This is the conclusion of Israeli scientists studying storm formation in the Amazon basin. While some particulates (ashes, aerosols) do promote rain formation, a well known fact for several decades now, their excess actually does the opposite: preventing rain and restricting the formation of clouds. This may affect the ongoing process of global warming in several ways: restricting rain in wildfire and highly polluted areas and reducing the overall cloud cover of Earth and hence its albedo, allowing for more solar radiation to reach the surface. More details at Science Daily.Ref. O. Almaratz et al., Lightning response to smoke from Amazonian fires. Geophysical Research Letters, 2010. Pay per view.
Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a call for a new global yet alternative conference on climate change. He publicly read the call for the "First Global Conference of the Peoples on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth". On Copenhagen he declared: It's said it was a failure, but I would not say it was such a failure but rather a success of the World (...) because the developed capitalist countries could not impose their declaration. The Bolivarian bloc of Latin American nations was the main opponent to Obama's forced last-minute empty declaration at Copenhagen, which was essentially construed on the bullying of wealthy nations (and China) on the rest. The summit was marred by the extreme repression against the people who demonstrated in favor of a far-reaching comprehensive and balanced accord. It seems quite obvious as of now that a more democratic and horizontal decission making system is needed before the governments of the World are forced to bow to popular demands for a sustainable development and not this crappy model we have to put up with now. Source: Rebelión.
Research by scientists of the University of Saskatoon (Canada) has found that the arrival of the last cold phase of the late Ice Age, known as the Younger Dryas stadial, took place in few months. Submilimetrical slicing of fossil sediments at Lough Monreagh in Ireland showed that biological activity stopped within months, a year at most. It would be like taking Ireland and moving it up to Svalbard, in the Arctic Ocean, said led researcher William Patterson. This is even shorter than the time suggested by less precise measurements in Greenland's ice sheet, that suggested an onset of the big freeze in one to three years. It is believed that this cold period was triggered by melting of ice sheets due to global warming at the end of the Ice Age, causing the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe quite warmer than normal for its latitude, to stop flowing. The Younger Dryas period lasted some 14 centuries, from 12,900 to 11,500 years ago.Source: New Scientist. .
That is what a team from the Geological Survey of Norway thinks: they have found estabilished ancient beaches dating 6-7,000 years ago that they believe would be impossible to form is the Arctic was not largely ice free. They relate this warm epysode to the expansion of early Arctic cultures in North America.
Found at SINC (in Spanish). Originally from the magazine Enviroment and Urbanization - author: David Satterthwaite, from the International Insitute for Enviroment and Developement. Cities are not guilty of 80% of greenhouse gas emisions, just of 40%. The rest is divided between agriculture and deforestation (30%) and industry, rural affluent homes and electric centrals. The article ponders who are the consumers that demand so much electricity and products and it seems most of them are also a few wealthy people with wasteful lifestyles. So, yeah, ecology and socialism go hand by hand. Let's sharpen the guillotine again... and get rid of two problems at once.
Link to the same article (plus some extra quotes and links) at Science Daily (for English-only readers, just found it).
Big picture: global warmingAnnual context: relatively "cold" year, solar minimum (no sunspots in 2 years) , La Niña.Arctic ice: NW Passage opened in 2007, ice decline initially less fast this year (like 2005, second fastest decline) but now much faster approaching the levels of 2007.Source: Arctic ice is at tipping point (BBC).
Conclusion: even in expectedly "cold" years the Arctic ice is in danger, with all the implications it has as both example of what is going on in other areas and as global cooling element not anymore so active. I don not really want to think in what will happen as soon as La Niña is gone and the Sun recovers its freckles, causing the yearly climated to warm up even more. Sincerely, I am not ready for a major climatic swift in few decades and I do not think anybody on Earth is. I am scared. My apologies for writing this way. No coffee= lazy neurones.
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Update: more of the same at Science Daily today (aug 29): Arctic Ice On The Verge Of Another All-time Low. In fact the NW Passage has been open for some time again this year already (second time in history):
The Amudsend route (dotted line) is open in 2008, as was in 2007.
It seems that Ötzi has not beend the only archaeological finding of relevance these last years in the Alps. Much more stuff is appearing as the Alpine glaciers, specifically the Schnidejoch, melt down. The stuff recovered ranges from 4500 BCE to the Roman period, from shoes and bow quivers to imperial coins.The very fact of these findings confirms that the Alpine glaciers have not been so low in the last 6500 years, supporting the painful conclussion that man-made global warming is way too real.
Shoe reconstructions, nearly identical to Basque abarkak.
Sourc: BBC: Alpine melt reveals ancient life.
French oysters are dying en masse, specially the young, apparently because of one or two plagues favored by very warm sea temperatures. The phenomenon started a few days ago and has so far affected all factories in France, excepting a small area at Arcachon. The reason is particularly warm seas this summer but, according to EuroNews, oysters have been colonizing the North Sea in the last decades and are a best indicator of climatic change. Also this summer should not have been so warm anyhow: we are in a Solar minimum, and that implies that, statistically, the weather should be colder - and it is not, not at all.
I just do not want to think what may happen when we reach the Solar maximum circa 2017, specially after reading the recent catastrophic predictions of James Lovelock, who claims that it is just too late to stop climate change and that by 2040 middle Europe, places like Paris or Berlin, will be like the Sahara and that US citizens will have to migrate to Canada.
Solar minimums are statistically cooler periods and it's known that the Little Ice Age was coincident with a particularly long period with almost no solar spots. In this line long-term weather forecasts at the beginning of the year had suggested that the effects of global warming could be slightly delayed or less noticeable for this reason, as the Sun has been without spots for a couple of years now. But reality is grimmer than expectations: arctic ice is still melting even earlier than ever before (and 2007 was record-breaking) and some Russian scientists are facing emergency evaquation after their ice plate shrank a lot more and a lot earlier than expected.
I bet we will still find some stubborn people who will be denying the reality. But I warn them: normally reality is more stubborn than the most stubborn of persons. That's why pragmatism is such a valued quality.
The rise of winter temperatures in the frozen continent has been of 2ºC in the last 30 years alone. This challenges somewhat estabilished models of climate prediction, not for the better but for the worse. Antarctica holds enough ice as to rise sea levels 57 meters (even if this is not a likely scenario in the short run).
Source: BBC.
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