6. Is the Atmosphere Really Changing?

Archives of Past Articles for Chapter 6

Findings from Mauna Loa and Beyond - a java applet that uses CO2 concentration monitoring data from around the world with graphing tools built in.

Human-caused Sources of Carbon Dioxide - a flash program that allows exploration of various potential sources of Carbon dioxide.

2010 December 21. A Scientist, His Work, and a Climate Reckoning. By Justin Gillis, NYTimes. Excerpt: MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY, Hawaii — Two gray machines sit inside a pair of utilitarian buildings here, sniffing the fresh breezes that blow across thousands of miles of ocean....
...The first machine of this type was installed on Mauna Loa in the 1950s at the behest of Charles David Keeling, a scientist from San Diego. His resulting discovery, of the increasing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, transformed the scientific understanding of humanity’s relationship with the earth. A graph of his findings is inscribed on a wall in Washington as one of the great achievements of modern science.
Yet, five years after Dr. Keeling’s death, his discovery is a focus not of celebration but of conflict. It has become the touchstone of a worldwide political debate over global warming...

2009 September 11. At AAAS Pacific Division Meeting, Researchers Detail Mounting Perils for San Francisco Bay. By Edward W. Lempinen, AAAS News. Excerpt: ...during a day-long symposium at the AAAS Pacific Division annual meeting, ...researchers described a new generation of challenges that imperil the Bay—the continuing loss of native species, incursions by non-native species, and rising concentrations of fire retardants and other chemicals.
The overarching challenge, some said, may be Earth's changing climate, which could raise Bay water levels by four feet or more by the end of the century. Even a smaller rise in the water level could inundate thousands of acres of low-lying developed areas on shore, damage or submerge sensitive tidal marshes that harbor endangered wildlife, and force the expenditure of billions of dollars for protective levees.
...Decreased sediment, increased phytoplankton, reduced carbon dioxide—researchers see these trends as evidence that the fundamental chemistry of the San Francisco Bay is turning less hospitable to its historic diversity of plant and animal life....
But an array of trends make understanding elusive and Bay protection exceedingly difficult.
Where great progress has been made in reducing sewage discharges and the concentration of many heavy metals, researchers have come to understand the risk posed by other contaminants.
Toxic mercury, dioxin, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are among the Bay's most serious contaminants now, said Davis, the environmental scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute. Mercury has entered the food chain, leading to a consumption advisory for Bay fish, and it could have an impact on reproduction for some creatures. Further, Davis said, those compounds have been trapped in the sediment over the last several decades—and can be released by storms and shifting currents....

2009 July 16. Mysterious, Glowing Clouds Appear Across America's Night Skies. Wired Science. Excerpt: Mysterious, glowing clouds previously seen almost exclusively in Earth's polar regions have appeared in the skies over the United States and Europe over the past several days. Photographers and other sky watchers in Omaha, Paris, Seattle, and other locations have run outside to capture images of what scientists call noctilucent ("night shining") clouds. Formed by ice literally at the boundary where the earth's atmosphere meets space 50 miles up, they shine because they are so high that they remain lit by the sun even after our star is below the horizon.
The clouds might be beautiful, but they could portend global changes caused by global warming. Noctilucent clouds are ... "... a real concern and question," said James Russell, an atmospheric scientist at Hampton University and the principal investigator of an ongoing NASA satellite mission to study the clouds. "Why are they getting more numerous? Why are they getting brighter? Why are they appearing at lower latitudes?" ....

2008 March 31. US West Warming Faster Than Rest Of World - Study. Planet Ark; Reuters. Excerpt: LOS ANGELES - The US West is heating up at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world and is likely to face more drought conditions in many of its fast-growing cities.... By analysing federal government temperature data, the Natural Resources Defence Council concluded that the average temperature in the 11-state Western region from 2003-07 was 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.94 degrees Celsius) higher than the historical average of the 20th century. The global average increase for the same period was 1.0 degrees Fahrenheit (0.55 degrees Celsius). In the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to big and fast-growing cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Denver, the average temperature rose 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.21 degrees Celsius), the US group said.
Most of the river's water comes from melting snow in the mountains, and climate scientists predict hotter temperatures will reduce the snowpack and increase evaporation, the NRDC said in a statement. "Global warming is hitting the West hard," said Theo Spencer of the NRDC. "It is already taking an economic toll on the region's tourism, recreation, skiing, hunting and fishing activities."....

June 2007. State of the Climate in 2006. The American Meteorological Society Journals Online (http://ams.allenpress.com/) just sent out a report on the 'State of the Climate in 2006'. There's the Executive Summary (pdf: 1MB) and the full report (pdf: 36 MB) . Fascinating scientific report on meteorological data. Lots of excellent graphics!

