Global Warming | News & Views

That snow outside is what global warming looks like

There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere. With the help of the severe weather analyst John Mason and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, I’ve been through as much of the scientific literature as I can lay hands on (see my website for the references). Here’s what seems to be happening.

The global temperature maps published by Nasa present a striking picture. Last month’s shows a deep blue splodge over Iceland, Spitsbergen, Scandanavia and the UK, and another over the western US and eastern Pacific. Temperatures in these regions were between 0.5C and 4C colder than the November average from 1951 and 1980. But on either side of these cool blue pools are raging fires of orange, red and maroon: the temperatures in western Greenland, northern Canada and Siberia were between 2C and 10C higher than usual. Nasa’s Arctic oscillations map for 3-10 December shows that parts of Baffin Island and central Greenland were 15C warmer than the average for 2002-9. There was a similar pattern last winter. These anomalies appear to be connected.

The weather we get in UK winters, for example, is strongly linked to the contrasting pressure between the Icelandic low and the Azores high. When there’s a big pressure difference the winds come in from the south-west, bringing mild damp weather from the Atlantic. When there’s a smaller gradient, air is often able to flow down from the Arctic. High pressure in the icy north last winter, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, blocked the usual pattern and “allowed cold air from the Arctic to penetrate all the way into Europe, eastern China, and Washington DC”. Nasa reports that the same thing is happening this winter.

Sea ice in the Arctic has two main effects on the weather. Because it’s white, it bounces back heat from the sun, preventing it from entering the sea. It also creates a barrier between the water and the atmosphere, reducing the amount of heat that escapes from the sea into the air. In the autumns of 2009 and 2010 the coverage of Arctic sea ice was much lower than the long-term average: the second smallest, last month, of any recorded November. The open sea, being darker, absorbed more heat from the sun in the warmer, light months. As it remained clear for longer than usual it also bled more heat into the Arctic atmosphere. This caused higher air pressures, reducing the gradient between the Iceland low and the Azores high.

So why wasn’t this predicted by climate scientists? Actually it was, and we missed it. Obsessed by possible changes to ocean circulation (the Gulf Stream grinding to a halt), we overlooked the effects on atmospheric circulation. A link between summer sea ice in the Arctic and winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere was first proposed in 1914. Close mapping of the relationship dates back to 1990, and has been strengthened by detailed modelling since 2006.

Will this become the pattern? It’s not yet clear. Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute says that the effects of shrinking sea ice “could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia”. James Hansen of Nasa counters that seven of the last 10 European winters were warmer than average. There are plenty of other variables: we can’t predict the depth of British winters solely by the extent of sea ice.

I can already hear the howls of execration: now you’re claiming that this cooling is the result of warming! Well, yes, it could be. A global warming trend doesn’t mean that every region becomes warmer every month. That’s what averages are for: they put local events in context. The denial of man-made climate change mutated first into a denial of science in general and then into a denial of basic arithmetic. If it’s snowing in Britain, a thousand websites and quite a few newspapers tell us, the planet can’t be warming.

According to Nasa’s datasets, the world has just experienced the warmest January to November period since the global record began, 131 years ago; 2010 looks likely to be either the hottest or the equal hottest year. This November was the warmest on record.

>>> Please read the full article here

Global warming has slowed because of pollution

From The Telegraph

The latest figures from more than 20 scientific institutions around the world show that global temperatures are higher than ever.

However the gradual rise in temperatures over the last 30 years is slowing slightly. Global warming since the 1970s has been 0.16C (0.3F) but the rise in the last decade was just 0.05C (0.09F), according to the Met Office.
Sceptics claim this as evidence man made global warming is a myth.

But in a new report the Met Office said the reduced rate of warming can be easily explained by a number of factors. And indeed the true rate of warming caused by man made greenhouse gases could be greater than ever.
One of the major factors is pollution over Asia, where the huge growth in coal-fired power stations mean aerosols like sulphur are being pumped into the air. This reflects sunlight, cooling the land surface temperature.
Dr Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice, said pollution may be causing a cooling effect.

“A possible increase in aerosol emissions from Asia in the last decade may have contributed to substantially to the recent slowdown,” she said. “Aerosols cool the climate by reflecting the sunlight.”
Another factor that has reduced the rate of warming is a prolonged minimum in the solar cycle, meaning the Earth is receiving slightly less heat from the sun.

In the long term the whole world, including Britain, is warming, according to Dr Pope.

“In the grip of a cold spell people find it difficult to understand global warming. But if you look at the long term trends we are in fact experiencing fewer freezing winters and more heatwaves,” she said.
Dr Pope also said that new technologies, that improve the accuracy of measurements, show that the rate of increasing temperatures over the last ten years could be slightly more than previously estimated.
She said that warming in Arctic is likely to be greater than the rest of the world, but statistics are not included because of the lack of weather stations in the Poles.

