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A world dying, but can we unite to save it? Humanity is rapidly turning the seas acid through the same pollution that causes global warming, the world's governments and top scientists agreed yesterday. The process – thought to be the most profound change in the chemistry of the oceans for 20 million years – is expected both to disrupt the entire web of life of the oceans and to make climate change worse. The warning is just one of a whole series of alarming conclusions in a new report published by the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which last month shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore. Drawn up by more than 2,500 of the world's top scientists and their governments, and agreed last week by representatives of all its national governments, the report also predicts that nearly a third of the world's species could be driven to extinction as the world warms up, and that harvests will be cut dramatically across the world. United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the launch of the report in this ancient Spanish city, told The Independent on Sunday that he found the "quickening pace" of global warming "very frightening". And, with unusual outspokenness for a UN leader, he said he "looked forward" to both the United States and China – the world's two biggest polluters – "playing a more constructive role" in vital new negotiations on tackling climate change that open in Indonesia next month. The new IPCC report, which is designed to give impetus to the negotiations, highlights the little-known acidification of the oceans, first reported in this newspaper more than three years ago. It concludes that emissions of carbon dioxide – the main cause of global warming – have already increased the acidity of ocean surface water by 30 per cent, and threaten to treble it by the end of the century. Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said yesterday: "The report has put a spotlight on a threat to the marine environment that the world has hardly yet realised. The threat is immense as it can fundamentally alter the life of the seas, reducing the productivity of the oceans, while reinforcing global warming." Scientists have found that the seas have already absorbed about half of all the carbon dioxide emitted by humanity since the start of the industrial revolution, a staggering 500 billion tons of it. This has so far helped slow global warming – which would have accelerated even faster if all this pollution had stayed in the atmosphere, already causing catastrophe – but at an increasingly severe cost. The gas dissolves in the oceans to make dilute carbonic acid, which is increasingly souring the naturally alkali seawater. This, in turn, mops up calcium carbonate, a substance normally plentiful in the seas, which corals use to build their reefs, and marine creatures use to make the protective shells they need to survive. These include many of the plankton that form the base of the food chain on which all fish and other marine animals depend. As the waters are growing more acid this process is decreasing, with incalculable consequences for the life of the seas, and for the fisheries on which a billion of the world's people depend for protein. Every single species that uses calcium in this way, that has so far been studied, has been found to be affected. And the seas are most acid near the surface, where most of their life is concentrated. A report by the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific body, concludes that, as a result, of the pollution, the world's oceans are probably now more acidic that they have ever been in "hundreds of millennia", and that even if emissions stopped now, the waters would take "tens of thousands of years to return to normal". Professor Ulf Reibesell of the Leibnitz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany's leading expert on the process, concludes in an issue of UNEP's magazine Our Planet, to be published next month, that, if it continues to the levels predicted by yesterday's report for the end of the century, the seas will reach a condition unprecedented in the last 20 million years. He recalls how something similar happened when a comet hit Mexico's Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago, blasting massive amounts of calcium sulphate into the atmosphere to form sulphuric acid, which in turn caused the extinction of corals and virtually all shell-building species. "Two million years went by before corals reappeared in the fossil record," he says, adding that it took "a further 20 million years" before the diversity of species that use calcium returned to its former levels. Scientists add that, as the seas become more acidic, they will be less able to absorb carbon dioxide, causing more of it to stay in the atmosphere to speed up global warming. Research is already uncovering some signs that the oceans' ability to mop up the gas is diminishing. Environmentalists point out that the increasing acidification of the oceans would in itself provide ample reason to curb emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and felling forests even if the dwindling band of sceptics were right and the gas was not warming up the planet. Click here to read the full article. |
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A Letter From Lis
Elisabeth Cohen
