Scientists measure massive ocean current

Monday, 26 April 2010 Anna Salleh
ABC
Antarctica

Scientists have measured the most powerful current that helps drive the circulation of the Southern Ocean, paving the way for more accurate climate models.

Australian oceanographer Dr Steve Rintoul, of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Hobart, and colleagues, report on the current today in Nature Geoscience.

"The current carries about 8 million cubic metres per second of water to the north and that's about the equivalent 40 times the flow of the world's largest river," says Rintoul.

Scientists have known there are three currents that transport water from Antarctica towards the equator.

These currents are driven by cold oxygen-rich water that sinks to the deep ocean at Antarctica, and flows northwards.

"This current that we've measured is part of a global pattern of ocean currents, which we often call the 'overturning circulation' or sometimes the 'ocean conveyor belt'," says Rintoul.

Such currents are important in revitalising the oceans with oxygen. They also affect the climate system because they determine how much heat and CO2 are stored and transported by the ocean.

The slower the current the less heat and carbon dioxide they can transport.

The current measured by Rintoul and colleagues flows at about a depth of about 4 kilometres, along the coast of Antarctica from Ross and Adelie before heading north around the edge of the Kerguelen Plateau, which supports Herd Island.

It flows at an average speed of 22 centimetres per second, which is 10 to 20 times larger than the greatest average speeds ever measured in water of this depth, says Rintoul.
Climate models

Rintoul says the new measurements will serve as a "benchmark" by which global climate models can be fine-tuned.

"Climate models will need to reproduce this current if they're going to capture correctly how the ocean transports heat, and therefore be able to provide reliable climate predictions," he says.

Rintoul says that current climate models have assumed a much weaker current.

"A stronger overturning circulation would transport more heat from the lower latitudes towards the poles," he says.

But, Rintoul says it is not possible to tell how exactly inclusion of these updated figures will impact on climate because of the complexity of the climate system.
Measurements

The researchers measured speed, salinity and temperature over a period of two years.

They used measuring devices attached to a 3-kilometre-long wire that was anchored to the ocean floor by old train wheels, along the path of the current.

Speed and salinity measurements helped them to identify the source of the currents in Antarctica.

Salinity measurements will also help to verify other scant data suggesting that oceans have become less salty since 1970s.

As water becomes less salty it becomes less dense and is less likely to sink, slowing down the currents, says Rintoul.

Melting sea ice major cause of warming in Arctic, new study reveals

Melting sea ice has been shown to be a major cause of warming in the Arctic according to a University of Melbourne, Australia study.

Findings published in Nature today reveal the rapid melting of sea ice has dramatically increased the levels of warming in the region in the last two decades.

Lead author Dr James Screen of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne says the increased Arctic warming was due to a positive feedback between sea ice melting and atmospheric warming.

"The sea ice acts like a shiny lid on the Arctic Ocean. When it is heated, it reflects most of the incoming sunlight back into space. When the sea ice melts, more heat is absorbed by the water. The warmer water then heats the atmosphere above it. "

"What we found is this feedback system has warmed the atmosphere at a faster rate than it would otherwise," he says.

Using the latest observational data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, Dr Screen was able to uncover a distinctive pattern of warming, highly consistent with the loss of sea ice.

"In the study, we investigated at what level in the atmosphere the warming was occurring. What stood out was how highly concentrated the warming was in the lower atmosphere than anywhere else. I was then able to make the link between the warming pattern and the melting of the sea ice."

The findings question previous thought that warmer air transported from lower latitudes toward the pole, or changes in cloud cover, are the primary causes of enhanced Arctic warming.

Dr Screen says prior to this latest data set being available there was a lot of contrasting information and inconclusive data.

"This current data has provided a fuller picture of what is happening in the region," he says.

Over the past 20 years the Arctic has experienced the fastest warming of any region on the planet. Researchers around the globe have been trying to find out why.

Researchers say warming has been partly caused by increasing human greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the Arctic sea ice has been declining dramatically. In summer 2007 the Arctic had the lowest sea ice cover on record. Since then levels have recovered a little but the long-term trend is still one of decreasing ice.

Professor Ian Simmonds, of the University's School of Earth Sciences and coauthor on the paper says the findings are significant.

