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Study: Less multiyear Arctic ice exists

BOULDER, Colo, 15 Jan. (UPI) -- A U.S. study found less Arctic sea ice is surviving summer melt, causing a reduction in the amount of thick, old ice that forms perennial ice cover. Although past studies have described the extent of multi-year ice -- ice that survives at least one melt season -- little is known about changes within the multi-year ice cover itself.

Using satellite-derived estimates of sea ice age and thickness, a team led by James Maslanik of the University of Colorado-Boulder constructed a thickness record for 1982 to the present. The researchers discovered 58 percent of multiyear ice consists of relatively young and thin 2- to 3-year-old ice, compared with 35 percent during the mid-1980s, with a nearly complete loss of the oldest, thickest ice.

The scientists said the decline helps expose more open water, which increases the absorption rate of solar energy. That not only helps explain recent large ice loss trends but also increase the potential of the current younger, thinner Arctic ice cover to rapidly melt.
The research, which included National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists appears, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Source United Press International.

Posted: January 17, 2008 - Permalink

It’s already later than we realize in the struggle to arrest climate change

Desmogblog.com, 14 Jan 08—Human activity currently generates 7.2 billion tons of carbon, or about 26.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from fossil fuels, according to the Fourth Assessment Report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Paul Brown, in Global Warming: The Last Chance for Change , says we are already committed to a further 0.7 degrees C, which would add up to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. At that point 18% of the world’s species will die, and 400 million more people worldwide will be threatened by flooding.

It gets worse. As Earth warms, "feedbacks" occur. As Arctic ice melts, there will be less to reflect heat, warming further, melting more, and so on. Were Earth to get roughly 2 degrees warmer than pre-Industrial times, melting polar ice could become irreversible with global warming surpassing the human capacity to control the process. There is a fair chance of reaching 2 degrees if greenhouse gases are allowed to build up to roughly 450 ppm of CO2, just 75 more units.

James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has said we have until 2015 to prevent dangerous global warming.

Given the magnitude of the problem, there is a very short time available to arrest it. It’s crucial for the U.S. and Canada to stop waiting for China and India to blink, and go ahead and impose mandatory emissions caps. China and India should do the same.

Read more at DeSmogBlog.com.

Posted: January 17, 2008 - Permalink

Scientists: Earth Barely Supports Life

LiveScience, 09 Jan. 08—AUSTIN, Texas—If Earth had been slightly smaller and less massive, life might never have gained a foothold.
They key to life on Earth as we know it, scientists figure, is plate tectonics — the forces that move continents and build mountains. And the more massive a world is, the thinner its plates are. Thinner plates are weaker and more easily moved and so able to support the kinds of crucial planet-shaping plate tectonics experienced on this planet over the billions of years that life evolved from simple one-celled organisms to complex creatures that can fly, swim and read.
"Plate tectonics are essential to life as we know it," said Diana Valencia of Harvard University, who presented research on the topic here Wednesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. "Our calculations show that bigger is better when it comes to the habitability of rocky planets."
The study reveals Earth has been on the edge of habitability from the beginning, and just eked by to allow life-friendly conditions.
Read more at Live Science.

Posted: January 17, 2008 - Permalink

Polar Bears Threatened: Million Of Acres To Be Opened To Oil And Gas Activities

ScienceDaily (07 Jan. 08) — The Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency within the Department of Interior (DOI), issued its Final Notice of Intent for the Chukchi Lease Sale 193 opening approximately 29.7 million acres of the pristine Chukchi Sea to oil and gas activities on January 2.
This controversial announcement comes just days before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is due to decide if the polar bear should be listed under the Endangered Species Act due to severe habitat loss from melting sea ice in Alaska's Arctic Ocean caused by global warming. If the polar bear is listed, FWS is required to designate critical habitat for the bear, which may include the same waters contained in Lease Sale 193. The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas support an estimated one-fifth of the world's polar bear population.
"The polar bear's existence is increasingly threatened by the impact of climate change-induced loss of sea ice," said Margaret Williams, managing director of WWF's Kamchatka and Bering Sea Program. "The chances for the continued survival of this icon of the Arctic will be greatly diminished if its remaining critical habitat is turned into a vast oil and gas field." Read more at Science Daily.

Posted: January 17, 2008 - Permalink

12 Simple Ways To Live A Greener Lifestyle In 2008

ScienceDaily (14 Jan. 08) — Want to begin to be more environmentally friendly in 2008 but can't afford a hybrid car? Don't worry — there are plenty of ways to lessen your impact on the environment that don't come with such a daunting price tag, says Matt Malten, assistant vice chancellor for campus sustainability at Washington University in St. Louis. And they likely will even save you some money without cramping your carbon-creating lifestyle — much.
Use fluorescent light bulbs. Yes, they're more expensive than incandescent light bulbs ($2 vs. $.50), but switch out your incandescent bulb for compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) in your house, and you could save up to 30 percent on your energy bill.
2. Keep your car in excellent condition. Of course, it's best to walk, bicycle, carpool or use mass transit for your daily commuting, but for those who must use their own vehicles, improving even the most inefficient of cars' fuel mileage is as easy as keeping your tires properly inflated and changing your oil and air filters regularly.
3. Make sure your dishwasher and clothes washer and dryer are full before using them.
4. Wash clothes in cold water and line dry.
5. Shut down and unplug idle electronics.
6. Skip the bottled water.
7. Supply your own bags and leftover containers.
8. Buy items with less packaging, and with packaging that your community recycles.
9. Support local farmers.
10. Plant a tree in your backyard.
11. Try used products first.
12. Ask about green power.
Read more at Science Daily.

