Friday, April 27, 2012

More than 500 municipalities are suffering from extreme drought in Brazil's Northeast, principally in the state of Bahia; Mais de 500 municípios sofrem com seca no Nordeste. Bahia é o estado que mais sente os efeitos


Mais de 500 municípios sofrem com seca no Nordeste

Bahia é o estado que mais sente os efeitos. Dos 417 municípios, número maior que a metade decretou situação de emergência, de acordo com a Defesa Civil Estadual.


This video is from April 2, 2012 -- for the latest video that goes with this article, go to the link at the end of this post.  The video right below is showing a reservoir that is only 8% of its normal volume.
O JN no Ar esteve nesta terça-feira (24) na Bahia, um dos estados mais atingidos pela seca, em 2012, na região Nordeste.
O avião saiu do Rio de Janeiro rumo ao estado de Pernambuco. A equipe desembarcou no aeroporto de Petrolina, no fim da noite. Assim que amanheceu, seguiram de carro para o sertão baiano.
A água em abundância do rio São Francisco é apenas o primeiro contraste do caminho. A Bahia é o estado que mais sente os efeitos da seca. Dos 417 municípios, mais da metade decretou situação de emergência, de acordo com a Defesa Civil Estadual.
Foram percorridos cerca de 80 quilômetros até chegar à cidade de Casa Nova. Uma estrada de chão levou a equipe às comunidades mais afastadas. Nelas encontraram Manuel, que pedala 40 quilômetros por dia, debaixo de sol a pino, para abastecer a casa de água.
“Tudo é difícil, não é não?”, diz ele.
Buscar água com carrinho é a rotina de Gabriela.
“Quando chega em casa, chega morta, com as mãos cheias de calo”, conta a mulher.
O carro-pipa chega e enche um reservatório.
Em um lugarejo, todo o dia  os moradores travam uma verdadeira disputa em busca de água.
“Não é todo dia que tem, tem dia que é obrigado a compra”, fala um morador.
“De vez em quando tem briga, discussão”, conta outra.
Em apenas uma hora a água acaba. Deixa muita gente sem nada.
“Eu me sinto revoltada, estou doente”, reclama uma mulher.
Em Casa Nova, segundo a prefeitura, 270 localidades, onde vivem pelo menos 15 mil pessoas, estão sem fornecimento de água. Em 52, o carro-pipa não passa com muita freqüência.
“Muitas vezes demora dez dias, cinco dias para a água chegar”, revela um homem.
No local, há 22 anos foi tomada uma providência para amenizar os efeitos da seca: a construção da barragem de Poço da Pedra. Hoje, o cenário é desolador. O lago artificial que deveria se estender por dez quilômetros, não existe mais. Virou área de pasto.
Pasto difícil para os bichos. Em outro município, Irecê, animais já morrem desnutridos, desidratados. Dias de seca. Tempo de escassez. Plantações de feijão, milho, nada resiste.
“A perda caminha para 100% da safra. A tendência é piorar. O nosso período chuvoso vai começar em outubro, novembro e até lá nossos agricultores não tem mais plantio, não tem roça”, afirma o funcionário da Empresa Baiana de Desenvolvimento Agrícola (EBDA) Guilherme Miranda Neto.
A escassez afeta o bolso. Uma saca de 60 quilos de feijão de corda, um dos mais consumidos na região, custa hoje cerca de R$ 400, três vezes o valor cobrado em períodos sem estiagem. Mas nas áreas mais próximas do rio São Francisco, tem fartura. As plantações de uva e as vinícolas prosperam graças à irrigação. Em 2011 foram produzidas quase 22 mil toneladas de uva, 100% da área plantada foi colhida. Um contraste impressionante em um mesmo município.
“Tá faltando água há uns três anos. A barragem secou, acabou a água”, diz a moradora Dona Maria.
O marido dela, de 86 anos, busca aliviar o problema. O Seu Leonardo conta que nos últimos seis meses teve que abrir três cacimbas no terreno. São buracos, que podem ter cinco, dez metros de profundidade para que os moradores possam tentar encontrar água.
“Lava casa, lava prato, cozinha”, explica Leonardo sobre a utilização do recurso.
Seu Abdias também cavou um poço na propriedade.
“É salobra, eu bebo, eu cozinho. A gente bebe porque é o que tem, mas não é boa. A vida da gente é muito sofrida aqui. Que Deus mande chuva para melhorar as coisas pra gente”, conta o homem.
O governo da Bahia informou que foi enviado um projeto de construção de uma adutora para o município de Casa Nova para o Ministério da Integração Nacional no início de 2012. O Ministério informou que fez um novo projeto, mas que agora precisa de verbas do PAC para realizar a licitação.

