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Global Warming & Climate Change: The Phenomenon

That is very worrying. The vegetation in those areas will take a long time to grow back.

In some places the soil is peat and the land itself burns.

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Scary photos
The link above will take you to news that wildfires are blazing out of control - across the Arctic (even Greenland). They've released the same amount of carbon dioxide during the hottest June since records began as Sweden does in a year. On the bright side, at least they might kill the dormant frozen deadly viruses.

greenland is on fire! crikey.
 
Doesn't all change at the same time.

Ancient global climate events rippled unevenly across the globe
By Sid Perkins Jul. 24, 2019 , 1:00 PM

In the past 2000 years, Earth has drifted in and out of extended periods of warmer- and cooler-than-normal climate, including the so-called Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Scientists long thought that during these hot and cold spells, temperatures rose and fell in sync across the globe. In fact, Earth warmed and cooled unevenly, with different regions reaching peak high and low temperatures at different times, two new studies suggest. The one exception: Since the mid–19th century, warming trends have covered some 98% of the globe.

Widespread networks of weather stations that could accurately record local temperatures didn’t exist until the last half of the 1800s. But scientists can estimate past temperatures using a variety of natural proxies. These “paleothermometers” include the widths of tree rings and the proportions of isotopes—forms of atoms such as oxygen that contain different numbers of neutrons—in glacial ice, corals, clam shells, cave deposits, and even lake sediments.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/ancient-global-climate-events-rippled-unevenly-across-globe?utm_campaign=news_daily_2019-07-24
 
Global Warming or Bad Data? Garbage in...

Climate science has always suffered from the problem of shaky and missing data. Modern recording weather stations date only to the early 20th century.

And many of those stations have a big problem. While they haven’t changed appreciably over the years, the land around them has changed, often profoundly, with the great growth in urban and suburban areas. The weather station that was put, say, in the middle of a Nassau County, Long Island, potato field in 1923 is still in the same spot. But the potatoes are long gone, and now it’s behind a strip mall, twenty feet from the kitchen exhaust fan of a Chinese take-out joint.

A study by meteorologist Anthony Watts found that almost 90 percent of the 1221 weather stations in the U.S. did not meet the National Weather Service’s setting standards, which requires that they be at least 100 feet from any artificial heat source or radiating surface. You can see some of the most egregious violators here. To deal with this defective information, climate scientists, have “adjusted” the data to solve this problem. Invariably, these adjustments have made earlier data show lower temperatures, and recent data show higher ones.

To develop reliable data, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) placed 114 state-of-the-art weather stations relatively evenly spaced about the lower 48 states. They were carefully sited to be away from urban areas, which are heat islands, airports, which can be affected by jet exhaust, etc.

The system became operative in 2005. Now, realclearenergy.com is reporting that there has been no increase in average temperatures in the continental United States over the last 14 years, as measured by these new stations. If anything, overall temperatures are slightly cooler than they were.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/climate-global-warming-data-locations/

maximus otter
 
The effects on an Andean peak that was sketched by Humboldt.

... In the end, Humboldt spun his defeat on Chimborazo into a triumph that cemented his reputation as the era's superstar scientist and explorer—and his legacy. Not long after his descent from the mountain, he sketched a spectacular diagram that used the slopes of Chimborazo to depict a concept that had crystallized during his climb: that climate is an organizing principle of life, shaping the distinct communities of plants and animals found at different altitudes and latitudes. The diagram—Humboldt called it his Tableau Physique—has become what one recent paper described as "an iconic milestone, almost a foundation myth, in the history of ecology."

Today, the idea born on Chimborazo—that the physical environment shapes life's grand patterns—is giving scientists an intellectual framework for understanding a phenomenon Humboldt himself could not have anticipated: how human-driven climate change is transforming life.

