World-News

NASA Press Release March 2, 2006

The first-ever gravity survey of the entire Antarctic ice sheet, conducted using data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace), concludes the ice sheet's mass has decreased significantly from 2002 to 2005.

Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr, both from the University of Colorado, Boulder, conducted the study. They demonstrated for the first time that Antarctica's ice sheet lost a significant amount of mass since 2002. The estimated mass loss was enough to raise global sea level about 1.2 millimeters (0.05 inches) during the survey period, or about 13 percent of the overall observed sea level rise for the same period. The researchers found Antarctica's ice sheet decreased by 152 (plus or minus 80) cubic kilometers of ice annually between April 2002 and August 2005.

That is about how much water the United States consumes in three months (a cubic kilometer is one trillion liters; approximately 264 billion gallons of water). This represents a change of about 0.4 millimeters (.016 inches) per year to global sea level rise. Most of the mass loss came from the West Antarctic ice sheet.

"Antarctica is Earth's largest reservoir of fresh water," Velicogna said. "The Grace mission is unique in its ability to measure mass changes directly for entire ice sheets and can determine how Earth's mass distribution changes over time. Because ice sheets are a large source of uncertainties in projections of sea level change, this represents a very important step toward more accurate prediction, and has important societal and economic impacts. As more Grace data become available, it will become feasible to search for longer-term changes in the rate of Antarctic mass loss," she said.

Measuring variations in Antarctica's ice sheet mass is difficult because of its size and complexity. Grace is able to overcome these issues, surveying the entire ice sheet, and tracking the balance between mass changes in the interior and coastal areas.

Previous estimates have used various techniques, each with limitations and uncertainties and an inherent inability to monitor the entire ice sheet mass as a whole. Even studies that synthesized results from several techniques, such as the assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suffered from a lack of data in critical regions.

"Combining Grace data with data from other instruments such as NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite; radar; and altimeters that are more effective for studying individual glaciers is expected to substantially improve our understanding of the processes controlling ice sheet mass variations," Velicogna said.

The Antarctic mass loss findings were enabled by the ability of the identical twin Grace satellites to track minute changes in Earth's gravity field resulting from regional changes in planet mass distribution. Mass movement of ice, air, water and solid earth reflect weather patterns, climate change and even earthquakes. To track these changes, Grace measures micron-scale variations in the 220-kilometer (137-mile) separation between the two satellites, which fly in formation.

Grace is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The University of Texas Center for Space Research has overall mission responsibility. GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ), Potsdam, Germany, is responsible for German mission elements. Science data processing, distribution, archiving and product verification are managed jointly by JPL, the University of Texas and GFZ. The results will appear in this week's issue of Science.

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/home

For more information about Grace on the Web, visit:
https://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace
https://www.gfz-potsdam.de/grace

For University of Colorado information call Jim Scott at: (303) 492-3114.

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.


Informant: NHNE

Melting Ice Caps Could Spell Disaster for Coastal Cities.

By BILL BLAKEMORE.

For the first time, scientists have confirmed Earth is melting at both ends, which could have disastrous effects for coastal cities and villages.

https://reference.aol.com/article?id=20060302121809990001

The Magnum-Opus Project---The Mission: To do a greater good. Righting the wrongs of the Manhattan Project's deceit and treachery national security methods using openness and accountability. DOE Watch List--Where toxic health damage is not a mystery. A news list combined with scientific studies to expose the problems.

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San Francisco Chronicle
by Mark Morford

03/01/06

For this time of year in San Francisco, blasts of weird summerlike weather are probably completely normal. February invariably means sporadic rain, long spurts of frigid cold beaming down from ever-melting Alaska, alongside nice puffy tufts of warm sun of sufficient perfection to make you think about car washes and sex in the park and how you need to get some new T-shirts for summer. But then again, not quite. Something is amiss. Something about this blazing loveliness feels just a little bit off, a little bit wrong, something nagging and squirming just under the skin of this sunny daydream bliss, and if you're paying any sort of attention to the world these days you can't help but hear, as you bask in the warm sun-kissed goodness, an uneasy and nervous voice stabbing into your sun-dappled brain: Isn't it just a little too warm? Too sunny? Can this be right? And finally: Is this winter heat just another little sign of impending doom, a hint of far, far worse things to come, of heat waves and storms and direness and death? Is it all, in short, just a deceptively lovely result of the looming wrath of global warming?

https://tinyurl.com/kh93v


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The oceans as we have known them are ceasing to exist, says the author of this lengthy investigative piece. Oceanic problems once encountered on a local scale have gone pandemic, and these pandemics now merge to birth new monsters.

https://www.truthout.org/issues_06/030106EB.shtml

Monbiot warns: There is no way to halt global warming and continue traveling long distances at high speeds. The only solution is to stop flying in airplanes.

https://www.truthout.org/issues_06/030106EA.shtml

https://www.stopclimatechaos.org/story.asp

THE STORY

We have been burning large amounts of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas for almost 200 years. This has enabled us to build the modern societies that exist today. However, what we didn't know was that along the way we have been creating the biggest problem that we have ever faced.

