New Study Supported by Aarhus University, The Danish Polar Center and the U.S. National Science Foundation Finds the Changes That Have Taken Place in the Arctic May be Irreversible

An adult female caribou and her newborn calf in Greenland during 2008-2009. Caribou numbers have been declining as a result of climate change. Credit: Eric Post, Penn State University. Source: LiveScience.

Arctic fox near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Arctic foxes are being displaced by red foxes, previously confined to lower, warmer latitudes. Credit: Eric Post, Penn State University. Source: LiveScience.

Cotton grass near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Grasses are expanding in some areas of the Arctic as a result of climate change. Credit: Eric Post, Penn State University. Source: LiveScience.

"Andrea Thompson, of LiveScience has written: "The dramatic changes sweeping the Arctic as a result of global warming aren't just confined to melting sea ice and polar bears — a new study finds that the forces of climate change are propagating throughout the frigid north, producing different effects in each ecosystem with the upshot that the face of the Arctic may be forever altered.

"The Arctic as we know it may be a thing of the past," said Eric Post of Penn State, who led an international team that brought together research on the effects of climate change from ecosystems across the Arctic.

"The study, detailed in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Science, is one of the first to knit together and bring light to the details of the multitude of changes from across the region.

"Usually, when people talk about declines in the Arctic, they show a figure with declining sea ice extent and then show a picture of a polar bear. This study tries to move beyond such recourse by citing the wide array of papers that quantify ecological decline in the Arctic," said Ken Caldeira of Stanford University, who was not involved in the study. "I know of no similar paper that brings together such a wealth of scholarship on the state of Arctic ecosystems."

Arctic amplification

"While the Earth on average has warmed by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.4 degrees Celsius) over the past 150 years, the Arctic has warmed by two to three times that amount.

"This amplification of the global warming signal in the Arctic is partly the result of a self-feeding cycle: As sea ice melts, the oceans absorb more heat from the sun's rays, causing less ice to re-form come winter.

"In the last two to three decades alone, the amount of ice covering the Arctic at the summer minimum has declined by about 17,000 square miles (45,000 square kilometers, or about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined) a year, the researchers say, in addition to breaking up earlier in the season and freezing back later.

"Snow cover over land has also decreased in the northernmost latitudes, as well as melting earlier come spring.

"These physical changes to the environment are having a profound impact on the flora and fauna that dwell in the Arctic.

"Species on land and at sea are suffering adverse consequences of human behavior at latitudes thousands of miles away," Post said. "It seems that no matter where you look — on the ground, in the air or in the water — we're seeing signs of rapid change."

Ice melt and migrations

"Arctic species that are dependent on the stability and persistence of the ice sheet — of which the polar bear is the most widely-recognized example — are particularly feeling the brunt of climate change. The loss of sea ice is causing a rapid decline in the number of ivory gulls, Pacific walrus, ringed seals, hooded seals, narwhals, and of course, polar bears.

"Polar bears and ringed seals both give birth in lairs or caves under the snow. If these refuges collapse in unusually early spring rains, the newborn pups end up lying exposed on the ice, where they die from hypothermia or predation.

"Other species are being threatened by the northward migrations of species once confined to more hospitable lower latitudes. One of the most visible invaders is the red fox, which is displacing the native Arctic fox.

"The winter moth, which defoliates mountain birch forests, has also been marching poleward, as have Low Arctic trees and shrubs, which affect the dynamics of an ecosystem. Adding more shrubs and trees to the landscape promotes deeper snow accumulation, which increases winter soil temperatures. Warmer soils mean more microbial activity, which makes the habitat even more suitable for shrubs.

"The addition of shrubs also propagates changes throughout the ecosystem and affects the ability of the tundra (or frozen soil) to store carbon: While more shrubs may lengthen the period of the growing season when the soil acts as a carbon sink, it also provides more food for grazing musk oxen and reindeer, who limit the carbon-soaking ability as they trim the plants. Grazing, trampling and defecation by herbivores also promote the growth and spread of grasses, which attract geese. Geese, in turn, can influence the productivity of lakes where they rest and graze.

Good for me, bad for you

"The changes in Arctic ecosystems can have opposing impacts on different species, with some even benefiting from them.