Tropical mountains are ideal stages for watching climate change unfold. They compress many climates into a small space, as Humboldt wrote in his Essay on the Geography of Plants: "On this steep surface climbing from the ocean level to the perpetual snows, various climates follow one another and are superimposed, so to speak." Now, global warming is quickly reshuffling those montane climates. And few peaks record the impact of human-driven climate change more vividly than Chimborazo itself. The massive volcano, which last erupted 1500 years ago, rises just 1° south of the equator. On the peak's eastern slopes, moisture from the Amazon Basin next door—plus temperatures that rarely drop below freezing except at the highest elevations—nurture grassland, bogs, and springy cushions of moss and dwarf alpine plants, all highly sensitive to climate change. Below the summit sprawl 17 small glaciers, bellwethers of global warming and a crucial water source for tens of thousands of people living at lower elevations. ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/global-warming-has-made-iconic-andean-peak-unrecognizable
 
On topic - anyone who gets the world talking about the climate crisis - regardless of their age, background, mental condition or fallibility - deserves a round of applause and, if not that, then at the very least respect.

What climate crisis? You mean the coming ice age?
 
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It would be hartless to ignore this.

Patches of long-frozen snowpack and ice in the Mongolian steppes are rapidly vanishing — with dire consequences for the reindeer and herders who rely on the icy spots.

About 30 families, members of the Tsaatan people (SN: 1/14/03), live within a remote part of northern Mongolia called the Ulaan Taiga Special Protected Area. Interviews with some of these families have let researchers create a never-before-recorded history of this frozen resource, and gain new insight into how quickly it is vanishing.

During the summer, the Tsaatan bring their reindeer herds to a treeless, tundra valley region called Mengebulag. There, numerous large patches of snow and ice have historically persisted, regardless of season, for decades, perhaps longer. The people call these patches “eternal ice,” or munkh mus.

The ice is an important source of freshwater for families, and reindeer lie on it to cool themselves and seek respite from biting insects, says William Taylor, an archaeologist at University of Colorado Boulder and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. Without the cooling and insect-suppressing ice, the herders told researchers, the animals are more vulnerable to parasite-borne illnesses, and are also increasingly heat-stressed, which reduces their immunity to disease (SN: 12/23/16).

https://www.sciencenews.org/article...tm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest_Headlines
 
Ramonmercado,

..It would be hartless to ignore this...

I see what you did. :)
 
Taking climate change out of the equation, I still think there are sound, ecological programs that deserve support. I think reforestation efforts make sense on many levels, not the least of which is trees' ability to sequester carbon dioxide.
 
Taking climate change out of the equation, I still think there are sound, ecological programs that deserve support. I think reforestation efforts make sense on many levels, not the least of which is trees' ability to sequester carbon dioxide.

Particularly in view of the latest fires.
 
Antarctica is set to suffer.

In the tiny part of Antarctica where the snow melts in springtime, mosses, lichens and grasses grow alongside flies, mites and colonies of micro-organisms that have fed and reproduced for millions of years.

The rich biodiversity is preserved by an ancient equilibrium of extreme cold and the isolation of a land mass surrounded by powerful ocean currents. But scientists argue in a report published Wednesday that climate change will make it easier for invasive species to establish themselves, even though the continent is warming at a slower pace than other parts of the planet.

"Climate change both reduces the barrier to getting in, so it makes it less stressful... and it reduces the problems of establishing," said British Antarctic Survey expert Peter Convey, who co-authored the research published in Science Advances.

Antarctica is home to species that can gather in greater densities than those seen in temperate or tropical climates, said Convey, pointing to microscopic arthropods known as Collembola, a million of which can squeeze into a square meter.

Thousands of researchers and 50,000 tourists who visit the remote continent every year risk upsetting this balance, however, by bringing plant and insect life with them. One type of grass, Poa annua, has already managed to carve out a beachhead on some islands, while humans have brought with them two species of fly.

https://phys.org/news/2019-11-invasive-species-exploit-climate-antarctica.html
 
Climate emergency: world ‘may have crossed tipping points’

Source: The Guardian online
Date: 27 November, 2019

The world may already have crossed a series of climate tipping points, according to a stark warning from scientists. This risk is “an existential threat to civilisation”, they say, meaning “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.

Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global heating become unstoppable, such as the runaway loss of ice sheets or forests. In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought necessary to pass tipping points, but the latest evidence suggests this could happen between 1C and 2C.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...ergency-world-may-have-crossed-tipping-points
 
Climate change: Study underpins key idea in Antarctic ice loss

Source: BBC news online
Date: 2 December, 2019

It's long been suspected but scientists can now show conclusively that thinning in the ring of floating ice around Antarctica is driving mass loss from the interior of the continent.

