Arctic Melt Passes the Point of No Return
[In a] study to be presented Tuesday to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco by top cryosphere scientists:
"Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before it was predicted to happen."
Researchers say autumn temperatures were higher because of the heat accumulation from increased melting in the summer.
The process, known as Arctic amplification, was not expected to be seen for at least another 10 or 15 years and the findings will further raise concerns that the Arctic has already passed the climatic tipping-point towards ice-free summers, and could signify Arctic melting has hit a point of no return.
...The study is from scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), who have been regularly reporting on the unexpectedly rapid loss of Arctic ice over the past several years. It bears repeating that “The recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models”...The retreat has accelerated in the past three years.
...As one of the NSIDC authors, Mark Serreze, said in August, “No matter where we stand at the end of the melt season it’s just reinforcing this notion that Arctic ice is in its death spiral.”
Dec 15, 2008
for complete article:
http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/15/nsidc-arctic-melt-passes-the-point-of-no-return-we-hate-to-say-we-told-you-so-but-we-did/
17 December 2008
Sea Level Could Rise by 1.5m, US Scientists Warn
Sea Level Could Rise by 150cm, US Scientists Warn
Sea level rise due to global warming will "substantially exceed" official UN projections and could top 150cm by the end of the century, according to a report from the US Geological Survey on the risks of abrupt climate change. Such a rise would be catastrophic, seeing hundreds of millions of people affected by flooding.
Many scientists now fear the warming world is on the verge of "tipping points", in which climate change and its effects accelerate rapidly. The science is evolving quickly and the new report updates the most recent findings of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was released in 2007.
On sea level, the report found models used by the IPCC in 2007 do not take into account recent information on how fast glaciers slide into the oceans, particularly from Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets. The report says the south western states of the US will enter a "permanent drought state".
Dec. 16, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/16/climatechange-scienceofclimatechange
Sea level rise due to global warming will "substantially exceed" official UN projections and could top 150cm by the end of the century, according to a report from the US Geological Survey on the risks of abrupt climate change. Such a rise would be catastrophic, seeing hundreds of millions of people affected by flooding.
Many scientists now fear the warming world is on the verge of "tipping points", in which climate change and its effects accelerate rapidly. The science is evolving quickly and the new report updates the most recent findings of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was released in 2007.
On sea level, the report found models used by the IPCC in 2007 do not take into account recent information on how fast glaciers slide into the oceans, particularly from Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets. The report says the south western states of the US will enter a "permanent drought state".
Dec. 16, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/16/climatechange-scienceofclimatechange
Russian Treason Bill Could Create a Base for Totalitarian State
Russian treason bill could target Kremlin critics
Under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, people who fraternized with foreigners or criticized the Kremlin were "enemies of the people" and sent to the gulag. Now there's new legislation backed by Vladimir Putin's government that human rights activists say could throw Russia back to the days of the Great Terror.
The legislation, outspoken government critic and rights activist Lev Ponomaryov charged Wednesday, creates "a base for a totalitarian state."
...Some of Russia's most prominent right activists, including Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Civic Assistance director Svetlana Gannushkina, said the bill in fact gives authorities the power to prosecute anyone deemed to have "harmed the security of the Russian Federation."
It is "legislation in the spirit of Stalin and Hitler," the activists said in a joint statement legislation that "returns the Russian justice to the times of 1920-1950s."
During the 1930s, Stalin oversaw a sweeping crackdown that came to be known as the Great Terror. Millions were accused of being "enemies of the people," convicted by farcical courts based on hearsay and anonymous allegations, and executed or sent to the vast system of prison camps known as the gulag.
The legislation expands the definition of treason to include damaging Russia's "constitutional order," and "sovereignty or territorial integrity."
...Activists said expanding the term "constitutional order," would effectively outlaw opposition protests. "Territorial integrity" would forbid anyone from calling for independence or perhaps autonomy, an issue of particular concern in the volatile North Caucasus where Chechnya is located.
...The legislation will likely to be quickly approved by parliament which the Kremlin needs, Alexeyeva said, because of fears that the country's collapsing economy will spark mass unrest.
In a separate development Wednesday, Russia's upper house of parliament passed legislation that would end jury trials for those facing charges of terrorism and treason. Instead, they would face a panel of judges.
The bill's authors say the change was necessary because they claim juries have acquitted many suspects despite strong incriminating evidence. Critics denounced the bill as a blow to democratic principles...
December 17, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/17/europe/EU-Russia-Treason-Law.php
Under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, people who fraternized with foreigners or criticized the Kremlin were "enemies of the people" and sent to the gulag. Now there's new legislation backed by Vladimir Putin's government that human rights activists say could throw Russia back to the days of the Great Terror.
