← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · David Henry
Thread ID: 12357 | Posts: 7 | Started: 2004-02-16
2004-02-16 08:15 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4569&method=full]Read the entire article here[/URL]
Pentagon Plans for Rapid Climate Change Event: Fortune Magazine CLIMATE COLLAPSE
The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues. FORTUNE Magazine, January 26, 2004
Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.
The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade -- like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies --thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.
Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall's California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia -- it's easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in abrupt climate change.
Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it a decade ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in ancient layers of Arctic ice. The data show that a number of dramatic shifts in average temperature took place in the past with shocking speed -- in some cases, just a few years.
[URL=http://www.ucsusa.org/ucs/about/page.cfm?pageID=1009]Read the entire Warning to Humanity statement here+review the Union of Concerned Scientists website[/URL]
World Scientists' Warning to Humanity (1992)
Some 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, issued this appeal in November 1992. The World Scientists' Warning to Humanity was written and spearheaded by the late Henry Kendall, former chair of UCS's board of directors.
INTRODUCTION
Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.
2004-02-16 23:58 | User Profile
[URL=http://eces.org/archive/dwc_pages/showarticle.php?id=166]The HORROR of the GEO-3 report 2002[/URL]
(05/22/2002) UN report by 1,100 scientists warns 70% of the natural world will be destroyed over the 30 years due to over-population, deforestation, pollution, global warming, the spread of non-native species, and other human impacts, causing the mass extinction of species, severe water shortages, and the collapse of human society in many countries.
The destruction of 70 percent of the natural world in 30 years, mass extinction of species, and the collapse of human society in many countries is forecast in a bleak report by 1,100 scientists. The world is at an environmental crossroads where the choice between greed and the future of life on Earth will decide the fate of millions of people for decades to come, according to a new United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report. The Global Environment Outlook-3 (Geo-3) report sees a bleak outlook for the future unless radical action is taken now. "The choices made today are critical for the forests, oceans, rivers, mountains, wildlife and other life support systems upon which current and future generations depend," it says.
The GEO-3 report's bleak findings are cast in a manner that is rarely seen in UN reports - with no path leading to a good result. Even under scenarios in which environmental protection becomes a high priority, it says, most regions of the world will still see their biological diversity and coastal ecosystems badly damaged by 2032.
The report depicts an increasingly volatile world in which ever more severe natural disasters and environmental degradation will endanger millions of humans as well as plant and animal species. If present rates of environmental destruction and degradation continue, more than 70 percent of planet's land surface will be affected by roads, mining, cities and other developments by 2032, and half the human population could be facing serious water shortages. In some areas, such as west Asia and the Arabian peninsula, well over 90 percent of the population is expected to be living with "severe water stress" by 2032.
2004-02-17 04:32 | User Profile
Human Impacts on Climate Adopted by Council December, 2003
Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.
Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects.
The global climate is changing and human activities are contributing to that change. Scientific research is required to improve our ability to predict climate change and its impacts on countries and regions around the globe. Scientific research provides a basis for mitigating the harmful effects of global climate change through decreased human influences (e.g., slowing greenhouse gas emissions, improving land management practices), technological advancement (e.g., removing carbon from the atmosphere), and finding ways for communities to adapt and become resilient to extreme events. [URL=http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html]AGU[/URL]
2004-02-18 16:12 | User Profile
2003 third warmest year yet as global warming continues
GENEVA (AFP) Dec 16, 2003
Global warming continued through 2003 as Europe's hottest summer on record helped fuel the third warmest year on record worldwide, international weather experts at the UN said on Tuesday.
The UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in its annual statement on the global climate that the rising average temperatures helped generate exceptional drought, floods, hurricanes and typhoons. Meanwhile, global insurers counted the cost of the impact of extreme weather, as storm damage accounted for eight billion dollars in damage claims in 2003, according to one of the world's largest re-insurance companies, SwissRe.
"This year was very warm but it was not the warmest ever, very probably it will be in third place among the warmest years," said Michel Jarraud, deputy secretary general of the WMO.
"Temperatures since 1976 have progressed three times more than during the 20th century, so the rate of increase in temperatures is accelerating," he added.
The global average temperature this year was expected to have risen by 0.45 degrees Celsius by the end of December, WMO said.
The warmest year so far was recorded in 1998, with a rise of 0.55 degrees Celsius in global temperatures, capping the warmest century in the millennium, according to the agency, which groups the world's national weather forecasters.
[B]The second warmest was 2002.[/B]
Average temperatures rose more sharply in the northern hemisphere in 2003 than in the southern hemisphere, with unprecedented highs in western Europe over the summer, WMO found.
