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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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Species Collapse:(6)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ carbon emissions  ~ holyshit  ~ ocean acidification  ~ smart policy  ~ faster than expected  ~ massive die-off  ~ technical cleverness  ~ contamination  ~ ocean warming  



ApocaDocuments (9) matching "global warming" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "global warming"]
Sun, Mar 15, 2009
from London Times:
Artificial trees and brightened clouds may help to cool us down
THE threat of devastating climate change is now so great that some scientists say it is time to investigate a Plan B - geo-engineering on a planetary scale. Such methods of altering the world’s climate may become necessary, they say, unless emissions of greenhouse gases fall within five years. Ideas that were once the realm of science fiction - such as creating artificial trees to absorb carbon dioxide, or reflecting sunlight away from the Earth - are coming under serious scrutiny as temperatures and CO2 emissions continue to rise. The issue has become so pressing that the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, is preparing a report on the feasibility of geo-engineering.... One method under detailed analysis is to make clouds brighter – especially in the Pacific where the ocean temperature has great influence on world climate.... Professor Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University is investigating how ships could spray droplets of sea water into the atmosphere where they would evaporate, leaving tiny salt crystals to rise on air currents into the clouds. The crystals would act as “nuclei” around which water vapour could condense and thus increase the reflective power of the clouds, bouncing more of the sun’s energy back into space. ...


I've looked at clouds from both sides now...

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Sun, Mar 15, 2009
from Climate Wire:
Scientists are grim, economists more optimistic about climate change's effects
COPENHAGEN -- Scientists are gloomy; economists are more upbeat. Such was the bottom line of an epic, three-day international congress of climate change experts that ended here yesterday. At the congress, it seemed that all the scientists had to share with their peers was bad news, but a number of economists saw the climate crisis rather as an historic opportunity to reorganize the world economy and develop new, clean and job-creating activities. At the opening of yesterday's session, Lord Nicholas Stern, former chief economist for the World Bank, added his own dose of gloom by saying that his now-famous report on the risks of global warming, written for the British government in 2006, had underestimated them. "The reason is that emissions are growing faster than we thought, the absorption capacity of the planet is less than we thought, the probability of high temperatures is likely higher than we thought, and some of the effects are coming faster than we thought," he explained. ...


Good Lord!

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Sat, Mar 14, 2009
from New York Times:
Scientist: Warming Could Cut Population to 1 Billion
COPENHAGEN — A scientist known for his aggressive stance on climate policy made an apocalyptic prediction on Thursday. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said that if the buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences pushed global temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today — well below the upper temperature range that scientists project could occur from global warming — Earth’s population would be devastated...“In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people,” said Dr. Schellnhuber... ...


Maybe we should just draw straws now and get it over with.

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Fri, Mar 13, 2009
from London Guardian:
Severe global warming will render half of world's inhabited areas unliveable, expert warns
Severe global warming could make half the world's inhabited areas literally too hot to live in, a US scientist warned today. Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating - rendering such areas effectively uninhabitable. Steven Sherwood, a climate expert at Yale University, told a global warming conference in Copenhagen that people will not be able to adapt to a much warmer climate as well as previously thought. The physiological limits of the human body will begin to render places impossible to support human life if the average global temperature rises by 7C on pre-industrial levels, he said. "There will be some places on Earth where it would simply be impossible to lose heat," Sherwood said. ...


Clearly this guy hasn't seen me sweat!

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Thu, Mar 12, 2009
from MIT, via EurekAlert:
New greenhouse gas identified
A gas used for fumigation has the potential to contribute significantly to future greenhouse warming, but because its production has not yet reached high levels there is still time to nip this potential contributor in the bud, according to an international team of researchers. Scientists at MIT, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and other institutions are reporting the results of their study of the gas, sulfuryl fluoride, this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The researchers have measured the levels of the gas in the atmosphere, and determined its emissions and lifetime to help gauge its potential future effects on climate.... Its newly reported 36-year lifetime, along with studies of its infrared-absorbing properties by researchers at NOAA, "indicate that, ton for ton, it is about 4,800 times more potent a heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide" says Prinn. ...


I wonder if this one has any deniers yet.

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Wed, Mar 11, 2009
from New Scientist:
Sea level rise could bust IPCC estimate
that's the first big message to come from the climate change congress that kicked off in Copenhagen, Denmark, today. Researchers, including John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, presented evidence that Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice fast, contributing to the annual sea-level rise. Recent data shows that waters have been rising by 3 millimetres a year since 1993. ... By 2100, sea levels could be 1 metre or more above current levels, he says. And it looks increasingly unlikely that the rise will be much less than 50 centimetres. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast a rise of 18 cm to 59 cm by 2100. But the numbers came with a heavy caveat that often went unnoticed by the popular press.... Church says even 50 cm would have a huge effect on flooding events. "Our study on Australia showed that coastal flooding events that today we expect only once every 100 years will happen several times a year by 2100," he says. ...


Do you mean that my coastal condo won't retain its value?!

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Tue, Mar 10, 2009
from Reuters:
Climate change accelerates water hunt in U.S. West
t's hard to visualize a water crisis while driving the lush boulevards of Los Angeles, golfing Arizona's green fairways or watching dancing Las Vegas fountains leap more than 20 stories high. So look Down Under. A decade into its worst drought in a hundred years Australia is a lesson of what the American West could become. Bush fires are killing people and obliterating towns. Rice exports collapsed last year and the wheat crop was halved two years running. Water rationing is part of daily life. "Think of that as California's future," said Heather Cooley of California water think tank the Pacific Institute. ...


Maybe there ought to be water in that tank instead of thoughts!

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Mon, Mar 9, 2009
from New York Times:
Skeptics Dispute Climate Worries and Each Other
More than 600 self-professed climate skeptics are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus: that without big changes in energy choices, humans will dangerously heat up the planet.... Organizers say the discussions, which began Sunday, are intended to counter the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers, who have vowed to tackle global warming with legislation requiring cuts in the greenhouse gases that scientists have linked to rising temperatures. But two years after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with near certainty that most of the recent warming was a result of human influences, global warming�s skeptics are showing signs of internal rifts and weakening support. ...


This conference is brought to you by those fine folks at The Flat Earth Society.

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Mon, Mar 9, 2009
from Der Spiegel:
China's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Threaten to Double
...China is already the world's fourth-largest economy. It will continue to expand at a steady pace even though the financial crisis has somewhat tempered its previously booming growth. There will be more city and road construction, infrastructure and transportation projects, as well as expanding industrial production. China opened 47 new airports between 1990 and 2002, and its highway network grew by 800,000 kilometers (500,000 miles) from 1981 to 2002. By 2030, China's population is expected to have grown from 1.3 to 1.5 billion people. More and more urban households will adopt a Western lifestyle by then, complete with air-conditioning, refrigerators, television sets, computers and other appliances. ...


It's starting to feel like the earth's tectonic plates are made of china.

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