Another sign of the Apocalypse?

NASA data: Greenland, Antarctic ice melt worsening
Sep 23, 2009 (12:01p CDT)
By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP Science Writer)

WASHINGTON - New satellite information shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica continue to shrink faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode.

British scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That's where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to a paper published online Thursday in the journal Nature.

Some of those areas are about a mile thick, so they've still got plenty of ice to burn through. But the drop in thickness is speeding up. In parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003.

These new measurements, based on 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, confirm what some of the more pessimistic scientists thought: The melting along the crucial edges of the two major ice sheets is accelerating and is in a self-feeding loop. The more the ice melts, the more water surrounds and eats away at the remaining ice.

"To some extent it's a runaway effect. The question is how far will it run?" said the study's lead author, Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey. "It's more widespread than we previously thought."

The study doesn't answer the crucial question of how much this worsening melt will add to projections of sea level rise from man-made global warming. Some scientists have previously estimated that steady melting of the two ice sheets will add about 3 feet, maybe more, to sea levels by the end of the century. But the ice sheets are so big it would probably take hundreds of years for them to completely disappear.

As scientists watch ice shelves retreat or just plain collapse, some thought the problem could slow or be temporary. The latest measurements eliminate "the most optimistic view," said Penn State University professor Richard Alley, who wasn't part of the study.

The research found that 81 of the 111 Greenland glaciers surveyed are thinning at an accelerating, self-feeding pace.

The key problem is not heat in the air, but the water near the ice sheets, Pritchard said. The water is not just warmer but its circulation is also adding to the melt.

"It is alarming," said Jason Box of Ohio State University, who also wasn't part of the study.

Worsening data, including this report, keep proving "that we're underestimating" how sensitive the ice sheets are to changes, he said.

 

well i guess i'm in the new beginning group then =]

 

That sinking feeling: world's deltas subsiding, says study
(AFP) LINK

PARIS — Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught in the scissors of sinking land and rising seas, according to a study published Sunday.

The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 85 percent of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres (100,000 square miles).
Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50 percent this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects.

Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says.
On a five-tier scale, three of the eleven deltas in the highest-risk category are in China: the Yellow River delta in the north, the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta next to Guangzhou.
The Nile in Egypt, the Chao Phraya in Thailand and the Rhone River delta in France are also in the top tier of danger.

Just below these in vulnerability are seven other highly-populated deltas, including the Ganges in Bangladesh, the Irrawaddy in Myanmar (Burma), the Mekong in Vietnam and the Mississippi in the United States.
These flood plains and others all face a double-barrelled threat, reports the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

On the one side, a range of human activity -- especially over the last half-century -- has caused many delta regions to subside.
Without human interference, deltas naturally accumulate sediment as rivers swell and spread over vast areas of land. But upstream damming and river diversions have held back the layers that would normally build up.

Intensive subsurface mining has also contributed mightily to the problem, notes the study, led by James Syvitski of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.

The Chao Phraya delta, for example, has sunk 50 to 150 millimetres (two to six inches) per year as a result of groundwater withdrawal, while a 3.7-metre (12-foot) subsidence of the Po Delta in Italy during the 20th century was due to methane mining.

Indeed, oil and gas mining contribute to so-called "accelerated compaction" in many of the most vulnerable deltas, according to the study, the first to analyse a decade's worth of global daily satellite images.

The other major threat is rising sea levels driven by global warming.
In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted oceans would rise by 18-59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.6 inches) by 2100.

More recent studies that take into account the impact of melting icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica have revised that estimate upwards to at least a metre (39 inches) by century's end.

The already devastating impact of such increases will be amplified by more intense storms and hurricanes, along with the loss of natural barriers such as mangroves.

In the Irrawaddy delta the coastal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis last year flooded an area up to six metres (20 feet) above sea level, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.
"All trends point to ever-increasing areas of deltas sinking below mean sea level," the researchers concluded.
"It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trends seems to be worsening."

LINK
​

 

Global Warming Fast Facts

National Geographic News

Global warming, or climate change, is a subject that shows no sign of cooling down.
Here's the lowdown on why it's happening, what's causing it, and how it might change the planet.

Is It Happening?
Yes. Earth is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.
• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.
• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.
• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.
• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.
• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.
• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.