That problem is climate change. It goes like this: burning fossil fuels produces gases like carbon dioxide which collect in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a so-called "greenhouse gas" - that which naturally exists in the atmosphere helps keep the planet warm enough for life to exist. But by massively adding to it we¹re trapping too much heat in the system. This is creating more extreme weather, melting of the ice caps, floods and droughts. In turn this will cost the lives of millions, ruin the livelihoods of hundreds of millions more, severely affect animal and plant life across the globe and cost trillions of dollars. Climate change is already killing 150,000 people a year. In other words, this isn¹t just a problem for future generations. It's happening now.

Don't just take our word for it. The vast majority of climate change experts believe that this is a global catastrophe in the making. It is also accepted as a massive danger by the bulk of the world's Governments. In fact the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor believes it's more dangerous than terrorism, and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has declared that climate change is the greatest long term threat we face.

So you'd think world leaders would be taking urgent action to stop this chaos. Wrong. Most of them - and in fact most of us - are carrying on as if we hadn't seen all the danger signs. That's why Stop Climate Chaos has been formed. We are going to build irresistible public pressure - through political action and changes to our own lifestyles - to force world leaders to act. The Governments of the world must put in place the necessary policies to switch off fossil fuels, and help us all switch to lower energy lifestyles and cleaner sources of power. And the time for them to do it is now.

But it's not all doom and gloom! This is actually a great opportunity. By dealing with climate change we can also deliver the access to green energy that the world's poorest people have been long demanding, add greater protection to the natural environment, increase global security and adopt smarter lifestyles - not to mention save ourselves a whole load of money in the long run. We know how to do it. All it will take is political will.

So let's Stop Climate Chaos. Now. Because together we can.

Click here to take action: https://www.stopclimatechaos.org/action.asp

Download our Manifesto here: https://www.stopclimatechaos.org/aboutus_manifesto.asp

Download our policy platform, What the UK Government Must Do, here: https://tinyurl.com/ot7h3


Informant: NHNE

Guardian [UK]

02/28/06

The Earth's temperature could rise under the impact of global warming to levels far higher than previously predicted, according to the United Nations' team of climate experts. A draft of the next influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will tell politicians that scientists are now unable to place a reliable upper limit on how quickly the atmosphere will warm as carbon dioxide levels increase. The report draws together research over the past five years and will be presented to national governments in April and made public next year. It raises the possibility of the Earth's temperature rising well above the ceiling quoted in earlier accounts...

https://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1719608,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Published on Sunday, February 26, 2006
by the Sunday Times /UK
by Jonathan Leake

THE world’s coral reefs could disappear within a few decades along with hundreds of species of plankton and shellfish, according to new studies into man’s impact on the oceans.

Researchers have found that carbon dioxide, the gas already blamed for causing global warming, is also raising the acid levels in the sea. The shells of coral and other marine life dissolve in acid. The process is happening so fast that many such species, including coral, crabs, oysters and mussels, may become unable to build and repair their shells and will die out, say the researchers.

“Increased carbon dioxide emissions are making the world’s oceans more acidic and could cause a mass extinction of marine life similar to the one that occurred on land when the dinosaurs disappeared,” said Professor Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution’s global ecology department.

When CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels dissolves in the ocean, it forms carbonic acid. A little of this can benefit marine life by providing carbonate ions — a vital constituent in the biochemical process by which sea creatures such as corals and molluscs build their shells.

Caldeira found, however, that the huge volumes of carbon dioxide being released by humans are dissolving into the oceans so fast that sea creatures can no longer absorb it. Consequently, the levels of carbonic acid are rising and the oceans are “turning sour”.

Speaking at the American Geophysical Union’s ocean sciences conference in Hawaii last week, Caldeira said: “The current rate of carbon dioxide input is nearly 50 times higher than normal. In less than 100 years, the pH (measure of alkalinity) of the oceans could drop by as much as half a unit from its natural 8.2 to about 7.7.”

This would mark a huge change in ocean chemistry. The shells of marine creatures are made of calcium carbonate, the same substance as chalk, which is vulnerable to acidity. Even a slight increase in acidity would mean many creatures would dissolve. Others might be able to rebuild their shells but would be unable to reproduce.

Nature, the scientific journal, recently published a study by Jim Orr, of the Laboratory for Science of the Climate and Environment, Paris. It said that by 2050 the Southern Ocean and subarctic regions of the Pacific might be so acidic that the shells of smaller marine creatures would start eroding.

Such a loss would have disastrous consequences for larger marine animals such as salmon, mackerel, herring, cod and baleen whales. These all feed on pteropods, or sea butterflies, one of the species most threatened by rising acidity.

Last week another warning was issued about the threat of acidity to sea life at the annual meeting in St Louis of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Katherine Richardson, professor of biological oceanography at Aarhus University in Denmark, said: “These marine creatures do humanity a great service by absorbing half the carbon dioxide we create. If we wipe them out, that process will stop. We are altering the entire chemistry of the oceans without any idea of the consequences.”

© 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.

https://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0226-06.htm

23.02.2006

Hamburger Klimaforscher präsentieren neueste Modellergebnisse für das kommende Jahrhundert.

https://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n4645

https://planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6724&Itemid=69


Informant: NHNE