CU-Boulder study shows global glaciers, ice caps, shedding billions of tons of mass annually

Earth's glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The research effort is the first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world's melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise and indicates they are adding roughly 0.4 millimeters annually, said CU-Boulder physics Professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. The measurements are important because the melting of the world's glaciers and ice caps, along with Greenland and Antarctica, pose the greatest threat to sea level increases in the future, Wahr said.

The researchers used satellite measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, a joint effort of NASA and Germany, to calculate that the world's glaciers and ice caps had lost about 148 billion tons, or about 39 cubic miles of ice annually from 2003 to 2010. The total does not count the mass from individual glacier and ice caps on the fringes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets -- roughly an additional 80 billion tons.

Read More:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/uoca-css020612.php

Gary Null, PhD., and Jeremy Stillman - The 12 Tipping Points

The 12 Tipping Points
By Gary Null, PhD., and Jeremy Stillman 

Currently, more than half of the population of the United States does not believe that Global Warming is real or that it is man-made. Most discussions involving our environment rest upon Global Warming as a single issue, however, we are confronted today with multiple environmental crises. Any one of these issues can cause extreme suffering and in some cases, cataclysmic devastation if they were to go so far as to tip. Hence, we present an exploration of these tipping points to better understand the dangers that we face and how to limit their negative consequences.

The Disruption of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (Not yet tipped)

Linking together the southern Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans is the Antarctic circumpolar current (ACC). The current moves west to east around the continent, displacing 34 billion gallons of water per second. Importantly, the ACC circulates nutrients to sustain trillions of phytoplankton near the water’s surface which absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After soaking up the CO2, the phytoplankton sink to the cold ocean depths, creating what is known as a “carbon sink”. This process helps compensate for excess CO2 levels caused by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.  Many suspect that Global Warming could disrupt this sensitive cycle, weakening the current’s intensity and leading to an increase in carbon dioxide levels.  Research from 2008 indicated that, while the circumpolar current has shifted farther south over the course of a decade, its strength remains the same.

The Release of Methane Clathrates   (Not yet tipped)

Methane Clathrates refers to the huge supply of frozen methane found below the ocean floor and Arctic permafrost. Holding anywhere from 1- to 2.5-trillion tons of methane, these underground gas chambers continuously release methane into the atmosphere. As Global Warming causes permafrost to melt, the clathrates become more vulnerable to destabilization. Consequently, there is an increased risk of a significant methane discharge being sent into the atmosphere. Models predict that just one good-sized gaseous ejection could accelerate Global Warming by up to 25%.  The signs are there: methane released into the atmosphere has doubled over the last 150 years and recent measurements in clathrate hotspots including Alaska and Siberia showed that levels of the gas were 5 times greater than expected. What makes the situation even more concerning is the fact that methane is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.  

The Disruption of the Monsoon Season (Not yet tipped)

Global warming-induced changes to the monsoon season could cause dramatic decreases to the food supply for billions of Earth’s inhabitants. As the planet’s temperature rises, many scientists are predicting a shift in the course of monsoons and their accompanying rains.  Scientists predict that such a shift could mean much less rainfall in the Indian subcontinent as well as parts of Africa and Southwest Asia.  Since the agriculture of these areas is largely dependent on monsoon patterns, a disruption to this cycle could have a devastating effect food production. Experts also foresee an increased risk of wildfires as a result of this phenomenon.

El Niño (Not yet tipped)

El Niño refers to the increase in sea-surface temperatures that occurs in the Pacific Ocean approximately every five years.  This rise in sea temperatures has contributed to greater rainfall and flooding in South American nations such Peru and Ecuador and a higher risk of drought in the western Pacific countries including Indonesia and Ausralia.  Since 1976, the magnitude of this phenomenon has been observed to increase in scale, leading many to attribute El Niño to greenhouse warming.  Models indicate that El Niño may eventually become a more severe and persistent event, triggering record floods and blistering droughts year-round.  

