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![astrodidact:
In Ancient Ice, Clues That Scientists Are Underestimating Future Sea Levels
The skies do strange things at the NEEM camp, a remote ice-drilling and research facility on the northern Greenland ice sheet. Midnight sunshine. Low clouds of sparkling ice crystals known as “diamond dust.” But when rain fell instead of snow last summer, complete with a rainbow arcing over the camp, the NEEM scientists couldn’t believe it. “I’ve been all over that ice sheet, and to have it rain that far north—that’s a shock,” says James White, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Colorado who led the American team working alongside those from 13 other countries at NEEM.
It’s fitting that part of the NEEM study’s fieldwork, which retrieved a two-and-a-half-kilometer shaft of ice, took place during one of the hottest Greenland summers on record. What that ice core has revealed about a warm period 130,000 years ago could be one of the most critical new tools for predicting how our planet will respond to a warmer future.
The NEEM ice core has provided the first picture of the Greenland ice sheet during the entire Eemian interglacial period, a 15,000-year span of natural warming that occurred between the two most recent ice ages. (NEEM is a rough acronym for North Greenland Eemian ice drilling.) During the Eemian, natural variations in Earth’s orbit brought the planet closer to the sun, making global mean temperatures up to 2°C warmer than right before the industrial revolution (the Arctic regions were made even warmer, between 3-5°C). That makes the Eemian an especially attractive period for scientists to study, because 2°C of global warming matches the temperature ceiling the UN and other international organizations have established as the limit of tolerable warming during the next century (a limit many climatologists believe we’ll meet or even exceed by the end of this century). And what scientists are learning about the Eemian period could be cause for present-day concern.
What scientists are learning about the Eemian period could be cause for present-day concern.Based on the study of the paleoclimate record in ice cores as well as the former locations of beaches and coral reefs, researchers believe that the Eemian temperature increase likely pushed global sea levels as high as eight meters (26 feet) above where they are today. That would put many coastal cities deep under water including Miami, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and large parts of New York [see graphic]. During the Eemian, the polar ice sheets melted over several thousand years; an abrupt increase within the next century—seen by many scientists as inevitable, despite international goals—will not result in a 26-foot rise right away. “Even if you stabilize temperature by 2100, sea levels will keep rising for many centuries after that,” says Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate modeler at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies who specializes in paleoclimate data. The ice sheets will take hundreds of years to fully react to warmer ocean temperatures, he says, “And there won’t be very much you can do about it.”
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen:Dorthe Dahl-Jensen led the project that retrieved it. Courtesy Sepp Kipfstuhl
The ice core pulled from the NEEM site has discrete, often visible rings, like a tree trunk—each season’s snowfall creates a new layer of fresh ice. By studying the chemical makeup of the layers, the NEEM scientists learned both the atmospheric temperature and the ice sheet’s height over the years. This data yielded a significant discovery: Previous models had assumed that the Greenland ice sheet was at least half gone at the Eemian’s hottest point, but the ice core showed that the sheet’s total volume decreased just 25 percent. That meltwater would account for only about two meters of global sea rise, according to Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, a paleoclimate researcher at the University of Copenhagen who led the NEEM project. Therefore, the remaining six meters of water had to come mostly from Earth’s other major sea-level “co-conspirator,” as James White likes to call it: the Antarctic ice sheet. This new finding suggests that West Antarctic ice is capable of melting far more than previously thought.
An accurate understanding of what was ice at what point in time is a key tool for testing computer models that forecast when, where, and how ice sheets will melt in the future. As data on ancient climates becomes more reliable, scientists can use that data to check their models and improve them.
