Category: Anthropogenic Climate Change

We Are Sooooooo F%$#ed

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I knew that global warming would cause problems in the future, but the fact that sea levels have risen 3 inches over the past 23 years just boggles the mind:

A panel of NASA scientists said Wednesday that new data shows sea levels are, on average, three inches higher than they were in 1992 due to melting ice from both mountain glaciers and the polar ice caps, as well as warmer oceans.

The data was collected from NASA satellites. NASA also released a video that shows a visualization of rising sea levels.

The changes are concerning and “it’s very likely to get worse in the future,” Steve Nerem, a University of Colorado geophysicist and a member of the panel, said in a conference call, Reuters reported. In 2013, a United Nations panel reported sea levels were projected to rise between 1 and 3 feet by 2100; the NASA panel said data indicates the level rise would be on the higher end of that projection.

 I may have beachfront property before I die.

Another Climate Change Denial Talking Point Bites the Dust………

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It turns out that the evidence that we are in a period of some sort of freakishly high sunspot activity is just an artifact of how counting was modernized in 1947, which means that suggesting that it’s all sunspots is a load of bunk:

A bunch of boffins has completed the first-ever revision of the world’s most important sunspot data repository, along the way challenging the theory that climate change is substantially attributable to the prevalence of sunspots.

It turns out, in fact, that the pro-sunspots argument relies on a statistical artefact introduced in 1947 and not corrected until this year.

While the change officially took place in July, rendering obsolete the data that climate deniers use to “prove” that it’s sunspots driving global warming rather than CO2, it came to prominence at the end of last week in a presentation to the International Astronomical Union’s current general assembly in Hawaii.

The most important correction to come out of the new data, the Sunspot Index and Long-term Solar Observations (SILSO) project says, is “a lowering by about 18% of all numbers after 1947, to remove the bias produced by a new counting method started in 1947 in Zürich”.

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As SILSO explains, the sunspot data set (which, courtesy of Galileo (the man, not the spacecraft), stretches back 400 years) was first collected into an index by Rudolph Wolf in 1849. Startlingly, SILSO says, “this series was left unchanged since its creation … without any backward verification”.

………

The adoption of the new Sunspot Number doesn’t change our understanding of the Maunder Minimum, the low sunspot activity period between 1645 and 1715 that coincided with the “Little Ice Age”.

However, the recalibration does overturn a previous consensus that the data set showed a 300-year upward trend in sunspot activity, culminating in a “grand maximum” in the 20th century.

As Physicsworld says, the dataset “nullifies the claim that there has been a modern grand maximum”.

In response, I expect some right wing nut-job state Attorney General to subpoena scientists private communications.

Shoot Me, I Agree with the Republicans

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Republicans in the House want to repeal the ethanol mandate for gasoline:

A new Republican bill introduced Tuesday would completely repeal the federal mandate to blend ethanol into the nation’s gasoline supply.

Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) legislation would completely do away with the renewable fuel standard, which first took effect in 2005 and now requires increasing levels of ethanol and biodiesel to be put into traditional fossil fuels.

The mandate invites frequent criticism from Republicans, the oil industry and sectors that complain the demand it creates for corn ethanol increases agricultural prices.

“Workers, refiners, producers, farmers and ranchers across the country are affected by the renewable fuel standard,” Cassidy said in a statement. “More mandates mean less jobs. It means families are paying more for gas and groceries.”

Cassidy represents Louisiana, one of the largest states in terms of fuel refining capacity. Refiners say that buying ethanol or fuel credits increases their prices, and they must pass those costs onto consumers.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has had trouble keeping up with the annual volume mandates amid a decrease in fuel use. The agency proposed mandate levels for 2014 through 2016 last month.

The proposal would increase ethanol levels, though not to the goals set out in the law, leading to criticisms from both supporters and opponents of the mandate.

Republicans want this for a different reason than I do, though.

