Could a Leaking Ocean Current Keep Europe Toasty?

Now, a new study suggests that the circulation of warm water in the Atlantic may be tougher to disrupt than previously thought. The research, by a team of marine scientists from Europe and the United States, found that “leakage” from a little-studied Indian Ocean current that runs along the east coast of Africa may intensify even as the Gulf Stream weakens, helping keep the northward flow of tropical waters in balance.

And the leakage from the current, known as the Algulhas Current, may already be accelerating because of climate change, the scientists said.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/could-a-leaking-ocean-current-keep-europe-toasty/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Could Japan's tsunami and earthquake affect global warming?

At the present people are talking about limiting the permitting of new nuclear power plants. Some people are talking about shutting down existing plants. There is post incident hysteria occurring that will surely delay and possible take nuclear power out of the solution for global warming. It has been very hard to get permitting to build new plants and this incident may make it impossible. Many people were looking to have nuclear power play a large role in decreasing CO2 and slowing global warming. What would the alternatives be?

There will be many people who will cite renewable power as the source that will give us CO2 free power. Solar cells of semiconductor silicon and cadmium telluride are planned to expand. Wind farms are looked at as an excellent source of electrical energy. Corn and vegetation sources generate more CO2 than they consume in the photosynthesis process. They "net out" a large amount of CO2 that is a greenhouse gas and will lead to global warming. Wind farms, with government subsidies, are a good source of electrical power without the CO2 gas emission. The problem is that all of these sources combined do not come close to filling the demand the world and the USA have for electricity.

Nuclear power was thought to be part of the answer for the large amounts of electricity that will be needed. The question might be: can the world build safer nuclear power plants? Many of the operating plants are considered safe but the incident in Japan is raising new questions and perspectives. Answers and confirmation will need to occur.

http://www.ourmidland.com/opinion/article_47625224-4189-5b4f-83d2-8bcf30e66662.html

Global warming and investment: Business climate adapts to meet Earth's changes

Deutsche Bank's global head of asset management, Kevin Parker, is adamant that investors should be shifting their asset allocation towards funds associated with sustainability. In the Deutsche Bank report, "Investing in Climate Change 2010", Parker says investing in climate change "produces outperformance", adding that the group showed that a 6% allocation to climate change would have outperformed by 0.7% a benchmark portfolio over the previous three to five years.

Mercer, the US-based consulting, outsourcing and investment firm, has created a "TIP Framework" to assess the risk and opportunity climate change has for their clients. The framework estimates the rate of global investment into green technology (T); the costs - in terms of food security and health - of environmental impact (I); and the cost of carbon as a result of global policy (P).

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article1043821.ece/Global-warming-and-investment--Business-climate-adapts-to-meet-Earths-changes

10 Natural Wonders to See Before They Disappear

You've heard the grim timelines: if warming continues, the Great Barrier Reef will be bleached by 2030; glaciers in the Swiss Alps, on Mt. Kilimanjaro, and inGlacier National Park will disappear in under 40 years; and Arctic ice melt will leave the North Pole bare and polar bears extinct. The immediacy of these timelines prompts flocks of curious eco-tourists to travel to environmentally fragile areas. Tourism is both bane and boon: it can add strain to already distressed areas, but it can also provide income, which in turn can help preserve these wonders. In time for Earth Day, we spotlight 10 areas under threat—some lesser known than others—that can still be visited responsibly.

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-39412377

Global warming = More flooding, less salmon habitat predicted for West.

Global warming could increase flooding, shrink salmon habitat and invite in more invasive species in the West, scientists conclude in a sobering new report. Snow will melt sooner, the report predicts. Rain will replace snow altogether in some places. Fisheries will stress out. Surface water will be harder to come by, and groundwater will be drained, as average temperatures rise.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/25/2184907/more-flooding-less-salmon-habitat.html#ixzz1KeTauuOc

Sugarcane seen as global warming weapon

In addition to significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions that otherwise would be emitted from using gasoline, scientists from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology have found that expansion of the sugarcane crop in areas previously occupied by other Brazilian crops cools the local climate.


It accomplishes this by reflecting sunlight back into space and by lowering the temperature of the surrounding air as the plants "exhale" cooler water, a Carnegie release reported Monday.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/04/18/Sugarcane-seen-as-global-warming-weapon/UPI-57981303167617/

A link between Japan’s earthquake and global warming?