"The study found that wild reindeer on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard benefit from earlier snow melt. With less snow on the ground and a longer growing season, the nonmigratory reindeer can take advantage of an explosion in plant abundance. The result is more reindeer, as they are more able to reproduce and less likely to die.

"On the losing side of the equation are migratory caribou in Low Arctic Greenland, whose numbers the researchers find are declining. The caribou haven't been able to adjust their calving season to keep in step with the change in plant season, so new mothers in need of more food have less available and more calves die. Hotter summers may also bring more insects and parasites to prey on the caribou.

"The reduction in caribou numbers in turn impacts the local indigenous human populations: "Inuit hunters at my study site in Greenland have all but given up on hunting caribou there," Post said.

Forecasting the future

"Understanding why some ecosystems benefit or are less impacted by climate change while others are on the brink of collapse is one area that the researchers say needs more attention.

"Documenting the changes in this region is also key to developing any conservation plans, particularly because there are relatively few species in the Arctic.

"There is little functional redundancy among species in Arctic ecosystems," Post said. "Therefore, relatively small shifts in species ranges or abundances may cause fundamental changes in a unique ecosystem that also is important for tourism and traditional cultures."

"The rapid changes in the Arctic also provide a way for scientists to tackle a long-standing problem in climate research, predicting what will happen to ecosystems in a warming world, Caldeira said. While some predictions, such dipping polar bear numbers from sea ice melt, are more predictable, others, such as the dynamics between shrub growth and grazing, are harder to predict.

"The Arctic is, unfortunately, a good early laboratory in which to test our predictions of ecosystem response to global change," Caldeira told LiveScience.

"To better understand the changes taking place in the Arctic — and the Earth as a whole — the team proposes a series of studies across the region to monitor the drivers of climate change and the biological responses to them over the long term.

"We've seen a great deal of emphasis recently on the melting of Arctic ice," Post said. "The broad, rapid, and in some cases devastating changes documented in this paper remind us of why it's important to give consideration to the consequences of rising temperatures."

"The study was supported by Aarhus University, The Danish Polar Center and the U.S. National Science Foundation."

    * Arctic News, Images and Information

    * North vs. South Pole: 10 Wild Differences

    * The Science of Global Warming

Extraordinary Images of Glaciers Photographed by Astronauts and Satellites Impressively Detail the Effects of Global Warming

From time to time, WIRED SCIENCE provides its readers with an impressive array of photos that visually present a compelling scientific issue. In the case concerning glaciers, they have a very important role in carving out and shaping the surface landscape features of the Earth. Because they are thousands of years old, glaciers provide scientists with access to the actual conditions of Earth's ancient atmospheres. Contemporary issues of global warming are witnessed by scientists who monitor the melting of glacial formations. Such is the case with the presentation on glaciers that follows:

Bear Glacier, Alaska

"This image taken in 2005 of Bear Glacier highlights the beautiful color of many glacial lakes. The hue is caused by the silt that is finely ground away from the valley walls by the glacier and deposited in the lake. The particles in this “glacial flour” can be very reflective, turning the water into a distinctive greenish blue. The lake, eight miles up from the terminus of the glacier, was held in place by the glacier, but in 2008 it broke through and drained into Resurrection Bay in Kenai Fjords National Park.

"The grey stripe down the middle of the glacier is called a medial moraine. It is formed when two glaciers flow into each other and join on their way downhill. When glaciers come together, their lateral moraines, long ridges formed along their edges as the freeze-thaw cycle of the glacier breaks off chunks of rock from the surrounding walls, meet to form a rocky ridge along the center of the joined glaciers."

Image: GeoEye/NASA, 2005

Heiltskuk Ice Field, British Columbia

"Covering nearly 1,400 square miles, the vast Heiltskuk Ice Field lies in the southern Coast Mountains of British Columbia. Taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station, this photo captures the snow-covered mountain slopes as well as several of the ice field’s valley glaciers, which are wide swaths of slowly flowing ice and debris. As these glaciers creep downhill, they carve out large U-shaped valleys that will remain long after the glacier melts. In fact, scientists use these characteristic valleys to identify regions that were once covered in ice but are now glacier-free.

"The two largest valley glaciers shown here are the Silverthrone Glacier and the Klinaklini Glacier, which merge with each other at the top of the photo. The dark lines of rock and detritus of the lateral and medial moraines along the edges and middle of the glaciers are clearly visible."

