(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Climate change promises to have a very big impact on water supplies in the United States as well as around the world. A recent study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental group, and carried out by the consulting firm Tetra Tech found that one out of three counties across the contiguous U.S. should brace for water shortages by mid-century as a result of human induced climate change. The group found that 400 of these 1,100 or so counties will face “extremely high risks of water shortages.”

According to Tetra Tech’s analysis, parts of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas will be hardest hit by warming-related water shortages. The agriculturally focused Great Plains and arid Southwest are at highest risk of increasing water demand outstripping fast dwindling supplies.
While the mechanisms behind this predicted dwindling of water supplies is complex, key factors include: rising sea levels and encroaching ocean water absorbing lower elevation freshwater sources; rising surface temperatures causing faster evaporation of existing reservoirs; and increasing wildfires stripping terrestrial landscapes of their ability to retain water in soils.

Researchers have already begun to notice dwindling water supplies across the American West in recent years, given less accumulation of snow in the region’s mountains as temperatures rise. According to a 2008 study out of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography and published in the journal Science, Western snowpack has been melting earlier than it did in the past thanks to global warming, leading to markedly longer dry periods through the late spring and summer months in states already suffering from extended droughts. Given that the length and strength of these changes over the last 50 years cannot be explained by natural variations, researchers believe human induced climate change is the culprit.

The upshot of these changes is that Americans of every stripe need to curtail their water usage—from farmers irrigating their crops to homeowners watering their lawns to you and I taking shorter showers and turning off the tap while brushing our teeth. Even more important, water and resource policy managers need to conceive of new paradigms for the management of freshwater reserves to make the most of what we do have. And all of us need to work together to cut down on the emissions of greenhouse gases that have led to global warming in the first place.

Analysts also worry that warming-related water shortages could erupt into conflict, especially in parts of the world where one country or group controls water resources needed by others across national borders, such as the Middle East where already five percent of the world’s population relies on just one percent of the world’s fresh water. Parts of Africa, India and Asia are also at risk for water-related conflicts. American policymakers hope that the situation won’t get that dire in the U.S., but only time will tell.

CONTACTS: NRDC, www.nrdc.org; Tetra Tech, www.tetratech.com; Scripps Institute for Oceanography, www.sio.ucds.edu.
EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

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Article source: http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/Environment_380/Global_Warming_and_Water_Shortages.shtml

Using cheap, readily available materials, a team of chemists has developed a new compound for drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

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The compound holds the potential to drive down the cost of capturing carbon, although it’s too early to say by how much, the scientists say.

The results “add to the list of possible materials that can absorb CO2 from the air, and it potentially could be quite a good one,” says Klaus Lackner, who heads the department of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia University in New York and was not part of the team formulating the material.

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Capturing carbon represents one approach to combating human-triggered global warming, which most climate scientists attribute in some degree to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide from industrial activity as well as to carbon dioxide released through land-use changes.

Aside from the relatively low cost of the materials needed to make the new CO2 sponge, the compound can absorb significant amounts of CO2. It can endure several cycles of absorbing and releasing the gas for sequestration or recycling. And the energy needed to release the gas is low compared with many current materials.

“It has some nice qualities,” Dr. Lackner says of the material, although he adds that it remains to be seen how practical the material could be.

But carbon capture is a controversial approach.

Critics argue that, at least with current technologies, carbon capture is too expensive, compared with approaches to prevent the CO2 emissions in the first place. They says its deployment could needlessly delay the process of weaning economies from fossil fuels – the dominant source of global CO2 emissions.

In addition, once the carbon dioxide is scrubbed – either at the smokestack or from the air itself – storing it for hundreds to thousands of years to keep it out of the atmosphere brings its own set of environmental concerns.

Still, advocates counter that some form of carbon capture and storage (or recycling) ultimately will be needed to counter global warming. Economies continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere at a significant pace. Each fresh molecule of CO2 that isn’t absorbed by the oceans or by terrestrial plants will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, greasing the skids for additional warming.

They add that research in to carbon capture and sequestration currently focuses largely on big, individual sources of CO2 emissions, such as power plants. That leaves highly dispersed sources – cars, aircraft, and homes, for instance – to continue emitting.

Thus, advocates argue, air capture will be an indispensable tool for snagging CO2 from these more-diffuse sources. And over long periods of time, the approach could, in principle, scrub CO2 from the atmosphere, moving global average temperatures to more-politically acceptable levels.

