FIRE-EARTH Presentation: Pump Up the Volume!!

The impact of climate change on nuclear and hydroelectric power production!

• Prepared by FIRE-EARTH Science and affiliated scientists..

Details available via FIRE-EARTH PULSARS.

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2011 warmest year with La Niña event

Global Climate 2011: Warmest year with La Niña, 10th warmest year, lowest Arctic sea ice volume

Average global temperatures this year so far are the 10th highest on record and are higher than all previous years with a La Niña event, which has a relative cooling effect, WMO reported.

Disaster Calendar 2011 – November 30

[November 30, 2011]  Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,568 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

• Global. World’s 13 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997, a period of 15 years. The heating has impacted the extent of Arctic sea ice which fell to its second lowest this year, with its volume being the lowest ever recorded.
• The 2002-2011 period is the warmest decade on record (jointly with 2001-2010), some 0.46°C above the long-term average.

• Average global temperatures this year so far are the 10th highest on record and are higher than all previous years with a La Niña event, which has a relative cooling influence, WMO reported.
• “Our role is to provide the scientific knowledge to inform action by decision makers,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud in a press release.
• “Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities,” he added.
• “Surface air temperatures were above the long-term average in 2011 over most land areas of the world. The largest departures from average were over Russia, especially in northern Russia where January-October temperatures were about 4°C above average in places,” the WMO report said.
• “Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new highs. They are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a 2-2.4 degree Centigrade rise in average global temperatures which scientists believe could trigger far reaching and irreversible changes in our Earth, biosphere and oceans.” WMO’s Jarraud said.

[Hate to break this to you, Secretary-General Jarraud, but we saw  the “you’ve now passed the tipping point” sign down the highway many miles ago. FIRE-EARTH]

• Up-to-date weekly average CO₂ at Mauna Loa

• Week of November 20, 2011:     390.44 ppm
• Weekly value from 1 year ago:     389.38 ppm
• Weekly value from 10 years ago:     370.11 ppm

• Recent Global CO₂

• September 2011:     388.04 ppm
• September 2010:     386.44 ppm

The graph shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. Source: ESRL

• Time history of atmospheric CO2 (2011 update)

Related Links

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities  (EDRO Forecast)
• 2011 Much More Disastrous: FIRE-EARTH Forecast
• Global Disasters in 2011 Could Impact 1/3 to 1/2 of the Human Population  (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)
• Back to the Primordial Future
• Mass Die-offs  (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)

• 2010 Disaster Calendar 
• 2011 Disaster Calendar

British Scientists Are Politicians First

Thought For the Day:

The Main Stream British Scientists Are Brainwashed by Big Brother!

The prospects of prestigious, lucrative government positions with four-letter titles after their names would often persuade them to swear the earth was flat.

Related Links:

• Head of British climate institute, Phil Jones, steps down over hacked global warming e-mail flap

• These con artists are expressing surprise at the extent of the Antarctica and Greenland coastal ice thinning to get more cash and condoms.

“Climate Engineering” Best Option: Economists

“Climate engineering could provide a cheap, rapid and effective response to global warming,” the economists said.

Oceans contain 6 times more plastic than plankton!

Related News Links:

• Engineering better than tax on climate: economists

Related Links:

• Oceans contain 6 times more plastic than plankton
• Blind scientists examining the elephant
• World Problems:The Root Cause Matrix
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• How to Ensure National Security AND Create a Healthy Economy!
• The 13 things you should know about the world before you depart prematurely!

• 286W
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• ‘C’ for the Economy’s Carbon Cycle [Boosted by Bailouts and Stimulus Plan]
  
• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar

Alaska on Fire

First the Beetles Attacked!

Climate change is permanently changing the face of Alaska, Earth

In Alaska, 35 percent forest, climate change is causing irreversible changes including droughts, forest fires, and infestations of tree-killing insects like spruce beetles and spruce budworm moths. In the last 15 years, the spruce beetles, which thrive in warmer climates, have destroyed a total of about 3 million acres (1.21 million hectares) of spruce forest in south-central Alaska.

More Than 1 Million Acres Burning in Interior Alaska

Large wildfires that began in July continued to burn in interior Alaska in the first week of August 2009. These images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on August 2 show some of the state’s largest blazes and the thick pall of smoke they were creating. The top image is a natural-color (photo-like) view of the area, while the lower image combines visible, shortwave-, and near-infrared light to make burned areas (brick red) stand out better from unburned vegetation (bright green). In this kind of false-color image, the bright pink areas along the perimeters of the fires are often a sign of open flame.

