OCEANS BEING PROFOUNDLY DAMAGED BY HUMANS

'The climate is currently warming faster than the worst case known from the fossil record, about 56 million years ago, when temperatures rose about 6 degrees over 1000 years. If emissions continue it is not unreasonable to expect ... warming of 5.5 degrees by the end of this century.'

'Scientists expect ocean oxygen-levels to decline by about six per cent for every one degree increase in temperature and areas in the sea which are low in oxygen to grow by at least 50 per cent. This has major implications for the world’s most productive fishing waters in the cool temperate regions. The seas provide around one sixth of humanity’s protein food and any loss in fisheries production will have a direct impact on us.'

Full report in ScienceDaily.

Then there's the rubbish collecting in a vast area of the Pacific.

EARTH'S CYCLES FALLING OUT OF SYNC

The Earth's biogeochemical cycles, the natural interlocked biological, chemical and geological cycles that were once operating in concert, are falling out of sync because of the impact humans are having on the planet, reports ScienceDaily.

BACTERIA PLUS MUD EQUALS ELECTRICITY

Scientists at the University of Massachusetts have discovered how to multiply eight-fold the power-output of Geobacter bacteria, which produce electricity from mud, creating the promise of using bugs and wastewater to produce household electricity. The microbial fuel-cell. Details in ScienceDaily.

SIXTH EXTINCTION WAVE BECOMING A TSUNAMI

A bleak picture of what humans are doing to the planet's biosphere, especially in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands (Oceania), is painted by a landmark new study. Over 1200 species of birds are now extinct in Oceania.

Globally, the average extinction rate is now some 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the rate that prevailed over the past 60 million years.

Full report in ScienceDaily.

CO2 HIGHER NOW THAN IN PAST 2M YEARS

A new study, reported on ScienceDaily, which was able to reconstruct carbon-dioxide levels in the sharpest detail ever and over a much longer period than any previous one, shows that the peak average over the past 2.1 million years has been 280 parts per million--which was the level before human activity raised it to its present level of 385ppm.

Another study on ScienceDaily shows that glaciers can vanish in a geological eyeblink.

Not a pleasant conjunction of studies. Yet all the fools who run the world can think of as the Arctic melts away is that they will now be able to get at the oil and gas beneath it.

And fools of the same breed are excited about a new technique that will enable the human race to extract even more fossil fuels--folly fuels--from the earth.

GREENLAND ICE-SHEET MELTING FASTER THAN EXPECTED

A report in ScienceDaily cites a new study showing that Greenland's ice-sheet is melting faster than expected, and is contributing up to 25% of the global rise in ocean levels.

The oceans are now rising 3mm a year, and Greenland has been contributing about 0.7mm of that since 1995. About 265 cubic kilometres of ice have been lost each year.

CLIMATE DAMAGE WILL LAST FOR MILLENNIA

From the American Association for the Advancement of Science: 'The idea that we are already committed to a certain amount of surface air temperature increase and sea-level rise over the coming century, even if we could immediately halt all CO2 emissions, has become well known in scientific and science policy circles. The longer-term outlook is less well understood. Eby et al. use a complex, coupled climate-carbon cycle model to investigate how long anthropogenic climate change will persist as a function of how high the concentration of atmospheric CO2 rises. They calculate how long it will take for half of the total emissions to be removed from the atmosphere, what the maximum global average sea surface temperature increase will be, and how long it will take for 80% of that sea surface thermal anomaly to decay. The results suggest that atmospheric CO2 can persist at high concentrations for several thousand years, and that sea surface temperature increases can last many times longer than that. It looks, then, like we are in this for the long haul.'

CLIMATE PROJECTIONS ARE NOW FAR WORSE

New climate-change projections by MIT, published this month in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, and reported in ScienceDaily, show that climate-change, if no action is taken, will be much worse than previously thought--a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees.

PARTICULATES REPROGRAM GENES IN THREE DAYS

A new study, reported in
ScienceDaily, shows that certain particulates in polluted air can reprogram genes in as little as three days--genes responsible for the suppression of tumours.

To avoid cancer, stop breathing pollution.

COSMIC-RAY MODEL SHOOTS CLIMATE-SCEPTICS DOWN

A favourite theory of climate-change sceptics, who say the problem is caused by cosmic rays caused by increased solar activity, not greenhouse gases, has been buried by a new study, reported in ScienceDaily.

Sorry, guys, you will have to accept the truth sooner or later. And you'd better sell your oil shares quick...

OZONE HOLE EXPLAINS ANTARCTIC ICE

A new study explains why Antarctic sea-ice has been increasing overall, in contrast to Arctic sea-ice, which is vanishing away. The ozone hole is the answer to the puzzle. It is keeping the area artificially cooler than it would otherwise be. But once it has gone the overall effect will be the same as some local effects--the melt will be on. Full report in ScienceDaily.

NEW WAY TO SPLIT WATER

And a very clever one it is too. The only drawback is that the reported process needs ruthenium, not the most plentiful element known to science or anybody.