For its part, the team developing the new material for air capture is motivated by a desire to use the CO2 it recovers as much as it is by a desire to combat global warming, notes Surya Prakash, director of the University of Southern California’s Lokar Hydrocarbon Research Institute and one of the researchers involved in the effort.

“Our interest is not just to capture and get rid of it” he says of CO2, “but we want to use it and recycle it.”

In particular, the team is working on ways to incorporate scrubbed CO2 into the production of methanol, which the team envisions as a replacement for oil and gas in making plastics, fertilizers, and other products that include fossil fuels in their recipes.

To develop the new CO2-absorbing material, the team dissolved a polyethylene-like plastic in methanol and blended it with another mixture of methanol and what in essence is fine-grained sand. After the blend mixed thoroughly, the team heated the mixture to remove the liquid solvent. What remained was a white solid.

It absorbs CO2 at room temperature and releases it at around 185 degrees Fahrenheit. Compared with many materials, that’s a narrow span of temperatures, implying less energy needed for a scrubbing system to work. Indeed, the material could run on waste heat from other industrial processes, Dr. Prakash says.

Moreover the material works well whether the air passing over it is dry or humid.

Although large-scale air capture of CO2 is still a ways off, the approach could be used more immediately in niche applications, Prakash says.

Among them: Scrubbing CO2 from the air in submarines or spacecraft, or maintaining a CO2-free environment for certain types of fuel cells or for large storage batteries under development.

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Article source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2012/0105/Carbon-dioxide-super-scubber-Potential-good-news-in-global-warming-fight

Scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, have found offspring of two distinct species of shark, the first evidence of hybridization among sharks. 

By

Eoin O’Carroll, Staff /
January 3, 2012

In what is being hailed as the first evidence of inter-species hybridization among sharks, researches at the University of Queensland discovered 57 sharks possessing DNA of both the Australian blacktip and the common blacktip sharks.

University of Queensland

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A press release from the University of Queensland quotes research team member Jennifer Ovenden, who suggested that other species of sharks and rays around the world could also be interbreeding.

The team’s findings were published in the December issue of Conservation Genetics.

Article source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0103/New-hybrid-sharks-discovered-Signs-of-global-warming

Published:January 1st, 2012 11:00 EST

(‘‘)

I don`t know if you are like me but lately within the past year or so since the concerns about Global Warming have taken a front seat in the news and media. I have been really thinking about how serious this subject is and the impact it will have on our kids and our grandchildren and generations to come.     

The concern about Global Warming has been on the minds of scientist since the middle of the 20^th century when the overall temperature of the Earth became about one-degree higher than the normal temperature. A one-degree rise in temperature doesn`t seem like very much bit when you are dealing with our planet and overall average temperatures, one-degree might as-well be one-hundred degree because the effects from just a one-degree rise in the Earth`s average temperature can have drastic effects on the environment.

The main culprit of why Global Warming is now starting to increase is the effect greenhouse gases are having on our environment. The two main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) which prevents heat from escaping our planet thus is one of the reasons for Global Warming. This example is the same as the warming inside a greenhouse. To go a little further for the definition of greenhouse which to understand how the greenhouse effects goes hand in hand with the effects of global warming; there are two definitions,

1). The phenomenon whereby the earth`s atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane that allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth`s surface.(The free dictionary, 2011)

2. A similar retention of solar radiation, as by another planet or in a solar panel (the free dictionary, 2011)

So, imagine on a warm and sunny spring day to be standing in a greenhouse under one of the many solar panels that make-up the roof of the green house. You would feel the warm or even hot rays of sun as the slide into the solar panels glass and into the open room. The heat is then trapped in the greenhouse. It is a radiation effect. This is the same scenario that global warming is having on our planet. This is also the trend of increasing temperatures that is happening and fueling the fire for global warming.

When there are out of the normal trend of increasing temperatures across the globe one of the devastating effects it can have is to cause certain plant and animal life to perish. It also stirs the normal ecosystem of life into frenzy. I mentioned in one of my last articles on this that a truck driver in his fifty-two foot rig and trailer was East Bound ad Down on one of the main highways in the Northern United States and reported he saw a herd of what looked like Armadillos strutting down the side of the highway. If anyone knows about where Armadillos normally migrate then you would know that they do not go where the temperature gets below sixty-five degrees which means they normally are found in Texas or the Deep South not the Northern United States. Like I also said in my last article, either these Armadillos were seriously sniffing crack and became really, really lost or the effects of Global Warming on our environment played a major role in this out of the ordinary phenomenon.

