Waleed Abdalati: Sound the alarm on climate change

Sound the alarm on climate change

by Waleed Abdalati

Article Last Updated: 12/18/2008

Environmental scientists who have been watching Earth's climate change dramatically in recent decades recognize an immediate need for comprehensive, coordinated action to address the threats of climate change.

From ground and from space, we see an Arctic in the midst of rapid change: The blanket of sea ice that once covered much of the Arctic Ocean in summer is disappearing. Once-frozen soils are thawing, and buildings, pipelines and forests lean on sinking foundations. Glaciers are disintegrating and ice sheets are shedding massive amounts of ice, feeding already-rising seas.

As predicted for decades, human- caused warming is sweeping across the Earth. This will have impact on water resources, public health, coastal infrastructure, ecosystems and agriculture. No place on the planet will be left untouched.

Leaders in both major parties have given voice to concerns about climate change. Now is the time to act, and swiftly. Climate change is critical to the U.S. economy, national security, international standing, and environmental and cultural heritage. Consider the findings of thousands of scientists around the globe:

• Dwindling sea ice. Since the advent of satellite monitoring in the 1970s, summer Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 39 percent, further amplifying warming and having significant biological, ecological and societal impacts.

• Thawing ground. Across the Arctic, permafrost has warmed up to 13 degrees in the last century — with about half of that increase occurring in the last 25 years. Degrading permafrost releases ancient stored carbon, creating a warming feedback not yet included in most climate models.

• Ice loss in Greenland. Warming has caused a 30 percent increase in melt area of the Greenland ice sheet since 1979, and ice now flows off the sheet much faster than a decade ago.

• Ice loss in Antarctica. Oceanic and atmospheric patterns have protected most of Antarctica from warming. However, the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts into the southern Atlantic, has warmed by about 4 1/2 degrees in the last 50 years. Ice shelves the size of small states have begun disintegrating.

• Rising seas. Oceans are rising because of melting glaciers and ice sheets and because water expands as it warms. Seas have risen twice as quickly in the last 15 years than in the previous 50, and at the current rate of warming, will rise another foot by 2100. However, if warming continues to accelerate and polar ice sheets begin to shrink more rapidly, a rise of 3 feet or much more is possible. That would affect 145 million people around the world, at a cost of nearly $1 trillion, according to the United Nations.

Areas of uncertainty remain, from the roles that air pollution and clouds will play in a warming world to the effect of warmer oceans on hurricanes. But we have enough data today to compel global mitigation, to reduce emissions and lessen the impact of climate change in the future.

Climate change is not an intractable issue. Other harmful global environmental trends have been successfully addressed, most notably the destruction of the ozone layer. We believe such nimble responses are again possible and necessary, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare communities for change. As before, with great leadership, these actions will create new opportunities for our country to prosper.

We ask President-elect Barack Obama to lead us and the international community — now.

Waleed Abdalati is head of NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Branch at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Md. Other signers were Walter Meier, Steven Nerem, Mark Serreze, Konrad Steffen, Julienne Stroeve, John Wahr, and Tingjun Zhang, climate scientists and professors at the University of Colorado Boulder. (The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of CU.)

Natalie M. Kehrwald et al., Mass loss on Himalayan glacier endangers water resources

Mass loss on Himalayan glacier endangers water resources

Mass loss on Himalayan glacier endangers water resources

Natalie M. Kehrwald (Byrd Polar Research Center, School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA), Lonnie G. Thompson (Byrd Polar Research Center, School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA), Yao Tandong (Institute for Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China), Ellen Mosley-Thompson (Byrd Polar Research Center, School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA), Ulrich Schotterer (Division of Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland), Vasily Alfimov (Ion Beam Physics, Paul Scherrer Institute and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland), Jürg Beer (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland), Jost Eikenberg (Division for Radiation Protection and Waste Management, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland), and Mary E. Davis (Byrd Polar Research Center, School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA)

Abstract

Ice cores drilled from glaciers around the world generally contain horizons with elevated levels of beta radioactivity including ³⁶Cl and ³H associated with atmospheric thermonuclear bomb testing in the 1950s and 1960s. Ice cores collected in 2006 from Naimona'nyi Glacier in the Himalaya (Tibet) lack these distinctive marker horizons suggesting no net accumulation of mass (ice) since at least 1950. Naimona'nyi is the highest glacier (6050 masl) documented to be losing mass annually suggesting the possibility of similar mass loss on other high-elevation glaciers in low and mid-latitudes under a warmer Earth scenario. If climatic conditions dominating the mass balance of Naimona'nyi extend to other glaciers in the region, the implications for water resources could be serious as these glaciers feed the headwaters of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra Rivers that sustain one of the world's most populous regions.

(Received 1 August 2008; accepted 21 October 2008; published 22 November 2008.)

Citation: Kehrwald, N. M., L. G. Thompson, Y. Tandong, E. Mosley-Thompson, U. Schotterer, V. Alfimov, J. Beer, J. Eikenberg, and M. E. Davis (2008), Mass loss on Himalayan glacier endangers water resources, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L22503, doi:10.1029/2008GL035556.

Link to abstract: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL035556.shtml

Xiangdong Zhang et al., Recent radical shifts of atmospheric circulations and rapid changes in Arctic climate system

Recent radical shifts of atmospheric circulations and rapid changes in Arctic climate system

Recent radical shifts of atmospheric circulations and rapid changes in Arctic climate system

Xiangdong Zhang (International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA), Asgeir Sorteberg (Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway), Jing Zhang (Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA), Rüdiger Gerdes (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany), and Josefino C. Comiso (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA)

Arctic climate system change has accelerated tremendously since the beginning of this century, and a strikingly extreme sea-ice loss occurred in summer 2007. However, the greenhouse-gas-emissions forcing has only increased gradually and the driving role in Arctic climate change of the positively-polarized Arctic/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO) trend has substantially weakened. Although various contributing factors have been examined, the fundamental physical process, which orchestrates these contributors to drive the acceleration and the latest extreme event, remains unknown. We report on drastic, systematic spatial changes in atmospheric circulations, showing a sudden jump from the conventional tri-polar AO/NAO to an unprecedented dipolar leading pattern, following accelerated northeastward shifts of the AO/NAO centers of action. These shifts provide an accelerating impetus for the recent rapid Arctic climate system changes, perhaps shedding light on recent arguments about a tipping point of global-warming-forced climate change in the Arctic. The radical spatial shift is a precursor to the observed extreme change event, demonstrating skilful information for future prediction.

(Received 6 August 2008; accepted 10 October 2008; published 18 November 2008.)

