RISE IN SEA-LEVEL MORE ACCURATELY

A new study shows that the collapse of an ice sheet in Antarctica up to 14,650 years ago may have caused sea levels to rise between 14 and 18 metres, data which could help make more accurate climate-change predictions.

The melting of polar ice could contribute to long-term sea level rise, threatening the lives of millions, scientists say. Sea levels have increased on average about 18 centimetres since 1900 and rapid global warming will accelerate the increase, putting coastlines at risk and forcing low-lying cities to build costly sea defences.

A rise of 2 metres by 2100 is predicted.

Full report on NewsDaily

KING COAL IS A DIRTY OLD SOUL

Even in so-called 'clean green New Zealand' the dirty old man, King Coal, wants to keep on wrecking the planet.

Why let that get in the way of making a very grubby dollar?

Full report here.

EARTH WARMING FASTER THAN EXPECTED

By 2050, global average temperature could be between 1.4°C and 3°C warmer than it was just a couple of decades ago, according to a new British study that seeks to address the largest sources of uncertainty in current climate models. That's substantially higher than estimates produced by other climate analyses, suggesting that Earth's climate could warm much more quickly than previously thought.

Full story at Science Magazine

OCEANS TO BE 20 METRES HIGHER

Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends, future generations will have to deal with sea levels 12 to 22 meters (40 to 70 feet) higher than at present, according to research published in the journal Geology and reported in ScienceDaily

ACIDIFICATION OF OCEANS UNPRECEDENTED?

The world's oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period.

If industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about -- coral reefs, oysters, salmon...

Full story on ScienceDaily

FAKE CLIMATE-CHANGE SCEPTICS IGNORE FACTS

Damn the scientific truth, full ahead with our spin, is in effect the catch-cry of those who deny that we messing up the planet. Let lies reign!

Full story in the Montreal Gazette

COAL THE BIGGEST FOSSIL BADDIE

Burn all the coal and the global average temperature will be 15 degrees higher. Burn all the gas and oil and it will make a significant difference, but is nowhere near as damaging as coal. The message: stop using fossils ASAP.

Full story in the Globe and Mail

MORE EXTREME SUMMERS IN THE US NOW

Extreme summer temperatures are already occurring more frequently in the United States, and will become normal by mid-century if the world continues on a business as usual schedule of emitting greenhouse gases, says a study led by Phil Duffy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It showed that previously rare high summertime (June, July and August) temperatures are already occurring more frequently in some regions of the 48 contiguous United States.

'The observed increase in the frequency of previously rare summertime-average temperatures is more consistent with the consequences of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations than with the effects of natural climate variability, said Duffy. 'It is extremely unlikely that the observed increase has happened through chance alone.'

The team also modelled the period 2035-2064.

'What was historically a one in 20-year occurrence will occur with at least a 70 percent chance every year,' said Duffy 'This work shows an example of how climate change can affect weather extremes, as well as averages.'

Full report on ScienceDaily

CLIMATE-CHANGE MAKES 100-YEAR FLOODS EVERY 3-20 YEARS?

When Hurricane Irene spun through the Caribbean and parts of the eastern United States in August 2011 it generated storm-surges that swept over seawalls and flooded seaside and inland communities. Many hurricane analysts suggested that Irene was a '100-year event', a storm that only comes only once a century.
 
But researchers from MIT and Princeton University have found that with climate-change, such storms could make landfall far more frequently, causing powerful, devastating storm surges every 3 to 20 years.

The group simulated tens of thousands of storms under different climate conditions, and also found that today’s '500-year floods' could, with climate change, occur once every 25 to 240 years.

They published their results in the current issue of Nature Climate Change.

Reported on PhysOrg.

ARCTIC ALREADY AT DANGEROUS CLIMATE-CHANGE

Two decades after the United Nations established the Framework Convention on Climate Change to 'prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,' the Arctic shows the first signs of a dangerous climate-change, says a team of researchers in an article published recently in iNature Climate Change.

They say the Arctic is already suffering some of the effects that, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), correspond with a 'dangerous climate change.' The rate of climatic warming now exceeds the rate of natural adaptation in arctic ecosystems.

Full report in ScienceDaily.

NASA PROVES MAN NOT SUN IS WARMING EARTH

A study by NASA reported in ScienceDaily, shows that even during the unusually low period of solar activity between 2005 and 2010 the planet still absorbed more energy than it sent back into space--by 0.58 watts per square metre.

The imbalance of 0.58 watts per square metre is more than twice the reduction in energy from the sun during periods of reduced activity, which is 0.25 watts per square metre.

NASA says that is unequivocal evidence that human activity, not solar variance, is the dominant driver of global warming.

