ROCKY REX'S SCIENCE BITES

Scientists have   observed an increase in carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect   at the Earth’s surface for the first time.   These graphs show carbon dioxide’s increasing greenhouse effect at two locations on the Earth’s surface.  The first graph shows CO 2  radiative forcing measurements obtained at a research facility in  Oklahoma .  The second graph shows similar upward trends at a research facility on the North Slope of  Alaska . (Credit: Berkeley Lab) The researchers link this upward trend to rising CO 2  levels from fossil fuel emissions. Radiative forcing is a measure of how much the planet’s energy balance is altered by atmospheric changes.  Positive radiative forcing occurs when the Earth absorbs more energy from solar radiation than it emits as heat radiation back to space. “We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO 2  in the at...

The year  2014  ranks as Earth’s warmest since records began in 1880. This is reported by scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 9 of the 10 warmest years in the  instrumental record have now occurred since the year 2000. The exception was 1998, which was affected by a very strong  El Nino  event. That means nobody born since 1976 has experienced a colder-than-average year. 2014 was not even affected by an  El Nino,  which has been the case for previous record years. For a more complete picture of 2014, there is a detailed report:   State of the Climate 2014.

Burning  fossil fuels  produces  carbon dioxide . Carbon dioxide emissions  need to be limited.   However, the potential carbon dioxide emissions contained in fossil fuel reserves are vast. So   it's not possible for all current fossil fuel reserves to be used,  if the Earth's warming is to be kept below 2 °C.  This huge excess quantity of fossil fuel is sometimes called the  'Carbon Bubble'. However, there are   major objections  even to the "two-degree limit" . Many say the number is simply too high. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has  pointed out   that a two-degree global average rise might result in Africa’s temperature rising as much as 3.5 degrees—a potentially disastrous change. Various scientific research projects have looked at what would happen if all the fossil fuels were burned. One project concluded: The Antarctic Ice Sheet stores water equivalent to 58 metres in global sea-level rise....

The chaotic nature of  weather  makes it unpredictable beyond a few days.  To predict the weather you need to know exactly what is happening in the atmosphere down to the smallest scale.  Climate  is the  average weather pattern  of a region over many years (usually a period of 30 years). Weather forecasts  depend on knowing exactly what is going on in the atmosphere, down to the smallest scales.  Climate forecasts  look for patterns over a longer time.  Will it be generally wetter in winter?   Will there be more heavy downpours? A paper  published in the journal  Science  in August 1981  made several projections regarding future climate change. The projections were rather accurate — and their future is now our present. "Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climate z...

Earth's poles are warming faster than the rest of the planet. One reason is that energy is carried to the poles by large weather systems. The  Arctic   includes an  ocean covered by sea ice . Arctic sea ice  melts in Summer and then refreezes in Winter. The area of Arctic sea ice is largest in March each year, and at its lowest each September. It is reducing over time - the graph comes from the US  National Snow and Ice Data Center. Research suggests   the remarkable decline of   Arctic sea ice over  the last century is far beyond anything seen for a long time.   The  Antarctic  is a  continent covered by ice , unlike the ocean in the Arctic. The sea ice surrounding Antarctica melts almost to the coast each summer. The winter sea ice has increased by around 1 % over the last few decades. This is due to complex processes. It is linked to  melting of the land ice on Antarctica ….. H...

There were some very unusual weather events in 2010, which may be a warning of future effects of climate change. Each time there are  extreme weather events , people debate "Is there a link to climate change?" It might be hard to prove in many cases. Some recent events, however, are extraordinary. The phrase  'weather on steroids'  has been used to describe these events. In 2010,  China  and  Brazil  had serious droughts, and in the first part of the year the Northern Hemisphere warmed fast, melting the winter snow cover very quickly. The picture shows the dried-up  River Negro  in Brazil, with a bridge in the distance.   But the biggest events were  the  heatwave in Russia  and the  flooding in Pakistan . In  Pakistan ,  Government officials said that from  July 28 to Aug. 3, parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province recorded almost  12 feet (3.6 metres) of rainfall  in one week .  ...

