Climate Change — The Perspective

Gangotri Glacier Receded 1.5km In 30 Years, ISRO Images Reveal

December 5, 2009 By adminclyd

The Indian Space Research Organization has come up with an alarming figure – India’s most sacred Gangotri glacier has receded by 1.5 kilometre in the past 30 years, says a report in Times of India.

The glacier has been receding in recent years, no doubt, but nobody had an idea it had receded so much. In the last decade, it has receded by 15-20 metres (although the pace has slowed down in recent years), but ISRO’s latest figure dramatically brings out the extent of glacial melt, caused possibly by global warming.

Director of Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad, Dr R R Navalgund told Times of India that satellite imagery documents a 1.5-km retreat of the Gangotri glacier in the past 30 years.

The satellite imagery has also captured that Alpine vegetation has now started growing at a higher altitude than it used to a few decades ago.

While the retreat of glaciers was a very controversial issue recently, after environment minister Jairam Ramesh released his discussion paper on glaciers that also alleged that glaciers were not melting because of climate change. Navalgund echoed the sentiments of Ministry of Environmnts and Forests on the issue.

“We have looked at snowy glaciers, some of them in the past 20 years, specially the ones at lower latitudes and altitudes, have retreated. It is difficult to say whether it is due to global climate change. It could be a part of the inter-glacial period and other related phenomena,” he said.

The documentation of coral reefs have also shown bleaching across the coastline. United Nations Environment Programme had also recently declared that coral reefs, which support the majority of marine life, will be the first casualty of climate change. Isro data reiterates that the reefs around the Indian sub-continent are facing maximum impact – not so much in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but in other parts.

Navalgund said there was no quantitative analysis yet on the impact on agriculture. “Agricultural simulations are too less to make any quantitative analysis,” he said.

Asked about the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations, Navalgund said he has given all the data that Isro has gathered from its satellite images to the environment minister a month ago. “To understand the impact of climate change for India, baseline data is very important. India did not have a scientific, accurate database of baseline data. Now we need to put those down so that later, we have a valid document to fall back on,” he said.

Very soon, other countries can also access data on carbon sink from Isro. The Oceansat, that continuously monitors the ocean colour, helps in analyzing productivity in the oceans. This is useful in measuring the carbon sink in the oceans. Many countries have given their letter of intent to use this satellite. The Times Of India

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Climate Change, Weather

Climate Change Quickens, Seas Feared Up 2 Metres

November 25, 2009 By adminclyd

Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst could raise sea levels by up to 2 metres (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a group of scientists said on Tuesday in a warning to next month’s U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.

In what they called a “Copenhagen Diagnosis”, updating findings in a broader 2007 U.N. climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations,” a joint statement said, pointing to factors including a retreat of Arctic sea ice in summer and melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.

“Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 metre by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 metres considered an upper limit,” it said. Ocean levels would keep on rising after 2100 and “several metres of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.”

Many of the authors were on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cms (7-24 inches) by 2100 but did not take account of a possible accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica.

Coastal cities from Buenos Aires to New York, island states such as Tuvalu in the Pacific or coasts of Bangladesh or China would be highly vulnerable to rising seas.

“This is a final scientific call for the climate negotiators from 192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in Copenhagen,” Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement.

AMAZON, MONSOON

Copenhagen will host a Dec. 7-18 meeting meant to come up with a new U.N. plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. But a full legal treaty seems out of reach and talks are likely to be extended into 2010.

“Delay in action risks irreversible damage,” the researchers wrote in the 64-page report, pointing to a feared runaway thaw of ice sheets or possible abrupt disruptions to the Amazon rainforest or the West African Monsoon.

The researchers said global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were almost 40 percent higher in 2008 than in 1990.

“Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change,” said Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California.

In a respite, the International Energy Agency has said emissions will fall by up to 3 percent in 2009 due to recession.

The report said world temperatures had been rising by an average of 0.19 Celsius a decade over the past 25 years and that the warming trend was intact, even though the hottest year since records began in the mid-19th century was 1998.

“There have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend,” it said. A strong, natural El Nino weather event in the Pacific pushed up temperatures in 1998. By Alister Doyle, The Star

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Climate Change, Nature

UN Says Greenhouse Gases In Atmosphere Continue To Increase, Reached Record High In 2008

November 24, 2009 By adminclyd

Greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere reached record highs in 2008, with carbon dioxide levels increasing faster than previously, the U.N. weather agency said Monday.