They object, because they believe that any imposition on the big oil is a crime against God, while I believe that ethanol, at least corn based ethanol as generated in the United States, makes little to no savings in CO2 emissions when all inputs are considered, and serves primarily as a way for Presidential candidates to pander to Iowa farmers so as to improve their performance in the Iowa caucuses.

Biodiesel is another matter, and unlike Cassidy, other proposals to eliminate the ethanol mandate do not eliminate a biodiesel mandate, which is the path that I favor.

Pope Frank Pisses off Conservatives Again………

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The Pope, and one would assume the Pope’s Peeps, are working on an encyclical about the economy and the environment, and it has gotten leaked.

Has come out strongly in favor or accepting the science of global warming, as well as condemning shot sighted politicians:

Pope Francis has endorsed the science behind global warming and denounced the world’s political leaders for putting national self-interest ahead of action. Now, Catholic priests are gearing up to spread the word.

The 192-page leaked draft of a papal encyclical, published Monday by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, is an attempt to influence the debate before United Nations climate talks scheduled for the end of the year in Paris. Father Federico Lombardi, the pope’s spokesman, said the text was not the final one, which will be officially released midday local time Thursday by the Vatican.

The encyclical, entitled “Laudato si (Praised Be) on the care of our common home,” is a call to action in the form of a letter to the church’s bishops. With fossil-fuel emissions and temperatures at record levels, the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics is adding his voice to calls to rein in greenhouse gases.

“International negotiations cannot progress in a significant way because of the positions of the countries which privilege their own national interests rather than the global common good,” the pope wrote. “Those who will suffer the consequences which we are trying to hide will remember this lack of conscience and responsibility.”

Francis squarely put the blame on humans, writing that many scientific studies show “the greater part of global warming in the last decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) emitted above all due to human activity.”

Reducing emissions, he wrote, demands “honesty, courage and responsibility, above all by the most powerful and most polluting countries.”

In the U.S., where public opinion has been split on climate change, the Conference of Catholic Bishops has been holding workshops to discuss the encyclical with its members. A coalition of church groups, the Catholic Climate Covenant, will provide inserts on Francis’ message to go in church bulletins around the U.S. and is e-mailing suggested homilies to priests.

Additionally, this document will a call for independent and rigorous studies of pesticides and GMOs:

On the subject of GMOs Pope Francis states; “It is difficult to give an overall judgment on the development of genetically modified organisms (GMO), plant or animal, for medical purposes or in agriculture, since they can be very different and require different considerations.”

He continues; “Although we do not have definitive evidence about the damage that transgenic cereals could cause to humans, and in some regions their use has produced economic growth that has helped solve some problems, there are significant problems that should not be minimized. In many areas, following the introduction of these crops, there has been a concentration of productive land in the hands of the few, due to the gradual disappearance of small producers, who, as a consequence of the loss of cultivated land, have been forced to retreat from direct production.

“The most fragile among them become temporary workers and many farm workers migrate to end up in miserable urban settlements. The spread of these (GM) crops destroys the complex web of ecosystems, decreases diversity in production and affects the present and the future of regional economies. In several countries there is a trend in the development of oligopolies in the production of seeds and other products needed for cultivation, and the dependence deepens when you consider the production of sterile seeds, which end up forcing farmers to buy (seeds) from producers.”

“No doubt there is a need for constant attention…to consider all ethical aspects involved. To this end it is necessary to ensure a scientific and social debate that is responsible and large, able to consider all the information available and to call things by their names.

“GMOs is an issue which is complex, it must be approached with a sympathetic look at all its aspects, and this requires at least one more effort to finance several lines of independent and interdisciplinary research… as we have seen in this chapter, the technique is unlikely to be able to …self-limit its power.”

To my mind, what is most significant here is that he is clearly laying the groundwork for aggressive push-back against Big Ag, Monsanto and their ilk, as being harmful both to the environment, and to most economically disadvantaged.

I hear wing-nut heads exploding, and it pleases me.

