Antarctic ice melt at highest level in 1,000 years
Researchers say the summer ice melt in Antarctica has been 10 times greater during the last 50 years than the last 600 years.
CANBERRA, Australia — The summer ice melt in parts of Antarctica is at its highest level in 1,000 years, Australian and British researchers reported Monday, adding new evidence of the impact of global warming on sensitive Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves.
Researchers from the Australian National University and the British Antarctic Survey found data taken from an ice core also shows the summer ice melt has been 10 times more intense over the past 50 years compared with 600 years ago.
"It's definitely evidence that the climate and the environment is changing in this part of Antarctica," lead researcher Nerilie Abram said.
Abram and her team drilled a 400-yard deep ice core on James Ross Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, to measure historical temperatures and compare them with summer ice melt levels in the area.
They found that while the temperatures have gradually increased by 2.9 degrees over 600 years, the rate of ice melting has been most intense over the past 50 years.
That shows the ice melt can increase dramatically in climate terms once temperatures hit a tipping point.
"Once your climate is at that level where it is starting to go above zero degrees, the amount of melt that will happen is very sensitive to any further increase in temperature you may have," Abram said.
Robert Mulvaney, from the British Antarctic Survey, said the stronger ice melts are likely responsible for faster glacier ice loss and some of the dramatic collapses from the Antarctic ice shelf over the past 50 years.
Their research was published in the Nature Geoscience journal.
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Weather Extremes Leave Parts of US Grid Buckling
By: Matthew L. Wald and John Schwartz|The New York Times
From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois, the concrete, steel and sophisticated engineering that undergird the nation’s infrastructure are being taxed to worrisome degrees by heat, drought and vicious storms.On a single day this month here, a US Airways regional jet became stuck in asphalt that had softened in 100-degree temperatures, and a subway train derailed after the heat stretched the track so far that it kinked — inserting a sharp angle into a stretch that was supposed to be straight. In East Texas, heat and drought have had a startling effect on the clay-rich soils under highways, which “just shrink like crazy,” leading to “horrendous cracking,” said Tom Scullion, senior research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. In Northeastern and Midwestern states, he said, unusually high heat is causing highway sections to expand beyond their design limits, press against each other and “pop up,” creating jarring and even hazardous speed bumps.
Excessive warmth and dryness are threatening other parts of the grid as well. In the Chicago area, a twin-unit nuclear plant had to get special permission to keep operating this month because the pond it uses for cooling water rose to 102 degrees; its license to operate allows it to go only to 100. According to the Midwest Independent System Operator, the grid operator for the region, a different power plant had had to shut because the body of water from which it draws its cooling water had dropped so low that the intake pipe became high and dry; another had to cut back generation because cooling water was too warm.
The frequency of extreme weather is up over the past few years, and people who deal with infrastructure expect that to continue. Leading climate models suggest that weather-sensitive parts of the infrastructure will be seeing many more extreme episodes, along with shifts in weather patterns and rising maximum (and minimum) temperatures. “We’ve got the ‘storm of the century’ every year now,” said Bill Gausman, a senior vice president and a 38-year veteran at the Potomac Electric Power Company, which took eight days to recover from the June 29 “derecho” storm that raced from the Midwest to the Eastern Seaboard and knocked out power for 4.3 million people in 10 statesand the District of Columbia.
In general, nobody in charge of anything made of steel and concrete can plan based on past trends, said Vicki Arroyo, who heads the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, a clearinghouse on climate-change adaptation strategies.
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Australia Is So Hot They Had To Add a New Color to the Weather Map
The last four months of 2012 were the hottest on record in Australia. But January is shaping up to be even hotter.
Between Jan. 3 and Jan. 6, an amazing 18 different weather stations recorded all-time temperature highs, according to a special climate statement
from the country’s Bureau of Meteorology. Those included a mark of 118
degrees in Eucla, Western Australia, and an unheard-of 107 in Hobart,
Tasmania, which bills itself as the gateway to Antarctica.
But the bureau’s forecasters believe the worst is yet to come—which
is why they’ve added a new color to their official weather maps, for
temperatures up to 54 degrees Celsius (129 Fahrenheit). In other words,
they believe the country’s all-time high temperature of 123 degrees, set
in 1960, is about to go down, and hard.
Earlier today, the Sydney Morning Herald grabbed a screenshot of an official weather prediction map that showed a splotch of shocking purple over South Australia,
the brand-new indicator for temperatures in excess of 50 Celsius (122
Fahrenheit). It appears the bureau has since eased its predictions for
Monday, as the purple has receded for the time being. But the new color
lives on in the temperature index to the right of the maps, reflecting a
new climate reality in which a 129-degree day would no longer be off
the charts.
