Global Warming

[Nanuq]

...on Pluto!

"Since 1989, for example, the sun's position in Pluto's sky has changed by more than the corresponding change on the Earth that causes the difference between winter and spring. Pluto's atmospheric temperature varies between around minus 235 and minus 170 degrees Celsius, depending on the altitude above the surface. The main gas in Pluto's atmosphere is nitrogen, and Pluto has nitrogen ice on its surface that can evaporate into the atmosphere when it gets warmer, causing an increase in surface pressure. If the observed increase in the atmosphere also applies to the surface pressure--which is likely the case--this means that the average surface temperature of the nitrogen ice on Pluto has increased slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius over the past 14 years."

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html

...on Jupiter!

"Using whirlpools and eddies for comparison, Marcus bases his forecast on principles learned in junior-level fluid dynamics and on the observation that many of Jupiter's vortices are literally vanishing into thin air.

"I predict that due to the loss of these atmospheric whirlpools, the average temperature on Jupiter will change by as much as 10 degrees Celsius, getting warmer near the equator and cooler at the poles," says Marcus. "This global shift in temperature will cause the jet streams to become unstable and thereby spawn new vortices. It's an event that even backyard astronomers will be able to witness."

According to Marcus, the imminent changes signal the end of Jupiter's current 70-year climate cycle. His surprising predictions are published in the April 22 issue of the journal Nature."

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/release...1_jupiter.shtml

...on Mars!

"According to a September 20 NASA news release, "for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress." Because a Martian year is approximately twice as long as an Earth year, the shrinking of the Martian polar ice cap has been ongoing for at least six Earth years.

The shrinking is substantial. According to Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera, the polar ice cap is shrinking at "a prodigious rate."

"The images, documenting changes from 1999 to 2005, suggest the climate on Mars is presently warmer, and perhaps getting warmer still, than it was several decades or centuries ago," reported Yahoo News on September 20."

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977

Blasted SUVs.

[jraines87]

Yea it's amazing how far mankind can reach out into space and "Warm" up the other planets...

[ekhunter]

Don't tell Al Gore about this!

[KB]

Don't tell Al Gore about this!

Sometimes someone says just the right thing to get my morning coffee spitting all over my keyboard..........Ya bugger

Ken

[ryyannon]

@Nanuq:

What do the Canadians know about anything anyway? Just the same, have you thought of buying up acreage for banana plantations?

Study Says Polar Bears Could Face Extinction

Warming Shrinks Sea Ice Mammals Depend On

By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Global warming could cause polar bears to go extinct by the end of the century by eroding the sea ice that sustains them, according to the most comprehensive international assessment ever done of Arctic climate change.

The thinning of sea ice -- which is projected to shrink by at least half by the end of the century and could disappear altogether, according to some computer models -- could determine the fate of many other key Arctic species, said the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the product of four years of work by more than 300 scientists.

Bears are dependent on sea ice because they use it to hunt for seals, which periodically pop up through breathing holes in the ice. Because the ice has broken up earlier and earlier in the year over the past few decades, polar bears are deprived of crucial hunting opportunities.

The uncertain fate of the world's largest non-aquatic carnivores -- as well as the future of other animals and humans who live in the Arctic -- was sketched in stark relief yesterday by the 139-page document.

The report offered a broad picture of the evidence that climate change has disproportionately affected far northern latitudes.

The researchers concluded that some areas in the Arctic have warmed 10 times as fast as the world as a whole, which has warmed an average of 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century.

"The Arctic is really warming now," said Robert Corell, a senior fellow at the American Meteorological Society who chaired the assessment. "These areas provide a bellwether of what's coming to planet Earth."

In Alaska, western Canada and eastern Russia, average winter temperatures have risen as much as four to seven degrees Fahrenheit within the past 50 years, according to the report and are projected to increase an additional seven to 13 degrees over the next century. Winter temperatures have risen faster than summer temperatures, according to Michael MacCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs at the Washington-based Climate Institute, because thin sea ice releases more energy from the ocean into the atmosphere.

