is that we're going to
have unpredictable weather, extreme weather, that the whole seasonal cycle of
events will not be what we expect," said Bill Peterson, a NOAA oceanographer
in Newport, Ore. "We aren't seeing normal patterns."
Perhaps nowhere is this ecological disruption felt more than here on the
Farallones, a 200-acre island chain often described as California's Galapagos.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service keeps the national wildlife refuge closed
to visitors except for a small group of scientists and volunteers who live
there year-round.
The krill-dependent whales and salmon that inhabit the surrounding waters
have not appeared to suffer from the changes in food supply. But during a visit
to the islands this summer, scientists pointed to other species feeling the
consequences.
The absence of krill has led to a collapse of the juvenile rockfish
population. This is the main food source for young of the common murre, a bird that
resembles a flying penguin. Though the murre has made a dramatic comeback
recently, with about 200,000 adults nesting on the islands this year, nearly
three-quarters of murres breeding this year are not expected to raise chicks that
survive.
"At this point it's way too late in the season for the birds to initiate
another attempt at breeding," said Peter Warzybok, a Farallones-based biologist
with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. "They'll just have to wait around for
next year and hope that it's better."
Significant drops in murre and Cassin's auklet numbers occurred during the
El Nino years of 1983 and 1992, when warmer Pacific waters near the equator
upset weather patterns worldwide.
A January conference of more than 40 climatologists, oceanographers, and
wildlife biologists issued a report describing last year's altered coastal
climate as El Nino-like conditions in a non-El Nino year. Some researchers have
given the new climate shift its own name: "El Coyote."
The report said a "ridge" of winter air blocking winds from the Gulf of
Alaska lingered more than two months longer than normal in 2005, which delayed
the upwelling until well past the birds' breeding seasons.
"It's not just a local effect," Schwing said. "It's related to global-scale
changes in atmospheric circulation."
But it could take researchers another decade to determine whether global
warming caused those changes. Some climatologists warn against drawing overly
broad conclusions from only two years of unusual weather.
Definitive results are "not around the corner," said Nick Bond, a research
meteorologist the University of Washington who has studied the upwelling's
failure.
"We just don't know how much the deck is stacked" by the effects of global
climate change, Bond said. "It's hard to tell from just a deal or two."
But whatever the cause, the ecological outcome if the trend continues is
already clear, according to scientists.
The Cassin's auklet is unlikely to adapt to the sudden loss of its main food
source. And other animals could follow, Schwing said.
In the worst case, he said, "we could see a great depression of the entire
ecosystem."
Source: Associated Press
Warmer Waters Disrupt Pacific Food Chain
Steep decline of one bird species for the second straight year has rekindled
scientists' fears that global warming could be undermining the coastal food
supply.
July 24, 2006 — By Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press
FARALLON NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Calif. — On these craggy, remote islands
west of San Francisco, the largest seabird colony in the contiguous United
States throbs with life. Seagulls swarm so thick that visitors must yell to be
heard above their cries. Pelicans glide.
But the steep decline of one bird species for the second straight year has
rekindled scientists' fears that global warming could be undermining the
coastal food supply, threatening not just the Farallones but entire marine
ecosystems.
Tiny Cassin's auklets live much of their lives on the open ocean. But in
spring, these gray-and-white relatives of the puffin venture to isolated Pacific
outposts like the Farallones to dig deep burrows and lay their eggs.
Adult auklets usually feed their chicks with krill, the minuscule
shrimp-like crustaceans that anchor the ocean's complex food web.
But not this year. Almost none of the 20,000 pairs of Cassin's auklets
nesting in the Farallones will raise a chick that lives more than a few days, a
repeat of last year's "unprecedented" breeding failure, according to Russ
Bradley, a seabird biologist with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory who monitors
the birds on the islands.
Scientists blame changes in West Coast climate patterns for a delay in the
seasonal upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters from the ocean's depths for
the second year in a row. Weak winds and faltering currents have left the Gulf
of the Farallones without krill, on which Cassin's auklets and a variety of
other seabirds, fish and mammals depend for food.
"The seas are warmer. And the number of krill being produced is lower," said
Bradley as he held a Cassin's auklet chick, the only one from a study of 400
nests he expected to survive.
"Normally we would have hundreds," he said.
The failure of last year's Pacific upwelling killed seabirds from California
to British Columbia. Scientists had hoped the change was just a natural
temperature fluctuation in what is known as the California Current.
But the return of higher ocean temperatures and scarce food resources this
year has scientists wondering whether last year's erratic weather was not a
fluke but the emergence of a troubling trend.
"How many years in a row do you see this before you start raising your
eyebrows?" said Frank Schwing, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration in Pacific Grove.
Climatologists describe global warming as a worldwide rise in temperatures
caused by the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses thought to
trap heat in the atmosphere. Predictions of global warming's effects include
rising sea levels, fiercer storms, more wildfires and warmer oceans.
Without long-term data, scientists have so far found it difficult to make
direct links between specific natural events and global warming.
But the Farallones present a special case. Researchers have kept Cassin's
auklet counts there every day since 1967. Never before have they seen such a
drop-off in numbers. That decline comes as California ocean temperatures hover
three to five degrees above average.
"One of the things that the climate models predict is that we're going to
have unpredictable weather, extreme weather, that the whole seasonal cycle of
events will not be what we expect," said Bill Peterson, a NOAA oceanographer
in Newport, Ore. "We aren't seeing normal patterns."
Perhaps nowhere is this ecological disruption felt more than here on the
Farallones, a 200-acre island chain often described as California's Galapagos.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service keeps the national wildlife refuge closed
to visitors except for a small group of scientists and volunteers who live
there year-round.
The krill-dependent whales and salmon that inhabit the surrounding waters
have not appeared to suffer from the changes in food supply. But during a visit
to the islands this summer, scientists pointed to other species feeling the
consequences.
The absence of krill has led to a collapse of the juvenile rockfish
population. This is the main food source for young of the common murre, a bird that
resembles a flying penguin. Though the murre has made a dramatic comeback
recently, with about 200,000 adults nesting on the islands this year, nearly
three-quarters of murres breeding this year are not expected to raise chicks that
survive.
"At this point it's way too late in the season for the birds to initiate
another attempt at breeding," said Peter Warzybok, a Farallones-based biologist
with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. "They'll just have to wait around for
next year and hope that it's better."
Significant drops in murre and Cassin's auklet numbers occurred during the
El Nino years of 1983 and 1992, when warmer Pacific waters near the equator
upset weather patterns worldwide.
A January conference of more than 40 climatologists, oceanographers, and
wildlife biologists issued a report describing last year's altered coastal
climate as El Nino-like conditions in a non-El Nino year. Some researchers have
given the new climate shift its own name: "El Coyote."
The report said a "ridge" of winter air blocking winds from the Gulf of
Alaska lingered more than two months longer than normal in 2005, which delayed
the upwelling until well past the birds' breeding seasons.
"It's not just a local effect," Schwing said. "It's related to global-scale
changes in atmospheric circulation."
But it could take researchers another decade to determine whether global
warming caused those changes. Some climatologists warn against drawing overly
broad conclusions from only two years of unusual weather.
Definitive results are "not around the corner," said Nick Bond, a research
meteorologist the University of Washington who has studied the upwelling's
failure.
"We just don't know how much the deck is stacked" by the effects of global
climate change, Bond said. "It's hard to tell from just a deal or two."
But whatever the cause, the ecological outcome if the trend continues is
already clear, according to scientists.
The Cassin's auklet is unlikely to adapt to the sudden loss of its main food
source. And other animals could follow, Schwing said.
In the worst case, he said, "we could see a great depression of the entire
ecosystem."
Source: Associated Press
Sunday, July 23, 2006
One Year to Save the Amazon
This is seriously bad news, a great carbon sink turns into a great carbon source.
Dying Forest: One Year to Save the Amazon
Dying Forest: One Year to Save the Amazon
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Drought Threatens Amazon Basin
Truly alarming, a major dieback in the amazon is one of the tipping points for catastrophic global warming, since that forest is usually a carbon sink that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, but if the forest dies, it will release huge amonts instead.
Drought Threatens Amazon Basin
Drought Threatens Amazon Basin
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Global Wind Power Expands in 2006
Here's something that's going right.
Eco-Economy Indicators: WIND ENERGY - Global Wind Power Expands in 2006
Eco-Economy Indicators: WIND ENERGY - Global Wind Power Expands in 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The New York Review of Books: The Threat to the Planet
Reviews of three books and a movie by the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
The New York Review of Books: The Threat to the Planet
The New York Review of Books: The Threat to the Planet
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
NASA Shelves Climate Satellites
Faced with the most important crisis in history, NASA chooses ignorance, most likely having it's arm and policy twisted by the "it's not happening" folks in DC
NASA Shelves Climate Satellites
NASA Shelves Climate Satellites
Monday, June 05, 2006
Welcome to the Climate Crisis
By Bill McKibben, the guy who wrote "The End of Nature", where he pointed out that due to our changes to the atmosphere that there was now no place on earth untouched by man. Taht was at least fifteen yers ago.
Welcome to the Climate Crisis
Welcome to the Climate Crisis
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Friday, April 14, 2006
Stark warning over climate change from BBC
The really bizarre thing is that this is milder than some of the scenarios that are coming around. Check out some of the links, this is a pretty good site.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Another ecosystem, very personal,under attack
Published on Thursday, February 9, 2006 by Reuters
Global Warming a Major Health Risk - Scientists
LONDON - Global warming is already causing death and disease across the world through flooding, environmental destruction, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, scientists said on Thursday.
And it is likely to get worse.
In a review published in The Lancet medical journal, the scientists said there was now a near-unanimous scientific consensus that rising levels of greenhouse gases would cause global warming and other climate changes.
"The advent of changes in global climate signals that we are now living beyond the Earth's capacity to absorb a major waste product," said Anthony McMichael of the Australian National University in Canberra and his colleagues, referring to greenhouse gases.
The scientists' review of dozens of scientific papers over the last five years said health risks were likely to get worse over time as climate change and other environmental and social changes deepened.
"The resultant risks to health ... are anticipated to compound over time as climate change along with other large scale environmental and social changes continues," they wrote.
The review said climate change would bring changes in temperature, sea levels, rainfall, humidity and winds.
This would lead to an increase in death rates from heatwaves, infectious diseases, allergies, cholera as well as starvation due to failing crops.
They said climate change may already have led to lower production of food in some regions due to changes in temperature, rainfall, soil moisture, pests and diseases.
"In food insecure populations this alteration may already be contributing to malnutrition," it said.
The scientists said sea levels had risen in recent decades, and people had already started moving from some low-lying Pacific islands. Such population movements often increased nutritional and physical problems and disease, they said.
"The number of people adversely affected by El Nino-related weather events over three decades, worldwide, appears to have increased greatly," it said, referring to the weather pattern caused by warming of the Pacific Ocean off South America.
The review called for research to identify groups vulnerable to climate change and said health concerns should be included in international policy debates about global warming.
"Recognition of widespread health risks should widen these debates beyond the already important considerations of economic disruption," they said.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters
Global Warming a Major Health Risk - Scientists
LONDON - Global warming is already causing death and disease across the world through flooding, environmental destruction, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, scientists said on Thursday.
And it is likely to get worse.
In a review published in The Lancet medical journal, the scientists said there was now a near-unanimous scientific consensus that rising levels of greenhouse gases would cause global warming and other climate changes.
"The advent of changes in global climate signals that we are now living beyond the Earth's capacity to absorb a major waste product," said Anthony McMichael of the Australian National University in Canberra and his colleagues, referring to greenhouse gases.
The scientists' review of dozens of scientific papers over the last five years said health risks were likely to get worse over time as climate change and other environmental and social changes deepened.
"The resultant risks to health ... are anticipated to compound over time as climate change along with other large scale environmental and social changes continues," they wrote.
The review said climate change would bring changes in temperature, sea levels, rainfall, humidity and winds.
This would lead to an increase in death rates from heatwaves, infectious diseases, allergies, cholera as well as starvation due to failing crops.
They said climate change may already have led to lower production of food in some regions due to changes in temperature, rainfall, soil moisture, pests and diseases.
"In food insecure populations this alteration may already be contributing to malnutrition," it said.
The scientists said sea levels had risen in recent decades, and people had already started moving from some low-lying Pacific islands. Such population movements often increased nutritional and physical problems and disease, they said.
"The number of people adversely affected by El Nino-related weather events over three decades, worldwide, appears to have increased greatly," it said, referring to the weather pattern caused by warming of the Pacific Ocean off South America.
The review called for research to identify groups vulnerable to climate change and said health concerns should be included in international policy debates about global warming.
"Recognition of widespread health risks should widen these debates beyond the already important considerations of economic disruption," they said.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters
Friday, April 07, 2006
The Millenium Assessment
A major presentation of info regarding the state of the world's ecosystems
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Millenium Assessment
Published on Friday, January 20, 2006 by Inter Press Service
Environment: World Stands at a Crossroads
by Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada - With 60 percent of the Earth's ecosystems in trouble right now, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, what will the future be like in 2050?
Demand for water will increase enormously between 30 and 85 percent, especially in Africa and Asia, while an increasing number of extreme events, such as hurricanes and famine, will affect many millions, warns a Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) report that looks at future world development scenarios.
Humankind is pushing up against natural thresholds and increasing the likelihood of abrupt changes -- especially when there are three billion more people in 2050.
"Two billion people currently living in drylands, including the western U.S., are especially vulnerable to climate change, which could produce intense, long-term droughts," said Stephen Carpenter, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin and one of the authors of the MA report.
Demand for food is expected to grow 70-85 percent by 2050, resulting in a 10 to 20 percent decline in forest and grasslands. Rising demand for fish will likely result in major and long-lasting collapse of regional marine fisheries. Hunger will remain a major problem, most widespread in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
South Asia could reach an "environmental breaking point as deforestation spreads, industrial agriculture grows, water use goes up and sewage discharge increases".
This future is not written in stone, Carpenter points out.
Conditions could get much worse or they might get better -- it all depends on the choices and the policies put into place now and the near future, the MA report concludes.
"We will have to make changes in policies for ecosystems to get better," he said at a press conference Thursday.
The MA is a 22-million-dollar, four-year global research initiative, commissioned by the United Nations, by 1,360 experts from 95 countries. The final four volumes published Thursday by Island Press reveal why and how to slow or reverse the degradation of the Earth's ecosystems, including a look at what the future may be like in 2050.
"This is a long overdue look at the state of Earth's ecosystems that sustain all life," said Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Heinz Centre, a U.S.-based NGO dedicated to improving the scientific and economic basis for environmental policy.
"The MA reports represent a roadmap for effective sustainable human development," said Lovejoy, a former ecologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
"It is highly relevant to U.S. policies in agriculture, trade and the environment," he added.