Meanwhile, the country’s fire danger levels have been elevated to “catastrophic,” with over 100 blazes already burning in its most populous state, New South Wales.
Of course, it isn’t just Australia that’s getting toastier these
days. After Europe’s 2003 and 2010 heat waves broke 500-year seasonal
average temperature records, researchers predicted in the journal Science that such “mega-heatwaves” would become five to 10 times more common on the continent in the decades to come.
Here in the United States, July marked the hottest month on record, surpassing the worst of the 1936 Dust Bowl, and the corresponding drought took a significant toll on the country’s overall economic growth. On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that 2012 was the hottest year on record by a full degree.
West Antarctica Warming Twice As Fast As Previously Believed: Study
Reuters
|
Posted: 12/23/2012 1:56 pm EST
By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle
OSLO, Dec 23 (Reuters) - West Antarctica is warming almost twice as fast as previously believed, adding to worries of a thaw that would add to sea level rise from San Francisco to Shanghai, a study showed on Sunday.
Annual average temperatures at the Byrd research station in West Antarctica had risen 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3F) since the 1950s, one of the fastest gains on the planet and three times the global average in a changing climate, it said. The unexpectedly big increase adds to fears the ice sheet is vulnerable to thawing. West Antarctica holds enough ice to raise world sea levels by at least 3.3 metres (11 feet) if it ever all melted, a process that would take centuries.
"The western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought," Ohio State University said in a statement of the study led by its geography professor David Bromwich.
The warming "raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise," it said. Higher summer temperatures raised risks of a surface melt of ice and snow even though most of Antarctica is in a year-round deep freeze.
Low-lying nations from Bangladesh to Tuvalu are especially vulnerable to sea level rise, as are coastal cities from London to Buenos Aires. Sea levels have risen by about 20 cms (8 inches) in the past century.
The
United Nations panel of climate experts projects that sea levels will
rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century, and by more if
a thaw of Greenland and Antarctica accelerates, due to global warming
caused by human activities.
GLACIERS
The rise in temperatures in the remote region was comparable to that on the Antarctic Peninsula to the north, which snakes up towards South America, according to the U.S.-based experts writing in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Parts of the northern hemisphere have also warmed at similarly fast rates.
Several ice shelves - thick ice floating on the ocean and linked to land - have collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in recent years. Once ice shelves break up, glaciers pent up behind them can slide faster into the sea, raising water levels.
"The stakes would be much higher if a similar event occurred to an ice shelf restraining one of the enormous West Antarctic ice sheet glaciers," said Andrew Monaghan, a co-author at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.The Pine Island glacier off West Antarctica, for instance, brings as much water to the ocean as the Rhine river in Europe.
The scientists said there had been one instance of a widespread surface melt of West Antarctica, in 2005. "A continued rise in summer temperatures could lead to more frequent and extensive episodes of surface melting," they wrote.
West Antarctica now contributes about 0.3 mm a year to sea level rise, less than Greenland's 0.7 mm, Ohio State University said. The bigger East Antarctic ice sheet is less vulnerable to a thaw.
Helped by computer simulations, the scientists reconstructed a record of temperatures stretching back to 1958 at Byrd, where about a third of the measurements were missing, sometimes because of power failures in the long Antarctic winters.
Read on the Website
In 2012 the dangers of human-caused climate disturbance became undeniable, making this the fundamental moral issue of our time. The following features clips from the world's most respected climate scientist, NASA's James Hansen, and two key advocates for systemic change: Bill McKibben and David Roberts.
This 49-minute video teaches the basic science and explains key climate dynamics of lag time and tipping points in ways that all age groups can grasp. Richly illustrated with images of this year's unprecedented retreat of Arctic sea ice and the near-total surface layer melt of the Greenland ice cap, this video also includes footage of the Colorado Springs wildfire, the midwestern drought, the mile-high Arizona dust-storm, Hurricane Sandy, and other climate turning points frighteningly evident in 2012.
The call-to-action excerpts by Hansen and McKibben are overlaid with compelling images of civil resistance (including Hansen's three arrests) and enthusiastic public participation in 350.org events: worldwide rallies to voice support for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere back down to 350 ppm and McKibben's autumn 2012 "Do the Math Tour" (which spread the news that there is five times more carbon in fossil fuel reserves already discovered than could be burned without exceeding the 2 degree C threshold of additional warming that is widely regarded as the maximum "safe" limit).
My wife, Connie Barlow, a science writer, and I introduce each of the clips and share our experience of "waking up" in December 2012 to the terrifying prospect of climate catastrophe, which is happening faster than scientists had projected only a few years ago. (I refer to it as my "climate change come-to-Jesus moment".)
Our extemporaneous storytelling of which aspects of the 2012 climate-change news and statistics rocked us out of complacency is an invitation for viewers to likewise make a shift in outlook and priorities.
