Though the eleven year solor cycle as well as the Southern Oscillation hit their minimum 2007 is recorded as second warmth year in the period of instrumental data.
More:
Wikipedia: Solar Cycle
Marshall Space Flight Center: NASA Satellites Capture Start of New Solar Cycle
Goddard Institute for Space Studies : Global Temperature Trends: 2007 Summation
Nearly a year after its launch, 28 April 2006, the French - U.S.A. mission CALIPSO collected numerous measurements of the structure of Earth’s atmosphere in unprecedented detail. Equiped with a sort of optical radar, Calipso is designed to identify the impact of clouds and aerosols on climate change.
In latest IPCC Climate Change report (SPM) the level of scientific understanding regarding anthropogenic aerosols is between low and medium low. The radiative forcing of the cloud albedo effect ranges from -1.8 to -0.3 Wm-2. A better understanding would lead to more accurate models and projections.
Calipso data are available via NASA’s Langley Research Center or via the French ICARE data centre dedicated to the study of interactions between clouds, aerosols, radiation and the water cycle.
Picture above shows data captured 11 February 2007 at around 2:00 UTC over Europe and Arctic Sea.
cnes.fr: Climate - Calipso science data now available to scientists worldwide
The Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) was biggest ever realized with Hubble Space Telescope (HST). For 2 years the survey observed and photographed [SkyWalker] a small portion of the sky. Within 2 square degree over 2 million galaxies were detected. By comparison, the Earths moon is one-half degree across.
Every look into space is a look back in time. COSMOS pictured 75% of universe lifetime - more than 10 billion years. It needed nearly 1000 Hubble hours to take 575 photos. All stitched together make a file of ~100GB with 100,800 x 100,800 pixels. [same with 3508 x 3508 pixel] (more…)
Ongoing global climate change causes changes in the species composition of marine ecosystems, especially in shallow coastal oceans. During evolution, animals have specialised on environmental conditions and are often very limited in their tolerance to environmental change.
In this context, fish species from the North Sea which experience large seasonal temperature fluctuations, are more tolerant to higher temperatures and display wider thermal windows than, for instance, fishes from polar regions living at constant low temperatures. The latter are able to grow and reproduce only within a very limited thermal tolerance window.
A new investigation, leaded by scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, reveals that a warming induced deficiency in oxygen uptake and supply to tissues is the key factor limiting the stock size of a fish species under heat stress.
The paper ‘Climate change affects marine fishes through the oxygen limitation of thermal tolerance’ is published on January 5, 2007 in the scientific journal Science.
aiw-bremerhaven.de: Press release
Camille Parmesan: Ecological and Evolutionary Responses to Recent Climate Change
Picture credit: Stephen Ausmus, ars.usda.gov
An art science collaboration starts today on the Ross Ice Shelf. 99 blue spheres varying in size from ten inches to four feet across represent the stars as of 2006-12-22.
This temporary monument with about 800 feet in diameter is conducted by internationally renowned artist Lita Albuquerque of Los Angeles and funded by the National Science Foundation and US Antarctic Programme.
This ephemeral artwork will be a major extension of her commitment to develop a visual language that addresses the realities of time and space.
Pre-launch video, web site
Not far away near Mt. Erebus an international science team managed to drill through 100m of ice shelf, 900m of water and more than 1000m into the seabed. The deepest hole ever drilled in Antarctica tells the story of a dynamic Antarctic ice sheet advancing and retreating more than 50 times during the last five million years.
By Christmas at 1200m depth, the researchers will be able to review seven million years of climate and geological history. First analyses shows some evidence of collapses in shelf’s past. As known from the Larsen A + B shelfs a full collapse may happen within a few days.
The Ross Ice Shelf, big as France, performs an important function by slowing down the flow of glacial ice. If the ice sheets go away, many scientists believe that glaciers will flow more swiftly, adding their ice to the oceans, and that could cause sea level rise. nzherald.co.nz: Antarctic drilling record
Picture credit: stellaraxis.com, Mc Murdo (andrill.org)
Climate change is a process which impacts species, eco-systems and biodiversity. Many species already adapted to higher temperatures and changed the length, timing and location of their migration routes.
Some species, like green turtles, are suffering higher levels of tumours with the rise linked to warmer waters and more infections.
Around a fifth of the bird species listed under the Convention could be affected by rising sea levels, erosion and greater wave action linked with climate change. (more…)
Since 1873 the temperature of the North Sea is measured, but the length of current warm period is unique. With an average of 0.13°C every year temperature rises, 1.7 degree since 1993. (more…)
The second week in Nairobi started with new ideas, e.g. a more flexible aproach to include more countries and to avoid ‘islands’ of pollution.
Australian’s Environment Minister Ian Campbell’s suggested a ‘New Kyoto’ and earned laughter and the ‘Fossil of the Day’ award for this direction. Australian hasn’t signed Kyoto or established a emissions trading scheme.
He shares this award with Canadian Environment Minister Rona Ambrose quoted in Canadian press saying that Canada is meeting all of its responsibilities under the Kyoto protocol, except for the bit about emissions targets.
Canada has to cut its emissions by 6 percent by 2012 compared with 1990 levels, but it is exceeding this by about one-third and its emissions are on the rise.
EU climate expert Artur Runge Metzger hold a very condensed presentation ‘Battling global climate change - the EU’s perspective’ (part I, part II) showing EU’s strategies to meet the 2
The Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) programme of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) promotes systematic and reliable observations of the global atmospheric environment.
The Environment Division of WMO’s Atmospheric Research and Environment Programme recently published the 2005 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin with the latest trends and atmospheric burdens of the ost influential, long-lived greenhouse gases; carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), as well as a summary of the contributions of the lesser gases. (more…)
The Chancellor Gordon Brown asked Sir Nick Stern to lead a major review on the financial implications of Climate Change, to understand the nature of the economic challenges and how they can be met.
“The Stern review has done a crucial job. It has demolished the last remaining argument for inaction in the face of climate change,” Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the launch of the report.
The report, leaded by the former World Bank chief economist, estimates stabilized greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cost about 1 percent of annual global output by 2050. In opposite inaction could cut global consumption per person by between 5 and 20 percent.
Looking at sea level rise, Sir David Stern said, it will have an impact “on global economies where cities are becoming inundated by flooding … this will cause the displacement of … hundreds of millions of people.” (more…)
