Arctic ice melting rapidly, study says

[altitudelou]

We may not have to worry about fanatic terrorist, theirs or ours bent on world domination, mother nature may just slap us all down in good shape.
_________________________________

Arctic ice melting rapidly, study says:

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060913/ap_on_sc/warming_sea_ice

Arctic sea ice in winter is melting far faster than before, two new NASA studies reported Wednesday, a new and alarming trend that researchers say threatens the ocean's delicate ecosystem.

Scientists point to the sudden and rapid melting as a sure sign of man-made global warming.

"It has never occurred before in the past," said NASA senior research scientist Josefino Comiso in a phone interview. "It is alarming... This winter ice provides the kind of evidence that it is indeed associated with the greenhouse effect."

[mmmmbarium]

[BigBunny]

You may be interested in the following:

'Drastic' shrinkage in Arctic ice
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

A Nasa satellite has documented startling changes in Arctic sea ice cover between 2004 and 2005.

The extent of "perennial" ice - thick ice which remains all year round - declined by 14%, losing an area the size of Pakistan or Turkey.

The last few decades have seen summer ice shrink by about 0.7% per year.

The drastic shrinkage may relate partly to unusual wind patterns found in 2005, though rising temperatures in the Arctic could also be a factor.

The research is reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The change we see between 2004 and 2005 is enormous
Son Nghiem
The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the global average; and recent studies have shown that the area of the Arctic covered by ice each summer, and the ice thickness, have been shrinking.

September 2005 saw the lowest recorded area of ice cover since 1978, when satellite records became available.

Perennial decay

This latest study, from scientists led by Son Nghiem of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, measures something slightly different from the extent of summer ice cover - the extent of "perennial" ice cover.

Perennial or "multi-year" ice is up to 3m thick and survives through at least one summer. It is different from "seasonal" ice, which is thinner and melts more easily, surviving for just one winter before succumbing to the summer sun.

"Perennial ice contains less salinity," explained Dr Nghiem. "It's freshwater ice - there are more bubbles in it and typically its surface is much rougher - and a scatterometer can distinguish between the two types."



Using the scatterometer on Nasa's Quikscat satellite, researchers scanned the Arctic for perennial and seasonal ice. From October 2004 to March 2006 they plotted a steady decline.

When they compared figures for the 2004 and 2005 northern hemisphere winter solstices - 21 December - a huge change showed up.

"In previous years there is some variability, but it is much smaller and regional," Dr Nghiem told the BBC News website.

"However the change we see between 2004 and 2005 is enormous."

The area of perennial sea ice lost was about 730,000 sq km, with a huge loss in the East Arctic (defined as north of Russia and Europe) and a small gain in the West Arctic, north of the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean.

Stray winds

Continuous scatterometer data has been available only since 1999, so for comparison researchers must use the records of summer ice extent - which is almost, but not exactly, the same thing as perennial ice extent.

"If we average that over the long term we find a reduction of between 6.4% and 7.8% per decade," said Dr Nghiem. "What we have here is 14% in one year - 18 times the previous rate."

The key questions are what caused it, and whether it is an anomaly or the first sign of a major change of pace for Arctic melting.

Quikscat also monitors winds, and noted unusual patterns of wind in the East Arctic in 2005 which could be related, perhaps propelling old ice from east to west, though how that could explain such a drastic loss of perennial ice is not clear.

If the pace of Arctic melting is quickening, the implications for the future are not reassuring.

Ice reflects the Sun's energy back into space; open water absorbs it. So a planet with less ice warms faster, potentially turning the projected impacts of global warming into reality sooner than anticipated.

[e-mail]
Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/5344208.stm

Published: 2006/09/14 05:18:47 GMT

[altitudelou]

"The Debate Over Global Warming Is Over, all doubt has been removed "
___________________________________

www.algore.org/
___________________________________

Global Warming Is An Immediate Crisis
Monday, 18 September 2006
(Click here to watch a video of this speech from New York University's website)

By Former Vice President Al Gore
New York University School of Law
September 18, 2006
Remarks as Prepared

A few days ago, scientists announced alarming new evidence of the rapid melting of the perennial ice of the north polar cap, continuing a trend of the past several years that now confronts us with the prospect that human activities, if unchecked in the next decade, could destroy one of the earth¹s principle mechanisms for cooling itself. Another group of scientists presented evidence that human activities are responsible for the dramatic warming of sea surface temperatures in the areas of the ocean where hurricanes form. A few weeks earlier, new information from yet another team showed dramatic increases in the burning of forests throughout the American West, a trend that has increased decade by decade, as warmer temperatures have dried out soils and vegetation. All these findings come at the end of a summer with record breaking temperatures and the hottest twelve month period ever measured in the U.S., with persistent drought in vast areas of our country. Scientific American introduces the lead article in its special issue this month with the following sentence: ³The debate on global warming is over.²

Many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several ³tipping points² that could ­ within as little as 10 years ­ make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet¹s habitability for human civilization. In this regard, just a few weeks ago, another group of scientists reported on the unexpectedly rapid increases in the release of carbon and methane emissions from frozen tundra in Siberia, now beginning to thaw because of human caused increases in global temperature. The scientists tell us that the tundra in danger of thawing contains an amount of additional global warming pollution that is equal to the total amount that is already in the earth¹s atmosphere. Similarly, earlier this year, yet another team of scientists reported that the previous twelve months saw 32 glacial earthquakes on Greenland between 4.6 and 5.1 on the Richter scale ­ a disturbing sign that a massive destabilization may now be underway deep within the second largest accumulation of ice on the planet, enough ice to raise sea level 20 feet worldwide if it broke up and slipped into the sea. Each passing day brings yet more evidence that we are now facing a planetary emergency ­ a climate crisis that demands immediate action to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions worldwide in order to turn down the earth¹s thermostat and avert catastrophe.

