Climate pact blueprint adopted in Geneva

Negotiators in Geneva adopted a climate blueprint on Friday (Feb 13), a symbolic milestone in the fraught UN process that must culminate in a universal pact in Paris in December.
Assembled over the past six days, the 86-page draft plan for limiting man-made global warming was gavelled through at the close of six days of talks, prompting applause from delegates.

"The task of this session has been achieved," UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told reporters ahead of the closing. "We have a text today ..., the formal negotiating text that will be the basis for negotiations for the next few months until we get to Paris", where the final pact will be adopted.

Ever since the 2009 Copenhagen conference failed to deliver a world agreement, the 195 nations gathered under the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been working on a new project for adoption by the end of this year.

Set to be signed at the November 30-December 11 UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris, the pact must enter into force by 2020 to further the UN goal of limiting warming to 2°C (3.6°F) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Scientists warn that at current greenhouse gas emission trends, Earth is on track for double that, or more - a recipe for catastrophic droughts, storms, floods and rising sea levels.

Negotiators emerged from the last COP in Lima last December, with a hard-fought framework text that remained hotly contested.

The February 8-13 Geneva talks, one of three special sessions added to this year's official UN climate agenda, was tasked with "streamlining" the Lima document. Instead, the meeting's mandate was changed early on to seeking universal endorsement of the text, which more than doubled since Sunday until all countries were satisfied their views were included.

The process was widely hailed for creating a sense of common purpose and goodwill in a text with universal buy-in. But it also yielded a vast document listing a variety of alternative approaches on most issues - often reflecting country positions that diametrically oppose one another.

And that means hard choices will have to be made in the months to come, starting with the next negotiating round in Bonn in June. "We have now agreed on a negotiating text. It provides us with the basis for moving forward," Elina Bardram, head of the EU delegation, told AFP.

But she added: "We would have wished for more advancement. The introduction of missing elements in the text is an achievement, but it does mean that the tough negotiations lie ahead of us and we are running out of time. We need a step change between now and Paris."

OPTIONS FROM A TO Z

"All the crunch issues are still on the table," added to Climate Action Network spokeswoman Alix Mazounie. "We have options going from A to Z".

At the very core of the pact, countries remain deeply divided on the issue of "differentiation" - how to share responsibility for emissions cuts between rich and poor nations. Developing countries also want their developed counterparts to commit to long-term climate financing, and insist on compensation for climate-change induced losses and damage suffered.

"I don't think there's any doubt that the negotiations are going to get more difficult," said veteran observer Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The first step before you can get to addressing those is to have a common picture of what the agreement is going to look like in terms of what the outline is, what the elements are in it. They have it now."
- AFP/ec
channelnewsasia.com
13/2/15

Russian expert says no global warming over past fourteen years

There is been no global warming over the past fourteen years but scientists are divided in their assessments of the impact of human activity on the condition of climate, Dr. Robert Nigmatulin, the director of the Institute of Oceanic Studies reporting to the Russian Academy of Sciences said on Thursday...

"Manmade concentration of carbon dioxide is really growing," he said adding that this gas did contribute to the greenhouse effect, although it was increasing the atmospheric temperatures but insignificantly.

However, these slightly heightened concentrations intensified evaporation of water from the surface of the world ocean and the increase of concentration of aqueous vapor, which was producing a strong greenhouse effect.

"In the meantime, there has been no greenhouse effect over the past fourteen years," Dr. Nigmatulin said. "One of the explanations is the rising concentrations of aqueous vapor naturally bring about a thickening of the cloud cover, which in its turn increases reflection of solar light by the atmosphere."

"Quite possibly, a mechanism of this kind is in action now," he said. "I’m scrutinizing it now but I can’t give you more precise information yet."

"On the whole, the research community is split into two camps now, one saying that man is to blame for the global warming and the other insisting that, no, the anthropogenic factor does not play a decisive role in climate warming," Dr. Nigmatulin said.
 http://itar-tass.com/en/non-political/775806
6/2/15
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21st century ‘hottest’ on record as global warming continues, UN agency warns

UN, 2 February 2015 – Devastating weather patterns and increasing temperatures will last into the foreseeable future as global warming is expected to continue, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed today as it explained that 2014’s ranking as the “hottest year on record” is part of a larger climate trend.

“The overall warming trend is more important than the ranking of an individual year,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud clarified today in a press release. “Analysis of the datasets indicates that 2014 was nominally the warmest on record, although there is very little difference between the three hottest years.”

