 Global warming is moving much more quickly than scientists thought it would. Even if the biggest current and prospective emitters - the United States, China and India - were to slam on the brakes today, the earth would continue to heat up for decades. At best, we may be able to slow things down and deal with the consequences, without social and political breakdown . Gwynne Dyer examines several radical short- and medium-term measures now being considered - all of them controversial.
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 When most people think about the deep sea, they picture broad expanses of muddy seafloor. However, the majority of deep-sea animals, and perhaps the majority of all animals on Earth, live in the "deep pelagic zone"--the dark waters between the ocean surface and the seafloor. An important research paper by MBARI marine biologist Bruce Robison points out that this seemingly remote habitat is increasingly being affected by human activities. Robison's paper highlights the urgent need to understand and protect the diversity of animals in this unique and vital habitat.
The "deep pelagic zone" extends from about one hundred meters (330 feet) below the ocean surface to just above the deep seafloor. Because it is four to ten kilometers (2.5 to 6 miles) deep and covers perhaps two thirds of the Earth's surface, this zone forms the largest single habitat for life on Earth. Robison suggests that the immense volume of this three-dimensional habitat contains more different species and more individual organisms than any other environment on the planet.
After decades of studying deep-sea animals, Robison says, "For most people these animals are out of sight and out of mind. They are also out of reach to all but a few scientists equipped with the latest technology. As a consequence, we know far too little about them. Because these animals are adapted to life in deep water, many are strange looking, even bizarre, but they are also wonderful examples of natural diversity. The bottom line is that the inhabitants of this environment constitute both the largest and least known animal communities on Earth."
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 Azolla has been deemed a "super-plant" as it can draw down as much as a tonne of nitrogen per acre per year [5] (0.25 kg/m²/yr); this is matched by 6 tonnes per acre of carbon drawdown (1.5 kg/m²/yr). Its ability to use atmospheric nitrogen for growth means that the main limit to its growth is usually the availability of phosphorus: carbon, nitrogen and sulphur being three of the key elements of proteins, and phosphorus being required for DNA, RNA and in energy metabolism. The plant can grow at great speed in favourable conditions – modest warmth and 20 hours of sunlight, both of which were in evidence at the poles during the early Eocene – and can double its biomass over two to three days in such a climate.
Geological evidence of the event
  Image: δ 18O – a proxy for temperature – over the past 65 million years. The Azolla event marks the end of the Eocene optimum and the beginning of a long-term decline in global temperatures.
In sedimentary layers throughout the Arctic basin, a unit reaching at least 8 m in thickness[2] is discernible. This unit consists of alternating layers; siliceous clastic layers representing the background sedimentation of planktonic organisms, usual to marine sediments, switch with millimetre-thick laminations comprising fossilised Azolla matter.[3] This organic matter can also be detected in the form of a gamma radiation spike, that has been noted throughout the Arctic basin, making the event a useful aid in lining up cores drilled at different locations. Palynological controls and calibration with the high-resolution geomagnetic reversal record allows the duration of the event to be estimated at 800,000 years.[1] The event coincides precisely with a catastrophic decline in carbon dioxide levels, which fell from 3500 ppm in the early Eocene to 650 ppm during this event.
The Azolla event in geological time
Neoproterozoic
Palæozoic
Mesozoic
Cenozoic
Million years ago. Age of Earth = 4,650
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event
By the 20th century, scientists had rejected old tales of world catastrophe, and were convinced that global climate could change only gradually over many tens of thousands of years. But in the 1950s, a few scientists found evidence that some changes in the past had taken only a few thousand years. During the 1960s and 1970s other data, supported by new theories and new attitudes about human influences, reduced the time a change might require to hundreds of years. Many doubted that such a rapid shift could have befallen the planet as a whole. The 1980s and 1990s brought proof (chiefly from studies of ancient ice) that the global climate could indeed shift, radically and catastrophically, within a century — perhaps even within a decade.
