ApocaDocuments (10) for the "Climate Chaos" scenario from this week
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Sun, Aug 23, 2009
from Kansas City Star:
Advocates of geoengineering work on man-made fixes for global warming
The same way technology got the planet into this climate-change mess, more than a few scientists figure modern know-how can get us out.
Crank up plankton growth. Blanket deserts in reflective plastic. Pump greenhouse gases into rock formations. Make clouds shinier. Build volcanoes.
These ideas -- called geoengineering -- are not just the stuff of fantasists.... Mainstream scientists -- many of the same people who are convinced that mankind accidentally and dangerously cranked up Earth's temperatures -- think man should at least contemplate his power to deliberately control the climate. ...
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We need a peaceful, charismatic world leader in charge of this!
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Fri, Aug 21, 2009
from Associated Press:
In hot water: World sets ocean temperature record
...It's not just the ocean off the Northeast coast that is super-warm this summer. July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of record-keeping. The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. That was 1.1 degree higher than the 20th century average, and beat the previous high set in 1998 by a couple hundredths of a degree. The coolest recorded ocean temperature was 59.3 degrees in December 1909.
Meteorologists said there's a combination of forces at work this year: A natural El Nino system just getting started on top of worsening man-made global warming, and a dash of random weather variations. The resulting ocean heat is already harming threatened coral reefs. It could also hasten the melting of Arctic sea ice and help hurricanes strengthen. ...
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If the water is warming, where will we cool off?
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Fri, Aug 21, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
Nile Delta: 'We are going underwater. The sea will conquer our lands'
Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared Egypt's Nile Delta to be among the top three areas on the planet most vulnerable to a rise in sea levels, and even the most optimistic predictions of global temperature increase will still displace millions of Egyptians from one of the most densely populated regions on earth.
The Delta spills out from the northern stretches of the capital into 10,000 square miles of farmland fed by the Nile's branches. It is home to two-thirds of the country's rapidly growing population, and responsible for more than 60 percent of its food supply: Egypt relies unconditionally on it for survival. But with its 270km of coastline lying at a dangerously low elevation (large parts are between zero and 1m above sea level, with some areas lying below it), any melting of the polar ice caps could see its farmland and cities -- including the historical port of Alexandria -- transformed into an ocean floor. A 1m rise in the sea level, which many experts think likely within the next 100 years, will cause 20 percent of the Delta to go underwater. ...
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Denial is a river delta in Egypt, baby!
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Wed, Aug 19, 2009
from Climate Wire:
How the World Bank Let 'Deal Making' Torch the Rainforests
The World Bank ignored its own environmental and social protection standards when it approved nearly $200 million in loan guarantees for palm oil production in Indonesia, a stinging internal audit has found. The report, detailing five years of funding from the International Finance Corp. (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank, lambastes the agency for allowing commercial pressures to influence four separate loans aimed at developing the industry.
"The IFC was aware for more than 20 years that there were significant environmental and social issues and risks inherent in the oil palm sector in Indonesia," auditors wrote. "Despite awareness of the significant issues facing it, IFC did not develop a strategy for engaging in the oil palm sector. In the absence of a tailored strategy, deal making prevailed." ...
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It's a small-minded world bank after all.
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Wed, Aug 19, 2009
from New York Times:
Oil Industry Backs Protests of Emissions Bill
Hard on the heels of the health care protests, another citizen movement seems to have sprung up, this one to oppose Washington’s attempts to tackle climate change. But behind the scenes, an industry with much at stake — Big Oil — is pulling the strings. The event on Tuesday was organized by a group called Energy Citizens, which is backed by the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s main trade group. Many of the people attending the demonstration were employees of oil companies who work in Houston and were bused from their workplaces. ...
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Fieldtrip!
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Wed, Aug 19, 2009
from COP15:
Warming in Tibet threatens all Asia
Temperatures in the Tibetan highland are increasing far more rapidly than the global average, causing concern over Asian water supplies. Feedback may be present, leading to an acceleration of global warming.... Several major Asian rivers, including the Yangtze, begin in the Himalayas. A population of 2.7 billion depends on water supplies that originate in the mountain region.
Average temperatures in Tibet rose by 0.32 degrees C every 10 years between 1961 and 2008. This is significantly more than the rise in global mean temperature. In July this year the measured average temperature in Tibet was the highest since 1951, CMA has found. During the same month, between 30 and 80 percent less rain than normal fell in various Tibetan districts. ...
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And I thought the Yangtze just played against the Red Sox!
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Mon, Aug 17, 2009
from Chemical & Engineering News:
Kindling For Climate Change
The word "Arctic" tends to conjure images of glaciers, polar bears, icy waters, and frozen tundra. And indeed, all of those are common features of Alaska's North Slope. But as climate change alters the atmosphere and landscape in the Arctic, another image might need to be added to that list: fire... But as the temperature in the Arctic has risen, the number of lightning strikes has increased 20-fold. Because the area is so cold and wet, a strike generally has trouble causing much trouble. In July 2007, lightning hit an area north of camp, near the Anaktuvuk River, starting a fire that smoldered for several ...
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Lightning in the Arctic? That's surely one of the signs of the Apocalypse!
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Mon, Aug 17, 2009
from New Scientist:
As Arctic Ocean warms, megatonnes of methane bubble up
It's been predicted for years, and now it's happening. Deep in the Arctic Ocean, water warmed by climate change is forcing the release of methane from beneath the sea floor.
Over 250 plumes of gas have been discovered bubbling up from the sea floor to the west of the Svalbard archipelago, which lies north of Norway. The bubbles are mostly methane, which is a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide.... "Hydrates are stable only within a particular range of temperatures," says Minshull. "So if the ocean warms, some of the hydrates will break down and release their methane."... Just because it fails to reach the surface doesn't mean the methane is harmless, though, as some of it gets converted to carbon dioxide. The CO2 then dissolves in seawater and makes the oceans more acidic. ...
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The worst-case scenario regarding really rapid greenhouse effects...? We may have to revise it.
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Mon, Aug 17, 2009
from IRIN News (UN):
Somalia: Drought fuelling rural exodus in Somaliland
"We know that hundreds of thousands have [been] displaced to urban centres," said Abdihakim Garaad Mohamoud, Deputy Minister at the Somaliland Ministry of Resettlement, Reintegration and Rehabilitation.
"Every city in Somaliland has a huge number of displaced people because of the recent drought," he added. "It has affected 60 percent of the rural population, whether they are pastoralists or agro-pastoralists. From east to west, south to north, every place in Somaliland has been affected."
"Sixty percent of animals have been lost. One [man] who had 200 sheep has lost 110-120, and one who had 20 camels lost half."
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I'll think about that while I drive to the grocery store to pick up some AquaFina!
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Mon, Aug 17, 2009
from University of Virginia, via EurekAlert:
Agricultural methods of early civilizations may have altered global climate, study suggests
Massive burning of forests for agriculture thousands of years ago may have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide enough to alter global climate and usher in a warming trend that continues today, according to a new study that appears online Aug. 17 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.... He said that early populations likely used a land-clearing method that involved burning forests, then planting crop seed among the dead stumps in the enriched soil. They would use a large plot until the yield began to decline, and then would burn off another area of forest for planting.
They would continue this form of rotation farming, ever expanding the cleared areas as their populations grew. They possibly cleared five or more times more land than they actually farmed at any given time.... Humans continue to add excessive levels of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, contributing to a global warming trend, Ruddiman said. ...
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At least now we can blame our progenitors instead of ourselves!
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