Also Try Global Warming Prevention Efforts Oceans Sustainable Planet News -05-21-09 Beyond the Worst Case Scenario (Scientific American) "The IPCC has declared man-made climate change 'unequivocal.' The hard part: trying to stop it." 05-09 -05-21-09 How Much Carbon Is Too Much? (Scientific American) "To avoid catastrophic climate change, the world will need to emit less than one trillion metric tons of carbon between now and 2050, according to two new papers published in Nature today. In other words, there is only room in the atmosphere to burn or vent less than one quarter of known oil, natural gas and coal reserves." Editor's Note: One alternative is to "pull carbon from the air and store it in the soil. See biochar. 05-09 -05-21-09 Special Report: Climate Change (Scientific American) "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just completed its fourth assessment of the science of climate change, its impacts and possible solutions. The panel of 2,500 scientists and other experts declared manmade warming 'unequivocal' and wrote that it could lead to climate changes that are 'abrupt and irreversible.' " 05-09 Carbon Emissions Need to Go "Negative" by 2050 (Planet2025News.net) "A chapter by climate scientist W. L. Hare concludes that in order to avoid a catastrophic climate tipping point, global greenhouse gas emissions will need to peak before 2020 and drop 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, with further reductions beyond that date. Emissions of carbon dioxide would actually need to ‘go negative’—with more being absorbed than emitted—during the second half of this century. Hare’s research finds that even a warming of 2 degrees Celsius poses unacceptable risks to key natural and human systems, including significant loss of species, major reductions in food-production capacity in developing countries, severe water stress for hundreds of millions of people, and significant sea-level rise and coastal flooding." 01-09 Papers -Editorial: Our Threatened Oceans (Awesome Library) "We have reason for great concern that our oceans are going through a rapid change that may create severe problems for ourselves and disaster for our children and grandchildren. Here are some of the problems...." 01-06 -Growth in CO2 Rates in the Air Since 1958 (NOAA.gov) "The carbon dioxide data (red curve), measured as the mole fraction in dry air, on Mauna Loa constitute the longest record of direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere. They were started by C. David Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in March of 1958 at a facility of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [Keeling, 1976]. NOAA started its own CO2 measurements in May of 1974, and they have run in parallel with those made by Scripps since then [Thoning, 1989]. The black curve represents the seasonally corrected data." The chart shows that CO2 was around 310 parts per million in 1958 and is 392 in 2011. 05-11 -Record-High CO2 Levels a Bad Sign for Climate (ClimateBiz.com) "CO2 emissions from energy production in 2010 were the highest in history following a recessionary dip the year before, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a stark announcement Monday. Existing and planned power plants mean the bulk of energy-related CO2 emissions projected for 2020 are already 'locked in.' " "World leaders have agreed to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius or less above pre-industrial levels to prevent catastrophic climate change, which could include heat waves, rising sea levels, extreme weather and droughts, among other impacts." "We need to keep the concentration of atmospheric GHGs below 450 parts per million in order to achieve this. To put this in perspective, we reached 393 ppm in April. Maintaining an energy pathway to the 450 Scenario would require us to essentially keep emissions levels flat over the next decade." 06-11 -Undersea Methane May Speed Climate Change (USA Today) "It lurks beneath the sea." "No, not The Blob, but something perhaps far more sinister: methane, a potent greenhouse gas 30 times better than carbon dioxide at trapping atmospheric heat." "Research released Thursday finds that underground methane appears to be seeping through the Arctic Ocean floor and into the Earth's atmosphere, thanks to a weakening of the protective layer of permafrost at the bottom of the ocean. Once released into the atmosphere, methane could wreak havoc with the world's climate.” 03-10 Gauging Climate Change (Time.com) "There are many units by which to measure the impact of climate change: degrees of increasing temperature, feet of rising sea level, dollars needed to adapt to a warming world. But a group of scientists in California have put forth an intriguing new unit of measurement: kilometers per year." 12-08 Global Warming Nears "Dangerous Levels" (MSNBC News) "Global temperatures are dangerously close to the highest ever estimated to have occurred in the past million years, scientists reported Monday." 09-06 Is It Too Late to Stop Global Warming? (ABC News) "A prime example: decayed vegetation in the Arctic, which contains massive amounts of carbon, used to be protected by the perpetual cold. As the climate warms — sped along by human beings burning fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide — scientists say the vegetation will dry out and break down, releasing even more carbon dioxide." " 'Humans are putting about 6 or 7 billion metric tons of carbon in the atmosphere a year, and we're standing on 200 billion tons here," says [biologist Walter] Oechel. 'Any significant portion comes out, that's worse than current human injection into the atmosphere. And once that runaway release occurs, there would be no way to stop it.' " 03-06 Oceanic Conveyor (Woods Hole Oceanic Institute) "Evidence for abrupt climate change is readily apparent in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica. One sees clear indications of long-term changes discussed above, with CO² and proxy temperature changes associated with the last ice age and its transition into our present interglacial period of warmth. But, in addition, there is a strong chaotic variation of properties with a quasi-period of around 1500 years. We say chaotic because these millennial shifts look like anything but regular oscillations. Rather, they look like rapid, decade-long transitions between cold and warm climates followed by long interludes in one of the two states." Includes an animation showing the global oceanic conveyor of warm and cool currents. 01-06 Runaway Climate Change (Wikipedia.org) "The phrase 'runaway climate change' is used to describe a situation in which positive feedbacks result in rapid climate change.[7] It is most commonly used in mass media and popular science literature and by environmental organizations,[8][9] is occasionally used in the social sciences.[10] It is particularly used in the popular media and by environmentalists with reference to concerns about rapid global warming.[7][8] Some astronomers use the similar expression runaway greenhouse effect to describe a situation where the climate deviates catastrophically and permanently from the original state - as happened on Venus.[11][12]. 11-09 Scientists: Arctic Ice Loss Triggering Global Warming (BBC News) " 'September 2005 will set a new record minimum in the amount of Arctic sea ice cover,' said Mark Serreze, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Boulder, Colorado.' " "The current rate of shrinkage they calculate at 8% per decade; at this rate there may be no ice at all during the summer of 2060." " 'These dark areas absorb a lot of the Sun's energy, much more than the ice, and what happens then is that the oceans start to warm up, and it becomes very difficult for ice to form during the following autumn and winter.' " " 'It looks like this is exactly what we're seeing - a positive feedback effect, a "tipping-point".' " "The idea behind tipping-points is that at some stage the rate of global warming would accelerate, as rising temperatures break down natural restraints or trigger environmental changes which release further amounts of greenhouse gases." "The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a four-year study involving hundreds of scientists, projected an additional temperature rise of 4-7C by 2100." 9-05 U.N.: 2005 Set Record for Greenhouse Gases (MSNBC News) "Greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere reached a high in 2005 and are still increasing, the U.N. weather agency said Friday." 11-06 Warming Debate Shifts to "Tipping Point" (MSNBC News) "Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend." "There are three specific events that these scientists describe as especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames are a matter of dispute: widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world's fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the [Atlantic thermohaline] ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe." 01-06

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