High sea temperatures, the UN agency has said, have contributed to exceptionally heavy rainfall and floods in many countries and extreme drought in others. Twelve major Atlantic storms battered the United Kingdom in early months of 2014, while floods devastated much of the Balkans throughout May. The monthly precipitation over the Pacific side of western Japan for August 2014, meanwhile, was 301 per cent above normal – the highest since area-averaged statistics began in 1946.

At the same time, crippling droughts have struck large swathes of the continental United States while Northeast China and parts of the Yellow River basin did not reach half of the summer average, causing severe drought.

The diverse climate impact which afflicted nations around the planet throughout 2014 were, in fact, consistent with the expectation of a changing climate, Mr. Jarraud continued.
In addition, he warned that 14 of the 15 hottest years recorded have all been in the 21st century, adding the UN agency’s expectation that global warming would continue “given that rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the increasing heat content of the oceans are committing us to a warmer future.”

Around 93 per cent of the excess energy trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and other human activities ends up in the oceans, the WMO press release noted, as it pointed out that global sea-surface temperatures had reached “record levels” in 2014, even in the absence of a “fully developed El Niño” weather pattern. 

High temperatures in 1998 – the hottest year before the 21st century – occurred during a strong El Niño year.

The WMO has released its latest findings regarding its global temperature analysis in advance of climate change negotiations scheduled to be held in Geneva from 8 to 13 February. 

These talks are expected to help pave the way towards the December 2015 conference scheduled in Paris, France, where a new universal UN-backed treaty on climate change will be adopted.
  [un.org]
2/2/15

Thousands Flee Homes As Wildfires Rage Across South Australia (global warming is making the wildfires worse and more frequent)

Thousands have fled their homes, as several major wildfires are raging across Southern Australia in what officials are calling the worst fires since 1983, the Guardian reports.
Up to 2,000 firefighters are battling the blaze, with more than a dozen aircraft dumping water onto the fires. Firefighters are struggling and said it could take “days to get the situation under control”. Dry conditions, temperatures as high as 40C, and ghastly winds fanning the flames are aggravating the already grave situation, the Guardian said.

Residents in Adelaide Hills, South Australia, are experiencing the worst of the fires, where flames have destroyed five homes and put hundreds of others in danger, said Daniel Hamilton, a spokesperson for South Australia Country Fire Service, the Guardian reported.

Residents of 19 other communities are also at risk, as a predicted shift in the winds later on Saturday could further intensify the flames. The state has declared a major emergency and told residents to leave, as their lives were at risk.

“If you have decided to stay the fire could become incredibly scary and it could make you change your mind and leave. It could be a catastrophic decision to leave late.” – said South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill.

Although Australia faces wildfires every year, this year has seen the outbreak of the largest bushfires in the state of South Australia since 1983. Environmentalists say global warming is making the wildfires worse and more frequent, the BBC said........................http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150103/1016488675.html3/1/15
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Related:

• Incendies de brousse hors de contrôle dans le sud de l'Australie ...

• Εκατοντάδες πυροσβέστες βοηθούμενοι από αεροσκάφη και δεκάδες πυροσβεστικά οχήματα, δίνουν μάχη με τις φλόγες σε πολλά πύρινα μέτωπα στις πολιτείες της Βικτόριας και της Νότιας Αυστραλίας...

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2013

• 'Catastrophic': Hundreds of wildfires rage in Australia amid record heat wave (VIDEO, PHOTOS RT)

• Australia experiences its hottest two years on record

China confirms its southern glaciers are disappearing

By Christina Larson, Science Insider
BEIJING—Glaciers in China that are a critical source of water for drinking and irrigation in India are receding fast, according to a new comprehensive inventory. In the short term, retreating glaciers may release greater meltwater, “but it will be exhausted when glaciers disappear under a continuous warming,” says Liu Shiyin, who led the survey for the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute in Lanzhou.
In 2002, Chinese scientists released the first full inventory of the country’s glaciers, the largest glacial area outside of Antarctica and Greenland. The data came from topographical maps and aerial photographs of western China’s Tibet and Xinjiang regions taken from the 1950s through the 1980s. That record showed a total glacial area of 59,425 square kilometers. The Second Glacier Inventory of China, unveiled here last week, is derived from high-resolution satellite images taken between 2006 and 2010. The data set is freely available online.