"It was previously thought that loss of sea ice could cause further warming. Now we have confirmation this is already happening."

Provided by University of Melbourne

bit_pattern wrote:40 times the water carried by the Amzon, that's a LOT of water

Scientists measure massive ocean current

.....
"The current carries about 8 million cubic metres per second of water to the north and that's about the equivalent 40 times the flow of the world's largest river," says Rintoul.

That's 80 Sverdrups, about half the amount the Gulf Stream does at it's maximum (a surface current of course, so it's probably easier to go fast).

Such currents are important in revitalising the oceans with oxygen. They also affect the climate system because they determine how much heat and CO2 are stored and transported by the ocean.

The slower the current the less heat and carbon dioxide they can transport.

Cape Wind Farm, First U.S. Offshore, A Go

AP/Huffington Post First Posted: 04-28-10 11:34 AM | Updated: 04-29-10 01:05 AM

BOSTON — A coalition of groups that oppose the construction of a wind farm in Nantucket Sound say they will sue "immediately" to stop the project.

The announcement Wednesday came after the Obama administration gave approval to a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the project, which would be the nation's first offshore wind farm, is a key to the country's push toward more renewable energy.

But opponents say it will endanger marine life and commerce.

Audra Parker of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound says she can't stand by while public lands and "marred forever."

Other groups who say they'll sue include the Animal Welfare Institute and the Industrial Wind Action Group. A Wampanoag tribe also is expected to sue.

BOSTON (AP) – The Obama administration has approved what would be the nation's first offshore wind farm, off Cape Cod, inching the U.S. closer to harvesting an untapped domestic energy source – the steady breezes blowing along its vast coasts.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced his decision Wednesday in Boston, clearing the way for a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was in its ninth year of federal review, and Salazar stepped in early this year to bring what he called much-needed resolution to the bitterly contested proposal.

"We are beginning a new direction in our nation's energy future," Salazar said.

Cape Wind says it can generate power by 2012 and aims to eventually supply three-quarters of the power on Cape Cod, which has about 225,000 residents. Cape Wind officials say it will provide green jobs and a reliable domestic energy source, while offshore wind advocates are hoping it can jump-start the U.S. industry.

America's onshore wind industry is the world's largest, but higher upfront costs, tougher technological challenges and environmental concerns have held back the development of offshore wind farms.

Denmark installed the world's first offshore wind turbine 20 years ago. China has built its first commercial wind farm off Shanghai and plans several other projects.

The U.S. Department of Energy envisions offshore wind farms accounting for 4 percent of the country's electric generating capacity by 2030.

Major U.S. proposals include a project in Texas state waters, but most are concentrated along the East Coast north of Maryland, including projects in Delaware and New Jersey.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has been an enthusiastic backer of Cape Wind, pushing it as key to the state's efforts to increase its use of renewable energy. The lead federal agency reviewing the project, the Minerals Management Service, issued a report last year saying the project posed no major environmental problems.

Critics say the project endangers wildlife and air and sea traffic, while marring historic vistas. The late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy fought Cape Wind, calling it a special interest giveaway. The wind farm would be visible from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannisport.

Democrat U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, who represents Cape Cod, said allowing the project to move forward will open "a new chapter of legal battles and potential setbacks" for the wind power industry.

"Cape Wind is the first offshore wind farm to be built in the wrong place, in the wrong way, stimulating the wrong economies," Delahunt said Wednesday.

Home to some of the best-known beaches in the Northeast, Cape Cod has long been a destination for summer vacations and is famous for its small towns and homes in its namesake architectural style.

The project is about five miles off Cape Cod at its closest proximity to land and 14 miles off Nantucket at the greatest distance. According to visual simulations done for Cape Wind, on a clear day the turbines would be about a half-inch tall on the horizon at the nearest point and appear as specks from Nantucket.

The developers are being required to configure the wind farm to reduce visual effects on the outer cape and Nantucket Island, Salazar said.

Opponents also said the power from the pricey Cape Wind project, estimated to cost at least $2 billion, would be too expensive.

U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, the Republican who won Kennedy's seat this year, said the project will jeopardize tourism and affect aviation safety and the rights of the Native American tribes.

"Nantucket Sound is a national treasure that should be protected from industrialization," Brown said.