According to the August 3 report from the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, 483 fires were burning across the state, affecting about 2.4 million acres. The Railbelt Complex was the largest at an estimated 462,298 acres. The Tanana River appears to be creating a natural firebreak at the northern edge of the fire, which is spreading to the south. To the east, the smaller Wood River Fire (107,634 acres) has bright pink spots along both its northern and southern perimeters. Both these fires, as well as the Big Creek Fire (145,652 acres) and Little Black One Fire (292,907 acres) along the Yukon River, were triggered by lightning. NASA images courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

References: Alaska Interagency Coordination Center Situation Report, Monday–08/03/2009

Alaska Warming Rapidly

Alaska has experienced an average warming of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 °F) and about 4.5 °C (8°F) in the inner regions in winter months since the 1960s, the largest regional warming of anywhere in the U.S., according to records.

The warmer temperature means Alaska’s peat bogs, which are nearly 14,000 years old, are drying up. Ed Berg, an ecologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has discovered that shrubs and other plants have been rooting in areas of peat big normally too soggy for woody plants to grow during the last three decades.

As the areas of beetle-infested forest grow, more land is clear-cut and land speculation frenzy grows.

Wetlands are a natural defense mechanism retarding forest fires. The warmer weather and drier forest therefore could lead to more forest fires.

Drying or burning peat bogs, which comprise 50-60 percent carbon, would release additional carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere.

An unusual pattern is left by forest fire as seen in this photograph of a mountain in Yoho National Park in British Columbia west of the Alberta border in this August 8, 2005 file picture. REUTERS/Andy Clark. Image may be subject to copyright.

Human activity is ultimately responsible for the intensity and frequency of most present-day forest fires like Alaska’s; to call them ‘wildfires,’ therefore, is disingenuous and unintelligent.

Related Links:

• Warmer temperatures destroy forests faster

• 3 million acres of spruce killed in Alaska in 15 years
• British Columbia Forests Plagued by Beetle
• Drunken Forest

• California ‘Mojavefied’ by 2011?

• Ice Melt in Alaska, Antarctica, Greenland Accelerating
• Canada’s Ice Shelves Lose Quarter of their Cover
• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record

• Arctic Tundra 4ºC Hotter Since 1970
• US Impacts of Global Climate Change
• Earth’s scars of human destruction visible: astronaut

• Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008
• Marsification of Earth
• Earth’s Collapsing Life Support Systems

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• Giga Trends
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs
• 286W

• The Root Cause Matrix
• The Economy
• Collapsing Ecosystems

• Index page for Alaska: Environmental issues, Big Oil, politics, CORRUPTION, Sarah Palin, even the moose, beluga whale and polar bear …

New York Cognitive Dissonance

New York Counts GHG?

New York Cognitive Dissonance: Keeping Wall Street alive AND showing concern for global climate change!

A carbon counting sign on the side of the Deutsche Bank building in New York, June 18, 2009, displays the running total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. REUTERS/Eric Thayer. IMAGE MAY BE SUBJECT TO COPYRIGHT.

Mauna Loa CO2 monthly mean data

May 2009, [Decimal date:  2009.375] – Monthly average:  390.18 ppm

Based on the above data, total atmospheric CO2 TODAY:

3,044,617,608,327.73 MT [3,044,617.61 MMT]

Combined impact of Nitrous Oxide (N2O), Methane (CH4) and CFC 12 ( CCl2F2) calculated at their full global warming potential: 30.59% of the CO2 Impact, or the CO2 equivalent of

931,380,216,898.77 MT CO2e [931,380,22 MMTCO2e]

Effective Total: 3,975,997,825,226.50 MTCO2e

[MT: Metric Tons;  MMT: Million Metric Tons; CO2e: Carbon Dioxide Equivalent ]

Related Links:

• World CO2 Emissions [2007 / 2008]
  

• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution

• Protect Economy from Climate??!
• Blind scientists examining the economic elephant

• Index of Human Impact on Nature
• World Problems:The Root Cause Matrix
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
  
• Future Scenarios
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• Giga Trends

An Upside of the Economic Downturn

Airlines are flying less and polluting less, but that’s not enough!

Airlines carbon emissions may decrease by about 8 percent in 2009 because the airlines are slashing flights due to a drop in both cargo and passenger demand, Reuters reported.

“About 6 percent of the forecast carbon cut will come as a result of carriers flying fewer planes in 2009, and a further 1.8 percent reflects steps to improve energy efficiency [sic,]” the International Air Transport Association (IATA) was reported as saying.

IATA Director-General Giovanni Bisignani also reported that the airline industry will lose up to $5 billion in 2009 due to the economic slowdown.

Japan Airline (JAL), one of the world’s major airlines, has lost about 20 percent of its passengers and 40 percent of its freight business.

Horrendous Airline Stats

• How many are up there polluting our skies?

Related Links:

• Image of the Day: Flight Madness
• To & From New Zealand: Double Act of Eco-Terrorism
• Hundreds of millions worldwide face disaster
• Best News of the Day for the Environment!
• If You Are Flying to or Importing Food From New Zealand

Stop Polluting Our Air!

