Sunday, October 31, 2010

John Cook, John Wahr: Greenland ice mass loss through August 2010

Greenland ice mass loss after the 2010 summer

by John Cook, Skeptical Science, November 1, 2010
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently released the Arctic Report Card. The report contains a wealth of information about the state of climate in the Arctic circle (mostly disturbing). Especially noteworthy is the news that in 2010, Greenland temperatures were the hottest on record. It also experienced record setting ice loss by melting. This ice loss is reflected in the latest data from the GRACE satellites which measure the change in gravity around the Greenland ice sheet (H/T to Tenney Naumer from Climate Change: The Next Generation and Dr. John Wahr for granting permission to repost the latest data).
 
Figure 1. Greenland ice mass anomaly - deviation from the average ice mass over the 2002 to 2010 period. Note: this doesn't mean the ice sheet was gaining ice before 2006 but that ice mass was above the 2002 to 2010 average. (John Wahr)
The ice sheet has been steadily losing ice and the rate of ice loss has doubled over the 8-year period since gravity measurements began. The accelerating ice loss is independently confirmed by GPS measurements of uplifting bedrock. The GRACE data gives us an insight into why Greenland is losing ice mass at such an accelerating rate -- ice loss has spread from the south east all the way up the west coast:
 
Figure 2. Rate of mass change from Greenland over 2003-2007 and 2003-2010 periods. Mass loss rate has spread up the north western ice margin over the last few years. (John Wahr) 

Posts from October 2010

Posts from October 2010:





  • GOP plans attacks on the EPA and climate scientist...

  • Coward, national traitor, job-killer Charles Koch ...

  • Jellyfish 'may benefit from ecosystem instability'...

  • Richard Somerville editorial: How much should the ...

  • Models predict extreme precipitation, extremely lo...

  • NOAA: Record high (94 °F) in Houston, TX, October ...

  • Rated FALSE by the Truth-O-Meter (and James Hansen...

  • IPCC was not wrong about the Amazon's high sensiti...

  • Du Pont, Koch, Honeywell fight to keep carbon emis...

  • Climate hawk Schwarzenegger says Prop 23 fight set...

  • Joseph Romm: Global warming is driving increased f...

  • JPL and CalTech researchers' findings reduce uncer...

  • Historical perspective on the Russian Heat Wave of...

  • Paul Douglas, Jeff Masters: October 26, 2010, wea...

  • Weather Bomb, all time record low pressure storm, ...

  • George Monbiot: Toxic Brew (Koch brothers finance...

  • 12 leading U.K. scientists accuse World Growth Int...

  • NASA's Artemis mission to the Mooon

  • Record temperatures in Greenland, thinning sea ice...

  • Graham Cogley: Dirt (debris) on glaciers

  • Arch Coal Co. West Virginia Spruce 1 mountaintop m...

  • Hacked climate emails: MPs rake over the coals but...

  • Palau Announces Massive Marine Sanctuary for whale...

  • Scathing review by the Planning Assessment Commiss...

  • The Sydney Morning Herald environmental news page

  • Australian NSW farmers have called for all new min...

  • Aaron Lewis: Greenland's Ice Sheet -- dynamics of...

  • Scott Mandia: Monckton KO’d in Recent Debate by P...

  • Joseph Romm: Scientific American jumps the shark. ...

  • James E. Overland & Muyin Wang, Tellus, Large-scal...

  • "Persistence of climate changes due to a range of ...

  • Richard Black, BBC: Governments agreed earlier to ...

  • BBC: UK rail network 'at risk' from climate change...

  • Andrew Freedman, WaPo: Arctic sea ice loss linked ...

  • Jeffrey D. Sachs: The Deepening Crisis -- When wil...

  • Water -- The New Oil: Should private companies con...

  • Greenland’s Jakobshavn could be poised to speed up...

  • Konrad Steffen: Greenland’s contribution to sea le...

  • Louisiana boat captains report: orange, sticky, oi...

  • James Hansen: Coal River Mountain Redux

  • Grist: Floody Hell: Postcards from the Future

  • Bill Gates donates $700,000 to help in the fight a...

  • Hawaii Rejects Proposed Ban on Solar Energy

  • American Physical Society (APS) has issued a stron...

  • The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse e...

  • Jeff Masters: Cyclone Giri hits Myanmar -- streng...

  • John Cook: Climate cherry pickers -- Falling humi...

