Signs From Earth

Pictures Before and During: Red Sky Over Sydney

Residents of Sydney, Australia awoke today Sept. 23 to orange skies filled with dust. This image pair from jujuly25 at flickr also shows a clear-sky view from the same angle on a Sydney balcony a day ago. What a dusty difference a day makes.

The BBC reported that the dust storm is the result of years of drought in eastern parts of Australia. National Geographic published an in-depth story and pictures in April on the region's Murray-Darling basin and the long term drying from climate change in parts of Australia. These changes are increasingly seen as part of a larger pattern of shifts in rainfall in several regions.

At Earth Observatory, NASA has also posted a satellite image of the big dust storm, link here. 

2009 Global Temperature Trends: January – August

 

The National Climatic Data Center has (finally) released global temperature trends data for the first eight months of 2009, and the red dots on the map show that most of the world keeps running a fever. According to records of combined land and sea temperature observations the period from January through August 2009 is the fifth warmest on record.

Specifically for August, NCDC reports that ocean temperatures worldwide for August are the warmest ever measured since record keeping began.

Those in the middle of the blue dot area on the map in North America or in the far southern ocean near Antarctica might be forgiven if they thought their local world was cooling, but one must keep the long term trend in mind and remember that the map clearly shows a lot more big red dots than big blue dots. 

That means the world was warmer than average, and in some places by quite a bit when you look at the many fat red dots over Mexico, Africa, China, India, Australia, and California. It should be noted that several of these regions have also been suffering droughts, and research shows that these continuing warming trends will most likely drive long-term water shortages.

This warming trend is useful to examine in connection with the chart below showing how 2009 compares to earlier years. All years since 1980 have been above the norm (red)  and the last time a year was below the norm (blue) was 1976. It is also useful to keep in mind that we have been seeing significant loss of Arctic sea ice, as the Arctic Ocean loss of ice in 2009 was the third most significant on record behind 2007 and 2008 according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. 

Whole Earth 2009: First Picture From New Satellite

Released July 28 from NASA, this image of earth is the first picture from a new satellite launched in June 2009. Once testing is complete, the geostationary GOES-14 satellite will be used to track weather and solar activity. 

Caption from NASA website page: "From approximately 35,786 km (22,236 miles) in space, NOAA's newest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – GOES-14 – took its first full-disk visible image of the earth on July 27, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. EDT. GOES-14, launched on June 27, 2009, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., joins three other NOAA operational GOES spacecraft that help the agency's forecasters track life-threatening weather and solar activity that can impact the satellite-based electronics and communications industry. After five more months of tests, GOES-14 will be placed in orbital storage mode, ready for activation if any of NOAA's operational GOES spacecraft experiences trouble."

NASA PR

Severe Drought Across African Sahel

The green line at lower right shows the level of rainfall measured this year at Masinga Dam in in Kenya, which is less than half of the long term average. Kenya has closed down hydropower generation at the dam for lack of water. Source: NASA Earth Observatory

With drought comes famine and in the Sahel region of Africa the lack of rainfall has been particularly severe this year. NASA Earth Observatory has posted charts and maps showing how scant Sahel rains this year are affecting vegetation growth (below). Those who depend on rain for growing crops are vulnerable to famine as crops fail from lack of rainfall.

The BBC has reported that Masinga Dam in Kenya has stopped generating electric power because too little water is available to turn the dam's generating turbines, and some power blackouts are resulting. The Daily Nation reports that Kenya's cities are running short of water.

Earth's Rainfall Creeps North

Map shows band of heaviest rainfall across the Pacific Ocean, which research indicates is moving north about a mile per year. Credit: University of Washington

Eurekalert reports on research: Earth's most prominent rainfall feature creeping northward

University of Washington research published in Nature Geoscience indicates rainfall is moving north away from the equator, and has been doing so for centuries, probably because of rising temperatures most likely driven by increased solar irradiance since the Little Ice Age of the last millennium.

"The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of freshwater to nearly a billion people throughout the tropics and subtropics has been creeping north for more than 300 years. If the band continues to migrate at just less than a mile a year, which is the average for all the years it has been moving north, then some Pacific islands near the equator may be starved of freshwater by midcentury or sooner."

