Senior meteorologist with 18 years of experience at AccuWeather. [ Bio ]
July 2009
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New research from the University of Washington indicates that the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), which is a persistent band of showers and heavy thunderstorms that produces heavy rainfall near the equator, has been creeping northward for more than 300 years now. The zone, on average, has been moving northward at just less than 1 mile a year.
A satellite view of the ITCZ. Note the clusters of broken clouds aligned just north of the equator (central/eastern Pacific region) in this image. Courtesy of NASA.
The ITCZ normally fluctuates between 3 and 10 degrees north of the equator, depending on the time of the year.
Researchers believe that global warming is probably the reason for this northward trend.
The ITCZ is indicated by the band of heavy precipitation (blue/purple colors) over the Pacific. Image courtesy of the University of Washington.
The new article presents surprising evidence that the intertropical convergence zone hugged the equator some 3 1/2 centuries ago during Earth's little ice age, which lasted from 1400 to 1850, according to the EurekAlert press release.
Sediment cores from Palau, which lies about 7 degrees north of the equator and in the heart of the modern convergence zone, also revealed arid conditions during the little ice age.
In contrast, the researchers present evidence that the Galapagos Islands, today an arid place on the equator in the Eastern Pacific, had a wet climate during the little ice age.
"If the intertropical convergence zone was 550 kilometers, or 5 degrees, south of its present position as recently as 1630, it must have migrated north at an average rate of 1.4 kilometers - just less than a mile - a year," according to Julian Sachs, associate professor of oceanography at the University of Washington and lead author of the paper. "Were that rate to continue, the intertropical convergence zone will be 126 kilometers - or more than 75 miles - north of its current position by the latter part of this century."
If the band continues to migrate at just less than a mile (1.4 kilometers) a year, which is the average for all the years it has been moving north, then some Pacific islands near the equator - even those that currently enjoy abundant rainfall - may be drier within decades and starved of freshwater by mid-century or sooner, according to the EurekAlert report.
Discover Magazine has an interesting and informative piece on the state of climate science and the meaning of climate change from their June issue. This full interview was made available online just yesterday.
In the interview, Discover Magazine poses a number of questions to four notable experts in the field of climate science............
Robin Bell is an expert on ice sheets from the Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution of Washington is an expert on the carbon cycle and energy.
Bill Easterling from the Pennsylvania State University is an expert on global warming and its impact on the world's food supply. Bill was previously interviewed by our own Katie Fehlinger, in her Headline Earth series on AccuWeather.com.
Stephen Schneider is a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, Schneider assesses ecological and economic impacts of human-induced climate change to identify potential political and technological solutions.
Again, you can check out the interviews, along with video segments right here.
A new study has determined that particulate pollution, when combined with airborne soot, actually enhances warming, instead of having a cooling effect. Particulate pollution in itself, is thought to be holding climate change in check, as it causes sunlight to be reflected.
Particulate pollution off the Northeast coast. Image courtesy of NASA.
Researchers measured atmospheric aerosols over Riverside, California and Mexico City. Using an instrument that measures the size, chemical composition and optical properties of aerosols in real time, they showed that jagged bits of fresh soot quickly become coated with a spherical shell of other chemicals, particularly sulfate, nitrate, and organic carbon, through light-driven chemical reactions, according to the University of California news article.
"The coating acts like a lens and focuses the light into the center of the particle, enhancing warming," Prather said. "Many people think sulfate aerosols are a good thing because they are highly reflective and cool our planet. However we are seeing that sulfate is commonly mixed with soot in the same particles, which means in some regions sulfate could lead to more warming, as opposed to more cooling as one would expect for a pure sulfate aerosol.”
The good news is that soot falls from the sky in a matter of days to weeks, making the reduction of soot a quicker option for slowing down climate change, compared to reducing CO2.
Paleoclimatologists from the University of Buffalo in New York have provided evidence that a prehistoric glacier in the Canadian Arctic rapidly retreated in just a few hundred years.
A high resolution satellite image of the southern Greenland ice sheet from 2006, courtesy of NASA's MODIS division.
According to the study, which was highlighted in ScienceDaily, the paleoclimatologists conclude through this evidence that modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which have a similar makeup to the prehistoric sample, are just as capable of undergoing periods of rapid retreat or shrinkage, which would result in sharply rising global sea levels that would threaten large coastal populations.
The samples provided the researchers with climate data over a period from 20,000 years ago to about 5,000 years ago, a period when significant warming occurred, according to ScienceDaily.
"Even though the ice sheet retreat was ongoing throughout that whole period, the lion's share of the retreat occurred in a geologic instant -- probably within as little as a few hundred years," said Dr. Jason Briner, lead author of the study.
According to the NOAA talking points memo dated June 9th, the answer is yes. The National Weather Service (NWS) has station siting criteria, but they are not always followed.
NOAA states that the only published, peer-reviewed study on this topic found that there was no bias in long-term temperature trends when they compared stations with poor siting with those that have good siting. Actually, to my surprise, the study found that stations with poor siting showed less warming. The reasons for that are well explained in the third paragraph of the memo.
