Is Global Warming Becoming Colder?

Global warming is one of the most controversial issues, but new data received from Ocean Surface Surface Topography From Space suggest that our oceans are now colder.

The latest image of Pacific Ocean sea surface heights from the NASA/European Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 oceanography satellite, dated June 11, 2010, shows that the tropical Pacific has switched from warm (red) to cold (blue) during the last few months. The blue area in the center of the image depicts the recent appearance of cold water hugging the equator, which the satellite measures as a region of lower-than-normal sea level. Remnants of the El Niño warm water pool, shown here in red and yellow, still linger north and south of the equator in the center of the image.

The image shows sea surface height relative to normal ocean conditions. Red (warmer) areas are about 10 centimeters (4 inches) above normal. Green areas indicate near-normal conditions. Purple (cooler) areas are 14 to 18 centimeters (6 to 7 inches) below normal. Blue areas are 5 to 13 centimeters (2 to 5 inches) below normal.

“The central equatorial Pacific Ocean could stay colder than normal into summer and beyond. That’s because sea level is already about 10 centimeters (4 inches) below normal, creating a significant deficit of the heat stored in the upper ocean,” said JPL oceanographer and climatologist Bill Patzert. “The next few months will reveal if the current cooling trend will eventually evolve into a long-lasting La Niña situation.”

A La Niña is essentially the opposite of an El Niño. During a La Niña, trade winds in the western equatorial Pacific are stronger than normal, and the cold water that normally exists along the coast of South America extends to the central equatorial Pacific. La Niñas change global weather patterns and are associated with less moisture in the air, resulting in less rain along the coasts of North and South America. They also tend to increase the formation of tropical storms in the Atlantic.

“For the American Southwest, La Niñas usually bring a dry winter, not good news for a region that has experienced normal rain and snowpack only once in the past five winters,” said Patzert.

Is global cooling going to be next agenda?

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[Source: Ocean Surface Surface Topography From Space]

Another Study Showing Significant Global Warming

New reports from International Argo Project has shown a significant rise in temperature of ocean. The upper layer of Earth’s ocean has warmed since 1993, indicating a strong climate change signal, according to a new international study co-authored by oceanographer Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The energy stored is enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet continuously over the 16-year study period. A warming ocean is a direct cause of global sea level rise, since seawater expands and takes up more space as it heats up. The scientists say that this expansion accounts for about one-third to one-half of global sea level rise.

The international science team analyzed nine different estimates of heat content in the upper ocean, based on ocean temperature data from a global array of more than 3,200 Argo free-floating profiling floats and longer data records from expendable bathythermographs dropped from ships. Image credit: International Argo Project › Larger view

Combining multiple estimates of heat in the upper ocean – from the surface to about 610 meters (2,000 feet) down – the team found a strong multi-year warming trend throughout the world’s ocean. According to measurements by an array of autonomous free-floating ocean floats called Argo, as well as by earlier devices called expendable bathythermographs, or XBTs, that were dropped from ships to obtain temperature data, ocean heat content has increased over the last 16 years. Data from the array of Argo floats — deployed by NOAA and other U.S. and international partners — greatly reduce the uncertainties in estimates of ocean heat content over the past several years, the team said. There are now more than 3,200 Argo floats distributed throughout the world’s ocean sending back information via satellite on temperature, salinity, currents and other ocean properties.

Below is the map shows an estimate of the change in upper Ocean Heat Content Anomaly (OHCA) from 2007 to 2008 derived from both in situ data and altimeter sea surface height mapping performed according toWillis et al. 2004.

Historical data are from XBTs, CTDs, moorings, and other sources.  A preliminary ad-hoc fall rate correction has been applied to the XBT data in an attempt to correct for biases between XBT data and more accurate CTD data.   Additional displays of the upper OHCA and sampling error are available in thePlots section.

Isn’t this enough to prove global warming?

[REF:NASA]

Uranium Is Not Future Energy Source[Part-3]

What will happen when we have no coal, no crude oil and almost no fossil fuel? Would our technological civilization die? Many advocates suggests uranium as a future energy source including Brian Wang of  Next Big Future. However I find many implications which opposes the case of  advocates. I’m not going to suggest alternative energy source right now as B.W. asks in his article [if nuclear fission is not the energy source of the future then weird science needs to compare and present what the alternative is that he supports], but be sure I will do it later with full analysis. I’ve described some of them in my previous article which are here . B.W. has suggested that extraction of Uranium could be economical if we use seawater as a resource of  Uranium but that proved to uneconomical and having very less production. Another issue which can be involved with reactor is that if these could power world for long time[since these are suggested as future source]. Here is a Scientific American report which make it obvious to depict that Uranium is not future energy source.

