jetcloud

Over the past 30 years, temperatures in the Arctic have been creeping up, rising half a degree Celsius with attendant increases in glacial melting and decreases in sea ice. Experts predict that at current levels of greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide alone is at 375 parts per million--the earth may warm by as much as five degrees Celsius, matching conditions roughly 130,000 years ago. Now a refined climate model is predicting, among other things, sea level rises of as much as 20 feet, according to research results published today in the journal Science.

Modeler Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and paleoclimatologist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona matched results from the Community Climate System Model and climate records preserved in ice cores, exposed coral reefs, fossilized pollen and the chemical makeup of shells to determine the accuracy of the computer simulation. Roughly 130,000 the Arctic enjoyed higher levels of solar radiation, leading to increased warming in the summer and the retreat of glaciers worldwide. The model correctly predicted the extent of the resulting Arctic ice melt, enough to raise sea levels by roughly nine feet.

Updated at 10:29 on March 25, 2006, EST.
A fishing boat makes its way through the ice on Friday in the Gulf. (CP/Jonathan Haywayd) A fishing boat makes its way through the ice on Friday in the Gulf. (CP/Jonathan Haywayd)
GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE (CP) - It's hot and bloody work for seal hunters on the first day of Canada's East Coast seal hunt as summer-like conditions on the Gulf of St. Lawrence sent temperatures soaring under clear blue skies.

Observers on the fishing boat, the Strait Signet, said about 20 seal hunt vessels were in the Cabot Strait off northern Cape Breton on Saturday, and hunters were clubbing seals floating on small pans of ice.

By mid-morning, the temperature was already 15 degrees. Hunt protesters are complaining that the ice is fast disappearing in the mild weather and there will be a high natural seal mortality.

Seal pups cannot survive in the water until they are several weeks old.

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 24 March 2006
Dramatic new evidence has emerged of the speed of climate change in the polar regions which scientists fear is causing huge volumes of ice to melt far faster than predicted.

Scientists have recorded a significant and unexpected increase in the number of "glacial earthquakes" caused by the sudden movement of Manhattan-sized blocks of ice in Greenland.

A second study has found that higher temperatures caused by global warming could melt the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets much sooner than previously thought, with a corresponding rise in sea levels.

Both studies - along with a series of findings from other scientists over the past year - point to a disturbing change in the polar climate which is causing the disappearance of glaciers, ice sheets and floating sea ice.

The rise in the number of glacial earthquakes over the past four years lends further weight to the idea that Greenland's glaciers and its ice sheet are beginning to move and melt on a scale not seen for perhaps thousands of years.

The annual number of glacial earthquakes recorded in Greenland between 1993 and 2002 was between six and 15. In 2003 seismologists recorded 20 glacial earthquakes. In 2004 they monitored 24 and for the first 10 months of 2005 they recorded 32.

Timothy J. Osborn1 , Sarah C. B. Raper1, 2 and Keith R. Briffa1

(1) Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK
(2) Dalton Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

Received: 24 May 2005 Accepted: 19 January 2006 Published online: 22 March 2006

Abstract An intercomparison of eight climate simulations, each driven with estimated natural and anthropogenic forcings for the last millennium, indicates that the so-called “Erik” simulation of the ECHO-G coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model exhibits atypical behaviour. The ECHO-G simulation has a much stronger cooling trend from 1000 to 1700 and a higher rate of warming since 1800 than the other simulations, with the result that the overall amplitude of millennial-scale temperature variations in the ECHO-G simulation is much greater than in the other models. The MAGICC (Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas-Induced Climate Change) simple climate model is used to investigate possible causes of this atypical behaviour. It is shown that disequilibrium in the initial conditions probably contributes spuriously to the cooling trend in the early centuries of the simulation, and that the omission of tropospheric sulphate aerosol forcing is the likely explanation for the anomalously large recent warming. The simple climate model results are used to adjust the ECHO-G Erik simulation to mitigate these effects, which brings the simulation into better agreement with the other seven models considered here and greatly reduces the overall range of temperature variations during the last millennium simulated by ECHO-G. Smaller inter-model differences remain which can probably be explained by a combination of the particular forcing histories and model sensitivities of each experiment. These have not been investigated here, though we have diagnosed the effective climate sensitivity of ECHO-G to be 2.39±0.11 K for a doubling of CO2.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 03/23/2006 | Editorial | Start counting 'carbs'

ow did the American led interim government spend over $20bn, yet leave Iraqis with less electricity, less clean water and even worse hospitals than under Saddam?
Maggie O'Kane

March 20, 2006 10:00 AM

In a courtroom in Virginia a trial passed almost unnoticed last week that can help us understand why the occupation of Iraq has gone so disastrously wrong. The greed, incompetence and ill preparedness of the occupiers was spelt out in excruciating detail in the case against Custer Battles - two war profiteers who arrived broke and on the make in Baghdad during the early days of the occupation.