Associated Press writers Glen Johnson in Washington and Steve LeBlanc in Boston contributed to this report.

Hardest task is put on ice
May 1, 2010

As a science show exposes the fragility of the frozen continent's ecosystem, the Prime Minister's own policy fragility is laid bare.

ABC-TV's Catalyst program tends not to grab big headlines, though it should. Dedicated to scientific inquiry, it regularly informs its viewers of events, trends and discoveries that in a less jaded age would have us gripping the edge of our chairs in astonishment and waiting impatiently for the next instalment.

This week it followed the journeys of two of its reporters to Antarctica. Palaeontologist Dr Paul Willis went to the west of the great ice-covered continent and Mark Horstman went to the east.

It is the sort of frontier-blazing journalism that the great newspapers and magazines of the past tackled with gusto. Shrinking revenue and the end of the larger-than-life press magnates who were happy to ignore accountants and send their journalists and photographers into the wild blue yonder mean that the ABC remains among the last of the nation's media organisations that are able (thanks to a guaranteed publicly funded budget) and prepared to set forth on such exotic pursuits.

Willis and Horstman travelled in quest of what is happening to Antarctica's ice. The program they and their intrepid colleagues produced was, to say the least, confronting, even if the filming was of ethereal beauty and the reporting was relatively dispassionate.

To sum up what was a riveting story, the two reporters produced evidence that the sea and air temperatures of Antarctica were rising and had been for quite some time, great expanses of sea ice were thinning and breaking up, the continent's rivers - glaciers - were melting faster and the ice-sheets upon the actual continent were in danger of slipping into the sea. The latter is of most concern, because if the ice upon continental Antarctica ends up in the sea, the levels of the world's oceans will rise. And despite much optimistic talk in recent years about the ice sheet on the eastern side of the continent actually expanding, it turns out it has been losing significant mass since 2006.

There were no climate change sceptics to be found in the icy wastes or upon the waters of the Southern Ocean. Indeed, a young scientist named Dr Donna Roberts, who applies her endeavours to tiny planktonic snails called pteropods (or more liltingly, sea butterflies) to gauge the health of the cold ocean, reports without emotion that the shells of these creatures have decreased in thickness and become more fragile by 35 per cent in 10 years. She is even willing to give a date when the pteropods - canaries in a mine, if you like - will be unable to grow shells and will perish if current conditions continue: the winter of 2030. There are billions of tonnes of these creatures in the ocean, and they are a crucial part of the food chain. The reason their shells are thinning? More carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas - is being absorbed into the sea's water, changing its chemistry.

There were no climate change sceptics to be found in the icy wastes or upon the waters of the Southern Ocean. Indeed, a young scientist named Dr Donna Roberts, who applies her endeavours to tiny planktonic snails called pteropods (or more liltingly, sea butterflies) to gauge the health of the cold ocean, reports without emotion that the shells of these creatures have decreased in thickness and become more fragile by 35 per cent in 10 years. She is even willing to give a date when the pteropods - canaries in a mine, if you like - will be unable to grow shells and will perish if current conditions continue: the winter of 2030. There are billions of tonnes of these creatures in the ocean, and they are a crucial part of the food chain. The reason their shells are thinning? More carbon dioxide - the main greenhouse gas - is being absorbed into the sea's water, changing its chemistry.

Virginia Atty Gen. Opens Inquiry Into Ex-UVA Prof's Climate Change Work

First Posted: 05- 4-10 07:53 AM | Updated: 05- 4-10 08:23 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/0 ... 62249.html

In a move that has been called McCarthy-esque, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has ordered the University of Virginia to give to him scads of documents relating to former professor Michael Mann's work at the school. According to the Washington Post, Cuccinelli hopes to find out whether or not Mann was involved in taxpayer fraud while trying to obtain grants for climate change research.

The investigation has riled party lines, though mainly between politicians and professors. The Post has more:

The actions by Cuccinelli (R) -- who has sued the federal government over its regulation of greenhouse gases and has become a leading national voice in alleging that scientists have skewed data to show evidence the Earth is warming -- were cheered by those on the right, who have long targeted Mann as a leading proponent of the theory.

