F. Barringer, NYT, White roofs catch on as energy cost cutters

White roofs catch on as energy cost cutters

by Felicity Barringer, New York Times, July 29, 2009

Link to Fahrenheit to centrigrade converter: http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm

SAN FRANCISCO — Returning to their ranch-style house in Sacramento after a long summer workday, Jon and Kim Waldrep were routinely met by a wall of heat.

A Wal-Mart store in Chino, Calif., has both a cool roof and solar panels to cut its energy use. (J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times) Enlarge This Image

By Degrees

A Cool Shield

This is one in a series of articles about stopgap measures that could limit global warming.

Multimedia

Graphic

Imagining a Cool-Roof Nation

Efficiency Drive Could Cut Energy Use 23% by 2020, Study Finds (July 30, 2009)

The Unchilled Life (July 23, 2009)

By Degrees: Third-World Stove Soot Is Target in Climate Fight (April 16, 2009)

By Degrees: Buses May Aid Climate Battle in Poor Cities (July 10, 2009)

By Degrees: A New Enforcer in Buildings, the Energy Inspector (July 18, 2009)

A white roof has helped cool Jon Waldrep’s Sacramento home. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times) Enlarge This Image

“We’d come home in the summer, and the house would be 115 degrees, stifling,” said Mr. Waldrep, a regional manager for a national company.

He or his wife would race to the thermostat and turn on the air-conditioning as their four small children, just picked up from day care, awaited relief.

All that changed last month. “Now we come home on days when it’s over 100 degrees outside, and the house is at 80 degrees,” Mr. Waldrep said.

Their solution was a new roof: a shiny plasticized white covering that experts say is not only an energy saver but also a way to help cool the planet.

Relying on the centuries-old principle that white objects absorb less heat than dark ones, homeowners like the Waldreps are in the vanguard of a movement embracing “cool roofs” as one of the most affordable weapons against climate change.

Studies show that white roofs reduce air-conditioning costs by 20% or more in hot, sunny weather. Lower energy consumption also means fewer of the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

What is more, a white roof can cost as little as 15% more than its dark counterpart, depending on the materials used, while slashing electricity bills.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, has proselytized for cool roofs at home and abroad. “Make it white,” he advised a television audience on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” last week.

The scientist Mr. Chu calls his hero, Art Rosenfeld, a member of the California Energy Commission who has been campaigning for cool roofs since the 1980s, argues that turning all of the world’s roofs “light” over the next 20 years could save the equivalent of 24 billion metric tons in carbon dioxide emissions.

“That is what the whole world emitted last year,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. “So, in a sense, it’s like turning off the world for a year.”

This month the Waldreps’ three-bedroom house is consuming 10% less electricity than it did a year ago. (The savings would be greater if the family ran its central air during the workday.)

From Dubai to New Delhi to Osaka, Japan, reflective roofs have been embraced by local officials seeking to rein in energy costs. In the United States, they have been standard equipment for a decade at new Wal-Mart stores. More than 75% of the chain’s 4,268 outlets in the United States have them.

California, Florida and Georgia have adopted building codes that encourage white-roof installations for commercial buildings.

Drawing on federal stimulus dollars earmarked for energy-efficiency projects, state energy offices and local utilities often offer financing for cool roofs. The roofs can qualify for tax credits if the roofing materials pass muster with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program.

Still, the ardor of the cool-roof advocates has prompted a bit of a backlash.

Some roofing specialists and architects argue that supporters fail to account for climate differences or the complexities of roof construction. In cooler climates, they say, reflective roofs can mean higher heating bills.

Scientists acknowledge that the extra heating costs may outweigh the air-conditioning savings in cities like Detroit or Minneapolis.

But for most types of construction, they say, light roofs yield significant net benefits as far north as New York or Chicago. Although those cities have cold winters, they are heat islands in the summer, with hundreds of thousands of square feet of roof surface absorbing energy.

The physics behind cool roofs is simple. Solar energy delivers both light and heat, and the heat from sunlight is readily absorbed by dark colors. (An asphalt roof in New York can rise to 180 degrees on a hot summer day.) Lighter colors, however, reflect back a sizable fraction of the radiation, helping to keep a building — and, more broadly, the city and Earth — cooler. They also re-emit some of the heat they absorb.

Unlike high-technology solutions to reducing energy use, like light-emitting diodes in lamp fixtures, white roofs have a long and humble history. Houses in hot climates have been whitewashed for centuries.

Before the advent of central air-conditioning in the mid-20th-century, white- and cream-colored houses with reflective tin roofs were the norm in South Florida, for example. Then central air-conditioning arrived, along with dark roofs whose basic ingredients were often asphalt, tar and bitumen, or asphalt-based shingles. These materials absorb as much as 90% of the sun’s heat energy — often useful in New England, but less so in Texas. By contrast, a white roof can absorb as little as 10% or 15%.

“Relative newcomers to the West and South brought a lot of habits and products from the Northeast,” said Joe Reilly, the president of American Rooftile Coatings, a supplier. “What you see happening now is common sense.”

Around the country, roof makers are racing to develop products in the hope of profiting as the movement spreads from the flat roofs of the country’s malls to the sloped roofs of its suburbs.

Years of detailed work by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory have provided the roof makers with a rainbow of colors — the equivalent of a table of the elements — showing the amount of light that each hue reflects and the amount of heat it re-emits.

White is not always a buyer’s first choice of color. So suppliers like American Rooftile Coatings have used federal color charts to create “cool” but traditional colors, like cream, sienna and gray, that yield savings, though less than dazzling white roofs do.

In an experiment, the National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., had two kinds of terra-cotta-colored cement tiles from American Rooftile installed on four new homes at the Fort Irwin Army base in California. One kind was covered with a special paint and reflected 45% of the sun’s rays — nearly twice as much as the other kind. The two homes with roofs of highly reflective paint used 35% less electricity last summer than the two with less reflective paint.

Still, William Miller of the Oak Ridge laboratory, who organized the experiment, says he distrusts the margin of difference; he wants to figure out whether some of it resulted from different family habits.

Hashem Akbari, Dr. Rosenfeld’s colleague at the Lawrence Berkeley laboratory, says he is unsure how long it will take cool roofs to truly catch on. But he points out that most roofs, whether tile or asphalt-shingle, have a life span of 20-25 years.

If the roughly 5% of all roofs that are replaced each year were given cool colors, he said, the country’s transformation would be complete in two decades.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/science/earth/30degrees.html

Jakobshavn Glacier's floating tongue breaking up, July 29, 2009

Nick Barnes said...

The southern half of the glacier front looks to have retreated about 4km since the 2006 line.
July 31, 2009 7:43 PM
Tenney said...

Yes, it looks like the 2006 line is the area of retreat -- wonder why that is.

I am still pretty much of a newbie, so I am still wondering if the tongue breaks up every year.
August 1, 2009 12:58 AM
Nick Barnes said...

Let me share some of my (limited) understanding of this glacier.

The main fjord, up to 10 km wide and maybe 50 km long, contains a lot of bergs from the glacier, with some sea ice between the bergs. The glacier is quite thick - 1-2 km - so the larger bergs are enormous and often ground on the fjord floor (a smaller berg will turn onto its side when it calves). This slows the outflow in the fjord - some bergs can spend years in the fjord - which is why the ice-filled fjord has this unusual look on satellite pictures: an ice finger poking out into Disko Bay and the Davis Strait. But it's important not to confuse this ice-filled fjord with the glacier itself.

Of course, the glacier used to occupy the fjord. It retreated out of most of the fjord in the late 19th and early 20th century. Then the front stayed in about the same place for 40 years, before retreating out of the rest of the fjord since 2000. The calving front continues to retreat (looking at these pictures).

It's important to remember that the glacier flows much more quickly than it retreats. Flow at the calving front is about 10 km/year. The current retreat is something like 1 km/year. Flow of the small bergs in the fjord is much quicker than the glacier flow (however, as noted above, the large bergs can get stuck).

Now the retreat has passed the confluence, where multiple ice streams in the interior of the ice sheet join to make the glacier at the head of the fjord. The confluence is roughly fan-shaped, but the ice sheet isn't homogeneous; roughly speaking here there's a northern ice stream and a southern ice stream, and the ice between them doesn't flow as fast as the streams themselves. The ice streams carve channels for themselves in the bedrock. The flow rates upstream from the confluence are lower, of course.
August 1, 2009 6:31 AM

Nick, that was a really helpful explanation. Please feel free to add to it, and I will post it up. Thanks, Tenney

Greenland Ice Sheet melt -- July 28, 2008, vs. July 30, 2009

July 28, 2008 (left); July 30, 2009 (right).

Be sure to click on the images to enlarge the details.

Joseph Romm: Climate change expected to sharply increase Western wildfire burn area — as much as 175% by the 2050s

Climate change expected to sharply increase Western wildfire burn area — as much as 175% by the 2050s

Joseph Romm, Climate Progress, posted 30 July 2009, 06:30 a.m. PDT

A major new study, “Impacts of climate change from 2000 to 2050 on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States” finds a staggering increase in “wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations in the western United States” by mid-century under a moderate warming scenario:

We show that increases in temperature cause annual mean area burned in the western United States to increase by 54% by the 2050s relative to the present-day … with the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains experiencing the greatest increases of 78% and 175% respectively. Increased area burned results in near doubling of wildfire carbonaceous aerosol emissions by mid-century.

“This graph shows the percentage increase in area burned by wildfires, from the present-day to the 2050s, as calculated by the model of Spracklen et al. [2009] for the May-October fire season. The model follows a scenario of moderately increasing emissions of greenhouse gas emissions and leads to average global warming of 1.6 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050. Warmer temperatures can dry out underbrush, leading to more serious conflagrations in the future climate.”

And this is just the mid-century prediction for the IPCC’s “moderate” A1B scenario (CO2 at 522 ppm in 2050), which predicts “mean July temperatures to increase by 1.8 °C from 2000 to 2050.” This is not the worst-case emissions path, which we are currently on (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” — 1000 ppm). What would happen by 2100 on our current emissions path, when the mean July temperature increase from 2000 is triple (or more) the 1.8 °C that the researchers modeled? Turns out someone did model that a few years ago.

Back in 2004, researchers at the U.S. Forest Services Pacific Wildland Fire Lab looked at past fires in the West to create a statistical model of how future climate change may affect wildfires. Their paper, “Climatic Change, Wildfire, and Conservation,” published in Conservation Biology, found that by century’s end, states like Montana, New Mexico, Washington, Utah, and Wyoming could see burn areas increase five times.

For completeness sake — and because I remain optimistic that someday the media will routinely make the connection between increased forest fires and global warming — let me note that back in 2006 Science magazine published a major article analyzing whether the recent soaring wildfire trend was due to a change in forest management practices or to climate change. The study, led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, concluded:

Robust statistical associations between wildfire and hydroclimate in western forests indicate that increased wildfire activity over recent decades reflects sub-regional responses to changes in climate. Historical wildfire observations exhibit an abrupt transition in the mid-1980s from a regime of infrequent large wildfires of short (average of 1 week) duration to one with much more frequent and longer burning (5 weeks) fires. This transition was marked by a shift toward unusually warm springs, longer summer dry seasons, drier vegetation (which provoked more and longer burning large wildfires), and longer fire seasons. Reduced winter precipitation and an early spring snowmelt played a role in this shift.

That 2006 study noted global warming (from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide) will further accelerate all of these trends during this century. Worse still, the increased wildfires will themselves release huge amounts of carbon dioxide, which will serve as a vicious circle, accelerating the very global warming that is helping to cause more wildfires.

For more on the new study, see here.

Related Posts:

• Signs of global warming are everywhere, but if the New York Times can’t tell the story (twice!), how will the public hear it?
• Global warming and the California wildfires
• Global warming and the California wildfires — Update
• Wildfire Season Smashes Records — and the Media Keeps Blowing the Story
• Megafires are a Megaworry
• Global Warming = Bush gets Fired

Seattle hits 103 -- Welcome to the hottest day ever!

Wearing a bag of ice water on his head, baseball fan Kirk Schlemlein, of Snohomish, Wash., reacts as a friend sprays water in his ear while trying to keep cool during a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays, Wednesday, July 29, 2009, at Safeco Field in Seattle.

Story Published: Jul 29, 2009 at 5:00 PM PDT

Story Updated: Jul 29, 2009 at 11:33 PM PDT

by Scott Sistek

SEATTLE -- It's a day for the weather history books. For on July 29, 2009, Sea-Tac Airport hit 103 (39.44 °C) degrees just after 3:30 p.m. for the hottest day on record in Seattle, with records stretching back to 1891.

The previous records were 100 (37.78 °C) degrees set July 20, 1994, July 16, 1941, and June 9, 1955*.

Here are the preliminary high temperatures at 5 p.m. (Link to a good Fahrenheit to Celsius converter: http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm)

• Vancouver, WA: 107 (41.67 °C)
• Kelso: 106 (41.11 °C)
• Portland: 106 (all-time record: 107)
• Chehalis: 106
• Renton: 105 (40.56 °C)
• Tacoma: 104 (40 °C)
• Olympia: 104 (ties all-time record)
• Shelton: 104
• Seattle (Sea-Tac): 103 (all-time record)
• Seattle (Boeing Fld): 103
• Gig Harbor: 103
• Arlington: 102 (38.89 °C)
• Bremerton: 102
• North Bend: 102
• Everett: 100
• Friday Harbor: 97
• Bellingham: 96
• Port Angeles: 92
• Forks: 83
• Hoquiam: 77

It's the second all-time weather record set on Wednesday in Seattle. The lowest temperature recorded so far today was 71 degrees, and it's a safe bet we won't drop below that before midnight tonight. That means we have shattered the record for warmest low temperature which was set... Tuesday. (Well, tied last night at 69. The low was also 69 on Sept. 2, 1974). Put another way, this is the first day ever that the temperature failed to drop below 70 degrees at some point during the day. Miami would be so proud...

Too hot to play outside today!

(Incidentally, if you're wondering about the asterisk by the June 9, 1955 note above, technically speaking, that 100 doesn't count as an official 100 degree high. Why? Just like the 1941 reading, that was taken at the Downtown Federal Building. But in 1945, the official reporting station for Seattle was moved from the Federal Building to Sea-Tac Airport. So the 1955 Federal Building reading doesn't count as an official record.

It's sort of like pitching a no-hitter for 9 innings, then giving up a home run in the 10th. You accomplished the feat by usual standards, but the record books don't recognize it.)

Other all time records are poised to fall as well. Bellingham hit 95 after 1 p.m. breaking their all-time record high of 94 degrees. Others in jeopardy: Olympia's is 104 (they hit 101 Tuesday) and Portland's is 107 (they hit 106 on Tuesday)

Hot Weather News:

The heat is causing a myriad of problems across the Puget Sound area, aside from people scrambling to keep cool.

Snohomish PUD says three substations went out near Monroe, knocking out power to about 14,000 people in the Monroe area.

Officials say the heat caused transmission lines to sag into trees, causing brush fires. It also knocked out three substations.

They were able to get all but 2,500 back online by 2:15, and then everyone else a short time later, but as power was coming back on, several transformers were reported on fire and torching the power poles, keeping firefighters busy across the city.

Power outages were an issue in other parts of Western Washington as well. Some 10,000 people in Tacoma were without power for several hours during the record-breaking day, as were 700 others on Vashon Island. In Renton 2,800 residents were also left in the heat for an hour.

Some 3,300 customers of Seattle City Light spent a few hours in the dark and without the relief of their fans on Wednesday night. And 300 Bellingham residents were forced to turn in for the night without power as crews were repairing an underground cable.

A flicked cigarette butt sparked a brush fire in the median of I-5 near Tukwila, the state patrol says.

Flames were seen shooting up from the trees between the north and southbound lanes near S. 200 Street. The fire was put out a short time later, with the help of a foaming truck from Sea-Tac Airport, but traffic was backed up as far as eight miles through the afternoon as firefighting vehicles were blocking lanes to fight the fire.

Firefighters were also busy in West Seattle and Auburn battling house fires. The West Seattle one broke out around 1 p.m. in the 5200 block of 45th Ave. SW. People were inside when the fire started, but all got out safely. Two firefighters reportedly required treatment for heat exhaustion.

About an hour later, a fire broke out in a home in the 600 block of 24th Street SE in Auburn. A neighbor called 911 after seeing smoke and flames coming from the back of the home.

Firefighters rescued two dogs from the home, but one didn't survive. No word yet what caused that fire.

Later in the evening, brush fires kept firefighter busy. A brush fire near the University of Washington's horticulture center scorched several acres. Firefighters had to stretch their hoses to the length of four football fields just to reach the flames.

And at Lake Ballenger in Snohomish, flames shot more than 10 feet into the air, and a helicopter was called in to douse them.

Want to buy an air conditioner or fan? Good luck!

Now that the region has suffered through the warmest night on record, thousands went in search of air conditioning and fans.

Lines were very long at several hardware and department stores -- including this line at the SoDo Sears store.

Why over 100 today?

We have the perfect heat scenario of an incredibly strong ridge of high pressure. That alone has been baking the Northwest into the 90s of late.

But Wednesday, we finally have the icing on the cake to make this the "perfect storm" of a heat wave -- the hot, east wind.

It took a while, but a thermal trough has finally developed that is drawing in the hot, dry east wind. Put the two together, and it's like mixing fire and oxygen.

Locally, the east wind makes it hotter for a few reasons. One, that air is coming from Eastern Washington, where is hot to begin with. Second, as that air crosses over the Cascades and then sinks down, it warms further. For those living along the foothills, this is akin to living at the end of a blow dryer and why your highs are among the hottest.

Now, as to why it's sticking around so long, the weather pattern over North America has two big features -- a big, big ridge of high pressure anchored along the western third (stretching from Baja to almost the Arctic Circle) and a big, big area of low pressure anchored over Hudson Bay.

Not only has that ridge baked the West Coast, but on the other end of the scale, that low has made life miserable for the rest of the nation east of Denver. There, summer has gone into hiding, with relentless rain and thunderstorms. New York City is on pace for one of their coldest July's ever.

With such exaggerated patterns, it's hard for them to budge because they are so strong they get stubborn. Incoming weather systems, typically weaker around here in summer anyway, are no match to move a ridge of this size, and then in turn, this ridge doesn't move to push the eastern low out of the way. It's like having a disabled semi jackknifed on the 520 bridge -- there's just not much room to move.

That ridge, in turn, keeps the thermal trough over our area. Heat waves usually don't go longer than two or three days because the ridge gets nudged east by the westerly flow of the planet, and once the thermal trough moves east of the Cascades, it opens the door for the cool west wind to kick up. But with the ridge so strong, it's able to hold back the ocean breezes and maintain the thermal trough right over Western Washington.

The last time we saw this pattern was 1977 and 1981, our two current heat wave champs. 1981 is notable for 5 days in a row over 90, including a 99 and 98, while 1977 had an 18 day period where it was over 79 every day (15 in a row over 80), 13 days over 85 (9 consecutive) and six days over 90 (4 consecutive).

The east wind should also at least eat away at some of this lingering humidity, but it'll still be a bit muggier than a normal heat wave - not that anything else is much normal about this heat anyway.

Record Check:

A quick list of other records that might fall this week:

• Consecutive days at or over 90: 5 (Aug. 7-11, 1981). Current forecast: 4, Potential: 6
• Consecutive days at or over 85: 9 (Aug. 5-13, 1977). Current forecast: 9. Potential: 11
• Consecutive days at or over 80: 15 (July 30-Aug 13, 1977) -- Current forecast: 11, which stretches through the end of the extended forecast. Potential: ??? (Incidentally in the '77 streak, the 14th was 79, there were three more 80s afterward.
• Number of 90 degree days in a month: 7 (July 1958)
. Current forecast: 6. Potential: 7
• Number of 90 degree days in a year: 9 (1958)
. Through Tuesday: 5 with two more a slam dunk, and potential for a few more by next Monday. And there's still August and early Sept. yet.
• Hottest July on record (high temperature): 81.4 degrees in 1958. (If current 7 day forecast verifies exactly, our avg. this month will be 81.25)
• Seattle daily records: Wednesday: 95, Thursday: 94. Friday: 93

When Does It End?!?

As I mentioned earlier, this pattern has the makings of the 1977 heat wave that stretched 18 days. We should begin some gradual cooling as we get into Friday, and by the weekend, highs should be into the upper 80s as this ridge slowly weakens. But a new area of low pressure developing off the California coast, it will keep pressures lower offshore and could keep the surge of marine air from rolling in until the middle of next week, meaning several more days of above normal temperatures, although not to these extreme levels.

BUT! Cool weather fans, I present this to you:

That may seem like squiggles and blobs, but what it represents, is bliss: At face value, that's a mostly cloudy day with a few showers and highs in the upper 60s or so.

Only one slight problem -- that's not until next Thursday. It's circled on my calendar anyway.

Link: http://www.katu.com/news/local/51988007.html

Subglacial hydrology, basal lubrification, glacier acceleration

Basal Lubrication - Just Use Water

by Graham Cogley, environmentalresearchweb.org, July 27, 2009

It sounds like something they might do to you at a health spa, doesn’t it? But to students of glaciers, basal lubrication is the key that unlocks a long list of puzzles.

Why do precise measurements of glacier motion often show stick-slip behaviour, that is, hours and hours of near motionlessness punctuated by half-hours of rapid movement? Why do some glaciers surge, that is, accelerate suddenly every few decades, flowing rapidly for a year or two before returning, sometimes suddenly but more often gradually, to normal? Why does the landscape of southern Ontario, which I can see from my window, undulate? Why, in the sediment of the northern Atlantic Ocean, are there occasional layers of sand, interrupting the blanket of ultra-fine-grained mud?

The layers of sand beneath the Atlantic are spaced irregularly, 10,000-15,000 years apart, according to the Principle of Superposition, at depths below the sea floor that correspond to the last ice age. They are thin on the European side, thicker towards the northwest, and thickest of all in the neighbourhood of Hudson Strait, which separates Quebec from Baffin Island. The simplest explanation of this pattern is that every so often the bed of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, that covered most of Canada, became much more slippery. Much of its interior was drained by the Hudson Strait Ice Stream, which accelerated occasionally and discharged icebergs in huge numbers. With the icebergs came the sand. All of the plausible accounts of this instability have variations in basal meltwater supply, or possibly just its behaviour, as a critical ingredient.

Around where I live, we are rather proud of our drumlin field. Somebody counted these egg-shaped hills and got up to about four thousand. But geomorphologists now reckon that the tunnel channels are even more interesting. Tunnel channels are drainage networks shaped by subglacial meltwater at the end of the last ice age, after the ice had shaped the drumlins and indeed not long before the ice disappeared altogether. For a long time I simply could not see these things, and I still suspect that the geomorphologists are asking for more meltwater than is probable, but recent evidence from beneath the modern ice sheets is vindicating their interpretations. Now I can see the ancient tunnel valleys in the light of modern ones, apparently hard at work, beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

I don’t know why most glaciers do not surge but a few do. Nor does anyone else. Surging is a phenomenon that has eluded explanation over several decades of concentrated observation and analysis. But we are all positive that subglacial hydrology contains the answer if we can only put together the pieces of the puzzle. The most recent instance of a surging glacier, detected by the U.S. Geological Survey on 3 July 2009, happens also to be a famous glacier -- Malaspina Glacier in Alaska.