You Have Got to Be F%$#Ing Kidding Me

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On a number of occasions over the past few weeks, the temperatures in Fairbanks Alaska has been higher than those of Phoenix Arizona:

Alaska, along with the rest of the Arctic, has been warming even faster than other regions of the world due to climate change. That was the findings of a report this spring from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which found that the rate of warming will only continue to increase in the coming decades.

The signs of rapid warming in Alaska were everywhere this past winter. The Iditarod was moved north 300 miles to Fairbanks because Anchorage had record low snowfall. A ski resort outside of Juneau had to close because of low snowfall and warm temperatures that inhibited snow-making.

Now the 49th state experienced a heat wave at the end of May. Over Memorial Day weekend, while Texas was being inundated with floods, parts of Alaska were warmer than Arizona. On May 23 in Fairbanks, the temperature reached 86 degrees Fahrenheit, while Phoenix topped out at 83 for the day, reports Al Jazeera. Even the town of Bettles, which is north of Fairbanks and falls within the Arctic Circle, recorded a temperature of 82.

That same day, Eagle, Alaska hit 91 degrees Fahrenheit, marking the earliest 90-degree day in state history, according to NASA Earth Observatory. And it wasn’t just one unusually warm day. “Between May 16 and May 24, Eagle hit 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher daily—its second longest such streak on record for any time of the year,” says Al Jazeera.

I understand that weather is not the same as climate, but repeated instances of abnormally f%$#ed up weather are an indicator of climate issues.

And Republicans still deny climate change, because they don’t want to admit that Al Gore was right.

We are completely f%$#ed.

We are F%$#ed

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The massive Larsen C ice shelf is predicted to collapse by 2010 2020:

It has been a really bad week for the ice shelves of the quickly warming Antarctic peninsula, the part of the vast frozen continent that extends northward toward South America.

Earlier this week, we learned that the gigantic marine-based Larsen C ice shelf, which is almost as big as Scotland, has several worrisome vulnerabilities — including a growing rift across it. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and several other research centers say this could pose an “imminent risk” to its stability.

And now, NASA scientists are giving an even worse verdict for the remnants of the nearby Larsen B ice shelf, much of which already disintegrated back in 2002. Back then, the shelf lost a region larger than Rhode Island, but there are still 618 square miles left of it — for now.

However, in a new study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, researchers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California at Irvine say that this remnant now faces its “approaching demise.” In a news release, NASA adds that the ice shelf “is likely to disintegrate completely before the end of the decade.”

If these two research teams are right, then the coming years could see major ice calving events off of the Antarctic peninsula — especially for Larsen B.

“What might happen is that for a few years, we will have the detachment of big icebergs from this remaining ice shelf, and then at one point, one very very warm summer, when you have lots of melting of the surface, the whole thing will just give way, and will shatter into thousands of smaller icebergs,” says the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Ala Khazendar, lead author of the new study.

Clearly, anthropogenic climate change is a myth.

Note that this is an ice shelf,  and as such, is already supported by the ocean so the impact on ocean levels is effectively nil, but this will change the environment and albedo (reflectively) which will likely increase the flow of glaciers into the ocean.

Prediction made by climate experts have consistently been exceeded by what is really going on.

Not good.

Oh Sh%$!

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One of the issues with studying South Polar ice is that you cannot see what is under the ice directly.

Well, using satellite based gravimetric measurements, they were able to get data on mass changes under the ice, and it’s worse than previously estimated:

Study after study shows that Antarctica isn’t in great shape. Its ice shelves are disappearing and its ice sheets are collapsing, hastening swiftly rising sea levels. Sounds terrible.

But just in case you wanted a second opinion, a new study out of Princeton University takes a look at a decade’s worth of satellite data. Their results, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, show that not only is Antarctica melting, it’s melting faster than ever before.