The legislation, outspoken government critic and rights activist Lev Ponomaryov charged Wednesday, creates "a base for a totalitarian state."
...Some of Russia's most prominent right activists, including Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Civic Assistance director Svetlana Gannushkina, said the bill in fact gives authorities the power to prosecute anyone deemed to have "harmed the security of the Russian Federation."
It is "legislation in the spirit of Stalin and Hitler," the activists said in a joint statement legislation that "returns the Russian justice to the times of 1920-1950s."
During the 1930s, Stalin oversaw a sweeping crackdown that came to be known as the Great Terror. Millions were accused of being "enemies of the people," convicted by farcical courts based on hearsay and anonymous allegations, and executed or sent to the vast system of prison camps known as the gulag.
The legislation expands the definition of treason to include damaging Russia's "constitutional order," and "sovereignty or territorial integrity."
...Activists said expanding the term "constitutional order," would effectively outlaw opposition protests. "Territorial integrity" would forbid anyone from calling for independence or perhaps autonomy, an issue of particular concern in the volatile North Caucasus where Chechnya is located.
...The legislation will likely to be quickly approved by parliament which the Kremlin needs, Alexeyeva said, because of fears that the country's collapsing economy will spark mass unrest.
In a separate development Wednesday, Russia's upper house of parliament passed legislation that would end jury trials for those facing charges of terrorism and treason. Instead, they would face a panel of judges.
The bill's authors say the change was necessary because they claim juries have acquitted many suspects despite strong incriminating evidence. Critics denounced the bill as a blow to democratic principles...
December 17, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/17/europe/EU-Russia-Treason-Law.php
12 December 2008
Climate Scientists Say Expect Catastrophic Climate Change
Too late? Why scientists say we should expect the worst
The cream of the UK climate science community sat in stunned silence as [climate scientist Kevin Anderson] pointed out that carbon emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than anyone thought possible, driven mainly by the coal-fuelled economic boom in the developing world. So much extra pollution is being pumped out, he said, that most of the climate targets debated by politicians and campaigners are fanciful at best, and "dangerously misguided" at worst.
...he said it was "improbable" that [carbon dioxide] levels could now be restricted to 650 parts per million (ppm).
The CO2 level is currently over 380ppm, up from 280ppm at the time of the industrial revolution, and it rises by more than 2ppm each year. The government's official position is that the world should aim to cap this rise at 450ppm.
...At 650ppm, the same...science says the world would face a catastrophic 4C average rise. And even that bleak future, Anderson said, could only be achieved if rich countries adopted "draconian emission reductions within a decade". Only an unprecedented "planned economic recession" might be enough. The current financial woes would not come close.
...Many scientists, politicians and campaigners privately admit that 2C is a lost cause. Ask for projections around the dinner table after a few bottles of wine and more vote for 650ppm than 450ppm as the more likely outcome.
Bob Watson, chief scientist at the Environment Department and a former head of the IPCC, warned this year that the world needed to prepare for a 4C rise, which would wipe out hundreds of species, bring extreme food and water shortages in vulnerable countries and cause floods that would displace hundreds of millions of people. Warming would be much more severe towards the poles, which could accelerate melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.
Watson said: "We must alert everybody that at the moment we're at the very top end of the worst case [emissions] scenario. I think we should be striving for 450 [ppm] but I think we should be prepared that 550 [ppm] is a more likely outcome." Hitting the 450ppm target, he said, would be "unbelievably difficult".
[A report for the Australian government], from economist Ross Garnaut and dubbed the Australian Stern review, says nations must accept that a greater amount of warming is inevitable, or risk a failure to agree that "would haunt humanity until the end of time".
It says developed nations including Britain, the US and Australia, would have to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 5% each year over the next decade to hit the 450ppm target. Britain's Climate Change Act 2008, the most ambitious legislation of its kind in the world, calls for reductions of about 3% each year to 2050.
...Earlier this year, Jim Hansen, senior climate scientist with Nasa, published a paper that said the world's carbon targets needed to be urgently revised because of the risk of feedbacks in the climate system. He used reconstructions of the Earth's past climate to show that a target of 350ppm, significantly below where we are today, is needed to "preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted".
Dec. 9, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/poznan-copenhagen-global-warming-targets-climate-change
The cream of the UK climate science community sat in stunned silence as [climate scientist Kevin Anderson] pointed out that carbon emissions since 2000 have risen much faster than anyone thought possible, driven mainly by the coal-fuelled economic boom in the developing world. So much extra pollution is being pumped out, he said, that most of the climate targets debated by politicians and campaigners are fanciful at best, and "dangerously misguided" at worst.