Many glaciers go faster in summer, suggesting that meltwater supply has something to do with glacier speed. Where the ice is observed to move in short bursts, there is usually also a suggestion, from one line of evidence or another, that it spends most of the time frozen -- that is, stuck -- to its bed. Slip happens when that immobile state is disturbed, in other words when the bed is lubricated upon the arrival of meltwater. But where does the meltwater come from? And go to?

It might not go anywhere, if the stuff that is moving around is not water but heat. That is, stick-slip may be telling us not about patterns of meltwater flow but about patterns of thawing and freezing. In fact, there may not be any heat moving around either. The melting temperature depends, slightly but measurably, on the confining pressure. So the thaw-freeze patterns could actually be patterns of subtle fluctuations of pressure, not just squeezing the water from one place to another but determining which of the two states, solid or liquid, it is stable in.

It is all very complicated, at scales from sticky patches up to the width of the north Atlantic and beyond. Great fun for glaciologists, but not without consequences for society -- for example, if the Antarctic or Greenland Ice Sheet should decide to do what, according to the lesson from the sand under the Atlantic, the Laurentide Ice Sheet did repeatedly.

Posted by Graham Cogley on July 27, 2009 3:00 PM | Permalink

Hank Roberts said...

A while back, I dumped a collection of quotes, references, and links on drumlins, subglacial channels, and jokulhapts here (with a pointer to an earlier thread at the late Prometheus blog):

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/02/why_do_science_in_antarctica.php

August 6, 2009 3:10 p.m.

Thanks Hank! That's great stuff!

Tenney

Comments on stoat:

Curious -- I read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6391801.stm
" ...The research team found that the Recovery stream accelerates significantly as it passes over the lakes.

"Upstream of the lakes, it flows at two to three metres per year; after passing them, at about 50 metres per year.

"Whether there is a link to climate change is another question. The lakes lie in the eastern portion of Antarctica, where evidence suggests the icecap may be gaining mass rather than losing it.
...
"As this research team puts it: 'The Recovery sub-glacial lakes and the associated Recovery ice stream tributaries have the potential greatly to affect the drainage of the East Antarctic ice sheet, and its influence on sea level rise in the near future.'"

and read the abstract for this:

"Rapid Sediment Erosion and Drumlin Formation Observed Beneath a Fast-Flowing Antarctic Ice Stream - AM Smith, T Murray, KW Nicholls, K Makinson, G ... - American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005

--------
Couple questions: at the bottom of the icecap (everywhere, I think) there's enough ice thickness that it's grounded. How close are any areas of the ice to neutral? I realise the water pressure at the bottom of the ice is ---- whatever it is, at a mile or two below sea level.

[There are bits of W Antarctica that are fairly close to neutral - part of its possible instability -W]

Does water under pressure carry more silt than water at 1 atmosphere pressure?
I ask because the rapid drumlin article says, yes, they looked through the ice and saw one form, really fast -- these had been thought to be slow creatures.

But -- given that liquid water is flowing along the interface between ice and ground, whatever that ground is (presumably rock) --- how much of what kind of rock flour can that stream carry?

I know it's possible to "fill up" a moving stream's capacity to carry a load -- any time the flow becomes turbulent it drops some and then when it gets laminar it can and will pick up more again. It's one of the conundrums of restoration: if I take a nasty eroding stretch of stream and methodically make check dams and secure eroding banks and plant willow, and otherwise do everything I can to make that stretch of streambed turbulate the flow and be dropping rather than carrying all the sediment it can.

Anytime you turbulate a flow, whatever's flowing drops some of what it's carrying.

If there's a dead air spot on the interface, anyplace a vortex or ripple consistently leaves undisturbed, whatever silt (for a stream), leaves and dust and seeds (for a breeze), or household lint (for a fan).

So --- we're at the bottom of a glacial ice cap. There's a lot of melting way above but we're two miles down and it's been dark and quiet for a while. But every now and then the ice does flow far enough to cause the contact plane to shift downstream a bit.

There will be some flow, where there's excess heat or friction or impurities in the water if anything can change its melting point in those conditions.

We get flows of water; some of them are carrying silt.

That passes through a space where there's a bit of a void, the stream spreads out and slows down and drops what it's carrying.

So, finally, a question -- isn't a drumlin seen happening so fast, likely to be built up by silt filling a void that's melted a bit, on the bottom of the ice, and so going to get silted up as fast as the flowing water going by can provide the silt?

How else could they be happening, under the ice and so fast? And doesn't this lead to some ideas about streamflow rate?

And, has anyone had a look at the Channeled Scablands recently? They were an icecap letting go --- are we sure the water was on top of or behind that ice, or could it have been building up underneath the ice like this?

Because there's one other thing a very silty fast strong flow will do going downhill --- cut away what's in front of it and just rearrange it if it's so full of silt it can't keep any more suspended. A topside melt lake will be mostly water; an under-ice-cap flow must be quite a bit of silt.

Done handwaving; I'll go catch up on the drumlin stories. Turns out they're seen on Mars, resembling those in the Scablands. Hmmmm.

[Ah, I know nothing of drumlins - sorry -W]

Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 23, 2007 10:06 PM

8

Well, drumlins were thought to be long slow streamflow processes, til that snapshot of fast formation under the ice. Perhaps nobody knows yet. Got grad students? (grin)

Does this make sense?
"... Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Bristol in England. "\...

The melting point of ice in environments such as Lake Vostok is related to the thickness of the ice above the water. The melting point is colder under thicker ice, as it is at the northern end of the lake.

The water that melts at the northern end will thus be colder and less dense than water at the southern end. "The density contrast between these waters will cause the circulation," said Siegert.
-------
I wonder why the melting point would be colder under thicker ice, and if that relationship is linear, or describes only the Lake Vostok depth conditions.
(Clipped from a BBC story, lost the cite, sorry).

[Because of the pressure effect. Pressure will melt ice, you know that; ie the melt point gets lower under pressure -W]

-------
Here's another source for the "20 feet in 100 years" sea level rise possibility:

" ... the WAIS is considered unstable because a large portion of it floats on water above the sea floor. For this reason, scientists suspect that the WAIS is particularly sensitive to global climate change, and they have long debated whether global warming would cause the WAIS to collapse. ...

"If so much ice melted into the oceans at once, sea levels could rise as high as 20 feet all over the world, within a single century. ..."
http://oncampus.osu.edu/v31n10/thisissue_5.html

[Ermm, OK, but its still *if* -W]

--------------

I'd speculate the whole idea of meltwater lakes sitting on top of icecaps and spilling over is due for a revision --- and that we'll be looking at things like drumlins completely differently now that we know they can form rapidly under ice. It still has to be happening from deposition by flowing water --- but it's not surface water.

Looking at the radar maps of the ground under the ice, what I see is the major areas below sea level looking like places not pushed down dramatically by the overlying ice, but like river drainage channels. As the ice accumulated and moved, now that we know about under ice flows, the icecap would push whatever rock flour and warm-epoch silt out toward the edges, carrying it along with meltwater.

What do you see looking at the radar maps? Looks to me like --- clear shapes toward the middle; less and less clear out to the edges along each likely river course, and big smooth rounded banks of what I'd expect to be extruded silt/rock flour along the edges.

I think under the ice caps water is flowing 'uphill' from the basins around the center, radially, and as it spreads out it flows slower, so the farther it goes toward the circumference the more silt it drops.

Fill a deep bowl with peanut butter, put a shallower bowl on the top, push down ....

Okay, enough speculation from the uninformed and uneducated moi. Just wondering.

Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 24, 2007 11:46 AM

9

Belatedly, I find New Scientist covered all these ideas (except they haven't quoted anyone anticipating my Channeled Scablands speculation, you read that first here) in their special December 2-8, 2006, special issue: "Hidden World Beneath Antarctica's Ice."

It's really quite good. Other than being quietly overwhelming.

"Water moves in mysterious ways. The weight of the ice squeezing downwards counts for much more than local hills and valleys in telling water where to go. 'You can have lakes sloping down the sides of mountains, you can have uphill waterfalls, it's wacky' [Don Blankenship, geophysicist at U. Texas] ....Blankenship fears that warming since the end of the last ice age has melted the base of the ice, and this may already be priming some parts of the ice sheet to slip. East Antarctica could be ready to open its floodgates.

"David Marchant from Boston University believes this may have happened before. .... one place in particular, a tortured landscape of channels and pits known as the Labyrinth .... sinuous .... often potholes .... channels that stop abruptly .... what you'd expect if they had been made by water that then flowed off down a different path, ... or plunged [that's in an upward direction --hr] into the overlying ice.

"He became convinced that the Labyrinth had been carved by a massive under-ice flood, and he published his ideas in July (Geology, v34, p. 513). .... potholes that are 200 metres across and 50 metres deep,' says Marchant. 'They are just enormous features. They're the largest potholes in the world. The water quickly stripped away all sedimentary rocks, and then lifted blocks of granite bedrock more than 2 metres wide ..."

----
Okay, I think this is serious stuff. Anyone found any more about it?

Posted by: Hank Roberts | March 1, 2007 12:22 AM

10

Ok, it's been covered. Good references, including the Antarctic

"... By about 1990 the way that glaciologists envisaged
basal water flow had greatly changed, largely owing to
the realization that R channels could not form the basis
for an explanation of observations from surging Varie-
gated Glacier [Kamb et al., 1985] and rapidly moving ice
stream B in Antarctica [Blankenship et al., 1987]. Theo-
ries were developed to elucidate the hydraulics of water
flow through linked cavities [Walder, 1986; Kamb, 1987],
deformable till [Alley et al., 1987], and till-floored chan-
nels [Walder and Fowler, 1994]....

To summarize, the drainage system under any given
glacier comprises several or all of the morphologically
distinct components described in this section. A slow,
nonarborescent drainage system, comprising a mixture
of elements including cavities, permeable till, and
conduits incised into the bed (i.e., Nye channels and canals),
probably covers most of the glacier bed and is nearly
fixed relative to the bed. The water pressure in the slow
drainage system is commonly close to the ice-overburden pressure.

http://www.glaciers.pdx.edu/fountain/MyPapers/Fountain-Walder1998.pdf

Posted by: Hank Roberts | March 1, 2007 6:20 AM

11

New Polar study: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6406735.stm

Posted by: Adam | March 1, 2007 6:54 AM

12

Say what? Has this story showed up as science yet?

------ begin snippet -----

... early conclusions drawn by geologists at Andrill (Antarctic Geological Drilling), the multinational consortium leading the project, which recently released preliminary data from the drilling on its Web site. ...

A first look at conditions that prevailed five million years ago

"This time we were able to drill into layers representing the period between five and 12 million years ago," Andrill team member and geologist Lothar Viereck-Götte told SPIEGEL ONLINE. What these unique ice cores revealed about temperature changes in the last 5 million years was both surprising and new, says Viereck-Götte, who calls the results "horrifying." The data suggests "the ice caps are substantially more mobile and sensitive than we had assumed."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,469495,00.html

Posted by: Hank Roberts | March 10, 2007 10:12 AM

13

BAS liked the "Drumlin" paper:

Paper of the Month
30 Mar 2007

Rapid erosion, drumlin formation, and changing hydrology beneath an Antarctic ice stream

http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/Publications/Sci_Papers/

Posted by: Hank Roberts | April 2, 2007 5:06 PM

14

Hmmmmm....
found here:
http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/04/diplomatically_pissing_into_th.php

Re the latest release from the IPCC:
---- quote----
Change 3: Deleting a threat:
The scientists originally included this statement about changes caused by retreating glaciers:
enlargement and increased numbers of glacial lakes, with increased risk of outburst floods

The final draft wound up reading:
enlargement and increased numbers of glacial lakes
---- end quote -----

Anyone got anything new on drumlins?

Posted by: Hank Roberts | April 10, 2007 6:49 PM

15

Jökulhlaups. With an umlaut.

Having learned that the whole issue is handled by this single word, I can let the subject rest.

Subglacial floods beneath ice sheets
Issue Volume 364, Number 1844 / July 15, 2006
Pages 1769-1794
Article Type Research-Article
DOI 10.1098/rsta.2006.1798

Authors
G.W. Evatt1, A.C. Fowler 1, C.D. Clark 2, N.R.J. Hulton 3

1 Oxford University Mathematical Institute 24-29 St Giles', Oxford OX1 3LB, UK
2 University of Sheffield Department of Geography Winter Street, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
3 University of Edinburgh School of Geosciences Drummond Street, Edinburgh EH8 9XP, UK

Abstract

Subglacial floods (jökulhlaups) are well documented as occurring beneath present day glaciers and ice caps. In addition, it is known that massive floods have occurred from ice-dammed lakes proximal to the Laurentide ice sheet during the last ice age, and it has been suggested that at least one such flood below the waning ice sheet was responsible for a dramatic cooling event some 8000 years ago. We propose that drainage of lakes from beneath ice sheets will generally occur in a time-periodic fashion, and that such floods can be of severe magnitude. Such hydraulic eruptions are likely to have caused severe climatic disturbances in the past, and may well do so in the future.

Posted by: Hank Roberts | June 14, 2007 9:03 PM

16

Lo! It's News! (Well, it's about Greenland, so I'm still just speculating that it's happening in Antarctica too, and happened underneath the continental glaciers elsewhere like in Idaho instead of water pooling on top of them as often pictured.)

Note per last line of the abstract that nobody has thought about this possibility til now :-)

http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/448/

(P.S., William, search on your blog page is still or again broken. Google for stoat scienceblog jokulhlaup
found the dusty old topic to add this. Good thing I remembered how to spell jokulhlaup.

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 35, L02503, doi:10.1029/2007GL031765, 2008

Channelized bottom melting and stability of floating ice shelves

E. Rignot

Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

K. Steffen

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Abstract

The floating ice shelf in front of Petermann Glacier, in northwest Greenland, experiences massive bottom melting that removes 80% of its ice before calving into the Arctic Ocean. Detailed surveys of the ice shelf reveal the presence of 1-2 km wide, 200-400 m deep, sub-ice shelf channels, aligned with the flow direction and spaced by 5 km. We attribute their formation to the bottom melting of ice from warm ocean waters underneath. Drilling at the center of one of channel, only 8 m above sea level, confirms the presence of ice-shelf melt water in the channel. These deep incisions in ice-shelf thickness imply a vulnerability to mechanical break up and climate warming of ice shelves that has not been considered previously. ....

[Interesting, true, but losing 80% is an awful lot. It hardly matters if they break up after that :-) nb this can only apply to ice shelves, not the main ice sheet -W]

Posted by: Hank Roberts | January 19, 2008 9:40 PM

17

William, which 'this'?

> this can only apply to ice shelves, not the main ice sheet

"this" -- the channels under the ice? Or the breakup?

[The channels. They are from oceanic heat: "We attribute their formation to the bottom melting of ice from warm ocean waters underneath" -W]

I'd think the channels observed out at the edges of the Greenland ice would likely have counterparts under the Antarctic -- the shape would seem to be from meltwater flowing out rather than melting along the edge from warm seawater.

I recall (maybe left links earlier above or in the old Prometheus thread) that liquid water has been described there from cameras lowered into boreholes to the base of the ice, in surprising large voids, and flows of water observed under the ice sheets would, I'd think, create similar channels.

Admittedly they won't be as easy to observe; I recall one unmanned sub was lost,
http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/aui/

but don't see much new reported, though there are mentions of several new ones planned

Posted by: Hank Roberts | January 21, 2008 2:46 PM

18

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-unquiet-ice&print=true

Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 6, 2008 3:55 PM

19

Astronomy!
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/06/1827220

Robotic Telescope Installed on Antarctica Plateau
Posted by Zonk on Wednesday February 06, @03:44PM

Robotics Space Science

Reservoir Hill writes "Antarctica claims some of the best astronomical sky conditions in the world -- devoid of clouds with steady air that makes for clear viewing. The very best conditions unfortunately lie deep in the interior on a high-altitude plateau called Dome A. With an elevation of up to 4,093m, it's known as the most unapproachable point in the earth's southernmost region. Now astronomers in a Chinese scientific expedition have set up an experimental observatory at Dome A after lugging their equipment across Antarctica with the help of Australia and the US. The observatory will hunt for alien planets, while also measuring the observing conditions at the site to see if it is worth trying to build bigger observatories there. The observatory is automated, pointing its telescopes on its own while astronomers monitor its progress from other locations around the world via satellite link. PLATO is powered by a gas generator, and has a 4000-litre tank of jet fuel to keep it running through the winter. The observatory will search for planets around other stars using an array of four 14.5-centimetre telescopes called the Chinese Small Telescope Array (CSTAR). Astronomers hope to return in 2009 with new instruments, including the Antarctica Schmidt Telescopes (AST-3), a trio of telescopes with 0.5-metre mirrors, which will be more sensitive to planets than CSTAR."

Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 7, 2008 2:00 AM

20

So, given that we know this:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5769/1914

and have reports about surface melting in Antarctica,

and now this:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland_temps.html

... The paired surface temperature and gravity data confirm a strong connection between melting on ice sheet surfaces in areas below 6,500 feet in elevation, and ice loss throughout the ice sheet's giant mass. The result led Hall's team to conclude that the start of surface melting triggers mass loss of ice over large areas of the ice sheet.

The beginning of mass loss is highly sensitive to even minor amounts of surface melt. Hall and her colleagues showed that when less than two percent of the lower reaches of the ice sheet begins to melt at the surface, mass loss of ice can result. For example, in 2004 and 2005, the GRACE satellites recorded the onset of rapid subsurface ice loss less than 15 days after surface melting was captured by the Terra satellite.

The MODIS instrument acquired this image of melt ponds on Greenland's western coast in June, 2006. The MODIS instrument acquired this image of melt ponds on Greenland's western coast in June, 2006. The ponds appear as dark blue dots on the aqua blue background.

"We're seeing a close correspondence between the date that surface melting begins, and the date that mass loss of ice begins beneath the surface," Hall said. "This indicates that the meltwater from the surface must be traveling down to the base of the ice sheet -- through over a mile of ice -- very rapidly, where its presence allows the ice at the base to slide forward, speeding the flow of outlet glaciers that discharge icebergs and water into the surrounding ocean."

-----
How will the modelers handle this behavior?

-------
I recall this:

[Response: Dynamics are as important as thermodynamics here. Recent evidence (e.g. as reviewed by us a few months back) suggests that the demise of large parts of the major ice sheets could potentially take place far faster-on timescales of perhaps several centuries-due to the influence of ice sheet dynamics. For example, crevices at the surface of the ice sheet are now known to sometimes penetrate all the way down to the bottom of the ice sheet forming channels ("moulins") that allow surface meltwater to reach the bottom of the ice sheet, where it lubricates the ice, allowing it to stream into the ocean at velocities potentially far greater than once envisioned. These processes are still far from perfectly understood, because they require a representation of the fairly complicated rheology involved in ice sheet dynamics. But it appears far more likely that a better understanding of these processes will act to revised our estimates of ice sheet collapse timescales downward, rather than upward. - mike]

From:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/runaway-tipping-points-of-no-return/

Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 23, 2008 8:08 PM

21

I should have also noted the many cites to the article:

http://cel.isiknowledge.com/CEL/CIW.cgi?CustomersID=Highwire&Func=Links&PointOfEntry=CitingArticles&PublisherID=Highwire&ReturnLink=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencemag.org%2Fcgi%2Fcontent%2Fabstract%2F311%2F5769%2F1914&ServiceName=TransferToWos&ServiceUser=Links&UT=000236387800042&e=nX1E69S7ATvf_hsXZN0D.xVhy8hjoUkK8g6VY.CwFRMdNSktp921OmU.mRjIKIaE

Congratulations, Dr. Et Al. ...

Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 23, 2008 8:11 PM

22

Oops.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7261171.stm
Sunday, 24 February 2008, 00:24 GMT

Antarctic glaciers surge to ocean
By Martin Redfern
Rothera Research Station, Antarctica

---excerpts follow------

... the researchers spent most of their time driving skidoos across the flat, featureless ice.

"We drove skidoos over it for something like 2,500km each and we didn't see a single piece of topography."

Rob Bingham was towing a radar on a 100m-long line and detecting reflections from within the ice using a receiver another 100m behind that.

The signals are revealing ancient flow lines in the ice. The hope is to reconstruct how it moved in the past.
...
Throughout the 1990s, according to satellite measurements, the glacier was accelerating by around 1% a year. Julian Scott's sensational finding this season is that it now seems to have accelerated by 7% in a single season, sending more and more ice into the ocean.

"The measurements from last season seem to show an incredible acceleration, a rate of up to 7%. That is far greater than the accelerations they were getting excited about in the 1990s."

The reason does not seem to be warming in the surrounding air. ...

Posted by: Hank Roberts | February 23, 2008 10:14 PM

23

A useful expert summary here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/04/moulins-calving-fronts-and-greenland-outlet-glacier-acceleration/langswitch_lang/in#comment-85450

Quoting in full, because it answers a lot of my questions in simple clear language of few syllables:

# Mauri Pelto Says:
28 April 2008 at 2:52 PM

Lakes form at the bottom of a glacier or on the surface. Because ice crystals deform under pressure, and pressure is substantial within a glacier or ice sheet it is not possible to have substantial void volumes. Ice under pressure would deform and flow into this void. This happens to much of the seasonal hydrology system each winter. Without water flow to keep tunnels open, they close, then in spring maximum water pressures often occur befor the conduit system redevelops. Once opened the flowing meltwater can maintain these narrow conduits. However, the meltwater does not have enough heat to melt much. At the base of the glaciers even in the summer next to these streams, you will see new ice coating the bedrock in places. The moulin ice riddling is science fiction. No ice sheet or glacier collapses due to riddling by moulins. I still see a persistent misconception about the ability of meltwater to melt glacier ice and riddle the glacier with holes. I work on glaciers with lots of melt and they are not weakened by all the meltwater drainage. The meltwater is not a very capable melter of ice. Ice is unlike rock which does not deform under the pressure and temperatures observed on glaciers.
-------------------------------------

Posted by: Hank Roberts | April 28, 2008 5:56 PM

24

The ANDRILL ice cores should have been farmed out to researchers who should be writing and publishing papers on them Has anyone seen mention of these?

I found this:

http://www.earthdive.com/site/news/newsdetail.asp?id=2035

-----excerpt----------

in late 2006, the Andrill team discovered undisturbed deposits 15 kilometers (9 miles) outside the research station near the Mount Erebus volcano.