Soaked Cities:When the Arctic was 3–5°C warmer than today, sea levels were about 25 feet higher—covering a zone home to 9 percent of the people in the lower 48 states. Researchers at the nonprofit Climate Central have calculated how water 25 feet above high tide would flood the Los Angeles area and New York. Katie Peek
Just five years ago, such ice-sheet modeling was a “cottage industry,” says Schmidt—improvisational at best, inaccurate at worst. In 2007, when the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth and most recent assessment report (which guides climate science and policy for the years to come), it projected that sea levels would rise anywhere between 18 and 59 centimeters by 2100—a range that many scientists saw as a poor estimate based on inadequate data. The report inspired paleoclimatologists who study ancient climates and physicists who build climate models to start to collaborate closely, according to Schmidt. “The last report kind of punting on the whole sea level thing has been the driver of an enormous amount of effort in ice-sheet modeling,” says Schmidt. “It really was time to step up their game.”
Unfortunately, a clearer picture of the future is not necessarily a brighter one. In September, the IPCC will release the science portion of its fifth and latest report, and its sea-level projections for the coming century are expected to increase, based in part on new models of how ice sheets melt. In a field that predicts the future, a little hard data from the past can go a long way.
A Rainbow in Greenland: On July 28, 2012, a rainbow formed over NEEM camp during unusually warm weather. Kazuhide Satow
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/cold-hard-facts?src=SOC&dom=tw](http://25.media.tumblr.com/8eb29f83000a0a5bda7d85576f69360f/tumblr_mo6s6j9dcf1rx70ego1_500.jpg "astrodidact:
In Ancient Ice, Clues That Scientists Are Underestimating Future Sea Levels
The skies do strange things at the NEEM camp, a remote ice-drilling and research facility on the northern Greenland ice sheet. Midnight sunshine. Low clouds of sparkling ice crystals known as “diamond dust.” But when rain fell instead of snow last summer, complete with a rainbow arcing over the camp, the NEEM scientists couldn’t believe it. “I’ve been all over that ice sheet, and to have it rain that far north—that’s a shock,” says James White, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Colorado who led the American team working alongside those from 13 other countries at NEEM.
It’s fitting that part of the NEEM study’s fieldwork, which retrieved a two-and-a-half-kilometer shaft of ice, took place during one of the hottest Greenland summers on record. What that ice core has revealed about a warm period 130,000 years ago could be one of the most critical new tools for predicting how our planet will respond to a warmer future.
The NEEM ice core has provided the first picture of the Greenland ice sheet during the entire Eemian interglacial period, a 15,000-year span of natural warming that occurred between the two most recent ice ages. (NEEM is a rough acronym for North Greenland Eemian ice drilling.) During the Eemian, natural variations in Earth’s orbit brought the planet closer to the sun, making global mean temperatures up to 2°C warmer than right before the industrial revolution (the Arctic regions were made even warmer, between 3-5°C). That makes the Eemian an especially attractive period for scientists to study, because 2°C of global warming matches the temperature ceiling the UN and other international organizations have established as the limit of tolerable warming during the next century (a limit many climatologists believe we’ll meet or even exceed by the end of this century). And what scientists are learning about the Eemian period could be cause for present-day concern.
What scientists are learning about the Eemian period could be cause for present-day concern.Based on the study of the paleoclimate record in ice cores as well as the former locations of beaches and coral reefs, researchers believe that the Eemian temperature increase likely pushed global sea levels as high as eight meters (26 feet) above where they are today. That would put many coastal cities deep under water including Miami, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and large parts of New York [see graphic]. During the Eemian, the polar ice sheets melted over several thousand years; an abrupt increase within the next century—seen by many scientists as inevitable, despite international goals—will not result in a 26-foot rise right away. “Even if you stabilize temperature by 2100, sea levels will keep rising for many centuries after that,” says Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate modeler at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies who specializes in paleoclimate data. The ice sheets will take hundreds of years to fully react to warmer ocean temperatures, he says, “And there won’t be very much you can do about it.”