Liu and his colleagues calculated China’s total glacial area to be 51,840 square kilometers—13% less than in 2002. That figure is somewhat uncertain because the previous inventory used coarser resolution images that may have mistaken extensive snow cover for permanent ice, says Raymond Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who was not involved in the project.

Methodological quibbles aside, the latest inventory flags a marked retreat of glaciers in the southern and eastern fringes of the Tibetan Plateau. “We found the fastest shrinking glaciers are those in the central upper reach of the Brahmaputra River, between the central north Himalaya [and] the source region of the tributary of the Indus River,” Liu says.

Matthias Huss, a glaciologist at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, applauds the openness in sharing data, which hasn’t always been the norm in China. “It is highly useful that the colleagues from China have made their data set available to the community. It will feed directly into global efforts to compile a worldwide glacier inventory and is a major improvement,” he says. “It will, for example, greatly support the effort of global glacier modeling to improve our understanding of glaciers’ response to climate change.” [tibet.net]
23/12/14

The annual UN global climate change talks started in the Peruvian capital of Lima

Thousands of representatives from nearly 200 nations gathered at the Peruvian Army Headquarters for the two-week-long negotiations formally known as the COP20, or the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Polish Environment Minister Marcin Korolec, who was COP19/CMP9 President, hailed the 2030 framework agreed by the European Union and the China-U.S. joint announcement for emission cut as some of the major achievements of this year.

Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who was elected at the opening session as COP20/CMP10 president, urged participants to work in a creative way to reach global consensus in the following 12 days and stressed that an inclusive and transparent process was his top priority.

"This conference should lead to a framework on structuring and strengthening financial mechanisms, launch ambitious process to accelerate pre-2020 action, and make progress on intended determined contributions, or INDCS in short," said Pulgar-Vidal, calling for collective action from all parties.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres encouraged all actors to broaden scope of actions, and create political parity of adaptation and mitigation.

"This COP must make history," Figueres said, highlighting increased collective capacity of climate action worldwide and urging stronger global moves for a sustainable future.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), promised to bring everyone down "with the reality of science" after the theatrical show organized by the Peruvian presidency.

The IPCC, UN's science panel, recently presented its synthesis report, which is the fourth and final element of the fifth assessment report on the state of climate change.

Pachauri spelled out the influence of human emissions and their unequivocal impact on the planet, which is underway across all countries and affecting all peoples alike. "It is very likely Arctic sea ice will continue to shrink, sea level will continue to rise, and glacier volume will decrease," he said.

Pachauri expressed his hope that this COP will focus attention on the need to keep a global temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius and reach a zero emissions world by the end of the century in order to reduce climate change risks.

The UNFCCC 12-day talks took place amid depressing scientific warnings and rising prospects in advancing a draft universal pact with the aim of adopting it at the COP21 in Paris, France at the end of next year. The recent joint announcement made by China and the United States to limit greenhouse gas emissions provided practical and political momentum towards the new global agreement.

About 10,000 delegates, activists, journalists and support crew have been accredited for the conference, with thousands of police providing security.
Xinhua - china.org.cn - http://english.cntv.cn
1-2/12/14

Russia to take advantage of global warming (chief of Russian weather service)

The phenomenon of global warming will have its effect on Russia 2.5 times sooner than in the rest of the planet, Alexander Frolov, Chief of the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Rosgydromet) told a TASS-hosted briefing on Monday. 


"Global warming might give certain advantages to Russia — a longer navigation period and a shorter heat supply season, which are very important for Russia because it is the coldest country. Areas where grain and bean crops might be harvested will be considerably enlarged, mostly in western Siberia and in the Urals, and a life comfort zone will be broadened, moving it up to the north," Frolov told the briefing.

"The negative effects of global warming are a growing threat of forest and peat bog fires, and possible breaking of a traditional way of life of the indigenous population of the North. Russia must be prepared to survive under conditions both of water shortages and floods," he said.

Climate on earth has become warmer by 0.7 degrees on the average over a period of ten years, while climate in Russia has warmed by 0.43 degrees in the same period, the expert said.
 [en.itar-tass.com]
24/11/14
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Related:

• China tests ‘most economical solution’ for shipping to Europe through Russian Arctic...

