ApocaDocuments (8) matching "anthropogenic change" from this week
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Fri, Jan 2, 2009
from London Independent:
Climate scientists: it's time for 'Plan B'
An emergency "Plan B" using the latest technology is needed to save the world from dangerous climate change, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by The Independent. The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary.
The plan would involve highly controversial proposals to lower global temperatures artificially through daringly ambitious schemes that either reduce sunlight levels by man-made means or take CO2 out of the air. This "geoengineering" approach – including schemes such as fertilising the oceans with iron to stimulate algal blooms – would have been dismissed as a distraction a few years ago but is now being seen by the majority of scientists we surveyed as a viable emergency backup plan that could save the planet from the worst effects of climate change, at least until deep cuts are made in CO2 emissions.
What has worried many of the experts, who include recognised authorities from the world's leading universities and research institutes, as well as a Nobel Laureate, is the failure to curb global greenhouse gas emissions through international agreements, namely the Kyoto Treaty, and recent studies indicating that the Earth's natural carbon "sinks" are becoming less efficient at absorbing man-made CO2 from the atmosphere. ...
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What the hell. Let's skip B and go right to Plan C!
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Thu, Jan 1, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
95 months and counting
From today, based on the best estimates available, we have eight years to head-off potentially uncontrollable climatic upheaval. What can happen in eight years? Quite a lot, actually. A world war can begin, and end. Two, in fact.... [H]istory tells us great things are possible. We are still in control. We just need to build, rapidly, new energy and transport systems and change our behaviour.
Only, we seem to have forgotten what we are capable of. Victorian engineers would have been aghast at our timidity. Within our 8 year time frame, for example, between 1845 and 1852 there were 4,400 miles of railway track laid in Britain.
...
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Bad enough if the last two generations are labelled "world killers" -- but "timid losers"? That would be too much.
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Wed, Dec 31, 2008
from SciDev.net:
Climate change linked to decline in Asian monsoon
Evidence that human-induced climate change may be affecting the Asian monsoon cycle has been published by a Chinese-US team.... Records show that, before 1960, warmer years were associated with stronger monsoons, and the temperature decreased when the monsoon weakened. But the study found a reversed association after this date.
"The rising temperature now leads to less precipitation, which is not a natural pattern," said Larry Edwards, geologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the paper, which was published in Science (November). ...
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How's that for good luck! Now Asia will need fewer unsustainable umbrellas and raincoats!
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Wed, Dec 31, 2008
from Reuters:
Researchers say 2009 to be one of warmest years on record
LONDON (Reuters) - Next year is set to be one of the top-five warmest on record, climate scientists said on Tuesday.
The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4 degrees celsius above the long-term average, despite the continued cooling of huge areas of the Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Nina.
That would make it the warmest year since 2005, according to researchers at the Met Office, who say there is also a growing probability of record temperatures after next year. Currently the warmest year on record is 1998, which saw average temperatures of 14.52 degrees celsius - well above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14 degrees celsius.
Warm weather that year was strongly influenced by El Nino, an abnormal warming of surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific. ...
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You say El Nino, I say La Nina ... let's call the whole thing off!
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Wed, Dec 31, 2008
from The Economist:
A sea of troubles -- an ocean wrapup
The worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide interacts with the briny. The sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. These are not all as familiar as shrimps and lobsters, yet species like krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, play a crucial part in the food chain: kill them off, and you may kill off their predators, whose predators may be the ones you enjoy served fried, grilled or with sauce tartare. Worse, you may destabilise an entire ecosystem.... And then there are the red tides of algal blooms, the plagues of jellyfish and the dead zones where only simple organisms thrive. All of these are increasing in intensity, frequency and extent. All of these, too, seem to be associated with various stresses man inflicts on marine ecosystems: overfishing, global warming, fertilisers running from land into rivers and estuaries, often the whole lot in concatenation. ...
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Concatenation, concentration, feedback loops, the underwater stripmining of biomass.... Lucky we can't see it, or we'd be adding our tears to the salt in the sea!
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Mon, Dec 29, 2008
from Agence France-Presse:
Natural disasters killed over 220,000
BERLIN -- Natural disasters killed over 220,000 people in 2008, making it one of the most devastating years on record and underlining the need for a global climate deal, the world's number two reinsurer said Monday.
Although the number of natural disasters was lower than in 2007, the catastrophes that occurred proved to be more destructive in terms of the number of victims and the financial cost of the damage caused, Germany-based Munich Re said in its annual assessment.
"This continues the long-term trend we have been observing. Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes," Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek said. ...
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We might have to stop calling them natural disasters.
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Mon, Dec 29, 2008
from via ScienceDaily:
Climate Change Could Dramatically Affect Water Supplies
It's no simple matter to figure out how regional changes in precipitation, expected to result from global climate change, may affect water supplies. Now, a new analysis led by MIT researchers has found that the changes in groundwater may actually be much greater than the precipitation changes themselves. For example, in places where annual rainfall may increase by 20 percent as a result of climate change, the groundwater might increase as much as 40 percent. Conversely, the analysis showed in some cases just a 20 percent decrease in rainfall could lead to a 70 percent decrease in the recharging of local aquifers — a potentially devastating blow in semi-arid and arid regions. ...
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You mean.... there's water under the ground?
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Mon, Dec 29, 2008
from NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory via ScienceDaily:
NASA Study Links Severe Storm Increases, Global Warming
The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics -- the type associated with severe storms and rainfall -- is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. [The] team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.
For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade. ...
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I'll just get a six-percent bigger umbrella every decade!
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