HUGE ARCTIC POOL COULD COOL EUROPE

A huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower the temperature of Europe by causing an ocean current to slow down, say scientists from University College London and Britain's National Oceanography Centre.

Using satellites to measure sea surface height from 1995 to 2010, they found that the western Arctic's sea surface has risen by about 15 cms since 2002. The volume of fresh water has increased by at least 8,000 cubic km, or about 10 percent of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. The fresh water comes from melting ice and river run-off.

If the wind changes direction, which happened between the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, the pool of fresh water could spill out into the rest of the Arctic Ocean and even into the north Atlantic Ocean, which could cool Europe by slowing down an ocean current coming from the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe relatively mild compared with countries at similar latitudes.

Full report in NewsDaily.

DAYLIGHT-SAVING CAUSES BRAIN-DAMAGE?

This report on <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120110140225.htm">ScienceDaily</a> on research that shows neurological damage is caused by messing about with biological clocks should give pause to those who love 'daylight-saving.' Russia has already dumped it because of the known effects on health, including increases in the incidence of heart-attacks in the weeks immediately after the clocks are changed.

EVIL STATISTIC

From page 1330, volume 334 of Science magazine:

9.1 billion tons. Total global carbon-emissions in 2010, an all-time high, up from 8.6 billion tons in 2009, according to the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

EARTHQUAKES LINKED TO TROPICAL CYCLONES

A groundbreaking study led by University of Miami (UM) scientist Shimon Wdowinski shows that earthquakes, including the recent 2010 ones in Haiti and Taiwan, may be triggered by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons).

'Very wet rain events are the trigger,' says Wdowinski, associate research professor of marine geology and geophysics at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. 'The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth's surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults.'

Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from quakes magnitude-6 and above in Taiwan and Haiti and found a strong temporal relationship between the two natural hazards, where large earthquakes occurred within four years after a very wet tropical cyclone season.

Which means that because global overheating will increase the number of tropical cyclones, bringing more heavy rain, we can also expect an increase in the number of significant earthquakes.

Full report in <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111208121016.htm">ScienceDaily.</a>

ESTARFUTURE ADDS AMAZON R&D SUPPLIES

It is fitting that EStarFuture Corporation, which has such a strong emphasis on R&D, has added to its repertoire by becoming a portal for SmallParts, a division of Amazon, 'the hardware store for researchers and developers', which stocks 200,000 items for R&Ders, including laboratory and scientific supplies, metalworking tools, measurement and inspection tools, raw materials, fasteners, tubing, power-transmission products, etc., etc. A vast range. The hundreds of brands feature a host of top names, such as 3M, De Walt, Rockwell...

As Edison said, invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. In other words R&D needs tools and materials to turn ideas into reality. Small Parts is an outlet to fulfil that need.

Click here for EStarFuture's portal to Small Parts.

ESTARFUTURE INVADED BY DOVES

As this post by our CEO shows, the 3475-square-metre property that is EStarFuture's headquarters (shared with the CEO) has been invaded by doves.

It a very fitting juxtaposition: white, glorious doves and a company that wants us to be living at peace with the planet.

Invaded by doves, blessed by doves, surrounded by doves, accompanied by doves. Would that every company had such companions and their daily inspiration!

GREENLAND'S BEDROCK RISING

ScienceDaily reports that an unusually hot melting-season in 2010 accelerated ice loss in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons. Fifty GPS stations planted along the coast to measure the bedrock's natural response to the ever-diminishing weight of ice above it, showed that large portions of the island's bedrock responded by rising another 6mm (0.25 of an inch).

The bedrock rises 15mm a year, but the temperature spike in 2010 lifted it more in only five months--as much as 20mm in some places (0.79 of an inch).

TUNA ON THE EDGE OF SUSTAINABILITY

Tuna stocks have declined 60% since 1954, reports Science, and in some areas more than 90%.

CLIMATE INSANITY ON STEROIDS

How much stupider can we humans get? We are wrecking the only planet we can live on in the entire universe, we have been given that message over and over and over again, we have been told very plainly how we are doing it, we have been told that we must to stop pumping carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere, yet we persist in making things worse, led by prats who we are too stupid to vote out of office because we actually like wrecking our home and don't want to pay a cent to stop it or fix the mess.

So last year we actually increased the amount of CO2 by 5.9%. Nearly six percent more! That is arrant, arrogant insanity. We have added 50% in the last 20 years. The combustion of coal accounts for more than half of the growth.

The New York Times adds its thunder to the insane litany.

An epsilion-semi-moronic, brain-damaged, frontally-lobotomised earthworm could do better. And we think of ourselves as the most intelligent life-form...

We are like the lemmings in the cartoon. Blindly plunging over the cliff, and the 'best' thing any can think of is to behave like happy sky-divers.