Mann's work has been repeatedly targeted by global warming skeptics, particularly after an e-mail from him referring to a statistical "trick" he used in his research surfaced in a series of leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. Mann has said the e-mail was taken out of context, and an inquiry by Penn State concluded that there was no evidence Mann has engaged in efforts to falsify or suppress data.

Mann and several academic groups decried Cuccinelli's subpoena as an unprecedented inquisition that could threaten academic freedom.

Cuccinelli defended the inquiry, saying that all it needs to be sorted out is "honesty." He hopes to discover if there were any "knowing inconsistencies" in Mann's work and grant requests while he jockeyed for taxpayer research funds.

Mann, who left UVA in 2005 for Penn State University, claims Cuccinelli is running a smear campaign against him.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:This may be a precursor of many such investigations to come in which the denialosphere attempts to defame and demonize climate scientists and sully their reputations.

It's a sure sign of desperation.

ginckgo wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:This may be a precursor of many such investigations to come in which the denialosphere attempts to defame and demonize climate scientists and sully their reputations.

It's a sure sign of desperation.

Maybe, but it's also consistent with his other beliefs and actions. They guy would make McCarthy blush.

Germany, Mexico call climate meeting helpful



KOENIGSWINTER, Germany – Some 40 nations agreed Tuesday on taking individual steps to fight global warming, but made little progress during a three-day meeting near Bonn toward drafting a new international climate change treaty.

Germany and Mexico, which co-hosted the meeting of environments ministers, said it had been an important step on the road to the next major U.N. climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, in December — although the most difficult issues remain unresolved.

"I would call this meeting very fruitful," Mexican Environment Minister Juan Elvira said in his closing remarks. "We want to use this momentum to make the conference in Cancun a success." Mexico plans several more rounds of formal and informal talks before the conference.

The meeting made headway on several sticking points, including saving forests and transferring climate technology from rich to poor countries, said Germany's environment minister, Norbert Roettgen. A final agreement on these topics is now within reach, he said.

"There is movement, no one can deny that," Roettgen said.

However, the toughest issues — cutting greenhouse gases, creating a system of financial aid from rich to poor countries, and measuring both — still need consideration.

At the meeting, ministers specifically discussed individual projects that could help reduce emissions or help cope with the effects of climate change, such as drought, flooding or heavy storms.

South Korea, for example, presented its Global Green Growth Institute, which will give developing nations advice on low carbon growth, the German minister said, while the U.S. and India are working on a project to make appliances more efficient.

France and Norway have a plan to get both rich and poor nations involved in stopping deforestation, and Germany wants to allocate euro350 million ($458 million) on forests from the euro1.2 billion it pledged for fast action, Roettgen said.

But environmental groups warned the global climate talks were still deeply troubled after the latest U.N. conference in Copenhagen last December, where a deep rift showed between industrialized nations and developing countries.

"Fundamentally, the difficult situation we had in Copenhagen has not changed," Greenpeace climate specialist Martin Kaiser said.

The Copenhagen conference was seen as a major disappointment, failing to reach a new legally binding treaty after two years of U.N.-sponsored negotiations.

Instead, it ended with a political declaration called the Copenhagen Accord, brokered at the last minute by President Barack Obama, but many of the 190 or so countries that attended were unhappy with it and some dismissed it outright.

Greenpeace warned that, until the U.S. has a climate law in place, real progress on drafting a new treaty will be tough.

"President Obama's climate policies have failed, and therefore there is no basis for an ambitious international treaty that could bring India and China on board," Kaiser said.

Outgoing U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer has said he does not expect a comprehensive international treaty to be finalized this year in Cancun.

Parts of a treaty — such as deals on forests or technology transfers — might be agreed by then, though, Roettgen said.

De Boer said this week's meeting showed "a very strong desire of ministers to reinvigorate the process."

He urged ministers to stay involved instead of leaving negotiations to experts.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100504/ap_on_sc/climate

Researchers find future temperatures could exceed livable limits

May 04, Space & Earth/Earth Sciences

This map shows the maximum wet-bulb temperatures reached in a climate model from a high carbon dioxide emissions future climate scenario with a global-mean temperature 12 degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than 2007. The white land areas exceed the wet-bulb limit at which researchers calculated humans would experience a potentially lethal level of heat stress. Credit: Purdue University/Matthew Huber
Reasonable worst-case scenarios for global warming could lead to deadly temperatures for humans in coming centuries, according to research findings from Purdue University and the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Researchers for the first time have calculated the highest tolerable "wet-bulb" temperature and found that this temperature could be exceeded for the first time in human history in future climate scenarios if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate.