CARBON-SINKS LOSING AGAINST EMISSIONS

Scientists attending the Copenhagen Climate-Change Conference say that the stabilising influence that the carbon-sinks have on climate-change is gradually weakening because the sinks are not keeping pace with rapidly rising emissions. Report in Science Daily.

A study looking back millions of years via 1280-metre core drilledn from under Antarctic's Ross Sea Ice Shelf adds to the worry, because it shows that the amount of carbon-dioxide now in the atmosphere is about what it was when the huge West Antarctica Ice Shelf last vanished.

If it were to vanish again global sea-levels would be about 7 metres higher.

HORROR WORLD WITHOUT OZONE SIMULATED

This report in Science Daily shows what the world would have been if we had not realised what our CFCs were doing to the vital ozone layer. It would have virtually collapsed in the middle of this century, with terrifying consequences.

That study underlines what we could and should be doing about climate-change. There are some new thoughts on the risks from that, again in Science Daily.

RISING OCEANS WILL IMPACT 600M PEOPLE

The predicted rise in global sea-levels by 2100 is now expected to be at least 1 metre, and heading for metres unless urgent action is taken, according to presentations at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen--report in ScienceDaily.

Even the best-case scenario will hit low-lying coastal areas that house a tenth of the global population--about 600 million people.

AMERICAN BIRDS CONFIRM CLIMATE-CHANGE
The northward and inland movements of American birds, established by the observations of a vast number of citizens over many decades, shows that climate-change is having a serious impact on bird-life, reports
ScienceDaily.

Some species have moved hundreds of kilometres north, and are breeding earlier. Others, constrained by changes to habitat caused by human occupation and use, cannot move.

BOTH POLES WARMING FASTER THAN THOUGHT

The poles are warming faster than previously thought, raising global sea-levels and making drastic climate-change far more likely, concludes two years of wide-ranging research in a UN-backed programme called International Polar Year, which involved 10,000 scientists. See the full report in NewsDaily.

TROPICAL FORESTS ABSORB A FIFTH OF CO2

A long, careful study reported in
ScienceDaily shows that tropical forests are soaking up about a fifth of the 32 billion tonnes of CO2 that being pumped into the atmosphere every year. The oceans absorb another huge portion, leaving about 15 billion tonnes floating about.

IPCC SCIENTIST SAYS GOH TO BE FAR WORSE

A ScienceDaily report says that 'Without decisive action, global warming in the 21st century is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than predicted [in the fourth IPCC report], according to a leading member of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

'The IPCC scientist Chris Field of Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science points to recent studies showing that, in a business-as-usual world, higher temperatures could ignite tropical forests and melt the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gas that could raise global temperatures even more--a vicious cycle that could spiral out of control by the end of the century.'

He says humans have released 350 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and that there is 1000 billion tons locked up in the tundra.

SEA 21 METRES HIGHER 400,000 YEARS AGO

Proof that the oceans were 21 metres higher 400,000 years ago has been found in Bermuda, a worrying discovery because of the conditions that the earth is now heading for. Full report in ScienceDaily.

STRATOSPHERIC SECRETS DISCOVERED DOWN A MINE

Cosmic-rays detected half a mile underground in a disused US iron-mine can be used to detect major weather events occurring 20 miles up in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, a new study has revealed, reports ScienceDaily. The surprise discovery will enable accurate measurements of a part of the atmosphere that till now has been hard to get at (no ladders tall enough).

GOH IRREVERSIBLE AND OCEAN DEAD-ZONES SOAR

The BBC reports that a team of US environmental scientists says many effects of climate change are irreversible, and that global temperatures could remain high for 1000 years even if carbon emissions can somehow be stopped right now. Their report was sponsored by the US Department of Energy; it appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ScienceDaily reported the same story.

And if global overheating is not stoppped ocean dead-zones will increase tenfold, reports ScienceDaily.

ANTARCTIC IS WARMING NOT COOLING

Sorry, all you oil-washed climate-change sceptics, but new research published on ScienceDaily shows that the Antarctic 'cooling', on which you were pinning a big chunk of your denial, is a myth. It is warming about the same amount as the rest of the planet.

If West Antarctica and Greenland melt the oceans will be 14 metres higher.

Even worse, thousands of scientists are agreed: that the planet is warming, and that it's our fault.

But geologists who work for oil companies are not convinced. They must have inside knowledge denied to ordinary mortals. ;-)))

ARCTIC MELTING PREDICTS HIGH SEA-LEVELS

A new report on ScienceDaily says, once again, that the Arctic is heating up faster than other places in the Northern Hemisphere. The US Geological Survey led the new assessment, which is a synthesis of published science literature and authored by a team of climate scientists from academia and government. The US Climate Change Science Program commissioned the report, which has contributions from 37 scientists from the United States, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and Denmark.