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They used data collected between 2003 and 2014 by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin satellites that can measure differences in the amount of water around the world. Since its launch in 2002, GRACE has analyzed the health of underground aquifers, analyzed flooding, and helped show that ice loss in Antarctica was messing with the continent’s gravity.
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The data showed that between 2003 and 2014, Antarctica lost 92 billion tons of ice per year. That’s the net amount of ice loss–some ice grew back in East Antarctica, but the gains were a drop in the bucket compared to the 121 billion tons of ice that the West Antarctic ice shelf lost during that time.

This story is not going to have a happy ending.

We are Completely F%$#ed

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Anthropogenic climate change is a problem, and the progress of this problem has been exceeding predictions for years.

Now, we are running into secondary effects that are making this a lot worse.

In this case, it appears that increasing temperatures in the tundra are driving bacterial activity which is in turn increasing temperatures in the tundra:

Scientists might have to change their projected timelines for when Greenland’s permafrost will completely melt due to man-made climate change, now that new research from Denmark has shown it could be thawing faster than expected.

Published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, the research shows that tiny microbes trapped in Greenland’s permafrost are becoming active as the climate warms and the permafrost begins to thaw. As those microbes become active, they are feeding on previously-frozen organic matter, producing heat, and threatening to thaw the permafrost even further.

In other words, according to the research, permafrost thaw could be accelerating permafrost thaw to a “potentially critical” level.

“The accompanying heat production from microbial metabolism of organic material has been recognized as a potential positive-feedback mechanism that would enhance permafrost thawing and the release of carbon,” the study, conducted by researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Permafrost, said. “This internal heat production is poorly understood, however, and the strength of this effect remains unclear.”

The big worry climate scientists have about thawing permafrost is that the frozen soil is chock-full of carbon. That carbon is supposed to be strongly trapped inside the soil, precisely because it’s supposed to be permanently frozen — hence, “permafrost.”

However, as temperatures in the Arctic have risen due to human-caused climate change, permafrost is thawing, and therefore releasing some of that trapped carbon into the atmosphere. It’s yet another feedback loop manifesting itself in Arctic permafrost regions — as climate change causes it to thaw, the thawing causes more climate change, which causes more thawing, et cetera, et cetera.

Rinse, lather, repeat, die.

We are F%$#ed

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The Gulf Stream


Warmest year ever, but northeast, and the ocean just off of Greenland coast hit the coldest ever

A recent study shows that the Gulf Stream flow has decreased more in the past 100 years than at any time in the past 1000+ years:

Possible changes in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) provide a key source of uncertainty regarding future climate change. Maps of temperature trends over the twentieth century show a conspicuous region of cooling in the northern Atlantic. Here we present multiple lines of evidence suggesting that this cooling may be due to a reduction in the AMOC over the twentieth century and particularly after 1970. Since 1990 the AMOC seems to have partly recovered. This time evolution is consistently suggested by an AMOC index based on sea surface temperatures, by the hemispheric temperature difference, by coral-based proxies and by oceanic measurements. We discuss a possible contribution of the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet to the slowdown. Using a multi-proxy temperature reconstruction for the AMOC index suggests that the AMOC weakness after 1975 is an unprecedented event in the past millennium (p > 0.99). Further melting of Greenland in the coming decades could contribute to further weakening of the AMOC.

All I can see is the abstract, the article requires cash, but a number of locations have written about in a somewhat more accessible format:

Welcome to this week’s installment of “Don’t Mess with Geophysics.”

Last week, we learned about the possible destabilization of the Totten Glacier of East Antarctica, which could unleash over 11 feet of sea level rise in coming centuries.

And now this week brings news of another potential mega-scale perturbation. According to a new study just out in Nature Climate Change by Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a group of co-authors, we’re now seeing a slowdown of the great ocean circulation that, among other planetary roles, helps to partly drive the Gulf Stream off the U.S. east coast. The consequences could be dire – including significant extra sea level rise for coastal cities like New York and Boston.

A vast, powerful, and warm current, the Gulf Stream transports more water than “all the world’s rivers combined,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But it’s just one part of a larger regional ocean conveyor system – scientists technically call it the “Atlantic meridional overturning circulation” — which, in turn, is just one part of the larger global “thermohaline” circulation (“thermohaline” conjoins terms meaning “temperature” and “salty”).