Their case helps to explain how the American led interim government managed to spend its way through over $20 billion of reconstruction money yet leave Iraqis with less electricity, less clean water and with hospitals in an even worse condition than during the worst of the days of crippling sanctions against Saddam. They were sanctions that claimed 250,000 lives over 10 years.

Details are now emerging of how other US companies massively overcharged for their work and failed to deliver on what they promised, and how contracts worth millions were subcontracted down to locals who were paid a fraction of what the big US companies were paid for the work.

Hospitals were left with sewage floating in the kitchens and operating theatres, without the most basic life saving equipment despite contracts worth millions being handed out to US companies by Paul Bremer's interim government. Now Bremer's successor Dan Speckhard has said in response to this that it is: "water under the bridge"

Depleted uranium measured in British atmosphere from battlefields in the Middle East Halliburton's Depleted Uranium Cover Up The British government facility was taken over three years ago by Halliburton, which refused at first to release air monitoring data to Dr. Busby, as required by law. Submitted on March 18, 2006 8:46 a.m. by eugene. [On the Planet] [Add New Post]... by Leuren Moret

"Did the use of uranium weapons in Gulf War II result in contamination of Europe? Evidence from the measurements of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston, Berkshire, U.K.," shows such contamination, reported the Sunday Times Online, in a shocking scientific study authored by British scientists Dr. Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan.

Early Universe's Rapid Expansion Confirmed
Thu, 16 Mar 2006 - Scientists have gathered new evidence that supports the inflationary theory of expansion thanks new data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The spacecraft has been making continuous observations of the cosmic background radiation; the afterglow of the Big Bang. These latest observations produced a map of the sky so detailed that scientists were able to trace how microscopic fluctuations in the primordial Universe were magnified in a trillionth of a second of rapid expansion to create the stars and galaxies we see today.

CAMBRIDGE, England, March 14 (UPI) -- Scientists, noting sea ice in the Arctic has failed to form for the second consecutive winter, fear global warming may be irreversible in polar areas.

Since the Arctic region shows signs of both winter and summer ice melting, scientists fear an environmental "positive feedback" has started, in which global warming melts ice that causes the seas to warm further since more sunlight is absorbed by a dark ocean rather than being reflected by white ice, The Independent reported Tuesday.

Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, said the Arctic sea ice cover as of September was at its lowest extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979, and probably the lowest in 100 years.

Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University told the Independent: "One of the big changes this winter is that a large area of the Barents Sea has remained ice-free for the first time. Climate models did predict a retreat of sea ice in the Barents Sea, but not for a few decades yet, so it is a sign that the changes that were predicted are indeed happening -- but much faster than predicted."

CAMBRIDGE, England, March 14 (UPI) -- Scientists, noting sea ice in the Arctic has failed to form for the second consecutive winter, fear global warming may be irreversible in polar areas.

Since the Arctic region shows signs of both winter and summer ice melting, scientists fear an environmental "positive feedback" has started, in which global warming melts ice that causes the seas to warm further since more sunlight is absorbed by a dark ocean rather than being reflected by white ice, The Independent reported Tuesday.

Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, said the Arctic sea ice cover as of September was at its lowest extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979, and probably the lowest in 100 years.

Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University told the Independent: "One of the big changes this winter is that a large area of the Barents Sea has remained ice-free for the first time. Climate models did predict a retreat of sea ice in the Barents Sea, but not for a few decades yet, so it is a sign that the changes that were predicted are indeed happening -- but much faster than predicted."

Scientists from NASA and Columbia University, New York, have used computer modeling to successfully reproduce an abrupt climate change that took place 8,200 years ago. At that time, the beginning of the current warm period, climate changes were caused by a massive flood of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean. ...

Written during the Civil War, applies just as well today.

by Rev. Bill McGinnis

http://www.opednews.com

Come up from the Fields, Father
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass, 1900.


FREE PUBLIC DOMAIN MP3 FILE at
http://www.text-to-speech.org/comeupfromthefieldsfather.mp3

1

COME up from the fields, father, here's
a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother, here's
a letter from thy dear son. ...

Written during the Civil War, applies just as well today.

by Rev. Bill McGinnis

http://www.opednews.com

Come up from the Fields, Father
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass, 1900.


FREE PUBLIC DOMAIN MP3 FILE at
http://www.text-to-speech.org/comeupfromthefieldsfather.mp3

1

COME up from the fields, father, here's
a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother, here's
a letter from thy dear son. ...