The new report also makes several conclusions about the Arctic:

The size and speed of the summer sea-ice loss over the last few decades is highly unusual compared to events from previous millennia, especially considering that changes in Earth's orbit over this time have made sea-ice melting less, not more, likely.

The entire Greenland icesheet will vanish if there is sustained warming as little as 2 degrees Celsius above twentieth century values. That would raise sea-levels about 7 metres.

OCEANS TO RISE A METRE IN 100 YEARS

After studying the records of sea-level rises in the past instead of computer models, a multinational group of researches are predicting a rise of up to 1.3 metres in 100 years, which is many times what the IPCC's official vew, reports ScienceDaily.

Other scientists have knee-capped the climate-sceptics with research showing that the chances of the rising temperatures in recent years being nothing but statistical chance are the same as their chances of flipping a coin and getting heads fourteen times in a row (ScienceDaily).

CLIMATE-CHANGE LINK TO SEVERE STORMS

A NASA-funded study of five years of data from its Aqua spacecraft shows that the frequency of extremely high clouds in the tropics--the type associated with severe storms, torrential rain and hail--has been increasing as a result of global overheating.

For every 1-degree Celsius rise in average sea-surface temperature the team saw a 45% increase in the frequency of such clouds. At the present rate of global overheating that would mean that the frequency of storms will increase 6% per decade.

The results are consistent with another NASA-funded study done in 2005, which found an increase of 1.5% in the global rain-rate per decade--five times higher than the value estimated by the models used in the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

See ScienceDaily.

GLOBAL OVERHEATING WILL AFFECT USA SOONER

A report to the American Geophysical Union predicts a significant risk of abrupt climate-change due to global overheating affecting the US, says

Sea-level rises are expected to 'substantially exceed' the 600mm now projected for 2100, but how much is not yet known. This blog has previously predicted 1.5 metres. We shall see.

GREENLAND's 2008 ICE-LOSS TRIPLE 2007'S

The ice-loss from Greenland in the summer of 2008 is three times the record-breaking loss seen a year ago, reports
ScienceDaily.

WARMEST OCTOBER RECORDED SINCE 1880

The global average for land temperatures in October were the warmest since records began in 1880, reports the
NCDC/NOAA website. The average for land was up 1.12 degrees Celsius on the 1961-1990 base average.

The global average for land plus ocean was the second warmest on record. For land in the southern hemisphere it was the second warmest, for land in the northern hemisphere it was the third hemisphere.

The stratosphere, which trends downward as the surface trends upward, recorded the 3rd coolest temperature.

GAIA ON THE ROCKS

Minerals have evolved too, reports ScienceDaily.

Two-thirds of the over 4000 minerals on Earth owe their existence, directly or indirectly, to living organisms--which of course owe their existence to them, and so on.

COATING A HUGE BOOST FOR SOLAR-CELLS

A new nano coating for silicon solar cells boosts their absorption of sunlight from a maximum of 67.4% to a massive 96.21%, thus giving near-perfect absorption, right across the entire spectrum of sunlight. Even better, they function at that high level no matter what angle the light is coming from. That means static panels will no longer be less efficient than the ones that track the sun. Details in ScienceDaily.

CLIMATE-CHANGE SEEPS INTO THE SEA

And life seeps out...

MACHINE TO TAKE CO2 OUT OF AIR?

This article in ScienceDaily and this link describe 'a simple machine' being developed at university that could, if multiplied across the planet, remove billions of tonnes of carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere.

Richard Branson, head of the Virgin Group, has offered a $25 million prize to anyone who can devise a system to remove a billion tonnes of CO2 per year from the atmosphere for at least ten years.

The Calgary device consumes 100kWh for every tonne of carbon-dioxide it removes. The prototype removes 20 tonnes a year. So 50,000 devices of the same capacity would be needed to win the Virgin prize, and would consume 5GWh/year of electricity.

2005 LEVELS MAKE WARMING UNSTOPPABLE

ScienceDaily reports a study by the authoritative Scripps Oceanographic Institute, showing that the planet will warm about 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3F) above pre-industrial levels, even under extremely conservative greenhouse-gas emission scenarios.

Even if we held to the 2005 levels, irreversible warming will lead to a significant loss of biodiversity and the substantial melting of glaciers.

GREENLAND HEADING BACK TO GREEN

Modelling of why Greenland stopped being green and became covered with ice indicates that it was the drop three million years ago in the global concentration of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere from high to pre-industrial levels, reports ScienceDaily.

The present level is now approaching those ancient levels.

No wonder Arctic ice-coverage is on the verge of another all-time low.

This BBC News report says the Arctic is passing through a tipping-point.

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION HAMPERS REPRODUCTION

As this ScienceDaily article warns, the rising acidification of the ocean looks likely to have a major impact on the ability of marine animals to reproduce.

The oceans are already 25% more acid than they were at the start of the industrial revolution and look to be heading towards 300% by 2100. Sperm do not function as well in a more acid environment.