Citation: Zhang, X., A. Sorteberg, J. Zhang, R. Gerdes, and J. C. Comiso (2008), Recent radical shifts of atmospheric circulations and rapid changes in Arctic climate system, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L22701, doi:10.1029/2008GL035607.

Link to abstract: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL035607.shtml

JPL's Hartmut Aumann: NASA Study Links Severe Storm Increases, Global Warming

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

NEWS RELEASE: 2008-242 December 19, 2008

NASA Study Links Severe Storm Increases, Global Warming

PASADENA, Calif. -- The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics -- the type associated with severe storms and rainfall -- is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

In a presentation today to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft. The AIRS data were used to observe certain types of tropical clouds linked with severe storms, torrential rain and hail. The instrument typically detects about 6,000 of these clouds each day. Aumann and his team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.

For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45% increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by 6% per decade.

Climate modelers have long speculated that the frequency and intensity of severe storms may or may not increase with global warming. Aumann said results of the study will help improve their models.

"Clouds and rain have been the weakest link in climate prediction," said Aumann. "The interaction between the daytime warming of the sea surface under clear-sky conditions and increases in the formation of low clouds, high clouds and, ultimately, rain is very complicated. The high clouds in our observations—typically at altitudes of 20 kilometers (12 miles) and higher—present the greatest difficulties for current climate models, which aren't able to resolve cloud structures smaller than about 250 kilometers (155 miles) in size."

Aumann said the results of his study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, are consistent with another NASA-funded study by Frank Wentz and colleagues in 2005. That study found an increase in the global rain rate of 1.5% per decade over 18 years, a value that is about five times higher than the value estimated by climate models that were used in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Link to article: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-242

Peter Clark at AGU meeting: Climate changes now more immediate, more certain, and will intensify

Global Warming Impacts On U.S. Coming Sooner Than Expected, Report Predicts

ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2008) — A report released at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 16 provides new insights on the potential for abrupt climate change and the effects it could have on the United States, identifying key concerns that include faster-than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and a possibly permanent state of drought in the American Southwest.

The analysis is one of 21 of its type developed by a number of academic and government agency researchers for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The work incorporates the latest scientific data more than any previous reports, experts say, including the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

While concluding that some projections of the impact of climate change have actually been too conservative – as in the case of glacier and ice sheets that are moving and decaying faster than predicted – others may not pose as immediate a threat as some scenarios had projected, such as the rapid releases of methane or dramatic shifts in the ocean current patterns that help keep Europe warm.

"We simulate the future changes with our climate models, but those models have not always incorporated some of our latest data and observations," said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University and a lead author on the report. "We now have data on glaciers moving faster, ice shelves collapsing and other climate trends emerging that allow us to improve the accuracy of some of our future projections."

Some of the changes that now appear both more immediate and more certain, the report concludes, are rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, loss of sea ice that exceeds projections by earlier models, and hydroclimatic changes over North America and the global subtropics that will likely intensify and persist due to future greenhouse warming.

"Our report finds that drying is likely to extend poleward into the American West, increasing the likelihood of severe and persistent drought there in the future," Clark said. "If the models are accurate, it appears this has already begun. The possibility that the Southwest may be entering a permanent drought state is not yet widely appreciated."

Climate change, experts say, has happened repeatedly in Earth's history and is generally believed to be very slow and take place over hundreds or thousands of years. However, at times in the past, climate has also changed surprisingly quickly, on the order of decades.

"Abrupt climate change presents potential risks for society that are poorly understood," researchers wrote in the report.

This study, in particular, looked at four mechanisms for abrupt climate change that have taken place prehistorically, and evaluated the level of risks they pose today. These mechanisms are rapid changes in glaciers, ice sheets and sea level; widespread changes to the hydrologic cycle; abrupt changes in the "Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation," or AMOC, an ocean current pattern; and rapid release to the atmosphere of methane trapped in permafrost or on continental margins.

Considering those mechanisms, the report concluded:

• Recent rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show acceleration of flow and thinning, with the speed of some glaciers more than doubling. These "changes in ice dynamics can occur far more rapidly than previously suspected," the report said, and are not reflected in current climate models.
• Inclusion of these changes in models will cause sea level rises that "substantially exceed" levels now projected for the end of this century, which are about two feet – but data are still inadequate to specify an exact level of rise.
• Subtropical areas around the world, including the American West, are likely to become more arid in the future due to global warming, with an increasing likelihood of severe and persistent drought. These are "among the greatest natural hazards facing the United States and the globe today," the report stated, and if models are correct, this has already begun.
• The strength of "AMOC" ocean circulation patterns that help give Europe a much warmer climate than it would otherwise have may weaken by about 25-30% during this century due to greenhouse gas increases, but will probably not collapse altogether – although that possibility cannot be entirely excluded.
• Climate change will accelerate the emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from both hydrate sources and wetlands, and they quite likely will double within a century – but a dramatic, potentially catastrophic release is very unlikely.

The "overarching" recommendation of the report is the need for committed and sustained monitoring of these climatic forces that could trigger abrupt climate change, the researchers concluded.

Better observing systems are needed, better forecasting of droughts should be developed, a more comprehensive understanding of the AMOC system is needed, and monitoring of methane levels should be maintained, among other needs.

The findings of this report will be used to inform federal agencies and policy makers, the researchers said. Another lead author on the report was Andrew Weaver at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and the contributing authors included scientists from Columbia University, NOAA, the University of Colorado, and Edward Brook, a professor of geosciences at OSU.

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Adapted from materials provided by Oregon State University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Oregon State University (2008, December 18). Global Warming Impacts On U.S. Coming Sooner Than Expected, Report Predicts. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 19, 2008, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216201404.htm

Igor Semiletov: Concentrations of methane in 2008 were the highest ever measured in the summertime in the Arctic Ocean

ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2008) — A team led by International Arctic Research Center scientist Igor Semiletov has found data to suggest that the carbon pool beneath the Arctic Ocean is leaking.

