New Research

[BornFromTheVoid]

A new report on the attitudes of Americans towards climate change http://environment.y...tember-2012.pdf

In 2008, using nationally representative survey data on global warming beliefs, behaviors and policy

preferences in the United States, we identified six distinct groups of Americans – “Global Warming’s Six

Americas.†Since then, we have tracked the size of these six audiences – and the ongoing evolution of their

beliefs, behaviors and policy preferences – through a series of national surveys. We observed a sharp decline

in public engagement from the fall of 2008 to January 2010, and a gradual rebound starting in June 2010. In

our most recent survey in September 2012, we found that the rebound in public engagement has continued:

the Alarmed, Concerned and Cautious audience segments once again comprise 70 percent of the American

public, as they did in the fall of 2008. Moreover, there was both significant growth in the size of the Alarmed

and decline in the size of the Dismissive between the spring and fall of 2012.

The survey was conducted before Sandy, but probably persuaded many people (rightly or wrongly) of the dangers of climate change.

Review of the report here http://news.discover...#mkcpgn=rssnws1

[knocker]

Not good news.

Glaciers will melt faster than ever and loss could be irreversible warn scientists

Canada's Arctic Archipelago glaciers will melt faster than ever in the next few centuries

Canada's Arctic Archipelago glaciers will melt faster than ever in the next few centuries. Research by European funded scientists has shown that 20 per cent of the Canadian Arctic glaciers may have disappeared by the end of this century which would amount to an additional sea level rise of 3.5cm

The results of the research, part of the EU funded ice2sea programme, will be published in Geophysical Research Letters this week, and the paper is now available online.

The researchers developed a climate model for the island group of the north of Canada in which they simulated the shrinking and growing of glaciers in this area.

The researchers show that the model correctly "predicted" the ice mass loss measured over the last ten years and then used the same model to project the effect of future climate change on Canada's Arctic Archipelago glaciers.

The most important result of the research is it shows the probable irreversibility of the melting process, according to lead author Dr Jan Lenaerts of Utrecht University who says, "Even if we assume that global warming is not happening quite so fast, it is still highly likely that the ice is going to melt at an alarming rate. The chances of it growing back are very slim."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/bas-gwm030713.php

[knocker]

March 7, 2013

With data from 73 ice and sediment core monitoring sites around the world, scientists have reconstructed Earth's temperature history back to the end of the last Ice Age.

The analysis reveals that the planet today is warmer than it's been during 70 to 80 percent of the last 11,300 years.

I wonder why?

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=127133&org=NSF&from=news

[jonboy]

I wonder why?

http://www.nsf.gov/n...g=NSF&from=news

So 20 to 30 percent of years have been warmer than we are today conforting to know we are not close yet to being the warmist!!!!

[knocker]

NASA Pinpoints Causes of 2011 Arctic Ozone Hole

A combination of extreme cold temperatures, man-made chemicals and a stagnant atmosphere were behind what became known as the Arctic ozone hole of 2011, a new NASA study finds.

Even when both poles of the planet undergo ozone losses during the winter, the Arctic’s ozone depletion tends to be milder and shorter-lived than the Antarctic’s. This is because the three key ingredients needed for ozone-destroying chemical reactions —chlorine from man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), frigid temperatures and sunlight— are not usually present in the Arctic at the same time: the northernmost latitudes are generally not cold enough when the sun reappears in the sky in early spring. Still, in 2011, ozone concentrations in the Arctic atmosphere were about 20 percent lower than its late winter average.

The new study shows that, while chlorine in the Arctic stratosphere was the ultimate culprit of the severe ozone loss of winter of 2011, unusually cold and persistent temperatures also spurred ozone destruction. Furthermore, uncommon atmospheric conditions blocked wind-driven transport of ozone from the tropics, halting the seasonal ozone resupply until April.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-ozone-hole.html

[knocker]

Canada losing it's seasons.

UXBRIDGE, Canada (IPS) – “Canada is not a country, it’s winter,†Canadians say with pride. But the nation’s long, fearsome winters will live only in memory and song for Canadian children born this decade.