A new study finds the diminishing thickness of ice shelves is matched almost exactly by an acceleration in the glaciers feeding in behind them.

What's more, the linkage is immediate.

https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampprojec...errer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s
 
It seems to me that the concept of climate change is based on the assumption that Earth is a steady-state system. But I think the geological record would show that it is anything but. The Earth has always been a dynamic environment and has evolved both gradually and drastically any number of times over the last billions of years. I think there is a certain element of hubris in thinking that we are the sole cause or the sole cure for an evolving climate. That being said, I don't think that absolves us from being good stewards of the planet.
 
Global warming causes some bird species to become smaller, researchers find

Source: thetimes.co.uk
Date: 5 December, 2019

Global warming is causing some bird some species to shrink, a study has suggested.

Researchers in Chicago have found that sparrows and thrushes have become smaller over the past four decades. Their wings, however, have become slightly longer.

The findings are based on more than 70,000 birds that were examined after dying from flying into windows since 1978. Body size in all 52 species had been reduced while the wing length increased in 40 of them.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...smaller-researchers-in-chicago-find-gwvv562hj
 
Global warming causes some bird species to become smaller, researchers find

Source: thetimes.co.uk
Date: 5 December, 2019

Global warming is causing some bird some species to shrink, a study has suggested.

Researchers in Chicago have found that sparrows and thrushes have become smaller over the past four decades. Their wings, however, have become slightly longer.

The findings are based on more than 70,000 birds that were examined after dying from flying into windows since 1978. Body size in all 52 species had been reduced while the wing length increased in 40 of them.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...smaller-researchers-in-chicago-find-gwvv562hj

Of it could simply be that the strongest fliers survive. I thought that's how evolution worked?
 
Of it could simply be that the strongest fliers survive. I thought that's how evolution worked?

Strong fliers would have selective advantage only if relative flight characteristics (e.g., endurance; range) correlated with reproductive success. This would be more important to migratory birds who travel long distances to breeding grounds, but less critical to birds who live and breed within a small geographic area.

It strikes me that the most direct connection one might suggest between environmental temperature and bird size would concern body temperature and temperature regulation. Birds are endothermic ("warm-blooded") with high metabolic rates. Smaller body size could confer an advantage by reducing caloric intake requirements, facilitating heat dissipation, and hence reducing risk of overheating.
 
Climate change: Oceans running out of oxygen as temperatures rise

Source: BBC news online
Date: 7 December, 2019

Climate change and nutrient pollution are driving the oxygen from our oceans, and threatening many species of fish.

That's the conclusion of the biggest study of its kind, undertaken by conservation group IUCN.

While nutrient run-off has been known for decades, researchers say that climate change is making the lack of oxygen worse.

Around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s.

Researchers say the depletion is threatening species including tuna, marlin and sharks.

https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampprojec...errer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s
 
Strong fliers would have selective advantage only if relative flight characteristics (e.g., endurance; range) correlated with reproductive success. This would be more important to migratory birds who travel long distances to breeding grounds, but less critical to birds who live and breed within a small geographic area.

It strikes me that the most direct connection one might suggest between environmental temperature and bird size would concern body temperature and temperature regulation. Birds are endothermic ("warm-blooded") with high metabolic rates. Smaller body size could confer an advantage by reducing caloric intake requirements, facilitating heat dissipation, and hence reducing risk of overheating.

Certainly a warmer planet would favour reptiles over mammals and birds.
 
I really should state my case here. I believe global warming, whether or not it has a significant human component, is inevitable in the long run. I'm talking millennia there. We are still on an interstice on the way out of the last ice age and there is no guarantee the last kick of said ice age is past. But if the geological record is to believed, the planet's normal state, when not in an ice age, is both warmer than now and with a substantially higher percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere.

I believe the planet will restore itself to that normal state whatever we puny humans do, as it did after disastrous asteroid impacts and other disruptive events in the past. Therefore we adapt or die. Trying to preserve the status quo is beyond our powers.

And if the human race is to survive we really must resume our push to the stars.
 