A first look at conditions that prevailed five million years ago

"This time we were able to drill into layers representing the period between five and 12 million years ago," Andrill team member and geologist Lothar Viereck-Götte told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

What these unique ice cores revealed about temperature changes in the last 5 million years was both surprising and new, says Viereck-Götte, who calls the results "horrifying." The data suggests "the ice caps are substantially more mobile and sensitive than we had assumed."

"The idea that the ocean here was ice-free for almost a million years is completely new," says Viereck-Götte. Besides, he adds, the melting that occurred about 5 million years ago can be seen in the context of a prehistoric climate shift.

According to Viereck-Götte, "massive melting" must have occurred in the Antarctic during the so-called Miocene-Pliocene warming. The cause sounds anything but massive. Based on isotope analyses from various locations worldwide, paleoclimatologists know that the average global temperature in the oceans increased by only two to three degrees Celsius (3.6-5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a seemingly minor change. Nevertheless this change in temperature, according to the new Andrill ice core, led to an ice-free Ross Sea.

For researchers the clue lies in tiny microorganisms known as diatoms, which cannot survive in water that is covered by ice. But they were found in the core representing an uninterrupted period of 1 million years.

"We would never have thought that this system is so sensitive," says Viereck-Götte. The consequences of an ice-free Ross Sea would be far-reaching, not just for sea levels.

-----end excerpt--------

Posted by: Hank Roberts | April 29, 2008 7:28 PM

25

"The Antarctic Geological Drilling (ANDRILL) programme has astonished scientists recently with evidence for periodic warm open waters in the Ross Sea up until as recently as 1 million years ago...."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/full/nature06589.html

Nature 451, 284-285 (17 January 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06589; Published online 16 January 2008
Unlocking the mysteries of the ice ages
Maureen E. Raymo & Peter Huybers

Posted by: Hank Roberts | April 29, 2008 7:50 PM

26

Actual science (abstract only)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2007.08.015

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
Volume 260, Issues 1-2, 7 April 2008, Pages 245-261
Antarctic cryosphere and Southern Ocean climate evolution (Cenozoic-Holocene), 1) EGU Meeting, 2) XXIX SCAR Meeting

Retreat history of the Ross Ice Sheet (Shelf) since the Last Glacial Maximum from deep-basin sediment cores around Ross Island

R.M. McKay, G.B. Dunbar, T.R. Naish, P.J. Barrett, L. Carter and M. Harper

Posted by: Hank Roberts | April 29, 2008 8:07 PM

27

Increasing Antarctic sea ice under warming atmospheric and oceanic conditions

Author(s): Zhang JL (Zhang, Jinlun)
Source: JOURNAL OF CLIMATE Volume: 20 Issue: 11 Pages: 2515-2529 JUN 1 2007 Times Cited: 1 References: 34
IDS Number: 177NH
ISSN: 0894-8755
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI4136.1

Abstract: Estimates of sea ice extent based on satellite observations show an increasing Antarctic sea ice cover from 1979 to 2004 even though in situ observations show a prevailing warming trend in both the atmosphere and the ocean. This riddle is explored here using a global multicategory thickness and enthalpy distribution sea ice model coupled to an ocean model. Forced by the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data, the model simulates an increase of 0.20 x 10(12) m(3) yr(-1) (1.0% yr(-1)) in total Antarctic sea ice volume and 0.084 x 10(12) m(2) yr(-1) (0.6% yr(-1)) in sea ice extent from 1979 to 2004 when the satellite observations show an increase of 0.027 x 10(12) m(2) yr(-1) (0.2% yr(-1)) in sea ice extent during the same period. The model shows that an increase in surface air temperature and downward longwave radiation results in an increase in the upper-ocean temperature and a decrease in sea ice growth, leading to a decrease in salt rejection from ice, in the upper-ocean salinity, and in the upper-ocean density. The reduced salt rejection and upper-ocean density and the enhanced thermohaline stratification tend to suppress convective overturning, leading to a decrease in the upward ocean heat transport and the ocean heat flux available to melt sea ice. The ice melting from ocean heat flux decreases faster than the ice growth does in the weakly stratified Southern Ocean, leading to an increase in the net ice production and hence an increase in ice mass. This mechanism is the main reason why the Antarctic sea ice has increased in spite of warming conditions both above and below during the period 1979-2004 and the extended period 1948-2004.

[Yeah. Not sure I believe it though -W]

Posted by: Hank Roberts | September 22, 2008 2:13 PM

28

More from the old workplace:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo356.html

Posted by: Hank Roberts | November 17, 2008 8:42 PM

29

Hey Hey, it's the Drumlins!

http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/07/subglacial-hydrology-basal.html

Posted by: Hank Roberts | August 6, 2009 2:08 PM

Michael Cunliffe, Peter Liss, Oliver Wurl: Sea-surface microlayer habitant is distinct phytoplankton ecosystem, ocean-atmosphere interface

Scientists Find a Microbe Haven at Ocean’s Surface

A LITTLE OFF THE TOP Little Kilo Moana skims thin layers from the ocean’s surface near its namesake, a University of Hawaii research vessel. Scientists have learned that the top hundredth-inch of the ocean is an ecosystem all its own. (Photo: Masaya Shinki)

by CARL ZIMMER, New York Times, July 27, 2009

The world’s oceans are like an alien world. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that 95% of them remain unexplored. But the mysteries do not start a mile below the surface of the sea. They start with the surface itself.

Scientists are now discovering that the top hundredth-inch of the ocean is somewhat like a sheet of jelly. And this odd habitat, thinner than a human hair, is home to an unusual menagerie of microbes. “It’s really a distinct ecosystem of its own,” said Oliver Wurl, of Canada’s Institute of Ocean Sciences.

This so-called sea-surface microlayer is important, scientists say, in part because it influences the chemistry of the ocean and the atmosphere. “One of the most significant things that happens on our planet is the transport of gases in and out of the ocean,” said Michael Cunliffe, a marine biologist at the University of Warwick in England. The ocean stores a large fraction of the global-warming gases we produce; at the microlayer, the gases are pulled down.

“It’s the ocean breathing through its skin,” Dr. Cunliffe said.

Sailors have long known that the surface can be covered with oily slicks (hence the phrase “pouring oil on troubled waters”). But when scientists began studying the surface in the mid-20th century they found it vexing. A scientist cannot just dunk a bucket into the ocean without dredging up deeper water as well. “Even defining the surface is hard, since it’s moving up and down,” said Peter Liss, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia in England.

So scientists had to invent some tools to skim the surface. Dr. Liss and his colleagues, for example, chill a piece of glass with liquid nitrogen and lower it into the sea, freezing water it contacts.

These tools have allowed scientists to discover that the top hundredth of an inch is chemically distinct. It is loaded with molecules carried up by air bubbles and concentrated at the surface.

Recent surveys carried out by Dr. Wurl and his colleagues have revealed that the microlayer has a rich supply of sticky clumps of carbohydrates. These carbohydrates are made by single-cell organisms called phytoplankton that live lower in the ocean to stick together in colonies. Eventually the carbohydrates break off the phytoplankton and clump together. Dr. Wurl’s studies indicate that many of them rise to the microlayer, forming a film.

“I really imagine it as tiny pieces of jelly floating on the ocean,” Dr. Wurl said.

It may be hard to imagine such a fine coat of slime holding together for long on top of the heaving ocean. But Dr. Wurl has found that it is quite durable. “We have collected microlayer samples with wind conditions of 16 to 18 knots,” he said. “It’s not pleasant to be in a small boat at that wind speed. That tells us the microlayer is pretty stable.”

Dr. Wurl and his colleagues report the findings in a paper to be published in the journal Marine Chemistry. He suspects that when waves disrupt the jellylike microlayer, air bubbles deliver sticky material back to the surface.

Dr. Cunliffe, who has replicated Dr. Wurl’s results, argues that these studies mean that the microlayer is a special kind of habitat for microbes. The gelatinous film calms the turbulence in the microlayer, which may make it easier for bacteria to attach to the particles and feed on the molecules flowing past.

To document the sort of microbes that live in the microlayer, Dr. Cunliffe and other researchers are collecting surface water, breaking open the cells it contains, and sequencing the genes they hold. They compare the microlayer residents to the microbes that live a few inches deeper.

“We’re finding consistently different communities,” Dr. Cunliffe said. The microlayer communities are dominated by groups of microbes well known for forming biofilms on more familiar surfaces, like rocks in streams, our teeth and the insides of sewer pipes.

“They’re always the usual suspects,” Dr. Cunliffe went on. “If our hypothesis is correct, it makes complete sense.”

Dr. Liss called the finding “a really interesting result, because it shows that the microlayer is a really different environment.”

Scientists say it is important to become better acquainted with this mysterious ocean skin, because it may play a critical role in the environmental well-being of the planet. Studies have shown, for example, that pollutants like pesticides and flame retardants can be trapped in the microlayer.

Dr. Cunliffe and his colleagues have identified bacteria in the microlayer that devour important chemicals like methane and carbon monoxide. The microlayer is also crucial to the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas.

“It’s actually sucking the carbon dioxide down into the water column,” Dr. Cunliffe said.

Dr. Liss said the microlayer was “clearly important, because it’s where the ocean and the atmosphere interact.”

“But it’s difficult to study,” he added, “so it hasn’t received as much attention as it ought to.”

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/science/28ocea.html

Sharon Begley, Newsweek: Climate-change calculus -- Why it's even worse than we feared

Climate-Change Calculus

Why it's even worse than we feared

by Sharon Begley, Newsweek, July 24, 2009; from the magazine issue dated August 3, 2009.

Among the phrases you really, really do not want to hear from climate scientists are: "that really shocked us," "we had no idea how bad it was," and "reality is well ahead of the climate models." Yet in speaking to researchers who focus on the Arctic, you hear comments like these so regularly they begin to sound like the thumping refrain from Jaws: annoying harbingers of something that you really, really wish would go away.

Let me deconstruct the phrases above. The "shock" came when the International Polar Year, a global consortium studying the Arctic, froze a small vessel into the sea ice off eastern Siberia in September 2006. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen had done the same thing a century before, and his Fram, carried by the drifting ice, emerged off eastern Greenland 34 months later. IPY scientists thought their Tara would take 24 to 36 months. But it reached Greenland in just 14 months, stark evidence that the sea ice found a more open, ice-free, and thus faster path westward thanks to Arctic melting.

The loss of Arctic sea ice "is well ahead of" what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast, largely because emissions of carbon dioxide have topped what the panel—which foolishly expected nations to care enough about global warming to do something about it—projected. "The models just aren't keeping up" with the reality of CO2 emissions, says the IPY's David Carlson. Although policymakers hoped climate models would prove to be alarmist, the opposite is true, particularly in the Arctic.

The IPCC may also have been too cautious on Greenland, assuming that the melting of its glaciers would contribute little to sea-level rise. Some studies found that Greenland's glacial streams were surging and surface ice was morphing into liquid lakes, but others made a strong case that those surges and melts were aberrations, not long-term trends. It seemed to be a standoff. More reliable data, however, such as satellite measurements of Greenland's mass, show that it is losing about 52 cubic miles per year and that the melting is accelerating. So while the IPCC projected that sea level would rise 16 inches this century, "now a more likely figure is one meter [39 inches] at the least," says Carlson. "Chest high instead of knee high, with half to two thirds of that due to Greenland." Hence the "no idea how bad it was."

The frozen north had another surprise in store. Scientists have long known that permafrost, if it melted, would release carbon, exacerbating global warming, which would melt more permafrost, which would add more to global warming, on and on in a feedback loop. But estimates of how much carbon is locked into Arctic permafrost were, it turns out, woefully off. "It's about three times as much as was thought, about 1.6 trillion metric tons, which has surprised a lot of people," says Edward Schuur of the University of Florida. "It means the potential for positive feedbacks is greatly increased." That 1.6 trillion tons is about twice the amount now in the atmosphere. And Schuur's measurements of how quickly CO2 can come out of permafrost, reported in May, were also a surprise: 1 billion to 2 billion tons per year. Cars and light trucks in the U.S. emit about 300 million tons per year.

In an insightful observation in The Guardian this month, Jim Watson of the University of Sussex wrote that "a new breed of climate sceptic is becoming more common": someone who doubts not the science but the policy response. Given the pathetic (non)action on global warming at the G8 summit, and the fact that the energy/climate bill passed by the House of Representatives is so full of holes and escape hatches that it has barely a prayer of averting dangerous climate change, skepticism that the world will get its act together seems appropriate. For instance, the G8, led by Europe, has vowed to take steps to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by reducing CO2 emissions. We're now at 0.8 degree. But the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is already enough to raise the mercury 2 degrees. The only reason it hasn't is that the atmosphere is full of crap (dust and aerosols that contribute to asthma, emphysema, and other diseases) that acts as a global coolant. As that pollution is reduced for health reasons, we're going to blast right through 2 degrees, which is enough to exacerbate droughts and storms, wreak havoc on agriculture, and produce a planet warmer than it's been in millions of years. The 2-degree promise is a mirage.

The test of whether the nations of the world care enough to act will come in December, when 192 countries meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a climate treaty. Carlson vows that IPY will finish its Arctic assessment in time for the meeting, and one conclusion is already clear. "A consensus has developed during IPY that the Greenland ice sheet will disappear," he says. Cue the Jaws music.

Begley Is Newsweek’s Science Editor.

Link to this article: http://www.newsweek.com/id/208164

M. A. Kelly & T. V. Lowell, Quart. Sci. Rev., Fluctuations of local glaciers in Greenland during latest Pleistocene and Holocene time

Quarternary Science Reviews, 2008, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.12.008
Elsevier Science Publishers

Fluctuations of local glaciers in Greenland during latest Pleistocene and Holocene time

Meredith A. Kelly (Geochemistry Division, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY 10964, U.S.A.)*^, and Thomas V. Lowell (Department of Geology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, U.S.A.)

Received 22 May 2008, revised 4 December 2008,

accepted 4 December 2008.

Available online 29 January 2009.

Abstract

This paper is the first to summarize research on fluctuations of local glaciers in Greenland (e.g. ice caps and mountain glaciers independent of the Greenland Ice Sheet) during latest Pleistocene and Holocene time. In contrast to the extensive data available for fluctuations of the Greenland Ice Sheet, surprisingly little data exist to constrain local glacier extents. Much of the available research was conducted prior to wide-spread use of AMS radiocarbon dating and the advent of surface-exposure and luminescence dating. Although there is a paucity of data, generally similar patterns of local glacier fluctuations are observed in all regions of Greenland and likely reflect changes in paleoclimate, which must have influenced at least the margins of the Inland Ice. Absolute-age data for late-glacial and early Holocene advances of local glaciers are reported from only two locations: Disko (island) and the Scoresby Sund region. Subsequent to late-glacial or early Holocene time, most local glaciers were smaller than at present or may have disappeared completely during the Holocene Thermal Maximum. In general, local glacier advances that occurred during Historical time (1200–1940 AD) are the most extensive since late-glacial or early Holocene time. Historical documents and more recent aerial photographs provide useful information about local glacier fluctuations during the last 100 yrs. In all but one area (North Greenland), local glaciers are currently receding from Historical extents.

*Corresponding author. Present address: Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH,03755, U.S.A Tel.: +1 (603) 646-9647; fax: +1 (603) 646-3922.

Article Outline

1. Introduction

2. Western Greenland

2.1. Overview

2.2. South and South-West Greenland

2.3. Southern West Greenland

2.4. Central West Greenland

2.4.1. Disko (island)

2.4.2. Nûgssuaq (peninsula)

2.4.3. Svartenhuk Halvø (peninsula)

2.5. North-West Greenland

2.5.1. Upernavik to Melville Bugt

2.5.2. Thule area to Inglefield Land

3. Southeastern Greenland

3.1. Overview

3.2. Tasiilaq region

3.3. Kangerlussuaq region

4. Northeastern Greenland

4.1. Overview

4.2. Scoresby Sund region (70–72°N)

4.3. Mesters Vig region (72–74°N)

4.4. Hochstetter Foreland to Germania Land (74–78°N)

4.5. Jøkelbugten to Ingolf Fjord

5. North Greenland

5.1. Overview

5.2. Eastern North Greenland

5.3. Central North Greenland

5.4. Western North Greenland

6. Discussion

6.1. Existence of local glaciers during the LGM

6.2. Existence of local glaciers during late-glacial to early Holocene time

6.3. Existence of local glaciers during the Holocene ‘thermal maximum’

6.4. Existence of local glaciers during Neoglacial time, prior to Historical time

6.5. Existence of local glaciers during Historical time

6.6. Summary

7. Conclusions and recommendations for future work

Acknowledgements

References

Link to abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4VGMP9C-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f7bf936f435481399502261a08c2b107

Greenfrye's: The collected videos of Peter Sinclair’s excellent “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” series

Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Currently playing: what did Peter say that made Anthony Watts run so scared?

The collected videos of Peter Sinclair’s excellent “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” series:

MYTH: Arctic ice is recovering

Polar Ice Update: Arctic Perennial Ice and Methane

“Ice Area vs Volume”: Debunking the “Ice is back to 1979 levels” idiocy (see also here)

MYTH: The climate models are unreliable

This Year’s Model: Climate models and modeling

MYTH: Climate change is good for plants and crops

Don’t it make my Green World Brown: CO2 and plant growth

MYTH: CO2 is not driving climate change

Sense from Deniers on CO2? Don’t hold your breath….

MYTH: The “lag” shows CO2 does not cause climate change

The “Temp leads Carbon” Crock

MYTH: Climate change ended in 1998

Party like it’s 1998

MYTH: Sea levels are not rising, or not like they said

All Wet on Sea Level rise

MYTH: 30,000 scientists signed a petition

The great Petition Fraud:

MYTH: Other planets warming prove it’s the sun

Mars Attacks!!

MYTH: Weather stations are unreliable

Watts Up With Watts?
The “Urban Heat Island” Crock

MYTH: They were predicting global cooling in the 1970s

“I Love the 70s!!”: CAUTION: may contain disco music

MYTH: It’s a natural 1500 year cycle

That 1500 Year Thing

MYTH: “The Hockey Stick” is broken

Medieval Warming? (& the Hockey Stick)

MYTH: It’s the Sun &/or Sunspots

Solar Schmolar: Debunking the “It’s the Sun” fable

MYTH: A cold day in ____ proves climate change isn’t happening

“It’s cold. So there’s no Climate Change”

You can subscribe to Peter’s Youtube Channel at YouTube – greenman3610 and get them hot off the editor.

Watts Up With Watts?

The latest development:

Climate Crock of the Week: What’s Up with Anthony Watts [take 2]

“The video has since been reviewed by a number of US copyright experts and (big surprise) there appears to be nothing that could be construed as anything but fair use.”

Global warming denier uses the DMCA to silence a critic

Well, the video must have been really on target — it stung Anthony Watts so badly that he initiated a DMCA “takedown” action and got the “Watts Up With Watts” video removed from youtube.com!

More:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0-gX7aUKk&feature=player_embedded

Joseph Romm: Another major study predicts rapid warming over next few years — nearly 0.3 °F by 2014

Another major study predicts rapid warming over next few years — nearly 0.3 °F by 2014

by Joseph Romm, Climate Progress, posted 28 Jul 2009, 10:32 a.m. PDT

From 2009 to 2014, projected rises in anthropogenic influences and solar irradiance will increase global surface temperature 0.15 ±0.03 °C, at a rate 50% greater than predicted by IPCC.

So conclude Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in a new Geophysical Research Letters study, “How Will Earth’s Surface Temperature Change in Future Decades?” (subs. req’d). The UK Guardian explains:

The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO₂ and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

This study does not assume we will have a major El Niño, but notes that if we did have a really big one, it could add as much as 0.2 °C [0.36 °F] to the temperature in an individual year. In the July 27, 2009, weekly update by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, “ENSO Cycle: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions,” NCEP notes “Current observations and dynamical model forecasts indicate El Niño conditions will continue to intensify and are expected to last through” the winter, and “nearly all of the dynamical models predict a moderate-to-strong episode.” So again, it looks like NASA’s January prediction is accurate,

Given our expectation of the next El Niño beginning in 2009 or 2010, it still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years,

Significantly, a 2007 Hadley Center paper in Science: “Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model” (see “Climate Forecast: Hot — and then Very Hot“) also concluded:

Our system predicts that internal variability will partially offset the anthropogenic global warming signal for the next few years. However, climate will continue to warm, with at least half of the years after 2009 predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record.

That 2007 paper predicted roughly twice as much warming by 2014 as the new study.

A 2008 Nature paper that confused many actually found that the coming decade is poised to see faster temperature rise than any decade since the authors’ calculations began in 1960 (see “Nature article on ‘cooling’ confuses media, deniers: Next decade may see rapid warming“).

The new GRL paper seems highly credible:

By representing monthly mean surface temperatures in terms of their combined linear responses to ENSO, volcanic and solar activity and anthropogenic influences, we account for 76% of the variance observed since 1980 (and since 1889; Lean & Rind, 2008) and forecast global and regional temperatures in the next two decade.

The authors note that:

… our empirical model predicts that global surface temperatures will increase at an average rate of 0.17 ±0.03 °C per decade in the next two decades….

Northern mid latitudes, especially western Europe, will experience the largest warming (of as much as 1 °C)….

Of course, Americans also live in the Northern mid latitudes.

Notwithstanding the occasional confused study, we continue, sadly, to be on track for every decade this century being the hottest decade in recorded history.”

Joseph Romm: Video Anthony Watts does not want you to see: The Climate Denial “Crock of the Week”

The video that Anthony Watts does not want you to see: The Climate Denial “Crock of the Week”

by Joseph Romm, Climate Progress, posted 29 Jul 2009, 06:59 a.m. PDT

This is the video that Anthony Watts demanded YouTube take down. This is what the former TV weatherman who runs a leading anti-scientific website, WattsUpWithThat, is afraid to let the public see:

Fortunately, Anthony Watts knows even less about copyright laws than he does about climate science, if that’s possible [see "Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)"]. So YouTube has put it back up after temporarily removing it, which is standard practice for them.

Here’s some background on the terrific video from DeSmogBlog:

Peter Sinclair producer of the well-known “Climate Crock of the Week” video series, posted a video debunking weatherman Anthony Watts who runs a Climate Denier Den also known as his Watt’s Up With That blog.

The video was auto-scrubbed by YouTube after Watts claimed the video broke YouTube’s copyright rules. The video has since been reviewed by a number of US copyright experts and (big surprise) there appears to be nothing that could be construed as anything but fair use.

As any viewer can plainly see, there is nothing in the video that infringes on any copyrighted work by Watts — it is apparently just the devastating content that Watts is afraid of.

Watts is capable of dishing out the most virulent attacks on leading climate scientists, like James Hansen and Mark Serreze (see Exclusive: New NSIDC director Serreze explains the “death spiral” of Arctic ice, brushes off the “breathtaking ignorance” of blogs like WattsUpWithThat) — but he can’t even take a factual and, by WattUpWithThat standards, relatively mild attack on himself.