• El cambio climático abre nueva ruta comercial para China 

• Ο Αρκτικός Ωκεανός έγινε «λεωφόρος» για πλοία

• Ελληνόκτητο τάνκερ διαπλέει τον Βόρειο Πόλο

• Scientists Discover World’s Oceans Warming Faster Than Predicted

  Related:

• Η νέα απειλή λέγεται μεθάνιο./ Ticking Arctic Carbon Bomb May Be Bigger Than Thought

Obama: US Pledges $3 Billion to Developing Nations for Global Warming Fund

U.S. President Barack Obama has announced that the United States is contributing $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund to help developing nations deal with climate change.

Obama made his announcement Saturday at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia -- host city of this year's summit of the Group of 20 world economic powers.
The president said the fund will help pay for such necessities as early warning systems and stronger defenses against storm surges. It also will help farmers plant more durable crops and aid developing economies in cutting carbon emissions and investing in clean energy.

Obama said it is not just governments that can fight climate change. He called on citizens, especially young people, to raise their voices, saying they deserve to live in a cleaner and healthier world.

Without mentioning any specific country, the president said effective security in Asia must be based on alliances and international law -- not spheres of influence or big nations bullying the small.

He said the only real source of legitimacy is a democracy and the consent of the people.[voanews.com]
14/11/14
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Related:
 

• Going green: Beijing, Washington strike landmark climate change deal

• 'Leaders must act', urges Ban, as new UN report warns man's impact on climate may soon be 'irreversible' 

• Scientists Discover World’s Oceans Warming Faster Than Predicted

• WHO Warns of Climate Change Dangers, Calls for Stronger Actions

Researchers examine bottom of strange crater in N Siberia

Russian researchers for the first time have reached the bottom of the strange large crater on the Yamal Peninsula, northwest Siberia, the press service of the regional government told TASS.

Scientists went on the third expedition to the crater on November 10. They managed to take samples of the ground and ice.
It is located four kilometers away from a gas pipeline and at a considerable distance from gas fields. Human activities could not cause the cave-in, the press service said.
During the summer, scientists could not examine the bottom because ground continued to collapse in the crater.
On the last expedition, researchers reached the depth of 200 metres despite the strong wind with gusts of up to 20 m.sec.

Specialists will study the chemical composition of the samples.
Scientists say the crater may be filled with water in a few years and become a small lake, such as many others in Yamal. It is proved that some of them appeared in such cave-ins. But scientists still do not know definitely how the craters were formed, the press service said.
The next expedition is planned for April 2015.

• The chairman of the board of the Tyumen Scientific Society of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Vladimir Melnikov, said the craters were formed in Yamal in 2012 and 2013 as a result of the climate warming.

Frozen ground began to melt. At some places, it became less thick, and shale gas came out through it. Shale gas is found along the entire sub-Arctic shelf. Supposedly, it caused the formation of the crater, Melnikov said.
 http://en.itar-tass.com/non-political/759237
12/11/14
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Related:

• Οι κρατήρες της Σιβηρίας λύνουν το μυστήριο του Τριγώνου των Βερμούδων;

• Ξεδιαλύνεται το μυστήριο που κρύβουν οι μυστηριώδεις κρατήρες της Σιβηρίας (Η νέα απειλή λέγεται μεθάνιο)

• Η νέα απειλή λέγεται μεθάνιο./ Ticking Arctic Carbon Bomb May Be Bigger Than Thought

Climate change talks: MEPs chart the course from Lima to Paris

 Talks to be held in Lima next month should enable global partners to reach an ambitious climate agreement in Paris in 2015, so as to keep the world on track for a sub-2°C climate warming scenario, said the Environment Committee in a resolution voted on Wednesday.
 MEPs reiterated the pledge by the EU and its member states to step up contributions to the UN Green Climate Fund so as to mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020, and called on other donors to play their part too.

"Our ultimate goal is to put our economies on track for a sub-2°C climate warming scenario. In Lima next month, UNFCCC parties are to work constructively to develop elements of the agreement to be concluded in Paris, and we should play a key role", said Environment Committee chair Giovanni La Via, who will lead a parliamentary delegation to Lima next month.

“Of course we face a political challenge to convince all concerned that moving towards a low-carbon economy is not something punitive, but will instead allow us to create jobs and to develop the technologies and products that the global community will need”, he added.

All countries should contribute, as delaying action will increase costs and reduce options, says the resolution, which was approved by 56 votes to 2 with 9 abstentions. The Lima Conference should also agree on information requirements to ensure that national contributions are quantifiable and comparable, it adds.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050
MEPs see the 1-12 December Lima conference as an opportunity to set key goals ahead of the 2015 international agreement to be discussed in Paris (COP 21) on 30 November- 11 December 2015. This agreement should clearly include steps for mitigation, adaptation and an implementation strategy in to meet the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2050, they say.