Among the most emotionally moving footage is the the portion of James Hansen's 2012 TED Talk, "Why I Must Speak Out about Climate Change," where he explains that his love for his grandchildren, coupled with his formidable knowledge of the science, compelled him to speak out against, what he perceives as, "intergenerational injustice."
We produced this video mix for precisely the same reason. As members of the generational cohort now in power, we exhort fellow "boomers" to awaken to the "generational evil" that will become our sad legacy if we continue with business as usual, focusing irresponsibly on our own comfort and security while expecting future generations to deal with the horrendous conditions that our own complacency will produce.
The best place to stay informed about climate change is Joe Romm's indispensable "Climate Progress" blog. The best two books that deal with the specifically MORAL side of the issue are: Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, and A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. For other resources and links to hopeful and inspiring ways to respond to this crisis, see here.
This year's extreme weather was one for the record books; 2012 is slated to be the hottest summer on record.
The worst drought in 50 years struck the South and Midwest, devastating the U.S. agriculture industry. Deadly floods and superstorms paralyzed the northeast and other parts of the country.
While the public is in shock by extreme weather events that have taken place, environmentalist Bill McKibben and other members of the science community say it is a result of climate change.
"We've already passed all kinds of tipping points," McKibben, the founder of 350.org, tells weekends on All Things Considered host Jacki Lyden. "The NASA scientist Jim Hansen was saying, 'There's no other word for where we are now than planetary emergency.'"
Next month, President Obama will be sworn in for a second term, and McKibben is curious about whether the president will take a different approach to the growing problem.
For millions of years, this world has been a great gift to nearly
everything living on it, a planet whose atmosphere, temperature, air,
water, seasons and weather were precisely calibrated to allow us—the big
us, including forests and oceans, species large and small—to flourish.
(Or rather, it was we who were calibrated to its generous, even
bounteous, terms.) And that gift is now being destroyed for the benefit of a few members of a single species.
The Earth we evolved to inhabit is turning into something more turbulent and unreliable at a pace too fast for most living things to adapt to. This means we are losing crucial aspects of our most irreplaceable, sublime gift, and some of us are suffering the loss now—from sea snails whose shells are dissolving in acidified oceans to Hurricane Sandy survivors facing black mold and bad bureaucracy to horses starving nationwide because a devastating drought has pushed the cost of hay so high to Bolivian farmers failing because the glaciers that watered their valleys have largely melted.
OSLO, Dec 23 (Reuters) - West Antarctica is warming almost twice as fast as previously believed, adding to worries of a thaw that would add to sea level rise from San Francisco to Shanghai, a study showed on Sunday.
Annual average temperatures at the Byrd research station in West Antarctica had risen 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3F) since the 1950s, one of the fastest gains on the planet and three times the global average in a changing climate, it said. The unexpectedly big increase adds to fears the ice sheet is vulnerable to thawing. West Antarctica holds enough ice to raise world sea levels by at least 3.3 metres (11 feet) if it ever all melted, a process that would take centuries.
"The western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought," Ohio State University said in a statement of the study led by its geography professor David Bromwich.
The warming "raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise," it said. Higher summer temperatures raised risks of a surface melt of ice and snow even though most of Antarctica is in a year-round deep freeze.
Low-lying nations from Bangladesh to Tuvalu are especially vulnerable to sea level rise, as are coastal cities from London to Buenos Aires. Sea levels have risen by about 20 cms (8 inches) in the past century.
GLACIERS
The rise in temperatures in the remote region was comparable to that on the Antarctic Peninsula to the north, which snakes up towards South America, according to the U.S.-based experts writing in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Parts of the northern hemisphere have also warmed at similarly fast rates.
Several ice shelves - thick ice floating on the ocean and linked to land - have collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in recent years. Once ice shelves break up, glaciers pent up behind them can slide faster into the sea, raising water levels.
"The stakes would be much higher if a similar event occurred to an ice shelf restraining one of the enormous West Antarctic ice sheet glaciers," said Andrew Monaghan, a co-author at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.The Pine Island glacier off West Antarctica, for instance, brings as much water to the ocean as the Rhine river in Europe.
The scientists said there had been one instance of a widespread surface melt of West Antarctica, in 2005. "A continued rise in summer temperatures could lead to more frequent and extensive episodes of surface melting," they wrote.
West Antarctica now contributes about 0.3 mm a year to sea level rise, less than Greenland's 0.7 mm, Ohio State University said. The bigger East Antarctic ice sheet is less vulnerable to a thaw.
Helped by computer simulations, the scientists reconstructed a record of temperatures stretching back to 1958 at Byrd, where about a third of the measurements were missing, sometimes because of power failures in the long Antarctic winters.