The Shrinking of the Sahara Desert (Not yet tipped)

While the notion of the Sahara Desert transforming into a fertile, green territory does have its appeal, scientists warn that such a development – which could be a consequence of Global Warming- could dramatically alter world weather patterns. Transported thousands of miles by wind currents, the mineral-rich sand from Africa’s Sahara Desert is an important fertilizer of phytoplankton in the Atlantic as well as trees located in the Amazon rainforest.  Deprived of the Saharan sand, the phytoplankton and trees would be less efficient at soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In addition, a portion of the sand that is swept up from the desert serves to reflect the sun’s rays and in effect, shields the Earth from the effects of Global Warming.  This airborne sand also works to curb the formation of hurricanes over the Atlantic. Strangely, a Sahara with less sand and more vegetation may in fact catalyze Climate Change, setting off more intense hurricanes and fostering more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Recent investigations using satellite imagery show that the Sahara has become greener over the last few decades. In 2009, a National Geographic article explained that in parts of Egypt and Sudan, trees such as acacias are beginning to thrive.  The report also mentions that nomads in the region have reported unprecedented rainfall in recent years.    

The Collapse of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (Not yet tipped)

The Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (THC) is another significant oceanographic phenomenon threatened by Climate Change.  Also known as the “conveyor belt”, the THC involves the exchange of dense, cold water from the polar north and warmer water flowing up from the tropics.  It is this circuit that moderates air and water temperatures in Northwestern Europe.  Some scientific models tell us that a collapse of this current due to rising sea temps related to Global Warming is real possibility. A significant THC slowdown could bring more extreme winter weather to England and Scandinavia.   A study from 2005 noted an abrupt 30% decrease in the speed of a central component of the THC.

The Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (Tipping)

Spanning nearly 14 million square kilometers, the Antarctic Ice Sheet holds more than 90% of the world's surface freshwater. Many experts consider the status of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), a segment of the ice cap which accounts for 10% for about its mass, as one of the foremost harbingers of Climate Change. Over the last half-century, the WAIS has experienced  an increase in temperature of 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit per decade- the biggest temperature increase on earth during that period. One key ice stream of the WAIS is known as the Pine Island Glacier.  Studies show the glacier at has melted at an accelerated rate over the last four decades.   In late 2011, researchers discovered that a 300 square mile chunk of the Pine Island Glacier is close to breaking off, raising more concern over the stability of the thinning ice sheet. A study published in January 2012 in the journal Nature Geoscience stated that even if all CO2 emissions were to come to a halt by 2100 and the planet's temperatures were to stabilize, regions such as Antarctica would continue to be affected for thousands of years by the circulation of warmer water currents. Another analysis by researchers at the University of Maryland published in 2011 determined that a rise in sea levels by just one tenth of a meter would result in over $2 billion dollars in damage to property and directly affect 68,000 in Washington D.C alone.

The Melting of Greenland’s Ice Sheet (Tipping)

The Greenland ice sheet accounts for 6% of all freshwater on the planet's surface.  If it were to melt entirely- which many scientists see as a real possibility-sea levels worldwide would rise by 23 feet, wreaking havoc on coastal populations around the globe.  As the effects of Global Warming have accelerated, so too has the melting of the ice sheet; one study observed that between 1996-2005, the rate of its disintegration doubled. It is thought that it would take a minimum of 60,000 years for the ice sheet to redevelop if it dissolves completely. A recent study utilizing satellite imagery to chart the loss of global ice mass shed light on the scale how Global Warming affects the planet's ice.  Undertaken by researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder, the study found that approximately 4.3 trillion tons, or 1000 cubic miles of ice mass was lost between 2003 and 2010. Roughly 75% of this loss could be attributed to the Greenland Ice Sheet and Antarctica. This tipping point is highly interconnected with the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation, as the water from this dwindling mass of ice could likely weaken the THC.

