Author: postMigrator

The Future of Forests

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This week’s issue of Science is a special issue on forests.
Here’s an overview of the many articles  in it.
Lance

Science 13 June 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5882, p. 1435

Introduction to special issue
The Future of Forests
Andrew Sugden, Jesse Smith, Elizabeth Pennisi

Forests have had a pervasive influence on the evolution of
terrestrial life and continue to provide important feedbacks to the
physical environment, notably climate. Today, studies of the world’s
forests are taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented change,
largely resulting either directly or indirectly from human activity.
In this special issue, we focus particularly on the future of forests
in light of these changes.

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Greenland Ice Melting Fast

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U of Alaska news release:
http://www.alaska.edu/ipy/press/stories/mernild.xml
June 11, 2008

Freshwater runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet will more than double
by the end of the century

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2008

The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting faster than previously calculated
according to a scientific paper by University of Alaska Fairbanks
researcher Sebastian H. Mernild published recently in the journal
“Hydrological Processes.”

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Climate Policy: Too Little, Too Late?

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A reviewer at Real Climate (briefly) pooh-poohed
Six Degrees, the recent book by Mark Lynas,
author of the op-ed  below.  Lynas  emailed the
reviewer with questions.  The reviewer then read
(or re-read?)  Lynas’ book, and retracted the
dismissal in a subsequent Real Climate posting,
saying that Lynas’ Six Degrees is actually very
well-based on the available science.

Unfortunately, most climate policy under current
consideration still isn’t. Below, Lynas looks at
the still-popular Kyoto-based model as one of 3
policy options that merit examination, and
question.
Lance

———————————————————
” … conventional wisdom from governments and
environmental groups alike insists that ‘Kyoto is
the only game in town’, and that proposing any
alternative is dangerous heresy.”

“If current policy continues to fail – along the
lines of the “agree and ignore” scenario – then
50% to 80% of all species on earth could be
driven to extinction by the magnitude and
rapidity of warming, and much of the planet’s
surface leftuninhabitable to humans. Billions,
not millions, of people would be displaced.”
——————————————

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