Levels of greenhouse gases, believed to be responsible for global warming, have been rising every year since detailed records started being kept in 1998, the World Meteorological Organization said.

It follows a trend of rising emissions that began with the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century, the agency said.

The report by the World Meteorological Organization comes as the European Union urged the United States and China on Monday to set targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions at next month’s climate conference in Copenhagen. The European Union said delays by those countries were hindering global efforts to curb climate change.

The gases — carbon dioxide, or CO2; nitrous oxide, N2O; and methane, CH4 — are produced partly by natural sources, such as wetlands, and partly by human activities such as fertilizer use or fuel combustion.

“Concentration of greenhouse gases continued to increase, even a bit faster,” the organization’s chief, Michel Jarraud, told reporters in Geneva.

Carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere — was 385.2 parts per million in 2008, up 2 parts per million from 2007, the World Meteorological Organization said.

The CO2 content in the atmosphere rose slightly faster in 2008 than over the last decade when the growth rate was 1.9 parts per million, Jarraud said.

“It’s significant because what we would like is to see a decrease in the increase,” he said.

Nitrous oxide increased by 0.9 parts per billion over the previous year to 321.8 parts per billion.

Methane concentration in the atmosphere was 1,797 parts per billion, up 7 parts per billion from the previous year.

The year-to-year increase may appear small. But compared to the time before the Industrial Revolution, the levels have increased massively, the World Meteorological Organization said.

Since 1750, CO2 has increased 38 percent, nitrous oxide 19 percent and methane 157 percent, according to WMO.

The agency’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides widely accepted worldwide data on the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

It takes time to see the impact of greenhouse gas emissions because of the long time they remain in the atmosphere, said Oksana Tarasova, a specialist with the organization.

“Even if we stop all the emissions right now, after 100 years, 30 percent of the amount added to preindustrial level will remain in the atmosphere,” she told reporters.

Jarraud said if emissions continue to grow, the world is likely to face the more pessimistic scenarios laid out by climate experts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said if nothing is done to stop emissions, global temperatures could rise as much as 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, triggering droughts, floods and other disasters. By Eliane Engeler, Star Tribune.

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Climate Change

Guv’s Climate Panel Is Mostly Cloudy

November 23, 2009 By adminclyd

Gov. Gary Herbert says the scientific jury is still out on climate change and he has promised an honest-to-goodness debate on one of the major policies of our time.

While the new administration is beginning to move on the pledge first made in August, the shape and nature of the forum has yet to crystallize.

Scientists at the state’s leading universities — Utah, Brigham Young and Utah State — have offered to help the governor untangle the technicalities of climate change. So have members of the Blue-Ribbon Advisory Committee on climate change, a multifaceted group that studied the issue for a year and advised former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. on the subject.

But no one has yet received invitations for Herbert’s forum because the organizers haven’t decided who should participate.

“It’s very much in the formative stage,” said Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and one of the organizers of the event.

And, while it is unclear who will play a big role in the meeting — tentatively slated for April, around Earth Day — what will be up for discussion is certain.

“Science will be the place to start,” said Jowers. “All sides will be presented fairly. That is absolutely the single most important thing.”

Ted Wilson, Herbert’s new environment czar, echoes the idea that balance is essential. As the forum’s lead organizer, he has been fielding ideas about recommended speakers from

science, economics and other disciplines. The panels will include “rainmaker-type featured speakers,” who will not debate, and scientists, who will.

It’s unclear whether the governor’s forum will be a replay of the Legislature’s Public Utilities Committee climate change hearing last month.

The panel invited scientific experts for their input. But it created what some criticized as a false balance by giving equal weight to University of Utah Atmospheric Science Department Chairman Jim Steenburgh, who represented the consensus view of climate scientists, and Roy Spencer. Spencer is an atmospheric scientist from the University of Alabama who has been one of the most vocal skeptics of the prevailing view that humans are largely responsible for global warming.

Wilson said Herbert is interested in getting to the truth in order to form responsible policies.

“This is a governor who wants his departments to do all they can to prepare for the future,” said Wilson, a former Salt Lake City mayor and past director of the Hinckley Institute.

The discussion is expected to be still another step in the evolution of the Republican governor’s handling of a climate change policy to help Utah deal with what scientists expect to be hotter temperatures statewide and deeper droughts in southern parts of the state.

