I saw this report from NASA's Earth Observatory about regional changes in sea-level, which were measured by Topex and Jason 1 satellites from 1993-2007.

First, check out the map below. The dark red colors indicate a sea height increase up to 8.9 inches during the 15-year period. The blue-green colored areas indicate where the sea height dropped.

Some observations from the map (there are several others if you read the link).........

1. The large-scale increase in sea-surface height across the western Pacific was mostly due to the presence of the warm-phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) during the period, which resulted in a large area of above-normal sea-surface temperatures that caused a thermal expansion of the water and a rise in sea height. By the way, the PDO recently switched back to the cool phase.

2. The very thin blue area (lowering sea height) off the U.S. East Coast could be due to a decadal change in the average latitude or velocity of the Gulf Stream current.

The NASA article states that these ocean current changes over a SPAN of decades could be part of a natural cycle or indicate the beginning of a long-term change in a current as a result of human-induced climate change. They are just not sure yet.

The North Pole web cam from earlier today, courtesy of NOAA. Notice the standing pools of water (snow melt) with an outside temp of 5.5 celsius (42 F).

The same North Pole web cam 5 years ago to this day. The view is a little more zoomed in toward that upside-down L shaped pole in the distance.

As many of you already know, there has been a lot of talk in the media lately about the possibility of an ice-free North Pole this summer. Andrea Thompson, a senior writer from LiveScience dug a little deeper and phone interviewed Mark Serreze of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. Serreze was earlier quoted by a London paper that that in his opinion it was even-odds whether the North Pole melts out at the end of the melt season.

In the interview with Thompson, Serreze cleared up some of the confusion caused by some media outlets......

1. The potential melt-out at the North Pole would not mean that all Arctic Ice would melt, but that the thin, new ice around 90 degrees north could melt away for a few days.

2. This thin, first-year ice is more susceptible to melting this summer, compared to the thicker, older ice. A substantial amount of older ice melted last year.

3. Wind patterns and ocean currents over the last few months moved the newly formed ice over the North Pole, setting up this potential situation late this summer, but the North Pole is cooler than the lower Arctic latitudes, so it could resist melting.

4. Serreze is pretty certain that the region will lose a bunch of ice this summer, but the question of just exactly where that melt will occur is "a roll of the dice". One factor in determining these factors is the somewhat higher ice extent that re-froze this winter.

5. Serreze notes that a warm spring season has put melting about on par with where it was at this point last year.

Check out this link to the current status of the sea-ice area in the Arctic Basin from the University of Illinois Polar Research group. So far it does appear that the current sea-ice area status is very close to what it was last year at this time. Also note, that the ice area in the Arctic Basin last year saw its greatest drop between the second week of July and third week of August. We may get some clues starting in the next few weeks.

By the way, there are other scientists in this field that feel that this summer's melt will be less spectacular than last year's.

No doubt, we will all find out the real answer in September!

Happy Fourth of July! Image courtesy of the National Archives.

Now on to today's topic..........

Earthworks 2008 just released the results of their global cartoon competition, which focused on the struggle to combat global climate change. The organizers of the competition believed that art and humour are a good way to get the environmental message across.

The winner of the competition was Mikhail Zlatkovsky of Russia. His cartoon, "Coat Star" showed humanity in the form of a man indecently exposing himself to a pristine universe. "It says, this is the disdain we've shown our world," says Earthworks organizer John Renard.

You can check out the rest of the cartoon entries right here with a link to a slide presentation. Some of them are quite interesting and right to the point, while others might take a while to figure out their message. I like the eco-glazing cartoon with the contracters putting up the fake "green" windows in order to cover the polluted outside. It reminds me of the false, outside backgrounds used by some of our TV talk shows.

If you are in California and looking for a new car, there will be new scale on the window sticker, in addition to the MSRP and the options starting as soon as next month. What is it? It's a "Global Warming Score".

Just like the traditional California "Smog Score", the California "Global Warming Score" will be shown on a scale of 1 to 10, according to HybridCars.com. The higher the score, the more "friendly" the car. The score takes into account the emissions of greenhouse gases from the vehicle's operation and the production of fuel to power it.

Here is a link to the global warming score table.

The global sea-surface anomaly map from a year ago........

Below is the global sea-surface anomaly map from two months ago.......

The last image is the latest sea-surface temperature anomaly as of July 7th, 2008. La Nina is basically gone as we are now officially in a neutral situation across the equatorial Pacific Ocean with above-normal sea-surface temperatures off of South America and below-normal sst's over the central/western equatorial Pacific. Neutral conditions are expected to continue through the early Fall. The pocket of cooler-than-normal water that has been persistent off the U.S. and Canadian west coasts is not nearly as pronounced as it was a couple of months ago. Also, water temperatures have warmed above-normal over the north Atlantic east of New England, but much of the tropical storm/hurricane breeding ground areas of the Atlantic are fairly close to normal right now despite a category 3 hurricane.