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen:Dorthe Dahl-Jensen led the project that retrieved it. Courtesy Sepp Kipfstuhl
The ice core pulled from the NEEM site has discrete, often visible rings, like a tree trunk—each season’s snowfall creates a new layer of fresh ice. By studying the chemical makeup of the layers, the NEEM scientists learned both the atmospheric temperature and the ice sheet’s height over the years. This data yielded a significant discovery: Previous models had assumed that the Greenland ice sheet was at least half gone at the Eemian’s hottest point, but the ice core showed that the sheet’s total volume decreased just 25 percent. That meltwater would account for only about two meters of global sea rise, according to Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, a paleoclimate researcher at the University of Copenhagen who led the NEEM project. Therefore, the remaining six meters of water had to come mostly from Earth’s other major sea-level “co-conspirator,” as James White likes to call it: the Antarctic ice sheet. This new finding suggests that West Antarctic ice is capable of melting far more than previously thought.
An accurate understanding of what was ice at what point in time is a key tool for testing computer models that forecast when, where, and how ice sheets will melt in the future. As data on ancient climates becomes more reliable, scientists can use that data to check their models and improve them.
Soaked Cities:When the Arctic was 3–5°C warmer than today, sea levels were about 25 feet higher—covering a zone home to 9 percent of the people in the lower 48 states. Researchers at the nonprofit Climate Central have calculated how water 25 feet above high tide would flood the Los Angeles area and New York. Katie Peek
Just five years ago, such ice-sheet modeling was a “cottage industry,” says Schmidt—improvisational at best, inaccurate at worst. In 2007, when the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth and most recent assessment report (which guides climate science and policy for the years to come), it projected that sea levels would rise anywhere between 18 and 59 centimeters by 2100—a range that many scientists saw as a poor estimate based on inadequate data. The report inspired paleoclimatologists who study ancient climates and physicists who build climate models to start to collaborate closely, according to Schmidt. “The last report kind of punting on the whole sea level thing has been the driver of an enormous amount of effort in ice-sheet modeling,” says Schmidt. “It really was time to step up their game.”
Unfortunately, a clearer picture of the future is not necessarily a brighter one. In September, the IPCC will release the science portion of its fifth and latest report, and its sea-level projections for the coming century are expected to increase, based in part on new models of how ice sheets melt. In a field that predicts the future, a little hard data from the past can go a long way.
A Rainbow in Greenland: On July 28, 2012, a rainbow formed over NEEM camp during unusually warm weather. Kazuhide Satow
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/cold-hard-facts?src=SOC&dom=tw")
In Ancient Ice, Clues That Scientists Are Underestimating Future Sea Levels
The skies do strange things at the NEEM camp, a remote ice-drilling and research facility on the northern Greenland ice sheet. Midnight sunshine. Low clouds of sparkling ice crystals known as “diamond dust.” But when rain fell instead of snow last summer, complete with a rainbow arcing over the camp, the NEEM scientists couldn’t believe it. “I’ve been all over that ice sheet, and to have it rain that far north—that’s a shock,” says James White, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Colorado who led the American team working alongside those from 13 other countries at NEEM.
It’s fitting that part of the NEEM study’s fieldwork, which retrieved a two-and-a-half-kilometer shaft of ice, took place during one of the hottest Greenland summers on record. What that ice core has revealed about a warm period 130,000 years ago could be one of the most critical new tools for predicting how our planet will respond to a warmer future.
The NEEM ice core has provided the first picture of the Greenland ice sheet during the entire Eemian interglacial period, a 15,000-year span of natural warming that occurred between the two most recent ice ages. (NEEM is a rough acronym for North Greenland Eemian ice drilling.) During the Eemian, natural variations in Earth’s orbit brought the planet closer to the sun, making global mean temperatures up to 2°C warmer than right before the industrial revolution (the Arctic regions were made even warmer, between 3-5°C). That makes the Eemian an especially attractive period for scientists to study, because 2°C of global warming matches the temperature ceiling the UN and other international organizations have established as the limit of tolerable warming during the next century (a limit many climatologists believe we’ll meet or even exceed by the end of this century). And what scientists are learning about the Eemian period could be cause for present-day concern.
