WE ARE ADDING CO2 14000 TIMES FASTER

Research on bubbles of ancient atmospheres in Antarctic ice shows that we are adding carbon-dioxide to the atmosphere 14,000 times faster than natural processes, throwing the global system so far out of equilibrium that it will not recover for hundreds of thousands of years.

The full report is in ScienceDaily.

The BBC's report has a simpler presentation of the same information with a slightly different emphasis.

19 BILLION TONS MORE CO2 ADDED IN 2007

Last year saw the third biggest increase in global carbon-dioxide since record-keeping began. Annother 19 billion tons poured into the air. There was also a surge in the amount of methane. 27 million tons were added after nearly a decade with little or no increase.

The concentration of carbon-dioxide reached 385 parts per million at the end of the year.

The full, nasty story is in ScienceDaily

GREENLAND MELTWATER CAN CRACK ICECAP

Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the University of Washington have for the first time documented the sudden and complete drainage of meltwater from the surface of the Greenland icecap, and found that it can crack the cap all the way to the bottom. The consequent lubricating effect can increase the horizontal flow 50 to 100 percent.

The full report is in ScienceDaily.

JET-STREAM CHANGES MAY BOOST HURRICANES

The jet-streams are changing in ways that fit global-overheating models. They have risen, and shifted toward the poles. One consequence may be an increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, because jet-streams tend to inhibit their development, so the storms may become more powerful and more frequent as the jet-streams move away from the sub-tropical zones where they are born.

ANOTHER STUDY PREDICTS BIG SEA RISE

A new study presented at a major scientific conference in Vienna predicts that sea-levels could be a metre and a half higher by 2100 says a BBC News report.

That is much more than what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast in its assessment of climate science last year.

BLACK CARBON SECOND-WORST GLOBAL HEATER

As ScienceDaily reports, it has been found that black carbon--soot and other forms of particulate carbon--is the second worst source of global overheating after carbon-dioxide. An easy thing to get rid of, you would think.

ALARMING GROWTH IN CHINA'S CO2 EMISSIONS

The growth by 2010 is expected to be 600 million tonnes, which would make the reduction of 116 million pledged under Kyoto look silly. The authors of the study cited at ScienceDaily point out that the global-overheating numbers will have to be rethought.

CLIMATE-CHANGE HAVING BIG EFFECT ON OCEANS

Climate-change caused by greenhouse-gas emissions is rapidly changing the world's oceans by increasing their temperature and acidity, altering atmospheric and oceanic circulation, and having profound effects on ocean life, say scientists at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. ScienceDaily has a full report.

NASA GETS NUMBERS ON GREENLAND'S MELT

A new NASA study using precise measurements from multiple satellites, reported in ScienceDaily, confirms that the surface temperature of Greenland's massive ice-sheet is rising, stoked by rising air temperatures, and fuelling the loss of the island's ice at the surface and throughout the mass underneath.

SOLAR CELLS CUT POLLUTION 90 PERCENT

This article in Scientific American tells it straight. Even allowing for all the energy needed to make them, and even if that came from burning black stuff, they would still reduce pollution by 90% during their life-cycle if they replaced fossil fuels.

So why, why, why are we not putting production of them on a war-footing, globally, with massive injections of public money?

ZERO CO2 OR TOO HOT FOR 500 YEARS

A peer-reviewed study reported in ScienceDaily
shows that we have to cut our carbon-dioxide emissions to zero to save the planet, and that things have gone so far that even if we did that now, global temperatures would remain high for at least 500 years.

CAN ZIFS CAPTURE ALL THAT CO2?

Does this
Science Daily article on a new family of compounds called ZIFs herald the beginning of a new future, with the threat of global-warming removed, or is it something that only works in the lab or on a small scale? Can we make enough tonnage of ZIFs to capture enough carbon-dioxide to make a difference to the planet?

SPEED OF TIPPING-POINTS ESTIMATED

It has long been known that various climate systems can be tipped suddenly by climate-change from their present state to a very different one. Now a British team has put numbers on some of them. Three hundred years sounds safe for those alive now, assuming that it doesn't come down to within a lifetime as models are refined and more data comes in. But one year, or ten, or fifty? Not fine.

