ApocaDocuments (9) matching "global warming" from this week
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Sun, Mar 1, 2009
from New York Times:
Obama's Backing Raises Hopes for Climate Pact
Until recently, the idea that the world’s most powerful nations might come together to tackle global warming seemed an environmentalist's pipe dream. The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, was widely viewed as badly flawed. Many countries that signed the accord lagged far behind their targets in curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The United States refused even to ratify it. And the treaty gave a pass to major emitters in the developing world like China and India.
But within weeks of taking office, President Obama has radically shifted the global equation, placing the United States at the forefront of the international climate effort and raising hopes that an effective international accord might be possible. Mr. Obama's chief climate negotiator, Todd Stern, said last week that the United States would be involved in the negotiation of a new treaty -- to be signed in Copenhagen in December -- "in a robust way." ...
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Robust ... or bust!
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Thu, Feb 26, 2009
from Nature:
International Polar Year: In from the Cold
...It might seem that, as so often in the past, science reigns supreme at the planet's poles. But as climate change opens up vast parts of the Arctic to commerce, nations are starting to exert their influence in the region more purposefully, and long-simmering political tensions might soon boil over.... Warming in the Arctic, and the retreat of summertime sea ice, is opening up the region to interests such as mineral exploitation, shipping, fishing and tourism. Some researchers fear that the commercial potential could shift international interactions from mainly scientific collaboration to hard-nosed politics. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have proposed a 50-year moratorium on all exploitation in the Arctic, but this is unlikely to gain much support.
The shift towards economic and geopolitical competition poses a new threat for vulnerable Arctic environments, which should prompt scientists to speak out... ...
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Me, I want to open the first Anthropologie!
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Thu, Feb 26, 2009
from New York Times:
In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall
Social scientists who study the interface of climate science and public policy say that campaigners and officials who seek to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases face an uphill battle in changing people's minds about the issue. Even with the success of "An Inconvenient Truth," the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary featuring Mr. Gore, and widely publicized images of melting Arctic ice, surveys show that most Americans are either confused about climate change, mildly concerned about it or completely disengaged from the issue.
A variety of surveys show that roughly 20 percent of Americans are in Mr. Gore's camp and another 20 percent in Mr. Will's, rejecting the idea that humans could dangerously alter global climate. That division is unlikely to change any time soon, said David Ropeik, a consultant on risk communication who teaches at Harvard University. ...
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We'd say that hyperbole was polarizing, if there were any poles left.
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Thu, Feb 26, 2009
from New Scientist:
How to survive the coming century
ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 degrees C.
Clearly this is a vision of the future that no one wants, but it might happen. Fearing that the best efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions may fail, or that planetary climate feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming, some scientists and economists are considering not only what this world of the future might be like, but how it could sustain a growing human population. They argue that surviving in the kinds of numbers that exist today, or even more, will be possible, but only if we use our uniquely human ingenuity to cooperate as a species to radically reorganise our world.
The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained. But maintaining the current global population of nearly 7 billion, or more, is going to require serious planning. ...
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Sorry, but I gotta ask: How come? Why do we have to continue to "grow" as a species.
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Wed, Feb 25, 2009
from International Council for Science:
Polar research reveals new evidence of global environmental change
The wide-ranging IPY findings result from more than 160 endorsed science projects assembled from researchers in more than 60 countries. Launched in March 2007, the [International Polar Year] covers a two-year period to March 2009 to allow for observations during the alternate seasons in both polar regions.... [R]esearch vessels ... have confirmed above-global-average warming in the Southern Ocean. A freshening of the bottom water near Antarctica is consistent with increased ice melt from Antarctica and could affect ocean circulation. Global warming is thus affecting Antarctica in ways not previously identified.
[International Polar Year] research has also identified large pools of carbon stored as methane in permafrost. Thawing permafrost threatens to destabilize the stored methane -- a greenhouse gas -- and send it into the atmosphere. Indeed, IPY researchers along the Siberian coast observed substantial emissions of methane from ocean sediments. ...
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Focused climate research always seems to discover things we wish we didn't have to discover.
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Wed, Feb 25, 2009
from NASA, via EurekAlert:
2008 was Earth's coolest year since 2000
Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2008 was the coolest year since 2000. The GISS analysis also showed that 2008 is the ninth warmest year since continuous instrumental records were started in 1880.
The ten warmest years on record have all occurred between 1997 and 2008.
The GISS analysis found that the global average surface air temperature was 0.44 deg C (0.79 deg F) above the global mean for 1951 to 1980, the baseline period for the study. Most of the world was either near normal or warmer in 2008 than the norm. Eurasia, the Arctic, and the Antarctic Peninsula were exceptionally warm (see figures), while much of the Pacific Ocean was cooler than the long-term average. ...
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I thought this was going to be a good news story!
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009
from New Scientist:
Lizards will roast in a warming world
GLOBAL warming is set to make life distinctly uncomfortable for reptiles and other cold-blooded animals. Unable to produce heat, they rely on strategies such as moving from colder to warmer areas to function. Soon that might not be an option for tropical species.
Many species will need to adapt to climate change to survive, so Michael Kearney of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and his team designed a model to get an idea of how cold-blooded species, or ectotherms, would fare. They make up the majority of the world's species.
The researchers first assessed how an ectotherm's body temperature would change with body shape and colour, and surrounding environment. They then used satellite data to model wind speed, shade and air temperature in a warmer world.
For most ectotherms, a body temperature of 30 to 35 degrees C is ideal, with performance declining at higher and lower temperatures. Above 40 degrees C can be lethal.
Kearney's model showed that on a summer's day in the shade, a 3 degrees C rise in average temperature - the mid-range estimate for the end of this century - would send the body temperature of ectotherms in Australia's tropical deserts over 40 degrees C for at least an hour... ...
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On the plus side... they will have cooked themselves for my dinner!
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009
from New York Times:
Many Plans to Curtail Use of Plastic Bags, but Not Much Action
SEATTLE -- Last summer, city officials here became the first in the nation to approve a fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in many retail stores. The 20-cent charge was intended to reduce pollution by encouraging reusable bags. But a petition drive financed by the plastic-bag industry delayed the plan. Now a far broader segment of Seattle's bag carriers -- its voters -- will decide the matter in an election in August.
Even in a city that likes to be environmentally conscious, the outcome is uncertain.
"You have to be really tone-deaf to what's going on to think that the economic climate is not going to affect people," said Rob Gala, a legislative aide to the city councilman who first sponsored the bill for the 20-cent fee. ...
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So... why don't we just bag the plastic altogether!
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009
from Washington Post:
MIT Group Increases Global Warming Projections
Report: High odds of warming over 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) if no action New research from MIT scientists shows that in the absence of stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, 21st century climate change may be far more significant than some previous climate assessments had indicated.
The new findings, released this month by MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, showed significantly increased odds that by the end of the century warming would be on the high end of the scale for a so-called "no policy scenario" as compared with similar studies completed just six years ago. The main culprits: the cycling of heat and carbon dioxide in the climate system are now better understood and projections of future greenhouse gas emissions have increased.
The results also showed that even if nations were to act quickly to reduce emissions, it is more likely that warming would be greater than previous studies had shown. However, the increase in projected temperatures under the "policy scenario" was not as large as for the no policy scenario. ...
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MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Terror!
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