The results of more than 1,000 measurements of dissolved methane in the surface water from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf this summer as part of the International Siberian Shelf Study show an increased level of methane in the area. Geophysical measurements showed methane bubbles coming out of chimneys on the seafloor.
“The concentrations of the methane were the highest ever measured in the summertime in the Arctic Ocean,” Semiletov said. “We have found methane bubble clouds above the gas-charged sediment and above the chimneys going through the sediment.”
The new data indicates the underwater permafrost is thawing and therefore releasing methane. Permafrost can affect methane release in two ways. Both underwater and on land, it contains frozen organic material such as dead plants and animals. When permafrost thaws, that organic material decomposes, releasing gases like methane and carbon dioxide. In addition, methane, either in gas form or in ice-like methane hydrates, is trapped underneath the permafrost. When the permafrost thaws, the trapped methane can seep out through the thawed soil. Methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, is thought to be an important factor in global climate change.
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a relatively shallow continental shelf that stretches more than 900 miles into the Arctic Ocean from Siberia. The area is a year-round source of methane to the globe’s atmosphere. However, until recently, scientists believed that much of the area’s carbon pool was safely insulated by underwater permafrost, which is, on average, 11 degrees Celcius warmer than surface permafrost.
Semiletov said this year’s expeditions used both chemical and geophysical measurement techniques, a first in the area. He also noted that while the high-arctic ocean readings were surprisingly high, on par with those from high-arctic lakes, they are still much lower than is being found in subarctic regions.
“That means we cannot extrapolate the subarctic data to the entire Arctic,” he said.
Semiletov, as associate research professor at IARC, leads the International Siberian Shelf Study, which has launched the multiple expeditions to the Arctic Ocean to collect data on methane release of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. The ISSS includes 30 collaborating scientists from five countries. The project, which gained momentum during the International Polar Year, established more than 1,000 oceanographic stations in the Arctic and performed a few million measurements of methane mixing ratios of the Arctic atmosphere in the last five years. It is part of UAF’s work during IPY, an international event that is focusing research efforts and public attention on the Earth’s polar regions.
Semiletov is a chemical oceanographer who has studied carbon cycling in the arctic atmosphere-land-shelf system with emphasis on carbon dioxide and dissolved methane from both terrestrial and oceanic sources since the early 1990s. He joined the International Arctic Research Center in 2001. Since 2004, he has collaborated with IARC scientist Natalia Shakhova to develop the methane study at IARC.
International Siberian Shelf Study collaborators University of Alaska Fairbanks: Igor Semiletov, Natalia Shakhova, John Kelly, Vladimir Romanovsky, Gleb Panteleev, Sergei Marchenko, Dmitry Nicolsky, Alexander Kholodov; FEBRAS: Oleg Dudarev, Anatoly Salyuk, Irina Pipko, Viktor Karnaukh, Alexander Charkin, Denis Kosmach, Nina Bel’cheva, Svetlana Pugach, Nina Savelieva, Vladimir Iosoupov, Valentin Sergienko; Stockholm University: Orjan Gustafsson, Per Andersson, Jorien Vonk, Laura Sanchez-Garcia, Christoph Humborg, Vanja Alling; Gotheburg University: Leif Anderson, Goran Björk, Anders Olsson, Sara Jutterström, Sofia Hjalmarsson, Irene Wåhlström; Swedish Museum of Natural History: Per Andersson; Utrecht University: Celia Sapart, T. Roeckmanm; Institute of Atmospheric Physics RAS: Georgiu Golytsin, Irina Repina; Moscow State University: Nicolai Romanovskii, Vladimir Tumskoy; University of Manchester: Bart van Dongen; Luleå University of Technology: Johan Ingri, Fredrik Nordblad, Johan Gelting; Oxford University: Don Porcelli.

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Adapted from materials provided by University of Alaska Fairbanks.

University of Alaska Fairbanks (2008, December 18). Scientists Find Increased Methane Levels In Arctic Ocean. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 19, 2008, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217203407.htm

Outgoing EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson, and his immoral ban on regulating CO2 as a greenhouse gas

[BLOGGER'S NOTE: I am back to considering that public humiliation would be a just punishment for the immoral acts of people like current EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, who should be put in stocks in a public place where people could throw rotten vegetables and eggs at him, and a billboard should be erected in his hometown with photos of this.]

New ban imposed on regulating global warming gases

by Dina Cappiello, December 19, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is trying to make sure in its final days that federal air pollution regulations will not be used to control the gases blamed for global warming.

In a memorandum sent Thursday, outgoing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson sets an agency-wide policy prohibiting controls on carbon dioxide emissions from being included in air pollution permits for coal-fired power plants and other facilities.

The decision could give the agency a legal basis for issuing permits that increase global warming pollution until the incoming Obama administration can change it, a process that would require a lengthy rulemaking process.

"The current concerns over global climate change should not drive EPA into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emissions controls," Johnson writes. And while the administrator acknowledged public interest in the issue, he writes that "administrative agencies are authorized to issue interpretations of this nature that clarify their regulations without completing a public comment process."

The White House has repeatedly said that the Clean Air Act should not be used to regulate carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, even though an April 2007 Supreme Court decision determined that the EPA could do so under the law. But that hasn't stopped environmentalists from trying.

The Thursday memo from Johnson was an attempt to clarify the agency's position after an appeals board in November rejected a federal permit for a Utah power plant putting the fate of scores of coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities in limbo.

In that case, the judges said the EPA did not make a strong enough case for not requiring controls on carbon dioxide, the leading pollutant linked to global warming. Environmentalists had challenged the permit saying that law makes clear that greenhouse gas emissions can be controlled.

Environmentalists on Thursday said the EPA's memo would allow power plants to be approved that increase greenhouse gas emissions. They also said the ruling would tie the hands of President-elect Barack Obama, who has said he wants heat-trapping gases to be regulated.

"What you have is a midnight declaration that is designed by edict to rewrite EPA's regulations to say categorically carbon dioxide can never be considered in permitting a new coal plant," said Vickie Patton, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund.

But EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said the opinion simply codifies existing agency policy.

"It had been the unspoken policy of the agency," Shradar said. "All it does is put into policy what the agency has done for 30 years."

Representatives of the electricity generators said Thursday that the EPA once again made the right choice. Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Council, an association of power companies, said if agency determined Clean Air Act could be used to place limits on carbon dioxide, many other sources would have to get permits under the law.

Segal said that if the EPA had made a different interpretation the results would have been catastrophic for the economy and the environment.

Link to article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ifTIO4F-5F4uJL8wnzMbDs3wSzzAD955EPA80

W. T. Pfeffer, J. T. Harper, & S. O'Neel: Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise

Science, 5 September 2008, Vol. 321, No. 5894, pp. 1340-1343 DOI: 10.1126/science.1159099

Reports

Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise

W. T. Pfeffer,^1* J. T. Harper,² and S. O'Neel³

On the basis of climate modeling and analogies with past conditions, the potential for multimeter increases in sea level by the end of the 21st century has been proposed. We consider glaciological conditions required for large sea-level rise to occur by 2100 and conclude that increases in excess of 2 m are physically untenable. We find that a total sea-level rise of about 2 m by 2100 could occur under physically possible glaciological conditions but only if all variables are quickly accelerated to extremely high limits. More plausible but still accelerated conditions lead to total sea-level rise by 2100 of about 0.8 m. These roughly constrained scenarios provide a "most likely" starting point for refinements in sea-level forecasts that include ice flow dynamics.

