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ocean conditions are changing due to Rapid Global Climate Shift

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by Boston, Jan 10, 2011.

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Washington Post | Weather satellite gap, climate change among biggest threats facing Federal government

Every two years the Government Accountability Office highlights the top 30 challenges facing the Federal government on its “high risk list”. A looming gap in the coverage of weather satellites and climate change are the newest additions to this list says the GAO in a report released Thursday.

Polar-orbiting satellites scan the globe in pole-to-pole loops and feed important data into models for weather forecasting. But a gap in their coverage is possible starting as soon as 2014 and could last 17 to 53 months…

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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 18, 2013

#3841

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hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

Can you feel the chill today? It is 28 degrees outside right now halfway between Tallahassee and Miami.

hoytedow, Feb 18, 2013

#3842

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

Manilla Bulletin | Climate Change Can Wipe Out Economic Gains in Minutes – WB Tells G20

February 17, 2013, MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) – The president of the World Bank on Saturday warned the finance chiefs of the world's leading economic powers that global warming is a real risk to the planet and already affecting the world economy in unprecedented ways.

Addressing the G20 finance ministers at their meeting in Moscow, Jim Yong Kim called on the world powers to ''tackle the serious challenges presented by climate change…''

''Damages and losses from natural disasters have more than tripled over the past 30 years,'' said Kim, giving as examples the $45 billion of losses from the 2011 floods in Thailand, whose effects ''spread across borders disrupting international supply chains.''

''Years of development efforts are often wiped out in days or even minutes,'' Kim said, asking the G20 to ''face climate change, which is a very real and present danger...''
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 19, 2013

#3843

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The Toronto Star | Climate change forcing thousands in Bangladesh into slums of Dhaka

Climate change is expected to trigger a migration like no other. Experts expect about 250 million people worldwide to move by 2050. Of those, 20 million to 30 million climate change refugees are expected to be in Bangladesh, likely the largest number from one place…

Dhaka is the fastest-growing megacity in the world; its population is about 17 million, up from 12 million in 2005 and six million in 1990. By 2025, the UN says the city will be home to more than 20 million people…

As much as 40 per cent of Dhaka’s population — almost seven million — lives in tiny hovels in slums, beside railway tracks, along riverbanks and even on swampy lowlands in the shadow of glittering hotels. The International Organization for Migration says about 70 per cent of these slum dwellers have come to Dhaka because of climate-change adversity…
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 19, 2013

#3844

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

The Guardian | Filipino super-typhoon an ominous warning of climate change impact

…The storm on 4 December was the worst ever to hit the southern Philippines: torrential rain turned New Bataan's river into a raging flood. Roads were washed away and the bridge turned into an enormous dam. Tens of thousands of coconut trees crashed down in an instant as unbelievably powerful winds struck. The banana crop was destroyed in a flash – and with it the livelihoods of hundreds of farmers…"The devastation was worse than anything I have ever seen. Up to 90% of the coconut trees were just flattened. That's the local economy on the ground. And that's really difficult to fix quickly," Lee said.

Bopha, known locally as Pablo, broke records as well as hearts. At its height, it produced wind speeds of 160mph, gusting to 195mph. It was the world's deadliest typhoon in 2012, killing 1,067 people, with 800 left missing. More than 6.2 million people were affected; the cost of the damage may top $1bn. As a category 5 storm (the highest), Bopha was significantly more powerful than hurricane Katrina (category 3), which hit the US in 2005, and last year's heavily publicised hurricane Sandy (category 2)…

The five most devastating typhoons recorded in the Philippines have occurred since 1990, affecting 23 million people. Four of the costliest typhoons anywhere occurred in same period, according to an Oxfam report. What is more, Bopha hit an area where typhoons are all but unknown…

Mary Ann Lucille Sering, head of the Philippine government's climate change commission, is in no doubt her country faces a deepening crisis that it can ill afford, financially and in human terms. Typhoon-related costs in 2009, the year the commission was created, amounted to 2.9% of GDP, she said, and have been rising each year since then…

But the bigger issue is climate change, which posed an "existential threat" to the Philippines, Ramos said. "We are mainstreaming climate change in all government departments and policies. If we don't adapt and adjust, we all agree we are heading for disaster."
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 19, 2013

#3845

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

Albany Democrat-Herald | Study: Climate change impact on stream flow varies by location

The South Santiam River in southeastern Linn County [Oregon] dwindles to a knee-deep channel of water by late August, while the Willamette River maintains a steady and abundant flow through the summer. In 50 to 100 years, however, warmer climate temperatures likely will have little effect on the summer flows of rivers like the South Santiam, but will impact larger, slower-draining systems such as the Willamette, according to a recent study co-authored by researchers from Oregon State University and the U.S. Forest Service…

Climate change will lead to the mountain snows melting sooner in the season, Grant said, which will cause the seemingly abundant supply of water to these rivers to run out sooner. “In slow-draining landscapes, the highest point of the river is going to occur earlier in the year,” Grant said. “It keeps diminishing over the entire period before the fall rains come.”