I’ve just returned from seeing Ira Glass, from NPR’s “This American Life”, demonstrate the power of story telling. A few years ago I heard a powerful story in an unexpected place. Bill Wangler, my friend and former park ranger in Yellowstone, spent his free time watching wolves. On his wolf watching adventures he’d bring his spotting scope along with the National Park Services’ wolf pelts and skulls to show visitors. Bill told visitors the story of these wolves, their names, and which wolves played together and which wolves fought. I went to one of Bill’s evening campfire talks. Bill told the story of these wolves with vivid pictures and moving music. During some of the more emotional parts of Bill’s campfire talk, I got teary because this story made me care about the wolves. I would have never guessed that I would tear-up about wolves, but hearing Bill’s compelling Yellowstone wolf story, made me care. So what makes a good story? Mr. Glass, like my friend Bill, uses music to enhance the emotions that he wants to convey (pretend you hear suspenseful music). A story needs movement in a particular direction along with suspense. Dialogue also makes you feel like you are part of the action in real-time. We can have our students anticipate the end of our stories in our class. It is possible to make science compelling. Two examples are the Discovery Channel’s “Planet Earth” and the movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” Maybe we can tell such compelling stories in class that make our students all teary-eyed too. Sincerely,
NASA FACTOID Between 1992 and 2000, NASA launched about $18 billion worth of space hardware, and about $500 million of it has failed. That's a success rate (per dollar) of about 97%. |
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Politicians all over the world want to save us from global warming by banning coal-fired power plants, imposing carbon taxes, setting impossible fuel efficiency targets for cars, and offering huge subsidies for wind mills and solar panels. Few if any of them have ever bothered to question whether the global warming they are so scared of is caused by mankind's use of oil and coal or is simply a natural variation in the Earth's climate. Instead they rely on Al Gore's movie and what the press tells them of reports from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Many scientists disagree with the IPCC, but few directly challenge IPPC's theory that links global warming to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Some critics of IPCC argue that carbon dioxide is a good thing and that much higher carbon dioxide levels could be tolerated and would in fact be beneficial. Some say the Earth is always either warming or cooling and nothing can be done about it. Then there are those who cite data from ice cores that show temperature rise precedes rather than follows growth in carbon dioxide levels. And some schools of thought link temperature rise to such phenomena as sunspots and the tilt of the Earth's axis. Some of them may be right, but such arguments will do nothing to stem the rush toward destructive energy policies and the inevitable rolling blackouts. IPCC commissioned a study of temperature data from more than 7,000 stations. These data are available at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The study found the average global temperature from 1880 to 1980 was below normal and then the temperature started to climb from 1980 to the present. The overall warming was 0.76 degrees Centigrade, referred to by IPCC as a temperature anomaly. IPCC rests its case for a link between global warming and carbon dioxide solely on the long-term 0.76 degree C global anomaly. This avoids the need for IPCC to explain the long cooling and warming trends in the 1880-2006 record when the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide showed little change. Nowhere in the many IPPC reports will a reader find tables or charts of actual global or regional temperatures. Therefore, in contrast to the IPCC approach, we have looked at global and regional variations in long-term temperatures found more revealing than a single global anomaly. Our qualification to do this is that as engineers we have often had to base decisions on the analysis and interpretation of data. From 1880 to the present, our analysis shows the global average annual mean temperature has in fact risen by about 1 degree C. But, what is more significant is what happened within the 126 years. We find that from 1880 to 1940, the average global temperature rose by 0.9 degrees C; a 50-year warming trend just as pronounced as the warming from 1970 to 2006 that now has people so worried. This trend was followed by sharp reversal to an unbroken cooling trend of 0.8 degrees C from 1940 to 1970. What was happening to carbon dioxide levels from 1880 and 2006? Accurate measurements of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide date from 1958. The records shows a value for 1958 of 315 ppmv (parts per million by volume) and an annual growth rate of about 0.6 ppmv. Between 1895 and 1958 there are no good records, but climate scientists have generally agreed to accept a value of 280 ppmv in the 1890s. Thus, from 1895 to 1958 carbon dioxide increased at an average annual rate of about 0.4 ppmv. But the annual rate of growth in the early years of the period must have been only on the order about 0.2 ppmv. It is evident therefore that a strong 50-year warming trend occurred when atmospheric carbon dioxide was growing very slowly. Then, as the carbon dioxide began to grow somewhat faster, the global temperature instead of warming reversed to a clearly defined cooling trend for 30 years that overlapped with a period of sharply rising carbon dioxide. The only warming trend during a period of rising carbon dioxide was between 1970 and the present day. In sum, between 1880 and 1970, the Earth warmed when atmospheric carbon dioxide was barely changing and dropped sharply when carbon dioxide started to rise. This is clearly not consistent with linking global temperatures to atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is also of interest to note that IPCC also had people run climate models that predict a rise of 2 to 4 degrees C in global temperatures over the next 100 years, if nothing is done to control carbon emissions. Our review of records showed that some places on Earth — among them Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Minneapolis and Rio de Janeiro — have seen annual mean temperatures rising by 2 to 4 degrees C since 1880, apparently without untoward effects. On the other hand, in the Southeastern United States, more than 90 percent of recording stations in Georgia, Alabama and Texas show a marked cooling trend of several degrees since the 1880s.
