Snow Petrels as Monitors of Climate Change

Snow Petrels are birds of the Antarctic, and because their habitat is changing, and forecast to change even more rapidly, Australian scientists will add small tracking devices to Snow Petrels at several colonies in Antarctica. This will enable the scientists to monitor where the Snow Petrels feed, and thus be an indicator of changes in the southern ocean currents and food supplies. This is a region that is expected to be very sensitive to global climate changes. As one who loves birds, I could not resist putting this link up, even though the article just outlines the beginning of their research. Above photo by Bill Fintel.

CO2 as a global thermostat

While much has been said about the major role of water vapor and clouds in the greenhouse effect, the title linked article by NASA climate scientist, Andrew Lacis, describes a sophisticated modeling experiment that zeroed out atmospheric CO2 and other non-condensing greenhouse gases, so that water vapor and clouds were the only atmospheric greenhouse factors. The net result was a frozen planet with temperatures even at the Equator of just 1 deg C.

From the title article:
"This climate modeling experiment was performed using the GISS ModelE general circulation coupled atmosphere-ocean climate model by zeroing out all of the non-condensing greenhouse gases. Doing this removed the radiative forcing that sustains the temperature support for water vapor and cloud feedbacks, causing rapid condensation and precipitation of water vapor from the atmosphere, collapsing the terrestrial greenhouse effect, and plunging the Earth into an icebound state."

From a 2nd NASA article we get a geological perspective:
"The study ties in to the geologic record in which carbon dioxide levels have oscillated between approximately 180 parts per million during ice ages, and about 280 parts per million during warmer interglacial periods. To provide perspective to the nearly 1 C (1.8 F) increase in global temperature over the past century, it is estimated that the global mean temperature difference between the extremes of the ice age and interglacial periods is only about 5 C (9 F).

"When carbon dioxide increases, more water vapor returns to the atmosphere. This is what helped to melt the glaciers that once covered New York City," said co-author David Rind, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Today we are in uncharted territory as carbon dioxide approaches 390 parts per million in what has been referred to as the 'superinterglacial.'"

So what to do if the Earth's temperatures rise dramatically, with associated sea level rise, drought, famine, disease, etc. Reducing atmospheric CO2 levels seems to be an unachievable task, at least in the next century. So what can we do? Is Geoengineering a viable approach???? (stay tuned)

Climate Change Science....and Uncertainties

"Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected." from Royal Academy of Sciences guide to climate change. The possibility that we are UNDERestimating what changes may occur, is brought up much less frequently than the skeptics view, that we are "probably overestimating what will happen".

And as we have heard before, modeling clouds adds the most uncertainty. From the Washington Post "Estimates range between about 2C and 4.5C for a doubling of carbon dioxide. Scientists are trying to narrow that spread, but climate modeling is exceptionally difficult, particularly when it comes to estimating the effects of clouds on the climate system."

The Maldives - Our global warming Canary???

"Few countries in the world face as immediate a threat from climate change as the Republic of Maldives, a low-lying group of atolls in the Indian Ocean whose coastline is eroding and whose water supplies are now being infiltrated by saltwater from the sea."

The title link is to a Washington Post article which clearly covers what the residents of the Maldives are experiencing, and what they are doing to deal with warming oceans, and sea level rise. The Maldives is definitely a country to follow as an indicator of what is happening to highly sensitive countries as the global climate changes.

 President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives at an underwater cabinet meeting.

10/10/10 Global Work Party

"....... this Sunday's "Global Work Party," where activists from around the globe will "pressure our leaders to Get To Work themselves by passing strong climate policies promoting clean energy and reducing emissions," as 350.org's website explains.

With two days remaining until 10/10/10, the group has registered nearly 7,000 events in 188 countries. Coordinated online outreach by 350.org and its partner organizations has made the immense scale of the Global Work Party possible."

The title-linked article provides a concise, but detailed summary of grass roots efforts to tackle global warming spearheaded by 350.org and Greenpeace. If you go to the 350.org web site you can search where some of the 7,000 events are taking place. The closest to southern Delaware is in Salisbury, MD.

2010 Arctic Sea Ice Extent

Arctic sea ice extent for 2010 was the third lowest on record, and in line with the overall decline recorded by satellites since the early 1970's.

Geoengineering - U. S. Gov Program

The above link is to an October 4 article in the Washington Post. It provides an excellent overview of what geoengineering is, why it makes sense to study various geoengineering approaches in more detail, and what the House Science and Technology Committee is doing.

In the article is a link to a recent statement by Science and Technology Chairman, Bart Gordon. It is titled, Plan B for the Climate, and puts in perspective some key points, such as the potential risks of geoengineering, but also the risks of relying solely on carbon emissions reduction to avert future severe climate change.

I found it interesting that some geoengineering approaches, like reflecting incoming solar radiation back into space, are considered "inexpensive". This of course gives rise to the concern that if global warming escalates catastrophically, as feared by many, one country might take it upon itself to unilaterally solve the problem......and in doing so unleash severe side effects, perhaps worse than the warming problem.

Petroleum-eating microbes

Even though the referenced link is only indirectly connected to climate change though a common element, petroleum, I thought it was sufficiently unique to post. It certainly indicates the earth can, at times, be more adaptable and responsive to sudden change than we expect.

2009 Climate Scorecard

More than 300 scientists from 48 countries have compiled the annual State of the Climate Report for 2009. Everyone of 10 key indicators confirms that the Earth is warming. The above link takes you to a NOAA site where you can download either the full 218 page report, or a 10 page summary report, as I chose.

What the report does not do is assess the cause of this warming trend. However, it does deal with some of the consequences, such as more severe weather, and it attempts to quantify them.

I definitely recommend at least the summary report. Also informative are the interactive graphs available at the title link under "Do It Yourself: Key Climate Indicators". A sample of these is this link to sea level rise, my preferred indicator.

Clouds & Global Warming

We all know that clouds play an important role in determining weather as well as past and future climate. This is due to the absoptive and reflective nature of the water vapor. The clouds capture and then release the solar radiation from the Sun and infrared radiation from the surface of the Earth. Due to the ever-changing cloud formation, the contained amount of moisture, the height of the cloud formation, temperature, as well as the droplet size, this energy transfer mechanism is very complicated, making their effect on global warming difficult to model. This link to a NASA Earth Observatory article will hopefully add a bit of clarity to this phenomena.

Refining Climate History

You probably recall climate history charts of temperature and CO2 appear to show that rises in global temperature preceded rises in atmospheric CO2. This seems to be counter to today's theories that rising CO2 concentrations will cause a rise in global temperature, and thus provides fuel for the skeptics arguments against linking current rising CO2 levels to future global warming.

The title link to a Wall Street Journal article addresses this and details a new ice core effort in Antarctica aimed at refining  historical data to better clarify the relationship between global temperature and atmospheric CO2. The main questions with past data arise from proxy results for temperature, and with ice core dating. This new study aims to use oxygen isotope measurements to deduce global temperature (not new, but apparently being done in a more refined way), and adds several techniques for deducing ice core age. Additionally, the drilling location is in an area with heavier snowfall, so the ice core layers are better separated.

The above photo shows back-lit ice layers and is from an expanded link in the WSJ article.