The broader concern expressed by researchers is that future northward movement of the rain band in the tropics could potentially be driven by rising levels of greenhouse gases with resulting "profound implications for the societies and economies that depend on it."

Nature Geoscience: Southward Movement of Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone AD 1400-1850

Dust on Colorado Snow Looms Over Mountainfilm

 

Dust-laden snow May 19 on Rocky Mountain peaks south of Montrose, Colorado. Photo: Dennis DImick (click to enlarge.)

I've been in Colorado the past few days, participating in a symposium on food at Mountainfilm Telluride. Last year we discussed water, and energy was our focus in in 2007. Among speakers this year were writer Bill McKibben, soil scientist Jerry Glover of the Land Institute, plant geneticist Pam Ronald of UC-Davis, and Roz Naylor, who heads the food security and environment program at Stanford. A report on the forum from the Telluride Daily Planet is here: The Future of Food: Daunting but Doable.

The film Food,Inc., shown at the festival and scheduled for nationwide release in June, will get some attention here soon. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns also premiered his elegant new 12-hour film on the National Parks at Mountainfilm. The series will air on PBS this fall.

One scene repeatedly mentioned indoors was on colorful display outdoors in the mountains above this southwest Colorado town. The snowpack, or what remains of it, looks pink. The color comes from repeated dust storms this past winter and spring. 

Red-colored dust arrived as clouds from repeated blow-ups in the red rock areas of Utah and Arizona. The dust darkens snow and increases its melt rate. Early snowmelt and runoff from the mountains reduces the amount of water available in streams later in summer for irrigation and other uses.

The impact of dust on snow has gotten some attention in the scientific community. A study two years ago by the National Snow and Ice Data Center indicated that rising temperatures across the West are increasing the likelihood that dust storms will become more frequent, shorten the snowpack season, and affect timing of runoff in rivers and soil moisture in the mountains. The water will come off the mountains earier in the spring, and mountains soils will dry up sooner in the summer.

April 3, 2009 dust storm in northeast Arizona. From NASA Earth Observatory.

References:

Yukon River Ice Jam Slams Alaska Village

 

Remains of Eagle Village on the Yukon River in eastern Alaska after rapid ice breakup in early May 2009. Photos by Carl Stapler/National Park Service.

Amazing pictures and reports coming out of Eagle, Alaska, on the Canadian border after temperatures jumped into the 70's this week and caused dramatic and rapid breakup of ice on the Yukon River. (Eagle was prominent in the John McPhee book Coming into the Country.) 

Reports have it that much of the old town, Eagle Village, was destroyed by ice melt, that "house sized chunks of ice lifted houses off their foundations" and sent them down the river. 

The Anchorage Daily News: Find more photos, local blog reports and news stories.

NPR: 'Tsunami' Of Ice Wreaks Havoc On Alaskan Town

What D.C. Winter Looked Like

This satellite image from NASA Earth Observatory shows the extent of the snow this winter in the U.S. northeast and around Washington D.C. Cloud "streets" stream southeast from Delaware and Chesapeake Bays towards the Atlantic Ocean. 

Seven inches of snow fell (in our yard) in this March 1 storm. That's the extent of our snowfall this winter. So far. But it was 78 degrees in Washington DC just five days after this picture was taken. Time runs short for winter.

NASA Earth Observatory: Snow Along the East Coast, March 3, 2009.

Scenes from a Drying California

Feb. 3, 2009 view of Lake Oroville northeast of Sacramento, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Photo from CA Dept. of Water Resources.

Time runs out for California to receive its annual quota of winter snow and rain. The state is now in the third year of a drought.

Recent snowpack and reservoir measurements indicate that parts of the state now face the most severe water shortage since a major drought in 1991. More than 9 million people have since moved to the state.

State authorities Friday called for statewide 20 percent water use reductions. Federal and state water authorities notified irrigators and other users of federal water in the Central Valley that deliveries would be from zero to 10 percent of normal. 

This means if you are a farmer counting on irrigation water to grow your crops, you will be have enough water to grow crops on 10 percent of your acres, or to put 10 percent of needed water on all your acres. Neither choice appeals.

Graphic published in Sacramento Bee, Sat. Feb 22, 2009

Lake Oroville, above, a reservoir on the Feather River that produces hydropower and water for irrigation, is among lowest in the state. Projections are that Oroville will fill only about one-third this year. 