ARTIFICIAL PHOTOSYNTHESIS BREAKTHROUGH FOR HYDROGEN

A breakthrough in creating artificial photosynthesis by mimicking nature looks as if it has the potential to usher in a low-cost hydrogen age, reports ScienceDaily.

SLIME ARISING TO KILL THE OCEANS

ScienceDaily reports that human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world's oceans down a death spiral that only prompt action can reverse.

CHANGE IN SEA-CHEMISTRY A HUGE THREAT

ScienceDaily reports a dire warning about the changing chemistry of the oceans due to the amount of carbon-dioxide they have been forced to absorb through human activity.

They have absorbed about 40% of the CO2 that we have emitted over the past two centuries. That has slowed global warming but at a serious cost: the extra carbon dioxide has caused the ocean's average surface pH (a measure of water's acidity) to shift by about 0.1 unit from pre-industrial levels. Depending on the rate and magnitude of future emissions, their pH could drop as much as 0.35 units by the middle of this century.

That acidification can damage marine organisms. Experiments have shown that changes of as little as 0.2-0.3 units can hamper the ability of key marine organisms such as corals and some plankton to calcify their skeletons, which are built from pH-sensitive carbonate minerals. Large areas of the ocean are in danger of exceeding those changes in pH by the middle of the century, including reef habitats such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Most marine organisms live in the sunlit surface waters, which are also those most vulnerable to CO2-induced acidification. To stop their pH from declining more than 0.2 units, which is the current limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1976, CO2 emissions would have to be reduced immediately.

PENGUINS ARE CANARIES SCREAMING ALARM

Like canaries dying in a coal-mine, the declining populations of the world's penguins are sounding the alarm at the deteriorating state of the oceans and Antarctica, reports ScienceDaily.

ARCTIC ICE MELTING FASTER THAN IN 2007

As this BBC report details, the Arctic ice is already melting faster than it did in 2007, the year in which it shrank to a record minimum, which is leading scientists to predict that Arctic summers will be ice-free within 5-10 years.

That prediction used to be for 2080, then it was moved forward to 2050, then to 2030 (now one leading scientist has been reported elsewhere as saying that it might even happen this year).

ANTARCTIC ICE BREAKING UP IN WINTER

Even winter is not protecting the inexorable breakup of Antarctic ice. The Wilkins iceshelf, off the southern tip of South America, has just lost another 160 square kilometres. Now a strip only 2.7 kilometres wide is left to protect thousands of square kilometres, reports
ScienceDaily.

DEADLY EFFECT OF RISE IN OCEAN ACIDITY

Scientists studying life round natural CO2 vents in the Mediterranean have found exactly the effect predicted--a significant drop in biodiversity--reports the BBC.

The oceans are thought to have absorbed about half the extra CO2 put into the atmosphere in the industrial age, which has lowered its pH by 0.1, from 8.2 to 8.1, i.e., made it more acidic (pH is the measure of acidity and alkalinity, with 0 being very acidic, 7 being neutral, and 14 is very alkaline--seawater is mildly alkaline). Adding CO2 to water creates carbonic acid; the more added the more the acid is produced.

Round the vents studied, the pH went as low as 7.4. Even at 7.8 to 7.9 the number of species was down 30%.

The leader of the research said 'It's clear that marine food-webs as we know them are going to alter, and biodiversity will decrease. Those impacts are inevitable because acidification is inevitable--we've started it and we can't stop it.'

WHY DIESEL PARTICLES CAUSE DISEASE

How the particles emmitted by diesel engines increase the risk of cardiovasulcar disease and mortality has now been mapped, reports ScienceDaily.

The dissertation clarifies previously unknown mechanisms that can explain why air-pollution in particulate form causes heart-attacks, stroke, and increased mortality. It shows that diesel exhaust causes a rapid deterioration of the function of blood-vessels that persists for up to 24 hours after exposure.

The EKG findings in heart patients indicate acute heart effects that are consistent with increased risk of heart-attack in connection with exposure to traffic.

WILL AN ANCIENT CLIMATE-CHANGE REPEAT?

A
ScienceDaily report on an international study of the abrupt, runaway climate-change that took place 635 million years ago, due to a massive release of methane, raises the possibility that we may trigger a similar event, and cause a global temperature rise of tens of degrees.

REACTIVE NITROGEN AS SERIOUS AS CO2?

ScienceDaily reports the growing alarm among scientists at the increase in the environment of reactive nitrogen, which may be as serious a problem for the human race as the growing concentration of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere.

In its inert form, nitrogen is harmless and abundant, making up 78 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. But in the past century, with the mass production of nitrogen-based fertilisers and the large-scale burning of fossil fuels, massive amounts of reactive nitrogen compounds, such as ammonia, have entered the environment.

A nitrogen atom that starts out as part of a smog-forming compound may be deposited in lakes and forests as nitric acid, which can kill fish and insects. Carried out to the coast, the same nitrogen atom may contribute to red tides and dead zones. Finally, the nitrogen will be put back into the atmosphere as part of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, which destroys atmospheric ozone.