All societies, industries and businesses are dependent on the goods and services provided by nature. A natural landscape -- a wood lot or marsh, for example -- generates oxygen, cleans water, prevents erosion, builds soil, captures excess carbon dioxide, provides habitat for many other species and so on.
"There is an unbreakable link between human health and wellbeing and ecosystems," said Walter Reid, director of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and a professor with the Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
Ecosystem goods and services freely available today will cease to exist or become more costly if the current decline continues. And in all future scenarios, ecosystems will be under tremendous pressure to provide significant increases in food, fibre and water, according the MA report.
Under perhaps the most optimistic scenario, where a global society takes strong steps to reduce poverty, invests in public goods such as infrastructure and education, and economic growth booms, some 4.9 billion people will still have difficulties getting water.
Much of this dark future can be avoided through policies and practices that value the goods and services that ecosystems provide, says Reid.
Destructive policies such as the agriculture subsidies by the U.S., European Union and other developed nations favour production over environmental conservation, says Prabhu Pingali, director of the Agricultural and Development Economics Division (ESA) at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation.
"Those subsidies also reduce the ability of farmers in poor countries to grow food by keeping prices unrealistically low," Pingali said.
At the same time, developing countries need to change their policies that subsidise pesticides or electricity for water pumps because of their negative impact on ecosystems, he said. And farmers and others should be compensated for the environmental goods and services their lands provide society.
"By placing a monetary value on these services, we will be smarter about using them while creating alternative sources of income for people, from farmers in the United States to tribes in developing countries," he said.
"Politicians and other policymakers do not know the economic value of the goods and services provided by ecosystems," says Reid.
There have been few studies or measures of these and much more needs to be done, he acknowledges. "It's now time for us to measure the economic value of these services so we can make better decisions about our future."
But that doesn't prevent developing policies and taking actions now that reduce the pressure on species and preserve or increase biodiversity so that vital and fragile ecosystems will be more resilient, he says.
Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Millenium Assessment
Published on Friday, January 20, 2006 by Inter Press Service
Environment: World Stands at a Crossroads
by Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada - With 60 percent of the Earth's ecosystems in trouble right now, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, what will the future be like in 2050?
Demand for water will increase enormously between 30 and 85 percent, especially in Africa and Asia, while an increasing number of extreme events, such as hurricanes and famine, will affect many millions, warns a Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) report that looks at future world development scenarios.
Humankind is pushing up against natural thresholds and increasing the likelihood of abrupt changes -- especially when there are three billion more people in 2050.
"Two billion people currently living in drylands, including the western U.S., are especially vulnerable to climate change, which could produce intense, long-term droughts," said Stephen Carpenter, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin and one of the authors of the MA report.
Demand for food is expected to grow 70-85 percent by 2050, resulting in a 10 to 20 percent decline in forest and grasslands. Rising demand for fish will likely result in major and long-lasting collapse of regional marine fisheries. Hunger will remain a major problem, most widespread in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
South Asia could reach an "environmental breaking point as deforestation spreads, industrial agriculture grows, water use goes up and sewage discharge increases".
This future is not written in stone, Carpenter points out.
Conditions could get much worse or they might get better -- it all depends on the choices and the policies put into place now and the near future, the MA report concludes.
"We will have to make changes in policies for ecosystems to get better," he said at a press conference Thursday.
The MA is a 22-million-dollar, four-year global research initiative, commissioned by the United Nations, by 1,360 experts from 95 countries. The final four volumes published Thursday by Island Press reveal why and how to slow or reverse the degradation of the Earth's ecosystems, including a look at what the future may be like in 2050.
"This is a long overdue look at the state of Earth's ecosystems that sustain all life," said Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Heinz Centre, a U.S.-based NGO dedicated to improving the scientific and economic basis for environmental policy.
"The MA reports represent a roadmap for effective sustainable human development," said Lovejoy, a former ecologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
"It is highly relevant to U.S. policies in agriculture, trade and the environment," he added.
All societies, industries and businesses are dependent on the goods and services provided by nature. A natural landscape -- a wood lot or marsh, for example -- generates oxygen, cleans water, prevents erosion, builds soil, captures excess carbon dioxide, provides habitat for many other species and so on.
"There is an unbreakable link between human health and wellbeing and ecosystems," said Walter Reid, director of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and a professor with the Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
Ecosystem goods and services freely available today will cease to exist or become more costly if the current decline continues. And in all future scenarios, ecosystems will be under tremendous pressure to provide significant increases in food, fibre and water, according the MA report.
Under perhaps the most optimistic scenario, where a global society takes strong steps to reduce poverty, invests in public goods such as infrastructure and education, and economic growth booms, some 4.9 billion people will still have difficulties getting water.
Much of this dark future can be avoided through policies and practices that value the goods and services that ecosystems provide, says Reid.
Destructive policies such as the agriculture subsidies by the U.S., European Union and other developed nations favour production over environmental conservation, says Prabhu Pingali, director of the Agricultural and Development Economics Division (ESA) at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation.
"Those subsidies also reduce the ability of farmers in poor countries to grow food by keeping prices unrealistically low," Pingali said.
At the same time, developing countries need to change their policies that subsidise pesticides or electricity for water pumps because of their negative impact on ecosystems, he said. And farmers and others should be compensated for the environmental goods and services their lands provide society.
"By placing a monetary value on these services, we will be smarter about using them while creating alternative sources of income for people, from farmers in the United States to tribes in developing countries," he said.
"Politicians and other policymakers do not know the economic value of the goods and services provided by ecosystems," says Reid.
There have been few studies or measures of these and much more needs to be done, he acknowledges. "It's now time for us to measure the economic value of these services so we can make better decisions about our future."
But that doesn't prevent developing policies and taking actions now that reduce the pressure on species and preserve or increase biodiversity so that vital and fragile ecosystems will be more resilient, he says.
Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service
How a northern forest can respond to warming
Here's another example of an ecosystem's inability to cope with sudden changes in a climate regime. Keep in mind that many of the global weather models assume that forest cover will act as a carbon sink, sucking CO2 from the atmosphere and mitigating its greenhouse effects. But dead trees give off CO2 as they rot, and the process of industrial logging creates lots of slash that often gets burned, yielding yet more CO2. Another problem is that living trees pump a lot of water vapor into the atmosphere, creating cloud cover which reflects sunlight (See albedo) and downwind precipitation. So fewer trees means more sunlight hitting (darker) ground, where it's absorbed, and less rainfall for ecosystem and human uses. There are some problems with assessing and modeling the balance between cooling via cloud reflection and warming by water vapor as a greenhouse gas. This conflict was a weak spot in earlier General Circulation Models (GCM) but has been one focus of recent model tweaks.
- - - - - - -
'Rapid Warming' Spreads Havoc in Canada's Forests
Tiny Beetles Destroying Pines
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
QUESNEL, B.C. -- Millions of acres of Canada's lush green forests are
turning red in spasms of death. A voracious beetle, whose population has
exploded with the warming climate, is killing more trees than wildfires or
logging. The mountain pine beetle has infested an area three times the size of
Maryland, devastating swaths of lodgepole pines and reshaping the future of
the forest and the communities in it.
"It's pretty gut-wrenching," said Allan Carroll, a research scientist at
the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, whose studies tracked a lock step
between warmer winters and the spread of the beetle. "People say climate
change is something for our kids to worry about. No. It's now."
Scientists fear the beetle will cross the Rocky Mountains and sweep across
the northern continent into areas where it used to be killed by severe cold
but where winters now are comparatively mild. Officials in neighboring
Alberta are setting fires and traps and felling thousands of trees in an
attempt to keep the beetle at bay.
"This is an all-out battle," said David Coutts, Alberta's minister of
sustainable resource development. The Canadian Forest Service calls it the
largest known insect infestation in North American history.
U.S. Forest Service officials say they are watching warily as the outbreak
has spread. The United States is less vulnerable because it lacks the
seamless forest of lodgepole pines that are a highway for the beetle in
Canada. So far, U.S. officials say, the outbreaks have been mostly in
isolated clumps of remote wilderness areas of northern Washington.
"It's a rapid warming" that is increasing the beetles' range, said Carroll.
"All the data show there are significant changes over widespread areas that
are going to cause us considerable amount of grief. Not only is it coming,
it's here."
"We are seeing this pine beetle do things that have never been recorded
before," said Michael Pelchat, a forestry officer in Quesnel, as he
followed moose tracks in the snow to examine a 100-year-old pine killed in
one season by the beetle. "They are attacking younger trees, and attacking
timber in altitudes they have never been before."
The tiny beetle has always lived in high areas from Arizona to northern
British Columbia, and occasionally populations have grown in limited
outbreaks. In Canada, where the beetle's favored lodgepole pine thrives, it
has been controlled by winters with early cold snaps or long killing spells
of 20 degrees below zero. But for more than a decade, forestry experts say,
the weather here has not been cold enough for long enough to kill the
beetle.
Scientists with the Canadian Forest Service say the average temperature of
winters here has risen by more than 4 degrees in the last century. "That's
not insignificant," said Jim Snetsinger, British Columbia's chief forester.
"Global warming is happening. We have to start to account for it."
The result is a swarm of beetles that has grown exponentially in the past
six years, flying from tree to tree. The advance is marked by broad swaths
of rust-red forest, the color pines turn before they drop all their needles
to become ghostly grey skeletons.
"It's depressing to see," said Steve Dodge, a British Columbia forestry
official whose office is along the Quesnel River. This town of 10,000 sits
in the heart of the province's vast evergreen woodlands. Steam billowing
from the kilns of a half-dozen sawmills and pulp plants enshroud the town,
which proudly calls itself the "Woodsmart City" in homage to the timber
industry that sustains it.In an attack played out millions of times over, a
female beetle no bigger than a rice grain finds an older lodgepole pine,
its favored host, and drills inside the bark. There, it eats a channel
straight up the tree, laying eggs as it goes. The tree fights back. It
pumps sap toward the bug and the new larvae, enveloping them in a mass of
the sticky substance. The tree then tries to eject its captives through a
small, crusty chute in the bark.
Countering, the beetle sends out a pheromone call for reinforcements. More
beetles arrive, mounting a mass attack. A fungus on the beetle, called the
blue stain fungus, works into the living wood, strangling its water flow.
The larvae begin eating at right angles to the original up-and-down
channel, sometimes girdling the tree, crossing channels made by other
beetles.
The pine is doomed. As it slowly dies, the larvae remain protected over the
winter. In spring, they burrow out of the bark and launch themselves into
the wind to their next victims. British Columbia is a buffet laid out before them. Years of successful battles against forest fires have allowed a thick concentration of old
lodgepole pines to grow -- a beetle feast that natural wildfire would have
stopped. "It was the perfect storm" of warmer weather and vulnerable old trees,
coupled with constraints that slowed logging of the infected wood, said
Douglas Routledge, who represents timber companies in the city of Prince
George.
At the province's Ministry of Forests and Range in Quesnel, forestry
officer Pelchat saw the beetle expansion coming as "a silent forest fire."
He and his colleagues launched an offensive to try to stop or at least
delay the invasion, all the while hoping for cold temperatures. They
searched out beetle-ridden trees, cutting them and burning them. They
thinned forests. They set out traps. But the deep freeze never came.
"We lost. They built up into an army and came across," Pelchat said.
Surveys show the beetle has infested 21 million acres and killed 411
million cubic feet of trees -- double the annual take by all the loggers in
Canada. In seven years or sooner, the Forest Service predicts, that kill
will nearly triple and 80 percent of the pines in the central British
Columbia forest will be dead.
Pelchat is now spending his time trying to plan recovery through
replanting. In this area, a mature pine forest takes 70 years to grow.
Meanwhile, the beetle is moving eastward. It has breached the natural wall
of the Rocky Mountains in places, threatening the tourist treasures of
national forest near Banff, Alberta, and is within striking distance of the
vast Northern Boreal Forest that reaches to the eastern seaboard.
"If that beetle is allowed to come any further, it will absolutely
devastate our eastern slope forests," said Coutts, in Alberta. "If we're
not prepared, it's going to infest all Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and
then northern Ontario in 20 years. This is the battlefront."
Ironically, Quesnel is booming now. The beetle has killed so many trees
that officials have more than doubled the allowable timber harvest, so
loggers can cut and haul as many dead trees as possible before they rot.
The icy roads are choked with giant trucks growling toward the mills,
loaded with logs marked with the telltale blue stain fungus.
In town, two sawmills and the plywood and pulp plants of the largest
company, West Fraser Mills, are "running flat-out," with shifts
round-the-clock, said Tom Turner, a manager there. He walked the catwalks
of a sawmill as whirling machines below grappled and twirled the offloaded
trees. Computers sized up each log, instantly figured the best cut, and
shoved it at furious speed through giant disk saws and planers to produce
lumber that rail cars would carry to home builders in the United States.
West Fraser is spending $100 million to upgrade the mill. Other companies
have added shifts and proposed new plants to make chipboard or wood-fuel
pellets. Property values in Quesnel are rising, rents are up, the local
shopping center is flourishing again and unemployment has dropped, said
Nate Bello, the mayor of Quesnel.
But the boom will end. When what people here call "beetlewood" is removed
or rots out -- and no one is sure how long that will take -- the forestry
industry "will be running at about half speed," Bello acknowledged.
He sees his chief challenge as figuring out how to convert Quesnel from a
one-industry town to something with a more diverse economic base. He and
city officials talk of attracting retirees and small, computer-based
businesses, and even of luring tourists to the area, despite the stark
industrial tableau of sawmills and pulp plants.
Some people in town say those are quixotic plans. "This town is going to
die," scoffed Pat Karey, 62, who spent 40 years at the sawmill. Other men
in the Quesnel cafe -- "Smokers Welcome" said the sign in the window --
nodded in assent.
"A mill job is $20 an hour, or $30 with benefits. The jobs they are talking
about bringing in are $8-an-hour jobs," said Del Boesem, whose runs a
business dismantling heavy logging machinery.
- - - - - - -
'Rapid Warming' Spreads Havoc in Canada's Forests
Tiny Beetles Destroying Pines
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
QUESNEL, B.C. -- Millions of acres of Canada's lush green forests are
turning red in spasms of death. A voracious beetle, whose population has
exploded with the warming climate, is killing more trees than wildfires or
logging. The mountain pine beetle has infested an area three times the size of
Maryland, devastating swaths of lodgepole pines and reshaping the future of
the forest and the communities in it.
"It's pretty gut-wrenching," said Allan Carroll, a research scientist at
the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, whose studies tracked a lock step
between warmer winters and the spread of the beetle. "People say climate
change is something for our kids to worry about. No. It's now."
Scientists fear the beetle will cross the Rocky Mountains and sweep across
the northern continent into areas where it used to be killed by severe cold
but where winters now are comparatively mild. Officials in neighboring
Alberta are setting fires and traps and felling thousands of trees in an
attempt to keep the beetle at bay.
"This is an all-out battle," said David Coutts, Alberta's minister of
sustainable resource development. The Canadian Forest Service calls it the
largest known insect infestation in North American history.
