Water vapor

leading cause of warming.

Grizzlies Invade Polar Bear Territory, Outcome Uncertain
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 09 March 2005
10:45 am ET
A grizzly bear treading higher into the Arctic than ever before has scientists wondering whether a changing landscape might lead to interbreeding with polar bears and other ecological effects.

Paw prints of a grizzly were found last year on Melville Island, about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle. DNA evidence obtained from the beast's hair confirms it was a grizzly, scientists said Tuesday.

No grizzly has ever been seen so far north.

"The grizzly bear apparently is expanding its range into the northern reaches of the higher Arctic," said Jonathan Doupof the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in Canada.

Tale of the Tape

Polar bears (above) are descended from grizzlies (below). They have smaller heads and longer necks adapted for swimming.

Grizzlies have been bred with polar bears successfully in captivity. It's not clear whether they would do so in the wild.

"It's within the realm of genetics that you could have hybrid bears," Doupé told LiveScience in a telephone interview. "It's not necessarily within the realm of bear behavior."

He said the intermingling could have other ecological repercussions. Bears have different prey, for example, preferring musk ox to seals, for example. And both bear species are known to eat cubs.

"Higher number of grizzlies cold interfere with polar bear reproduction," Doupé speculated.

Earlier this year scientists warned that global warming might wipe out polar bears in coming years.

Doupé and his colleagues are geologists. They said wildlife biologists would need to look into the situation to better understand possible impacts.

The Melville Island grizzly was first spotted by helicopter in 2003. Last summer, the creature frequented a cabin used by researchers.

The bear is called a barren-ground grizzly, Ursus arctos. Over the past 15 years or so, other grizzly sightings suggest a gradual expansion northward. Grizzlies have been spotted on Arctic sea ice, from the Beaufort Sea to Hudson Bay. Recently they've spent winters on Victoria Island, just south of Melville.

Polar bears range well south of the adventurous grizzlies.

The northward-migrating grizzlies are visible examples of climate changes occurring in the Arctic, according to the team of geologists, which includes John England of the University of Alberta.

Now that's interesting. I didn't know that Grizzlies and Polar Bears were that closely related. Didn't anyone tell the Grizzly that there is no global warming, just a warm spell?

Wayne & others, do y'all in the midwest agree with this story?

Weather So Perfect It's Strange
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 12 March 2005
10:06 am ET

With extreme weather and a shifty climate constantly in the news, a little moderation might seem strange. Take last year's weather in the Midwest: It was so perfect, it was unlike anything seen in more than a century.

Goldilocks weather conditions -- not too cloudy, not to hot, just enough rain -- fueled record harvests in every major Midwest crop, scientists said Friday.

"A climatological evaluation revealed that summer 2004 conditions were unlike any experienced during the past 117 years," said Stanley Changnon, chief emeritus of the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS).

'Never before'

"Never before have corn, soybeans, sorghum, and alfalfa hay all achieved record yields in the same year," Changnon said.

In Illinois, cornfields produced 180 bushels per acre -- 16 bushels higher than the record set in 2003. Soybean yields was 50.5 bushels per acre, beating a record set in 1994 by five.

Record high corn crops were grown in Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio. Nationally, the corn yield was 160 bushels per acre -- 18 bushels an acre above the 2003 record.

"Planting during the 2004 growing season was early," said Changnon, also an adjunct professor of geography at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Summer temperatures were below normal with no hot days. Rainfall was adequate."

An unusually high number of sunny days aiding photosynthesis, in which plants turn sunlight into energy.

Crazy Mother Nature went a step further, however.
Clear and cool

"When a large number of clear days occurred in most previous summers, conditions were hot and dry with much above average temperatures and below average rainfall," Changnon said. "Temperatures in 18 of the 33 summers between 1888 and 2003 with frequent clear skies averaged between 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit and 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average."

Sunny summers with below average temperatures and plentiful rainfall -- good growing conditions -- occurred only in 1927 and 2004. And last year whooped 1927 in the "total sunny days" category.

Weatherwise, there's an explanation. In 2004, 20 cold Canadian fronts crossed the Midwest. Each dropped temperatures by 5-15 degrees and was followed by a high-pressure system that brought several days of clear weather.

High-pressure systems blanket a region with stable, dry air. Once in place, they deflect warm, moist air away, so some other region gets the clouds.

The extreme Midwestern placidity of 2004 might not be repeated anytime soon.