Dr Pope said the latest figures are the strongest evidence yet that the rise in global temperatures is being caused by the massive increase in man made greenhouse gases over recent decades.

She urged politicians to stop the trend before the rate of warming causes the ice caps to melt and more extreme weather events around the world.
“On the eve of the latest United Nations talks on climate change in Mexico, the Met Office analysis reveals that the evidence for man-made warming has grown stronger in the last year,” she said.

More than 190 countries are meeting in Cancun, Mexico for climate change talks later this month to discuss the best way to bring down emissions so that global temperature rise remains below 2C (3.6F).
At the moment global temperature rise is 0.8C (1.4F)above pre-industrial levels.

>>> Please read the full article here

Open shop doors ‘waste 10 tonnes of carbon emissions’

British retailers could save up to ten tonnes of carbon each year if they were to shut their doors, a new study suggests.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge suggested shops are wasting a significant amount of energy generating heat, which then escapes through open doors.

It was estimated that shops could slash their energy bills by up to 50 percent if they were to close their doors during the winter months.

The ten tonnes of carbon is equivalent to that produced by three flights between London and Hong Kong.

Commenting on the findings, Jeannie Dawkins, director of the Close the Doors Campaign, which commissioned the research, said: “It’s time for retailers to acknowledge the massive contribution they are making to energy waste and carbon emissions if they heat the street.”

The findings are based on the emissions of the independent Cambridge Toy shop and the branch of Ryman stationary shop in the city.

Foreign secretary William Hague and Professor Sir David King, a former government chief scientific adviser and director of Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford, have both pledged support for the Close the Doors campaign.

>>> Please read the full article here

Rainforests ‘can cope with global warming’

Previous assumptions that rainforests could become extinct due to global warming have been challenged in a new study.  Conducted by The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and published in the journal Science, the report looked at plant remains embedded in rocks during a period called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, where carbon levels increased.

During this period world temperatures were increased by three to five degrees C for a period of around 200,000 years.  The researchers found that the forests could actually have been considered to thrive in these conditions, with new plants evolving much faster than existing species, leading to an increase in biodiversity.

Carlos Jaramillo said that evidence suggests plants are already capable of coping with increases in both temperatures and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  ”What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn’t find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn’t find that the precipitation decreased,” the Guardian quoted the expert as saying.

The findings perhaps contradict those of a study published in the same journal earlier this year, which suggested droughts in the southern hemisphere have decreased the ability of the world’s forests to absorb CO2.

>>> Please read the full article here

Warming ‘destabilises aquatic ecosystems’

Future warming could have “profound implications” for the stability of freshwater ecosystems, a study warns.

Researchers said warmer water affected the distribution and size of plankton – tiny organisms that form the basis of food chains in aquatic systems.

The team warmed plankton-containing vessels by 4C (7F) – the temperature by which some of the world’s rivers and lakes could warm over the next century.

The findings appear in the journal Global Change Biology.

“Our study provides almost the first direct experimental evidence that – in the short-term – if a [freshwater] ecosystem warms up, it has profound implications for the size structure of plankton communities,” said lead author Gabriel Yvon-Durocher from Queen Mary, University of London.

“Essentially, what we observed within the phytoplankton (microscopic plants) community was that it switched from a system that was dominated by larger autotrophs (plants that photosynthesise) to a system that was dominated by smaller autotrophs with a lower standing biomass.”

Dr Yvon-Durocher added that a greater abundance, but lower overall biomass, of smaller phytoplankton had “very important implications for the stability of plankton food webs”.

“This meant that the distribution of biomass between plants and animals changed from a… situation where you had a large amount of plants and a smaller amount of animal consumers to an ‘inverted pyramid’ where you have a smaller quantity of plant biomass and a larger amount of animal biomass,” he told BBC News.

“Systems that tend to have larger consumer biomass relative to the resource biomass tend to be less stable over time.”

>>> Please read the full article here

Eco Picture of The Day – July 2010 Top 10 Eco Pic’s

Below we have listed the Eco Pic of The Day July Top 10 Eco Pic’s.

Click the link to see the picture;

1 - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

2 - Plastic bottle catamaran crosses Australian finish line

3 - Scrapped taxis in India

4 - Ecover factory recycle bins

5 - Dead whale found pinned to alaska cruise ship

6 - Creating art out of plastic debris

7 - Heathrow Terminal 1 recycling bins

8 - Fight for your right to clean air emissions equality

9 - Ecover orginal advertising

10 - Dead Oystercatcher killed by plastic waste

Hollywood stars join politicians at Bolivia’s ‘cool’ global warming summit

Evo Morales says talks will give a voice to world’s poorest and encourage governments to be ambitious after Copenhagen

Hollywood stars join politicians at Bolivia’s ‘cool’ global warming summit

Evo Morales says talks will give a voice to world’s poorest and encourage governments to be ambitious after Copenhagen

John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 April 2010 17.03 BST

In what is becoming the hippest environment meeting of the year, presidents, politicians, intellectuals, scientists and Hollywood stars will join more than 15,000 indigenous people and thousands of grass roots groups from more than 100 countries to debate climate change in one of the world’s poorest nations.

