ApocaDocuments (13) for the "Climate Chaos" scenario from this week
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Sun, Aug 30, 2009
from London Times:
Man-made volcanoes may cool Earth
THE Royal Society is backing research into simulated volcanic eruptions, spraying millions of tons of dust into the air, in an attempt to stave off climate change.
The society will this week call for a global programme of studies into geo-engineering -- the manipulation of the Earth's climate to counteract global warming -- as the world struggles to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
It will suggest in a report that pouring sulphur-based particles into the upper atmosphere could be one of the few options available to humanity to keep the world cool. ...
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Say YES to volcaNOes!
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Sun, Aug 30, 2009
from Agence France-Presse:
Melting glaciers threaten 'Nepal tsunami'
...Scientists say the Imja Glacier above Dengboche is retreating by about 70 metres (230 feet) a year, and the melting ice has formed a huge lake that could devastate villages downstream if it bursts.
The trend is not new. Nepal's International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), which has studied the Himalayas for three decades, says many of the country's glaciers have been retreating for centuries.
But ICIMOD glaciologist Samjwal Ratna Bajracharya said this was now happening at an alarming speed, with temperatures in the Himalayas rising at a much faster rate than the global average. ...
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Something tells me: not even duct tape can fix this...
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Sun, Aug 30, 2009
from Los Angeles Times:
10,000 homes are threatened
The unstoppable Angeles National Forest fire threatened 10,000 homes Saturday night as it more than tripled in size and chewed through a rapidly widening swath of the Crescenta Valley, where flames closed in on backyards and at least 1,000 homes were ordered evacuated.
Sending an ominous plume of smoke above the Los Angeles Basin, the fire was fueled by unrelenting hot weather and dense brush that has not burned in 60 years.
It took off Saturday afternoon in all directions, forcing residents out of homes from Big Tujunga Canyon to Pasadena, and reached toward Mt. Wilson. ...
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Hollywood is made of wood!
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Sat, Aug 29, 2009
from Chronicle Herald (Canada):
Bugs, fire twin threat in a warming world
"As far as the eye can see, it's all infested," forester Rob Legare said, looking out over the thick woods of the Alsek River valley.
Beetles and fire, twin plagues, are consuming northern forests in what scientists say is a preview of the future, in a century growing warmer, as the land grows drier, trees grow weaker and pests, abetted by milder winters, grow stronger.
Dying, burning forests would then only add to the warming.... While average temperatures globally rose 0.74 degrees Celsius in the past century, the far north experienced warming at twice that rate or greater. And "eight of the last 10 summers have been extreme wildfire seasons in Siberia," American researcher Amber Soja pointed out by telephone from central Siberia.... American forest ecologist Scott Green worries about a "domino effect."... Flannigan worries, too, that future fires smouldering through the carbon-heavy peatlands that undergird much of the boreal region would pour unparalleled amounts of carbon dioxide, the main global-warming gas, into the skies, feeding an unstoppable cycle.
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"What are you, a doomer?"
"Nope, just thinking it through."
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Fri, Aug 28, 2009
from Environmental Research Web:
Scientists uncover solar cycle, stratosphere and ocean connections
Subtle connections between the 11-year solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe, according to research appearing this week in the journal Science. The study can help scientists get an edge on eventually predicting the intensity of certain climate phenomena, such as the Indian monsoon and tropical Pacific rainfall, years in advance.... [I]f the total energy that reaches Earth from the Sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the approximately 11-year solar cycle, how can such a small variation drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth? ... The team first confirmed a theory that the slight increase in solar energy during the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone. The energy warms the air in the stratosphere over the tropics, where sunlight is most intense, while also stimulating the production of additional ozone there that absorbs even more solar energy. Since the stratosphere warms unevenly, with the most pronounced warming occurring at lower latitudes, stratospheric winds are altered and, through a chain of interconnected processes, end up strengthening tropical precipitation.
At the same time, the increased sunlight at solar maximum causes a slight warming of ocean surface waters across the subtropical Pacific, where Sun-blocking clouds are normally scarce. That small amount of extra heat leads to more evaporation, producing additional water vapor. In turn, the moisture is carried by trade winds to the normally rainy areas of the western tropical Pacific, fueling heavier rains and reinforcing the effects of the stratospheric mechanism. ...
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I'm not sure I like the idea of such little things making such a big difference... because we're doing some pretty big things.
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Thu, Aug 27, 2009
from New Scientist:
Laughing gas is biggest threat to ozone layer
Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, is now the dominant ozone-depleting substance emitted by humans -- and is likely to remain so throughout the century, a new study suggests.
Researchers suggest use of the compound -- which is produced by the breakdown of nitrogen in fertilisers and sewage treatment plants -- should be reduced to avoid thinning the protective ozone layer that blankets the Earth....
Scientists say humans' role in producing the harmful gas has largely been overlooked. Thanks to fossil fuel combustion, which produces the gas, as well as nitrogen-based fertilisers, sewage treatment plants and other industrial processes that involve nitrogen, about one-third of the nitrous oxide emitted per year is anthropogenic.
Although supersonic transport never got off the ground, current emissions are equivalent to flying 500 such planes a day. Emission levels have increased by 0.25 per cent a year since pre-industrial times.
