Another sign of the Apocalypse?

All you need is a good cold snap to wipe them out. That's why they haven't moved much past Alberta. We stop em with out -35 celcius temperatures.

 

Here's hoping for a good cold snap. But there seems to be already a a lot of dead trees and that can't be good.

 

Yeah, that is mostly British columbia. It's proximity to the West coast keeps the winter weather a bit more tolerable, which is then good for beetles.

 

AMERICA'S TREES ARE DYING
by Charles E. Little (1995)


STRATEGIES FOR THE ENDGAME
Have we crossed the threshold? Are we now dealing with nature in another zone -- the endgame? The question is: what should be done?

Should we plant trees? Yes, of course, plant billions. But can we reforest the Earth in such a way that it will stay reforested?

Reduce the pollution caused by gluttonous fossil-fuel energy use? Yes, of course. But not to the level of 1990, as the policymakers suggest and have legislated. Trees were dying long before that. The mid-50s would be closer to the mark.

Stop cutting forests? Of course. Zero cut on our national forests would be a tiny beginning. Stopping the pillage of the rainforest is a given. But have too many atoms of carbon -- and too many species of virus -- already been released?

End the production of CFCs? Without question. But have the chlorine atoms that have already risen to the stratosphere entrained an unstoppable feedback reaction that will cause an increasing ultraviolet bombardment of trees and forests and frogs and humans no matter what we do?

Control population and consumption? Absolutely. But would even the most extraordinary efforts in this regard come soon enough?

Environmentalism practices the language of crisis: to insist that something be done before it is too late. But what we need now is a language (and the intellectual constructs that go with it) to deal with a post-crisis environmental condition. And our response to the dying of the trees is at the heart of the matter.

In the course of my research, I have learned things I wish I had not learned. I have learned that the trees are dying. And that the more trees die, the more will die. I have learned that we have crossed the threshold. And I simply do not know how we can get back safely to the other side.

Such a conclusion can lead to despair. I think the only antidote to despair is to stay firm in the belief that, as William Wordsworth put it in Tintern Abbey, "nature never did betray the heart that loved her."

We must begin to love her as we have never been asked to love before. Even then, it will take a century or more for environmental repair; for letting nature heal herself.

Thus have we come to the crux of the matter: the trees could save us, if we would save the trees.



Taken from a longer article found here: http://dieoff.org/page47.htm

 

dun
dun
DUUUUUN!!!!

 

Study: U.S. Trees Dying at Alarming Rate
By EBEN HARRELL Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009


A scientist walks through a stand of dead and dying trees in Colorado.
Kevin Maloney / Aurora / Getty Images

Think of them as America's giant lungs, soaking up masses of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But just as human lungs can become sick, so the forests of the western U.S. have fallen ill. At least that's the finding of an extensive, thirty-year study published on Thursday, which found that trees in the American west are dying at a quickening and alarming rate. The most probable cause, according to the study: global warming, the very trend trees should be helping to slow.

The study, led by authors from the United States Geological Survey and published in the journal Science, found the rate of tree deaths has more than doubled in the last few decades even in apparently healthy, well-established forests. Death rates have increased at all elevations, and for trees of all sizes and types, leading the researchers to worry that the U.S. may soon suffer massive and sudden die-backs of its seemingly healthy forests, a cascading effect that could release carbon dioxide into the air, further speeding global warming.

Scientists have already witnessed mass tree deaths in American forests due to beetle infestations. Periodic outbreaks of Mountain Pine Beetle in Colorado, for example, has killed an estimated 7.4 million trees in the past decade. But the Science study, titled "Widespread Increase of Tree Mortality Rates in the Western United States," is the first to show a creeping death rate in ancient, well-established coniferous forests with no evidence of epidemic infestations.

Over the course of thirty years, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service and various academic institutions counted trees in 76 plots, each the size of two football fields, in forests across six western states and British Columbia. When they looked at the data last year, they found that mortality rates had increased significantly in almost every plot, with the rate doubling over periods ranging from 17 years to 29 years. Crucially, the increasing deaths were not matched by higher rates of "recruitment" — the technical term for a forest's birthrate.

Nathan Stephenson, a Research Ecologist for the USGS and one of the study's authors, said the scope of the research revealed trends that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. "The changes have been subtle. If you were walking around these forests you'd think everything was fine. But when you have the long view, it's very worrying. There's a real concern that if mortality rates continue to double the forests could reach a tipping point where they begin to actually be net emitters of carbon. Or, worse, that this preludes mass die-backs like the ones we've already seen in the Southwestern U.S. and British Columbia, as the forests grow weaker and less able to resist [beetle] infestations."

Forests act as huge carbon sinks, capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Along with oceans and other plant life, trees removed approximately 54% of all carbon dioxide created by human activities globally during the period 2000-2007, according to research group The Global Carbon Project. But when they die, trees release their sequestered carbon as they decompose, leading some scientists to the theory that mass tree deaths from global warming could lead to a worsening cycle in which each stage of warming sets off another. Such a cycle could hasten climate change from the predicted timescale accepted by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The Science study suggests that such a troubling cycle might befall U.S. forests, as warming was listed as the most likely cause and result of the increase in tree mortality. The study ruled out increasing competition among trees, changes in the composition of tree species, pests, fires, air pollution or logging as the reason for the increase. The likely culprit, the researchers said, was stress from warming temperatures.