This whole situation has raised the ire of even some of the more ardent commenters on DeSmogBlog who normally disagree with pretty much everything we say on this site. One such commenter, Rick James wrote:

“I have to admit it doesn’t look good for the skeptic side when something gets scrubbed like this. Watts loses some stature here unless he can post something convincing about why he did it on his blog. Silence won’t get it done.”

One could speculate that Watts had a problem with the clips Sinclair used of Watts being interviewed by Glenn Beck on Fox News (Watts formerly worked as a weatherman for a Fox News affiliate), but that would be pretty weak given that Watts has no problem excerpting large swaths of print articles like this one posted tonight from the BBC on his own website.

As I have asked on two posts here on DeSmog and on Huffington Post: tell me Mr. Watts, what part of this video is it that gives you the right to have it removed from the public discourse on climate change? You can email me at desmogblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Ironically, if Watts understood the law, he never would have asked YouTube to take it down, since it is standard operating procedure for them to take down such a video in response to such a request — and then put it back up when the author of the video asks them to.

But then Watts also has no understanding whatsoever of scientific matters. His life’s work — to discredit the U.S. temperature record — has itself just been utterly discredited, as the video shows (see also Must-read NOAA paper smacks down the deniers: Q: “Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?” A: “None at all”).

Watts publishes stuff by deniers like Roger Pielke, Sr. that is so lame, so willfully anti-scientific in its effort to confuse short-term weather with long-term climate trends, that it actually tries to dismiss the startling 30-year record of Arctic sea ice loss with the statement that “since 2008, the anomalies have actually decreased” (see “Like father, like son: Roger Pielke Sr. also doesn’t understand the science of global warming — or just chooses to willfully misrepresent it“). And, just for the record, there is no evidence whatsoever that the anomalies have decreased since 2008 (see “Will we see record low Arctic ice VOLUME this year?“).

Watts is so desperate to respond to the record warming the planet is now seeing that he trotted out a 2-year-old post on cold temperatures in Argentina (see “Unscientific America: From the moon-landing deniers to WattsUpWithThat“).

So please distribute the video as widely as possible. Everyone should see what Anthony Watts is afraid of — the scientific truth.

UPDATE: Pielke, Sr. has commented on the video, complaining that it links deniers like Watts to the tobacco issue. GetEnergySmartNow explains why the link is a fair one.

J.E. Dore et al., PNAS, 106 (July 28, 2009), Physical and biogeochemical modulation of ocean acidification in the central North Pacific

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106, No. 30, 12235-12240 (July 28, 2009).

Physical and biogeochemical modulation of ocean acidification in the central North Pacific

John E. Dore*, Roger Lukas, Daniel W. Sadler, Matthew J. Church and David M. Karl*

Contributed by David M. Karl, June 8, 2009 (received for review April 10, 2009).

Abstract

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) is increasing at an accelerating rate, primarily due to fossil fuel combustion and land use change. A substantial fraction of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions is absorbed by the oceans, resulting in a reduction of seawater pH. Continued acidification may over time have profound effects on marine biota and biogeochemical cycles. Although the physical and chemical basis for ocean acidification is well understood, there exist few field data of sufficient duration, resolution, and accuracy to document the acidification rate and to elucidate the factors governing its variability. Here we report the results of nearly 20 years of time-series measurements of seawater pH and associated parameters at Station ALOHA in the central North Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. We document a significant long-term decreasing trend of −0.0019 ± 0.0002 y⁻¹ in surface pH, which is indistinguishable from the rate of acidification expected from equilibration with the atmosphere. Superimposed upon this trend is a strong seasonal pH cycle driven by temperature, mixing, and net photosynthetic CO₂ assimilation. We also observe substantial interannual variability in surface pH, influenced by climate-induced fluctuations in upper ocean stability. Below the mixed layer, we find that the change in acidification is enhanced within distinct subsurface strata. These zones are influenced by remote water mass formation and intrusion, biological carbon remineralization, or both. We suggest that physical and biogeochemical processes alter the acidification rate with depth and time and must therefore be given due consideration when designing and interpreting ocean pH monitoring efforts and predictive models.

Author contributions: J.E.D., R.L., and D.M.K. designed research; J.E.D., D.W.S., and M.J.C. performed research; J.E.D., R.L., D.W.S., M.J.C., and D.M.K. analyzed data; and J.E.D. wrote the paper.

*Correspondence: Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, 334 Leon Johnson Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717; e-mail: jdore@montana.edu and dkarl@hawaii.edu

Link to abstract: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12235.abstract

Link to full open-access paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12235.full.pdf+html

This article contains supporting information online at: www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0906044106/DCSupplemental.

PNAS: Peter G. Brewer, A changing ocean seen with clarity

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0906815106

A changing ocean seen with clarity

Peter G. Brewer (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, 7700 Sandholdt Road, Moss Landing, CA 95039)

The Hawaiian archipelago, the most remote group of islands on Earth, has long been associated
with the world’s most recognizable image of global change. The Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 record, begun in March 1958 by Charles David Keeling, shows with startling clarity the saw-tooth pattern of the seasonal changes of land vegetation, and the still astonishing, dominating, rise forced by fossil fuel burning which is rapidly changing our world. Within perhaps only 5 years the peak in the annual signal atop Mauna Loa will touch the 400 ppm by volume mark, which would have been inconceivable to scientists of the first half of the twentieth century.

But there is one huge and environmentally critical signal that is not easily seen in the ‘‘Keeling curve,’’ and that is the oceanic uptake of fossil fuel CO2. In this issue of PNAS, Dore et al. (1) document with great clarity the changes in ocean CO2 chemistry and pH occurring in the ocean in the waters off Hawaii from fossil fuel CO2 invasion.


Background
The changes in pCO2 (partial pressure of CO2) in the atmosphere are exactly paralleled in the ocean, but the consequences are very different. CO2 has no atmospheric chemistry and is simply
mixed. But increasing CO2 in sea water induces changes in pH, and Dore et al. (1) have measured these changes with remarkable accuracy and precision.

They thereby forcefully link air and sea and provide unmistakable evidence of ocean acidification and the complex and still poorly understood consequences of this. And they go beyond the simple surface expression to explore the changes taking place at depth.

Large-scale uptake of atmospheric fossil fuel CO2 has long been recognized (2) as a fundamental consequence of the acid–base balance of slightly alkaline ocean surface waters, poised at about pH 8.2, exposed to an atmosphere of steadily increasing CO2 (3). The quantities involved are huge. Ocean uptake of fossil fuel CO2 is now proceeding at about 1 million metric tons of
CO2 per hour, and the accumulated burden of fossil fuel CO2 in ocean waters is now well over 530 billion tons.

But the direct measurement of the pH changes brought about by this CO2 uptake has challenged ocean scientists for decades. Dore et al. (1) have takenmodern accurate spectrophotometric
ratio techniques (4) and applied these with extraordinary care to obtain an almost 20-year record of pH changes at the now legendary station ALOHA off Hawaii. The dedication is extraordinary, and the results are unassailable. They show that the change in surface ocean CO2 properties produces a ‘‘long-term decreasing trend in surface layer pH that is indistinguishable from the rate of acidification expected from equilibration with the atmosphere.’’

Why should this finding be important? The annual changes in pH in surface waters off Hawaii are in milli-pH units, but the downward trend is clear. Why have such changes not been routinely
documented for approximately the same time as the atmospheric CO2 record? Is a slavish response to the atmosphere all that will occur? Will the deep ocean waters respond to change in
the same manner as the ocean surface?
Are there impacts that will be felt by marine life, or perturbations of carefully poised biogeochemical cycles? The seemingly simple matter of accurate measurement of oceanic CO2 system properties, and in particular pH, has engaged scientists for a long time.
Early investigators routinely made very large numbers of electrode-based pH measurements around the world. But in the words of Keeling (5) ‘‘These investigators, in their optimism for having found a simple measuring routine, failed to note that the new method was scarcely capable of detecting the small changes in pH of surface ocean water that reflect significant changes in pCO2.’’

These measurements were therefore of little practical use for tracking the changes taking place.
A major improvement was initiated in 1967 with the call by the influential chemist Lars Gunnar Sillen (6) for pressure–temperature-independent data, and for accurate measurement of the mass propertiesof total CO2 and alkalinity. These can be fundamentally calibrated and are
required data for incorporating the CO2 system in ocean circulation models. But the methods recommended still relied on glass electrodes and on a complex array of thermodynamic constants. It was inevitable that trouble would follow (7) with a decade of inconsistent data
from the world-wide Geosecs expedition that took heroic efforts to untangle (8). New nonelectrode techniques were developed, standards were created, and internal consistency was found.

Geochemists were then happier with the state of the art, and rapid progress was made. As a result, time series stations were established at Bermuda (9) and Hawaii (10) with the purpose of
detailed tracking of oceanic biogeochemical cycles through time. These stations and the record that flows from them are now part of the crown jewels of US global change science. From these
and other data ocean chemists could uncover the massive imprint of the fossil fuel CO2 signal (11).

But communicating the consequences of these changes to the broader community, and to physiologists concerned with the inner workings of marine animals, proved hard. By reporting on mass properties, and assuming that the pH changes were understood, ocean scientists did not get their message out; the required language simply was not there.

In a 2004 lecture to a fisheries meeting I remarked: ‘‘So complex is the full accounting of this process that the message has often been blurred. The use of a confusing set of apparent thermodynamic constants, the existence of several pH scales, the arcane distinctions between
pCO2 and fCO2, the strictures on careful measurement, and the use of these systems in dynamic models have all deterred the non-specialist.’’

Public Awareness

Breakthroughs in public awareness occurred in a strange way. Direct disposal of fossil fuel CO2 in the ocean as a means of climate control had been advocated as early as 1977 (12), but when even very-small-scale experiments took place (13) the images obtained aroused environmental concern as no graph or table ever could. A typical reaction was ‘‘My God! You are going to change pH.’’ This new medium conveyed the message. With a formal assessment of the engineering issues and biological consequences by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (14) the door was opened. A critical meeting held in Paris in 2004 (15) shaped the rapidly emerging field of ocean acidification studies (16), and a cascade of important papers followed.

The first concern was for changes in calcification, with impacts on coral reefs and pelagic organisms with calcareous shells (17). The 20-year record in surface waters off Hawaii shows only a -0.03 pH unit change. But extrapolating backwards to the preindustrial era indicates
that a modern change of -0.1 pH has already occurred. And projecting forward using well-known IPCC scenarios shows that a change of about -0.3 pH should occur by mid-century. The Dore et al. (1) data set shows that we are right on this track.

Consequences

The consequences for coral reefs (18) arouse concern because lowered carbonate ion concentration directly affects the ability of organisms to precipitate aragonite—the most common isomorph of calcium carbonate in coralline animals and the basic building block of coral reefs. Schneider and Erez (19) report a reduction in calcification rate of 55% for Acropora eurystoma under a0.3). There is strong evidence that this is not controlled by an external surface equilibrium process. Rather the coralline animal actually engulfs sea water into an internal vacuole and works to form the skeletal material from the enclosed fluid. Although an increase in
temperature could extend the latitudinal range of some corals, the net result of the combined effects of warming and acidification is likely to be strongly negative.

Hawaii is surrounded by vast expanses of coral reefs, but interestingly Dore et al. (1) do not directly address this issue. Instead they step tentatively onto new ground. They report on the vertical profiles of changing pH in the ocean water column and note that the rate of change ‘‘is elevated within distinct subsurface strata.’’ The deeper strata are colder waters formed at higher latitudes, but they take time to transit from their point of equilibration with the atmosphere and thus ‘‘saw’’ an earlier, lower-CO2, atmosphere. Why then should the rate of change of pH be higher?

The generally quoted change of pH of -0.3 for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 applies only to well-buffered surface waters; it will be greater at depth. The huge capacity of the ocean for CO2 uptake is related to the well-known Revelle factor expressed approximately as the ratio of a fractional change in pCO2 to the fractional change in total CO2 (TCO2), or pCO2/pCO2/TCO2/TCO2.

For surface waters this typically has a value of 10. But colder, deep waters in which pH and carbonate ion have already been much reduced by the addition of respiratory CO2 have far less
buffer capacity. Thus the changes in both pCO2 and pH created at depth as the CO2 invasion moves into abyssal waters will far exceed the surface changes now widely discussed in the ocean acidification literature. The relatively well-oxygenated deep waters off Hawaii measured by Dore et al. (1) hint at this process.

For an extreme case, Brewer and Peltzer (20) have recently investigated the changes at an eastern Pacific station where O2 levels are very strongly depleted, and CO2 highly enriched, at only 500-m depth. There surface waters labeled by a doubling of atmospheric CO2 and translated to depth will raise the pCO2 from about 1,000 ppm to 2,000 ppm and more. The equivalent changes in pH will occur. These extraordinary numbers pose a challenge not simply for calcareous organisms but when combined with very low O2 values pose a respiratory limit to all aerobic life. The end result is disturbing. There is already clear evidence of expansion of the low-oxygen regions of the oceans (21), and when these are combined with rising CO2 levels we will surely see true dead zones created.

The remote Hawaiian waters are still apparently unaffected by the trend in declining O2, but the rise in CO2 and decline in pH that are observed, although still small, indicate that these ocean processes and worrisome trends are universal.

Link to pdf file with correct symbols for the equations: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/07/21/0906815106.full.pdf+html?etoc

Asa Rennermalm: Study examines feedback mechanism thatmay be hastening Greenland ice-sheet melt

Study examines feedback mechanism that may be hastening Greenland ice-sheet melt

environmentalresearchweb.org, July 27, 2009

The Greenland ice sheet and the surrounding Arctic sea ice have experienced record levels of melting in recent years. But are the two linked? When sea ice melts does it encourage the ice sheet to melt too? A new study suggests that the answer to this question may be yes.

Satellite measurements show that the area of the Greenland ice sheet that experiences melting has increased by around 16% over the last 30 years. Meanwhile, Arctic sea-ice extent shrunk to a record minimum in the summer of 2007; 39% less than the long-term average. The years of 2008 and 2005 were also extreme; on average the summer sea-ice extent has been decreasing at more than 10% per decade for the last 30 years.

The very edge of the Greenland ice sheet

Climate models indicate that melting of the Greenland ice sheet is likely to increase global sea level by around half a metre over the next 100 years or so. But there is a large degree of uncertainty in this estimate, as there may be feedback mechanisms that could speed or slow the melting process.

Asa Rennermalm from the University of California in Los Angeles, and her colleagues have been investigating one potential feedback mechanism that may be hastening ice-sheet melt. Using satellite data gathered over the last 30 years, they looked at the way that the Greenland ice sheet and surrounding sea ice have changed in size over time.

They found a strong covariance between sea-ice extent and Greenland ice-sheet melt, particularly in the late summer of each year. The smaller the sea ice extent, the greater the rate of melting of the ice sheet. "They appear to work in concert," Rennermalm told environmentalresearchweb.

Not all regions of the ice sheet showed this covariance, but where it did occur – in the west and the southwest – it was very strong.

"We think that the presence or absence of sea ice may be influencing the surface climate over the ocean," said Rennermalm. Sea ice tends to cool and dry the air above it, whereas open-ocean is associated with warmer and wetter air. "With a favourable wind direction the lack of ice could act as an agent for bringing warm air to the ice sheet, increasing the rate of melting," she explained.

Right now all eyes are on the Jakobshavn ice-stream in Western Greenland, which lies just north of the current area of maximum melting – the Kangerlussuaq region. Models suggest that sea-ice retreat is going to march northwards. If so, the Jakobshavn ice-stream should be the next region to be hit. "It is a sweet spot for detecting the link," said Rennermalm.

The findings are published in Environmental Research Letters.

About the author

Kate Ravilious is a contributing editor to environmentalresearchweb.

Link to article: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/research/39917

Rising ocean temperatures near worst-case IPCC 2007 predictions

Rising ocean temperatures near worst-case predictions

by Adam Morton, The Age, June 19, 2009

The ocean is warming about 50% faster than reported two years ago, according to an update of the latest climate science.

A report compiling research presented at a science congress in Copenhagen in March says recent observations are near the worst-case predictions of the 2007 report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In the case of sea-level rise, it is happening at an even greater rate than projected -- largely due to rising ocean temperatures causing thermal expansion of seawater.

Released last night at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, the report says ocean temperatures are a better indicator of global warming than air temperature as the ocean stores more heat and responds more slowly to change.

Report co-author Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, said the top 700 metres of the ocean had warmed by about 0.1 degrees over the past half-century.

"While that looks like a modest figure, that would correspond to something like 15 to 20 times more heat going into the ocean than has gone into the atmosphere," Professor Steffen said.

"Well over half of the increase in ocean temperature occurred in the last 10 years, so the system is accelerating."

The report, titled Climate change: Global risks, challenges & decisions, says greenhouse gas emissions needed to peak within the next six years for the world to give a chance of limiting global warming above pre-industrial levels to about two degrees.

But it warms that even a two-degree rise in temperature would lead to significant risks, including loss of water storage capacity in the Himalayan glaciers and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

Ice sheet melting could be locked in for centuries before it is felt.

Other findings in the report include that:

* Sea level is predicted to rise by about a metre by 2100, though it notes models of the behaviour of polar ice sheets are in their infancy.

* Summer Arctic sea ice is reducing dramatically, with the decrease in 2008 almost as great as the record loss in 2007. As ice and snow reflect the sun, loss of sea ice will lead to more rapid warming as heat is instead absorbed by seawater.

* Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have not been substantially higher than now for at least the last 20 million years.

* Global average surface temperature will hardly drop in the first thousand years after greenhouse gas emissions are cut to zero.

Link to article: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/rising-ocean-temperatures-near-worstcase-predictions-20090619-cmcs.html

World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study by Lean and Rind warns

World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns

New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics

by Duncan Clark, The Guardian, 27 July 2009

The world faces record-breaking temperatures as the sun's activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted for the next five years, according to a study.

The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. But new research firmly rejects that argument.

The research, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO₂ and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.

As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind's research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.

The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind's paper suggests. A particularly hot autumn and winter could add to the pressure on policy makers to reach a meaningful deal at December's climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen.

Bob Henson, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said: "To claim that global temperatures have cooled since 1998 and therefore that man-made climate change isn't happening is a bit like saying spring has gone away when you have a mild week after a scorching Easter."

Temperature highs and lows

1998

Hottest year of the millennium

Caused by a major El Niño event. The climate phenomenon results from warming of the tropical Pacific and causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. The 1998 event caused 16% of the world's coral reefs to die.

1957

Most sunspots in a year since 1778

The sun's activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The late 1950s saw a peak in activity and were relatively warm years for the period.

1601

Coldest year of the millennium

Ash from the huge eruption the previous year of a Peruvian volcano called Huaynaputina blocked out the sun. The volcanic winter caused Russia's worst famine, with a third of the population dying, and disrupted agriculture from China to France.

Link to article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/27/world-warming-faster-study

Global ocean surface temperature warmest on record for June 2009 according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center

Global ocean surface temperature warmest on record for June

ScienceDaily, July 27, 2009 — The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for June, breaking the previous high mark set in 2005, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Additionally, the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for June was second-warmest on record. The global records began in 1880.

Global Climate Statistics

• The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for June 2009 was the second warmest on record, behind 2005, 1.12 °F (0.62 °C) above the 20th century average of 59.9 °F (15.5 °C).
• Separately, the global ocean surface temperature for June 2009 was the warmest on record, 1.06 °F (0.59 °C) above the 20th century average of 61.5 °F (16.4 °C).
• Each hemisphere broke its June record for warmest ocean surface temperature. In the Northern Hemisphere, the warm anomaly of 1.17 °F (0.65 °C) surpassed the previous record of 1.12 °F (0.62 °C), set in 2005. The Southern Hemisphere’s increase of 0.99 °F (0.55 °C) exceeded the old record of 0.92 °F (0.51 °C), set in 1998.
• The global land surface temperature for June 2009 was 1.26 °F (0.70 °C) above the 20th century average of 55.9 °F (13.3 °C), and ranked as the sixth-warmest June on record.

Notable Developments and Events

• El Niño is back after six straight months of increased sea-surface temperature anomalies. June sea surface temperatures in the region were more than 0.9 °F (0.5 °C) above average.
• Terrestrial warmth was most notable in Africa. Considerable warmth also occurred in Siberia and in the lands around the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Cooler-than-average land locations included the U.S. Northern Plains, the Canadian Prairie Provinces, and central Asia.
• Arctic sea ice covered an average of 4.4 million sq. miles (11.5 million km²) during June, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. This is 5.6% below the 1979-2000 average extent. By contrast, the 2007 record for the least Arctic sea ice extent was 5.5% below average. Antarctic sea ice extent in June was 3.9% above the 1979-2000 average.
• Heavy rain fell over central Europe, triggering mudslides and floods. Thirteen fatalities were reported. According to reports, this was central Europe's worst natural disaster since the 2002 floods that claimed 17 lives and caused nearly $3 billion in damages.

---

Adapted from materials provided by National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration.

Link to article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090725120303.htm

Joseph Romm: Solar and wind power making big strides

From Joseph Romm's e-mail newsletter, July 27, 2009:

SunPower Suggests Solar Emerging From Doldrums

SunPower surprised some Wall Street observers Thursday afternoon by raising its full-year 2009 revenue estimates to a range of $1.35 billion to $1.7 billion, indicating that the largest U.S. maker of silicon-based solar panels has confidence that the solar business may be reviving.

The slight upward revision in guidance–SunPower had previously given a low estimate of $1.3 billion–follows better than expected results for the second quarter. SunPower revenue totaled $298 million for the quarter, a decrease of 22% over the same period in 2008. Net income per share declined 30% to 26 cents as gross margin fell to 19% from 24% a year ago on declining average sales prices for its solar panels. Excluding one-time items, the San Jose, Calif.-based company earned 24 cents a share, handily beating the consensus analyst forecast of 13 cents a share, as compiled by Thomson Reuters.

As demand for clean energy grows….

Last year 24 states opened, expanded or announced turbine manufacturing plants, according to the American Wind Energy Association. By value, about half of turbine parts are now manufactured in the United States, said Mr. Dunlop of the wind association….

The vast majority of turbine parts travel by truck, but in Texas and elsewhere, some wind companies are looking to move more turbine parts by train to save money. General Electric, a big turbine maker, says rail transport can be up to 50% cheaper over long distances, and the rail company Union Pacific saw its wind-related shipments more than double last year.

So as we ship less coal by train, we can ship more turbine blades. How is that for a win-win?

Jakobshavn Glacier's floating tongue breaking up, July 27, 2009?

Here is the link to a MODIS Rapidfire satellite image from July 27, 2009 (250-m resolution) that appears to show the floating tongue of the Jakobshavn Isbræ breaking up.

