Climate 411

Storm Hits Oman

By Bill Chameides / Published: June 13, 2007

Today’s post is by Bill Chameides, Chief Scientist at Environmental Defense.

The hurricane season began on June 1, and we are all waiting with some dread to see what this year will bring. Will it be a relatively mild season like last year, a devastating one like 2005, or something in between? An ominous sign is that we have already seen two tropical storms in the region: Andrea, which formed almost a month before the season began, and Barry, which formed on the first day of the season.

Last week I read that Oman was hit by Tropical Cyclone Gonu. ("Hurricane", "typhoon", and "cyclone" are all names for the same thing.) I know that Asia and Australia are regularly hit by tropical storms, but the Arabian Peninsula? Is that normal? I didn’t know, so I decided to do a little investigating. Here’s what I learned.

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Also posted in Extreme Weather / Read 4 Responses

Climate News: Geo-engineering, Soot and Deforestation

By Lisa Moore / Published: June 11, 2007

Guest blogger Lisa Moore, Ph.D., is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

There’s always something new in climate change research. This week, scientists described the risks of geo-engineering, proposed an efficient way to reduce Arctic climate change, and discussed options for decreasing deforestation in developing countries.

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Also posted in Arctic & Antarctic, Geoengineering / Read 1 Response

Climate News: Hurricanes, Rainfall and Rainbow Trout

By Lisa Moore / Published: June 1, 2007

Guest blogger Lisa Moore, Ph.D., is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.

Last week, Bill summarized two new studies about carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and ocean. This week brought three very different topics: hurricanes (quite timely, since today is the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season!), global rainfall patterns and rainbow trout.

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Also posted in Extreme Weather, Plants & Animals / Comments are closed

Is There a Link Between Hurricanes and Global Warming?

By Bill Chameides / Published: May 30, 2007

If you’re concerned about hurricanes and global warming and you’ve been reading the newspapers and magazines, you are probably confused.

Perhaps in an effort to be “balanced,” most stories in the media these days present a muddled picture. Cornelia Dean’s piece in the New York Times is a good case in point: a scientific paper is cited claiming a connection; another is cited claiming the opposite. The implication is that the science is inconclusive.

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Also posted in Extreme Weather / Read 3 Responses

That Ocean Fertilization Idea

By Bill Chameides / Published: May 25, 2007

If you’re an avid follower of the news, you may have heard of a company called Planktos that’s trying to fight global warming and make a profit at the same time through a process called "ocean fertilization".

The concept is simple: phytoplankton (tiny one-celled algae) take up carbon dioxide (CO2) during photosynthesis. Fertilizing the ocean encourages growth of phytoplankton, and increases the rate at which CO2 is consumed – presumably leading to less CO2 in the atmosphere. Since ocean photosynthesis is often limited by lack of iron, the idea is to dump iron into the ocean and watch the phytoplankton bloom. Planktos sees this as an economic opportunity: Increase CO2 uptake in the ocean, and sell it as an offset to carbon emitters. (I talked more about how offsets work in a previous post on land-based offsets.)

Ocean fertilization may sound like a good idea, but it has some very serious problems. Here’s why.

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Also posted in Oceans / Comments are closed

Part 5 of 5: The Melting of the North Pole

By Bill Chameides / Published: May 10, 2007

The second installment of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment on Climate Change, titled “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”, was released on April 6, 2007. In recognition of this report, I’m doing a weekly series called “Climate Dangers You May Not Know About“.

1. More Acidic Oceans
2. Drinking Water and Disease
3. Shifts in Lifecycle Timing
4. Drought and Violence
5. The Melting of the North Pole

The North Pole is surrounded by the huge Arctic Ocean. For millennia, that ocean has been covered by ice, but today that sea ice is rapidly melting. We’ve lost about 20 percent of summer sea ice since 1980 – an area equal to Texas, California and Montana combined – and it’s happening faster than we had predicted. The North Pole could be ice-free during summer months well before 2050.

Illustration by Steve Deyo, ©UCAR, based on research by NSIDC and NCAR.

A lot of press attention has been focused on how the loss of sea ice is threatening the polar bear. Much less attention has been paid to global impacts of this melting sea ice.

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Also posted in Arctic & Antarctic / Read 6 Responses