Category: RT Newswire

For years now, skeptics have tried to blame all global heating on variations in solar output. And, yes, fluctuations of solar output can make a real difference.

But the real story here is that we’ve made increases in solar output more dangerous than ever before because, now, they will come in addition to heating that we’ve forced upon ourselves by our consumption of fossil fuels and forests.

Lance Olsen

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University of Colorado at Boulder
Public release date: 13-Nov-2007

Satellite shows regional variation in warming from sun during solar cycle

SORCE satellite.

A NASA satellite designed, built and controlled by the University of Colorado at Boulder is expected to help scientists resolve wide-ranging predictions about the coming solar cycle peak in 2012 and its influence on Earth’s warming climate, according to the chief scientist on the project.

Senior Research Associate Tom Woods of CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics said the brightening of the sun as it approaches its next solar cycle maximum will have regional climatic impacts on Earth. While some scientists predict the next solar cycle–expected to start in 2008–will be significantly weaker than the present one, others are forecasting an increase of up to 40 percent in the sun’s activity, said Woods.

Woods is the principal investigator on NASA’s $88 million Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment, or SORCE, mission, launched in 2003 to study how and why variations in the sun affect Earth’s atmosphere and climate. In August, NASA extended the SORCE mission through 2012. The extension provides roughly $18 million to LASP, which controls SORCE from campus by uploading commands and downloading data three times daily to the Space Technology Building in the CU Research Park.

Solar cycles, which span an average of 11 years, are driven by the amount and size of sunspots present on the sun’s surface, which modulate brightness from the X-ray to infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The current solar cycle peaked in 2002.

Solar activity alters interactions between Earth’s surface and its atmosphere, which drive global circulation patterns, said Woods. While warming on Earth from increased solar brightness is modest compared to the natural effects of volcanic eruptions, cyclical weather patterns like El Nino or human emissions of greenhouse gases, regional temperature changes can vary by a factor of eight.

During the most recent solar maximum, for example, the global mean temperature rise on Earth due to solar-brightness increases was only about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit, said Woods. But parts of the central United States warmed by 0.7 degrees F, and a region off the coast of California even cooled slightly. A paper on the coming decade of solar activity by Woods and Judith Lean of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., was published online Oct. 30 in the scientific newsletter, Eos.

“It was very important to the climate change community that SORCE was extended, because it allows us to continue charting the solar irradiance record in a number of wavelengths without interruption,” Woods said. “Even relatively small changes in solar output can significantly affect Earth because of the amplifying affect in how the atmosphere responds to solar changes.”

With mounting concern over the alteration of Earth’s surface and atmosphere by humans, it is increasingly important to understand natural “forcings” on the sun-Earth system that impact both climate and space weather, said Woods. Such natural forcing includes heat from the sun’s radiation that causes saltwater and freshwater evaporation and drives Earth’s water cycle.

Increases in UV radiation from the sun also heat up the stratosphere–located from 10 miles to 30 miles above Earth–which can cause significant changes in atmospheric circulation patterns over the planet, affecting Earth’s weather and climate, he said. “We will never fully understand the human impact on Earth and its atmosphere unless we first establish the natural effects of solar variability.”

SORCE also is helping scientists better understand violent space weather episodes triggered by solar flares and coronal mass ejections that affect the upper atmosphere and are more prevalent in solar maximum and declining solar cycle phases, said Woods. The severe “Halloween Storms” in October and November 2003 disrupted GPS navigation and communications, causing extensive and costly rerouting of commercial “over-the-poles” jet flights to lower latitudes, he said.

Woods also is the principal investigator on a $30 million instrument known as the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE, one of three solar instruments slated for launch on NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory in December 2008. Designed and built at LASP and delivered to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland last September, EVE will measure precise changes in the sun’s UV brightness, providing space weather forecasters with early warnings of potential communications and navigation outages.

About one-third of the annual SORCE budget goes for commanding and controlling the satellite, roughly one-third for producing public data sets and one-third for analyzing how and why the sun is changing, he said. “CU-Boulder students are our lifeblood,” said Woods. “They are involved in all aspects of the SORCE mission, from uploading commands to the spacecraft to analyzing data.”

###

A podcast on SORCE featuring Woods can be accessed on the Web at:

http://www.colorado.edu/news/podcasts/.

For more information on SORCE, visit the Web at:

http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news_letter.html.
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Scientific American
October 26, 2007

The World Is Not Enough for Humans

Humanity’s environmental impact has reached an unprecedented scope,
and it’s getting worse.