  • What Role Have Scalia And Thomas Played In The Koc...

  • Yale Forum: Science Magazine Reporter Drills Down ...

  • University of Virginia continues to stand up to Ke...

  • Arctic temperature rising at near record rates, se...

  • Aiguo Dai, NCAR: Drought may threaten much of glo...

  • " Climate Change and the Integrity of Science, Aga...

  • Christian Science Monitor jumps the shark with pre...

  • National traitors, fascists David and Charles Koch...

  • Coal slurry from broken Murray Energy pipeline pol...

  • National traitors, anarchists David and Charles Ko...

  • James Cameron joins Prop 23 fight and donates $1 m...

  • "Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they'...

  • Adaptation and extinction in experimentally fragme...

  • WWF: Tropics in Decline as Natural Resources Exha...

  • The Living Planet Report by the World Wildlife Fun...

  • "The attribution of the present-day total greenhou...

  • Joe Miller’s private security force falsely ‘arres...

  • Global Sea Surface Temperatures (not anomalies) fo...

  • Denialist argument: The Models Don't Have Clouds

  • Climate change is an economic crisis

  • In Climate Denial, Again (New York Times editorial...

  • Jeff Masters: Potentially catastrophic Super Typho...

  • Gerald R. North, National Research Council's chair...

  • How fear of bias dominates the climate change deba...

  • Reducing Uncertainty About Climate Change -- Studi...

  • Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing ...

  • Carbon Dioxide Controls Earth's Temperature accord...

  • Lake Mead approaching lowest level in its history

  • Russian Firestorm: Finding a Fire Cloud from Space...

  • NOAA: Temperature Anomalies August 2010

  • DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increas...

  • Wunderground.com’s Jeff Masters: From ‘Mad Scienti...

  • Peter Goldmark: Time is running out

  • U.N. Climate-Change Panel Chairman Rajendra Pachau...

  • Gavin Schmidt: Taking the Measure of the Greenhou...

  • NASA reports hottest January to September on recor...

  • EXCLUSIVE: Michael Mann responds to Rep. Barton

  • James Hansen: Conservative Principles and the 350...

  • Joann D. Haigh et al., Nature 467 (2010), An influ...

  • Joanna Haigh: we may have overestimated the sun's ...

  • Message from Solar Power International: The solar ...

  • Bill McKibben: How do you say "Thank you!" 7,347 ...

  • Climate science under attack

  • Fortune: What a scientist didn't tell the New Yo...

  • Koch Industries out-of-state dirty coal money supp...

  • Monckton's testimony (invited by Sensenbrenner) wa...

  • Bill McKibben's 10:10:10 message: It's happening--...

  • "GMU investigating climate change skeptic cited by...

  • Old claims of bad climate science countered by new...

  • Eli Rabett weighs in on Wegman plagarism and Judy'...

  • Livestock production set to become unsustainable

  • Edward Wegman who lied to Congress, who purposely ...

  • Michael Mann: Get the anti-science bent out of po...

  • Virginia attorney general Cuccinelli goes Koch and...

  • Denmark's fascist government continues illegal pro...

  • NewYorker: "As The World Burns -- How the Senate a...

  • The fragile bit of Bric. Despite Brazil's powerhou...

  • Prop 23 battle heats up in California as Schwarzen...

  • Skeptical Science: Uncertain Times at the Royal S...

  • How Warm Was This Summer? by James Hansen
  • Saturday, October 30, 2010

    GOP plans attacks on the EPA and climate scientists










    If the GOP wins control of the House next week, senior congressional Republicans plan to launch a blistering attack on the Obama administration's environmental policies, as well as on scientists who link air pollution to climate change.

    The GOP's fire will be concentrated especially on the administration's efforts to use the Environmental Protection Agency's authority over air pollution to tighten emissions controls on coal, oil and other carbon fuels that scientists say contribute to global warming.

    The attack, according to senior Republicans, will seek to portray the EPA as abusing its authority and damaging the economy with needless government regulations.


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    In addition, GOP leaders say, they will focus on what they see as distortions of scientific evidence regarding climate change and on Obama administration efforts to achieve by executive rule-making what it failed to win from Congress.

    Even if Republicans should win majorities in both the House and Senate, they would face difficulties putting their views into legislative form, since Senate Democrats could use the threat of filibuster to block bills just as the GOP did on climate and other issues during the past year.