"Nitrous oxide is kind of the forgotten gas," says Don Wuebbles of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who invented the method of quantifying a chemical's ozone-depletion potential but was not involved in this work. "It was always thought of as a natural thing. People have forgotten that it's been increasing." ...
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ha ha HA ha Ha ha.
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Thu, Aug 27, 2009
from Environmental Research Web:
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.... "They used more land for farming because they had little incentive to maximize yield from less land, and because there was plenty of forest to burn," said William Ruddiman, the lead author and a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. "They may have inadvertently altered the climate." ...
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Good thing we don't have plenty of anything to burn, and that CO2 is just a theory.
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Thu, Aug 27, 2009
from COP15:
CO2 in the atmosphere may be 20 to 25 percent higher than previously estimated
New research from two professors at the University of Bergen, Norway, reveals that nature absorbs much less greenhouse gas from the atmosphere than estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).... The models show that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could likely be 20 to 25 percent higher than previously estimated. Consequently climate change will happen faster, writes the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen.... "The most realistic is no longer 2, but 3.5 or 4 degrees Celsius," Helge Drange says to Norwegian weekly Teknisk Ukeblad. "Then we will cross more thresholds with irreversible damage to water supply and food production", says Drange. ...
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Underpromise, then overperform!
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Wed, Aug 26, 2009
from UCSD, via EurekAlert:
Deadly heat waves are becoming more frequent in California
From mid July to early August 2006, a heat wave swept through the southwestern United States. Temperature records were broken at many locations and unusually high humidity levels for this typically arid region led to the deaths of more than 600 people, 25,000 cattle and 70,000 poultry in California alone.
An analysis of this extreme episode carried out by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, put this heat wave in the context of six decades of observed heat waves. Their results suggest that such regional extremes are becoming more and more likely as climate change trends continue.... While mechanisms driving this regional anomaly are still under investigation, the researchers concluded that the trend towards more frequent and larger-scale muggy heat waves should be expected to continue in the region as climate change evolves over the next decades. ...
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It's not the heat, or even the humidity... it's the sense of impending doom.
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Tue, Aug 25, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
Cree aboriginal group to join London climate camp protest over tar sands
"British companies such as BP and RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) in partnership with dozens of other companies are driving this project, which is having such devastating effects on our environment and communities.
"It is destroying the ancient boreal forest, spreading open-pit mining across our territories, contaminating our food and water with toxins, disrupting local wildlife and threatening our way of life," she said.
It showed British companies were complicit in "the biggest environmental crime on the planet" and yet very few people in Britain even knew it was happening, said Deranger. She was speaking ahead of an annual Climate Camp that will be held for one week somewhere in Greater London from this Thursday.... The tar sands are seen by many as a particularly dangerous project providing enough carbon to be released in total to tip the world into unstoppable climate change. ...
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This doesn't sound like "Better Petroleum" -- or even "Reasonably Budgeted Survival."
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Tue, Aug 25, 2009
from COP15:
North-East Passage opens for commercial vessels
A German shipping company is the first non-Russian enterprise to send commercial vessels through the North-East Passage.
Beluga Shipping GmbH just got its permit from Russian authorities to do the 4,000 nautical miles across Russia's northern shore without the help of icebreakers. On Friday, the "Beluga Fraternity" and "Beluga Foresight" left the Russian port of Vladivostok with cargo picked up in South Korea bound for Holland.... "Global warming is obviously a development with negative effects. However, the melting ice in the North-East Passage and the possibility to transit through it has positive effects, too...." ...
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"Positive effects" like new shorelines, new warlords, no more third world obesity problems.... opportunity in threat's clothing!
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Mon, Aug 24, 2009
from via ScienceDaily:
Asian Clam Invasion Is Growing Fast, Lake Tahoe Report Finds
UC Davis' annual Lake Tahoe health report describes a spreading Asian clam population that could put sharp shells and rotting algae on the spectacular mountain lake's popular beaches, possibly aid an invasion of quagga and zebra mussels, and even affect lake clarity and ecology. The dime-sized Asian clam (Corbicula fluminea) that is the researchers' top concern this year probably has been in the lake for only 10 years, but it is already replacing native pea clams in lake sediments. In the areas where they are most numerous, Asian clams comprise almost half of the benthic, or sediment-dwelling, organisms, the report says. ...
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I'll bet only the clams are pleased with this news.
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Mon, Aug 24, 2009
from Canadian Press:
Climate change doubles tundra plant life, boosting shrubs, grasses
Climate change is already having a dramatic effect on plants in the High Arctic, turning the once rocky tundra a deep shade of green and creating what could be another mechanism speeding up global warming.
In a new study to be published in the November issue of the journal Ecology, University of British Columbia geographer Greg Henry has, for the first time, confirmed that rapidly rising temperatures in the Arctic are creating major changes in the plants that live there... the average temperature in the area has increased by about 2.5 C -- "an extremely rapid change," says Henry... Henry said the new, denser, shrubbier tundra could speed up global warming even further simply because that vegetation is darker and absorbs more solar energy. Previous studies have suggested that a global spread of thicker plant growth on the tundra could have the same effect as doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. ...
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Say, maybe shrubs would make the perfect biofuel.
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