Dansgaard et al. (1989); increasingly abrupt changes were seen on further study, Johnsen et al. (1992); Grootes et al. (1993); jumps of Greenland snow accumulation "possibly in one to three years" were reported by Alley et al. (1993), see also Mayewski (1993); five-year steps: Taylor et al. (1997); changes in dust had been noted, indicating at least continental scope for the change, and a Younger Dryas temperature step in less than a decade was found to be hemisphere-wide since methane gas changed as well: Severinghaus et al. (1998). Good histories are Alley (2000) and Cox, (2005), ch. 8.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm
A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.
The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.
“The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans,” said Shakhova, a researcher at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center. “Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap.”
Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It is released from previously frozen soils in two ways. When the organic material—which contains carbon—stored in permafrost thaws, it begins to decompose and, under oxygen-free conditions, gradually release methane. Methane can also be stored in the seabed as methane gas or methane hydrates and then released as subsea permafrost thaws. These releases can be larger and more abrupt than those that result from decomposition.
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane-rich area that encompasses more than 2 million square kilometers of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean. It is more than three times as large as the nearby Siberian wetlands, which have been considered the primary Northern Hemisphere source of atmospheric methane. Shakhova’s research results show that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is already a significant methane source: 7 teragrams yearly, which is equal to the amount of methane emitted from the rest of the ocean. A teragram is equal to about 1.1 million tons.
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Author: By Jim Hansen (2006 article)
Yet, a few weeks ago, when I - a Nasa climate scientist - tried to talk to the media about these issues following a lecture I had given calling for prompt reductions in the emission of greenhouse gases, the Nasa public affairs team - staffed by political appointees from the Bush administration - tried to stop me doing so. I was not happy with that, and I ignored the restrictions. The first line of Nasa's mission is to understand and protect the planet.
This new satellite data is a remarkable advance. We are seeing for the first time the detailed behaviour of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet. They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year. It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance.
Hundreds of cubic kilometres sounds like a lot of ice. But this is just the beginning. Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid. The issue is how close we are getting to that tipping point. The summer of 2005 broke all records for melting in Greenland. So we may be on the edge.
Our understanding of what is going on is very new. Today's forecasts of sea-level rise use climate models of the ice sheets that say they can only disintegrate over a thousand years or more. But we can now see that the models are almost worthless. They treat the ice sheets like a single block of ice that will slowly melt. But what is happening is much more dynamic.
Once the ice starts to melt at the surface, it forms lakes that empty down crevasses to the bottom of the ice. You get rivers of water underneath the ice. And the ice slides towards the ocean.
Our Angry Earth: A Ticking Ecological Bomb, (1991) is a non-fiction book and polemic against the effects humankind is having on the environment by the science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl. In his last non-fiction book, Asimov co-writes with his long-time friend science fiction author Frederik Pohl, and deals with elements of the environmental crisis such as global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer.
It suggests monumental disasters are threatening to destroy humankind and argues that "it is too late to save our planet from harm". The book has four sections: "The Background", "The Problems", "The Technocures" and "The Way to Go".
It was first published by Tor Books in 1991, ISBN 0312852525.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Angry_Earth
Many military leaders and Afghan and Iraq veterans have warned that global warming and oil dependence will harm U.S. national security. A new video “ Climate Patriots,” by the PEW Project on National Security and Energy, warns that climate change is the enemy we’ve been forgetting to fight. It includes American military leaders and retired officers who are very concerned about the security impact of inaction: (see below article video) The video underscores the inextricable link between climate change and national security. There are the challenges that the impacts of climate change themselves pose to American soldiers and armed forces abroad. Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns will lead to an increase in humanitarian disasters, like refugee situations, according to the Pentagon’s most recent Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). This will put a stress on U.S. military’s capability to help after such events. “It’s a natural part of American foreign policy to help people who need it,” said Captain James Morin in the video, “and as long as that’s true, and as long as climate change continues to get worse, it’s just going to make the job that much harder.”
