Here's my first shot at a climate change news roundup diary. I'll do my best to do this justice. There's a cover story of course, and a set of links to other stories of interest out then on the internets.
More below.
I usually do diaries on sea ice, but in doing "teh Google" to find some stuff to write on, I encountered this from NPR. It was a story on the potential loss of one of the world's last tropical glaciers; this one in Indonesia, atop Puncak Jaya in the Sudirman range of Papua New Guinea. This peak is 16,000+ feet above sea level.
Rain at 16,000 feet
Those tents on the glacier below the cliffs belong to a research team from Ohio State University lead by Lonnie Thompson, who has conducted 57 similar expeditions over the course of his career.
Dr. Thompson said in his interview with NPR that this was the first time he'd ever encountered rain every day that he was on the glacier. As a result of this, he and his team were able to see the ice melting each day. Over the course of the two weeks they were on Puncak Jaya, the ice lowered about 12"; almost 1" or 2.5 cm per day. This would amount to about a 25-foot (over 7-meter) decrease in thickness in just one year. At this rate, the glacier would vanish in about 4-5 years, joining the glacier on Puncak Trikora in the Maoke Mountains (sometime between 1939 and 1962) and the Meren Glacier (sometime between 1994 and 2000). Since the 1970s, evidence from satellite imagery indicates the Puncak Jaya glaciers and other tropical glaciers have been retreating rapidly.
Dr. Thompson was taking ice cores from the glacier to assure that even if the glacier were to disappear in a few years, the climate history it has recorded would be retained. "For looking at the history of El Niño, it's a wonderful location", he said, because of its proximity to the Pacific warm pool, one pole of the equatorial Pacific El Niño/La Niña seasaw.
While the people of this area are not dependent on the water from this glacier for survival (a different story from that of South America), it is part of their spiritual heritage.
"For the tribes that live in that area, the glaciers are the head of the skull of the god and the mountains are the arms and the legs," he says. "If they lose the glaciers then they’re going to lose part of their soul."
But since when have we cared about that aspect of what we do, let alone the long-term economic and climate impacts on those less able to handle them?
For more on the loss of tropical glaciers in general, see this link from Global Greenhouse Warming. On the societal impacts of loss of the water that such glaciers provide in tropical South America, see this link from Yale Environment 360.
More news in tonight's Climate Change News Roundup.
GLOBAL CHANGE IMPACTS on CLIMATE
- Pakistan's Flood Weather Eased Beginning of Atlantic Hurricane Season
Apparently, Pakistan and Russia's misfortune may have helped us out in the Western Hemisphere. It appears that dry air got entrained into the tropical atmosphere in the Atlantic (and even to some extent in the Pacific) to suppress hurricane formation, as a result of the pattern over Eurasia and the Indian subcontinent. As soon as the blocking pattern that resulted in the flooding and drought broke down in late August, the Atlantic hurricane season picked up considerably.
- Arctic Sea Ice News: Week ending September 5, 2010
Pimping my own diary here. Arctic sea ice is now at the third lowest extent since at least 1979, the beginning of the satellite record (and likely for much longer).
- A Climate Warning From the Deep.
These creatures from the deep have left a clue regarding the vulnerability of the west Antarctic ice sheet to collapse. Since they attach themselves to rocks and are only mobile as larvae for a short time, that they are very similar on both sides of the Antarctic ice sheet indicates that they had contact with each other recently. It's theorized that there was a passage through the ice sheet about 125,000 years ago during the last interglacial.
That interglacial was the result of increased solar insolation resulting from predictable changes in Earth orbit about the Sun. Both the Earth's tilt and the seasonal timing of when we are close versus far away from the Sun affects the amount of energy the Sun provides. A quote:
... Dr. David Barnes of British Antarctic Survey said,
"The West Antarctic Ice Sheet can be considered the Achilles heel of Antarctica and because any collapse will have implications for future sea level rise it’s important that scientists get a better understanding of big deglaciation events. This biological evidence is one of the novel ways that we look for clues that help us reconstruct Antarctica’s ice sheet history.
"Our new research provides compelling evidence that a seaway stretching across West Antarctica could have opened up only if the ice sheet had collapsed in the past."
BP & FOSSIL FOOLISH NEWS
- Mariner Rig Accident Undercuts Efforts to End Drilling Moratorium.
From the science and trechnology blog of the NYTimes:
Several Democratic congressmen have called for an investigation of the rig fire.