NOAA Seeks Applicants for the Ernest F. Hollings
Undergraduate Scholarship NOAA is accepting applications for a scholarship program
in honor of retired South Carolina Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, who promoted
oceanic and atmospheric research throughout his career. This is the fourth
year this scholarship is being made available to students interested in
pursuing degrees in ocean and atmospheric sciences and education. Scholarship students will be eligible for up to $8,000 of academic assistance per year for full-time study during their junior and senior years; a paid 10-week, full-time internship position during the summer at a NOAA facility ($650 per week); a housing subsidy for scholars who do not reside at home during the summer internship; and travel expenses to attend and participate in a mandatory orientation and conference. Applications for the Hollings Scholarship Program are
available on-line. Requests for applications may also be made via e-mail at
StudentScholarshipPrograms@noaa.gov, by telephone 301-713-9437 x150, or in
writing to: The Hollings Scholarship Program is key component of NOAA’s efforts to promote environmental literacy and ensure a future, world-class workforce to assist the agency in fulfilling its mission. Hollings scholars will be selected from applicants majoring in a broad range of disciplines including biological, physical, and social sciences; mathematics; engineering; computer and information sciences; and teacher education. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.
NASA Weighs in on
Global Warming A team of NASA and university scientists has detected an ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation triggered by atmospheric circulation changes that vary on decade-long time scales. The results suggest not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming. The team of scientists found a 10-millibar decrease in
water pressure at the bottom of the ocean at the North Pole between 2002 and
2006, equal to removing the weight of 10 centimeters (four inches) of water
from the ocean. The distribution and size of the decrease suggest that
Arctic Ocean circulation changed from the counterclockwise pattern it
exhibited in the 1990s to the clockwise pattern that was dominant prior to
1990. The Arctic Oscillation was fairly stable until about 1970,
but then varied on more or less decadal time scales, with signs of an
underlying upward trend, until the late 1990s, when it again stabilized.
During its strong counterclockwise phase in the 1990s, the Arctic
environment changed markedly, with the upper Arctic Ocean undergoing major
changes that persisted into this century. Many scientists viewed the changes
as evidence of an ongoing climate shift, raising concerns about the effects
of global warming on the Arctic. NOAA Still Sees Above Average Temperatures for Most of the U.S. and Below Normal Precipitation Across the South  In
the final forecast update to the U.S. winter outlook,
NOAA Climate Prediction Center
forecasters remain confident in predicting above average temperatures for
much of the country – including southern sections of the Northeast – and
below normal precipitation for the southern tier of the nation. Above
average precipitation is still anticipated for the Pacific Northwest, and
in the Great Lakes and Tennessee Valley.
“La Niña strengthened during October, making it even more likely that the United States will see below-average precipitation in the already drought-stricken regions of the Southwest and the Southeast this winter,” said Michael Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center. “Recent sea surface temperatures indicate we have moderate La Niña conditions in place over the equatorial Pacific which we expect to continue into early 2008.” On average, for December 2007 through February 2008, NOAA seasonal forecasters predict:
Winter precipitation outlook. For the country as a whole, NOAA's heating degree day forecast for December through February projects a 4.0 percent warmer winter than the 30-year normal, which is very similar to last winter. “Although we are expecting a warmer than normal winter, we do believe there will be fluctuations of warm weather and typical winter weather throughout the season,” said Edward O’Lenic, chief, forecast operations, NOAA Climate Prediction Center. “We encourage people to review winter weather risks for their particular area and information available online to help keep them safe when events do occur.” The U.S. winter outlook is produced by a team of scientists at the Climate Prediction Center in association with NOAA-funded partners. Scientists base this forecast on long-term climate trends and a variety of forecast tools from statistical techniques to extremely complex dynamical ocean-atmosphere coupled models and composites. NOAA will announce the U.S. Spring Outlook in March 2008. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects. NOAA Celebrates 50-Year Carbon Dioxide Record Fifty years ago the U.S. Weather Bureau, predecessor of NOAA’s National Weather Service, helped sponsor a young scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to begin tracking carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere at two of the planet’s most remote and pristine sites: the South Pole and the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. This week NOAA, Scripps, the World Meteorological Organization, and other organizations will celebrate the half-century anniversary of the global record of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere—often referred to as the “Keeling Curve” in honor of that young scientist, Charles David Keeling. Science, business, and policy leaders will gather Nov. 28-30 in Kona, Hawaii, at an international carbon dioxide conference to examine wide-ranging issues and concerns that have arisen from the CO2 record. Among the topics are the effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on land and ocean ecosystems, energy alternatives to fossil fuels, economic effects of climate change, and the role of climate change in national security. Carbon