It is most appropriate for Alaska to be hosting this week's Indigenous People's Global Summit on Climate Change here in Anchorage. Alaska's indigenous people know well a cruel irony of global warming: Those who are suffering the most from a warming climate are those who contribute least to the problem -- and they generally have the fewest resources to cope with the damage. warming trends in the world's Arctic are undeniable. Sea ice is shrinking, giving storms more chance to pound unprotected shorelines and eat away at low-lying communities. Melting permafrost causes homes and other buildings to heave and twist.
The wildfires blazing through North Myrtle Beach, S.C., today are hardly an anomaly in a warming world. According to a landmark report that will be published tomorrow in Science, fires are not just a result of a changing climate, they're also contributing to the overall warming trend much more than imagined, the authors report. As vegetation burns, it releases stored-up carbon into the atmosphere, speeding global warming and thereby exacerbating conditions that may generate a greater incidence of wildfires in the coming years.
Challenging warming skeptics who note that parts of Antarctica have gotten colder, researchers on Wednesday reported that overall the continent has gotten warmer since the 1950s, and that even those colder spots would be warmer were it not for the ozone hole.
"Contrarians have sometime grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming," said study co-author Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. "Now we can say: No, it's not true ... It is not bucking the trend."
The continent of Antarctica is warming up in step with the rest of the world, according to a new analysis.
Scientists say data from satellites and weather stations indicate a warming of about 0.6C over the last 50 years.
Why Study Boreal Forests?
* Coverage - Boreal forests cover approximately 14.5% of the earth's land surface. Learn More »
* Carbon Storage - The great expanse and large quantity of carbon contained in vegetation and soils (particularly peat) make the boreal biome the world's largest terrestrial carbon reservoir. Learn More »
* Changing Climate - At high latitudes in North America, substantial warming and drying has occurred, and this trend is predicted to continue. Increased temperatures in the boreal region release large quantities of carbon previously immobilized in the cold and frozen soils. The large quantity of carbon contained in the cold and frozen soils of the boreal biome is susceptible to mobilization under a changing climate system. Learn More »
* Fire and Regrowth - warming and drying associated with climate change increase the frequency and intensity of the boreal fire regime, and lead to changes in vegetation composition and the carbon cycle. Learn More »
Why Study Boreal Forests?
* Coverage - Boreal forests cover approximately 14.5% of the earth's land surface. Learn More »
* Carbon Storage - The great expanse and large quantity of carbon contained in vegetation and soils (particularly peat) make the boreal biome the world's largest terrestrial carbon reservoir. Learn More »
* Changing Climate - At high latitudes in North America, substantial warming and drying has occurred, and this trend is predicted to continue. Increased temperatures in the boreal region release large quantities of carbon previously immobilized in the cold and frozen soils. The large quantity of carbon contained in the cold and frozen soils of the boreal biome is susceptible to mobilization under a changing climate system. Learn More »
* Fire and Regrowth - warming and drying associated with climate change increase the frequency and intensity of the boreal fire regime, and lead to changes in vegetation composition and the carbon cycle. Learn More »
The Supreme Court two years ago directed the EPA to decide whether greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, pose a threat to public health and welfare because they are warming the Earth. If such a finding is made, these emissions should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, the court said.
The scientific evidence for global warming and for humanity's role in the increase of greenhouse gasses becomes ever more unimpeachable, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings are going to suggest; and such activity has a profound relevance, not just for the environment, but in ethical, economic, social and political terms as well. The consequences of climate change are being felt not only in the environment, but in the entire socioeconomic system and, as seen in the findings of numerous reports already available, they will impact first and foremost the poorest and weakest who, even if they are among the least responsible for global warming, are the most vulnerable because they have limited resources or live in areas at greater risk. We need only think of the small island developing states as one example among many. Many of the most vulnerable societies, already facing energy problems, rely upon agriculture -- the very sector most likely to suffer from climatic shifts.
Thus, in order to address the double challenge of climate change and the need for ever greater energy resources, we will have to change our present model from one of the heedless pursuit of economic growth in the name of development, toward a model which heeds the consequences of its actions and is more respectful toward the creation we hold in common, coupled with an integral human development for present and future generations.
The complexity of the promotion of sustainable development is evident to all; there are, however, certain underlying principles which can direct research toward adequate and lasting solutions. Humanity must become increasingly conscious of the links between natural ecology, or respect for nature, and human ecology. Experience shows that disregard for the environment harms human coexistence, while at the same time it becomes clearer that there is a positive link to be made between peace with creation and peace among nations.