The Death of the Amazon Rainforest (Tipping)

Covering more than a billion acres with its lush, tropical vegetation, the Amazon rainforest plays a key role in regulating carbon dioxide levels by absorbing about one fifth of all the CO2 produced from the burning of fossil fuels. The compound effects of deforestation and Global Warming pose a major threat to the viability of the rainforest. As temperatures rise, the Amazon could morph into a vastly different landscape defined by much drier, savanna-like climes. Not only would the Amazon no longer absorb CO2, but the dead, rotting trees would release prodigious quantities of carbon into the air and contribute to more environmental upheavals.  The past decade has witnessed some of the driest years on record for the rainforest and one major drought that gripped the Amazon in 2005 resulted in the forest releasing more CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere than it absorbed.

Deforestation stands out as the other major factor in this tipping point scenario. Models tell us that 20% deforestation could send the Amazon on an irreversible path to destruction. In 2011, the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology estimated that more than 18% of the rainforest has already succumbed to deforestation.  Even if humanity were to cease cutting down vast swaths of Amazon, the effects of Climate Change are likely to significantly transform the Amazon within this century.

The Disintegration of the Ozone Layer (Tipping)

In the 1980s, the widespread use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was identified as a major culprit in the depletion of the ozone layer. But more than twenty years after the phase-out of CFC’s began in many countries, humanity faces the formidable task of minimizing ozone layer damage to prevent potential calamity.  A depleted ozone layer is leading to an uptick in patterns associated with Global Warming.  As the layer thins, more ultraviolet radiation from the sun’s rays hit Earth’s surface.  Aside from raising temperatures worldwide, the increase in UV radiation damages or kills off the vitally important phytoplankton which act as CO2 storehouses.   
In 1985, researchers identified the massive Antarctic ozone hole as the layer’s most significant vulnerability. Thinning of the hole has been measured to be as much as 65% in some places yet the recent discovery of an even more significant hole in the ozone layer late last year, this time above the Arctic Circle, has raised more concerns.  Scientists found an 80% reduction of the ozone in an area located above the North Pole. They attribute the loss to a colder-than-usual winter which promoted ozone damage by chlorine-based chemicals in the stratosphere.  
Today, it is estimated that the ozone layer is diminishing at about 3% per decade. Researchers with NASA and the NOAA have projected that it will take until 2018 for the protective layer to just begin to repair itself.  


The Decline of Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau (Tipping)

Covering 1 million square miles across western China, the Tibetan Plateau is a considerable factor in the world’s climate patterns. Blanketed by glaciers and snow, the plateau’s icy surface reflects the sun’s rays back toward space.  This phenomenon has worked to mitigate the effects of Global Warming, but as planetary temperatures continue to rise, the Tibetan plateau may accelerate Climate Change. As more of the plateau’s ice recedes, the exposed dark soil readily soaks up the sunlight and warms the Earth’s surface.  Experts warn that this process is picking up momentum. One study from 2010 revealed that the Tibetan Plateau is warming three times the global average.  Another analysis noted that from 2003-2010, the plateau lost an average of 4 billion tons of ice annually. This process will also present huge challenges to populations that depend on glacial runoff to to cultivate crops.  

The Diminishing of Ocean Salinity (Tipping)

Research indicates that Global Warming may result in significant changes to the salinity content of Earth’s oceans.  Such a phenomenon is predicted to have extensive ramifications on ocean currents and marine life.  As higher global temperatures translate to greater rainfall across the world, more freshwater is being dumped into oceans in a process that dilutes salinity.  Also adding to this dilution is freshwater runoff from melting glaciers.  Reductions in water salinity can interfere with “salinity valves”, or chemically-unique pockets of sea water which serve to buffer two disparate marine ecosystems. One such valve is the Strait of Gibraltar which separates the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. A sudden change in the salinity could overwhelm the delicate balance between different bodies of water and potentially devastate marine life that have adapted to a particular salinity content. Furthermore, fluctuations in salinity have the potential to disrupt major water currents such the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation.  A 2010 study undertaken by scientists at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation assessing the oceans’ salinity showed ample evidence that Climate Change has triggered obvious shifts in the salinity of not only surface water, but deep sea water as well. These findings suggest that Global Warming has triggered profound shifts in the planet’s oceans that will become more clearly manifest in the years to come.



