Blog posted and written by guest commentator and AccuWeather Meteorologist Mark Paquette....

Wow, I am almost overwhelmed by the comments received about my last post dealing with my mention in the Senate Minority Report on Global Warming. I can say that I truly feel lucky and honored to be mentioned in it. However, as I said in last week's blog, I don't really feel like I am a dissenter, but a proponent of man-made global warming, which in my opinion, is occurring as we speak. So, I would like to use this post to share my personal belief on man-made global warming and clear up where I stand.

Unlike many of the commenters and people here who work at AccuWeather, I do not feel that I am an expert or am confident enough in my knowledge to go far in-depth on the subject of global warming. However, I do have some simple reasons why I do think it is happening. One of the reasons I think that the earth is warming is by looking at the number of record highs seen as compared to record lows. This was brought up in my last post, so I will not dwell on this here, as many people brought up great points as to why this should not be a reason for believing in man-made global warming, and I am at least considering these reasons.

More importantly, another reason why I think warming is occurring is the graphs shown below. All of these increases (which would even be more dramatic if the time went back more than the 30 years as shown on the graphs) seen in these scientifically proven greenhouse gases are at least partly, if not chiefly, due to man. Simplistically, how can all of these greenhouse gases increase without influencing the earth's temperature? Even if the earth is in a natural cooling phase, how can these increases in greenhouse gases not negate somewhat this cooling? On the other hand, if the earth is in a natural warming phase, how can the changes in these gases not cause the warming to be enhanced? I just don't understand how people can know that these changes in the atmosphere are occurring, and know that these gases increase the amount of energy (warmth) kept near the earth's surface, but this information is just ignored or thought not to matter. This data may be a small piece of the atmospheric and climatic "pie", but isn't it a piece? And isn't it caused by man? Wouldn't this data, by itself, cause warming? Isn't this what man-made global warming is? Warming caused by man?

Another reason I believe global warming is occurring is the amount of heat we release into the atmosphere. From heating our homes, to factories and power plants burning fossil fuels, to internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, tractors, etc., aren't these releasing heat into the atmosphere that would not been released if man was not on the planet? How about the decreased albedo from the miles upon miles of roadways? From buildings with dark roofs? Would they be on the planet without man? Obviously not. Yes, these factors maybe mere drops in the proverbial bucket, but don't these drops add up over time and contribute at least somewhat to man-made global warming?

Yes, the earth will continue to see cold snaps (see the past 30 days in the Northeast US), but wouldn't these cold snaps be more drastic if it wasn't for man's influence? And what about how warm the west coast of the US has been? We'll hear people say, global warming, schwarming, look how cold it is where I live. Well, how about the rest of the world? What is happening there?

I will continue to try and post unbiased blogs, as a scientist, that is my duty. If there is data to prove to me that global warming caused by man is not occurring, then it is also my duty as a scientist to at least consider changing my opinion. I appreciate all the readers and commenters of this website, and I will continue to do my homework and try to learn as much as I can about the fascinating subject of global warming.

NASA is planning to launch a 278 million dollar satellite program next month to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and find out where it goes, according to a Reuters article.

This technology measures light bounced off the planet. Carbon dioxide absorbs light in some frequencies, so the less light detected, the higher the concentration of carbon.

The world's oceans and land absorb much of the atmospheric CO2, but scientists have been unable to figure out where the remaining CO2 goes.

Knowing these answers will help scientists and models better predict the speed and extent of carbon dioxide's impact on the world's climate.

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In a somewhat related story......Scientists are planning on using a souped-up corporate jet (and no, it is not the 50 million dollar Citigroup jet) to determine where and when some of the estimated 30 billion tons of carbon emitted annually by cars, factories, deforestation and other human activities enters the atmosphere.

Roughly half the carbon emitted by humans stays in the atmosphere, with the remainder being absorbed by ocean and earth ecosystems. But scientists don't understand how the system works or how quickly various gases mix.ers the atmosphere, according to the Scientific American article.

The result is that models of this so-called carbon cycle grown wildly divergent as they are projected into the future, with nearly 100 percent uncertainty by 2050, according to Britton Stephens, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and one of the project's principal investigators.

The project will fill key gaps in our understanding of how carbon cycles through the atmosphere and among the earth, air and oceans.