Since 1987 annual emissions of carbon dioxide-the leading greenhouse
gas warming the globe-have risen by a third, global fishing yields
have declined by 10.6 million metric tons and the amount of land
required to sustain humanity has swelled to more than 54 acres (22
hectares) per person. Yet, Earth can provide only roughly 39 acres
(15 hectares) for every person living today, according to the United
Nation’s Environmental Program’s (UNEP) Global Environment Outlook,
released this week. “There are no major issues,” the report’s authors
write of the period since their first report in 1987, “for which the
foreseeable trends are favorable.”

Despite some successes-such as the Montreal Protocol’s 95 percent
reduction in chemicals that damage the atmosphere’s ozone layer and a
rise in protected reserves of habitat to cover 12 percent of the
planet-humanity’s impact continues to grow. For example:

Biodiversity-The planet is in the grips of the sixth great extinction
in its 4.5-billion-year history, this one largely man-made. Species
are becoming extinct 100 times faster than the average rate in the
fossil record. More than 30 percent of amphibians, 12 percent of
birds and 23 percent of our own class, mammals, are threatened.

Climate-Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit
(0.76 degree Celsius) over the past century and could increase as
much as 8.1 degrees F (4.5 degrees C) over the next unless “drastic”
steps are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from, primarily,
burning fossil fuels. Developed countries will need to reduce this
globe-warming pollution by 60 to 80 percent by mid-century to stave
off dire consequences, the report warns. “Fundamental changes in
social and economic structures, including lifestyle changes, are
crucial if rapid progress is to be achieved.”

Food-The amount of food grown per acre has reached one metric ton,
but such increasing intensity is also driving rapid desertification
of formerly arable land as well as reliance on chemical pesticides
and fertilizers. In fact, four billion out of the world’s 6.5 billion
people could not get enough food to eat without such fertilization.
Continuing population growth paired with a shift toward eating more
meat leads the UNEP to predict that food demand may more than triple.

Water-One in 10 of the world’s major rivers, including the Colorado
and the Rio Grande in the U.S., fail to reach the sea for at least
part of the year, due to demand for water. And that demand is rising;
by 2025, the report predicts, demand for fresh water will rise by 50
percent in the developing world and 18 percent in industrialized
countries. At the same time, human activity is polluting existing
fresh waters with everything from fertilizer runoff to
pharmaceuticals and climate change is shrinking the glaciers that
provide drinking water for nearly one third of humanity. “The
escalating burden of water demand,” the report says, “will become
intolerable in water-scarce countries.”

The authors-388 scientists reviewed by roughly 1,000 of their
peers-view the report as “an urgent call for action” and decry the
“woefully inadequate” global response to problems such as climate
change. “The amount of resources needed to sustain [humanity] exceeds
what is available,” the report declares.

“The systematic destruction of the earth’s natural and nature-based
resources has reached a point where the economic viability of
economies is being challenged,” Achim Steiner, UNEP’s executive
director, said in a statement. “The bill we hand our children may
prove impossible to pay.”

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The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
November 14, 2007

Vital facts ‘deleted’ from UN report on climate change
By Charles Clover, London

A MAJOR United Nations report on climate change has been watered down
as a result of influence from government officials from countries
opposed to taking radical action, conservation group WWF claims.

It says “vital facts” have been cut from the report’s summary,
including a warning of more destructive hurricanes, the warming of
the upper Pacific Ocean and the loss of glaciers in the European Alps.

The group fears that the report will play down the need for deep cuts
in emissions.

The report, which will be released on Saturday, will say that almost
a third of the world’s species will face extinction if greenhouse gas
emissions continue to rise.

A draft copy of the report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) also warns that if temperatures rise by more
than two degrees – now expected before 2050 – 20 per cent of the
world’s population will face a great risk of drought.

With that level of temperature rise, other parts of the world will
face increased flood risk from rainfall and there will be a decrease
in cereal harvests in some regions.

There will also be a rise in flooding, particularly around deltas in
China and Bangladesh and low Pacific islands.

The report is the focus of talks between the UN panel and government
delegations at a meeting in Valencia, Spain, before next month’s
UN-sponsored meeting in Bali that will start negotiations on a new
climate change treaty.

It was compiled by the UN panel of 2500 climate change scientists,
which this year won the Nobel peace prize with the former US
vice-president Al Gore.

It says that most of the increase in global average temperatures
since the mid-20th century is “very likely” to be the result of
greenhouse gas emissions.

Otherwise, global temperatures might have been expected to decrease.

The scientists will say it is possible to halt global warming if the
world’s greenhouse gas emissions start to decline before 2015.

This is highly unlikely. Emissions are projected to increase by up to
90 per cent by 2030 on present estimates, according to the report.