For the whole system, a key driver occurs in the North Atlantic ocean. Here, the warm Gulf Stream flows northward into cooler waters and splits into what is called the North Atlantic Current. This stream flows still further toward northern latitudes — until it reaches points where colder, salty water sinks due to its greater density, and then travels back southward at depth.

This “overturning circulation” plays a major role in the climate because it brings warm water northward, thereby helping to warm Europe’s climate, and also sends cold water back towards the tropics. Here’s a helpful visualization, from Rahmstorf and the Potsdam Institute, of how it works: ……… (see top pic)

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The system above has a key vulnerability. What keeps everything churning in the North Atlantic is the fact that cold salt water is more dense than warm water — so it sinks. However, if too much ice melts in the region — from, say Greenland — a freshening of the cold salt water could occur. If the water is less salty it will also be less dense, reducing its tendency to sink below the surface.

………

Rahmstorf points to a recent release by the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, finding that the winter of December 2014 through February 2015 was the warmest on record for the globe as a whole. However, there were several anomalies — not just a cold winter for the eastern U.S., but also record cold temperatures in the middle of the North Atlantic: ……… (see bottom pic)

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However, there are many other effects, ranging from dramatic impacts on fisheries to, perhaps most troubling of all, the potential for extra sea level rise in the North Atlantic region.

That may sound surprising, but here’s how it works. We’re starting out from a situation in which sea level is “anomalously low” off the U.S. east coast due to the motion of the Gulf Stream. This is for at least two reasons. First, explains Rahmstorf’s co-author Michael Mann of Penn State University, there’s the matter of temperature contrast: Waters to the right or east of the Gulf Stream, in the direction of Europe, are warmer than those on its left or west. Warm water expands and takes up more area than denser cold water, so sea level is also higher to the right side of the current, and lower off our coast.

“So if you weaken the ‘Gulf Stream’ and weaken that temperature contrast…sea level off the U.S. east coast will actually rise!” explains Mann by e-mail.

This is going to get amazingly ugly.

Never Underestimate the Benefits of Some Good Beaver

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It looks like one the consequences of the California drought is that the state will be aggressively reintroducing beavers to mitigate problems from the current lack of rainfall:

Californians are crossing their fingers for more rain after three punishing years of drought have left streams, rivers and wetland parched.

One animal has the potential to restore these dry landscapes.

With their industrial buck teeth and flat tails, beavers and their dams offer a defense against drought, a solution to reversing the effects of climate change. The rodents are known as ecosystem engineers. And they once populated most of California (and the Bay Area) until fur traders nearly wiped them out in the 19th century,

“This state has lost more of its wetlands than all other states, and beavers can rebuild those wetlands,” said Rick Lanman of the Institute for Historical Ecology in Los Altos. “Knowing that it is native should help guide restoration efforts.”

Beaver dams bestow benefits to the environment that we humans can’t easily copy. They turn land into a sponge for water. Their gnawing and nesting promotes richer soil and slows down water, improving imperiled fish habitat. Their dams raise water tables, nourishing shrubbery alongside streams that stabilize eroding banks and add habitat for birds and deer. They also help the endangered California Red-legged frog.

After beavers move to a new area, at night, they drag a tree across a shallow stream to start a dam. They carry rocks and mud with their paws and branches with their big incisors. Water in these beaver ponds would otherwise flow away. So it’s no surprise that thirsty western states are turning to the furry critters with open arms.

………

Government agencies are hosting a workshop series in a few western states and writing a guide on how to use beavers for restoration. California Fish and Wildlife is starting to embrace the beaver, a shift beaver advocates applaud.

“Our effort now is to show its many sides, sides that have always existed,” said Kevin Shaffer, a fisheries manager for state Fish and Wildlife. “We are investigating how beaver promote habitat and water conservation through their habitat manipulation. We are also creating public and scientific information about the beaver, its ecological role and current regulations and laws affecting its management and conservation.”