The new map will also provide a baseline against which efforts worldwide to curb carbon emissions can be judged. Need for such a benchmark has gained urgency, scientists and policymakers say, as the world moves toward regional, national and international agreements to limit greenhouse gases.

NPR just recently conducted an audio interview with Stanford University professor Stephen Schneider to discuss the state of climate change research today.

Dr. Schneider.

Schneider was part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and worked alongside former Vice President Al Gore.

Schneider was asked about the progress of climate change research and he stated that the recent change in the White House Administration will make a the most significant, positive impact on the research. The new administration will lead us closer to a full, world climate policy.

NPR asked Schneider what types of action does the Obama Administration need to inact and he listed the following.......

--An adaptation strategy.
--Find more ways to use energy more efficiently.
--Help U.S. industry invent our way out of the problem. Green jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Schneider admits that no one truly knows whether the globe will warm 3 or as much as 10 degrees this century or how much the sea levels will rise due to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. The fact is that we should not get hung up on the numbers and be realistic in what we can actually do to reduce this problem.

I posted the link to the interview at the top. It's about 7 minutes long.

Here is a link to Schneider's website.

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On on different note, I see MODIS recently released a full composite high res. image of Antarctica. Here it is.....

Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) has released their lower tropospheric temperature anomaly data (based on microwave sounding data on board satellites) for the month of January. I think many of you who live in eastern North America or western Europe will be very surprised to hear that the month of January as a whole was clearly warmer-than-normal when you take most of the globe into account.

The image below, courtesy of RSS, shows the January global temperature anomalies for the lower troposphere (TLT).

--Notice the large areas of below-normal temperatures over western Europe and eastern North America.

--Pockets of much-above normal temperatures were located in the western Pacific, the western U.S. and north Africa.

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Here are the specific temperature anomalies for January from RSS.........

Global anomaly (70 south to 82.5 north): +.322 K
Note: the last time the RSS TLT global anomaly was that high was back in August of 2007.

Northern Hemisphere (0 to 82.5 north): +.449 K

Southern Hemisphere (70 south to 0): +.190 K

United States: +.358 K
Note: The last time the anomaly was this high was back in Nov 2007. Hard to believe if you live in the East. Also, this January anomaly was about a full degree warmer versus the December 2008 anomaly.

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Acknowledgement

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

Noted long range hurricane forecaster Dr. William Gray has fired off a seven-page letter (via icecap.us) voicing his strong opposition to the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) selection of Dr. James Hansen to its highest award, the Rossby Research Medal. Hansen is the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).

Gray feels that this award presentation is an insult to a large number of AMS members who do not believe that humans are causing a significant amount of the global temperature increase. He also states that the AMS's sterling reputation for scientific objectivity has been diminished by this selection and others in the recent past.

Gray explains on page 2 of his pdf. why Hansen's modeling efforts are badly flawed.

Gray believes that we are going to experience a modest naturally-driven global cooling over the next 15-20 years, which will be similar to the weak global cooling that occurred between the early-1940s and the mid-1970s.

Blog posted by AccuWeather.com meteorologist Mark Paquette.....

I came across this article while browsing the web, and I found it to be a little amusing, curious, and to be completely honest, scary.

I was amused by this article simply from the scientific view, or its complete lack thereof. We don't know if global warming is happening, and even if it is occurring, what is it doing to Bangladesh? This country automatically says global warming is happening, you are more responsible for it than we are, you are rich, we are poor, pay me. The story doesn't mention anything about the subject, but I'll assume the damage from "global warming" is that ocean levels are rising, causing floods and salt water intruding inland. So, the State Minister for Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh Hasan Mahmud wants developed countries to pay for flooding and salt "poisoning" that may or may not be caused by global warming which, of course, may or may not be occurring also. That makes me laugh. Maybe I should come up with some story like this to make some money.

Curiosity worked its way into my mind when I wondered how many other countries may try this? Is this a new way for third-world countries to get financial assistance from the "developed nations"? What kind of science does the government of Bangladesh use for evidence? Or are they just using public opinion to get some money for themselves?