The study will warn that if emissions continue to rise without action
being taken until 2050, then global average temperatures would rise
by up to five degrees.

Such an average rise would cause “significant extinctions” around the
world, a decrease in cereal harvests everywhere and the flooding of
about 30 per cent of coastal wetlands.

The chairman of the Nobel prize-winning IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri,
called the Valencia meeting a watershed for the group.

Mr Pachauri said the UN panel scientists were determined to “adhere
to standards of quality” in the fourth and final report to be issued
this year.

The comment was an indirect barb at the political delegations, which
environmentalists have accused of watering down and excluding vital
information from the summaries of earlier reports to fit their own
domestic agendas.

The WWF claims that the report will also not contain worrying
evidence published in the past year that the Southern Ocean has
started to take up less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,
accelerating the pace of global warming.

TELEGRAPH, AP
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MASSIVE FOREST DIEBACK

ALLEN, CRAIG D.
U.S. Geological Survey, Jemez Mountains Field Station, Los Alamos, NM 87544

In coming decades, climate changes are expected to produce large shifts in vegetation distributions, largely due to mortality. However, most field studies and model-based assessments of vegetation responses to climate have focused on changes associated with natality and growth, which are inherently slow processes for woody plants-even though the most rapid changes in vegetation are caused by mortality rather than natality. This talk reviews the sensitivity of western montane forests to massive dieback, including drought-induced tree mortality and related insect outbreaks. This overview illustrates the potential for widespread and rapid forest dieback, and associated ecosystem effects, due to anticipated global climate change.

Climate is a key determinant of vegetation patterns at landscape and regional spatial scales. Precipitation variability, including recurrent drought conditions, has typified the climate of the Mountain West for at least thousands of years (Sheppard et al. 2002).

Dendrochronological studies and historical reports show that past droughts have caused extensive vegetation mortality across this region, e.g., as documented in the American Southwest for severe droughts in the 1580s, 1890s to early 1900s, 1950s, and the current drought since 1996 (Swetnam and Betancourt 1998, Allen and Breshears 1998 and in press). Drought stress is documented to lead to dieback in many woody plant species in the West, including spruce (Picea spp.), fir (Abies spp.), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii.), pines (Pinus spp.), junipers (Juniperus spp.), oaks (Quercus spp.), mesquite (Prosopis spp.), manzanitas (Arctostaphylos spp.), and paloverdes (Cercidium spp.).

Drought-induced tree mortality exhibits a variety of nonlinear ecological dynamics. Tree mortality occurs when drought conditions cause threshold levels of plant water stress to be exceeded, which can result in tree death by loss of within-stem hydraulic conductivity (Allen and Breshears-in press). Also, herbivorous insect populations can rapidly build up to outbreak levels in response to increased food availability from drought-weakened host trees, such as the various bark beetle species (e.g. Dendroctonus, Ips, and Scolytus spp.) that attack forest trees (Furniss and Carolin 1977). As bark beetle populations build up they become increasingly successful in killing drought-weakened trees through mass attacks (Figure 1), with positive feedbacks for further explosive growth in beetle numbers which can result in nonlinear ecological interactions and complex spatial dynamics (cf. Logan and Powell 2001, Bjornstad et al. 2002). Bark beetles also selectively kill larger and low-vigor trees, truncating the size and age distributions of host species (Swetnam and Betancourt 1998).