Are Humans Causing It?
• "Very likely," the IPCC said in a February 2007 report.
The report, based on the work of some 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, concluded that humans have caused all or most of the current planetary warming. Human-caused global warming is often called anthropogenic climate change.
• Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth's surface. (See an interactive feature on how global warming works.)
• Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it.
• These gases persist in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even if such emissions were eliminated today, it would not immediately stop global warming.
• Some experts point out that natural cycles in Earth's orbit can alter the planet's exposure to sunlight, which may explain the current trend. Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today's changes have taken place over the past hundred years or less.
• Other recent research has suggested that the effects of variations in the sun's output are "negligible" as a factor in warming, but other, more complicated solar mechanisms could possibly play a role.

What's Going to Happen?
A follow-up report by the IPCC released in April 2007 warned that global warming could lead to large-scale food and water shortages and have catastrophic effects on wildlife.
• Sea level could rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by century's end, the IPCC's February 2007 report projects. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) could flood many South Seas islands and swamp large parts of Southeast Asia.
• Some hundred million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea level, and much of the world's population is concentrated in vulnerable coastal cities. In the U.S., Louisiana and Florida are especially at risk.
• Glaciers around the world could melt, causing sea levels to rise while creating water shortages in regions dependent on runoff for fresh water.
• Strong hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and other natural disasters may become commonplace in many parts of the world. The growth of deserts may also cause food shortages in many places.
• More than a million species face extinction from disappearing habitat, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans.
• The ocean's circulation system, known as the ocean conveyor belt, could be permanently altered, causing a mini-ice age in Western Europe and other rapid changes.
• At some point in the future, warming could become uncontrollable by creating a so-called positive feedback effect. Rising temperatures could release additional greenhouse gases by unlocking methane in permafrost and undersea deposits, freeing carbon trapped in sea ice, and causing increased evaporation of water.

 

Calif. citrus farmers fear tree-killing disease
Oct 8, 2009 (3:15a CDT)
By JACOB ADELMAN (Associated Press Writer)

ORANGE COVE, Calif. - Tom Mulholland is girding for battle against a tiny enemy that could devastate the orange grove he has spent his life cultivating. His adversary: the Asian citrus psyllid, a fruit-fly-sized insect with red eyes and a long, leaf-penetrating beak.

The psyllid, which can carry an incurable disease fatal to citrus trees, was spotted in August in Los Angeles, closer than ever before to the ribbon of central California where the state's $1.6 billion citrus-growing industry is concentrated.

The feared infestation has prompted Mulholland and other citrus-belt farmers to put screens around their young seedlings, vigorously inspect their mature trees and tax themselves to fund research to stop the psyllid.

"It's like a war," Mulholland said in his tidy office set amid some 400 acres of radiantly healthy Clementine and Satsuma trees on his farm some 200 miles north of Los Angeles in the San Joaquin Valley at the base of the foothills beneath Sequoia National Park. "We're sitting here trying to stop this thing, and it wants to keep pushing in."

California growers and agricultural officials are worried the state's citrus industry will be crippled by the disease carried by the psyllid, which devastated Florida's crops. The two states produced about 97 percent of the nation's 12 million tons of citrus during the fiscal year ending in June.

The huanglongbing disease, which spoils the flavor of the fruit and ultimately kills the tree, has been found in all of Florida's 32 citrus-producing counties since its discovery there in 2005, causing about $100 million in damages, said Andrew Meadows, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual, the state's grower trade association.

Florida officials have warned that their $9 billion citrus industry could be wiped out in a decade if a solution isn't found to the disease, also known as citrus greening because of the sickly green cast it lends to infected fruit.

"That's why California is so alarmed," said David Hall, an entomologist with the USDA's agricultural research service in Florida who worked on a team that sequenced the genome of the bacteria that causes citrus greening.

Huanglongbing has been found in Louisiana, Mexico, Brazil and China as well.

In California, the insect has so far been found among planted citrus trees in four southern counties, prompting quarantines that prohibit nurseries from shipping seedlings to other areas. Fruit grown in those counties also must be washed before it can be sold outside the quarantine zone.

Dogs trained to sniff out the pest found packages of curry leaves with psyllids in FedEx packages this summer in Fresno and Sacramento. Only the Fresno psyllids tested positive for huanglongbing.

The psyllid is not the only pest that could threaten California citrus. The state is also home to the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a threat to grapes but also capable of carrying a debilitating disease called citrus variegated chlorosis that has been spotted in Brazil.