Most of the 2.8 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity generated worldwide from nuclear power every year is produced in light-water reactors (LWRs) using low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. About 10 metric tons of natural uranium go into producing a metric ton of LEU, which can then be used to generate about 400 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, so present-day reactors require about 70,000 metric tons of natural uranium a year.

According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today’s consumption rate in total. Further exploration and improvements in extraction technology are likely to at least double this estimate over time.

Using more enrichment work could reduce the uranium needs of LWRs by as much as 30 percent per metric ton of LEU. And separating plutonium and uranium from spent LEU and using them to make fresh fuel could reduce requirements by another 30 percent. Taking both steps would cut the uranium requirements of an LWR in half.

The report has considered the current rate of energy consumption whilst it is obvious that  we would acquire far more energy than estimated here . The rate o f energy consumption will considerably depend upon following basics:

• Population growth is, of course, a central issue to study how to meet with future energy requirements. Considering the seven hundred years, as I have suggested how much population will inhabit Earth? It is suggested that total population to the end of this century will be over 11 billion. According to wikipedia:

World population estimates milestones

Population (in billions)	1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9
Year	1804		1927		1960		1974		1987		1999		2012		2025		2040
Years elapsed		123		33		14		13		12		13		13		15

The population of the world reached one billion in 1804, two billion in 1927, three billion in 1960, four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, and six billion in 1999. The population of the world is projected to reach seven billion in 2011 or 2012, eight billion in 2025, and nine billion in 2040 or 2050. Now, I ask B.W. what will be the estimates for given 700 years of future.[Though population growth is separate problem alone,  but significantly affect the energy demand required. Imagine population of one million, whole energy problem would be solved.]

• The energy demand also depends upon urbanization. Go through this research paper.

World marketed energy consumption is projected to increase by 44 percent from 2006 to 2030. Total energy demand in the non-OECD countries increases by 73 percent, compared with an increase of 15 percent in the OECD countries.In the IEO2009 reference case—which reflects a scenario in which current laws and policies remain unchanged throughout the projection period—world marketed energy consumption is projected to grow by 44 percent over the 2006 to 2030 period. Total world energy use rises from 472 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2006 to 552 quadrillion Btu in 2015 and then to 678 quadrillion Btu in 2030 (Figure 1). The current worldwide economic downturn dampens world demand for energy in the near term, as manufacturing and consumer demand for goods and services slows. In the longer term, with economic recovery anticipated after 2010, most nations return to trend growth in income and energy demand.

The most rapid growth in energy demand from 2006 to 2030 is projected for nations outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (non-OECD nations). Total non-OECD energy consumption increases by 73 percent in theIEO2009 reference case projection, as compared with a 15-percent increase in energy use among the OECD countries. Strong long-term GDP growth in the emerging economies of the non-OECD countries drives the fast-paced growth in energy demand. In all the non-OECD regions combined, economic activity—measured by GDP in purchasing power parity terms—increases by 4.9 percent per year on average, as compared with an average of 2.2 percent per year for the OECD countries.[ref]

I will publish more in my next posts. I will also consider other opinion as B.W. suggested in email.

To Be Continued…

New Measurements Warned of Depleting Underground Resources?

GRACE observed groundwater trends in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins, Oct. 2003 to March 2009. (Image courtesy of NASA).

Groundwater levels in critical agricultural areas worldwide such as India and California’s Central Valley are dropping rapidly. For example, groundwater levels are dropping up to six feet a year in the San Joaquin Valley.

Two technologies that use remote sensing—one airplane-based and one satellite-based—are being used to track groundwater levels worldwide either at the large-scale or at the small-scale. GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) performs large-scale, long-term analysis using changes in gravity at the earth’s surface to examine the removal of groundwater from large aquifers worldwide.

According to satellite data from GRACE, groundwater levels in the San Joaquin Valley dropped 2 to 6 feet per year from October 2003 – March 2009 while groundwater levels dropped from 0.3 to 0.5 feet per year over that same time period in the northern Sacramento Valley.