¹ Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
² Department of Geosciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA.
³ Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: pfeffer@tintin.colorado.edu

Link to abstract: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5894/1340

Arctic Ice Melting at Alarming Pace

by Thomas Omestad – Wed Dec 17, 2:11 pm ET

New studies being released this week indicate that climate change is exerting massive and worrying change on the Arctic region--reducing the volume of ice, releasing methane gas into the atmosphere, and dramatically raising air temperatures in some parts of the Arctic.

The findings will give fresh urgency to international deliberations on the next global climate change pact planned for December 2009 in Copenhagen. The studies also will likely intensify international pressure on the incoming Obama administration to embrace major cuts in the emission of greenhouse gases in an effort to help stabilize global temperatures.

NASA scientists will reveal that more than 2 trillion tons of land ice on Greenland and Alaska, along with in Antarctica, have melted since 2003. Satellite measurements suggest half of the loss has come from Greenland. Melting of land ice slowly raises sea levels.

The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, is also reporting that ice volume in the Arctic this year fell to its lowest recorded level to date.

Experts from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado will further reveal that temperatures this fall in some Arctic areas north of Alaska were 9 or 10 degrees Fahrenheit above average. The long-predicted phenomenon is known as "Arctic amplification." As global air temperatures increase, the Arctic tends to show greater changes because the ice pack that once reflected solar heat is reduced in scope. More heat is therefore absorbed. The study is being discussed at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Says NASA climate scientist H. Jay Zwally, "We may be going through a tipping point [in climate change] right now." He adds, "Once the ice goes away, you're absorbing much more heat." The Arctic, he says, is showing two to three times the overall global rate of temperature increase.

The Arctic, adds Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, plays a key role in global weather. "You're starting to fundamentally change the Arctic refrigerator," he says. "You're fiddling with the dials on that refrigerator--maybe changing weather patterns well beyond the Arctic."

The changes in the Arctic, analysts predict, will launch an unprecedented era of oil and gas exploration, mineral exploitation, shipping, fishing, and tourism--all placing a fragile ecosystem at risk. One result of the new opportunities could begeopolitical competition among the five countries with Arctic Ocean frontage: Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark (through Greenland), and Norway.

The changes are also being documented by visitors to the Arctic. Minnesota polar explorer Will Steger this June encountered high, jagged blocks of ice near Canada's Ellesmere Island that ultimately forced his team to change its plans. The ice blocks were apparently from ice shelves that had broken off.

"We were traveling over the ruins of the Arctic Ocean," Steger said. "Five, 10, 20 years from now, when we see this picture clearly, we won't believe what we've done."

Link to article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20081217/ts_usnews/arcticicemeltingatalarmingpace

Joseph Romm (on Grist): USGS: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely 'substantially exceed' IPCC projections -- Southwest faces permanent drying by 2050

USGS: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely 'substantially exceed' IPCC projections

Southwest faces 'permanent drying' by 2050

Posted on Grist by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 4:35 AM on 18 Dec 2008

A major new report warns that on our current emissions path, we face the severe risk of abrupt climate change impacts. The basic conclusions themselves are nothing new.

But what is stunning is that these warnings come from the United States Geological Survey -- the Bush Administration (!). This new science-based report, Abrupt Climate Change, is thus a sobering book-end to the fantasy-based talking points released by the Administration on how the President has "Taken Constructive Steps To Confront Climate Change."

This is a first-rate report from the USGS's Climate Change Science Program. I highly recommend reading, Chapter 2, "Rapid Changes in Glaciers and Ice Sheets and their Impacts on Sea Level," [PDF] and Chapter 3, "Hydrological Variability and Change" [PDF]. The chapters are much more readable than the IPCC reports, and the two together will make anyone an expert on what are perhaps the two most dangerous climate impacts that threaten this country.

The sea-level rise conclusion, "based on an assessment of the published scientific literature" is:

Recent rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show acceleration of flow and thinning, with the velocity of some glaciers increasing more than twofold. Glacier accelerations causing this imbalance have been related to enhanced surface meltwater production penetrating to the bed to lubricate glacier motion, and to ice-shelf removal, ice-front retreat, and glacier ungrounding that reduce resistance to flow. The present generation of models does not capture these processes. It is unclear whether this imbalance is a short-term natural adjustment or a response to recent climate change, but processes causing accelerations are enabled by warming, so these adjustments will very likely become more frequent in a warmer climate. The regions likely to experience future rapid changes in ice volume are those where ice is grounded well below sea level such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet or large glaciers in Greenland like the Jakobshavn Isbrae that flow into the sea through a deep channel reaching far inland. Inclusion of these processes in models will likely lead to sea-level projections for the end of the 21st century that substantially exceed the projections presented in the IPCC AR4 report (0.28 ± 0.10 m to 0.42 ± 0.16 m rise).

Again, the recent post-IPCC literature has been quite consistent in warning of sea-level rise of one-meter or more by 2100. Beside the 2008 Science study noted above, a Science article from 2007 [PDF] used empirical data from last century to project that sea levels could be up to 5 feet higher in 2100 and rising 6 inches a decade and another 2007 study from Nature Geoscience came to the same conclusion. But now we have the U.S. government acknowledging the inadequacy of the IPCC conclusion.

(Note: The U.K. Guardian's headline "Sea level rise could top 1.5m by 2099, experts warn," is quite a stretch. You won't find that in the study.)

A key drought conclusion is:

The serious hydrological changes and impacts known to have occurred in both historic and prehistoric times over North America reflect large-scale changes in the climate system that can develop in a matter of years and, in the case of the more severe past megadroughts, persist for decades. Such hydrological changes fit the definition of abrupt change because they occur faster than the time scales needed for human and natural systems to adapt, leading to substantial disruptions in those systems. In the Southwest, for example, the models project a permanent drying by the mid-21st century that reaches the level of aridity seen in historical droughts, and a quarter of the projections may reach this level of aridity much earlier.

What else is there to say but "The science is beyond dispute ... Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response"?

Kudos to the USGS and U.S. Climate Change Science Program for this must-read report.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Link to article: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/12/17/113915/50

Julienne Stroeve (US NSIDC): Decreasing Arctic sea ice amplifying temperature changes in the northern polar region

Changes 'amplify Arctic warming'

by Jonathan Amos, Science reporter, BBC News, 17 December 2008



Arctic sea ice. Open water should result in warmer air temperatures in Autumn.

