Tag: Antarctica

While they sleepwalk in Warsaw: icebergs calve, emissions climb, “pause” disappears

PIG B31

Warsaw has seen a deluge of important climate-related information released — so much that it’s been difficult to keep up — but still not enough to steel negotiators to reach an equitable arrangement that gives us all a chance at a reasonable future climate. And at the same time, the planet has been sending signals that it’s not happy. The Pine Island glacier has finally calved the giant iceberg that first started to shown signs of cracking away from the ice stream a couple of years ago. Iceberg B-31 has been described as being the size of Singapore (about 700 km2), but isn’t likely to move far from Pine Island Bay in the near future. NASA Earth Observatory coverage here and here; see also Telegraph (UK) and Antarctic Sun.

The Global Carbon Project announced earlier this week that greenhouse gas emissions are projected to reach the highest level in human history this year — 36 billion tonnes. There are some encouraging signs that the rate of growth may be slowing, but nowhere near enough to enable the planet to avoid hitting a two degree rise in the first half of this century. There’s an excellent visualisation of national emissions at the Global Carbon Atlas (and at the Guardian). See also The Age, Think Progress. Continue reading “While they sleepwalk in Warsaw: icebergs calve, emissions climb, “pause” disappears”

Sunday morning Antarctica, and the future of transport

Chris Laidlaw interviewed the new Director of the British Antarctic Survey, Professor Jane Francis, in his Sunday Morning programme on National Radio in the weekend. I thought the discussion worth drawing attention to as an exemplar of the kind of thoughtful interviewing climate science deserves but only occasionally receives. The listening public also deserves such interviews from the media if it is to understand the weight of the scientific consensus on climate change. Respect is due to Laidlaw’s understanding of the basic thrust of climate change and its implications, making him well equipped to elicit from Professor Francis a very clear account of her work on Antarctic forest fossils and more generally on the threatened sea level rise from melting in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Francis has a fascinating story to tell of her work on fossil plants in the Antarctic and the evidence from the fossils that the continent some 100 million years ago was forested in a period when the globe was in a warm period sufficient to melt polar ice. She discussed with Laidlaw the ways in which trees probably coped with the months of cold but not freezing darkness each year by moving into a kind of dormancy.

Continue reading “Sunday morning Antarctica, and the future of transport”

Richard Alley: what we know now…

In this talk, recorded at the American Geophysical Union’s Chapman Conference on Climate Communication in Colorado recently, Richard Alley gives his overview of what we know about the state of the climate. As you might expect, he covers the cryosphere in some detail (why Greenland may not be as big a worry as West Antarctica), but he also has interesting things to say about climate sensitivity (same as it ever was), food production, and the possibility that chunks of the planet may become too hot for humans. Well worth watching…

Check out the other talks from the conference, all up at the AGU’s Youtube channel. I’m planning to catch up with the talks by Mike Mann, Steve Lewandowsky, Jeff Masters and Gavin Schmidt — when I can find the time.

[Hat tip to Greenland’s very own videographer, Peter Sinclair — who also gave a talk at the conference.]

NZCCC 2013: Jim Renwick on Antarctic sea ice, SAM and ozone

Here’s the final interview I recorded at last week’s NZ Climate Change Conference in Palmerston North: VUW’s Dr Jim Renwick ((Apologies to Jim for inadvertently using the British pronunciation of his surname in the introduction. I’m told that my usage is a reliable indicator of a migrant from the UK… )) talking about the complex relationship between the southern annular mode — a north-south movement of the westerly winds that blow around Antarctica — sea ice growth and the ozone hole. It’s interesting stuff, not least because SAM has a significant impact on NZ weather and climate, and how it might change in the future is a very big factor in projecting southern hemisphere climates in a warmer world. The abstract of his conference presentation, Antarctic sea ice, the SAM, and the future of the ozone hole, is here.

Climate lulz: Rings around Antarctica

Two things made me laugh out loud today — great gusts of guffaws enough to wake the trufflehound from her slumbers. The first was a perfectly pitched piece of satire in the Southland Times, the second a reinvention of the ocean atmosphere interface by astrological long range weather forecaster Ken Ring. Both are worth your time, but do not drink hot fluids while reading…

Here’s the Southland Times, asking for proof of Antarctica’s existence:

Continue reading “Climate lulz: Rings around Antarctica”