Lowlights in the list that shows how long it would take for them to make a major transition, once tipped:

Dieback of the Amazon rainforest: about 50 years.
Dieback of the Boreal Forest: about 50 years.
Greening of the Sahara/Sahel and disruption of the West African monsoon: about 10 years.
Melting of Arctic sea-ice: about 10 years.
Collapse of the Indian summer monsoon: about 1 year.

The full report is on the BBC. An even fuller report is at Science Daily.

MEASURING THE RISE AND RISE OF THE OCEANS

The BBC's website has a good overview of the effect of climate-change on the sea and the technology used to measure it.

WEST ANTARCTICA MELT PROVES IPCC WRONG

The rate at which West Antartica is losing ice, up 75% in the last ten years, shows that the models used by the IPCC to predict sea-level rise are wrong.

Click here for ScienceDaily's report and here for the NZ Herald's.

AIR-POLLUTION SHRINKS UNBORN CHILDREN

A ten-year study by the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, which used ultrasound to measure 15,000 unborn children, found a negative correlation with air-pollution. Mothers with a higher exposure to pollution had foetuses that on average had heads and abdomens with smaller circumferences and had shorter femurs.

If pollution levels were high the size of the foetus decreased significantly.

Birthweight is a major predictor of future health, such as IQ in childhood IQ and cardiovascular disease in adulthood.

Click here for the report in ScienceDaily

ARE WE MAKING AN OXYGEN TIPPING-POINT?

The percentage of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has fluctuated during its history, and it is obviously no coincidence that mass extinctions have followed drops. The question is: are we creating another one? We are pumping carbon-dioxide into the sky at a rate the planet cannot handle, we are removing vast areas of forest by felling it or killing it with the effects of global overheating, and we are thus removing vast amounts of photosynthesis, a double-whammy that must surely reduce the amount of oxygen significantly.

Computer models predict that the Amazon, which is a huge part of the planet's 'lungs', will become a desert.

In a previous era when the planet became hot and arid and experienced a marked drop in the amount of photosynthesis, the percentage of oxygen plummetted to about 15%. Human beings would scarcely be functioning at that level. Our performance begins to drop off at 20%, only 1% below the 21% now in the atmosphere.

See NewScientist for the article that aroused the question in this posting.

SEA-LEVEL MAY BE TWICE UN PREDICTION

The world's sea-levels could rise twice as high this century (1.63m [64 inches]) as UN climate-scientists are predicting (81cm), according to a new study that looked at what happened last time the earth was as warm as it is predicted to be. See the BBC report.

And the Arctic is expected to ice-free in the summer of 2013, according to another new study, which says previous predictions had underestimated the processes that are now driving the loss of ice. See the BBC report.

But the blind ballyhoo in Bali is all the response we get. When will the dunderheads who 'rule the earth' get it into their misshapen heads that the earth rules us?

We face the worst enemy we have ever faced, the hardest to beat. Ourselves. We cannot stop the effects of global-overheating, because we have long passed the point of no return. We must go on to a war-footing to have any chance of heading off the worst.

SOLAR ENERGY TOPS POLL BIO-FUEL LAST

A survey of 1000 professionals in government, NGOS and industry in 105 countries conducted by the IUCN (World Conservation Union), solar power for hot water and electricity came out on top and current bio-fuels were a sorry last, reports the BBC.

Sense is prevailing somewhere.

The solution is obvious: it rises every morning. Add fuel-cells, driven by hydrogen made from splitting water with solar-generated electricity, and you have a system in harmony with the planet. Nothing coming from the sky but sunlight and water; nothing going back to it but water.

GREENLAND'S MELTDOWN ACCELERATING: 2007 RECORD

The melting of Greenland's icecap is accelerating. The extent of the melt in 2007 was 10% ahead of the 2005 record, making it the largest since satellite measurements began in 1979, reports Science Daily. The IPCC's 2007 predictions for global sea-rise are therefore likely to be too low.