Animals  are reacting to climate change very quickly. Some move to higher places,  others move north or south. Dragonflies  love warmer temperatures. UK dragonflies have mainly stayed in the south of the country, until recently. Ruddy Darter ( Sympetrum sanguineum ) Since 1980, 34 out of the 37 British species of dragonfly have expanded their range northwards by an average of 74km. That is over 2km per year..... nearly 6 metres per day. For example, the  ruddy darter  ( Sympetrum sanguineum ) and the  hairy dragonfly , ( Brachytron pratense ), have moved into north-west England.  This is evidence that the UK’s climate is growing warmer. "So much has happened to  dragonflies  in Britain since the 1990s that there is a most compelling case for the Government to adopt them as indicators of climate change", said  Steve Brooks . He is a London Natural History Museum research entomologist, with a special interest in the ...

As global warming continues, heat goes into  all parts of the Earth's systems. The Earth is gaining more heat than it loses, and most of that heat is going into the oceans. More heat is going into the upper parts of  the oceans. The water in the oceans is expanding, which is one reason sea level is rising. The deepest oceans are still cold. Some of the heat is involved in melting ice, including Arctic sea ice. The recent reduction in Arctic sea ice is very dramatic. The  ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica  are also melting.

The climate has changed before. When people say "It's changed before without people, so people can't be involved this time" ....think of  forest fires . Fires happened throughout time, does that mean people can't start fires? Ice ages, warm times ... the geological record in the rocks shows many events. Even so,  the current changes are very unusual . Note that in the "Years before present" scale, zero = 1950 AD Graph based on a  paper  published in 2013 The recent rise in temperature is very fast. What other kinds of changes are happening? Geologists   have compared the past with the present. This report - Climate Change Evidence: The Geological Society of London explains what they have discovered. This is based on part of that report: "Before the current warming trend began, temperatures were declining. This cooling took Earth’s climate into the ‘Little Ice Age’ (1450 – 1850).  Calculations in...

The invention of the name  Greenland  may mark the start of the advertising industry. The Saga of the Greenlanders  tells how  Erik the Red , the Icelandic Viking who wanted to get people to join his planned settlement, called it Greenland because a pleasant name would attract more settlers: He called the land which he had found Greenland, because, quoth he, "people will be attracted thither, if the land has a good name."  The  ice sheet  on Greenland covers most of this huge island. Greenland is losing ice, and the mass of ice lost is measured by satellites called GRACE. A survey of Greenland's glaciers  has shown they are speeding up. The speed has increased by about 30% in 10 years. A new NASA project called  Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG)   will observe changing water temperatures on the continental shelf surrounding Greenland, and how marine glaciers react to the presence of warm, salty Atlantic water. Updates about G...

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for October 2015 was the highest temperature for any October in the 136-year period of record since 1880, at 0.98°C (1.76°F) above the 20 th  century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F), according to NOAA. October 2015 was the sixth consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken. It was also the  greatest departure from average for any month  in the 1630 months of record-keeping (since 1880), surpassing the previous record high departure set just last month by 0.13°F (0.07°C).  The first 10 months of 2015 comprised the warmest such period on record across the world's land and ocean surfaces, at 0.86°C (1.55°F) above the 20 th  century average, surpassing the previous record of 2014 by 0.12°C (0.22°F).  This margin is larger than the uncertainty associated with the dataset.  To date, eight months this year have been record warm for their respective months....

This graph shows how temperatures have changed over the last 11,000 years, since the end of the last  glacial stage . The graph uses data from  modern temperature records , plus information about the past from  a research paper  that combined data from over 70 different scientific studies. The next graph adds data from even further back in time: The  green part  covers the time as  the last  glacial stage  was coming to an end, and the great ice sheets were melting. The last glacial stage ended about 10,000 years ago.  Then, for nearly 5,000 years, global temperature was  surprisingly stable .  In the next 5,000 years, up to about 1800, global temperature  declined  by about 0.7 deg.C. There were  some variations  in that slow decline: From 1800 until 2000, temperature  rose by about 0.8 deg.C,  according to the   World Meteorological Organisation...

In the latest survey by Dr James Powell, 69,402 out of 69,406 climate change researchers accept human activity is the cause of global warming. What do scientists who research climate change say? Professor Tim Palmer FRS, Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics, University of Oxford: “T he threat of dangerous man-made changes to global climate is quite unequivocal.  It follows that if we want to reduce this threat, we must cut our emissions of greenhouse gases." Professor John Shepherd FRS, Ocean & Earth Science, University of Southampton: “The evidence is very clear that the world is warming, and that human activities are the main cause.  Natural changes and fluctuations do occur but they are relatively small." Professor Joanna Haigh CBE FRS, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London: “ The concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere now exceeds anything it has experienced in the past 3 million years and its...