Read on the Website
Climate Change: Generational Evil
The following video is a compact and emotionally moving overview of the problem and solutions to climate change. It is designed to be a quick and compelling way to get up to speed on the issue and help others do the same.
In 2012 the dangers of human-caused climate disturbance became undeniable, making this the fundamental moral issue of our time. The following features clips from the world's most respected climate scientist, NASA's James Hansen, and two key advocates for systemic change: Bill McKibben and David Roberts.
This 49-minute video teaches the basic science and explains key climate dynamics of lag time and tipping points in ways that all age groups can grasp. Richly illustrated with images of this year's unprecedented retreat of Arctic sea ice and the near-total surface layer melt of the Greenland ice cap, this video also includes footage of the Colorado Springs wildfire, the midwestern drought, the mile-high Arizona dust-storm, Hurricane Sandy, and other climate turning points frighteningly evident in 2012.
The call-to-action excerpts by Hansen and McKibben are overlaid with compelling images of civil resistance (including Hansen's three arrests) and enthusiastic public participation in 350.org events: worldwide rallies to voice support for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere back down to 350 ppm and McKibben's autumn 2012 "Do the Math Tour" (which spread the news that there is five times more carbon in fossil fuel reserves already discovered than could be burned without exceeding the 2 degree C threshold of additional warming that is widely regarded as the maximum "safe" limit).
My wife, Connie Barlow, a science writer, and I introduce each of the clips and share our experience of "waking up" in December 2012 to the terrifying prospect of climate catastrophe, which is happening faster than scientists had projected only a few years ago. (I refer to it as my "climate change come-to-Jesus moment".)
Our extemporaneous storytelling of which aspects of the 2012 climate-change news and statistics rocked us out of complacency is an invitation for viewers to likewise make a shift in outlook and priorities.
Among the most emotionally moving footage is the the portion of James Hansen's 2012 TED Talk, "Why I Must Speak Out about Climate Change," where he explains that his love for his grandchildren, coupled with his formidable knowledge of the science, compelled him to speak out against, what he perceives as, "intergenerational injustice."
We produced this video mix for precisely the same reason. As members of the generational cohort now in power, we exhort fellow "boomers" to awaken to the "generational evil" that will become our sad legacy if we continue with business as usual, focusing irresponsibly on our own comfort and security while expecting future generations to deal with the horrendous conditions that our own complacency will produce.
The best place to stay informed about climate change is Joe Romm's indispensable "Climate Progress" blog. The best two books that deal with the specifically MORAL side of the issue are: Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, and A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. For other resources and links to hopeful and inspiring ways to respond to this crisis, see here.
2013: A Tipping Year For Climate Change?
This year's extreme weather was one for the record books; 2012 is slated to be the hottest summer on record.
The worst drought in 50 years struck the South and Midwest, devastating the U.S. agriculture industry. Deadly floods and superstorms paralyzed the northeast and other parts of the country.
While the public is in shock by extreme weather events that have taken place, environmentalist Bill McKibben and other members of the science community say it is a result of climate change.
"We've already passed all kinds of tipping points," McKibben, the founder of 350.org, tells weekends on All Things Considered host Jacki Lyden. "The NASA scientist Jim Hansen was saying, 'There's no other word for where we are now than planetary emergency.'"
Next month, President Obama will be sworn in for a second term, and McKibben is curious about whether the president will take a different approach to the growing problem.
2013 Is Year Zero for Climate Change
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com.
Think of 2013 as the Year Zero in the battle over climate change, one
in which we are going to have to win big, or lose bigger. This is a
terrible thing to say, but not as terrible as the reality that you can
see in footage of glaciers vanishing, images of the entire surface of the Greenland Ice Shield melting this summer, maps
of Europe’s future in which just being in southern Europe when the heat
hits will be catastrophic, let alone in more equatorial realms.
For millions of years, this world has been a great gift to nearly
everything living on it, a planet whose atmosphere, temperature, air,
water, seasons and weather were precisely calibrated to allow us—the big
us, including forests and oceans, species large and small—to flourish.
(Or rather, it was we who were calibrated to its generous, even
bounteous, terms.) And that gift is now being destroyed for the benefit of a few members of a single species.The Earth we evolved to inhabit is turning into something more turbulent and unreliable at a pace too fast for most living things to adapt to. This means we are losing crucial aspects of our most irreplaceable, sublime gift, and some of us are suffering the loss now—from sea snails whose shells are dissolving in acidified oceans to Hurricane Sandy survivors facing black mold and bad bureaucracy to horses starving nationwide because a devastating drought has pushed the cost of hay so high to Bolivian farmers failing because the glaciers that watered their valleys have largely melted.
Read 2013 Is Year Zero for Climate Change on The Nation
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