Climate Change to Spark Economic Depression
rudkla - 29. Okt, 23:07
Global Warming - Globale Erwaermung
Sonntag, 29. Oktober 2006
Atlantic current came to halt for 10 days in 2004
rudkla - 29. Okt, 08:17
Klima: die Welt am Scheideweg
Die Erde wird wärmer. Daran gibt es keinen Zweifel. Wie aber werden die Folgen des Klimawandels aussehen? Und können wir überhaupt noch etwas tun?
http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168451ms17
Außenministerin Beckett fordert deutsche Klimaschutzinitiative
Margaret Beckett, britische Außenministerin, hat in Berlin eine äußerst bemerkenswerte Grundsatzrede gehalten, wie fundamental das Thema Klimasicherheit die Außenpolitik verändern wird, ja schon verändert. Und sie endet mit einem furiosen Appell an die deutsche Regierung, ihre Klima-Verantwortung bei den EU- und G8-Präsidentschaften wahrzunehmen. So deutlich war nicht einmal der grüne Außenminister Joschka Fischer, der es immer ablehnte, von einer "grünen Außenpolitik" zu sprechen.
http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168456ms17
REDETEXT: Außenministerin Beckett: Rede zur Klimasicherheit
http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168457ms17
Schneller Konsum statt langfristiger Genuss?
WWF präsentiert „Living Planet Report 2006“ zum Zustand unserer Erde. http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168464ms17
http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168451ms17
Außenministerin Beckett fordert deutsche Klimaschutzinitiative
Margaret Beckett, britische Außenministerin, hat in Berlin eine äußerst bemerkenswerte Grundsatzrede gehalten, wie fundamental das Thema Klimasicherheit die Außenpolitik verändern wird, ja schon verändert. Und sie endet mit einem furiosen Appell an die deutsche Regierung, ihre Klima-Verantwortung bei den EU- und G8-Präsidentschaften wahrzunehmen. So deutlich war nicht einmal der grüne Außenminister Joschka Fischer, der es immer ablehnte, von einer "grünen Außenpolitik" zu sprechen.
http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168456ms17
REDETEXT: Außenministerin Beckett: Rede zur Klimasicherheit
http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168457ms17
Schneller Konsum statt langfristiger Genuss?
WWF präsentiert „Living Planet Report 2006“ zum Zustand unserer Erde. http://sonnenseite.kjm4.de/ref.php?id=d874168464ms17
rudkla - 29. Okt, 08:06
Samstag, 28. Oktober 2006
Evidence grows of waning ocean current
James Randerson in London
October 28, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/evidence-grows-of-waning-ocean-current/2006/10/27/1161749315591.html
Scientists have uncovered more evidence of a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Western Europe its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics.
The slowdown of the North Atlantic Drift, which climate modellers have predicted will follow global warming, has been confirmed by the most detailed study yet of ocean flow in the Atlantic.
Most alarmingly, the data reveals part of the current, usually 60 times more powerful than the Amazon River, came to a temporary halt during November 2004.
The nightmare scenario of a shutdown in the meridional ocean current that drives the Gulf Stream was dramatically portrayed in disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.
That scenario had Europe and North America plunged into a new ice age virtually overnight. Although no scientist thinks the switch-off could happen that fast, they do agree that even a weakening over a few decades would have profound consequences.
The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico, flows up the US east coast, then crosses the Atlantic, where it splits in two, with one branch crossing to West Africa. The other branch, the North Atlantic Drift, extends towards Europe. The warm water it brings to Western Europe's shores raises the temperature by as much as 10 degrees in some places and without it the continent would be much colder and drier.
Researchers are unsure what to make of the 10-day hiatus in the current in 2004.
"We'd never seen anything like that before and we don't understand it. We didn't know it could happen," said Harry Bryden, of Britain's National Oceanography Centre, who presented the findings to a conference in Birmingham on rapid climate change.
Is it the first sign that the current is stuttering to a halt?
"I want to know more before I say that," Professor Bryden said.