"We know that the temperature has gone up about .4 C per decade in the elevations where forests are found [in the western U.S.]. That means that the snow-pack is melting earlier and less snow is falling. So the trees have seen a lengthening of the summer drought even without a change in precipitation levels. This leaves them stressed and vulnerable," Stephenson told reporters.

Stephenson added that the Science study could help the U.S. Forest service improve its husbandry measures by, for example, responding differently following forest fires. "We might want to think about planting a different species of trees — perhaps one from further south or lower elevations that are better adapted to warmer temperatures," he said. But even that would be a band-aid solution. According to Stephenson, the best chance of saving American forests is to slow and eventually cease the cause of their distress. "Anyway you cut it, the best solution is to get a lid on humanity's carbon output," he says.

From TIME.com

 

Environment: Dying Oceans, Poisoned Seas

Monday, Nov. 08, 1971

In 1942, when French Undersea Explorer Jacques Cousteau explored the Sargasso Sea, he could see underwater for about 300 ft. Today, he reports, the visibility has shrunk to barely 100 ft. When he first started diving in the Mediterranean 25 years ago, it was filled with life. Today? "You can hardly see a fish 3 in. long." What has happened is that pollution has caught up with the seas' and oceans' ability to cleanse themselves. Cousteau estimates that the vitality of the seas, in terms of fish and plant life, has declined some 30% to 50% in the past 20 years.

In recent weeks, Cousteau and other worried specialists have been spelling out just how polluted the seas and oceans have become. Testifying before a United Nations symposium on the environment in Geneva, Swiss Marine Explorer Jacques Piccard warned that if nothing is done, all the oceans will be dead before the end of the century. Cousteau, who speaks with the authority of numerous dives made in virtually all of the planet's deep waters, told Senator Ernest Rolling's subcommittee on oceans and atmosphere that even the remote reef off Madagascar is "frankly dead today." In a very few years, he added, "there will be nothing alive" in the deeper waters of the Black Sea and the Red Sea.

Scientists point out that while water covers 70% of the earth's surface, it is a covering only, quite thin when compared with the bulk of the globe as a whole. It cannot be treated as a bottomless sewer, capable of absorbing any amount of pollution. In fact, says Piccard, "Phytoplankton, the primitive plant life that generates most of the earth's oxygen, is surface matter. It absorbs dirt and acts as a sort of pollution filter. Thus all you need to knock out is the surface phytoplankton, and the entire marine life cycle is fatally disrupted." That disruption is accelerating logarithmically. At one Baltic measuring station, Environmentalist Barry Commoner points out, the oxygen content of water samples was 2.5 cc. per liter in 1900. The figure gently declined to 2.0 cc. by 1940, but in only 30 years since then it has plummeted to 0.1 cc.

Piccard estimated that what he calls Homo technicus releases between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 tons of polluting petroleum products every year to float on the seas' sensitive surface. Up to 1.8 million tons come from automobile exhaust emissions which rise into the atmosphere and eventually precipitate onto the ocean surface. Tankers spill another million. The world's polluted rivers spew out the rest.

To help combat the problem of ocean pollution, Cousteau is pushing for expanded research, especially by such tools as the "Sky Lab" satellite for underwater observation, which could spot and measure concentrations of pollution. He has also called upon the 14 industrialized nations that he estimates are responsible for 80% of the oceans' pollution to join forces and act quickly—before it is too late.

Dirty Lungs. Unfortunately, this may be easier said than done. For one thing, there is no guarantee that all maritime nations will stop or can be made to stop their headlong rush toward the industrialization that accounts for most pollution. It will be equally difficult to clean up the mess already at hand. The Mediterranean, for instance, is badly ventilated. Water flowing in from the Atlantic through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar is flushed by outflow from four "lungs" —the Adriatic, the Aegean and the Rhone and Nile rivers. But these lungs, as Britain's Lord Ritchie-Calder notes grimly, are now polluted.

While some scientists look toward expensive hardware for salvation, Piccard sees a very basic solution. He is convinced that as pollution gets worse, "each human being will be forced to make personal sacrifices," and that "such nonsense as planned obsolescence in manufacturing should have been banned long ago." Underdeveloped countries may still continue to raise their standard of living, he adds, but it will go down in the highly industrialized nations. "Curbing industrialization, and especially forcing down the worldwide birth rate, may seem unattainable goals," says Piccard, but "it's a matter of to be or not to be."

 

CLIMATE Our Dying Oceans

Acidification Threatens the Entire Marine Ecosystem


SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons A growing body of research demonstrates that global waters are absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide, threatening species at the bottom of the food chain. So why are we still paying so little attention to climate change’s elephant in the room? Above: Change in sea surface pH caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions between the 1700s and 1990s.

By Jeremy Jacquot | Thursday, June 12th, 2008

Extinctions. Droughts. Melting glaciers. Even for those of us not steeped in the nitty gritty of climate change, it’s been almost impossible to avoid the ongoing news coverage of scientists’ increasingly gloomy prognostications about our planet’s future. Look past the blaring headlines, however, and many will tell you that far too little attention is still being paid to the real elephant in the room: ocean acidification.

The unprecedented influx of anthropogenic CO2 emissions since the 1800s has fundamentally altered the equation.

