 canyon in the polar ice sheet.)
Meltwater creates a 60-foot deep (18.2 meter) canyon in the polar ice sheet.
Image: Ian Joughin
Global warming was hot news this year, literally.
Perhaps the most unavoidable climate story of 2012 was the warmth that gripped much of the United States, and to a lesser degree, the planet, throughout the entire year. Heat waves brought "spring in March" to parts of the country, and broke all-time high-temperature records in a number of places. This, inevitably, led to a discussion of global warming and the degree to which it contributes to some types of extreme weather, in this case heat waves.
In fact, prominent climate scientist James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and colleagues published research saying recent heat waves "were a consequence of global warming, because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small." Some other climate scientists, however, disagreed about the degree to which heat waves can be attributed to climate change.
Meanwhile, many of the top climate stories this year have become something like annual rites recently, as people around the world grapple with human-caused climate change, and attempt to address it and its effects. [7 Hottest Climate Change Stories of 2012]
Natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy (actually a hybrid storm) this year like others last year, have sparked discussion of the connection between climate change and increased risk for some extreme weather events. A majority of Americans also seem to be making the connection between extreme weather and climate change, according to surveys by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.
In reality, attributing any single weather event to global warming is tricky, though some scientists said the planet's increasing temperatures may have worsened Sandy. "The climate influences on this are what we might call the 'new normal,' the changed environment this storm is operating in," Kevin Trenberth, who heads the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told LiveScience at the end of October. For instance, the warmer ocean surfaces — which fuel hurricanes — may increase the risk that a storm will become more intense, Trenberth said. In addition, rising sea levels worsen the risk of flooding, the cause of much of the devastation Sandy wrought.
Likewise, global climate talks moved forward slowly, as they have in the last few years, against warnings that nations must curb the planet's rising greenhouse gas emissions or face dramatic consequences.
This year also brought some milestones. Arctic sea-ice cover retreated to a record low in September. As with unusually warming temperatures, the record sea-ice retreat did not come out of the blue. In recent years, the sea-ice cover has fallen below the average extent for 1979 to 2000, and, likewise, the first decade of this century was the warmest decade ever recorded in all continents of the globe, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Scientists who study sea ice have blamed a combination of natural fluctuations and human-caused warming for the increased loss of ice, although some differ as to how much humans have contributed, Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist who studies climate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in September.
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22 Comments
Add CommentClimate is now what it always has been then... that is, A CONSTANT & SLOW BUT SURE CHANGE!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt ALWAYS changed (up, down and sideways), and it always will.
And the science behind the so called "men made" weather change is at best doubtful. A very small scratch in the surface of this subject in the context that has been used unveils the bad joke this topic is.
Research empirical data you'll get to the very same conclusion.
Then we ask: for what purpuse you try to deceive me? Cui bono! And more importantly qui bono?!
In the earth's 4.5 billion years, there's been at lest five glaciation periods. Each one was preceded by a very hot period. At the end of the Cambrian period it was a much as 15 to 20 degrees hotter then now. That was when the great explosion of life on earth took place. Yes, it going to get hotter, we started coming out of the last glaciation period about ten thousand years ago. We are still coming out of it yet, we still have glaciers. When they are gone we will be out of it. Then after it warms a bit more the pendulum will swing back the other way. Some alarmist will say, "OMG man made climate change will cause to freeze to death". Climate records that go back two hundred years compared to the earth's climate change record of 4.5 billion years mean nothing, even less than nothing. I doubt nature knows man is on the face of the earth or even cares.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazing photo of the polar ice sheet. I take it that is new season ice as we are repeatedly told old ice is all but gone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would have thought a couple of stories that SCIAM has not given any special headline notice to would have added a little balance. The one below shows that residents are finally waking up to the real costs & consequences of subscribing to pixy dust.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=california-agency-raises-issues-ove
The next reveals again the tried & true manufactured data to fit the agenda trick:
Helped by computer simulations, the scientists reconstructed a record of temperatures stretching back to 1958 at Byrd, where about a third of the measurements were missing, sometimes because of power failures in the long Antarctic winters. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=west-antarctica-warming-fast-may-qu&posted=1#comments
Carlyle,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, what you are saying is that you don't know the difference between an ice sheet
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html
(hint: it's on land)
and sea ice
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/
(hint: it's on sea)
and you want us to believe your thoughts on climate change are worth paying attention to.
Astonishing. Fancy you being able to correct me :).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy photos of ice are always used. What are they from and what is the context? If someone shows a snowman is it proof of global cooling? Folks on the beach global warming?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is rearely any connection between a photo and science on SciAm. The only 'proof' in such a photo is that an article is not science based but agenda based.