"In France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and Spain, there were an estimated 21,000 deaths linked to this heatwave, so it was really something exceptional," Jarraud told journalists.
The heat also melted glaciers in Europe's mountain ranges twice as fast as the record set in 1998, while the Arctic ice pack shrank in September, approaching the record low of 5.3 million square kilometres (2.2 square miles) set in 2002, WNMO said.
The five most costly disasters during 2003 happened in the United States and Canada, and they were all weather-related, it added in a statement. Each led to claims of more than one billion dollars.
The WMO's data on annual temperature change is based on an average of temperatures between 1961 and 1990, which is used as a reference.
2004-02-19 04:32 | User Profile
[URL=http://eces.org/archive/ec/np_articles/static/98454960031881.shtml]Satelite evidence of Global Warming[/URL]
New Analysis of Satellite Data Provides Direct Evidence that Less Heat is Escaping into Space Due to Increase of Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases. (3/14/2001)
Scientists has dispelled any lingering doubts about the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere Wednesday with new evidence from satellites orbiting the Earth. A comparison of satellite data from 1970 and 1997 has yielded what scientists say is the first direct evidence that greenhouse gases are building up in Earth's atmosphere and allowing less heat to escape into space. Evidence was also found of smaller increases in chlorofluorocarbons, refrigerants blamed for destroying the ozone layer that protects Earth from ultraviolet radiation.
"We've seen greenhouse gas increases that we can link to a change in outgoing long-wave radiation, which is believed to force the climate response," said Dr. Helen Brindley, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College in London. The study was reported in the journal Nature and should finally silence critics not satisfied with the already large amount of indirect evidence for the greenhouse effect.
"We're absolutely sure, there's no ambiguity: [B]This shows the greenhouse effect is operating and what we are seeing can only be due to the increase in the gases," said John Harries, leader of the research team at Imperial College in London. "It's actual measurements of what's coming out of the Earth. It's not from someone's computer simulation[/B]," added Richard Bantages, another member of the team.
"Because we know where in the spectrum certain greenhouse gases are observed, when we look at the changes between the two periods we can say that change is due to changes in CO2 or methane," Brindley said. "There has been quite a significant change over the past 30 years, particularly in methane." One of the most powerful greenhouse gases, methane, is emitted from landfill sites and disused mines.
The scientists took into account the influence of clouds and seasonal variations, so the changes they observed could only be explained by long-term changes in greenhouses gases, they said. "It's the first time that we have seen observationally that these changes are really having an effect on the radiative forcing of the climate," said Brindley. Radiative forcing is the measure of the climate effects of greenhouse gases.
Without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, scientists estimate the Earth's temperature and sea levels will rise, leading to increased flooding and drastic climate changes. Industrialized nations agreed to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases under a plan agreed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 but talks in the Hague in November to finalize details broke down.
Scientists have long suspected that carbon dioxide and other waste gases are increasing the trapping of heat close to Earth in what is called a greenhouse effect. In the new study, the researchers compared readings of infrared light from the Earth's surface and found less was escaping into space in 1997, specifically in the wavelengths known to be absorbed by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and ozone.
Atmospheric scientists not involved in the study said the satellite data provide concrete confirmation that greenhouse gases are building up. Drew Shindell, an atmospheric physicist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said the research should end the debate over the greenhouse effect. "One of the main things that cause people to be skeptical of global warming is the lack of that real, definite connection between greenhouse gases and the planet getting warmer," Shindell said. "This really gives concrete evidence for the first time that greenhouse gases are changing the energy balance of the planet."
A report released in January by an international panel of climate experts predicted global temperatures could rise as much as 10.5 degrees over the next century, primarily because of pollution. American and European environmental officials, however, have not been able to agree on how to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls for reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. And U.S. President Bush has backed away from a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants, saying mandatory controls would lead to higher electricity prices.
In the British study, the researchers compared data from the Japanese ADEOS satellite, which produced about nine months of data starting in 1996, and NASA's Nimbus 4 satellite between April 1970 and January 1971. Only clear-sky readings of the atmosphere over the central Pacific were compared.
Bantages said the researchers plan to dig deeper into the satellite readings to see if the amount or type of clouds changed substantially between 1970 and 1997. Especially interesting are high cirrus clouds made up mostly of ice crystals. These allow the sun's rays to pass through to the Earth but block the infrared radiation being reflected back into space.