EU contribution

MEPs note that by 2012, the EU had cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 19% from 1990 levels, in line with the Kyoto Protocol, while increasing its GDP by more than 45%. It thus almost halved its average emission intensity between 1990 and 2012, and reduced its per capita emissions by 25%.

They also recall the commitment made by the EU and its member states to step up funding for climate measures by capitalising the UN’s Green Climate Fund and jointly mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020, as part of their contribution to the December 2009 UN Copenhagen Accord aiming to keep global warming below 2°C. MEPs call on other donors to do likewise, so as to mobilise more funding for climate measures.

Developing countries

MEPs stress that agreements on funding climate measures, technology transfer and capacity building will be essential to help developing countries, which contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions, but are most vulnerable to their effects, due to their limited capacity to react and adapt.

Air and sea

MEPs reiterate that both the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), must take steps to achieve satisfactory and timely results in line with the degree and urgency of climate change.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20141104IPR77230/
5/11/14

'Leaders must act', urges Ban, as new UN report warns man's impact on climate may soon be 'irreversible'

UN, 2 November 2014 – Citing “clear and growing” human influence on the climate system, a United Nations report issued today has warned that if left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.

Echoing that dire warning, UN Secretary-General Ban-moon said that if the world maintains its “business as usual” attitude about climate change, the opportunity to keep temperature rise below the internationally agreed target of 2 degrees Celsius, “will slip away within the next decade.”
 
 “With this latest report, science has spoken yet again and with much more clarity. Time is not on our side…leaders must act,” declared the UN chief, in Copenhagen, Denmark on an official visit that included a press conference to launch the final installment of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

According to a press release from the panel, the so-called “Synthesis Report” confirms that climate change is being registered around the world and warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.

“Our assessment finds that the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, sea level has risen and the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased to a level unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years,” said Thomas Stocker, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I, which participated in the compilation of the final report along with two other expert working groups.

Calling the report the “most comprehensive assessment of climate change” ever carried out, the Secretary-General urged worldwide action in light of its stark findings, saying that “even if emissions stopped tomorrow, we will be living with climate change for some time to come.”

Yet, the “good news is that if we act now, we have the means to build a more sustainable world,” he said, explaining that quick and decisive action that draws on many readily available tools and technologies can put the world on the right track. It was a myth that climate action would be costly, he said, stressing that in fact, inaction “will cost much, much more.”

R. K. Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, underscored that the means to limit climate change are at had. “The solutions are many and allow for continued economic and human development. All we need is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change.” 
[un.org]
2/11/14
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Related:

• "Sofortiges Handeln" gegen Erderwärmung ...

• Concentrations de gaz à effet de serre les plus élevées depuis 800.000 ans ...

• Scientists Discover World’s Oceans Warming Faster Than Predicted

• UN: Greenhouse Gases Hit Record Levels Last Year. (Large percentage of carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the oceans)

Warming Oceans Impact Future of Shrimp

Shrimp is America’s most popular seafood, but now it seems like the bad news for shrimp lovers is coming from every direction. Last winter, higher water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine forced the cancellation of Maine’s Northern shrimp season, and now scientists are saying it could happen again. And a new report from Oceana, which did DNA testing on 143 shrimp products, found that as much as 30 percent of shrimp sold in grocery stores and markets is being misrepresented, with species substitution rampant...................ecowatch.com

Karakoram Glaciers' Secret Revealed

Although the global warming continues to melt glaciers around the world, the ice mass in the Himalaya’s Karakoram region have been expanding, causing a fuss among the scientific community; however, the mystery has been finally revealed by a recent study published in Nature Geoscience on October 12.

“It has been a source of controversy that these glaciers have not been changing while other glaciers in the world have”, said Sarah Kapnick, a researcher at the Princeton University, as quoted by Discovery News.

The study compared a set of climate model simulations, focusing on seasonal cycles and their roles in the climate change in three regions of the Himalayas, including the Karakoram. Scientists found out that the moisture from seasonal monsoons increases a number of rainfalls in the region. Since the mountains are so high up, the moisture turns into snow, protecting the glaciers from reduction, Live Science said.

Scientists looked at 2,018 glaciers between 2001 and 2011 in the Himalayas and concluded that most of them – 1,700 glaciers – were stable and showed the same surface area and did not change their direction, International Business Times reported.