Starting in the late 1950s with the groundbreaking research of Roger Revelle and Charles Keeling, scientists have long been aware of the essential role played by the ocean in mitigating the impact of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. Ice core record measurements of carbon dioxide taken mid-century showed that atmospheric concentrations had remained about constant for several thousand years until the rapid onset of industrialization during the 1800s, after which they began their meteoric rise. Revelle’s work was instrumental in demonstrating that a large fraction of the gas remained in the atmosphere. At the same time, it also suggested that a significant amount was being absorbed by the ocean—a realization that would lead him to conclude that, over the long term, it would permanently change the chemistry of seawater. A number of oceanographer-led global surveys completed in 2004 determined that the ocean had absorbed nearly half of all carbon emitted since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Other studies have found that around a third of fossil fuel-derived CO2 is currently taken up by the ocean

Upon entering the ocean, a portion of CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid, a weak acid; the other portion stays in dissolved form. Some fraction of the acid will then release hydrogen ions into solution, yielding either bicarbonate or carbonate ions, while a smaller fraction will remain as carbonic acid. The relative proportion of these three forms of dissolved inorganic carbon—carbon dioxide, bicarbonate ions and carbonate ions—acts as a natural buffer, called the “carbonate buffer,” by absorbing small pH changes induced by the increase in hydrogen ion concentration. The pH scale, which ranges from 0 to 14, is used by scientists to measure a solution’s acidity or basicity—the lower the value, the more acidic the solution. The scale is logarithmic, so a one-pH unit drop corresponds to a ten-fold increase in the hydrogen ion concentration, making seawater more acidic. With an average pH of 8.1, seawater is considered slightly basic, or alkaline.

This buffering system has helped keep the ocean’s pH in check for thousands of years. However, the unprecedented influx of anthropogenic CO2 emissions since the 1800s has fundamentally altered the equation, threatening to overwhelm the delicate balance maintained by this system and tipping the ocean into a period of prolonged acidification. The problem is simple: as increasing amounts of atmospheric CO2 are absorbed by surface waters, more hydrogen ions are formed—which leads to an overall decrease in seawater pH. Many of these hydrogen ions will combine with carbonate ions, forming bicarbonate ions and reducing the concentration of carbonate ions. The net effect is to weaken the carbonate buffer, rendering it less effective at keeping slight pH variations in check.

By some estimates, all of the planet’s corals could disappear by century’s end if present trends continue.

Researchers believe this process lowered the oceans’ average pH by 0.1 since the pre-industrial era—equivalent to a 30 percent increase in the ocean’s average hydrogen ion concentration. A recent analysis postulated that pH levels might fall by as much as 0.5 units by 2100, which would be equivalent to a three-fold increase in the hydrogen ion concentration since pre-industrial times. The impacts of ocean acidification are already being felt closer to home: a report published just this past month in Science showed evidence for the upwelling of “acidified” water onto the Pacific continental shelf between central Canada and northern Mexico. Seasonal upwelling, which brings nutrient-rich deep waters up to the surface, is a natural phenomenon in this region and one that is critical for many developing marine organisms.

“So what?” you may ask. Why should I care about this when other climate-induced phenomena like heat waves and droughts seem much more urgent? Diminishing the ocean’s capacity to absorb CO2 is no small problem in itself, because without the ocean serving as a carbon sink, more carbon dioxide will have no where to go but into the atmosphere. But aside from that, what worries scientists most about ocean acidification is that it will inhibit certain organisms’ ability to produce calcium carbonate shells—to the extent that they would have great difficulty growing. And not just any organisms: those, like phytoplankton, which support entire food webs by acting as the ocean’s primary producers (like plants in terrestrial ecosystems). Without them—or with their numbers greatly reduced—many populations and ecosystems could simply collapse. Moreover, oceanographers are deeply concerned about the potential impact of acidification on corals. These tiny organisms, which secrete calcium carbonate skeletons that, over time, accumulate to form large reef assemblages, could become more prone to so-called “bleaching” episodes—in which algae that form symbiotic associations with the corals (and give them their colors) are expelled, depriving the latter of a critical source of nutrients. Worse, the precipitous drop in carbonate ion concentration could make many regions of the ocean acidic enough to dissolve calcium carbonate structures. Corals, phytoplankton and other calcifying organisms would be unable to survive under such “undersaturated” conditions. By some estimates, all of the planet’s corals could disappear by century’s end if present trends continue. The continued uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will cause these areas to expand until only a sliver of the ocean’s surface layer remains inhabitable.

That’s not to say that certain species won’t also benefit. Indeed, a few recent studies have demonstrated that some phytoplankton species may thrive under conditions of elevated CO2 concentrations. Larger organisms, like seagrasses, use dissolved carbon dioxide directly and could therefore also experience gains. While the current state of research may be ambiguous in some areas, it is clear that the overall picture is decidedly grim. Though more studies are needed, scientists are concerned that acidification is taking place at such speed that we—let alone marine species—will have little time to adapt.

 

Climate trouble may be bubbling up in far north
Aug 31, 2009 (4:03a CDT)
By CHARLES J. HANLEY

AP Special Correspondent
MACKENZIE RIVER DELTA, Northwest Territories
Only a squawk from a sandhill crane broke the Arctic silence - and a low gurgle of bubbles, a watery whisper of trouble repeated in countless spots around the polar world.