...he said it was "improbable" that [carbon dioxide] levels could now be restricted to 650 parts per million (ppm).
The CO2 level is currently over 380ppm, up from 280ppm at the time of the industrial revolution, and it rises by more than 2ppm each year. The government's official position is that the world should aim to cap this rise at 450ppm.
...At 650ppm, the same...science says the world would face a catastrophic 4C average rise. And even that bleak future, Anderson said, could only be achieved if rich countries adopted "draconian emission reductions within a decade". Only an unprecedented "planned economic recession" might be enough. The current financial woes would not come close.
...Many scientists, politicians and campaigners privately admit that 2C is a lost cause. Ask for projections around the dinner table after a few bottles of wine and more vote for 650ppm than 450ppm as the more likely outcome.
Bob Watson, chief scientist at the Environment Department and a former head of the IPCC, warned this year that the world needed to prepare for a 4C rise, which would wipe out hundreds of species, bring extreme food and water shortages in vulnerable countries and cause floods that would displace hundreds of millions of people. Warming would be much more severe towards the poles, which could accelerate melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.
Watson said: "We must alert everybody that at the moment we're at the very top end of the worst case [emissions] scenario. I think we should be striving for 450 [ppm] but I think we should be prepared that 550 [ppm] is a more likely outcome." Hitting the 450ppm target, he said, would be "unbelievably difficult".
[A report for the Australian government], from economist Ross Garnaut and dubbed the Australian Stern review, says nations must accept that a greater amount of warming is inevitable, or risk a failure to agree that "would haunt humanity until the end of time".
It says developed nations including Britain, the US and Australia, would have to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 5% each year over the next decade to hit the 450ppm target. Britain's Climate Change Act 2008, the most ambitious legislation of its kind in the world, calls for reductions of about 3% each year to 2050.
...Earlier this year, Jim Hansen, senior climate scientist with Nasa, published a paper that said the world's carbon targets needed to be urgently revised because of the risk of feedbacks in the climate system. He used reconstructions of the Earth's past climate to show that a target of 350ppm, significantly below where we are today, is needed to "preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted".
Dec. 9, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/poznan-copenhagen-global-warming-targets-climate-change
Global Ice Sheets at Risk
Ice Sheet at Risk
One of the most controversial areas of climate science is how high the seas are likely to rise in a warmer world. Last year, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that sea levels would rise by 15-59cm this century, an average of 38.5cm.
...Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the IPCC, said: "Some are raising the [sea level] issue as being far more alarming than we had projected, but in the synthesis report we clearly said that we didn't know enough and therefore we can't place an upper limit on sea level rise this century."
...In September, a team led by Tad Pfeffer at the University of Colorado at Boulder, published calculations using conservative, medium and extreme glaciological assumptions for sea rise expected from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps. They concluded the most plausible scenario, when factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, will lead to a total sea level rise of roughly 100-200cm by 2100.
...Jim Hansen, of NASA, has argued that most estimates of sea level rise are too conservative. He says that feedbacks in the climate system would quickly accelerate ice melt, and could lead to runaway collapse.
Dec. 9, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/poznan-ice-sheet-sea-level-greenland-arctic
One of the most controversial areas of climate science is how high the seas are likely to rise in a warmer world. Last year, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that sea levels would rise by 15-59cm this century, an average of 38.5cm.
...Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the IPCC, said: "Some are raising the [sea level] issue as being far more alarming than we had projected, but in the synthesis report we clearly said that we didn't know enough and therefore we can't place an upper limit on sea level rise this century."
...In September, a team led by Tad Pfeffer at the University of Colorado at Boulder, published calculations using conservative, medium and extreme glaciological assumptions for sea rise expected from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps. They concluded the most plausible scenario, when factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, will lead to a total sea level rise of roughly 100-200cm by 2100.
...Jim Hansen, of NASA, has argued that most estimates of sea level rise are too conservative. He says that feedbacks in the climate system would quickly accelerate ice melt, and could lead to runaway collapse.
Dec. 9, 2008
for complete article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/poznan-ice-sheet-sea-level-greenland-arctic
03 December 2008
Pentagon to Detail 20,000 Troops Inside U.S. by 2011
Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.
...All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.
...In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents."
Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.
December 1, 2008
www.washingtonpost.com
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.
...All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.
...In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents."
Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.
December 1, 2008
www.washingtonpost.com
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