U.S. Forest Service officials say they are watching warily as the outbreak
has spread. The United States is less vulnerable because it lacks the
seamless forest of lodgepole pines that are a highway for the beetle in
Canada. So far, U.S. officials say, the outbreaks have been mostly in
isolated clumps of remote wilderness areas of northern Washington.
"It's a rapid warming" that is increasing the beetles' range, said Carroll.
"All the data show there are significant changes over widespread areas that
are going to cause us considerable amount of grief. Not only is it coming,
it's here."
"We are seeing this pine beetle do things that have never been recorded
before," said Michael Pelchat, a forestry officer in Quesnel, as he
followed moose tracks in the snow to examine a 100-year-old pine killed in
one season by the beetle. "They are attacking younger trees, and attacking
timber in altitudes they have never been before."
The tiny beetle has always lived in high areas from Arizona to northern
British Columbia, and occasionally populations have grown in limited
outbreaks. In Canada, where the beetle's favored lodgepole pine thrives, it
has been controlled by winters with early cold snaps or long killing spells
of 20 degrees below zero. But for more than a decade, forestry experts say,
the weather here has not been cold enough for long enough to kill the
beetle.
Scientists with the Canadian Forest Service say the average temperature of
winters here has risen by more than 4 degrees in the last century. "That's
not insignificant," said Jim Snetsinger, British Columbia's chief forester.
"Global warming is happening. We have to start to account for it."
The result is a swarm of beetles that has grown exponentially in the past
six years, flying from tree to tree. The advance is marked by broad swaths
of rust-red forest, the color pines turn before they drop all their needles
to become ghostly grey skeletons.
"It's depressing to see," said Steve Dodge, a British Columbia forestry
official whose office is along the Quesnel River. This town of 10,000 sits
in the heart of the province's vast evergreen woodlands. Steam billowing
from the kilns of a half-dozen sawmills and pulp plants enshroud the town,
which proudly calls itself the "Woodsmart City" in homage to the timber
industry that sustains it.In an attack played out millions of times over, a
female beetle no bigger than a rice grain finds an older lodgepole pine,
its favored host, and drills inside the bark. There, it eats a channel
straight up the tree, laying eggs as it goes. The tree fights back. It
pumps sap toward the bug and the new larvae, enveloping them in a mass of
the sticky substance. The tree then tries to eject its captives through a
small, crusty chute in the bark.
Countering, the beetle sends out a pheromone call for reinforcements. More
beetles arrive, mounting a mass attack. A fungus on the beetle, called the
blue stain fungus, works into the living wood, strangling its water flow.
The larvae begin eating at right angles to the original up-and-down
channel, sometimes girdling the tree, crossing channels made by other
beetles.
The pine is doomed. As it slowly dies, the larvae remain protected over the
winter. In spring, they burrow out of the bark and launch themselves into
the wind to their next victims. British Columbia is a buffet laid out before them. Years of successful battles against forest fires have allowed a thick concentration of old
lodgepole pines to grow -- a beetle feast that natural wildfire would have
stopped. "It was the perfect storm" of warmer weather and vulnerable old trees,
coupled with constraints that slowed logging of the infected wood, said
Douglas Routledge, who represents timber companies in the city of Prince
George.
At the province's Ministry of Forests and Range in Quesnel, forestry
officer Pelchat saw the beetle expansion coming as "a silent forest fire."
He and his colleagues launched an offensive to try to stop or at least
delay the invasion, all the while hoping for cold temperatures. They
searched out beetle-ridden trees, cutting them and burning them. They
thinned forests. They set out traps. But the deep freeze never came.
"We lost. They built up into an army and came across," Pelchat said.
Surveys show the beetle has infested 21 million acres and killed 411
million cubic feet of trees -- double the annual take by all the loggers in
Canada. In seven years or sooner, the Forest Service predicts, that kill
will nearly triple and 80 percent of the pines in the central British
Columbia forest will be dead.
Pelchat is now spending his time trying to plan recovery through
replanting. In this area, a mature pine forest takes 70 years to grow.
Meanwhile, the beetle is moving eastward. It has breached the natural wall
of the Rocky Mountains in places, threatening the tourist treasures of
national forest near Banff, Alberta, and is within striking distance of the
vast Northern Boreal Forest that reaches to the eastern seaboard.
"If that beetle is allowed to come any further, it will absolutely
devastate our eastern slope forests," said Coutts, in Alberta. "If we're
not prepared, it's going to infest all Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and
then northern Ontario in 20 years. This is the battlefront."
Ironically, Quesnel is booming now. The beetle has killed so many trees
that officials have more than doubled the allowable timber harvest, so
loggers can cut and haul as many dead trees as possible before they rot.
The icy roads are choked with giant trucks growling toward the mills,
loaded with logs marked with the telltale blue stain fungus.
In town, two sawmills and the plywood and pulp plants of the largest
company, West Fraser Mills, are "running flat-out," with shifts
round-the-clock, said Tom Turner, a manager there. He walked the catwalks
of a sawmill as whirling machines below grappled and twirled the offloaded
trees. Computers sized up each log, instantly figured the best cut, and
shoved it at furious speed through giant disk saws and planers to produce
lumber that rail cars would carry to home builders in the United States.
West Fraser is spending $100 million to upgrade the mill. Other companies
have added shifts and proposed new plants to make chipboard or wood-fuel
pellets. Property values in Quesnel are rising, rents are up, the local
shopping center is flourishing again and unemployment has dropped, said
Nate Bello, the mayor of Quesnel.
But the boom will end. When what people here call "beetlewood" is removed
or rots out -- and no one is sure how long that will take -- the forestry
industry "will be running at about half speed," Bello acknowledged.
He sees his chief challenge as figuring out how to convert Quesnel from a
one-industry town to something with a more diverse economic base. He and
city officials talk of attracting retirees and small, computer-based
businesses, and even of luring tourists to the area, despite the stark
industrial tableau of sawmills and pulp plants.
Some people in town say those are quixotic plans. "This town is going to
die," scoffed Pat Karey, 62, who spent 40 years at the sawmill. Other men
in the Quesnel cafe -- "Smokers Welcome" said the sign in the window --
nodded in assent.
"A mill job is $20 an hour, or $30 with benefits. The jobs they are talking
about bringing in are $8-an-hour jobs," said Del Boesem, whose runs a
business dismantling heavy logging machinery.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Climate Science (Another Tech Blog)» Climate Models
This is an interesting site. Study the categories in the box on the right for a little more focused coverage. Their stance seems to be that global predictions are both dicey and regionally only marginally relevant. More important considerations for thinking about the impacts of climate change are regional vulnerabilities and preparation measures, for instance what is the state of water supplies and patterns of usage.
Climate Science » Climate Models
Climate Science » Climate Models
Greenland Glaciers speeding up
I just went ahead and copied this, it's probably copyrighted. The link will get you to the site, which bears lots of exploring; it's climate science written by real climate scientists. The comments are very valuable, take the time to read them if you have it.
From Real Climate
In a recent paper in Science, Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam present new satellite observations of the speed of glaciers of Greenland, and find that they are sliding towards the sea almost twice as fast as previously thought. Additionally, between 1996 and 2005, they detected a widespread glacier acceleration and consequently an increased rate of ice discharge from the Greenland ice sheet. However, previous papers have recently noted an increase in snow accumulation in the interior (i.e. Johanessen et al., 2005), so how do these different measurements fit into the larger picture of Greenland's net mass balance?
The measurements by Rignot & Kanagartnam were made with interferometers which measure the movement of the surface horizontally, and so is complimentary to the altimeter data published previously (which measures the absolute height of the ice). Overall, they found widespread increases in glacier speeds, and increases of about 30% in ice discharge rates. (Note that the satellite image shows that the glaciers in the east tend to slide far into the sea whereas on the western coast that happens less).
The higher velocity of the ice is thought to be related to higher temperatures causing increased melt-water which can penetrate to the base of the glacier and hence reduce the ground friction. However, this accelerated movement is not necessarily tied to an increased rate of melting of the Greenland ice, although it can be related. Surges of ice streams from the ice sheet can also occur due to increased accumulation at the head of the glacier. However, when the increased ice velocity is matched to a decreasing thickness that can be sign of net mass loss. These ideas are consistent with observations of surface melting which had a record extent in 2005, and has been increasing steadily (though with significant interannual variability) since 1993. Using the analysis of Hanna et al (2005) (based on the reanalysis datasets) for the surface mass balance, Rignot & Kanagartnam estimate that Greenland is on balance losing mass, and over the period of their study the ice sheet mass deficit (the amount of ice lost to the sea) has doubled increasing from 90 to 220 km3/year (an increase of 0.23 to 0.57 mm/yr sea level equivalent - SLE).
In the earlier Science paper, Johanessen et al. found increased snow accumulation on the top of the interior Greenland ice sheet between 1992 and 2003. Above 1500m a.s.l in much of the interior Greenland they estimated an increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 cm/year and below 1500m they observed a decreasing trend of -2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year. Hence, growth in the interior parts and a thinning of the ice nearer the edges. However, Johanessen et al. were not able to measure all of the coastal ranges. Indeed, the thinning of the margins and growth in the interior Greenland is an expected response to increased temperatures and more precipitation in a warmer climate. These results present no contradiction to the accelerated sliding near the coasts, but both will affect the ice/snow (fresh water) mass estimate. Whereas the finding of Rignot & Kanagaratnam suggests a larger sink of the frozen Greenland fresh water budget (the ice is dumped into the sea), the snow deposition in Greenland interiors is a source term (increases the amount of frozen fresh water). It does not matter for the general sea level in which form the water exists (liguid or solid/frozen) when it is discharged into the sea: The same mass of liquid water and immersed ice affect the water level equally (Archimede's principle).
A third relevant study is a recent paper in the Journal of Glaciology by Zwally et al. (2005) on the ice mass changes on Greenland and Antarctica. They use the same satellite obsevations (ERS 1 & 2) as Johanessen et al. and again find that the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins (-42 ± 2 Gt/year = -46 ± 2 km3/year below the equilibrium-line altitude - ELA), but growing in the inland (+53 ± 2 Gt/year = 58 ± 2 km3/year). The mass estimates have been converted to volume estimates here, assuming the density of ice is 0.917 g/cm3 at 0°C, so that the mass of one Gt of ice is roughly equivalent to 1.1km3 ice*. This means that the Greenland ice has an overall mass gain by +11 ± 3 Gt/year (=10 ± 2.7 km3/year) which they estimated implied a -0.03 mm/year SLE over the period 1992-2002.
The critical point for Greenland is whether the increased rate of glacier motion more than compensates for the greater accumulation on the surface. While the broad picture of what is happening is consistent between these papers, the bottom-line value for Greenland's mass balance is different in all three cases. Looking just at the dynamical changes observed by Rignot & Kanagaratnam, there is an increased discharge of about 0.28 mm/year SLE from 1996 to 2005, well outside the range of error bars. This is substantially more than the opposing changes in accumulation estimated by Johannessen et al and Zwally et al, and is unlikely to have been included in their assessments. Thus, the probability is that Greenland has been losing ice in the last decade. We should be careful to point out though that this is only for one decade, and doesn't prove anything about the longer term. As many of the studies make clear, there is a significant degree of interannual variability (related to the North Atlantic Oscillation, or the response to the cooling associated with Mt. Pinatubo) such that discerning longer term trends is hard.
The largest contributions to sea level rise so far are estimated to have come from thermal expansion, with the melting of mountain glaciers and icecaps being of second order. Looking forward, the current (small) imbalance (whether positive or negative) of the Greenland ice sheet is not terribly important. What matters is if the melting were to increase significantly. Ongoing observations (most promisingly from the GRACE gravity measurements, Velicogna et al, 2005) will be useful in monitoring trends, but in order to have reasonable projections into the future, we would like to be able to rely on ice sheet models. Unfortunately, the physics of basal lubrication and the importance of ice dynamics highlighted in the Rignot & Kanagaratnam results are very poorly understood and not fully accounted for in current ice sheet models. Until those models include these effects, there is a danger that we may be under-appreciating the dynamic nature of the ice sheets.
References:
Hanna, E; Huybrechts, P; Janssens, I; Cappelen, J; Steffen, K; Stephens, A (2005) J. Geophys. Res.Vo. 110, D13108, doi:10.1029/2004JD005641
Johanessen, O.M; Khvorostovsky, K; Miles, M.W; Bobylev, L.P. (2005) ScienceVo. 310 no. 5750, pp 1013-1016
Ringnot, E; Kanagaratnam, P (2006) ScienceVo. 311 no. 5763, pp 986-990
Velicogna, I; Wahr, J; Hanna, E; Huybrechts, P. (2005) Geophys. Res. Lett.Vo. 32, L05501, doi:10.1029/2004GL021948
Zwally, H. Jay; Giovinetto, Mario B.; Li, Jun; Cornejo, Helen G.; Beckley, Matthew A.; Brenner, Anita C.; Saba, Jack L.; Yi, Donghui (2005), Journal of Glaciology, Volume 51, Number 175, December, pp. 509-527(19)
From Real Climate
In a recent paper in Science, Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam present new satellite observations of the speed of glaciers of Greenland, and find that they are sliding towards the sea almost twice as fast as previously thought. Additionally, between 1996 and 2005, they detected a widespread glacier acceleration and consequently an increased rate of ice discharge from the Greenland ice sheet. However, previous papers have recently noted an increase in snow accumulation in the interior (i.e. Johanessen et al., 2005), so how do these different measurements fit into the larger picture of Greenland's net mass balance?
The measurements by Rignot & Kanagartnam were made with interferometers which measure the movement of the surface horizontally, and so is complimentary to the altimeter data published previously (which measures the absolute height of the ice). Overall, they found widespread increases in glacier speeds, and increases of about 30% in ice discharge rates. (Note that the satellite image shows that the glaciers in the east tend to slide far into the sea whereas on the western coast that happens less).
The higher velocity of the ice is thought to be related to higher temperatures causing increased melt-water which can penetrate to the base of the glacier and hence reduce the ground friction. However, this accelerated movement is not necessarily tied to an increased rate of melting of the Greenland ice, although it can be related. Surges of ice streams from the ice sheet can also occur due to increased accumulation at the head of the glacier. However, when the increased ice velocity is matched to a decreasing thickness that can be sign of net mass loss. These ideas are consistent with observations of surface melting which had a record extent in 2005, and has been increasing steadily (though with significant interannual variability) since 1993. Using the analysis of Hanna et al (2005) (based on the reanalysis datasets) for the surface mass balance, Rignot & Kanagartnam estimate that Greenland is on balance losing mass, and over the period of their study the ice sheet mass deficit (the amount of ice lost to the sea) has doubled increasing from 90 to 220 km3/year (an increase of 0.23 to 0.57 mm/yr sea level equivalent - SLE).