"On a calm day, you can see 20 or more 'seeps' out across this lake," said Canadian researcher Rob Bowen, sidling his small rubber boat up beside one of them. A tossed match would have set it ablaze.

"It's essentially pure methane."

Pure methane, gas bubbling up from underwater vents, escaping into northern skies, adds to the global-warming gases accumulating in the atmosphere. And pure methane escaping in the massive amounts known to be locked in the Arctic permafrost and seabed would spell a climate catastrophe.

Is such an unlocking under way?

Researchers say air temperatures here in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 2.5 C (4.5 F) since 1970 - much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) a year, and a further 7 C (13 F) temperature rise is possible this century, says the authoritative, U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In 2007, air monitors detected a rise in methane concentrations in the atmosphere, apparently from far northern sources. Russian researchers in Siberia expressed alarm, warning of a potential surge in the powerful greenhouse gas, additional warming of several degrees, and unpredictable consequences for Earth's climate.

Others say massive seeps of methane might take centuries. But the Russian scenario is disturbing enough to have led six U.S. national laboratories last year to launch a joint investigation of rapid methane release. And IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri in July asked his scientific network to focus on "abrupt, irreversible climate change" from thawing permafrost.

The data will come from teams like one led by Scott Dallimore, who with Bowen and others pitched tents here on the remote, boggy fringe of North America, 2,200 kilometers (1,400 miles) from the North Pole, to learn more about seeps in the 25,000 lakes of this vast river delta.

A "puzzle," Dallimore calls it.

"Many factors are poorly studied, so we're really doing frontier science here," the Geological Survey of Canada scientist said. "There is a very large storehouse of greenhouse gases within the permafrost, and if that storehouse of greenhouse gases is fluxing to the surface, that's important to know. And it's important to know if that flux will change with time."

Permafrost, tundra soil frozen year-round and covering almost one-fifth of Earth's land surface, runs anywhere from 50 to 600 meters (160 to 2,000 feet) deep in this region. Entombed in that freezer is carbon - plant and animal matter accumulated through millennia.

As the soil thaws, these ancient deposits finally decompose, attacked by microbes, producing carbon dioxide and - if in water - methane. Both are greenhouse gases, but methane is many times more powerful in warming the atmosphere.

Researchers led by the University of Florida's Ted Schuur last year calculated that the top 3 meters (10 feet) of permafrost alone contain more carbon than is currently in the atmosphere.

"It's safe to say the surface permafrost, 3 to 5 meters, is at risk of thawing in the next 100 years," Schuur said by telephone from an Alaska research site. "It can't stay intact."

Methane also is present in another form, as hydrates - ice-like formations deep underground and under the seabed in which methane molecules are trapped within crystals of frozen water. If warmed, the methane will escape.

Dallimore, who has long researched hydrates as energy sources, believes a breakdown of such huge undersea formations may have produced conical "hills" found offshore in the Beaufort Sea bed, some of them 40 meters (more than 100 feet) high.

With underwater robots, he detected methane gas leaking from these seabed features, which resemble the strange hills ashore here that the Inuvialuit, or Eskimos, call "pingos." And because the coastal plain is subsiding and seas are rising from warming, more permafrost is being inundated, exposed to water warmer than the air.

The methane seeps that the Canadians were studying in the Mackenzie Delta, amid grassy islands, steel-gray lakes and summertime temperatures well above freezing, are saucer-like indentations just 10 meters (30 feet) or so down on the lake bed.

The ultimate source of that gas - hydrates, decomposition or older natural gas deposits - is unclear, but Dallimore's immediate goal is quantifying the known emissions and finding the unknown.

With tent-like, instrument-laden enclosures they positioned over two seeps, each several meters (yards) wide, the researchers have determined they are emitting methane at a rate of up to 0.6 cubic meters (almost 1 cubic yard) per minute.

Dallimore's team is also monitoring the seeps with underwater listening devices, to assess whether seasonal change - warming - affects the emissions rate.

Even if the lake seeps are centuries old, Bowen said, the question is, "Will they be accelerated by recent changes?"

A second question: Are more seeps developing?

To begin answering that, Dallimore is working with German and Canadian specialists in aerial surveying, teams that will fly over swaths of Arctic terrain to detect methane "hot spots" via spectrometric imagery, instruments identifying chemicals by their signatures on the light spectrum.

Research crews are hard at work elsewhere, too, to get a handle on this possible planetary threat.

"I and others are trying to take field observations and get it scaled up to global models," said Alaska researcher Schuur. From some 400 boreholes drilled deep into the tundra worldwide, "we see historic warming of permafrost. Much of it is now around 2 below zero (28 F)," Schuur said.

A Coast Guard C-130 aircraft is overflying Alaska this summer with instruments sampling the air for methane and carbon dioxide. In parts of Alaska, scientists believe the number of "thermokarst" lakes - formed when terrain collapses over thawing permafrost and fills with meltwater - may have doubled in the past three decades. Those lakes then expand, thawing more permafrost on their edges, exposing more carbon.

Off Norway's Arctic archipelago of Svalbard last September, British scientists reported finding 250 methane plumes rising from the shallow seabed. They're probably old, scientists said, but only further research can assess whether they're stable. In March, Norwegian officials did say methane levels had risen on Svalbard.