Cont,...

[mmmmbarium]

I don't want to sound pessimistic, but you know that we will not lower emissions over the next decade. In fact, The New World Order wants global meltdown!

Even if we did lower emissions, it wouldnt make a difference. Its a runaway effect.

[altitudelou]

Sorry for the delay in my response, I've been really busy lately.

I agree that we will in reality not lower emissions over the next decade, going further I would venture to say that even if we stopped all human pollution of the planet tomorrow at noon, it would probably take something near a thousand years for our atmosphere to cleanse itself and become close to what it was prior to the industrial revolution .

One must understand that Al Gore is a liberal optimist who really believes that we humans can turn this global warming around if we really try and he can't be poo pooed for his belief, at least he is a strong voice for saving our planet and our very own lives in the process.

I don't always agree with every word that he utters but he is out there in the front lines doing exactly what we all should be doing, exposing the greedy spoilers, the polluters, the criminals who are destroying our planet, despite differences in thinking that we might have, the guy is a champion for our environment and has his finger on exactly what is happening day to day, that's why I pay attention to what he has to say.

Gore would be the first to tell you that he doesn't have all of the answers and that we all have to pull together on saving our environment or there isn't going to be any "WE" left to save if we continue to ignore global warming.

[altitudelou]

Additionally, I believe that when Bush leaves office your going to start to see some big changes in our politicians approach to global warming, with all the research data that's been coming forward lately which screams doomsday for all of humanity the new administration and congress will have no choice but to address it and seek a course of solutions that may mitigate some of the effects that are coming, coming fast now and no doubt will continue to increase in speed, Gore and many world scientist are not kidding when they say that we are very near the "Tipping point", once past that point there is no program, project or prayer that will ever stop global warming, it will just have to run it's course and as usual in nature, we humans will be insignificant when it does.

[altitudelou]

correction,

"we humans will be rendered insignificant when it does".

[socrates]

I think because we are close to the tipping point, Gore's ideas will become the norm. Kyoto will look like a bargain for the pigs when the real bill comes in soon. I am proud of California charting the course, like Massachusetts did with the great abolitionists and with having the first African-American regiment fighting for real freedom. (One other thing about Massachusetts-- We were the only state to vote against King Nixon in 1972.

Gore says we need to put a freeze on the emissions. Hopefully, that freeze will be extremely short-lived, as we move towards making tremendous reductions. Damn, all that money put into illegal, immoral wars should have been used for schools, health care, housing, good jobs at good wages, and for windmills, solar power, batteries, etc.....

[KNOWTHIS]

Arctic ice melt shocks scientists

www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20448107-5005961,00.html


EUROPEAN scientists voiced shock today as they viewed pictures which showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole.

The satellite images were acquired from August 23 to 25 by instruments aboard Envisat and EOS Aqua, two satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Perennial sea ice – thick ice that is normally present year-round and is not affected by the Arctic summer – had disappeared over an area bigger than the British Isles, ESA said.

Vast patches of ice-free sea stretched north of Svalbard, an archipelago lying midway between Norway and the North Pole, and extended deep into the Russian Arctic all the way to the North Pole, the agency said in a press release.

"This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low-ice seasons," said Mark Drinkwater of ESA's Oceans/Ice Unit.

"It is highly imaginable that a ship could have passed from Spitzbergen or Northern Siberia through what is normally pack ice to reach the North Pole without difficulty."

Spitzbergen is one of the Svalbard islands, which are Norwegian.

"If this anomaly continues, the Northeast Passage – or Northern Sea Route between Europe and Asia – will be open over longer intervals of time, and it is conceivable we might see attempts at sailing around the world directly across the summer Arctic Ocean within the next 10 to 20 years," Drinkwater said.

The images are for late summer. In the last weeks, what was open water has begun to freeze, as the autumn air temperatures over the Arctic begin to fall, ESA said.

Regular satellite monitoring over the past 25 years shows the northern polar ice cover has shrunk and thinned as global temperatures have risen.

But this year's images are unprecedented, and fierce storms that fragmented and scattered already thin pack ice may be to blame, the scientists believe.

The images were released less than a week after a paper, published in the US journal Science, found that year-round sea ice in the Arctic shrank by one seventh between 2004 and 2005.

Loss of sea ice does not affect global sea levels. Ice that floats in the water displaces its own volume.

However ice that is on land, as an icesheet, glacier or permanent snowcap, adds to sea level when it melts and runs off.

Retreating ice cover also creates a vicious circle, adding to the warming caused by greenhouse gases – carbon emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, that trap the sun's heat.

Ice, being white, reflects the sun's rays. Less ice therefore means the sea warms, which in turn accelerates the shrinkage.

The shrinkage of the Arctic icecap is viewed with alarm by scientists, as it appears to perturb important ocean currents elsewhere, notably the Gulf Stream, which gives western Europe its balmy climate.

It also threaten animals such as polar bears and seals that depend on ice.

There are geopolitical implications, too, as Canada, Russia and the US jockey to claim rights over transpolar passages that open up within their newly ice-free waters.

[altitudelou]

socrates wrote,

"Damn, all that money put into illegal, immoral wars should have been used for schools, health care, housing, good jobs at good wages, and for windmills, solar power, batteries, etc."
_________________________________________________

Yes, sickening isn't it, seeing where our leaders and there boot lickers priorities lie, greed, power, more greed and more power, that's all it seems they live for while the rest of us look on in anger, even if we can change our political landscape and put people in office that actually care about the planet I don't know if there is enough time left for them to make a significant difference in defending us from global warming, the real war that's coming, they may only have enough time to tell us that it's every man, woman and child for themselves which is the most likely scenario as I see it.