Winters are already significantly warmer and shorter than just 30 years ago. The temperature regimes and plant life of the south have marched more than 700 kilometres northward, new research shows.

http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2013/03/canada-losing-its-seasons-we-are.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[knocker]

I must say I'm getting confused. (not by the following I hasten to add)

Canadian Arctic glacier melt accelerating, irreversible

Ongoing glacier loss in the Canadian high Arctic is accelerating and probably irreversible, new model projections by Lenaerts et al. suggest. The Canadian high Arctic is home to the largest clustering of glacier ice outside of Greenland and Antarctica—146,000 square kilometers (about 60,000 square miles) of glacier ice spread across 36,000 islands. In the past few years, the mass of the glaciers in the Canadian Arctic archipelago has begun to plummet. Observations from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites suggest that from 2004 to 2011 the region's glaciers shed approximately 580 gigatons of ice. Aside from glacier calving, which plays only a small role in Canadian glacier mass loss, the drop is due largely to a shift in the surface-mass balance, with warming-induced meltwater runoff outpacing the accumulation of new snowfall.

Using a coupled atmosphere-snow climate model, the authors reproduced the observed changes in glacier mass and sought to forecast projected changes given a future of continued warming. Driving the model with a climate reanalysis dataset for the period 1960 to 2011 and with a potential future warming pathway, the authors find that their model accurately reproduces observed glacier mass losses, including a recent up-tick in the rate of the ice's decline.

The authors calculate that by 2100, when the Arctic archipelago is 6.5 Kelvin (14 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer, the rate of glacier mass loss will be roughly 144 gigatons per year, up from the present rate of 92 gigatons per year. In total, the researchers expect Canadian Arctic archipelago glaciers to lose around 18 percent of their mass by the end of the century. Given current warming trends, they suggest that the ongoing glacier loss is effectively irreversible.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/agu-ajh031213.php

Abstract.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50214/abstract

[Methuselah]

Bearing in mind that once, back in geological time, there were broad-leaved trees growing in the High Arctic, i do not buy the 'irreversibility' argument...

[knocker]

Bearing in mind that once, back in geological time, there were broad-leaved trees growing in the High Arctic, i do not buy the 'irreversibility' argument...

I think perhaps that they thinking in terms of shorter time scales RP.

[Gray-Wolf]

But Pete is correct in showing just how such language is met by certain sectors of the community? The content appears forgotten whilst the debate rages over the odd word? Sad really.

I think the changes, ongoing, in the Arctic are now well beyond our control and, like out GHG forcings, there is a lot of change already 'in the pipeline' that we have no control over?

For me I cannot see that without somehow clawing back the 'fossil' carbon cycle emission that we have added to our atmosphere that the 'hibernating' section of our current carbon cycle is destined to become re-animated (along with the temp rises that this will also entail). This may well take hundreds of years to come about but it must come about if we leave that chunk of human forcing in place as the planet will be constantly searching to 'balance' GHG's and temp and in so doing will be forced to melt more ice sheet ,revealing more hibernating carbon cycle and lowering albedo/reducing energy spent on ice melt and so on and so on until the full carbon cycle is in play and the planet is ice free.

At least we'll have a whole new continent to move onto?

[knocker]

Study Predicts Lag in Summer Rains Over Parts of U.S. and Mexico

Delay Could Affect Agriculture, Livestock, Desert Ecosystems

A delay in the summer monsoon rains that fall over the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico is expected in the coming decades according to a new study in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The North American monsoon delivers as much as 70 percent of the region's annual rainfall, watering crops and rangelands for an estimated 20 million people.

"We hope this information can be used with other studies to build realistic expectations for water resource availability in the future," said study lead author, Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist with joint appointments at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3067

[knocker]

Hard rain

UI study of Midwest finds increase in heavy rainfalls over 60 years

Heavy rains have become more frequent in the upper Midwest over the past 60 years, according to a study from the University of Iowa. The trend appears to hold true even with the current drought plaguing the region, the study's main author says.