In the earlier Science paper, Johanessen et al. found increased snow accumulation on the top of the interior Greenland ice sheet between 1992 and 2003. Above 1500m a.s.l in much of the interior Greenland they estimated an increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 cm/year and below 1500m they observed a decreasing trend of -2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year. Hence, growth in the interior parts and a thinning of the ice nearer the edges. However, Johanessen et al. were not able to measure all of the coastal ranges. Indeed, the thinning of the margins and growth in the interior Greenland is an expected response to increased temperatures and more precipitation in a warmer climate. These results present no contradiction to the accelerated sliding near the coasts, but both will affect the ice/snow (fresh water) mass estimate. Whereas the finding of Rignot & Kanagaratnam suggests a larger sink of the frozen Greenland fresh water budget (the ice is dumped into the sea), the snow deposition in Greenland interiors is a source term (increases the amount of frozen fresh water). It does not matter for the general sea level in which form the water exists (liguid or solid/frozen) when it is discharged into the sea: The same mass of liquid water and immersed ice affect the water level equally (Archimede's principle).
A third relevant study is a recent paper in the Journal of Glaciology by Zwally et al. (2005) on the ice mass changes on Greenland and Antarctica. They use the same satellite obsevations (ERS 1 & 2) as Johanessen et al. and again find that the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins (-42 ± 2 Gt/year = -46 ± 2 km3/year below the equilibrium-line altitude - ELA), but growing in the inland (+53 ± 2 Gt/year = 58 ± 2 km3/year). The mass estimates have been converted to volume estimates here, assuming the density of ice is 0.917 g/cm3 at 0°C, so that the mass of one Gt of ice is roughly equivalent to 1.1km3 ice*. This means that the Greenland ice has an overall mass gain by +11 ± 3 Gt/year (=10 ± 2.7 km3/year) which they estimated implied a -0.03 mm/year SLE over the period 1992-2002.
The critical point for Greenland is whether the increased rate of glacier motion more than compensates for the greater accumulation on the surface. While the broad picture of what is happening is consistent between these papers, the bottom-line value for Greenland's mass balance is different in all three cases. Looking just at the dynamical changes observed by Rignot & Kanagaratnam, there is an increased discharge of about 0.28 mm/year SLE from 1996 to 2005, well outside the range of error bars. This is substantially more than the opposing changes in accumulation estimated by Johannessen et al and Zwally et al, and is unlikely to have been included in their assessments. Thus, the probability is that Greenland has been losing ice in the last decade. We should be careful to point out though that this is only for one decade, and doesn't prove anything about the longer term. As many of the studies make clear, there is a significant degree of interannual variability (related to the North Atlantic Oscillation, or the response to the cooling associated with Mt. Pinatubo) such that discerning longer term trends is hard.
The largest contributions to sea level rise so far are estimated to have come from thermal expansion, with the melting of mountain glaciers and icecaps being of second order. Looking forward, the current (small) imbalance (whether positive or negative) of the Greenland ice sheet is not terribly important. What matters is if the melting were to increase significantly. Ongoing observations (most promisingly from the GRACE gravity measurements, Velicogna et al, 2005) will be useful in monitoring trends, but in order to have reasonable projections into the future, we would like to be able to rely on ice sheet models. Unfortunately, the physics of basal lubrication and the importance of ice dynamics highlighted in the Rignot & Kanagaratnam results are very poorly understood and not fully accounted for in current ice sheet models. Until those models include these effects, there is a danger that we may be under-appreciating the dynamic nature of the ice sheets.
References:
Hanna, E; Huybrechts, P; Janssens, I; Cappelen, J; Steffen, K; Stephens, A (2005) J. Geophys. Res.Vo. 110, D13108, doi:10.1029/2004JD005641
Johanessen, O.M; Khvorostovsky, K; Miles, M.W; Bobylev, L.P. (2005) ScienceVo. 310 no. 5750, pp 1013-1016
Ringnot, E; Kanagaratnam, P (2006) ScienceVo. 311 no. 5763, pp 986-990
Velicogna, I; Wahr, J; Hanna, E; Huybrechts, P. (2005) Geophys. Res. Lett.Vo. 32, L05501, doi:10.1029/2004GL021948
Zwally, H. Jay; Giovinetto, Mario B.; Li, Jun; Cornejo, Helen G.; Beckley, Matthew A.; Brenner, Anita C.; Saba, Jack L.; Yi, Donghui (2005), Journal of Glaciology, Volume 51, Number 175, December, pp. 509-527(19)
More on Acidification of Oceans
Source: Carnegie Institution
Posted: February 21, 2006
Oceans May Soon Be More Corrosive Than When The Dinosaurs Died
Increased carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly making the world's oceans more acidic and, if unabated, could cause a mass extinction of marine life similar to one that occurred 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs disappeared. Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology will present this research at the AGU/ASLO Ocean Sciences meeting in Honolulu, HI on Monday, Feb 20.
Caldeira's computer models have predicted that the oceans will become far more acidic within the next century. Now, he has compared this data with ocean chemistry evidence from the fossil record, and has found some startling similarities. The new finding offers a glimpse of what the future might hold for ocean life if society does not drastically curb carbon dioxide emissions.
"The geologic record tells us the chemical effects of ocean acidification would last tens of thousands of years," Caldeira said. "But biological recovery could take millions of years. Ocean acidification has the potential to cause extinction of many marine species."
When carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil, and gas dissolves in the ocean, some of it becomes carbonic acid. Over time, accumulation of this carbonic acid makes ocean water more acidic. When carbonic acid input is modest, sediments from the ocean floor can buffer the increases in acidity. But at the current rate of input--nearly 50 times the natural background from volcanoes and other sources--this buffering mechanism is overwhelmed. Previous estimates suggest that in less than 100 years, the pH of the oceans could drop by as much as half a unit from its natural value of 8.2 to about 7.7. (On the pH scale, lower numbers are more acidic and higher numbers are more basic.)
This drop in ocean pH would be especially damaging to marine animals such as corals that use calcium carbonate to make their shells. Under normal conditions the ocean is supersaturated with this mineral, making it easy for such creatures to grow. However, a more acidic ocean would more easily dissolve calcium carbonate, putting these species at particular risk.
The last time the oceans endured such a drastic change in chemistry was 65 million years ago, at about the same time the dinosaurs went extinct. Though researchers do not yet know exactly what caused this ancient acidification, it was directly related to the cataclysm that wiped out the giant beasts. The pattern of extinction in the ocean is consistent with ocean acidification--the fossil record reveals a precipitous drop in the number of species with calcium carbonate shells that live in the upper ocean--especially corals and plankton. During the same period, species with shells made from resistant silicate minerals were more likely to survive.
The world's oceans came close to an acidic catastrophe one other time about 55 million years ago, when the temperature of the Earth spiked and large amounts of methane and/or carbon dioxide flooded the atmosphere. There is no evidence, however, that this caused a mass extinction event.
"Ultimately, if we are not careful, our energy system could make the oceans corrosive to coral reefs and many other marine organisms," Caldeira cautions. "These results should help motivate the search for new energy sources, such as wind and solar, that can fuel economic growth without releasing dangerous carbon dioxide into the environment."
Posted: February 21, 2006
Oceans May Soon Be More Corrosive Than When The Dinosaurs Died
Increased carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly making the world's oceans more acidic and, if unabated, could cause a mass extinction of marine life similar to one that occurred 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs disappeared. Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology will present this research at the AGU/ASLO Ocean Sciences meeting in Honolulu, HI on Monday, Feb 20.
Caldeira's computer models have predicted that the oceans will become far more acidic within the next century. Now, he has compared this data with ocean chemistry evidence from the fossil record, and has found some startling similarities. The new finding offers a glimpse of what the future might hold for ocean life if society does not drastically curb carbon dioxide emissions.
"The geologic record tells us the chemical effects of ocean acidification would last tens of thousands of years," Caldeira said. "But biological recovery could take millions of years. Ocean acidification has the potential to cause extinction of many marine species."
When carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil, and gas dissolves in the ocean, some of it becomes carbonic acid. Over time, accumulation of this carbonic acid makes ocean water more acidic. When carbonic acid input is modest, sediments from the ocean floor can buffer the increases in acidity. But at the current rate of input--nearly 50 times the natural background from volcanoes and other sources--this buffering mechanism is overwhelmed. Previous estimates suggest that in less than 100 years, the pH of the oceans could drop by as much as half a unit from its natural value of 8.2 to about 7.7. (On the pH scale, lower numbers are more acidic and higher numbers are more basic.)
This drop in ocean pH would be especially damaging to marine animals such as corals that use calcium carbonate to make their shells. Under normal conditions the ocean is supersaturated with this mineral, making it easy for such creatures to grow. However, a more acidic ocean would more easily dissolve calcium carbonate, putting these species at particular risk.
The last time the oceans endured such a drastic change in chemistry was 65 million years ago, at about the same time the dinosaurs went extinct. Though researchers do not yet know exactly what caused this ancient acidification, it was directly related to the cataclysm that wiped out the giant beasts. The pattern of extinction in the ocean is consistent with ocean acidification--the fossil record reveals a precipitous drop in the number of species with calcium carbonate shells that live in the upper ocean--especially corals and plankton. During the same period, species with shells made from resistant silicate minerals were more likely to survive.
The world's oceans came close to an acidic catastrophe one other time about 55 million years ago, when the temperature of the Earth spiked and large amounts of methane and/or carbon dioxide flooded the atmosphere. There is no evidence, however, that this caused a mass extinction event.
"Ultimately, if we are not careful, our energy system could make the oceans corrosive to coral reefs and many other marine organisms," Caldeira cautions. "These results should help motivate the search for new energy sources, such as wind and solar, that can fuel economic growth without releasing dangerous carbon dioxide into the environment."
More ocean acidification news
Here's another report on the ocean acidification aspect of increasing the amount of CO2 in the air.
Ocean demise
Pretty long, thorough, and scary. I don't have any source of comment on or criticism of the claims, and the source is an established rabble-rouser. But generally reliable.
MotherJones.com | News
MotherJones.com | News
Ocean Plankton response to Warming
Published on Thursday, January 19, 2006 by the Independent / UK
Warmer Seas Will Wipe Out Plankton, Source of Ocean Life
by Steve Connor
The microscopic plants that underpin all life in the oceans are likely to be destroyed by global warming, a study has found.
Any plankton haul near the surface of the sea brings in a huge variety of life forms. Plants animals larvae adults vertebrates invertebrates carnivores and herbivores are all represented in the plankton community. Scientists have discovered a way that the vital plankton of the oceans can be starved of nutrients as a result of the seas getting warmer. They believe the findings have catastrophic implications for the entire marine habitat, which ultimately relies on plankton at the base of the food chain. The study is also potentially devastating because it has thrown up a new "positive feedback" mechanism that could result in more carbon dioxide ending up in the atmosphere to cause a runaway greenhouse effect.
Scientists led by Jef Huisman of the University of Amsterdam have calculated that global warming, which is causing the temperature of the sea surface to rise, will also interfere with the vital upward movement of nutrients from the deep sea. These nutrients, containing nitrogen, phosphorus and iron, are vital food for phytoplankton. If the supply is interrupted the plants die off, which prevents them from absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. "Global warming of the surface layers of the oceans reduces the upward transport of nutrients into the surface layers. This generates chaos among the plankton," the professor said.
The sea is one of nature's "carbon sinks", which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposits the carbon in a long-term store - dissolved in the ocean or deposited as organic waste on the seabed. The vast quantities of phytoplankton in the oceans absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide. When the organisms die they fall to the seabed, carrying their store of carbon with them, where it stays for many thousands of years - thereby helping to counter global warming. "Plankton... forms the basis of the marine food web. Moreover, phytoplankton consumes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide during photosynthesis," Professor Huisman said. "Uptake of carbon dioxide by phytoplankton across the vast expanses of the oceans reduces the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere."
Warmer surface water caused by global warming causes greater temperature stratification, with warm surface layers sitting on deeper, colder layers, to prevent mixing of nutrients.
Professor Huisman shows in a study published in Nature that warmer sea surfaces will deliver a potentially devastating blow to the supply of deep-sea nutrients for phytoplankton. His computer model of the impact was tested on real measurements made in the Pacific Ocean, where sea surface temperatures tend to be higher than in other parts of the world. He found that his computer predictions of how nutrient movement would be interrupted were accurate. "A larger temperature difference between two water layers implies less mixing of chemicals between these water layers," he said. "Global warming of the surface layers of the oceans, owing to climate change, strengthens the stratification and thereby reduces the upward mixing of nutrients."
Scientists had believed phytoplankton, which survives best at depths of about 100 metres, is largely stable and immune from the impact of global warming. "This model prediction was rather unexpected," Professor Huisman said. "Reduced stability of the plankton, caused by global warming of the oceans, may result in a decline of oceanic production and reduced sequestration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the oceans."
Vital link in the food chain
Microscopic plankton comes in animal and plant forms. The plants are known as phytoplankton. They lie at the base of the marine food chain because they convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into organic carbon - food for everything else.
Smaller animals such as shrimp-like krill feed on plankton and are themselves eaten by larger organisms, from small fish to the biggest whales. Without phytoplankton, the oceans would soon because marine deserts. Phytoplankton are also important because of the role they play in the carbon cycle, which determines how much carbon dioxide - the most important greenhouse gas - ends up in the atmosphere to cause global warming. Huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which dissolves in the oceans, are absorbed by phytoplankton and converted to organic carbon. When the phytoplankton die, their shells and bodies sink to the seabed, carrying this carbon with them.
Phytoplankton therefore acts as a carbon "sink" which takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposits the carbon in long-term stores that can remain undisturbed for thousands of years. If the growth of phytoplankton is interrupted by global warming, this ability to act as a buffer against global warming is also affected - leading to a much-feared positive feedback.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
Warmer Seas Will Wipe Out Plankton, Source of Ocean Life
by Steve Connor
The microscopic plants that underpin all life in the oceans are likely to be destroyed by global warming, a study has found.
Any plankton haul near the surface of the sea brings in a huge variety of life forms. Plants animals larvae adults vertebrates invertebrates carnivores and herbivores are all represented in the plankton community. Scientists have discovered a way that the vital plankton of the oceans can be starved of nutrients as a result of the seas getting warmer. They believe the findings have catastrophic implications for the entire marine habitat, which ultimately relies on plankton at the base of the food chain. The study is also potentially devastating because it has thrown up a new "positive feedback" mechanism that could result in more carbon dioxide ending up in the atmosphere to cause a runaway greenhouse effect.
Scientists led by Jef Huisman of the University of Amsterdam have calculated that global warming, which is causing the temperature of the sea surface to rise, will also interfere with the vital upward movement of nutrients from the deep sea. These nutrients, containing nitrogen, phosphorus and iron, are vital food for phytoplankton. If the supply is interrupted the plants die off, which prevents them from absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. "Global warming of the surface layers of the oceans reduces the upward transport of nutrients into the surface layers. This generates chaos among the plankton," the professor said.