Afloat above the huge, shallow continental shelf north of Siberia, Russian researchers have detected seabed "methane chimneys" sending gas bubbling up to the surface, possibly from hydrates.

Reporting to the European Geophysical Union last year, the scientists, affiliated with the University of Alaska and the Russian Academy of Sciences, cited "extreme" saturation of methane in surface waters and in the air above. They said up to 10 percent of the undersea permafrost area had melted, and it was "highly possible" that this would open the way to abrupt release of an estimated 50 billion tons of methane.

Depending on how much dissolved in the sea, that might multiply methane in the atmosphere several-fold, boosting temperatures enough to cause "catastrophic greenhouse warming," as the Russians called it. It would be self-perpetuating, melting more permafrost, emitting more methane.

Some might label that alarmism. And Stockholm University researcher Orjan Gustafsson, a partner in the Russians' field work, acknowledged that "the scientific community is quite split on how fast the permafrost can thaw."

But there's no doubt the north contains enough potential methane and carbon dioxide to cause abrupt climate change, Gustafsson said by telephone from Sweden.

Canada's pre-eminent permafrost expert, Chris Burn, has trekked to lonely locations in these high latitudes for almost three decades, meticulously chronicling the changes in the tundra.

On a stopover at the Aurora Research Institute in the Mackenzie Delta town of Inuvik, the Carleton University scientist agreed "we need many, many more field observations." But his teams have found the frozen ground warming down to about 80 meters, and he believes the world is courting disaster in failing to curb warming by curbing greenhouse emissions.

"If we lost just 1 percent of the carbon in permafrost today, we'd be close to a year's contributions from industrial sources," he said. "I don't think policymakers have woken up to this. It's not in their risk assessments."

How likely is a major release?

"I don't think it's a case of likelihood," he said. "I think we are playing with fire."

 

Arctic reverses trend, is warmest in two millennia
Sep 3, 2009 (2:35p CDT)
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID (AP Science Writer)

WASHINGTON - The Arctic is warmer than it's been in 2,000 years, even though it should be cooling because of changes in the Earth's orbit that cause the region to get less direct sunlight. Indeed, the Arctic had been cooling for nearly two millennia before reversing course in the last century and starting to warm as human activities added greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

"If it hadn't been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century," said Bette Otto-Bliesner, a National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist and co-author of a study of Arctic temperatures published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The most recent 10-year interval, 1999-2008, was the warmest of the last 2,000 years in the Arctic, according to the researchers led by Darrell S. Kaufman, a professor of geology and environmental science at Northern Arizona University.

Summer temperatures in the Arctic averaged 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than would have been expected if the cooling had continued, the researchers said.

The finding adds fuel to the debate over a House-passed climate bill now pending in the Senate. The administration-backed measure would impose the first limits on greenhouse gases and eventually would lead to an 80 percent reduction by putting a price on each ton of climate-altering pollution.

It is the latest in a drumbeat of reports on warming conditions in the Arctic, including:

_ A marine scientist reports that Alaskan waters are turning acidic from absorbing greenhouse gases faster than tropical waters, potentially endangering the state's $4.6 billion fishing industry.

_ NASA satellite measurements show that sea ice in the Arctic is more than just shrinking in area, it is dramatically thinning. The volume of older crucial sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk by 57 percent from the winter of 2004 to 2008.

_ Global warming effects in Alaska also include shrinking glaciers, coastal erosion and the march north of destructive forest beetles formerly held in check by cold winters.

And with the melting of land-based ice, such as the massive Greenland ice cap, sea levels could rise across the world, threatening millions who live in coastal cities.

The new report is based on a decade-by-decade reconstruction of temperatures over the past 2,000 years developed using information from ancient lake sediments, ice cores, tree rings and other samples. The findings were then compared with complex computer climate model simulations created at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

"This study provides us with a long-term record that reveals how greenhouse gases from human activities are overwhelming the Arctic's natural climate system," commented NCAR scientist David Schneider, a co-author on the study.

Added Jonathan T. Overpeck, a University of Arizona professor of geosciences: "The Arctic should be very sensitive to human-caused climate change, and our results suggest that indeed it is."

In addition, he pointed out, as the Arctic warms there is less snow and ice to reflect solar energy back into space and the newly exposed dark soil and dark ocean surfaces absorb solar energy and warm further, accelerating the warming process.

The Arctic cooling had been the result of a 21,000-year cycle in the Earth's movement that caused the far north to get progressively less summertime energy from the sun for the last 8,000 years. That process won't reverse for another several thousand years.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

 

Sept. 6, 2009 The Age Of Megafires

Thought you might want to see a video.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5291115n&tag=related;photovideo

 

Infectious Germ Found at Public Beaches
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP

SAN FRANCISCO (Sept. 12) - Dangerous staph bacteria have been found in sand and water for the first time at five public beaches along the coast of Washington, and scientists think the state is not the only one with this problem.

The germ is MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — a hard-to-treat bug once rarely seen outside of hospitals but that increasingly is spreading in ordinary community settings such as schools, locker rooms and gyms.