Satellite data reveals rapid Arctic warming
13:16 24 October 03
NewScientist.com news service
A NASA satellite survey of the Arctic has revealed just how rapidly the region is warming. The overall trend of rising temperature over the past 20 years is eight times higher than that recorded by ground measurements over the past century. The satellite observations are vital because they can cover the whole Arctic, not just the regions accessible to researchers on the surface. The data also shows that summer sea ice cover is continuing its retreat. "Climate is changing, the Arctic is changing rapidly, and it has significant effects on lower latitudes," said Mark Serreze, of the University of Colorado in Boulder, at a press conference on Thursday. Climate models predict global warming will have its strongest effects in polar regions, making them a valuable laboratory to understand climate variations, says David Rind, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
Uneven retreat Serreze's analysis shows sea ice coverage in 2002 was the lowest in the 20 years of satellite observations. The retreat is uneven, showing up particularly in areas north of Alaska, where temperature data confirms the warming predicted by climate models. It is also consistent with reports that sea ice is growing thinner. The analysis of Arctic surface temperatures was conducted by Josefino Comiso, of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and reported in the Journal of Climate. His data show that sea-ice temperatures during the summer - the most critical season for ice cover - increased 1.22ðC per decade. The annual sea ice trend was smaller, 0.33ðC degree per decade. Although winters have cooled, that effect was more than offset by rising spring, summer and autumn temperatures, which combined to stretch the melt season by between 10 and 17 days. Annual land-surface temperatures increased most over North America - 1.06ðC per decade - and rose 0.50ðC per decade over Eurasia.
Feedback loop The retreating summer sea ice has knock-on effects. The exposure of more open water, which absorbs more solar energy than ice, means further warming is likely. More ocean open ocean also means winds can build up stronger waves that are eroding Arctic coasts. "There are communities in Alaska that are having to move their villages" to escape erosion of low-lying coasts, says Michael Steele, an oceanographer at the University of Washington in Seattle.
One push behind the warming is a natural cycle called the North Atlantic Oscillation. For the past 20 years, it has been stuck in a phase where low pressure over the Arctic is increasing heat transport from middle latitudes. Part of the effect may be natural, but Serreze adds that there is growing evidence that human-caused changes in greenhouse gas and stratospheric ozone concentrations may shift the oscillation into the Arctic-warming mode. That is evidence is unlikely to be welcomed by the US Bush Administration, which remains officially sceptical about global warming. But Rind warns the evidence shows rapid change now: "We can't afford to wait long times for technological innovation" to control greenhouse emissions. Journal reference: Journal of Climate (vol 16, p 3498)
Jeff Hecht
[URL=http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994310]New Scientist[/URL]
2004-02-23 17:03 | User Profile
Scientists Say Administration Distorts Facts By JAMES GLANZ
Published: February 19, 2004
More than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement yesterday asserting that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad.
The sweeping accusations were later discussed in a conference call organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent organization that focuses on technical issues and has often taken stands at odds with administration policy. On Wednesday, the organization also issued a 38-page report detailing its accusations.
The two documents accuse the administration of repeatedly censoring and suppressing reports by its own scientists, stacking advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbanding government panels that provide unwanted advice and refusing to seek any independent scientific expertise in some cases.
"Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systemically nor on so wide a front," the statement from the scientists said, adding that they believed the administration had "misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies." Dr. Kurt Gottfried, an emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University who signed the statement and spoke during the conference call, said the administration had "engaged in practices that are in conflict with spirit of science and the scientific method." Dr. Gottfried, who is also chairman of the board of directors at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the administration had a "cavalier attitude towards science" that could place at risk the basis for the nation's long-term prosperity, health and military prowess.
Dr. John H. Marburger III, science adviser to President Bush and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, said it was important to listen to "the distinguished scientific leadership in this country." But he said the report consisted of a largely disconnected list of events that did not make the case for a suppression of good scientific advice by the administration. "I think there are incidents where people have got their feathers ruffled," Dr. Marburger said. "But I don't think they add up to a big pattern of disrespect." "In most cases," he added, "these are not profound actions that were taken as the result of a policy. They are individual actions that are part of the normal processes within the agencies."
The science adviser to Mr. Bush's father, Dr. D. Allan Bromley, went further. "You know perfectly well that it is very clearly a politically motivated statement," said Dr. Bromley, a physicist at Yale. "The statements that are there are broad sweeping generalizations for which there is very little detailed backup."
The scientists denied that they had political motives in releasing the documents as the 2004 presidential race began to take clear shape. The report, Dr. Gottfried said, had taken a year to prepare, much longer than originally planned, and was released as soon as it was ready. "I don't see it as a partisan issue at all," said Russell Train, who spoke during the call and served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. "If it becomes that way I think it's because the White House chooses to make it a partisan issue." The letter was signed by luminaries from an array of disciplines. Among the Nobel winners are David Baltimore and Harold Varmus, both biomedical researchers, and Leon M. Lederman, Norman F. Ramsey and Steven Weinberg, who are physicists. The full list of signatories and the union's report can be found at [url]www.ucsusa.org[/url].