dioxide is the most important of the greenhouse gases produced by humans and very likely responsible for the observed rise in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century. The Mauna Loa and South Pole data were the first to show the rate of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. In 1974, NOAA began tracking greenhouse gases worldwide and continued global observations as the planet warmed rapidly over the past few decades. The famous graph of increasing carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has taken its place alongside E=mc2, the Double Helix, and other scientific icons. The jagged saw-tooth slope, climbing upward to the right while sharply rising and falling with the seasons, is recognized around the world as the symbol of global climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. “Because of the CO2 record, we now understand how we are changing the natural climate,” said Dr. Richard W. Spinrad, NOAA assistant administrator of oceanic and atmospheric research. “That profound realization is influencing important decisions about energy alternatives, land use, transportation, and other behaviors that will shape the future for generations.” The CO2 data are the basis for worldwide research into the affect of greenhouse gases on climate. Many of the scientists conducting that research were recognized this fall through a Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because of the Mauna Loa measurements and the research that followed, the United States and other nations are now discussing how to control the future increase of carbon dioxide emissions. “Now that carbon emission credits are bought, sold, and traded in the marketplace, we need more than ever to objectively quantify direct emissions resulting from human activities,” said Pieter Tans, a NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory scientist who first came to the United States in 1978 to assist Keeling. “Accurate data taken straight from the air can give us the subtle information we need to understand both fossil fuel emissions and the natural carbon cycle.” Today NOAA makes more than 250 measurements at the South Pole and Mauna Loa observatories and at three others in American Samoa; Barrow, Alaska; and Trinidad Head, California. At over 60 sites around the globe, NOAA’s partners fill glass or metal flasks with air and ship them to ESRL in Boulder, Colo. There scientists analyze the samples for CO2 and a host of other greenhouse gases and many other pollutants and natural compounds. Aircraft contracted by NOAA gather similar samples at higher altitudes, while space-borne sensors detect some gases remotely through the entire height of the atmosphere. NOAA is activating a network of television broadcast towers, some of the tallest structures on Earth, to measure CO2 and other gases over several hundred miles to capture the regional characteristics of the carbon cycle. The global CO2 data are fed into an online data framework and model called CarbonTracker, launched by NOAA earlier this year. CarbonTracker distinguishes between changes in the natural carbon cycle and those occurring in human-produced fossil fuel emissions. Its results can be used to verify emissions reports and tallies from other sources. NOAA data are available to researchers around the globe. Complex computer models developed to understand recent and future climate change depend on NOAA atmospheric data on greenhouse gases. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects. |
LET YOUR STUDENTS KNOW! To receive free NOAA science stuff, send an e-mail to: outreach@noaa.gov, they should include their age or grade level with their complete mailing address. Let them know if specific materials are needed on oceans, fish, marine animals, weather, climate, or satellites. They can provide one copy of each publication.
VISIT NOAA'S WEB PAGES FOR KIDS AND STUDENTS Also make note of the web pages NOAA has created for kids and students. Click here
New Aeronautics Competition for High School and College Students
__________________ NSF Awards Grants for Three Critical Zone Observatories The National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected sites for three critical zone observatories (CZO). The observatories are designed to provide scientists with an understanding of what has come to be called the critical zone--the region between the top of the forest canopy and the base of unweathered rock: our living environment--and its response to climate and land use changes. The CZOs represent the first set of systems-based observatories dedicated to Earth surface processes. Scientists at each CZO will investigate the integration and coupling of Earth surface processes and how they are affected by the presence and flux of fresh water. The CZOs will use field and analytical research methods, space-based remote sensing and theoretical techniques. The three CZOs are located in watersheds in the Sierra Nevada, the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies, and the Appalachian Uplands. The respective awardees are the University of California at Merced, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Pennsylvania State University. These projects add to the environmental sensor networks in place and planned by NSF, including EarthScope, the National Ecological Observatory Network, and the Ocean Observatories Network. Click here to read the full story. The Winter 2008 Climate Discovery Online Courses for Educators are now open for registration! For more information, please visit http://ecourses.ncar.ucar.edu NCAR is again
offering secondary science teachers a professional development opportunity
that will enhance their qualifications, competency, and self-confidence in
integrating Earth system science, climate, and global change into science
classrooms. Climate Discovery is a series of three six-week, online
courses for middle and high school science teachers. Each course combines
geoscience content, current climate research, easy to implement hands-on
activities, and group discussion.
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