GRACE, through a partnership with NASA and the German Aerospace Center, tracks the monthly changes in the Earth’s gravity field caused by the movement of water. Variations in the Earth’s gravity field are mapped using two identical satellites flying about 220 kilometers apart in a polar orbit 500 kilometers above the Earth. Gravity fluctuations measured by the satellites correlate with variations in the density of the land surface below. When groundwater is extracted, the land surface density changes slightly and GRACE data can detect those changes.

GRACE measurements show that India’s breadbasket region may be running out of water. According to NASA satellite data, groundwater levels in aquifers in northwest India have declined one foot per year over the past decade. Researchers conclude the loss is due almost entirely to groundwater pumping and consumption by human activities, such as irrigating cropland. As a result, aquifers are being drained much faster than they can be replenished by rainfall or river runoff.

Approximate location of maximum subsidence in the U.S. in 1977 as identified by research efforts of Dr. Joseph F. Poland (pictured). The site is in the San Joaquin Valley southwest of Mendota, CA.
(Image courtesy of USGS Fact Sheet-165-00).

In December 2009, scientists from NASA and the University of California, Irvine, detailed California’s groundwater changes and described GRACE-based research on other global aquifers at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. Since late 2003, the Sacramento and San Joaquin drainage basins combined have lost more than 30 cubic kilometers of water, said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist from the University of California, Irvine. (One cubic kilometer is about 264.2 billion gallons or 811 thousand acre feet.) The bulk of the loss occurred in California’s agricultural Central Valley.

“GRACE data reveal groundwater in these basins is being pumped for irrigation at rates that are not sustainable if current trends continue,” Famiglietti said. “This is leading to declining water tables, water shortages, decreasing crop sizes and continued land subsidence. The findings have major implications for the U.S. economy, as California’s Central Valley is home to one sixth of all U.S. irrigated farmland, and the state leads the nation in agricultural production and exports.”

Groundwater resides beneath the soil surface in permeable rock, clay and sand. Many aquifers extend hundreds of feet underground and in some instances have filled with water over the course of thousands of years. Removal of groundwater at rates that exceed the rate of natural recharge is mining an aquifer. One byproduct of aquifer mining is that the ground surface drops as the emptied aquifer compresses. This process of compaction results in subsidence of the Earth’s surface.

Land subsidence is a gradual settling or sudden sinking of the Earth’s surface owing to subsurface movement of earth materials. According to a fact sheet from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the principal causes of subsidence are aquifer-system compaction, drainage of organic soils, underground mining, hydrocompaction, natural compaction, sinkholes and thawing permafrost.

In addition to GRACE, an aircraft-based technology looks at ground subsidence at the scale of millimeters to look at smaller scale and shorter-term depletion of groundwater. This powerful new mapping tool, InSAR—Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar—is capable of remotely sensing small changes in land surface elevation with excellent detail through collection of airborne or spaceborne radar data. The subsidence maps allow monitoring and managing of subsidence caused by the compaction of aquifer systems.

Scott Hensley, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) working on the use of synthetic aperture radar for measuring deformation, explained how the measurements work. “To make deformation measurements the radar makes two images of the region of interest, one prior to the deformation and one after. Since the radar is measuring the distance to each pixel in both the before and after images and after compensating for changes in the platform trajectory, it is possible to measure the change in distance and hence deformation (see cartoon below) due to surface deformation.”

“To measure subsidence in the Central Valley of California,” Hensley said, “two radar passes are made by either an airborne or spaceborne radar and then by measuring precise range changes using radar interferometric techniques, the subsidence due to groundwater discharge can then be measured at the sub-centimeter level.” This high degree of accuracy allows precise measurement of subsidence.

An example of deformation measurement using synthetic aperture radar (Image courtesy of JPL).

“The technique of InSAR has been used in several studies of subsidence elsewhere, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Phoenix,” said Tom Farr, a geologist with JPL. “However, the Central Valley is proving difficult because of the agricultural vegetation and plowing that change the ground surface too much for the InSAR technique to work well. So far, we have some preliminary data that indicates we can make the measurements sometimes for some locations, but what we’d like to do is create a complete time series, or ‘movie’ of the ground deformation caused by water withdrawal and recharge,” he added.