The sea ice in Hudson Bay, Canada, now breaks up 2 1/2 weeks earlier than it did 30 years ago, said Canadian Wildlife Service research scientist Ian Stirling, and as a result female polar bears there weigh 55 pounds less than they did then. Assuming the current rate of ice shrinkage and accompanying weight loss in the Hudson Bay region, bears there could become so thin by 2012 they may no longer be able to reproduce, said Lara Hansen, chief scientist for the World Wildlife Fund.

"Once the population stops reproducing, that's pretty much the end of it," Hansen said.

Arctic residents have already detected changes in polar bears' behavior. Jose Kusugak, president of the Canadian Inuit political association, said at a news conference that within the past two years he witnessed a polar bear "stock up on caribou" because it was deprived of seals. Hudson Bay residents now complain the bears are coming onto land more often, forced to seek sustenance in a habitat where they are less well adapted.

Polar bears are not the only Arctic animals in trouble. The ringed seals that bears eat, and that humans hunt, are also dependent on the sea ice to rest, give birth, nurse and feed.

"You have organisms that have been pushed beyond their limits," said James McCarthy, director of the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology.

While some questioned the report -- Los Alamos Laboratory atmospheric scientist Petr Chylek said he has charted declining temperatures at the summit of Greenland's ice sheet between 1986 and 2003 -- environmentalists said it shows the need for stricter curbs on greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

"This study is the smoking gun. Skeptics, polluting industries and President Bush can't run away from this one," said Philip E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. He added the study showed "concrete evidence that global warming pollution is already having serious impacts."

Administration officials, who oppose mandatory curbs on carbon emissions on the grounds that it will cost U.S. jobs, said yesterday that they consider Arctic climate change an important issue and will work to draft policy recommendations for the region. Some European negotiators have complained that the U.S. State Department is resisting issuing policy guidelines based on the scientific study, a charge Bush officials deny.

"The United States is committed to working within the United Nations framework and elsewhere to develop an effective and science-based global approach to climate change that ensures continued economic growth and prosperity for our citizens and for citizens throughout the world," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

[ryyannon]

"Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide"

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

HORSEFEATHERS!!!

Nanuq, can you get me a job with the same Big Oil lobby too?

I guess they didn't see this (research done in the same time-frame - things have gotten considerably worse since....).

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/greenland/

But what does the NASA know about anything anyway....? :-)

[ekhunter]

Start buying high ground! Don't buy in Louisiana, we mostly sit at or below sea level right now! Arkansas here I come!

[r11co]

Anthropogenic global warming - bunk!

Ten facts about global warming THEY don't want you to know.

Climate Change Truths

One worrying aspect about AGW is that the same emotive language is used to champion its cause as was used to promote the concept of Eugenics a century ago (if we don't act our childrens' futures will be threatened, all mankind is at risk etc. etc.)

Edited July 7, 2006 by r11co

[ryyannon]

..............and the SAME dramatic language was used in the late 70s to warn of "the impending ice age" and catastrophic global cooling. By the same scientists. Using the same data sets leading up to and including the 20th century.

Follow the money. Who's paying for the research? Chances are they'll like the results they paid for.

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/greenland/

In the case of the NASA laser measurements of the Greenland icecap, you are paying for the research via your Federal taxes.

Do you really think that all the people down at the Goddard Space Flight Center are secret card-carrying members of Greenpeace?

You guys have got all kinds of agendas - some good and some bad - colliding with each other. Just take a step back for a moment and look at the link above: the ice is melting, there's no doubt about it. Same thing in Europe, where the glaciers in the Alps are receeding...or in Africa and Japan, where snow-melt on the tops of mountains is accelerating to the point that the peaks are losing their signiature white mantles. These are observable facts.

Now whether you want to believe that it's your snowmobiles and Hummers that are doing this, is another problem.

But in the meantime, take a good look at the objective information on the NASA site: I say 'objective' insofar as it is the result of scientific observation rather than the a-priori agenda of people who are already certain of what they're gong to find.