Wet-bulb temperature is equivalent to what is felt when wet skin is exposed to moving air. It includes temperature and atmospheric humidity and is measured by covering a standard thermometer bulb with a wetted cloth and fully ventilating it.

The researchers calculated that humans and most mammals, which have internal body temperatures near 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, will experience a potentially lethal level of heat stress at wet-bulb temperature above 95 degrees sustained for six hours or more, said Matthew Huber, the Purdue professor of earth and atmospheric sciences who co-authored the paper that will be published in Thursday's (May 6) issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Although areas of the world regularly see temperatures above 100 degrees, really high wet-bulb temperatures are rare," Huber said. "This is because the hottest areas normally have low humidity, like the 'dry heat' referred to in Arizona. When it is dry, we are able to cool our bodies through perspiration and can remain fairly comfortable. The highest wet-bulb temperatures ever recorded were in places like Saudi Arabia near the coast where winds occasionally bring extremely hot, humid ocean air over hot land leading to unbearably stifling conditions, which fortunately are short-lived today."

The study did not provide new evaluations of the likelihood of future climate scenarios, but explored the impacts of warming. The challenges presented by the future climate scenarios are daunting in their scale and severity, he said.

"Whole countries would intermittently be subject to severe heat stress requiring large-scale adaptation efforts," Huber said. "One can imagine that such efforts, for example the wider adoption of air conditioning, would cause the power requirements to soar, and the affordability of such approaches is in question for much of the Third World that would bear the brunt of these impacts. In addition, the livestock on which we rely would still be exposed, and it would make any form of outside work hazardous."

While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change central estimates of business-as-usual warming by 2100 are seven degrees Fahrenheit, eventual warming of 25 degrees is feasible, he said.

"We found that a warming of 12 degrees Fahrenheit would cause some areas of the world to surpass the wet-bulb temperature limit, and a 21-degree warming would put half of the world's population in an uninhabitable environment," Huber said. "When it comes to evaluating the risk of carbon emissions, such worst-case scenarios need to be taken into account. It's the difference between a game of roulette and playing Russian roulette with a pistol. Sometimes the stakes are too high, even if there is only a small chance of losing."

Steven Sherwood, the professor at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, Australia, who is the paper's lead author, said prolonged wet-bulb temperatures above 95 degrees would be intolerable after a matter of hours.

"The wet-bulb limit is basically the point at which one would overheat even if they were naked in the shade, soaking wet and standing in front of a large fan," Sherwood said. "Although we are very unlikely to reach such temperatures this century, they could happen in the next."

Humans at rest generate about 100 watts of energy from metabolic activity. Wet-bulb temperature estimates provide upper limits on the ability of people to cool themselves by sweating and otherwise dissipating this heat, he said. In order for the heat dissipation process to work, the surrounding air must be cooler than the skin, which must be cooler than the core body temperature. The cooler skin is then able to absorb excess heat from the core and release it into the environment. If the wet-bulb temperature is warmer than the temperature of the skin, metabolic heat cannot be released and potentially dangerous overheating can ensue depending on the magnitude and duration of the heat stress.

The National Science Foundation-funded research investigated the long-term implications of sustained greenhouse gas emissions on climate extremes. The team used climate models to compare the peak wet-bulb temperatures to the global temperatures for various climate simulations and found that the peak wet-bulb temperature rises approximately 1 degree Centigrade for every degree Centigrade increase in tropical mean temperature.

Huber did the climate modeling on supercomputers operated by Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), Purdue's central information technology organization. Sherwood performed the wet-bulb calculations.

"These temperatures haven't been seen during the existence of hominids, but they did occur about 50 million years ago, and it is a legitimate possibility that the Earth could see such temperatures again," Huber said. "If we consider these worst-case scenarios early enough, perhaps we can do something to address the risk through mitigation or new technological advancements that will allow us to adapt."

More information: Paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/ ... 7.abstract

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.
Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial--scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That's what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of "well-established theories" and are often spoken of as "facts."

For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today's organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Much more can be, and has been, said by the world's scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business-as-usual practices. We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels.

