The report says: "This idealized emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and quickly changing from an increase of 2–3% per year to a decrease of 3% per year. For every 10 years we delay action another 0.5 °C will be added to the most likely temperature rise." http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/temperaturerises.html
"Our science advisors had told us to expect thicker, older ice on at least part of the route, so it is something of a mystery where that older ice has gone. It’ll be interesting to see what scientists think about this." A woman and two men pulling sledges nearly 300 miles across the Arctic sea…
The major aerosols are black carbon (see May 7), sulfates and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). They come from combustion. Black carbon comes mostly from the burning of most fuels in developing and third world nations where pollution controls are not as stringent as in the developing world. Sulfates and NOx comes mostly from coal and…
Black soot comes from and biofuels such as wood and organic fuel in cooking fires, diesel and fuel oil emissions, wildfires, agricultural burning, etc. The problem is most severe in developing and third world countries. New studies have shown that black carbon is far more significant at warming than previously assumed. It is a major…
"There’s been a super-rapid decline in the glaciers of the region" This quote is from "Ice, Snow, and Water: Impacts of Climate Change on Himalayan Asia & California", University of California, San Diego, Sustainability Solutions Institute. Glacier National Park will not be the only place that is glacierless in 20 to 30 years. The scientists…
A team of 32 scientists have released a report that summarized 48 research project covering 318 reefs and 273 reef fish species during the period 1955-2007. The decline started about 1995. The scientists say the half of the fish species groups studied are decreasing at 2.6 to 6% loss per year. This loss rate is…
To limit warming to 2 degrees C by 2050, the world must limit greenhouse gas emissions to 275 gigatons between 2000 and 2050. Considering that we have already emitted nearly one third of this 275 gigatons in nine years, this is going to be "extremely difficult" says the author of the report (Meinhausen). The research…
One of the quotes in the report states "There continues to be widespread and, in some cases, dramatic evidence of an overall warming of the Arctic system." The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program is one of five Working Groups of the Arctic Council. The primary function of AMAP is to advise the governments of the…
April 27, 2009 Teams from the Institute of Marine & Limnological Sciences, at the University of Mexico and the Institute of Marine Science in Germany published a report in the April 9 scientific journal Nature that shows a sea level rise of six and a half to ten feet in 10 to 24 years because…
Well it did not happen, at least not yet. The economic crisis has not affected CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. They continue to rise at an even faster rate than just a few years ago. The graphic on the right is probably familiar to most. This is the Keeling Curve, developed by Dr. Keeling at…
The Wilkins ice shelf is 5,000 square miles of ice on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula – an area large than the state of Connecticut. It started in February 2008 (the end of the Antarctic Summer). It continued through the Antarctic winter which was a big surprise to scientists. That sort of thing…
Delayed for nearly a decade by the Bush Administration, as soon as Obama came into office the EPA went back to work. The Ruling states: “This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations… In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem." The press…
It’s from an article on Yahoo. "Ask 15 Republicans the same questions about climate change and you get 20 different answers!" The author, Lisa Lerer says: in March, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told a national conservative radio program that the Earth is “cooling,” not warming. After the EPA CO2 Endangerment Ruling, the article…
A new mega report by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations states the obvious. Persistent drought, insect infestations and disease have increased just as the scientists predicted they would over 20 years ago. These problems have already had enormous impacts on the forests of the world and those impacts are increasing in severity and…
What James Hansen, the most important climate modeler in the world, has said about CO2 concentrations: that we need to reduce our CO2 levels to 350 ppm. How are we going to do that with CO2 reductions? With a CO2 tax? With cap and trade? Taxes, caps and trades, increasing efficiency, using less energy to…
We don’t know more about our climate than we do know. I just read a paper about the Arctic in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that says that basically the albedo feedback and an ice free summer in the Arctic could and eventually will lead to an ice free winter too. The…
Only 10% of Arctic Sea ice is is older than two years old. The maximum coverage of sea ice this winter was the fifth lowest ever recorded (The six lowest winter ice coverage totals have all occurred in the last six years.) First year ice, ice that melts every summer, makes up 70% of Arctic…
Over 97% of climate scientists understand that humankind has been a significant contributor to rising temperatures across the planet yet 42% of Americans believe there is a lot of disagreement between climate scientists. Polls and surveys tell us a lot of things. They all do not tell us the same things, but they often do…