Image: NASA, 2009.

 

 

Erebus Ice Tongue, Antarctica

"The saw-shaped projection jutting out from this glacier is known as the Erebus Ice Tongue, a long, narrow sheet of ice almost 7 miles long and 33 feet high. This peculiar structure is formed as the Erebus glacier in Antarctica flows rapidly down Mount Erebus and into the McMurdo Sound. During the summer, when the rest of the sea ice in McMurdo melts, the ice tongue floats on the water without thawing. As waves of sea water crash over the sides of the tongue, they carve elaborate shapes and sometimes create deep caves along the edges of the ice sheet. Occasionally, sections of the ice tongue calve off to form small icebergs.

"Data for this false-color landscape was captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite, and the image was created by combining data in various wavelengths."

Image: NASA/ASTER, 2001

Western Greenland Valley

"This natural-color image captured in August shows several small glaciers spilling into a mostly dry valley in western Greenland that itself was formed by a glacier in the past. Ground up rock from past glaciations has collected in the valley, giving the pools of water at the snouts of the current glaciers a turquoise color.

"The photo was aqcuired by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite."

Image: NASA, 2009

 

 

Grey Glacier, Chile

"Part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field of Chile and Argentina, Grey Glacier covered 104 square miles when it was measured in 1996. By 2007, when this photograph was taken by astronauts from the International Space Station, the glacier had shrunk considerably, as seen in a comparative false-color image. Scientists think increased regional temperatures and changes in the amount of precipitation have led to more ice calving off as free-floating chunks, and less ice being replenished each year.

"In the natural-color image above, Grey Glacier looks pale blue because ice absorbs red wavelengths of light and scatters blue. The rough surface of this part of the glacier is caused by vertical cracks in the surface called crevasses, which are formed near the ends of glaciers as the flow of ice at the bottom speeds up relative to the brittle ice on top."

Image: NASA, 2007.

Eugenie Glacier, Dobbin Bay in the Canadian Arctic

"This stunning shot of the Eugenie Glacier in the Canadian Arctic was taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite, which takes high-resolution images designed to detect even minute changes in the extent and features of the world’s glaciers.

"This image highlights the fact that glaciers are flowing much like water but at a far slower pace. Smaller glaciers flow down valleys like river tributaries into larger glaciers. The bottom of Eugenie Glacier is floating on the surface of Dobbin Bay; a close-up of the tongue shows extensive surface cracks and calving of small icebergs into the bay."

Image: NASA/ASTER, 2000

Retreat of the Helheim Glacier, Greenland

"Glaciers stay intact as long as the ice thickness and water depth allow them to stay firmly attached to the ground. But when the ice becomes too thin or the water gets too deep, the tip of a glacier starts to float and rapidly cracks into icebergs, creating what’s called a “calving edge.” This photograph, captured by NASA’s Terra satellite in 2003, shows the calving edge of the Helheim Glacier in Greenland. Comparing similar images from 2001 and 2005 reveals that the solid portion of the glacier has been shrinking rapidly. Measurements from NASA reveal that in just four years, the glacier’s margin retreated 4.7 miles and its flow speed increased from 5 to 7.5 miles per year. Between 2001 and 2003, the thickness of the glacier also shrunk by about 131 feet.

"Unfortunately, the entire Greenland Ice Sheet has been undergoing similar shrinkage, thinning by tens of yards in the past decade. While warmer temperatures have certainly caused some of the thinning, scientists also think that the retreat of the ice margin has played a role: With less grounded ice to slow the ice sheet down, it’s moving out to sea at a faster rate."

Image: NASA ASTER, 2003.

Ellesmere Island National Park Reserve

"This false-color composite image shows a tidewater glacier in the Greely Fjord that extends out over the sea water for a short distance and breaks off into icebergs, which can be seen floating away. The dark spots on the glaciers are likely melt ponds. The pond water is darker than the surface of the glacier and consequently absorbs more heat, which melts more ice and causes the ponds to grow. Sometimes, water from glacial melt ponds will flow through cracks in the glacier to the base, lubricating the surface and causing the glacier to flow more quickly."

Image: NASA/ASTER, 2003.