Last summer, Herbert told the Western Governors Association he is not convinced climate science is conclusive and questioned the state’s continued involvement in the Western Climate Initiative, a regional organization focused on responding to global warming.

In a September report released with U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, Herbert said Utah’s economy and people would be devastated by cap-and-trade legislation aimed at coping with climate change. In October, he restated his view that “the debate is raging” about the human impact on climate change.

“Maybe the scientists, maybe they feel good,” he told reporters during a televised news conference. “But they are not getting the word to the public because the public is very confused on the issue.”

Jon A. Krosnick has been studying the disconnect between climate science and personal actions for more than a decade as a professor of communication and political science at Stanford University.

Citing opinion surveys, he said the public overwhelmingly believes that the Earth’s climate is changing, the impact to society will be bad and that government should take action. But they are “not buying” that a disaster is on the horizon, as some scientists suggest.

One reason: The mass-media practice of representing the science as two-sided creates confusion. Another: Scientists do a lousy job of offering plausible solutions for dealing with climate change.

He said a forum based on simply presenting opposing views without providing context is unlikely to clear up the confusion.

“It will increase uncertainty,” Krosnick said, unless organizers also “tell people the prevalence of those views and the preponderance of evidence supporting them.”

More than 70 of the world’s scientific associations have published statements affirming that climate is changing most likely because of human activities and that it is a growing threat to human societies.

Kelly Patterson, a BYU political scientist, said he doubts a single forum like Herbert’s will do much to affect public opinion. On complex issues like climate change, people form their views based on what they see, hear and read in the media, as well as what they learn from associates, he said.

“Rare is the individual who sits down and weighs the evidence,” he said. “In these kinds of situations, people tend to side with trusted sources.” By Judy Fahys, The Salt Lake Tribune

Filed Under: Environment, News & Media Tagged With: Climate Change, Foreign News

Global Warming Cycles Threaten Endangered Primate Species

October 29, 2009 By adminclyd

In a new analysis, two Penn State University researchers have determined that global warming cycles threaten endangered primate species.

This innovative work by Graduate Student Ruscena Wiederholt and Associate Professor of Biology Eric Post examined how El Nino warming affected the abundance of four New World monkeys over decades.

Wiederholt and Post decided to concentrate on the way the oscillating weather patterns directly and indirectly influence plants and animals in the tropics.

Until the research by Wiederholt and Post, this intricate network of interacting factors had rarely been analyzed as a single system.

“We know very little about how climate change and global warming are affecting primate species,” explained Wiederholt.

“Up to one third of primates species are threatened with extinction, so it is really crucial to understand how these changes in climate may be affecting their populations,” he added.

The scientists focused on the large-bodied monkeys of South America, which are highly threatened.

Choosing one species from each of the four genera of Atelines, Wiederholt and Post examined abundance trends and dynamics in populations of the muriqui of Brazil, the woolly monkey in Colombia, Geoffroy’s spider monkey, which was studied on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, and the red howler monkey in Venezuela.

For each species, long-term research projects carried out by other teams over decades have documented the abundance and feeding patterns of these primates.

By studying the different species, Wiederholt and Post hoped to highlight the importance of the response to changing climate conditions of the trees that provide the dietary resources for the monkeys.

All the species live in social groups and spend most of their time in the trees of tropical forests, using their limbs and prehensile tails to move around or to suspend themselves from branches.

The monkeys differ in the proportions of fruit, flowers, and leaves in their diets. Woolly monkeys and spider monkeys predominantly eat fruit, howler monkeys specialize in leaf-eating, and muriquis also eat leaves but consume more fruit than howlers.

“Long-term studies like those we derived data from are incredibly valuable for illuminating effects of global warming,” Post said.

“Unfortunately for endangered species, such studies also are incredibly rare. We hope our results bring attention to the mportance of maintaining long-term monitoring efforts,” he added. Newstrack India

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Climate Change

Panama Butterfly Migrations Linked To El Niño, Climate Change

October 21, 2009 By adminclyd

A high-speed chase across the Panama Canal in a Boston Whaler may sound like the beginning of another James Bond film—but the protagonist of this story brandishes a butterfly net and studies the effects of climate change on insect migrations at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

“Our long-term study shows that El Niño, a global climate pattern, drives Sulfur butterfly migrations,” said Robert Srygley, former Smithsonian post doctoral fellow who is now a research ecologist at the US Agricultural Research Service, the chief scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Climate change has been linked to changes in the migration of butterflies in North America and Europe but this is one of the first long-term studies of environmental factors driving long-distance migration of tropical butterflies.