California's Central Valley farms, dependent on irrigation water from reservoirs like Oroville and Lake Shasta, produce major portions of the nation's lettuce and vegetable supply.

Western states must confront the reality of declining snowpacks due to long-term increases in temperatures from human-induced climate change. This while regional population increases stress what water supplies remain.

CA Dept. of Water Resources: Executive Update 

CA Dept. of Water Resources: Photos of Lake Oroville 2009 and 1991

New York Times: Severe Drought Adds to Hardships in California

Sacramento Bee: California urges all to cut water use by 20 percent 

Signs From Earth: California Keeps Drying Out

Signs From Earth: Western Water Worries Intensify

Washington Post: Decline in Snowpack is Blamed on Warming

Australian Fires Are No Surprise

TIME Magazine: How Global Warming May Be Fueling Australia's Fires

Bryan Walsh: "Although the wildfires caught so many victims by surprise last weekend, there have been no shortage of distant early warning signs. The 11th chapter of the second working group of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for example, warned that fires in Australia were "virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency," thanks to steadily warming temperatures over the next several decades..." 

Signs From Earth: Mapping the Heat Behind Australia's Fires

NASA Earth Observatory released this image Feb. 9 taken on Feb. 7 showing the smoke from fires just northwest of Melbourne in Victoria state in the southeast part of the country.  These fires have resulted after record heat, a decade-long drought and winds. Temperatures one day last week in Melbourne had been reported at 117 degrees F.

Also see: Twice Daily Images from MODIS satellite of this region.

Mapping the Heat Behind Australian Fires

Map of exceptional Australian heatwave as posted Feb. 5 by NASA Earth Observatory. Areas of Victoria state in the southeast are now burning.

Northern Australia is as cool as the south is hot. After heatwaves with sustained temperatures above 110 degrees F., fires are now burning in the south, and now nearly 200 are dead.

The heat and drought conditions have been building for years: temperatures have been rising and precipitation has been in decline. 

These unfolding changes are well-documented by climate scientists. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report discussed the trend towards hotter, drier conditions in portions of Australia in the 11th chapter of its impacts report.

The questions confronting the region are not whether the climate will change but how to respond to a warmer, drier regime, and how to adapt.

Reuters: Fires, floods pressure Australia government on climate

"Scientists said Australia needed to prepare for more extreme weather events due to global warming..."

Reuters: Factbox-Forecast for Australia's climate: Even More Extremes

"Australia has always been a land of weather extremes but scientists say the country will continue to get warmer over the coming decades, with more intense droughts and floods as well as longer fire seasons..."

New York Times: Death Toll in Australian Fires Climbs to 108

The Australian:  A Nation in Mourning

Herald Sun: Flash Map showing locations of fires in Victoria

news.com.au: 134 people dead, 750 homes destroyed in worst fires in Australia's history

This image below posted January 30 from NASA Earth Observatory, shows a large fire in Victoria state on January 29.

 

Hot Planet: Our Path Ahead

As we debate reducing carbon emissions, we set records for producing them. Projections for a hot future keep rising.

This fall the UK's Met Office released updated projections showing global temperature scenarios for 2100 as we continue pumping planet-warming carbon dioxide, CO2, into the atmosphere. 

About the same time the Global Carbon Project reported the world's record rate of CO2 production: we are burning ever more fossil carbon coal, oil, and gas to produce energy, and we keep cutting down our forests. 

Our activities drive rising atmospheric CO2 levels, which alter the natural carbon cycle that gives us oxygen to breathe, soaks up CO2, and serves as our climate's thermostat. These recently reported CO2 emission rates are beyond the highest 2007 IPCC projections for climate warming carbon emissions.

A Rising Heat Path

The top arrow on the graphic here shows our temperature pathway unless we radically change our ways. 

Changing our ways means reducing our use of fossil fuels, finding alternative energy sources on a massive scale, capturing and storing the carbon pollution from coal burning, and using energy much more efficiently than we do now.

Even if we change how we use energy, a hot future awaits. We will also need to adapt, change how and where we live.

10 Degrees Warmer

According to the Met Office scenario, at current emission rates (emissions rising by 132 percent) temperature increases by the end of this century will range between 5.5 and 7.1 degrees C. (9.9 to 12.7 degrees F.) 

