ApocaDocuments (13) for the "Climate Chaos" scenario from this week
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Sun, Nov 22, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
World's largest ice sheet melting faster than expected
The world's largest ice sheet has started to melt along its coastal fringes, raising fears that global sea levels will rise faster than scientists expected.
The East Antarctic ice sheet, which makes up three-quarters of the continent's 14,000 sq km, is losing around 57bn tonnes of ice a year into surrounding waters, according to a satellite survey of the region.
Scientists had thought the ice sheet was reasonably stable, but measurements taken from Nasa's gravity recovery and climate experiment (Grace) show that it started to lose ice steadily from 2006.
The measurements suggest the polar continent could soon contribute more to global sea level rises than Greenland, which is shedding more than 250bn tonnes of ice a year, adding 0.7mm to annual sea level rises. ...
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Now Greenland, don't start getting competitive, ok?
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Sun, Nov 22, 2009
from Reuters:
Denmark says 65 leaders to join climate talks
COPENHAGEN, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Sixty-five world leaders have confirmed they will attend a U.N. conference in Copenhagen in December that will try to clinch a new global climate deal, and many more are considering, Danish officials said on Sunday.
Facing splits in the climate talks, Denmark 10 days ago formally invited the heads of state and government of 191 U.N. member states to come for the final two days of the Dec. 7-18 conference to push for a deal at the meeting, originally meant for environment ministers. ...
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And they will all require followers.
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Sun, Nov 22, 2009
from Washington Post:
In the trenches on climate change, hostility among foes
Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.
While few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate -- nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal -- public debate persists. And the newly disclosed private exchanges among climate scientists at Britain's Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies. ...
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We 'Docs don't mind climate skeptics as long as they don't emit carbon!
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Sat, Nov 21, 2009
from PhysOrg.com:
Australia issues 'catastrophic' alerts as fires rage
Unseasonably hot and dry weather combined with strong winds to fan scores of blazes in the country's southeastern states, many of which were sparked by overnight lightning strikes.
"It has never been this hot, dry or windy in combination in November ever before," said New South Wales (NSW) state premier Nathan Rees.... More than one-third of NSW was under a Code Red or Catastrophic fire alert, in which residents cannot be forcibly evacuated but are strongly advised to abandon their property due to extreme risk of death or injury. ...
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New South Wales may be really new before we know it.
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Sat, Nov 21, 2009
from Times Online (UK):
'Rain like this happens once every 1,000 years'
The full and devastating impact of England's worst recorded day of rain was still emerging last night as tributes were paid to a policeman swept away by floodwaters while trying to save others.
PC Bill Barker was helping motorists stranded on a bridge over the Derwent in the Cumbrian town of Workington when it collapsed. His body was discovered hours later on a nearby beach.
The Environment Agency said that the flooding across the region was so severe that such an event was likely to happen only once in 1,000 years. The rainfall, on to an already saturated terrain, was the highest level measured in England since records began. Meteorologists recorded 314mm (12in) of rain in 24 hours and flood warnings remained in place across the North West of England, parts of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. ...
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At least that means we won't see weather like this again till 3009!
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Thu, Nov 19, 2009
from Inter Press Service:
Women Central to Adaptation, Mitigation
Poor women will bear the greatest "climate burden", says the United Nations Population Fund in its 2009 State of the World Population report, released today.
The report emphasises that climate change is more than an issue of energy efficiency or industrial carbon emissions; it is also an issue of population dynamics, poverty and gender equity.
Poor and vulnerable populations the world over are the ones who will be hardest hit by climate change, despite their comparatively minute contribution to our global carbon footprint - the poorest billion people on Earth contribute a mere three percent of the world's total carbon footprint. ...
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Just so the gals don't get all hysterical!
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Thu, Nov 19, 2009
from Washington Post:
A climate threat, rising from the soil
...one of the biggest, and most overlooked, causes of global climate change: a vast and often smoldering layer of coal-black peat that has made Indonesia the world's third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States.
Unlike the noxious gases pumped into the atmosphere by gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles in the United States and smoke-belching factories in China, danger here in the heart of Borneo rises from the ground itself.