Lloyd Keigwin, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, said the 2004 shutdown was "the most abrupt change in the whole [climate] record". "Suppose it lasted 30 or 60 days, when do you ring up the prime minister and say let's start stockpiling fuel? … How can we rule out a longer one next year?" he said.
Professor Bryden's group stunned climate researchers last year with data suggesting that the flow rate of the Atlantic circulation had dropped by about 6 million tonnes of water a second from 1957 to 1998.
If the current remained that weak, he predicted, it would lead to a one-degree drop in temperature in Britain in the next decade. A complete shutdown would lead to a four- to six-degree cooling over 20 years.
Guardian News & Media
Informant: binstock
October 28, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/evidence-grows-of-waning-ocean-current/2006/10/27/1161749315591.html
Scientists have uncovered more evidence of a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Western Europe its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics.
The slowdown of the North Atlantic Drift, which climate modellers have predicted will follow global warming, has been confirmed by the most detailed study yet of ocean flow in the Atlantic.
Most alarmingly, the data reveals part of the current, usually 60 times more powerful than the Amazon River, came to a temporary halt during November 2004.
The nightmare scenario of a shutdown in the meridional ocean current that drives the Gulf Stream was dramatically portrayed in disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.
That scenario had Europe and North America plunged into a new ice age virtually overnight. Although no scientist thinks the switch-off could happen that fast, they do agree that even a weakening over a few decades would have profound consequences.
The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico, flows up the US east coast, then crosses the Atlantic, where it splits in two, with one branch crossing to West Africa. The other branch, the North Atlantic Drift, extends towards Europe. The warm water it brings to Western Europe's shores raises the temperature by as much as 10 degrees in some places and without it the continent would be much colder and drier.
Researchers are unsure what to make of the 10-day hiatus in the current in 2004.
"We'd never seen anything like that before and we don't understand it. We didn't know it could happen," said Harry Bryden, of Britain's National Oceanography Centre, who presented the findings to a conference in Birmingham on rapid climate change.
Is it the first sign that the current is stuttering to a halt?
"I want to know more before I say that," Professor Bryden said.
Lloyd Keigwin, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, said the 2004 shutdown was "the most abrupt change in the whole [climate] record". "Suppose it lasted 30 or 60 days, when do you ring up the prime minister and say let's start stockpiling fuel? … How can we rule out a longer one next year?" he said.
Professor Bryden's group stunned climate researchers last year with data suggesting that the flow rate of the Atlantic circulation had dropped by about 6 million tonnes of water a second from 1957 to 1998.
If the current remained that weak, he predicted, it would lead to a one-degree drop in temperature in Britain in the next decade. A complete shutdown would lead to a four- to six-degree cooling over 20 years.
Guardian News & Media
Informant: binstock
rudkla - 28. Okt, 18:07
Warming climate opens late-season Arctic routes
Nathan VanderKlippe
CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal
Friday, October 27, 2006
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=08e91a34-5803-4944-8b73-d60839bb0dd9&k=66057
YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T. -- Arctic straits that are typically choked solid with ice this time of year remain completely open to shipping traffic late in October, raising profound issues for Canada as it struggles to maintain its grasp on the Arctic.
For the past week, the Canadian Coast Guard scientific icebreaker Amundsen has sailed east from the Nunavut hamlet of Kugluktuk, encountering virtually no resistance through straits that have for centuries been nearly impossible to traverse, even in summer.
"We actually went through Bellot Strait and Fury and Hecla Strait, which nobody has ever done this time of year," said Fisheries and Oceans researcher Gary Stern, who is serving as chief scientist aboard the Amundsen. "There was absolutely no ice."
In 1822, when Fury and Hecla Strait was discovered by explorer William Edward Parry, its ice remained so thick at the height of summer that he was forced to anchor his boats and cross by foot. As recently as 1999, Canada's most powerful icebreaker, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, encountered so much ice during an August journey through the strait that she sustained damage to her propellers and could not move faster than 200 metres per hour.
But what is historic today could soon become routine as a warming climate melts the Northwest Passage.
"It's nice to know that you are one of the few going through there," said Capt. Alain Gariepy, the commander of the Amundsen. He spoke from the ship after crossing through Fury and Hecla Strait for the first time in his more than two decades of Arctic sailing.