Desperate Times, Funny Science, Nutty Professors

Lab meisters and the dodgy science of coaxing rocks to absorb minerals

Several types of rocks that are abundant in the U.S. may one day be charmed to absorb carbon dioxide at such phenomenal rates that could retard climate change, global warming retardation experts say.

But don’t we all know that? Rocks naturally absorb carbon dioxide, but the binding process takes thousands of years to form minerals like calcium carbonate.

Oh, but the process can be accelerated in the laboratory using a catalyst like sodium citrate.

“One day this could be an incredibly useful tool to help fight global warming,” said Sam Krevor, the lead author of a new study by scientists at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey that maps such rocks in the United States, Reuters reported.

But that process occurs on too small a scale naturally and requires too much energy and other inputs to tackle the vast volumes of carbon dioxide responsible for the greenhouse effect that is causing global warming.

What are we waiting for? Errr … the rocks must first be crushed to a powder to  absorb larger amounts carbon dioxide!

And to repeat the laboratory process on any scale larger than the contents of test tube, you would need tremendous amount of energy to reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

At about $45-dollar-a-barrel (crude oil April delivery NYME ), doesn’t it make sense to buy all the energy needed to absorb all the CO2 possible, right now?

About  15,540 sq km (6,000 square miles) of rocks that are rich in carbon dioxide absorbing minerals, namely olivine and serpentine,  could be supercharged to absorb carbon dioxide in California, Oregon and Washington, “and along the entire Appalachian belt of eastern North America from Alabama to Newfoundland,” the study suggests.

What about more research on this exciting new [sic] possibility?

The experts need more money.

Isn’t this a good time to get more money, with the stimulus package …?

Krevor believes the U.S. rocks could potentially absorb the equivalent of 500 years’ of the nation’s CO2 emissions. The United States is the world’s second-largest carbon dioxide emitter after China.

“The problem is not going to be a lack of rocks, it’s getting them to do the job,” Krevor said.

Well said, Dr. Haven’t they yet issued you with a magic wand, or a copy of Essenian Dead Sea scroll for the spells?

Related Links:

• UNEP Issues Some CO2 Reduction Snakeoil!
• Earth Hour Snakeoil
• Union of Concerned Scientists Issue Some Global Warming Snakeoil
• The Deep F*cking Greencovered Corporations

• How many are up there polluting our skies?
• 286W
• UN Hypocrisy: Kick the CO2 Habit!
• CO2e

Global warming worse than predicted: Surprised?

Our regular readers probably remember Thought for the Day: A 2009 Forecast AND

The most widely used phrase by ‘scientists’ in 2009 : ‘We were completely surprised!’

The first of the ‘surprises’ in 2009 is a BIG one!

Global Warming is occurring at a faster rate than scientists had predicted, according to a climate scientist.

“The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously,” Chris Field, a climate scientist and a  member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said on saturday.

Smoke billows from an iron and steel plant in Hefei, Anhui province December 9, 2007. All nations must do more to fight climate change, and rich countries must make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts, a draft proposal at United Nations talks said on Saturday. REUTERS/Jianan Yu (CHINA). Image may be subject to copyright.

Field reported that “the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious” than any previously predicted in the IPCC’s fourth assessment report named “Climate Change 2007.”

“He said recent climate studies suggested the continued warming of the planet from greenhouse gas emissions could touch off large, destructive wildfires in tropical rain forests and melt permafrost in the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gasses that could raise global temperatures even more.” Reuters reported.

“There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from forest and tundra ecosystems, which have been storing a lot of carbon for thousands of years,” Field said.

“We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal,” Field added.

Related Links:

• Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”
• FEWW CO2e Links
• Burning Earth

325 words, 1 image, 3 links

Warmer temperatures destroy forests faster

Warmer temperatures are destroying trees in the western United States and Canada twice as fast as they did in the 1980s

1. Researchers from the U.S. and Canada say prolonged droughts and warmer temperatures, which  help pine beetles and other organisms to destroy trees, seem to be quickening the pace of the forests death.

2. “Average temperature in the West rose by more than 1 degree F [1.8ºF=1ºC] over the last few decades,” said Phillip van Mantgem of the U.S. Geological Survey, who participated in the study.

Gray, needleless limber pine, the likely victims of drought, interspersed with orange, dead limber and ponderosa pine killed by Rocky Mountain pine beetles in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park are seen in this undated  photo. REUTERS/Jeremy Smith/University of Colorado handout.

3. “While this may not sound like much, it has been enough to reduce winter snowpack, cause earlier snowmelt, and lengthen the summer drought.”

4. The study, which was published in the journal Science reports that different species of trees of varying ages and sizes are dying quicker, regardless of forest elevation.

5. The reports findings are consistent with  other research and observation, including the destruction of about 1.5 million hectares of pine forest by mountain pine bark beetles in northwestern Colorado, Reuters reported.

6. “We need to consider developing land-use policies that reduce the vulnerability of people and resources to wildfires,” Thomas Veblen of the University of Colorado said.