The sea is one of nature's "carbon sinks", which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposits the carbon in a long-term store - dissolved in the ocean or deposited as organic waste on the seabed. The vast quantities of phytoplankton in the oceans absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide. When the organisms die they fall to the seabed, carrying their store of carbon with them, where it stays for many thousands of years - thereby helping to counter global warming. "Plankton... forms the basis of the marine food web. Moreover, phytoplankton consumes the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide during photosynthesis," Professor Huisman said. "Uptake of carbon dioxide by phytoplankton across the vast expanses of the oceans reduces the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere."
Warmer surface water caused by global warming causes greater temperature stratification, with warm surface layers sitting on deeper, colder layers, to prevent mixing of nutrients.
Professor Huisman shows in a study published in Nature that warmer sea surfaces will deliver a potentially devastating blow to the supply of deep-sea nutrients for phytoplankton. His computer model of the impact was tested on real measurements made in the Pacific Ocean, where sea surface temperatures tend to be higher than in other parts of the world. He found that his computer predictions of how nutrient movement would be interrupted were accurate. "A larger temperature difference between two water layers implies less mixing of chemicals between these water layers," he said. "Global warming of the surface layers of the oceans, owing to climate change, strengthens the stratification and thereby reduces the upward mixing of nutrients."
Scientists had believed phytoplankton, which survives best at depths of about 100 metres, is largely stable and immune from the impact of global warming. "This model prediction was rather unexpected," Professor Huisman said. "Reduced stability of the plankton, caused by global warming of the oceans, may result in a decline of oceanic production and reduced sequestration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the oceans."
Vital link in the food chain
Microscopic plankton comes in animal and plant forms. The plants are known as phytoplankton. They lie at the base of the marine food chain because they convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into organic carbon - food for everything else.
Smaller animals such as shrimp-like krill feed on plankton and are themselves eaten by larger organisms, from small fish to the biggest whales. Without phytoplankton, the oceans would soon because marine deserts. Phytoplankton are also important because of the role they play in the carbon cycle, which determines how much carbon dioxide - the most important greenhouse gas - ends up in the atmosphere to cause global warming. Huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which dissolves in the oceans, are absorbed by phytoplankton and converted to organic carbon. When the phytoplankton die, their shells and bodies sink to the seabed, carrying this carbon with them.
Phytoplankton therefore acts as a carbon "sink" which takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and deposits the carbon in long-term stores that can remain undisturbed for thousands of years. If the growth of phytoplankton is interrupted by global warming, this ability to act as a buffer against global warming is also affected - leading to a much-feared positive feedback.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
TEMPERATURE and CLIMATE
In general a good site for numerical measures of the state of the world, with some interpretation.
Eco-Economy Indicators: TEMPERATURE and CLIMATE
Eco-Economy Indicators: TEMPERATURE and CLIMATE
Disaster Warning from UN: Death of the World's Rivers
I'm clumping some water supply info. Here's another heads-up. Certainly rings a bell for those of us in the Ozarks.
Disaster Warning from UN: Death of the World's Rivers
Disaster Warning from UN: Death of the World's Rivers
The Kolbert New Yorker articles
Monday, April 03, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Global Warming Signs Stronger in Antarctica
Global Warming Signs Stronger in Antarctica - Yahoo! News
This was followed up by some discussion on the near surface air temperatures in Antartica in Real Climate.
This was followed up by some discussion on the near surface air temperatures in Antartica in Real Climate.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
RealClimate » How much future sea level rise? More evidence from models and ice sheet observations.
A hard look at Greenland Ice melting and news from Anarctica
RealClimate » How much future sea level rise? More evidence from models and ice sheet observations.
RealClimate » How much future sea level rise? More evidence from models and ice sheet observations.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
More on the Silence of the Press
This came from Media Lens.
The following pretty much points the finger at the main cause for the lack of press coverage. I believe the situation that's described in the UK has a far more intense counterpart here in these United States.
Media Lens is watching the press in Britain and elsewhere, and offering criticism, by turns constructive and embarassing, if not shaming. The point here is that publishing the Lovelock article, and placing it in the context of ads from major contributors to Global Warming is (unwillingly perhaps) hypocritical. The denial of ad revenue is the big club of all those who want business-as-usual, "just a little longer" (and then they'll clean up??). You see they really do want to support the right thing, they just don't want their support to impact their ability to own more stuff, including politicians. Old joke: "Prosperity is spending money you don't have to buy things you don't need to impress people you don't like" I might add, "before the apocalypse starts".
January 16, 2006
RAPID RESPONSE MEDIA ALERT: THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Where James Lovelock Meets BP
Billions Will Die
The Independent and the Independent on Sunday (IoS) pride themselves on their environmental coverage. No doubt their editors will indicate today's dramatic front page as a case in point. The paper depicts the Earth from space overlaid by a dramatic headline: 'Green guru says: We are past the point of no return.' (Independent, January 16, 2006)
Scientist James Lovelock - who conceived the idea of the living Earth as a great super-organism, 'Gaia' - argues that, as a result of climate change, humanity is "past the point of no return" such that "civilisation as we know it is now unlikely to survive". (Michael McCarthy, 'Attempts to counter global warming are already doomed to failure, says Lovelock,' The Independent, January 16, 2006)
In an article which he describes as "the most difficult I have written", Lovelock predicts utter catastrophe for humankind:
"Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable... We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of [CO2] emissions. The worst will happen..." (Lovelock, 'The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years,' The Independent, January 16, 2006)
Although Lovelock is here going beyond the scientific consensus - represented most authoritatively by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - there is evidence aplenty to support his argument. So how did we get to this point without the media even questioning the economic and political system that has now, if Lovelock is correct, pushed us over the edge of the abyss?
A clue is provided by the Independent's online version of environment editor Michael McCarthy's report. Here (www.independent.co.uk) readers are confronted by an ad from BP: "It's time to listen". Also visible is an advert for long-distance flights to the Seychelles in association with Emirates airlines. As the environment journalist who pointed this out to us today said: "You couldn't make this stuff up!" If we are to die, it seems that the Independent would rather we die laughing.
That government and big business have perpetrated climate crimes against humanity is never news. Instead, a collective insanity of irresponsible despair or suffocating silence rules the media. This extends even to those editors, journalists and newspapers that the public has been persuaded to trust.
Readers have now, however, started challenging the Independent for accepting fossil fuel advertising revenue. IoS deputy editor Michael Williams observed last year that some readers had praised environment editor Geoffrey Lean's reports on global warming. Alas, Williams added, "it was soured by some of you who wrote to say that it was hypocritical of us to accept advertisements from car manufacturers in the same issue of the paper". (Williams, 'Legal, decent, honest - but how green?', Independent on Sunday, February 13, 2005)
The deputy editor quoted a reader who urged the paper to "reconsider the policy of accepting advertisements from the very people who are helping to create the disaster".
Williams dismissed the idea out of hand: "I'm afraid this view is as impractical as it is naive." He added that if a ban were placed on car company advertising, for example, "we would have to raise our cover price to more than double that of our competitors, with the likelihood that we would go out of business".
End of argument! Much the same 'facts of life' were deployed by editors previously reluctant to give up lucrative tobacco advertising. (Note: we have addressed the issue of media alternatives in our alerts of May 27 and June 2, 2004; see www.medialens.org/alerts/archive_2004.php).
The IoS deputy editor concluded:
"For the national newspaper which has won by far the greatest number of awards for environmental campaigning over the past few years, that might be a bit of an own goal."
[Ed. note - means scoring a point against yoursef in your own soccer net]
To his credit, Williams has since referred briefly to the notion of "carbon rationing" - with everyone having an equal right to emit greenhouse gases - an idea that has been promoted by environmentalist Mayer Hillman. (Williams, 'No, our green principles have not taken flight,' The Independent on Sunday, January 15, 2006)
It remains to be seen whether the paper will link this proposal to the overarching framework of contraction and convergence (see 'Is the Earth Really Finished', March 1, 2005; http://www.medialens.org/alerts/05/050301_is_the_earth_really_finished.php). Moreover, the paper's refusal to question the planet-threatening paradigm of economic 'growth' is as glaring as ever.
Certainly, the IoS environment editor himself does not take kindly to being challenged on his - and his paper's - failure to tackle the root economic and political causes of climate change. Geoffrey Lean told one reader:
"Why don't you really read what we have been writing over the years rather than relying on media lens?" (Lean, email, February 18, 2005)
Other media professionals are equally blinkered. Observer editor, Roger Alton, for example:
"For Christ's sake, whatever you say about Mr Blair, nobody could accuse him of not doing his bit over the complex issue of climate change. He has boosted the science budget, given much funding to climate research, and we take Kyoto seriously." (Email, forwarded, May 21, 2004)
And Ian Mayes - the scrupulously independent ombudsman at the Guardian - responded sharply to one Media Lens reader's criticism of the limits to that newspaper's environmental reporting:
"you know quite well that the Guardian probably does more on the environment than anyone. Yet you continue to participate in a lobby [sic] that wilfully denies it. Why?" (Email, forwarded, May 24, 2004)
Why? Are these people mad?! When editors and journalists issue such dismissive responses with such conviction, it is indeed tempting to doubt one's sanity. Have we in fact got it horribly wrong? Are sceptical members of the public simply deluded? Is the 'quality' press really doing as much on climate change as can reasonably be expected? Green Euro MP, Caroline Lucas, accurately sums up the horrific reality:
"The mainstream corporate media all too often shares the same vested interests as the governments and businesses whose activities make up the content of its coverage... The public cannot rely on the corporate media to provide an honest and impartial view of corporate responsibility for crimes against humanity and the environment." (Email to David Cromwell, January 25, 2005)
These are elementary truths that cannot be mentioned, never mind discussed, in any meaningful way in the corporate news media.
###
The phrase 'can of worms' comes to mind. We deperately need to solve a problem that we can't talk about publicly in the mainstream press, for fear of stepping on the corporate toes that fund the press, but whose practices exacerbate the warming. More money comes to publishers as income from advertising than from sales of the final product. Lose enough advertisers, you lose profit and might lose the whole message. Alternately, lose advertisers, raise prices, lose readers and maybe lose the whole message.
The web is some kind of counterforce, since so much can be said without costing money. But getting exposure for the message on the big portals (like MSN, AOL, or Yahoo etc) is hard, since they are based on advertising profits as well. So the brainstorm challenge, one of them, is to find a sellable worldview that can keep some economic wheels turning without selling products that turn resources into taxic waste. There are imaginative people doing this creating, and they have good products, but they will have a hard time getting the attention of the NASCAR set. Insuficient testosterone roar, inadequate vampy allure.
The following pretty much points the finger at the main cause for the lack of press coverage. I believe the situation that's described in the UK has a far more intense counterpart here in these United States.
Media Lens is watching the press in Britain and elsewhere, and offering criticism, by turns constructive and embarassing, if not shaming. The point here is that publishing the Lovelock article, and placing it in the context of ads from major contributors to Global Warming is (unwillingly perhaps) hypocritical. The denial of ad revenue is the big club of all those who want business-as-usual, "just a little longer" (and then they'll clean up??). You see they really do want to support the right thing, they just don't want their support to impact their ability to own more stuff, including politicians. Old joke: "Prosperity is spending money you don't have to buy things you don't need to impress people you don't like" I might add, "before the apocalypse starts".
January 16, 2006
RAPID RESPONSE MEDIA ALERT: THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Where James Lovelock Meets BP
Billions Will Die
The Independent and the Independent on Sunday (IoS) pride themselves on their environmental coverage. No doubt their editors will indicate today's dramatic front page as a case in point. The paper depicts the Earth from space overlaid by a dramatic headline: 'Green guru says: We are past the point of no return.' (Independent, January 16, 2006)
Scientist James Lovelock - who conceived the idea of the living Earth as a great super-organism, 'Gaia' - argues that, as a result of climate change, humanity is "past the point of no return" such that "civilisation as we know it is now unlikely to survive". (Michael McCarthy, 'Attempts to counter global warming are already doomed to failure, says Lovelock,' The Independent, January 16, 2006)
In an article which he describes as "the most difficult I have written", Lovelock predicts utter catastrophe for humankind:
"Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable... We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of [CO2] emissions. The worst will happen..." (Lovelock, 'The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years,' The Independent, January 16, 2006)
Although Lovelock is here going beyond the scientific consensus - represented most authoritatively by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - there is evidence aplenty to support his argument. So how did we get to this point without the media even questioning the economic and political system that has now, if Lovelock is correct, pushed us over the edge of the abyss?
A clue is provided by the Independent's online version of environment editor Michael McCarthy's report. Here (www.independent.co.uk) readers are confronted by an ad from BP: "It's time to listen". Also visible is an advert for long-distance flights to the Seychelles in association with Emirates airlines. As the environment journalist who pointed this out to us today said: "You couldn't make this stuff up!" If we are to die, it seems that the Independent would rather we die laughing.
That government and big business have perpetrated climate crimes against humanity is never news. Instead, a collective insanity of irresponsible despair or suffocating silence rules the media. This extends even to those editors, journalists and newspapers that the public has been persuaded to trust.
Readers have now, however, started challenging the Independent for accepting fossil fuel advertising revenue. IoS deputy editor Michael Williams observed last year that some readers had praised environment editor Geoffrey Lean's reports on global warming. Alas, Williams added, "it was soured by some of you who wrote to say that it was hypocritical of us to accept advertisements from car manufacturers in the same issue of the paper". (Williams, 'Legal, decent, honest - but how green?', Independent on Sunday, February 13, 2005)
The deputy editor quoted a reader who urged the paper to "reconsider the policy of accepting advertisements from the very people who are helping to create the disaster".
Williams dismissed the idea out of hand: "I'm afraid this view is as impractical as it is naive." He added that if a ban were placed on car company advertising, for example, "we would have to raise our cover price to more than double that of our competitors, with the likelihood that we would go out of business".
End of argument! Much the same 'facts of life' were deployed by editors previously reluctant to give up lucrative tobacco advertising. (Note: we have addressed the issue of media alternatives in our alerts of May 27 and June 2, 2004; see www.medialens.org/alerts/archive_2004.php).
The IoS deputy editor concluded:
"For the national newspaper which has won by far the greatest number of awards for environmental campaigning over the past few years, that might be a bit of an own goal."
[Ed. note - means scoring a point against yoursef in your own soccer net]
To his credit, Williams has since referred briefly to the notion of "carbon rationing" - with everyone having an equal right to emit greenhouse gases - an idea that has been promoted by environmentalist Mayer Hillman. (Williams, 'No, our green principles have not taken flight,' The Independent on Sunday, January 15, 2006)
It remains to be seen whether the paper will link this proposal to the overarching framework of contraction and convergence (see 'Is the Earth Really Finished', March 1, 2005; http://www.medialens.org/alerts/05/050301_is_the_earth_really_finished.php). Moreover, the paper's refusal to question the planet-threatening paradigm of economic 'growth' is as glaring as ever.
