Global Climate Change Science News

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22937375

Met Office experts meet to analyse 'unusual' weather patterns

About 20 of the UK's leading scientists and meteorologists are due to meet at the Met Office to discuss Britain's "unusual" weather patterns.

They will try to identify the factors that caused the chilly winter of 2010-11 and the long, wet summer of 2012.

They will also try to work out why this spring was the coldest in 50 years - with a UK average of 6C (42.8F) between March and May.

The Met Office hopes the meeting will identify new priorities for research.

Over the past three years, British weather records have been under increasing pressure. The big freeze that gripped the UK in December 2010 saw the lowest temperature for the month in 100 years.

Even the buzz of the London Olympics could not disguise the washout that was last summer, the second wettest for the UK since records began.

Puzzled by these events, scientists from across the UK are meeting at the Met Office in Exeter to try to understand the reasons behind this run of what they term, "unusual seasons".

(continued, crops failures and large scale famine due shortly)

[Tero]

North Pole melted
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommuni ... ing-3.html

[Tero]

I dedicate this to Seth and Mistermark
http://karireport.blogspot.com/2013/08/ ... nding.html

[cronus]

Are you happy with the former atmosphere on Earth cos a change is gonna come soon....Venus 'ere we go....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23712464

European forests near 'carbon saturation point'

European forests are showing signs of reaching a saturation point as carbon sinks, a study has suggested.

Since 2005, the amount of atmospheric CO2 absorbed by the continent's trees has been slowing, researchers reported.

Writing in Nature Climate Change, they said this was a result of a declining volume of trees, deforestation and the impact of natural disturbances.

Carbon sinks play a key role in the global carbon cycle and are promoted as a way to offset rising emissions.

Writing in their paper, the scientists said the continent's forests had been recovering in recent times after centuries of stock decline and deforestation.

The growth had also provided a "persistent carbon sink", which was projected to continue for decades.

However, the team's study observed three warnings that the carbon sink provided by Europe's tree stands was nearing a saturation point.

"First, the stem volume increment rate (of individual trees) is increasing and thus the sink is curbing after decades of increase," they wrote.

"Second, land use is intensifying, thereby leading to deforestation and associated carbon losses.

"Third, natural disturbances (eg wildfires) are increasing and, as a consequence, so are the emissions of CO2."

Co-author Gert-Jan Nabuurs from Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands, said: "All of this together means that the increase in the size of the sink is stopping; it is even declining a little.

"We see this as the first signs of a saturating sink," he told BBC News.

(continued)

[macdoc]

The deer are getting it on earlier too

18 August 2013 Last updated at 19:04 ET

Scots red deer 'breeding earlier due to climate change'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23726965

[mistermack]

The " carbon sinks " story is utter bollocks. A mature forest gives off as much CO2 as it absorbs. On top of that they are net emitters of methane.
The only way that CO2 gets removed long-term from the cycle is by weathering of rocks, and then subsequently by carbonate shells being deposited on the ocean and lake floors. And this is normally balanced by CO2 emitted by volcanoes.

Old forest do nothing to reduce CO2. New forests reduce it temporarily, but it always gets back into the atmosphere in a very short geological time.

The only way that a forest could actually affect the carbon levels long-term, is if they were growing wood for fuel, in place of fossil fuel.

[cronus]

The " carbon sinks " story is utter bollocks. A mature forest gives off as much CO2 as it absorbs. On top of that they are net emitters of methane.
The only way that CO2 gets removed long-term from the cycle is by weathering of rocks, and then subsequently by carbonate shells being deposited on the ocean and lake floors. And this is normally balanced by CO2 emitted by volcanoes.

Old forest do nothing to reduce CO2. New forests reduce it temporarily, but it always gets back into the atmosphere in a very short geological time.

The only way that a forest could actually affect the carbon levels long-term, is if they were growing wood for fuel, in place of fossil fuel.