The fact that temperatures over the country's midsection are rising, too, may be more than coincidence.The hotter the surface temperature, which has been the trend in the Midwest and the rest of the world, the more water that can be absorbed by the atmosphere. And the more water available for precipitation means a greater chance for heavy rains, explains Gabriele Villarini, assistant professor in engineering at the UI and lead author of the paper, published in the Journal of Climate, the official publication of the American Meteorological Society.

http://now.uiowa.edu/2013/01/hard-rain

Edited March 13, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

Recent intense hurricane response to global climate change

Abstract

An Anthropogenic Climate Change Index (ACCI) is developed and used to investigate the potential global warming contribution to current tropical cyclone activity. The ACCI is defined as the difference between the means of ensembles of climate simulations with and without anthropogenic gases and aerosols. This index indicates that the bulk of the current anthropogenic warming has occurred in the past four decades, which enables improved confidence in assessing hurricane changes as it removes many of the data issues from previous eras. We find no anthropogenic signal in annual global tropical cyclone or hurricane frequencies. But a strong signal is found in proportions of both weaker and stronger hurricanes: the proportion of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has increased at a rate of ~25–30 % per °C of global warming after accounting for analysis and observing system changes. This has been balanced by a similar decrease in Category 1 and 2 hurricane proportions, leading to development of a distinctly bimodal intensity distribution, with the secondary maximum at Category 4 hurricanes. This global signal is reproduced in all ocean basins. The observed increase in Category 4–5 hurricanes may not continue at the same rate with future global warming. The analysis suggests that following an initial climate increase in intense hurricane proportions a saturation level will be reached beyond which any further global warming will have little effect

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-013-1713-0/fulltext.html

[knocker]

When it rains these days, does it pour?

Has the weather become stormier as the climate warms?

There's little doubt — among scientists at any rate — that the climate has warmed since people began to release massive amounts greenhouse gases to the atmosphere during the Industrial Revolution.

But ask a scientist if the weather is getting stormier as the climate warms and you're likely to get a careful response that won't make for a good quote.

There's a reason for that.

"Although many people have speculated that the weather will get stormier as the climate warms, nobody has done the quantitative analysis needed to show this is indeed happening," says Jonathan Katz, PhD, professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the March 17 online version of Nature Climate Change, Katz and Thomas Muschinksi, a senior in physics who came to Katz looking for an undergraduate thesis project, describe the results of their analysis of more than 70 years of hourly precipitation data from 13 U.S. sites looking for quantitative evidence of increased storminess.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/wuis-wir031513.php

[knocker]

Comment on Ocean heat content and Earth's radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts

http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Comment_on_DK12.pdf

[knocker]

For polar bears, it's survival of the fattest

One of the most southerly populations of polar bears in the world – and the best studied – is struggling to cope with climate-induced changes to sea ice, new research reveals. Based on over 10 years' data the study, published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology, sheds new light on how sea ice conditions drive polar bears' annual migration on and off the ice.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/w-fpb031813.php

[knocker]

Natural climate swings contribute more to increased monsoon rainfall than global warming

Natural swings in the climate have significantly intensified Northern Hemisphere monsoon rainfall, showing that these swings must be taken into account for climate predictions in the coming decades. The findings are published in the March 18 online publication of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Monsoon rainfall in the Northern Hemisphere impacts about 60% of the World population in Southeast Asia, West Africa and North America. Given the possible impacts of global warming, solid predictions of monsoon rainfall for the next decades are important for infrastructure planning and sustainable economic development. Such predictions, however, are very complex because they require not only pinning down how manmade greenhouse gas emissions will impact the monsoons and monsoon rainfall, but also a knowledge of natural long-term climate swings, about which little is known so far.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uoh-ncs032013.php

[BornFromTheVoid]

Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks : Exploring the Connection

The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate change denial books published through 2010. We find a strong link, albeit noticeably weaker for the growing number of self-published denial books. We also examine the national origins of the books and the academic backgrounds of their authors or editors, finding that with the help of American CTTs climate change denial has spread to several other nations and that an increasing portion of denial books are produced by individuals with no scientific training. It appears that at least 90% of denial books do not undergo peer review, allowing authors or editors to recycle scientifically unfounded claims that are then amplified by the conservative movement, media, and political elites.

http://abs.sagepub.c...477096.abstract

[BornFromTheVoid]

Oceans May Absorb More Carbon Dioxide

...the Redfield ratio, a principle stating that, when nutrients are not limiting, ocean microorganisms always have the same ratio of three elements: carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.