Surfacestations.org (Anthony Watts) has been very active over the years in examining and grading almost 70% of NOAA's U.S. Historical Climatology Network surface stations.
According to the memo, only 70 of those stations so far have been classified as good or best by Surfacestations.org. So, NOAA decided to compare the 60-year plot of temperature data of those 70 "good to best" stations with the full data set of NOAA's Historical Climatology Network, which totals 1,228 stations.
Here is the temperature plot of the two sets below.........
The two plots are surprisingly similar, and in NOAA's words, there is no indication from this analysis that poor current siting is imparting a bias in the U.S. temperature trends.
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Anthony Watts responded to this memo on Wednesday on his Watts Up With That? website.
Many of the statements in this posting are excerpts from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change's (NIPCC) 2008 summary for policymakers, which is titled 'Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate'.
According to the NIPCC, there is clear and compelling evidence that higher levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), even if accompanied by higher temperatures and changes in precipitation, would, on balance, be more beneficial than harmful.
Highlights from the NIPCC report..............
1. The IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimate of future man-made CO2 emissions are too high.
---There are basic errors in economics and the handling of economic statistics in the IPCC modeling.
---The IPCC grossly exaggerates the long-term increase in emissions from poor countries, and the idea that poor countries would grow so fast is implausible.
2. Higher concentrations of CO2 would be beneficial to plant and animal life.
--Higher CO2 concentrations allow plants to grow bigger and produce more flowers and fruit.
--Higher CO2 concentrations lead to reduced rates of water loss by transpiration, thus, plants are able to better withstand drought.
--Higher CO2 concentrations allow plants to better cope with a variety of environmental stresses.
--The NIPCC claims that increases in CO2 does not harm coral reefs, in fact, in the Great Barrier Reef the "20th century witnessed the second highest period of above-average calcification in the past 237 years.
3. Higher CO2 concentrations are not responsible for weather extremes, storms or hurricanes.
--The report shows that there is no evidence, at least in the U.S., that extreme high temperatures are on the increase.
--Recent European heatwaves have been caused by circulation anomalies.
--A warmer climate would lead to increased vertical wind shear, which would impede the development of hurricanes.
--In regards to mid-latitude storms, global warming will lead to a lessening of temperature gradients between the equator and the poles. The result would be fewer and less intense storms.
So, based on these conclusions from the NIPCC, should we have nothing to worry about in terms of increasing CO2 emissions?
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The NIPCC's full 2009 report, which is titled 'Climate Change Reconsidered' was published by the Heartland Institute, and co-authored by Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer.
Dr. James Hansen, who is the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) was arrested, along with 30 others on Tuesday on charges of obstructing officers and impeding traffic during a protest at a large mountaintop mining company in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, according to the New York Times article by Andrew Revkin.
Hansen has also been active in other protests over the past year, including being a strong voice against the Kingsnorth coal power station in the UK.
Hansen states that mountaintop coal mining should be abolished, since this type of mining only provides a small fraction of our energy. According to Hansen, coal is the biggest threat to the global climate.
Back in February of 2009, Hansen sent President Obama a letter about Coal River Mountain. Here is the link.
My question to you. Is Hansen overstepping his duties as a leading government paid scientist by being active in protests against the coal industry and risking arrest?
Henry Waxman (D-CA)
Edward Markey (D-MA)
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which is a non-partisan arm of Congress says that the climate change Cap-and-Trade Bill, which is sponsored by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) would end up costing the average household $175 a year by 2020 (based on 2010 dollars). This is equivalent to the cost of buying one candy bar or can of soda every day of the year, or as Henry Waxman says......"about the same as a postage stamp a day for the average household."
The richest 20% of households would end up spending about $245 by 2020, while the poorest 20% of U.S> households would actually receive a $40 benefit, according to the CBO.
This is just the latest of estimates for the potential cost of this bill to the average family if it becomes law. Here are some other estimates, courtesy of the Washington Post article......
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): $98-140 between 2010 and 2050.
GOP leaders: $3,128 in 2015 and will end up driving jobs out of the country.
Heritage Foundation (conservative think tank): $4,300.
John Reilly (MIT professor): $75 by 2015, $510 by 2025 and $205 by 2050 for a family of four. Cost decreases as new technology works its way into power plants, building efficiency and automobiles.
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Here is a link to the actual CBO report.
Curious how temperatures globally have been running since the beginning of the year? The National Climatic Data Center has released global temperature anomaly data for the January 2009 to May 2009 period. We can also compare their results to the satellite derived data from the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS).
Results
For the January through May, 2009 period:
Global land and ocean combined: +0.54 C or +0.97 F, which makes this the 6th warmest Jan-May period over the past 130 years. The warmest Jan-May period was in 2007.
Northern Hemisphere: 7th warmest
Southern Hemisphere: 5th warmest
UAH lower troposphere (satellite derived): +0.20 C or +0.36 F, which makes this period the 8th warmest over the past 31 years of satellite record keeping. The trend for this period is +0.13 C/decade.
RSS lower troposphere (satellite derived): +0.21 C or +0.38 F, which also makes this period the 8th warmest over the past 31 years of record keeping. The t |