Go to the link to see the video that goes with this report.
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"Perennial pack ice in the southern Beaufort Sea was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009," by David G. Barber et al., GRL 36 (2009); doi:10.1029/2009GL041434


Geophysical Research Letters, 36 (2009) L24501; doi:10.1029/2009GL041434

Perennial pack ice in the southern Beaufort Sea was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009

David G. Barber, Ryan Galley, Matthew G. Asplin (Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), Roger De Abreu (Canadian Ice Service, Environment Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), Kerri-Ann Warner (Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), Monika Pućko (Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, and Freshwater Institute, Fisheries and Oceans, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), Mukesh Gupta (Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), Simon Prinsenberg (Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Fisheries and Oceans, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) and Stéphane Julien (Laurentian Region, Canadian Coast Guard, Quebec, Quebec, Canada)


Abstract


In September 2009 we observed a much different sea icescape in the Southern Beaufort Sea than anticipated, based on remotely sensed products. Radarsat-derived ice charts predicted 7 to 9 tenths multi-year (MY) or thick first-year (FY) sea ice throughout most of the Southern Beaufort Sea in the deep water of the Canada Basin. In situ observations found heavily decayed, very small remnant MY and FY floes interspersed with new ice between floes, in melt ponds, thaw holes and growing over negative freeboard older ice. This icescape contained approximately 25% open water, predominantly distributed in between floes or in thaw holes connected to the ocean below. Although this rotten ice regime was quite different that the expected MY regime in terms of ice volume and strength, their near-surface physical properties were found to be sufficiently alike that their radiometric and scattering characteristics were almost identical.

Received 22 October 2009; accepted 23 November 2009; published 24 December 2009.

Citation: Barber, D. G., R. Galley, M. G. Asplin, R. De Abreu, K.-A. Warner, M. Pućko, M. Gupta, S. Prinsenberg, and S. Julien. (2009). Perennial pack ice in the southern Beaufort Sea was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L24501, doi:10.1029/2009GL041434.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL041434.shtml                                                          
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"Contribution of under-ice primary production to an ice-edge upwelling phytoplankton bloom in the Canadian Beaufort Sea," by C. J. Mundy et al., GRL 26 (2009); doi:10.1029/2009GL038837


Geophysical Research Letters 36 (2009) L17601; doi:10.1029/2009GL038837

Contribution of under-ice primary production to an ice-edge upwelling phytoplankton bloom in the Canadian Beaufort Sea

C. J. Mundy, Michel Gosselin (Institut des Sciences de la Mer, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Rimouski, Québec, Canada), Jens Ehn (Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris VI, CNRS, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France), Yves Gratton (Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique—Eau, Terre et Environnement, Université du Québec, Québec, Québec, Canada), Andrea Rossnagel, David G. Barber (Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), Johannie Martin, Jean-Éric Tremblay (Québec-Océan, Département de biologie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada), Molly Palmer, Kevin R. Arrigo (Department of Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA), Gérald Darnis, Louis Fortier (Québec-Océan, Département de biologie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada), Brent Else, Tim Papakyriakou (Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

Abstract

The Canadian Beaufort Sea has been categorized as an oligotrophic system with the potential for enhanced production due to a nutrient-rich intermediate layer of Pacific-origin waters. Using under-ice hydrographic data collected near the ice-edge of a shallow Arctic bay, we documented an ice-edge upwelling event that brought nutrient-rich waters to the surface during June 2008. The event resulted in a 3-week-long phytoplankton bloom that produced an estimated 31 g C m−2 of new production. This value was approximately twice that of previous estimates for annual production in the region, demonstrating the importance of ice-edge upwelling to the local marine ecosystem. Under-ice primary production estimates of up to 0.31 g C m−2 d−1 showed that this production was not negligible, contributing up to 22% of the daily averaged production of the ice-edge bloom. It is suggested that under-ice blooms are a widespread yet under-documented phenomenon in polar regions, which could increase in importance with the Arctic's thinning ice cover and subsequent increase in transmitted irradiance to the under-ice environment.

Received 22 April 2009; accepted 31 July 2009; published 1 September 2009.

