Thawing
Permafrost -- Changing Planet
Because
of a warming atmosphere, permafrost -- the frozen ground that covers
the top of the world -- has been thawing rapidly over the last three
decades. But there is cause for concern beyond the far north, because
the carbon released from thawing permafrost could raise global
temperatures even higher.
The Changing Planet series explores the impact that climate change is having on our planet, and is provided by the National Science Foundation (http://science360.gov/series/Changing...) & NBC Learn (http://www.nbclearn.com/changingplanet)
The Changing Planet series explores the impact that climate change is having on our planet, and is provided by the National Science Foundation (http://science360.gov/series/Changing...) & NBC Learn (http://www.nbclearn.com/changingplanet)
This is mainstream media - NBC!
A
temperature rise that could cause irreversible and potentially
catastrophic
damage to human civilization is practically inevitable,
according to rising chatter
among experts in the lead up to a year of
key negotiations on a new climate change global accord.
World
leaders have voluntarily committed to limit warming by the end of the
century
to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the
pre-industrial level, a
threshold beyond which, scientists argue,
severe drought, rising seas and
supercharged storms as well as food
and water security become routine challenges.
Given
the world's historic emissions combined with a continued reliance on
fossil
fuels to power humanity for the foreseeable future, limiting
the increase to
2 degrees Celsius is all but impossible, according to
David Victor, a professor of
international relations and an expert on
climate change policy at the University of
California, San Diego.
"There
is no scenario by which any accord that's realistic on this planet is
going to
get us to 2 degrees because the trajectory on emissions
right now is way above
2 degrees," he told NBC News.
In
recent months, this sentiment has been echoed and reinforced by
scientists and
policy analysts throughout the climate and
environmental communities. And there's
debate over whether the
2-degree target should be ditched altogether in favor of a
strategy
that focuses on attainable, albeit lofty goals built from the ground
up.
"The
2-degree target is a great idea," Granger Morgan, a professor of
engineering
and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh, told NBC News. "But
we have been so slow in doing
anything much about controlling emissions that the
accumulative
effects are building up on us and … I just do not see the political
will
to limit emissions to the degree that will be needed to stay
below 2 degrees."
Nevertheless,
he added, the world urgently needs to get serious about tackling
climate change "because otherwise it is going to be much worse."
High-water
marks inching higher as global warming makes megafloods more common
As
floodwaters surge along major rivers in the midwestern United States,
a new study from Washington University in St. Louis suggests federal
agencies are underestimating historic 100-year flood levels on these
rivers by as much as five feet, a miscalculation that has serious
implications for future flood risks, flood insurance and business
development in an expanding floodplain.
Wildfires are already raging — and it's about to get a whole lot worse
Wildfires are already raging — and it's about to get a whole lot worse
Summer
just started but wildfires are already ravaging the dried-out West
coast.
Since
the beginning of June, nearly 300 fires have burned in Alaska, with a
total of 1.1 million acres already destroyed just one month into the
fire season. Right now, a fire in the Galena Zone area of Alaska has
burned through 100,000 acres.
Alaska
isn't alone.
Active
wildfires are consuming approximately 31,559 acres in the San
Bernardino National Forest in California, 17,787 acres in Nevada, and
another 15,401 acres in New Mexico, according to the National
Wildfire Coordinating Group.
That's
a total of 100 square miles of wildfires currently burning, and
that's just three examples.
Saskatchewan wildfires have forced thousands from their homes and spread smoke you can see from space
Emergency
shelters already full in Prince Albert, Saskatoon
About sixteen hundred evacuees were taking shelter in Regina late Tuesday, after wildfires in northern Saskatchewan forced them from their homes.
Across
the province, 4,000 were expected to be registered with Red Cross by
Tuesday night.
Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team
The
fire situation in Alaska is very dynamic at this time. As of June 29,
2015, there are 314 active fires in the State. Many fires in remote
areas are unstaffed. The fire summary for Alaska is as follows: 2 new
fires with 11 acres burned, 42 staffed fires with 516,089 acres
burned, and 271 monitored fires with 1,263,297 acres burned.
For
a list of all the different Alaska fires visit:
inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4314/
This
year has seen an unusually high number of wildfires burning
simultaneously across the tundra and forests of Alaska, and an
exceptionally large number of homes and buildings have been damaged
or threatened by the flames so far this year. Wildfires are a common
occurrence in the state, but this year's fires started earlier than
normal and have escalated quickly. A light winter snowpack and little
rain in the spring left dry ground particularly vulnerable to fires
that break out when lightning strikes.
This
natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra
satellite on June 25, 2015. Actively burning areas, detected by
MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red.