"The atmospheric circulation pattern during summer 2004 was unusual, but these conditions and their crop impacts are not considered indicative of those expected with a change in climate due to global warming," Changnon said.

Vgkg,

The growing season turned out pretty good...yes. There was early planting.
However some of us had some very wet weather in June followed by almost no rain for 4 weeks in mid-summer so it was surprising that the field crops did so well. Perhaps the modern hybrid varieties had something to do with that. Myself, I needed to water things.
After record amounts of rain in 3 summer months of 2003 spaced between dry months, perhaps 2004 seemed "normal" more than it was.
A colder pattern seems to have settled in here for the last several months.....hope it moves on.

Little to do with Global Warming but moron emissions nevertheless...

Acid Rain Likely Stunts U.S. Tree Growth
By LiveScience Staff

posted: 14 March 2005
11:36 am ET

A new study of soil collected before industry created acid rain suggests trees in the United States and elsewhere are likely stunted by the polluted ground.

Researches compared tree growth across decades in Russia to changes in soil conditions.

"By providing the only preserved soil in the world collected before the acid rain era, the Russians helped our international team track tree growth for the first time with changes in soil from acid rain," said Greg Lawrence, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who headed the effort.

The study, announced today, found that acid rain may have "serious implications for forest growth in the U.S., particularly in eastern areas such as the Adirondack and Catskill regions of New York."

"Weve known that acid rain acidifies surface waters, but this is the first time weve been able to compare and track tree growth in forests that include soil changes due to acid rain," Lawrence said.

Despite decades of study, the effects of acid rain, including the extent to which it permeates soil and remains there, have not been properly figured out.

The new research found that in about 50 years, acid rain had severely degraded previously fertile soil near St. Petersburg to the point that spruce trees could no longer maintain healthy growth rates. Such sub-par growth is known to precede high mortality rates in the near future.

The declining tree health occurred despite a warmer and wetter climate in the region, which should have improved growth, the study concluded.

The findings will be detailed in the online version of the journal of Environmental, Science and Technology. Scientists at the State University of New York at Albany, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and the U.S. Forest Service contributed.

In the Adirondack and Catskill regions of New York, soil is likely to be more sensitive to acid rain than the area of the Russian study, the scientists report.

The weather here last summer was very much like the weather in IN - very wet spring, then mid to late summer drought. The snowfall this winter has been record or near record low. I haven't read any predictions for this summer.

Here's a misc item for the thread. The snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro have melted, revealing the peak for the first time in 11,000 years.

Here is a link that might be useful: read story here

Nice story and pics there Althea!
Had to post this one here :

This next story is good newz (I suppose?). We'll save some on oil & coal burning pollutions but dunno what difference it'll make on CO2 output? But the positives do seem to out way the negatives.

In a Twist, Forest Products Viewed as Green Energy
By Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 16 March 2005
05:39 am ET

It has been nearly a million years since early humans first controlled fire to heat their caves and broil meat from hairy beasts. Now, after fits and starts in the environmental acceptability of this technology, steps are being made to burn wood as a "green" energy source to run everything from furnaces to toasters.

Only a few decades after burning wood waste produced at sawmills became taboo in many parts of the United States, the left over bits from the lumber industry tree tops, limbs, and bark are being efficiently burned and converted to energy.

Some U.S. forest-product manufacturing plants already burn wood residue in steam boilers. The steam drives turbines that generate part of the energy required to run the plant. And some pulp mills use what is called "black liquor," a lignin-rich residue left over when making paper, as a source of heat and electricity.

While burning wood refuse as a bio-fuel isnt widespread in the United States, countries in Europe have been using this source of energy successfully for a number of years. The big difference in Europe is that the plants are not using just on-site industrial residues for energy; their main source of biomass is recycled wood from the harvest site.

"In Sweden, theyre already bundling up what were leaving in the forest after a timber harvest and using it as biofuel," said Darwin Foster, program leader at the Texas Agricultural Extension Service.

Sawmills can't make anything useful out of the small stuff.

"In the United States and many other countries, tree tops are left behind at the harvested sites," Foster said. "Though the tonnage is huge, these tops are considered "unmerchantable" and are left where they fall to bio-degrade or are burned or chipped to speed up the process."

In the regeneration of biofuel technology, forest biomass is not limited to forest industry plants. As the prices of non-renewable energy sources such as oil continue to climb, residential consumption of biofuel may not be far away, some experts say. One Texas electric company is already generating electricity from wood residues and making it available to residential consumers.