This matters now because the Redfield ratio is used to help modelers and biogeochemists understand how important elements like nitrogen and carbon cycle in the oceans. If the Redfield ratio does not hold true, climate researchers might have to adjust how that process is represented in their climate models.

So Martiny, an associate professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, and a few of his colleagues set out to sample the ocean and test the ratios. What they learned, detailed in a paper published Sunday in Nature Geoscience, was that the ratios of carbon to nitrogen to phosphorus varied in different parts of the ocean. They also discovered the patterns of variation corresponded to different latitudes.

"How much carbon is attached to each molecule of nitrogen or phosphorus just used to be [considered] a constant," said Francois Primeau, a co-author on the paper and an associate professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine.

But that's not the case. For example, in warm zones near the equator that are low on nutrients, the ratio of carbon to nitrogen to phosphorus measured was 195:28:1; in cold, high-latitude regions with plenty of nutrients, the ratio changed to 78:13:1. Redfield's ratio is 106:16:1 oceanwide.

Many models have predicted that a warming ocean will take up less carbon because higher temperatures lead to smaller phytoplankton, which take less carbon to the bottom of the ocean when they die. The amount of carbon these plankton take with them is typically calculated based on the Redfield ratio.

http://www.scientifi...-carbon-dioxide

[knocker]

Cold winter extremes in northern continents linked to Arctic sea ice loss

Abstract

The satellite record since 1979 shows downward trends in Arctic sea ice extent in all months, which are smallest in winter and largest in September. Previous studies have linked changes in winter atmospheric circulation, anomalously cold extremes and large snowfalls in mid-latitudes to rapid decline of Arctic sea ice in the preceding autumn. Using observational analyses, we show that the winter atmospheric circulation change and cold extremes are also associated with winter sea ice reduction through an apparently distinct mechanism from those related to autumn sea ice loss. Associated with winter sea ice reduction, a high-pressure anomaly prevails over the subarctic, which in part results from fewer cyclones owing to a weakened gradient in sea surface temperature and lower baroclinicity over sparse sea ice. The results suggest that the winter atmospheric circulation at high northern latitudes associated with Arctic sea ice loss, especially in the winter, favors the occurrence of cold winter extremes at middle latitudes of the northern continents.

Full paper

http://iopscience.io..._8_1_014036.pdf

Edited March 21, 2013 by knocker

[knocker]

New Research Confirms Global Warming Has Accelerated

A new study of ocean warming has just been published in Geophysical Research Letters by Balmaseda, Trenberth, and Källén (2013). There are several important conclusions which can be drawn from this paper.

• Completely contrary to the popular contrarian myth, global warming has accelerated, with more overall global warming in the past 15 years than the prior 15 years. This is because about 90% of overall global warming goes into heating the oceans, and the oceans have been warming dramatically.

• As suspected, much of the 'missing heat' Kevin Trenberth previously talked about has been found in the deep oceans. Consistent with the results of Nuccitelli et al. (2012), this study finds that 30% of the ocean warming over the past decade has occurred in the deeper oceans below 700 meters, which they note is unprecedented over at least the past half century.

• Some recent studies have concluded based on the slowed global surface warming over the past decade that the sensitivity of the climate to the increased greenhouse effect is somewhat lower than the IPCC best estimate. Those studies are fundamentally flawed because they do not account for the warming of the deep oceans.

The slowed surface air warming over the past decade has lulled many people into a false and unwarranted sense of security

http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1936

[knocker]

UGA discovery may allow scientists to make fuel from CO2 in the atmosphere

Athens, Ga. - Excess carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere created by the widespread burning of fossil fuels is the major driving force of global climate change, and researchers the world over are looking for new ways to generate power that leaves a smaller carbon footprint.

Now, researchers at the University of Georgia have found a way to transform the carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere into useful industrial products. Their discovery may soon lead to the creation of biofuels made directly from the carbon dioxide in the air that is responsible for trapping the sun's rays and raising global temperatures.

