Ocean acidity increases with atmospheric CO2 concentration. Since the turn of the 21st century, ocean acidity has caused a decrease of carbon concentration in the exoskeletons of the primary productivity organisms of the oceans. This means, not only are this fundamentally important part of the ocean system at risk, but the oceans are not absorbing…
Preliminary release of information from Copenhagen shows that with the best case scenario of CO2 emissions reductions, where CO2 emission decline by 3% per year by 2015 (this is a very aggressive reduction rate), there is still a 50% chance that the earth will warm 3.6 to 5 degrees F by 2100. A 3.6 degree…
This is 21 to 43 inches and it does not include dynamical ice sheet disintegration. Very important to note also in the Dutch study, sea level rise in the 22nd century will be 1.5 to 3.5 meters – that’s 11.5 feet. Most of the worlds major cities will be affected by eleven feet of sea…
I keep telling all my friends, I don’t make this stuff up. It has deadly serious implications for global society and the continuance of Earth’s environment, and lately, it seems to be coming at us from all sides – just as the popular media has seemingly lost nearly 100% of its attention span. The above…
The disintegration of the largest ice shelf ever known to collapse started in February 2008 during the Antarctic summer. Signs of the breakup continued during the deep polar winter, something else that has never been seen before. The European Space Agency has now announced that the breakup amounts to 14,000 square kilometers, or over 5,000…
IPY is the largest internationally coordinated planetary research effort in the past 50 years. More than 160 endorsed science projects are included in this report from researchers in more than 60 countries from the period March 2007 to March 2009 to allow for observations during the alternate seasons in both polar regions. The IPY is…
MIT projections are almost double the IPCCs. Very scary stuff, and this makes four major publications in as many weeks that the media has not acknowledged. And it is great climate change art too. The "no policy scenario" is business as usual. The policy scenario is the middle scenario of several likely alternatives used by…
Monaco Declaration Press Release: Urgent action is needed to limit damages to marine ecosystems, including coral reefs and fisheries, due to increasing ocean acidity, according to 155 of the world’s scientific experts who will release the Monaco Declaration this Friday. The Declaration is based on results from the Second International Symposium on the Ocean in…
Not in the Great Southern Ocean, but from an eight year study off the coast of Washington State. The seas around Antarctica are proceeding 60 years ahead of schedule. The implication so ocean acidification are grave. Primary productivity is one of really important things on this planet. The oceans are really big and primary productivity…
Dr. Katey Walter, from the University of Fairbanks, sees methane like many climate scientists these days. The warming across the planet is concentrated at the poles because of what is called polar amplification. This means that the Arctic is warming even more than the rest of the Earth. In many places the Arctic has already…
(AP Press)Eminent British economist Lord Nicholas Sterns made some dire statements while visiting Antarctica with an team of key international climate leaders: "… if negotiators falter, if emissions reductions are not made soon and deep, the severe climate shifts and sea-level rises projected by scientists would be "disastrous." If we don’t deal with climate change…
February 20, 2009 One month of Obama and no cap and trade, no carbon tax, nothing but a stimulus plan worth nearly $720 billion in carbon dioxidego here: Climate Ark This is a climate news portal from Australia. Remember Australia? They were the last of two nations on the entire Earth to sign Kyoto. The…
A study in Nature last month confirmed ongoing increased CO2 storage in tropical forests – on the gigaton scale – that’s a lot. So the CO2 fertilization effect is confirmed? Yes of course, we new this all along, CO2 is a fertilizer. But in reality the benefits of the CO2 effect have already been surpassed…
Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science by Solomon et. al. The paper warns that we have already started to see accelerating impacts, and that even if we were to stop emitting all greenhouse gasses today, changes would continue for 1,000 years. The authors made certain to make it clear that…
February 15, 2009 More from Fields Below – Astonishing news about Permafrost Catastrophic permafrost melt is one of the likely abrupt climate change feedback scenarios. Major permafrost melt has already happened and the melt rate is increasing rapidly. Hundreds of thousands of years of frozen, partially decomposed tundra is at risk of thawing. Scientists aren’t…
(170 pages) Ecological thresholds occur when external factors, positive feedbacks, or nonlinear instabilities in a system cause changes to propagate in a domino-like fashion that is potentially irreversible. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached levels unprecedented in possibly the last 24 million years. CO2 concentrations have risen by 34%, mostly in the last several decades. Global…
Chris Field, Coordinating Chair of the Climate Impacts Working Group for the IPCC says: "We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected… In the fourth assessment, we looked at a very conservative range of climate outcomes, the fifth assessment should include futures with…
Among the things Hansen says must be done – moratorium on all coal fired power plants that do not sequester 100% of CO2, A complete analysis of the polar ice caps, a carbon tax instead of cap and trade. Hansen says: "Before the end of Obama’s first term, we will be seeing new record temperatures….