Citation: Mundy, C. J., et al. (2009). Contribution of under-ice primary production to an ice-edge upwelling phytoplankton bloom in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L17601, doi:10.1029/2009GL038837.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL038837.shtml                                                          
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"Traveling supraglacial lakes on George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica," by C. H. LaBarbera & D. R. MacAyeal, GRL 38 (2011); doi:10.1029/2011GL049970


Geophysical Research Letters 38 (2011) L24501; doi:10.1029/2011GL049970

Traveling supraglacial lakes on George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica
C. H. LaBarbera (Department of Geology, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, USA) and D. R. MacAyeal (Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA)

Abstract

We describe a sequence of supraglacial lakes on the George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica, that migrate along the boundary of the ice shelf with Alexander Island in the manner of a traveling wave, with a velocity that differs from the local ice-shelf flow in both magnitude and direction. These lakes are arranged en échelon along a grounding line of the ice shelf where the flow displays the atypical feature of being directed toward land. A simple model presented here suggests that the propagating lakes form in the depressions of a viscous-buckling wave associated with compressive ice-shelf stresses and ice-flow directed obliquely toward the coastline. The existence of these lakes and their propagation gives rise to the implication that other ice-shelf surface features (e.g., patterns of swells and depressions, surface lakes, and drainage) can be organized by large-scale viscous buckling behavior, when ice-shelf flow is strongly compressive. 

Received 11 October 2011; accepted 17 November 2011; published 28 December 2011.

Key points:
  • We discover a type of supraglacial lake that propagates as a wave
  • These waves result from large-scale stress regime
  • Thus, large-scale stress regime may determine how lakes mediate shelf stability

Citation: LaBarbera, C. H. and D. R. MacAyeal. (2011). Traveling supraglacial lakes on George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L24501, doi:10.1029/2011GL049970.                                                          

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Ocean Salinities Reveal Strong Global Water Cycle Intensification During 1950 to 2000, by Paul J. Durack, Susan E. Wijffels & Richard J. Matear, Science 336(6080) (April 27, 2012); doi: 10.1126/science.1212222


Scienceol. 336, No. 6080, pp. 455-458; doi: 10.1126/science.1212222                         

Ocean Salinities Reveal Strong Global Water Cycle Intensification During 1950 to 2000

Paul J. Durack1,2,3,4,*, Susan E. Wijffels1,3, and Richard J. Matear1,3

Abstract

Fundamental thermodynamics and climate models suggest that dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter in response to warming. Efforts to detect this long-term response in sparse surface observations of rainfall and evaporation remain ambiguous. We show that ocean salinity patterns express an identifiable fingerprint of an intensifying water cycle. Our 50-year observed global surface salinity changes, combined with changes from global climate models, present robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of 8 ± 5% per degree of surface warming. This rate is double the response projected by current-generation climate models and suggests that a substantial (16-24%) intensification of the global water cycle will occur in a future 2-3 °C warmer world.

1Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Marine and Atmospheric Research, General Post Office (GPO) Box 1538, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
2Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 129, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
3Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship, CSIRO, GPO Box 1538, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
4Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Mail Code L-103, 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA 94550, U.S.A.
*Correspondence e-mail: pauldurack@llnl.gov

                      
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ScienceNews: Ocean salinity changing, water-cycle amplification


ScienceVol. 336, No. 6080, p. 405; doi: 10.1126/science.336.6080.405                     
  • News & Analysis: Global Warming

The Greenhouse Is Making the Water-Poor Even Poorer

by Richard A. Kerr, Science News, April 27, 2012


A new study of the ocean's changing salinity on page 455 confirms that this “rich get richer” mechanism of water-cycle amplification has been operating for the past half-century. “It's a pretty striking result,” says oceanographer Raymond Schmitt of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The result also suggests that the water cycle is intensifying quickly under global warming—twice as fast as climate models have been predicting.


Saltier or less so.
Ship-borne instruments (top) showed that places already saltier than average got saltier (reds) and those less salty got even more so (blues).
CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): CSIRO; P. DURACK ET AL., SCIENCE 336 (27 APRIL)

Several studies of how fast water has been evaporating and falling back as rain on a global scale had suggested an acceleration of the water cycle, but they had their limitations. Using rain gauges on land was tricky given that heavy rains can be sporadic and gauge networks have been sparse. Satellites can survey the globe, but they have been at it for only a couple of decades.