So speaks the man with the axe.

[Animavore]

They Live was a great film. It was 1984 or A Brave New World, without the nuance.

[Tero]

UK Met office denies David Rose lies in Daily Mail
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/1 ... s-warming/

Direct blog met office
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012 ... ober-2012/

[Clinton Huxley]

David Rose is a cock.

[macdoc]

The only way that a forest could actually affect the carbon levels long-term, is if they were growing wood for fuel, in place of fossil fuel.

Which is exactly what Sweden is doing.

One of its most industrialised cities, Kalmar, is already carbon neutral. With a population of 60, 000, it has been difficult to achieve, but Kalmar now replaces all of its reliance on fossil fuels and obtains its energy for lighting and heating and power from renewable sources. It has cogeneration plants that burn waste timber and sawdust – in plentiful supply from the surrounding sustainable forests.

http://www.energysavingsecrets.co.uk/ca ... utral.html

While long term the carbon cycle is net balance in the long term, in the short term re-forestation and de-forestation are indeed climate drivers by way of both albedo and carbon uptake changes.

Even old growth forests sequester.

The risk is fire releasing sequestered carbon from boreal forest and taiga peat producing a nasty feedback spike.

One of the geo-engineering proposals is to sequester carbon via algae blooms....not all that different than re-forestation if it ends in peat bogs expanding.
If the permafrost melts in any significant amount tho all bets are off - there are several atmospheres of carbon and methane sequestered.

Now do you have any Climate Change Science News to contribute? as that is the purpose of this thread.

[Tero]

Learned today when to stop discussing climate with a denialist
1. when nobody else reads the topic
or
2. said denialist does not understand that 30 years of change in the graph is only about twice as big as the noise, the year to year variation. The graph is of no use predicting weather next summer.

[Tero]

people are unable to see the dragon or feel that it is their dragon to slay
http://science.time.com/2013/08/19/in-d ... l-warming/

[Tero]

Denier Headline: Plants Love Pollution! Global Warming Fake!
Real Headline: Plants Partially Compensating for Increased CO2 Levels But Temperatures Still Rising.
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/08/210243967 ... ore-deeply

[macdoc]

Heatwave and wildfires worsened Colorado flooding

* 18:49 17 September 2013 by Alyssa A. Botelho
* For similar stories, visit the Climate Change Topic Guide

A truly ferocious and exceptional event. That is how Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, describes the storm that pummelled his state last week.

"This was a once-in-1000-year rainfall," he says, meaning that the storm was of such an intensity and duration that it had a 1-in-1000 chance of occurring in any given year in Colorado.

The rains and subsequent floods have so far killed eight people, displaced 11,750 and destroyed close to 18,000 homes. The city of Boulder received a year's rainfall in less than a week, says Daniel Leszcynski at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That huge volume was due in part to a lingering heatwave that for months blocked tropical moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from reaching the Rocky Mountains, he says. When that heatwave began to move east last week, weak winds allowed the growing storm system to sit above the Colorado peaks for days.
Fire and flood

Once that deluge hit the ground, more trouble awaited. Because of Colorado's mountainous terrain, the region is flood-prone anyway but recent wildfires exacerbated things near Boulder and Fort Collins, two areas hardest hit by floodwaters. The fires had cleared land of vegetation that would normally absorb rainwater, says Trenberth.

Urban areas were also hit hard because of their abundance of impenetrable surfaces, says Matthew Kelsch from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "Cities have drainage systems designed to move water off streets and into streams as quickly as possible," he says.

Though natural disasters are difficult to attribute to climate change, Trenberth says that the 1 ˚C rise in ocean temperature since the 1970s accounts for 5 per cent more moisture in today's atmosphere. That's enough to invigorate already powerful storms such as last week's, he says. "There's natural variability to these events, but maybe there was a little more rain because of climate change," he says. "With weather, small differences can actually result in big effects in terms of damage done."