In contrast, in areas with steep slopes and relatively impermeable rocks, such as the Coast Range or older Cascades, rain and melted snow rapidly run off the land, resulting in high flows in the winter and very little water left in the summer. Climate change will have little effect on their summer flows because they rely less on snow melt and they already reach their low point in the summer, Grant said…
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 20, 2013

#3846

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Science Network, Western Australia | CSIRO models future climate change water scenarios

Lead author of the final paper and Flagship portfolio coordinator Don McFarlane says Perth and surrounds is an unusually water-rich area, but is projected to have an increasingly acute water shortage because it has the largest growth and consequent water demand.

WA’s South West is unusual in that the drying trend is more intense than anywhere else in Australia, but unlike other major cities, Perth has a large supply of groundwater in the unconfined Gnangara Mound and the confined Leederville and Yarragadee aquifers, as well runoff into hills reservoirs, and two desalination plants.

“Our conclusion is that as we go forward surface water will become an increasingly irrelevant water supply for the South West and groundwater and seawater desalination will become increasingly important,” Dr McFarlane says…
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 20, 2013

#3847

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Truth-Out | Climate Change Is Drowning Out "Jobs vs. Environment" Debate

The old argument that unions must choose between jobs and the environment is losing its grip, as climate change becomes more evident and more urgent. More unions than ever have signed up to join environmentalists for a demonstration in Washington, D.C. against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline on Sunday…

How does a union in the fossil fuel industry handle climate change? In the largest Canadian energy union, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers, convention delegates unanimously supported the 1997 Kyoto climate accord, an international agreement to limit carbon emissions. And the CEP has voted in every convention to oppose the Keystone XL…

The jobs argument isn’t all, though. Even the 35,000 members who work directly with fossil fuels, Coles said, agree that “we cannot sustain the expansion of the carbon economy.” His union has engaged members on energy and economic issues all along, he said. It sent a delegation to Fukushima, Japan, to learn about the nuclear reactor disaster there. Although CEP includes uranium miners, the union opposes nuclear power…

So it was good news for them when, under pressure from environmentalists, New York City announced that taxi garages would have to purchase hybrids, with far higher mileage and lower emissions… But the workers weren't included in the debate, Desai said. "Workers could have been the face of the environmental agenda." As a result, when the garages sued the city, claiming the hybrids would be too expensive, the parties cut a deal that meant cab drivers themselves would have to pay more for the hybrid vehicles. The drivers, who were least able to afford it, ended up subsidizing a much larger social responsibility…
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 20, 2013

#3848

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hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

So much hot air; so little lift.

hoytedow, Feb 20, 2013

#3849

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

Daily Beast | Welcome to the Politics of Climate Change: Adapt and Avert

Feb 19, 2013 Braving frigid cold, at least 35,000 demonstrators gathered in Washington on Sunday for the largest climate change rally in history. With a second climate and clean energy rally planned for Earth Day on April 22, Sunday’s demonstration had the feel of a first act, an opening statement of what the burgeoning U.S. climate movement is demanding from a government that for decades has denied and delayed action on the most urgent problem of our age…

One disquieting sign of the dangers climate change is already posing was evident right under demonstrators’ feet on Sunday, on the grounds of the Washington Monument, where they assembled before marching to the White House. Just south of Constitution Avenue, a new levee is being built, linking the grounds of the monument with those of the World War II Memorial. Its purpose? To protect the White House, the National Archives, buildings containing the Justice Department, the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency, the IRS, the Commerce Department, and other key federal agencies from flooding caused by torrential rains or hurricanes.

A study by the Federal Emergency Management Administration had determined that this section of Washington, known as the Federal Triangle, had less than 100-year flood protection. In other words, the heart of the nation’s capital was roughly as vulnerable to flooding as much of New Orleans was prior to Katrina. Hence, the new levee…
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 21, 2013

#3850

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

EurekAlert | Climate change effect on plant communities is buffered by large herbivores, new research suggests

Can existing ecological communities persist intact as temperatures rise? This is a question of increasing relevance in the field of climate change and is the focus of a new study to be published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London on 20 February. The study suggests that the answer to this question may have as much to do with the biological interactions that shape communities as with the effects of climate change itself.