"At the same time, you think maybe it's not going to be that difficult in the years coming. Maybe it's not such a feat any more."
In fact, for much of the last couple of months the Northwest Passage, the fabled route through the Far North that resisted sailors for centuries, has been open to transit for ships with only modest ice-strengthening, with no need for icebreaker support.
The passage remains an attractive route because it cuts 7,000 kilometres from some shipping routes between Asia and Europe.
Canada claims the Northwest Passage as an internal waterway, over which it can impose its own environmental controls and deny passage to other ships. The United States and most other maritime powers call it an international waterway where right of passage is guaranteed.
Although Ottawa has pledged an expanded Arctic presence including armed icebreakers to strengthen Canada's claim, no solid commitments have yet been made.
"From what I've seen E I am increasingly convinced that Canadian policy-makers are living in a complete state of denial when it comes to the dangers of international (Arctic) shipping and the kind of time frame involved," said Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia law professor who holds the Canada research chair in global politics and international law, and is sailing aboard the Amundsen. "Because it's coming fast. It's now, from what I've seen, a question of years rather than decades."
nvanderklippe@globaltv.com
Edmonton Journal © CanWest News Service 2006
Informant: binstock
CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal
Friday, October 27, 2006
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=08e91a34-5803-4944-8b73-d60839bb0dd9&k=66057
YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T. -- Arctic straits that are typically choked solid with ice this time of year remain completely open to shipping traffic late in October, raising profound issues for Canada as it struggles to maintain its grasp on the Arctic.
For the past week, the Canadian Coast Guard scientific icebreaker Amundsen has sailed east from the Nunavut hamlet of Kugluktuk, encountering virtually no resistance through straits that have for centuries been nearly impossible to traverse, even in summer.
"We actually went through Bellot Strait and Fury and Hecla Strait, which nobody has ever done this time of year," said Fisheries and Oceans researcher Gary Stern, who is serving as chief scientist aboard the Amundsen. "There was absolutely no ice."
In 1822, when Fury and Hecla Strait was discovered by explorer William Edward Parry, its ice remained so thick at the height of summer that he was forced to anchor his boats and cross by foot. As recently as 1999, Canada's most powerful icebreaker, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, encountered so much ice during an August journey through the strait that she sustained damage to her propellers and could not move faster than 200 metres per hour.
But what is historic today could soon become routine as a warming climate melts the Northwest Passage.
"It's nice to know that you are one of the few going through there," said Capt. Alain Gariepy, the commander of the Amundsen. He spoke from the ship after crossing through Fury and Hecla Strait for the first time in his more than two decades of Arctic sailing.
"At the same time, you think maybe it's not going to be that difficult in the years coming. Maybe it's not such a feat any more."
In fact, for much of the last couple of months the Northwest Passage, the fabled route through the Far North that resisted sailors for centuries, has been open to transit for ships with only modest ice-strengthening, with no need for icebreaker support.
The passage remains an attractive route because it cuts 7,000 kilometres from some shipping routes between Asia and Europe.
Canada claims the Northwest Passage as an internal waterway, over which it can impose its own environmental controls and deny passage to other ships. The United States and most other maritime powers call it an international waterway where right of passage is guaranteed.
Although Ottawa has pledged an expanded Arctic presence including armed icebreakers to strengthen Canada's claim, no solid commitments have yet been made.
"From what I've seen E I am increasingly convinced that Canadian policy-makers are living in a complete state of denial when it comes to the dangers of international (Arctic) shipping and the kind of time frame involved," said Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia law professor who holds the Canada research chair in global politics and international law, and is sailing aboard the Amundsen. "Because it's coming fast. It's now, from what I've seen, a question of years rather than decades."
nvanderklippe@globaltv.com
Edmonton Journal © CanWest News Service 2006
Informant: binstock
rudkla - 28. Okt, 17:59
Swans deliver a climate change warning
rudkla - 28. Okt, 17:56
Climate change: US economist's grim warning to Blair's Cabinet
rudkla - 28. Okt, 17:55
Warming a threat to wildlife
rudkla - 28. Okt, 17:50