All of the time consuming debates that will no doubt take place by our political leaders, scientific panels, religious fanatics, study groups, think tanks and oh, my yes, those all important Congressional Herrings will amount to one conclusive, unanimous answer culminating in one final report that points out with clarity just how FUCKED we all are because it's to late to do what we should have been doing fifty years ago to keep us from just this life and death situation that's looming over us.

All I can say to those that pretend that global warming isn't real is, keep your heads in the sand, you probably would not understand the implications of global warming or the impact that it's about to have on your life, an impact that can and will no doubt end you lives and because your to stupid, arrogant, selfish and decadent to change, I do not feel sorry for your sorry asses, you deserve more than anyone else what's coming.

I expect there will be a call to arms (perhaps to late) the likes of which we have never seen when it is decided that we are very much in a world war with that we have ourselves created, our nature has been to use and abuse this wonderful planet, rape it and suck out it's very soul for our own purpose and dump our waste and toxic pollution back into it as a reward for serving our needs, it is fitting that our planet is now about to reflect back upon us what we have been filling it with for so long now, what's is that saying in the Bible, "You reap what you sew".

I am not as optimistic as some who think for some reason that global warming can be halted or even reversed, to me that thinking is like someone standing on the railroad tracks and thinking that they can stop the fast freight by holding up their hand. If and when global warming reaches the tipping point (and it will) we are going to see a runaway global warming freight train of monumental, biblical proportions and nothing, absolutely nothing will ever be the same from that tipping point on.

This is not to say that we should not try to do something about global warming, the question is, what, if anything can be done with so little time left to do it in ?

[KNOWTHIS]

link

Arctic lake melts out of sea ice into ocean

Something unusual is going on in the Beaufort Sea, a remote part of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. Over the past six weeks, a huge "lake" bigger than the state of Indiana has melted out of the sea ice.

Within the past week, this "polynya" - a Russian word for any open water surrounded by sea ice - finally melted through a part of the ice that separated it from the open ocean, forming a kind of bay in the planet's northern ice cap.

"The reason we're tracking it is because we had never seen anything like that before," said Mark C. Serreze, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.

Polynyas occur every year in certain parts of the Arctic where warm currents and persistent winds clear swaths of sea ice.

But this one, covering 38,000 square miles, is unique in the memory of scientists who watch the Arctic ice closely because they see it as a bellwether for the effects of global warming. They've found that the area of the summer ice cap has been shrinking for at least three decades, and it's getting thinner, too.

Last year, scientists at NASA and the NSIDC reported the most extensive summer meltdown of Arctic sea ice on record, and an acceleration in the rate of its long-term decline.

In a new study reported last week, NASA researcher Josefino Comiso found that the Arctic's winter ice is also in decline, and at an accelerating rate.

The ice cap is crucial because it helps regulate the planet's temperature. Its bright surface reflects 80 percent of the solar energy that strikes it, sending it back into space.

As of Tuesday, NSIDC reported that the summer sea ice this year had shrunk to the fourth-smallest September minimum on record.

[altitudelou]

Unfortunately this kind of thing has been expected to show up as the upper latitudes collect more heat and store it longer and produce longer lasting ice melting, the closer to the tipping point we get the more likely this kind of event will be seen taking place.

It's just one more sign that the earth's climate is heating more and more rapidly as we stand by waiting for official clarification on global warming, Ha, stupid people !

[altitudelou]

Ah, here it comes, the scientific evidence pointing out that global warming is very real has finally caught up with the sleeping politicians, now, as I predicted in another thread they have no choice but to face the reality of what's coming and franticly try to do something about it _ to late no doubt.
_________________________

Global warming fear lights fire under Congress

Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Saturday, September 23, 2006

(09-23) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Congress, it appears, is channeling Al Gore. After years of debating whether global warming was real or a hoax, the House and Senate staged six hearings this week on how the government should respond to climate change.

And the Bush administration, which has downplayed the threat of global warming during its six years in office, released a 244-page strategic report this week laying out plans to address the rapid warming of the planet.

Critics say the White House and the Republican-led Congress are not yet ready to take the politically difficult steps needed to combat global warming -- such as raising federal fuel efficiency standards or capping greenhouse gas emissions by electric utilities and other industries, as California did recently.

But the mounting scientific evidence that human activity is causing global temperatures to rise coupled with a growing public alarm -- fueled by former Vice President Gore's climate change documentary, "Inconvenient Truth," this summer -- has forced lawmakers to take up the issue.

Cont,...http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/23/MNGOGLBFPB1.DTL

[KNOWTHIS]

www.standeyo.com/NEWS/06_Earth_Changes/060926.GW.critical.temps.html

Global Temperature Highest in Million Years — Near Critical Level

so what does this mean to you?

increasingly severe weather, rising sea levels, more hurricanes, more flooding, more droughts, more tornadoes, more disease and higher food costs

how can you prepare your family? and how safe is your county?



Image: This color-coded map shows how surface temperatures changed on average from 2001 to 2005. 2005 was the warmest ranked year on record. Dark red indicates the greatest warming and purple indicates the greatest cooling. The numbers refer to temperature anomalies as measured by degrees Celsius.

Global temperatures are dangerously close to the highest ever estimated to have occurred in the past million years, scientists reported Monday.

In a study that analyzed temperatures around the globe, researchers found that Earth has been warming rapidly, nearly 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius) in the last 30 years.


"The average surface temperature is 15, maybe 16 degrees Celsius (60 degrees Fahrenheit)," said Alan Robock, a meteorologist and climate researcher from Rutgers University who was not involved with the study.