Climate crisis: Last remaining glaciers in Pacific ‘will melt away in less than a decade,’ study says

Source: independent.co.uk
Date: 10 December, 2019

The world’s last remaining tropical glaciers, which exist high in mountain ranges between the Andes and the Himalayas, are on course to melt completely in less than a decade due to the climate crisis, a new study has found.

The glaciers in Papua, Indonesia, are “the canaries in the coal mine” for other mountaintop glaciers around the world, said Professor Lonnie Thompson, one of the senior authors of the study.

“These will be the first to disappear; the others will certainly follow,” said Professor Thompson, a senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Centre at the Ohio State University.

https://www-independent-co-uk.cdn.a...a-melt-sea-level-global-warming-a9240666.html
 
Climate change: Greenland ice melt 'is accelerating'

Source: BBC news online
Date: 10 December, 2019

Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than it was in the 1990s.

The assessment comes from an international team of polar scientists who've reviewed all the satellite observations over a 26-year period.

They say Greenland's contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future.

It means an additional 7cm of ocean rise could now be expected by the end of the century from Greenland alone.

This threatens to put many millions more people in low-lying coastal regions at risk of flooding.

It's estimated roughly a billion live today less than 10m above current high-tide lines, including 250 million below 1m.

"Storms, if they happen against a baseline of higher seas - they will break flood defences," said Prof Andy Shepherd, of Leeds University.

"The simple formula is that around the planet, six million people are brought into a flooding situation for every centimetre of sea-level rise. So, when you hear about a centimetre rise, it does have impacts," he told BBC News.

https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampprojec...errer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s
 
Climate change: Greenland ice melt 'is accelerating'

Source: BBC news online
Date: 10 December, 2019

Greenland is losing ice seven times faster than it was in the 1990s.

The assessment comes from an international team of polar scientists who've reviewed all the satellite observations over a 26-year period.

They say Greenland's contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future.

It means an additional 7cm of ocean rise could now be expected by the end of the century from Greenland alone.

This threatens to put many millions more people in low-lying coastal regions at risk of flooding.

It's estimated roughly a billion live today less than 10m above current high-tide lines, including 250 million below 1m.

"Storms, if they happen against a baseline of higher seas - they will break flood defences," said Prof Andy Shepherd, of Leeds University.

"The simple formula is that around the planet, six million people are brought into a flooding situation for every centimetre of sea-level rise. So, when you hear about a centimetre rise, it does have impacts," he told BBC News.

https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-48387030?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE=#referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s

“There’s no doubt that the average global sea level has been increasing ever since the world started to warm after the Little Ice Age ended around 1850. But there’s no reliable scientific evidence that the rate of rise is accelerating, or that the rise is associated with any human contribution to global warming.

...globally averaged sea level fluctuates considerably over time. This is illustrated in the IPCC’s figure below, which shows estimates from tide gauge data of the rate of rise from 1900 to 1993:

cropped.jpg


It’s clear that the rate of rise was much higher than its 20th century average during the 30 years from 1920 to 1950, and much lower than the average from 1910 to 1920 and again from 1955 to 1980.

Strong regional differences exist too. Actual rates of sea level rise range from negative in Stockholm, corresponding to a falling sea level, as that region continues to rebound after melting of the last ice age’s heavy ice sheet, to positive rates three times higher than average in the western Pacific Ocean.”

https://www.scienceunderattack.com/...mate-change-is-accelerating-sea-level-rise-35

maximus otter
 
I really should state my case here. I believe global warming, whether or not it has a significant human component, is inevitable in the long run. I'm talking millennia there. We are still on an interstice on the way out of the last ice age and there is no guarantee the last kick of said ice age is past. But if the geological record is to believed, the planet's normal state, when not in an ice age, is both warmer than now and with a substantially higher percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere.
From a very long term viewpoint, CO2 levels are gradually decreasing over a timescale of hundreds of millions of years. About 500 million years from now, in the deep future, CO2 levels are expected to go so low that most plants will die out. There's no guarantee that our planet would naturally return to high CO2 levels if there were no anthropogenic effects.