Mt. Rainier, Washington

"At 14,411 feet, Mt. Rainier is the tallest volcano in the Cascade Range and has a 1,280 foot-wide summit crater. On its eastern slope, it hosts Emmons Glacier, the largest glacier in the lower 48 states. Rainier is an active volcano that is continuously monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cascade Volcano Observatory. And though it last erupted in 1840, it is considered the most hazardous volcano in the country, in part because of the risk of flooding from melting glaciers in the event of an eruption. This photo was captured on a rare clear day by astronauts on the International Space Station."

Image: NASA, 2005

Upsala Glacier, Patagonian Argentina

"Upsala Glacier is the third largest glacier of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field at around 300 square miles and ends in Lake Argentino. Patagonian glaciers have been retreating rapidly in recent decades, some as much as 2.5 miles between the late 1960s and mid 1990s, making them a target for International Space Station crew observations. Upsala appears to still be retreating with visible changes between this photo taken in 2004 and another from 2000."

Image: NASA, 2004

Byrd Glacier, Antarctica

"The Byrd Glacier near McMurdo Station in Antarctica runs 100 miles through a steep 15-mile-wide valley in the Transatlantic Mountains. This fast-flowing glacier moves ice toward the Ross Ice Shelf at the rate of one half mile a year and adds more ice to the ice sheet than any other glacier. Images such as this one from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat-7 satellite have been combined to form the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica. The mosaic incorporates more than 1,000 images."

Image: USGS, 1999

Pasterze Glacier, Austria

European glaciers have been rapidly retreating in recent years, due to higher summer temperatures and lower winter precipitation. Pasterze Glacier has been shrinking since 1856. Satellite data such as this image is used by scientists to keep track of the movement of glaciers around the world.

Image: NASA, 2001.

 

 

Bering Glacier, Alaska

Bering Glacier, combined with the ice field that feeds it, is the largest glacier in North America at 2,000 square miles, as well as the longest at 118 miles. This glacier has retreated around 7.5 miles and thinned by several hundred yards over the last century, though it is still around 2,500 feet thick in some places. Scientists think the shrinking of Alaskan glaciers such as Bering has reduced the pressure on the boundary between tectonic plates beneath them and consequently increased the number of earthquakes in the region.

Image: NASA/USGS, 2002

Sea Levels Unexpectedly Rise Nearly as Much as 2 Feet Over This Past Summer Leaving Scientists Baffled

 Aside from such short-term events as storms, anomalous wind and ocean patterns caused a sustained and unexpected rise in sea levels on the U.S. East Coast through much of summer 2009, according to a September 2009 report.

Photograph by Mari Darr-Welch/AP

In an article written by Brian Handwerk for National Geographic News; Handwerk reports: "Sea levels rose as much as 2 feet (60 centimeters) higher than predicted this summer along the U.S. East Coast, surprising scientists who forecast such periodic fluctuations. In a related article written for the National Geographic News by Christine Dell'Amore; she reports that: "By 2100 visitors to Boston could be parking their boats, not their cars, in Harvard Yard.

"Major cities in the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada "are directly in the path of the greatest rise" in sea level if Greenland continues to melt due to global warming, a new study says.

"Scientists believe that the influx of fresh water from the disintegrating ice sheets will disrupt a circulation pattern in the Atlantic Ocean, causing seas to expand.

"The new projections call for an extra 4 to 12 inches (10.2 to 30.5 centimeters) on top of the rise of 8 inches (20.3 centimeters) previously estimated in the journal Nature Geoscience in March.

"That previous study found that, if global warming continues, sea levels around New York City would rise by twice as much as in other parts of the United States within this century.

"In the new study, researchers considered three scenarios: that Greenland's present melt rate of 7 percent would continue, or a drop to either one or 3 percent a year—viewed by many as more likely, as the rate is actually expected to slow in coming decades.

 

Above, an iceberg melts off Ammassalik Island in eastern Greenland on July 19, 2007.

"We hope the high end wouldn't happen," said study lead author Aixue Hu of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

"But "we should be aware that there's a potential the melt of the Greenland ice sheet could be faster than we expected."

Vulnerable

"Of the three scenarios, the two lower melt rates are more realistic, according to computer models of future ice sheet melting, Hu said.

"A 3 percent melt rate would mean an extra 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) on top of the predicted global sea level rise of 21 inches (54 centimeters), and a one percent rate would mean an extra 8 inches (20.3 centimeters) for the region.

