Category: RT Newswire

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 16, 2008  2:20 PM

CONTACT: Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
Aaron Huertas, 202-331-5458

Federal Science Agencies Release Annual Temperature Data, Highlighting Urgent Need for Action on Global Warming

WASHINGTON-December 16. Two leading federal climate science agencies-the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-today released temperature data, which indicate that 2008 is on track to be one of the 10 warmest years on record globally. Overall, the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997.

Below is a statement from climate scientist Melanie Fitzpatrick at the Union of Concerned Scientists:

“This year’s data show that global warming continues to increase our climate’s baseline temperature. Even some moderate cooling effects from cyclical weather patterns in the Pacific Ocean failed to dampen the impact global warming had this year. Heat-trapping emissions from human activity have caused most of the increase in global average temperature since the middle of the twentieth century.

“Both ocean and land temperatures in Earth’s Arctic polar region continue to warm more quickly than the rest of the planet. The record decrease in Arctic sea ice seen each summer is a canary in the coal mine. This year, it shrunk to its second-lowest extent ever recorded.

“The incoming U.S. administration and Congress have committed to policies that would reduce emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming. The scientific evidence shows that the window of opportunity to act is still open, but that further delay will only lead to excessive warming.”

For data from the National Aeronautic and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, go to: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/.

For data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climate Data Center, go to: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20081216_climatestats.html.

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” … major changes are sweeping the Arctic, researchers say.”

“Five years ago, I was not sure it’s very serious, but now I’m
sure something is going on and we should warn people,” says
Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks…”
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Nature
Published online 17 December 2008
doi:10.1038/news.2008.1314

News

Arctic warming spurs record melting

Greenland and Siberia see rapid changes.

Rich Monastersky

Record melting in northern Greenland and the
widespread release of methane gas from formerly
frozen deposits off the Siberian coast suggest
that major changes are sweeping the Arctic,
researchers say.

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This is almost ridiculous enough to be funny.

ASW

Business Week
December 15, 2008

Algeria’s Carbon-Capture Experiment
A venture by Algeria’s Sonatrach, BP, and
Norway’s Statoil to strip CO2 out of natural gas
and store it underground could help cut emissions

By Stanley Reed

About 700 miles south of Algiers, the capital of
Algeria, a monumental assemblage of pipes and
cylinders rises from the bleak Sahara Desert. Not
far away is a small airstrip and helicopter pad.
And in a compound down the road, surrounded by a
thick stand of trees to break the whistling
winds, there are dormitories, tennis courts, even
a mess hall, where a crew of chefs whips up
hearty meals including lobster pie and potato
tarts for several hundred people.

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“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), … has suggested greenhouse gas emission
cuts … to avoid a 2°Celsius increase in global
temperature. …. An increase of this magnitude
is expected to destroy 30 percent to 40 percent
of all known species, generate bigger, fiercer
and more frequent heat waves and droughts, and
more intense weather events like floods and
cyclones.”
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The material contained on www.IRINnews.org comes
to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and
information service, but may not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations or its
agencies.

JOHANNESBURG, 15 December 2008 (IRIN) – Maldives,
an archipelago off the southeastern coast of
India, told the climate change conference in
Poznan, Poland, that even a 2°C rise in
temperature would take the world into the “danger
zone” of irreversible climate change.

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