7. “Activities include reducing residential development in or near wildland areas that are naturally fire-prone and where we expect fire risk to increase with continued warming.”

8. “We may only be talking about an annual tree mortality rate changing from 1 percent a year to 2 percent a year, an extra tree here and there,” Mark Harmon, a professor of forest ecology at Oregon State University said.

9. “Forest fires or major insect epidemics that kill a lot of trees all at once tend to get most of the headlines. What we’re studying here are changes that are much slower and difficult to identify, but in the long run extremely important.”

Related Links:

• 3 million acres of spruce killed in Alaska in 15 years
• British Columbia Forests Plagued by Beetle
• Drunken Forest

• California ‘Mojavefied’ by 2011?

• Ice Melt in Alaska, Antarctica, Greenland Accelerating
• Canada’s Ice Shelves Lose Quarter of their Cover
• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record

This post:  385 words, 9 paragraphs, 1 image, 1 caption, 7 links

WILKINS ICE SHELF IS “HANGING BY A THREAD”

Antarctic ice shelf set to collapse due to warming

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:42am EST

WILKINS ICE SHELF, Antarctica (Reuters) – A huge Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapse with just a sliver of ice holding it in place, the latest victim of global warming that is altering maps of the frozen continent.

Between 1981 and 2007, most of Antarctica warmed. Portions of West Antarctica experienced an especially rapid rise in temperature. (NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on data from Joey Comiso, GSFC.)

“We’ve come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes,” David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), told Reuters after the first — and probably last — plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.

The flat-topped shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 20 meters (65 ft) out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula.

But it is held together only by an ever-thinning 40-km (25-mile) strip of ice that has eroded to an hour-glass shape just 500 meters wide at its narrowest.

In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide.

“It really could go at any minute,” Vaughan said on slushy snow in bright sunshine beside a red Twin Otter plane that landed on skis. He added that the ice bridge could linger weeks or months.

The Wilkins once covered 16,000 sq km (6,000 sq miles). It has lost a third of its area but is still about the size of Jamaica or the U.S. state of Connecticut. Once the strip breaks up, the sea is likely to sweep away much of the remaining ice.

Icebergs the shape and size of shopping malls already dot the sea around the shelf as it disintegrates. Seals bask in the southern hemisphere summer sunshine on icebergs by expanses of open water.

High-resolution satellite data show the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse in detail, including blocks of ice that have tipped over and blocks of ice that have remained upright. (Formosat image © 2008 Dr. Cheng-Chien Liu, National Cheng-Kung University and Dr. An-Ming Wu, National Space Organization, Taiwan.)

A year ago, BAS said the Wilkins was “hanging by a thread” after an aerial survey. “Miraculously we’ve come back a summer later and it’s still here. If it was hanging by a thread last year, it’s hanging by a filament this year,” Vaughan said.

Nine other shelves have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B in 2002. The trend is widely blamed on climate change caused by heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.

WARMING TO BLAME

“This ice shelf and the nine other shelves that we have seen with a similar trajectory are a consequence of warming,” Vaughan said.

In total, about 25,000 sq km of ice shelves have been lost, changing maps of Antarctica. Ocean sediments indicate that some shelves had been in place for at least 10,000 years.

Early in the day on February 28, 2008, the Wilkins Ice Shelf remained intact. By March 17, 2008, the ice shelf had retreated significantly from its original extent. As the Antarctic summer drew to a close, sea ice began to freeze around the ice fragments. (NASA images by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, based on MODIS data.)

Vaughan stuck a GPS monitoring station on a long metal pole into the Wilkins ice on behalf of Dutch scientists. It will track ice movements via satellite.

The shelf is named after Australian George Hubert Wilkins, an early Antarctic aviator who is set to join an exclusive club of people who have a part of the globe named after them that later vanishes.

Loss of ice shelves does not raise sea levels significantly because the ice is floating and already mostly submerged by the ocean. But the big worry is that their loss will allow ice sheets on land to move faster, adding extra water to the seas.

Large blocks of ice, recently broken off the Wilkins Ice Shelf, float on the ocean in this aerial photograph. In between the large blocks of ice float much smaller pieces of ice with a rough surface. (Photograph © 2008 British Antarctic Survey.)

Wilkins has almost no pent-up glaciers behind it. But ice shelves further south hold back vast volumes of ice. “When those are removed the glaciers will flow faster,” Vaughan said.

Temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have warmed by about 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) since 1950, the fastest rise in the southern hemisphere. There is little sign of warming elsewhere in Antarctica.

BAS scientists and two Reuters reporters stayed about an hour on the shelf at a point about 2 km wide.

“It’s very unlikely that our presence here is enough to initiate any cracks,” Vaughan said. “But it is likely to happen fairly soon, weeks to months, and I don’t want to be here when it does.”

