The Global Warming Thread

[Kraken]

I decided to start this thread, rather than add to theWarming of Planet Earth thread, because my intent is to collect links to the 1,001 details that I regularly encounter that bolster our understanding of climate change: stories about migrating plant ranges, animal behaviors disrupted by seasonal and temperature changes, changing wildlife habitats, the spread of tropical diseases to temperate climes, etc. -- the kind of minor details that don't mean much in isolation, but that add up.

My objective is to build a long-term collection of detailed links that I can refer to in other arguments elsewhere, rather than make sweeping arguments about the big picture here. The thread linked above covers that.

Today's Boston Globe report about rising sea levels finally motivated me to start this thread after kicking around the idea for months.

Several lines of research now indicate that a 3-foot global rise by 2100 is a plausible scenario, though some scientists forecast a smaller rise. In other words, what was once a problem for our great great-grandchildren is one our children could confront.

And it is possible the news could be even worse in the Northeast. Studies show that changes in ocean circulation driven by warming waters could raise sea levels an additional foot or more along New England shores by the end of the century.

...

Four years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that advises the United Nations, estimated the world’s seas could rise almost 2 feet by 2100. But now, many scientists say 3 feet is plausible, especially as evidence builds that ice sheets are melting faster. Earlier this month, a research team led by University of California, Irvine scientists, using two independent techniques, showed that to be the case in Greenland and Antarctica.

This story goes on to discuss the practicality and cost of defending the Northeast coastline against rising seas, with specific data on the condition of seawalls in MA and the cost to repair them.

Please chime in when you encounter a news item that documents rising temperatures and their effects. This thread will only work as intended if the rest of you are interested enough to participate, too.

[msduncan]

This tells me that I should consider figuring our where the coastline would be for a 3 foot rise in sea level and start buying property there for my kids. They could build some serious wealth that way.

[GreenGoo]

This tells me that I should consider figuring our where the coastline would be for a 3 foot rise in sea level and start buying property there for my kids. They could build some serious wealth that way.

Or host a whole lotta refugees. I know Houston was ecstatic to have hundreds or thousands of homeless arrive during Katrina. Of course it's going to happen slowly over time so I doubt there will be a whole lotta bargains to be had.

New Orleans could at least take some comfort in knowing they didn't drown alone this time.

[msduncan]

This tells me that I should consider figuring our where the coastline would be for a 3 foot rise in sea level and start buying property there for my kids. They could build some serious wealth that way.

Or host a whole lotta refugees. I know Houston was ecstatic to have hundreds or thousands of homeless arrive during Katrina. Of course it's going to happen slowly over time so I doubt there will be a whole lotta bargains to be had.

New Orleans could at least take some comfort in knowing they didn't drown alone this time.

It's not like this will happen over a 24 hour period. It will take decades, water moving people who have money to leave their property and other people who have money will seek out prime real estate farther inland by a number of miles.

My strategy to make money is sound.

[GreenGoo]

This tells me that I should consider figuring our where the coastline would be for a 3 foot rise in sea level and start buying property there for my kids. They could build some serious wealth that way.

Or host a whole lotta refugees. I know Houston was ecstatic to have hundreds or thousands of homeless arrive during Katrina. Of course it's going to happen slowly over time so I doubt there will be a whole lotta bargains to be had.

New Orleans could at least take some comfort in knowing they didn't drown alone this time.

It's not like this will happen over a 24 hour period. It will take decades, water moving people who have money to leave their property and other people who have money will seek out prime real estate farther inland by a number of miles.

My strategy to make money is sound.

Ok.

[Rip]

I think I will end up on the Louisiana coast. Maybe I should trade one of my motorcycles in for a jet ski.

[Kraken]

2010 tied the record for the warmest year

2010 has tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record, according to two new studies.

On January 12 NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released their independent analyses of global surface temperature data for last year. Both found that 2010 was ever-so-slightly warmer than 2005. But the difference was not statistically large enough to declare 2010 the winner.