Certainly, the IoS environment editor himself does not take kindly to being challenged on his - and his paper's - failure to tackle the root economic and political causes of climate change. Geoffrey Lean told one reader:
"Why don't you really read what we have been writing over the years rather than relying on media lens?" (Lean, email, February 18, 2005)
Other media professionals are equally blinkered. Observer editor, Roger Alton, for example:
"For Christ's sake, whatever you say about Mr Blair, nobody could accuse him of not doing his bit over the complex issue of climate change. He has boosted the science budget, given much funding to climate research, and we take Kyoto seriously." (Email, forwarded, May 21, 2004)
And Ian Mayes - the scrupulously independent ombudsman at the Guardian - responded sharply to one Media Lens reader's criticism of the limits to that newspaper's environmental reporting:
"you know quite well that the Guardian probably does more on the environment than anyone. Yet you continue to participate in a lobby [sic] that wilfully denies it. Why?" (Email, forwarded, May 24, 2004)
Why? Are these people mad?! When editors and journalists issue such dismissive responses with such conviction, it is indeed tempting to doubt one's sanity. Have we in fact got it horribly wrong? Are sceptical members of the public simply deluded? Is the 'quality' press really doing as much on climate change as can reasonably be expected? Green Euro MP, Caroline Lucas, accurately sums up the horrific reality:
"The mainstream corporate media all too often shares the same vested interests as the governments and businesses whose activities make up the content of its coverage... The public cannot rely on the corporate media to provide an honest and impartial view of corporate responsibility for crimes against humanity and the environment." (Email to David Cromwell, January 25, 2005)
These are elementary truths that cannot be mentioned, never mind discussed, in any meaningful way in the corporate news media.
###
The phrase 'can of worms' comes to mind. We deperately need to solve a problem that we can't talk about publicly in the mainstream press, for fear of stepping on the corporate toes that fund the press, but whose practices exacerbate the warming. More money comes to publishers as income from advertising than from sales of the final product. Lose enough advertisers, you lose profit and might lose the whole message. Alternately, lose advertisers, raise prices, lose readers and maybe lose the whole message.
The web is some kind of counterforce, since so much can be said without costing money. But getting exposure for the message on the big portals (like MSN, AOL, or Yahoo etc) is hard, since they are based on advertising profits as well. So the brainstorm challenge, one of them, is to find a sellable worldview that can keep some economic wheels turning without selling products that turn resources into taxic waste. There are imaginative people doing this creating, and they have good products, but they will have a hard time getting the attention of the NASCAR set. Insuficient testosterone roar, inadequate vampy allure.
Statement of Joint Science Academies
Here's the statement from the most prestigious scientific bodies in the world.
Joint science academies' statement: Global response to climate change
Climate change is real
There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system
as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now
strong evidence that significant global warming is
occurring . The evidence comes from direct measurements
of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean
temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in
average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes
to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that
most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed
to human activities (IPCC 2001) . This warming has already
led to changes in the Earth's climate.
The existence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is
vital to life on Earth – in their absence average
temperatures would be about 30 centigrade degrees lower
than they are today. But human activities are now causing
atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases –
including carbon dioxide, methane, tropospheric ozone,
and nitrous oxide – to rise well above pre-industrial levels.
Carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm in
1750 to over 375 ppm today – higher than any previous
levels that can be reliably measured (i.e. in the last 420,000
years). Increasing greenhouse gases are causing
temperatures to rise; the Earth’s surface warmed by
approximately 0.6 centigrade degrees over the twentieth
century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) projected that the average global surface
temperatures will continue to increase to between 1.4
centigrade degrees and 5.8 centigrade degrees above 1990
levels, by 2100.
Reduce the causes of climate change
The scientific understanding of climate change is now
sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action. It
is vital that all nations identify cost-effective steps that they
can take now, to contribute to substantial and long-term
reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions.
Action taken now to reduce significantly the build-up of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will lessen the
magnitude and rate of climate change. As the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) recognises, a lack of full scientific certainty
about some aspects of climate change is not a reason for
delaying an immediate response that will, at a reasonable
cost, prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with
the climate system.
As nations and economies develop over the next 25 years,
world primary energy demand is estimated to increase by
almost 60%. Fossil fuels, which are responsible for the
majority of carbon dioxide emissions produced by human
activities, provide valuable resources for many nations and are
projected to provide 85% of this demand (IEA 2004) .
Minimising the amount of this carbon dioxide reaching the
atmosphere presents a huge challenge. There are many
potentially cost-effective technological options that could
contribute to stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations.
These are at various stages of research and development.
However barriers to their broad deployment still need to be
overcome.
Carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for many
decades. Even with possible lowered emission rates we will
be experiencing the impacts of climate change throughout
st the 21 century and beyond. Failure to implement
significant reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions
now, will make the job much harder in the future.
Prepare for the consequences of climate change
Major parts of the climate system respond slowly to
changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. Even if
greenhouse gas emissions were stabilised instantly at
today’s levels, the climate would still continue to change as
it adapts to the increased emission of recent decades.
Further changes in climate are therefore unavoidable.
Nations must prepare for them.
The projected changes in climate will have both beneficial
and adverse effects at the regional level, for example on
water resources, agriculture, natural ecosystems and
human health. The larger and faster the changes in
climate, the more likely it is that adverse effects will
dominate. Increasing temperatures are likely to increase the
frequency and severity of weather events such as heat
waves and heavy rainfall. Increasing temperatures could
lead to large-scale effects such as melting of large ice
sheets (with major impacts on low-lying regions
throughout the world). The IPCC estimates that the
combined effects of ice melting and sea water expansion
from ocean warming are projected to cause the global
mean sea-level to rise by between 0.1 and 0.9 metres
between 1990 and 2100. In Bangladesh alone, a 0.5 metre
sea-level rise would place about 6 million people at risk
from flooding.
Developing nations that lack the infrastructure or resources
to respond to the impacts of climate change will be
particularly affected. It is clear that many of the world’s
poorest people are likely to suffer the most from climate
change. Long-term global efforts to create a more healthy,
prosperous and sustainable world may be severely hindered
by changes in the climate.
The task of devising and implementing strategies to adapt
to the consequences of climate change will require
worldwide collaborative inputs from a wide range of
experts, including physical and natural scientists, engineers,
social scientists, medical scientists, those in the humanities,
business leaders and economists.
Conclusion
We urge all nations, in the line with the UNFCCC
principles , to take prompt action to reduce the causes of
climate change, adapt to its impacts and ensure that the
issue is included in all relevant national and international
strategies. As national science academies, we commit to
working with governments to help develop and implement
the national and international response to the challenge of
climate change.
G8 nations have been responsible for much of the past
greenhouse gas emissions. As parties to the UNFCCC, G8
nations are committed to showing leadership in addressing
climate change and assisting developing nations to meet
the challenges of adaptation and mitigation.
We call on world leaders, including those meeting at the
Gleneagles G8 Summit in July 2005, to:
· Acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear
and increasing.
· Launch an international study to explore scientifically-
informed targets for atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations, and their associated emissions scenarios,
that will enable nations to avoid impacts deemed
unacceptable.
· Identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to
contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net
global greenhouse gas emissions. Recognise that delayed
action will increase the risk of adverse environmental
effects and will likely incur a greater cost.
· Work with developing nations to build a scientific and
technological capacity best suited to their circumstances,
enabling them to develop innovative solutions to mitigate
and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change, while
explicitly recognising their legitimate development rights.
· Show leadership in developing and deploying clean
energy technologies and approaches to energy efficiency,
and share this knowledge with all other nations.
· Mobilise the science and technology community to
enhance research and development efforts, which can
better inform climate change decisions.
Joint science academies' statement: Global response to climate change
Climate change is real
There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system
as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now
strong evidence that significant global warming is
occurring . The evidence comes from direct measurements
of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean
temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in
average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes
to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that
most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed
to human activities (IPCC 2001) . This warming has already
led to changes in the Earth's climate.
The existence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is
vital to life on Earth – in their absence average
temperatures would be about 30 centigrade degrees lower
than they are today. But human activities are now causing
atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases –
including carbon dioxide, methane, tropospheric ozone,
and nitrous oxide – to rise well above pre-industrial levels.
Carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm in
1750 to over 375 ppm today – higher than any previous
levels that can be reliably measured (i.e. in the last 420,000
years). Increasing greenhouse gases are causing
temperatures to rise; the Earth’s surface warmed by
approximately 0.6 centigrade degrees over the twentieth
century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) projected that the average global surface
temperatures will continue to increase to between 1.4
centigrade degrees and 5.8 centigrade degrees above 1990
levels, by 2100.
Reduce the causes of climate change
The scientific understanding of climate change is now
sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action. It
is vital that all nations identify cost-effective steps that they
can take now, to contribute to substantial and long-term
reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions.
Action taken now to reduce significantly the build-up of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will lessen the
magnitude and rate of climate change. As the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) recognises, a lack of full scientific certainty
about some aspects of climate change is not a reason for
delaying an immediate response that will, at a reasonable
cost, prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with
the climate system.
As nations and economies develop over the next 25 years,
world primary energy demand is estimated to increase by
almost 60%. Fossil fuels, which are responsible for the
majority of carbon dioxide emissions produced by human
activities, provide valuable resources for many nations and are
projected to provide 85% of this demand (IEA 2004) .
Minimising the amount of this carbon dioxide reaching the
atmosphere presents a huge challenge. There are many
potentially cost-effective technological options that could
contribute to stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations.
These are at various stages of research and development.
However barriers to their broad deployment still need to be
overcome.
Carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for many
decades. Even with possible lowered emission rates we will
be experiencing the impacts of climate change throughout
st the 21 century and beyond. Failure to implement
significant reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions
now, will make the job much harder in the future.
Prepare for the consequences of climate change
Major parts of the climate system respond slowly to
changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. Even if
greenhouse gas emissions were stabilised instantly at
today’s levels, the climate would still continue to change as
it adapts to the increased emission of recent decades.
Further changes in climate are therefore unavoidable.
Nations must prepare for them.
The projected changes in climate will have both beneficial
and adverse effects at the regional level, for example on
water resources, agriculture, natural ecosystems and
human health. The larger and faster the changes in
climate, the more likely it is that adverse effects will
dominate. Increasing temperatures are likely to increase the
frequency and severity of weather events such as heat
waves and heavy rainfall. Increasing temperatures could
lead to large-scale effects such as melting of large ice
sheets (with major impacts on low-lying regions
throughout the world). The IPCC estimates that the
combined effects of ice melting and sea water expansion
from ocean warming are projected to cause the global
mean sea-level to rise by between 0.1 and 0.9 metres
between 1990 and 2100. In Bangladesh alone, a 0.5 metre
sea-level rise would place about 6 million people at risk
from flooding.
Developing nations that lack the infrastructure or resources
to respond to the impacts of climate change will be
particularly affected. It is clear that many of the world’s
poorest people are likely to suffer the most from climate
change. Long-term global efforts to create a more healthy,
prosperous and sustainable world may be severely hindered
by changes in the climate.
The task of devising and implementing strategies to adapt
to the consequences of climate change will require
worldwide collaborative inputs from a wide range of
experts, including physical and natural scientists, engineers,
social scientists, medical scientists, those in the humanities,
business leaders and economists.
Conclusion
We urge all nations, in the line with the UNFCCC
principles , to take prompt action to reduce the causes of
climate change, adapt to its impacts and ensure that the
issue is included in all relevant national and international
strategies. As national science academies, we commit to
working with governments to help develop and implement
the national and international response to the challenge of
climate change.
G8 nations have been responsible for much of the past
greenhouse gas emissions. As parties to the UNFCCC, G8
nations are committed to showing leadership in addressing
climate change and assisting developing nations to meet
the challenges of adaptation and mitigation.
We call on world leaders, including those meeting at the
Gleneagles G8 Summit in July 2005, to:
· Acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear
and increasing.
· Launch an international study to explore scientifically-
informed targets for atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations, and their associated emissions scenarios,
that will enable nations to avoid impacts deemed
unacceptable.
· Identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to
contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net
global greenhouse gas emissions. Recognise that delayed
action will increase the risk of adverse environmental
effects and will likely incur a greater cost.
· Work with developing nations to build a scientific and
technological capacity best suited to their circumstances,
enabling them to develop innovative solutions to mitigate
and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change, while
explicitly recognising their legitimate development rights.
· Show leadership in developing and deploying clean
energy technologies and approaches to energy efficiency,
and share this knowledge with all other nations.
· Mobilise the science and technology community to
enhance research and development efforts, which can
better inform climate change decisions.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
The Silence of the Press
The previous two posts would indicate to a sane person that there was a big problem. I mean a really big problem. Most of the press coverage I'm finding for climate change is coming from the UK, and parts of the European Union, for instance Reuters. Here's one from our home turf, and it's about the silence of the press. If Global Warming findings made it to the front page of US newspapers, stated in a way that the majorityof the public could understand, our dismal, dreadful, and dire ignorance of the course we're on might start to fade. Why isn't that happening?
Another find on Common Dreams
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Published on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 by the Washington Post
Is It Warm in Here? We Could Be Ignoring the Biggest Story in Our History
by David Ignatius
One of the puzzles if you're in the news business is figuring out what's "news." The fate of your local football team certainly fits the definition. So does a plane crash or a brutal murder. But how about changes in the migratory patterns of butterflies?
Scientists believe that new habitats for butterflies are early effects of global climate change -- but that isn't news, by most people's measure. Neither is declining rainfall in the Amazon, or thinner ice in the Arctic. We can't see these changes in our personal lives, and in that sense, they are abstractions. So they don't grab us the way a plane crash would -- even though they may be harbingers of a catastrophe that could, quite literally, alter the fundamentals of life on the planet. And because they're not "news," the environmental changes don't prompt action, at least not in the United States.
What got me thinking about the recondite life rhythms of the planet, and not the 24-hour news cycle, was a recent conversation with a scientist named Thomas E. Lovejoy, who heads the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. When I first met Lovejoy nearly 20 years ago, he was trying to get journalists like me to pay attention to the changes in the climate and biological diversity of the Amazon. He is still trying, but he's beginning to wonder if it's too late.
Lovejoy fears that changes in the Amazon's ecosystem may be irreversible. Scientists reported last month that there is an Amazonian drought apparently caused by new patterns in Atlantic currents that, in turn, are similar to projected climate change. With less rainfall, the tropical forests are beginning to dry out. They burn more easily, and, in the continuous feedback loops of their ecosystem, these drier forests return less moisture to the atmosphere, which means even less rain. When the forest trees are deprived of rain, their mortality can increase by a factor of six, and similar devastation affects other species, too.
"When do you wreck it as a system?" Lovejoy wonders. "It's like going up to the edge of a cliff, not really knowing where it is. Common sense says you shouldn't discover where the edge is by passing over it, but that's what we're doing with deforestation and climate change."