Foster sees bio-fuel from tree waste as a great source of renewable energy. Other energy sources, such as oil and coal, will eventually run out, but forests regrow or can be replanted to provide a source of energy for years to come.

"The potential is huge," he said.

Harvesting tree waste for fuel might also help prevent catastrophic forest fires. Dry, woody debris, typically left behind by loggers, is perfect kindling for a large forest fire once ignited by a dropped cigarette or a lightning strike.

Both the U.S. Forest Service and the National Fire Plan, a cooperative of several federal agencies, promote removal of woody biomass from forests. The Department of Energy is also looking into engineering "fast-growing, air-cleansing hybrid poplars, planted on surplus farmland and cultivated for the energy they can yield," according to an Oak Ridge National Laboratory report.

There are some common concerns about removing wood from a harvest site to be converted to electricity. Burning wood will release carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. And removing leftover bits of trees from the forest could deprive the soil of biodegraded nutrients, which might slow down future re-forestation efforts.

Going against the grain, Foster argues that neither of these issues should be a cause for concern. He says carbon dioxide will be used in photosynthesis by growing trees, and there have been studies showing that the regrowth of forests will not be slowed as long as some of the residues are left behind. In some areas it may be possible to return most of the nutrients, in the form of ash, to the harvest site.

No Stopping it Now: Seas to Rise 4 Inches or More this Century
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 17 March 2005
02:00 pm ET

Even if all industrial pollution and auto emissions suddenly ceased today, Earth's climate will warm at least 1 degree by the year 2100 and seas will rise 4 inches (11 centimeters), according to a new study.

The warming is likely to continue through 2400, another study forecasts.

The worst-case scenario projects the global average temperature rising 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit within this century and the sea level climbing a foot or more.

The outlook is based on greenhouse gases that were in the atmosphere in 2000, with no additional input of the chemicals, which serve as a global blanket to trap solar energy.

"Many people dont realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea level rise because of the greenhouse gases we have already put into the atmosphere," said Gerald Meehl, who led the study out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

"Even if we stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, the climate will continue to warm, and there will be proportionately even more sea level rise," Meehl said today. "The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed to in the future."

Trends and forecasts

Results of the computer modeling are reported in the March 18 issue of the journal Science.

{{gwi:1370684}}
Predicted warming for the end of the century. Panels A-F involve low, medium and high carbon dioxide increases. Panels G and H are based on greenhouse gas concentrations stabilized as of 2000. © Science

Computer models like these are based on what's known about past climate change. Projecting the future involves many variables that are not completely understood, scientists caution. Critics charge that the models do not necessarily represent actual outcomes.

Few scientists doubt that the planet's climate is indeed growing warmer. A report last month confirmed that last year was among the four warmest on record and projected 2005 will be the warmest.

More controversial is whether and how much humans have contributed.

The model through 2100 has the temperature rising at least 1 degree Fahrenheit, or about a half-degree Celsius. That's similar to the warming scientists say occurred during the 20th Century.

Only part of the picture

The sea-level prediction is based solely on thermal expansion -- the oceans physically swell as they get warmer. The projection does not take into account fresh water that other scientists expect to melt from glaciers and ice sheets, a process that appears already underway and which could snowball, some experts say.

Greenland's largest glacier, for example, doubled its forward progress toward the sea between 1997 and 2003. It is also thinning rapidly, adding water to the sea more quickly than realized, a study last year found.

Add the probable melting in, and seas could rise 8 inches through 2100 in the best-case scenario, Meehl and his colleagues say.

The rise could swamp some coastal villages, shrink islands, and make hurricanes and other extreme weather events more catastrophic.

The inevitable change, as Meehl's model has it, is due to two factors.

The ocean lags far behind the land and the air in temperature changes. This "thermal inertia," as scientists call it, means big changes in the oceans occur over decades and centuries, not years. A warming change seen in the atmosphere in recent decades cannot have fully played out yet in the water.
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases do not break down into other chemicals rapidly, so what's up there will be there for a long time.
'Impossible to avoid'

A separate paper in the journal, also from NCAR, suggests temperatures and sea levels are bound to rise for the next three centuries even if no more greenhouse gases are added to the air.

"Avoiding these changes requires, eventually, a reduction in emissions to substantially below present levels," said Tom Wigley, author of the second study. "For sea level rise, a substantial

long-term commitment may be impossible to avoid."

Unlike the models' assumptions, greenhouse gas emissions continue.