But, doesn't it do this every year?

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2009208/crefl1_143.A2009208003000-2009208003500.250m.jpg

I will be posting the photo in a bit. Remember, readers, you really do need to click on the photos to enlarge them -- they will get much, much bigger.

And, by the way, this particular photo also shows the spectacular breakup of the ice arch north of the entrance to the Nares Strait, something that has not been known to occur in recent memory.

First, let me post up a nice photo map of the Nares Strait in March 2009, kindly provided by Wayne Hamilton:


OK, here is the cropped photo showing the ice arch completely broken up.


And, last but not least, the cropped photo showing the possible breaking up of the Jakobshavn Glacier's floating tongue.

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush hid, from U.S. military spy satellite photos of the Arctic

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide

Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating

[Click here to see comparison photos: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jul/23/arctic-sea-ice-photographs-us-geological-survey]

US satellites reveal true extent of melting polar ice

by Suzanne Goldenberg and Damian Carrington, The Observer, Sunday, 26 July 2009

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W. Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

One particularly striking set of images -- selected from the 1,000 photographs released -- includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free. [Blogger's note: this could be entirely due to changing wind patterns from year to year -- the authors could have chosen a much better example.]

The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice -- a record loss -- were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.

Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. Ice cover for 2008 was almost as bad as for 2007, and this year levels look equally sparse.

"These are one-metre resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," said Thorsten Markus of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One-metre resolution is the dimension that's been missing."

Disappearing summer sea ice poses considerable dangers, scientists have warned. Ice shelves are used by animals such as polar bears as platforms for hunting seals and other sea creatures. Without them, they could starve. In addition, ice reflects solar radiation. Without that process, the Arctic sea could warm up even more. The phenomenon threatens to set off runaway heating of the planet, say climatologists.

The latest revelations have triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep a comprehensive track of climate change. Last week, the head of the US's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Professor Jane Lubchenco, warned that the gathering of satellite data -- crucial to predicting future climate changes -- was now at "great risk" because America's ageing satellite fleet was not being replaced. [Blogger's note: seems to me I read about a satellite ready and sitting on a shelf somewhere for years, but no funding.]

"Our primary focus is maintaining the continuity of climate observations, and those are at great risk right now because we don't have the resources to have satellites at the ready and taking the kinds of information that we need," said Lubchenco, who was appointed by Obama. "We are playing catch-up."

Even before her warning, scientists were saying that America, the world's scientific superpower, was virtually blinding itself to climate change by cutting funds to the environmental satellite programs run by the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. A report by the National Academy of Sciences this year warned that the environmental satellite network was at risk of collapse.

In February, a NASA satellite carrying instruments to produce the first map of the Earth's carbon emissions crashed near Antarctica only three minutes after lift-off.

The satellite would have measured carbon emissions at 100,000 points around the planet every day, providing a wealth of data compared to the 100 or so fixed towers currently in operation in a land-based network.

The NOAA is under additional pressure to provide environmental data because of the re-emergence of the El Niño climate phenomenon, where warming of the tropical Pacific causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. June's land and sea surface temperatures were the second hottest on record, and scientists are predicting this will be the warmest decade in recorded history. The last major El Niño was in 1998, the hottest year in recorded history.

The Obama administration has already taken steps to tackle America's flagging scientific lead. The president's economic recovery plan allotted $170m (£100m) to help close the gaps in climate modelling. The NOAA is seeking an additional $390m in its 2010 budget to upgrade environmental satellites, and help make data more available to researchers and government officials.

Link to article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration

Did the Northeast Passage open today, July 26, 2009?

OK, chillens, are we gonna call it open today, July 26, 2009? [click on graphic to enlarge details]

Graphics updated daily at this site:

http://www.seaice.dk/iwicos/latest/

B Buckner said...

Nice pics! I don't always agree with your take on things, but you provide a valuable and interesting service with this blog. Thanks for the effort and keep up the good work.

July 26, 2009 8:44 PM

Thanks B Buckner, I honestly don't know what purpose this blog serves, but if it helps people find info that they are looking for, then it must serve a purpose after all.

Albert said...

It does not seem to me that it has. And what are you calling the Northwest Passage. It looks like the Northern Passage along the northern coast of Russia is getting nearly open. But the passage through the Canadian arctic island is not yet that close. Maybe in a couple of weeks.

July 26, 2009 10:30 PM

Nick Barnes said...

I'd want more detail around the New Siberian Islands before I declared it open. The CT chart says it's close but not yet open. One can certainly see on MODIS that the ice in the East Siberian Sea has more-or-less cleared along the coast, and that the Vilkitsky Strait is pretty clear (between the Taymyr peninsula and Severnaya Zemlya). But we've got no eyeballs around the New Siberian Islands, until those clouds clear. I guess we'll see in the next couple of days.

July 27, 2009 7:46 AM

Humboldt and Petermann Glaciers, northern Greenland, July 26, 2009; MODIS Rapidfire satellite image

MODIS Rapidfire satellite image of northern Greenland and the Humboldt and Petermann Glaciers, July 26, 2009:

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2009207/crefl2_143.A2009207101500-2009207102000.250m.jpg

More on this later.

Real Climate's Gavin Schmidt responds to comment by John McLean, concerning the atrocious paper: McLean et al., JGR, 2009

For original Real Climate post and comments see here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/friday-round-up-3/

This was comment no. 56:

1. From J. D McLean, C.R. de Freitas, R.M. Carter
   25/7/09

   The paper by McLean et al (JGR, 2009) does not analyse trends in mean global temperature (MGT); rather, it examines the extent to which ENSO accounts for variation in MGT.

   The research concludes that MGT has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier and shows the potential of natural mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation.

   It is evident in this paper that ENSO (ocean-atmosphere heat exchange) is the primary driver of MGT (i.e. El Ninos cause global warming and La Ninas cause global cooling). The reason given is Hadley circulation (which affects convection, clouds etc) linked to changes in sea surface temperature (ocean heat supply) and the Walker Circulation (i.e. ENSO). These processes might be significant factors in affecting net solar heating as well as the transfer of heat from Earth to space.

   Since so much of the criticism in the blogosphrere to date is about the failure of the McLean et al paper to detect trends, which was not the aim of the paper, these critics may be interested in a research paper that does.

   Compo and Sardeshmukh (Climate Dynamics, 32:33-342, 2009) state: “Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land.”

   Further regarding trends, the warming trend from 1965 to 2000 is the same as the pre-CO2 warming trend of 1900-1940. It is clear from this the climate models promoted by the IPCC have been tuned to extra warmth associated with ENSO as is apparent in the Mclean et al paper.

   P.S. Personally I am offended, but accept it as a sign of your diligence, that in your opening sentence you fail to spell my surname correctly. Of course the incorrect spelling would have implications for your Search utility, would it not?

   [Response: We're happy to be corrected on our spelling. One presumes that you have no more serious points to make. Since no-one was in ignorance of the impact of ENSO on the global temperatures (and haven't been for decades), I'm a little puzzled as to why you think that is the relevant point of contention. Rather, you should be looking to your own press releases and the throwaway lines about trends in your paper. I take it you will be publicly contradicting your co-author's statements? (PS. the C+S paper you cite has nothing to say about attribution because they built in the trend in the SST to start with). - gavin]

   Comment by John McLean — 25 Jul 2009 @ 7:15 p.m.

And comment no. 69 by wiman:

For those here who are not aware, the authors of this paper made comments in a press release that claim that their paper accounts for most of the warming trend of the 20th century.

“ ‘The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely,’ says corresponding author de Freitas.”

“‘When climate models failed to retrospectively produce the temperatures since 1950 the modellers added some estimated influences of carbon dioxide to make up the shortfall,’ says McLean.”

“Bob Carter, one of four scientists who has recently questioned the justification for the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, says that this paper has significant consequences for public climate policy.

‘The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions. The available data indicate that future global temperatures will continue to change primarily in response to ENSO cycling, volcanic activity and solar changes.’

‘Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate.’ ”

Comment by Wiman — 26 Jul 2009 @ 8:29 a.m.

Nares Strait Ice Arch Breakup north of Ellesmere and Greenland, July 2009

Nares Strait Overview

Nares Strait is a narrow arctic waterway bounded by the east coast of Ellesmere Island (Canadian) and the western coast of Greenland (Danish). The strait is frozen throughout the winter season but opens in the summer and is a major pathway for sea ice flushing out of the High Arctic.

Break-up of Northern Nares Strait Ice Arch - July 06 2009 1800 UTC




Ice Arch Collapse - 13 July 2009




Ice Arch Collapse - 06 to 15 July 2009




Ice Arch Collapse - 19 July 2009




Ice Arch Collapse - 23 July 2009


Link to this page at Canadian Met Office: http://tinyurl.com/nares-ice-arch-2009

Greenpeace's Nick Cobbing on the Arctic Sunrise at the Petermann & Humboldt Glacier in northern Greenland

Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise at the Petermann & Humboldt Glacier in northern Greenland

Awesome, must-see photos taken by members of the researchers on the Greenpeace ship, Arctic Sunrise, up in the Nares Strait off the Petermann and Humboldt Glaciers which together account for 10% of the outflow of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jul/20/greenpeace-arctic-impacts-expedition

For example, photo number 7:

The three scientists fit a radar transmitter, receiver and antennas to a chain of kayaks in order to survey a section of the Petermann Glacier in Greenland. Photograph: Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace

Or, photo number 11:

Images of the glacier's surface are captured by the 'heli-cam.' Photograph: Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace

Or, photo number 12 of the Humboldt Glacier:

Humboldt Glacier, which calves bergs into the Kane Basin in northern Greenland, is the widest glacier in the Northern Hemisphere, and measures 110 km across its face. The two glaciers that are both being studied by Greenpeace -- Humboldt and Petermann -- drain most of the ice from the northwestern part of the Greenland ice sheet. Between them, the two glaciers are responsible for 10% of the total ice drained from the Greenland ice sheet. Photograph: Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace

A. Robock: Comment on ‘‘Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo’’ by David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox

Readers who want the equations and variables in the correct format had better go straight to the link to the pdf file of this article:

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/DouglassKnoxComment2005GL023287.pdf

Comment on ‘‘Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo’’ by David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox

Alan Robock (Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, U.S.A.)

Received 20 April 2005; accepted 27 July 2005; published 25 October 2005.

Citation: Robock, A. (2005), Comment on ‘‘Climate forcing by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo’’ by David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L20711,
doi:10.1029/2005GL023287.

[1] Douglass and Knox [2005, hereinafter referred to as DK] present a confusing and erroneous description of limate feedbacks and the climate response to the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. Their conclusions of a negative climate feedback and small climate sensitivity to volcanic forcing are not supported by their arguments or the observational evidence. As pointed out by Wigley et al. [2005a], this is the consequence of assuming a one-box representation for the climate system, and ignoring energy exchange with the deep ocean.

[2] In the description of their analysis, DK make a fundamental mistake in describing the problem. They claim to use ‘‘standard linear response theory,’’ but they confuse the response with the forcing. They say, ‘‘The LW [longwave] effect is by definition the forcing function DF for the climate, represented by the measured surface temperature anomaly DT.’’ LW radiation changes, however, are produced by both the presence of a forcing agent, in this case stratospheric aerosols, and the response of the climate system. It is the instantaneous net radiation change with no response that is the forcing. The temperature anomaly is the response to forcing, and not the forcing itself, and the LW changes reflect both the true forcing and the effects of the temperature response.

[3] In spite of their statement to the contrary, DK apparently do use the correct forcing, as characterized by their equation (5) and illustrated in their Figure 2. Confusion arises because the forcing they use is a scaled version of the estimated aerosol optical depth changes, which represents the true forcing, yet they continually refer to the scaled optical depth as the LW changes. That the two items are different is clear from DK’s Figure 1.

[4] The forcing of climate change can be defined as the change in the net radiation at the top of the atmosphere, the tropopause, or the surface, without any response of the climate system, or allowing for the stratosphere to equilibrate. Stenchikov and Robock [1995], Houghton et al. [1996], and Hansen et al. [2005] discuss the standard definitions of radiative forcing and considerations for forcing from aerosols, which are not uniformly mixed in the atmosphere. For our purposes, it is sufficient to consider the forcing at the top of the atmosphere, allowing for no equilibration [Stenchikov & Robock, 1995; Stenchikov et al., 1998]. This forcing can be defined as:

(see link for the equations)

where DQ(t) is the radiative forcing, DSW(t) is the change in net downward shortwave radiation and DLW(t) is the change in net downward longwave radiation. Minnis et al. [1993] provide observations of changes in SW and LW separately after the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption, but, of course, these observations combine the effects of forcing and response. Nevertheless, the SW changes are the largest, by an order of magnitude, and dominate the forcing. One cannot do a correct analysis if SW changes are ignored.

[5] Consider a global-average, time-dependent, anomaly energy-balance climate model:

(see link for equation)

where C is the heat capacity, DT(t) is the change in global temperature, l is the climate sensitivity (l = dT dQ), and DQ(t) is the externally applied radiative perturbation. (Much of the climate literature uses l1 or S as the climate sensitivity, but here the same nomenclature as DK is used to avoid confusion.) For a step-function forcing, at steady state the first term in (2) goes to zero and the final temperature change is:

(see link to pdf file for equation)

If DQ is due to a doubling of CO2, then DT is called DT2x. It is now conventional to characterize l in units of DT2x. The e-folding time scale of climate response is t (t = Cl). The amplitude of the climate response and the time it takes to respond to an episodic forcing are both dependent on DT2x.

[6] The value of l proposed by DK, 0.15 K/(W m2), corresponds to an unrealistic value of DT2x of 0.6 K. There is no evidence in the record of past climate change or in climate model simulations that the climate sensitivity could be so low.

[7] Soden et al. [2002] conducted general circulation model (GCM) simulations with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Manabe climate model, forced by the observed distribution of Pinatubo aerosols. When run with prescribed clouds, their climate model, which has a DT2x  3.0 K, accurately reproduced not only the observed surface air temperature, but also the observed upper tropospheric humidity changes (consistent with a positive water vapor feedback), and the observed top of atmospherechanges in both SW and LW. To investigate feedbacks further, Soden et al. used two different versions of the model with explicitly modified sensitivity: the standard configuration, and a configuration with no water vapor feedback. Both GCMs had the same mixed-layer ocean heat capacity and were driven with the same forcing. The integrated cooling in the ‘‘no water vapor feedback’’ configuration was only 60% of that from the model with water vapor feedback. This is consistent with what one would expect for a gain factor of 0.4 from water vapor feedback (which is the expected value under the assumption of constant relative humidity), i.e., lðwith water vaporÞ ¼ lðno water vaporÞ ð1  0:4Þ: ð4Þ

Because they were able to observe each component of the feedback process, including the reduction of upper tropospheric water vapor with the Pinatubo-induced global cooling (a positive water vapor feedback), the Soden et al. study correctly showed how the Pinatubo eruption can be used to diagnose the sensitivity of the climate system and demonstrated that the sensitivity was in the conventional range.

[8] Wigley et al. [2005b], using a very different approach, obtained the same result as Soden et al. [2002]. They clearly showed that for episodic forcing, the transient temperature response of the climate system depends on C and DT2x, as characterized by both the maximum temperature change (DTmax) and the time scale of the response. (The response time in the Wigley et al. study is that for relaxation back to an equilibrium state, a time scale specific to volcanic forcing. It is called tV here, with the V used to indicate that it is specific to the volcanic forcing case. This time scale is not the same as the time scale that DK attempt to calculate, although they appear to think that it is.) Wigley et al. assigned to their MAGICC energy balance, upwelling diffusion climate model the same sensitivity as the National Center for Atmospheric Research PCM coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM. They found that, with this sensitivity, the MAGICC volcano results accurately matched the GCM, giving both the correct time scale and amplitude of climate response to volcanic eruptions, confirming that MAGICC can be used to measure the sensitivity of the climate system.

[9] Wigley et al. [2005b] then compared the results of MAGICC simulations with different sensitivities to the observed climate response after different eruptions. They found that DTmax / (DT2x)0.20 and tV [months] = 30 (DT2x)0.23. This is in contrast to the results of Lindzen and Giannitsis [1998], whose climate model results are inconsistent with GCM results. Lindzen and Giannitsis had found that DTmax / (DT2x)0.37 and tV = 57 (DT2x)0.41 and they erroneously implied from this that DT2x was quite low. By analyzing the observed temperature changes in response to the 1963 Agung eruption and the 1991 Pinatubo eruption, and fitting the response to their MAGICC model, Wigley et al. found that DT2x = 2.8 K for the 1963 Agung eruption and DT2x = 3.0 K for Pinatubo, and that tV = 38 months for both cases.

[10] As shown by the above two climate model analyses, in which the time delay and inertia of the ocean areexplicitly accounted for in the model physics, we expect the climate system to have a DT2x of about 3.0 K and for the peak cooling response after Pinatubo to be about 30% of the equilibrium response. The sensitivity calculated by DK, l = 0.15 K/(W m2), corresponding to DT2x of 0.6 K, means that if we use the observed maximum forcing of about 3.0 W m2 [0.165 (DK, Figure 2) times A (18.5 W m2/K, the mean of the DK values, 16 to 21Wm2/K)], the actual DTmax of 0.45 K (DK, Figure 3) is exactly equal to the equilibrium climate response we can expect (l x forcing) if the forcing were maintained. This is clearly wrong. Their failure to properly account for the entire climate system has led them to derive a climate sensitivity and response time that are much too small.

[11] To summarize, if the analysis is done correctly, the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption serves as a valid test of the response of the climate system to external forcing [Robock, 2003]. As also discussed by Kerr [2004], this test provides additional evidence that the sensitivity of the climate system to doubling CO2 (DT2x) is about 3 K and that the water vapor greenhouse feedback is positive and can be observed.

Is the Sun Missing Its Spots? by Kenneth Chang, New York Times

Is the Sun Missing Its Spots?

by Kenneth Chang, New York Times, July 20, 2009

SUN GAZING These photos show sunspots near solar maximum on July 19, 2000, and near solar minimum on March 18, 2009. Some global warming skeptics speculate that the Sun may be on the verge of an extended slumber. (NASA)

The Sun is still blank (mostly).

Ever since Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, a German astronomer, first noted in 1843 that sunspots burgeon and wane over a roughly 11-year cycle, scientists have carefully watched the Sun’s activity. In the latest lull, the Sun should have reached its calmest, least pockmarked state last fall.

Indeed, last year marked the blankest year of the Sun in the last half-century — 266 days with not a single sunspot visible from Earth. Then, in the first four months of 2009, the Sun became even more blank, the pace of sunspots slowing more.

“It’s been as dead as a doornail,” David Hathaway, a solar physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said a couple of months ago.

The Sun perked up in June and July, with a sizeable clump of 20 sunspots earlier this month.

Now it is blank again, consistent with expectations that this solar cycle will be smaller and calmer, and the maximum of activity, expected to arrive in May 2013 will not be all that maximum.

For operators of satellites and power grids, that is good news. The same roiling magnetic fields that generate sunspot blotches also accelerate a devastating rain of particles that can overload and wreck electronic equipment in orbit or on Earth.

A panel of 12 scientists assembled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now predicts that the May 2013 peak will average 90 sunspots during that month. That would make it the weakest solar maximum since 1928, which peaked at 78 sunspots. During an average solar maximum, the Sun is covered with an average of 120 sunspots.

But the panel’s consensus “was not a unanimous decision,” said Douglas A. Biesecker, chairman of the panel. One member still believed the cycle would roar to life while others thought the maximum would peter out at only 70.

Among some global warming skeptics, there is speculation that the Sun may be on the verge of falling into an extended slumber similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, several sunspot-scarce decades during the 17th and 18th centuries that coincided with an extended chilly period.

Most solar physicists do not think anything that odd is going on with the Sun. With the recent burst of sunspots, “I don’t see we’re going into that,” Dr. Hathaway said last week.

Still, something like the Dalton Minimum — two solar cycles in the early 1800s that peaked at about an average of 50 sunspots — lies in the realm of the possible, Dr. Hathaway said. (The minimums are named after scientists who helped identify them: Edward W. Maunder and John Dalton.)

With better telescopes on the ground and a fleet of Sun-watching spacecraft, solar scientists know a lot more about the Sun than ever before. But they do not understand everything. Solar dynamo models, which seek to capture the dynamics of the magnetic field, cannot yet explain many basic questions, not even why the solar cycles average 11 years in length.

Predicting the solar cycle is, in many ways, much like predicting the stock market. A full understanding of the forces driving solar dynamics is far out of reach, so scientists look to key indicators that correlate with future events and create models based on those.

For example, in 2006, Dr. Hathaway looked at disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field that are caused by the Sun, and they were strong. During past cycles, strong disturbances at minimum indicated strong fields all over the Sun at maximum and a bounty of sunspots. Because the previous cycles had been shorter than average, Dr. Hathaway thought the next one would be shorter and thus solar minimum was imminent. He predicted the new solar cycle would be a ferocious one, consistent with a short cycle.

Instead, the new cycle did not arrive as quickly as Dr. Hathaway anticipated, and the disturbances weakened. His revised prediction is for a smaller-than-average maximum. Last November, it looked like the new cycle was finally getting started, with the new cycle sunspots in the middle latitudes outnumbering the old sunspots of the dying cycle that are closer to the equator.

After a minimum, solar activity usually takes off quickly, but instead the Sun returned to slumber. “There was a long lull of several months of virtually no activity, which had me worried,” Dr. Hathaway said.

The idea that solar cycles are related to climate is hard to fit with the actual change in energy output from the sun. From solar maximum to solar minimum, the Sun’s energy output drops a minuscule 0.1 percent.

But the overlap of the Maunder Minimum with the Little Ice Age, when Europe experienced unusually cold weather, suggests that the solar cycle could have more subtle influences on climate.

One possibility proposed a decade ago by Henrik Svensmark and other scientists at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen looks to high-energy interstellar particles known as cosmic rays. When cosmic rays slam into the atmosphere, they break apart air molecules into ions and electrons, which causes water and sulfuric acid in the air to stick together in tiny droplets. These droplets are seeds that can grow into clouds, and clouds reflect sunlight, potentially lowering temperatures.

The Sun, the Danish scientists say, influences how many cosmic rays impinge on the atmosphere and thus the number of clouds. When the Sun is frenetic, the solar wind of charged particles it spews out increases. That expands the cocoon of magnetic fields around the solar system, deflecting some of the cosmic rays.

But, according to the hypothesis, when the sunspots and solar winds die down, the magnetic cocoon contracts, more cosmic rays reach Earth, more clouds form, less sunlight reaches the ground, and temperatures cool.

“I think it’s an important effect,” Dr. Svensmark said, although he agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that has certainly contributed to recent warming.