The Himalayan glaciers form the largest body of ice outside the polar caps. The glaciers store about 12,000 km3 of freshwater, according to International Business Times.
(RIA Novosti)
14/10/14
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Scientists Discover World’s Oceans Warming Faster Than Predicted

The oceans are warming faster than previously thought, according to a pair of new studies released this weekend and published in the scientific journal Natural Climate Change. This conclusion is largely due to enhanced information gathering in the southern oceans, which was limited in the past. The research teams compared previous ocean warming figures, based on the less complete data, with projections based on information they were able to obtain from more detailed studies. They found that from 1970 through 2004, increases in ocean temperatures exceeded those earlier figures.


“The global ocean stores more than 90 percent of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming,” opens the summary of the study “Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming,” produced by scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology.
They conclude that studies of global ocean warming since 1970 are low. “This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions,” they say. “Making adjustments to their model, based on recent access to additional information, they say “yields large increases to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.”

The other study, “Deep-ocean contribution to sea level and energy budget not detectable over the past decade,” also by CalTech scientists, attempted to measure the amount of sea level rise attributable to upper ocean vs deep ocean warming and when that warming occurred. Sea level rise occurs as warmer water expands.
“As the dominant reservoir of heat uptake in the climate system, the world’s oceans provide a critical measure of global climate change,” says the study’s summary.

They found that the deep ocean may not have gotten warmer in the last decade, but significant warming has occurred in the upper level of the ocean. They acknowledge “large uncertainty” in their calculations about the deep ocean since they were extrapolated from information based primary on upper ocean measurements.

“It’s likely that due to the poor observational coverage, we just haven’t been able to say definitively what the long-term rate of Southern Hemisphere ocean warming has been,” lead author  of the first study Dr. Paul Durack told the BBC. “It’s a really pressing problem—we’re trying as hard as we can, as scientists, to provide the best information from the limited observations we have.”
Anastasia Pantsios | October 6, 2014 10:10 am
http://ecowatch.com
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Related:

• "One planet, one ocean – together, we must protect them", urges UN on World Oceans Day 

• “GOING GLOBAL” TO SAFEGUARD OUR OCEANS

• El calentamiento amenaza la regulación del clima en el Océano Antártico

• Le refroidissement du Pacifique provoquerait une "pause" du réchauffement climatique

NASA Satellite Images Reveal Shocking Groundwater Loss in Drought-Stricken California

NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) program has released a series of satellite images, taken in June 2002, June 2008 and June of this year, showing the  stunning groundwater loss in California which is in its third year of record drought.... 

“This trio of images depicts satellite observations of declining water storage in California as seen by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites,” says NASA. “Colors progressing from green to orange to red represent greater accumulated water loss between April 2002 and June 2014.”

The prolonged drought has impacted everything from agriculture to fisheries to residential use, worsened and prolonged the wildfire season and created conflicts over the use of water resources.
That has included calls for banning water-intensive fracking and disputes over the diversion of river water for the state’s even more water-intensive agriculture sector, primarily in its fertile Central Valley.

“California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins, including the Central Valley, have suffered the greatest losses, in part due to increased groundwater pumping to support agricultural production,” said NASA. “Between 2011 and 2014, the combined river basins have lost 4 trillion gallons of water each year, an amount far greater than California’s 38 million residents use in cities and homes annually.”

Gov. Brown declared a state of emergency in January after the state had its lowest recorded rainfall in its history.

*** GRACE is a collaborative endeavor involving the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas, Austin; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the German Space Agency and Germany’s National Research Center for Geosciences, Potsdam.

Anastasia Pantsios | October 3, 2014
ecowatch.com
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Related:

• NASA Photographs Show Eastern Basin of Aral Sea Totally Dried 

• Premios Nobel preocupados por "estado catastrófico" del planeta...

• California Experiencing Most Severe Drought Ever Recorded

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• California Wildfires Destroy Homes

UN: Greenhouse Gases Hit Record Levels Last Year. (Large percentage of carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the oceans)

The United Nations says surging carbon dioxide emissions sent greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to record levels last year.

In its annual report on greenhouse gas concentrations released Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said carbon dioxide levels between 2012 and 2013 marked the largest yearly increase since reliable global records began 30 years ago.

A large percentage of carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the oceans.