We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.

British Summer Is Advancing, Experts Show

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2010) — The investigations, conducted by Amy Kirbyshire, a former undergraduate of the University, and Professor Grant Bigg, Head of the Department of Geography at the University, examined records of the first blooming date of early summer flowering plants (phenology) and the timing of first occurrences of warm `summer´ temperatures -- events linked with the onset of summer.

Rare 114-Year Record, Kept by Generations, Logs Changing Climate



The rain gauge at Mohonk is the brass 1896 original, supplied by the US Weather Bureau (now called the National Weather Service). (Credit: Linda Keyes/Courtesy Mohonk Preserve)

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2010) — Every day since Jan. 1, 1896, an observer has hiked to a spot at The Mohonk Preserve, a resort and nature area some 90 miles north of New York City, to record daily temperature and other conditions there. It is the rarest of the rare: a weather station that has never missed a day of temperature recording; never been moved; never seen its surroundings change; and never been tended by anyone but a short, continuous line of family and friends, using the same methods, for 114 years.

On top of that, observers have for decades recorded related phenomena such as first appearances of spring peepers, migratory birds and blooming plants. At a time when scientists are wrestling to ensure that temperature readings from thousands of divergent weather stations can be accurately compared with one another to form a large-scale picture, Mohonk offers a powerful confirmation of warming climate, as well as a compelling multigenerational yarn.

The story is told in an article by researchers from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Mohonk in the current issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.

Mohonk was founded in 1869 by the Smileys, a close-knit Quaker family that still runs the 7,200-acre property on a high ridge in the Shawangunk Mountains. When the fledgling United States Weather Bureau (later the National Weather Service) founded an official station there, it supplied thermometers, log sheets and other materials; Albert K. Smiley, one of the twin brothers who founded the place, volunteered to man it. The thermometer (occasionally replaced by a new duplicate over the decades) has always been kept in a box out of direct sun, in the same place, a short walk from the Mohonk hotel; a brass rain gauge at the end of a boat dock is the 1896 original. In 1906, Albert's half-brother, Daniel, took over the readings.

In 1930, Daniel's sons Bert and Doc followed. In 1937, Bert's son Daniel Smiley Jr., picked up the job. In addition, Daniel Jr., an old-school amateur naturalist, started recording many other observations, including first spring sightings of various creatures, on some 15,000 index cards. In 1988, the year before Daniel Jr. passed away, he handed his duties to Paul Huth, a longtime friend and employee. Today Huth or one of his staff still walks up to the box at 4 pm every day. The weather log, for many decades kept on hand-written sheets, lacks only 37 days of precipitation data from 1901, 1908 and 1909, due to a missing data sheet, and a few days when observers apparently didn't look at the rain gauge. The temperature record is complete.

Enter another father-son team. In 1971, Edward R. Cook, then serving as a military policeman at nearby West Point, became friends with Daniel Smiley Jr. Later, Cook became a tree-ring scientist and climatologist at Lamont, and began studying conifer trees at Mohonk--some of which turned out to be over 400 years old. From these, he extracted a rough record of weather in the Hudson Valley before Europeans settled. Then Edward Cook's son, Benjamin I. Cook, became a climate modeler at Lamont. It was under Benjamin's leadership that the Cooks and their colleagues at Mohonk began studying the instrumental readings and other data.

Starting in 1990s, Mohonk staffers spent hundreds of hours digitizing the records so they could be analyzed. "It is incredibly rare to have the level of continuity that we have at Mohonk," said Benjamin Cook. "Any one record cannot tell you anything definitively about climate globally or even regionally. But looking closely at sites like this can boost our confidence in the general trends that we see elsewhere, and in other records."

Indeed, the new study finds remarkable correlations with many other widely spread, but less continuous records. At Mohonk, average annual temperatures from 1896-2006 went up 2.63 degrees Fahrenheit. Global measurements in the same time over both land and oceans put the rise at about 1.2 to 1.4 degrees; but land temperatures are rising faster than those over the oceans, and those at Mohonk track the expected land trend closely. As expected also, temperatures are up in all seasons, but increases have been especially evident in summer heat waves, and this has been accelerating in recent years. Prior to 1980, it was rare for the thermometer to surpass about 89 degrees more than 10 days a year; since then, such events have come to Mohonk on at least 10 days a year -- and often, on more than 20 days. At the same time, the number of freezing days has been decreasing--about a day less every five years over the long term, but since the 1970s, at the accelerated rate of a day every two years. This also matches wide-scale observations in North America and elsewhere.

