Well, here are some updates:
About a year ago, a study already pointed out that actual data showed that artic ice was retreating faster than the IPCC's worst-case scenario.
The IPCC, as Reuters reports, thought that Antarctica would not contribute at all to sea level rise, and in fact predicted a growth of the big ice sheet that covers much of the continent from enhanced precipitation, resulting from increased evaporation from the oceans due to global warming. However, this enhanced precipitation has not eventuated in Antarctica.
Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2006 concluded that the Antarctic ice sheet is experiencing an annual loss of up to 36 cubic miles of ice, or 152 cubic kilometers, with the bulk of loss occurring in the West Antarctic ice sheet. Ice loss in Antarctica increased by 75% in the last 10 years due to a speed-up in the flow of its glaciers and is now nearly as great as that observed in Greenland, according to a recent study by NASA and two California universities.
The world's glaciers continue to melt away, with record losses announced in the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report Meltdown in the Mountains. Glaciers are only advancing in a few places, such as in Scandinavia, where climate change has increased precipitation to more than compensate for higher melting, and even there the growth has stagnated.
In Africa, the glaciers that feed the river Nile and supply water to two million people are expected to be gone by 2025.
In Asia, glaciers are an important source for nine major rivers which run through land occupied by 2.4 billion people. In Pakistan, for example, 80% of agricultural land is irrigated by the Indus, which the WWF last year highlighted as one of the world's 10 big at-risk rivers because retreating glaciers provide 70-80% of its flow. Glaciers feed the Yangtze and Yellow rivers and provide up to 70% of water in the Ganges during dry season.
An article in the Guardian, commenting on the UNEP report, articulates fears that huge populations that are dependent on glacier-fed rivers in Asia - 360 million on the Ganges in India and 388 million on the Yangtze in China alone - will not be able to feed themselves, with devastating effect on already rising global food prices. Ironically, the immediate local threat is that more meltwater will combine with rains to cause floods - a problem that has already affected parts of China.
Glaciers and mountain snow are melting earlier in the year than usual, meaning the water has already gone when millions of people need it during the summer when rainfall is lower, a hydrologist said at a meeting of geoscientists in Vienna this week.
On a global level, scientists warn that melting glaciers are contributing more than ever to rising sea levels: expansion of warmer water is estimated to cause two-thirds of the problem, but melting glaciers and icecaps are the second biggest contributor.
Warming trends in a third of the world's large ocean regions are two to four times greater than the average trends reported in 2007 by the IPCC, a U.N.-backed environmental study said.
According to recently released research by the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warming water could lift sea levels by as much as 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) by the end of this century, displacing tens of millions of people. The researchers estimate a rise in sea levels three times higher than that predicted by the IPCC last year, saying that the IPCC had not accounted for ice dynamics -- the more rapid movement of ice sheets due to melt water which could markedly speed up their disappearance and boost sea levels.
References:
Melting glaciers start countdown to climate chaos - Guardian
World sea levels to rise 1.5m by 2100: scientists - Reuters
Melting mountains a "time bomb" for water shortages - Reuters
Meltdown in the Mountains - UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
Vanishing Central African Glaciers Threaten Water Supplies of Millions - Reuters
Africa's glaciers gone by 2025
Fabled Equatorial African Icecaps to Disappear - American Geophysical Union
Water Shortages Worldwide
|
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 15
Transporting food uses fossil fuels and contributes to global warming...see:
Seattle Food
System
Enhancement
Project:
Greenhouse Gas
Emissions Study
http://students.washington.edu/djmorgan/food/Final_GHG_Report.pdf
which compared a plate of food grown near Seattle with a plate of food grown elsewhere, the apple from New Zealand, asparagus from Inca Peru, potatoe from Blackfoot Idaho, and Norwegian farm raised Salmon.
This is an interesting study and worth the time it takes to read it..... any recipies for local ingredient desserts?
Indeed, Don, and I believe that it is better to err on the safe side on this issue. As the article says, the IPCC had not accounted for movement of ice sheets due to melt water, nor had it counted on less snowfall in West Antarctica. The disappearance of the West Antarctic ice sheet alone could raise worldwide sea levels by some 20 feet (6.1 meters).
As the article also says, flooding is only one of our worries. Shortages of water and food follow on my list of Ten Dangers of Global Warming and this requires urgent attention.