I think it is a little scary because if the government of Bangladesh can get financial assistance for this, the question of how many other countries may try this comes up, but other ponderings as well. What else can they use to try to get money? Can they use water pollution? Air pollution? Ozone depletion? Almost anything? Can they come up with make believe environmental crises to cash in?

What say you?

Mouths of the Ganges River in Bangladesh

The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), which is based out of the University of Zurich in Switzerland has updated their report on a number of the world's glaciers.

According to the WMGS, a clear majority of more than 80 glaciers across the globe are still melting at high rates, according to the ScienceDaily article

For the year 2007, (which is the latest data from the WGMS) the results indicate that there has been an overall additional further loss of average ice thickness of roughly 0.67 meter water equivalent (m w.e.). Some glaciers in the European Alps lost up to 2.5 m w.e.

This is a time lapse look at the Vernagtferner Glacier in Austria and how it has shrunk between 1912 and 2003. Image courtesy of the United Nations Environment Program.

2007 was the 6th year this century in which the average ice loss of the referenced glaciers has exceeded a 1/2 meter in thickness, which more than doubles the melt rates of the 1980's and 1990's.

The average ice loss in 2007 was not as extreme as 2006, but there were big differences between mountain ranges across the globe.

In addition to the large losses in the European Alps, there were significant losses in the referenced glaciers in Columbia and Bolivia.

Some glaciers actually gained mass, and those included the maritime glaciers in Scandinavia, and in western North America, the North Cascades and the Juneau Ice Field.

Here is the link to the latest glacier data from the WGMS.

By the way, coordinated international glacier monitoring began in 1894.

A report just released by the Audubon Society shows that a significant number of bird species seen in North America during the first weeks of winter have moved dramatically northward over the span of 40 years.

Also, a number of grassland species are not following this northward trend and for these species disappearing habitat from warming is taking an enormous toll, and leaving them with nowhere to go.

One of our biggest movers, the Purple Finch.

How did they determine this?

Tens of thousands of citizen scientists take part in the Audubon's annual Christmas bird count and report their findings to the society. Based on an analysis of 305 bird species across North America, the results indicate an average northward movement of 35 miles. Sixty bird species out of the 305 actually moved in excess of 100 miles during the four decades!

Here are some of the more common birds with the greatest northward movement over the forty- year period.....

--Purple Finch (433 miles)
--Wild Turkey (408 miles). I can usually hear the turkeys over on the hill early in the mornings, but they are tough to spot.
--Ring-Billed Gull (356 miles)
--Pine Siskin (288 miles). There was a front-page report in our local central Pennsylvania paper a couple weeks ago about the appearance of this bird in our region.
--Boreal Chickadee (279 miles)
--House Finch (270 miles). I can say we have plenty of these around my neighborhood!

According to the Audubon Society, the results of this study is evidence that global warming is having serious impact on natural systems.

Geophysicists from the University of Toronto in Canada say that it is the coastlines of North America and the nations in the southern Indian Ocean in particular that face the greatest threats from sea level rises if there is a complete collapse of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, according to their recent study.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, the rise in sea levels around many coastal regions will be as much as 25 per cent more than expected, for a total of between six and seven metres if the whole ice sheet melts,” says Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysicist.

Why is that?

1. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, sea level will fall close to the Antarctic and will rise much more than the expected estimate in the northern hemisphere because when an ice sheet melts, its gravitational pull on the ocean is reduced and water moves away from it.

2. If the ice sheet collapses the depression (hole) in the Antarctic bedrock that sits under the ice sheet will fill with water. But, as the ice disappears, the hole will shrink as the region rebounds from the loss of ice, which will force some of the water out into the ocean.

3. The collapse of the ice sheet will cause the earth's rotation axis to shift 500 meters from its present condition, which will move water from the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans northward toward North America and into the southern Indian Ocean.

There is still some question as to how much ice would actually disappear if the whole sheet collapses, but even still, the researchers state that the sea-level rise that would occur at many populated coastal sites would be much larger than one would estimate by simply distributing the meltwater evenly.

There is a link to an illustration of the process at the bottom of the University of Toronto press release.

Congratulations to Katie Fehlinger and Headline Earth for producing their 100th video segment. In this week's segment, Katie discusses some of the upgrades to certain clean energy initiatives that were put into the U.S. Senate's version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The Heartland Institute recently released two videos which are meant to promote their 2nd annual International Conference on Climate Change, which is being held on March 8-10 in New York City. The theme of the conference is: "Global warming: was it ever really a crisis?"