If global temperatures go up another 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C), it would be equal to the maximum temperature of the past million years.

"This evidence implies that we are getting close to dangerous levels of human-made (anthropogenic) pollution," said study leader James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

‘A DIFFERENT PLANET...’

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, human-caused greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the warming of the last 50 years. The gases, released by burning of fossil fuels and land clearing, among other factors, trap heat in the atmosphere and warm Earth's surface.

Further global warming of 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C) defines a critical level, Hanson said.

Robock agrees that temperatures are getting up there.

"It's certainly the warmest it's been in the last couple of thousand years," Robock said. "I don't have access to the data about the last million years but it's probably right. I just haven't looked at it in detail.

"During the warmest interglacial periods the Earth was reasonably similar to today. But if further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know," he said. "The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about 3 million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters [80 feet] higher than today."



Graphic: Data from this study reveal that the Earth has been warming approximately 0.36 Fahrenheit (0.2 degrees Celsius)per decade for the past 30 years. This rapid warming has brought global temperature to within about 1.8 Degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius) of the maximum estimated temperature during the past million years, when sea level was about 82 feet (25 meters) higher than today. (Credit: NASA)

The study also notes that global warming is greatest at higher latitudes near the poles. This is because when Earth warms, snow and ice melt, uncovering darker land and ocean surfaces. Instead of the once-white surface that reflected solar rays back into space, the darker surfaces now absorb more energy from the sun.

MASS MIGRATION

Although warming is most noticeable at the poles, higher latitudes are still among the coolest spots around. For animals and plants that can survive only within certain cool temperature ranges, these are the only places to go as their current homes become intolerably warm.

In a 2003 study, scientists showed that 1,700 plant and animal species migrated toward the poles at about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) per decade in the last 50 years.

That migration rate is not fast enough to keep up with the current rate of movement of a given temperature zone, which has reached about 25 miles (40 kilometers) per decade in the period 1975 to 2005, Hanson and co-authors write in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Rapid movement of climatic zones is going to be another stress on wildlife," Hansen said. "It adds to the stress of habitat loss due to human developments. If we do not slow down the rate of global warming, many species are likely to become extinct. In effect we are pushing them off the planet."

© 2006 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15003895/

[altitudelou]

"many species are likely to become extinct".
____________________________________

Yes indeed, one of those species could very well be us !

[mmmmbarium]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zpP_Glzu28

[mmmmbarium]

Alot of you guys on here are older, and lived through the 50's 60's ETC.

Wasn't the air pollution worse back then?

Some things about greenhouse being the cause of Global warming, to me, don't add up.

Why has it become such an issue over the past decade?

Is it a coincidence that it really started to gain strength right about the time chemtrails started?

Although I do believe we are destroying the planet, and green house gases are bad. I don't think they are the only warming ingredient going on here.

I believe the warming is being caused by 3 things. The Sun, Chemtrails and Green house gases/ pollution.

It seemed evident that the reflective aerosols in chemtrails were to deflect sun rays back into space. But according to Clifford Carnicom, and hes the expert on chemtrails, he says that chemtrails are doing the opposite and causing the earth to warm.

The sun makes up 99.98 percent of the mass of the solar system. It's massive. And it makes sense to me that if it is changing or intensifying, that it would cause changes not only here on earth, but on every planet in the solar system. In fact there are other changes going on in the other planets. the polar ice caps on Mars are melting. The other planets are changing as well, but I cant remember off the top of my head exactly how.



So whats happens when there are more light rays being absorbed by the earth, on top of having more green house gases and chemtrails being sprayed?

But if the sun is changing, do you think NASA(Never A straight Answer) would tell us? They control SOHO and the information.

Maybe Global warming is a hobgoblin made by the Govt to cover their tracks, and something to blame on when they are modifying the weather?

[mmmmbarium]

This is a joke. Cut emissions by 25 percent by 2020? While the ice caps will have melted completely in a decade. And while the governator drives around in his gas guzzling hummer.

This is just an attempt by the Governator to boost his ratings to get re-elected.

How about cut 50 percent of emissions by 2010. What about the rest of the world, like China. And theres a clause in there that says The governor can delay the cap deadline by one year in the event of extraordinary circumstances, catastrophic events or threat of significant economic harm.

It may be a start, but it aint going to do shit. We've screwed ourselves over.

sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/28/MNG89LEBTN1.DTL

State's war on warming
Governor signs measure to cap greenhouse gas emissions -- sweeping changes predicted in industries and life in cities


Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Wednesday setting California on course to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, a major political victory for the governor and a step that environmental and political leaders predict will have worldwide ramifications.

In a ceremony on San Francisco's Treasure Island with the city's skyline as a backdrop, Schwarzenegger declared the beginning of "a bold new era of environmental protection in California that will change the course of history" as he approved AB32, which calls for the state to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases by 25 percent by 2020.

The new law, the first of its kind in the nation, could lead to a dizzying array of changes in industry and elsewhere that will be seen in cities, on farms and on freeways.

During the next decade, state regulators could require more public transportation, more densely built housing, a major new investment in projects that tap into the wind and sun to generate electricity, millions of new trees and even new ways for farmers to handle animal waste.

Aides to the governor said he also planned to sign legislation later this week that will prohibit the state's electric utilities from buying electricity from high-polluting out-of-state power plants, a key step toward cleaning up the state's power supply.

Schwarzenegger put his signature on AB32 a little more than a year after he made international headlines by announcing that the debate over global warming was over and that California should act. The move sets the state on a markedly different path than the federal government -- President Bush has resisted the idea of capping emissions, saying it would ruin the nation's economy.