The U.N. Climate Panel, of which Vaughan is a senior member, projected in 2007 that world sea levels were likely to rise by between 18 and 59 cm (7 and 23 inches) this century.

But it did not factor in any possible acceleration of ice loss from Antarctica. Even a small change in the rate could affect sea levels, and Antarctica’s ice sheets contain enough water in total to raise world sea levels by 57 meters.

About 190 nations have agreed to work out a new U.N. treaty by the end of 2009 to slow global warming, reining in emissions from burning fossil fuels in power plants, cars and factories.

Following are facts about ice shelves.

• Ice shelves are extensions of land-based ice sheets that float on the sea. They can be several hundred meters thick and are found mainly in bays around Antarctica, with some in the Arctic. Antarctica’s biggest, the Ross Ice Shelf, is the size of France.

• Scientists worry that that the collapse of ice shelves could prompt glaciers inland to start sliding faster toward the sea, raising sea levels. Antarctica holds enough fresh water to raise sea levels by 57 meters (187 ft), so even a limited melt would have big consequences.

• Since 1950, ten ice shelves on the Peninsula, which snakes up toward South America, have contracted or collapsed.

• The British Antarctic Survey reckons that 25,000 sq km (10,000 sq mile) of ice shelves have been lost in total — an area the size of Macedonia, Rwanda or the U.S. state of Vermont.

• Ice shelves that have broken up since 1950 are the Larsen A, Larsen B and Larsen C, Prince Gustav, Muller, Jones, Wordie, George VI north, George VI south and the Wilkins.

• Among the most dramatic collapses was that of the Larsen A within a few weeks in 1995, when satellite images abruptly showed the bay dotted with icebergs. The Larsen B also abruptly collapsed in 2002.

(Editing by Andrew Roche) – copyright the author or the news agency.

Global Warming or Climate Change

From NASA with Love!

What’s in a Name? Global Warming vs. Climate Change

December 5, 2008

The Internet is full of references to global warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists [aka, the snakeoil merchants] website on climate change is titled “Global Warming,” just one of many examples. But we don’t use global warming much on this website. We use the less appealing “climate change.” Why?

By any other name … Whether referred to as “global warming” or “climate change,” the consequences of the widescale changes currently being observed in Earth’s climate system could be considerable.

To a scientist, global warming describes the average global surface temperature increase from human emissions of greenhouse gases. Its first use was in a 1975 Science article by geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory: “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?”

Broecker’s term was a break with tradition. Earlier studies of human impact on climate had called it “inadvertent climate modification.”  This was because while many scientists accepted that human activities could cause climate change, they did not know what the direction of change might be. Industrial emissions of tiny airborne particles called aerosols might cause cooling, while greenhouse gas emissions would cause warming. Which effect would dominate?

For most of the 1970s, nobody knew. So “inadvertent climate modification,” while clunky and dull, was an accurate reflection of the state of knowledge.

The first decisive National Academy of Science study of carbon dioxide’s impact on climate, published in 1979, abandoned “inadvertent climate modification.” Often called the Charney Report for its chairman, Jule Charney of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, declared: “if carbon dioxide continues to increase, [we find] no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible.”

In place of inadvertent climate modification, Charney adopted Broecker’s usage. When referring to surface temperature change, Charney used “global warming.” When discussing the many other changes that would be induced by increasing carbon dioxide, Charney used “climate change.”

Within scientific journals, this is still how the two terms are used. Global warming refers to surface temperature increases, while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas amounts will affect.

Definitions:
Global warming: the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases.
Climate change: a long-term change in the Earth’s climate, or of a region on Earth.

During the late 1980s one more term entered the lexicon, “global change.” This term encompassed many other kinds of change in addition to climate change. When it was approved in 1989, the U.S. climate research program was embedded as a theme area within the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

But global warming became the dominant popular term in June 1988, when NASA scientist James E. Hansen had testified to Congress about climate, specifically referring to global warming. He said: “global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming.”  Hansen’s testimony was very widely reported in popular and business media, and after that popular use of the term global warming exploded. Global change never gained traction in either the scientific literature or the popular media.

But temperature change itself isn’t the most severe effect of changing climate. Changes to precipitation patterns and sea level are likely to have much greater human impact than the higher temperatures alone. For this reason, scientific research on climate change encompasses far more than surface temperature change. So “global climate change” is the more scientifically accurate term. Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we’ve chosen to emphasize global climate change on this website, and not global warming.

Erik Conway
Global Climate Change

[Text, image, caption: NASA Earth Observatory; comment on UCS: FEWW]

Palin’s Polar Pests Love Their Cubs, Too!

Main Entry: It’s All About Big Oil, Stupid!

Photograph by Norbert Rosing. (Source: National geographic). Image may be subject to copyright."”]”]

IS THIS RELATIONSHIP ANY LESS IMPORTANT THAN THE ONE BELOW?