So oceanographer Paul Durack of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and colleagues from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's Marine and Atmospheric Research division in Australia looked to the ocean. After all, “that's where the water is,” as Schmitt puts it. 

The oceans cover 71% of the globe, hold 97% of its water, and receive 80% of its precipitation. And gauging the oceans' changing salinity provides a way of tracking water as it cycles between atmosphere and ocean. If more rain falls over an ocean than water evaporates from it, surface salinity drops proportionately. If evaporation outpaces rain, salinity rises.

Oceanographers were not surveying global salinity intensively until 1999, when they started releasing instrumented subsurface floats under the Argo program. Argo floats now number about 3,500. But because the ocean smoothes out rainfall's patchiness, even pre-Argo measurements reflect changes in the global water cycle more accurately than the denser data available over land. Durack and colleagues used the Argo observations to help correct for shortcomings in the salinity measurements made from research vessels between 1950 and 2000, such as oceanographers' understandable reluctance to brave the stormy wintertime high latitudes.

When Durack and colleagues analyzed the 1.7 million salinity measurements made worldwide in the second half of the 20th century, they found that the water-rich had indeed been getting richer and vice versa (see figure). High-latitude and equatorial parts of the oceans, where greater precipitation keeps surface waters less salty than average, became even less salty; the central regions of ocean basins, where evaporation dominates and turns water saltier, became even saltier. Because 80% of the water cycle operates over oceans and much of the water falling as rain over land comes from the ocean, the water cycle over land no doubt is behaving the same way.

After comparing the magnitude and geographical pattern of salinity change in models and in the real world, Durack and colleagues concluded that the water cycle had sped up roughly 4%, while the surface warmed 0.5 °C. That 8% increase per degree of warming is about the rate of acceleration expected on the basis of how much more water vapor warmer air can hold. The more moisture air can hold, the faster water can make the circuit of the water cycle, like building a bigger pipe in a plumbing system. But the warming seems to have intensified the real world's water cycle twice as much as the typical global climate model does. At least some of the models, it seems, do not properly simulate the water cycle's response to warming.

The new analysis “has provided decisive evidence for a surprisingly rapid acceleration of the global water cycle,” Schmitt says. “This is the first time we're seeing this for the hydrological cycle,” adds oceanographer Sydney Levitus of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Silver Spring, Maryland. The pattern and rate of the change “represents yet another ‘fingerprint’ of global change.”

So wet places have been getting wetter while dry places got drier. But worse is yet to come. If the world warms 2 °C to 3 °C by the end of the century, as currently projected, and the past is any guide to the future, the water cycle will accelerate 16% to 24%, Durack and colleagues point out. “That's a pretty amazing projection,” says ocean modeler Stephen Griffies of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, “and it just might be close to reality.”

Such a revved-up water cycle would have “a lot of implications for how extreme events would change in a warming climate,” says meteorologist Brian Soden of the University of Miami in Florida. Water cycling from the surface to the atmosphere carries heat energy that can ultimately fuel violent storms, from tornadoes to tropical cyclones. The faster water cycles, the more abundant and more violent those storms might be. And wet places getting wetter can lead to more severe and more frequent flooding. Dry places getting drier would mean longer and more intense droughts. The Argo flotilla should have an interesting tale to tell in the years to come.                   


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Susan Wijffels and coworkers: Climate change speeding up water cycle; models significantly underestimate amplification by 100%



Climate change speeding up water cycle


by Anna Salleh, ABC, April 27, 2012
rainy ocean
The evidence comes from changing patterns of salinity in the oceans (Source: imagedepotpro/iStockphoto)
The greenhouse effect is accelerating the global water cycle almost twice the rate predicted by climate change models, say researchers.
Oceanographer Dr Susan Wijffels of the CSIRO and colleagues report their findings today in the journal Science.
"The models predict a 4-5% amplification of the global water cycle per degree of warming, instead of 8%," says Wijffels.
"It's a significant underestimation. That's a cause for concern."
The transport of water through the atmosphere from the mid-latitudes of Earth to the poles and tropics is called the global water cycle.
How much water evaporates in dry areas and falls as rain in wet areas is vital to society, says Wijffels.
Global climate models predict that as the globe warms, this will heat the lower atmosphere and enable it to hold more moisture, thus speeding up the global water cycle.
"It's like the rich get richer scenario where the wet places will get wetter and the dry places will get a lot drier because the conveyor belt is speeding up between those two places," says Wijffel.