The kicker is that even if we somehow found substitutes for fossile fuels and greenhouse effect chemicals tomorrow, it's already too late to reverse the transformations taking place today - and which are going to continue to take place over the next century.

[ryyannon]

ok, you've convinced me.

The icecaps are not melting.

The glaciers are not receeding.

The crown of snow on Mt. Fuji is not turning into a slush cone.

Same for Mt. Kilimajaro.

It's all smoke and mirrors and Gore's people leading us down the primrose lane.

[Pugwash]

Here's the kicker: No-one knows the truth. This debate has been raging for years and no-one has won it.

People smarter than me have all the figures at their fingertips and both sides interpret their data differently. If smart people can't agree, we're screwed.

Apathy: It's our only choice.

[ryyannon]

The people who are in daily contact with the transformation (or not) of the climate are Nanuq's own neighbors, the Inuits.

Everything all right by them?

[olivia]

Nunavut increased its annual hunting quotas by 29 percent last year — to 518 kills, an increase of 115 — saying that Inuit hunters were actually seeing an increase in polar bear populations.

Or maybe Artic Oscillations

Edited July 8, 2006 by olivia

[ekhunter]

I'm so confused! It's feels hotter outside, so I go inside and lower the thermostat. Feels pretty cool now. Seriously fellas, is it mankind causing global warming or is it some other factors, or a combination of the two. Personally I don't think any of us are going to be around when all of this global warrming would matter anyway. Some nut (pick yours) is going to get his hands on a thermo nuclear warhead and screw everthing up. Kaboom! WW III. End of the world as we know it. In the words of the great Rodney King "Can't we all just get along". I'll now pop the cork on my second bottle. However, the flatulence from the Mexican food I had at lunch is already warming up the room. Good night fellas!

[robertrinaustin]

ok, you've convinced me.

The icecaps are not melting.

The glaciers are not receeding.

The crown of snow on Mt. Fuji is not turning into a slush cone.

Same for Mt. Kilimajaro.

It's all smoke and mirrors and Gore's people leading us down the primrose lane.

Ryyannon,

You seemed to have missed the point. The question isn't wether ice caps are melting/ shrinking somewhere as your straw man arguement postulates. This is indeed the case and noone disputes this. The problem is that there is a leap to cause and effect based on these observations. Unfortunately, the polution time lines seem to cast doubt on the cause and effect between CO2 and the continual rise in temperature.

[ryyannon]

robertinaustin,

I probably have missed the point. For most people, I usually do.

For me, the only point is that ancestral habitats are becoming unlivable for the people and the animals that inhabit them, and that the deregulation of the delicate planetary thermostat is accelerating - possibly into a totally unsteady (i.e, increasingly chaotic and irreversible) state.

Whether this is because of Nanuq's snowmobile or cattle breaking wind on the Argentinian Pampas is beyond the workings of my feeble mind. On the other hand, I do know that if we converted massively to flex-fuel vehicles and alternative sources of energy tomorrow, I would breathe much better on the many days when the already-massive ozone and hydrocarbon pollution hits Level Red in the five-hundred square mile area surronding my street in Paris.

What part of breathing clean air don't I get?

[TwoTone]

Doesn't really fit in this thread...

But have you ever wondered just how BIG our planet is?

[TwoTone]

But then there's...

[TwoTone]

And then there's our Sun...

[TwoTone]

But wait...

It doesn't stop there...

What about Arcturus...

[TwoTone]

And to cap it off...

What about Betelgeuse & Antares...

[TwoTone]

How big we think we are...

And how truly small we are in comparision...

Think I'll go pour myself a cup of coffee...

TT

PS: Life truly is good!

[ryyannon]

TT,

thanks for showing us uranus.

it's nowhere as big as I imagined.... :-)

[TwoTone]

TT,

thanks for showing us uranus.

it's nowhere as big as I imagined.... :-)

[cornerstone]