Scientists say they now have unambiguous evidence that the warming in the Arctic is accelerating.

Computer models have long predicted that decreasing sea ice should amplify temperature changes in the northern polar region.

Julienne Stroeve, from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that this process was under way.

Arctic ice cover in summer has seen rapid retreat in recent years.

The minimum extents reached in 2007 and 2008 were the smallest recorded in the satellite age.

"The sea ice is entering a new state where the ice cover has become so thin that no matter what happens during the summer in terms of temperature or circulation patterns, you're still going to have very low ice conditions," she told the meeting.

Autumn return

Theory predicts that as ice is lost in the Arctic, more of the ocean's surface will be exposed to solar radiation and will warm up.

When the autumn comes and the Sun goes down on the Arctic, that warmth should be released back into the atmosphere, delaying the fall in air temperatures.

Ultimately, this feedback process should result in Arctic temperatures rising faster than the global mean.

Dr Stroeve and colleagues have now analysed Arctic autumn (September, October, November) air temperatures for the period 2004-2008 and compared them to the long term average (1979 to 2008).

The results, they believe, are evidence of the predicted amplification effect.

"You see this large warming over the Arctic ocean of around 3C in these last four years compared to the long-term mean," explained Dr Stroeve.

"You see some smaller areas where you have temperature warming of maybe 5C; and this warming is directly located over those areas where we've lost all the ice."

Wider changes

If this process continues, it will extend the melting season for Arctic ice, delaying the onset of winter freezing and weakening further the whole system.

These warming effects are not just restricted to the ocean, Dr Stroeve said. Circulation patterns could then move the warmth over land areas, she added.

"The Arctic is really the air conditioner of the Northern Hemisphere, and as you lose that sea ice you change that air conditioner; and the rest of the system has to respond.

"You start affecting the temperature gradient between the Arctic and equator which affects atmospheric patterns and precipitation patterns.

"Exactly how this is going to play out, we really don't know yet. Our research is in its infancy."

The study reported by Dr Stroeve will be published in the journal Cryosphere shortly.

Sea ice extent (NSIDC). Arctic sea ice is currently being lost even faster than the models predict.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Link to article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7786910.stm

NASA reports 2008 is ninth warmest year since 1880

by Renee Schoof, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Tuesday, December 16, 2008

WASHINGTON — The year 2008 was the ninth warmest year since instrumental temperature measurements began in 1880, and all of the nine warmest years have occurred in the past 11 years, NASA reported on Tuesday.

The new data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and other government agencies on Tuesday adds to the evidence scientists have been observing about a warming Earth as fossil fuel burning emits heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

NASA also reported that the January to November global temperature was 0.76 degrees Fahrenheit above the average for the 20th Century.

NASA also noted that the past year was cooler than any since 2000. Scientists note that global warming is a steady trend, but within it there are natural variations.

The NASA report noted that "Eurasia, the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula were exceptionally warm, while much of the Pacific Ocean was cooler than the long-term average." It said the relatively cooler temperature in the tropical Pacific was due to a La Nina, the cool phase of a natural temperature variation.

Britain's Met Office on Tuesday also said that La Nina was part of the reason 2008 was slightly cooler than earlier years this decade. By Britain's accounting, 2008 was the 10th warmest year on record dating back to 1850, and all 10 of the warmest years occurred since 1997.

"Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years," said Peter Stott of the Met Office in a statement Tuesday.

The Met Office also reported that global temperatures from 2000 to 2008 are nearly 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the average for 1990 to 1999.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday summarized these and other trends, including:

— The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season was the third costliest, after 2005 and 2004.

— The U.S. had nearly 1,700 tornadoes from January through November, which ranks second behind 2004 for the most tornadoes in a year since records began in 1953.

— Arctic sea ice in 2008 reached its second lowest level at the end of the melting season in September, following a record low in 2007. In 2008, the ice shrank to 1.74 million square miles, which was 0.86 million square miles below the average annual minimum from 1979 to 2000.

Sea ice loss is important because ice reflects most of the sun's radiation, but open ocean water absorbs most of it, adding to the warming trend both in the ocean and on land.

Link to article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20081216/sc_mcclatchy/3124855

NASA's Themis satellites detect largest breach in Earth's magnetic field

Scientists find hole in Earth's magnetic field

LOS ANGELES, December 17, 2008 – Recent satellite observations have revealed the largest breach yet seen in the magnetic field that protects Earth from most of the sun's violent blasts, researchers reported Tuesday. The discovery was made last summer by Themis, a fleet of five small NASA satellites.

Scientists have long known that the Earth's magnetic field, which guards against severe space weather, is similar to a drafty old house that sometimes lets in violent eruptions of charged particles from the sun. Such a breach can cause brilliant auroras or disrupt satellite and ground communications.

Observations from Themis show the Earth's magnetic field occasionally develops two cracks, allowing solar wind — a stream of charged particles spewing from the sun at 1 million mph — to penetrate the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Last summer, Themis calculated a layer of solar particles to be at least 4,000 miles thick in the outermost part of the Earth's magnetosphere, the largest tear of the protective shield found so far.

"It was growing rather fast," Themis scientist Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley told an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Such breaches are temporary, and the one observed last year lasted about an hour, Oieroset said.

Solar flares are a potential danger to astronauts in orbit but generally are not a risk to people on the surface of the Earth.

The research was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Scientists initially believed the greatest solar breach occured when the Earth's and sun's magnetic fields are pointed in opposite directions. But data from Themis found the opposite to be true. Twenty times more solar wind passed into the Earth's protective shield when the magnetic fields were aligned, Oieroset said.

The Themis results could have bearing on how scientists predict the severity of solar storms and their effects on power grids, airline and military communications and satellite signals.

The Themis satellites were launched to find the source of brief powerful geomagnetic disturbances in the Earth's atmosphere.

American Geophysical Union: http://www.agu.org

Themis mission: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/main/index.html

Link to article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081217/ap_on_sc/sci_earth_breach

Images of the Sermersuaq (Humboldt) Glacier, Greenland, YRS 2000 and 2008

Sermersuaq (Humboldt) Glacier, Greenland

Posted December 16, 2008

download large image (1 MB, JPEG) acquired August 30, 2008

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/0/412/aral_amo_2008229_250m_geo.tif 79.624056291888 -65.0390625

download large image (2 MB, JPEG) acquired August 31, 2000

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/0/412/aral_amo_2008229_250m_geo.tif 79.624056291888 -65.0390625

Stretching about 90 kilometers across Kane Bassin in the Nares Strait, northwestern Greenland’s Sermersuaq Glacier, also called Humboldt Glacier, is the Northern Hemisphere’s widest tidewater glacier—a glacier that begins on land, but terminates in water. The Sermersuaq is a major source of icebergs in the strait, which connects the Lincoln Sea in the north to Baffin Bay in the south.