Lovejoy first went to the Amazon 40 years ago as a young scientist of 23. It was a boundless wilderness, the size of the continental United States, but at that time it had just 2 million people and one main road. He has returned more than a hundred times, assembling over the years a mental time-lapse photograph of how this forest primeval has been affected by man. The population has increased tenfold, and the wilderness is now laced with roads, new settlements and economic progress. The forest itself, impossibly rich and lush when Lovejoy first saw it, is changing.
For Lovejoy, who co-edited a pioneering 1992 book, "Global Warming and Biological Diversity," there is a deep sense of frustration. A crisis he and other scientists first sensed more than two decades ago is drifting toward us in what seems like slow motion, but fast enough that it may be impossible to mitigate the damage.
The best reporting of the non-news of climate change has come from Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. Her three-part series last spring lucidly explained the harbingers of potential disaster: a shrinking of Arctic sea ice by 250 million acres since 1979; a thawing of the permafrost for what appears to be the first time in 120,000 years; a steady warming of Earth's surface temperature; changes in rainfall patterns that could presage severe droughts of the sort that destroyed ancient civilizations. This month she published a new piece, "Butterfly Lessons," that looked at how these delicate creatures are moving into new habitats as the planet warms. Her real point was that all life, from microorganisms to human beings, will have to adapt, and in ways that could be dangerous and destabilizing.
So many of the things that pass for news don't matter in any ultimate sense. But if people such as Lovejoy and Kolbert are right, we are all but ignoring the biggest story in the history of humankind. Kolbert concluded her series last year with this shattering thought: "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing." She's right. The failure of the United States to get serious about climate change is unforgivable, a human folly beyond imagining.
davidignatius@washpost.com
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Another find on Common Dreams
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Published on Wednesday, January 18, 2006 by the Washington Post
Is It Warm in Here? We Could Be Ignoring the Biggest Story in Our History
by David Ignatius
One of the puzzles if you're in the news business is figuring out what's "news." The fate of your local football team certainly fits the definition. So does a plane crash or a brutal murder. But how about changes in the migratory patterns of butterflies?
Scientists believe that new habitats for butterflies are early effects of global climate change -- but that isn't news, by most people's measure. Neither is declining rainfall in the Amazon, or thinner ice in the Arctic. We can't see these changes in our personal lives, and in that sense, they are abstractions. So they don't grab us the way a plane crash would -- even though they may be harbingers of a catastrophe that could, quite literally, alter the fundamentals of life on the planet. And because they're not "news," the environmental changes don't prompt action, at least not in the United States.
What got me thinking about the recondite life rhythms of the planet, and not the 24-hour news cycle, was a recent conversation with a scientist named Thomas E. Lovejoy, who heads the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. When I first met Lovejoy nearly 20 years ago, he was trying to get journalists like me to pay attention to the changes in the climate and biological diversity of the Amazon. He is still trying, but he's beginning to wonder if it's too late.
Lovejoy fears that changes in the Amazon's ecosystem may be irreversible. Scientists reported last month that there is an Amazonian drought apparently caused by new patterns in Atlantic currents that, in turn, are similar to projected climate change. With less rainfall, the tropical forests are beginning to dry out. They burn more easily, and, in the continuous feedback loops of their ecosystem, these drier forests return less moisture to the atmosphere, which means even less rain. When the forest trees are deprived of rain, their mortality can increase by a factor of six, and similar devastation affects other species, too.
"When do you wreck it as a system?" Lovejoy wonders. "It's like going up to the edge of a cliff, not really knowing where it is. Common sense says you shouldn't discover where the edge is by passing over it, but that's what we're doing with deforestation and climate change."
Lovejoy first went to the Amazon 40 years ago as a young scientist of 23. It was a boundless wilderness, the size of the continental United States, but at that time it had just 2 million people and one main road. He has returned more than a hundred times, assembling over the years a mental time-lapse photograph of how this forest primeval has been affected by man. The population has increased tenfold, and the wilderness is now laced with roads, new settlements and economic progress. The forest itself, impossibly rich and lush when Lovejoy first saw it, is changing.
For Lovejoy, who co-edited a pioneering 1992 book, "Global Warming and Biological Diversity," there is a deep sense of frustration. A crisis he and other scientists first sensed more than two decades ago is drifting toward us in what seems like slow motion, but fast enough that it may be impossible to mitigate the damage.
The best reporting of the non-news of climate change has come from Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker. Her three-part series last spring lucidly explained the harbingers of potential disaster: a shrinking of Arctic sea ice by 250 million acres since 1979; a thawing of the permafrost for what appears to be the first time in 120,000 years; a steady warming of Earth's surface temperature; changes in rainfall patterns that could presage severe droughts of the sort that destroyed ancient civilizations. This month she published a new piece, "Butterfly Lessons," that looked at how these delicate creatures are moving into new habitats as the planet warms. Her real point was that all life, from microorganisms to human beings, will have to adapt, and in ways that could be dangerous and destabilizing.
So many of the things that pass for news don't matter in any ultimate sense. But if people such as Lovejoy and Kolbert are right, we are all but ignoring the biggest story in the history of humankind. Kolbert concluded her series last year with this shattering thought: "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing." She's right. The failure of the United States to get serious about climate change is unforgivable, a human folly beyond imagining.
davidignatius@washpost.com
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Monday, March 06, 2006
Tipping Points, Aerosols and Albedo
One of the terms that comes up in talk of climate change is "tipping point". The idea is that some processes can worsen but still be reversed if public policy and private behavior made adequate changes. At some point the reversing option disappears, and the situation develops a momentum towards more rapid and more negative change. Where those tipping points are (there are several) is a matter of theoretical speculation, based on still evolving mathamatical models and historical research. There's lots of argument over what things are tipping point phenomena, where exactly the numbers indicate that it becomes active, and then whether the data indicate that we've reached the point, or whether there is still room to remedy the trend. The following article is an example of tipping point thinking. Although I find it alarming (this is an alarmist blog on purpose) I got some feedback that indicated that full-blown despair wasn't called for yet. See the comments at the end of the article. This was also picked up on Common Dreams.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Published on Saturday, February 11, 2006 by the lndependent/UK
Global Warming: Passing the 'Tipping Point'
Our special investigation reveals that critical rise in world temperatures is now unavoidable
by Michael McCarthy
A crucial global warming "tipping point" for the Earth, highlighted only last week by the British Government, has already been passed, with devastating consequences.
Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.
The implication is that some of global warming's worst predicted effects, from destruction of ecosystems to increased hunger and water shortages for billions of people, cannot now be avoided, whatever we do. It gives considerable force to the contention by the green guru Professor James Lovelock, put forward last month in The Independent, that climate change is now past the point of no return.
The danger point we are now firmly on course for is a rise in global mean temperatures to 2 degrees above the level before the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.
At the moment, global mean temperatures have risen to about 0.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era - and worrying signs of climate change, such as the rapid melting of the Arctic ice in summer, are already increasingly evident. But a rise to 2 degrees would be far more serious.
By that point it is likely that the Greenland ice sheet will already have begun irreversible melting, threatening the world with a sea-level rise of several metres. Agricultural yields will have started to fall, not only in Africa but also in Europe, the US and Russia, putting up to 200 million more people at risk from hunger, and up to 2.8 billion additional people at risk of water shortages for both drinking and irrigation. The Government's conference on Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, held at the UK Met Office in Exeter a year ago, highlighted a clear threshold in the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which should not be surpassed if the 2 degree point was to be avoided with "relatively high certainty".
This was for the concentration of CO2 and other gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, taken together in their global warming effect, to stay below 400ppm (parts per million) in CO2 terms - or in the jargon, the "equivalent concentration" of CO2 should remain below that level.
The warning was highlighted in the official report of the Exeter conference, published last week. However, an investigation by The Independent has established that the CO2 equivalent concentration, largely unnoticed by the scientific and political communities, has now risen beyond this threshold.
This number is not a familiar one even among climate researchers, and is not readily available. For example, when we put the question to a very senior climate scientist, he said: "I would think it's definitely over 400 - probably about 420." So we asked one of the world's leading experts on the effects of greenhouse gases on climate, Professor Keith Shine, head of the meteorology department at the University of Reading, to calculate it precisely. Using the latest available figures (for 2004), his calculations show the equivalent concentration of C02, taking in the effects of methane and nitrous oxide at 2004 levels, is now 425ppm. This is made up of CO2 itself, at 379ppm; the global warming effect of the methane in the atmosphere, equivalent to another 40ppm of CO2; and the effect of nitrous oxide, equivalent to another 6ppm of CO2.
The tipping point warned about last week by the Government is already behind us.
"The passing of this threshold is of the most enormous significance," said Tom Burke, a former government adviser on the green issues, now visiting professor at Imperial College London. "It means we have actually entered a new era - the era of dangerous climate change. We have passed the point where we can be confident of staying below the 2 degree rise set as the threshold for danger. What this tells us is that we have already reached the point where our children can no longer count on a safe climate."
The scientist who chaired the Exeter conference, Dennis Tirpak, head of the climate change unit of the OECD in Paris, was even more direct. He said: "This means we will hit 2 degrees [as a global mean temperature rise]."
Professor Burke added: "We have very little time to act now. Governments must stop talking and start spending. We already have the technology to allow us to meet our growing need for energy while keeping a stable climate. We must deploy it now. Doing so will cost less than the Iraq war so we know we can afford it."
The 400ppm threshold is based on a paper given at Exeter by Malte Meinhausen of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Dr Meinhausen reviewed a dozen studies of the probability of exceeding the 2 degrees threshold at different CO2 equivalent levels. Taken together they show that only by remaining below 400 is there a very high chance of not doing so.
Some scientists have been reluctant to talk about the overall global warming effect of all the greenhouses gases taken together, because there is another consideration - the fact that the "aerosol", or band of dust in the atmosphere from industrial pollution, actually reduces the warming.
As Professor Shine stresses, there is enormous uncertainty about the degree to which this is happening, so making calculation of the overall warming effect problematic. However, as James Lovelock points out - and Professor Shine and other scientists accept - in the event of an industrial downturn, the aerosol could fall out of the atmosphere in a matter of weeks, and then the effect of all the greenhouse gases taken together would suddenly be fully felt.
Copyright 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
###
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This seemed to second the opinion from Lovelock in the previous post. The current saving feature was the aerosol factor. Aerosols are tiny particulates which by themselves or by the condensation of water around them, aiding cloud formation, act as shading or reflecting elements in the atmosphere. Some of the sunlight striking them is reflected or radiated back into space before it can add to the heat load of the planet. The measure of the reflcting power is a number called Albedo. The aerosols are maintained by, mostly, industrial activity, along with the actions of wind, ocean spray, and forest fires, and other whatnot.
I sent the link for this article to the author of Real Climate, a blog aimed at climate scientists, which is fairly technical but even handed in the way of legitimate science, ie, not prone to jump to conclusions beyond what the data supports. That doesn't mean the self-serving skepticism of the oil companies; these folks definitely believe in human caused global warming, and are definitely urging cultural responses in the industrial, political, and life-style aspects etc of the problem. The author's response was that although the raw number was probably accurate, still the aerosol factor mitigated the panic.
If you read posts in Real Climate, it's vital to read the comments, which are as informative as the original texts.
Consider though: More violent weather means more dust and maybe more wave action. Forest fires are already on the increase, which is a cause of CO2 production. If industry etc becomes cleaner, its albedo (reflectivity) contribution will decrease. The trends run some up, some down and research on albedo is a focal topic in this desperate race to understand what's happening. But as Lovelock pointed out, some large part of the aerosol concentration could fall rapidly if there were an industrial turndown. Possibly 50% or more in a major global depression. I don't have a quantitative sense of the relative contribution of the various aerosol producers, I don't know if even ball-park numbers are available yet. Real Climate did have a recent post on albedo. I could even see back-room arguments that dirty industry is good since it protects the earth in a round-about way. But it seems both cynical and imprudent to grasp for a sense of safety based on continuing dirty industrial output.
What could cause a global depression? Aren't he economies booming? Think bird flu.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Published on Saturday, February 11, 2006 by the lndependent/UK
Global Warming: Passing the 'Tipping Point'
Our special investigation reveals that critical rise in world temperatures is now unavoidable
by Michael McCarthy
A crucial global warming "tipping point" for the Earth, highlighted only last week by the British Government, has already been passed, with devastating consequences.
Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.
The implication is that some of global warming's worst predicted effects, from destruction of ecosystems to increased hunger and water shortages for billions of people, cannot now be avoided, whatever we do. It gives considerable force to the contention by the green guru Professor James Lovelock, put forward last month in The Independent, that climate change is now past the point of no return.
The danger point we are now firmly on course for is a rise in global mean temperatures to 2 degrees above the level before the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.
At the moment, global mean temperatures have risen to about 0.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era - and worrying signs of climate change, such as the rapid melting of the Arctic ice in summer, are already increasingly evident. But a rise to 2 degrees would be far more serious.
By that point it is likely that the Greenland ice sheet will already have begun irreversible melting, threatening the world with a sea-level rise of several metres. Agricultural yields will have started to fall, not only in Africa but also in Europe, the US and Russia, putting up to 200 million more people at risk from hunger, and up to 2.8 billion additional people at risk of water shortages for both drinking and irrigation. The Government's conference on Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, held at the UK Met Office in Exeter a year ago, highlighted a clear threshold in the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which should not be surpassed if the 2 degree point was to be avoided with "relatively high certainty".
This was for the concentration of CO2 and other gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, taken together in their global warming effect, to stay below 400ppm (parts per million) in CO2 terms - or in the jargon, the "equivalent concentration" of CO2 should remain below that level.
The warning was highlighted in the official report of the Exeter conference, published last week. However, an investigation by The Independent has established that the CO2 equivalent concentration, largely unnoticed by the scientific and political communities, has now risen beyond this threshold.
This number is not a familiar one even among climate researchers, and is not readily available. For example, when we put the question to a very senior climate scientist, he said: "I would think it's definitely over 400 - probably about 420." So we asked one of the world's leading experts on the effects of greenhouse gases on climate, Professor Keith Shine, head of the meteorology department at the University of Reading, to calculate it precisely. Using the latest available figures (for 2004), his calculations show the equivalent concentration of C02, taking in the effects of methane and nitrous oxide at 2004 levels, is now 425ppm. This is made up of CO2 itself, at 379ppm; the global warming effect of the methane in the atmosphere, equivalent to another 40ppm of CO2; and the effect of nitrous oxide, equivalent to another 6ppm of CO2.
The tipping point warned about last week by the Government is already behind us.
"The passing of this threshold is of the most enormous significance," said Tom Burke, a former government adviser on the green issues, now visiting professor at Imperial College London. "It means we have actually entered a new era - the era of dangerous climate change. We have passed the point where we can be confident of staying below the 2 degree rise set as the threshold for danger. What this tells us is that we have already reached the point where our children can no longer count on a safe climate."