What scientists are learning about the Eemian period could be cause for present-day concern.Based on the study of the paleoclimate record in ice cores as well as the former locations of beaches and coral reefs, researchers believe that the Eemian temperature increase likely pushed global sea levels as high as eight meters (26 feet) above where they are today. That would put many coastal cities deep under water including Miami, the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and large parts of New York [see graphic]. During the Eemian, the polar ice sheets melted over several thousand years; an abrupt increase within the next century—seen by many scientists as inevitable, despite international goals—will not result in a 26-foot rise right away. “Even if you stabilize temperature by 2100, sea levels will keep rising for many centuries after that,” says Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate modeler at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies who specializes in paleoclimate data. The ice sheets will take hundreds of years to fully react to warmer ocean temperatures, he says, “And there won’t be very much you can do about it.”
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen:Dorthe Dahl-Jensen led the project that retrieved it. Courtesy Sepp KipfstuhlThe ice core pulled from the NEEM site has discrete, often visible rings, like a tree trunk—each season’s snowfall creates a new layer of fresh ice. By studying the chemical makeup of the layers, the NEEM scientists learned both the atmospheric temperature and the ice sheet’s height over the years. This data yielded a significant discovery: Previous models had assumed that the Greenland ice sheet was at least half gone at the Eemian’s hottest point, but the ice core showed that the sheet’s total volume decreased just 25 percent. That meltwater would account for only about two meters of global sea rise, according to Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, a paleoclimate researcher at the University of Copenhagen who led the NEEM project. Therefore, the remaining six meters of water had to come mostly from Earth’s other major sea-level “co-conspirator,” as James White likes to call it: the Antarctic ice sheet. This new finding suggests that West Antarctic ice is capable of melting far more than previously thought.
An accurate understanding of what was ice at what point in time is a key tool for testing computer models that forecast when, where, and how ice sheets will melt in the future. As data on ancient climates becomes more reliable, scientists can use that data to check their models and improve them.
Soaked Cities:When the Arctic was 3–5°C warmer than today, sea levels were about 25 feet higher—covering a zone home to 9 percent of the people in the lower 48 states. Researchers at the nonprofit Climate Central have calculated how water 25 feet above high tide would flood the Los Angeles area and New York. Katie PeekJust five years ago, such ice-sheet modeling was a “cottage industry,” says Schmidt—improvisational at best, inaccurate at worst. In 2007, when the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth and most recent assessment report (which guides climate science and policy for the years to come), it projected that sea levels would rise anywhere between 18 and 59 centimeters by 2100—a range that many scientists saw as a poor estimate based on inadequate data. The report inspired paleoclimatologists who study ancient climates and physicists who build climate models to start to collaborate closely, according to Schmidt. “The last report kind of punting on the whole sea level thing has been the driver of an enormous amount of effort in ice-sheet modeling,” says Schmidt. “It really was time to step up their game.”
Unfortunately, a clearer picture of the future is not necessarily a brighter one. In September, the IPCC will release the science portion of its fifth and latest report, and its sea-level projections for the coming century are expected to increase, based in part on new models of how ice sheets melt. In a field that predicts the future, a little hard data from the past can go a long way.
A Rainbow in Greenland: On July 28, 2012, a rainbow formed over NEEM camp during unusually warm weather. Kazuhide Satow -
» Climate and Conquest: How Did Genghis Khan Rise? - Columbia University's Earth Institute
Great read and video of the researchers in Mongolia.
Eight hundred years ago, relatively small armies of mounted warriors suddenly exploded outward from the cold, arid high-elevation grasslands of Mongolia and reshaped world geography, culture and history in ways that still resound today. How did they do it?Tree-ring scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have worked in Mongolia since 1995. In 2010, Lamont researcher Neil Pederson and Amy Hessl of West Virginia University were seeking old trees for a study of wildfire history. High in the Khangai Mountains, north of the steppe where the long-disappeared Mongol capital of Karakorum once lay, they explored a nearly solid-rock plain of hardened lava left by a volcanic eruption some 8,000 years ago. Growing out of fissures and thin soils were thousands of gnarled, stunted larches and Siberian pines–a tree-ring scientist’s treasure. Annual rings of many species reflect rainfall or temperature in predictable ways. These can be read like books; and trees in the driest, harshest sites like this are exquisitely sensitive to rain, live to extraordinary ages, and leave trunks that may stand for centuries after they die. They are truly ancient manuscripts, writ with a fine hand.