"When and how we stabilize concentrations will dictate, on the time scale of a century or so, how much more warming we will experience," Meehl and his colleagues write in the journal. "But we are already committed to ongoing large sea level rise, even if concentrations of [greenhouse gases] could be stabilized."

What happened to the legendary frozen leopard on Mt. Kilimanjaro?

If this predictions about long-term agriculture in the Great Lakes Region are fulfilled, we may look back on the summer of '04 as the last good year ever.

Here is a link that might be useful: climate change

Looks like we are terraforming the Earth afterall? I always thought that diesel engines were a dumb idea...esp when driving behind one.

Gretchen Cook-Anderson
Headquarters, Washington March 23, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-0836)

Lynn Chandler
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-2806)

RELEASE: 05-084

NASA STUDY FINDS SOOT MAY BE CHANGING THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT

NASA continues to explore the impact of black carbon or soot on the Earth's
climate. NASA uses satellite data and computer models that recreate the climate.
New findings show soot may be contributing to changes happening near the North
Pole, such as accelerating melting of sea ice and snow and changing atmospheric
temperatures.

Dorothy Koch of Columbia University, New York, and NASA's Goddard Institute for
Space Studies (GISS), New York, and James Hansen of NASA GISS are co-authors of
the study that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.

"This research offers additional evidence black carbon, generated through the
process of incomplete combustion, may have a significant warming impact on the
Arctic," Koch said. "Further, it means there may be immediate consequences for
Arctic ecosystems, and potentially long-term implications on climate patterns for
much of the globe," she added.

The Arctic is especially susceptible to the impact of human-generated particles
and other pollution. In recent years the Arctic has significantly warmed, and
sea-ice cover and glacial snow have diminished. Likely causes for these trends
include changing weather patterns and the effects of pollution. Black carbon has
been implicated as playing a role in melting ice and snow. When soot falls on
ice, it darkens the surface and accelerates melting by increasing absorbed
sunlight. Airborne soot also warms the air and affects weather patterns and
clouds.

Koch and Hansen?s results suggest a possible mechanism behind the satellite- derived observations of Arctic climate change. They found the timing and location
of Arctic warming and sea ice loss in the late 20th century are consistent with a
significant contribution from man-made tiny particles of pollution, or aerosols.

-more-
-2-

Koch and Hansen used GISS' General Circulation Model (GCM) to investigate the
origins of Arctic soot by isolating various source regions and types. The GCM
employs a lot of different data gathered by NASA and other U.S. satellites to
study many environmental factors such as ice cover and temperature.

The research found in the atmosphere over the Arctic, about one-third of the soot
comes from South Asia, one-third from burning biomass or vegetation around the
world, and the remainder from Russia, Europe and North America.

South Asia is estimated to have the largest industrial soot emissions in the
world, and the meteorology in that region readily lofts pollution into the upper
atmosphere where it is transported to the North Pole. Meanwhile, the pollution
from Europe and Russia travels closer to the surface.

This study demonstrates the GCMs accurately represent the long-range transport of
pollutants, such as those from Southern Asia to the Arctic, that were observed
from aircraft.
During the early 1980s the primary sources of Arctic particulate pollution are
believed to have been from Russia and Europe. Those sources have decreased
substantially in the past two decades, but the computer simulations indicate
increasing emissions from South Asia have made up for some of the reduced
Eurasian pollution. Koch and Hansen suggest Southern Asia also makes the greatest
contribution to soot deposited on Greenland.

NASA sponsored efforts using satellite data and models to assess polar feedbacks
constitute an important contribution to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
By exploring processes in the Earth?s atmosphere, NASA scientists are seeking
answers to how pollutants like soot are changing the climate of the world around
us.

For more information and images related to this story on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arctic_soot.html

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Austrians may want to consider the problem with soot falling on the reflective plastic sheets being placed on glaciers to slow their melting. This doesn't seem sustainable or a good long term solution to problems associated with global warming.

Here is a link that might be useful: eternal snow melts

1 Apr 2005
Doubts about the Advent of Spring
A "consensus view" amongst climate scientists holds that the Northern Hemisphere will be warming this month, as spring is coming. This is thought to be due to the Earth's orbit around the sun and the inclination of the Earth's axis, tilting the Northern Hemisphere progressively towards the sun throughout March and April and increasing the amount of solar radiation received at northern latitudes.

In a new novel, State of Euphoria, bestselling author Michael Crikey uncovers major flaws in this theory and warns against false hopes for the arrival of spring.