The germ causes nasty skin infections as well as pneumonia and other life-threatening problems. It spreads mostly through human contact. Little is known about environmental sources that also may harbor the germ.
Finding it at the beach suggests one place that people may be picking it up, said Marilyn Roberts, a microbiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"We don't know the risk" for any individual going to a beach, she said. "But the fact that we found these organisms suggests that the level is much higher than we had thought."

She presented results Saturday at an American Society for Microbiology conference in California. Last year, her team reported finding a different type of bacteria, enterococci, at five West Coast beaches. And earlier this year, University of Miami researchers reported finding staph bacteria in four out of 10 ocean water samples collected by hundreds of bathers at a South Florida beach.

Many communities also commonly restrict bathing at beaches because of contamination with fecal bacteria.

In the new study, researchers tested 10 beaches in Washington along the West Coast and in Puget Sound from February to September 2008. Staph bacteria were found at nine of them, including five with MRSA. The strains resembled the highly resistant ones usually seen in hospitals, rather than the milder strains acquired in community settings, Roberts said.

No staph was found in samples from two beaches in southern California.
People should not avoid beaches or be afraid to enjoy them, scientists say.
"It's probably prudent to shower when you come out" to lower the risk of bacteria staying on the skin, said Dr. Lance Peterson, a microbiologist at NorthShore University Health System in Evanston, Ill.

"Make sure you get all the sand off," and cover any open cuts or scrapes before playing in the sand, Roberts added. Digging in the sand or being buried in it seems to raise the risk of infection, she said.

 

AP IMPACT: Gov't stands by as mercury taints water
Sep 18, 2009 (7:00a CDT)
By JASON DEAREN (Associated Press Writer)

NEW IDRIA, Calif. - Abandoned mercury mines throughout central California's rugged coastal mountains are polluting the state's major waterways, rendering fish unsafe to eat and risking the health of at least 100,000 impoverished people.

But an Associated Press investigation found that the federal government has tried to clean up fewer than a dozen of the hundreds of mines - and most cleanups have failed to stem the contamination.

Although the mining ceased decades ago, records and interviews show the vast majority of sites have not even been studied to assess the pollution, let alone been touched.

While millions live in the affected Delta region, the pollution disproportionately hurts the poor and immigrants who rely on local fish as part of their diet, according to a study conducted by University of California, Davis ecologist Fraser Shilling. His research found that 100,000 people, which he calls a conservative estimate, regularly eat tainted fish at levels deemed unsafe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Tens of thousands of subsistence anglers and their (families) are consuming greater than 10 times the U.S. EPA recommended dose of mercury, which puts them at immediate risk of neurological and other harm," Shilling said.

But neither the state nor federal government has studied long-term health effects of mercury on the people who regularly eat fish from these waters.

The legacy of more than a century of mercury mining in California - which produced more of the silvery metal than anywhere else in the nation - harms people and the environment in myriad ways.

Near a derelict mine in this California ghost town, the water bubbling in a stream runs Day-Glo Orange and is devoid of life, carrying mercury toward a wildlife refuge and a popular fishing spot.

Far to the north, American Indians who live atop mine waste on the shores of one of the world's most mercury-polluted lakes have elevated levels of the heavy metal in their bodies and fears about their health.

And other mercury mines are the biggest sources of the pollution in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast.

In all, this metal known as quicksilver has contaminated thousands of square miles of water and land in the northern half of the state.

Records and interviews show that federal regulators have conducted about 10 cleanups at major mercury mines with mixed results, while dozens of sites still foul the air, soil and water. The AP's review also found that the government is often loathe to assume cleanup costs and risk litigation from a failed project.

Mercury from mine waste travels up the food chain through bacteria, which converts it to methylmercury - a potent toxin that can permanently damage the brain and nervous system, especially in fetuses and children.

The federal government calls methylmercury one of the nation's most serious hazardous waste problems, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is a possible carcinogen.

Mercury is considered most harmful to people when consumed in fish. People who regularly consume tainted fish are at risk of headaches, tingling, tremors and damage to the brain and nervous system, according to the CDC.

The toxin is less of a threat in drinking water, which is filtered and monitored more closely.

Mining in California ceased decades ago, leaving behind at least 550 mercury mines, though no one knows for sure how many. One U.S. Geological Survey scientist says the total may be as high as 2,000.

"Mercury tops the list as the most harmful invisible pollutant in the (state's) watershed," said Sejal Choksi of San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental watchdog group for the bay. "It has such widespread impacts, and the regulatory agencies are just throwing up their hands."

In the 19th and 20th centuries, California produced up to 90 percent of the mercury in the U.S. and more than 220 million pounds of quicksilver were shipped around the world for gold mining, military munitions and thermometers. Much of the liquid mercury was sent to Sierra Nevada gold mines, where miners spilled tons of it into streams and soil to extract the precious ore.

"There's probably a water body near everybody in the state that has significant mercury contamination," said Dr. Rick Kreutzer, chief of the state Department of Public Health's Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control.

Government officials blame mining companies for shirking their financial responsibilities to clean the sites, either by filing for bankruptcy or changing ownership.

When the government does target a site, success is not guaranteed.

The Sulfur Bank Mine has made the nearby Clear Lake the most mercury-polluted lake in the world, despite the EPA spending about $40 million and two decades trying to keep mercury contamination from the water. Pollution still seeps beneath the earthen dam built by the former mine operator, Bradley Mining Co.

