Sep 5, 2009

Arctic temperatures have been dropping for the last 2,000 years. Since 1900, temperature anomaly has turned positive, indicating temperatures started becoming warmer than the long term average, new research indicates. The study, which incorporates geologic records and computer simulations, provides new evidence that the Arctic would be cooling if not for greenhouse gas emissions that are overpowering natural climate patterns. The Summer temperature anomaly changed from about — 1 to + 1 which is a very large change.

The international study, led by Northern Arizona University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will be published in the September 4 edition of Science

. It was primarily funded by the National Science Foundation

, NCAR’s sponsor.

The scientists reconstructed summer temperatures across the Arctic over the last 2,000 years by decade, extending a view of climate far beyond the 400 years of Arctic-wide records previously available at that level of detail. They found that thousands of years of gradual Arctic cooling, related to natural changes in Earth’s orbit, would continue today if not for emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

“This result is particularly important because the Arctic, perhaps more than any other region on Earth, is facing dramatic impacts from climate change,” says NCAR scientist David Schneider, one of the co-authors. “This study provides us with a long-term record that reveals how greenhouse gases from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic’s natural climate system.”

“Scientists have known for a while that the current period of warming was preceded by a long-term cooling trend,” says Kaufman. “But our reconstruction quantifies the cooling with greater certainty than before.”

The new study is the first to quantify a pervasive cooling across the Arctic on a decade-by-decade basis that is related to an approximately 21,000-year cyclical wobble in Earth’s tilt relative to the Sun. Over the last 7,000 years, the timing of Earth’s closest pass by the Sun has shifted from September to January. This has gradually reduced the intensity of sunlight reaching the Arctic in summertime, when Earth is farther from the Sun.

The research team’s temperature analysis shows that summer temperatures in the Arctic, in step with the reduced energy from the Sun, cooled at an average rate of about 0.2 degrees Celsius (about .36 degrees Fahrenheit) per thousand years. The temperatures eventually bottomed out during the “Little Ice Age,” a period of widespread cooling that lasted roughly from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries.

Even though the orbital cycle that produced the cooling continued, it was overwhelmed in the 20th century by human-induced warming. The result was summer temperatures in the Arctic by the year 2000 that were about 1.4 degrees C (2.5 degrees F) higher than would have been expected from the continued cyclical cooling alone.

“If it hadn’t been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century,” says Bette Otto-Bliesner, an NCAR scientist who participated in the study.

Image shows that the Arctic reversed a long-term cooling trend and began warming rapidly in recent decades. The blue line shows estimates of Arctic temperatures over the last 2,000 years, based on proxy records from lake sediments, ice cores and tree rings. The green line shows the long-term cooling trend. The red line shows the recent warming based on actual observations. A 2000-year transient climate simulation with NCAR?s Community Climate System Model shows the same overall temperature decrease as does the proxy temperature reconstruction, which gives scientists confidence that their estimates are accurate. (Courtesy Science, modified by UCAR.)

For more information: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/arctic2k.jsp#

Sep 5, 2009

Dam projects by neighbouring states are drastically reducing the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates and helping to turn a once-fertile plain into desert. Phil Sands and Nizar Latif report as an environmental crisis deepens

As bombs continue to tear apart its towns and villages, Iraq is now in the grip of an environmental crisis that experts and officials warn may do what decades of war have not been able to — destroy the country. The new war on Iraq, says one member of the country’s parliament, “is a war of water”.

The Tigris and Euphrates, two of the world’s great water courses, fed life to the historic lands of Mesopotamia, “the land between two rivers”. The previously lush plains south of Baghdad are widely held to be the cradle of civilization, the birthplace of some of humanity’s greatest achievements and earliest empires.

Today, however, those same rivers are increasingly starved of water. The floodplains on either side of the Euphrates and Tigris, Iraq’s old fertile agricultural heartlands, are parched. In northern Iraq, underground supplies of water have been so depleted they may never recover.

Article continues

Jake is a friendly and young-at-heart Rough Collie. He seems to have forgotten that he's 12 years old and still enjoys going out for regular walks. He's good with other dogs, but would prefer to find a new home all of his own.

Sep 5, 2009

Looking like something that was hijacked from Grandpa's old Victrola via a time machine, these stunning speakers come from a Swedish company called Aesthesis, which was "started as a reaction to the stereotyped and masculine consumer electronics industry." Using many of the same suppliers as the Koenigsegg supercar, the carbon fiber and stainless steel Gramophone speaker uses a coaxial two way driver to cover the full audio spectrum down to 37 Hz.

Production will be limited to 100 pairs, so hurry on down to your local Aesthesis showroom with you $85,000 before they all get snapped up.

Sep 5, 2009

This month the Senate is set to take up the climate and energy bill

that Congress began work on last spring. One provision will likely set up a system to pay farmers for something called “no-till farming.”

The concept: When crops are planted without tilling, the soil holds more carbon, which means less goes up into the atmosphere.

But scientists aren’t sure no-till really sequesters carbon any better than conventional farming.

Soil scientist Michel Cavigelli of the U.S. Department of Agriculture agrees that no-till fields, like the one he studies in rural Maryland, can hold more carbon than plowed fields.

…

But that is only at the surface. Researchers have discovered that when you dig down three feet or so, plowed fields hold just as much — if not more — carbon than no-till.

Article continues

Sep 5, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has demanded that President Barack Obama’s cabinet rethink federal policy that would divert water from parched farms and cities to threatened fish, his administration said on Wednesday.

California’s rivers used to brim with salmon and sturgeon, but a massive system of canals diverted water that fed farms and cities, now suffering through a third year of drought.

Schwarzenegger has gained credibility as an environmentalist for his push to curb greenhouse gases but he argued that federal plans to save fish will worsen a water crisis that has cost farmers more than $700 million and caused mandatory rationing in cities of the most populous state.

Article continues

Sep 5, 2009

Risky and unproven climate-changing technologies could have “catastrophic consequences” for the earth and humankind if used irresponsibly, according to a new report.

Yet without drastic further cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, a geoengineering solution may offer the only hope of saving the world from disastrous run-away global warming, experts warned.

A report by the Royal Society, Britain’s leading academic institution, looks at the feasibility and potential dangers of technologies designed to cool the earth.

They include artificial “trees” that suck carbon dioxide

out of the air, and spraying sulphate particles high in the atmosphere to scatter the sun’s rays into space. The scientists concluded that, although some approaches were possible, they had not yet been properly researched and posed serious potential dangers for the planet.

Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the Royal Society geoengineering working group, said: “It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions we are heading for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases.”

“Our research found that some geoengineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and ecosystems — yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them.”

Article continues: http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/birmingham-business-news/other-uk-business/2009/09/01/climate-change-technology-risks-catastrophic-outcome-report-65233-24585797/

Sep 5, 2009

“There were no dolphins taken on the first two days because we have managed to focus so much media attention on the slaughter,” Ric O’Barry told The Daily Telegraph from Taiji. “I feel great, but I know it’s only temporary.

“It’s very expensive for me be here and I can’t stay for the whole six months of the season,”

Mr O’Barry plans to remain in the town for a week, but has already had a showdown with local people angry at what they perceive to be interference in the industry.

On Tuesday morning, as he tried to enter a grocery store, the head of the fishing union blocked his way and refused to allow him to buy any food.

“It has been an exciting morning and the people here are very hostile,” he said. “But as long as this goes on and we keep the pressure on, they cannot hunt the dolphins.”