CARBON-DIOXIDE HIGHEST IN 800,000 YEARS

ScienceDaily reports that the study of Antarctic ice-cores has established that the present concentration of carbon-dioxide is higher than it has been at any time during the past 800,000 years. It is now a bit more than 380 parts per million, compared to a range of about 200-300 parts per million during that time. The current concentration of methane is 1,800 parts per billion, compared to a range of about 400-700 parts per billion during that time.

OVER A QUARTER OF WORLD'S WILDLIFE GONE

Between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London, reports the BBC.

The Society says populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine ones by 28% and freshwater ones by 29%, and that humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year--that one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way.

GLOBAL OVERHEATING IS CHANGING NATURE

Major changes in the Earth's natural systems are being driven by global warming, according to a vast analysis, says a BBC report, citing research published in the journal Nature.

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.

THE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL MEETING-POINT

The organism senses and functions, at the highest level, as an organism. Below that are the senses and functions of the organs, below that are the senses and functions of the structures within organs, below that are the senses and functions of the cellular networks, below that are the senses and functions of the cells, below that are the senses and functions of the molecular networks, below that are the senses and functions of the molecules, which are made of atoms, which have their own fundamental 'senses and functions,' the actions and reactions we call physics and basic chemistry.

On fundamental atomic 'sense' is built a higher level of sense, the molecular; upon that is built a higher level, the molecular networks; upon that is built a higher level, the cellular; upon that is built a higher level, the sub-structures of the organ; upon that is built a higher level, the organic; upon that is built the highest level, that of the organism.

In short, the intelligence of the organism is built on molecular intelligence, which is built on the natural logic of the atom. The intelligence and functioning of the organism is founded on molecular intelligence and its interaction with the organism through the ascending intelligence hierarchy.

In, around and under that is the quantum world, the world of particles, where, as Einstein put it, there is 'spooky action at a distance', quantum entanglement. Particles can be 'aware' of and 'in contact' with others, synchronising instantly, constantly, irrespective of distance. That defies logic and physics, it is incomprehensible to the reasonable laws of the physical--because they are no longer in operation. It must, therefore, be the level of the spiritual. Thus in our desire for ever deeper knowledge of the physical universe we have dug down so far that we have gone out of it altogether, and found to our surprise or chagrin that the whole thing is founded on the spiritual. We have found the point at which spirit and flesh divide. Physics is at loss to explain anything at that level because it just is, existing and functioning in the eternal now, the realm of the spiritual.

As Time magazine said years ago, 'The scientists, after slogging up the mountain of knowledge for centuries, arrive at the top to find the theologians sitting there waiting for them.'

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The level above the spiritual, the molecular, is where all our physical actions start. The mechanism of feeling thirsty, for example, can be seen as having as its fundamental cause the fact that the nanomachines we call protein molecules are lubricated by water, and that its attendant 'minuet' is also vital to their proper formation. So when there is insufficient water for all that to happen as it should it is the protein molecules that will notice it first. That message passed up the chain causes you to head for the tap.

(It also seems reasonable to think that that 'water network' is also used in intermolecular communication, using water molecules as a choregraphed pigeon-post. The dance set up by one molecule used to interface with the dance of the next one, like so many ballerinas passing a particular step across the stage, or so many bees signalling to their peers by their dance where they should fly to gather nectar.)

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This thread has been copied to and will be continued on another of my blogs, Bio-Molecular Logic.

GOH TO HIT WORLD FOOD-SUPPLY HARDER?

Global agriculture could go into steep, unanticipated declines in some regions due to complications that scientists have not considered adequately, say three new scientific reports. Details in this Science Daily report.

LOOK MA! FUEL-CELLS WITHOUT PLATINUM?

If the researchers are right who have managed to 'wire up' using carbon nanotubes the bacterial enzymes called hydrogenases, they will be able to build fuel-cells without platinum, because the hydrogenases will do the catalysis. That would cut the cost of making and maintaining fuel-cells. Click here for the report in ScienceDaily.

OCEANS COULD BE USED TO SLURP UP CO2?

American researchers have proposed a method, reported in Science Daily, of using and enhancing the ocean's absorption of carbon-dioxide by building many hundreds of water-treatment plants round the world. They would extract hydrochloric acid from seawater, which would be neutralised with rock. That would make the oceans more alkaline, enhancing their ability to soak up more CO2. They say 700 plants would offset all our carbon-dioxide emissions.

IPCC SAYS WE ARE KILLING THE PLANET

The fourth IPCC assessment this year says global 'warming' is unequivocal and could cause irreversible damage to the planet.

Click here for Science Daily's report, the New Zealand Herald's, and the BBC's. The BBC site has a link to the full 9.3MB report.

A sea-level rise of up to 1.4 metres is predicted. The IPCC says some of what it formerly predicted for 2020-2030 is happening now.

It is about time we called the situation, officially, what it really is: global over-heating. And admitted that it is far worse than the politicised IPCC reports would have us believe. They are bad enough. The reality is dire.

