Two studies use phrase “10 times faster” to describe climate changes

Climate warming happening 10 times faster than in the past 65 million years. Antarctic permafrost melting 10 times faster than in 11,000 years,

Via earthsky.org, 2 August 2013 (Thanks Connie) - Two recent studies suggest that the climate warming occurring on Earth today is happening at a dramatically fast rate. It’s this rate of change, scientists say – the speed with which average global temperatures are expected to climb over the coming decades – that will make the ongoing climate warming troublesome for living things on Earth. Both groups of scientists used the phrase “10 times faster” to describe climate changes.

One study, from Stanford University, suggests that climate change is happening 10 times faster than it has at any time in the past 65 million years. The other study, from the University of Texas, suggests that Antarctic permafrost is now melting 10 times faster than in 11,000 years, adding further evidence that Earth’s Antarctic is, in fact, warming just as Earth’s Arctic is. Click the links below to learn more about these studies.

The top map shows global temperatures in the late 21st century, based on current warming trends. The bottom map illustrates the velocity of climate change, or how far species in any given area will need to migrate by the end of the 21st century to experience climate similar to present. 

Climate warming 10 times faster than in 65 million years. In a study announced August 1, 2013, Stanford University climate scientists say that Earth is undergoing one of the largest climate changes in the past 65 million years. They say, moreover, that the change is currently on pace to occur at a rate 10 times faster than any change in 65 million years. Without intervention, these scientists say that this extreme pace could lead to a 5-6 degree Celsius spike in annual temperatures by the end of this century.

Noah Diffenbaugh and Chris Field, both senior fellows at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, published these results as part of a special report on climate change in the August 2013 issue of Science. They conducted a “targeted but broad” review of scientific literature on aspects of climate change that can affect ecosystems, and they investigated how recent observations and projections for climate change in the coming century compare to past events in Earth’s history.

For instance, they compare the current warming to the 5-degree-Celsius temperature hike that occurred 20,000 years ago, as Earth emerged from the last ice age. They say that change was:

… comparable to the high-end of the projections for warming over the 20th and 21st centuries.

The difference is that, at the end of the last ice age, the warming took place over thousands of years. The same warming now is expected to occur over decades. Diffenbaugh and Field note that, as the climate warmed at the end of the last ice age, plants and animals moved northward to cooler climates. Similar (but possibly less successful?) migrations are expected in the coming years.

Diffenbaugh and Field also say in their press release that:

… some of the strongest evidence for how the global climate system responds to high levels of carbon dioxide comes from paleoclimate studies. Fifty-five million years ago, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was elevated to a level comparable to today. The Arctic Ocean did not have ice in the summer, and nearby land was warm enough to support alligators and palm trees.

But they say there are two key differences for ecosystems in the coming decades compared with the geologic past. The rapid pace of modern climate change is one. The other is that:

… today there are multiple human stressors that were not present 55 million years ago, such as urbanization and air and water pollution.

Read more about Diffenbaugh and Field’s study from Stanford

One of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. Scientists found a rapid retreat of ground ice in Garwood Valley, one of the Dry Valleys, similar to the rates of permafrost melt observed in the coastal Arctic. Photo by Bryan Kiechie on Flickr, via Motherboard

Landsat satellite mosaic of Antarctica, showing the location of the Dry Valleys, via University of Texas

Antarctic permafrost melting 10 times faster than in 11 thousand years. Publishing in the journal Nature on July 24, 2013, scientists at the University of Texas report on their study of one of Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys, showing that the rate of permafrost melting there is now 10 times the historic rate documented for the entire present geological epoch.

Prior to this finding, the permafrost in this region of Antarctica was assumed to be stable. These researchers say this permafrost melting in this part of Antarctica has accelerated so that it’s now “comparable to the Arctic.”

UT’s Joseph Levy and his team documented the change through LIDAR – a detection system that works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser – and time-lapse photography. They found a rapid retreat of ground ice in Garwood Valley, one of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, similar to the lower rates of permafrost melt observed in the coastal Arctic and Tibet. Levy said:

The big tell here is that the ice is vanishing — it’s melting faster each time we measure. This is a dramatic shift from recent history.

Describing this study for Motherboard, Mat McDermott wrote:

As opposed to the potentially catastrophic bump in greenhouse gas emissions that could result if Arctic permafrost quickly melts, scientists here are presenting their findings as more of an interesting geologic curiosity. As the ground continues to thaw, researcher believe the landscape will sink and buckle, creating retrogressive thaw slumps. 