“Groundwater resources are being rapidly depleted in many regions of the world,” Famiglietti said in an article last August in Scientific American. “These signals of groundwater loss, particularly in the Central Valley, are very strong. Measurements of subsidence and groundwater depletion now can be measured accurately by remote sensing from satellites and airplanes.

The more difficult task is coming up with management actions that will reverse or slow subsidence and groundwater mining.

{REF:ScienceNews}

Global Warming: Yes or No? This Is What Data Says

Imagine reading this headline: Eating Rice Linked to Unemployment! The story describes how a random sample of the citizenry has been sampled and asked how much rice they eat and if they have recently lost their job. The conclusions show that the study has established a link between the consumption of rice and joblessness.

Of course, lots of people eat rice because it’s relatively inexpensive. People of limited resources eat more of it than wealthy people. Just claiming that a “link” exists really doesn’t say much about cause and effect. Eating rice every day will not make you lose your job.

With the debate on global warming we often hear about “links” to pollution, carbon dioxide and industrial emissions. Do these things really cause the climate to warm up? Given the dramatic boom in the Earth’s population (6 billion) and our rapid industrialization and oil consumption it makes sense that our carbon emissions will climb any graph. No one will question that the world is a much more polluted place than it was in the past. But are these things causing the climate to get warmer? In fact, before we attempt to link these things we need to know… is the climate even getting warmer?

November and December of 2009 saw El Paso get snowfall before New England! The weather seems to be contradicting the paradigm we have neen taught about a warming planet. Who can you believe? I know, let’s ask NASA. They should know. They have all those billion dollar satellites and decades of records. Right?

Under the FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) NASA has been asked to provide their data about the Earth’s climate ahead of the US attending and signing on to the Copenhagen Conference of Global Warming. Much is at stake here because the US is primed to fork over huge amounts of our National treasury to lesser polluting, underdeveloped countries as part of our reparation for being one of the major polluters of the planet. Surprisingly (or maybe not), NASA has failed to turn over the data.

Mark Hess, public affairs director for the Goddard Space Flight Center which runs the GISS laboratory, said they are working on the FOIA request, though he couldn’t say why they have taken so long.

“We’re collecting the information and will respond with all the responsive relevant information to all of his requests. It’s just a process you have to go through where you have to collect data that’s responsive.”

Since that was unproductive we went to some other sources who supposedly got their information from NASA. They summarized the following facts which seem to shed doubt on the global warming trend:

• The earth today is not the warmest it has ever been. Global temperatures were as much as 2 degrees centigrade warmer more than a few times including the Medieval and Roman Periods. (see the chart [above])
• For most of the past 10,000 years the earth was warmer than today’s temperatures.
• 2000 years of global temperature data, note the current global warming starting in the mid 1700s, well before man started producing much CO₂.
• The warmest year ever recorded in the USA was 1934, link. The coldest, in the mid 1970s, a period when some scientists and most of the press said the earth was heading toward global cooling if not a return of glaciation.
• Five of the ten warmest years since 1900 were before 1940!
• The warmest decade was the 1930s
• US temperatures have only risen 0.2 degrees F from 1940!
• 24 of the 50 US States had their highest ever recorded temperature in the 1930s. Five of the ten warmest years since 1900 were before 1940!

Hmmm. What’s up with this?

[via viewzone]

Climatology Taken a Leap

Climatologists have long known that human-produced greenhouse gases have been the dominant drivers of Earth’s observed warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution. But other factors also affect our planet’s temperature. Of these, the ocean plays a dominant role. Its effects helped nudge global temperatures slightly higher in 2009, and, according to NASA scientists, could well contribute to making 2010 the warmest year on record.

Covering 71 percent of our planet’s surface, the ocean acts as a global thermostat, storing energy from the sun, keeping Earth’s temperature changes moderate and keeping climate change gradual. In fact, the ocean can store as much heat in its top three meters (10 feet) as the entire atmosphere does.

“The vast amount of heat stored in the ocean regulates Earth’s temperature, much as a flywheel regulates the speed of an engine,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The ocean has a long history of capturing and giving up heat generated by both human activities and natural cycles; it is the thermal memory of the climate system.”

Heat and moisture from the ocean are constantly exchanged with Earth’s atmosphere in a process that drives our weather and climate. Scientists at NASA and elsewhere use a variety of direct and satellite-based measurements to study the interactions between the ocean and atmosphere.