17 April 2007. FEWER AEROSOLS MAY STEP UP GLOBAL WARMING. Program #5176 of the Earth & Sky Radio Series with hosts DEBORAH BYRD and JOEL BLOCK interviewing Michael Mishchenko at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York. Excerpt: Scientists believe they've seen a thinning of the aerosols found in Earth's atmosphere. That's important because aerosols - which come from industrial pollution as well as natural causes - help shield us from the effects of global warming. Some refer to them as a global "sunscreen." Aerosols cool Earth by reflecting sunlight. So, fewer aerosols mean more warming. [listener] Gene Renkin: We know that industrial pollution contributes to man-made global warming by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Reducing pollution lowers carbon dioxide production and slows down global warming. If at the same time, reducing industrial pollution reduces atmospheric aerosols and increases global warming, then what matters is the relative effect of these opposite influences on global warming Nothing in this article addresses that aspect of the situation. Please follow up on this. It is important, because as reported, your article might be cited support the ridiculous conclusion that increasing industrial atmospheric emissions will lessen global warming. All direct evidence is to the contrary....

10 April 2007. There Is Climate Change Censorship - and It's the Deniers Who Dish It Out. By George Monbiot. The Guardian UK. Excerpt: Global warming scientists are under intense pressure to water down findings, and are then accused of silencing their critics. The drafting of reports by the world's pre-eminent group of climate scientists is an odd process. For months scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence. Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the panel's reports are conservative - even timid. It also means that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be. Then, when all is settled among the scientists, the politicians sweep in and seek to excise from the summaries anything that threatens their interests. ...The Union of Concerned Scientists found that 58% of the 279 climate scientists working at federal agencies in the US who responded to its survey reported that they had experienced one of the following constraints:
1. Pressure to eliminate the words "climate change", "global warming", or other similar terms from their communications;
2. Editing of scientific reports by their superiors that "changed the meaning of scientific findings";
3. Statements by officials at their agencies that misrepresented their findings;
4. The disappearance or unusual delay of websites, reports, or other science-based materials relating to climate;
5. New or unusual administrative requirements that impair climate-related work;
6. Situations in which scientists have actively objected to, resigned from, or removed themselves from a project because of pressure to change scientific findings. They reported 435 incidents of political interference over the past five years. 2003, the White House gutted the climate-change section of a report by the Environmental Protection Agency. It deleted references to studies showing that global warming is caused by manmade emissions. It added a reference to a study, partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute, that suggested that temperatures are not rising. Eventually the agency decided to drop the section altogether.

October 2006. Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast. Excerpt: Last week, a team of independent scientists and researchers, in collaboration with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), released a new report detailing how global warming is poised to substantially change the climate in the Northeast, including rising temperatures, fewer snow covered days, increased sea level, and more extreme weather events-the study. Dr. Cameron Wake,Research Associate Professor, University of New Hampshire's Climate Change Research Center said "The very notion of the Northeast as we know it is at stake. The near-term emissions choices we make in the Northeast and throughout the world will help determine the climate and quality of life our children and grandchildren experience." The severity of climate change in the region will be greatly affected by the choices that citizens, governments, and businesses make today. Using new state-of-the-art research on recent and projected changes in the Northeast's regional climate, the study finds that without strong leadership and action, by late-century:
Northeast winters could warm by eight to 12 degrees Fahrenheit and summers by six to nearly 14 degrees. The length of the region's winter snow season could be cut in half. The frequency of short-term droughts could increase significantly. Sea-level could rise from eight inches to as much three feet. Many Northeast cities can expect about 25 days per year over 100 degrees. (Currently, Northeast cities experience this type of heat only once or twice a year.)....

14 September 2006. NASA Scientists See New Signs of Global Warming. By ANDREW C. REVKIN. Excerpt: Scientists have long suspected that the recent melting of Arctic Ocean ice in the summer might be a result of heat-trapping gases building up in the atmosphere. But yesterday NASA scientists reported that higher temperatures and a retreat of the sea ice over the last two winters offered new evidence that the gases were influencing the region's climate. While the summer melting could be a result of a number of phenomena like the flow of warm water, the scientists said, the reduction of winter ice two seasons in a row is harder to explain without invoking the heat-trapping effects of gases like carbon dioxide. ...In the past two winters, the peak of sea ice growth in the Arctic has been 6 percent below the average peak since the satellite observations began, Dr. [Josefino] Comiso said. His findings are to be published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters....

8 March 2006. NASA RELEASE: 06-089. NASA Survey Confirms Climate Warming Impact on Polar Ice Sheets. In the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the massive ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, NASA scientists confirm climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth's largest storehouses of ice and snow. "If the trends we're seeing continue and climate warming continues as predicted, the polar ice sheets could change dramatically," said survey lead author Jay Zwally of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The Greenland ice sheet could be facing an irreversible decline by the end of the century."

2 March 2006. NASA RELEASE: 06-085. NASA Mission Detects Significant Antarctic Ice Mass Loss. Scientists were able to conduct the first-ever gravity survey of the entire Antarctic ice sheet using data from the joint NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). This comprehensive study found the ice sheet's mass has decreased significantly from 2002 to 2005. ...The estimated mass loss was enough to raise global sea level about 1.2 millimeters (0.05 inches) during the survey period; about 13 percent of the overall observed sea level rise for the same period. The researchers found Antarctica's ice sheet decreased by 152 (plus or minus 80) cubic kilometers of ice annually between April 2002 and August 2005.

Archives of Past Articles for Chapter 6

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