The president's warnings were echoed this year as major business groups -- many of whom are allies of Schwarzenegger -- suggested that California would send businesses scurrying out of state if it acted alone to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

But on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger and others insisted that the caps would spur new clean-technology businesses and that other states, and eventually the federal government, would follow California's lead.

"You are showing brilliant leadership that will inspire people around the world,'' said British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who predicted that the new California law would spur a larger global market that allows companies to buy and sell emissions credits. Blair noted the law could encourage similar laws in "states within the United States of America as well, and hopefully in time from the whole of America.''

Blair, whose country is part of the Kyoto Protocol requiring countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, was beamed in via satellite to the morning ceremony, a well-choreographed event that was duplicated in the afternoon in Malibu. With flags from countries around the world on one side of the stage, a vast lighting system and a giant video monitor displaying Blair and images of the other speakers, it was a Hollywood-quality production.

Joining Schwarzenegger was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and New York Gov. George Pataki, who helped instigate an effort by New York and seven other Northeastern states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

California's law makes it the first state in the country to focus on all industries.

Schwarzenegger has built a double-digit lead over his challenger this November, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, and the signing of landmark environmental legislation was a big political achievement for the governor.

Polls show overwhelming support among California voters -- Democrats, Republicans and independents -- for a broader government-led effort to combat global warming. Schwarzenegger further distanced himself from Bush, complicating Angelides' efforts to tie the governor to the unpopular president.

And Núñez, who is a co-chairman of Angelides' campaign, spoke at both ceremonies and gushed over the governor -- in two languages. He said Schwarzenegger showed both courage and leadership in setting the targets last year and signing the legislation this year, and then he reiterated the message for Spanish-language media.

When Schwarzenegger signed a copy of the legislation and handed it to the speaker, "Núñez looked so happy, like a little boy who had just been handed the biggest ice cream cone in the world,'' noted Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at USC.

"It's days like this when you have to wonder how Angelides gets out of bed,'' she said.

Despite a contentious legislative battle this year over the bill, the legislation leaves most of the heavy lifting to the state's Air Resources Board, which now is charged with numerous duties in achieving the state's 2020 goal -- a deadline that will occur long after Schwarzenegger and the lawmakers who voted for AB32 are out of office.

By January 2008, the board is expected to have developed new rules requiring most industries to report their current greenhouse gas emissions, a key first step. The board also must determine by that time the exact amount of gas that needs to be reduced; experts suggested it will be more than 170 million metric tons of gases.

That's more carbon dioxide than every car in the state combined produces now.

Other deadlines follow that, including creation of a fully spelled-out plan for meeting the target by January 2011 and enforcement beginning in 2012. The board also can consider implementing a so-called cap and trade system, which would allow companies to buy and sell credits for emission reductions, allowing one company that lowers emissions more than required to sell credits to another firm, for example.

Each step will involve public hearings and is likely to feature battles -- and litigation -- among regulators, businesses and environmental groups.

"In many ways, what was done this year was the easy part,'' said Bill Magavern, a lobbyist with the Sierra Club. "The implementation will be the hard part.''

The state had already begun to tackle global warming, and the track record so far illustrates how difficult hitting the reduction target could be.

A law passed before Schwarzenegger took office that requires automakers to reduce tailpipe emissions from cars beginning in 2009, which would account for a major portion of the new law's target, has been held up in court after carmakers sued the state. Trial begins in January.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Provisions of the new environmental law
Key points of AB32, signed into law by Gov. Schwarzenegger:

-- Reduction: California is required to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by about 25 percent by 2020.

-- Restrictions: The California Air Resources Board will develop a plan by 2009 outlining reductions that must be made by industrial sources such as utilities, power plants, manufacturers and cement makers.

-- Trade system: Regulators can develop a market-based program to help industries that might not be able to meet the new targets. The system could allow a California company to buy credits for emission reductions made elsewhere in the world.

-- Regulations: By 2011, the state air board is required to adopt regulations to meet the 2020 reductions; by 2012, it is to begin enforcing limits and reduction measures.

-- Delays: The governor can delay the cap deadline by one year in the event of extraordinary circumstances, catastrophic events or threat of significant economic harm.

-- In addition ... The governor has indicated he will sign SB1368 by Senate leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, which would prohibit utilities in the state from buying electricity from high-polluting power plants.

[mmmmbarium]

This is what I was talking about with the other planets.




SUN: The Sun’s magnetic field is over 230 percent stronger now than it was at the beginning of the 1900s, and its overall energetic activity has sizably increased, creating a frenzy of activity that continues to embarrass NASA’s official predictions.



VENUS: Venus is now glowing in the dark, as is Jupiter’s moon Io.



EARTH: In the last 30 years, Earth’s icecaps have thinned out by as much as 40 percent. Quite inexplicably, just since 1997 the structure of the Earth has shifted from being slightly more egg-shaped, or elongated at the poles, to more pumpkin-shaped, or flattened at the poles. No one at NASA has even bothered to try to explain this yet. www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020801gravityfield.html



MARS: The icecaps of Mars noticeably melted just within one year, causing 50-percent changes in surface features. Atmospheric density had risen by 200 percent above previous observations as of 1997.



JUPITER: Jupiter has become so highly energized that it is now surrounded by a visibly glowing donut tube of energy in the path of the moon Io. The size of Jupiter’s magnetic field has more than doubled since 1992.



SATURN: Saturn’s polar regions have been noticeably brightening, and its magnetic field strength increasing.



URANUS: According to NASA’s Voyager II space probe, Uranus and Neptune both appear to have had recent magnetic pole shifts – 60 degrees for Uranus and 50 for Neptune.