(Explore an interactive map of global warming's effects.)

"But if the current 7 percent rate were to persist, up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of extra water would inundate cities such as New York and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

"Still, Waleed Abdalati, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that the 7 percent scenario is really a worst case, particularly because "melt rate" is sometimes a misnomer, he said.

"When glaciers break off into the ocean, they don't immediately melt, so scientists can't really say that all of Greenland's ice loss is due to melting, he explained.

"But the finding is still important, he added, because "a few inches [of sea-level rise], depending on the time frame on which this occurs, makes a significant amount of difference," especially when it impacts heavily populated coastal areas.

"What's more, previous studies had not taken into account how Greenland's melt might interact with an oceanic "conveyor belt" in the Atlantic Ocean, which transports water north from the tropics.

"Normally in the belt tropical water gets cooler and becomes a deep layer of dense, cold water in the North Atlantic.

"But the freshwater flow from Greenland slows down this conveyor belt and prevents the deep, dense water from accumulating. This would make deep water warmer and less dense, causing surface waters to expand throughout the North Atlantic.

"It's for this reason that the northeast coast of North America is particularly vulnerable to rising seas, said Hu, whose research will appear May 29 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Uncertainties

"Such predictions, and the study of ice sheets in general, is often plagued with uncertainties.

"For instance, scientists still don't understand ice sheet dynamics, such as how fast an unstable ice sheet will melt.

"And data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—which many researchers depend on as the gold standard in climate change predictions—can become easily outdated.

"The 2007 IPCC assessment, for example, projected a sea-level rise of up to 23 inches (59 centimeters) this century. But the rapid decline of the world's ice sheets has led many researchers to believe the rise will be even greater.

"The more we know," said the University of Colorado's Abdalati, "the more we're finding things are more severe than we thought.

"The immediate cause of the unexpected rise has now been solved, U.S. officials say in a new report (hint: it wasn't global warming). But the underlying reason remains a mystery.

"Usually, predicting seasonal tides and sea levels is a pretty cut-and-dried process, governed by the known movements and gravitational influences of astronomical bodies like the moon, said Rich Edwing, deputy director for the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"But NOAA's phones began ringing this summer when East Coast residents reported higher than predicted water levels, much like those associated with short-term weather events like tropical storms. But these high seas persisted for weeks, throughout June and July.

"The startling rise caused only minor coastal flooding—but major head scratching among scientists.

Gulf Stream Mysteriously Slowed

"Now a new report has identified the two major factors behind the high sea levels—a weakened Gulf Stream and steady winds from the northeastern Atlantic.

"The Gulf Stream is a northward-flowing superhighway of ocean water off the U.S. East Coast. Running at full steam, the powerful current pulls water into its "orbit" and away from the East Coast.

"But this summer, for reasons unknown, "the Gulf Stream slowed down," Edwing said, sending water toward the coasts—and sea levels shooting upward.

"Adding to the sustained surge, autumn winds from the northeastern Atlantic arrived a few months early, pushing even more water coastward.

Beaches "Eaten Up"

"The higher waters caused inconveniences for some anglers and boaters and rearranged a bit of shoreline.

"A couple of sand beaches we'd normally fish from were eaten up. And the volume of water was higher than it normally would be," said Paulie Apostolides, owner of Paulie's Tackle in Montauk (map) on New York State's Long Island.

"Even before the new report, released by NOAA on September 2, Apostolides said many local fishers had already attributed the sea level rise to the "ferocious" winds from the northeast.

"But the underlying puzzle remains.

"Why did the Gulf Stream slow down? Why did the fall wind pattern appear earlier?" NOAA's Edwing said. "We don't have those answers."

SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES

    * NOAA Tides and Currents
    * Paulie's Tackle of Montauk
    * National Center for Atmospheric Research: Aixue Hu
    * Geophysical Research Letters
    * University of Colorado: Waleed Abdalati

Articles Originally appeared in the September 10, 2009 and May 28, 2009 issues of National Geographic News

Scientists Fear 1Trillion Tons of Carbon Dioxide Injected into Atmospere will Raise Global Temperatues by 2 Degrees Celcius

Scientists have found that humans have just past the half-way point by letting "about 520 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere."