For your viewing pleasure or displeasure.......Here is the link to both videos, which are posted on Youtube. Judge them for yourself. The second one is certainly an attention grabber (LOL).

Video #1 or the "Scare" video.

Video #2 or the "Cows" video.

This blog is written by Mark Paquette.......

Much like the Bangladesh article I blogged about last week, this article discusses a similar subject matter (How will climate change affect this area?), only this time it is a little closer to home.

Newly-appointed Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, is worried about the effects global warming may have on his home state of California. More specifically, he is worried about the water supply that keeps many Californian farms in business and lets them irrigate their crops during the dry season.

Obviously, the average American has more concerns about the water supply in this area than someplace overseas for several reasons:

1) California is in our country and we can follow the weather and climate in this area more closely than say.... Bangladesh. We can see when they are experiencing a drought and when they are not, and we also hear about concerns/problems with the water supply.

2) With a huge and growing population, changes in California's climate may affect us directly if we live there or have friends or family who live there. Or if we move there when we retire, or get a job and move to the area when we are younger.

3) As is mentioned in the article, California supplies more than half of America's fruits, vegetables and nuts. Any change in the water supply will obviously affect both the amount of these goods produced and the price we pay for these items at the neighborhood grocery store.

4) Because of California's unique climate, water is already a precious commodity. If water becomes even more scarce, what changes (climatologically, politically, and economically) may occur? We have heard the states of California, Nevada and Arizona bicker over the water in the Colorado River. Will this fighting become worse and more politically heated?

5) What happens to the businesses centered in California or nearby areas (movie/TV production in Hollywood, gambling in Las Vegas, tourism everywhere, skiing in the mountains) if the water supply becomes more limited?

For residents of places where the water supply is not nearly as big of a concern as it is in California, we assume there will always be water for whatever needs we have. Residents of the water-deprived areas of the western US know how precious the water supply is and know how a dry year or years can affect almost all aspects of life. Will California feel more of a pinch due to the limits of the water supply in the future?

Snow pack in a few areas of the Sierra Nevadas March 3, 2002

This story caught my eye........

Researchers from the University of California and Washington propose that the only method that has a long term, efficient, practical and economic impact in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is the removal and burial of crop residues in the deep ocean and preferably off the mouths of major rivers.

Why dump at the end of major rivers?

River’s-end dump sites already receive a fair amount of vegetable matter that flows down river. So any ecological effect would likely be minimized compared with other parts of the deep ocean, according to the Christian Science Monitor Blog.

According to the abstract and full study, which is posted in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, this process is 92% efficient in sequestration of crop residue, such as corn stalks, while cellulosic ethanol production is only 32% efficient.

The research team says that this process (burial of crop residues in the deep ocean) can potentially capture 15% of the current global carbon dioxide annual increase.

Robert Carney, a biological oceanographer from LSU offers some caution with the proposal by lead researchers Stuart Strand (University of Washington) and Gregory Benford (University of California) toward the bottom of the Christian Science Monitor blog page.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) just concluded their annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois. The meeting also featured a number of presentations about the impacts global climate change, including one from former Vice President Al Gore this past Saturday.

I found a video of Gore's slide presentation on YouTube. The video quality is not that great, but you easily can follow what he is saying. Each segment is anywhere between 3 and 8 minutes in length.

Introduction
video link

Part I
video link

Part II
video link

Part III
video link

Part IV
video link

Here is the written summary via the AAAS news release of Gore's 50 minute presentation.

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Tomorrow, I will feature one of the AAAS presentations by a pair of Penn State geoscience professors, who discuss the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.

A study of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets by two Penn State Geoscience Professors, Dr. Richard Alley (a lead author on the IPCC) and Dr. Evan Pugh has confirmed that both ice sheets are indeed melting, but the amounts that will melt and the time it will take are still unknown.

"We do not think that we will lose all, or even most, of Antarctica's ice sheet," said Alley. "But important losses may have already started and could raise sea level as much or more than melting of Greenland's ice over hundreds or thousands of years," Alley told the attendees at the annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which was held Feb 12-16, 2009.