“These interactions result in large-scale global climate effects, the largest of which is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation,” explained Josh Willis, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. This climate pattern appears in the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every four to 12 years and has a powerful impact on the ocean and the atmosphere. It can disrupt global weather and influence hurricanes, droughts and floods. It can also raise or lower global temperatures by up to 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

The oscillation pattern is made up of linked atmospheric and oceanic components. The atmospheric component is called the Southern Oscillation, a pattern of reversing surface air pressure that see-saws between the eastern and western tropical Pacific. The ocean’s response to this atmospheric shift is known as either “El Niño” or “La Niña” (Spanish for “the little boy” and “the little girl,” respectively).

Where the wind blows

During El Niño, the normally strong easterly trade winds in the tropical eastern Pacific weaken, allowing warm water to shift toward the Americas and occupy the entire tropical Pacific. Heavy rains tied to this warm water move into the central and eastern Pacific. El Niño can cause drought in Indonesia and Australia and disrupt the path of the atmospheric jet streams over North and South America, changing winter climate.

Large El Niños, such as the most powerful El Niño of the past century in 1997 to 1998, tend to force Earth’s average temperatures temporarily higher for up to a year or more. Large areas of the Pacific can be one to two degrees Celsius (around two to four degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, and the average temperature of the ocean surface tends to increase. The current El Niño began last October and is expected to continue into mid-2010. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York estimate that if this pattern persists, 2010 may well go down as the warmest year on record.

El Niño’s cold counterpart is La Niña. During La Niña, trade winds are stronger than normal, and cold water that usually sits along the coast of South America gets pushed to the mid-equatorial region of the Pacific. La Niñas are typically associated with less moisture in the air and less rain along the coasts of the Americas, and they tend to cause average global surface temperatures to drop. The last La Niña from 2007 to 2009 helped make 2008 the coolest year of the last decade. The end of that La Niña last year and subsequent transition into an El Niño helped contribute to last year’s return to near-record global temperatures.

All the ocean’s a stage

Both El Niño and La Niña play out on a larger stage that operates on decade-long timescales. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or PDO for short, describes a long-term pattern of change in the Pacific Ocean that alternates between cool and warm periods about every five to 20 years. The PDO can intensify the impacts of La Niña or diminish the impacts of El Niño. In its “cool, negative phase,” warm water, which causes higher-than-normal sea-surface heights (because warmer water expands and takes up more space), forms a horseshoe pattern that connects the north, west and south Pacific with cool water in the middle. In its “warm, positive phase,” these warm and cool regions are reversed, and warm water forms in the middle of the horseshoe.

Such phase shifts of the PDO result in widespread changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures and have significant global climate implications. During the 1950s and 1960s, the PDO was strongly negative, or cool, and global temperatures seemed to level off. During most of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, the Pacific was locked in a strong positive, or warm, PDO phase and there were many El Niños. We are currently in the early stages of a cool PDO phase that began around 2006. Cool, negative phases tend to dampen the effects of El Niños.

Willis said the PDO, El Niño and La Niña can strongly affect global warming due to increased greenhouse gases. “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities, or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it,” he explained.

Wild ride

“These natural signals — El Niños, La Niñas and PDOs — can modulate the global record for a decade or two, giving us a wild ride with major climate and societal impacts,” said Patzert. “They can have a powerful short-term influence on global temperatures in any particular year or decade. This can make it appear as if global warming has leveled off or become global cooling. But when you look at the long-term trend over the past 130 years, our world is definitely getting warmer. And that’s the human-produced greenhouse gas signal.”

Patzert said the recent climate record is like making a drive from the coast to the mountains. “As you rise slowly to higher and higher elevations, occasionally you hit a major speed bump, such as the 1997 to 1998 El Niño, and temperatures spike; or you hit potholes, such as cooler phases of the PDO, and temperatures dip,” he said. “In the end, though, we still tend toward the top of the mountain, and the trend upwards is clear. We are driving ourselves into a warmer world.”

Oh…. Earth is Haunted!

I’ve ever been open minded with analytical views. I’ve published some of my previous posts on global warming advocacy that were mainly dealing with actions required against global warming and actions what we are taking against global warming. And all this lead me to conclude that Earth is haunted. Daily new datas are being publicized supporting climate change, many organisations are working for against global warming, yet why is it happening?
More recently data provided by one of the NASA satellite was hypnotic. It is obvious to view increasing ozone hole in that report. The report looks something like below.