These predictions were found in the lead editorial in the latest edition of the scientific journal, Nature which reports "at least 9 billion tonnes a year" and that: "If present trends continue, humankind will have emitted a trillion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere well before 2050, and that could be enough to push the planet into the danger zone. And there is no reason to think that the pressure will stop then. The coal seams and tar sands of the world hold enough carbon for humankind to emit another trillion tonnes — and the apocalyptic scenarios extend from there."

"Yet only a third of economically recoverable oil, gas and coal reserves can be burned before 2100 if that 2°C warming is to be avoided. Faced with this climate crunch, three news features ask: will cutting back on carbon be tougher than we think? Can we drag CO2 directly from the air? And could we cool the planet with a wisp of mist? The worst-case scenario is a world in 2100 that has twice the level of pre-industrial CO2 in the atmosphere." If we want to avoid that, the time for action is now, says Nature.

Wired Science reports: "What matters is the total amount of carbon that we release into the atmosphere, and focusing on that number as a budget can shape the way policymakers look at the problem, argues Myles Allen, lead author of one of the papers and a climatologist at the University of Oxford."

Myles Allen continued: “Reducing emissions steadily over 50 years is much cheaper and easier and less traumatic than allowing them to rise for 15 years and then reducing them violently for 35 years.”

The Nature editorial addresses the urgent necessity to reduce carbon dioxide being dumped into the atmosphere by calling political leaders to take immediate action: "Governments have a wide range of pollution-cutting tools at their command, most notably tradable permit regimes, taxes on fuels, regulations on power generation and energy efficiency, and subsidies for renewable energy and improved technologies. These tools can work if applied seriously — so citizens around the world must demand that seriousness from their leaders, both within their individual nations and in the international framework that will be discussed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December."

The crux of the emissions problem lies with the carbon that has been released into the Earth's atmosphere causing an already dangerous problem that has initiated climate change with specific consequences presented by the world's poorest nations and will require cooperation between rich and poor nations.

Scientists working with the problem of climate change have determined a baseline for the changing of the atmosphere that has been determined to cause: "Dangerous change, even loosely defined, is going to be hard to avoid,” write Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science and David Archer, a geoscientist at the University of Chicago, in an accompanying commentary in Nature. “Unless emissions begin to decline very soon, severe disruption to the climate system will entail expensive adaptation measures and may eventually require cleaning up the mess by actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere.”

The Nature editorial continues by arguing that: "The latest scientific research suggests that even a complete halt to carbon pollution would not bring the world's temperatures down substantially for several centuries. If further research reveals that a prolonged period of elevated temperatures would endanger the polar ice sheets, or otherwise destabilize the Earth system, nations may have to contemplate actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Indeed, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is already developing scenarios for the idea that long-term safety may require sucking up carbon, and various innovators and entrepreneurs are developing technologies that might be able to accomplish that feat. At the moment, those technologies seem ruinously expensive and technically difficult. But if the very steep learning curve can be climbed, then the benefits will be great."

The Nature editorial also discusses possibilities that are: "More radical still is the possibility of cooling the planet through some kind of 'geoengineering' that would dim the incoming sunlight (see page 1097). The effects of such approaches are much more worrying than those of capturing carbon from the air, however. The cooling from geoengineering would not exactly balance the warming from greenhouse gases, which would cause complications even if the technology itself was feasible — something for which the evidence has been circumstantial, at best."

The obvious answer lies with: "Forcing emissions to decline will require changing the way the world uses fossil fuels. In Allen’s view, humans can pull a trillion tons of carbon-rich fossil fuels out of the ground and burn them with risks that have been deemed acceptable by most people. But it’s the second trillion tons of fossil fuels, largely in the form of coal and oil shale, that will determine how recklessly humans play with the climate system.

“From all the incredible arcane arguments that go on, in the end, it’s really a very simple question: what are we going to do with the second trillion tons?” Allen asked. The quantifiable nature of the problem lies with the the conundrum that: "ossil-fuel–reserve estimates vary. While it’s clear that there is a lot of coal and oil shale on Earth, there is intense debate over how much of that fossil fuel will be economical to mine. Allen’s group used the World Energy Council’s estimates, which show nearly 6 trillion tons of fossil fuels still left to be mined. Other scientists believe that fossil fuel reserves could be much lower."