NEPTUNE: Neptune has become 40 percent brighter in infrared since 1996, and is fully 100-percent brighter in certain areas. Also, Neptune’s moon Triton has had a “very large percentage increase” in atmospheric pressure and temperature, comparable to a 22-degree Fahrenheit increase on Earth.



PLUTO: As of September 2002, Pluto has experienced a 300-percent increase in its atmospheric pressure in the last 14 years, while also becoming noticeably darker in color.

[altitudelou]

I posted this in another thread but it fits here nicely as well.

"Is "One Degree" the tipping point?

This article is talking about our own back yards boy's and girl's and what's going on and how just one degree could be the "Tipping Point" of no return.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125713.300-one-degree-and-were-done-for.html

'One degree and we're done for'
27 September 2006
Fred Pearce
"Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."
So says Jim Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Hansen and colleagues have analysed global temperature records and found that surface temperatures have been increasing by an average of 0.2 °C every decade for the past 30 years. Warming is greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America. Here the melting of ice and snow is exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight and increase warming, creating a positive feedback.

Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years, and is within 1 °C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen's team. Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change, the study concludes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).

The analysis reinforces a series of recent findings on accelerating environmental disruption in Siberia, northern Canada and Alaska, underlining a growing scientific consensus that these regions are pivotal to climate change. Earlier this month, NASA scientists reported that climate change was speeding up the melting of Arctic sea ice. Permanent sea ice has contracted by 14 per cent in the past two years (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 33, L17501). However, warming and melting have been just as dramatic on land in the far north.

A meeting on Siberian climate change held in Leicester, UK, last week confirmed that Siberia has become a hotspot of global climate change. Geographer Heiko Balzter, of the University of Leicester, said central Siberia has warmed by almost 2 °C since 1970 - that's three times the global average.

Meanwhile, Stuart Chapin of the University of Alaska Fairbanks this week reported that air temperatures in the Alaskan interior have risen by 2 °C since 1950, and permafrost temperatures have risen by 2.5 °C (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606955103).

In Siberia the warming is especially pronounced in winter. "It has caused the onset of spring to advance by as much as one day a year since satellite observations began in 1982," says Balzter. Similarly, Alaskan springs now arrive two weeks earlier than in 1950, according to Chapin.

The Leicester meeting heard that the rising temperatures are causing ecological changes in the forests that ratchet up the warming still further. Vladimir Petko from the Russian Academy of Sciences Forest Research Institute in Krasnoyarsk says warm springs are triggering plagues of moths. "They can eat the needles of entire forest regions in one summer," he says. The trees die and then usually succumb to forest fires that in turn destroy soil vegetation and accelerate the melting of permafrost, Petko says.

In 2003 Siberia saw a record number of forest fires, losing 40,000 square kilometres according to Balzter, who has analysed remote sensing images of the region. Similar changes are occurring in Alaska. According to Chapin, warming there has shortened the life cycle of the bark beetle from two years to one, causing huge infestations and subsequent fires, which destroyed huge areas of forest in 2004. "The current boreal forest zone could be so dried out by 2090 that the trees will die off and be replaced by steppe," says Nadezhda Tchebakova, also at the institute in Krasnoyarsk.

Melting permafrost in the boreal forests and further north in the Arctic tundra is also triggering the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from thick layers of thawing peat. First reports published exclusively in New Scientist last year (13 August 2005, p 12) were recently confirmed by US scientists (Nature, vol 443, p 71).

"Large amounts of greenhouse gases are currently locked in the permafrost and if released could accelerate the greenhouse effect," says Balzter. Hansen's paper concludes that the effects of this positive feedback could be huge. "In past eras, the release of methane from melting permafrost and destabilised sediments on continental shelves has probably been responsible for some of the largest warmings in the Earth's history," he says.

“The release of methane from melting permafrost has been responsible for some of the largest warmings in history”
We could be close to unleashing similar events in the 21st century, Hansen argues. Although the feedbacks should remain modest as long as global temperatures remain within the range of recent interglacial periods of the past million years, outside that range - beyond a further warming of about 1 °C - the feedbacks could accelerate. Such changes may become inevitable if the world does not begin to curb greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade, Hansen says.

Meanwhile, another new study underlines that the boreal peat bogs, permafrost and pine forests are not just vital to the planet as a whole, they are major economic assets for the countries that host them. A detailed study of the northern boreal forests by environmental consultant Mark Anielski of Edmonton, Canada, puts the value of their "ecosystem services" at $250 billion a year, or $160 per hectare.

“The value of the services this ecosystem performs is more than twice that of the resources taken from the region each year”
These benefits include flood control, water purification and pest control provided by forest birds, plus income from wilderness tourism and meat from wildlife such as caribou. Anielski presented his findings to Canada's National Forest Congress in Gatineau-Ottawa earlier this week.

The value of these ecosystem services is more than twice that of conventional resources taken from the region each year, such as timber, minerals, oil and hydroelectricity, Anielski says. "If they were counted in Canadian inventories of assets, they would amount to roughly 9 per cent of our gross domestic product - similar in value to our health and social services."

You can add to that figure the value of having such a huge volume of carbon locked away. "The boreal region is like a giant carbon bank account," he says. "At current prices in the European carbon emissions trading system, Canada's stored carbon alone would be worth $3.7 trillion."

And if Hansen is right that the carbon and methane stored in the boreal regions has the potential to transform the world into "another planet", then the boreal region may be worth a great deal more than that.

From issue 2571 of New Scientist magazine, 27 September 2006, page 8-9

[socrates]

mmmmbarium said:

Alot of you guys on here are older, and lived through the 50's 60's ETC.