Pederson and Hessl analyzed 17 trees to chart a yearly record of rainfall back to 658 AD. They saw that from 1211-1230—the exact time of the Mongols’ rise—central Mongolia saw one of its wettest periods ever. That time also was unusually warm, as shown by a -
"Our species still hunts elephants, rhinos, tigers, and other large animals. Now these animals are gunned down for body parts sold on the black market rather than for food. People still kill these Pleistocene remnants, even as others among us try to protect the animals (a kind of inter-species benevolence never seen before in the history of life on Earth). But even with our best intentions, we are altering the planet on a scale and with a speed that stretch the imagination. Climate change at the end of the Pleistocene was a natural process that had been cycling back and forth for the previous 2 million years. Now we, not natural geological cycles, drive the climate, and the planet is abruptly on its way to a greenhouse world that hasn’t been seen in 55 million years. We have already seen what happens when hunting and climate change create a deadly synergy. The question is, how long are we going to ignore this lesson, passed down to us in bone by long-lost mammoths and other vanished species?"
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US military warned to prepare for disastrous consequences of climate change
November 9, 2012
The Pentagon was warned on Friday to stand guard against “climate surprises” which could throw off its efforts to secure America’s future.
An expert report, prepared for the intelligence community by the National Academy of Sciences, warns that the security establishment is going to have start planning for natural disasters, sea-level rise, drought,epidemics and the other consequences of climate change.
The Pentagon already ranks climate change as a national security threat, putting US troops in danger around the world and adding fuel to existing conflicts. More than 30 US bases are threatened by sea level rise.
It has also identified potential new danger zones, such as sub-Saharan Africa.
The military is also working to cut back on its fuel costs in an age of budget austerity, by installing solar arrays and wind turbines, and monitoring electricity use.
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» The CIA Has a Climate Change Program—and It Shouldn’t Be Secret
The head of the CIA has resigned because penis. Here’s a bit about the CIA’s very secretive climate change program.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the CIA has been very close-mouthed—even for, you know, the CIA—about its work on climate change. Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming tried to kill funding for the center earlier this year, and conservatives—who increasingly discount the reality of global warming—have expressed skepticism about the CIA’s climate work. It’s a rule every spy should know—when the heat is coming, keep your head down and stay out of sight.
The problem is that such the CIA’s environmental intelligence gathering has little value if it’s not being shared—not a single document has been issued, and the agency insists on classifying much of its material classified. And that secrecy means the agency itself, by virtue of its isolation, is missing out on the latest science.
Read more: TIME
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"We’re all familiar with Moore’s law, which describes the rate of change in transistors per chip over time (doubling every year from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, and doubling every two years since the mid-1970s), with correspondingly rapid reductions in costs per transistor. However, few people are aware that there’s a similarly regular trend on the electrical efficiency of computers that has persisted for two decades longer than Moore’s law, and applies to all electronic information technology, not just microprocessors. The electrical efficiency of computation, defined as the number of computations we can do per kilowatt-hour consumed, has doubled roughly every year and a half since the mid 1940s."
Dr. Jonathan Koomey, as referenced in Joe Romm’s “Debunking the myth of the internet as energy hog, again: How information technology is good for climate” (2010)
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"In general, moving bits is environmentally preferable to moving atoms, and whether it’s dematerialization (replacing materials with information) or reduced transportation (from not having to move materials or people, because of electronic data transfers or telepresence) IT [Information Technology] is a game changer."Dr. Jonathan Koomey, as referenced in Joe Romm’s “Debunking the myth of the internet as energy hog, again: How information technology is good for climate” (2010)
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This year’s major drought in the U.S. will change the way we eat for months—if not years—to come.