"Basically, what we have done is create a microorganism that does with carbon dioxide exactly what plants do-absorb it and generate something useful," said Michael Adams, member of UGA's Bioenergy Systems Research Institute, Georgia Power professor of biotechnology and Distinguished Research Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/uga-discovery-may-allow-scientists-to-make-fuel-from-co2-in-the-atmosp/

[knocker]

Increasing concentrations of aerosols offset the benefits of climate warming on rice yields during 1980–2008 in Jiangsu Province, China

Abstract

The impacts of climate change on crop yield have increasingly been of concern. In this study, we investigated the impacts of trends in sunshine duration (S) and maximum temperature (T _max) on rice yields in Jiangsu Province at both the provincial and county level during the period from 1980 to 2008. The results showed that although S and T _max both were positively correlated with rice yields, the combined impacts of the decreasing trend of S (0.37 h/decade) and the increasing trend of T _max (0.34 °C/decade) in August caused a reduction of 0.16 t ha^−1 in rice yields (approximately 1.8 %) in Jiangsu Province, and the trend of S had played a dominant role in the yield losses. Further analyses suggest that the increasing concentration of aerosols from rapid economic development in Jiangsu Province has caused a significant solar dimming at least since 1960, making mitigations and adaptation measurements on regional haze impact imperative. Our study provides a prototype for detecting negative feedback on agricultural production caused by intensified anthropogenic activities that aim only to create rapid economic development.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-012-0332-3

[knocker]

Summer melt season is getting longer on the Antarctic Peninsula, new research shows.

New research from the Antarctic Peninsula shows that the summer melt season has been getting longer over the last 60 years -- Increased summer melting has been linked to the rapid break-up of ice shelves in the area and rising sea level

New research from the Antarctic Peninsula shows that the summer melt season has been getting longer over the last 60 years. Increased summer melting has been linked to the rapid break-up of ice shelves in the area and rising sea level.

The Antarctic Peninsula – a mountainous region extending northwards towards South America – is warming much faster than the rest of Antarctica. Temperatures have risen by up to 3 oC since the 1950s – three times more than the global average. This is a result of a strengthening of local westerly winds, causing warmer air from the sea to be pushed up and over the peninsula. In contrast to much of the rest of Antarctica, summer temperatures are high enough for snow to melt.

This summer melting may have important effects. Meltwater may enlarge cracks in floating ice shelves which can contribute to their retreat or collapse. As a result, the speed at which glaciers flow towards the sea will be increased. Also, melting and refreezing causes snow layers to become thinner and more dense, affecting the height of the snow surface above sea level. Scientists need to know this so they can interpret satellite data correctly.

Dr Nick Barrand, who carried out the research while working for the British Antarctic Survey, led an analysis of data from 30 weather stations on the peninsula. "We found a significant increase in the length of the melting season at most of the stations with the longest temperature records" he says. "At one station the average length of the melt season almost doubled between 1948 and 2011."

To build up a more complete picture across the whole peninsula, the team (funded by the European Union's ice2sea programme) also analysed satellite data collected by an instrument called a scatterometer. Using microwave reflections from the ice sheet surface, the scatterometer was able to detect the presence of meltwater. The team were able to produce maps of how the melt season varied from 1999 to 2009, and showed that several major ice shelf breakup events coincided with longer than usual melt seasons. This supports the theory that enlargement of cracks by meltwater is the main mechanism for ice shelf weakening and collapse.

The researchers also compared data from both the satellite and weather stations with the output of a state-of-the-art regional climate model.

Dr Barrand, who now works at the University of Birmingham, says, "We found that the model was very good at reproducing the pattern and timing of the melt, and changes in melting between years. This increases confidence in the use of climate models to predict future changes to snow and ice cover in the Antarctic Peninsula."

###

Trends in Antarctic Peninsula surface melting conditions from observations and regional climate modeling will be officially published in the Journal of Geophysical Research this week.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/bas-sms032713.php

[loafer]

http://phys.org/news/2013-03-discovery-scientists-fuel-co2-atmosphere.html

New discovery may allow scientists to make fuel from CO2 in the atmosphere

"Basically, what we have done is create a microorganism that does with carbon dioxide exactly what plants do—absorb it and generate something useful," said Michael Adams, member of UGA's Bioenergy Systems Research Institute, Georgia Power professor of biotechnology and Distinguished Research Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.