Category Archives: Global Warming

Newsweek Features Permafrost Video

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My 2013 video on permafrost was included with a Newsweek piece on the issue. These videos get watched by, and help educate, the media gatekeepers. That’s the key to changing the conversation.

Newsweek:

Discussions of global warming often center on the release of greenhouse gases like carbon into the atmosphere, mostly from burning fossil fuels. There’s talk of “leaving it in the ground,” locking potential gases up in benign obscurity as untapped coal or oil reserves, but rarely does one see carbon slowly and steadily unlocking itself. In the Goldstream Valley in central Alaska, you can see it almost everywhere you look.

But in one spot, that carbon is still in suspended animation.  Read more:   Newsweek Features Permafrost Video | Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Siberian Heatwave Wrecks Sea Ice as Greenland High Settles In | robertscribbler

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We’ve never seen Arctic sea ice extents that are as low as they are now in early June. And with Arctic heatwaves, warm winds, warm storms, and a Greenland High all settling in, something had better change soon or otherwise the ice cap over the northern Polar Ocean is basically screwed.

On the shores of the Arctic Ocean’s East Siberian Sea (ESS), near the town of Logashinko, temperatures today are expected to rise to near 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Readings that are about 40 to 50 degrees (F) above normal for this near-polar region during this time of year.

Source: Siberian Heatwave Wrecks Sea Ice as Greenland High Settles In | robertscribbler

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Yes to Clean Energy and Clean Air. No to Coal and Climate Change. | Climate Reality

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Please click the link below and sign the petition.

Climate Reality Project:  “In the coming months, Millennium Bulk Terminals plans to build the largest coal export terminal in the US near Longview, Washington, exporting up to 44 million metric tons of dirty coal annually from the Pacific Northwest to Asia.

Photo: NBCNews.com

Photo: NBCNews.com

“Our choice is simple. We can support clean energy and protect the health of Northwest communities and the stunning beauty of our mountains and rivers. Or we can let coal trains spread dangerous coal dust across towns and cities, pollute our air and water, and accelerate the climate crisis devastating our planet.

“It’s time to put our environment and planet before coal company profits – and today, you can help. Add your name by June 13 and help ensure Millennium’s coal export proposal doesn’t move forward.

“Add your name below and say no to coal and yes to a clean energy future for the Pacific Northwest.”  Source: Yes to Clean Energy and Clean Air. No to Coal and Climate Change. | Climate Reality

Hidden Risks in a Warming Antarctic – D-brief

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As the rest of the world heats up and the Arctic hemorrhages ice, a different story is playing out in Antarctica. Total ice coverage there has actually increased, and temperatures have risen only mildly. As researchers have attempted to adequately model the changing climate, the Antarctic paradox has served as ammunition for climate change deniers and challenged climate scientists.

But three recently published papers help explain why the Antarctic isn’t falling in line with the rest of the world, while highlighting an overlooked trend in Antarctic sea ice.

Not So Rosy After AllWhile Antarctica may appear to buck the trend of warming and sea level rise, a problem may be lurking beneath the surface.

Source: Hidden Risks in a Warming Antarctic – D-brief

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Nigeria’s Massive Oil Cleanup Could Take Decades And A Billion Dollars | ThinkProgress

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Fossil Fuel Pollution

Oil is seen on the creek water’s surface near an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland, outside Port Harcourt, in Nigeria’s Delta region. A region of Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta suffers widespread ecological damage as spilled oil seeps into its drinking water, destroys plants and remains in the ground for decades at a time.

Fossil fuels pollute the air, the land, and the sea.

What’s been described as the most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up plan in history was launched in Nigeria Thursday to restore hundreds of square miles of Delta swamps ravaged by nearly sixty years of oil extraction and spills.