...

All the bean counting about which particular year is the hottest obscures a more profound point, says Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at the NASA Goddard center who was not involved in the recent temperature analysis. “The baseline is getting warmer and warmer every year,” he says. Indeed, 2010 was the 34th year in a row in which global temperatures were higher than the 20th century average.

Schmidt predicts that 2011 will not be as toasty as 2010 was, in part because of the La Niña that is currently cooling things down. But because levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases continue to rise in the atmosphere, “it’s almost certain to still be a top-10 year,” he says. “Maybe even a top-five year.”

(Sorry this isn't real timely...I'm a little behind on my Science News).

[noxiousdog]

Or host a whole lotta refugees. I know Houston was ecstatic to have hundreds or thousands of homeless arrive during Katrina. Of course it's going to happen slowly over time so I doubt there will be a whole lotta bargains to be had.

Correction. We were happy to have them during and the months after. Not so much, the readily identifiable ones, 2 to 3 years after.

[GreenGoo]

Or host a whole lotta refugees. I know Houston was ecstatic to have hundreds or thousands of homeless arrive during Katrina. Of course it's going to happen slowly over time so I doubt there will be a whole lotta bargains to be had.

Correction. We were happy to have them during and the months after. Not so much, the readily identifiable ones, 2 to 3 years after.

[silverjon]

http://wwf.ca/conservation/global_warmi ... nesses.cfm" target="_blank

Change around the world.

[Kraken]

Arctic freshwater pool could change climate

AMSTERDAM — Scientists are monitoring a massive pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean that could spill into the Atlantic and potentially alter the key ocean currents that give Western Europe its moderate climate.

The oceanographers said yesterday that the unusual accumulation has been caused by Siberian and Canadian rivers dumping more water into the Arctic and from melting sea ice. Both are consequences of global warming.

If it flushes into the Atlantic, the infusion of fresh water could, in the worst case, change the ocean current that brings warmth from the tropics to European shores, said Laura De Steur of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.

German researcher Benjamin Rabe, of the Alfred Wegener Institute, said the Arctic’s fresh water content had increased 20 percent since the 1990s — about 8,400 cubic kilometers. That is the equivalent of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron together

This is interesting chiefly as an example of how overall warming could lead to colder weather in some regions.

[LawBeefaroni]

My strategy to make money is sound.

Acquiring the working crystal ball is the hard part.


For Kraken:

THE GIST

• Joshua trees will likely disappear from 90 percent of their range in the future, owing to warming.
• Fossilized dung from extinct giant sloths that once ate Joshua tree fruits show a similar range reduction in previous climate warming.
• The trees could perhaps find suitable habitat further north, but they probably migrate too slowly.

An icon of the Mojave Desert, the Joshua tree may be found only at its highest or most northerly outposts by the end of the century. A new study suggests its range may shrink by 90 percent in the next 60 to 90 years as a consequence of global warming.

[Jeff V]

[*]Fossilized dung from extinct giant sloths that once ate Joshua tree fruits show a similar range reduction in previous climate warming.

It should be noted that present-day giant sloth is showing no sign of range reduction, and neither does its food source of pizza, Cheetos and Mt. Dew.

[msduncan]

My strategy to make money is sound.

Acquiring the working crystal ball is the hard part.

No crystal ball needed. We have readily available maps that show flood plains at different stages of hurricane storm surge. You could pretty easily figure out future coastlines based on rising water levels.

[Combustible Lemur]

Climate change and salinity. Reminiscing to my marine biology freshman year. The brackish wetlands stand to take huge ecological curveball from rising sea levels. & salinity changes.

My strategy to make money is sound.

Acquiring the working crystal ball is the hard part.

No crystal ball needed. We have readily available maps that show flood plains at different stages of hurricane storm surge. You could pretty easily figure out future coastlines based on rising water levels.

so what would be the difference between and war profiteering?