    Also, Obama could use his veto power.

    But the GOP's plans for wide-ranging and sustained investigations by congressional committees could put the EPA and administration environmental policymakers on the defensive and create political pressures that could cause Obama to pull back on environmental issues as the 2012 presidential election draws closer.

    In comments last week, White House officials said they are considering hiring more lawyers to the Office of Legal Counsel to gird for the possible battles ahead. Yet even with the White House running interference for the EPA and other agencies, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson conceded that a Republican anti-regulatory campaign could end up effectively hamstringing her agency's work.

    The new rules EPA has issued over the last year on vehicle emissions and those expected soon for industry, Jackson said, "would be endangered by many, if not all, of the efforts we've seen to take away the agency's greenhouse gas authority."

    Over the last two years, the Obama administration and the EPA have stepped up pressure on industry, utilities and states to curtail pollution. A 2007 Supreme Court ruling opened the door for the EPA to use its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in new rules for vehicle emissions and, starting early next year, regulations for emissions from utilities.

    In contrast to the previous administration, the Obama White House has also embraced the broad consensus within the scientific community that human activity, mainly through the emitting of carbon dioxide, has led to global warming.

    All that will be up for scrutiny in the event of a Republican takeover of the House, which political analysts are predicting. The Republican Party has hammered at the administration's environmental agenda during the campaign. And rejecting the work of climate scientists has become increasingly common among conservatives.

    Several key Republican Congressmen — most notably Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who could take over the chairmanship of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — have said they plan to investigate climate scientists they contend manipulated data to prove the case that human activity is contributing to global warming.

    Using control of congressional committees — and their investigative powers — to attack the opposition is not a new idea. After Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, they held critical hearings on everything from an energy task force run by Vice President Dick Cheney to the Bush administration's support of abstinence-only sex education.

    Similarly, during the Clinton administration, when Republicans took over they appointed independent counsels to investigate various aspects of the administration, leading to the Whitewater probe and the impeachment proceedings, among others.

    In a recent op-ed article, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, declared that the GOP is preparing to "declare war on the regulatory state."

    A steady flow of letters, subpoenas and congressional hearings would prove "incredibly disruptive" to an agency's ability to work and promulgate rules, said Kate Gordon, of the energy policy project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy group in Washington.

    Congressional inquiries also offer a platform for energizing the GOP's conservative base in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

    The investigations are expected to target questions about EPA's preparedness for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Already, House Republicans have written letters to the Interior Department questioning the moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling that the administration invoked after the explosion onBP's Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil.

    But the primary focus will be on the EPA's determination last year that carbon dioxide and other emissions endanger public welfare by contributing to climate change. Armed with this finding, the EPA has moved to reduce greenhouse gases by mandating emissions reductions in vehicles and will soon move to regulate stationary sources like power plants and factories.

    House Republicans like Issa and James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming have criticized the EPA for basing its endangerment finding on what they consider flawed research. Republicans assert that the science on climate change is not yet "settled," despite the vast global scientific consensus about its human causes.

    Specifically, Issa has said he wants to investigate the "Climategate" scandal that broke late last year, when hackers illegally obtained and released thousands of emails of climate scientists working with a leading British laboratory.

    Climate skeptics, among them House Republicans like Issa, contend that the sniping and harshness in some emails prove that climate scientists suppressed dissenting studies and that science showing the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is biased and tainted.

    Several independent panels abroad and in the U.S. that reviewed the emails cleared the scientists of wrongdoing and found their research to be reliable. The EPA has also said that "nothing in the emails undermines the science upon which" the endangerment findings are based.

    Like officials within the administration, scientists around the country who expect to be investigated by Issa and others are getting legal advice on how to best protect themselves. Among them is Michael E. Mann, professor of meteorology at Penn State University and one of the researchers who developed the "hockey stick" graph that shows a recent spike in global temperatures.

    Issa named Mann in a letter to the EPA as a scientist whose work was not "unbiased, accurate or reliable."

    "I don't think we can cower under the politically motivated attacks by the forces of anti-science, which includes prominent politicians who are in the pay of the fossil fuel industry," Mann said in a telephone interview about his approach to possible congressional investigations.

    "One prepares for this by doing one's best to get the truth out because we have nothing to hide as climate scientists: We can stand proudly on our research," he said.



    Link:  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-epa-battle-ahead-20101030,0,6040861.story