Aside from some new interviews with current and former government scientists, some identified in the report and others quoted anonymously, most of the information in the documents had been reported previously by a variety of major newspapers, magazines, scientific journals and nongovernmental organizations.
According to the report, the Bush administration has misrepresented scientific consensus on global warming, censored at least one report on climate change, manipulated scientific findings on the emissions of mercury from power plants and suppressed information on condom use. The report asserts that the administration also allowed industries with conflicts of interest to influence technical advisory committees, disbanded for political reasons one panel on arms control and subjected other prospective members of scientific panels to political litmus tests. Dr. Marburger said he was unconvinced by the report's description of those incidents. "I don't think it makes the case for the sweeping accusations that it makes," he said.
But Dr. Sidney Drell, an emeritus professor of physics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who was not a signatory to the statement, said the overall findings rang true to him. "I am concerned that the scientific advice coming into this administration seems to me very narrow," said Dr. Drell, who has advised the government on issues of national security for some 40 years and has served in Democratic and Republican administrations, including those of Presidents Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson. "The input from individuals whose views are not in the main line of their policy don't seem to be sought or welcomed," he said.
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/politics/19RESE.html?ex=1392526800&en=34953ca8d47eba4f&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND[/url]
2004-02-23 17:10 | User Profile
[url]http://www2.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageID=1264[/url]
Scientists' Statement on Climate Change
The scientific consensus around climate change is robust. To make this point clear to policy makers in Washington, D.C., more than 1,000 scientists from across the nation have signed the State of Climate Science letter. This letter, from experts in the field, outlines the consensus on the anthropogenic component to climate change. In doing so, the letter reconfirms reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Research Council that the consequences of climate change, which is driven in part by emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, will be both disruptive and costly to the United States.
Read the letter. Download the letter with complete list of signers. See the number of signers per state. See the top institutions.
THE STATE OF CLIMATE SCIENCE: OCTOBER 2003 United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senators Frist and Daschle:
Two years have elapsed since the publication of the most recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Research Council (NRC) on the state of the science of climate change and its impacts on the United States and the rest of the world. As scientists engaged in research on these subjects, we are writing to confirm that the main findings of these documents continue to represent the consensus opinion of the scientific community. Indeed, these findings have been reinforced rather than weakened by research reported since the documents were released.
In brief, the findings are that: 1) Anthropogenic climate change, driven by emissions of greenhouse gases, is already under way and likely responsible for most of the observed warming over the last 50 yearsââ¬âwarming that has produced the highest temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere during at least the past 1,000 years;
2) Over the course of this century, the Earth is expected to warm an additional 2.5 to 10.5 ðF, depending on future emissions levels and on the climate sensitivityââ¬âa sustained global rate of change exceeding any in the last 10,000 years;
3) Temperature increases in most areas of the United States are expected to be considerably higher than these global means because of our nation's northerly location and large average distance from the oceans;
4) Even under mid-range emissions assumptions, the projected warming could cause substantial impacts in different regions of the U.S., including an increased likelihood of heavy and extreme precipitation events, exacerbated drought, and sea level rise;
5) Almost all plausible emissions scenarios result in projected temperatures that continue to increase well beyond the end of this century; and,
6) Due to the long lifetimes of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the longer emissions increase, the faster they will ultimately have to be decreased in order to avoid dangerous interference with the climate system. Evidence that climate change is already under way includes the instrumental record, which shows a surface temperature rise of approximately 1ðF over the 20th century, the accelerated sea level rise during that century relative to the last few thousand years, global retreat of mountain glaciers, reduction in snow cover extent, earlier thawing of lake and river ice, the increase in upper air water vapor over most regions in the past several decades, and the 0.09ðF warming of the world's deep oceans since the 1950s.
Evidence that the warmth of the Northern Hemisphere during the second half of the last century was unprecedented in the last 1,000 years comes from three major reconstructions of past surface temperatures, which used indicators such as tree rings, corals, ice cores, and lake sediments for years prior to 1860, and instrumental records for the interval between 1865 and the present.
On the subject of human causation of this warmth, the NRC report stated that, "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue." Indeed, computer simulations do not reproduce the late 20th century warmth if they include only natural climate forcings such as emissions from volcanoes and solar activity. The warmth is only captured when the simulations include forcings from human-emitted greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere.
In summary, the main conclusions of the IPCC and NRC reports remain robust consensus positions supported by the vast majority of researchers in the fields of climate change and its impacts. The body of research carried out since the reports were issued tends to strengthen their conclusions.