Dr. Svensmark and his colleagues found a correlation between the rate of incoming cosmic rays and the coverage of low-level clouds between 1984 and 2002. They have also found that cosmic ray levels, reflected in concentrations of various isotopes, correlate well with climate extending back thousands of years.

But other scientists found no such pattern with higher clouds, and some other observations seem inconsistent with the hypothesis.

Terry Sloan, a cosmic ray expert at the University of Lancaster in England, said if the idea were true, one would expect the cloud-generation effect to be greatest in the polar regions where the Earth’s magnetic field tends to funnel cosmic rays.

“You’d expect clouds to be modulated in the same way,” Dr. Sloan said. “We can’t find any such behavior.”

Still, “I would think there could well be some effect,” he said, but he thought the effect was probably small. Dr. Sloan’s findings indicate that the cosmic rays could at most account for 20 percent of the warming of recent years.

Even without cosmic rays, however, a 0.1 percent change in the Sun’s energy output is enough to set off El Niño- and La Niña-like events that can influence weather around the world, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Climate modeling showed that over the largely cloud-free areas of the Pacific Ocean, the extra heating over several years warms the water, increasing evaporation. That intensifies the tropical storms and trade winds in the eastern Pacific, and the result is cooler-than-normal waters, as in a La Niña event, the scientists reported this month in the Journal of Climate.

In a year or two, the cool water pattern evolves into a pool of El Niño-like warm water, the scientists said.

New instruments should provide more information for scientists to work with. A 1.7-meter telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory in Southern California is up and running, and one of its first photographs shows “a string of pearls,” each about 50 miles across.

“At that scale, they can only be the fundamental fibril structure of the Sun’s magnetic field,” said Philip R. Goode, director of the solar observatory. Other telescopes may have caught hints of these tiny structures, he said, but “never so many in a row and not so clearly resolved.”

Sun-watching spacecraft cannot match the acuity of ground-based telescopes, but they can see wavelengths that are blocked by the atmosphere — and there are never any clouds in the way. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s newest sun-watching spacecraft, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is scheduled for launching this fall, will carry an instrument that will essentially be able to take sonograms that deduce the convection flows generating the magnetic fields.

That could help explain why strong magnetic fields sometimes coalesce into sunspots and why sometimes the strong fields remain disorganized without forming spots. The mechanics of how solar storms erupt out of a sunspot are also not fully understood.

A quiet cycle is no guarantee no cataclysmic solar storms will occur. The largest storm ever observed occurred in 1859, during a solar cycle similar to what is predicted.

Back then, it scrambled telegraph wires. Today, it could knock out an expanse of the power grid from Maine south to Georgia and west to Illinois. Ten percent of the orbiting satellites would be disabled. A study by the National Academy of Sciences calculated the damage would exceed a trillion dollars.

But no one can quite explain the current behavior or reliably predict the future.

“We still don’t quite understand this beast,” Dr. Hathaway said. “The theories we had for how the sunspot cycle works have major problems.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 22, 2009
An article on Tuesday about the recent decline in the frequency of sunspots incorrectly described the research of David Hathaway, a scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. His forecasts for the strength of the solar cycle are based on the magnitude of sunspot-caused disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field, not in the Sun’s polar magnetic fields.

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/space/21sunspot.html?ref=earth&pagewanted=all

Magnus Larsson: 6,000-km-long solidified sand wall proposed for the Sahara to stop desertification

Wall 'could stop desert spread'

by Jonathan Fildes, Technology reporter, BBC News, July 24, 2009

Desert sands, and the dunes that they form, are constantly on the move

A plan to build a 6,000-km-long wall across the Sahara Desert to stop the spread of the desert has been outlined.

The barrier -- formed by solidifying sand dunes -- would stretch from Mauritania in the west of Africa to Djibouti in the east.

The plan was put forward by architect Magnus Larsson at the TED Global conference in Oxford.

A 2007 UN study described desertification as "the greatest environmental challenge of our times."

"The threat is desertification. My response is a sandstone wall made from solidified sand," said Mr Larsson, who describes himself as a dune architect.

The sand would be stabilised by flooding it with bacteria that can set it like concrete in a matter of hours.

North African nations have promoted the idea of planting trees to form a Great Green Belt to prevent the spread of the sand.

A similar proposal -- known as the Green Wall of China -- has also been proposed to stop the spread of the Gobi Desert.

Ballooning idea

In 2007, the UN issued a report that said that one third of the Earth's population -- about two billion people -- are potential victims of desertification.

The idea is to stop the desert using the desert itself Magnus Larsson

It is concerned that the slow creep of the sands will displace people and put new strains on natural resources and societies.

Problem areas include the former Soviet republics in central Asia, China and sub-Saharan Africa.

"It affects about 140 countries," Mr Larsson told BBC News.

Mr Larsson showed pictures of a village called Gidan-Kara in Nigeria which had had to be moved because of the creep of the dunes. He said it was one of many examples.

The architect's proposed wall across the desert would be a complement to, rather than a replacement, of the Great Green Belt proposal.

"It would provide physical support for the trees," he said.

Crucially, he said, it would leave a barrier even if the trees were removed.

"People are so poor in these countries and these regions that they chop them down for firewood."

The wall would effectively be made by "freezing" the shifting sand dunes, turning them into sandstone.

"The idea is to stop the desert using the desert itself," he said.

The sand grains would be bound together using a bacterium called Bacillus pasteurii commonly found in wetlands.

Moving dunes displace both people and crops

"It is a microorganism which chemically produces calcite -- a kind of natural cement."

Mr Larsson got the idea for using the bacteria from a team at the University of California Davis, which had been investigating its use for solidifying the ground in earthquake prone areas.

Mr Larsson envisages injecting the dunes with the bacteria on a massive scale or using a barrage of giant bacteria-filled balloons.

"We allow the dune to wash over this structure then we would pop the balloon," he told BBC News.

The scheme would also have advantages for nearby populations, he said. For example, it could be excavated he said to provide shade, shelter or as a structure to collect water.

However, Mr Larsson admitted that the scheme faced numerous practical problems.

"There are many details left to explore in this story: political, practical, ethical, financial. My design is fraught with many challenges," he said.

"However, it's a beginning, it's a vision; if nothing else I would like this scheme to initiate a discussion," he added.

TED Global is a conference dedicated to "ideas worth spreading." It runs from the 21 to 24 July 2009 in Oxford, UK.

Link to article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8166929.stm

"An Amazon culture withers as food dries up" by Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times

An Amazon culture withers as food dries up

A woman and a child of the Kamayurá tribe in the Amazon bathed in a lake on the evening of June 6. Members of the tribe usually bathe three times each day. (Credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times)

by ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, New York Times, July 24, 2009

XINGU NATIONAL PARK, Brazil — As the naked, painted young men of the Kamayurá tribe prepare for the ritualized war games of a festival, they end their haunting fireside chant with a blowing sound — “whoosh, whoosh” — a symbolic attempt to eliminate the scent of fish so they will not be detected by enemies. For centuries, fish from jungle lakes and rivers have been a staple of the Kamayurá diet, the tribe’s primary source of protein.

Kamayurá children ran to their Brazilian village on June 6 with a macaw, to later use its feathers. (Credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times)

The New York Times

A tribe in Xingu National Park faces environmental changes.

Women grilled fish, once abundant and a large part of the Kamayurá diet, for breakfast inside the chief’s hut. (Credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times)

Tacuma, the tribe’s senior shaman, held a satellite dish to balance himself while a tribe member painted his body. (Credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times)

But fish smells are not a problem for the warriors anymore. Deforestation and, some scientists contend, global climate change are making the Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks in this area and imperiling the Kamayurá’s very existence. Like other small indigenous cultures around the world with little money or capacity to move, they are struggling to adapt to the changes.

“Us old monkeys can take the hunger, but the little ones suffer — they’re always asking for fish,” said Kotok, the tribe’s chief, who stood in front of a hut containing the tribe’s sacred flutes on a recent evening. He wore a white T-shirt over the tribe’s traditional dress, which is basically nothing.

Chief Kotok, who like all of the Kamayurá people goes by only one name, said that men can now fish all night without a bite in streams where fish used to be abundant; they safely swim in lakes previously teeming with piranhas.

Responsible for 3 wives, 24 children and hundreds of other tribe members, he said his once-idyllic existence had turned into a kind of bad dream.

“I’m stressed and anxious — this has all changed so quickly, and life has become very hard,” he said in Portuguese, speaking through an interpreter. “As a chief, I have to have vision and look down the road, but I don’t know what will happen to my children and grandchildren.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that up to 30% of animals and plants face an increased risk of extinction if global temperatures rise 2 °C (3.6 °F) in coming decades. But anthropologists also fear a wave of cultural extinction for dozens of small indigenous groups — the loss of their traditions, their arts, their languages.

“In some places, people will have to move to preserve their culture,” said Gonzalo Oviedo, a senior adviser on social policy at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland. “But some of those that are small and marginal will assimilate and disappear.”

To make do without fish, Kamayurá children are eating ants on their traditional spongy flatbread, made from tropical cassava flour. “There aren’t as many around because the kids have eaten them,” Chief Kotok said of the ants. Sometimes members of the tribe kill monkeys for their meat, but, the chief said, “You have to eat 30 monkeys to fill your stomach.”

Living deep in the forest with no transportation and little money, he noted, “We don’t have a way to go to the grocery store for rice and beans to supplement what is missing.”

Tacuma, the tribe’s wizened senior shaman, said that the only threat he could remember rivaling climate change was a measles virus that arrived deep in the Amazon in 1954, killing more than 90% of the Kamayurá.

Cultures threatened by climate change span the globe. They include rainforest residents like the Kamayurá who face dwindling food supplies; remote Arctic communities where the only roads were frozen rivers that are now flowing most of the year; and residents of low-lying islands whose land is threatened by rising seas.

Many indigenous people depend intimately on the cycles of nature and have had to adapt to climate variations — a season of drought, for example, or a hurricane that kills animals.

But worldwide, the change is large, rapid and inexorable, heading in only one direction: warmer. Eskimo settlements like Kivalina and Shishmaref in Alaska are “literally being washed away,” said Thomas Thornton, an anthropologist who studies the region, because the sea ice that long protected their shores is melting and the seas around are rising. Without that hard ice, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to hunt for seals, a mainstay of the traditional diet.

Some Eskimo groups are suing polluters and developed nations, demanding compensation and help with adapting.

“As they see it, they didn’t cause the problem, and their lifestyle is being threatened by pollution from industrial nations,” said Dr. Thornton, who is a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. “The message is that this is about people, not just about polar bears and wildlife.”

At climate negotiations in December in Poznan, Poland, the United Nations created an “adaptation fund” through which rich nations could in theory help poor nations adjust to climate change. But some of the money was expected to come from voluntary contributions, and there have been none so far, said Yvo De Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “It would help if rich countries could make financial commitments,” he said.

Throughout history, the traditional final response for indigenous cultures threatened by untenable climate conditions or political strife was to move. But today, moving is often impossible. Land surrounding tribes is now usually occupied by an expanding global population, and once-nomadic groups have often settled down, building homes and schools and even declaring statehood.

The Kamayurá live in the middle of Xingu National Park, a vast territory that was once deep in the Amazon but is now surrounded by farms and ranches.

About 5,000 square miles of Amazon forest are being cut down annually in recent years, according to the Brazilian government. And with far less foliage, there is less moisture in the regional water cycle, lending unpredictability to seasonal rains and leaving the climate drier and hotter.

That has upended the cycles of nature that long regulated Kamayurá life. They wake with the sun and have no set meals, eating whenever they are hungry.

Fish stocks began to dwindle in the 1990s and “have just collapsed” since 2006, said Chief Kotok, who is considering the possibility of fish farming, in which fish would be fed in a penned area of a lake. With hotter temperatures as well as less rain and humidity in the region, water levels in rivers are extremely low. Fish cannot get to their spawning grounds.

Last year, for the first time, the beach on the lake that abuts the village was not covered by water in the rainy season, rendering useless the tribe’s method of catching turtles by putting food in holes that would fill up, luring the animals.

The tribe’s agriculture has suffered, too. For centuries, the Kamayurá planted their summer crops when a certain star appeared on the horizon. “When it appeared, everyone celebrated because it was the sign to start planting cassava since the rain and wind would come,” Chief Kotok recalled. But starting seven or eight seasons ago, the star’s appearance was no longer followed by rain, an ominous divergence, forcing the tribe to adjust its schedule.

It has been an ever-shifting game of trial and error since. Last year, families had to plant their cassava four times — it died in September, October and November because there was not enough moisture in the ground. It was not until December that the planting took. The corn also failed, said Mapulu, the chief’s sister. “It sprouted and withered away,” she said.

A specialist in medicinal plants, Ms. Mapulu said that a root she used to treat diarrhea and other ailments had become nearly impossible to find because the forest flora had changed. The grass they use to bind together the essential beams of their huts has also become difficult to find.

But perhaps the Kamayurá’s greatest fear are the new summer forest fires. Once too moist to ignite, the forest here is now flammable because of the drier weather. In 2007, Xingu National Park burned for the first time, and thousands of acres were destroyed.

“The whole Xingu was burning — it stung our lungs and our eyes,” Chief Kotok said. “We had nowhere to escape. We suffered along with the animals.”

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/science/earth/25tribe.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

Coastal dwellers left stranded -- insurance companies no longer issuing coverage

Coastal dwellers left stranded

by Marty Sharpe, The Dominium Post, Wellington, New Zealand, July 25, 2009

WELL SHORED UP: Haumoana resident John Bridgeman has built and impressive concrete sea wall in his efforts to hold back the tide.

They are being cast off by insurance companies no longer willing to cover them, and government policy that discourages them from doing anything to stop the sea claiming their homes.

For a decade, John Bridgeman has watched his neighbours' homes getting washed into the sea. In the 1970s, the houses alongside his Hawke's Bay property had long back lawns -- and a council road reserve -- between them and the Pacific. Today, the sea laps just short of their living rooms.

Mr Bridgeman is determined to not give in to the sea. Or bureaucracy. "It's my family home. I'm not going anywhere."

He is lucky he owns a concrete firm; he has the skills, and the machinery, to build a massive concrete wall to fend off the waves. His home is well barricaded with a two-metre-high concrete wall, which goes four metres deep into the beach shingle.

The defence has worked well since being built 10 years ago, but he has always had his home insured, just in case.

But that's no longer an option. This year he was rejected by every major insurance company.

"It's bloody devastating to be honest, not being insured against the sea," he says. "This has been my home for 20 years and my parents' home before that. I might be all right with the wall, but I really feel for the others who'll have to watch their homes wash out from beneath them."

Mr Bridgeman is one of thousands of coastal homeowners who have discovered -- or are about to -- that their insurance company may be reluctant to cover them due to the threat of erosion or inundation.

This week The Dominion Post reported the plight of Haumoana resident Mark Lawrence, who is battling the tide, and his council.

He has rebuilt a seawall, made of hundreds of concrete blocks, to shield the property he shares with his wife and their four children. But he has been served with an abatement notice from Hastings District Council, giving 30 days to tear down his wall. Mr Lawrence plans to disobey the order.

The Insurance Council's Chris Ryan says coastal homeowners should no longer assume they will be covered against an angry sea.

"Ten years ago you were virtually guaranteed to get insured for any risk on a house just about anywhere. Now brokers are going right across the market and most insurers are saying, 'No, that's one risk we're not prepared to take.' "

Mr Bridgeman's house and 20 others at Haumoana may be among the most prominent to succumb to the sea, but they are not alone. The Kapiti Coast, Riversdale and Castlepoint in Wairarapa, Mokau in Taranaki, virtually the entire west coast from Raglan to Muriwai, Waihi, and Ohiwa spit in Bay of Plenty, all are dealing with a similar threat, leading coastal scientist Richard Reinen-Hamill says.

"Coastal erosion is happening to a greater or lesser extent around most of the country. Governments and councils around the world are saying to people, 'We can't control erosion' and the best way to deal with it is by putting distance between developments and the coastal edge."

The Government's approach will be clearer when a report on the proposed New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement 2008 comes out next month. The proposed policy suggests councils manage coastal hazards by "locating or relocating development away from risk areas, protecting or restoring natural defences and discouraging recourse to hard protection structures."

It will essentially reinforce the direction adopted by the Environment Ministry, which takes the view the sea is rising, erosion and inundation are inevitable and any engineering attempts to prevent it are at best short-term fixes and at worst will increase the potential for further damage.

Councils have already started to restrict development in coastal erosion areas, forbid alterations or extensions and discourage construction of defences such as sea walls. Many have done coastal hazard assessments, with maps showing areas expected to be affected over the next 50-100 years. Notably, neither the Greater Wellington nor Auckland regional councils have done comprehensive assessments yet.

Tens of thousands of properties already lie in council-designated coastal hazard areas. Many more lie in areas yet to be designated as such. Each will have the hazard noted on their Land Information Memorandum report.

Keith Newman heads Walking on Water, a group of citizens at the Hawke's Bay settlements of Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton, who object to the way local councils have dealt with the threat of coastal erosion.

Hawke's Bay regional and Hastings district councils have told residents they have two options: pay $18.5 million for 13 groynes that may protect the coast, or move their houses away from the coast as the sea encroaches -- known as a "managed retreat."

Mr Newman doesn't buy that. "This business of just let the ocean come through is reprehensible. It's created such fear in the community."

He says the councils have a responsibility to protect the community. He has mobilised hundreds of people to make submissions to a joint council working group urging them to consider a cheaper option of five to six groynes and a seawall around the 21 most-affected houses.

"There is no way we can afford the $320,000 per property as they're suggesting. There has to be a cheaper way, and we should at least have a crack before throwing our hands up and giving in."

Local Government NZ head and Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule says the consequences of coastal erosion and inundation are just starting to dawn on most councils. "This is a very emotional issue. We're talking about people's homes here, people's lives. But why should other ratepayers pay for it? Why should somebody on a farm up in the hills pay to protect houses in Haumoana?"

In the event of "managed retreat," Mr Yule says it is in councils' interests to work with the community to find land for them, but not help with purchase. "I haven't got the solution. I know what the science says and I know what the community wants . . . at some point we're going to have to make a decision."

BATTLING TO HOLD BACK THE WAVES

John Bridgeman has lived on the Haumoana coast for two decades -- long enough for the concrete-firm owner to see several of his neighbours' houses wash into the encroaching Pacific.

He has barricaded his home, owned by his parents since the 1950s, with a self-built two-metre-high concrete wall that goes four metres deep into the beach shingle.

Mr Bridgeman doesn't think erosion is any worse than it was 60 years ago, and he wants to build a sea wall around the 21 most threatened houses -- a structure likely to be resisted by the region's councils, which favour "managed retreat" from the area.

Coastal defences such as Mr Bridgeman's have a short lifespan and don't offer as much protection as thought, according to the Environment Ministry. It says there is "typically high public (and often political) demand for coast protection measures to 'hold the line' and protect private property, infrastructure or utilities." But they tend to be ineffective and unsustainable in the long term and lead to a "false sense of security and often encourage further development behind the structures," which only adds to the risk.

Be that as it may, Mr Bridgeman plans to stay right where he is and sees no reason to give in to the sea, or to bureaucracy.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE SEA?

* Last century, sea levels rose by 16 centimetres. By the end of this century, the sea is forecast to have risen by between 18 cm and 59 cm.

* But it could rise by as much as 80 cm if ice in Greenland and Antarctica melt faster than predicted, as suggested by Professor Peter Barrett of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre at a recent Annual Antarctic Conference. Some scientific evidence suggests that is already the case.

* The sea has risen and will continue to rise -- this is not being debated. What is being debated is whether climate change will result in the rise accelerating to more than about 18 cm this century.

* Higher sea levels will increase the frequency with which coastal defences are overtopped by waves or high tides.

* Climate change will exacerbate existing erosion and storm inundation.

* Some accreting sandy beaches, such as those in Manawatu, may continue to accrete, but more slowly.

* Gravel beaches, such as Haumoana in Hawke's Bay are most sensitive to erosion.

* The intensity of severe storms is expected to increase and storm tide levels will rise.

* Waves in Wellington will be 15% higher by 2050 and 30% higher by 2100.

* Areas with smaller tidal ranges, such as Wellington, the Cook Strait area and the East Coast will have bigger problems, with the high tide mark exceeded more often.

Link to article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/features/2673680/Coastal-dwellers-left-stranded

Comment on "Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition" by P. Chylek & U. Lohman

Clim. Past, 5, 143-145, 2009
www.clim-past.net/5/143/2009/
© Author(s) 2009. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Comment on "Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition" by P. Chylek and U. Lohmann, Geophys. Res. Lett., 2008

J. C. Hargreaves and J. D. Annan
Global Change Projection Research Program, Research Institute for Global Change, JAMSTEC, 3173-25 Showa-machi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama City, Kanagawa, 236-0001, Japan

Abstract

In a recent paper, Chylek and Lohmann (2008) used data from the Vostok ice core together with simple energy balance arguments to simultaneously estimate both the dust radiative forcing effect and the climate sensitivity, generating surprisingly high and low values for these respective parameters. However, their results depend critically on their selection of single unrepresentative data points from time series which exhibit a large amount of short-term variability, and are highly unstable with respect to other arbitrarily selected data points. When temporal averages are used in accordance with accepted norms within the paleoclimate community, the results obtained are entirely unremarkable and in line with previous analyses.

Final Revised Paper (PDF, 335 KB) Discussion Paper (CPD)

Citation: Hargreaves, J. C. & Annan, J. D. (2009). Comment on "Aerosol radiative forcing and climate sensitivity deduced from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition," by P. Chylek and U. Lohmann, Geophys. Res. Lett., 2008. Clim. Past, 5, 143-145.

Link to abstract: http://www.clim-past.net/5/143/2009/cp-5-143-2009.html

Carl Zimmer: George Will’s crack fact-checkers at the Washington Post continue their nap

George Will’s Crack Fact-Checkers Continue Their Nap

by Carl Zimmer, The Loom, a Discover blog, July 23, 2009

There is no way to keep up with all the bad reporting on science these days, but I cannot resist certain egregious cases. As Loom readers know, George Will writing about global warming is one. This morning brings fresh evidence of his trouble with the facts–and, more importantly–the empty claims of the Washington Post’s editorial page that they respect the time-honored art of fact-checking.

In a nutshell, George Will wrote some columns starting in February 2009 in which he claimed that scientific evidence shows that all the heat-trapping carbon dioxide we’re putting in the atmosphere is having no effect on the planet. He claimed as proof that global ice levels had not changed in thirty years and that in fact there has been no global warming since 1998, just to name two.

The Loom and many other blogs pointed out why these claims were in error. Will ignores the fact that climate change is a noisy, long-term process. Today it is cooler at my house than it was yesterday. That does not mean that next week I will wake up to find snow on my doorstep. If you look at the annual mean temperature of the planet, you can cherry-pick one year, such as 1998, in order to make the false claim that there is no global warming. Of course, you could just as easily pick 1999, in which case the same logic would force you to conclude that there has been a staggering increase in temperature. But that’s not how climate scientists actually study global warming. They look at long term patterns, such as the red line in this graph from NASA, which represents the five-year mean since 1880. And when they do, they recognize a long-term trend of rising temperatures.