This is not merely fiction: Crikey underpins his thesis with numerous scientific diagrams. He presents measurements from over a dozen weather stations in the Northern Hemisphere where temperatures show a cooling trend in March. He further cites scientific results which show that in some places, snow and ice have increased in the past weeks, counter to climatologists' claims that they should be melting away in the spring sun. He further argues that even the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere has not increased steadily; during one week of March, it showed a slight cooling despite the increase in solar radiation.

"This casts a grave shadow of doubt on the theory of the seasons", says Crikey. "Consensus science is not good science." He says we should not trust computer models projecting that June will be much warmer than March in most of the Northern Hemisphere. "These models cannot even predict the weather in two weeks time - why should we believe what they say about temperatures in two months?" He also says that only six months ago, scientists were predicting a cooling.

"Nobody can predict the future," asserts Crikey. Farmers risk wasting billions of dollars if they trust the warming forecast; Crikey urges them to wait with sowing until it is clear that summer temperatures have indeed arrived.

Crikey argues that climatologists cling to the ill-founded theory of seasons for political reasons. "Scientists have promoted their orbital theory of seasons for centuries without questioning it," says Crikey. "It has become like a dogma. They cannot admit that it is wrong without suffering a serious setback in credibility and research funding".

Crikey's book was welcomed by many organisations, such as the Science and Environment Propaganda Project (SEPP) and the Frontiers of Fallacy Foundation (FF). In an emotional speech, Senator Outhofe urged his colleagues to take the time for reading the novel. He called seasons a "great hoax" and emphasised that "science is overwhelmingly on the side that, in fact, they are not occurring, and if they are occurring, are not a result of the Earth's orbit".

Climate scientists, on the other hand, quickly jumped up to reject Crikey's claims. "We have a curve called the 'tennis racket' which proves seasons are real," says NASA's Gavin Schmoot. "It is based on a sophisticated statistical analysis of the isotope composition of sediment in old French wines. In fact, we have many rackets so it is more like a tennis club."

April Fool! (maybe)

Here is a link that might be useful: Doubts about the advent of Spring

Actually today is March 32nd......Trust No One Today....8oP

Antarctic Glaciers Melting Rapidly
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 21 April 2005
02:00 pm ET

A new study of glaciers in a portion of the Antarctic finds 84 percent of them have retreated over the past 50 years in response to a warmer climate.

The work was based on 2,000 aerial photos, some taken in the 1940s, and satellite images. The climate in the region has warmed by more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 Celsius) in the last 50 years, the scientists said.

"The widespread retreat of the glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 50 years was largely caused by climate change," said David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. "Are humans responsible? We can't say for sure, but we are one step closer to answering this important question."
The findings mirror similar changes seen in other parts of the Antarctic and in the Arctic, too.

The study, led by the survey's Alison Cook, is detailed in the April 22 issue of the journal Science. Among the most comprehensive surveys ever done, it looked at floating glacier-ice shelves, which are connected to the land-based glacier from which they flowed, and tidewater glaciers that rest on land and break off into the ocean when they reach the water.

Of those that retreated, the average retreat was 1,970 feet (600 meters) since 1953. The Sjogren Glacier retreated 8 miles (13 kilometers) since 1993.

A small number of glaciers advanced, on average 980 feet (300 meters).

Ocean temperatures may also play a role in the retreats, but there is no solid data on how those might have changed, the researchers said.

Glacial retreat is a complex phenomenon that often involves thinning of the glacier, too. As glaciers melt, they sometimes move toward the sea more quickly, exacerbating the melting. Where a glacier meets the sea, an ice shelf can hold it back. When those ice shelves break apart, however, a glacier can become a runaway.

Further loss of the ice shelves that restrain inland glaciers could contribute to future increases in the rate of sea level rise, the researchers say.

Whether the planet is actually warming has been controversial. Last fall, however, two separate reports concluded that Earth's overall climate has warmed by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1900. A separate recent study said that regardless of what humans do or don't do, the world's oceans are destined to rise at least 4 inches (10 centimeters) in the next century because of climate wheels already in motion.

Half a century ago, most Antarctic glaciers that flowed from the mountains to the sea were slowly growing in length, Cook said, "but since then this pattern has reversed. In the last 5 years the majority were actually shrinking rapidly."

Glacier Facts :

About 10 percent of Earth's land is covered with glaciers.

During the last Ice Age, glaciers covered 32 percent of land.