Bristol Palin , the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is seen holding her brother Trig at a campaign event in Dayton, Ohio, August 29, 2008. REUTERS/John Gress. Image may be subject to copyright.

Related Links:

• It’s All About Big Oil, Stupid!

• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record
• 3 million acres of spruce killed in Alaska in 15 years
• Hilarious Polar Bear News!
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution

• How Much Carbon Dioxide Does Your Money Make?
• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t …
• Arctic ice cover second-lowest on record
• The real games are in Alaska

• Death by Lethal Pollution
• Bering Sea Drilling Revisited!
• Arctic Marine Mammals on Thin Ice
• Our Oceans Are Dying

• How McCain the “war criminal” turned Psywar Stooge Against American Servicemen
• Must Israeli Politicians Bewail at Pearl Harbor Memorial to Become PM or President?

::

Out of the sinking pan, into the fire!

Global Warming Tolls the Death Knell for Tuvalu

Massive tides, high winds and rising sea levels are causing erosion to the four reef islands and five true atolls that comprise the tiny country of Tuvalu.

Map of Tuvalu

Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, the low-lying Polynesian islands are located in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. The nine-island cluster contains 600 sq km of ocean, but only a total of 25 sq km of land.

Tuvaluans reaching end of the road. (AP Yonhap). Image may be subject to copyright!

“The residents of Tepuka Savilivili, an island 10 kilometers away from Funafuti, also sense the crisis. One day in 1997, an uninhabited island simply vanished. The residents explained that gale winds blew and covered the island during the night. The next day, the coconut trees had vanished.” Wrote Nam Jong-yeong.

Drinking water is mixing with salty ocean water; the coconut trees are vanishing; during high tides seawater covers most parts of the islands.

Thousands of Tuvaluans have already left the shrinking islands, most of them arriving in what they believe to be a safe destination: New Zealand.

Their new home, however, could breakup and sink in the south-western Pacific Ocean as a result of massive earthquakes. It’s rather like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire!

Related Links:

• Will one or both of New Zealand islands break up and sink …

Revved-up Bertha Becomes A Hurricane Again!

Will she hold her strength this time despite the official forecast?

Hurricane Bertha: Satellite image July 19, 2008 00:15UTC – NOAA

Related Links:

• Bertha Revving UP!

• Weather
• Watch out! Big Bertha might be heading your way!
• Bertha public advisory

• Previous UPDATE: HURRICANE BERTHA
• Bertha slows down, but her large eye looks menacing

HURRICANE BERTHA ADVISORY NUMBER 63
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL022008
500 PM AST FRI JUL 18 2008

…BERTHA BECOMES A HURRICANE AGAIN…

AT 500 PM AST…2100Z…THE CENTER OF HURRICANE BERTHA WAS LOCATED
NEAR LATITUDE 37.6 NORTH…LONGITUDE 50.6 WEST OR ABOUT 640 MILES…
1035 KM…SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF CAPE RACE NEWFOUNDLAND.

BERTHA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHEAST NEAR 22 MPH…35 KM/HR…AND
THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF
DAYS WITH AN INCREASE IN FORWARD SPEED.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 75 MPH…120 KM/HR…WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. BERTHA SHOULD SLOWLY WEAKEN OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS AND
BEGIN TO LOSE TROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS LATE ON SATURDAY.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 45 MILES…75 KM…FROM
THE CENTER…AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 175
MILES…280 KM.

THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 989 MB…29.21 INCHES.

REPEATING THE 500 PM AST POSITION…37.6 N…50.6 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD…NORTHEAST NEAR 22 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…75 MPH.
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…989 MB.

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
1100 PM AST.

$$
FORECASTER BLAKE

Bertha Revving UP!

BERTHA IS EXPECTED TO BECOME A HURRICANE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS…

A satellite Image of Bertha before arriving in Bermuda. NOAA, Jul 10, 2008

• AT 800 PM AST [Atlantic Standard Time]…0000Z [GMT]…THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM BERTHA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 33.4 NORTH…LONGITUDE 64.0 WEST OR ABOUT 85 MILES…135 KM…NORTH-NORTHEAST OF BERMUDA.

• LARGE SWELLS AND HIGH SURF ARE AFFECTING BERMUDA…AND THESE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO PERSIST FOR THE NEXT DAY OR TWO.

• DANGEROUS RIP CURRENTS ARE ALSO OCCURRING ALONG THE U.S. EAST COAST FROM THE CAROLINAS THROUGH SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND.

• BERTHA IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE RAINFALL AMOUNTS IN BERMUDA OF 3 TO 5 INCHES.

Excerpts from TROPICAL STORM BERTHA INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 47A –
NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 800 PM AST MON JUL 14 2008

Related Links:

• Weather
• Watch out! Big Bertha might be heading your way!
• Bertha public advisory

• Previous UPDATE: HURRICANE BERTHA
• Bertha slows down, but her large eye looks menacing

UPDATE #2 – California Fires

California Inferno Rages On

Wildfires are an indispensable tool in Nature’s cycle-of-life toolbox. But … the fires must not be allowed to burn naturally!! Click Here!