I believe the planet will restore itself to that normal state whatever we puny humans do, as it did after disastrous asteroid impacts and other disruptive events in the past. Therefore we adapt or die. Trying to preserve the status quo is beyond our powers.
The first statement is probably wrong, since it would go against the long-term trend. The second statement is probably true at present, but it hopefully will not remain so. In the long term we will need to engineer the Earth's climate one way or another.

And if the human race is to survive we really must resume our push to the stars.
I agree with this, but don't expect to find any better planets out there. If we are going to live on any extrasolar planets at all, we'll have to learn the technology for climate engineering somehow. Every earth-like planet out there will have some sort of climate issue- different rotation period, different obliquity, different magnetic field strength, different water content, different atmospheric content, different temperature ranges, different frequency range of illuminance, different tidal characteristics, different gravity regime- and that's just for starters.

Even after the expected climate disasters of the next few hundred years, Earth will remain the most Earth-like planet for many thousands of light-years, if my estimates are correct.
 
From a very long term viewpoint, CO2 levels are gradually decreasing over a timescale of hundreds of millions of years. About 500 million years from now, in the deep future, CO2 levels are expected to go so low that most plants will die out. There's no guarantee that our planet would naturally return to high CO2 levels if there were no anthropogenic effects.

The first statement is probably wrong, since it would go against the long-term trend. The second statement is probably true at present, but it hopefully will not remain so. In the long term we will need to engineer the Earth's climate one way or another.

I agree with this, but don't expect to find any better planets out there. If we are going to live on any extrasolar planets at all, we'll have to learn the technology for climate engineering somehow. Every earth-like planet out there will have some sort of climate issue- different rotation period, different obliquity, different magnetic field strength, different water content, different atmospheric content, different temperature ranges, different frequency range of illuminance, different tidal characteristics, different gravity regime- and that's just for starters.

Even after the expected climate disasters of the next few hundred years, Earth will remain the most Earth-like planet for many thousands of light-years, if my estimates are correct.

Very thoughtful replies. Thank you. I am, of course, an optimist and that no doubt contributes to my belief the planet will self-heal.
 
An upside on the uplands.

Vegetation is expanding at high altitudes in the Himalayas, including in the Everest region, new research has shown.

The researchers found plant life in areas where vegetation was not previously known to grow. A team used satellite data from 1993 to 2018 to measure the extent of plant cover between the tree-line and the snow-line. The results are published in the journal Global Change Biology.

The study focused on the subnival region - the area between the tree-line (the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing) and the snow line (the boundary between snow-covered land and snow-free land). Subnival plants are mainly small grasses and shrubs.

"The strongest trend in increased vegetation cover was between 5,000 metres and 5,500 metres altitude," said Dr Karen Anderson, from Exeter University, lead author of the report. "At higher elevations, the expansion was strong on flatter areas while at lower levels that has been observed on steeper slopes."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51050456
 
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It does make me bristle a little angrily when (usually on BBC news) they talk about the warming (or climate or whatever they decide to call it today) being 'above average'.
The average they refer to is the average of observed temperatures during an arbitrary period, 1950 - 1980 (IIRC).
Which begs two questions IMO.
Firstly, who observed these temperatures and where? Were they qualified meteorologists using the same equipment throughout, properly calibrated, in the same precise locations, at the same times of day, eliminating as many variable factors as possible, or was it temperatures observed by some staff in some institute somewhere, possibly a bit slack with their records. And was the increase in temperatures on the outskirts of expanding cities accounted for as urban sprawl increased the size of the area affected by the natural tendency towards a city holding onto it's heat? I mean, in 1950 Edgware to the north of London was almost bordering on countryside but it became quite built up during the 50s and 60s and these days, driving north up the A5 out of London, the buildings don't stop until you reach the bottom of Brockley Hill, which is where the traditional 'green belt' begins.
Secondly, why pick 1950-1980 as the timeframe over which to base your average? Why not all of the 1900s? Or 1995-2010? Or look back and deduce an average temperature from records relating to the 1700's? Or an average temperature during the last Ice Age. Or an average from when the planet last went through a much warmer period?
Additionally, if we were to go with a rolling average of the last (lets say) 20 years temperatures, then obviously that average will change as we go forward each year. If we go into 2 or 3 years where the temperatures are lower than expected that'll make the average start dropping and suddenly we'd get worried about that!
 
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