The study's insights are based on a novel approach by Eric Post, a Penn State University professor of biology, who simulated climate change and integrated the effects of large, plant-eating mammals in a 10-year arctic field experiment. The results of the research suggest that plant communities in the Arctic are more likely to resist destabilization by climate change if populations of caribou, musk ox, and other large herbivores remain intact. "The study demonstrates that grazing by these large herbivores maintains plant species diversity, while warming reduces it," Post said. "Plant communities with lower diversity display a greater tendency toward instability under warming, a pre-cursor to the loss of such communities…"

"The study tested a classic ecological hypothesis, but with a new angle," Post said. "Ecologists have argued for decades over whether species-rich plant communities are more stable, and, hence, persistent in the face of environmental disturbance, than species-poor communities. This study added a layer of complexity by asking whether large herbivores contribute to the diversity-stability relationship in a climate-change context."

After 10 years of careful observation of the Kangerlussuaq, Greenland plant communities, Post found that the grazed and ungrazed sections of land did indeed fare quite differently in their responses to warmer temperatures. "This study confirmed that caribou and musk ox act as a buffer against the degradative effects of warming on plant species diversity," Post said. He found that shrubs such as willow and birch became the dominant plants in response to warming where the herbivorous animals were excluded from the ecosystem. "When these shrubs expand in the plant community, they tend to shade their neighbors, and the build-up of leaf litter around the shrubs tends to cool the soil surface, reducing the availability of soil nutrients for other plants," Post said. "As a result, shrubs can quickly out-compete other plants and reduce species diversity in the process. On the other hand, in those areas where caribou and musk ox were able to graze freely, shrub responses to warming were muted, and species diversity within the plant community was maintained..."
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 21, 2013

#3851

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

CBS News | Climate change could mean less snow but more "knockout punches"

With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the U.S. Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to climate change as the culprit. Then, when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow in some places earlier this month, some of the same people again blamed climate change.

How can that be? It's been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a brazen contradiction.

But the answer lies in atmospheric physics. A warmer atmosphere can hold, and dump, more moisture, snow experts say. And two soon-to-be-published studies demonstrate how there can be more giant blizzards yet less snow overall each year. Projections are that it's likely to continue with man-made climate change…

And an upcoming study in the Journal of Climate says computer models predict annual global snowfall to shrink by more than a foot in the next 50 years. The study's author said most people live in parts of the United States that are likely to see annual snowfall drop between 30 and 70 percent by the end of the century…

"Strong snowstorms thrive on the ragged edge of temperature -- warm enough for the air to hold lots of moisture, meaning lots of precipitation, but just cold enough for it to fall as snow," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. "Increasingly, it seems that we're on that ragged edge…"
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 21, 2013

#3852

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hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

Micro-climate change is good provided the power lines are still up so you can run your heater or pump your gasoline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_heater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_blower

hoytedow, Feb 21, 2013

#3853

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

Washington Times | Broad coalition lobbies Obama for ‘climate summit’

The White House is coming under increasing pressure from climate change activists who want to see President Obama hold true to his pledge to confront the issue during a second term.

On Thursday, a broad coalition of lawmakers, leaders from the world of business and religion, high-ranking retired military officers and others called on the president to convene a “climate summit” this year to discuss specific measures to fight global warming.

“Our president can be the leader of a powerful movement to reduce the threats from climate change. We stand ready in Sacramento to participate in a national climate change summit,” said Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, joining other mayors such as Salt Lake City’s Ralph Becker, Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, Mark Kleinschmidt of Chapel, N.C. in support of the summit idea…
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 22, 2013

#3854

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ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

Pakistan Observer | Climate change threat to agri productivity, water resources

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - Lahore—Climate change is posing serious threats to country’s agricultural productivity and water resources, which cannot be avoided totally, but its effects can be mitigated through developing high temperature tolerant, climate resilient, constructing mega water reservoirs, climate smart and genetically modified crops.

Climate change has visible signs in Pakistan which include hotter summers, early cold spell, monsoon irregularity with untimely rainfall, increased rainfall over short period causing water logging, increased frequency and intensity of floods – especially recent floods which destroyed livelihoods in Punjab and Sindh provinces districts, very little rainfall in dry period, crop failure due to drought and salinity intrusion along the coastal region.

This was the crux of presentations made by the scientists from University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF) at a workshop jointly organized by the Agricultural Journalists Association (AJA), UAF and Monsanto Pakistan here the other day…
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ImaginaryNumber, Feb 22, 2013

#3855

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