Warming is expected to increase snowfall over Greenland and Antarctica, but recent studies have shown that the ice sheets are melting at a faster rate than the added snowfall to the ice sheet. Before, some scientists believed (and may still do so) that the added snowfall would offset the melting.

Two of the biggest contributors to the melting of ice sheets is the formation of large lakes on the ice in Greenland and the warming of the ocean, according to the release from EurekAlert.

Although those who study ice sheets have long modeled ice sheet behavior, simulations of the whole earth system typically have not included ice sheets along with the atmosphere, oceans and clouds in their models. Alley says the ice sheets need to be modeled so they can figure out how the whole system works.

Headline Earth's Katie Fehlinger from Accuweather.com interviewed Alley on a few occasions back in the fall of 2007. If you did not see those video segments, here they are.........

Part I

Part II

Part III

According to experts, if the ice sheet on Greenland melts, sea level will rise about 23 feet.

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Speaking of ice, several readers informed me about the recent data aquisition problems over at the National Sea Ice and Data Center (NSIDC).

According to the NSIDC release from yesterday it appears that there was a malfunction of the satellite sensor which they use to produce their daily sea ice products. Through more careful investigation, it appears that starting around early January, an error known as sensor drift caused a slowly growing underestimation of Arctic sea ice extent. The underestimation reached approximately 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles) by mid-February.

The sea ice data that they normally post on the NSIDC site has been taken offline until they get the problem solved.

You can read the whole story about this malfunction right here.

Updated temperature anomaly graphs courtesy of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS).........

A global snapshot of the January temperature anomalies. Reds and browns are above normal temperatures and the blues are colder than normal.

GISS plot of the anomalies by zone for Jan 2009. You can clearly see that the greatest warming has been in the far northern hemisphere.

The latest plot of the GISS land/ocean temperature anomaly since 1880. The anomalies are calculated against the 1951-1980 mean.

Here's a break down the GISS lnd/ocean plot of anomalies by hemisphere.

GISS temperature anomaly plot for the United States.

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GISS plot the monthly mean sea-surface temperature anomalies and at the bottom the Nino 3.4 region. Higher reds in the Nino 3.4 indicate El Nino conditions, while the lower blues indicate La Nina conditions. At present, we have weak La Nina conditions going on in the equatorial Pacific.

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All the January temperature data for the globe has now been released from the different sources.

All the sources confirm that January was indeed warmer compared to normal on a global scale, but to varying degrees. Here are the temperature anomaly details.........

National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) using the Smith and Reynolds method......

---Global land/ocean combined: +0.53 C or + 0.95 F, making it the 7th warmest January since 1880.

--Northern hemisphere: +0.60 C or + 1.08 F, making it the 7th warmest January.

--Southern hemisphere: +0.46 C or +0.83 F, making it the 7th warmest January.

Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) method......

--Global land/ocean combined: +0.52 C or + 0.94 F

University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) method, which measures the lower troposphere using microwave sounding units on board satellites....

--Global land/ocean: +.30 C or +0.54 F

Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) method, which also measures the lower troposphere using microwave sounding units on board satellites....

--Global land/ocean: +0.32 C or +0.58 F

This blog is written by Mark Paquette......

While doing one of my favorite pastimes, browsing the internet (what did I used to do in my free time, oh ya, play basketball) I came across this article that describes temperature trends that a former climatologist and professor at Montana State University, Joseph Caprio, has seen over 54 years at Bozeman and Coldstream, Montana.

A couple of trends noticed by Mr. Caprio in this article are:

- He noted that warm extreme nighttime temperatures are occurring more often.

-The greatest warming observed has been in two time periods, from late February through March, and then again from late July to August.

-I don't think Mr. Caprio had direct input into this study, but scientists have observed that glaciers at Glacier National Park are disappearing, with 84% of the park's ice and snow fields gone. Some of these scientists believe that all glaciers in the park may be gone as soon as 2030.

This article brings up some interesting points. It made me wonder about how animal and plant life are dealing with these changes in the climate in the wonderful state of Montana. Do grizzly bears hibernate for a shorter time now? As Brett mentioned in a blog a week or so ago, bird species are beginning to be noticed in areas where "they shouldn't be". Are the same changes going to happen in Montana? Are they happening as we speak?

