by faster | Sep 28, 2017 | Blog
SOURCE: Washington Post and The Guardian DATE: September 28, 2017 SNIP: A surprising scientific study released Thursday presents troubling news about the enormous forests of the planet’s tropical midsection — suggesting that they are releasing hundreds of millions of tons of carbon to the atmosphere, rather than storing it in the trunks of trees and other vegetation. “The losses due to deforestation and degradation are actually emitting more CO2 to the atmosphere, compared with how much the existing forest is able to absorb,” said Alessandro Baccini, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Woods Hole Research Center. Specifically, the study found that tropical forests are losing 425 million tons of carbon annually, on average, which is the net result after you sum up 861 million tons of losses and 436 million tons of gains as forests grow each year. “Forests are losing more carbon than we thought,” Baccini said. “And one reason they’re losing so much carbon is because there is actually a lot of disturbance in the forest. You don’t have to wait for deforestation. You don’t have to only look for places that completely lost the trees.” This is a far greater loss than previously thought and carries extra force because the data emerges from the most detailed examination of the topic ever undertaken. The authors say their findings – published in the journal Science on Thursday – should galvanise policymakers to take remedial...
by faster | Dec 10, 2016 | Blog
SOURCE: Deutsche Welle DATE: Dec 10, 2016 SNIP: With Trump poised to dismantle US climate action, is this a sign of public burnout on the climate topic? Although European voters have indicated they see climate change as a more important factor in their voting than Americans, a similar trend is present: less importance attached to the climate change issue in the face of more short-term fears – such as terrorism, immigration and perhaps imminent geopolitical conflict. But even as climate change recedes from the spotlight, recent evidence shows that the situation is perhaps even more dire than originally thought: Two alarming new studies released over the past month have scientists worried. This week, the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center revealed that both the Arctic and Antarctic experienced record lows in sea ice extent in November – astonishing scientists who say it is unprecedented for sea ice to retreat at a time when the Arctic enters the coldest, darkest part of the year. The news has policymakers worried as well. “This news from the Arctic might be the start of a tipping point that we must avoid, because this would mean that we as human beings are losing control,” said Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, a Dutch Liberal member of the European Parliament, at an event this week. … Last week, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies revealed alarming new research showing that the long-theorized “feedback loop” of climate change and soil carbon loss is indeed a real phenomenon – meaning that the rate of global temperature could rise much faster than expected. Thomas Crowther, who conducted the research,...
by faster | May 24, 2016 | Blog
SOURCE: DeSmog Canada and Nature Climate Change DATE: May 23, 2016 SNIP: These models simulate, in response to 5 EgC of CO2 emissions, global mean warming of 6.4–9.5 °C, mean Arctic warming of 14.7–19.5 °C, and mean regional precipitation increases by more than a factor of four. These results indicate that the unregulated exploitation of the fossil fuel resource could ultimately result in considerably more profound climate changes than previously suggested. — Nature Climate Change Imagine a world where average temperatures are almost 10 degrees Celsius higher than today, an Arctic with temperatures almost 20 degrees warmer and some regions deluged with four times more rain. That is the dramatic scenario predicted by a team of climate scientists led by the University of Victoria’s Katarzyna Tokarska, who looked at what would happen if the Earth’s remaining untapped fossil fuel reserves are burned. Tokarska, a PhD student at UVic’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, used simulations from climate models looking at the relationship between carbon emissions and warming — including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report — and concluded that known fossil fuel reserves would emit the equivalent of five trillion tonnes of carbon emissions if burned. That would result in average global temperature increases between 6.4 degrees and 9.5 degrees Celsius, with Arctic temperatures warming between 14.7 degrees and 19.5 degrees, says the paper published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. — DeSmog...