Posted: January 17, 2008 - Permalink

Air pollution causes sperm mutations

Published online 13 January 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.439

Male mice breathing city air carry more mutations.

Air pollution can cause DNA mutations in the sperm of mice reared in an industrial city, researchers have found. The results add to ongoing concerns about the effects of air pollution on human health and fertility.

Air pollution has been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular difficulties, developmental defects and lung cancer in humans. But researchers have only begun to tackle the effect of pollution on sperm.

“There has been work on the reproductive effects of pollution, but that has largely focused on outcomes of pregnancy, not on male effects,” says Samet. Read more at NatureNews.

Posted: January 17, 2008 - Permalink

Research: 10 year Western Antarctic ice mass loss 59%; Peninsula losses increased 140%

Nature Geoscience Published online: 13 January 2008 and Washington Post, January 14, 2008; Page A01— Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates. "Without doubt, Antarctica as a whole is now losing ice yearly, and each year it's losing more," said Eric Rignot, lead author of a paper.

Rignot said the tonnage of yearly ice loss in Antarctica is approaching that of Greenland, where ice sheets are known to be melting rapidly in some parts and where ancient glaciers have been in retreat. He said the change in Antarctica could become considerably more dramatic because the continent's western shelf, an expanse of ice and snow roughly the size of Texas, is largely below sea level and has broad and flat expanses of ice that could move quickly. The Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking despite land temperatures for the continent remaining essentially unchanged, except for the fast-warming peninsula.

"Both Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet are huge bodies of ice and snow, which are sitting on land," said Rajendra Pachauri, chief of the IPCC, the United Nations' scientific advisory group. "If, through a process of melting, they collapse and are submerged in the sea, then we really are talking about sea-level rises of several meters." (A meter is about a yard.) Last year, the IPCC tentatively estimated that sea levels would rise by eight inches to two feet by the end of the century, assuming no melting in West Antarctica.
Read more at Wash Post, Nature and ScienceDaily.

Posted: January 17, 2008 - Permalink

400 Prominent Scientists Dispute Global Warming - Bunk!

Desmogblog, Richard Littlemore, 21 Dec 07—Climate change denial lives - though not nearly to the extent that Swiftboater Marc Morano would have you believe in his latest overstatement about "prominent scientists" who dispute man-made global warming.

Morano's list of "over 400" alleged climate quibblers includes the usual deniers for hire Fred Singer, Tim Ball, Christoper Monckton, PR people who have no credibility on issues scientific and who each have a handsome record of saying things widely and demonstrably at variance with the truth.

There is also a group of second-order "scientists," who are not scientists at all.

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Posted: December 23, 2007 - Permalink

2007: The year in environment

New Scientist News Service, 22 Dec.—It is hard to round-up the events of 2007 without leading with climate change. On the scientific and political fronts global warming came to the fore, with the publication of the latest consensus report on climate change science, a Nobel Peace Prize, international commitment to drafting a successor to the Kyoto protocol, a contentious sceptic documentary, and a U-turn on behalf of the Bush administration.

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Posted: December 23, 2007 - Permalink

Scientists Find Good News About Methane Bubbling Up From The Ocean Floor

ScienceDaily (Dec. 23, 2007) — Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is emitted in great quantities as bubbles from seeps on the ocean floor near Santa Barbara. About half of these bubbles dissolve into the ocean, but the fate of this dissolved methane remains uncertain. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered that only one percent of this dissolved methane escapes into the air –– good news for the Earth's atmosphere.

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Posted: December 23, 2007 - Permalink

H5N1 Avian influenza Update

GWAA Climate Change News, 21 Dec.— Since 1996 the World Health Organization has been tracking cases of animal and human infection events. The first animal outbreak was discovered on a goose farm in Guangdong Province, China. A year later, human infections were reported in Hong Kong. Eighteen cases were reported , 6 fatal. Since then, spread by domesticated and wild birds, the highly pathogenic N5N1 is circling the globe. [1]
Mortality rate from H5N1 is 60%. [5]

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Posted: December 23, 2007 - Permalink

Arrogance and Warming

New York Times, Editorial, 21 Dec.—The Bush administration’s decision to deny California permission to regulate and reduce global warming emissions from cars and trucks is an indefensible act of executive arrogance that can only be explained as the product of ideological blindness and as a political payoff to the automobile industry.

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Posted: December 23, 2007 - Permalink

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