What could be more sadly ironic than some of the above commenters here who cite the ice ages and contend that the climate has always changed and use that as some kind of proof that what we experiencing now is no different. Who do they think figured this stuff out? Climatologists, of course -- the same folks who are now telling them CO2 is changing our present climate and will cause oceans to rise and host of other effects that will put millions or billions of people at great risk. If you believe in the science that discerned the causes of the ice ages, then you'd best believe what 99% of all climatologists are saying now - this place is warming and it's not going to be pretty. Physics doesn't care what happens to our grandchildren, but we should.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe story is about climate change. What picture do you want them to use?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis reminds me about the Moil who put a watch in his window, but that's another story.
Excerpt from 'What is the Primary Fundamental Right?'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia says that Mars surface temperature has increased by about 0.5c over the last 30 years, which is the same as the Earth's temperature increase and over the same period. As there are no CO2 problems on Mars he concludes that "the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the Sun."
The New Scientist reported in January 2007 that Robert Ehrlich of George Mason University had developed a computer model that supposedly shows that oscillations in the Sun's core temperature last either 100,000 or 41,000 year cycles. These cycles are the known time scales of Earth's ice ages suggesting any temperature change on Earth is totally dependent on the Sun only and has nothing to do with CO2 emissions.
http://www.primaryfundamentalright.org/index.php?pageName=pfrWhatIs
Everytime a climate change article is published in this AUTHORATATIVE JOURNAL , Heartland Institute "so called scientists" barage comments with corporation backed propaganda. They quote previous warm periods caused by HUGE volcanic activity which produce clouds of ash that increases temperatures. We have not had large scaled volcanic activity to cause our present record hot temperatures. All of this Heartland/Koch bros. propaganda started after the Gore film which won world acclaim. Then big oil knew that they were in trouble. Carlyle old ice is at the bottom of ice sheets and if you knew anything about science, you would know that. But you can continue to not use ANY critical thinking to know what is junk science= Heartland Institute and true science. Funny that only USA "so called scientists=Heartland Institute" are the ONLY ones denying the FACT of climate change. I hope you live in a drought stricken area, so you can experience it and tell us, no climate change. The Dust Bowl was created by man. Man plowed away the buffalo grass which had 5 foot roots to hold dirt together. Please enlighten the readers as to what would happen, if your thinking was wrong???? Don't pontificate about your egotistical thought that you are not wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot necessarily! The first of four parts where Professor Bob Carter uses the scientific method on the popular theory with global warming being linked to CO2 levels. http://bit.ly/UbSqvB
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPt 2 http://bit.ly/11t5KDh
Pt 3 http://bit.ly/11IKUyF
Pt 4 http://bit.ly/RxiWF8
and Burt Rutan's Critique of Global Warming, http://bit.ly/Vs4j3s
Personally, I wonder why Scientific Americ keeps taking the warmist position on the subject, without ever getting true science?
Not necessarily! The first of four parts where Professor Bob Carter uses the scientific method on the popular theory with global warming being linked to CO2 levels. http://bit.ly/UbSqvB
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPt 2 http://bit.ly/11t5KDh
Pt 3 http://bit.ly/11IKUyF
Pt 4 http://bit.ly/RxiWF8
and Bert Rutan's Critique of Global Warming, http://bit.ly/Vs4j3s
Personally, I wonder why Scientific America keeps taking the warmist position on the subject, without ever getting true science?
Brainguy,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI’m sure many are thankful to you for pointing out that climate changes. I for one would have never thought that to be the case, being of the impression that the whole of the earth was static and unchanging. And surly many are impressed with your use of Latin, I know I am.
Sarcasm to the side, “A CONSTANT & SLOW BUT SURE CHANGE!” I think perhaps you might want to research that statement a little. I’m pretty sure that what you will find is that there have been quite a few rapid swings in temperature, both warmer and cooler. Now the pertinent question would seem to be, “What was the outcome of these rapid temp swings?” Seldom if ever good from the position of the human species. And 1-2 degree warming in 200 years is in fact extremely rapid in geologic time spans.
erbarker,
I would ask you, what was occurring during the interglacial periods? By chance would the natural sequestration of carbon be at least part of the answer to that question? Now the greatest portion of this sequestered carbon is in the form of coal, anthracite and bitumen (tar sands?),most located on stable, continental landmasses. The rest would be in the forms of oil and natural gas. Other than volcanism, seeps of crude oil and natural gas, and subduction the majority of that naturally sequestered carbon would stay put. Should we have taken advantage of this store of energy? Surely we should have. But we have moved beyond necessity, now the driving force is profit.
From the point of climate effect, we have burnt roughly half of all the crude oil and natural gas it took literally hundreds of millions of years to deposit. Undo that much nature this quickly and maybe, just maybe, it will have a detrimental outcome.