This somehow slipped through the multiple levels of fact-checking carried out by the editorial page staff at the Washington Post. Nor could they catch the other errors Will made on the science. So my fellow blogger Chris Mooney and the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization made it easy for them, by writing a column and a letter respectively, to set things straight. The Post even saw fit to run both.

They did not, however, issue any correction on Will’s claims. Ombudsman Andrew Alexander, who claimed that there had been fact-checking on multiple levels, did acknowledge things might have been handled a wee bit better, and then offered this sunny thought for the future:

On its news pages, it can recommit to reporting on climate change that is authoritative and deep. On the editorial pages, it can present a mix of respected and informed viewpoints. And online, it can encourage dialogue that is robust, even if it becomes bellicose. [Emphasis mine]

As far as I can tell, Alexander’s wish is being ignored. Today Will has published a column about recent negotiations on controlling carbon emissions. He considers them a bunch of empty promises, which seems to be just fine with Will, because there is no global warming to control anyway. Here’s how Will closes his latest piece:

When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called upon “young Americans” to “get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon,” another columnist, Mark Steyn, responded: “If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade.”

Which could explain why the Mall does not reverberate with youthful clamors about carbon. And why, regarding climate change, the U.S. government, rushing to impose unilateral cap-and-trade burdens on the sagging U.S. economy, looks increasingly like someone who bought a closetful of platform shoes and bell-bottom slacks just as disco was dying.

In earlier days, Will liked to claim the World Meteorological Organization as an authority when he wrote that there has been no global warming since 1998. Now that the World Meteorological Organization has set things straight, he’s claiming a columnist at National Review as his authority. That’s quite an upgrade.

The most urgent question today’s column raises is not about Will, but about how media organizations decide how to present science to the public. If the Post’s editorial page editors really do believe in fact-checking and in “respected and informed viewpoints,” I can only conclude that they slept in very late this morning.

Update: A commenter below accuses me of intellectual dishonesty for not showing a graph with a longer time-scale, which, I guess, would show that there’s no link between between carbon and climate. Ummm…like this one? (CO2 levels as black curve, temperature grey. Source pdf.)

July 23rd, 2009 10:24 AM by Carl Zimmer in Meta, The George Will On Ice Affair | 28 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

Link to blog post: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/07/23/george-wills-crack-fact-checkers-continue-their-nap/

Washington Post is blasted again by Joseph Romm and with good reason

Memo to Post: If George Will quotes a lie, it’s still a lie

Posted: 23 Jul 2009 10:11 AM PDT

When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called upon “young Americans” to “get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon,” another columnist, Mark Steyn, responded: “If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade.”

There are lies, damn lies, Breakthrough Institute statistics, and then — at the very bottom, where you find the crap that is really hard to scrape off – George Will columns, like the one quoted above. Since the senior editors at the Washington Post continue to publish his long-debunked falsehoods with no caveat whatsoever, one can only assume that they mindlessly endorse every single word of bullshit he writes — and that they hold their readers and letter writers in utter disdain.

When we last left Will and the Post in April, they were once again repeating the disinformation that the globe hasn’t warmed in over a decade — even though they had just published a letter from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) blasting them for this very “misinterpretation of the data and of scientific knowledge” (see “The Washington Post, abandoning any journalistic standards, lets George Will publish a third time global warming lies debunked on its own pages“).

Will is not inaccurately quoting WMO this time — he is just accurately quoting disinformation from the National Review, repeating the long-debunked myth that “there has been no global warming” for 11 years. Yet the definitive global temperature record from U.S. climate experts would be that of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which says the warmest year on record was 2005 — not 1998 (see here). See also “Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far.”

So by failing to put in any caveats or explanation, the Washington Post has managed to let George Will publish the same two outrageous lies in one sentence that two previous letters to the editor had already debunked (see “Washington Post publishes two strong debunkings of George Will’s double dose of disinformation“) — a journalistic first that editorial page editor Fred Hiatt can be proud of, if no one else. Perhaps Hiatt will now publish three letters debunking Will, and then let Will publish three versions of the falsehood.

Let me come back to the caveats. First, let’s note another falsehood that Will and the Post publish in the final paragraph:

Which could explain why the Mall does not reverberate with youthful clamors about carbon. And why, regarding climate change, the U.S. government, rushing to impose unilateral cap-and-trade burdens on the sagging U.S. economy, looks increasingly like someone who bought a closetful of platform shoes and bell-bottom slacks just as disco was dying.

[Note to young folks: George Will and Fred Hiatt and the WashPost would seem to be mocking your commitment to climate action.]

Hmm. Seems like the pantaloons-wearing George Will and Fred Hiatt and the WashPost have never heard of something called the Kyoto protocol, in which all the other rich countries in the world agreed to “unilaterally” impose emissions reductions on themselves — indeed, they went forward with the reductions even after the United States refused to do anything. And the Europeans in particular “unilaterally” imposed a cap-and-trade system on themselves to meet the target (see “Europe poised to meet Kyoto target: Does this mean the much-maligned European Trading System is a success?“). And yet this article explicitly states “On to Copenhagen!” — whose goal is a followup to Kyoto — so it would seem the author does know he’s spreading falsehoods.

But the disinformation machine that goes by the name of the Washington Post editorial page doesn’t mind letting its hundreds of thousands of readers believe the United States is the only country in the planet doing anything (or, in this case, thinking of doing something). Nor does it mind letting its readers believe that public posturing by developing countries like China actually represents an accurate statement of what they are doing or are prepared to do.

But given the many self-inflicted wounds that Hiatt and Will have delivered to the Washington Post, I guess the other senior editors at the paper are suffering from some version of battered spouse syndrome, whereby they just can’t bear to let go of those who are slowly crushing the life out of their journalistic integrity.

I will end by reposting what the Post itself published from the WMO Secretary General (here):

Data collected over the past 150 years by the 188 members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) through observing networks of tens of thousands of stations on land, at sea, in the air and from constellations of weather and climate satellites lead to an unequivocal conclusion: The observed increase in global surface temperatures is a manifestation of global warming. Warming has accelerated particularly in the past 20 years.

It is a misinterpretation of the data and of scientific knowledge to point to one year as the warmest on record — as was done in a recent Post column [by Will] — and then to extrapolate that cooler subsequent years invalidate the reality of global warming and its effects.

The difference between climate variability and climate change is critical, not just for scientists or those engaging in policy debates about warming. Just as one cold snap does not change the global warming trend, one heat wave does not reinforce it. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has risen 1.33 °F.

Evidence of global warming has been documented in widespread decreases in snow cover, sea ice and glaciers. The 11 warmest years on record occurred in the past 13 years.

While variations occur throughout the temperature record, shorter-term variations do not contradict the overwhelming long-term increase in global surface temperatures since 1850, when reliable meteorological recordkeeping began. Year to year, we may observe in some parts of the world colder or warmer episodes than in other parts, leading to record low or high temperatures. This regional climate variability does not disprove long-term climate change. While 2008 was slightly cooler than 2007, partially due to a La Niña event, it was nonetheless the 10th-warmest year on record.

Duh.

The question is — why did the Post publish this letter in the first place, if it was going to let Will keep republishing again and again and again the same exact “misinterpretation of the data and of scientific knowledge.“ Were they just trying to humor the WMO? Is their letters column just a placebo that readers should ignore along with the rest of the editorial page? Some questionss do answer themselves.

I would say “shame on the Post,” but they are obviously shameless.

Tamino's deconstruction of atrocious paper in J. Geophysical Res., 114, by McLean, Freitas & Carter

Tamino and Real Climate are both way too polite to say that whoever the referees were who reviewed the manuscript and said that it should be accepted for publication either are dimwits, not doing their job properly, or perhaps were paid for their efforts, but that's just my opinion.

"Old News," from Tamino's Open Mind blog

July 24, 2009 · 40 Comments

The denialosphere is atwitter about a new paper by McLean, Freitas, and Carter (2009, J. Geophysical Res., 114, D14104). They seek to relate variations in tropospheric temperature to the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). The concluding sentence is:

Finally, this study has shown that natural climate forcing associated with ENSO is a major contributor to variability and perhaps recent trends in global temperature, a relationship that is not included in current global climate models.

That ENSO is a major contributor to variability in global temperature, is ancient news. In fact, I’ve shown it myself.

That ENSO is a major contributor to recent trends in global temperature, they have not shown — not even “perhaps.” In fact, it’s downright impossible for their methodology to do so.

The reason for the celebratory tone in denialist web posts (Grima Wormtongue is especially excited) is the extreme correlation claimed between SOI and tropospheric temperature.

Change in SOI accounts for 72% of the variance in GTTA for the 29-year-long MSU record and 68% of the variance in GTTA for the longer 50-year RATPAC record.

(“GTTA” is “global tropospheric temperature anomaly.”) Even stronger correlation is claimed for tropical tropospheric temperature.

Although it’s not stated outright, the paper clearly implies that the strong correlation accounts for so much of the tropospheric temperature variation that little is left to attribute to greenhouse gases. One of the authors, Bob Carter, does say so outright in a press release related to the paper:

“The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions.”

We already knew that there’s strong correlation between SOI (or other El Nino measures like MEI) and temperature, whether surface or tropospheric temperature, whether global or tropical. But the real reason they note such strong correlation is that their analysis method removes all temperature variation which is due to trend — which of course makes it impossible for their analysis to indicate anything whatever about the trend.

First, they analyze 12-month running averages rather than raw data. This won’t by itself inflate the correlation, although it does make correlation estimates much more uncertain (by introducing strong false autocorrelation). More to the point, they don’t compute correlation between temperature and SOI, but between the time derivatives of temperature and SOI. They estimate time derivatives by taking the difference between 12-month running averages, 12 months apart.

And therein lies the problem. Suppose temperature is the sum of a function of time which shows a lot of variation but no trend, and a linear trend

.

where is the warming rate of the trend, and the function has no trend whatever. Now let’s estimate the derivative (with respect to time) by taking the difference between temperature at any given time and its value 1 year (12 months) earlier

.

Note that the coefficient of is now 1 rather than , i.e., the trend in the data has been reduced to a constant by the process of estimating the derivative. Therefore, they’ve eliminated all the variation due to trend, before estimating correlation. And when we then correlate the difference series to any variable, the warming rate will have no impact whatever, because adding a constant to a data series has no effect on its correlation with anything. Hence their methodology automatically eliminates any impact of the trend rate in the data series on the resultant correlation.

Allow me to illustrate.

Let’s start with the SOI data they use and the UAH tropospheric temperature data they use [Note: they explicitly state they're using "lower troposphere" UAH data, but the link they give is to mid-troposphere UAH data; it has no effect on the argument]. Now let’s do as they do and compute 12-month running means (I’ve rescaled the SOI data according to the formula determined by the authors):

We can already see a strong correlation, and that there’s a lag between the SOI and the temperature — but as I’ve already said, we already knew that. The times when the correlation breaks down are the times following major volcanic eruptions (we already knew that, too).

Now let’s estimate derivatives by taking the difference between each variable and its value 1 year previously (I’ll plot the derivative of SOI data lagged by 7 months, the lag chosen by the authors, to emphasize the correlation):

The dashed lines indicate times during which major volcanic eruptions (el Chicon and Mt. Pinatubo) have an impact. They eliminate those time intervals from the data, but we don’t need to in order to make the point. When we compute the cross-correlation function, we see that there’s strong correlation when lags by about 6 months (they get 7 months, but not only did I not bother to eliminate the volcanic episodes, I’ve also used data all the way through June 2009):

Now let’s repeat the exact same analysis, but first let’s add a huge artificial trend to the temperature data so it looks like this:

Now let’s take 12-month running averages, then difference the time series at 1 year, then compute the cross-correlation again:

Does that look familiar?

It should. The correlation between the derivatives of temperature and of SOI is utterly unchanged when I introduce a trend into either of the time series — no matter how big or small the trend might be. The fact is that their methodology — the process of estimating derivatives by taking 1-year differences — transforms any trend into a constant and thereby eliminates its impact on all variation and correlation.

It’s certainly not true that their analysis shows “natural climate forcing associated with ENSO is a major contributor to variability and perhaps recent trends in global temperature.” It shows no such thing; their analysis removes all the effect of trends.

Their only justification for the claim that ENSO has affected trends is to point out that “For the 30 years prior to the 1976 shift (i.e., 1946–1975), the SOI averaged +1.93, but in the 30 years after 1976 (i.e., 1977–2006), the average was -3.06, which represents a shift from a La Nina inclination to an El Nino inclination.” While a shift from La Nina to El Nino can cause a shift in temperature, there’s no evidence at all (nor do the authors provide any) that it can introduce a trend. This argument is nothing more than hand-waving, and is only apparently supported by the strong correlation they estimate using a methodology which eliminates all effect of trends.

Bob Carter’s statement in particular, that “The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions,” shows how little he understand the analysis he himself participated in. Of course, he wouldn’t be the first to fail to understand the impact of using estimated derivatives on correlation analysis.

A valid way to estimate the impact of El Nino on global temperature is to use multiple regression on actual data rather than on estimates of time derivatives. One can include the impact of volcanoes, El Nino, solar changes, and greenhouse gases. When one does so, it’s clear that without the influence of man-made climate forcing it’s just not possible to explain the trend in global temperature. But I’m hardly the first to point that out.

Link to Tamino's Open Mind blog entry: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/old-news/

Real Climate: Atrocious paper published in JGR by McClean et al.

Real Climate, 24 Jul 2009

Friday round-up

Filed under: Climate Science, El Nino — group @ 10:00 am

Two items of interest this week. First, there is an atrocious paper that has just been published in JGR by McClean, de Frietas and Carter that is doing the rounds of the denialosphere. These authors make the completely unsurprising point that that there is a correlation between ENSO indices and global mean temperature – something that has been well known for decades – and then go on to claim that that all trends are explained by this correlation as well. This is somewhat surprising since their method of analysis (which involves taking the first derivative of any changes) eliminates the influence of any trends in the correlation. Tamino has an excellent demonstration of the fatuity of the statements in their hyped press-release and Michael Tobis deconstructs the details. For reference, we showed last year that the long-term trends are still basically the same after you account for ENSO. Nevermore let it be said that you can’t get any old rubbish published in a peer-reviewed journal!

Second (and much more interestingly), there is an open call for anyone interested to contribute to setting the agenda for Earth System Science for the next couple of decades at the Visioning Earth Science website of the International Council for Science (ICS). This is one of the umbrella organisations that runs a network of committees and programs that prioritise research directions and international programs, and they are looking for ideas. Let them know what your priorities are.

Link to realclimate post: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/friday-round-up-3/

Seas rise — vast amounts of ice melt for every 1 mm gain

Seas rise — vast amounts of ice melt for every 1 mm gain

by Alister Doyle, 07:59 July 24th, 2009, Reuters

It takes the equivalent of a massive chunk of ice of 390 km³ (150 cubic miles) to raise world sea levels by one millimetre, according to David Carlson, director of the International Programme Office of the International Polar Year.

As an example, he says that works out as a lump 39 km long, 10 wide and 1 km thick. Or I reckon it could be a blockbuster ice cube with sides 7.3 km long — that would smother most of a large city such as Paris (top left — you can see the Eiffel Tower in the middle).

David’s numbers give an idea of the scale of the thaw under way — seas have been rising at about 3 mm/year in recent years in a trend that almost all climate scientists blame on global warming caused by human activities. That’s equivalent to a rate of 30 cm a century.

And it’s also a lot faster than a rise of 1.8 mm a year from the 1960s, according to the U.N. Climate Panel. The thaw is one of the spurs to action under plans for a new U.N. treaty to fight global warming due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.

Some scientists reckon seas could rise by one metre this century. Most of the rise projected by 2100, however, is likely because water expands as it gets warmer, rather than because of a thaw of glaciers or of ice sheets smothering Greenland or Antarctica.

One bit of good news on the ice front is that it looks as if sea ice in the Arctic will not shrink to a new record low this summer [BLOGGER'S NOTE: the author fails to point out that sea ice extent figures do not show that the ice this year is less than half as thick as it was last year, thus only half as much ice is up there, despite any sea extent recovery, a virtually meaningless number at this point], after 2007 marked the smallest since satellite records began in the 1970s (and probably a lot longer than that).

Ice shrinks to its annual low in September before freezing out again: so far the ice is still far bigger than in 2007 at the same time although it is also far smaller than the 1979-2000 average, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. And ice floating on the sea doesn’t really contribute to raising sea levels — it’s effectively part of the water already.

(Picture: undated satellite image of the Eiffel Tower and the surrounding area in Paris, France. REUTERS/DigitalGlobe TZ)

Link: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2009/07/24/seas-rise-vast-amounts-of-ice-melt-for-every-1-mm-gain/

Fluorescent dye may reveal the ultimate fate of the Greenland’s ice

July 23, 2009 in Mr Green Archive

The Red Badge of Climate Change Tracing the flow of a blood-red Fluorescent dye may reveal the ultimate fate of the Greenland’s ice.

From the June 2009 issue, published online May 18, 2009

THE MOMENT: Ian Bartholomew, a geoscience doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh, pours fluorescent dye into waters beside Russell Glacier in western Greenland. Downstream, he and his colleagues will test the water with a fluorometer, which can detect the dye even at weak concentrations. From those readings, researchers can calculate the volume of meltwater coming from the glacier. Bartholomew is using the data to determine whether seasonal meltwater is accelerating the movement of the Greenland ice sheet by seeping through cracks and lubricating its base. Until recently, scientists had believed Greenland’s ice was too thick for meltwater to penetrate.

THE SHOT: Photograph by Ashley Cooper using a Canon EOS 5D with a 21-mm lens, ISO 100, f/9, 1/60 second.

Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jun/18-red-badge-of-climate-change

Link: http://mrgreenbiz.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/fluorescent-dye-may-reveal-the-ultimate-fate-of-the-greenlands-ice/

Hot Topic: Global warming and the future of New Zealand; On An Island blog by Gareth

Hot Topic: Global warming and the future of New Zealand

On an island

by Gareth on July 24, 2009

NASA’s Earth Observatory is without doubt one of my favourite web sites. As I write, the above view of sea ice off Baffin Island (or a version of it) is their Image of the Day, and aside from the obvious beauties of the swirls of melting sea ice (memorably described in a comment at RealClimate as “frappucino”), I reckon you can make out the two chunks of last year’s Petermann Ice Island that I blogged about last week. My two red arrows mark the huge relict chunks of ice shelf. Click on the image (or here) for the full NASA version (about 3.5MB), and then go and look at the icebergs pouring out of the fjords on Greenland’s west coast (top right of the big picture). Dramatic and lovely, and frightening at the same time.

In other Arctic news, there are a new set of forecasts for this year’s minimum at the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook site: most teams are picking a result somewhere between 2007 and 2008, but two of the sea ice modelling efforts are still suggesting a new record is possible. The NSIDC’s July 22nd update notes that 2009’s melt is now running ahead of 2008, and looking at their daily graph of extent, the current rate of melt seems to be faster than 2007. This has prompted some speculation about when the NE and NW Passages might open. Scanning the Cryosphere Today and University of Bremen maps, it looks as though the NE Passage (above Russia) might open soon. Blue colours on the CT image correspond the ice swirls on the NASA image above, and there’s still plenty of melt season to run. The NW Passage doesn’t look as sure a prospect: I think it could open, but perhaps only on the northern route. We live in interesting times…

Plus: great images of the Petermann Ice Tongue from the Greenpeace science team up there at the moment at the Guardian and Discovery Channel. Not to be missed.

[David Gilmour]

Link to blog: http://hot-topic.co.nz/on-an-island/

Reader Laura comments:

Laura said...

Just to the north of that area of the Greenland coast, the entire coastline has essentially become hundreds of miles of calving glacier front:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/images/MODIS/Melville/20090722AQUA.jpg
July 24, 2009, 6:22 p.m.

And so, I decided to add that photo -- click to enlarge the details:

Gravity Anomaly Maps and The Geoid

Gravity Recover and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

Gravity Anomaly Maps and The Geoid

From NASA's Earth Observatory:

The Earth’s gravity field is depicted in two principal ways: gravity anomaly maps and maps of the Earth’s geoid.

Gravity anomaly maps (see globe below) show how much the Earth’s actual gravity field differs from the gravity field of a uniform, featureless Earth surface. The anomalies highlight variations in the strength of the gravitational force over the surface of the Earth. Gravity anomalies are often due to unusual concentrations of mass in a region. For example, the presence of mountain ranges will usually cause the gravitational force to be more than it would be on a featureless planet — positive gravity anomaly. Conversely, the presence of ocean trenches or even the depression of the landmass that was caused by the presence of glaciers millennia ago can cause negative gravity anomalies.

These “gravity anomaly” maps show where models of the Earth’s gravity field based on GRACE data differ from a simplified mathematical model that assumes the Earth is perfectly smooth and featureless. Areas colored yellow, orange, or red are areas where the actual gravity field is larger than the featureless-Earth model predicts—such as the Himalayan Mountains in Central Asia (top left of the left-hand globe)—while the progressively darker shades of blue indicate places where the gravity field is less—such as the area around Hudson Bay in Canada (top center of right-hand globe). The geoid is a hypothetical Earth surface that represents the mean sea level in the absence of winds, currents, and most tides. The geoid is a useful reference surface. It defines the horizontal everywhere and gravity acts perpendicular to it. A carpenter’s level aligns itself along the geoid and a carpenter’s plumb bob points down the vertical or perpendicular to the geoid. Water will not flow in aqueducts if the pipes are perfectly aligned along the geoid. Surveyors use knowledge of the geoid and the horizontal when they lay out highways and boundaries. Producing a precise model of the geoid has proven to be a challenge. Until recently, there was no single source for producing a geoid map. Data from several dozen satellites, along with surface measurements over land and from ships at sea, had to be combined to produce a model of the gravitational field. Traditionally, the models have done a fairly good job reproducing large-scale features of the gravity field, but have fallen short when it comes to reproducing finer-scale features or accurately describing time-variable gravity effects like those associated with the hydrologic cycle. GRACE provides, for the first time, global coverage of the Earth’s gravity field every 30 days from a single source. GRACE is already able to measure the gravity field with a level of precision that is at least 100 times greater than any existing measurement, and continued improvements are expected as the mission progresses. The finer details of the geoid that have evaded scientists for so long are on the verge of being revealed. GRACE also gives us our best opportunity to date to study time-variable gravity effects. As the mission progresses and more data are added to the model, the resolution of the geoid will improve even further. The Earth’s gravity signal changes day-to-day, even minute by minute. The image above shows how the average variability in Earth’s gravity field in August 2002 compared to the yearly average of 2001. The red and pink areas show where the variation measured in August 2002 is the most different from the variation measured for the year 2001, while the blue and purple areas show where the variation measured in August 2002 is just about the same as the variation measured for the year 2001. The variability has to be accounted for using models in order to produce a mean gravity field that is useful for hydrologic applications. (Image credit: Paul Thompson / UT-CSR) As the geoid map becomes more detailed, the accuracy of satellite altimetry, synthetic aperture radar interferometry, and digital terrain models covering large land and ice areas — all used in remote sensing applications and cartography — will improve. These techniques provide critical input to many scientific models used in oceanography, hydrology, geology, and related disciplines, and will be used for a variety of applications including: measuring the changing mass of polar ice caps measuring changes in water resources on land understanding shallow and deep ocean current transport understanding sea level change resulting from ocean temperature and water mass changes understanding atmosphere-ocean mass exchange understanding the forces that generate Earth’s geomagnetic field, and understanding internal Earth forces that move tectonic plates and result in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This enhanced knowledge should lead to a better understanding of the forces that drive El Niño and La Niña, more accurate seasonal forecasts of Earth’s weather patterns, an ability to track the changing distribution of water resources in critically important land aquifers, and improved forecasting of natural hazards.