CBC News
Truck drivers hauling supplies to three diamond mines in the Northwest Territories along a 500-kilometre ice road say they're frustrated by new restrictions and reduced speed limits.

Warm weather and deteriorating conditions have led to more restrictions on the number of trucks allowed on the road and the speed they are allowed to travel.

The drivers say they are facing delays of up to 24 hours as they wait to get clearance to travel the road. It is built each winter over frozen lakes and land portages.

The committee in charge of the road denies rumours it's going to close early but does say the life of the road will be limited if drivers don't stick to the speed limits.

Independent trucker Rob McAllister says it doesn't look good.

"The way it's going right now we can get two weeks out of it, I think, but if it turns cold, maybe the end of the month," says McAllister.

"It all depends on the drivers following the rules."

This season 9,000 truckloads of construction equipment, fuel and supplies are slated to be hauled on the road.

By Jim Motavalli

Eugene Linden's book, The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather and the Destruction of Civilizations (Simon and Schuster) has only been out for a month, but already it's in its fourth printing. That is, one hopes, an indication that the public's interest in global warming is accelerating, even as the planet itself is sending increasingly desperate signals. Linden argues that climate has acted as a "serial killer" in the historical record (from the Assyrians and Minoans of 700 BC to the Vikings in the 14th century), and its most savage outburst may be just ahead of us. The New York Times praised the book for its focus on "fundamental human certitudes, not least of them the reluctance of editors and television producers to illuminate tough, confusing issues when snap judgments will do. And [Linden] appreciates the value of complex, ambiguous data in forging roundabout paths to new discoveries."

Eugene Linden: "Climate has been through history a weapon of mass destruction."
© Marion Ettlinger
E recently talked to Linden, a veteran environmental journalist who has published six other books and written for Time, MSNBC.com, Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune and the Los Angeles Times.

08.03.2006 - 16:00 CET | By Richard Power

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - The greatest security threat to all of us is not terrorism or bird flu but global warming.

Global warming has profound security implications, which are too often overlooked and underestimated. This is a planetary crisis that confronts us with both direct threats and threat-enhancing factors.

These include:

Severe weather: Hurricanes and typhoons will increase in strength, length of duration and frequency, so will drought, floods and heat waves.
Infrastructure failures: As extremes of heat and cold impact densely populated regions, massive blackouts (such as the one that hit 50 million Italians in 2003) and other forms of infrastructure failure, will increase.
Food security: Global warming will significantly impact grain yields, particularly in developing countries and low-latitude regions. Lower yield will result in tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) more hungry human beings, as well as escalating food prices globally.
Water wars: John Reid, UK defence secretary, recently acknowledged that the British armed forces should prepare for violence and political conflict as global warming quickens looming confrontations over dwindling water resources.
Collapse of governments and disintegration of societies: Climate change will stretch some governments and societies to breaking point. Several African nations and Afghanistan offer painful examples of what happens when governments collapse and societies disintegrate.
Displacement and migration of populations: Societies, which are either not directly impacted, or only marginally impacted, in the early stages of global climate change will nevertheless encounter serious difficulties in coping with mass influxes of human beings fleeing drought, famine, rising sea levels and mega-storms.
Increased geopolitical tensions over energy security issues: The issues of global warming and renewable energy resources are inextricably intertwined, but not simply because human burning of fossil fuels is accelerating and aggravating global warming; but also because of the double trouble poised by the voracious demand for more energy and the end of peak oil production.
Economic Security: The economic impact of coping with climate change, in regard to food security, energy security, disaster recovery and relief will itself become a powerful threat-enhancing factor.
Spread of diseases and pests: Climate change is increasing the threat from tropical diseases (such as dengue fever and malaria) at lower latitudes and spreading them to higher latitudes. Pests that threaten agriculture, forests and whole animal species are growing stronger.
Travel Security: Global warming means heightened danger to business and holiday travellers. Travelling to and operating in some countries that already pose a heightened security risk will almost certainly become even more problematical.
Submersion of island nations and major cities: In the long-term, the fates of whole nations (for example, the Maldives) hang in the balance, as well as the fates of great cities, such as London.

The true environmental and social costs of flying are not being borne by EU aviation industry, argues Caroline Lucas MEP.

Climate change represents a bigger threat to our way of life than terrorism, according to, amongst others, the UK government’s own scientific advisor Sir David King – and it is being fuelled by the untrammelled emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

The UN International Panel on Climate Change reckons we must cut global emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 – and if we are to do so in a way which places the largest burden on those countries most responsible for the emissions, that means cuts of at least 80 per cent in the EU.

Aviation is the fastest growing source of emissions: it is currently responsible for between five and ten per cent of the EU’s emissions – and this is growing at a staggering 4.3 per cent a year. They are scheduled to double by 2020 and triple by 2030. Though the industry is delivering some operational and technological improvements to help combat this, the rapid growth in total flight numbers means emissions will remain on an upward trajectory.