I saw this recent press release from the Space and Science Research Center, which states that global warming has ended and a new cold era has begun. Mr. John Casey, who is the director of the Space and Science Research center made this declaration at a press conference in Florida a week ago. The press release is basically an update of what was released about the theory back in January of 2008.

I have never heard of the Space and Science Research Center until now, but according to their press release, the world's climate warming of the past decades has come to an end based on the 'Relational Cycle Theory' or RC theory.

According to their website, Mr. Casey's original research on his RC theory was peer reviewed. There is a link to a more detailed research doc. report of this theory at the bottom of the research link. It is the first link and has graphs.

In developing this theory, Mr. Casey studied sunspot cycles from 1610 to present. He determined that there exists a family of solar activity cycles that has a direct influence on the earth's climate and found that the cycles correlated strongly to all past major temperature lows. There was a 90-100 year cycle and a 206 year cycle. He estimates that the peak of the current 206-year cycle was between 1986-1987 with a peak range from 1962-2010.

According to this theory.............

--The earth will experience a significant temperature decline beginning between 3-14 years and lasting 2 or 3 solar cycles.

--Global temperature reductions of at least 1 to 1.5 celsius.

--The new climate will produce dangerously cold weather that will result in worldwide, agricultural, social and economic disruption.

What do you make of this?

Vice President Cheney. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

In case you have not heard, the former Associate Deputy Administrator of the EPA and chief advisor on climate to the EPA Administrator accused the Vice President's office of seeking deletions of sections of draft testimony describing health risks from global warming. The testimony, which I blogged about last October White House Denies CDC Testimony was "Watered Down"., was prepared by Dr. Julie Gerberding, who is the head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Back in October, a CDC official stated that the draft of the testimony was "eviscerated" after the review process.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) insisted that the efforts by Cheney's office last year constituted a "cover-up" and "censorship". Boxer demanded that the EPA Administrator to turn over all documents related to the assessment of CO2 risks or resign, according to the New York Times article.

Marc Morano, a spokesman for James Inhofe (R-OK), who is the ranking minority member of the Senate Environment Committee said the criticism by Boxer was unjustified. Morano noted incidents involving Roy Spencer (NASA) and the Clinton Administration as an example that all administrations edit testimony before it is submitted to Congress. By the way, Mr. Morano has occasionally participated on this blog and maybe we will hear from him again.

Mount Shasta in northern California circa 1984.

14,000 foot Mount Shasta, the southern most volcano in the Cascade Range and located in northern California is actually seeing its glaciers expand due to changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean. A majority of the mountains in the western U.S. and Canada are seeing a steady retreat and Shasta's glaciers are the only one's in the U.S. that scientists have identified as getting larger.

A wetter pattern (supposedly due to warmer Pacific waters, but not specified) since the end of a drought early in the 20th century has led to a 17% increase in precipitation on Mount Shasta over the last 110 years, leading to more snowfall which has built up the glaciers on Shasta.

Unlike Shasta, glaciers in the Sierra Mountains to the south have been retreating since they have not been able to overcome the 1.8 degree F. increase in temperature over the last century according to the USA Today article.

Mount Shasta from above in 2005.

According to Lonnie Thompson, a glacier expert from Ohio State, climate change is causing roughly 90% of the worlds mountain glaciers to shrink.

Here is a high resolution visible satellite image from earlier yesterday centered on northern California. The yellow arrow points to the tiny white spot which is Mount Shasta. You can also see a lot of hazy, wispy clouds across northern California and a lot of that is the smoke from the fires.

Well, maybe not a thousand in this case, but......

I have previously blogged about cows and the methane they produce, so there is not much more to say about it from my standpoint. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and some studies have shown that cows are contributing a significant amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. This particular article from the Telegraph notes that feeding cows clover and alfalfa instead of grains reduces their methane emissions by 25%.

Anyway, when I saw this picture from the Telegraph article it was tough not to laugh. I feel bad for that cow. How would you like to carry a container of your foul fart gas on your back? It might make a pretty good self-defense weapon though.

Headline Earth's Katie Fehlinger is back this week and finds out why climate change bills are having a tough time getting through Congress. Katie also takes a look at the two presidential candidates proposals to combat climate change.

The latest MSU/AMSU lower tropospheric temperature anomalies for June have been released. The temperature data is obtained by microwave sounding units on NOAA satellites. The global land/sea temperature anomaly for June (covers from 70 south latitude to 82.5 north latitude) was +0.035 K. By the way, the reading for May was -0.083 K.

Here is the MSU/AMSU lower tropospheric anomaly map for June 2008. The reds and yellows indicate above normal temperatures, while the blues and purples indicate below normal temperatures for the lower troposphere (lowest 5 miles of the atmosphere)......

Here is the image from June 2007.......

Here is the image from 20 years ago (June 1988)......

Here is a graph of the MSU/AMSU lower tropospheric temperature anomalies since 1979. Note: The trend is still upward (warming) through the period at a rate of 0.171 K/decade.

Acknowledgment:
MSU data and graphics are produced by Remote Sensing Systems and sponsored by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program. Data are available at www.remss.com.