Glaciers store about 75 percent of the world's fresh water.

Antarctic ice is more than 2.6 miles (4,200 meters) thick in some areas.

If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 230 feet (70 meters) worldwide.

SOURCE: NOAA

Mother Jones magazine has an article this month titled "Some Like it Hot", investigating the influence of Exxon-Mobile on perceptions of global warming. The article reveals some 40 think tanks receive funding from Exxon whose primary goal is to color scientific reports with doubt and skepticism concerning the reality global warming. The article is linked below.

Yesterday, Democracy Now! had a discussion with Chris Mooney, author of "Some ...", Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute who recive money from Exxon, and Ross Gelbspan. Gelbspan also has an article in this MJ issue titled "Snowed" in which he looks at media's role in shaping public opinion of global warming. (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/snowed.htm)

A rush transript of the DN! discussion is available online.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/22/1338256

Here is a link that might be useful: mj

Energy Imbalance Behind Global Warming
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 28 April 2005
02:00 pm ET

Climate change has been looked at from many angles. Here's another twist: Scientists have determined that more energy is being absorbed from the Sun than our planet reflects back to space.

This energy imbalance, the researchers said today, confirms other predictions that Earth's climate will warm by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 Celsius) by the end of this century.

The study is based on satellite data and computer models. It precisely measured ocean heat content over the past decade. The imbalance is due to increased air pollution, especially carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that act like a see-through blanket, letting sunlit in but trapping the heat it generates.

1-watt light bulb

In scientific terms, the imbalance is 0.85 watts per square meter. It's equal to nature shining an extra 1-watt light bulb on every desk-sized patch of the planet.

It all adds up. If the imbalance were maintained for 10,000 years, it would melt enough ice to raise the oceans by six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer), the scientists said.

The analysis lends support to the contentious idea that humans are contributing to the warming trend by burning gas, coal and other fossil fuels that generate greenhouse gases.

"This energy imbalance is the 'smoking gun' that we have been looking for," said lead researcher James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. "It shows that our estimates of the human-made and natural climate forcing agents are about right, and they are driving the Earth toward a warmer climate."

The study is detailed in the online version of the journal Science.

Inevitable change?

Though some scientists challenge the idea that humans contribute to global warming, few dispute that the planet is getting warmer. A study earlier this year confirmed that last year was among the four warmest on record and projected 2005 will be the warmest.

Previous computer modeling has estimated that the global climate will warm for at least the next century, and likely longer, no matter what changes might occur today -- even if production of greenhouse gases stopped. That's because the ocean stores heat and changes slowly, a process scientists call thermal inertia.

Future warming is already "in the pipeline," as Hansen and his colleagues put it.

The previous work concluded that the seas will rise at least 4 inches (10 centimeters) this century, posing increased risks to coastal regions around the globe.

Hansen and his colleagues say that if pollution is not curbed until policy makers decide they have proof of human input, "thermal inertia implies that still greater climate change will be in store, which may be difficult or impossible to avoid."

"Warmer waters increase the likelihood of accelerated ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise during this century," Hansen said.

Since 1993, data from satellite altimeters, used to measure sea level, have shown that the world's oceans have risen by 3.2 centimeters (cm), or 1.26 inches, per decade (plus or minus 0.4 cm).

That's twice as large as sea level rise in the last century.

Sheese, will we ever be able to figure out what's going on???

Scientists Clueless over Sun's Effect on Earth
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 05 May 2005
02:01 pm ET

While researchers argue whether Earth is getting warmer and if humans are contributing, a heated debate over the global effect of sunlight boiled to the surface today.

And in this debate there is little data to go on.

A confusing array of new and recent studies reveals that scientists know very little about how much sunlight is absorbed by Earth versus how much the planet reflects, how all this alters temperatures, and why any of it changes from one decade to the next.

Determining Earth's reflectance is crucial to understanding climate change, scientists agree.

Brighter outlook?

Reports in the late 1980s found the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface had declined by 4 to 6 percent since 1960. Suddenly, around 1990, that appears to have reversed.

"When we looked at the more recent data, lo and behold, the trend went the other way," said Charles Long, senior scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Long participated in one of two studies that uncovered this recent trend using satellite data and ground-based monitoring. Both studies are detailed in the May 6 issue of the journal Science.

Thing is, nobody knows what caused the apparent shift. Could be changes in cloud cover, they say, or maybe reduced effects of volcanic activity, or a reduction in pollutants.