You can’t entirely dismiss this point — it’s possible climate change could produce more earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic activity as ice mass on the continental crust shifts. But even the scientists speculating about this admit that these are low-probability outcomes, compared with others that we can predict with more confidence — more high-impact weather events, floods and droughts, for example. So it’s jarring to see warnings about global warming as the disaster in Japan is still developing on its own terms. Ultimately, issuing these warnings so quickly after the earthquake makes environmentalists appear knee-jerk and alarmist.

This enables conservatives to do just what they’ve done since these commentaries emerged this week — use examples of environmentalists’ over-exuberance for the climate cause to undermine the whole argument in favor of action to curb global warming. So this week — one in which that new NASA study showing ice caps disappearing much faster than we had thought should have gotten more attention — Ace of Spades was able to unload this load of unhelpful, dismissive snark on enviros: “This is not the first time earthquakes have been blamed by the Shamanistic, Magical-Thinking Left on the all-purpose Zeus-substitute of global warming.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/a-link-between-japans-earthquake-and-global-warming/2011/03/04/ABA2fGS_blog.html

Parts of the Great Barrier Reef have undergone an aesthetic decline, reflecting the dangers from global warming that the vast, fragile ecosystem faces.

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the world's natural wonders, covering an area larger than Italy and drawing nearly 2 million tourists every year to boat, swim, snorkel and dive amid its elaborate flora and fauna. It generates some $6 billion in revenue for Australia annually and provides employment to more than 50,000 people. It's also one of the planet's most fragile ecosystems, home to more than 11,000 species that live, if not necessarily in harmony, in a carefully orchestrated symbiotic balance. At the foundation of this giant ecological and commercial enterprise is one tiny marine organism: the coral.

That foundation is no longer solid. Corals build colonies that secrete calcium carbonate to form ocean reefs. When they're healthy, coral reefs provide shelter and food for animals all along the food chain, including the top: us. Across the planet, half a billion people rely, directly and indirectly, on corals for their living. That's why what happens to the 9,000-year-old Great Barrier Reef, as well as to other reefs worldwide, is critical. The recent Queensland floods were most notably tragic for the lives lost and property destroyed. But they have also hurt the Great Barrier Reef by funneling into the ocean vast plumes of freshwater and agricultural runoff that could severely damage the coral. Besides the extreme rain that sparked the floods, rising ocean temperatures, changes to the ocean's chemistry and the global trade in natural resources — all symptoms of our fossil-fuel economy — are waging a multifront war on the marine environment. "You can't walk into a forest and start hacking at branches and killing off animals and denuding the forest cover without killing the trees," says Justin Marshall, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland. "The outlook for the whole reef is poor."

More at:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2044585,00.html?xid=rss-mostpopular

Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming?

Scientists from NASA and a number of other institutions have recently been modeling the effects of a war involving a hundred Hiroshima-level bombs, or 0.03 percent of the world's current nuclear arsenal, according to National Geographic. The research suggests five million metric tons of black carbon would be swept up into the lowest portion of the atmosphere. The result, according to NASA climate models, could actually be global cooling.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/26/nuclear-war-global-warming_n_828496.html

Global warming means longer allergy seasons: study ‎

"Latitudinal effects on increasing season length were associated primarily with a delay in first frost of the fall season and lengthening of the frost-free period," the study said. "Overall, these data indicate a significant increase in the length of the ragweed pollen season by as much as 13-27 days at latitudes above 44 degrees north since 1995."

Scientists used pollen measurements from the US National Allergy bureau and Canada's Aerobiology Research Laboratories, combined with data from US weather stations, Environment Canada and the Canadian National Climate Data and Information Archive.

More at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h-sw1E5MXotK5BB3l3ovhlir8xQg?docId=CNG.f6bbc13595f98b74300029280925e216.5d1

For Many Species, No Escape as Temperature Rises

Over the past two decades, an increasing number of settlers who have moved here to farm have impinged on bird habitats and reduced bird populations by cutting down forests and turning grasslands into fields. Now the early effects of global warming and other climate changes have helped send the populations of many local mountain species into a steep downward spiral, from which many experts say they will never recover.

Over the next 100 years, many scientists predict, 20 percent to 30 percent of species could be lost if the temperature rises 3.6 degrees to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. If the most extreme warming predictions are realized, the loss could be over 50 percent, according to the United Nations climate change panel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/science/earth/22kenya.html