I'm promoting efforts to get people to grow more potatoes and other vegetables and to avoid greenhouse gas emissions when cooking, e.g. by using solar cookers for boiling. Potatoes grow pretty much anywhere and - most importantly - they require little water, they mature in as little as 50 days, and they can yield between two and four times more food per hectare than wheat or rice. Boiling potatoes in their skins prevents loss of nutrients, the more so when they are boiled at relatively low temperatures of about 70°C (158°F). When it has cooled down, the water can also be used for washing hands and cleaning. Unlike many other types of food, potatoes can also be easily cooked in a microwave oven and still retain most of their nutritional value, especially when they are properly covered. Such info about potatoes should be passed on widely, including the warning that the potato plant protects itself against fungi and insects by glycoalkaloids, which can be toxic and are not destroyed by cooking - this can be resolved by cutting away green areas and peeling the potatoes before eating.
This week Stern said that new scientific findings showed greenhouse gas emissions were causing more damage than what he believed then. Stern said that since then a number of polar experts have warned that the Arctic and Antarctic are losing ice much faster than thought, and that the sea level rise could be more severe than the IPCC suggested. Other studies, focusing on how greenhouse gases are swapped between the land, sea and atmosphere, have suggested that scientists have underestimated the speed and strength with which serious climate change will strike. Pointing at new research which shows that the planet's oceans and forests are soaking up less carbon dioxide than expected, Stern said: "Emissions are growing much faster than we'd thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we'd thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates, and the speed of climate change seems to be faster."
While there are new studies that point at less CO2 absorption by oceans, the warnings actually date back many years.
Researchers at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu found that in 2001, the ocean at station ALOHA absorbed only about 15% of CO2 it did in 1989. The study appeared in Nature in August 14, 2003.
A study published in 2004 warned that increased CO2 could make oceans more acidic, making it harder for plankton to grow.
A study by the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry warned in 2007 that the ozone hole over the Southern Pole could be causing the oceans around Antarctica to take up less CO2 than previously thought.
A 2007 Australian study concluded that 50 years ago, for every tonne of CO2 emitted, 600kg were removed by land and ocean sinks. However, in 2006, only 550kg were removed per tonne and that amount is falling.
A 10-year study by researchers from the University of East Anglia, published in 2007, found that the uptake of CO2 by the North Atlantic ocean had halved between the mid-1990s and 2002-2005.
__________
Clunk! Roller Coaster off the Rails
The House puts its foot down
Roller coasters have, by design, a multitude of ups and downs, but it's comforting even to thrill-seekers to know they rarely become completely derailed. The roller coaster that represents the latest iteration of the Congressional energy bill, however, has finally done that.
The news from Washington is that the House of Representatives has no intention of moving forward with the "Cantwell-Ensign" clean energy provisions that the Senate made part of their comprehensive housing bill in early April. House Democratic leadership does not believe:
-that energy provisions should be included in housing legislation
-that energy matters should be part of any future 'Economic Stimulus'-type legislation
-that bills with tax titles should be passed with no identified source of funding
Unfortunately, those three characteristics well describe the clean energy amendment that Senators Cantwell and Ensign succeeded in attaching to the housing bill.
This is, to say the least, a disappointment, particularly after the efforts of solar citizens helped to produce the overwhelming (88-8) Senate passage of the amendment. But for the short term, it seems there will be no useful activity on Capitol Hill that will promote the tax credits for clean energy or energy efficiency that we know are so important. And that doesn't mean these measures will never again be a part of the economic equation; what it means is that those congresspersons who firmly believe the measures are necessary must find other legislative vehicles to carry them through the House, Senate and the White House.
Will this happen this year? At this point we can't tell you. There is talk of lumping the clean energy tax credits in with other credits and deductions in a broad-based 'extenders' bill, but nothing concrete has yet emerged. We do know that the attention of Congress in an election year tends to veer toward campaigns and polls instead of legislation as November approaches, so we're hoping for action earlier rather than later.
Every person that see the pictures of the glaciers few years ago and now, understand that global warming is here and now, not a future threat.
You pointed out other important implications like the fresh water shortage which many of those who talk against global warming choose to disregard it.
Seems most of us have forgotten "entropy," that term in science, which we may have studied for two minutes when in high school, but was likely not a part of Bush's MBA study.
Shame on Harvard's School of Business!
Our little oases in a harsh universe is being taken very for-granted. I'm sure that even the most diabolical of human war inventions will pale compared to the various earth systems that can regurgitate and reprocess organic chemicals so they behave better in the whole organism approach of life. Human beings are fast approaching organic molecules and other stuff in line for that reprocessing. It's already happening and most are so caught up in our petty squabbles to even realize what the underlying problem is, and how simple the solution actually is.
Thank you, Sam