What People Said:

• California is reaching a “tipping point.” We need federal help, including military resources, said the mighty Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who declared a state-wide drought in June amid two years of low rainfall.

• Humanoids’ ignorance of Nature’s defense mechanisms hasn’t improved in 12,000 years! Take the California’s wildfires, for example. Tackling the wildfires has become strictly a Freudian affair. ~ A Member of Creating A Sustainable Future (CASF).

A firefighter with the Lathrop-Manteca Fire District talks on his radio as a spot fire burns through trees and brush July 10, 2008 in Concow, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

• About 1,300 square miles (3,366 square kilometers), or 0.8 percent of the entire state, an area larger than Rhode Island, has been consumed in California since June 21, said Cal Fire. [The scorched land area is the largest in size in California’s wildfire history.]

• For first time in 30 years, California National Guard lends hand against wildfires, said abc News.

• “I am ordering 2,000 additional California National Guard personnel to boost our firefighting forces,” said Schwarzenegger.

• Burning embers – pinecones and bark chunks as big as baseballs – were thrown a quarter of a mile ahead of the primary wall of flames, creating spot fires. “You can’t see out a quarter mile,” Brown said. “When you find the new fire, it’s already a big fire.” Said SFGate

• “In my district, about 40 more homes were confirmed destroyed and there has been at least one death where a person refused to evacuate,” said Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly.

• “[The California’s fires] are unprecedented in size and number … [State authorities] have essentially exhausted all of their internal resources; eighty percent of all the federal resources are committed to California right now.” Said Glenn Cannon, assistant administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

A mountain bike is one of the few items recognizable at a home in the Camelot subdivision in Concow, Calif. Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

• The fires have killed two firefighters, injured 262, consumed 752,944 acres and have costs $325.7 million to fight. The fires threaten about 15,500 homes and structures across California, according to the state and federal fire reports.

• Some 19,704 firefighters and support personnel from 41 states are quenching 322 fires across California, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Cal Fire.

• Mexican and Canadian crews are also helping the US firefighters, said Mark Rey, undersecretary of natural resources and the environment for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• The Butte blaze threatens 3,800 homes and structures, said Justin Scribner, a spokesman for Cal Fire. “We were trying to conduct a planned burning operation, with crews in place to hold the lines, but the winds picked up, and we weren’t able to stop it.”

• The Butte fire has scorched about 49,000 acres (19,600 hectares), 60 structures, and caused $40.5 million in damages, according to Cal Fire and the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

This image of the combined fires was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on July 10, 2008.

Carbon Dioxide Is a Fire Retardant (!)

• Homeland Security (!) Sec. Michael Chertoff held a conference call with Gov. Schwarzenegger, Sen. Feinstein, a staffer for Sen. Boxer, Interior Sec. Kempthorne and Agriculture Sec. Schafer to discuss California’s needs, said DHS spokeswoman. [She did not specify whether the conference was held in French or in English!]

• It has been decided that to create more CO2, which might help put out the fires, firefighters from Australia, Greece and New Zealand should come to the U.S. </dark humor>

• State officials are trying to get all the fires declared as major disasters, to enable increased access to federal funds, said California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi.

• Forest fires have broken out in nine states, including two in Washington yesterday, which destroyed [thirteen] homes [some were multimillion-dollar homes] in the Spokane Valley [Friday], said Don Smurthwaite, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Numerous major wildfires continued burning Friday in Eastern Washington, prompting Gov. Chris Gregoire to declare a state of emergency for the entire state. That freed equipment, firefighters and funding for efforts to quench the flames.

Fire crews from across Washington were battling blazes in Chelan, Douglas, Stevens, Adams, Ferry, and Spokane counties. With hot and dry conditions statewide, Gregoire said the proclamation ensured any affected area would have sufficient firefighting resources. (Source)

• “It would do us no good to send everything to California and then see fires ignite in three or four other states,” Smurthwaite said.

• So far, about 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares), [an area roughly the size of Connecticut,] have burned in the U.S. this year, exceeding the 10-year average of 2.5 million [by 20 percent,] Smurthwaite said.

• “Hand crews and bulldozers were (in Concow) all night, posted at individual homes” trying to retard the flames, said Joshpae White, an engineer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

• High temperatures and low humidity have hampered efforts by crews trying to contain another fire advance near Carmel Valley, north of Big Sur. said Susan Zornek, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman on loan from Missouri.

• Because this fire season started so early, the firefighting conditions have been among the worst in memory, even among longtime crews, said Terence McHale, policy director for CDF Firefighters of Cal Fire, the union representing the firefighters.

• “We have firefighters who’ve been working nonstop since mid-May, who haven’t seen their families or homes, who are working 24-hour shifts, 21 days on, sometimes putting in 36 hours in the initial attack of a fire,” said McHale said. “It’s an incredible challenge.”