This pair of images shows the retreat of the Sermersuaq Glacier between 2000 and 2008. In these natural-color images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the approximate terminus of the glacier on August 31, 2000 (bottom image), is traced with a yellow line on an image from August 30, 2008 (top). Although the southern part of the terminus showed little change during the period, significant retreat is visible in the northern part, where a fast-flowing ice stream is located. In both images, the deep blue waters of Kane Bassin are littered with ice, which may include icebergs and sea ice.

Having a “toe” in the water adds complexity to the natural cycle of advance and retreat that a glacier experiences in response to climate changes. The behavior of tidewater glaciers is affected not only by melting and snowfall on land, but also by the shape of the fjord or coastline where the glacier enters the water, the depth of the water, tides, and the thickness of the moraine (a shoal of sediment and rock) that builds up underwater at the tip of the glacier.

Even in the absence of human-caused climate change, tidewater glaciers naturally experience century-long cycles that include phases of rapid retreat. After decades of slow advance, the terminus of the glacier eventually becomes grounded on its own moraine. The shoal can become so thick that it stops icebergs from calving for extended spans of time. The support of the shoal allows the glacier to grow larger than it could if it were free-floating.

A small amount of thinning or retreat at the terminus can trigger a rapid retreat once the glacier—too large to float—is ungrounded from the shoal. The initial thinning or retreat of a tidewater glacier may result from a warming climate, but the extremely rapid retreat thereafter has as much to do with topography and the laws of physics as it does with the current climate.

• Links

• Humboldt Glacier Retreats
• Tidewater Glacier Cycle on Wikipedia
• Glaciers, Climate Change, and Sea Level Rise

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained from the Goddard Level 1 and Atmospheric Archive and Distribution System (LAADS). Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

Instrument:

Terra - MODIS

Date Acquired:

August 30, 2008

Link to article: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36173

OSTM/Jason-2 is extending the climate data record by providing a long-term survey of Earth's ocean

Alan Buis 818-354-0474
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole 202-358-0918
NASA Headquarters, Washington
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

News release: 2008-238 Dec. 16, 2008

New Oceanography Mission Data Now Available

PASADENA, Calif. -- Oceanography data that will help scientists around the world better understand climate change are now available. The data come from the Ocean Surface Topography Mission, also known as OSTM/Jason-2, a spacecraft developed jointly by NASA and the French space agency.

Launched June 20, 2008, the mission's first validated data products in support of improved weather, climate and ocean forecasts are now being distributed to the public within a few hours of observation. Beginning in 2009, other data products for climate research will be available a few days to a few weeks after observations are taken by the satellite.

The satellite is monitoring 95% of the world's ice-free oceans every 10 days from its low Earth orbit. Like its predecessor satellites, Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1, OSTM/Jason-2 is extending the climate data record by providing a long-term survey of Earth's ocean. It tracks ocean circulation patterns and measures sea-surface height and the rate of sea-level rise, which are critical factors in understanding climate change.

The mission is a joint effort among NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). An international science team of more than 200 investigators will use data obtained from the satellite's instruments to study the world's ocean and its effect on our society.

"The joint development by NASA and CNES during the past 20 years of an effective technique for measuring sea level from space is a tremendous success story for both agencies and the international science community," said Lee-Lueng Fu, OSTM/Jason-2 project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "With the successful transition of this important measurement to our partners, NOAA and EUMETSAT, a new era has dawned in humankind's long-term monitoring of this vital barometer of our changing climate."

"Sea level is rising at a rate of 0.13 inches per year, nearly twice as fast as the previous 100 years," said Laury Miller, chief of NOAA's Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry in Silver Spring, Md. "If this rate continues unchanged during the coming decades, it will have a huge impact on erosion and flooding in coastal regions. We need the OSTM/Jason-2 data to help us monitor what is happening."

Throughout the mission, CNES will continue to monitor and evaluate the spacecraft and instruments it provided. The French space agency also will process, distribute and archive the research-quality data products that will become available next year. EUMETSAT will process and distribute operational data received by its ground station to users in Europe and will archive the data. NOAA will process and distribute operational data received by its ground stations to non-European users and archive that data along with the CNES data products.

NOAA will operate the satellite. NASA will evaluate the performance of its instruments: the advanced microwave radiometer, the Global Positioning System payload, and the laser retroreflector assembly. In addition, NASA and CNES will validate scientific data products.

CNES provided the OSTM/Jason 2 spacecraft, and NASA and CNES jointly provided the primary payload instruments. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

To learn more about the ocean monitoring mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ostm

Jason Box: 2008 Greenland ice loss triple what it was just one year ago

"Greenland ice sheet outlet glacier front changes: comparison of year 2008 with past years" will be presented at 8:00 a.m. PT (11:00 a.m. ET) Monday, December 15, 2008, at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco (Poster session C11D-0538, MC Hall D).

Newswise — Researchers watching the loss of ice flowing out from the giant island of Greenland say that the amount of ice lost this summer is nearly three times what was lost one year ago.

The loss of floating ice in 2008 pouring from Greenland’s glaciers would cover an area twice the size of Manhattan Island in the U.S., they said.

Jason Box, an associate professor of geography at Ohio State, said that the loss of ice since the year 2000 is 355.4 square miles (920.5 square kilometers), or more than 10 times the size of Manhattan.

“We now know that the climate doesn’t have to warm any more for Greenland to continue losing ice,” Box said. “It has probably passed the point where it could maintain the mass of ice that we remember.

“But that doesn’t mean that Greenland’s ice will all disappear. It’s likely that it will probably adjust to a new ‘equilibrium’ but before it reaches the equilibrium, it will shed a lot more ice.

“Greenland is deglaciating and actually has been doing so for most of the past half-century.”

Box, a researcher with Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, along with graduate students Russell Benson and David Decker, presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

The research team has been monitoring satellite images of Greenland to gauge just how much ice flows from landlocked glaciers towards the ocean to form floating ice shelves. Eventually, large pieces of these ice shelves will break off into the sea, speeding up the flow of more glacial ice to add to the shelves.