California agriculture officials have also been locked in a decades-long struggle with the crop-eating Mediterranean fruit fly, which can harm citrus plants and hundreds of other fruits and vegetables.

But the potential devastation that could accompany a psyllid infestation is especially troubling for Mulholland and other citrus farmers, who have started building screens around the currently open-air nurseries where vulnerable seedlings are cultivated in rows of inverted plastic cones.

Allan Lombardi, who helps oversee 2,100 acres of pink-fleshed Cara Cara oranges, deep-red Fukumoto oranges and other high-value citrus as a manager with Central Valley grower Griffith Farms, said his company is scrambling to enclose its nurseries before the pest reaches the area, but that it's about two years from completion.

"If the disease shows up sooner than that, we'll have to have a Plan B, and I'm not sure what that will be," said Lombardi as he looked down a mountain slope and into a lush valley planted thickly with rows of oranges.

Citrus farmers have also started instructing workers to watch for signs of psyllid infestation, such as wilted-looking leaves or leaves covered in soot-like mold and white waxy deposits.

California's Citrus Research Board, which raises its $5.5 million operating budget by assessing citrus growers a nickel for every 55-pound box of fruit they sell, plans to contribute to the field checks with a team of up to 25 inspectors, operations chief MaryLou Polek said.

She said she hopes to poach trained inspectors from the state agriculture department whose hours or pay have been reduced due to budget cuts.

The board has also embarked on an effort to lay traps for the insect throughout the state that will be monitored by researchers carrying camera-equipped handheld devices that record the map coordinates where insects are found and take pictures of the damage.

That information, along with other data, will be beamed to a database so researchers can better track the insect's movement and deploy insecticides and other resources where they'll be most effective, she said.

Mulholland said he doesn't expect a cure to the disease any time soon, so those efforts to keep the disease-carrying insect from moving any farther north represent growers' best hope against the illness.

"It's like the AIDS of citrus. It's the very worst disease you can have," he said. "The question is, how do we keep the disease from spreading?"

 

Excellent posts OWB! Though not surprising (I too have spent many hours researching our plight) it still is chilling to see the destruction we have wrought.

My question to you...(coming from a non-believer) While it's understood that you think your Jesus is coming back to save you guys, does that not lead to a laisse-faire attitude toward doing anything? If you're gonna be saved and god will heal everything, why bother.
I have some New Age friends (I love em but think their nuts) who believe the aliens who planted us here will come back and save us.

While I respect the beliefs of all reasonable people it is my contention that we need to ALL work together to heal this planet and put those differences aside.

WE made this mess and like the babies that we are...WE expect Daddy God or the aliens or L. Ron Hubbard to clean up after us.

Zen

 

^^^^^^^ sounds like Satans got you friends life so sad.

 

Nah, I wouldn't say that. These folks are very good people.

I consider their beliefs silly (as I do some Christians) nothing more.

It's what you do, not what you believe. IMHO

Zen

 

Thanx! I knew we were in trouble but in discussing it with others, I was told; no, it's all a hoax. So I started this thread.

I guess it could but then I don't believe that a person with such an attitude should be called Christian.

As Jesus pointed out the first commandment is to love God completely and second love your neighbor as your self. So with that in mind, how can you take part in destroying the Earth, God's gift to man.

Although I believe man has already gone too far and only an act of God can save us now, I do not want to be one of those ruining the Earth and I'm doing what I can to hold back the tide of man's destruction.

Like I said, I think we have already gone too far but that does not stop me from working to do as much as I can to heal the planet, even though I believe it to be a lost cause.

Yes I agree we made this mess but the "governments" of the Earth continue to argue about how much to cut back, not stop but cut back, while all the while pouring more pollution into the air and water. So I can only hope that someone steps in and sets things straight because it sure doesn't look like mankind is going to do anything about it.

A long time ago, I made a rule for myself, any time I go hiking I try to take out of the woods more trash than I took in and if everybody did that there would be no trash left in the woods. The trouble is, in reality, for every extra piece of trash I carry out a hundred people carry more in and that means that the woods will never be cleaned up and although I know this I continue to follow my rule, doing the little bit I can.

 

New Age is trash and am sure your friends are nice people but thats that Opera trash shes teaching......

 

I don't like going off-topic here. This thread has garnered my interest. but....

That isn't nice or respectful of others. Would you not be offended if someone called your belief trash??