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http://summitcountyvoice.com/2010/04/16/global-warming-driving-ocean-salinity-changes/

James Hansen - Cowards In Our Democracies

Leading climate scientists have given their support to a Freedom of Information request seeking to disclose who is funding the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based climate sceptic thinktank chaired by the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson. As the UK Guardian reported earlier this week, James Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies who first warned the world about the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, has joined other scientists in submitting statements to be considered by a judge at the Information Rights Tribunal on Friday. Hansen has posted “Cowards in Our Democracies: Part 1"— his submitted statement and an explanatory intro

Read More:

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/28/413955/james-hansen-on-cowards/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed&mobile=nc

Will Allen and Ronnie Cummins - What About the State of Our Planet, Mr. President?

In his state of the union address this week, President Obama talked about the American promise - the promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

“The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive,” he said. “No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important.”

Climate scientists might beg to differ.

Most of the President’s speech focused on economic reforms. He proposed energy reforms almost exclusively in the context of adding jobs and growing the economy.

But what good is a healthy economy on a planet too sick to sustain human life?

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/27/what-about-the-state-of-our-planet-mr-president/

Janet Larsen and Sara Rasmussen - 2011 Was A Year of Weather Extremes, With More to Come

The global average temperature in 2011 was 14.52 degrees Celsius (58.14 degrees Fahrenheit). According to NASA scientists, this was the ninth warmest year in 132 years of recordkeeping, despite the cooling influence of the La Niña atmospheric and oceanic circulation pattern and relatively low solar irradiance. Since the 1970s, each subsequent decade has gotten hotter -- and 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred in the twenty-first century.

Read More:

http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/2011-year-weather-extremes-more-come.html

Wall Street Journal Slammed for Giving Platform to Climate Change Deniers

In response to an op-ed printed late last week in the Wall Street Journal, signed by sixteen 'scientists' and entitled, 'No Need to Panic About Global Warming,' thirty-nine climate scientists have penned a letter, printed in today's WSJ, arguing that taking advice on climate change from scientists who have either "no expertise in climate science" or "extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert" is akin to allowing dentists perform heart surgery.

Suzanne Goldenberg reports for The Guardian:

The Wall Street Journal has received a dressing down from a large group of leading scientists for promoting retrograde and out-of-date views on climate change.

In an opinion piece run by the Journal on Wednesday, nearly 40 scientists, including acknowledged climate change experts, take on the paper for publishing an article disputing the evidence on global warming.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/01-6

New Study: Climate Change Threatens World's Wheat Crop

A study released Sunday afternoon finds that wheat crop yields could plunge due, in part, to climate change. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, researchers warn that current projections underestimate the extent to which hotter weather in the future will accelerate this process. Extreme heat causes wheat crops to age faster and reduce yields, the Stanford University-led study shows, underscoring the challenge of feeding a rapidly growing population as the world continues to warm.

New Scientist magazine reported Sunday:

It could be much more difficult than we thought to feed everyone in a warmer world. Satellite images of northern India have revealed that extreme temperatures are cutting wheat yields. What's more, models used to predict the effects of global warming on food supply may have underestimated the problem by a third.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/29-2

Bill Walker - Conservatives Use Creationist Playbook to Attack Climate Change Education in Schools

A few years ago, Cheryl Manning assigned a research project on climate change to her high school environmental science class in Evergreen, Colo. She presented the basic facts and data from peer-reviewed studies, then asked the students to look into the issue themselves and report back on what they learned.