Residents in the community of Wenatchee, Washington returned to their burned out homes Tuesday after a wildfire sent them fleeing from their neighborhood last
From
just across the Wenatchee River, Dominick Bonny watched a whole
neighborhood in his central Washington town burn as a wildfire
destroyed two dozen homes and forced hundreds to flee.
"With
the wind blowing away from us, it was like we were watching a natural
disaster within arm's reach," he said.
The
wildfires hit parts of central and eastern Washington over the
weekend as the state is struggling with a severe drought. Mountain
snowpack is at extremely low levels, and about one-fifth of the
state's rivers and streams are at record low levels.
A
torrid heat wave is easing a bit, but will kick into high gear yet
again later this week into the July 4th holiday weekend, and possibly
beyond.
June
record highs have been broken in at least 31 cities in the Northwest,
five of which appear to have tied or broken their all-time record
highs. The extreme heat is likely to last into next week and may end
up breaking records for longevity as well.
An
unofficial weather station located in Hell's Canyon along the
Oregon/Idaho border (Pittsburg Landing) recorded an incredible 116
degrees for a high Sunday.
The
culprit in this hot setup is a dome of high pressure aloft, surging
northwestward to encompass a large area of the western states. The
center of this high will shift around through the week ahead, but
overall it will remain a dominant feature.
This
will allow the sizzling late-June and early-July sun to send
temperatures soaring not simply in the typically hot Desert
Southwest, but also locations well to the north including the Pacific
Northwest, interior Northwest, and northern Rockies.
Highs
well into the 90s and triple digits are expected in many
lower-elevation locations west of the Continental Divide and inland
from the Pacific Coast.
This
includes much of Nevada, California's Central Valley, the Salt Lake
Valley, Idaho's Snake River Plain, much of Oregon's lower elevations
east of the immediate coast, and areas to the east of the Cascades in
Washington State.
In
particular, parts of the Columbia Basin and lower Snake River Valley
will see particularly extreme and persistent heat. This includes
cities such as Yakima, Kennewick and Walla Walla in Washington as
well as Lewiston, Idaho, as noted in the records below. Temperatures
will get knocked down a bit into the 90s or low 100s to start the new
workweek, but will then surge towards the middle or upper 100s again
late in the week.
The
extreme heat has even surged north into Canada. Cranbrook, in far
southeast British Columbia at an elevation of about 3,000 feet, set a
new all-time record high of 98 degrees (36.8 degrees Celsius) Sunday,
according to The Weather Network.
Even
Revelstoke, British Columbia – 130 miles north of the U.S. border,
about 1,500 feet above sea level and better known for skiing –
reached an amazing 103 degrees (39.5 degrees Celsius) Sunday.
The
West is baking under a heat dome that has sent temperatures soaring
to historically high levels, further drying out soils and priming the
region for fast-spreading wildfires. The heat wave is noteworthy for
its severity, extent and duration.
During
the past seven days alone, 465 warm temperature records have been set
or tied across the country, mainly in the West, with 49 monthly warm
temperature records set or tied, according to the National Center for
Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina.
These
numbers are rising by the hour as the blistering heat wave continues
from interior areas of southern California, across the barren Nevada
and Utah deserts, northward into western Montana, and west from there
toward Washington and Oregon.
Strong
winds left thousands across Arizona without power on Saturday June
27th. Triple-digit heat with no air conditioning left many in danger.
Radar
update: Outflow boundary moving North bringing blowing dust, reduced
visibiities
Spain
and Portugal both issued weather alerts Monday, advising residents to
take extra care as temperatures soared above 40 C (104 F) in some
southern areas.
The
Iberian Peninsula was sweltering in a heat wave brought on by a mass
of hot air flowing north from Africa to Europe in recent days, though
recorded temperatures fell shy of the day's forecast of a maximum 44
C (111.2 F).
With
the temperature in Cordoba hitting 41 degrees Celsius (105.8
Fahrenheit), Spanish authorities placed the southern city on alert
due to "extreme risks" from the heat. People across the
southern half of Spain flocked to beaches, swimming pools and
fountains.
In
Portugal, a high of 37 C (98.6 F) was recorded in the eastern city of
Beja, while the capital, Lisbon, sweltered in 35 C (95 F) heat.
Portugal's General Directorate for Health recommended staying out of
the sun between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Why is the UK having a heatwave and how long will it last?
Heat records are already being toppled in parts of Spain.
Madrid (central Madrid) set a new June record high for the second day in a row Monday, reaching 39.7 degrees Celsius -- 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit -- edging out their previous June record of 39.1 degrees Celsius set Sunday.