In the meantime: "discussions about the possibilities offered by geoengineering could also lull the world's leaders into complacency" says the Nature editorial, "they lead them to believe that the technology will provide an escape hatch if the climate ever does reach a tipping point. This does not mean that the discussions should be avoided, but rather that the speculations need to be backed up with a solid body of research. Moreover, geoengineering research should be framed not as a hope for deus ex machina fixes to sudden global deterioration, but as a palliative cushion for the worst excesses of the peak years that are inevitable even after emissions start to be cut. A world slightly shaded from the Sun while its carbon levels are brought down by means of active capture would be a strangely unnatural place — but not necessarily a bad one, compared with the alternatives."

Methods to cool the Earth are desparately needed now in order to better inform climatologists of the exact nature of the problems they face. The Nature editorial distinguishes between "far-off goals" and "obscure short-term opportunities." The Nature opinion piece notes that: "In addition to cutting CO2 emissions, global leaders should curb the release of other substances warming the climate, notably methane and soot, also known as 'black carbon'. Tackling such pollutants will bring other benefits, too, such as reducing the respiratory problems associated with cooking over smoky fires and with high levels of tropospheric ozone."

The Nature editorial admits a sense of insurmountability when considering the global climate crisis; but sounds the call that: "there is still time left to act, and there is hope to be found in human ingenuity. Humans have a long history of finding new ways to tackle problems, and new ways to circumvent the worst. Without commitment from the highest levels, such ingenuity is likely to come to naught. But with such a commitment, and with a worldwide determination to make a serious cut in emissions, there is much that can usefully, and invigoratingly, be done."

Receding Glaciers Provide Clues for Global Warming

Sometimes observing events that are taking place over several decades at various locations on the Earth helps us understand the true significance of what is taking place around the world due to global warming. Such is the case with a series of photographs shown at the doublexpposure web site that demonstrate the occurrence of receding glaciers located around the world. Comparative photos include: the Matterhorn glacier in Switzerland showing 1960 and 2006; the Blackstone glacier pictures taken in 1937 and 2007; the Heney glacier in Alaska shows the difference between 1937 and 2005; the Valdez glacier in Alaska photos from 1938 to 2007; the 20 Mile Glacier of Alaska with pictures taken in 1938 and 2007; the Alaskan Hugh Miller glacier shows the differences between 1940 and 2005; and the Tebenkof glacier, also found in Alaska shows the differences in photos from 1937 and 2007. All of the photos show that each glacier has lost portions of their snow and ice shields. The pictures of each particular glacier when studied in isolation from the other glaciers does not provide sufficient proof that global warming is occurring because individual glaciers have been known to expand and recede over time at various locations on the Earth. But the case for global warming gains greater credibility as a demonstrable fact of natural processes caused by a world-wide rise in temperatures over time when each of the glaciers are studied collectively; respective of their various locations around the Earth and with each glacier exhibiting a loss of glacial snow and ice coverage; then the argument in support of global warming exhibits greater viability as an observable and simultaneous process.

New Congress to Lean Heavily on Californians for Legislative Direction

Lyndsey Layton reports in the Washington Post that: Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, and Senator Barbara Boxer are some of several "California Democrats (who) will assume pivotal roles in the new Congress and White House, giving the state an outsize influence over federal policy and increasing the likelihood that its culture of activist regulation will be imported to Washington. In Congress, Democrats from the Golden State are in key positions to write laws to mitigate global warming, promote "green" industries and alternative energy, and crack down on toxic chemicals..."California has always valued protecting the environment and health and safety of our people," Boxer said in a telephone interview.. Boxer predicts "a renewed effort to enforce existing consumer protection and workplace safety rules and environmental laws." Yet: "Environmentalists and industry expect Waxman, Boxer, Pelosi, Sutley and the others to take on the oil and gas companies."

Global Warming Causing the Moose Population to Die off in the Upper Midwest

Tim Jones reports in the Los Angeles Times: "It wasn't long ago that thousands of moose roamed northwest Minnesota. But in two decades, the number of antlered, bony-kneed beasts from the North Woods has plummeted from 4,000 to fewer than a hundred.They didn't move away. They just died.The primary culprit, scientists say, is climate change..."When moose are in trouble, they don't move. They die," said Rolf Peterson, a researc