The scientist who chaired the Exeter conference, Dennis Tirpak, head of the climate change unit of the OECD in Paris, was even more direct. He said: "This means we will hit 2 degrees [as a global mean temperature rise]."
Professor Burke added: "We have very little time to act now. Governments must stop talking and start spending. We already have the technology to allow us to meet our growing need for energy while keeping a stable climate. We must deploy it now. Doing so will cost less than the Iraq war so we know we can afford it."
The 400ppm threshold is based on a paper given at Exeter by Malte Meinhausen of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Dr Meinhausen reviewed a dozen studies of the probability of exceeding the 2 degrees threshold at different CO2 equivalent levels. Taken together they show that only by remaining below 400 is there a very high chance of not doing so.
Some scientists have been reluctant to talk about the overall global warming effect of all the greenhouses gases taken together, because there is another consideration - the fact that the "aerosol", or band of dust in the atmosphere from industrial pollution, actually reduces the warming.
As Professor Shine stresses, there is enormous uncertainty about the degree to which this is happening, so making calculation of the overall warming effect problematic. However, as James Lovelock points out - and Professor Shine and other scientists accept - in the event of an industrial downturn, the aerosol could fall out of the atmosphere in a matter of weeks, and then the effect of all the greenhouse gases taken together would suddenly be fully felt.
Copyright 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
###
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This seemed to second the opinion from Lovelock in the previous post. The current saving feature was the aerosol factor. Aerosols are tiny particulates which by themselves or by the condensation of water around them, aiding cloud formation, act as shading or reflecting elements in the atmosphere. Some of the sunlight striking them is reflected or radiated back into space before it can add to the heat load of the planet. The measure of the reflcting power is a number called Albedo. The aerosols are maintained by, mostly, industrial activity, along with the actions of wind, ocean spray, and forest fires, and other whatnot.
I sent the link for this article to the author of Real Climate, a blog aimed at climate scientists, which is fairly technical but even handed in the way of legitimate science, ie, not prone to jump to conclusions beyond what the data supports. That doesn't mean the self-serving skepticism of the oil companies; these folks definitely believe in human caused global warming, and are definitely urging cultural responses in the industrial, political, and life-style aspects etc of the problem. The author's response was that although the raw number was probably accurate, still the aerosol factor mitigated the panic.
If you read posts in Real Climate, it's vital to read the comments, which are as informative as the original texts.
Consider though: More violent weather means more dust and maybe more wave action. Forest fires are already on the increase, which is a cause of CO2 production. If industry etc becomes cleaner, its albedo (reflectivity) contribution will decrease. The trends run some up, some down and research on albedo is a focal topic in this desperate race to understand what's happening. But as Lovelock pointed out, some large part of the aerosol concentration could fall rapidly if there were an industrial turndown. Possibly 50% or more in a major global depression. I don't have a quantitative sense of the relative contribution of the various aerosol producers, I don't know if even ball-park numbers are available yet. Real Climate did have a recent post on albedo. I could even see back-room arguments that dirty industry is good since it protects the earth in a round-about way. But it seems both cynical and imprudent to grasp for a sense of safety based on continuing dirty industrial output.
What could cause a global depression? Aren't he economies booming? Think bird flu.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Lovelock's Fever
This was the article that set off all my alarms. Lovelock is the co-inventor of the Gaia Hypothesis (along with Lynn Margulies). The Gaia Hypothesis states, briefly, that biological and geological processes together have through most of history maintained a stable set of conditions on Earth so that life might flourish. In ways it can be viewed as a strong metaphor that all planetary life processes act as a unified object very much like an organism. Lovelock is primarily an atmospheric chemist, and seems to have a larger overall grasp, both by intuition and in detail, of how the atmosphere behaves. Naturally his work has stirred controversy, and indignant protests that he's exceeding the limited conclusions that can be drawn by strict reductionistic science. The critics make some valid points, but don't diminish the respect he elicits as a man of great understanding and even wisdom.
The following article is copied exactly as I found it on the Common Dreams website. They have consistently had good coverage of current climate news, mixed in with their usual coverage of social and political issues.
Published on Monday, January 16, 2006 by the Independent
The Earth is About to Catch a Morbid Fever That May Last as Long as 100,000 Years
Each nation must find the best use of its resources to sustain civilization for as long as they can
by James Lovelock
Imagine a young policewoman delighted in the fulfilment of her vocation; then imagine her having to tell a family whose child had strayed that he had been found dead, murdered in a nearby wood. Or think of a young physician newly appointed who has to tell you that the biopsy revealed invasion by an aggressive metastasising tumour. Doctors and the police know that many accept the simple awful truth with dignity but others try in vain to deny it.
Whatever the response, the bringers of such bad news rarely become hardened to their task and some dread it. We have relieved judges of the awesome responsibility of passing the death sentence, but at least they had some comfort from its frequent moral justification. Physicians and the police have no escape from their duty.
This article is the most difficult I have written and for the same reasons. My Gaia theory sees the Earth behaving as if it were alive, and clearly anything alive can enjoy good health, or suffer disease. Gaia has made me a planetary physician and I take my profession seriously, and now I, too, have to bring bad news.
The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition, and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years. I have to tell you, as members of the Earth's family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilization are in grave danger.
Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics.
Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 percent of the Earth's surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.
Curiously, aerosol pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This "global dimming" is transient and could disappear in a few days like the smoke that it is, leaving us fully exposed to the heat of the global greenhouse. We are in a fool's climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.
To understand how impossible it is, think about how you would regulate your own temperature or the composition of your blood. Those with failing kidneys know the never-ending daily difficulty of adjusting water, salt and protein intake. The technological fix of dialysis helps, but is no replacement for living healthy kidneys.
My new book, "The Revenge of Gaia" expands these thoughts, but you still may ask why science took so long to recognize the true nature of the Earth. I think it is because Darwin's vision was so good and clear that it has taken until now to digest it. In his time, little was known about the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and there would have been little reason for him to wonder if organisms changed their environment as well as adapting to it.
Had it been known then that life and the environment are closely coupled, Darwin would have seen that evolution involved not just the organisms, but the whole planetary surface. We might then have looked upon the Earth as if it were alive, and known that we cannot pollute the air or use the Earth's skin - its forest and ocean ecosystems - as a mere source of products to feed ourselves and furnish our homes. We would have felt instinctively that those ecosystems must be left untouched because they were part of the living Earth.
So what should we do? First, we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can. Civilization is energy-intensive and we cannot turn it off without crashing, so we need the security of a powered descent. On these British Isles, we are used to thinking of all humanity and not just ourselves; environmental change is global, but we have to deal with the consequences here in the UK.
Unfortunately our nation is now so urbanized as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from overseas.
We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous. We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that Gaia will lose as much or more than we do. Not only will wildlife and whole ecosystems go extinct, but in human civilization the planet has a precious resource. We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet. Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.
We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady. So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living Earth and need to make our peace with Gaia. We must do it while we are still strong enough to negotiate, and not a broken rabble led by brutal war lords. Most of all, we should remember that we are a part of it, and it is indeed our home.
- - - - -
James Lovelock is an independent environmental scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society. "The Revenge of Gaia," scheduled for release February 2, 2006, is published by Penguin.
© 2006 The Independent
###
That sent me ino a tailspin. I had visions of social and cultural collapse. Those weren't so bad, certainly there were some good aspects, fewer people and fewer cars etc. That the people were starving to death was not an ideal way of reaching those goals. That many who starved were not the perps of the disaster was unjust beyond the workings of Karma, but somehow not surprising. That they would accept that fate without vengeance seemed unlikely. Gradually arming and increasingly desperate hordes of refugees following the possibility of food for their children and water for their dessicated parents. Met by those unable to help, but aware that they would soon share the fate stalking North. They would be impelled to resist, leading to the wars of the already refugee against the soon-to-be refugee.
Then the visions of biological breakdown started to fill in the details. I tended to think in terms of my familiar setting, small town and rural Eastern Hardwood Forest, Tallgrass Prairie, small hill-country farming landscapes. punctuated with commercial chicken houses and spreading development. I saw the woods dying from lack of rain and too much heat. The grass brown and folded. Piles of stinking dead chickens lost to heat wave induced power failures. Rivers drying, lakes shrinking inside block wide bath-tub rings. Water rationing, wells failing, cattle trucked away for lack of hay and water, not replaced.
Then the fires started. The end of 2005 had the evening news filled with footage of Oklahoma and other Midwestern locales burning, mostly grassland fires, something the prairie has been adapted to. But soon after the dying woods started burning as well, and the fires killed more weakened trees, which dropped more fuel for further rounds of fire. Repeated fires killed off the reproduction in the understory so that nothing was left to replace the lost trees. This is how the woods becomes grassland on its way to being desert, with a possible period of drier adapted pine woods. But the pines, even if they manage to sprout, won't have time to mature, and soon they burn as well. All the landscapes marching north, if they can move fast enough to pace the temperatures. Think of Sonora replacing Eastern Colorado, replacing red-dirt Georgia, replacing the Ozarks, replacing Michigan. And if the temperatures and rainfall don't stabilize, the round of replacement cycles through again.
Whether the wildflowers and turtles, the mushrooms and frogs could keep up was a crap-shoot. I assume the squirrels and mice will do okay, the rabbits will march north with the hawks and coyotes following. Some fast and adaptable critters might thrive. If they can beat the humans to each bite. But most critters will get left behind to wither.
The following article is copied exactly as I found it on the Common Dreams website. They have consistently had good coverage of current climate news, mixed in with their usual coverage of social and political issues.
Published on Monday, January 16, 2006 by the Independent
The Earth is About to Catch a Morbid Fever That May Last as Long as 100,000 Years
Each nation must find the best use of its resources to sustain civilization for as long as they can
by James Lovelock
Imagine a young policewoman delighted in the fulfilment of her vocation; then imagine her having to tell a family whose child had strayed that he had been found dead, murdered in a nearby wood. Or think of a young physician newly appointed who has to tell you that the biopsy revealed invasion by an aggressive metastasising tumour. Doctors and the police know that many accept the simple awful truth with dignity but others try in vain to deny it.
Whatever the response, the bringers of such bad news rarely become hardened to their task and some dread it. We have relieved judges of the awesome responsibility of passing the death sentence, but at least they had some comfort from its frequent moral justification. Physicians and the police have no escape from their duty.
This article is the most difficult I have written and for the same reasons. My Gaia theory sees the Earth behaving as if it were alive, and clearly anything alive can enjoy good health, or suffer disease. Gaia has made me a planetary physician and I take my profession seriously, and now I, too, have to bring bad news.
The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition, and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years. I have to tell you, as members of the Earth's family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilization are in grave danger.
Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics.
Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 percent of the Earth's surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.
Curiously, aerosol pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This "global dimming" is transient and could disappear in a few days like the smoke that it is, leaving us fully exposed to the heat of the global greenhouse. We are in a fool's climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.
To understand how impossible it is, think about how you would regulate your own temperature or the composition of your blood. Those with failing kidneys know the never-ending daily difficulty of adjusting water, salt and protein intake. The technological fix of dialysis helps, but is no replacement for living healthy kidneys.
My new book, "The Revenge of Gaia" expands these thoughts, but you still may ask why science took so long to recognize the true nature of the Earth. I think it is because Darwin's vision was so good and clear that it has taken until now to digest it. In his time, little was known about the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and there would have been little reason for him to wonder if organisms changed their environment as well as adapting to it.
Had it been known then that life and the environment are closely coupled, Darwin would have seen that evolution involved not just the organisms, but the whole planetary surface. We might then have looked upon the Earth as if it were alive, and known that we cannot pollute the air or use the Earth's skin - its forest and ocean ecosystems - as a mere source of products to feed ourselves and furnish our homes. We would have felt instinctively that those ecosystems must be left untouched because they were part of the living Earth.
So what should we do? First, we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can. Civilization is energy-intensive and we cannot turn it off without crashing, so we need the security of a powered descent. On these British Isles, we are used to thinking of all humanity and not just ourselves; environmental change is global, but we have to deal with the consequences here in the UK.
Unfortunately our nation is now so urbanized as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from overseas.
We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous. We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that Gaia will lose as much or more than we do. Not only will wildlife and whole ecosystems go extinct, but in human civilization the planet has a precious resource. We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet. Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.
We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady. So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living Earth and need to make our peace with Gaia. We must do it while we are still strong enough to negotiate, and not a broken rabble led by brutal war lords. Most of all, we should remember that we are a part of it, and it is indeed our home.
- - - - -
James Lovelock is an independent environmental scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society. "The Revenge of Gaia," scheduled for release February 2, 2006, is published by Penguin.
© 2006 The Independent
###
That sent me ino a tailspin. I had visions of social and cultural collapse. Those weren't so bad, certainly there were some good aspects, fewer people and fewer cars etc. That the people were starving to death was not an ideal way of reaching those goals. That many who starved were not the perps of the disaster was unjust beyond the workings of Karma, but somehow not surprising. That they would accept that fate without vengeance seemed unlikely. Gradually arming and increasingly desperate hordes of refugees following the possibility of food for their children and water for their dessicated parents. Met by those unable to help, but aware that they would soon share the fate stalking North. They would be impelled to resist, leading to the wars of the already refugee against the soon-to-be refugee.
Then the visions of biological breakdown started to fill in the details. I tended to think in terms of my familiar setting, small town and rural Eastern Hardwood Forest, Tallgrass Prairie, small hill-country farming landscapes. punctuated with commercial chicken houses and spreading development. I saw the woods dying from lack of rain and too much heat. The grass brown and folded. Piles of stinking dead chickens lost to heat wave induced power failures. Rivers drying, lakes shrinking inside block wide bath-tub rings. Water rationing, wells failing, cattle trucked away for lack of hay and water, not replaced.
Then the fires started. The end of 2005 had the evening news filled with footage of Oklahoma and other Midwestern locales burning, mostly grassland fires, something the prairie has been adapted to. But soon after the dying woods started burning as well, and the fires killed more weakened trees, which dropped more fuel for further rounds of fire. Repeated fires killed off the reproduction in the understory so that nothing was left to replace the lost trees. This is how the woods becomes grassland on its way to being desert, with a possible period of drier adapted pine woods. But the pines, even if they manage to sprout, won't have time to mature, and soon they burn as well. All the landscapes marching north, if they can move fast enough to pace the temperatures. Think of Sonora replacing Eastern Colorado, replacing red-dirt Georgia, replacing the Ozarks, replacing Michigan. And if the temperatures and rainfall don't stabilize, the round of replacement cycles through again.
Whether the wildflowers and turtles, the mushrooms and frogs could keep up was a crap-shoot. I assume the squirrels and mice will do okay, the rabbits will march north with the hawks and coyotes following. Some fast and adaptable critters might thrive. If they can beat the humans to each bite. But most critters will get left behind to wither.
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