In a statement accompanying the report, WMO chief Michel Jarraud warned that "past, present and future carbon dioxide emissions will have a cumulative impact on global warming and ocean acidification." He said the "laws of physics are non-negotiable."

Many scientists believe that increased greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming, or the warming of the atmosphere. Jarraud has said there is no doubt that global temperatures are rising.
http://www.voanews.com/content/un-greenhouse-gases-hit-record-levels/2443400.html
9/9/14
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Related:

• Ρεκόρ επιπέδου συγκέντρωσης αερίων του «θερμοκηπίου»/Greenhouse gas in atmosphere hits new record. -World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

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• Μείωση των εκπομπών από τις μονάδες λιθάνθρακα υπόσχεται το σχέδιο Ομπάμα

• Οι Μεγάλες Πετρελαϊκές Ευθύνονται για Τεράστιο Μέρος των Εκπομπών Αερίων του Θερμοκηπίου.

• Τελευταία Ελπίδα για το CCS από την Κομισιόν

WHO Warns of Climate Change Dangers, Calls for Stronger Actions

MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) - The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning governments and the public of the negative effects that global warming is already having on people’s health, calling for urgent action, according to a press release published Wednesday.
“The evidence is overwhelming: climate change endangers human health,” WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said at a global conference on health and climate change, which opened in Geneva on Wednesday.

Dr. Chan suggested that countries need to “act decisively to change this trajectory,” as the air pollution and shifting patterns of disease caused by extreme weather events, lack of water and poor sanitation are claiming hundreds of thousands of lives per year.
Another WHO official, Dr. Maria Neira, added that “reducing climate change can yield substantial and immediate health benefits.”

According to WHO, changes in energy and transport policies could save “millions of lives,” as in 2012 air pollution alone resulted in a death toll of seven million worldwide. The burden of climate-sensitive diseases, including cholera, malaria and dengue fever could also be reduced by the right policy changes.

The conference, which included over 300 participants, is being held on August 27-29 at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The objectives of the conference include empowering national health and sustainable development authorities, NGOs and the private sector to protect people’s health from climate change; and identifying the health benefits that come from reducing air pollution and supporting the relevant policies. The WHO climate conference precedes the UN Climate Summit, scheduled for September 2014.
http://en.ria.ru/society/20140827/192397151/WHO-Warns-of-Climate-Change-Dangers-Calls-for-Stronger-Actions.html
27/8/14
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Related:

• Air pollution now linked to 1 in 8 deaths worldwide, UN health agency reports

Climate-cooling policies threaten food supplies

By Viv Forbes

A warmer, wetter climate with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would undoubtedly produce more plant growth and more food.

However climate-cooling policies that claim to prevent global warming by throttling the use of carbon fuels will definitely reduce food supply and increase food prices.

The promotion of ethanol for motor fuel is anti-food. This "food for fuel" program has absorbed significant quantities of corn, soy beans, sugar and palm oils. Consequently prices for ethanol crops are higher than they would otherwise be, encouraging farmers to convert land currently devoted to grazing animals and other food crops to growing more profitable crops for ethanol.

Extreme greens also practise plant discrimination, favouring more trees at the expense of natural grasslands and open forest that support many grazing animals. These polices take many forms including planting carbon credit forests, banning regrowth clearing, anti-development zoning and blanket tree protection reserves. All such policies reduce food production from grasslands.
Climate-cooling policies also aim to decrease demand for carbon fuels, including coal, oil, gas and refined motor fuels, by increasing their costs and prices. Modern food production is totally dependent on low-priced carbon fuels for all farming activities. Diesel fuels are needed for cultivation, planting, harvesting and transport; and coal/gas powered electricity for irrigation, processing and distribution. Higher prices for carbon fuels will send some marginal farms out of business. The same policies will reduce profits and production in the fishing industry. All of these policies are anti-food.

Modern food production needs nitrogen fertiliser, which is made from atmospheric nitrogen and natural gas, with carbon dioxide as a by-product. Extreme greens all over the world are delaying and opposing the exploration and production of natural gas, and their carbon taxes are increasing the costs of this key fertiliser.
Finally, climate-cooling policies favour silly schemes like carbon capture and burial, which aims to pump carbon dioxide underground. The promoters should be told that current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are BELOW those that maximise plant growth and food production. The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels was a major contributor to increased world food production over the last century. To bury this free plant food is not food-smart.

These unproven solutions to unproven problems are unlikely to change the climate. But there is a 50:50 chance that instead of warming, the globe may cool naturally, which will cause dramatic reduction in food production.