The temporal and spatial patterns of drought-induced tree mortality also reflect non-linear dynamics. Through time mortality is usually at lower background levels, punctuated by large pulses of high tree death when threshold drought conditions are exceeded (Swetnam and Betancourt 1998, Allen and Breshears-in press). The spatial pattern of drought-induced dieback often reveals preferential mortality along the drier, lower fringes of tree species distributions in western mountain ranges. For example, the 1950s drought caused a rapid, drought-induced ecotone shift on the east flank of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico, USA (Allen and Breshears 1998). A time sequence of aerial photographs shows that the ecotone between semiarid ponderosa pine forest and piñon-juniper woodland shifted upslope extensively (2 km or more) and rapidly (< 5 years) due to the death of most ponderosa pine across the lower fringes of that forest type (Figure 1). This vegetation shift has been persistent since the 1950s, as little ponderosa pine reestablishment has occurred in the ecotone shift zone. Severe droughts also markedly reduce the productivity and cover of herbaceous plants like grasses. Such reductions in ground cover can trigger nonlinear increases in erosion rates once bare soil cover exceeds critical threshold values (Davenport et al. 1998, Wilcox et al. 2003). For example, in concert with historic land use practices (livestock grazing and fire suppression), the 1950s drought apparently initiated persistent increases in soil erosion in piñon-juniper woodland sites in the eastern Jemez Mountains that require management intervention to reverse (Sydoriak et al. 2000). Thus, a short- duration climatic event apparently brought about persistent changes in multiple ecosystem properties. Over the past decade, many portions of the Western US have been subject to significant drought, with associated increases in tree mortality evident. GIS compilations of US Forest Service aerial surveys of insect-related forest dieback since 1997 show widespread mortality in many areas. For example the cumulative effect of multi-year drought since 1996 in the Southwest has resulted in the emergence of extensive bark beetle outbreaks and tree mortality across the region. In the Four Corners area piñon (Pinus edulis) has been particularly hard hit since 2002, with mortality exceeding 90% of mature individuals across broad areas (Figure 1), shifting stand compositions strongly toward juniper dominance. Across the montane forests of the West substantial dieback has been recently observed in many tree species, including Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmanni), Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), ponderosa pine, piñon, junipers, and even aspen (Populus tremuloides). A number of major scientific uncertainties are associated with forest dieback phenomena. Quantitative knowledge of the thresholds of mortality for various tree species is a key knowledge gap-we basically don't know how much climatic stress forests can withstand before massive dieback kicks in. Thus the scientific community currently cannot accurately model forest dieback in response to projected climate changes, nor assess associated ecological and societal effects. More research is needed to determine if warm minimum temperatures over the past decade+ are exacerbating the effects of droughts and insects on tree mortality, as: 1) warmer temperatures result in greater plant water stress for a given amount of water availability; and 2) relaxation of low temperature constraints on insect population distributions and generation times may be allowing more extensive and rapid buildup of outbreak population levels. It is thought that substantial and widespread increases in tree densities in many forests and woodlands as a result of more than 100 years of fire suppression also contributes to current patterns of mortality, due to competitive increases in tree water stress and susceptibility to beetle attacks; however, more research is needed on the effectiveness of mechanical thinning and prescribed burning as protective management approaches. Substantial uncertainties exist about the relationship between massive forest dieback and fire behavior. Although severe (crown) fire activity has apparently increased in some overdense forest types in the West, in some areas forest dieback is reducing the vertical and horizontal continuity of a key crown fire fuel component (live needles in tree crowns) as needles drop from dead tress, and that reductions in the spatial extent of uncontrollable crown fires may result. Feedbacks between forest dieback and fire activity (ignition probabilities, rate of spread, severity, controllability) need more work. Recent examples of massive forest dieback illustrate that even relatively brief climatic events (e.g., droughts) associated with natural climate variability can have profound and persistent ecosystem effects. The unprecedentedly rapid climate changes expected in coming decades could produce rapid and extensive contractions in the geographic distributions of long-lived woody species in association with changes in patterns of disturbance (fire, insect outbreaks, soil erosion) (IPCC 2001, Allen and Breshears 1998). Because regional droughts of even greater magnitude and longer duration than the 1950s drought are expected as global warming progresses (Easterling et al. 2001, IPCC 2001), the scale of forest dieback associated with global climate change (Figure 3) could become even greater than what has been observed in recent years (National Research Council 2001). Since mortality-induced vegetation shifts take place more rapidly than do natality-induced shifts associated with plant establishment and migration (Allen and Breshears-in review), dieback could easily outpace new forest growth for a period of years to decades in many areas. Further, as woody vegetation contains the bulk of the world's terrestrial carbon, an improved understanding of mortality-induced responses of woody vegetation to climate is essential for addressing some key environmental and policy implications of climate variability and global change (Breshears and Allen 2002). Thus it is important to more accurately incorporate climate-induced vegetation mortality and the complexity of associated ecosystem responses (e.g., insect outbreaks, fires, soil erosion, and changes in carbon pools) into models that predict vegetation dynamics. References Cited Allen, C.D., and D.D. Breshears. 