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20th century 'hottest in 1400 years'

April 22, 2013 - 7:31AM
Tom Arup

Warming over the 20th century produced the hottest global average temperatures in 1400 years, a major scientific research project has found.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, an international team of scientists reconstructed temperatures over the past 2000 years using proxy records such as tree-ring measurements, pollen sampling, coral reefs, ice cores and historical records.

The study found that the global warming that began in the late-19th century reversed a long cooling trend across the planet that lasted well over 1000 years.

One of the authors of the paper, Dr Steven Phipps from the University of NSW's ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, said: "The striking feature about the sudden rise in 20th century global average temperature is that it comes after an overall cooling trend that lasted more than a millennium.

"This research shows that in just a century the Earth has reversed 1400 years of cooling."

When the reconstructed temperatures are averaged across the planet, the best estimate of past temperatures finds 1971–2000 was warmer than any other time in nearly 1400 years.

But some of the seven different regions studied may have experienced similar or warmer temperatures at other times.

The paper says the findings do not consider uncertainty associated with the temperature estimates, and the reconstruction for each area covered different periods within the 2000 years, depending on the availability of data.

In Australia and Asia, the reconstructed temperature was highest during 1971–2000 than at any other period over the studied timelines.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/20th-century-hottest-in-1400-years-20130421-2i8jb.html

Shadow

19 Apr 2013, 10:05 AM

And if the migrants don't move here then they stay where they are or move to a different country - the world still gets their pollution.

Zero sum game for the global environment.

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Greenhouse gas levels highest in 3m years

April 29, 2013
Ben Cubby

Carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere are on the cusp of reaching 400 parts per million for the first time in 3 million years.

The daily CO2 level, measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, was 399.72 parts per million last Thursday, and a few hourly readings had risen to more than 400 parts per million.

''I wish it weren't true but it looks like the world is going to blow through the 400 ppm level without losing a beat,'' said Ralph Keeling, a geologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US, which operates the Hawaiian observatory.

''At this pace we'll hit 450 ppm within a few decades.''

The 450 ppm level is considered to be the point at which the world has a 50 per cent chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. Any higher and the odds of avoiding searing temperature rises of 4 or 5 degrees by the end of the century become prohibitively risky.

The rise in greenhouse gases corresponds with the extra amount of CO2 known to have been emitted by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests. More greenhouse gases means more heat builds up at the Earth's surface.

The last time CO2 reached the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere - in the Pliocene era - temperatures rose by between 3 and 4 degrees and sea levels were between five and 40 metres higher than today. Carbon dioxide levels have been rising steadily since constant measurements began at the Hawaiian observatory in 1958, when the level was about 317 parts per million.

Levels of more than 400 parts per million have been recorded at a few polar monitoring stages in the past year but the Mauna Loa Observatory readings are considered the most definitive.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-levels-highest-in-3m-years-20130428-2imrr.html

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97% Study Falsely Classifies Scientists' Papers, according to the scientists that published them

The paper, Cook et al. (2013) 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature' searched the Web of Science for the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change" then categorizing these results to their alleged level of endorsement of AGW. These results were then used to allege a 97% consensus on human-caused global warming.

To get to the truth, I emailed a sample of scientists who's papers were used in the study and asked them if the categorization by Cook et al. (2013) is an accurate representation of their paper. Their responses are eye opening and evidence that the Cook et al. (2013) team falsely classified scientists' papers as "endorsing AGW", apparently believing to know more about the papers than their authors.

Read more: http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-classifies-scientists.html

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Many thriving species at risk from climate change: study

Many species of birds, amphibians and corals not currently under threat will be at risk from climate change and have been wrongly omitted from conservation planning, an international study said on Wednesday.

The Amazon rainforest was among the places where ever more types of birds and amphibians would be threatened as temperatures climbed, it said. Common corals off Indonesia would also be among the most vulnerable.

Overall, up to 41 per cent of all bird species, 29 per cent of amphibians and 22 per cent of corals were "highly climate change vulnerable but are not currently threatened", the team of scientists wrote in the journal PLOS ONE.

"It was a surprise," said Wendy Foden, of the global species program of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) who led the study. Experts had expected far more overlap between species threatened now and those vulnerable to global warming.

Conservation priorities should be revised to take account of the emerging climate risks, for instance to decide where to locate protected areas for wildlife, the scientists wrote.

"Climate change is not the biggest threat, yet," Foden told Reuters in a telephone interview. Loss of habitats driven by a rising human population, over-exploitation and invasive species are now the main causes of extinctions, the study said.

The study drew on the work of more than 100 scientists. The IUCN groups governments, scientists and environmental groups.

Emperor penguin

Birds including the Emperor Penguin and the Little Owl and amphibians such as Rose's rain frog or the Imitator Salamander – none of which are now threatened – were among those at risk as temperatures rose.

The study focused on birds, amphibians – which include frogs, newts and salamanders – and corals partly because the IUCN has recently published global assessments of each.

The scientists used a new scale to judge the vulnerability to climate change, based on each creature's likely exposure to climate change, sensitivity to change and the ability to adapt.

Chris Thomas, a professor of biology at York University in England who was not involved in the study, welcomed the attempt to map climate risks, but said there were many uncertainties.