Halfway through the unit, three students came to class up in arms. They questioned whether the data was made up and if government scientists were part of a plot — “like conspiracy theorists that say we never went to the moon,” Manning said. At a PTA meeting the students’ parents accused her of trying to undermine their children’s religious belief system.

“Peer-reviewed science is the Kool-Aid of the left-wing liberal conspiracy,” they said, adding a warning: “Be on your guard.”

Read More:

http://www.alternet.org/story/153909/conservatives_use_creationist_playbook_to_attack_climate_change_education_in_schools

Arctic climate change 'to spark domino effect'

The rate of Arctic climate change was now faster than ecosystems and traditional Arctic societies could adapt to. WA-based scientists have warned of "dire consequences" to the human race after detecting the first signs of dangerous climate change in the Arctic.

The scientists, from the University of WA, claim the region is fast approaching a series of imminent "tipping points" which could trigger a domino effect of large-scale climate change across the entire planet. In a paper published in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' journal AMBIO and Nature Climate Change, the lead author and director of UWA's Oceans Institute, Winthrop Professor Carlos Duarte, said the Arctic region contained arguably the greatest concentration of potential tipping elements for global climate change.

"If set in motion, they can generate profound climate change which places the Arctic not at the periphery but at the core of the Earth system," Professor Duarte said.  "There is evidence that these forces are starting to be set in motion."

Read More:

http://www.smh.com.au/wa-news/arctic-climate-change-to-spark-domino-effect-20120130-1qpgv.html

The biodiversity crisis: Worse than climate change

Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world. The challenges of conserving the world’s species are perhaps even larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change. Dealing with the biodiversity crisis requires political will and needs to be based on a solid scientific knowledge if we are to ensure a safe future for the planet. This is the main conclusion from scientists from University of Copenhagen, after 100 researchers and policy experts from EU countries were gathered this week at the University of Copenhagen to discuss how to organise the future UN Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES - an equivalent to the UN panel on climate change (IPCC).

Species extinction and the degradation of ecosystems are proceeding rapidly and the pace is accelerating. The world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate.

Read More:

http://news.ku.dk/all_news/2012/2012.1/biodiversity/

Michael Wertz & Laura Conley - Climate Change, Migration And Conflict: Addressing Complex Crisis Scenarios In The 21st Century

The costs and consequences of climate change on our world will define the 21st century. Even if nations across our planet were to take immediate steps to rein in carbon emissions—an unlikely prospect—a warmer climate is inevitable. As the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, noted in 2007, human-created “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.”

As these ill effects progress they will have serious implications for U.S. national security interests as well as global stability—extending from the sustainability of coastal military installations to the stability of nations that lack the resources, good governance, and resiliency needed to respond to the many adverse consequences of climate change. And as these effects accelerate, the stress will impact human migration and conflict around the world.

It is difficult to fully understand the detailed causes of migration and economic and political instability, but the growing evidence of links between climate change, migration, and conflict raise plenty of reasons for concern. This is why it’s time to start thinking about new and comprehensive answers to multifaceted crisis scenarios brought on or worsened by global climate change. As Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, argues, “The question we must continuously ask ourselves in the face of scientific complexity and uncertainty, but also growing evidence of climate change, is at what point precaution, common sense or prudent risk management demands action.”

Read More:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/01/climate_migration.html

Richard Heinberg - Geopolitical Implications Of “Peak Everything”

From competition among hunter-gatherers for wild game to imperialist wars over precious minerals, resource wars have been fought throughout history; today, however, the competition appears set to enter a new—and perhaps unprecedented—phase. As natural resources deplete, and as the Earth’s climate becomes less stable, the world’s nations will likely compete ever more desperately for access to fossil fuels, minerals, agricultural land, and water.

Nations need increasing amounts of energy and raw materials to produce economic growth, but the costs of supplying new increments of energy and materials are burgeoning. In many cases, lower-quality resources with high extraction costs are all that remain. Securing access to these resources often requires military expenditures as well. Meanwhile the struggle for the control of resources is re-aligning political power balances throughout the world.

