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How close is runaway climate change?
Paul Brown, Guardian
In an extract from his new book on global warming, Paul Brown looks at how close the planet is to irreversible damage
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Runaway climate change is a theory of how things might go badly wrong for the planet if a relatively small warming of the earth upsets the normal checks and balances that keep the climate in equilibrium. As the atmosphere heats up, more greenhouse gases are released from the soil and seas. Plants and trees that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere die back, creating a vicious circle as the climate gets hotter and hotter.
The phrase “tipping point” is heard a lot more from scientists. This is where a small amount of warming sets off unstoppable changes, for example the melting of the ice caps. Once the temperature rises a certain amount then all the ice caps will melt. The tipping point in many scientists’ view is the 2˚C rise that the EU has adopted as the maximum limit that mankind can risk. Beyond that, as unwelcome changes in the earth’s reaction to extra warmth continue, it is theoretically possible to trigger runaway climate change, making the earth’s atmosphere so different that most of life would be threatened.
As with a lot of climate science, what used to be theory is now being seen in practice on the ground.
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Global Warning: The Last Chance for Change, by Paul Brown, is published by the Guardian and A&C Black (£19.95)
(19 Oct 2006)
Siberian fires ‘could spark UK heatwaves’
Press Association, Guardian
Forest fires in Siberia could lead to more heatwaves in the UK, a scientist specialising in global warming warned today.
Professor Heiko Balzter, a former head of Earth observation at the Natural Environment Research Council’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, has been studying satellite images of Siberia for the past eight years.
He said his findings confirmed that the region had become a global hotspot for climate change, with central Siberia warming by almost 2C since 1970 – about three times the global average.
Professor Balzter explained that the forests and permafrosts of Siberia help keep world temperatures down by absorbing large quantities of greenhouse gases.
But he said the region has suffered a large number of forest fires in recent years, including 40,000 square kilometres (15,444 square miles) lost in 2003.
He said this could lead to an acceleration of global climate change by releasing the greenhouse gases contained in the forests and frozen soils.
(18 Oct 2006)
Antarctic ice collapse linked to greenhouse gases
Alister Doyle, Reuters via Common Dreams
Scientists said on Monday that they had found the first direct evidence linking the collapse of an ice shelf in Antarctica to global warming widely blamed on human activities.
Shifts in winds whipping around the southern Ocean, tied to human emissions of greenhouse gases, had warmed the Antarctic peninsula jutting up toward South America and contributed to the break-up of the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002, they said.
“This is the first time that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly linking the break-up of the Larsen Ice Shelf to human activity,” said Gareth Marshall, lead author of the study at the British Antarctic Survey.
The chunk that collapsed into the Weddell Sea in 2002 was 3,250 sq kms (1,255 sq miles), bigger than Luxembourg or the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
(16 Oct 2006)
Climate change blamed for legionnaires’ disease surge
Jeremy Laurance, Independent (UK)
Britain has suffered its first deaths from infectious disease attributable to global warming, official figures suggest.
Cases of Legionnaires’ disease, the bacterial lung infection which kills more than one in 10 of those it infects, reached record levels in August and September and experts say the extreme summer weather is the most likely cause of the rise.
Doctors say that as the world gets hotter, Britain could be threatened by diseases such as malaria, spreading from the tropics. In 2003, an estimated 2,000 UK deaths, mostly elderly people, were attributed to the 90-degree summer heatwave which was blamed on global warming.
But the record levels of Legionnaires’ disease reported by the Health Protection Agency this summer are believed to be the first example of an increase in infectious disease in Britain driven by climate change.
(18 Oct 2006)