These folks are beyond nice. Loving, caring, giving and they believe in the same deity as you. They don't watch tv...no Oprah for them!!!

OWB, Now that is what I like to hear from believers!!! Your take on caring for the gift we've been given is spot on. IMHO
Unfortunately, I believe you're in the minority of Christians who feel this way.
(I live in the South and in conversations with the bible thumpers, who are always welcomed here, almost all have felt that god would take care of it all)

And so....it seems we're on the same wavelength on our beliefs concerning our worlds environmental disaster. How do we get people of all beliefs (or none) to realize just how bad it is?

My thanks to you for your work. Like you I haul out more than I bring in when in the woods. I used to pick up trash in town but it became overwhelming.
I do believe we're totally screwed environmentally but I'm still compelled to do what I can.
Whether or not I believe as you, this life and planet ARE wonderful gifts to be cherished and nurtured.

Zen

 

If you have news about nature in retreat, from more or less mainstream press, please feel free to post it.

Actually people call my beliefs "trash" all the time, just check out some of the other threads I've posted in, so I've come to think of it as funny.

Also anything that teaches people to be nice and respectful can't be all bad but if I was asked directly about what I thought of some thing like "New Age", I wouldn't beat around the bush but I would tell them directly what I thought with as much tact as possible.

Like I say; that can't be all bad.

Jesus said there would be two groups calling themselves Christian and Jesus said that one group he would accept and the other he would reject and that the one he would accept, would indeed be a small group. That's not to say I'm in that small group but I sure like to think I am.

As for God taking care of it all, I do believe he will but that does not relieve us of his original purpose for us, of taking care of the Earth and turning it in to a paradise and so we, to the best of our ability, must continue to fulfill that responsibility.

I think one of the big barriers that stands in the way is self interest. People want cheap gas, so pump more oil. People want more cheap electricity, so dig and burn more coal. People want a high standard of living, so let's keep grinding out throw away junk.

I still from time to time will pick up some trash in town (if it's close to a trash can).

I think we are on the same page or pretty close to it.

 

Am used of it.........

 

Remember, all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

I quote this to mean that those who call other belief systems trash, will likewise be labeled.

This does not mean that we should not speak out about false or evil systems of religion. I do believe that as Christians we have a duty to say what our faith teaches and what it teaches against.

What I really mean is that although we are called to be witnesses to the faith, we are also called to not be jackasses to others IMO. Jesus didn't say "your beliefs are trash" to the Samaritan woman. He laid out specifics and was fairly cordial. It is not with shear volume and shock that turns hearts to the Lord, but truth and the love found within truth.

 

true..... and your correct and I apologize to the poster....

 

Well don't beat yourself up over it, though.

I never even really thought about this. I really just thought immediately that it didn't sound very Christ-like, and then looked for a scripture to back it up. And to be fair, how often are we criticized for being jackasses--if we set an example for Christians and non-Christians alike then hopefully that image will change. I will even admit I've been a bit of a tool when it comes to being a little "foam at the mouth agitated" when it comes to apologetics.

BTW- hilarious signature

 

Well back to business;

Scientists race to prevent ash tree's extinction

Tens of millions of ash seeds to be frozen until deadly pest is contained


Mark Widrlechner,
horticulturist for the federal Agriculture Research Service in Ames, Iowa,
stands next to an ash tree Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009.

By Melanie S. Welte
AP
updated 9:26 a.m. MT, Thurs., Oct . 8, 2009

DES MOINES, Iowa - Mark Widrlechner is out to save a species from extinction.
It's the native ash tree, and although it provides $25 billion worth of timber and decorates backyards across North America, an unstoppable bug has slowly killed millions of trees in 13 states and could cause the species' ultimate demise — unless Widrlechner is successful.

The horticulturist for the federal Agriculture Research Service in Iowa is heading an effort to collect tens of millions of ash seeds from across the U.S. that can be frozen and ready to plant when researchers figure out how to kill or control the emerald ash borer.

The process is tedious since seeds must be hand-picked from branches only in the fall. But scientists hope to avoid what happened to the American elm, chestnut and butternut trees, which were nearly wiped out by disease.

Widrlechner said the ash borer is especially devastating because it can kill very young trees and reduce the possibility that the species develop a tolerance.

"This one to me looks like it's much more likely to lead to extinction if we don't do anything about it," predicted Widrlechner, who also is a professor at Iowa State University in Ames.