How will the disappearance or shrinkage of glaciers in this area of the country affect the people and the wildlife? Will rivers be different at all (will there water source(s) be changed)? How will tourism in the area be different? I mean if someone comes to see the glaciers, and all of a sudden they are not there, will they still come to visit the region? Basic questions, sure, but I believe they are valid ones.

Other questions that pop-up in my mind are why are nighttime temperatures affected more than any other time? Why are those two time periods, late winter and late summer, being altered more than any other time of the year?

Glacier National Park in Montana

Before I get to the sea surface temperature data, here is a cool image from NASA's Aqua satellite from February 15th, 2009. The image shows a portion of the midwestern U.S., centered near Nebraska and Iowa. The bright, white band extending from the southern part of Nebraska through eastern Iowa is snow cover. At the time, there was about 7.5 inches of snow in Des Moines, Iowa. The duller, more wispier area from southeastern South Dakota to eastern Nebraska are clouds.

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The Feb 19th global sea surface temperature anomaly map compared to the same date over the past four years. The reds are above-normal sea surface temperatures, while the blues (as usual) are below-normal. Clearly, the most significant changes during the period have taken place over the central and northern Pacific Ocean. We will start with 2006 and end with the image from this past Thursday........

Feb 19, 2006

Feb 19, 2007

Feb 19, 2008

Feb 19, 2009

A professor in the atmospheric sciences department at Texas A&M says that warming due to greenhouse gases will produce higher humidity in the atmosphere. This increase in humidity will in turn cause additional warming, since water vapor as itself is a greenhouse gas. (positive water vapor feedback).

Professor Andrew Dessler, the author of this study, which is published in the journal Science, concludes that evidence of this strong, positive water vapor feedback is overwhelming.

According to Dessler, this feedback process will be responsible for a significant portion of the predicted warming over the next century and will double the heating caused by carbon dioxide alone.

Exerpts from the ScienceDaily article.

"Everything shows that the climate models are probably getting the water vapor feedback right, which means that unless we reduce emissions, it is going to get much, much warmer on our planet by the end of the century," he adds.

"The only possible way future warming won't be significant is if there exists some sort of off-setting negative feedback, which has yet to be discovered," Dessler notes.

"Most scientists, myself included, judge that to be a pretty unlikely possibility."

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Here is a link to an audio interview with Dr. Dessler about this story, via Science Podcast.

The highly anticipated launch of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California ended in failure earlier this morning as a contingency was declared a few minutes after launch.

According to NASA, preliminary indications are that the fairing, which houses the satellite, failed to separate from the launch vehicle. Since it was unable to separate, there was too much weight for the satellite to reach orbit.

Here is the link to the mission page. You can watch a video of the actual launch and the very somber contingency briefing on the site as well.

The spacecraft was forced to land in the ocean just off Antarctica.

A picture of the launch at 4:55 a.m. EST Tuesday.

OCO was NASA's first satellite dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide. The mission would help scientists determine carbon dioxide's sources, or the places on Earth where carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere, and also its sinks - where it is being removed.

New research from the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY) shows new evidence of the impacts of global warming in the polar regions.

The International Polar Year (IPY) is a large scientific program focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. This program allowed observations during the alternate seasons in both polar regions. Many Arctic residents also participated in this two-year study.

According to the report titled “State of Polar Research”, which was released Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Council for Science (ICSU), it appears clear that the Greenland and Antarctic Ice sheets are losing mass and contributing to sea level rise.

Other highlights from the report...........

--Warming in the Antarctic is much more widespread than it was thought before the IPY.

--The rate of ice loss in Greenland is increasing.

--During the summers of 2007 and 2008, which if you remember were the two seasons with the lowest recorded sea ice extent in the past 30 years of satellite data, there was an unprecedented rate of sea-ice drift in the Arctic.

--IPY research vessels confirmed above-global average warming in the southern ocean.

--The IPY identified large pools of carbon stored as methane (potent greenhouse gas) in permafrost. Researchers along the Siberian coast observed substantial emissions of methane from ocean sediments.

--Evidence of poleward migration of some species.

--North Atlantic storms are major sources of heat and moisture for the polar regions.