Carlyle,
It may be costly to mitigate climate change, not doing so will be beyond costly, period. And by the way, those profiting from continued reliance on fossil fuels will be insulated from those costs. It would be interesting to see the stats used to fill in the blanks in the temperature records at question in West Antarctica. Have you?
get real does nature know carbon dioxide levels 150% of pre industrial levels and continuing to rise. Science doesnt have all the answers but it can tell us enough that the higher CO2 levels the warmer the atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIce age frequency increase in recent earth history compared to the age of the earth. For most of earths history it was warmer. My theory is humans have been necessary to prevent the earth from going into a prolonged perhaps permanent ice future. Some mechanism was needed to release all that carbon permanently locked up below the ground that was once carbon life and part of the biosphere. What science is worried about is we evolved during and in between the recent iceages can we live successfully in a new world without ice. Maybe maybe not , so if you were an average Joe you would keep the job you ve got rather than risk the unknown
Bull@%$# , an ice cube in the freezer stays that way and ice cube in the fridge slowly melts and icecube in the room melt quickly . The CONTEXT is the location of the ice sheet is the same so the overall average temps must be rising Get it
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo how would you mitigate against climate change exactly? There is only one way that CO2 emissions can be substantially reduced & most of those who believe in AGW are dead against it, so the situation can not be as serious as they claim. People who argue against nuclear power are the main stumbling block to the reduction in emissions. The vast majority of people who share my views do believe in climate change. It is the human contribution & proposed methods of amelioration that we dispute. I was one of those who condemned proposals to make bio fuel from food grain. Look at the mess that green policy has given us. Wind, solar, wave power, pixy dust, are wasting billions that could have been invested to create abundant cheap nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that nuclear power could be an important asset, particularly if the recent advancements in modular applications are as good as they appear. But we have yet to deal with the problem of disposal/containment of the waste stream. Before you go to the position of low actual volume of these wastes, it must be recognized that as a potential problem this could span time equal to the age of our species. I fully understand the waste problems re PV, wind, and the inherent storage needs of these systems, but compared to nuclear waste, they are miniscule both in terms of potential toxicity, and persistence.
Personally I feel there should be no further installation of ANY production facilities until conservation is fully embraced/implemented (there are in fact many ways to deal with the problem, your insistence on a single solution approach is just as misguided as any other.) For the most part the only cost of conservation is the loss of energy extraction profits.
Far from “Pixie Dust,”, fully integrated approach to energy production and distribution for the global society is looking more and more like a treatment for a potentially life threatening malady. Not just for us in the US, but for the whole species.
By the way, biofuel from corn is just another profit stream for persons/corporations far removed from the real world. We have at least that point of agreement.
cjoyce
So you would condemn the billion of people in poor countries who presently do not have grid power to remain as they are while your utopian dream is realised. How many utopian dream have you seen realised lately? What is a few billion more lives lived in poverty if a few very comfortable idealists can feel warm & fuzzy? Try living in what is the real world for these people & see how you feel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle, if the real problem is what to do about it, then let's debate that. If you have have problems with somebody's proposal, then say so, and don't say that there is no problem just because you don't like the proposed solutions. I watched this anti-AGW video that purported to disprove all of AGW, and at the end somebody asked him what if he is wrong, what then? His answer was, we are in more danger from Obama than from AGW. No suggestions about how big a risk it might be, nor what a conservative approach to the problem might be, if it did actually turn out to be a problem. He apparently saw the whole thing as a political thing, not physics and energy and ice and drought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo instead of denying the problem, say what you would do if there were indeed a problem, no matter how unlikely you think it is. You say you think we should have more nuclear power. I disagree because of the long term storage problems, and because I don't trust engineers to make something that they say can't ever fail. Yet I believe that AGW is a cataclysmic problem that could end civilization if we don't do something, and maybe even with our best efforts, if we could ever actually make an effort. There is precent. Using irrigation from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers destroyed the center of civilization at the time and turned the middle east from the Fertile Crescent into desert, just because the trace of salt in it built up on the land. The difference? They didn't have scientists to warn them about it.
So to debate solutions? I believe conservation is the most important single factor that can reduce emissions. And I believe that conservation will improve the lives of everyone in the world, by letting them do what they do now, while using a fraction of the oil, coal, firewood, peat, etc. of what they now use. And it will pay for itself. Weather stripping and ceiling insulation reduce fuel costs. Rocket stoves (google it) and solar ovens reduce firewood use, improve safety of those gathering firewood, and reduce lung cancer. Passive solar heating is free hot water and heat. Homeowners who can afford the up front investment cost can save money by installing rooftop PV that can provide daylight power at the point of use, and flywheels could store energy for darkness.
None of this need be paid for by the government. People with little money will make the less expensive investments. People with a lot will make the big investments. People who want to start companies helping those without much money save on energy bills can make money doing that too.
Green groups are responsible for the continuing high reliance on fossil fuels. They also use all the modern conveniences offered by our industrial society while promoting policies that keep the worlds poor from climbing out of poverty. Conservation is great but it was green pressure that led to the use of food grain for bio fuel & destruction of rainforest for Palm Oil. Rather than being part of the solution, they are a major part of the problem. I have stated my position frequently on SCIAM posts over the past two years at least. If you are interested you can learn how to search previous articles & posts or even others still current. Nuclear is the only energy source for a cleaner world but greens dismiss it out of hand & are too lazy to actually research the subject preferring to rely on their propaganda sources.
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