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The Earth from Space
Guardian
A selection of spectacular satellite images, featured in Earth from Space, published by the Guardian and A&C Black, clearly shows man’s devastating impact on our planet, from the disappearing Aral Sea to deforestation in Brazil, urban growth in Dallas and light pollution across the globe
(10 August 2007)
The Earth fights back
Bill McGuire, Guardian
Never mind higher temperatures, climate change has a few nastier surprises in store. Expect more earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and tsunamis
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Unlike most apparently intractable problems, which have a tendency to go away when examined closely and analytically, the climate change predicament just seems to get bigger and scarier the more we learn about it.
Now we discover that not only are the oceans and the atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms, floods and ever-climbing sea levels, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too.
Looking back to other periods in our planet’s history when the climate was swinging about wildly, most notably during the last ice age, it appears that far more than the weather was affected. The solid earth also became restless, with an increase in volcanic activity, earthquakes, giant submarine landslides and tsunamis. At the rate climate change is accelerating, there is every prospect that we will see a similar response from the planet, heralding not just a warmer future but also a fiery one.
(8 August 2007)
Extreme weather the norm across globe
Mark Turner, Financial Times
The world this year has Âsuffered record-breaking weather extremes in almost every continent, the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organisation has warned, with global land temperatures reaching their highest levels since records began in 1800.
The floods, droughts, heatwaves and storms could be part of the climate’s natural variations and cannot be directly attributed to climate change. However, such instances of extreme weather are consistent with predictions of what will happen as the world’s climate grows warmer.
The findings may fuel concern that action to stem climate change should be taken now. Experts from the Intergovernmental Group on Climate Change have said the process would become irreversible if temperatures rise 3°C above pre-industrial levels.
(7 August 2007)
Analysts See ‘Simply Incredible’ Shrinking of Floating Ice in the Arctic
Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times
The area of floating ice in the Arctic has shrunk more this summer than in any other summer since satellite tracking began in 1979, and it has reached that record point a month before the annual ice pullback typically peaks, experts said yesterday.
The cause is probably a mix of natural fluctuations, like unusually sunny conditions in June and July, and long-term warming from heat-trapping greenhouse gases and sooty particles accumulating in the air, according to several scientists.
William L. Chapman, who monitors the region at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and posted a Web report on the ice retreat yesterday, said that only an abrupt change in conditions could prevent far more melting before the 24-hour sun of the boreal summer set in September. “The melting rate during June and July this year was simply incredible,” Mr. Chapman said. “And then you’ve got this exposed black ocean soaking up sunlight and you wonder what, if anything, could cause it to reverse course.”
(10 August 2007)
Also at Common Dreams.
Global warming: Met Office predicts plateau then record temperatures
Ian Sample, Guardian
British scientists are predicting a succession of record-breaking high temperatures in the most detailed forecast of global warming’s impact on weather around the world.
Powerful computer simulations used to create the world’s first global warming forecast suggests temperature rises will stall in the next two years, before rising sharply at the end of the decade.
From 2010, they warn, every year has at least a 50% chance of exceeding the record year of 1998 when average global temperatures reached 14.54C.
The study’s findings raise the prospect of hotter summers and episodes of torrential rain in the UK; 1998 brought temperatures peaking at 32.2C, although the UK record was set in 2003 at 38.1C.
The forecast from researchers at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre in Exeter reveals that natural shifts in climate will cancel out warming produced by greenhouse gas emissions and other human activity until 2009, but from then on, temperatures will rise steadily.
(10 August 2007)
Prepare for another ten scorching years
Jim Giles, New Scientist
Temperature records will be repeatedly shattered over the next few years, say researchers behind the first rigorous look at how global climate will change during the next decade.
The prediction comes from an innovative technique that combines the approaches used by weather forecasters, who typically look a few days ahead, and climate modellers, who produce projections that run up to the end of the century. The result is a model that can project as far as 2015, filling in a long-standing gap in climate predictions.
Although average global temperatures have been relatively flat in recent years, the model says they will start rising again next year. At least half of the years between 2009 and 2015 will exceed the current warmest year on record. By 2015, global temperatures will be 0.5 °C above the average value for the last 30 years.
(9 August 2007)
Natural forces offset global warming last two years: study
AFP
Natural weather variations have offset the effects of global warming for the past couple of years and will continue to keep temperatures flat through 2008, a study released Thursday said.
But global warming will begin in earnest in 2009, and a couple of the years between 2009 and 2014 will eclipse 1998, the warmest year on record to date, in the heat stakes, British meteorologists said.
Existing global climate computer models tend to underestimate the effects of natural forces on climate change, so for this analysis, Met Office experts tweaked their model to better reflect the impact of weather systems such as La Nina, or fluctuations in ocean heat and circulation.
(9 August 2007)