Ash trees are used commercially for baseball bats, kitchen cabinets and other products, and dominate the landscape in parts of the Midwest.

In Kansas and Nebraska, they account for 25 percent to 35 percent of trees and up to 60 percent in some North Dakota communities. In Iowa alone there are an estimated 88 million ash trees, state experts said.

The eastern U.S. produces nearly 114 million board feet of ash saw timber valued at $25 billion, according to the 2009 manual by the Department of Agriculture on the emerald ash borer. The potential impact on the urban landscape could include 30 million to 90 million trees and cause $20 billion to $60 billion in damage, the report estimated.

The insect is native to Asia and was first identified in the U.S. in 2002, when it was spotted in Michigan. It's now found in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The adult beetles are relatively harmless and nibble on leaves, but the larvae are deadly. They drill into trees, eat through the vascular tissue and stop the flow of water. An infested tree can die within a few years, and the emerging generation of beetles moves to other trees, Widrlechner said.

Federal and state agencies tried to limit the ash borer's movement through quarantines, but scientists agree that there's no way to stop the insect's spread unless new techniques are developed.

"This pest is one like we've never dealt with before," said John Bedford, pest response program manager with the Michigan Department of Agriculture. "It doesn't seem to leave much in its wake."

In parts of Michigan, "a majority of the ash trees are dead and gone," he said.

Crews have collected at least 2 million seeds from stands of green, white, black, blue and pumpkin ash — only about 10 percent of the number needed to ensure the diversity of each species is represented, Widrlechner estimates.

Noel Schneeberger, an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service, said billions of ash trees are scattered across the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The seed collection project began in New England in 2007, then expanded to Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri. It also includes the Forest Service, the National Resources Conservation Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Interior Department, several state forest agencies, American Indian tribes, botanical gardens and even people with ash trees in their yards.

Ash seeds grow in clusters on branches with anywhere from a dozen to 50 seeds hanging in a group. The seeds are hand-picked in the fall and put in paper bags, then dried and sorted. Seeds shared with researchers are put in large jars and refrigerated, Widrlechner said.

Seeds in the "base collection," which will be used to replenish the ash species, are sealed in plastic and stored in a walk-in freezer. Some remain at the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, and some are sent to the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colo.

A similar but smaller project by the Department of Agriculture and North Carolina State University is under way for the Eastern and North Carolina hemlocks, which are threatened by the Hemlock woolly adelgid.

Large-scale seed collections were not taken before diseases nearly wiped out Dutch elms between 1930 and the mid-1970s and American chestnut trees by the 1950s. Butternut, a hardwood native to eastern North American forests, is still affected by a canker disease.

Schneeberger hopes the ash tree will avoid a similar fate. He said the problem shows that urban areas must use a variety of trees, noting that many ash trees were largely planted to replace dying elms.

"We need to pay attention to planting the right trees for the right place in urban areas and diversify the urban canopy," Schneeberger said. "We don't plant one street full of ash, for example, we plant a variety of species."

 

Its ok I thought I was a bit of jackass too in calling it trash..........

 

Led by China, carbon pollution up despite economy
Nov 17, 2009 (2:57p CST)
By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP Science Writer)

WASHINGTON - Pollution typically declines during a recession. Not this time. Despite a global economic slump, worldwide carbon dioxide pollution jumped 2 percent last year, most of the increase coming from China, according to a study published online Tuesday.

"The growth in emissions since 2000 is almost entirely driven by the growth in China," said study lead author Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia. "It's China and India and all the developing countries together."

Carbon dioxide emissions, the chief man-made greenhouse gas, come from the burning of coal, oil, natural gas, and also from the production of cement, which is a significant pollution factor in China. Worldwide emissions rose 671 million more tons from 2007 to 2008. Nearly three-quarters of that increase came from China.

The numbers are from the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

According to the study, the 2008 emissions increase was smaller than normal for this decade. Annual global pollution growth has averaged 3.6 percent. This year, scientists are forecasting a nearly 3 percent reduction, despite China because of the massive economic slowdown in most of the world and in the United States.

