Recortes presupuestarios en el estudio del Cambio Climático en USA

Fuente: N.P.R (National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6874449)
Comentario: Ésto es otro claro ejemplo del doble juego de los politicos: en el estado de la nación Bush habla por primera vez de que iba a tomar medidas para combatir el calentamiento global (supuestamente recortando el consumo de gasolina en un 20% en yo-no-se-cuantos-años)... pero por otro lado los recortes pueden afectar al estudio del cambio climático!

U.S. Faces a Drop in Ability to Monitor Climate

The U.S. capability to monitor the Earth's weather and climate is "at great risk," according to a new report by the National Academy of Sciences.

The report says that budget cuts and other setbacks will mean fewer observation instruments in orbit over the coming years.

And, authors of the new National Research Council report say, the decline is coming at a time when the need to understand the Earth's climate has never been greater.

The result, according to the report, is that the United States could lose its ability to measure fluctuations in climate and geology — and possibly to predict natural disasters. Over the past five years, NASA's budget for earth-science satellites has fallen by about one-third.

The group recommended new funding for NASA and NOAA that is aimed at putting more earth-monitoring equipment in orbit around the planet. Those two agencies have been developing replacement satellites, but the process has been both slow and over budget.

El juego sucio del Capitalismo

Fuente: MSNBC
Comentario: Éste es el sorprenderte extracto de una noticia que no deja de ser grave. En ella se habla con toda normalidad sobre el hecho de que una de las compañías con más poder de la tierra (sin ir más lejos es una de la que controla la Casa Blanca) deja de patrocinar a grupos de presión que se han encargado de desacreditar el cambio climático.
Por supuesto... y no pasa nada!

Exxon cuts ties to global warming skeptics

Oil giant also in talks to look at curbing greenhouse gases

NEW YORK - Oil major Exxon Mobil Corp. is engaging in industry talks on possible U.S. greenhouse gas emissions regulations and has stopped funding groups skeptical of global warming claims — moves that some say could indicate a change in stance from the long-time foe of limits on heat-trapping gases.

Exxon, along with representatives from about 20 other companies, is participating in talks sponsored by Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit. The think tank said it expected the talks would generate a report in the fall with recommendations to legislators on how to regulate greenhouse emissions.

Mark Boudreaux, a spokesman for Exxon, the world’s biggest publicly traded company, said its position on climate change has been “widely misunderstood and as a result of that, we have been clarifying and talking more about what our position is.”

Boudreux said Exxon in 2006 stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit advocating limited government regulation, and other groups that have downplayed the risks of greenhouse emissions.

CEI acknowledged the change. “I would make an argument that we’re a useful ally, but it’s up to them whether that’s in the priority system that they have, right or wrong,” director Fred Smith said on CNBC’s “On the Money.”

Last year, CEI ran advertisements, featuring a little girl playing with a dandelion, that downplayed the risks of carbon dioxide emissions.

Since Democrats won control of Congress in November, heavy industries have been nervously watching which route the United States may take on future regulations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases scientists link to global warming. Several lawmakers on Friday introduced a bill to curb emissions.

President Bush has opposed mandatory emissions cuts such as those required by the international Kyoto Protocol. He withdrew the United States, the world’s top carbon emitter, from the Kyoto pact early in his first term.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the new Senate majority leader, has said he wants new legislation this spring to regulate heat-trapping emissions. Other legislators also are planning hearings on emissions.

Scenarios studied
The industry talks center on the range of greenhouse gas policy options such as cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes, said Roy Kopp, head of the climate program at RFF. There also will be debates on whether rules should focus on companies producing oil, gas and coal, which release CO2 when burned, or consumers who use the fuels.

To spur open industry discussion, RFF said the talks, which began in December, exclude nongovernmental organizations.

Some see Exxon’s participation in the talks, coupled with its pledge to stop funding CEI, as early signs of a possible policy change.

“The fact that Exxon is trying to debate solutions, instead of whether climate change even exists, represents an important shift,” said Andrew Logan, a climate expert at Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmentalists that works with companies to cut climate change risks.

Exxon’s funding action was confirmed this week by its vice president for public affairs. Kenneth Cohen told the Wall Street Journal that Exxon decided in late 2005 that its 2006 nonprofit funding would not include CEI and "five or six" similar groups.