1998. Drought-induced shift of a forest/woodland ecotone: rapid landscape response to climate variation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 95:14839-14842. Allen, C.D., and D.D. Breshears. (In press). Drought, tree mortality, and landscape change in the Southwestern United States: Historical dynamics, plant-water relations, and global change implications. In J.L. Betancourt and H.F. Diaz (eds.), The 1950's Drought in the American Southwest: Hydrological, Ecological, and Socioeconomic Impacts. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Bjornstad, O.N., M. Peltonen, A.M. Liebhold, and W. Baltensweiler. 2002. Waves of larch budmoth outbreaks in the European Alps. Science 298:1020-1023. Breshears, D.D., and C.D. Allen. 2002. The importance of rapid, disturbance-induced losses in carbon management and sequestration. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 11:1-15. Davenport, D.W., D.D. Breshears, B.P. Wilcox, and C.D. Allen.1998. Viewpoint: Sustainability of piñon- juniper ecosystems-A unifying perspective of soil erosion thresholds. J. Range Management 51(2):229-238. Easterling, D.R., G.A. Meehl, C. Parmesan, S.A. Changnon, T.R. Karl, and L.O. Mearns. 2000. Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. Science, 289, 2068-2074. Furniss, R.L., and V.M. Carolin. 1980. Western Forest Insects. USDA For. Serv. Misc. Publ. No. 1339. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. IPCC 2001-a. Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report. A Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Watson, R.R. and the Core Writing Team (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 398 pp. Logan, J. A., and J. A. Powell. 2001. Ghost forests, global warming, and the mountain pine beetle. American Entomologist. 47: 160-173 National Research Council. 2001. Chapter 5-Economic and Ecological Impacts of Abrupt Climate Change, pp. 90-117 In: Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises. Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, Ocean Studies Board, Polar Research Board, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council. Washington, D.C. Sheppard, P.R., A.C. Comrie, G.C. Packin, K Angersbach, and M.K. Hughes. 2002. The climate of the US Southwest. Climate Research 21:219-238. Swetnam, T.W. and J.L. Betancourt. 1998. Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. Journal of Climate 11: 3128-3147. Sydoriak, C.A., C.D. Allen, and B.F. Jacobs. 2000. Would ecological landscape restoration make the Bandelier Wilderness more or less of a wilderness? Pp. 209-215 In: D.N. Cole, S.F. McCool, W.T. Borrie, and F. O'Loughlin (comps.). Proceedings: Wilderness Science in a Time of Change Conference-Volume 5: Wilderness Ecosystems, Threats, and Management; 1999 May 23-27; Missoula, MT. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Proceedings RMRS-P-15-VOL-5. Ogden, UT. Wilcox, B.P., D.D. Breshears, and C.D. Allen. 2003. Ecohydrology of a resource-conserving semiarid woodland: Temporal and spatial scaling and disturbance. Ecological Monographs 73(2):223-239. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) "The ability to move, at some stage in the life cycle, is fundamental to success in life." Andrew Sugden and Elizabeth Pennisi SCIENCE VOL 313 11 AUGUST 2006 2) "Animals have no choice but to move, since their survival is at stake. Studies of more than 1,000 species of plants, animals, and insects, found an average migration rate toward the North and South Poles of about four miles per decade in the second half of the 20th century. That is not fast enough. During the past 30 years the lines marking the regions in which a given average temperature prevails, or isotherms, have moved poleward at a rate of about 35 miles per decade. "As long as the total movement of isotherms toward the poles is much smaller than the size of the habitat, or the ranges in which the animals live, the effect on species is limited. But now the movement is inexorably toward the poles, totaling more than 100 miles in recent decades. If emissions of greenhouse gases continue to increase at the current rate -- "business as usual" -- then the rate of isotherm movement will double during this century to at least 70 miles per decade. If we continue on this path, a large fraction of the species on Earth, as many as 50 percent or more, may become extinct." James Hansen 19 October 2006 The Planet in Peril - Part I http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=8305 3) "Each 1 degree C of global warming will shift temperature zones by about 160 km (100 miles). In the northern hemisphere this means that if the climate warms 3°C, species may have to shift northward as much as 500 km (300 miles) in order to find suitable habitat under the new climatic regime." "Global warming may make a mockery of our attempts in all nature reserves, including Glacier National Park, to preserve natural communities and rare, threatened, and endangered native species." "Perhaps many of Glacier's species will be able to survive farther north, in the Banff-Jasper area. Protection of corridors linking the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, and parks in the Canadian Rockies may provide critical avenues for species dispersal." Glacier National Park Biodiversity Paper #7 http://www.nps.gov/glac/resources/bio7.htm 4) In its "Managing Mountain Parks," the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization says, "The major challenges for the twenty-first century" include this one: "To link together the isolated existing mountain protected areas by conservation corridors along the mountain ranges. This not only increases effective size, but provides migration corridors for gene flow and species movement. As the climate changes, poleward migration corridors in north-south ranges (e.g. the Andes) will better accommodate temperature change, and migration along the east-west ranges (e.g. the Western Tien Shan) will be a response to rainfall changes. full FAO report at: http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/x0963E/x0963e06.htm 5) The United Nations Environmental Programme stresses the same basic point: "Forest management responses to climate change should focus on maintaining species diversity on national or continental scales through facilitating the processes of species migration, rather than by solely preserving specific reserves." full UNEP report at: http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/flux/executive_summary.htm