The U.S. is still the biggest per capita major producer of man-made greenhouse gases, spewing about 20 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year. The world average is 5.3 tons and China is at 5.8 tons

Last year, the U.S. emissions fell by 3 percent, a reduction of nearly 192 million tons of carbon dioxide. Overall European Union emissions dropped by 1 percent. The U.S. is still the No. 2 biggest carbon polluter overall, emitting more than the next four largest polluting countries combined: India, Russia, Japan and Germany. China has been No. 1, since pushing past the United States in 2006.

The world remains on a dangerous path, despite the recession, scientists said.

"There's a very clear gap between the path we are on and the path we should be on if the goal is to limit global warming to 2 degrees (1.3 degrees Celsius)," said Le Quere, who also works for the British Antarctic Survey.

The world has spewed 715.3 trillion tons of industrial carbon dioxide since 1982, which is the same amount civilization produced in all the previous years, said study co-author Gregg Marland of the Oak Ridge National Lab.

Outside scientists said the study was thorough and the results sobering.

"Basically these numbers are screaming out at decision makers that whatever they are doing now is not working," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn't involved in the study.

The report comes as countries from around the world prepare for a December U.N. conference on reducing carbon emissions. Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen of Denmark, who will host the conference in Copenhagen, said Tuesday that President Barack Obama supported his proposal for a sweeping political deal that would include commitments by industrial countries to reduce carbon emissions and to provide funds for less developed countries to fight the effects of global warming.

Obama, who was in China, said after a meeting with President Hu Jintao Tuesday that he wanted an all-encompassing agreement in Copenhagen, even if it falls short of a legal treaty. And he said he wants something "that has immediate operational effect."

Le Quere said the numbers point specifically to developing world as the cause for the most recent growth.

China is opening up new coal-fired power plants at a breakneck pace and carbon dioxide emissions in that country have doubled since 2001.

Not all the emission increases in China and other developing countries come from new power plants. About one-quarter of the emissions growth is because western countries, like the United States, buy more manufactured products from those countries, Le Quere and Marland said.

"We're shipping our emissions offshore," Marland said.

Other countries beside China to increase their carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5 million tons in 2008 were India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Iran, Poland, Mexico, Canada and the Netherlands.

The paper also raised concerns because it shows that the percentage of carbon dioxide emissions that hang in the air - compared to those sucked into the oceans and forests - is growing.

Fifty years ago, only 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions stayed in the air. Now in this decade it's up to 45 percent, Le Quere said.

That steady rise is alarming because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer it gets, and the warmer it gets, the higher percentage of carbon dioxide stays in the air, Le Quere said.

It's a feedback loop that is not good news for global warming, she said.

 

Jellyfish swarm northward in warming world
Nov 16, 2009 (10:58a CST)
By MICHAEL CASEY (AP Environmental Writer)

KOKONOGI, Japan - A blood-orange blob the size of a small refrigerator emerged from the dark waters, its venomous tentacles trapped in a fishing net. Within minutes, hundreds more were being hauled up, a pulsating mass crowding out the catch of mackerel and sea bass.

The fishermen leaned into the nets, grunting and grumbling as they tossed the translucent jellyfish back into the bay, giants weighing up to 200 kilograms (450 pounds), marine invaders that are putting the men's livelihoods at risk.

The venom of the Nomura, the world's largest jellyfish, a creature up to 2 meters (6 feet) in diameter, can ruin a whole day's catch by tainting or killing fish stung when ensnared with them in the maze of nets here in northwest Japan's Wakasa Bay.

"Some fishermen have just stopped fishing," said Taiichiro Hamano, 67. "When you pull in the nets and see jellyfish, you get depressed."

This year's jellyfish swarm is one of the worst he has seen, Hamano said. Once considered a rarity occurring every 40 years, they are now an almost annual occurrence along several thousand kilometers (miles) of Japanese coast, and far beyond Japan.

Scientists believe climate change - the warming of oceans - has allowed some of the almost 2,000 jellyfish species to expand their ranges, appear earlier in the year and increase overall numbers, much as warming has helped ticks, bark beetles and other pests to spread to new latitudes.

The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.

A 2008 foundation study cited research estimating that people are stung 500,000 times every year - sometimes multiple times - in Chesapeake Bay on the U.S. East Coast, and 20 to 40 die each year in the Philippines from jellyfish stings.

In 2007, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland lost its more than 100,000 fish to an attack by the mauve stinger, a jellyfish normally known for stinging bathers in warm Mediterranean waters. Scientists cite its migration to colder Irish seas as evidence of global warming.