Monday afternoon, Madrid's Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport pushed up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 F), a first for June in records dating to 1945. According to AEMet, four other locations in Spain with records dating to at least the 1950s tied or set new June heat records Monday.
Cordoba, in southern Spain, reached a sizzling 43.7 degrees Celsius Sunday (110.7ºF).
Highs in parts of southern France topped out in the 100s on Tuesday. Cazaux, France, hit 104 degrees on Tuesday
David
Barber is a fascinating speaker and great personality in the arctic
ice world.
His
TED talk here dovetails nicely with the Stanford Research on Extreme
weather profiled today, and yesterday’s piece on the risks of new
Arctic Drilling.
If
you are pressed for time, start at 9:14 for a paradoxical surprise –
decrease in sea ice coincides with increase in hazards, due to new
kinds of very unpredictable ice dynamics. Ironic and very significant
for those interested in exploiting the melting Arctic, no?
At
11:05 there is a discussion of arctic effects on global jet stream
circulation and weather patterns.
As
the Wasting has persisted, stars have disappeared almost completely
in many locations. In others, stars survived a brush with the
epidemic and seemed to recover, as if having developed immunity—only
to be wiped out months later. Raimondi estimates that between 1 and
10 million stars have died so far. In the intertidal region alone,
the mortality rate averages about 75 percent. But smaller sea stars
have been observed at a number of sites in which the larger ones have
vanished.
An
American geologist has discovered high levels of the explosive
helium-3 leaking from the Southern California’s earthquake fault
zone which appeared deeper and more significant than previously
thought , a new study shows.
UC
Santa Barbara geologist Jim Boles has found that high levels of
helium-3 (3He) have been leaking across a 30-mile stretch of the
Newport-Inglewood Fault Zone in the Los Angeles Basin. He presented
his findings in the a new study recently published in Geochemistry,
Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed), a journal of the American
Geophysical Union and the Geochemical Society
The boss of Nestlé Waters has said the company wants to increase the amount of water it bottles in California despite a devastating drought across the state that has triggered demonstrations at the corporation’s bottling plant. Tim Brown, chief executive of Nestlé Waters North America, said the company would “absolutely not” stop bottling in California and would actually like to “increase” the amount of ground source water it uses. “The fact is, if I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy another brand of bottled water,” Brown said in a discussion with a Nasa hydrologist on 89.3 KPCC radio. “People need to hydrate. As the second largest bottler in the state, we’re filling a role many others are filling. It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate. Frankly, we’re very happy they are doing it in a healthier way.”
When Typhoon Ketsana struck Manila in 2009, causing $1.09bn in damage and 747 deaths, it captured headlines and a flurry of emergency aid. But extreme flooding now appears to be the new normal in the Philippines, which was battered by so many storms last year that they exceeded the letters in the alphabet. Climate change and environmental degradation have increased the frequency of flooding along the Marikina and Nagka rivers, with evacuations disrupting daily life in the capital for months of what's become an annual flood season.
As the peak of the rainy season approaches, we spoke with Manuel A Abinales, founder and president of aid organization Buklod Tao, who lives and works in this community, helping to respond quickly when river levels rise. For local residents like Tony Iburan, life has become increasingly difficult and dangerous as the water slowly eats away at the community.
Japan on Volcano Alert after Mt. Hakone Eruption
The boss of Nestlé Waters has said the company wants to increase the amount of water it bottles in California despite a devastating drought across the state that has triggered demonstrations at the corporation’s bottling plant. Tim Brown, chief executive of Nestlé Waters North America, said the company would “absolutely not” stop bottling in California and would actually like to “increase” the amount of ground source water it uses. “The fact is, if I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy another brand of bottled water,” Brown said in a discussion with a Nasa hydrologist on 89.3 KPCC radio. “People need to hydrate. As the second largest bottler in the state, we’re filling a role many others are filling. It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate. Frankly, we’re very happy they are doing it in a healthier way.”
Tropical
Cyclone Raquel has formed in the south-west Pacific near the Solomon
Islands, triggering the earliest cyclone warning on record
issued for the Queensland zone.
"Certainly
it's a unique scenario," Jess Carey, a spokesman from the
bureau's Queensland office, said. "Since we've been tracking
cyclones with satellite-based technology, we haven't seen one in
July."
The
storm became a category 1 cyclone early on Wednesday morning
and had a central pressure of 999 hPa about 410 km
north of the Solomon Islands' capital of Honiara as of
just before 5am, AEST, the Bureau of Meteorology said. It is forecast
to strengthen to a category 2 system on Thursday.
