Headlines from IPCC’s Fifth Assessment
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.
Keeling Curve
I was startled to see this blog post in the Smithsonian!
What are these people (Engineers?) thinking!?
Isn’t this the wrong approach — Creating robots to do the work that animals used to do?
Wow, Smithsonian, you’ve taken a turn for the worse…
“Acidification due to global warming could lead to oceans with similar acoustic properties to those experienced by the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period.
According to a presentation given by acoustics researchers David G Browning and Peter M Scheifele as part of the 164th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, changes to the baseline acidity of the world’s oceans due to global warming will have a negative effect on the absorption of low frequency sounds.
The effect occurs because the main low frequency sound absorption mechanism in seawater is a pH-dependent boron reaction. As the acidity of seawater increases, the low frequency sound absorption decreases meaning that those sounds can travel further, achieving their optimal transmission value at the acidity levels seen around 110 million years ago.”
Credit: Wired Science
Will PBS Frontline documentary shed any new insights into the ‘controversial’ ‘issue’ of ‘global climate change’ in our social, cultural, and political systems?
When you really think about it, any type of ethanol or Biofuel which you might consume for energy still requires burning carbon and releasing carbon dioxide – greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere. It’s a little more sustainable because Biofuel can be produced by growing corn, plants, or algae, whereas Fossil Fuels can’t be renewed quickly. Biofuels have advantages as a fuel type and also disadvantages to other more sustainable forms of energy production, i.e. Solar.
“First tops, then flops. That is one way of summing up the history of biofuels so far. A new study led by Empa gives an up-to-date picture of the ecobalance of various biofuels and their production processes. Only a few are overall more environmentally friendly than petrol.”
Source: EMPA Press Release:
http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/3/125597/—/l=2
http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/*/125606
Primary Source: http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/*/125527
Gray line in time series (right) indicate 1979 to 2000 average extent for the day shown.
On September 16, Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its minimum extent for the year of 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles). This is the lowest seasonal minimum extent in the satellite record since 1979 and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent. The sea ice extent will now begin its seasonal increase through autumn and winter.
Source: The National Snow and Ice Data Center
Figure 1. Arctic sea ice extent for September 16, 2012 was 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles). The orange line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that day. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. Sea Ice Index data.
Like snow sliding off a roof on a sunny day, the Greenland Ice Sheet may be sliding faster into the ocean due to massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
Source: Science Daily
This is a surface or “supraglacial” lake on the Greenland Ice Sheet. (Credit: Konrad Steffen, University of Colorado)
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