We have seen more and more weather patterns lately that are not of the normal weather patterns that have been taking shape the past one-hundred or so years. We saw more Tsunamis last year (the one that devastated Japan) last year than we have heard of in the past. I know on the news I saw the dust storms that hit Phoenix so hard it was like standing in the middle of a snow bank. You couldn`t see but maybe less than an inch in front of you. Yes, Dust storms in the Southwest are normal but I never heard of any hitting or as many that hit lately in my lifetime. In the Southern United States, I have been in and seen more tornadoes hit here than ever before. This is tornado alley and we always have the threat here in the South every spring and summer of tornadoes but it`s not the number of tornadoes it`s the power and force of the past ones we have lived through here. The main one that hit in April of 2011 that just about demolished Tuscaloosa, Alabama and turned Birmingham into a one-track race course. It also demolished the little suburb towns in and around Birmingham which has not happened before or at least not happen in the past hundred or so years.

Some of the past statistical data that has changed when it comes to why Global Warming is now happening at a faster rate is the increase in certain chemicals and gasses in our atmosphere. Carbon Monoxide is the main gas that makes up our atmosphere and in the past 600,000 years or so the average parts per million of carbon monoxides averages around about 300 parts per million within that timeframe. Today the average parts per million has increased to over 450 parts per million which you can see is a significant increase.

 A lot of the polar caps of ice that normally do not change shape and melt have melted to an extent that the sea level in Antarctica is on the rise and is spilling over to other parts of the globe. The ice thickness at the North Pole has decreased 40% in the last 40 years. The polar ice reflects 90% of sunlight. Without the ice only 10% will be reflected. 90% will be absorbed by the ocean. With the effect of the rising ocean if this trend were to keep up the effect would be with the ice melting in that region of the world the ice that is melting just in Greenland alone would increase the sea level to around twenty-feet above the normal sea level and the effect of just that alone would displace over 100,000 people. It would be like a flood from a torrential rain storm.

If Global Warming were to keep increasing and the Earth`s temperature were to continually rise, the effect in about one-hundred years just on the Antarctic region of the world would cause all the ice to melt in Antarctica which would raise the sea level to over one-hundred and fifty feet about the normal sea level. The effects of that would probably be similar to a category five hurricane and the same effects the hurricane has on the coast when it hits in a direct path and at full force. I am sure the map of the world would change drastically. There would be a lot less land and more water.

Let`s take a look at a couple of the pieces of the puzzle that make up the essence of how our internal environment works and how global warming is disrupting these normal environmental cycles. One of the larger pieces of the puzzle is the Carbon Cycle on our planet. The Earth maintains a natural carbon balance. When concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) are upset, the system gradually returns to its natural state. This natural readjustment works slowly, compared to the rapid rate at which humans are moving carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Natural carbon removal can`t keep pace, so the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases. (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

A good example of the Earth`s Carbon Cycle can be found at the Marion Koshland Science Museum.  The museum`s eco-sphere is sealed. No air, water, nutrients, or any other matter enters or escapes the system. The Earth`s carbon cycle is also very nearly sealed. In both cases, plants and animals flourish.

Within the Earths Carbon Cycle consists the Natural Carbon balance. To understand the natural Carbon Balance is to understand it in a mechanical way. Within the natural cycle there are two types of cycles at work, the short-term cycle and the long-term cycle.

In the short-term cycle the carbon is exchanged between plants and animals through photosynthesis and respiration and through the gas exchanges between the oceans and our atmosphere. So, the carbon cycle links plants, animals, our oceans and our complete atmosphere together like links on a chain.

In the long-term cycle takes place over millions of years where natural carbon in the air is mixed with water to form very weak acids that normally dissolve rocks. Other parts of this carbon get carried to our oceans where it forms coral reefs and various shells. Most of these drifting sediments as a result of these weak acids formed by carbon in the air and water mixed get dissolved deep into the Earth`s crust and then may reemerge and released back into our atmosphere by volcanic activity.