Food is not easily storable and supply and demand are always finely balanced. If natural cooling comes on top of all these man-made anti-food policies, the world will see cascading food shortages.

Viv Forbes

Australia

[pravda.ru] 

21/8/14

Can Insects Feed a Hungry Planet?

Earth’s population is ballooning every day, which increasingly presents a host of challenges, from housing to resource depletion to food.

The issue of feeding billions of people on a warming planet—along with related concerns such as food waste, water usage and greenhouse gas emissions—continues to be explored.

It has been widely established that factory farming contributes to climate change and even that eating less beef will benefit the environment. But what about eating … bugs. Bugs?

Two billion people around the globe eat insects. Major areas of consumption include Latin America, Southeast Asia and Central Africa. As new ways are examined to feed a rapidly expanding global population, and with a minimal environmental impact, will entomophagy—the consumption of insects as food—be taken seriously in other parts of the world?

Folks at Ensia—Anna Egelhoff, John Sisser and Todd Reubold—put together this infographic to address that very question:..............................http://ecowatch.com
15/8/14
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Related:

• Έκθεση του FAO: «Πεινάτε; Φάτε έντομα!» λέει ο Παγκόσμιος Οργανισμός Τροφίμων

• Empfehlung der UN ..... Mehr Insekten auf den Teller!....

• L'ONU encourage la consommation d'insectes pour lutter contre la faim...

• UN urges people to eat insects to fight world hunger....

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• Marine experts urge Australians to eat more sea urchins to save environment (is said to contain euphoria-causing chemicals similar to that found in cannabis)

• La FAO recomienda desarrollar alimentos a base de medusas....

• ΟΗΕ: Φάτε μέδουσες, να σώσουμε τα ψάρια!

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• ‘Shameful’: World loses up to third of produced food, World Bank says

• Παρά τη φτώχεια πετάμε φαγητό στα σκουπίδια 

• Στα σκουπίδια καταλήγει το 50% των τροφίμων / La moitié de la nourriture produite dans le monde gaspillée

California Experiencing Most Severe Drought Ever Recorded

One of the worst North American droughts in history could be getting a whole lot worse. According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor Map released on Tuesday, more than 58 percent of California is in an “exceptional drought” stage. That’s up a staggering 22 percent from last week’s report. And, in its latest drought report released earlier today, the National Drought Mitigation Center warned that “bone-dry” conditions are overtaking much of the Golden State, and noted that, overall, California is “short more than one year’s worth of reservoir water, or 11.6 million acre-feet, for this time of year.”

All across California, streams are drying up, crops are dying off and local communities are struggling to maintain access to water, thanks to 3 years of persistent drought conditions. 
The situation is so dire that on Tuesday, California implemented state-wide emergency water-conservation measures, in an effort preserved what remaining water there is. Under the new measures, Californians can face fines of up to $500 per day for using hoses to clean sidewalks, run decorative fountains, and other water-guzzling activities.
Unfortunately, while the situation in California is already pretty bleak, it looks like things are only going to get worse. In fact, it’s possible that all of the American southwest could soon be seeing the devastating drought conditions that Californians are facing. That’s because the largest surge of heat ever recorded moving west to east in the Pacific Ocean, often referred to as a Kelvin Wave, which was supposed to start an El Nino and bring tropical-like rains to the West Coast and southwest, just dissipated, after it was absorbed by abnormally warm ocean waters.

An El Nino is marked by the prolonged warming of Pacific Ocean surface temperatures, when compared to the average temperature. El Ninos usually happen every two to seven years, and can last anywhere between nine months and two years. As warm water spreads from the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the eastern Pacific, it brings rain and moisture with it, bringing rain to California and the American Southwest. 
So, during an El Nino period, winters are often a lot wetter than usual in the southwest U.S., including in central and southern California, where drought conditions are currently the worst. That’s why Californians were hoping for a strong El Nino period, to bring the rains and moisture that’s needed to help ease the drought.

Unfortunately, while some weather models are still predicting that an El Nino is possible, the chances of an El Nino strong enough to break the devastating drought that California is seeing are now very, very slim. As a result, there’s probably no end in sight to the current drought conditions in California. And, since warm ocean waters that bring rain are moving farther north up the Pacific, while Oregon and Washington and Alaska will get rain, the jet stream is set to extend drought-like conditions to much of the southwest.......................................ecowatch.com
1/8/14