In addition to being highly effective, they work without pay.

It’s a win-win.

It’s all Just Weather, Longhair

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A recent dendrochronology study has shown that California’s drought is the worst in at least 1200 years:

Scientists studying the severe drought that has beleaguered California for the past three years estimate that this drought is the worst one in the past 1,200 years. The new estimate comes from data they compiled on tree ring growth and soil moisture. Low (but not unprecedented) precipitation and record high temperatures are the main factors driving this drought, the scientists say. An online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters published this work on December 3, 2014.

It should be noted that the study primarily used the Blue Oak (Quercus douglasii) which are particularly good at showing rainfall, though, 1200 years is a lot longer than the typical life span of this tree.

My guess would be that they used other (probably less accurate) trees, and perhaps some other indicators.

It is not clear from the abstract whether there was a worse drought 1200 years ago, or if it’s just the worst in the 1200 years, and perhaps more.

If it is the former, that drought corresponds to the Mayan collapse, which many (though by no means all) archaeologists attribute (at least in part) to an extended drought.  (The Mayan collapse is a matter of some dispute in academe.)

In either case, the fact that this drought is worse than 300 year long drought that destroyed Anasazi civilization between 1150 and 1450. 

What is going on here is, to use the technical term, seriously weird climate sh%$, and it requires willful ignorance not to consider anthropogenic climate change as a primary factor.

Global Warming is Clearly a Hoax

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Looks like the Iditerod

 
Still looks like the Iditerod

 
OK, not so much


It appears that they are holding the Iditerod in Arizona

It appears that the Iditarod sled dog race is missing a crucial element, snow:

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is the most popular sporting event in Alaska, and has long been a test of human and animal endurance. Traveling a 1,000-mile path across Arctic tundra from Willow to Nome (with a ceremonial start in Anchorage), mushers and their teams of 16 specially-trained dogs must withstand some of the most extreme winter weather on Earth: blizzards and whiteout conditions, along with freezing temperatures, are commonplace.

The major challenge that mushers had to contend with this year — and that forced many of the more experienced racers out of the event — was not unusual cold and snow. In fact, it was the opposite — a near total lack of snow with ice covering across large stretches of the course. Mushing over snow cover across steep, rugged terrain is difficult enough, but the sleds were not designed for traversing gravel.

I actually saw the opening of the Iditerod in 1968, and the idea that there would be no snow was completely incomprehensible.

In fact, my enduring memory of that day is to walk into a f%$#ing igloo, and thinking how warm it was in there. (There was a sort of a fair at the beginning of the race.)

It was the first time that I was on a (pretty lame, actually) roller coaster.

The two things that I remember are the roller coaster and the start of the Iditerod.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

We Are Completely F%$#ed

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Three weeks ago, I wrote how warming in the Arctic is producing massive methane plumes as the methane hydrate on the ocean floor melts, well it’s also happening off the East Coast of the United States:

Plumes of bubbles streaming from hundreds of newly discovered sea-floor seeps between North Carolina and Massachusetts are likely to contain methane and could be adding as much as 90 tonnes of the planet-warming gas to the atmosphere or overlying waters each year, research published Sunday in Nature Geoscience suggests.


An estimated two-thirds of the emissions emanate from sediments at depths where methane-rich ices may be decomposing due to warming waters along the ocean bottom, the researchers say. Effects of these plumes on climate and ocean chemistry are not yet clear, but could extend well beyond the plumes themselves.

………

However, many of the sources along the continental slope lie at cold depths in which ices have formed at high pressures within sea-floor sediments, which once trapped methane produced by microbes living there. These ices may now be slowly breaking down because of the warming of overlying waters, says Skarke. At least one previous study2 has hinted that warming waters are destabilizing methane-rich ices at moderate depths farther south along the US Atlantic coast.

This is end of the world stuff.