We humans are the problem when it comes to disrupting the natural Carbon Cycle on Earth. When we Like all other animals, humans participate in the natural carbon cycle, but there are also important differences. By burning coal, oil, and natural gas, humans are adding carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere much faster than the carbon in rocks is released through natural processes. And clearing and burning forests to create agricultural land converts organic carbon to carbon dioxide gas. The oceans and land plants are absorbing a portion, but not nearly all of the CO2 added to the atmosphere by human activities.(Global Warming Facts, 2011) Thus adding to the effects of Global Warming.

Another piece of the puzzle that makes up how our climate and environment works that is being affected by the causes of Global Warming is what is known as The Natural Climate Cycle. Climate changes can and may result from two important factors, natural causes and human causes. Some of the major causes of climate change are as follows.

Ø  CO2 and other Greenhouse Gas Variations: There are lots of human made gases that are culprits to the greenhouse effect that warms the Earth. Water Vapor or (H2O, Hydrogen with 2 parts Oxygen) is the main important gas, Carbon Dioxide or (CO2) is the next important followed by Methane (CH4), Nitrous Oxide (N2O), and Chlorofluorocarbons or (CFC`s) which are used in air conditioners and extensive industrial processes. With the increase in these gasses in our atmosphere is one of the main ingredients to Global Warming.

Ø  Human Activity and Greenhouse Gasses: We see it every day when driving down the highway or on some back country road, some large factory is spewing some type of gas into our atmosphere. One of the main fuels the world lives on is carbon. Carbon is basically the fuel in fossil fuels. If you eliminated any carbon fuel the affect would literally stop the entire industrial world. Carbon or CO2 contributes the most to the increase of greenhouse warming than any other fuel.

Ø  Other causes of climate changes are methane gas which is the second highest reason for greenhouse warming. For those of you who don`t know what methane gas is, just go out and eat about three bowls of Texas style chili. You will then get a great idea of what methane gas is and you will also get a good feel for it. Since we have lots and lots of herds of farm animals in every part of this country and the world that eat lots and lots of grass and have a grassy diet there is lots and lots of methane gas being released into the atmosphere daily.

Ø   Ocean Circulation: If you have ever been underway on any type of ocean bearing vessel then you have experience the strong wind currents out in the open ocean. These wind currents carry heat from the tropics to the poles. Many various processes can alter the normal circulation patterns which results in changing the regional climate or even on a broader scale over the entire world. A good example of this is the pattern known as El Nino. We have seen this weather pattern which normally occurs every two to six years occurring more frequently in various parts of the world.

Ø  Volcanic Eruptions: A volcanic eruption may send ash and sulfuric acid (SO2) into the atmosphere, which increases planetary reflectivity causing atmospheric cooling. Over time precipitation will remove these aerosols from the atmosphere. Volcanic eruptions can have a worldwide impact. (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

Ø  Orbital Variations: Slow changes in the Earth`s orbit lead to small but climatically important changes in the strength of the seasons over tens of thousands of years. Climate feedbacks amplify these small changes, thereby producing ice ages.(Global Warming Facts, 2011)

Ø  Land Use Changes: When humans transform land from forests to seasonal crops or from natural to urban environments, the regional climate system is altered. For example, clear-cut hillsides are significantly warmer than forests. Urban environments are also islands of heat produced by industry, homes, automobiles, and by asphalt`s absorption of solar energy. Land use changes are not likely to have a large, direct effect on global average temperature. Changing uses of the land are also associated with changes in the usage and availability of water, as well as the production of greenhouse gases. Deforestation can significantly increase the amount of atmospheric CO2, which warms the planet.(Global Warming Facts, 2011)

So, you can see that there are some natural factors that occur on their own that disrupt the natural routine of our atmosphere and environment but most of the causes are from us humans.

Scientists are now trying to predict the future of climate changes by using computer-based climate models. The predictions take into account many of the factors that were illustrated previously about causes ” in the climate system, such as greenhouse gases, ocean circulation, and clouds.

The future is inherently uncertain, but far from unknown. In this activity you will be able to explore the trends in atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature over the coming century, both through line graphs and time-varying temperature maps of the world. (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

21st Century CO2 and Temperature Projections:

Different computer models project somewhat different climate trends; the two maps show two of these models, one from GFDL (The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), and the other from NCAR (The National Center for Atmospheric Research). (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

Globally averaged temperature projections from two state-of-the-art climate models driven by the same scenario of the future CO2 concentrations give similar results. (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

 -Both show that warming will increase in the next century as greenhouse gas levels rise. (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

 -Both show that warming will be greatest in the northern regions close to the pole. (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

-Both show that warming will tend to be greater over land than over the ocean. (Global Warming Facts, 2011)

The effects of global warming are catastrophic. The main concern is not only the future of our planet but the future of our family and their future generations and so on. For more on the Future of Global Warming go to (www.koshland-science-museum-org).

