Security
Declassified Images Reveal Extreme Arctic Ice Melt
Published July 26, 2009 @ 08:05PM PT
Above: Beaufort Sea images, showing retreat of sea ice between 2001 and 2006. More info below.
Just hours after a mid-month request from the National Research Council, the Department of Interior released over one thousand spy images of the Arctic and other locations in the US. The Bush administration had classified the images and kept them from the public and federal scientists.
The newly declassified images document such a startling retreat of Arctic sea ice, that the UK's Guardian newspaper calls them "the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide":
The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.
The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice - a record loss - were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.
Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery.
Here's the image that the Guardian's talking about:
Kudos to Julia Whitney at the Mother Jones Blue Marble blog, Dan Vergano at USA Today's Science Fair blog, and Deborah Zabarenko at Reuters, for being right on top of this story earlier in July. As Zabarenko notes, the images are at a resolution of 1 meter, an enormous improvement over earlier images with resolutions of 15 to 30 meters.
"These are one-meter resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," Thorsten Markus of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center told Reuters. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One-meter resolution is the dimension that's been missing."
Especially given the failed late Feburary launch of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (it crashed into the Southern Ocean a few minutes after takeoff, due to rocket failure), these images should be an enormous boon to researchers trying to figure out how fast global warming is progressing, and better understand what the future might look like.
Whitney writes,
The higher definition pictures reveal small features with big impacts on warming—like dark melt pools on top of the ice that absorb light and heat. These images will vastly improve the accuracy of forecast modelling.
Scientists were expecting the request for the Arctic images to be declassified to take months—at least.
But apparently someone in Washington digs science and actually understands something about climate security and the perils of thin ice.
The Arctic ice cap plays a major role in regulating the global climate. Without that ice reflecting the sun's heat back into space (an effect that's called albedo), the heat is instead absorbed by the water, which in turn melts more ice, which leaves more open water to absorb more heat, and so on. (Dr. Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, recently called this an Arctic ice death spiral.) All of which is contributing to raising the average surface temperature of the entire Earth.
That ice is also crucial habitat for polar bears, walruses and Arctic seals. Without it, it seems likely they would ultimately go extinct in the wild.
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Images courtesy US Geological Survey
Beaufort Sea - 73N, 150W
This region has been the site of many field studies since the International Geophysical Year 1957/58. The ice in this region is the most studied and best known. It has been the locale of many studies of the surface heat budget, as well as submarine sonar cross sections.
Arctic ice is retreating; a trend overlain with considerable year to year variability. This site is near the edge of the ice pack. In the 24 hour darkness and cold of winter, any open water freezes quickly. In summer, as shown here, ponds of meltwater form on the surface. These dark pools absorb more of summertime's solar radiation than does the surrounding ice, enhancing melting. Pond coverage monitored over time contributes to estimates of surface reflectivity that are needed to model the response of sea ice to changing climate.
1 Video to Watch This Week: Stewart Brand's 4 environmental heresies
Published July 21, 2009 @ 08:14PM PT
One of the founders of the modern environmental movement, Stewart Brand, has been reconsidering his positions on a few mundane matters related to preserving the environment, feeding the exploding human population, and stabilizing the climate.
Brand has been incalculably influential in American environmental and internet cultures. In just a few examples: Brand helped catalyze the early years of the sustainable communities and DIY movements in the late Sixties and early Seventies with the Whole Earth Catalog, a compendium of tools, reviews, and information. Brand uttered his famous aphorism, "Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive," at the inaugural Hackers Conference in 1984, an event he co-founded to gather together the early pioneers of the computer revolution. And he co-founded one of the earliest of influential online communities, The WELL, way back in 1985.
So if he now thinks slums will be drivers of green innovation, and micronuclear reactors and geo-engineering are crucial to stopping global warming, it's worth paying attention.
Suggest a story to Stop Global Warming
Published July 10, 2009 @ 08:01AM PT
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From Stephen Colbert to Steve Doocy: 7 Videos to Watch This Week
Published July 01, 2009 @ 05:55PM PT
1. The Colbert Report, May 7, 2009: Smokin' Pole - The Fight for Arctic Riches
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Smokin' Pole - The Fight for Arctic Riches | ||||
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Arctic nations rush to stake claims in polar territories, even though it clearly belongs to America -- Superman lives there.