• “You almost feel like somebody is out to get you,” said Nancy Henphill, 61, a Concow resident.

California Must Decide: Life or “Lifestyle?”

Related News Links:

• Calif. National Guard Joins Firefighting Effort
• California Wildfires Force 10,000 to Evacuate Homes
• Calif. Wildfire Forces More Evacuations

Related Links:

• UPDATE #1: California Fires
• Early Halloween

• Images of the Day: California Fires
• Lightning Safety Awareness Week: June 22-28

• A Few Extreme Events Away

• 2008: Year of the Fire
• Raging Wildfires: Mother Nature ensuring the cycle of life?

• Our Forecast for 2009 California Fires [Aug 14, 2008]

Image of the Day: Three men we admire most

The Conciliary, the Prez and the unholy ghost

George W Bush: “He” no longer speaks to me!

He only knows, I have been trying to speak to Him about flooding and fire, but He is avoiding me!

U.S. President George W. Bush takes part in a briefing on Midwest flooding with Vice President Dick Cheney (L) and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, June 17, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES). Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Is 350 ppm Safe? Hell, NO!

Folks, don’t be fooled by the hype: 350 ppmv NOT safe!

1. There is a 30-year time lag between the release of CO2e greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and the cumulative impact of heat-trapping mechanism taking effect.
2. The positive feedback system whose impacts we are now witnessing started when the atmospheric CO2 concentration rose above the 330 ppmv in the mid 1970s.
3. Any concentration level above the 330 ppm is clearly unsafe. To stabilize at levels below 330 ppm, we must aim for much lower levels of about 260-270 ppm.

Average air bubble CO₂ concentration versus age in three ice cores taken close to the summit of Law Dome at 67�S, 113�E, around 1390 m elevation. Law Dome is near the Australian Antarctic station Casey. (Source)

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. The red curve shows the average monthly concentrations; blue curve is a moving 12 month average. GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 only as published by the Free Software Foundation. [Credit User Superm401via Wikimedia]

Related Links:

• 350 or 450 ppm? Neither, Actually!

• Greenland Ice Melt Faster Than IPCC Estimates
• Only Zero Emissions Would Avert Dangerous Warming
• Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”
• UN Hypocrisy: Kick the CO2 Habit!
• The myth of keeping CO2 under 450ppm

Schwarzenegger Proclaims Water Emergency in Nine Counties

A Shrinking World Series

Could California Turn to Desert by 2011?

Water, water, my bloody kingdom for a drop of water. ~ King Conan

Water Emergency in Calif

As most of the croplands in the Central U.S. is submerged under floodwater, the heart of California’s farming area is feeling the heat. Gov. Schwarzenegger who proclaimed last week a drought in California, declared yesterday a state of emergency in nine counties in Central Valley.

“Just last week, I said we would announce regional emergencies wherever the state’s drought situation warrants them, and in the Central Valley an emergency proclamation is necessary to protect our economy and way of life,” Mr Schwarzenegger said.

“Central Valley agriculture is a $20 billion a year industry. If we don’t get them water immediately the results will be devastating,” he added. “Food prices, which are already stretching many family budgets, will continue to climb and workers will lose their jobs—everyone’s livelihood will be impacted in some way.”

“His declaration covers Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties and directs California’s Department of Water Resources to work with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to deliver more water through the State Water Project to where it is most needed.” Reuters reported.

Conservation Action:

• Water rationing is imposed in Long Beach, Roseville and the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves 1.3 million people in the San Francisco Bay area.

• Water agencies serving about 18 million people throughout Calif have declared a water supply alerts.

• Officials are planning for reduced water use through this year because lower water supplies are anticipated next year.

• Schwarzenegger is asking lawmakers to back a “comprehensive solution” to expanding water and says he needs $11.9 billion bond to finance water projects. (Source)

Coyote Dry Lake, Mojave Desert. Image: Jeff T. Alu via Wikimedia. This file is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

Coyote Dry Lake is a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert located about 24 km northeast of Barstow, and north of Interstate 15 in southern California. The lake measures about 10 km long and about 6 km wide at its widest section.

California’s Last Chance: Do a U-Turn, or Turn to Desert!

Related news:

• Water squabbles irrigate tensions in Central Asia Reuters
• In Spain, Water Is a New Battleground The New York Times
• Water Shortage and ‘Africanization’ of Spain [Note: ‘Africanization’ is a weasel word for desertification]

Related Links:

• Drought Index

• Failing Ecosystems
• State of the World
• Future Scenarios
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
  
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle

• Giga Trends
• World Problems: The Root Cause Matrix
• Tipping Point
• Topsoil
• Drying Aquifers, Sinking Cities

• The Economy
• Energy
• Food Security
• Future in the Making: A Shrinking World

• Could California turn to desert by 2011?

feww