In addition to being a pollution- heavy means of transportation, aircraft emit a very large proportion of their pollutants directly into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, where the pollution is disproportionately damaging.

Since the only international treaty designed to cut GHG emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, omits the aviation industry, the growth in aviation emissions, if left unchecked, will wipe out the reductions in all other economic sectors.

Incredibly, recent research suggests that the growth in aviation will produce more than 60 per cent of our total emissions by 2050, meaning that CO2 emissions from other sectors would have to be reduced to zero if we are to cap global temperature rises. Clearly that’s impossible – and the only way governments have kept this reality out of the headlines is by ignoring it: excluding the aviation sector from Kyoto and EU and national legislation, and letting the airlines get on with business as usual.

Nowhere is climate change as dramatic as in the Arctic. The German explorer Arved Fuchs has undertaken a number of expeditions up north. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he explains why time is running out.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You have led quite a number of exhibitions to the Arctic since 1979. In your lectures you stress how much the region has changed in the last few years, and put this down to climate change. Many scientists say this is not a credible position -- don't they have a point?

Fuchs: No. The information we are collecting agrees with what all the climate models and satellite data are showing. The Arctic is warming up quickly and the ice is melting incredibly fast. In previous expeditions, there were three occasions in a row when the Northeast Passage was so frozen over that it prevented us from getting through. But then in 2002 we had no problems sailing from the North Pole along the Siberian coast all the way to Alaska.
PHOTO GALLERY: WATCHING THE ARCTIC ICE MELT
DPA Arved Fuchs Expeditionen Torsten Heller/Universität Bremen

Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (11 Photos).


SPIEGEL ONLINE: And you believe that is without doubt a consequence of global warming?

Fuchs: In 2002 experts said the thawing of the Northeast Passage was simply the result of a natural extreme in weather conditions. Today we know that this wasn't an exception. Everywhere on our travels, we have seen melting permafrost. It is a terrible feeling to see how fast the Arctic is changing.

Study: Up to 152 cubic kilometres of Antarctic ice melt every year: "Washington - Up to 152 cubic kilometres of Antarctic ice have melted every year since 2002 due to climate change, new research by US scientists using satellite technology has shown.

The drastic melting on Antarctic's western ice caps has resulted in a global rise of sea levels of some 0.4 millimetres every year, with a margin of error of 0.2 millimetres, the researchers of Colorado University at Boulder wrote in a study published Thursday in the online issue of Science Express.

These finding were 'probably a good indicator of the changing climatic conditions' in the Antarctic, said lead researcher Isabella Velicogna, who is also affiliated with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The scientists used data collected by two satellites, launched by NASA and Germany in 2002, which sense subtle variation's in Earth's gravity field caused by regional changes in the planet's mass.

The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted an opposite scenario in 2001. The committee of experts on climate change called together by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization had argued Antarctica's ice caps would expand due more rainfall in the new millenium."

By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter

Owl, Eso
Ground astronomy could be compromised if trends continue, experts say
Ground-based astronomy could be impossible in 40 years because of pollution from aircraft exhaust trails and climate change, an expert says.

Aircraft condensation trails - known as contrails - can dissipate, becoming indistinguishable from other clouds.

If trends in cheap air travel continue, says Professor Gerry Gilmore, the era of ground astronomy may come to an end much earlier than most had predicted.

Aircraft along with climate change will contribute to increased cloud cover.


You either give up your cheap trips to Majorca, or you give up astronomy. You can't do both
Gerry Gilmore, University of Cambridge

The timescale is based on extrapolating air traffic growth figures. The BBC has learned that the calculations were made as part of preparations for an upcoming observatory project called the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).

The ELT is intended to probe planets around nearby stars and look for extremely faint objects in the Universe.

Vision impaired

"It is already clear that the lifetime of large ground-based telescopes is finite and is set by global warming," Professor Gilmore, from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, told reporters recently in London.

"There are two factors. Climate change is increasing the amount of cloud cover globally. The second factor is cheap air travel.

"You get these contrails from the jets. The rate at which they're expanding in terms of their fractional cover of the stratosphere is so large that if predictions are right, in 40 years it won't be worth having telescopes on Earth anymore - it's that soon.

News from The Associated Press: "y MARGARET EBRAHIM and JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press Writers


AP Photo
See Expanded Coverage
Katrina Six Months Later


WASHINGTON (AP) -- In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: 'We are fully prepared.'

The footage - along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press - show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush expressed a confidence on Aug. 28 that starkly contrasted with the dire warnings his disaster chief and numerous federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced 'grave concerns' about the levees"...