The annual ozone hole has started developing over the South Pole, and it appears that it will be comparable to ozone depletions over the past decade. This composite image from September 10 depicts ozone concentrations in Dobson units, with purple and blues depicting severe deficits of ozone.

“We have observed the ozone hole again in 2009, and it appears to be pretty average so far,” said ozone researcher Paul Newman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “However, we won’t know for another four weeks how this year’s ozone hole will fully develop.”

 This visualization shows the 2009 ozone hole as it has developed over the summer. Credit: NASA
› View video (1.3 MB mp4) September 16 marks the International Day for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, declared by the United Nations to commemorate the date when the Montreal Protocol was signed to ban use of ozone depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Scientists are tracking the size and depth of the ozone hole with observations from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft, the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment on the European Space Agency’s ERS-2 spacecraft, and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet instrument on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s NOAA-16 satellite.

The depth and area of the ozone hole are governed by the amount of chlorine and bromine in the Antarctic stratosphere. Over the southern winter, polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) form in the extreme cold of the atmosphere, and chlorine gases react on the cloud particles to release chlorine into a form that can easily destroy ozone. When the sun rises in August after months of seasonal polar darkness, the sunlight heats the clouds and catalyzes the chemical reactions that deplete the ozone layer. The ozone hole begins to grow in August and reaches its largest area in late September to early October.

Recent observations and several studies have shown that the size of the annual ozone hole has stabilized and the level of ozone-depleting substances has decreased by 4 percent since 2001. But since chlorine and bromine compounds have long lifetimes in the atmosphere, a recovery of atmospheric ozone is not likely to be noticeable until 2020 or later.

Visit NASA’s Ozone Watch page for current imagery and data: http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

Related Links:

› Ozone Day 2009
› Antarctic Ozone Hole: 1979 to 2008
› Climate Change and Atmospheric Circulation Will Make for Uneven Ozone Recovery
› New Simulation Shows Consequences of a World Without Earth’s Natural Sunscreen
› What’s Holding Antarctic Sea Ice Back From Melting?

Once this so called dogma of ozone layer depletion or ozone hole, claimed to be decreasing but what this report reveals? There is another more recent report of NASA which clearly shows that ice caps are melting.

 

 A web of satellite tracks, from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite, reveal areas of dynamic thinning (red) in Antarctica and Greenland. Credit: British Antarctic Survey/NASA
› Larger image

 Satellite data shows fast ice thinning (red) along the coast of West Antarctica. The inset shows satellite tracks over Pine Island Glacier, from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite, which reveal dynamic thinning concentrated on the fast-flowing areas. Credit: British Antarctic Survey/NASA
› Larger image
› Detail on Pine Island Glacier Researchers have used NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) to compose the most comprehensive picture of changing glaciers along the coast of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

The new elevation maps show that all latitudes of the Greenland ice sheet are affected by dynamic thinning — the loss of ice due to accelerated ice flow to the ocean. The maps also show surprising, extensive thinning in Antarctica, affecting the ice sheet far inland. The study, led by Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, was published September 24 in Nature.

ICESat’s precise laser altimetry instrument, launched in 2003, has provided a high-density web of elevation measurements repeated year after year across the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. With the dense coverage, the research team could distinguish which changes were caused by fast-flowing ice and which had other causes, such as melt.

The maps confirm that the profound ice sheet thinning of recent years stems from fast-flowing glaciers that empty into the sea. This was particularly the case in West Antarctica, where the Pine Island Glacier was found to be thinning between 2003 and 2007 by as much as 6 meters per year. In Greenland, fast-flowing glaciers were shown to thin by an average of nearly 0.9 meters per year.

Related Links

› British Antarctic Survey press release
› Extensive Dynamic Thinning on the Margins of Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets
› NASA ICESat

both reports of NASA clearly shows how fast global warming is happening, yet there are many who supports proposed theory of global warming fake. They profess comments against global warming and proclaim that we need not to worry against global warming because It’s natural not anthropogenic and we can’t oppose or change nature. Oh…. But why? You can’t do better than sitting  in your air conditioned office. It seems me that Earth is haunted and That’s why such “ghosts” are among us. We are even more aware about global warming than that in 1990s and That’s why it gonna happen? Ice caps are melting and ozone hole are increasing vastly boosting global warming is happening. What would be further in HAUNTED EARTH?