Cohen declined to identify the other groups, but their names could become public this spring when Exxon releases its annual list of donations to nonprofit groups.

Scoring oil
In a report last year on how oil majors are addressing global warming emissions, Ceres gave Exxon a 35 — the worst of any company. Oil majors BP and Royal Dutch Shell got 90 and 79, respectively.

“Given how large and influential Exxon is and that they are basically the last big industry climate skeptic standing, even small moves can have a very big impact,” said Logan.

But he said it was too early to tell the substance of the change. “The devil is in the details,” he said.

Cohen told the Wall Street Journal that while questions remain about the degree to which fossil fuels are contributing to warming, the computer modelling on what the future may hold “has gotten better.”

And, he said, “we know enough now — or, society knows enough now — that the risk is serious and action should be taken.”

Peter Fusaro, a carbon markets expert, noted that Exxon already must comply with Kyoto regulations in other countries, and said the company may want to simplify compliance standards throughout its international operations.

“Multinational companies are under the gun to comply with Kyoto,” he said. “It’s starting to crystallize that companies can’t have dual environmental standards.”

Philip Sharp, president of Resources for the Future, told the Wall Street Journal that he was impressed by Exxon. “They are taking this debate very seriously,” said Sharp, a former Democratic congressman. “My personal opinion of them has changed by watching them operate.”

RECORD en el número de incendios en el año 2006

Fuente: MSNBC
Comentario: como dijo "George (Bush) el leñador", si se talaran los bosques... no pasarían estas cosas.

Record number of wildfires in 2006

Researchers say drought, hot conditions contributed to the record season

WASHINGTON - The nation set a record for wildfires this year and climate experts say 2006 will probably end as the third warmest year on record for the contiguous United States.

Drought and hot conditions contributed to the record wildfire season, with more than 9.5 million acres burned through early December, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

The annual climate report, released Thursday by the National Climatic Data Center, says 2006 will most likely be the third warmest year on record, trailing only 1998 and 1934.

For the world as a whole, 2006 is expect to end as the sixth warmest year on record, the agency said.

Meanwhile, in England, the weather service — known as the Met Office — and the University of East Anglia also issued a joint statement proclaiming 2006 as the sixth hottest year on record worldwide.

Notable weather in 2006, according to the U.S. climate center, included:

• The nation's residential energy demand was approximately 9 percent less during the relatively mild winter, and 13 percent higher during the hot summer.
• Summer included a heat wave that peaked during the last half of July. All-time records were set in a number of locations across the central and western United States.
• For the contiguous United States, five of the first seven months of the year were drier than average. Combined with unusually warm temperatures, drought conditions persisted in much of the country. By late July, half of the contiguous United States was in moderate to exceptional drought.
• Above average rainfall from August through November helped end drought in many areas, although in places such as western Washington, record rainfall in November led to extensive flooding.
• The 2006 hurricane season was near-normal. The nine named storms during the 2006 season is the second lowest since 1995. Only the 1997 season had fewer. This is attributed largely to the rapid onset of El Nino in the equatorial Pacific, which suppresses conditions conducive to hurricane formation in the Atlantic.
• Also related to El Nino, the Eastern Pacific hurricane season showed a sharp increase in activity compared to the below-normal levels seen since 1998. Through early December, 19 named storms had formed, with three making landfall along the Pacific coast of Mexico, including major Hurricane Lane.
• The extent of Arctic sea ice was second lowest on record in September, which is the time of year with sea ice coverage. This was only slightly higher than the record low extent measured in 2005.

2006, otro año de altas temperaturas

Fuente: MSNBC
Comentario: Más datos sobre la temperatura de la tierra. Parece que no bajan los termómetros...

Report: 2006 set to be 6th hottest worldwide

Global warming blamed as England experiences highest temperatures ever

LONDON - This year is set to be the sixth warmest worldwide since records began, stoked by global warming linked to human activities, the British Meteorological Office and the University of East Anglia said on Thursday.

As England basks in unseasonably warm December weather two weeks before the end of the year, the Met Office said data from January to November made 2006 the warmest on record for central England.

“Worldwide, the provisional figures for 2006 using data from January to November, place the year as the sixth warmest year” since records began in the 1850s, the report said.

The previous warmest years were 1998 and 2005, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO was due to release its own 2006 figures later on Thursday.

