Earth on Fire: The Overheating Planet

Earth on Fire: The Overheating Planet

NOTE ON POPULAR POSTS

The reason some popular posts are tagged ‘no title’ is not because they have no title—they all do—but because the old Blogger embedded the title at the top of text, and the new software does not see that. You can see the titles in capitals at the start of each snippet. (It would be nice if Blogger introduced an upgrade program that could fix this little problem.)

Popular Posts

Friday 13 June 2014

HE IS RIGHT--WE HAVE WRECKED IT

It's too late to stop climate-change, is the headline, he says what this blog has been saying for years, and he is right on every point. With our gross chronic stupidity we have wrecked the only planet we can live on in the entire universe (even if there were an Earth 2, we cannot reach it--Star Trek is fiction, and even if it were not, we could not move seven billion people).

Wednesday 21 May 2014

GLOBAL CLIMATE DATA FOR APRIL 2014

This month's data published by NOAA/NCDC shows:

Global Highlights

  • The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for April 2014 tied with 2010 as the highest on record for the month, at 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F).
  • The global land surface temperature was 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the 20th century average of 8.1°C (46.5°F), marking the third warmest April on record. For the ocean, the April global sea surface temperature was 0.55°C (0.99°F) above the 20th century average of 16.0°C (60.9°F), also the third highest for April on record.
  • The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–April period (year-to-date) was 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20th century average of 12.6°C (54.8°F), the sixth warmest such period on record.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

WEST ANTARCTIC MELT IS UNSTOPPABLE

A study by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory has concluded that the melting of a section of the West Antarctic icesheet is unstoppable. It has passed the point of no-return, and will contribute at least 1.2 metres to global sea-levels.

And 400 kilometres down the rock is pushing upward at a rapid clip as the weight of ice under the Antarctic reduces.

Saturday 3 May 2014

SNAILS ALREADY DISSOLVING IN THE OCEAN

A harbinger of things to come: 'An increasingly acidified Pacific Ocean is dissolving the shells of tiny marine snails that live along North America’s western coast. The broad finding, which has surprised some researchers, suggests that sea life is already being affected by changes in the ocean’s chemistry caused by rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere', reports Science.

Friday 31 January 2014

63 YEARS OF CLIMATE-CHANGE IN 15 SECONDS

This NASA video shows 63 years of climate-change in fifteen seconds. Only the most brain-damaged and obtuse sceptics could refuse to believe the evidence of their own warped eyes.

Thursday 16 January 2014

MAP OF CLIMATE CRIMINALS

This map shows the countries that are the worst global criminals, the ones at the top of the list of those committing climate crime against humanity.

Friday 6 December 2013

CENTURIES OF CLIMATE-CHANGE INEVITABLE

This synopis was published today by Science magazine.

Climate Science
It has been well established that high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 caused by anthropogenic emissions will persist for thousands of years after those emissions cease and that the consequences for climate will last even longer than that. Suggestions have been made that CO2 could be removed from the atmosphere artificially in order to speed global climate recovery, but what can be expected from such a capture scheme? MacDougall uses a climate model of intermediate complexity, employing scenarios of CO2removal that move from the more idealized schemes used in past studies toward more realistic ones, in order to continue refining our understanding of what would be the effects of such an undertaking. He finds that by assuming a moderate value of climate sensitivity and that CO2 is removed from the atmosphere as fast as it was added once emissions cease, surface air temperatures like those of preindustrial times can be approached by the year 3000 CE in all but the most extreme emission scenarios. Other components of the climate system, such as mass of the polar ice sheets, and sea level, will take longer to recover, however. So, even if we dial back atmospheric CO2concentrations by massive geoengineering, we will be living with the effects of fossil fuel burning for many hundreds of years, at the least.
Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 5480 (2013).

Thursday 21 November 2013

NINETY COMPANIES HAVE WRECKED THE PLANET

About two-thirds of the damage that is causing climate-change has been caused by only ninety companies.

They should be taken to the Hague and tried for crimes against humanity. We tried the Nazis, found them guilty (a no-brainer) and hanged them. But they wiped out only 30 million people and hardly made a dent in the planet. Those companies will wipe out far more and have wrecked the planet.

Thursday 10 October 2013

MAJOR CITIES TO BE UNINHABITABLE

'Apocalypse Now: Unstoppable man-made climate change will become reality by the end of the decade and could make New York, London and Paris uninhabitable within 45 years. Research from the University of Hawaii claims that man-made global warming is now inevitable:
'The Earth is going to dangerously heat up over the next 50-years;
'The tropics will bear the brunt of the disastrous temperature increases of as much as seven-degrees-centigrade;
'Millions of people will be displaced, millions of species will be threatened with extinction;
'Major cities such as New York and London will fight to survive the rise in temperatures the likes of which humans have never experienced before.'