This lack of understanding runs deeper.

A third study in the journal this week, tackling a related aspect of all this, finds that Earth has reflected more sunlight back into space from 2000 to 2004 than in years prior. However, a similar investigation last year found just the opposite. A lack of data suggests it's impossible to know which study is right.

The bottom line, according to a group of experts not involved in any of these studies: Scientists don't know much about how sunlight interacts with our planet, and until they understand it, they can't accurately predict any possible effects of human activity on climate change.

Reflecting on the problem

The percentage of sunlight reflected by back into space by Earth is called albedo. The planet's albedo, around 30 percent, is governed by cloud cover and the quantity of atmospheric particles called aerosols.

Amazingly, one of the best techniques for measuring Earth's albedo is to watch the Moon, which acts like a giant mirror. Sunlight that reflects of Earth in turn reflects off the Moon and can be measured from here. The phenomenon, called earthshine, was first noted by Leonardo da Vinci.

Albedo is a crucial factor in any climate change equation. But it is one of Earth's least-understood properties, says Robert Charlson, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist. "If we don't understand the albedo-related effects," Charlson said today, "then we can't understand the effects of greenhouse gases."

Charlson's co-authors in the analysis paper are Francisco Valero at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and John Seinfeld at the California Institute of Technology.

Plans and missions designed to study the effects of clouds and aerosols have been delayed or cancelled, Charlson and his colleagues write.

To properly study albedo, scientists want to put a craft about 1 million miles out in space at a point were it would orbit the Sun while constantly monitoring Earth.

The satellite, called Deep Space Climate Observatory, was once scheduled for launch from a space shuttle in 2000 but has never gotten off the ground. Two other Earth-orbiting satellites that would study the albedo have been built but don't have launch dates. And recent budget shifts at NASA and other agencies have meant some data that's available is not being analyzed, Charlson and his colleagues contend.

'Spurious argument'

While some scientists contend the global climate may not be warming or that there is no clear human contribution, most leading experts agree change is underway.

Grasping the situation is crucial, because if the climate warms as many expect, seas could rise enough to swamp many coastal communities by the end of this century.

Charlson says scientists understand to within 10 percent the impact of human activity on the production of greenhouse gases, things like carbon dioxide and methane that act like blanket to trap heat and, in theory, contribute to global warming. Yet their grasp of the human impact on albedo could be off by as much as 100 percent, he fears.

One theory is that if humans pump out more aerosols, the small particles will work to reflect sunlight and offset global warming. Charlson calls that "a spurious argument, a red herring."

Greenhouse gases are at work trapping heat 24 hours a day, he notes, while sunlight reflection is only at work on the day side of the planet. Further, he said, greenhouse gases can stay in the atmosphere for centuries, while aerosols last only a week or so.

"There is no simplistic balance between these two effects," Charlson said. "It isn't heating versus cooling. It's scientific understanding versus not understanding."

Here is a wonderful journalistic debunking of one line of anti-warming attacks.

Here is a link that might be useful: Junk Science

This from the Int'l Herald Tribune looks at gw from another angle.

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Investors see growing risks from climate
The Associated Press

THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2005
UNITED NATIONS, New York Trillions of dollars in investment clout gathered under the United Nations roof to talk about climate change - and money.
"It's all about our money," said Denise Nappier.
Nappier, the Connecticut state treasurer was one of a dozen state treasurers and comptrollers and hundreds of other heavyweight investors who joined in a daylong meeting on Tuesday to debate ways to pressure more U.S. companies into openly acknowledging the financial risks of climate change and exploring ways to reduce it.

"Global warming is likely to result in billions and billions of losses for public companies," said William Thompson Jr., who as New York City comptroller handles $82 billion in pension funds and other assets invested in publicly traded companies.
The more than 300 participants - including insurance companies, financial houses, union pension funds and other institutions - heard from former Vice President Al Gore, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and panels of leading investors and business executives about the link between climate and business climate.
They also heard from a Harvard University environmental scientist, John Holdren, who gave them an update on the latest climate research, saying it was increasingly clear that rising global temperatures caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" would intensify heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and wildfires.
Everything from agricultural productivity to the health of the global insurance industry could be adversely affected. Big investors like the treasurers who manage state pension funds are particularly concerned about electricity and other energy companies, which may face government-mandated cutbacks in carbon dioxide emissions, produced when they burn coal and other fossil fuels.
"If, in fact," said Mindy Lubber, who heads an environmentally minded investors group, CERES, "someone invests $2 billion in a coal-fired power plant, and the laws change - and they will change at some point - with those changes come perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars of stranded costs."
Unlike most of the rest of the world, the United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates emissions cuts. But many view such U.S. controls as inevitable as evidence of warming mounts.
Investor groups, seeking fuller disclosure of risks, last year persuaded two Ohio-based power companies - Cinergy and American Electric Power - to issue reports examining the possible effects and financial uncertainties of such regulation, as well as steps they are already taking to reduce emissions, such as switching to renewable fuels.
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Here is a link that might be useful: IHT

