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The rate of global warming is taking scientist by surprise as our planet heats up faster than they had expected.
Arctic Ice melt
Global warming could be worse than thought
Scientists had previously predicted that the summer sea ice would disappear from the Arctic by 2040. But Wadhams' measurements indicate that the thinning was already approaching 50 percent and that the ice could disappear by 2020.
"What's happening to the Earth as a whole is a catastrophe, and the disappearance of Arctic sea ice has got to be one of the first indicators of the catastrophic changes," Wadhams told ITN's Lawrence McGinty. "It's something we can see. We can see it from space - the Arctic pack ice is there, it's white, and soon it won't be there."
If the findings - which were collected by measuring the ice with three-dimensional sonar equipment and assessing water temperature and salt levels - are confirmed, they would represent a significant acceleration of the damaging effects long predicted from global warming.
"Peter's result, and, indeed, other results about how much open water there is in the winter in the Arctic these recent winters - how little multi-year ice there is now, ice that survives several seasons - this is all part of a pattern that suggests things are happening more quickly than we had expected," said Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey.
Full story was at: http://www.nbc6.net/msnbcnews/11621174/detail.html see also The Melbourne Age Sat 22/09/2007 page 18
Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster'
A few years ago, scientists were predicting that Arctic waters would be ice-free in summers by about 2080. Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050. Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980. By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7461707.stm
Global warming risk 'much higher'
Global temperatures will rise further in the future than previous studies have indicated, according to new research from two scientific teams.
They both conclude that current estimates of warming are too low, by anything up to 75%. Their conclusion is backed up by a new report from the Australian government.
The European group calculates that temperature rises in the future have been underestimated by between 15% and 78%;
"We have, in fact, been conservative on several points," said Marten Scheffer from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, leader of the European group. "For instance, we do not account for the greenhouse effect of methane, which is also known to increase in warm periods."
Can climate change get worse? It has
Research, published in a prestigious US science journal, shows that between 2000 and 2004 the rate of increase in global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels was three times greater than in the 1990s. That is faster than even the worst-case scenario modelled by the world's leading scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports
The climbing emissions mean that average global temperatures are now on track to rise by more than four degrees this century - enough to thaw vast areas of arctic permafrost and leave about 3 billion people suffering from water shortages, including in Australia.
Full Story: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/climate-change-bad-to-worse/2007/05/22/1179601340054.html
Arctic ice island breaks in half
The giant Ayles Ice Island drifting off Canada's northern shores has broken in two - far earlier than expected.
In a season of record summer melting in the region, the two chunks have moved rapidly through the water - one of them covering 98km (61 miles) in a week.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7022192.stm
Greenland Ice Melt
The Greenland ice melt could be much faster than previously thought.
http://www.theage.com.au:80/world/greenland-icesheet-could-melt-faster-20080831-46dd.html
Ocean Acidification
“If global emissions of CO2 from human activities continue to rise on current trends, then the average pH of the oceans could fall by 0.5 units by the year 2100. This pH is probably lower than has been experienced for hundreds of millennia and, critically, this rate of change is probably one hundred times grater than at any time over this period.”
- ECOS magazine, CSIRO Publishing April-May 2008 page 18 ‘Acid Oceans’
Sea Level Rise
Sea level rise 'under-estimated'
Current sea level rise projections could be under-estimating the impact of human-induced climate change on the world's oceans, scientists suggest.
By plotting global mean surface temperatures against sea level rise, the team found that levels could rise by 59% more than current forecasts.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6179409.stm
Torres Strait Islands threatened
Read more at: http://www.safecom.org.au/torres-strait-sinking.htm
Pacific island nation of Tuvalu threatened
Read more at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7203313.stm
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