Tag: ACT

First forecast for the next ten years

FishResearchers at the Hadley Centre in Britain have produced the world’s first short range climate forecast, covering the next ten years. And there are no surprises, it’s going to get warmer. From New Scientist:

Although average global temperatures have been relatively flat in recent years, the model says they will start rising again next year. At least half of the years between 2009 and 2015 will exceed the current warmest year on record. By 2015, global temperatures will be 0.5 °C above the average value for the last 30 years.

[More from the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Nature]

Continue reading “First forecast for the next ten years”

Arctic ice sets new record

Ice070810I follow the Arctic sea ice extent at Cryosphere Today. The site publishes pictures, maps and graphs of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, derived from NASA satellite data. They’ve just announced a worrying new record:

Today (August 9th), the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area broke the record for the lowest recorded ice area in recorded history. The new record came a full month before the historic summer minimum typically occurs. There is still a month or more of melt likely this year. It is therefore almost certain that the previous 2005 record will be annihilated by the final 2007 annual minima closer to the end of this summer. In previous record sea ice minima years, ice area anomalies were confined to certain sectors (N. Atlantic, Beaufort/Bering Sea, etc). The character of 2007’s sea ice melt is unique in that it is dramatic and covers the entire Arctic sector. Atlantic, Pacific and even the central Arctic sectors are showing large negative sea ice area anomalies.

I find this news disturbing for two reasons. First, the fact that the new record should be set so early in the season. That suggests that there is a lot more melting to go. The second is the language: normally cautious scientists seldom use words like “annihilate

Grape expectations

HanginggrapesWinemakers in Australia and South Africa are worried about the impact of warming on their wines. In Australia, a new report [Stuff] suggests that grape quality will be hit badly, unless the industry adapts by moving to cooler areas or by planting hot climate varieties. And Canada’s Globe & Mail reports on South African concerns:

It’s getting too hot, and too wet (at the wrong times) in the key wine-growing region, and the flagship but fragile sauvignon blanc has been the first, but not the last, to suffer. It’s a harsh blow, first, because after years of sanctions in the apartheid era, the country has gradually been winning more market share for its wines (just under 3 per cent globally, last year.) and its wines have garnered more critical acclaim as well.

Luckily, I planted some syrah…

[Added 10/8/07: Interesting perspective on changes in Spanish viticulture in response to climate change from National Public Radio in the USA.]

The whey forward?

New Zealand’s first E10 biofuel – a blend of petrol with 10% ethanol – went on sale in three Gull petrol stations around Auckland last Wednesday, and the PM poured the first drop [Herald]. The ethanol comes from Fonterra, mainly from their Edgecumbe dairy factory in the Bay of Plenty, which can produce 30,000 litres a day from processed whey. Gull Force 10, as the fuel is branded, ran into its first bit of trouble when the AA warned motorists to check that their cars were compatible with the fuel before filling up [Stuff]. This swiftly became “cars could break down and blow up

Knee deep, and still digging

GreenlandmeltsmallJames Hansen, perhaps the most outspoken of mainstream climate scientists, reckons that unless we take urgent steps to cut emissions we’ll be committing the world to multi-metre sea level rise this century. In this week’s New Scientist, he presents his reasons why:

In my opinion, if the world warms by 2 °C to 3 °C, [..] massive sea level rise is inevitable, and a substantial fraction of the rise would occur within a century. Business-as-usual global warming would almost surely send the planet beyond a tipping point, guaranteeing a disastrous degree of sea level rise.

That’s a controversial viewpoint, and has lead to Hansen being described as “alarmist