125 Large Northern Lakes Disappear
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 03 June 2005
02:31 pm ET

A new study finds 125 large lakes in the Arctic have vanished as temperatures rose over the past two decades. Many other lakes have shrunk.

The lakes once sat atop permanently frozen soil called permafrost. Other studies have shown permafrost is melting around the world, causing low-lying ground to slump and rock to fall from mountains.

"We think that climate warming is thawing the permafrost," said lead researcher Laurence Smith of the University of California, Los Angeles. "It's like pulling the plug out of a bathtub. There's nothing to prevent lake water from percolating through the soil to aquifers below."
Changes seem to come abruptly.

"From what we can tell from space, a lake is either just fine or it's gone," Smith said.

The sudden draining could alter entire continental ecosystems, affecting birds and other wildlife that depend on the waterways, Smith and his colleagues say. Migratory birds count on the lakes during summer to feed their young.

The research is reported today in the journal Science.

Thousands of ponds, lakes and wetlands dot the north during summer.

"The loss of these lakes would be an ecological disaster," Smith said.

The researchers tracked changes across a broad swath of Siberia by comparing satellite imagery from 1972 to views from the late 1990s.

Past research suggested that global warming would increase the amount of summer ice melt, and so there would be more lakes. Indeed, in the most northern parts of the study area, where permafrost remains, that's true, the new survey found. But overall, the surface area of lakes in the entire study area declined by 6 percent.

"We were totally surprised by our findings," Smith said. "We were expecting the lake area to have grown with climate change."

As temperatures in the region continue to rise, as many experts predict, Smith expects lakes farther north to vanish, too.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Global Warming Strengthens Hurricanes
By Michael Schirber
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 16 June, 2005
2:00 p.m. ET

Climate change could make future hurricanes stronger, but it is unknown whether it will change the total number of storms.

Kevin Trenberth from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) claims that warmer oceans and increased moisture could intensify showers and thunderstorms that fuel hurricanes.

"Trends in human-influenced environmental changes are now evident in hurricane regions," Trenberth said. "These changes are expected to affect hurricane intensity and rainfall, but the effect on hurricane numbers remains unclear. The key scientific question is how hurricanes are changing."

Sea-surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic the breeding ground for most U.S. hurricanes have been the warmest on record over the last decade. Across the globe, the amount of water vapor over the oceans has increased by about 2% since 1988.

Computer models show that these climate changes will push hurricane intensities toward extreme hurricanes, Trenberth said. Moreover, the added moisture in the air will produce heavier rains and increased flooding when the hurricanes make landfall.

But the total number of big swirling storms may not change. In the past, when hurricane activity increased in the Atlantic, there was a corresponding decrease in typhoon activity in the Pacific, and vice versa. Globally, the number has remained steady over the years.

In 2004, the extensive hurricane damage in Florida and typhoon damage in Japan as well was partly due to large-scale circulation features that drove the cyclones toward land. The way these storm tracks develop may have little to do with the overall climate.

"There is no sound theoretical basis for drawing any conclusions about how anthropogenic climate change affects hurricane numbers or tracks, and thus how many hit land," Trenberth said.

The work appears in the June 17 issue of Science.

Vgkg,

Arlene brought a lot of rain to me the other day. Seems to happen about every year....lots of rain sometime before June 16......then it often is dryish for a while after June 16.

Hi Wayne, somewhat dry here now, esp after the recent early heat wave in the east. During the summer our main heavy rain sources are the tropical ones that swish by. For the past few days the local weather forecasters have been going back & forth on what to expect in the coming days. Last nite it looked dry for a week, now this morning there's a good chance of rain tomorrow night. I hope they're right on the rainy one?

Yes, we were needing rain only a few days ago and then...whoosh...a little more than I wanted. I don't like mosquitoes so I would like to see rains evened out nicely. Haven't had hardly any skiters so far.