Warming of the climate around Greenland is believed to have added to the increased flow of ice outward from the mainland via these huge glaciers.

Using daily images from instruments called MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) aboard two of NASA’s satellites, Box and his team are able to monitor changes in 32 of the largest glaciers along Greenland’s coast.

They determined that during the summer of 2006-2007, the floating ice shelves at the seaward end of those glaciers had diminished by 24.29 square miles (62.9 square kilometers). But one year later -- the summer of 2007-2008 – the ice loss had nearly tripled to nearly 71 square miles (183.8 square kilometers). Much of this additional loss is from a single large floating ice tongue called the Petermann Glacier.

Late this summer, the Ohio State researchers were able to watch as a massive 11-sq. mile (29-sq. km) chunk broke off from the tongue of the massive Petermann Glacier in Northern Greenland. At the time, they also noted that a massive crack further up the ice shelf suggested an even larger piece of ice would soon crack off.

Box said that some findings may have confused the public’s views of what is happening around Greenland. “For example, we know that snowfall rates have increased recently in this region,” he said, “but that hasn’t been enough to compensate for the increased melt rate of the ice that we’re seeing now.”

Their research is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Link to article: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/547420/

MODIS studies of Greenland's ice sheet (2000-2008)

Floating ice area loss is 10 times the area of Manhattan Is. (2000-2008)

Our survey of 32 of the largest Greenland tidewater glaciers indicates a continuous collective retreat end of summer 2000 onward to 2008.

A best-fit line indicates a -106.4 sq. km/yr area change around Greenland. The linear correlation coefficient is -0.98.

The cumulative area change from end of summer 2000 to 2008 is -920.5 sq km, an area loss equivalent with 10.5 times the area of Manhattan Is., New York.

The number of glaciers surveyed is increasing as graduate student David Decker continues to work.

The 32-glacier total for end of summer area change 2007-2008 was -183.8 sq km, 3 x that of the previous summer (2006-2007 area change was -62.9 sq km.). In other words, between 2007 and 2008, glaciers around Greenland lost an area more than two times the size of Manhattan Island.

* Manhattan Is. area is taken to be 87.5 sq km.

Link: http://bprc.osu.edu/MODIS/?p=47%20and%20http://bprc.osu.edu/MODIS/?p=38

NASA's SABER Reveals the Upper Atmosphere’s “Breathing” Pattern, In Rhythm With the Sun

SABER Reveals the Upper Atmosphere’s “Breathing” Pattern, In Rhythm With the Sun

December 15, 2008

A coronal hole, the dark spot beginning just below the sun's center and extending to the right, is shown opening up in this image by NASA satellite STEREO. The NASA satellite SABER has detected a periodic "breathing" response in the Earth's upper atmosphere in response to never-before-observed, regular coronal hole openings on the sun's surface. The coronal holes release high-powered solar winds that disturb the upper atmosphere of Earth and force it to emit energy to maintain the earth's radiation budget. (Image credit: NASA/STEREO.)

San Francisco – A NASA satellite has observed for the first time a “breathing” – an expansion and contraction – of the Earth’s upper atmosphere in response to periodic, high-speed solar winds.

Jeff Thayer, of the University of Colorado, Geoff Crowley, of Atmospheric and Space Technology Research Associates, and Marty Mlynczak, of NASA Langley Research Center, will present their findings on Monday, Dec. 15, at 2 p.m., at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. The instrument, SABER, which stands for Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry, was developed at NASA Langley.

SABER has revealed solar flare-ups – and a rapid Earth cooling response – on a nearly regular, 9-day schedule. The cause appears to be coronal holes, which project strong solar winds, positioned 120 degrees apart on the sun’s surface. As the sun rotates every 27 days, these solar winds typically hit Earth every 9 days. The high-speed winds sometimes appear with a 7-day periodicity, indicating that a fourth hole opens up.

Sunspots unleash solar flares that create a ripple effect well beyond Earth. But when that energy flow does reach Earth, the atmosphere reciprocates by ejecting radiation as a cooling effect to maintain the planet’s energy balance. That cooling response creates the expansion and contraction of the upper atmosphere.

“No one’s ever seen this type of data because it’s never been measured,” said Mlynczak, SABER’s associate principal investigator.

The findings open the possibility of improving predictions of satellite drag (which are important for tracking low-earth-orbit spacecraft) and of the ionospheric electron concentration, which affects radio communications and GPS signals. The periodic nature of the solar disturbances may also influence the climate and climate change of the upper atmosphere.

“It seems these periodicities have appeared in this last solar cycle, not necessarily in the previous two cycles,” said Janet Kozyra, George Carignan research professor at the University of Michigan, who has worked with SABER data. “This was never reported in past solar cycles.”

Kozyra said learning about a regular feature of a climate system advances knowledge.

“When you have a periodic behavior in a chaotic system, it helps you to predict,” she said. “We learn a lot about how the whole system functions.”

Through the end of September 2008, the sun was “spotless” on 200 days of the year. Not a single sunspot flared up on those days. The Earth’s reaction to this period has been dramatic and directly observed for the first time. In addition to observing the nearly clockwork response to coronal holes opening up on the sun’s surface, SABER has also observed the Earth’s upper atmosphere’s muted response to the sun’s lull – one of its quietest periods in half a century.

SABER, operating since 2002, has been approved for four more years of operation, which should allow for a critical 11-year data set. That would cover the radiative activity of Earth’s upper atmosphere for the entirety of an 11-year solar cycle.

In addition to the “breathing,” the atmosphere’s response to the sun’s sometimes furious, sometimes quiet activity has surprised Mlynczak in a number of ways.

In the quiet solar year of 2008, for instance, the upper atmosphere’s ultraviolet radiation emissions dipped to levels 10 times lower than when SABER’s observations began in 2002. At the same time, SABER detected far more short-term changes in solar activity than previously thought.

“It looks noisy,” Mlynczak said. “But it’s not statistical noise, it’s not instrument noise. It’s geophysical noise.”

SABER also spots massive spikes in energy flow that rise and then dissipate quickly. The atmosphere, it turns out, can dump radiation into space extremely efficiently in response to a burst of solar activity and maintain Earth’s radiation budget.

Kozyra has been fascinated by the role the sun continues to play in Earth’s upper atmosphere even during one of the quietest solar periods in centuries. She expected that this solar minimum would allow for study of how the troposphere influences the rest of the upper atmosphere without solar interference.

“What we actually found was that it didn’t happen. We were seeing the atmosphere was being very strongly driven by the sun,” Kozyra said. “That’s very surprising. We’re learning more about what space weather looks like, and it wasn’t what we thought.”