In a one-hour High-Definition special, NOW on PBS host David Brancaccio travels to the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas-the source of the legendary river Ganges-to witness the impact of global warming first hand. Global warming, scientists say, is dangerously melting away glaciers around the world, including Gangotri
"Imagine these scenarios: The rice bowl of Vietnam cracking. Popular diving spots in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia lying idle with no tourists. Nearly half of Bangkok inundated with water.
Well, they could become a reality in 20 to 30 years-no thanks to the adverse effects of climate change in Southeast Asia exacerbated by forest fires particularly in Indonesia which recently blanketed the region with deadly smoky haze.
Scientists warn in a new World Bank report of major impacts on the region if the temperature rises by up to 2 degrees Celsius-warming which they say may be reached in two to three decades-fueled by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
The warming climate will push up the sea level in the region and cause an increase in heat extremes, a higher intensity of tropical cyclones, and ocean acidification stemming from excess carbon dioxide in the air, according to the latest edition of the bank's "Turn Down the Heat" report."
Hurricanes and Global Warming
So I am going to stand pat with our conclusions first presented in 2005: [T]here are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global Warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term. That is where things stand on this subject at the close of 2007.
Global warming is changing the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine life in the polar seas with "profound" implications for creatures further up the food chain, according to scientists involved in the most comprehensive study of life in the oceans ever conducted.
Field said that if the tropics became dry enough for fires to break out, tropical forests would pass a "tipping point" from absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to releasing it.
"Tropical forests are essentially inflammable. You couldn't get a fire to burn there if you tried. But if they dry out just a little, the result can be very large and destructive wildfires. It is increasingly clear that as you produce a warmer world, lots of forested areas that had been acting as carbon sinks could be converted to carbon sources," he said. The result could lead to runaway warming.
With diminished rice harvests, seawater seeping into aquifers and islands vanishing into rising oceans, Southeast Asia will be among the regions worst affected by global warming, according to a report scheduled for release on Monday by the Asian Development Bank.
"The world is struggling with the consequences of the economic crisis in which we find ourselves (but) any of the difficulties we face today will be as nothing when the full horror of global warming unfolds," Charles said.
GLAND, SWITZERLAND -- (Marketwire) -- 09/02/09 -- The new report, Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications, outlines dire global consequences of a warming Arctic that are far worse than previous projections. Peer-reviewed by the world's top climate scientists, this report reinforces that there's no time to waste in tackling climate change, because this meltdown will have major implications for people around the world - not just in the Arctic.
So I am going to stand pat with our conclusions first presented in 2005:
[T]here are good reasons to expect that any conclusive connection between global warming and hurricanes or their impacts will not be made in the near term.
That is where things stand on this subject at the close of 2007.
Overarching and Enduring Understandings Addressed in Climate Change Unit:
Natural Cycles of Planetary Change
Change is Detection through Pattern recognition
Interlocking relationship between the Earth's Systems
Overarching Questions Addressed in Greenland Melting unit:
What are the results of global warming?
Can the triggers of the Little Ice Age happen again?
What are the methods that scientists use to study Earth processes?
What are the harbingers and fingerprints of global processes?
What are the drivers of climate?
How are glaciers and ocean currents related?
A funny thing happened just before a ceremony was to be held last week to commemorate a $3 million sea wall around the village of Kivalina way up on Alaska's Arctic coastline. The village, home to Inupiat natives for 4,000 years, is about to be washed into the sea, and the 1,800-foot wall is supposed to stop that.
Alaska
There's growing evidence that villages in the far North like Kivalina, Alaska, are being eaten up by the ocean due, at least in part, to global warming.
(Northwest Arctic Borough,The Anchorage Daily News/AP Photo)
But along came a modest storm, with winds of up to 40 miles per hour, and 160 feet of the wall washed out. The ceremony was canceled.
But basic science fails to shed light - at least directly - on daunting challenges confronting society such as how best to adapt and what stock to place in various solutions.
Adapting will involve dealing with sea-level rise, upheaval in agriculture, stark changes in energy demand for heating and cooling, new water resource management regimes, and fundamental change in the world's transportation and energy infrastructure.
It is a challenge of enormous scale, requiring that civilization overcome "technological, financial, cognitive and behavioral, and social and cultural constraints," as the chapter on adaptation in the IPCC's 2007 report put it.
Adapting to global warming and stemming the greenhouse-gas tide will touch nearly every aspect of life, forcing climatologists, biologists and oceanographers to work with energy experts, social scientists and automotive engineers, even economists.
Together, these strange bedfellows must produce recommendations useful to political leaders from presidents to planning commissioners.
Those collaborations are not in place.