The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth which opens next week in the small Bolivian town of Cochabamba, will have no direct bearing on the UN climate talks being conducted by 192 governments. But Bolivian President Evo Morales says it will give a voice to the poorest people of the world and encourage governments to be far more ambitious following the failure of the Copenhagen summit.

Morales will use the meeting to announce the world’s largest referendum, with up to 2 billion people being asked to vote on ways out of the climate crisis. Bolivia also wants to create a UN charter of rights and to draft an action plan to set up an international climate justice tribunal.

“The only way to get climate negotiations back on track not just for Bolivia or other countries, but for all of life, biodiversity, our Mother Earth is to put civil society back into the process. The only thing that can save mankind from a [climate] tragedy is the exercise of global democracy,” said Bolivia’s United Nations Ambassador Pablo Solon in Bonn, at the end of the latest UN talks.

“There will be no secret discussions behind closed doors. The debate and the proposals will be led by communities on the frontlines of climate change and by organisations and individuals from civil society dedicated to tackling the climate crisis,” he said.

More than 90 governments are sending delegations to Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third largest city. Also expected to attend are scientists such as James Hansen, James Cameron, the director of Avatar, the linguist Noam Chomsky, author Naomi Klein of Canada, anti-globalisation activist José Bové of France, and actors Danny Glover, Robert Redford and Susan Sarandon are expected.

The meeting will coincide with celebrations of the Cochabamba “water war” of 2000 when a revolt against the privatisation of water in the city acted as an inspiration for social movements across Latin America and indirectly to the election of Morales as Bolivia’s president.

“We hope that this unique format will help shift power back to the people, which is where it needs to be on this critical issue for all humanity. We don’t expect agreement on everything, but at least we can start to discuss openly and sincerely in a way that didn’t happen in Copenhagen,” said Solón.

>>> Please read the full article at the guardian, here

Climate change could exacerbate hay fever

The number of people suffering from hay fever is expected to soar over the next two decades as a result of pollution and climate change.

According to the Hay Fever Health Report, commissioned by Kleenex, half the UK population could have the condition by 2030.

Hay fever is a type of allergic reaction caused by pollen or spores and affects the nose, sinuses, throat and eyes, causing cold-like symptoms.

According to the NHS, around ten million people in England are currently affected by it, but the report suggests this could rise to 32 million 20 years from now.

Professor Jean Emberlin, author of the report, said growth in the UK’s urban population will accentuate the natural rise in hay fever.

“Climate change will also impact upon the timing and severity of pollen seasons making them longer and more severe,” she added.

Hay fever is more likely to occur in those with a family history of allergies, particularly asthma or eczema.

>>> Please read the full article here

Government announces low-carbon transport funding

The UK government has announced the launch of a £30 million fund to help reduce transport emissions and improve air quality in major cities.

It will deliver low-carbon buses across England, with local authorities and bus operators being given the chance to bid for additional funds to buy more vehicles.

Some £3.5 million will also be set aside to support increases in the use of biogas to power cars, buses and homes.

Biogas is produced from waste material and the government believes it can play a crucial role in helping the country meet its carbon reduction targets.

“These measures will not only help us to reduce emissions but also provide a sustainable and economically viable alternative to traditional carbon-based transport,” said transport secretary Andrew Adonis.

The announcement follows the publication of a report by the House of Commons environmental audit committee, which claimed that air pollution contributes to the early deaths of around 50,000 people in the UK each year.

>>> Please read the full article here

Met Office to look again at global warming records

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

The Met Office is to re-examine 160 years of global temperature records following the ‘climategate’ scandal.

The project, in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), will gather the original temperature records from thousands of weather stations around the world. The readings will be double-checked and new information that has become available, such as improved understanding of atmospheric change, will be added. The data will then be independently analysed to assess how the temperature has changed over different regions.

The new analysis, that will take three years, will not only provide a more detailed picture of global warming but boost public confidence in the science of climate change.

Climate change sceptics claim that emails stolen from the University of East Anglia show scientists were willing to manipulate global warming data in a scandal known as ‘climategate’.
In another scandal known as ‘glaciergate’ the UN body in charge of climate change science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was forced to retract a claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
However leading scientists, including the Royal Society, insist the case for man-made global warming is convincing and it remains a threat to the world.

Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice, at the Met Office, said the new global temperature analyses would not change the trend of global warming.
But she said it would verify the existing data and provide more information so the world can better adapt to climate change.

Read the full article at Telegraph Earth