Questions follow these discoveries. Do the short-term fluctuations need to be programmed into climate-prediction models? Mlynczak isn’t sure yet. Getting it right will be important to the continued refinement of climate prediction.

“What’s the response of the upper atmosphere to global change?” Mlynczak said. Climate change is causing a cooling effect in the upper atmosphere, compared to the warming trend with surface temperature. “We need to make sure we’ve got the predictions of global cooling of the upper atmosphere correct.”

Patrick Lynch, NASA's Langley Research Center

Link to article: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-SABER.html

NASA's Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) instrument suite documents contraction of boundary between Earth’s ionosphere and space

Space Has Never Been Closer: NASA Instruments Document Contraction of the Boundary between the Earth’s Ionosphere and Space

December 15, 2008

Observations made by NASA instruments onboard an Air Force satellite have shown that the boundary between the Earth’s upper atmosphere and space has moved to extraordinarily low altitudes. These observations were made by the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) instrument suite, which was launched aboard the U.S. Air Force’s Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite on April 16, 2008.

> Click to view animation

The C/NOFS mission gives scientists a new tool for forecasting space weather. The CINDI instrument aboard C/NOFS specifically studies the major elements that influence space weather near the Earth's equator. (Credit: NASA The CINDI suite, which was built under the direction Principal Investigator Rod Heelis of the University of Texas at Dallas, includes both ion and neutral sensors and makes measurements of the variations in neutral and ion densities and drifts.)

CINDI and C/NOFS were designed to study disturbances in Earth’s ionosphere that can result in a disruption of navigation and communication signals. The ionosphere is a gaseous envelope of electrically charged particles that surrounds our planet and it is important because Radar, radio waves, and global positioning system signals can be disrupted by ionospheric disturbances.

CINDI’s first discovery was, however, that the ionosphere was not where it had been expected to be. During the first months of CINDI operations the transition between the ionosphere and space was found to be at about 260 miles (420 km) altitude during the nighttime, barely rising above 500 miles (800 km) during the day. These altitudes were extraordinarily low compared with the more typical values of 400 miles (640 km) during the nighttime and 600 miles (960 km) during the day.

The height of the ionosphere/space transition is controlled in part by the amount of extreme ultraviolet energy emitted by the Sun and a somewhat contracted ionosphere could have been expected because C/NOFS was launched during a minimum in the 11-year cycle of solar activity. However, the size of the actual contraction caught investigators by surprise. In fact, when they looked back over records of solar activity, they found that C/NOFS had been launched during the quietest solar minimum since the space age began.

> Click to view animation

CINDI has discovered that currently, the ionosphere occupies less vertical height than expected. The researchers¹ findings show a link between the extent of the ionosphere and solar activity levels observed at solar minimum. This animation shows how the ionosphere changes between daytime and nighttime. During the day ions build up in the ionosphere and then disappear at night. (Credit: NASA This extraordinary circumstance is providing an unparalleled opportunity to study the connection between the interior dynamics of the Sun and the response of the Earth’s space environment.)

CINDI is a NASA sponsored Mission of Opportunity conducted by the University of Texas at Dallas. NASA’s Explorer Program at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., managed the CINDI mission. The Explorer Program provides frequent flight opportunities for world-class scientific investigations from space within heliophysics and astrophysics.

The CINDI investigation is carried out as an enhancement to the science objectives of the C/NOFS satellite undertaken by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Space and Missile Command Test and Evaluation Directorate.

Related Links:

> NASA’s CINDI Web site
> University of Texas at Dallas, CINDI Web site
> Air Force Research Laboratory Web site

Rani C. Gran and Laura Layton
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(301) 286-2483/8170
rani.c.gran@nasa.gov; laura.a.layton@nasa.gov

Link to above article: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/outer_atmosphere.html

Hironori Fudeyasu et al., Global cloud-system-resolving model NICAM successfully simulated the lifecycles of two real tropical cyclones

Global cloud-system-resolving model NICAM successfully simulated the lifecycles of two real tropical cyclones

Global cloud-system-resolving model NICAM successfully simulated the lifecycles of two real tropical cyclones

Hironori Fudeyasu and Yuqing Wang (International Pacific Research Center, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.), Masaki Satoh (Center for Climate System Research, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, JapanFrontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan), Tomoe Nasuno and Hiroaki Miura (Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan), and Wataru Yanase (Center for Climate System Research, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan)

The increasing capability of high-end computers allows numerical simulations with horizontal resolutions high enough to resolve cloud systems in a global model. In this paper, initial results from the global Nonhydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) are highlighted to demonstrate the beginning of a potentially new era for weather and climate predictions with global cloud-system-resolving models. The NICAM simulation with a horizontal resolution of about 7 km successfully reproduced the lifecycles of two real tropical cyclones that formed in Indian Ocean in the austral summer 2006. Initialized with the atmospheric conditions 1-2 weeks before the cyclones genesis, the model captured reasonably not only the timing of the observed cyclone geneses but also their motions and mesoscale structures. The model provides a high temporal/spatial resolution dataset for detailed studies of mesoscale aspects of tropical cyclone genesis. These promising results suggest the predictability of tropical cyclones by high-resolution global cloud-system-resolving models.

(Received 12 September 2008; accepted 17 October 2008; published 25 November 2008.)

Citation: Fudeyasu, H., Y. Wang, M. Satoh, T. Nasuno, H. Miura, & W. Yanase (2008), Global cloud-system-resolving model NICAM successfully simulated the lifecycles of two real tropical cyclones, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L22808; doi:10.1029/2008GL036003.

Link to abstract: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL036003.shtml

Global model reproduces behavior of two real cyclones

Atmospheric models that resolve clouds have greatly contributed to understanding local and regional climate; excessive computational needs have in the past allowed these models to be run only over limited areas. The increasing capability of high-end computers now allows numerical simulations with horizontal resolutions high enough to resolve cloud systems in a global model. Fudeyasu et al. analyze initial results from the global Nonhydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM), developed by Japanese scientists. In their study, NICAM simulation successfully reproduces the life cycles of two real tropical cyclones that formed in the Indian Ocean in 2006's austral summer. Initialized with atmospheric conditions that were present a few weeks before the cyclones formed, the model captures the timing of formation, motions, and overall evolution of the observed cyclones. The successful simulation is attributed to the realistic representation of the large-scale circulation and the embedded convective vortices. Thus, NICAM provides high temporal and spatial resolution data sets for detailed studies of tropical cyclone genesis and evolution, potentially ushering in a new era for weather and climate predictions.