Furthermore, unlike other ice melting in Antarctica which can contribute significantly to sea-level rise depending upon whether its already floating on the water or resting on solid ground, the ground ice melting here isn’t really a major component of the frozen water on the continent.

Read more about Levy’s study from the University of Texas

Bottom line: Two recent studies use the phrase “10 times faster” to describe ongoing climate warming. One study, from Stanford University, suggests that climate change is happening 10 times faster than it has at any time in the past 65 million years. The other study, from the University of Texas, suggests that Antarctic permafrost is now melting 10 times Faster than it has in 11,000 years, adding further evidence that Earth’s Antarctic is, in fact, warming just as Earth’s Arctic is.

Global warming debunked: NASA report verifies carbon dioxide actually cools atmosphere

Via naturalnews.com, 22 May 2013 (Thanks Wherami) - Practically everything you have been told by the mainstream scientific community and the media about the alleged detriments of greenhouse gases, and particularly carbon dioxide, appears to be false, according to new data compiled by NASA's Langley Research Center. As it turns out, all those atmospheric greenhouse gases that Al Gore and all the other global warming hoaxers have long claimed are overheating and destroying our planet are actually cooling it, based on the latest evidence.

As reported by Principia Scientific International (PSI), Martin Mlynczak and his colleagues over at NASA tracked infrared emissions from the earth's upper atmosphere during and following a recent solar storm that took place between March 8-10. What they found was that the vast majority of energy released from the sun during this immense coronal mass ejection (CME) was reflected back up into space rather than deposited into earth's lower atmosphere.

The result was an overall cooling effect that completely contradicts claims made by NASA's own climatology division that greenhouse gases are a cause of global warming. As illustrated by data collected using Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER), both carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), which are abundant in the earth's upper atmosphere, greenhouse gases reflect heating energy rather than absorb it.

"Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats," says James Russell from Hampton University, who was one of the lead investigators for the groundbreaking SABER study. "When the upper atmosphere (or 'thermosphere') heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space."

Almost all 'heating' radiation generated by sun is blocked from entering lower atmosphere by CO2

According to the data, up to 95 percent of solar radiation is literally bounced back into space by both CO2 and NO in the upper atmosphere. Without these necessary elements, in other words, the earth would be capable of absorbing potentially devastating amounts of solar energy that would truly melt the polar ice caps and destroy the planet.

"The shock revelation starkly contradicts the core proposition of the so-called greenhouse gas theory which claims that more CO2 means more warming for our planet," write H. Schreuder and J. O'Sullivan for PSI. "[T]his compelling new NASA data disproves that notion and is a huge embarrassment for NASA's chief climatologist, Dr. James Hansen and his team over at NASA's GISS."

Dr. Hansen, of course, is an outspoken global warming activist who helped spark man-made climate change hysteria in the U.S. back in 1988. Just after the release of the new SABER study, however, Dr. Hansen conveniently retired from his career as a climatologist at NASA, and reportedly now plans to spend his time "on science," and on "drawing attention to [its] implications for young people."

You can read more details of the new NASA SABER study by visiting:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/

You can also check out a informative, four-minute video report on the solar storm here:
http://youtu.be/EEFQHDSYP1I

Sources for this article include:

http://principia-scientific.org

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/

http://youtu.be/EEFQHDSYP1I

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/040448_solar_radiation_global_warming_debunked.html#ixzz2U5dDubvz

Ocean Currents Shifting In Warming Climate, World Will Be Like Ancient Period 3 Million Years Ago Say German Scientists

Circulation changes in a warmer ocean noted.  In a new study, scientists suggest that the pattern of ocean circulation was radically altered in the past when climates were warmer.

Ancient warm periods offer useful insights into potential future warming and its impacts. The mid-Pliocene, ~3 million years ago, was a relatively recent period of global warmth that is often considered as an analog for our future.

Simulated changes in sea surface temperature (Degrees C, contours) with comparison to reconstructed changes (circles) in the North Atlantic.

Credit:  Uni Research Ltd

During this warm period, unusually warm surface conditions existed in the North Atlantic, which has often been simply explained by the intensification of the existing pattern of ocean circulation. However, reproducing these changes with climate models has eluded researchers for more than a decade—suggesting either that there was something wrong with the long-standing explanation or with the models used to predict the behavior of warmer oceans.

An alternative pattern of warm ocean circulation

A team of Bergen scientists reevaluated the existing observations and used the Norwegian Earth System model (NorESM) to carry out simulations to better understand ocean circulation during the warm mid-Pliocene.