The impacts of global warming will create increased political instability as tensions over resource scarcity and refugee situations come to a head. As former Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee John Warner notes in Climate Patriots, future military missions will be a direct consequence of a combination of erratic climate change and resource shortages: “[our soldiers] may be called upon to perform missions which are a consequence of an erratic climate change or shortage of energy or a variety of both.” The Department of Defense echoes the Climate Patriots in the QDR:
The rising demand for resources, rapid urbanization of littoral regions, the effects of climate change, the emergence of new strains of disease, and profound cultural and demographic tensions in several regions are just some of the trends whose complex interplay may spark or exacerbate future conflicts.
Our dangerous reliance on foreign oil threatens our security as well. For example, in 2008 the U.S. imported 4 million barrels of oil a day from nations deemed “dangerous or unstable” by the U.S. State Department. We spent $150 billion for this oil. These funds support some regimes that do not share many of our foreign policy objectives. Admiral John Natham believes that it is cheaper to invest in efforts to increase our energy independence and to curb pollution saying, “You can pay me now, or you can pay a whole lot later. And if I pay a whole lot later, it’s not just about dollars, it’s really about American lives.”
The Center for Naval Analyses points out that there is a finite supply of fossil fuels on the planet that is being drained by increasing global demand, and we are increasingly supporting dangerous and unstable governments with our energy dollars. Continuing our heavy reliance on these fuels is a security risk that “should be fully integrated into national security and national defense strategies.”
By following the senior former military leaders’ call to transition to a clean energy economy and reduce dependence on foreign oil now, we can protect our national security. The Climate Patriots video sheds light on this important—yet under reported— aspect of how global warming affects us as a nation. So let’s support the troops by adopting a comprehensive climate change policy as a pillar of a national security.
Climate Progress
The case for climate action has gone through several incarnations. First was the environmental: The greenhouse effect would destabilize the planet's climate, melt the polar ice caps, wipe out coast lands disrupt ecosystems and cause mass extinctions.
The second gave the issue a human face: Climate change would hit the world's most vulnerable people the hardest, eroding development gains and deepening their misery. This pitch never really made inroads in the U.S. But as the economy tanked, and climate change finally entered the political agenda, the economic narrative has drowned out all others — green growth, clean energy jobs, global competitiveness are the buzzwords of the day.
2009 brought yet another twist: climate change as a national security threat. Senate Democrats began using this pitch last fall in an attempt to marshal support for Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate bill. The public cares about national security, so this new tack could yield results were others have failed. Were Democrats just trying to find a message - any message - that would resonate? Or are the any merits to the security argument besides smart politics?
http://environment.change.org/blog/view/the_militarys_salute_to_climate_change
 “This thing is moving much faster than the public knows it is, and the military knows this. Governments know this,” Dyer said. Armies of Britain, US, China, Russia, and Japan are all acknowledging the danger of climate change. All are producing studies into the dangers posed to the state by climate change, and all are realizing that there is a “strategic component to this climate change,” Dyer said.
As Canadians, “we're looking now down the barrel of a much larger, nearer, shotgun.” This four degrees is a global average. Temperatures over the oceans are typically cooler, meaning the change will be much more significant on land, especially for landlocked regions. A four degree average, the Hadley Centre estimated, means a three degree rise for the island of Britain, and a severe seven degree rise for this part of Canada. “I don't know if you're still growing crops at seven degrees higher here,” Dyer said.
Dyer talked about the two degree cap agreed upon at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit to which more than 150 countries were in attendance. They didn't state why two was the key number, said Dyer. According to him, “two degrees is as high as you can go before you trigger feedbacks.” Feedbacks were previously deemed too difficult to measure and so were not included in scientific studies on the effects of humans on climate change.
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"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces." - Carl Sagan
