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Lake algae confirm global warming link
New Scientist
ALGAL growth in remote Arctic lakes is confirming what ecologists suspected all along – that entire freshwater ecosystems are altering in response to climate change.
Neal Michelutti and his colleagues at the University of Alberta in Edmonton collected 30-centimetre core samples from the bottom of six lakes on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. From levels of chlorophyll a in the sediment, which they measured using a technique called reflectance spectroscopy, they deduced that plant life in the lakes began to increase 150 years ago and is now growing almost exponentially year by year.
The most likely reason for the change is climate warming, Michelutti says. Cycles of plant and alga growth in the lakes last only a few weeks, and lengthening that period by even a few days would be noticeable in the sediment, he says.
Past experiments have failed to show a convincing link, either because they covered too short a geological period or because they were conducted in areas where human activity could have affected the results. The core samples of Michelutti’s experiment contain 5000 years’ worth of data from an area almost untouched by human activity.
“These are pristine lakes that mankind hasn’t directly affected,” he says. “But there has definitely been an indirect effect.”
(29 October 2005)
No Escape: Thaw Gains Momentum
Andrew C Revkin, New York Times
In 1969 Roy Koerner, a Canadian government glaciologist, was one of four men (and 36 dogs) who completed the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean, from Alaska through the North Pole to Norway. Now, he said, such a trek would be impossible: there is just not enough ice. In September, the area covered by sea ice reached a record low. “I look on it as a different world,” Dr. Koerner said. “I recently reviewed a proposal by one guy to go across by kayak.”
At age 73, Dr. Koerner, known as Fritz, still regularly hikes high on the ancient glaciers abutting the warming ocean to extract cores showing past climate trends. And every one, he said, indicates that the Arctic warming under way over the last century is different from that seen in past warm eras. Many scientists say it has taken a long time for them to accept that global warming, partly the result of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, could shrink the Arctic’s summer cloak of ice.
But many of those same scientists have concluded that the momentum behind human-caused warming, combined with the region’s tendency to amplify change, has put the familiar Arctic past the point of no return. The particularly sharp warming and melting in the last few decades is thought by many experts to result from a mix of human and natural causes. But a number of recent computer simulations of global climate run by half a dozen research centers around the world show that in the future human influence will dominate. …
The effects could also include a sharp increase in the rate at which seas are swelled by melting glacial ice and far greater warming as even more greenhouse gases, locked in permafrost and the Arctic seabed, are liberated by warming. For example, American and Russian scientists studying lakes in northeastern Siberia recently reported that the melt of permafrost is generating methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In spots, so much methane is being released that roiling streams of bubbles prevent the surface from freezing even in the depths of the Siberian winter. …
(25 October 2005)
European Union emission trading multiplies
Reuters via Yahoo
LONDON – Volumes in the European Unions new carbon dioxide emission trading scheme have soared with over 200 million tonnes of credits expected to change hands this year, a report from consultants Prospex said on Friday. Trade is expected to increase further next year as more companies, especially in southern and eastern Europe, enter the market.
“The pioneering days are over. In the first three quarters of 2005 alone, we estimate trading volumes reached 177 million tonnes, or eleven times global volumes in all of 2004,” said Amsterdam-based Prospex. September was the busiest month so far with trade reaching 43 million tonnes. The EU launched the emissions trading scheme in January as part of its drive to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution which is blamed for causing climate change. The scheme, which covers 12,000 industrial sites, is the first international emissions trading market. …
“(Financial institutions’) volumes may be nearly as large as the energy company volumes. These players were among the first to enter the trading market,” the report said. A small group of industrial and commodities companies is also active but most industrial groups have little interest in daily trading and prefer simple and occasional hedging transactions, it added.
(28 October 2005)
UK Prince’s plea over climate change
BBC
Prince Charles says climate change should be seen as the “greatest challenge to face man” and treated as a much bigger priority in the UK. The prince unveiled his vision for the future of the environment, farming and food in an exclusive BBC interview.
He said climate change “is what really worries me”, and said he did not want his future grandchildren to ask why he had not acted over the issue. He also encouraged consumers to buy regional produce to help UK farming.
The Prince of Wales spoke to BBC environment correspondent Sarah Mukherjee at his farm, Home Farm in Gloucestershire. He said climate change was a big issue for the future of farming, and affected considerations such as what crops should be grown.
“We should be treating I think the whole issue of climate change and global warming with a far greater degree of priority than I think is happening now,” he said. He said moves should be taken to ensure “there was something left to hand on” to future generations.
An audio interview is available on the link.
(27 October 2005)
Tony Blair recently made another plea too.
Global warming: help or hindrance?
Jorn Madslien, BBC
Prince of Wales deems climate change the “greatest challenge to face man”, and according to a warning this week global warming is making the world’s poor even worse off. But can it also help to create fresh wealth? …
The Arctic’s commercial potential has sent most leading energy companies scurrying into harsh and remote areas in North America, Russia’s Siberia and the Barents Sea – all parts of a region that is believed to contain as much as a quarter of the world’s undiscovered reserves of oil and gas. …
Indeed, although the warmer weather may be doing much to open up new shipping routes and bluewater ports, it has also led to an increase – not a decrease – in the frequency of icebergs.
“The icebergs can rip up pipelines and production facilities and everything else that gets in their way,” says Rasmus Sunde, executive vice president of Vetco, a supplier to the oil industry.
Drilling for oil in an area where million-tonne icebergs are drifting at speeds of up to 900 metres an hour, only to be overtaken by large sheets of ice sometimes drifting four times as fast, is a serious challenge. …
“High oil and gas prices are necessary to secure a non-Opec increase in supply,” observes Mr Enoksen.
(27 October 2005)
Mighty Amazon close to running out of water
Sydney Morning Herald
A state of emergency has been declared in the Amazon River basin, which
is suffering its worst drought in 42 years. More than 1000 towns and hamlets that rely on the river for transport have been cut off as water levels fall, making the river unnavigable. …
To make matters worse, as the rainforest becomes increasingly dry, damaging wildfires are regularly breaking out across the region, destroying trees. Greenpeace blames deforestation and climate change for the drought.
(30 October 2005)
This is a troubling story and like the stories of melting permafrosts and tundras, more evidence of runaway global warming as the rainforest dries out and burns. -AF
China’s Next Big Boom Could Be the Foul Air
Jim Yardley, New York Times
The steady barrage of statistics trumpeting China’s rise is often greeted elsewhere as if the figures were torpedoes and the rest of the world a sinking ship. Economic growth tops 9 percent! Textile exports jump 500 percent! Military spending up! Manufacturing up!
The numbers inflame the exaggerated perception that China is methodically inhaling jobs and resources and, in the process, inhaling the rest of the planet. Burp. There goes the American furniture industry. Burp. Thanks for your oil, Venezuela.
But one statistic offered last week by a top Chinese environmental official should stimulate genuine alarm inside and outside China. The official, Zhang Lijun, warned that pollution levels here could more than quadruple within 15 years if the country does not curb its rapid growth in energy consumption and automobile use.
(30 October 2005)