If you ever saw the show Freaks and Geeks, I fall into that age bracket. I myself am proudly half freak, half geek. I grew up in the 70's. We were Generation X.

Wasn't the air pollution worse back then?

Maybe in some ways, but overall I doubt it. Nature was more real back then for sure. There were no chemtrails at all.

Some things about greenhouse being the cause of Global warming, to me, don't add up.

Why has it become such an issue over the past decade?

Back in say 1985-1990, I was reading about scientists warning about this from the 1930's. They warned us of a lot of things, mass depraved commercialism and mass media, the military-Industrial Complex, Imperialism, North versus South - Rich versus Poor. I was in Ireland back in 1990. Shows were on all the time about global warming, on the ozone hole. My memory is we seemed to have perhaps 50-70 years to change our tunes.

Where we are now according to Lovelock and some others with the tipping point talk, that is new to me. I swear that it never seemed this dire as it does today. I'm thinking "chemtrails" are messing up the world, that it needs to be stopped. We have to change the very fundamental ways we live as societies while not stamping on human rights and dignity.

Is it a coincidence that it really started to gain strength right about the time chemtrails started?

It seems they are speeding up the process by 45 years. A lot of things don't add up, you are correct.

Although I do believe we are destroying the planet, and green house gases are bad. I don't think they are the only warming ingredient going on here.

I believe the warming is being caused by 3 things. The Sun, Chemtrails and Green house gases/ pollution.

It seemed evident that the reflective aerosols in chemtrails were to deflect sun rays back into space.

I agree with you. I also think chemtrails are a major reason the weather is so fried... Night trails block in the day's heat. The day one's block the sun rays. However, either way carbon dioxide is gonna warm us up.

[altitudelou]

Ecological upheaval on the edge of the ice

seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003283374_beringsea01m.html

"You expect normal climate fluctuations, but now it's been about 30 years and we just continue to get warmer," said NOAA biologist Jeff Napp."

[altitudelou]

www.wmtw.com/weather/9977591/detail.html

NORTH BERWICK, Maine -- Dozens of North Berwick homeowners had weekend cleanup chores in the aftermath of a Friday tornado.

About 40 homes felt the effects, but only two sustained major damage, according to Bob Bohlmann, director of the York County Emergency Management Agency. No one was injured.
___________________________________________

The article does not do the effects of the tornado that touched down in North Berwick justice, Tiff and I took a ride down to North Berwick today and their still cleaning up from the damage on the 6th from the F-1 tornado that hit there.

Everyone that we talked to says that getting a tornado any time of the year is crazy but getting one in October is beyond crazy, they said that the people from the National Weather Service that finally showed up on Monday were down playing the tornado and saying that it was "normal" weather for Maine.

One man that we talked to said that he has lived in Maine all of his 89 years and that the National Weather Service "Weather people" are full of horse sh-t and they are not telling people that the weather is changing.

We did not talk about Global Warming in our conversation with this old Mainer so we think that he knows instinctively that the weather is changing and not for the better, he is not the only person that we have talked to this summer that says that the weather has become more unpredictable, with more prolonged periods of bad weather, heat, humidity, month long heavy rains, then near drought like conditions, rapid changes in temperatures and unstable temperatures during the summer months, lack of snow during the winter months, it's all adding up to the fact that we are now feeling the effects of Global Warming whether the National Weather wants to admit it or not.

We have had some strange earthquake activity lately as well.

www.state.me.us/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/hazards/quake/quake-recent.htm

Maine gets earthquakes but they are usually mild, 1.2 to 2.0 type quakes but recently something odd is going on in the Mount Desert Island, Cadillac Mountain area with two quakes over 3 and one 2.5.

We felt the 3.9 on Monday the 2nd here in Parsonfield, Maine as a loud rumbling and thumping.


Date Magnitude Location

October 2, 2006..................... magnitude 3.9 (preliminary)........... east of Cadillac Mountain, Mount Desert Island

September 28, 2006............. magnitude 2.5........ east of Cadillac Mountain, Mount Desert Island

September 22, 2006............. magnitude 3.4......... east of Cadillac Mountain, Mount Desert Island

Strange day's indeed.

[mmmmbarium]

Man made global warming is a hoax

www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=12594

Global warming is a hoax, invented in 1988, that combines old myths including limits to growth, sustainability, the population growth time bomb, the depletion of resources, pollution, anti-Americanism and anti-corporate sentiment and, of all things, fear of an ice age. Those that espoused and supported the old myths have joined forced into a new group called “Environmentalists.”

Most environmentalists have no technical or scientific credentials whatsoever. What they have are major news outlets ready and willing to publicize their every utterance regardless of whether or not they are backed up by scientific proof. Atmospheric science requires highly technical knowledge and skills, not possessed by the vast majority of the so-called environmentalists, who yet feel qualified to demand that human activity subjugate itself to the whims of their new deity, Mother Nature.

Environmentalists claim that the Earth’s atmosphere is getting hotter. They claim that the polar icecaps and glaciers will melt and sea levels will rise over two hundred feet, flooding most coastal cities. They claim that many areas of the Earth will turn into deserts. They make all these claims but cannot substantiate them with real scientific evidence. Parts of the polar icecap and glaciers are melting but other areas of the polar icecaps and glaciers are thickening. The environmentalists base their “proof” of the existence of global warming on the melting areas but are strangely silent, even militant to the point of violence, if anyone mentions the areas that are thickening, and those thickening areas are many.

In the past, there have been many times when the global mean temperatures were warmer, sometimes much warmer and colder, much colder than they are now. Global mean temperatures are cyclical with the seasons but also with other normal cycles, as they have been for the entire history of the Earth. Scientific data from ice cores, tree rings and other indicators of global mean temperatures prove this. Human activity has never been the cause of these global temperature swings as the “global warming” advocates claim. If human activity was the cause, where were the SUVs, the power plants and industries in our historical past? They did not exist. If human activity was not the cause of these global temperature swings, what was?