Verification difficult

But attempts to verify the predictions of climate change models have been fraught, with actual measurements of rainfall giving a mixed and confusing picture.
"Rain is most horrible thing to measure because it happens so locally and is so spotty in space and time," says Wijffel.
To make matters worse, measurements have been short-term and are usually taken on land, whereas 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans.
Instead Wijffels and colleagues have looked to the oceans to measure changes in the global water cycle over the past 50 years.

Salinity pattern changes

The more rain that falls in a particular part of the ocean, the more fresh water dilutes out salinity. The more evaporation there is, the higher the ocean's salinity.
Wijffels and colleagues have found that the difference between the saltier and fresher areas have become more marked in the past 50 years, indicating that more water is being pumped through the global cycle.
"We've been able to pick up a very strong and clear fingerprint of the accelerating water cycle in the ocean salinity field," says Wijffels.
She and colleagues have found the same fingerprint across the globe including in the North and South Atlantic, the North and South Pacific and the South Indian ocean basins.
"The fact that we see it independently across the ocean basins gives us some confidence that it's a real phenomenon and we're not just seeing a whole bunch of statistical noise," says Wijffels.

Underestimating models

All climate change models show a relationship between the changing salinity patterns and the water cycle speed.
The researchers used this to calculate that the water cycle accelerates by 8% per degree of surface warming.
But, says Wijffels, this rate of acceleration is only reflected in models that include a high degree of warming.
On the whole, the models underestimate the acceleration at 4-5% per degree of warming, she says.
Wijffels says the new data will be combined with other observations to help improve global climate change models.
She emphasises that the findings have implications for long-term average rainfall trends, which should not be confused with shorter-term trends that lead to phenomena such as La Niña.
"Variability will always be there but the question is whether, on average, a place will get drier or wetter," says Wijffels.
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Alan Grayson: More Myths That Are Killing Us


More Myths That Are Killing Us

byby Alan Grayson, Daily Kos , March 31, 2012Follow
A month ago, I wrote a note called "The Myths That Are Killing Us" – the hard myths that no Republicans, and very few Democrats, ever challenge. Here was my list:
  1. The Government can't create jobs. (Tell that to FDR, who created four million jobs in three months.)
  2. Tax cuts reduce the deficit. (Doesn't it bother them that a man named "Laffer" came up with this one?)
  3. A fetus is a baby.
  4. The poor have too much money.
  5. Cutting the federal deficit will end the recession.
  6. The rich are incentivized by tax cuts, while the poor are incentivized by lower wages, no benefits, an end to the minimum wage, and unemployment.
  7. An unwanted child is God's will.
  8. Everyone who wants health insurance has it.
  9. The problem with education is the teachers.
  10. The "free market" satisfies every human need.
  11. There is no discrimination in America anymore.
  12. The distribution of wealth and income are irrelevant.

Well, this list seems to have provoked a lot of thought among us. Since I regard what we do as a collective endeavor, I want to share with you some of the best of this crowdsourcing by our audience – 20 more destructive myths:
  1. One gender is better than the other, one race is superior to all others, and there is only one true religion.
  2. You can get any medical treatment that you need, for free, in any hospital emergency room.
  3. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War.
  4. The environment can protect itself.
  5. It is better for America to be feared than loved.
  6. Only the wealthy create jobs.
  7. America is a Christian nation.
  8. Human beings are not the cause of climate change.
  9. Minority women have children in order to qualify for welfare.
  10. President Obama wants to take away our guns.
  11. The more we spend on the military, the safer we are.
  12. Corporations use tax cuts to hire people.
  13. The unemployed are lazy and stupid.
  14. Rich people are smarter than everyone else.
  15. We will never run out of oil.
  16. Invading foreign countries wins hearts and minds.
  17. Science is a matter of opinion.
  18. Instigating unnecessary wars shows your support for the troops.
  19. Corporations are people.
  20. Money is speech.
Every one of these myths is fascinating in its own right. You could write a whole book about each one. So to the supporters who contributed to this list, thank you. I'm listening and learning. And if we could just get past all of these myths, then think about what a great place this would be.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
P.S. I recognize that this is a hopeless cliché, but our campaign fundraising goal for the quarter was $500,000, and as I write this, we are only $11,510 short of that goal. Really. If you would like to help us reach our goal, or if you're simply fond of round numbers, then click here.
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