They illustrated that the largest changes occurred in the deep Southern Ocean, but not in the North Atlantic, indicating that the existing explanation was not adequate. They found that the data and simulations pointed toward an altogether different pattern of ocean circulation, with Antarctic waters playing a stronger role due to faster renewal of the deeper water masses in the Southern Ocean during the mid-Pliocene. This alternative explanation provided a solution to the long standing discrepancy between reconstructions of ocean circulation at the time and available model simulations.

North Atlantic warming

The team also addressed the unusual warmth in the North Atlantic during the warm mid-Pliocene. The observed high latitude warmth was shown not to require the intensification of todays ocean circulation and the transport of ocean heat to the north, rather it was a direct response to changes in insolation and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the time. The study highlights just how differently ocean circulation was when the planet was warmer and carbon dioxide levels were high.

The study by Zhongshi Zhang, Kerim Nisancioglu and Ulysses Ninnemann from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Bergen was published on Tuesday February 19th in Nature Communications.

Contacts and sources: 

Uni Research Ltd

Citation: Zhang, Z.-S. et al. Increased ventilation of Antarctic deep water during the warm mid-Pliocene. Nat. Commun. 4:1499 doi: 10.1038/ncomms2521 (2013).

Incredible Map Shows Vanishing Land Due To Rising Ocean

Sea levels are rising faster than expected from global warming, and University of Colorado geologist Bill Hay has a good idea why. The last official IPCC report in 2007 projected a global sea level rise between 0.2 and 0.5 meters by the year 2100. But current sea-level rise measurements meet or exceed the high end of that range and suggest a rise of one meter or more by the end of the century.

Past and possible future changes in sea level

Map by Emanuel Soeding, Christian-Albrechts University, using U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

“What’s missing from the models used to forecast sea-level rise are critical feedbacks that speed everything up,” says Hay. He will be presenting some of these feedbacks in a talk on Sunday, 4 Nov., at the meeting of The Geological Society of America in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.

One of those feedbacks involves Arctic sea ice, another the Greenland ice cap, and another soil moisture and groundwater mining.

“There is an Arctic sea ice connection,” says Hay, despite the fact that melting sea ice — which is already in the ocean — does not itself raise sea level. Instead, it plays a role in the overall warming of the Arctic, which leads to ice losses in nearby Greenland and northern Canada. When sea ice melts, Hay explains, there is an oceanographic effect of releasing more fresh water from the Arctic, which is then replaced by inflows of brinier, warmer water from the south.

“So it’s a big heat pump that brings heat to the Arctic,” says Hay. “That’s not in any of the models.” That warmer water pushes the Arctic toward more ice-free waters, which absorb sunlight rather than reflect it back into space like sea ice does. The more open water there is, the more heat is trapped in the Arctic waters, and the warmer things can get.

Then there are those gigantic stores of ice in Greenland and Antarctica. During the last interglacial period, sea level rose 10 meters due to the melting of all that ice — without any help from humans. New data suggests that the sea-level rise in the oceans took place over a few centuries, according to Hay.

“You can lose most of the Greenland ice cap in a few hundred years, not thousands, just under natural conditions,” says Hay. “There’s no telling how fast it can go with this spike of carbon dioxide we are adding to the atmosphere.”

This possibility was brought home this last summer as Greenland underwent a stunning, record-setting melt. The ice streams, lubricated by water at their base, are speeding up.

Hay notes, “Ten years ago we didn’t know much about water under the Antarctic ice cap.” But it is there, and it allows the ice to move — in some places even uphill due to the weight of the ice above it.

“It’s being squeezed like toothpaste out of a tube,” explains Hay. The one thing that’s holding all that ice back from emptying into the sea is the grounded ice shelves acting like plugs on bottles at the ends of the coastal glaciers. “Nobody has any idea how fast that ice will flow into the oceans once the ice shelves are gone.”

Another missing feedback is the groundwater being mined all over the world to mitigate droughts. That water is ultimately added to the oceans (a recent visualization of this effect in the U.S. was posted by NASA’s Earth

Observatory: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79228).

All of these are positive feedbacks speeding up the changes in climate and sea-level rise.

“You would expect negative feedbacks to creep in at some point,” says Hay. “But in climate change, every feedback seems to go positive.” The reason is that Earth’s climate seems to have certain stable states. Between those states things are unstable and can change quickly. “Under human prodding, the system wants to go into a new climate state.”

Source: Geological Society of America