For years, Bradley Mining has fought the government's efforts to recoup cleanup costs. An attorney for the company didn't return calls seeking comment.

For the Elem Band of Pomo Indians, whose colony is next to the lake and shuttered mine, the mercury has made it unsafe to eat local fish.

Their colony was built in 1970 by the federal government over waste from the mine. Officials knew it was contaminated, but were not aware at the time how dangerous mercury was to people. The mine is now a Superfund site.

State blood tests on 44 volunteer adult tribe members in the 1990s found elevated levels of mercury. The average level was three times higher than found in people who do not eat tainted fish, but regulators said only one man was at immediate risk of brain damage or other harm.

Yet the EPA determined that the tribe's mercury levels were a serious enough threat for the agency to spend millions of dollars removing contaminated dirt from the colony's homes and roads.

Many have moved from the colony, leaving about 60 of what was once a community of more than 200 people.

As a child, Rozan Brown, 31, said she ate lake fish, swam in the turquoise waters of the mine waste pit and played on mercury-tainted mine waste piles.

"When I was pregnant, I drank the water," Brown said. "When I was breast-feeding, I worked as a laborer during some of the (mercury) cleanups."

The CDC says high levels of mercury can cause brain damage and mental retardation in children when passed from mother to fetus. Brown's son, Tiyal, has been diagnosed with autism. The CDC has found no link between mercury and autism, but agency spokesperson Dagny Olivares said in an e-mail, "Additional information is needed to fully evaluate the potential health threats."

At most abandoned mercury mines, especially ones in remote places, nothing gets done at all.

Twenty-seven years ago the EPA shut down New Idria Mine, once the second-largest mercury producer in North America. The mine and its towering blast furnace still sit untouched. Acidic runoff flows from hills of waste and miles of tunnels into a pool that smells like rotten eggs. The toxic brew turns nearby San Carlos Creek orange and kills aquatic life before flowing into the San Joaquin River.

"It's really hard living up here," said Kate Woods, 51, standing on a wooden bridge in front of her rural home, tucked amid the hills and cattle ranches just downstream of the mine. "It would be paradise here but for this damned orange creek."

Woods and her brother, Kemp, experience tremors in their hands and headaches, she said, blaming prolonged mercury exposure through water and dust. The EPA found mercury in the creek exceeding federal standards in 1997, records show. Field researchers sent a "high priority" referral to state water quality regulators, warning the mercury could be migrating into a popular fishing area and eventually to the Delta-Mendota Canal, "a drinking water conveyance to other parts of California."

Neither agency undertook the expensive cleanup, nor did they conduct the follow-up studies to find out if New Idria's mercury was the source of the contamination found downstream.

EPA officials said mines such as New Idria are a concern but are not always the agency's highest priority.

"We are here to protect the environment, and sometimes we do it better than other times," said Daniel Meer, EPA's assistant Superfund director for the region. "We can't start cleaning up everything all at once."

The EPA, with financial help from the mine owners, has covered up waste piles at two mines feeding pollution into Cache Creek to try to reduce the mercury flowing into the Delta, but no one has touched the other problem sites.

At least 13 other mine sites also pollute Cache Creek, and are responsible for 60 percent of the mercury in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where thousands regularly catch and eat local fish, state water quality officials said.

"What can we do? We're evaluating that now," said Jerry Bruns, a mercury control official with the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board. "It's complicated, we can't just go in there and do whatever we want. There are Native American archaeological sites and different landowners."

A separate cluster of derelict mercury mines near San Jose has been called the largest source of the toxin in the San Francisco Bay's south end, where warning signs warn fishermen of the "poisonous mercury" polluting the water.

A solution to California's mercury pollution is nowhere near at hand, state and federal regulators say.

"It took a hundred years to occur," said the EPA's Meer. "And it may take a hundred years or more to solve."

 

Warming ocean melts Greenland glaciers
Sep 23, 2009 (11:37a CDT)
By KARL RITTER (Associated Press Writer)

SERMILIK FJORD, Greenland - With whale fins splashing in the distance, Ruth Curry hauls up her catch from the blustery deck of an icebreaker.

An orange tube fixed to a metal frame breaks the surface as the motorized winch stops groaning. Inside: data on the water temperature deep down in this glacial fjord off southeast Greenland.

"If you were to dip your hand in it, it doesn't seem that warm," says Curry, an American climate scientist. "But it is. It's warm enough to melt ice. And that's the important thing here."

Curry and her colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts zigzagged between majestic icebergs in the Sermilik fjord last month in search of proof that waters from warmer latitudes, or subtropical waters, are flushing through this remote and frigid region.

They found it - all the way up to the base of the outlet glaciers that spill into the ocean like tongues of ice from Greenland's massive ice sheet.

Coupled with similar findings off western Greenland, the discovery could help to explain why the glaciers have started flowing quicker in the past decade, a phenomenon that raised alarm because it contributes to rising sea levels.

"The measurements alone are not enough to conclude that the glacial melt is to a high degree driven by subtropical water. But I think the story is (starting) to come together," says research leader Fiamma Straneo.

The team found subtropical water with a temperature of about 39 Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) deep inside the Sermilik fjord.