The Mohonk records do not match wider trends in one area. The start of the growing season -- the date on which freezing temperatures end -- has been advancing steadily in many places, but not here. Instead, the total number of yearly above-freezing days is increasing because more unusually warm days are puncturing the winter. As described in an earlier study in the International Journal of Climatology, also by the Cooks and Mohonk staff, the effect has been a sort of an intermittent false spring that may expose some early-flowering plants to frost damage. The earliest flowering native plants like hepatica, bloodroot and red-berried elder are likely to be most affected, said Benjamin Cook. He said it is still too early to tell the ecological effects of such disruptions, but added: "The data from Mohonk will be invaluable for expanding our knowledge of how ecosystems respond to climate change." Temperature data after 2006 has not yet been analyzed, but Mohonk maintains an up-to-date online archive of the weather data accessible to the public.

The new study comes at a time when some skeptics have questioned the accuracy of long-term weather records, on the basis that many stations have been moved or that surroundings have changed, occasionally putting instruments nearer to buildings, parking lots or other possible heat sources that could skew readings upward. However, recent studies including one by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found that such year-to-year inconsistencies cut both ways, and that instruments near developed spots actually more often read too cool rather than too hot. Researchers say every effort has been made to adjust for errors, and that errors one way or the other at individual stations basically cancel each other out, leaving the averages correct.

"Pictures, anecdotes, and cursory glances of poorly sited or maintained sites and weather stations may suggest problems, but until the data is analyzed it is impossible to conclude that the record is compromised by cold or warm biases," said Cook. "The advantage to Mohonk is that we can revisit the record in detail, with minimal corrections. This helps confirm the large-scale trends, and it helps us identify stations with errors that need to be corrected."

As for the long history behind the studies, he said: "We and the Smileys all just happened to be in the right place, at the right time."

Was Nashville flooding spurred by global warming?
May 6th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Seeing the pictures of the flooding in Nashville this past week may have reminded you of other recent U.S. floods — in Fargo, Iowa City and the Mississippi River Valley.

And if you keep up with global warming, you may be wondering if this trend isn’t proving what scientists have been telling us about extreme rain events growing more severe and more frequent under climate change.

That question certainly came up in Nashville, according Rich Hayes, deputy communications director at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a Nashville resident.

“A lot of my friends here have asked me if this disaster is related to global warming. The fact is that climate change increases the probability of some types of weather, including heavy rains and flooding. As average temperatures rise, more rain falls during the heaviest downpours. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we experienced in Nashville over the weekend,” Hayes said in a prepared statement on Thursday.

“Warmer air holds more moisture. We’ve all seen it. Next time you take a shower, notice how the water vapor hangs in the warm air after you turn off the hot water. When warm air holding moisture meets cooler air in the atmosphere, the moisture can condense onto tiny particles to form floating droplets. If those drops get bigger and become heavy enough, they fall as precipitation.

Hayes went on to cite a report by the United States Global Change Research Program, a collaborative effort involving 13 federal agencies, which found that “one of the most pronounced precipitation trends in the United States is the increasing frequency and intensity of heavy downpours.”

As for those climate skeptics who might think the Nashville event is just an extreme example of an otherwise good thing, i.e., more rain. Listen in to the rest of what that report predicts:

“More precipitation is falling during very heavy events, often with longer dry periods in between. Climate models project more heavy downpours and fewer light precipitation events.”

In other words, we get rain that doesn’t really work that well for us anymore. It comes in sudden, heavy downpours that produce a lot of runoff and erosion, and when the water can’t escape, flooding. In between, we get dry spells. Ask any farmer if this is a good thing.

It would be akin to having water to drink one week, but no water the next. Most organisms can’t live that way.

Hayes goes on to note that the rain that fell on Nashville was undoubtedly outside the norm. A record of 13 inches fell on Saturday and Sunday, nearly double the previous record set in 1979, and that followed a hurricane.