2. Al Gore warns on latest climate trends
Al Gore presents updated slides from around the globe to make the case that worrying climate trends are even worse than scientists predicted, and to make clear his stance on "clean coal."
3. Bill McKibben: Fighting Climate Change in the Obama Era
Greenpeace UK has a chat over coffee with veteran US "environmental guru" Bill McKibben. McKibben has been agitating and organising to make governments take strong action on climate change for the past 20 years. Until there is a mass movement that both gives politicians the space to act, he believes, and forces them to do so, change will be halting.
4. Ray Zahab treks to the South Pole
Extreme runner Ray Zahab shares an enthusiastic account of his record-breaking trek on foot to the South Pole in January 2009 -- a 33-day sprint through the snow. Zahab broke the record for fastest unsupported trek across Antarctica, to raise awareness and money for kids' environmental education.
5. The American Denial of Global Warming
Why do some Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability? Or that scientists are still debating the point? Scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science. Via University of California
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6. The Daily Show, June 1, 2009: Bob Woodruff chats with Jon Stewart about global warming
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Experts say over the next hundred years the "perfect storm" of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results. On the eve of the broadcast of ABC's "Earth 2100" special, Bob Woodruff lays out the worst-case scenario for the future of civilization, and how we can act now to set a different course.
7. Fox News reports global temperature decline falsehood as if it's true
Several Fox News figures have used a purportedly "suppressed" EPA document to advance the falsehood that, in Steve Doocy's words, "for the last 11 years, temperatures had been dropping." More at Media Matters for America.
Clean Energy-Climate Action Bill Passes House 219-212
Published June 26, 2009 @ 05:23PM PT
The Waxman-Markey bill to expand clean energy and energy efficiency, and cap greenhouse gas pollution, has passed on a squeaky-close House of Representatives vote of 219 for, 212 against.
The Democrats managed to pull together enough members, despite sometimes stark differences of opinion on carbon caps, agricultural policy, continued use of coal, and other regionally-defined issues. One exception was Rep. Peter DeFazio, who (despite representing a largely liberal Oregon constituency) opposed the bill for creating, he said, a new way for speculators in financial derivatives (this time based on the price of carbon) to bring down the economy.
Meanwhile, eight Republicans bucked the party line to vote in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act: David Reichert (WA-8th), Mary Bono Mack (Calif-45th), Michael Castle (Del., At-large), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2nd), John McHugh (NY-23rd), Chris Smith (NJ-4th), Leonard Lance (NJ-7th), and Mark Kirk (Ill.-10th).
The House Clerk has posted the full record of the vote.
Thanks to everyone who followed or joined me, Grist's Kate Sheppard, and the other political journo-wonks as we covered the debate and vote via Twitter. Now I'm off to rest my digits.
Video, above: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), blew the House down when he exhorted his fellow representatives to pass the bill.
State your case on #ACES: Climate Pass or Climate Fail?
Published June 26, 2009 @ 08:51AM PT
Okay kids, get your ya-yas out: What's your opinion of the clean energy and climate change bill that's being debated in the House today?
Should it pass, or will it do more harm than good in stopping global warming? Will its' cap-and-trade provisions curb greenhouse gas emissions effectively, or have concessions to fossil energy and agriculture industry interests fatally weakened the legislation?
Note: As ever, courtesy toward fellow commenters is strongly encouraged. References to Nazis, or denials of the reality of global warming, will be deleted as troll posts.
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Image: View of the Sun from Baja California, during an eclipse on July 11, 1991. Source: NASA Earth Observatory
NY Times: "cautious" optimism that #ACES will pass in House
Published June 26, 2009 @ 06:01AM PT
This morning on The Caucus, the DC politics blog of The New York Times:
Democrats on the Hill are cautiously optimistic that the bill will make it through the House, but, as our John Broder found, “senior lawmakers acknowledge that they have not yet lined up the 218 votes needed for passage.”
Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who has helped shepherd the bill to this point, has negotiated with moderate and farm belt Democrats to capture some of their votes. Republicans remain opposed to the bill, labeling it an energy tax for consumers.
Mr. Obama called the energy bill a boon both for the environment and the economy. In his remarks, the president conceded the vote would be tight, “in part because of the misinformation that’s out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and our economic growth.”