[LawBeefaroni]

No crystal ball needed. We have readily available maps that show flood plains at different stages of hurricane storm surge. You could pretty easily figure out future coastlines based on rising water levels.

Sure, but how much is the water going to rise? When is it going to stop?

[Jeff V]

No crystal ball needed. We have readily available maps that show flood plains at different stages of hurricane storm surge. You could pretty easily figure out future coastlines based on rising water levels.

Sure, but how much is the water going to rise? When is it going to stop?

Consider too that the current owners of beachfront property tend to have obscene amounts of money -- and that money can stave off nature for a good period of time. Corporations owning expensive resorts and hotels will be particularly interested in devising artificial solutions to the problem. That doesn't mean there still won't be areas that are now high and dry that will become beach -- but it's likely in areas that people aren't all that interested in living at in the first place.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Consider too that the current owners of beachfront property tend to have obscene amounts of money -- and that money can stave off nature for a good period of time.

Yet it's taxpayers who end up subsidising their risk in building beachfront property.

[msduncan]

Climate change and salinity. Reminiscing to my marine biology freshman year. The brackish wetlands stand to take huge ecological curveball from rising sea levels. & salinity changes.

My strategy to make money is sound.

Acquiring the working crystal ball is the hard part.

No crystal ball needed. We have readily available maps that show flood plains at different stages of hurricane storm surge. You could pretty easily figure out future coastlines based on rising water levels.

Oh I don't know.... maybe because people don't get exploded, they just have to move?

so what would be the difference between and war profiteering?

[Combustible Lemur]

Climate change and salinity. Reminiscing to my marine biology freshman year. The brackish wetlands stand to take huge ecological curveball from rising sea levels. & salinity changes.

My strategy to make money is sound.

Acquiring the working crystal ball is the hard part.

No crystal ball needed. We have readily available maps that show flood plains at different stages of hurricane storm surge. You could pretty easily figure out future coastlines based on rising water levels.

Oh I don't know.... maybe because people don't get exploded, they just have to move?

so what would be the difference between and war profiteering?

So uninjured refugees can't be victims of profiteering? It wouldn't bother, me but I would be utterly surprised if corporations who actively lobby against environmental restrictions don't have an agent of some kind looking at future realty based on climate change models. If MSD has thought of it in order to screw with a thread otherwise about scholarly articles. I'm sure the Corporations who stand to gain the most both now and later, have all sorts of plans.

[Kraken]

You might want to revise that beachfront property plan. It's worse than we thought just a few years ago.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Arctic ice is melting faster than expected and could raise the average global sea level by as much as five feet this century, an authoritative new report suggests.

...

It says that Arctic temperatures in the past six years were the highest since measurements began in 1880, and that feedback mechanisms believed to accelerate warming in the climate system have now started kicking in.

One mechanism involves the ocean absorbing more heat when it's not covered by ice, which reflects the sun's energy. That effect has been anticipated by scientists "but clear evidence for it has only been observed in the Arctic in the past five years," AMAP said.

The report also shatters some of the forecasts made in 2007 by the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change.

The cover of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, for example, is shrinking faster than projected by the U.N. panel. The level of summer ice coverage has been at or near record lows every year since 2001, AMAP said, predicting that the Arctic Ocean will be nearly ice free in summer within 30-40 years.

Its assessment also said the U.N. panel was too conservative in estimating how much sea levels will rise — one of the most closely watched aspects of global warming because of the potentially catastrophic impact on coastal cities and island nations.

The melting of Arctic glaciers and ice caps, including Greenland's massive ice sheet, are projected to help raise global sea levels by 35 to 63 inches (90-160 centimeters) by 2100, AMAP said, though it noted that the estimate was highly uncertain.

That's up from a 2007 projection of 7 to 23 inches (19-59 centimeters) by the U.N. panel, which didn't consider the dynamics of ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctica.

"The observed changes in sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, in the mass of the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic ice caps and glaciers over the past 10 years are dramatic and represent an obvious departure from the long-term patterns," AMAP said in the executive summary.