The findings confirm the outcome of an undersea battle below the dark surface of the North Atlantic: Arctic waters that usually dominate this region have yielded to an influx of subtropical water carried north by westward branches of the current commonly called the Gulf Stream.

Scientists say it's a natural process - in one period the cold waters will have the upper hand, and in the next it's the other way round. But the rapidly increasing temperatures of the subtropical oceans suggest that the balance could be tilted beyond natural variability, Curry says.

"We've actually measured the waters at their source and have seen their temperature going up, up, up in a way that can't be explained without taking into account human influences," she says.

The research underscores the complex interaction between the world's oceans and a warming atmosphere.

Oceans help to contain global warming by absorbing about half of the carbon dioxide released by humans into the atmosphere, but the water also expands as it warms, raising sea levels.

It could also have a big impact on climate through feedback mechanisms, such as the melting of seaside glaciers and changes to ocean currents that warm or cool different parts of the globe.

In the June-August period, the world's ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record since 1880, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The surface temperature was 62.5 F (17 Celsius), 1 degree F (0.6 degrees C) above the 20th century average. Meteorologists say the reason was El Nino weather patterns combined with manmade global warming.

The North Atlantic has seen especially large changes in recent years.

The temperature of the water that flows into the Arctic has increased by as much as 3.5 degrees F (2 degrees C) since the 1990s, says Helge Drange, professor of oceanography at Norway's University of Bergen. "This can only be understood as a combined effect of natural variability and manmade warming," he says.

That has had a big impact on marine ecosystems, with fish traveling north into waters that were previously too cold for them. For example, more than 20 new species of fish have been found off Iceland, including blue sharks and flounders.

Meanwhile, cod has followed the warm water as it flows around Greenland's southern tip and up the giant island's west coast. "If you talk to local people they say it's fantastic because the Atlantic cod is coming," Drange says.

To many scientists, however, the shifts in ocean currents are no cause for celebration. Even if there's natural variability, there's concern that global warming may make the fluctuations more extreme.

And while some species thrive in warmer water, others that live on the edge of the Arctic, such as polar bears and seals, find their habitat melting away.

"We're heading off to a climate extreme and this is just going to snowball," says Curry, reflecting on the state of the global climate on the Greenpeace icebreaker hosting the Woods Hole research team.

"I think that we've done it, really kicked Earth's climate system. And that says a lot," she says. "It's a beast. It's huge. And to have moved it in as short a period of time as a 100 years, basically, to have done that is enormous."

 

AH!

too long never mind......





























jk

 

its not the end, its the new begining

 

oh and there is no question we are in the revalations age.


does no one see the irony of the title of the book "revelations" ?

because when all the shit is going down, you're going to look at the book and say "oh thats what it was talking about" but it'll be too late.

 

what the hell did you think it was called that for??????????

stupid post.

 

It depends on who you are, for some it truly is the end but for many it is a "new beginning".

 

Planned emission cuts still mean far hotter Earth
Sep 24, 2009 (5:13p CDT)
By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP Science Writer)

WASHINGTON - Earth's temperature is likely to jump nearly 6 degrees between now and the end of the century even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as proposed, according to a United Nations update.

Scientists looked at emission plans from 192 nations and calculated what would happen to global warming. The projections take into account 80 percent pollution cuts from the U.S. and Europe by 2050, which are not sure things.

The U.S. figure is based on a bill that passed the House of Representatives but is running into resistance in the Senate, where debate has been delayed by health care reform efforts.

Carbon dioxide, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, is the main cause of global warming, trapping the sun's energy in the atmosphere. The world's average temperature has already risen 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees Celsius) since the 19th century.

Much of projected rise in temperature is because of developing nations, which aren't talking much about cutting their emissions, scientists said at a United Nations press conference Thursday. China alone adds nearly 2 degrees (1 degree Celsius) to the projections.

"We are headed toward very serious changes in our planet," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N.'s environment program, which issued the update on Thursday.

Even if the developed world cuts its emissions by 80 percent and the developing world cuts theirs in half by 2050, as some experts propose, the world is still facing a 3-degree (1.7 degree Celsius) increase by the end of the century, said Robert Corell, a prominent U.S. climate scientist who helped oversee the update.

Corell said the most likely agreement out of the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December still translates into a nearly 5 degree (2.7 degree Celsius) increase in world temperature by the end of the century. European leaders and the Obama White House have set a goal to limit warming to just a couple degrees.

The U.N.'s environment program unveiled the update on peer-reviewed climate change science to tell diplomats how hot the planet is getting. The last big report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out more than two years ago and is based on science that is at least three to four years old, Steiner said.

Global warming is speeding up, especially in the Arctic, and that means that some top-level science projections from 2007 are already out of date and overly optimistic. Corell, who headed an assessment of warming in the Arctic, said global warming "is accelerating in ways that we are not anticipating."

Because Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting far faster than thought, it looks like the seas will rise twice as fast as projected just three years ago, Corell said. He said seas should rise about a foot every 20 to 25 years.

Other problems that have worsened since the 2007 report include the oceans getting more acidic - a threat to some sea creatures - and projections for regular long-term droughts in the U.S. Southwest.

"As sobering as this report is, it is not the worst case scenario," said U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, co-author of the bill that passed the U.S. House. "That would be if the world does nothing and allows heat-trapping pollution to continue to spew unchecked into the atmosphere."