This game of resource “musical chairs” could well bring about conflict and privation on a scale never seen before in world history. Only a decisive policy shift toward resource conservation, climate change mitigation, and economic cooperation seems likely to produce a different outcome.

Read More:

http://www.postcarbon.org/article/660520-geopolitical-implications-of-peak-everything

Christine Shearer - Will Fossil Fuel Companies Face Liability for Climate Change?

In a recent article in National Journal, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) President Tim Phillips said there is no question that AFP and others like it have been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science: “We’ve made great headway. What it means for candidates on the Republican side is, if you … buy into green energy or you play footsie on this issue, you do so at your political peril.”

AFP is a section 501(c)(4) organization, meaning it does not have to disclose its donors, but has been tied to significant funding from the Koch Family Foundations - founded by the billionaire Koch brothers of Koch Industries – as well as smaller donations from companies like ExxonMobil. Koch Industries and ExxonMobil are among the largest funders of studies questioning climate change science, often drawn upon by conservative politicians to legitimize their view that regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is not needed because the science is still under debate.

Read More:

http://cchronicle.com/2011/12/will-fossil-fuel-companies-face-liability-for-climate-change/

Mark Hertsgaard - Deniers-in-Chief: How the Most Powerful Leaders in the World Just Guaranteed Us a Climate Disaster

By Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation

Posted on December 15, 2011, Printed on December 21, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153459/deniers-in-chief%3A_how_the_most_powerful_leaders_in_the_world_just_guaranteed_us_a_climate_disaster

The following article first appeared on the Web site of the Nation. For more great content from the Nation, sign up for its email newsletters. 

A different and more dangerous breed of climate denier commanded the stage at the recently concluded international negotiations in Durban, South Africa. These were not the usual cranks blathering fossil-fuel-industry talking points about how the science is all rubbish aimed at fostering a liberty-crushing world government. No, this breed is even more frightening, precisely because its members are not wacko outsiders. Rather, they are Serious People who actually run governments, or at least negotiate on behalf of those who do. They are lawyers, diplomats and government ministers, and they would be very surprised to hear themselves described as climate deniers.

After all, men such as Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing, the top two US negotiators in Durban, and Xie Zhenhua, who headed China's delegation, understand the basics of climate science well enough. They know that burning fossil fuels, leveling forests and other types of human activity are dangerously overheating the planet. They know that far-reaching action must be taken if their countries and humanity as a whole are to escape encroaching disaster. They even know--for they explicitly endorsed it at the last round of major climate negotiations in Copenhagen two years ago--that 2 degrees Celsius is the absolute maximum temperature rise that can be allowed if there is to be any chance of avoiding catastrophic and potentially irreversible climate change.

Click to read more ...

terradaily.com - Climate Change May Bring Big Ecosystem Changes

by Staff Writers

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_Change_May_Bring_Big_Ecosystem_Changes_999.html

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 19, 2011

By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth's land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type - such as forest, grassland or tundra - toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modeling study.

Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., investigated how Earth's plant life is likely to react over the next three centuries as Earth's climate changes in response to rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases. Study results are published in the journal Climatic Change.

The model projections paint a portrait of increasing ecological change and stress in Earth's biosphere, with many plant and animal species facing increasing competition for survival, as well as significant species turnover, as some species invade areas occupied by other species.

Most of Earth's land that is not covered by ice or desert is projected to undergo at least a 30 percent change in plant cover - changes that will require humans and animals to adapt and often relocate.

Click to read more ...

NASA - Climate Change May Modify Half Earth's Plants

Published on Friday, December 16, 2011 by Cosmos Magazine

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5097/climate-change-may-bring-big-ecosystem-changes

PASADENA - By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth's land surface.

Climate change will also drive the conversion of nearly 40% of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type - such as forest, grassland or tundra - toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modelling study.

