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Syndicate
Something else to worry about now. The theorized methane feedback may be starting to show up.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/methane-levels-m...
More about climate change and coffee:
Coffee producers "getting hammered" by global climate change
Grizzlies encroach on polar bear territory
Grizzly bears are being spotted in Manitoba, Canada, where biologists say only polar bears are usually found.
More on methane:
A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.
It's looking more and more like 2010 is on-track to become the warmest year in the instrument temperature record.
Not only was March 2010 the warmest March in both the UAH and RSS satellite temperature record, and tied for the warmest March in NASA's GISS temperature record, Jan-Feb-March 2010 was the warmest in the satellite records and second warmest in GISS behind 2007.
Here is a NASA comparison (pdf) of the first three months of 2010 with 1998 and 2005 (tied for the warmest annual anomaly):
Also, April 2009 – March 2010 is the warmest 12 month period in the NASA GISS anomaly record, with an average anomaly of +0.637C, vs January 2005-December 2005 and August 2006-July 2007, which are tied for second at +0.621C.
This not a surprise. Many have been suggesting that 2010 could likely set a new record for a couple of reasons.
One is the 2009-2010 El Nino, which although no where near as strong as that of 1997-98 and weakening, has transfered a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere. (Really just moving energy around.)
Another is that solar cycle 24 has finally started, bringing a close to the quietest solar minimum in a century, so the sun is getting brighter. (More energy in).
And a third factor that I haven't seen mentioned is the economic recession, which almost certainly has reduced the aerosol load, thus removing some of the aerosol cooling that masks a portion of existing greenhouse warming. (Also more energy in.)
A triple whammy, if you will, if not quite a "perfect storm."
More at Climate Progress.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/12/us-document-strategy-c...
Here on the Quebec coast, we just came through the warmest winter anyone here can remember, including our 80+ year olds. I posted about this earlier, it was due to a phenomenon known as the Arctic Oscillation and a diversion of the Gulf Stream Current to Greenland instead of to Europe, according to frends of mine. I'm curious as to whether we can expect to see this again.
Not sure if the Arctic Oscillation is connected to the Atlantic Converyor, but that theory about the permanent interruption of the Gulf Stream's return flow at great depth, due to the impact of melting glaciers, would suggest we can "expect to see this again", if oscillating conveyors are in it. Then again, maybe the melting ice twixt Greenland and Baffin Island just makes it easier for it to flow up that way, rather than toward Spitzbergen. Any good beaches up your way, Boomer?
Oh, indeed. Lots of them! But no connecting road, alas...
If P.E.T. can paddle across the Gulf Stream near Cuba, any Canuck worth his salt can navigate the Moisie...or is that not the only Northshore barrier? Are you people behind on your taxes, like the rural folk of Ontario? This place is littered with rusted-out, century-old creek crossings, and the counties have learned the trick of downloading responsibility for them to the townships. And the Conservatives at all levels promise "lower taxes" to the salivating citizenry...but no bridges.
Oh, folks have adapted. From Kegaska, you can drive your ATV right to the Natashquan River, then have a pre-aarranged 'water taxi' take you across at that point. Alternatively, you can take the Nordik Express once a week back and forth from Kegaska to Natashquan. Natashquan is the end of Route #138 until you get to Old Fort Bay - there is a road connecting Old Fort Bay right to the Quebec /Labrador border.
ETA: It ain't the Moisie but rather the Natashquan River that cuts off the Lower North Shore from the rest of Quebec.
Photos of Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull volcano ash cloud.
Well, there goes 2010's chance of setting a new record high annual mean temperature, at least in the northern hemisphere.
NOAA's State of the Climate Global Analysis for March 2010 has just been released.
After looking at a lot more photographs it looks like the overwhelming bulk of the plume is good old water vapour from the melting ice and the bulk of the ash is remaining below the cloud deck. That's why it is so white. This was not a powerful Pinatubo-like explosive eruption by a long, long stretch, so very little if any aerosols will make into the stratosphere. I think any cooling will be short lived and localized.
ETA: Confirmation from this volcanoly blogger
And Dr. Jeff Masters confirms my totally amateur read of things at WeatherUnderground.
Hmmm, when you factor in the unburned jet fuel, turns out so far Eyjafjallajoekull has not only been carbon neutral, but carbon negative!
Just watched The Hottest Place on Earth - in Ethiopia, on the Discovery Channel. Daytime temps in excess of 120F, and the crew in the story were to map out the world's oldest active volcano, which they did, and actually managed to get a probe into the volcano to test for any active organisms (don't laugh - scientists have found living life - microorganisms - in underwater volcano thermal vents). The land surface not far from the volcano rum was in excess of 200F. They also visited a volcanic chasm that erupted a few years ago - also in Ethiopia - a chasm about the length of two football fields - evidence that Africa is tearing itself apart, and may be the location of a new sea in the future (as Africe splits apart, ocean water rushes in).