...

The AMAP report said melting glaciers and ice sheets worldwide have become the biggest contributor to sea level rise. Greenland's ice sheet alone accounted for more than 40 percent of the 0.12 inches (3.1 millimeters) of sea-level rise observed annually between 2003 and 2008, AMAP said.

It said the yearly mass loss from Greenland's ice sheet, which covers an area the size of Mexico, increased from 50 gigatons in 1995-2000 to more than 200 gigatons in 2004-2008.

Scientists are still debating how much of the changes observed in the Arctic are due to natural variances and how much to warming caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. AMAP projected that average fall and winter temperatures in the Arctic will climb by 5.4-10.8 F (3-6 C) by 2080, even if greenhouse gas emissions are lower than in the past decade.

[YellowKing]

My views on global warming have softened considerably after my bout with depression/obsession with mortality early this year. Not from a hype/propaganda perspective, because I still believe it is largely overblown alarmism.

But I made some statements in the other global warming thread about not giving a fuck about what happened in 100 years since I'd be dead anyway.

It took a lot of soul-searching but ultimately I came to the conclusion that we are all given only a brief window into "existence." The universe allows few witnesses to its existence, and then only for a tiny amount of time. The only way we achieve any kind of immortality is to further our species be it through procreation or improving our species in some way while we are here. In that respect, I guess I do give a fuck. It doesn't mean I'm going to go buy An Inconvenient Truth and start bicycling to work, but it does mean I do understand the drive for the human species to care about future generations.

[silverjon]

That's a positive personal epiphany to have had.

[Kraken]

*group hug*

With no kids and only 20 statistical years left on this planet, I don't have a personal stake in it either. And I have a low opinion of people in general. But I'm rooting for humanity anyway. Go figure.

A wise man once said "I love humanity...it's people I can't stand."

Spoiler:

[Kraken]

This story was mentioned in the Chicken Little thread, but I wanted to collect it here for future reference.

WASHINGTON — The warming of Earth has reduced the yields of corn and wheat in much of the world, a new study finds.

Although agricultural advances have pushed global production of staple crops skyward, hotter temperatures in Russia, China, Mexico, and elsewhere have stunted that growth and contributed to the long-term rise in food prices, concludes the analysis published in the journal Science yesterday.

“This is tens of billions of dollars a year in lost [agricultural] productivity because of warming,’’ said David Lobell, an Earth scientist at Stanford University and an author on the report.

Three decades of global warming reduced worldwide yields of corn by some 5.5 percent and wheat by some 3.8 percent compared with what would have been produced had world temperatures remained stable, the report says.

A burgeoning global population also needs more crops — and more grain-fed beef — which contributes to rising food prices much more than climate change, Lobell added. This week, the United Nations also projected that the global population will hit 7 billion in October and 10.6 billion by 2050. Such a huge increase will continue to push food prices higher.

For now, the bread basket of America bucked the trend, as agricultural regions of the United States have not warmed much during their growing seasons since 1980. Climate scientists debate the reasons, with some pointing to particulate pollution over the middle of the United States as a possible cooling counterbalance.

And, as long as I've got this thread open, a more minor story: Warming could exacerbate mercury pollution in the arctic.

STOCKHOLM — Global mercury emissions could increase 25 percent by 2020 if no action is taken to control them, posing a threat to polar bears, whales, and seals and the Arctic communities who hunt those animals for food, according to an authoritative international study.

The study by a scientific body set up by the eight Arctic rim countries also warns climate change may worsen the problem by releasing mercury stored for thousands of years in permafrost or promoting chemical processes that transform mercury into a more toxic form.

[Kraken]

Dressed to Krill

Disruptions in the food supply, caused in part by warming climate, are to blame for shrinking populations of Adélie and chinstrap penguins across the West Antarctic Peninsula, a team of U.S. researchers argues. Rising temperatures alone are bad for these cool, tuxedoed birds, but the penguins’ struggles primarily stem from having too few krill to eat, the group reports online April 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

...