Peat, formed over thousands of years from decomposed trees, grass and scrub, contains gigantic quantities of carbon dioxide, which used to stay locked in the ground. It is now drying and disintegrating, as once-soggy swamps are shorn of trees and drained by canals, and when it burns, carbon dioxide gushes into the atmosphere. ...
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A-PEAT-calypse!
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Thu, Nov 19, 2009
from New York Times:
Seas Grow Less Effective at Absorbing Emissions
The Earth's oceans, which have absorbed carbon dioxide from fuel emissions since the dawn of the industrial era, have recently grown less efficient at sopping it up, new research suggests.
Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels began soaring in the 1950s, and oceans largely kept up, scientists say. But the growth in the intake rate has slowed since the 1980s, and markedly so since 2000, the authors of a study write in a report in Thursday's issue of Nature.
The research suggests that the seas cannot indefinitely be considered a reliable "carbon sink" as humans generate heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.
The slowdown in the rise of the absorption rate resulted from a gradual change in the oceans' chemistry, the study found. "The more carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs, the more acidic it becomes and the less carbon dioxide it can absorb," said the study's lead author, Samar Khatiwala... ...
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...from sea to slacker sea...
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Wed, Nov 18, 2009
from Purdue University via ScienceDaily:
Dozen Lesser-Known Chemicals Have Strong Impact on Climate Change
A new study indicates that major chemicals most often cited as leading causes of climate change, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are outclassed in their warming potential by compounds receiving less attention....In the results, chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur and nitrogen fluorides stood out in their warming potential because of their efficiency to trap radiation in the atmospheric window. ...
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Here's another acronym for ya: HOLYSHIT
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Wed, Nov 18, 2009
from TIME Magazine:
Floods and Droughts: How Climate Change is Impacting Africa
...If the world's leaders need more inspiration before heading to the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, they need look no further than East Africa. Here climate change is no longer a future threat -- it is displacing and killing people today. In 2006, the United Nations said it expected Africa to be the continent most affected by climate change, not because it produces a large amount of greenhouse gases -- quite the opposite -- but because, as the world's poorest and most badly governed continent, it is the least equipped to cope with change. Around 90 million Africans were "at risk," it said, and that's not counting those impacted by wars and tribal conflicts, many of which are linked to extreme weather phenomena such as droughts and floods. ...
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Would seem Africa is not alone in being ill-equipped to change.
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Wed, Nov 18, 2009
from BBC:
Earth 'heading for 6C' of warming
Average global temperatures are on course to rise by up to 6C without urgent action to curb CO2 emissions, the lead author of a new analysis says.
Emissions rose by 29 percent between 2000 and 2008, says the Global Carbon Project.
All of that growth came in developing countries, but a quarter of it came through production of goods for consumption in industrialised nations.
The study comes against a backdrop of mixed messages on the chances of a new deal at next month's UN climate summit. According to lead scientist Corinne Le Quere, the new findings should add urgency to the political discussions. ...
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Does "C" stand for Catastrophe?
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Tue, Nov 17, 2009
from London Guardian:
Copenhagen climate talks: US refusal to rush gives Obama time to get Senate onside
International agreements such as Kyoto and any successor deal do not come into force the moment they are signed, but after they are subsequently ratified by individual countries. Kyoto, which Bill Clinton did not even submit to the Senate because he knew it would be rejected, took seven years to come into force.
Under the US constitution, such ratification needs a two-thirds majority in the Senate. It is this, not Obama, that stands in the way of a deal at Copenhagen.
Obama needs time to build domestic support for any treaty, and specifically to get legislation in place to set up a US carbon trading scheme. Until that is done, he dare not nose the US international position ahead of the domestic one. To do so would risk another Senate rejection, which would leave such a deal fatally wounded. ...
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So fascinating, these machinations on the Eve of the Apocalypse!
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Mon, Nov 16, 2009
from Associated Press:
Jellyfish swarm northward in warming world
...This year's jellyfish swarm is one of the worst... Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles) of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.
Scientists believe climate change, the warming of oceans, has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes.
The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says. ...
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Quick! Flee from their gelatinous jaws!
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
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