NB: This doesn't fit with the thread title, but I thought I'd post just how hot Ethiopia is, to give some idea of what to expect in the future if global warming continues. A few years ago, I walked through an inactive volcano in New Mexico, and brought home some fossilized lava samples, which I still have. God, it was hot that day - probably 113F. When I got to Phoenix, Arizona a few days later, the airport tarmac was melting, I could actually feel the tarmac sinking as I walked across it to the plane. While I was in Phoenix, it was hot even in the evening - the only way folks can live there is to use a/c virtually 24/7 from the first of May right through to November. Unreal.
ETA: I grew up in Ottawa, and in the 1950s/1960s I don't recall the temperature in the summer ever approached 95F. When I spent a visit there in the summer of 1995, the temps ranged from 80F to well over 105F. I really don't understand climate change deniers - how can they be so frigging blind???
I am not sure how you got a carbon negative out of that one. It might have reduced the fossil fuel carbon out put, but I doubt that it has removed cabon from the atmosphere.
Relax, Bubbles, it's a joke making the rounds of the climate blogs.
The NOAA State of the Climate Global Analysis for April 2010 is just out today.
- The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for April 2010 was the warmest on record at 14.5°C (58.1°F), which is 0.76°C (1.37°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F).
- The worldwide ocean surface temperature was 0.57°C (1.03°F) above the 20th century average of 16.0°C (60.9°F) and the warmest April on record.
- The April worldwide land surface temperature was 1.29°C (2.32°F) above the 20th century average of 8.1°C (46.5 °F)—the third warmest on record.
- For the year-to-date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 13.3°C (56.0°F) was the warmest January-April period. This value is 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20th century average.
Climate change makes it too hot for lizards
This talk outlines the things we have to get started doing to cope with climate change - in short, renewable energy everywhere and some large changes in how we personally use energy.
Not sure if this is for real: billions could die from GW.
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/01/08/01291.html
That "billions could die" (by 2012) shit is just the stuff that deniers everywhere need to refute the reality of such processes. Leave that for the readers of news at the checkout counters, please.
The processes are still real, even if the impacts are speculative, and catastrophic impacts from global heating and resulting political and military responses may occur sooner rather than later. However this seems like Mayan calendar hysteria.
NASA GISStemp June 2010 data update just out:
Global Land-Ocean Temperature Anomaly Index
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
June + 0.59, tied with 2005 for third behind 2009 (0.62) and 1998 (0.69).
Land-Ocean, Nothern Hemisphere only:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/NH.Ts+dSST.txt
June + 0.78, displaces 2005 (.76) for record
Global Land stations only:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
June + 0.86, tied for first with 1998
Land Stations, Nothern Hemisphere only:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/NH.Ts.txt
June + 1.04, blows away 2005 (.97) for record
Perhaps you don't understand the political implications of giving voice and so a degree of credibility to "Mayan calendar hysteria" ?
Is it me or do most of the threads in Babble tend toward not wanting to do anything about anything? Every aspect of the oil crisis would seem to be the impetus to the discussion of getting unions to embrace green retrofitting not only for North American homes but North American industry but in here or on any other thread, that does not really come to the fore. The Left really does seem to want to fetishize its own ineffectuality and its own marginality.
Would you like to "flesh out" that concern about babblers "not wanting to do anything about anything."? As a lifelong advocate of action over philosophizing, I'm intrigued by your comment, 2dawall.
I made the pulser pump. It got researched at queens universtiy and somewhere in the USA this year and is on Appropedia. And I may have stopped posting about the solar stuff but it is still goin on. In organic islands festival tommorrow and in ideawave on sunday.
And I know remind has been fighting for the Salmon for years and reporting about the dead pine tree landscape in her area.
And I have this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1CwnYY64NU about saving the bee populations. (Basically, many bee types shelter and lay eggs in holes in wood and plant stems). So even if you just bundle up your old raspberry stems, and old vine stems in 1 ft lengths from when you cut them back, you will provide bee habitat. Even if you make "mud pies" and poke holes in the mud with knitting needles, and let the mud set up hard somewhere dry, you are being proactive and helping the insects out. I made some earlier in the year and solitary bees shelter at night in the holes and bees also use the holes for their larvae. If you just compost your old raspberry canes, you are also composting the bee babies inside them!
Lots of people do lots of stuff, it will not all appear here.
You mean we don't brag about the things we do as individuals?
Maybe we're too busy, you knw, doing them.