Seriously.

We Are Unbelievably Screwed

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If the report of massive plums of methane developing is both true, and a new phenomena driven by anthropogenic climate change, then we are already on the far side of of this disaster, and we have gone from prevention to mitigation:

This week, scientists made a disturbing discovery in the Arctic Ocean: They saw “vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor,” as the Stockholm University put it in a release disclosing the observations. The plume of methane—a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat more powerfully than carbon dioxide, the chief driver of climate change—was unsettling to the scientists.

But it was even more unnerving to Dr. Jason Box, a widely published climatologist who had been following the expedition. As I was digging into the new development, I stumbled upon his tweet, which, coming from a scientist, was downright chilling:

If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we’re f’d.
— Jason Box (@climate_ice) July 29, 2014


Box, who is currently a professor of glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, has been studying the Arctic for decades. His accolade-packed Wikipedia page notes that he’s made some 20 expeditions to the Arctic since 1994, and served as the lead author on the Greenland section of NOAA’s State of the Climate report from 2008-2012. He also runs the Dark Snow project and writes about the latest findings in the field at his blog, Meltfactor.

………

“We are ‘sniffing’ methane,” Ulf Hedman, the science coordinator of the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, wrote in a post highlighted by Climate Change SOS. “We see the bubbles on video from the camera mounted on the CTD or the Multicorer. All analysis tells the signs. We are in a Mega flare. We see it in the water column, we read it above the surface, and we follow it up high into the sky with radars and lasers. We see it mixed in the air and carried away with the winds. Methane in the air.”

“Methane is more than 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping infrared as part of the natural greenhouse effect,” Box said. “Methane getting to the surface—that’s potent stuff.”

It’s especially worrying because the Arctic is warming faster than nearly anywhere else on Earth. Now, along with melting sea ice and thawing permafrost, we have to add to our list of ‘feedback loop’ concerns that warming Arctic oceans may be releasing fonts of methane. That is, the warmer the ocean gets, the more methane gets spewed out of those stores on the continental shelf, and the warmer the ocean gets, ad infinitum.

We need to get beyond the denials being driven by people who hate Al Gore and people who are making too much money on fossil fuels to allow for meaningful action to be taken, and we need to do it now.

H/t Crooks and Liars.

Why You Should Not Give Money to the Red Cross

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Even if you ignore their blood products profiteering which killed a significant portion of the Hemophiliacs in the United States under Liddy Dole, you have their routine and brazen profiteering in the event of major disasters:

Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?

The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a “trade secret.”

The Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it’s not clear yet how much since the documents haven’t yet been released.

As we’ve reported, the Red Cross releases few details about how it spends money after big disasters. That makes it difficult to figure out whether donor dollars are well spent.

The Red Cross did give some information about Sandy spending to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who had been investigating the charity. But the Red Cross declined our request to disclose the details.

So we filed a public records request for the information the Red Cross provided to the attorney general’s office.

 That’s where the law firm Gibson Dunn comes in.

 An attorney from the firm’s New York office appealed to the attorney general to block disclosure of some of the Sandy information, citing the state Freedom of Information Law’s Trade Secret Exemption.

 The documents include “internal and proprietary methodology and procedures for fundraising, confidential information about its internal operations, and confidential financial information,” wrote Gabrielle Levin of Gibson Dunn in a letter to the attorney general’s office.

If those details were disclosed, “the American Red Cross would suffer competitive harm because its competitors would be able to mimic the American Red Cross’s business model for an increased competitive advantage,” Levin wrote.

(emphasis mine)

Trade Secret Exemption?  Proprietary Methodology?  Competitive Harm?  Business model?  Competitive Advantage?

Seriously?

You are asking us to give you money on the vague promise that you won’t blow it all on salaries and severance packages for senior executives (and, you know, give thousands of Hemophiliacs AIDS ……… Oops, too late on that one).

The American Red Cross, and the Susan G. Komen foundations are not charities should be our first choices for donations.