                                                                          References:

Koshland Science Museum, Global Warming Facts and Our Future, (www.koshland-science-museum-org) Retrieved 2011.

The Free Dictionary, (www.thefreedictionary.com) greenhouse effect. Retrieved 2011.

Article source: http://thesop.org/story/20120101/the-mechanics-of-global-warming-and-future-effects-on-our-climate-and-environment.html

     SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) – California cannot enact and enforce fuel standards that conflict with federal law, a federal judge ruled, effectively striking down portions of the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
     A conglomeration of petrochemical and farming interests sued the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standards, a 2007 executive order by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to help implement the global warming law, AB 32. The standards focus on the “carbon intensity” of fuels to estimate emissions, including greenhouse gases, during all phases of a fuel’s lifecycle – extraction, refining, transportation and use – with a goal of a 10 percent reduction in fuel carbon intensity by 2020.
     Under the Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS) regulations, fuel providers must either meet carbon intensity standards by blending fuels with ethanol or by purchasing credits on the open market from approved organizations.
     U.S. District Judge Lawrence O’Neill sided with CARB on summary judgment Thursday. While California enjoys wide latitude to enact tough clean air standards under the federal Clean Air Act, the state is not insulated from Commerce Clause challenges, he found.
     ”Nothing in the text or history of the Clean Air Act clearly evidences Congress’ intent” to grant California new powers, O’Neill wrote. “Moreover … the Clean Air Act and the Energy Independence and Security Act do not authorize defendants to violate the Commerce Clause.”
     In a separate decision, O’Neill found that LCFS impermissibly discriminate against and regulate out-of-state corn ethanol, also in violation of the Commerce Clause. LCFS assign more favorable carbon intensity values to California corn-derived ethanol than ethanol derived from other state sources.
     ”If every state were to adopt legislation based on a lifecycle analysis of fuels, one of two outcomes may occur,” O’Neill wrote. “First, the ethanol market would become Balkanized, since a producer would have strong incentives to either relocate its operations in the state of largest use, or sell only locally to avoid transportations and other penalties … (interfering) with the ‘maintenance of a national economic union unfettered by state-imposed limitations on interstate commerce.’”
     ”Second, there is a danger that inconsistent legislation, if adopted by sister states, would cause significant problems to the ethanol market,” he added. “Ethanol producers and suppliers in any State would be hard-pressed to satisfy the requirements of 50 different LCFS regulations which may require 50 different levels of reductions over 50 different time periods. … Based on these considerations, the court concludes that LCFS impermissibly controls conduct outside of its borders.”
     Granting summary judgment for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, O’Neill also found that LCFS discriminates against out-of-state and foreign crude oil while giving an economic advantage to oil produced in California.
     ”To the extent that defendants seek to address (greenhouse gases) emitted during the production and transportation of fuels, CARB may regulate production facilities, refineries, and farms in California with an LCFS that does not shift the burden to out-of-state or foreign entities,” he wrote.
     ”To the extent that defendants argue that alternative approaches do not allow them to control leakage [of greenhouse gases] outside of California’s borders, defendants are reminded that they may not regulate … outside of California,” he added.
     ”Although alternative approaches [like a fossil fuel tax] may be less desirable for a number of reasons, defendants have failed to establish there are no nondiscriminatory means” to fight global warming in California, O’Neill concluded. “Because other, nondiscriminatory means exist … the LCFS must be struck down.”

Article source: http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/12/30/42691.htm

As 2011 comes to a close, climate science celebrates an important landmark. It has now been 33 years, or a third of a century, since sensors aboard NASA and NOAA satellites began measuring temperatures throughout the earth’s lower atmosphere.

For 33 years, we have had precise, objective temperature data that do not require guesswork corrections to compensate for uneven thermometer placement and non-climate surface temperature biases such as expanding urban heat islands and land-use changes. The satellite data, moreover, tell us the earth is warming at a more modest, gradual, and reassuring pace than was foretold by United Nations computer models.