The energy output of the Sun is far greater in one second than human activity could produce in a million years. The Earth rotates around the Sun. Its orbit is slightly elliptical. The energy reaching the Earth from the Sun varies slightly as the distance from the Sun to the Earth varies due to its elliptical orbit. The Sun activity increases and decreases with fluctuations in the solar flares emitted by the Sun. Differences in these fluctuation rates cause increases and decreases of solar energy hitting the Earth. This causes fluctuations in the global mean temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere.

In 2004, the energy from massive solar flares bombarded the Earth with solar energy. This solar energy caused heating of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Most of the energy of the solar flare eruptions dissipated into space. The amounts of energy ejected were massive, much greater than normal. Had the Earth received a full blast of the solar energy from one of the numerous flare eruptions in 2004, the consequences to life on Earth could have been disastrous. The higher than usual amounts of energy that struck the Earth’s atmosphere did have their effects, however, including some heating of the atmosphere.

Then there is the eruption of volcanoes, such as Mt. St. Helens, ejecting dust and ash into the Earth’s atmosphere. The amount of dust and ash in the atmosphere varies the amount of energy that can cause heating or cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere. Volcanoes also eject the kind of compounds that environmentalists call greenhouse gases. A single eruption the size of the Mt. St. Helens eruption released more of these gases, dust and ash into the atmosphere than all such emissions by human activity since the beginning of recorded human history. And there are numerous volcanic eruptions yearly.

The oceans are also a major source of greenhouse gases, as are trees. Trees and other vegetation take in carbon dioxide and give off other gases such as methane, a major greenhouse gas, and a host of other compounds, many of which are also greenhouse gases. Decaying vegetation also gives off methane gas. Studies of smog in the Los Angeles basin indicate that over 90% of the smog is generated by the vegetation in the area. To aid in perpetuating the hoax, however, environmentalists, aided by major news media outlets, censored and suppressed this study.

Studies have shown that greenhouse gases produced by human activity accounts for around 1 percent of the gases in the atmosphere. The total elimination of human generated greenhouse gases would have a negligible effect on Earth’s global mean atmospheric temperatures. The elimination of all U.S. gasoline powered vehicles would reduce worldwide “greenhouse” emissions by less than 0.2%.” What would be the effect on global mean temperatures? None. Doubling of manmade greenhouse emissions above current levels would increase the global mean temperature by one degree Centigrade, which is within the normal range of temperature swings.

It is the fluctuations of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, volcanic eruptions, the emission of gases by oceans and trees, all natural occurrences, that cause rises and declines in global mean temperatures, i.e., “global warming” and “global cooling,” not human activity.

Satellite data taken over the past 25 years indicate no surface or atmospheric warming. If anything there has been a very slight cooling, on the order of 0.01 degree Centigrade.

Recently, astronomers have noticed a thinning of the polar icecaps on Mars.

Is this “global warming, Mars style” and do Martian SUVs, power plants, and industries cause it? Hardly, but the “environmentalists” think so. Some even blame it on us here on Earth.

Global warming IS a hoax. Those claiming that “global warming” is real have an agenda other than saving the planet from human activity.

[altitudelou]

Then Again !


NOAA Charged With Censoring Hurricane Report
www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=6071&method=full

Tempest brews in weather think tank

Scientists: Climate data squelched

New Jersey Star-Ledger Oct. 1, 2006

Scientists at a world-renowned climate research lab in New Jersey say their discoveries are being hidden from public view because their conclusions on global warming differ from those in the Bush administration.

The scientists, part of the research staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, say a spate of press releases as well as a position paper reviewing various studies on the risk of global warming have been quashed by officials at the Commerce Department.

Cont,...

[socrates]

Man made global warming is a hoax


...Global warming IS a hoax. Those claiming that “global warming” is real have an agenda other than saving the planet from human activity.

I checked out that website. It looks like total wingnut material that markets illegal wars and pollution. Anyone who thinks global warming is a hoax is wrong. I didn't think Gastronamus was keen on having such debunker posts. This looks like another topic that should be in the conspiracy dungeon.

[mmmmbarium]

Yea, looks like I stepped on alot of peoples feet from posting that.

But if you think about it socrates, Global warming would be the perfect cover for the Govt. While they fiddle around with modifying the Weather, they make some mistakes, oppps, its that darn global warming at it again.

I think there more to this then just Green House gases.

[socrates]

posted by mmmmbarium

Yea, looks like I stepped on alot of peoples feet from posting that.

But if you think about it socrates, Global warming would be the perfect cover for the Govt. While they fiddle around with modifying the Weather, they make some mistakes, oppps, its that darn global warming at it again.

I think there more to this then just Green House gases.

The guy posting as weatherman at CTC talks like that. He thinks it is a hoax too. Yet, I think that guy is a fake writer who hangs out at the dumbass debunker site. He is just adding more layers of disinformation. They are blocking the sun. I think like I said earlier that global warming is real but that we should really have 50 years of gradual to chaotic. I think the ozone layer is messed and they also are trying to figure out a way to continue with their pollution. They have known about this for a long time. I swear I read that they were talking about the fear of this back in the 1930s.

Those calling global warming a hoax are marketing pollution.

[altitudelou]

Yes, wouldn't it be just dandy if the largest polluters on the face of the planet could find a way of keeping Global Warming from reaching the critical 'Tipping point' and still continue to pollute at will, that would most likely let them keep the rape of the planet going and us as well, 'peak oil' means peak greed !