“The top 10 warmest years have all occurred in the last 12 years,” it said, adding that 2006 could have been warmer but for La Nina, a cooling of parts of the Pacific Ocean.

“The figures support recent research from David Karoly of the University of Oklahoma and Peter Stott at the Met Office which showed links between human behavior and the warming trend,” said Met Office scientist David Parker.

Most scientists now agree that world average temperatures may rise by between two and six degrees Celsius this century due to emissions of so-called greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.

They say this would cause polar ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise, causing floods, famines and violent storms and putting millions of lives at risk.

Curb warming
Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said in October that urgent action on global warming was vital.

He said the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions now would be about one percent of global economic output -- a figure that rises 20-fold if action is delayed.

In Britain, temperature records have tumbled month by month, it said.

“2006 has been quite extraordinary in terms of the UK temperature, with several records broken,” Parker said.

This year saw the highest average temperature recorded since the Central England Temperature (CET) series began in 1659.

“The rise above the average is significantly higher than that for the two hottest years we have experienced,” Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, said.

The report said last July had been the warmest on record in Britain with an average temperature of 19.7 degrees Celsius (67 degrees Farenheit), and it had been the warmest April to October period with a mean temperature of 14.6 degrees Celsius (58 Farenheit).

The autumn has already been declared the warmest on record with an average temperature of 12.6 degrees Celsius.

At that rate, 2006 “is very likely to be the warmest year in terms of CET” the Met Office said.

The joint warmest years currently are 1990 and 1999, which recorded a mean temperature of 10.63 degrees Celsius.

Deshielo en el Ártico Canadiense

Fuente: MSNBC
Comentario: A pesar de que la fuente es un medio norteamericano de los "grandes", siempre emplear "calentamiento global", "cambio climático" etc

Ancient ice shelf breaks free in Canadian Arctic

Breakaway may 'signal the onset of accelerated change,' researchers say

TORONTO - A giant ice shelf has snapped free from an island south of the North Pole, scientists said Thursday, citing climate change as a “major” reason for the event.

The Ayles Ice Shelf — about the size of Manhattan — broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic.

Scientists discovered the event by using satellite imagery. Within one hour of breaking free, the shelf had formed as a new ice island, leaving a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and couldn’t believe what he saw.

“This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years,” Vincent said. “We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead.”

The ice shelf was one of six major shelves remaining in Canada’s Arctic. They are packed with ancient ice that is more than 3,000 years old. They float on the sea but are connected to land.

'Consistent with climate change'
Some scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in Canada in nearly 30 years and that climate change was a major element.

“It is consistent with climate change,” Vincent said, adding that the remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first discovered in 1906. “We aren’t able to connect all of the dots ... but unusually warm temperatures definitely played a major role.”

Laurie Weir, who monitors ice conditions for the Canadian Ice Service, was poring over satellite images in 2005 when she noticed that the shelf had split and separated.

Weir notified Luke Copland, head of the new global ice lab at the University of Ottawa, who initiated an effort to find out what happened.

Using U.S. and Canadian satellite images, as well as seismic data — the event registered on earthquake monitors 155 miles away — Copland discovered that the ice shelf collapsed in the early afternoon of Aug. 13, 2005.

Copland said the speed with which climate change has affected the ice shelves has surprised scientists.

“Even 10 years ago scientists assumed that when global warming changes occur that it would happen gradually so that perhaps we expected these ice shelves just to melt away quite slowly,” he said.

Instead, satellite images showed the 9-mile long crack, then the ice floating about a half mile from the coast within about an hour, Copland said.

“You could stand at one edge and not see the other side, and for something that large to move that quickly is quite amazing,” he said.

Copland said the break was likely due to a combination of low accumulations of sea ice around the mass’s edges as high winds blew it away, as well as one of the Arctic's warmest temperatures on record. The region was 5.4 degrees F above average in the summer of 2005, he said.

Ice shelves in Canada’s far north have decreased in size by as much as 90 percent since 1906, and global warming likely played a role in the Ayles break, Copland said.

“It’s hard to tie one event to climate change, but when you look at the longer-term trend, the bigger picture, we’ve lost a lot of ice shelves on northern Ellesmere in the past century and this is that continuing,” he said. “And this is the biggest one in the last 25 years.”