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Friday 20 August 2010

by: Pete Spotts  |  The Christian Science Monitor | Report

A new study recorded a slight dip in the amount of CO2 taken up over the past 10 years. If the trend continues, scientists say it could signal a tipping point in earth's ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Earth's plants – natural scrubbers removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – reduced their carbon uptake by some 606 million tons during the past 10 years, according to a new study.

The dip is slight. And it's unclear whether the decline signals the beginning of a trend or merely represents a decade-long lull. But it comes on the heels of two decades of growth in carbon uptake by plants around the world.

Given the important role everything from sage brush to Sequoias plays in removing from the air some of the CO2 from human industrial activities, the decline is "the major punch line to us" from the study, says Steven Running, a forest ecologist at the University of Montana who took part in the research. The results appear in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Seven years ago, Dr. Running was among a group of scientists who found that between 1982 and 1999, global net primary production – a key measure of plants' carbon uptake – rose 6 percent, or roughly 3 percent per decade.

That trend was driven largely by rising global average temperatures and by the increasing supply of CO2 in the atmosphere. For plants, the combination was like sitting down to an all-you-can-eat banquet in a cozy inn.

But the past 10 years have gone into the record books as the warmest decade since the 1880s, when the instrumental record begins. During the decade, human-triggered increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations continued at a relentless pace, at least through 2008.

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Sunday 15 August 2010

by: Elizabeth McGowan  |  SolveClimate

Washington D.C. is projected to see 100 summer days above 90 degrees by 2050, if emissions continue unabated.

Washington - When "snowmageddon" buried the nation's capital in February, Sen. Jim Inhofe's grandchildren delved into the record-shattering drifts to construct an igloo near the U.S. Capitol.

They jokingly labeled it Al Gore's new home.

Six months later, the thought of taking refuge in an icy shelter is quite appealing to heat-weary Washingtonians. While the Oklahoma Republican senator used the igloo to tweak the former vice president and as a prop in his relentless crusade to prove global warming a hoax, climate scientists are once again emphasizing that current and upcoming weather extremes are no laughing matter.

Oppressive temperatures gripping Southern and Eastern U.S. states this summer will only worsen if little is done to curb greenhouse gases, according to an August report update from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), a conservation group.

"2010 is a sample of what's to come," said Amanda Staudt, lead climate scientist for the report titled "Extreme Heat in Summer 2010: A Window on the Future."

"Global warming is bringing more frequent and severe heat waves, which will seriously impact vulnerable populations."

It is a supplement to the federation's 2009 report "More Extreme Heat Waves: Global Warming's Wake-Up Call."

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Wednesday 21 July 2010

by: Pete Spotts  |  The Christian Science Monitor | Report

The first half of 2010 was the hottest six-month period recorded globally with temperatures around the globe 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit above averages.

Temperatures hit record highs globally. El Nino or global warming? The first half of 2010 was the hottest six-month period recorded globally with temperatures around the globe 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit above averages.

You might have missed it if you live in many spots in the lower 48 states, but the first six months of 2010 were the warmest on record globally, according to preliminary data from the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

During the January-to-June period, combined land and ocean surface temperatures around the globe ran 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average.

Temperatures also ran above normal along the US East Coast. But in the the upper Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountain states, and the Southeast, temperatures ran from 2 to 3 degrees F below the long-term average.

"We haven't seen the warming in the 48 states, which is kind of nice," says David Pierce, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. "But the rest of the world has really seen warm conditions."

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July 9, 2010

by Ivan Chan | CarbonFund.org

Many East Coasters have felt some of the hottest temperatures on record for this time of the year. Washington hit 102 degrees on Weds. Jul. 7, breaking the 99-degree record for the day set in 1991. Unfortunately—results of a study that surprised even climate scientists show that long heat waves could be common in the US within the next 30 years from global warming. The Stanford University study’s lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, noted ,

In the next 30 years, we could see an increase in heat waves like the one now occurring in the eastern United States or the kind that swept across Europe in 2003 that caused tens of thousands of fatalities… Those kinds of severe heat events also put enormous stress on major crops, like corn, soybean, cotton and wine grapes, causing a significant reduction in yields.

The study follows an analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies showing that the last decade, from January 2000 to December 2009, was the warmest on record.

The Stanford-led study reveals that intense heat waves, equal to the longest on record from 1951-1999, are likely to occur as many as five times between 2020-2029 over parts of the US.

A dramatic spike in extreme temperatures is also expected during the current decade over much of the US. The 2020′s and 2030′s could see even more extreme temperatures, particularly in the West. From 2030-2039, most places in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico could experience at least seven seasons as hot as those ever recorded between 1951 and 1999.

“Frankly, I was expecting that we’d see large temperature increases later this century with higher greenhouse gas levels and global warming,” Diffenbaugh said. “I did not expect to see anything this large within the next three decades. This was definitely a surprise.”