But don't worry. There's a spare planet in the cupboard.

HOW TO REMOVE CO2 FROM THE ATMOSPHERE?

American researchers say they have found a way of accelerating a natural weathering process that can remove the surplus carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere in only decades. The full report is in

PLANTS' EXTINCTION COULD HALVE PRODUCTIVITY

Science Daily reports on a study showing that the steady extinction of plant species could halve the productivity of natural habitats, affecting all humanity.

MICROSCOPIC PLASTIC THREATENS SEA-LIFE

Science Daily reports a British study showing that the microscropic particles of plastic that litter marine environments may pose a previously unrecognised threat to marine animals by attracting, holding and transporting pollutants such as PCBs. They have been found at the bottom of the foodchain, so their effect would be magnified further up.

ARCTIC MELTDOWN DECADES AHEAD OF MODELS

Science Daily reports that the 'reduction in the sea ice extent has been much faster than global climate models predict. According to Douglas Bancroft, Director of the Canadian Ice Service, the record reduction in 2007 stunned the international operational ice charting community: "The overall extent was similar to what some of the models envisioned but decades in advance of when they expected that would occur. In fact, the summer of 2007 looked very similar to some climate-model forecasts for 2030 to 2050." '

UNITED NATIONS GIVES THE STATE OF THE PLANET

As this BBC report neatly puts it: 'In the language of James Lovelock's Gaia theory, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that have punctuated 2007 allowed us to take the planet's temperature; Geo-4 shows us what is going on in the blood supply, the lymph system, the intestines and the immune defences.'

In one word, it's sick.

The full report, which weighs in at 21.8MB, can be downloaded from the BBC site.

CO2 HAS RISEN FASTER THAN EXPECTED

An international study has found that carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen 35% faster than expected since 2000, reports the BBC.

About half came from inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels, the rest from a decline in the natural ability of land and oceans to soak up CO2 from the atmosphere.

FUELLING CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE-CHANGE

The latest Worldwatch Institute report says our consumption of energy and other critical resources is constantly breaking records, disrupting the climate and undermining life on earth.

In 2006 the world used 3.9 billion tons of oil, our use of fossil fuels produced 7.6 billion tons of carbon emissions, and atmospheric carbon-dioxide reached 380 parts per million. In 2005 more wood was removed from forests than ever before.

A full summary of the Institute's chilling report is on Science Daily.

AWARD-WINNING SOLAR HOUSE POWERS CAR TOO

Science Daily details an award-winning house built by University of Maryland students, which generates enough power to run both the house and the car, and employs a simple dessicant system to remove excess moisture from the air, thus eliminating the expense and complexity of an air-conditioning system.

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION EVEN WORSE THAN GOH?

Serious acidification of the oceans caused by dissolved CO2 seems to be taking place over decades rather than the centuries originally predicted, with potentially devastating effects for corals and the marine organisms that build reefs and provide much of the Earth's breathable oxygen.

Corals and plankton with chalky skeletons are at the base of the marine food-chain. They rely on seawater saturated with calcium carbonate to form their skeletons (the process is called calcification). But as acidity rises, saturation falls, making that harder and harder.

'When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach 500ppm, you put calcification out of business in the oceans,' says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of CoECRS and the University of Queensland (present levels are 385ppm, increasing at 2-3ppm per year).

'Global warming is incredibly serious, but ocean acidification could be even more serious.'

See Science Daily for the full report.

ARCTIC WIND OF CHANGE NOW BLOWING

A new wind-circulation pattern is blowing more warm air towards the North Pole than in the twentieth century, says a new US government study--click for the BBC report.

The report stresss that the fate of the Arctic affects the whole planet.

GREENHOUSE GASES WORSE THAN PREDICTED

The IPCC report due in November, has been heralded by Australia's top conservation scientist, Tim Flannery, as saying that the level of greenhouse gases is worse than the the worst-case scenario foreseen in 2001, and that by mid 2005 they had already reached dangerous levels. Click here for the NewsDaily story.

As this blog has said many times, global-overheating has passed the point of no return. The sooner we pull our stupid heads out of the Arabian sands and the world's coal-mines and put planet-friendly technologies on a war-footing the better. We cannot roll this thing back but we can at least try to knock the top off the worst of it.

ARCTIC SEA-ICE ON A DEATH-SPIRAL?

Some think so, after it shrank to the smallest area on record this year. The US National Snow & Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) says the minimum extent of 4.13 million square kilometres was well under the previous record low of 5.32 million square kilometres set in 2005. See the BBC report.

But that is hardly surprising, given the temperatures shown at this Website for this August. Look at the hotspot at the top of the world in the ENSO SST Analysis graphic, and look at how far it is above the baseline average. At this rate NOAA-NCDC will have to add a new colour to the right of the scale underneath. Funereal black?