By the end of the summer of 2012, the United States was experiencing its worst drought in 50 years. Crops were drastically damaged and on government agriculture maps, a searing, disaster-level red burned through Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and other states in the country’s corn belt and breadbasket—states that usually, if you fly over them on a clear day, bear the distinctive green patchwork of productive farming. But if you flew over or drove through the stricken regions this summer, what you likely saw instead was a landscape blighted by the browns, tans, and yellows of struggling crops. Many corn stalks in Tennessee grew only a fraction of their usual height; others in Illinois produced ears with sparse, shrunken kernels. Soy and wheat fields around the country struggled to last through the summer, whose unusually high temperatures added insult to agricultural injury.
photo: Scott Olson/Getty
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» Denver Post comes out swinging: Candidates should address climate crisis
“Every day in Colorado, voters are bombarded with information about the presidential candidates — some of it useful, much of it frivolous. Too often, the endless chatter from the cable news talking heads is focused on the latest campaign misstep or candidate gaffe.
It’s hard to believe, but despite all the noise on our television screens, the biggest challenge of our generation — climate change — has not received the attention it deserves from most reporters. But during the first presidential debate, on October 3 at the University of Denver, moderator Jim Lehrer has the chance to lead the presidential candidates in a thoughtful discussion about this issue on the national stage.
This past summer, the climate crisis fell right into America’s front yards — in some cases literally. With trees crashing through their windows, water flooding under their doorsteps and droughts destroying their crops, Americans have been hurting from the effects of weather extremes that climate scientists predicted would happen as a result of global warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently reported that July to August ranked as the 3rd hottest summer on record in the continental United States.
Here in Colorado, we’ve suffered unprecedented wildfires that have destroyed homes and businesses — causing tens of millions of dollars in damages and the loss of lives. At the same time, warmer temperatures have led to less snow and earlier snowmelt, which can have a devastating impact on the state’s tourism economy.
As renowned climate scientist James Hansen recently put it, “It is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.”
Climate change is happening and the effects will only get worse if we do not take action soon for our children and grandchildren. Given this, it’s only natural to assume that the issue will be a topic of national conversation. Unfortunately, the news media has largely failed to give climate change the coverage it deserves.
According to a recent study of major media outlets, only 8.7 percent of television segments reported on the record-breaking July heat waves in the context of climate change. You were far more likely to hear about the latest celebrity trends than how President Obama and Governor Romney plan to address the problem.
That’s why the upcoming Colorado debate, focused on domestic issues, is so important. Having Lehrer moderate this debate gives us a unique opportunity — his show, the PBS “NewsHour,” has often provided substantive coverage of important issues ignored by other news outlets. He’s well positioned to lead a meaningful discussion between President Obama and Mitt Romney.
Climate change is not a partisan political issue. In fact, according to a recent Washington Post poll, 73 percent of registered voters say the federal government should regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and factories in an effort to reduce global warming, including more than 70 percent of Independents. If the public had the chance to hear from both candidates, they could make up their own minds. But first the question needs to be asked.
There is no doubt that there are vast differences between President Obama and Governor Romney. Colorado voters – as well as the millions of voters across the country who will be tuning in for this all-important first debate – deserve to hear how these two candidates would tackle the climate crisis. And we hope Lehrer gives the American electorate that opportunity.
Pete Maysmith is executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters. Gene Karpinski is president of the League of Conservation Voters.”
About me
Pursue understanding. Deconstruct systems in order to taste building blocks. Happiness waits else/everywhere. And the heart(h). Do spheres not pull at each other?
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♡ A STUDY IN IDENTITY & ILLUSION ♡
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For too long I’ve been parched of thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I’ve been starvin’ to...
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I guess when bookshelves run out of room there’s always the floor