Link to NASA's Earth Observatory page: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GRACE/page3.php

A.C. Clement, R. Burgman, J.R. Norris, Science, 325 (24 July 2009), Observational and Model Evidence for Positive Low-Level Cloud Feedback

Science, Vol. 325, No. 5939, 460-464 (24 July 2009); DOI: 10.1126/science.1171255

Observational and Model Evidence for Positive Low-Level Cloud Feedback

Amy C. Clement,^1,* Robert Burgman,¹ and Joel R. Norris²

Abstract

Feedbacks involving low-level clouds remain a primary cause of uncertainty in global climate model projections. This issue was addressed by examining changes in low-level clouds over the Northeast Pacific in observations and climate models. Decadal fluctuations were identified in multiple, independent cloud data sets, and changes in cloud cover appeared to be linked to changes in both local temperature structure and large-scale circulation. This observational analysis further indicated that clouds act as a positive feedback in this region on decadal time scales. The observed relationships between cloud cover and regional meteorological conditions provide a more complete way of testing the realism of the cloud simulation in current-generation climate models. The only model that passed this test simulated a reduction in cloud cover over much of the Pacific when greenhouse gases were increased, providing modeling evidence for a positive low-level cloud feedback.

¹ Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, Division of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography, MSC 362, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149, U.S.A.
² Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093–0224, U.S.A.

^*Correspondence, e-mail: aclement@rsmas.miami.edu

Link to abstract: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5939/460

Richard A. Kerr, Science, 325 (24 July 2009), Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming

Science, Vol. 325, No. 5939, 376 (24 July 2009); DOI: 10.1126/science.325_376

News of the Week

Climate Change:

Clouds Appear to Be Big, Bad Player in Global Warming

Richard A. Kerr

The first reliable analysis of cloud behavior over past decades suggests—but falls short of proving—that clouds are strongly amplifying global warming. If that's true, then almost all climate models have got it wrong. On page 460, climate researchers consider the two best, long-term records of cloud behavior over a rectangle of ocean that nearly spans the subtropics between Hawaii and Mexico. In a warming episode that started around 1976, ship-based data showed that cloud cover—especially low-altitude cloud layers—decreased in the study area as ocean temperatures rose and atmospheric pressure fell. One interpretation, the researchers say, is that the warming ocean was transferring heat to the overlying atmosphere, thinning out the low-lying clouds to let in more sunlight that further warmed the ocean. That's a positive or amplifying feedback. During a cooling event in the late 1990s, both data sets recorded just the opposite changes—exactly what would happen if the same amplifying process were operating in reverse.

Link to article: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/325/5939/376

Time Magazine: In a Warming World, Cloudy Days Are a Boon

In a Warming World, Cloudy Days Are a Boon

by Brian Walsh, TIME Magazine, July 24, 2009

Add CO₂ to the atmosphere and the climate will get warmer — that much is well established. But climate change and carbon aren't in a one-to-one relationship. If they were, climate modeling would be a cinch. How much the globe will warm if we put a certain amount of CO₂ into the air depends on the sensitivity of the climate. How vulnerable is the polar sea ice; how rapidly might the Amazon dry up; how fast could the Greenland ice cap disintegrate? That's why models like those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change spit out a range of predictions for future warming, rather than a single neat number.

One of the biggest questions in climate sensitivity has been the role of low-level cloud cover. Low-altitude clouds reflect some of the sun's radiation back into the atmosphere, cooling the earth. It's not yet known whether global warming will dissipate clouds, which would effectively speed up the process of climate change, or increase cloud cover, which would slow it down. (See pictures of the effects of global warming.)

But a new study published in the July 24 issue of Science is clearing the haze. A group of researchers from the University of Miami and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography studied cloud data of the northeast Pacific Ocean — both from satellites and from the human eye — over the past 50 years and combined that with climate models. They found that low-level clouds tend to dissipate as the ocean warms — which means a warmer world could well have less cloud cover. "That would create positive feedback, a reinforcing cycle that continues to warm the climate," says Amy Clement, a climate scientist at the University of Miami and the lead author of the Science study.

Getting data on cloud cover isn't easy. There is reliable information from satellites, but those only go back a few decades — not long enough to provide a reliable forecast for the future. Clement and her colleagues combined recent satellite data with human observations — literally, from sailors scanning the sky — that go back to 1952, and found the two sets were surprisingly in sync. "It's pretty remarkable," says Clement. "We were almost shocked by the degree of concordance."

The data showed that as the Pacific Ocean has warmed over the past several decades — part of the gradual process of global warming — low-level cloud cover has lessened. That might be due to the fact that as the earth's surface warms, the atmosphere becomes more unstable and draws up water vapor from low altitudes to form deep clouds high in the sky. (Those types of high-altitude clouds don't have the same cooling effect.) The Science study also found that as the oceans warmed, the trade winds — the easterly surface winds that blow near the equator — weakened, which further dissipated the low clouds.

The question now is whether this process will continue in the future, as the world keeps warming. Scientists create climate models to try to predict how the earth will respond to higher levels of greenhouse-gas emissions, but only one model — created by the Hadley Centre in Britain — includes the possible impact of changing cloud behavior. And the bad news is that the Hadley model contains particularly high temperature increases for the 21st century, in part because it sees dissipating cloud cover as a positive-feedback cycle — meaning the warmer it gets, the less cloud cover there will be, which will further warm the earth. Though it's just one data set over one part of the earth's surface, the Science study indicates that the pessimistic Hadley model may be right. "These low clouds are like the mirrors of the climate system," says Clement. "If they disappear, you might see that positive-feedback cycle." (See the top 10 green ideas of 2008.)

Cloud cover is only one element of climate sensitivity. Scientists are also concerned about the earth's ice, which reflects sunlight back into space, making it a cooling factor, while seawater absorbs the sun's heat. That means that as polar sea ice melts because of warming, leaving more open water, the warming process could accelerate — which would then melt more ice. There are also concerns that as the permafrost in the Arctic thaws, it could release massive amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that would further accelerate warming.

And then there's the Amazon. Right now, the rain forest is a huge carbon sink, which compensates for the greenhouse gases we release by burning fossil fuels. But if the climate warms so much that the rain forest begins to die off — a distinct possibility — we'll lose that carbon sink, and then warming will again accelerate. Scientists, including the authors of the Science study, are still trying to nail down exactly where these tipping points might be — but it seems that the more we find out, the more the evidence points to an increasingly sensitive climate. And that's bad news for us.

Link to this article: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1912448,00.html

Climate projection animations of global surface temperatures and Arctic Sea ice extent through 2100 from Met Office Hadley Centre

Climate projections from Met Office Hadley Centre

Because we can’t know the future for certain, our climate change scientists use computer-based climate models to project plausible scenarios, or projections, for coming centuries.

It is important to be aware that projections from climate models are always subject to uncertainty because of limitations on our knowledge of how the climate system works and on the computing resources available. Different climate models can give different projections. More on using computer models (external page)

The projections are also based on emissions scenarios, such as the level of CO₂ emissions increasing or decreasing. Many different scenarios are used, based on estimates of economic and social growth, and this is one of the major sources of uncertainty in climate prediction. But even if greenhouse gas emissions are substantially reduced, the long lifespan of CO₂ in the atmosphere means that we cannot avoid further climate change due to CO₂ already in the atmosphere.

Despite the uncertainties, all models show that the Earth will warm in the next century, with a consistent geographical pattern.

Climate change projections

The globes below show latest results from the Met Office’s climate change research. The data are based on a mid-range IPCC emissions scenario A1B.

Predicted temperature rise to 2100 (animation from 1870 through 2100)

PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO SEE THE ANIMATION, THEY ARE IN FLASH AND I CAN'T STEAL THEM TO POST HERE:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/projections/

Predicted sea-ice extent out to 2100 (animation from 1860 through 2100)

PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO SEE THE ANIMATION, THEY ARE IN FLASH AND I CAN'T STEAL THEM TO POST HERE:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/projections/

Some of the diagrams below are maps of differences between the current climate, conventionally defined as 1960–1990, and the climate of the end of the 21st century, taken to be 2070–2100. For most quantities, changes are shown both for the annual average and for each of the four seasons December–February (Winter), March–May (Spring), June–August (Summer) and September–November (Autumn). The other diagrams are time-series, showing changes which occur as time passes.

A.E. Dessler, Z. Zhang, P. Yang, GRL, 35 (2008), Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003–2008

Geophysical Research Letters, 35 (2008) L20704; doi:10.1029/2008GL035333

Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003–2008

Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003–2008

A. E. Dessler, Z. Zhang and P. Yang (Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, U.S.A.)

Abstract

Between 2003 and 2008, the global-average surface temperature of the Earth varied by 0.6°C. We analyze here the response of tropospheric water vapor to these variations. Height-resolved measurements of specific humidity (q) and relative humidity (RH) are obtained from NASA's satellite-borne Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS). Over most of the troposphere, q increased with increasing global-average surface temperature, although some regions showed the opposite response. RH increased in some regions and decreased in others, with the global average remaining nearly constant at most altitudes. The water-vapor feedback implied by these observations is strongly positive, with an average magnitude of λ _q = 2.04 W/m²/K, similar to that simulated by climate models. The magnitude is similar to that obtained if the atmosphere maintained constant RH everywhere.

(Received 13 July 2008, accepted 19 September 2008, published 23 October 2008.)

Dessler, A. E., Zhang, & P. Yang, P. (2008), Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003–2008, Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L20704; doi:10.1029/2008GL035333.

Link to abstract: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL035333.shtml

Link to full paper: http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/Dessler2008b.pdf

The Petermann Glacier: A river runs along the top of it

A river runs along the top of it

by Kieran Mulvaney, Earth Pub, Discovery's global science blog, July 19, 2009

Kieran Mulvaney is the author of At the Ends of the Earth: A History of the Polar Regions and The Whaling Season: An Inside Account of the Struggle to Stop Commercial Whaling. He’s finishing a book on polar bears. He’s co-founder of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, a leader of Greenpeace expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic.

[BLOGGER'S NOTE: Please click on that photo of the kayak, it really gets big, wow!]

At 82 degrees North, farther north than almost every other human being, three scientists and two crew on board the Arctic Sunrise did what anybody would do in that situation.

They paddled kayaks across the top of a glacier.

The reasoning was simple enough. The scientists -- Jason Box of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, Alun Hubbard of Aberystwyth University in Wales, and Richard Bates of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland -- planned to deploy a special ice-penetrating radar of Hubbard's devising, to map as best they could the interior of the Petermann Glacier, and perhaps shed some light on which it is apparently on the point of breaking into several pieces.

To facilitate the task, we had equipped with the Sunrise with just about everything we could think of that might be used to drag a radar across the surface of a glacier, from a snowmobile to enormous kites of the kind that on-board ice expert Eric Philips once used to kite-ski across Greenland.

But we had little idea of what to expect, and when the ship arrived at its location in the Nares Strait and once researchers and crew began examining the glacier up close, they found that it was far more pitted and worn than we imagined. Melt lakes and even whirlpools dotted its surface, and widening cracks filled with water to create melt rivers that carved through the icy terrain as if it were the Grand Canyon.

Instead of being beaten by the environment, they adapted to it, and one morning last week, they set out in three kayaks, radar antenna strung between and behind them. They paddled through cobalt blue water, flanked by kilometer-high mountains fronted by vast expanses of glacier ice.

Twenty-five kilometers later, they had data that appeared to suggest, according to Hubbard, that the glacier's basal topography was "highly variable" but that, on balance, "the ice is thinner than we might expect."

And several thousand miles away, an expedition coordinator and Discovery Earth blogger opened his e-mail and exulted at the sight of these remarkable images of an unusual kayaking adventure.

Photographs by Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace

Link to article: http://blogs.discovery.com/earth/2009/07/a-river-runs-along-the-top-of-it.html

The Northwest Passage or the Northeast Passage? Which will open up first? And how soon? Taking bets now!

OK, Chillens, are we gonna start taking bets on which opens up first -- the Northwest Passage or the Northeast Passage? And how soon?

Don't blink, or you're gonna miss it!

Comments:

Anonymous said...

North EAST passage.

Is totally clear from AMSR-E images in the Bremen University site (www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html).

The Kara sea and Laptev sea (western Russia) are already nearly ice-free. On the other side, the Chukchi sea is already ice-free, but the Barents sea (Alaska) has yet a lot of ice.

The only obstacle to northeast navigation is the ice-filled East Siberian sea. Given the 2007-like current weather, this ice will melt in coming few weeks.

Respect to the NW passage, it seems (given the current long-lived cool anomaly here) that will be closed probably until middle or late August.

July 22, 2009, 12:39 a.m.

Nick Barnes said...

North-East. Viscount Melville Sound is still full of some pretty serious ice, whereas the sea around Severnaya Zemlya and along the East Siberian coast is a great big frappuccino. How are you going to measure it?

July 22, 2009, 7:15 a.m.

Nick, what do you think the best way to measure would be?

Nick Barnes said...

Well, CT and NSIDC both do daily maps (CT is concentration, NSIDC is extent). I suggest the first day with a clear route on both maps.

Anon at 12:39 mistyped "Barents" for "Beaufort".

July 22, 2009, 8:52 p.m.

Well, ok, Nick.

I usually have a daily peek at the Danish site for the envisat images. Here is today's (July 22, 2009), but the problem is that some of the pieces of this composite image can be as old as 3 days ago. But, it always seems especially good for looking at the region off the coast of northern Siberia (click on the image to enlarge). (These images are updated daily at this site: http://www.seaice.dk/iwicos/latest/):

But check out this -- that Northeast Passage is hangin' by a thread!

Then, of course, we have the Cryosphere Today from the Universities of Illinois and Colorado, but hey, they always seem very optimistic in their sea ice concentrations, but who am I? Here is their graphic from July 21st, 2009:

Brian Dodge said...

Northeast; August 10. Just a guess, but it looks to me like warm air is pushing from Siberia to Canada, melting the east side and keeping the Northwest passage cooler and ice packed. If the wind (weather) changes it could change things up quickly - most of the ice is now first year, thin, and responds to weather more than climate.

July 22, 2009, 11:47 p.m.

Dear B Buckner,

I forgot to thank you. Any and all compliments are most certainly welcome! Tenney (July 27)

Nick Barnes said...

The CT graphics usually seem to correspond well with MODIS images. Here's (see the real comments section for the link) the East Siberian coast, this morning. There's some cloud cover, but you can still see there's a lot of loose ice. This better photo (see the real comments section for the link) from yesterday shows the ice around the New Siberian Islands much better.
This will all clear. I give it two weeks.

July 23, 2009, 6:31 a.m.

Here is the 500-m resolution MODIS Rapidfire image link -- showing the Siberian coastline -- it gives a much better idea of the situation, IMO, than the graphs above that I posted (thanks, Nick!):

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2009203/crefl1_143.A2009203033500-2009203034000.500m.jpg

Gentlemen, a quick look at the latest graphics (23 July, see Danish site -- graphics updated daily) makes it appear as if it will be a close thing in the coming days.

Nick Barnes said...

Looking at this, there's a pretty clear coastal passage of the whole East Siberian Sea. Unfortunately, the view of the New Siberian Islands is obscured by heavy cloud. When they are clear of ice, the NE passage will be open.

July 27, 2009 7:22 AM

Global temps are up for June

But Summit County cooler due to rainy weather

by Bob Berwyn, summit daily news, July 21, 2009

SUMMIT COUNTY — Human-caused or not, global temperatures reached record levels in June 2009, according to the latest bulletin from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to the monthly update, the world's ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for June, breaking the previous high mark set in 2005, according to a preliminary analysis from the agency's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Summit County bucked the global trend in June, when rainy skies kept the average daily high temperature more than 5 °F below the historic norm, as reported from a National Weather Service site in Dillon, based on records going back to 1909. The average daily low temperature at the Dillon gauge was 34 °F, almost 3 °F higher than the average 31.3 °F for the month.

Additionally, the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for June was second-warmest on record after 2005, busting the 20th century average by 1.12 °F. Global record-keeping began in 1880.

Terrestrial warmth was most notable in Africa. Considerable warmth also occurred in Siberia and in the lands around the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Cooler-than-average land locations included the U.S. Northern Plains, the Canadian Prairie Provinces, and central Asia.

Separately, the global ocean surface temperature for June 2009 was the warmest on record, 1.06 °F above the 20th century average.

Each hemisphere broke its June record for warmest ocean surface temperature. The global land surface temperature for June 2009 was 1.26 °F above the 20th century average of 55.9 °F, ranking it as the sixth-warmest June on record.

Climatologists with the agency also said (warmer than average sea temperatures in the Eastern Pacific is back after six straight months of increased sea-surface temperature anomalies. June sea surface temperatures in the region were more than 0.9 °F above average.

El Niño

El Niño plays role in Colorado's weather by affecting the track of storms moving inland from the Pacific. According to Colorado-based climate researcher Klaus Wolter, the pattern can lead to above-normal moisture for the state in late summer and early autumn.

The effect on winter weather is unclear for the Summit County area, although the southwestern part of the state, included the San Juan Mountains, tends to see above-normal snowfall during El Niño years.

Arctic sea ice in June was 5.6% below the 1979-2000 average extent, covering 4.4 million square miles. By contrast, sea ice in the Antarctic region was 3.9% above the 1979-2000 average.

Declining Arctic ice cover has been cited as a sign of global warming, while the growth of sea ice in the Antarctic is used as evidence by skeptics of global warming.

Regional outlook

The latest regional three-month outlook, issued in late June, calls for a tilt of the odds toward warmer temperatures in the West, including western Colorado.

The precipitation outlook for the same period (July-September) is for wetter than average in much of the interior southwestern U.S., with the best odds for wet weather stretching from southwestern New Mexico into central Colorado.

So far, July has been somewhat drier than normal in Summit County, pending potential onset of seasonal monsoon rains. July is historically the wettest season of the year in Summit County, average about two inches of precipitation.

Link to article: http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20090721/NEWS/907209983/1078

NASA's Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice Experiment (CASIE), Science Instrumentation Evaluation Remote Research Aircraft (SIERRA)

NASA's Fires Up Arctic Drone (sans Sidewinder) For Climate-Change Expedition

A team of experts from NASA and several of the nation's leading universities are using an unmanned aircraft expedition to study the receding Arctic sea ice to better understand its life cycle and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover.

Scientists using 2009 NASA satellite data have reported an alarmingly rapid and extreme loss of the oldest and thickest types of ice from within the Arctic Ocean. Since 1988, the oldest ice types have declined 74% and today cover only 2% of the Arctic Ocean, compared to 20% coverage in the 1980s.

The unmanned aircraft is used like a miniature spyplane targeting thick, old slabs of ice as they drift from the Arctic Ocean south through Fram Strait -- which lies between Greenland and Svalbard, Norway -- into the North Atlantic Ocean. This unmanned aircraft maps and measures ice conditions below cloud cover to as low as 300 feet, weaving a pattern over open ocean and sea ice.

"We're attempting to answer some of the most basic questions regarding the future of the Arctic's sea ice cover," said James Maslanik, a research professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colo., and principal investigator for the NASA mission. "Not only does this change affect the total amount of ice in the Arctic, but it also affects the ability of the ice cover to resist increased warming."

NASA's Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice Experiment (CASIE) successfully flew the first of a series of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) flights in coordination with satellites.

NASA's CASIE, which runs through July 24, is the aircraft campaign portion of the larger, NASA-funded project titled "Sea Ice Roughness as an Indicator of Fundamental Changes in the Arctic Ice Cover: Observations, Monitoring, and Relationships to Environmental Factors. This three-year research effort combines satellite data analysis, modeling, and aircraft observations. The project also supports the goals of the International Polar Year, a major international scientific research effort involving many NASA research efforts to study large-scale environmental change in Earth's polar regions.

The mission is being conducted from the Ny-Alesund research base on the island of Svalbard, located not far off the northeastern tip of Greenland. Mission planners are using satellite data to direct weekly flights of a NASA flight-certified UAS laden with scientific instruments.

Aircraft provide a necessary perspective on Earth system processes and serve to complement NASA satellite missions. UAS flights are of particular value where long duration or long-range measurement requirements preclude a human pilot, or where the remoteness and harshness of the environment put pilots and aircraft at risk.

NASA Ames Research Center's Science Instrumentation Evaluation Remote Research Aircraft, or SIERRA, is a medium class, medium duration UAS originally designed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., developed a partnership with NRL to evaluate the utility of this class of aircraft to the NASA Earth science community. The relatively large payload (ca. 100 lbs.) coupled with a significant range (500 miles) and small size (20-ft. wingspan) makes it an attractive observational platform that complements NASA's current suite of modified science aircraft. This UAS conducts very low altitude missions for tropospheric chemistry sampling and remote area surveys, such as arctic ice reconnaissance.

"Ny-Alesund is really a cool research station with more than 100 researchers present from many nations during the summer," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames Research Center. "It was a great day for flying here in Ny-Alesund. We got SIERRA out on the runway and fired up and ready for our first flight. We are really excited about the research we can do on polar ice characteristics."

Go SIERRA! Posted by Casey Kazan. http://twitter.com/NASA_CASIE

The CASIE expedition is providing mission updates on Twitter and Blogs

Link to article: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/-nasas-fires-up-arctic-drone-sans-sidewinder-for-arctic-climatechange-expedition.html

Jason Box: Extreme Ice Survey at the Petermann Glacier, Greenland, July 19, 2009

Extreme Ice Survey in far north western Greenland at 81 deg. N at Petermann Glacier

19 July 2009, Sunday, Meltfactor.org

With the assistance of the Greenpeace crew and donors, the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise and the Greenpeace helicopter, five time-lapse [