CO2 WILL MAKE OCEANS ILLEGAL BY 2050

If carbon-dioxide emissions are not cut drastically, they will have so altered the chemistry of the oceans by the middle of the century that the water-quality criteria set by the US Environmental Protection Agency will have been violated. Not to mention creating a serious risk for what lives in them. Click here for the Science Daily article.

MORE NASTY SNIPPETS FROM GOH RESEARCH

Global-overheating research and news items keep delivering more and more nasty stuff. Here are some more snippets.

Because we are making the planet warmer, the amount of moisture in the atmosphere has increased by 0.41 kilograms per cubic metre per decade since 1988. Details in this report from
Science Daily. A report three weeks later on the BBC's site on an article in Nature underlined the point.

A British-led study has offered the first evidence that climate-change has weakened the Southern Ocean carbon-sink . Click here for details

Then there's this report in
Science Daily to cheer you up, which says that the mortality of plants could increase 40% if land temperatures increase by up to 4 degrees Celsius, which modelling predicts for this century--unless you take the less conservative models which predict far higher rises.

Ex-president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, rightly worries about the world's water-supply. Creatures that are 80% water should. You would think.

Then there's the methane from bogs, which will obviously worsen the feedback-loop.

Meanwhile, over the US of A, a judge washes his hands in front of the world. It's political, not legal, he tells the State of California, dismissing its case against carmakers--see the BBC report. There are none so blind...

BUSH AIDE SAYS NO SAFE TEMPERATURE RISE

Professor John Marburger, the US chief scientist and an advisor to President Bush, said
in this BBC interview that global-overheating is man-made and that there is no safe temperature increase.

GREENLAND ICECAP TREMBLING WITH APPREHENSION

Mini-earthquakes and the acceleration of glaciers on the Greenland icecap are signs that global-overheating is speeding up, reports
Science Daily.

Estimates of the consequent rise in sea-levels by 2100 now range up to 2 metres, far more than the 20-60cm in IPCC's prognosis.

As if that were not bad enough, the Arctic sea-ice is getting thinner and thinner, as this report, also in Science Daily, makes alarmingly clear. Down to a metre, a 50% drop from what it was in 2001.

INSIGHT ON THE WORKING OF THE BRAIN NOW PROVED

This blog has from time to time gone right off the topic of energy to publish ideas about DNA, cellular proteins and the detailed workings of neurons. It is gratifying to see that empirical research has now shown those ideas to have been correct--see this report in
Science Daily.

The point was underlined by another report that came out a month later, also in Science Daily.

For the earlier postings click here, and here, and here.

CLIMATE-CHANGE HELPS GOBBLE HUMAN FLESH

Just when you thought it might be safe to come out of your climate-change bunker and stop living on slimmer's soybean and freeze-dried lawn-cuttings, you get this cheerful little item in
Science Daily.

CORAL AND ARCTIC SEA ICE VANISHING FAST

Research reported on the BBC shows that coral is vanishing from the earth faster than predicted. The UN expects 60% of it to have gone by 2030.

Arctic sea ice is also vanishing at a great rate of knots, and this year is expected to set a record for minimum cover. Click for the BBC's story.

MUCK IN ASIAN AIR OVERHEATS EARTH TOO

Tiny particles from burning wood and fossil-fuels in Asia are another significant contributor to regional overheating. Details in this BBC News report.

As if we needed another cause of global overheating.

YET MORE CLIMATE-CHANGE LEVERS FOUND

Oh dear! Just when optimists might have hoped that the news could not get worse, researchers have found a hitherto unknown driver of manmade climate-ruination, as this BBC News item shows.

That, on top of this research, also reported by the BBC, was enough to make this a most a joyous week for all the Earthlings that noticed and cared.

The report on the BBC World Service of that research on rainfall included an interview with one of the research team. He said they could not understand why the actuality was worse than the computer models had predicted. He said they would have to go back and look at the models.

Which underlines the point made so often in this blog. Things are worse than we are being told, and much worse than we know, so we are headed for a very nasty future on this planet.

EUROPEAN MELTDOWN ANOTHER HARBINGER

This article in the New Zealand Herald, which shows Greece on a 'war-footing' to combat the effects of the present heatwave, is the right idea--about forty years too late. We should have put the whole planet on a war-footing long ago so as to get us off the black-stuff long before the carbon-dioxide buildup went past the point of no-return and headed for critical. As it now has and is.

GLACIERS & ICECAPS CAUSE MORE SEA RISE

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study (funded mainly by the National Science Foundation and NASA), reported in ScienceDaily, the ice-loss from glaciers and ice-caps is expected to cause more global sea rise this century than the massive Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets.

The researchers concluded that glaciers and ice-caps are now contributing about 60% of the world's ice to the oceans and the rate has been markedly accelerating in the past decade, said Emeritus Professor Mark Meier of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, the lead author of the study. The contribution is about 415 cubic kilometres of ice annually--nearly the volume of water in Lake Erie--and is rising by about 12.5 cubic kilometres per year.