"For more than 25 years, scientists have warned of the dangers of human-induced climate change," said Jon Bergengren, a scientist who led the study while a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology in the U.S..

"Our study introduces a new view of climate change, exploring the ecological implications of a few degrees of global warming. While warnings of melting glaciers, rising sea levels and other environmental changes are illustrative and important, ultimately, it's the ecological consequences that matter most."

Climate change causes relocations

Click to read more ...

ScienceDaily - Melting Glaciers Reveal Future Alpine World

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111214094650.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2011) — In a hundred years trees may be growing where there are now glaciers. The warm climate of the last few years has caused dramatic melting of glaciers in the Swedish mountains. Remains of trees that have been hidden for thousands of years have been uncovered. They indicate that 13,000 years ago there were trees where there are now glaciers. The climate may have been as much as 3.5 degrees warmer than now. In other words, this can happen again, according to Lisa Öberg, a doctoral candidate at Mid Sweden University in a new study.

In her study Lisa Öberg shows that soon after the inland ice receded, about 13,100 years ago, pines colonized high altitudes in the mountains. A few thousand years later there was a massive invasion of both pines and birches at levels up to 600 m higher than today's treeline. Subsequently the treeline for both pine and birch was gradually lowered as a result of ever-lower temperatures, until the climate made it impossible for trees to grow and glaciers began to form, about 4,400 years ago.

"We used to think that the glaciers were remnants of the latest ice age. The fact that trees grew there so recently shows that the glaciers are no older than 4,400 years," says Lisa Öberg

Lisa Öberg's study is based on finds of tree remains from Helags-Sylarna, Tärna, and Abisko. The age of the tree remains shows that the climate warming of the last century is unique in a perspective of several thousands of years. If any melting corresponding to what is happening today had taken place previously, the wood would probably have been degraded.

"The knowledge we gain by exploiting this unique opportunity is important for our understanding of how alpine plant growth may be impacted by the future climate," says Lisa Öberg.

The fact that nearly 10,000 years ago birches grew 600 m above today's treeline in a climate that was some 3.5 degrees warmer than today shows that trees ought to be able to grow at the same level again, if the temperature rises a few more degrees. "By studying where the treeline ran in the past, we can see what it can be like in the future if it continues to get warmer," says Lisa Öberg.

Read the article "Recent Glacier Recession -- a New Source of Postglacial Treeline and Climate History in the Swedish Scandes" by Lisa Öberg & Leif Kullman here:http://www.LandscapeOnline.de

Steve Connor - Shock as Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Releases Deadly Greenhouse Gas

Published on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 by The Independent/UK

Russian research team astonished after finding 'fountains' of methane bubbling to surface

by Steve Connor

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

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Steve Connor - Shock as Retreat of Arctic Sea Ice Releases Deadly Greenhouse Gas

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html

Published on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 by The Independent/UK

Russian research team astonished after finding 'fountains' of methane bubbling to surface

by Steve Connor

Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.

The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov, of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.

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Christine Shearer - Will Fossil Fuel Companies Face Liability for Climate Change?

Friday 9 December 2011

by: Christine Shearer, Conducive Chronicle

http://www.truth-out.org/will-fossil-fuel-companies-face-liability-climate-change/1323803340

In a recent article [4] in National Journal, Americans for Prosperity [5] (AFP) President Tim Phillips said there is no question that AFP and others like it have been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science: “We’ve made great headway. What it means for candidates on the Republican side is, if you … buy into green energy or you play footsie on this issue, you do so at your political peril.”

AFP is a section 501(c)(4) [6] organization, meaning it does not have to disclose its donors, but has been tied to significant funding [7] from the Koch Family Foundations [8] - founded by the billionaire Koch brothers of Koch Industries – as well as smaller donations from companies like ExxonMobil. Koch Industries [9] and ExxonMobil [10] are among the largest funders of studies questioning climate change science, often drawn upon by conservative politicians to legitimize their view that regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is not needed because the science is still under debate.

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