"This explosion highlights the significant risks associated with offshore drilling, and that much is left to be done to keep America’s workers and waters safe from those risks," said Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, who chairs the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, in a statement.
Jim Noe, an attorney with Hercules Offshore, a major driller in the Gulf of Mexico, called the fire a "drag," and "another challenge" for the industry, in an interview with Bloomberg News. "It’s another issue that we have to explain," he said.
Can you imagine Joe Barton saying this somehow? He of "Apology to BP" infamy? I didn't think so.
- BP Replaces Blowout Preventer and Moves Toward Plugging Well
Crews hoisted the blowout preventer that once sat atop BP’s stricken well to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday night, and the federal leader of the spill response said that there was no longer any risk that the well might leak again. We can only hope that nothing else blows out.
- Key Oil Spill Evidence Raised to Gulf's Surface (AP).
Now the law and the lawyers are involved. Both the FBI and BP lawyers will accompany the raised blowout preventer to a NASA facility for an investigation of what exactly happened to cause the blowout preventer to fail. (Ed. note: I thought we pretty much already knew this)
CLIMATE CHANGE & POLITICS
I found a good one. In fact, I found it earlier today but forgot to include it.
- Global Warming Science Is Still Evolving, But Not in the Directions the Disinformers Think
Something that many of us already knew about how climate models typically work; they are conservative, that is, the parameters used are based on the present climate. As a result, the climate models have a tendency to regress back to today's climate as well. For example, vegetation in most climate models does not respond to climate change by changing from present day types.
This blog entry discusses a response to an article in the Wall Street Journal that attempts to create a new "-gate" ... "AmazonGate", because supposedly the positive response of rain forest trees to increased CO2 has not been recognized in research on the potential future demise of the Amazon rain forest.
A great read, and related is this report from Stephen Leahy, an independent environmental journalist, on "The REAL Amazon-Gate". Apparently, the World Bank sat on a report by forest biologists that indicated that the Amazon is nearing a tipping point, beyond which loss of 2/3 of the remaining forest will be unavoidable.
CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY
- Solar Highways.
This is pretty cool ... using highways made of solar panels to create energy. It's a short video from something called Flixxy.
WATER & NATURAL RESOURCES
- Amazon Deforestation Rate Slashed.
This may just be good news, especially since "more than half a million square miles of new farmland was created in the developing world between 1980 and 2000, and 80 per cent came from clearing tropical forests". According to the Brazilian agency that examines remote sensing data for fires and lost forest in Brazil, the rate of decrease in forest area from burning dropped about 47.5% between 2008 and 2009, and has dropped by as much as 90% since 2004. The decrease has been attributed at least in part, to economic incentives to preserve the rain forest.
WILDLIFE & ENDANGERED SPECIES
- After 20 years of protection, (northern spotted) owl declining but forests remain.
Apparently, not enough forest that mimics old growth forest to save the northern spotted owl yet, hence their continued decline. But it was about more than the northern spotted owl:
It also was about the future of the ancient Douglas fir, red cedar and Western hemlock forests that once stretched from northern California through Oregon and Washington state into British Columbia , and the habitat they provide for hundreds of species.
The owl was considered an indicator species, reflecting the health of forests where trees as old as 1,000 years grow. When the owl was listed as a threatened species in the summer of 1990, it was seen not just as a way to halt the decline in owl populations but also to end logging in the federal old-growth forests.
"Though the owl triggered it, what was at stake was the survival of the old-growth ecosystem," said Bruce Babbitt , who as the interior secretary during the Clinton administration helped write the still-controversial Northwest Forest Plan, which brought an uneasy truce to the owl wars.
FOOD & HEALTH
- U.N. Raises Concerns as Global Food Prices Jump.
Now the downside of the delay in the Atlantic (and Eastern Pacific) hurricane season. Russia isn't selling its wheat on the global market, as yields are down in its breadbasket by about 20%. Food prices are up 5% in the past month alone, though still about 30% less than in 2008, the last year we had a major food production crisis.
More:
It is an issue not limited to Russia alone. Harvest forecasts in Germany and Canada are clouded by wet weather and flooding, while crops in Argentina will suffer from drought, as could Australia’s, according to agricultural experts. The bump in prices because of the uncertainty about future supplies means the poor in some areas of the world will face higher bread prices in the coming months.
GREEN JOBS & ECONOMIC IMPACTS
- Official: Obama Backing Research Tax Credits.
Will the jobs go to Americans or "furriners" on visas? That's a good question to ask, but encouraging scientific research can't hurt with the green jobs.