In fact, the entire Scotia Sea seems to have had the rug pulled out from underneath it. The rug, in this case, is krill. Numbers of these tiny crustaceans, the bottom-most animals in marine food webs, have dropped by up to 80 percent throughout the region. Some of that has to do with whales and seals — many of these krill-eating species have resurged since the end of Moby Dick-era hunting. But, Trivelpiece says, the story also comes back to ice. Young krill grow big and fat while hiding under ice masses. Less ice means less krill, and that means both Adélies and chinstraps go hungry. Ironically, the empty buffet is especially bad even for chinstraps, Trivelpiece argues, since — unlike Adélies — these birds don’t live elsewhere in the Antarctic. So although these birds were once thought to represent climate change’s silver lining, he says, today “they’re likely to be one of the more impacted of all.”

Krill are important, but the problem may go deeper, says Oscar Schofield, a biological oceanographer at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Marine crustaceans, for their part, gorge on tiny photosynthesizing organisms called phytoplankton.

Schofield’s research hints that climate change in the West Antarctic Peninsula may be similarly knocking out this critical bottom rung of the food chain. “Very small changes in the ocean and the atmosphere can have profound impacts on ecosystems,” he says.

...

Still, Trivelpiece is confident that much of the West Antarctic Peninsula’s marine food web is unraveling. If his team hadn’t followed the penguins, the problem may have festered unnoticed for some time, he says. “We’re very fortunate to have shown up about a decade before everything went to hell in a hand basket.”

Sucks to be a penguin.

[Mr. Fed]

Remember how the Reagan Administration revealed that trees cause pollution?

Well, our arboreal foes are at it again. The only way that we can fight global warming is to clear-cut the rainforest.

You can't expect leadership like that from Democrats. They are objectively pro-tree.

Fucking trees.

The Republican party: making Mr. Fed feel scientifically literate by comparison since 1980.

[stessier]

Well, our arboreal foes are at it again. The only way that we can fight global warming is to clear-cut the rainforest.

To be fair, he said he wanted to cut down the old trees to keep them from rotting and to get rid of the rotting trees underneath. Then go back and plant new trees.

Still crazy - but not as bad as paving over the whole thing instead.

[silverjon]

gahdam frigging old guys need to go back to grade five science class
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globa ... html#NUTRI" target="_blank

[Pyperkub]

Well, our arboreal foes are at it again. The only way that we can fight global warming is to clear-cut the rainforest.

To be fair, he said he wanted to cut down the old trees to keep them from rotting and to get rid of the rotting trees underneath. Then go back and plant new trees.

Still crazy - but not as bad as paving over the whole thing instead.

However - he also doesn't believe that CO2 is a cause of Global Warming.:

OK, let me do this: I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and agree that he might have been taken out of context. It’s happened before.

But that hardly matters, because he says simply and clearly he doesn’t think CO2 is a cause of global warming. That’s not out of context, or a misquote of any kind. Those are his own words, and they dwarf any statement about rainforests, whether it was out of context or straight.

That’s because his denial of the contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming tosses out the window the careful and meticulous results of thousands of climate scientists across the world and across the decades.

[Pyperkub]

Back to the topic, Carbon emissions boom in 2010:

According to its analysis, 2010 saw humanity emit roughly 30.6 gigatonnes of CO2, up five percent over 2008. The industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development still account for 40 percent of all emissions, but only 25 percent of emissions growth. Developing economies like India and China are seeing CO2 output rise at a much faster pace, although their per-capita emissions remain relatively low.

According to the IEA's chief economist, the surge in emissions are a "serious setback" to attempts to limit the warming of the planet to 2°C.

One of the key things here (to me) is that there appears to be good scientific research regarding how much emissions have to be cut in order to curtail global warming. This isn't what I see from the denial side, what (IMHO) I see there are just attempts to discredit research and researchers, for the most part.