Let's just say 10 degrees F. warmer for discussion sake.

Even if we reduce our mid-century emissions to levels of 20 years ago, we can still expect to see temperature rises at century's end of 2.9 to 3.8 degrees C. (5.2 to 6.8 degrees F.) But our emissions are way higher than 1990 levels now. Can we actually lower emissions, let alone flatten them?

My children's children will be alive in 2100. What kind of world will they live in when when temperatures are 10 degrees (F.) higher? 

Barring some radical shift in the way we acquire and use energy, our world is on track to become a different place for people, plants, animals, and the ecosystems we inhabit and need for survival.

Food, Water, People?

A 10-degree rise, arriving so quickly, will make it virtually impossible to dependably grow cereal grain crops in the places where we grow them now. A 10-degree temperature rise will, according to the IPCC, cause crop yield declines in all regions, and increasingly rain will fall in deluges, not at all, or at the wrong time. 

We count on reliable rain to fill our rivers and lakes and to make our crops grow. 

World population is now about 6.8 billion people, and by mid-century projections have us between nine and 10 billion. Given these temperature scenarios, one wonders where the food and water will come from to keep us all alive.

We already see signs and harbingers in places like slowly-flooding Bangladesh, dessicated southeast Australia, and our own drying Southwest. Ice caps are melting, mountain glaciers and snowpacks are shrinking, and coral reefs are dying as ocean waters warm and acidify. The rising number of accompanying floods, droughts, and fires becomes just so much background noise on a changing planet.

CO2 Needs a Face

In December 2008 policymakers gathered in Poland to again try setting standards for limiting future carbon emissions. They tried, they talked, they set no standards. Setting policy for limiting emissions is an excruciatingly hard challenge, like herding cats. 

Global warming is a creeping, invisible change that wraps itself around us so slowly and incrementally we don't notice the world has changed before our eyes. If only CO2 had a face, and was something we could see and recognize, perhaps progress could result. We could see what we are aiming at.

 

Though we cannot see it, it surrounds us, lasts for many decades, and we see only its effects. Trying to reduce the presence of something we cannot see or smell presents frustration, and the effects of our work may not be seen until long after we are gone. 

CO2 becomes a legacy challenge. We add it to the atmosphere today as a sort of perverse gift to future generations. If we try now to reduce its presence, the effects of our work likely will be seen only by those who come after us, our children and theirs.

Andy Revkin at dot.earth ponders: What if CO2 were pink? 

If we could see it would it matter? Pink or not, as each year passes and we fail to change our ways, our emissions path, we lose time to act. 

Ten degrees warmer could produce a world we don't recognize. 

The road ahead is long, and steep. We may not stabilize emissions in my life, or in my children's. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. 

What we try now will help us realize what work remains, and what kind of world our heirs inherit.

-DD

Links:

Waning New England Winter

Boston Globe: Winter easing its grip on Northeast - Temperatures rising 0.8 degrees a decade 

 "The quintessential New England winter - frozen ponds, frigid days, and neighborhoods blanketed in white - is quietly fading away, as the season gets warmer and less snowy, according to an exhaustive new study.

"Analyzing four decades of winter climate data, beginning in 1965, University of New Hampshire scientists found that regional temperatures are rising at a rate of 0.8 degrees per decade. Meanwhile, the number of days with snow on the ground is decreasing at the rate of 3.6 days per decade, the study found.

"Both trends have intensified with time and were strongest in the heart of winter - January and February..."

Portsmouth, NH, Herald-News: UNH researchers: Snow disappearing from Northeast

Western U.S. Water Shortages Loom

Scientists: Climate change, population increases will slow flows, add strain to Colorado River

SALT LAKE CITY (Mike Stark, AP) — Seven Western states will face more water shortages in the years ahead as climate change exacerbates the strains drought and a growing population have put on the Colorado River, scientists say.

"Clearly we're on a collision course between supply and demand," said Brad Udall, director of the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado.

Hey, Don't Kill the Messenger

Prophesy of economic collapse 'coming true'

New Scientist Environment, Nov. 17, 2008

A real-world analysis of a controversial prediction made 30 years ago in the book Limits to Growth from The Club of Rome concludes that economic growth cannot be sustained and we are on track for serious economic collapse this century.