Scientists are 95% sure humans are causing climate change
Published on Aug 20, 2013: A UN panel says scientists are now 95% sure human activity is behind the increase in global warming since the 1950s.
Dissolving brittle stars hint at implications of ocean acidification
Image: At the GeoSoilEnviroCARS beamline at the Advanced Photon Source, scientists mapped slices of 24 brittle starfish skeletons in 3 dimensions using X-ray tomography to find out how much volume the eroded skeletons had lost, and to reconstruct their structures. Credit: Shawn Harper Phys.org — Under the sea ice of Explorers Cove, Antarctica, is a startling…
Climate Extremes and the Carbon Cycle
A new study (doi:10.1038/nature12350) published in nature, explores the impacts of extreme weather events on the carbon cycle. By Bobby Magill / Wunderground, published: August 15, 2013: Devastating drought in the Southwest, unprecedented wildfire activity, scorching heat waves and other extreme weather are often cited as signs of a changing climate. But what if those extreme…
Each degree of global warming might ultimately raise global sea levels by more than 2 meters
By PIK: 07/15/2013 – Greenhouse gases emitted today will cause sea level to rise for centuries to come. Each degree of global warming is likely to raise sea level by more than 2 meters in the future, a study now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows. While thermal expansion of…
A Mechanism for Shallow Methane Hydrate Dissociation
I previously looked at the science and commercial usage of Methane Hydrate, at freshwater influx in the Arctic Circle and asked Does Freshwater Runoff in the Arctic change Ocean Circulation to Unlock Methane Hydrate in the Deep Ocean? This post covers: Identification of possible mechanism which could eventually release vast quantities of shallow Methane Hydrate…
NOAA: Huge Ocean Dead Zone in Gulf of Mexico (August 2013)
August 1, 2013 – The Weather Channel host Matt Sampson discusses a 6000 square mile area of the Gulf of Mexico where sea life can’t survive. http://www.weather.com/video/did-we-cause-the-dead-zone-38162
NASA: Potential Evaporation in North America Through 2100 (August 2013 in HD)
Published on Aug 9, 2013 by NASA: This animation shows the projected increase in potential evaporation through the year 2100, relative to 1980, based on the combined results of multiple climate models. The maximum increase across North America is about 1 mm/day by 2100. This concept, potential evaporation, is a measure of drying potential or…
Arctic Ocean freshwater bulge detected
UK scientists have detected a huge dome of fresh water that is developing in the western Arctic Ocean. The bulge is some 8,000 cubic km in size and has risen by about 15cm since 2002. The team thinks it may be the result of strong winds whipping up a great clockwise current in the northern…
Does Freshwater Runoff in the Arctic change Ocean Circulation to Unlock Methane Hydrate in the Deep Ocean?
Recently freshwater intake into the Arctic Circle have changed ocean currents, in the following a collection of related science, and what if freshwater currents drive warmer water into the deep ocean and unlock methane hydrates? Mechanism have been identified recently. Arctic freshwater input into the North Pacific could serve as a catalyst for methane hydrate…
Increased Methane emissions from summer Monsoon
Eastern Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan have been hit by torrential rain, causing floods which have killed at least 80 people. The region has suffered devastating floods during the monsoon period for the past three years. High methane in North Africa, Middle East and South Asia. The upper tropospheric methane continues to build. The MODIS image…
Methane in the Arctic Circle
Methane In conditions without oxygen, such as at the bottom of a lake orthe sea, decomposition turns organic matter into methane, rather than carbon dioxide. Large increases in methane emissions would be a grave concern, because methane is 25 times moreeffective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide (over a 100 year time scale). Lakes,…
The Late Triassic Extinction, Persistent Photic Zone Euxinia, and Rising Sea Levels
Elevated pCO2 leading to Late Triassic extinction, persistent photic zone euxinia, and rising sea levels Caroline M.B. Jaraula, Kliti Grice, Richard J. Twitchett, Michael E. Böttcher, Pierre LeMetayer, Apratim G. Dastidar and L. Felipe Opazo doi:10.1130/G34183.1 Abstract The Late Triassic mass extinction event is the most severe global warming-related crisis to have affected important extant…