Princeton University physicist Dr. William Happer told a congressional committee hearing on Wednesday that global warming fears are "mistaken" and that the earth is currently in a "CO2 famine now" when you look at carbon dioxide (CO2) levels through geological time.

"I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind," Happer told the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Full Committee.

The hearing was titled "Update on the latest Global Warming Science."

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Here are some other quotes from Happer to the Committee, courtesy of the senator Inhofe (R) EPW press blog, which is posted by Marc Morano......

"Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million - ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that. Earth was just fine in those times,"Happer added. "The oceans were fine, plants grew, animals grew fine."

"What about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about? In a word, they are wildly exaggerated, just as the purported benefits of prohibition were wildly exaggerated."

"At least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player."

"The current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2."

"The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide."

"We now know that the hockey stick (Mann) has nothing to do with reality but was the result of incorrect handling of proxy temperature records and incorrect statistical analysis."

"The IPCC has made no serious attempt to model the natural variations of the earth’s temperature in the past. Whatever caused these large past variations, it was not due to people burning coal and oil. If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future?"

"I do not think there is a consensus about an impending climate crisis."

"Research papers with scientific findings contrary to the dogma of climate calamity are rejected by reviewers, many of whom fear that their research funding will be cut if any doubt is cast on the coming climate catastrophe."

Here is a link to Happer's actual testimony to the committee.

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Dr. Happer is a professor in the Department of Physics at Princeton University and former Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993.

Happer has published over 200 peer-revieved scientific papers. Happer has also been previously funded by Exxon-Mobil.

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Dr. Happer wasn't the only scientist to speak to the committee. Dr. Christopher Field, who is the co-chair of working group II of the IPCC presented his viewpoint, which is very different from Dr. Happer. I will have an upcoming blog on that as well.

Blog written by Mark Paquette....

I always post blogs a little lighter in the subject matter than Bret and I will continue this trend and bring it down even another level by going even lighter than I usually do...

First off, let me tell you how lucky I am to have a great job like this. I hear about how bad the economy is, and how many people in this great country don't have jobs and others are in danger of losing their jobs, and I feel honored, privileged and just plain lucky to get paid to do something that I love. I feel this way even more so because of my personal situation. I graduated college in 1996 with a degree in meteorology and this is my first job in this great field. Every day I wake up and pinch myself and tell myself that I really get paid to work with the weather everyday. Actually, working overnights I wake up every afternoon or evening and pinch myself at that time, but that is another story for a later time. I feel this way especially more so because of how many crappy jobs I had to work supporting me and my sons (sorry Gary Ring, you are a good friend and a great guy, but your job was the worst, being a house painter in New England, umm, how can I say this politely, isn't cool...lol. Sweating profusely while scraping lead paint off a banister on a roof 60 feet above the ground in baking sunshine just isn't what I was cut out for).

Anyways, around AccuWeather, the overnight staff jokes all the time about Global Warming only happening aloft (we joke about everything, but I don't think it is politically correct to mention everything we joke about). I know that probably 90% of it is just that, a joke. But, underlying this joke, I think some meteorologists here are at least a little bit serious about the warming aloft and it makes me wonder. How many "all snow" events do we see in say, central Pennsylvania, or in central Massachusetts (where I spent 33 years of my life before coming here to State College)? This winter not many. The previous winter? Not many. I remember times past being a kid and young adult in Leicester, Mass. and seeing massive all-snow events (December of 1992, April!!! 1st of 1997, etc). Of course, I remember some sleet and freezing rain events too (in the superstorm of March 1993 we had alot of sleet and some freezing rain) .

The question I guess I'm posing in this blog is, do we have areas in this country where "all-snow" events are becoming rarer, maybe rarer isn't right word but less common? The running punchline at night is that we should rename State College to "sleet" College. I have absolutely no hard evidence one way or another, I'm just posing the question. Are the levels of the atmosphere where clouds are and precipitation falls from and through, about 900-750 millibars of pressure or about 3,000 feet to approx. 8,000 feet above the surface of the earth showing more of a warming than the surface of the earth itself and thus producing more sleet and freezing rain at the expense of snow? Are the ice storms that occurred in central New England and upstate New York in December and later in Kentucky a few weeks ago associated with global warming or climate change? What do you think?