For 16 years, Srygley and colleagues tracked the progress of lemony yellow Sulfur butterflies, Aphrissa statira, a species found from Mexico to Brazil, as they migrate across central Panama from Atlantic coastal rainforests to the drier forests of the Pacific coast.

“The El Niño Southern Oscillation—a global climate cycle—turns out to be the primary cause for increases in the plants that the larvae of these butterflies eat. El Niño results in dry, sunny days in Panama, which favor plant growth. When the plants prosper, we see a big jump in the number of Statira Sulfur butterflies.”

Peak Sulfur butterfly migrations take place a month after the rainy season begins in Panama. Because butterfly development—from egg to larva to pupa to adult—takes about 22 days in the laboratory, Srygley thinks that these butterflies lay their eggs on new leaves produced by vines only four or five days after the rains begin. His team tracked the production of new leaves by two of the butterflies’ host plants for 8 years. Drier years resulted in more new leaves.

The number of migratory butterflies was greatest in El Niño years, with one exception. The El Niño Southern Oscillation is a global-scale climate phenomenon characterized by changes in sea surface temperatures. In Panama, El Niño years have less rainfall during the dry season and higher plant productivity, with the one exception being an unusually wet El Niño year.

El Niño is global in its impact. In deserts and tropical seasonally-dry forests world-wide, a warm tropical Pacific Ocean surface is associated with increased rainfall resulting in seed germination and plant growth. The effects of increased primary productivity cascade upward into higher trophic levels resulting in periodic outbreaks of herbivorous species and migratory activity.

Neotropical wet forests are different because El Niño years are drier, but moderate drought results in increased primary productivity similar to that in desert and tropical dry forests. Thus the lowland forests of Panama fall into a set of habitats encircling the globe in which insect migrations are larger during El Niño years. However the Panamanian wet forest is in a class of forests that have the greatest abundance and diversity of herbivorous insects in the world, “It is like we had seen the tip of the iceberg and suddenly we realize its true size”, Srygley suggested. The authors predict widespread insect migrations during El Nino years.

According to Srygley, “Understanding how global climate cycles and local weather influence tropical insect migrations should ultimately improve our ability to predict insect movements and effects such as crop damage.”

This research is presented in the journal Global Change Biology and was conducted with support from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration. Research permits were provided by Panama’s National Environmental Authority, ANAM, and meteorological data by the Panama Canal Authority, ACP, and the Terrrestrial-Environmental Science Program of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. redOrbit.

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Climate Change, Wildlife

Study Sheds Light On Greenland Melting Rate

September 30, 2009 By adminclyd

The Greenland ice sheet responded to global warming over the past 10 000 years more quickly than thought, according to a study released on Wednesday.

As a result, a medium-sized temperature increase this century could cause the continent-sized ice block to start melting at an alarming rate, it suggests.

“It is entirely possible that a future temperature increase of a few degrees Celsius in Greenland will result in a ice sheet mass loss and contribution to sea level rise larger than previously projected,” it warns.

Greenland contains enough water to raise sea levels by about seven metres. Even a far more modest increase would put major coastal cities under water and force hundreds of millions of people out of their homes.

Until recently, experts were confident that the planet’s two ice sheets – in Greenland and Antarctica – would remain largely stable over the coming centuries despite global warming.

But more recent studies have cast doubt on this, showing the pace at which glaciers are sliding off from both ice sheets into the oceans has picked up over recent decades.

The new paper, published in the British journal Nature, uses a new technique for measuring changes in the ice sheet over the last 10 000 years that resolves a paradox.

Earlier measurements suggested that parts of Greenland had somehow defied a trend of general warming in the northern hemisphere during a 3 000 year period that started 9 000 years ago.

The new research, led by Bo Vinther of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, demonstrates that the problem lay with how the the raw data had been interpreted.

The team examined core samples taken from four locations from the ice sheet, which reaches depths of more than three kilometres. As with earlier studies, the results were inconsistent.

But with the help of two new samples taken from two areas just beyond the ice sheet, the researchers were able to determine that the variations were due to changes in height, not because of inconsistent warming.

“The elevation itself causes different temperatures,” Vinther said in a press release. As a consequence, the ice sheet responded more uniformly – and more vigorously – to rising temperatures during this period. – AFP