All these flood events are different. Fargo and the Mississippi Valley had their own distinct issues. Fargo faced rapid heavy snow melt. In Iowa, the flooding was exacerbated by monoculture farming that has left the flat lands susceptible to run off. But they seem to be happening more frequently.



Increases in Very Heavy Precipitation 1958-2007 (Image: U.S. Global Change Research Program)

In Nashville, the sheer volume of rain in a short time overwhelmed the city. Unfortunately, under climate change models, what’s been outside the norm is becoming the norm.

The report cited by Hayes notes that “very heavy rain and snow events, defined as the heaviest 1 percent of all precipitation events, now drop 67 percent more water on the Northeast; 31 percent more on the Midwest and 20 percent more on the Southeast than they did 50 years ago.” (See image above from the USGCRP.)

“If the fossil fuel emissions that cause global warming continue unabated, scientists expect the amount of rainfall during the heaviest precipitation events across the country to increase more than 40 percent by the end of the century. Even if we dramatically curbed emissions, these downpours would still increase, but by only a little more than 20 percent,” according to the UCS statement.

“It’s going to take Nashville a long time to recover from the flooding,” says Hayes. “But when the flood waters do recede, and local officials turn to the question of how we plan for the future, they need to take climate change into account.”

Lizards Face Extinction From Rising Global Temperatures: Study

First Posted: 05-14-10 10:44 AM | Updated: 05-14-10 10:54 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wire ... hreatened/
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Sometimes it can be too darn hot even for a lizard.

Cold-blooded creatures that have to soak up the rays to get going might seem like the last animals you would expect to be threatened by global warming.

Well, you would be wrong, researchers say.

It turns out lizards are going extinct in many places, and scientists who have studied them say it's because of rising temperatures. The heats affects reproduction.

"The results were clear. These lizards need to bask in the sun to warm up, but if it gets too hot they have to retreat into the shade, and then they can't hunt for food," said Barry Sinervo of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

He said he was "stunned and saddened" by the finding, reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

"This is an extinction alert for all areas of the globe and for all the various species of lizards," Sinervo said.

Lizards are an important part of the food chain because they are major consumers of insects and in turn are eaten by birds, snakes and other animals.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," Sinervo said. "It heralds that we have entered a new age, the age of climate-forced extinctions. Extinctions are not in the future. They are happening now."

In Mexico's Yucatan region, scientists found that the time lizards could be out foraging had disappeared. "They would barely have been able to emerge to bask before having to retreat," Sinervo said.

Jack Sites, a biology professor at Brigham Young University, said high temperatures during the reproductive cycle prevent the animals from eating enough to have the energy to support a clutch of eggs or embryos.

"The heat doesn't kill them. They just don't reproduce," he said. "It doesn't take too much of that and the population starts to crash."

According to Sinervo, the extinctions are concentrated in what biologists call hot spots of biodiversity, where there are lots of species.

This includes locations in Mexico, where a large number of species have evolved in the different volcanic mountain ranges. He said there also are massive extinctions occurring in the Amazonian Basin and equatorial Africa, though researchers don't know the magnitude because not all the species have been described from these areas.

In Madagascar, the Indian Ocean island off the southeastern coast of Africa, the estimate is that one-fifth of all the local lizard populations are now extinct, Sinervo said. "This will surely have driven some endemic species to the brink of extinction, if not over the precipice," he said in an interview via e-mail.

Sinervo was doing field work in France when he noticed a decline among lizards. While resurveying areas that had been studied in the 1990s, it became clear that lizards were gone from some spots -- levels of 30 percent extinction across southern Europe, for example.

He and French researchers contacted colleagues around the world and found similar trends in the United States, Mexico and elsewhere.

"I was surprised at how fast researchers began sending us data," he said. "That's what happens though. When scientists see a problem, with global evidence backing it, they come together."

Funders of the research included the National Geographic Society, University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States; University of California, Santa Cruz; U.S. National Science Foundation; University of Paris; University of Toulouse; National Council on Science and Technology of Mexico; National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina; Academy of Finland; National Autonomous University of Mexico; American Museum of Natural History; Australian Research Council; and Brigham Young University.

On the Net: Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

NASA: Easily the hottest April — and hottest Jan-April — in temperature record
Plus a new record 12-month global temperature, as predicted
May 16, 2010