[miltonite]

I see all the links to what global warming is causing, can someone please point out a credible (preferably peer reviewed article) that states that CO2 is the direct cause of global warming?

[LawBeefaroni]

I see all the links to what global warming is causing, can someone please point out a credible (preferably peer reviewed article) that states that CO2 is the direct cause of global warming?

I'm not sure that it's commonly claimed to be the direct cause. It is, however, considered to be a major contributing factor.

[Combustible Lemur]

Huh, type in co2 global warming peer reviewed , and the first page consensus appears that it's a myth.

Also, two competing wiki links

Global Warming
Scientific Peer Review / global warming

^ The 2001 joint statement was signed by the national academies of science of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, the People's Republic of China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK. The 2005 statement added Japan, Russia, and the U.S. The 2007 statement added Mexico and South Africa. The Network of African Science Academies, and the Polish Academy of Sciences have issued separate statements. Professional scientific societies include American Astronomical Society, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Institute of Physics, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, American Quaternary Association, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, European Academy of Sciences and Arts, European Geosciences Union, European Science Foundation, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of Australia, Geological Society of London-Stratigraphy Commission, InterAcademy Council, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, International Union for Quaternary Research, National Association of Geoscience Teachers, National Research Council (US), Royal Meteorological Society, and World Meteorological Organization.

[Pyperkub]

Current Carbon rise highest documented:

The most similar event to current and predicted warming took place almost 56 million years ago, during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).

During this event, the average temperature rose almost 6°C over about twenty thousand years—the most rapid (documented) warming in the past...

...The total amount of carbon released to the atmosphere during the PETM (3,500-13,000 Pg C) is comparable to the current and past fossil fuel reserves, so scientists consider this event the best historical analog for the present global warming situation. However, these new results show that the peak rate of carbon release to the atmosphere in this period was about ten times less than the rate at which we current emit carbon, which is approximately 9 Pg C/yr. That suggests that we are altering our environment in an unprecedented (and unpredictable) way.

[Defiant]

MIT study says Arctic ice thinning 4x faster than predicted

No, new data does not “blow a gaping hole in global warming alarmism”

[Kraken]

Sulphur stalls global temperature rise

A new study demonstrates why global surface temperatures defied a decades-long trend and didn’t continue to rise between 1998 and 2008: Pollution-spewing, coal-burning power plants in Asia, while emitting warming greenhouse gases, simultaneously sent cooling sulfur particles into the atmosphere.

During that decade — sometimes cited as evidence to deny global warming — these Asian emissions mostly balanced one another and dampened the effects of natural cooling cycles associated with the sun and ocean temperatures.

...

When sulfur emissions are reduced, “What you will see in the short term is a relative rapid rise in temperature, because you have taken away the brake,” Ammann says. Kaufmann says China has begun using scrubbers at its coal-burning facilities to reduce sulfur emissions — similar to what happened in the United States after passage of the Clean Air Act more than four decades ago.

[YellowKing]

So let's crank those sulfur-spewers back up! Problem solved!

[Isgrimnur]

Yeah! That'll solve all our problems. At least, until all of our bridges dissolve in a puddle of acid rain.

[Exodor]

Global Warming skeptic finds the data is pretty much accurate]

For example, the conventional wisdom about climate change. Muller has criticized Al Gore in the past as an "exaggerator," has spoken warmly of climate skeptic Anthony Watts, and has said that Steve McIntyre's famous takedown of the "hockey stick" climate graph made him "uncomfortable" with the paper the hockey stick was originally based on.

So in 2010 he started up the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST) to show the world how to do climate analysis right. Who better, after all? "Muller's views on climate have made him a darling of skeptics," said Scientific American, "and newly elected Republicans in the House of Representatives, who invited him to testify to the Committee on Science, Space and Technology about his preliminary results."

In the press release announcing the results, Muller said, "Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK." In other words, climate scientists know what they're doing after all.