The move to restore Ogoniland, located in southern Nigeria and home to more than 800,000 people, comes a year and a half after Shell agreed to an $84 million settlement with residents for two massive oil spills in 2008 and 2009. By then Nigeria had asked the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) to study the area. UNEP released a report in 2011 noting oil impacts on Ogoniland are ongoing, widespread, and severe. In turn, Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, started a $1 billion restoration plan this week to clean up decades of spills by Shell and other companies, including the state-owned company.

Source: Nigeria’s Massive Oil Cleanup Could Take Decades And A Billion Dollars | ThinkProgress

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The Rains of Climate Change, Voracious Locust Swarms Wreck Crops in Russia | robertscribbler

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This year was supposed to set new records for Russian grain production. But that was before a persistent trough in the Jet Stream funneled storm after storm over the Ukraine through Western and Central Russia setting off record extreme rainfall events. Before a swarm of locusts invading further north earlier than is typical ravaged over 170,000 ares of corn in Southern Russia. Now the combined insect plague and stormy weather has put cereal crops at risk of shortfalls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Hi28Kc4JA

Source: The Rains of Climate Change, Voracious Locust Swarms Wreck Crops in Russia | robertscribbler

Spike in Alaska wildfires is worsening global warming, US says | Environment | The Guardian

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The devastating rise in Alaska’s wildfires is making global warming even worse than scientists expected, US government researchers said on Wednesday.

The sharp spike in Alaska’s wildfires, where more than 5 million acres burned last year, are destroying a main buffer against climate change: the carbon-rich boreal forests, tundra and permafrost that have served as an enormous carbon sink.Northern wildfires must now be recognised as a significant driver of climate change – and not just a side-effect, according to the report from the US Geological Survey.   Source: Spike in Alaska wildfires is worsening global warming, US says | Environment | The Guardian

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Best Protected Great Barrier Reef Corals Are Now Dead | Climate Central

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GR:  Marine parks can’t protect coral from global warming.

 :  The colorless coral corpses of north Queensland will soon be blanketed with mats of algae, and the hard skeletons will begin to crumble. It may take decades for the submerged wonders of what had recently been unspoiled reefs to resprout and recover from the wipeout, if they ever do.

Temperatures continue to rise worldwide. The amount of heat-trapping pollution released every year from fuel burning and deforestation has plateaued in recent years, while the amount of pollution in the atmosphere continues to pile up. Bleaching is caused primarily by warm waters, and the current worldwide bleaching is the third and worst on record, all since the late 1990s.

The extent of the coral wipeout was particularly remarkable because it occurred inside one of the world’s best protected natural areas. Fishing restrictions and other rules are in place to protect reefs that serve as nurseries for large fisheries and as drawing cards for a tourism-heavy economy.

“The coral animal is the keystone species on a coral reef — like the trees in a forest,” Kline said. “When the corals die you lose the three-dimensional structure that’s really important. A lot of these fish, their larval stages depend on hiding in among the corals to hide from predators.”

Kline said the Great Barrier Reef is inside what’s considered to be “one of the best managed and most successful” marine parks in the world.

Source: Best Protected Great Barrier Reef Corals Are Now Dead | Climate Central

 

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Simulated Global Temperature Change–Updated

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This animated spiral portrays the simulated changes in the global averaged monthly air temperature from 1850 through 2100 relative to the 1850 – 1900 average. The temperature data are from Community Climate System (CCSM4) global climate model maintained by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The simulation is for the IPCC Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) emission scenario. RCP8.5 is the most aggressive scenario in which green house gases continue to rise unchecked through the end of the century, leading to an equivalent of about 1370 ppm CO2, which is roughly four times the concentration at present. The CCSM4 simulation is part of the 5th Climate Model Intercomparison Program (CMIP5) and the data can be downloaded at https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/projects/cmip5/. The 21st century animations are an extension of the graphic (http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/spiralling-global-temperatures/) for the 1850-2010 observed air temperature created by E. Hawkins at Reading University, UK.

Source: Simulated global temperature change

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