July 14th, 2019 by Donald Steiny
Stronger wind speeds, more rain, and worsened storm surge add up to more potential destruction.
Climate change deniers often trot out the fact that hurricanes are not becoming more frequent as “evidence” that global warming ant the resulting climate change is not happening. That misses the fact that hurricanes are rapidly becoming more intense, lasting longer, and dropping more water.
For instance, Hurricane Harvey, which inundated Houston, dropped more water than any other storm in us history. The US Midwest has undergone unprecedented flooding this year (2019) and Pacific typhoons have unleashed the most power ever recorded.
This is not surprising and is exactly what was predicted. As the world becomes warmer, there is more water in the atmosphere. This water eventually comes back to Earth as rain or snow.
The idea that the climate crisis is going to happen in the future is flat wrong, it’s happing now and will rapidly get worse.
Source: How climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous » Yale Climate Connections
February 11th, 2019 by Donald Steiny
This is a recent paper from the US Department of Defense about some of the issues they are facing because of global warming. It includes the destruction of bases, humanitarian aid for dislocated populations, and dealing with the resulting wars.
Source document contributed to DocumentCloud by Nicholas Kusnetz (InsideClimate News).
Source: DoD Final Climate Report
April 8th, 2018 by Donald Steiny
I was just talking to a scientist from NASA. He works with atmospheric chemists and designs devices that measure the chemical makeup of the atmosphere at various levels.
The system is global and part of it is satellites that measure the upper atmosphere. It gives information to help understand the greenhouse gasses, global warming, and climate change.
All of the measurements are relative to previous measurements. You can’t turn them off because when you turn them back on, there is a gap. Then, the system doesn’t know the previous measurements to calibrate to and it is useless. The satellites need to be sent up again.
Not only will the satellites become useless, we will have a gap in the data that could last for years plus, the cost of sending up new satellites.
Guess what useless, orange President is shutting them down? The alleged cost savings is dwarfed by what will be necessary to get them going again. It is malice towards scientists and environmentalists who don’t support him or his oil industry backers.
February 23rd, 2016 by Donald Steiny
So since 2015 was by far the hottest year ever recorded things are going exactly as expected. The so-called “hiatus” never happened. The heat was being stored in the oceans and as the winds and currents change it is being released.
A .23 degree rise in temperature makes the 2° limit on temperature rise look unobtainable at this point.
Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 2015 was the warmest year since modern record-keeping began in 1880, according to a new analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The record-breaking year continues a long-term warming trend — 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have now occurred since 2001. (Credit: NSA/GSFC/Scientific Visualization Studio)Globally-averaged temperatures in 2015 shattered the previous mark set in 2014 by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit (0.13 Celsius). Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been greater than the old record by this much.
Source: NASA GISS: NASA GISS: NASA, NOAA Analyses Reveal Record-Shattering Global Warm Temperatures in 2015
February 13th, 2016 by Donald Steiny
It seems that part of the challenge teaching about global warming is that many science teachers are uninformed.
Although more than 95% of active climate scientists attribute recent global warming to human causes (1, 2) and most of the general public accepts that climate change is occurring, only about half of U.S. adults believe that human activity is the predominant cause (3), which is the lowest among 20 nations polled in 2014 (4). We examine how this societal debate affects science classrooms and find that, whereas most U.S. science teachers include climate science in their courses, their insufficient grasp of the science may hinder effective teaching. Mirroring some actors in the societal debate over climate change, many teachers repeat scientifically unsupported claims in class. Greater attention to teachers’ knowledge, but also values, is critical.
Source: Climate confusion among U.S. teachers | Science
November 6th, 2015 by Donald Steiny
Note that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is not the same as East Antarctic. This paper is about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet which is melting rapidly. Right now, on a balance, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet(s) and Central Antarctica are gaining ice because snowfall, but if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet slips into the ocean sea levels will rise about 3 meters (9 feet). This paper shows that we might have overestimated the time it will take for this to happen. It could happen in our lifetimes.
The Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate, and playing a more important role in terms of global sea-level rise. The Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica has most likely been destabilized. Although previous numerical modeling studies examined the short-term future evolution of this region, here we take the next step and simulate the long-term evolution of the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Our results show that if the Amundsen Sea sector is destabilized, then the entire marine ice sheet will discharge into the ocean, causing a global sea-level rise of about 3 m. We thus might be witnessing the beginning of a period of self-sustained ice discharge from West Antarctica that requires long-term global adaptation of coastal protection.AbstractThe future evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet represents the largest uncertainty in sea-level projections of this and upcoming centuries. Recently, satellite observations and high-resolution simulations have suggested the initiation of an ice-sheet instability in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica, caused by the last decades’ enhanced basal ice-shelf melting. Whether this localized destabilization will yield a full discharge of marine ice from West Antarctica, associated with a global sea-level rise of more than 3 m, or whether the ice loss is limited by ice dynamics and topographic features, is unclear. Here we show that in the Parallel Ice Sheet Model, a local destabilization causes a complete disintegration of the marine ice in West Antarctica. In our simulations, at 5-km horizontal resolution, the region disequilibrates after 60 y of currently observed melt rates. Thereafter, the marine ice-sheet instability fully unfolds and is not halted by topographic features. In fact, the ice loss in Amundsen Sea sector shifts the catchment’s ice divide toward the Filchner–Ronne and Ross ice shelves, which initiates grounding-line retreat there. Our simulations suggest that if a destabilization of Amundsen Sea sector has indeed been initiated, Antarctica will irrevocably contribute at least 3 m to global sea-level rise during the coming centuries to millennia.West Antarctic Ice Sheet sea-level rise tipping point instability marine ice-sheet instability
Source: Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet after local destabilization of the Amundsen Basin
August 27th, 2015 by Donald Steiny
This is terrifying. The sea levels have risen 3 inches and as much as 9 inches in some places since 1992! They are rising much faster than we thought.
NASA Science Zeros in on Ocean Rise: How Much? How Soon?Seas around the world have risen an average of nearly 3 inches since 1992, with some locations rising more than 9 inches due to natural variation, according to the latest satellite measurements from NASA and its partners. An intensive research effort now underway, aided by NASA observations and analysis, points to an unavoidable rise of several feet in the future.Members of NASA’s new interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team will discuss recent findings and new agency research efforts during a media teleconference today at 12:30 p.m. EDT. NASA will stream the teleconference live online.The question scientists are grappling with is how quickly will seas rise?“Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it’s pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more,” said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead of the Sea Level Change Team. “But we don’t know
Source: NASA Science Zeros in on Ocean Rise: How Much? How Soon? | NASA
June 9th, 2015 by Donald Steiny
NASA is releasing global climate change projections to help scientists and planners better understand local and global effects of hazards.
Source: Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet: NASA releases detailed global climate change projections
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