The satellite sensors became operational at a time that is very convenient for those who believe humans are causing a global warming crisis. Global temperatures declined from the mid-1940s through the late 1970s. As a result, the sensors coincidentally began measuring global temperatures at the very beginning of our most recent global warming trend. Had the sensors been in place 33 years earlier, during the 1940s, the overall pace of warming shown by the satellite sensors would be less than half what is shown by the post-1978 temperature data.

Even so, the measured temperature trend is quite modest. John Christy, who along with Roy Spencer oversees the NASA satellite sensor program, reports temperatures have warmed at an average pace of 0.14 degrees Celsius per decade since the satellite sensors became operational. This is merely half the pace predicted by computer models utilized by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Christy appears to be making a generous concession regarding the warming that has occurred. The temperature data seem to show warming closer to 0.3 degrees over the 33 year period, or 0.09 degrees Celsius per decade. But why quibble over the difference? A warming of 0.14 degrees per decade, or 1.4 degrees per century, is still significantly less than predicted by UN climate models and far from an impending global warming crisis.

Importantly, the satellite sensors show less warming in the lower troposphere (approximately 10,000 feet above the earth’s surface) than is reported by surface temperature readings. Global warming theory holds that one of the fingerprints of human-induced global warming is more rapid warming in the lower troposphere than at the surface. The reason for this is carbon dioxide molecules reside in the lower troposphere and have their greatest heat-trapping effect there.

As a result, if global temperatures are rising as a result of human carbon dioxide emissions, the satellite sensors should report more warming in the lower troposphere than is actually occurring at the surface. In essence the satellite sensors should report a warming trend somewhat more severe than is actually occurring at the surface of the earth.

Surface temperature measurements, however, indicate more rapid warming at the surface of the earth than in the lower troposphere. According to James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute, temperatures at the surface of the earth rose twice as fast during the past 33 years as the satellite data show. Surface temperatures compiled by the UK’s University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit reflect a similar warming trend.

With temperature data indicating more warming at the earth’s surface than in the earth’s lower troposphere, one of the following must be true: (1) the surface temperature data is more corrupted by heat biases such as expanding urban heat islands and localized land-use changes than the IPCC admits, (2) the warming of the past 33 years is primarily the result of factors other than greenhouse gas emissions, or (3) longstanding, widely believed assumptions about greenhouse gas theory are wrong.

Regardless of which one or more of the three options are true, the satellite sensors have contributed greatly to our scientific understanding of the earth’s ever-changing climate. Thirty-three years and counting, we rightly celebrate the scientific advances provided by satellite temperature sensors.

Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/12/28/climate-science-reaches-a-landmark-that-chills-global-warming-alarmists/

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Paper questionably assumes no add’l feedback to warming will occur, drops last five years of ocean data

Markus Huber and Reto Knutti, researchers at the ETH Zurich‘s Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, earlier this month published an interesting research letter in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience, entitled ”Anthropogenic and natural warming inferred from changes in Earth’s energy balance“.  This letter is significant, as it appears to be the first climatology work to try to extensively model warming from an energy balance perspective.  This represents a major step forward in trying to understand a model global warming.

Ultimately, the paper tries to assign a percent blame to mankind for the current warming.  However, there is good cause to debate the validity of these final conclusions, given some of the paper’s rather naïve methodology.  It is here that the paper falls back on the mistakes of some of its predecessors in perhaps oversimplifying the system.

I. Mankind is Contributing to Warming the Earth

Whether it’s one trillionth of a degree Celsius or one degree Celsius, there’s one thing most scientific-minded observers of the warming debate can agree upon — mankind is responsible for some part of the Earth’s recent warming trend.

Basic physics tells us carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, as is methane.  Mankind has emitted a lot of carbon dioxide and methane in the last 100 years, and atmospheric monitoring has shown a discrete rise in levels of these greenhouse gases.

The greenhouse gases trap heat.  So mankind is clearly responsible for some quantifiable amount of the warming effect.

_{Global warming is symptomatic of either an excess incoming energy flow or an deficient outoging energy flow, thus the energy balance is a good means of examining warming.
[Image Source: Learner.org]}

The important questions are:

1. How much of recent warming (%) is mankind responsible for?
2. How far can the system go before reaching equilibrium?

It is here, though, that the logical “skeptic” and some climatologists diverge.  Some researchers claim that both of these questions have been, more or less, definitively answered.  Scientifically-grounded skeptics, on the other hand, argue that much of the current work has been simply in fitting weak models to data sets, leading to potentially misleading conclusions.