Increasingly polluted waters - off China, for example - boost growth of the microscopic plankton that "jellies" feed upon, while overfishing has eliminated many of the jellyfish's predators and cut down on competitors for plankton feed.

"These increases in jellyfish should be a warning sign that our oceans are stressed and unhealthy," said Lucas Brotz, a University of British Columbia researcher.

Here on the rocky Echizen coast, amid floodlights and the roar of generators, fishermen at Kokonogi's bustling port made quick work of the day's catch - packaging glistening fish and squid in Styrofoam boxes for shipment to market.

In rain jackets and hip waders, they crowded around a visitor to tell how the jellyfish have upended a way of life in which men worked fishing trawlers on the high seas in their younger days and later eased toward retirement by joining one of the cooperatives operating nets set in the bay.

It was a good living, they said, until the jellyfish began inundating the bay in 2002, sometimes numbering 500 million, reducing fish catches by 30 percent and slashing prices by half over concerns about quality.

Two nets in Echizen burst last month during a typhoon because of the sheer weight of the jellyfish, and off the east coast jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued.

"We have been getting rid of jellyfish. But no matter how hard we try, the jellyfish keep coming and coming," said Fumio Oma, whose crew is out of work after their net broke under the weight of thousands of jellyfish. "We need the government's help to get rid of the jellyfish."

The invasions cost the industry up to 30 billion yen ($332 million) a year, and tens of thousands of fishermen have sought government compensation, said scientist Shin-ichi Uye, Japan's leading expert on the problem.

Hearing fishermen's pleas, Uye, who had been studying zooplankton, became obsessed with the little-studied Nomura's jellyfish, scientifically known as Nemopilema nomurai, which at its biggest looks like a giant mushroom trailing dozens of noodle-like tentacles.

"No one knew their life cycle, where they came from, where they reproduced," said Uye, 59. "This jellyfish was like an alien."

He artificially bred Nomura's jellyfish in his Hiroshima University lab, learning about their life cycle, growth rates and feeding habits. He traveled by ferry between China to Japan this year to confirm they were riding currents to Japanese waters.

He concluded China's coastal waters offered a perfect breeding ground: Agricultural and sewage runoff are spurring plankton growth, and fish catches are declining. The waters of the Yellow Sea, meanwhile, have warmed as much as 1.7 degrees C (3 degrees F) over the past quarter-century.

"The jellyfish are becoming more and more dominant," said Uye, as he sliced off samples of dead jellyfish on the deck of an Echizen fishing boat. "Their growth rates are quite amazing."

The slight, bespectacled scientist is unafraid of controversy, having lobbied his government tirelessly to help the fishermen, and angered Chinese colleagues by arguing their government must help solve the problem, comparing it to the effects of acid rain that reaches Japan from China.

"The Chinese people say they will think about this after they get rich, but it might be too late by then," he said.

A U.S. marine scientist, Jennifer Purcell of Western Washington University, has found a correlation between warming and jellyfish on a much larger scale, in at least 11 locations, including the Mediterranean and North seas, and Chesapeake and Narragansett bays.

"It's hard to deny that there is an effect from warming," Purcell said. "There keeps coming up again and again examples of jellyfish populations being high when it's warmer." Some tropical species, on the other hand, appear to decline when water temperatures rise too high.

Even if populations explode, their numbers may be limited in the long term by other factors, including food and currents. In a paper last year, researchers concluded jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea - which by 2000 were 40 times higher than in 1982 - declined even as temperatures have hit record highs.

"They were still well ahead of their historic averages for that region," said co-author Lorenzo Ciannelli of Oregon State University. "But clearly jellyfish populations are not merely a function of water temperature."

Addressing the surge in jellyfish blooms in most places will require long-term fixes, such as introducing fishing quotas and pollution controls, as well as capping greenhouse gas emissions to control global warming, experts said.

In the short term, governments are left with few options other than warning bathers or bailing out cash-strapped fishermen. In Japan, the government is helping finance the purchase of newly designed nets, a layered system that snares jellyfish with one kind of net, allowing fish through to be caught in another.

Some entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are trying to cash in. One Japanese company is selling giant jellyfish ice cream, and another plans a pickled plum dip with chunks of giant jellyfish. But, though a popular delicacy, jellyfish isn't likely to replace sushi or other fish dishes on Asian menus anytime soon, in view of its time-consuming processing, heavy sodium overload and unappealing image.