Here
is Qld's most recent drought declaration map issued on June 23rd
2015. No change over last month.
When Typhoon Ketsana struck Manila in 2009, causing $1.09bn in damage and 747 deaths, it captured headlines and a flurry of emergency aid. But extreme flooding now appears to be the new normal in the Philippines, which was battered by so many storms last year that they exceeded the letters in the alphabet. Climate change and environmental degradation have increased the frequency of flooding along the Marikina and Nagka rivers, with evacuations disrupting daily life in the capital for months of what's become an annual flood season.
As the peak of the rainy season approaches, we spoke with Manuel A Abinales, founder and president of aid organization Buklod Tao, who lives and works in this community, helping to respond quickly when river levels rise. For local residents like Tony Iburan, life has become increasingly difficult and dangerous as the water slowly eats away at the community.
Early
season flooding has lead to speculation of an excess monsoon, but is
that realistic?
In
the space of six days, Mumbai received all the rain it might expect
for June. To be more precise, one and a half times as much, and it
caused deep flooding.
In
fact, since the monsoon burst with a vengeance, on June 12, the
Indian city has collected over twice the expected June rainfall.
Gujarat
flooded just as suddenly from the same aggressive surge of the
western arm of the monsoon and the floods in the west are still
receding.
After
a slow start, the monsoon rain seemed promising. After arriving days
late in the south, it then rushed across all of India and crossed
into Pakistan, catching up with itself and then going ahead of
schedule, by over two weeks.
West
Rajasthan was declared in monsoon on June 26, when this westernmost
state would normally have to wait until July 15.
All
this has prompted speculation that the official forecast of a
deficient monsoon season must be wrong.
This,
however, is man's short-term perception. Since June 27. there has
been a major reduction in general rain.
The
official forecast from the Indian Meteorological Department, for the
whole season, suggests at best, 92 per cent of average, for the whole
country.
As
of June 29, only four states were showing as deficient and 13 quoted
as in "excess" of the monsoon norm.
The
start of July, however, looks generally drier than average, although
there will be plenty of thunderstorms around.
If,
at the end of the season, the rains have not recovered to at least
normal, then the monsoon will be declared as "deficient,"
as is currently expected
Wildfires
in central Washington State have torched about 3,000 acres, or four
square miles, around the town of Wenatchee. At least 24 homes and
four local businesses have been burned, but no serious injuries have
been reported.
Japan on Volcano Alert after Mt. Hakone Eruption
Fresh
layers of volcanic ash were confirmed near a newly found vent in the
Owakudani valley on Tuesday morning. The Owakudani valley is a part
of the range of Mount Hakone.
The
Meteorological Agency has raised the eruption-alert level from 2 to 3
on its scale of 5. It is cautioning against a possible eruption that
may affect a residential area near Owakudani.
This
is the first of several posts I will do on Global Collapse. I am not
saying, right here anyway, that civilization as we know it will
collapse, but I am asking the question: “Can collapse be avoided?”
This post will deal with global warming and the associated climate
change.
A
wall of smoke was seen rising over the exclusion zone around the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Tuesday as Ukrainian
emergency services scrambled helicopters to extinguish a wildfire.
Some
130 hectares of grassland is ablaze, emergency service officials say.
New
revelations that a long strip of protected mangrove trees were
illegally razed amid preparations for the 2016 Miami International
Boat Show has outraged Florida environmentalists.
The
lost trees, critical to the marine ecosystem, were hacked away in
mid-May by a Miami city contractor in advance of the five-day show
expected to draw about 100,000 attendees and 1,500 boats.
Researchers
from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and the U.S. Geological
Survey have published some staggering numbers about Alaska’s inland
glaciers: They’re disappearing so fast that their collective
meltwater could soak the entire state, one foot deep every seven
years. While that thought conjures up powerful images of a soggy
tundra, in reality, 75 gigatons—FYI, one gigaton is one billion
tons—of ice go into the oceans, where they raise global sea levels
by two-tenths of a millimeter every year.
Just
0.008 inches annually may seem like a drop in the bucket, but it’s
a major contribution for such a small source. Alaska has 20 times
fewer ice-covered areas than Greenland, but the state’s melting
made up one-third of global ice sheet loss between 2005 and 2010.
Investigators
Vladimir Romanovsky and Reginald Muskett at the GI Permafrost
Laboratory are conducting a Satellite Reconnaissance Survey of the
Selawick region. The composite image shows a possible
ground-disturbance feature about 11 miles east of the Selawik
Airfield. The feature itself is about 33 (inner diameter) to 130
(outer diameter) feet across. Ground truth is needed! Do you have any
ground photos of this feature? If so we would be very grateful if you
would share them with us. For your assistance we would give you
prominent acknowledgement in reports to NASA and in future science
publications associated with this project.
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