"The tragedy of this is that we need to make a lot of decisions about conservation ... before we know what will happen," he said.

A UN panel of scientists has estimated that 20 to 30 per cent of the world's species are likely to be at increasing risk of extinction if temperatures rise more than two or three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Almost 200 nations have set a goal of limiting warming to below 2 degrees, a target set to be breached on current trends of rising greenhouse gases.

Read more: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/6/13/science-environment/many-thriving-species-risk-climate-change-study

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Globe’s warm streak extends to 340 months

Andrew Freedman

June was one of the hottest such months on record globally, based on newly released data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The month extended the unbroken string of warmer-than-average months to 340, or a stretch of more than 28 years. That means that no one under the age of 28 has ever experienced a month in which global average temperatures were cooler than average (based on the 20th century average).

Global average surface temperatures during June were either the second or the fifth-warmest on record for the month, based on analyses by NASA and NOAA, respectively. The two agencies keep tabs on global temperature trends using large networks of surface monitoring stations and statistical approaches to fill in gaps where stations are sparse, but they use slightly different methods to analyse the data, which can result in slight differences in their rankings.

June continued the long-term warming trend tied to manmade greenhouse gas pollution as well as natural climate variability. The planet has not recorded a single month with temperatures below the 20th century average since February 1985, when the cult classic film ‘The Breakfast Club’ was released, and the last year with a cooler-than-average June was in 1976. This year so far is tied with 2003 as the seventh-warmest year on record, NOAA said.

Last month featured unusually wet conditions in the eastern US, and tragically wet conditions in northwest India, where rainfall that was 200 per cent of average inundated parts of the state of Uttarakhand, killing nearly 6,000 and causing widespread destruction. Areas that experienced higher-than-average temperatures during the month include north-central Canada, most of Alaska – which had its third-warmest June on record – and the Western US, where about 80 per cent of the region was in some stage of drought by the end of the month.

Much of northern and eastern Europe, western Russia, parts of Siberia, and north-central Australia also had warmer-than-average conditions, while western and southern Europe, Central Asia, and India had cooler-than-average conditions, NOAA reported.

According to NOAA, global land surface temperatures were the third-warmest on record, while ocean temperatures were closer to average, coming in as the 10th-warmest on record. An area of cooler-than-average waters in the eastern tropical Pacific may be acting to dampen global temperatures slightly, although NOAA experts said on Thursday that neither an El Niño nor a La Niña event is taking place, and one is not likely to take place through the fall.

Such naturally occurring climate cycles can influence global weather and climate conditions, and can alter global average temperatures on shorter timescales than manmade carbon pollution, which studies have shown is most likely responsible for the long-term increase in global surface temperatures.

A recent report issued by the World Meteorological Organization found that nine of the 10 years between 2001-2010 were among the 10 warmest years on record for the globe, based on that organization's rankings, which can differ slightly from NOAA and NASA's rankings.

In the US, June was yet another month of extremes, with a scorchingly hot and dry West contrasted with a record wet and relatively cool Midwest and East. In all, 18 states had a top 10 wettest June, with Delaware and New Jersey setting records for the wettest such month since record keeping began there in the late 19th century. Utah, on the other hand, set a record for its driest June, with a statewide average precipitation of barely a few drops – just 0.01 inches of rain.

The stark contrast in precipitation between the West and areas east of the Mississippi River has held true for much of 2013, with California having a record dry start to the year, while four states in the Midwest were record wet for the same period. California has had just 31 percent of its average precipitation for the year, said Jake Crouch, a climate expert at the National Climatic Data Center, on a conference call with reporters.

“We’re much below where we should be, and we’re much below the previous record Jan to June,” he said.

Read more: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/7/19/science-environment/globe%E2%80%99s-warm-streak-extends-340-months

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Records melt in another hot year for the climate

August 7, 2013 - 9:37AM

Last year was one of the 10 hottest on record, with sea levels at record highs, Arctic ice at historic lows and extreme weather in various corners of the globe signaling a "new normal," scientists said in the 2012 State of the Climate report.

"Our planet as a whole is becoming a warmer place," said Kathryn Sullivan, acting administrator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report was edited by NOAA scientists and drew contributions from 384 scientists from 52 countries.

The report's data indicate "new normal" conditions that can inform planning decisions, instead of relying on models that "count on the future being statistically a lot like the past," Sullivan said at a news briefing in Washington on Tuesday. The report first circulated on Friday.

Meant to be a guide for policymakers, the report did not attribute the changes in climate to any one factor, but made note of continued increases in heat-trapping greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

Among the key findings in the report:

Sea levels reached a record high, after a sharp decrease in 2011 possibly linked to the Pacific Ocean phenomenon La Nina, which can have a cooling effect;
Arctic sea ice shrank to its smallest summer minimum since satellite records began 34 years ago, while Antarctic sea ice reached a record high;
More than 97 per cent of the ice sheet covering Greenland melted at least a bit in the summer of 2012, four times greater than the 1981-2010 average;
Average sea surface temperatures rose, but not much, making 2012 among the 11th warmest years on record;
Ocean heat was near-record high levels in the upper 800 metres of the water, and temperatures also increased in the deep ocean.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/records-melt-in-another-hot-year-for-the-climate-20130807-2re7u.html