The new work, for its part, does do an admirable job pointing out some of the shortcomings of the current modeling approach.  The authors write:

In other words, past studies have taken temperature observations, assumed that we know exactly how much temperature increase is caused per unit forcing (e.g. per unit CO2), and linearly combined forcings to find a model that fits current temperature rises.

_{The new work attempts to combine forcings linearly and assumes no additional feedback, much like past works. [Image Source: ETH Zurich]}

II. Looking at the Energy Balance

The new work alters this approach slightly, by using the energy balance, rather than the temperature, as the target to fit to.  But ultimately its conclusions may be skewed by the fact that it, like its temperature-based predecessor, uses a simplistic approach in which inputs’ contributions:

1. Scale linearly
2. Are additive
3. Are of equal efficacy (from the paper: “We assume that all forcing agents have equal efficacy.”)

This is a rather simplistic model, although the analysis was complex with “thousands of model simulations”.

The paper’s ultimate conclusion is that:

The authors conclude that man is responsible for 74 percent of warming.

_{The paper shows that the model was fit well with recent historic temperatures.
[Image Source: ETH Zurich]}

_{The paper claims that mankind is responsible for 74 percent of warming via greenhouse gases,once the offsetting contribution of aerosols is considered. [Image Source: ETH Zurich]}

This is a fascinating conclusion, because if correct it provides a much more straightforward assignment of blame to mankind, using what appears to be a more scientifically sound methodology (i.e. the energy balance).

III. The Blame Game — Maybe Not Quite So Accurate

Unfortunately there are some significant issues with the paper which cause its conclusions to be brought into question.  

One notable is the issue is whether the scaled forcings are truly of “equal efficacy”.  It’s quite possible that different forcings could operate fundamentally differently, given where they put their heat (e.g. atmosphere v. ocean, etc.).  Problematically, the paper’s authors fail to provide much explanation of why they think this approach is truly valid.

Secondly the study’s methodology section states that another potentially problematic assumption was made:

This gets back to question 2 of the big questions previously raised — “How far can the system go before reaching equilibrium?”

The model essentially is assuming that the Earth is going to sit here warming, without any significant cooling counter-effect being produced.  Geological record, as well as scientific common sense would cast doubt on this notion.  To give on example, past warming has altered sea currents, leading to a net cooling trend.

Finally, the paper admits that something strange is going on heat balance-wise with the ocean:

For some reason the ocean temperatures have flatlined.  But the papers ignore this data, opting to only use the data that indicates nice, homogenous warming.

_{The energy balance results are compared with observational data, but the researchers questionably neglect comparisons for the last five years of ocean data.
[Image Source: ETH Zurich]}

Thus, at the end of the day while this paper makes some progress in adopting a more sensible metric for quantifying warming (energy balance) and uses some impressive simulation techniques (e.g. the neural network trained to performing the BERN2.5D model Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations), the uncertainty in its conclusions is likely understated.

Is mankind responsible for some amount of warming?  Certainly — again, basic physics tells us this.  But is this warming permanent and linearly scaling with greenhouse gas emissions?  The answer there is far less certain.

It would be terrifically convenient to blindly accept the paper’s conclusion and take it as dogma that mankind is responsible for 74 percent of warming.  Unfortunately taking a look at the paper’s methodology from an analytical and scientific perspective reveals that doing so is likely folly.

The authors deserve praise for applying the energy balance and for providing explicit qualifications for some of the key assumptions and shortcomings of their work.  But the paper does not definitively pin what percent of warming mankind is to blame for. As The X Files states, “The truth is out there.”

_{[Image Source: Sustainable Blog]}

It is important for politicians to bear this state of uncertainty in mind, when deciding on whether to adopt more costly means of “fighting” global warming by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.  Some methods like deploying nuclear energy or funding novel solar energy research represent lower cost, lower risk scenarios, in which mankind would still benefit in other ways, even if the warming threat proves overstated.  But when it comes to more extreme actions, such as adopting meat rationing or carbon credits (wealth redistribution) schemes, it seems a bit premature to resort to such expensive schemes given the lack of definitive understanding.

Source: ETH Zurich [PDF draft]

Article source: http://www.dailytech.com/New+Paper+Estimates+74+Percent+of+Warming+is+Manmade/article23590.htm