The only solution

Recently I have read in a report that if entire antarctica is melt down due to global warming, what will happen? There I read that sea level will increase up to 4to 5 m and axis of rotation will shift up to 500meters, which is really not very good for us. I’m asking why global warming is not solved still while there are too many organizations including PETA? Are the solutions not effective? Whatever the matter but one thing that I can realize is that global warming and climate change and extinction is still going on. I’m concluding this results from what I’m seeing in my surroundings and also in news reports and reports of WWF. I ask peta and other organizations, well, what they are doing? Can anyone tell me? Industries are breaking laws of environment policy like a thread. In the context of Illegal hunting, it is still going on. Then what we should do ? Only awaring other about global warming, no way. Once somehow I reaches bloggers group named ” Direct action” . They were dealing with this global warning and suggested a solution and that is direct action against environment pollutes. Would this problem solve here ,no, only talking or suggesting what they have to do in this scenario , is not only solution. We all have to move forward to diminish this problem. If everyone do his best effort at its own level as I’m doing , again we will in a green planet, with no global warming. But what I’m seeing is perplexing, people are cutting down trees for just a little advantage. Hunter are hunting innocent animals just for a little advantages . Global warming is not directly a problem , the problem is deforestation and due to that it is extinction ,which is destroying our planet’s ecosystem. We all have to do our best effort at our own level. Continued………..

Global warming and climate change an stunning problem?

I’v recently read a news report which was dealing with current problem of melting ice on poles. What’s solution of this problem, only a debate, where scientists and geologists are confessing around a round table? No, It’s not a all in all solution. The thing which we need is a systemic and advanced solution and even then solution is not important , important one is applying solution to solve problems. The report which I have read was stunning. I’m presenting here though It’s not based on datas. The north east passage across the Siberian polar ice is open. The glaciers on Ellesmere islands and the northern and north eastern shores of Greenland are collapsing within a matter of days. The channel between Greenland and Ellesmere island is open and only 250miles of the north shore of Greenland connecting it to the polar ice and that is breaking up . Vast stretches of polar ice are pulverized and floating free an Arctic ocean. Thousands of square miles of ice are pulverized and on the edge of breaking up into billion ice bergs. An immens rent has formed in the ice north of Queen Victoria island . An even larger tear reaches up from Siberia poking at the north pole itself. The entire north shore of Akaska is ice free, as is all of the northern Siberian shore, all the way to new Siberian island and beyond. The last of the blocking the north western passage at east end of Queen Elizabeth island is breaking up. In short, the north sold is falling apart. And some claim global warming isn’t real!? Withing weeks the peeredyf should begin, depending on how long it is before that happens, massive changes may occur at the pole before freeze. The polar ice may will break free from land on all side. This is one of the most astounding event in all human history and where is it on the news?

Cyclone: player in global climate change…?

Global warming can change storm patterns. In turn, storms might help fuel global warming. A new study suggests that tropical cyclones shoot water high into atmosphere. The result may be a small but significant contributio to the green house effect.

“The bottom line is that tropical cyclones can’t be counted out as players in global climate change, said lead author David Romps, of Harvard university. “It is not something to sleep over. But there’s a possibility for some type of feedback.” For decades scientists have been puzzled by two atmospheric mysteries: there is less water vapour in the upper than there theoreticaly should be , said Columbia university atmospheric scientist Timothy Hall.

Scientist have measure 50% rise in water vapour in stratosphere over last 50years. To explain that trend, some researcher have speculated that powerful cyclones might be increasingly punching through the troposphere and sewing water vapours high into atmosphere. Circulation pattern them carry the vapoures from the tropics to pole. ” There is all evidence that a changing climate could change the intensity of frequency of tropical cyclones,” Romps said. “We were thinking about what impact tropical cyclones could have on climate.”

“this is not just academic,” Hall said.” Water vapour is green house has. So changing water vapours have global warming potential and it is significant.” my view on above discovery news: I think that change in vapour density in higher atmosphere doesn’t matter in any way respective to what carbon di oxide we are emitting through industrialization. If we count such little amount then we have to consider CO2 LEFT by forest , it is still a significant amount besides that it is natural and we can do nothing. If we are having awareness seriously we have to solve the problem of anthropogenic emission of green house gases before It’s too late. We need not to do nothing except that we should consider own problems generated by us not nature’s.