But the fools and liars who want to deny the incontrovertible truth that human beings have changed the global climate and are carrying on changing it as if nothing was happening, as this superb piece profoundly illustrates.

Wednesday 25 September 2013

MANMADE CLIMATE-CHANGE CERTAINTY

Top scientists from a variety of fields say they are about as certain that global warming is a real manmade threat as they are that cigarettes kill. They are as sure about climate change as they are about the age of the universe. They say they are more certain about climate change than they are that vitamins make you healthy.

Thursday 22 August 2013

WORLD CLIMATE FOR JULY 2013

Global Climate Statistics from the US Government:  Highlights, July 2013

  • The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for July 2013 was the sixth highest on record, at 0.61°C (1.10°F) above the 20th century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F).
  • The global land surface temperature was 0.78°C (1.40°F) above the 20th century average of 14.3°C (57.8°F), marking the eighth warmest July on record. For the ocean, the July global sea surface temperature was 0.54°C (0.97°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), the fifth warmest July on record.
  • The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–July period (year-to-date) was 0.59°C (1.06°F) above the 20th century average of 13.8°C (56.9°F), tying with 2003 as the sixth warmest such period on record.

Friday 2 August 2013

MORE BAD NEWS ON CLIMATE-CHANGE

Our hotter, wetter, more violent future:
'Earth’s atmosphere seems to have found a way to get back at the human race. For almost three centuries, we humans have been filling the air with carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Now, it turns out, the climate-change these emissions have wrought is turning people against one another.
'So says a review, published today, of 60 studies on how climate change helps spark conflict throughout the world. The researchers found a surprisingly close link between climate change and civil wars, riots, invasions and even personal violence such as murder, assault and rape.'
Original paper.

Climate-change happening ten times faster than at any time in the past 65 million years:
'The planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate since the dinosaurs went extinct. But what might be even more troubling for humans, plants and animals is the speed of the change. Stanford climate scientists warn that the likely rate of change over the next century will be at least 10 times quicker than any climate shift in the past 65 million years.'

Thursday 25 July 2013

MORE ON GLOBAL OVERHEATING TIMEBOMBS

The release of Arctic methane could cost the world $60 trillion:
'Researchers have warned of an "economic time-bomb" in the Arctic, following a ground-breaking analysis of the likely cost of methane emissions in the region. Economic modelling shows that the methane emissions caused by shrinking sea ice from just one area of the Arctic could come with a global price tag of 60 trillion dollars -- the size of the world economy in 2012.'

When temperatures rise tropical ecosystems pump out more carbon-dioxide:
'NASA scientists and an international team of researchers have found tropical ecosystems can generate significant carbon dioxide when temperatures rise, unlike ecosystems in other parts of the world.'

Antarctic permafrost is melting fast:
'For the first time, scientists have documented an acceleration in the melt rate of permafrost, or ground ice, in a section of Antarctica where the ice had been considered stable. The melt rates are comparable with the Arctic, where accelerated melting of permafrost has become a regularly recurring phenomenon, and the change could offer a preview of melting permafrost in other parts of a warming Antarctic continent.'

Saturday 20 July 2013

GLOBAL CLIMATE ANALYSIS FOR JUNE 2013

Global Climate Analysis for June 2013:
Prepared by the US Government's National Climatic Data Centre of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Global Highlights
* The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for June 2013 tied with 2006 as the fifth highest on record, at 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20th-century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F).
* The global land surface temperature was 1.05°C (1.89°F) above the 20th-century average of 13.3°C (55.9°F), marking the third warmest June on record. For the ocean, the June global sea surface temperature was 0.48°C (0.86°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), the 10th warmest June on record.
* The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–June period (year-to-date) was 0.59°C (1.06°F) above the 20th century average of 13.5°C (56.3°F), tying with 2003 as the seventh warmest such period on record.

Thursday 11 July 2013

NATURAL ICEBERG A SERIOUS THREAT

720-square-kilometre iceberg breaks away in the Antarctic:
'On July 8, 2013, a huge area of the ice shelf broke away from the Pine Island glacier, the longest and fastest flowing glacier in the Antarctic, and is now floating in the Amundsen Sea in the form of a very large iceberg.'
'For the Western Antarctic ice shelf, an even faster flow of the Pine Island glacier would presumably have serious consequences. "The Western Antarctic land ice is on land which is deeper than sea level. Its "bed" tends towards the land. The danger therefore exists that these large ice masses will become unstable and will start to slide," says Angelika Humbert. If the entire West Antarctic ice shield were to flow into the Ocean, this would lead to a global rise in sea level of around 3.3 metres.'

Wednesday 10 July 2013

2-DEGREE RISE IS NOT SAFE

It is false to say that a 2-degree rise in average global temperature is safe.

'The notion that we'll avoid serious damage to the world's climate if we limit the warming of the atmosphere to a 2-degree-Celsius rise in temperature is untrue, says Stanford climate scientist Chris Field.'

Full story on Stanford News.