In contrast, the CU-Boulder team estimated that Greenland now contributes about 28% of the total global sea rise from ice-loss and Antarctica about 12%. Greenland is not expected to catch up to glaciers and ice-caps in terms of sea level rise contributions until the end of the century, according to the study.

The team estimated that the accelerating melt of glaciers and ice-caps could add 10-24cm of sea-level rise globally by 2100. That does not include the expansion of warming ocean water, which could double those numbers, to 20-48cm. A 30cm sea-level rise typically causes a shoreline retreat of 30 metres or more, and about 100 million people now live within a metre of sea level.

If the sea-level rise generated by melting glaciers and ice-caps is 60% of the total the total rise anticipated by 2100 by this study is 1.6 times the above numbers--i.e., up to 32-77cm. But the expected temperature-increase used in this study is not given. If it was only the IPCCC's modest figure, the change in sea-levels will obviously be far greater--even several times as much. Add what floods and storm-surges can contribute, and a very grim prospect is in store for all coastal cities and their ports and airports, and for low-lying countries, and thus for vast numbers of people.

ANOTHER BLOW TO JUNK-SCIENCE ADDICTS

Those who sneer at the massive amount of evidence for climate-change, and exist in deep denial of it, now have to put up with even more weighty disproof of their blind assertions, as this BBC News item shows.

On top of that is the news that this year is shaping up to be one of the warmest on record. The January-to-June data is now off the satellites and the numbers do not look good. Globally, for land, temperatures were the warmest on record, at an alarming 1.18 degrees Celsius above the baseline average. And for land and ocean combined they were the second warmest. Click here.

But don't worry about any of that, Junkheads. Just carry on driving your planet-trashers, and loving your coal-fired power-stations, and chopping down swathes of forest. Yay!

YET MORE PROOF OF THE TRUTH ABOUT DNA

This BBC story again underlines the truth of what this blog first daringly postulated in November 2006 and reiterated in May 2007--i.e., that the traditionalists' notions about DNA are as much junk as the moniker they have long attached to most of our DNA.

Why did it take them so long to see it? How could they be so blind or arrogant or both and just dimiss what they did not understand, but which had for some reason been there for aeons, as junk? From the time I first heard the phrase 'junk DNA' I thought we would one day find out that it was not junk, and I said so to a DNA researcher way back in 1994, although it was not till November 2006 that I realised what it was. My first vague thoughts had been that it was like the comments in a program--which was nowhere near the truth that it is the machine that processes the program. The whole thing is a continuum, with all parts being necessary.

What is incredible is that such superlative intelligence can be built into and contained in what seems nothing but strings of chemicals, albeit rather complex ones, built of such simple fundamentals. It is enough to make you ponder on the real nature of life, the universe and everything. It is certainly enough to make you realise that Darwin et alia hardly knew/know a blind thing.

One wonders how much intelligence is built into DNA, and whether it has sufficient processing power to experiment, and thus to play an active role in improving an organism or in producing offshoot organisms. We no know that bacteria can 'vote' and that the preponderant chemically-communicated 'opinion' rules, so perhaps the preponderance of a particular genetic luggage in an organism's DNA, due to the survival of the fittest, causes more than just weight of numbers giving rise to certain offspring. It also causes joint processing and thus a greater refinement in the direction pointed to by those numbers. In other words DNA plays an active role not a passive one.

Footnote (23/07/2007): This article in ScienceDaily, which overturns traditional notions of proteins, shows that the functioning of the body is at base molecular. Myriads of molecular engines make up a cell (and not just proteins, obviously); myriads of cellular engines make up an organ; many of organic engines make up an organism. The high-speed internal action of the molecular engines will always be beyond our analytical capabilities, so the so-called 'designer drugs', which were predicated on the notion that proteins were static in shape, will remain a mirage.

HALF A DEGREE TO GLOBAL CATASTROPHE

'Confronting Climate-Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable, Managing the Unavoidable', written by an expert panel (SEG) organised by Sigma Xi, the scientific honour society, and sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, is outlined in the May/June issue of Update, the magazine of the New York Academy of Sciences. The report says accumulating evidence suggests that climate-change may not be gradual. Several major tipping-points, such as the collapse West Antarctic ice-shelf, major melting of the Greenland ice-cap, desertification of the Amazon rain-forest, and changes in the frequency of strong El Nino oscillations could cause sudden and catastrophic changes over a few years rather than a few centuries. The authors conclude that allowing the global surface temperature to rise more than 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius over the next hundred years would sharply increase the risk those catastrophic impacts. Greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere have already committed the planet to a rise of about 1.5 degrees.

We are therefore only 0.5-1.0 degrees away from the risk of swift catastrophe.

To stay within the recommended range, the researchers say greenhouse-gas emissions must stablise at not much more than present levels by 2015 at the latest, then fall to no more than a third of present levels by 2100.

Fat chance!

The sea is rising at about 3mm a year and Antarctic glaciers are surging along, which the IPCC report did not factor in.

For the full Sigma Xi SEG report, click here.