Earthquakes Linked to Space Activity

post by Stace Tussel on Intelligence Communications Apr. 2010

[Very interesting.]

Sunday, April 4th of this year, would’ve been like any other day—except that there was an unusual earthquake under West Virginia early that morning. The next day an explosion rocked the coal mine in the near-quake zone, possibly caused by built-up toxic gasses enriched by the quake. Twenty-nine miners lost their lives. As far as blame goes, all eyes are on the mining company. Yes, Massey Mining carried some violations, and those violations—specifically those related to gas venting—may have played a role in the mine tragedy. But why no mention in the mainstream media of the earthquake near Gassaway and the Massey mine the day before the explosion? Is the correspondence between seismic and solar activity being deliberately ignored or downplayed, despite spikes in seismic activity around 4 April 2010, the day of the West Virginia temblor and the Baja California quake?

These notable earthquakes were accompanied by an exceptionally strong solar wind which impacted Earth’s magnetosphere just before daylight hours on the 5th in North America, and “sparked the strongest geomagnetic storm of the year,” according to SpaceWeather‘s archives. Might this strong solar wind have precipitated seismic activity by its impact on the planet’s geomagnetic field and kinetic molten magnetic core?

SpaceWeather’s auroral oval graphic makes it easy to observe the gyrations of Earth’s fluxing magnetic fields and make connections between Sun and Earth activity. The northern auroral oval was both inflamed and lopsided around the time of the West Virginia and the Mexicali quakes. The bright orange stretching equatorward indicates that our planet’s magnetosphere is being pummelled with solar wind. I suspect Earth’s iron core is spinning more freely due to its recent relative slumber, and reacting more vigorously to the Sun’s magnetic influences than a decade or two ago.

In other words, the planet’s poles have limbered up to the point that humans—among Earth’s most notorious freeloaders—may be thrown from the surface by a sudden worldwide jolt that one-ups recent seismic outbursts. Readily available numbers give a general feel for what’s going on. While I’m unsure of the implications of all the information I gather, I’m finding that increased solar wind combined with lower particle density seems to create marked instability in Earth’s crust and correspondingly-increased seismicity. Now for some technical information, which needs to be understood in a certain context, which I’ll explain briefly—the US Geological Survey posts magnitude 1+ USA quakes for the past week here, and world quakes of 4.5+ (including US quakes 2.5+) on a separate map here.

A few weeks ago, on the morning of 25 March, 2010, there were 850 quakes on the US map, and 212 on the world map.  At the same time, I noticed Yellowstone was acting up again with a minor swarm. By the 5th – the day after the West Virginia quake associated with the underground explosion at Massey Mine near Gassaway—the U.S. registered a pretty strong 1313, and the world number jumped to 638.

During the last week, with Earth in the path of a strong solar windstream, the number of earthquakes grew remarkably—2965 in the U.S. and 1269 on the world map, as of 9 PM on Thursday, the 8th of April, 2010.  Friday the 9th I saw there are 3091 earthquakes on the U.S.A. map and 1307 on the world map. While some of these represent aftershocks from the Mexicali 7.2, that’s still a pretty rapid jump.  Numbers continued to grow daily until the past 24 hours or so.

Observing a trend between the intensity and irregularity of the auroral oval, combined with solar activity and Earth’s seismic activity, may lead to better predictive capacities toward what seem to be Earth-based phenomena, but is really the result of a blending solar and planetary energies. Of what value, however, is the prediction if most people can’t comprehend it, let alone feel compelled to take action? Even if forewarned of the possibility of massive, imminent Earth changes linked with flaring outbursts of 2012-era Sun rhythms, would most people have the capacity to process that information? Might panic ensue?

A CME impacted Earth a couple of days ago, and the Sun is growing quiet once again. This evening, Tuesday 13 April 2010, earthquake numbers are gradually receding like the tide from the shore. As SpaceWeather frequently advises, “Monitoring is encouraged.”

NOTE: Here’s a link to an abstract investigating a possible connection between earthquakes and explosive gas emissions into coal mines.

NASA: Solar Storm 2010-2011

Solar Flare Cause Earth-Bound Disruptions

post by Dave Pelland on Risk Market News Apr. 27, 2010

Electromagnetic storms are a low-frequency but high-impact event
Boston—As if it weren’t challenging enough trying to manage risks caused by the Earth’s weather patterns, scientific research is increasingly pointing to the potential for large infrastructure disruptions stemming from solar and electromagnetic storms. As the U.S. electrical grid makes greater use of extra high-voltage transformers, the resulting interdependency of different utility systems creates, in effect, a large antenna that’s more vulnerable to electromagnetic disruptions from solar flares, according to John Kappenman, principal of Storm Analysis Consultants.

Speaking at the 2010 RIMS Conference & Exhibition, Kappenman described a major electromagnetic storm as a low-frequency but high-impact event that the electrical grid hasn’t been designed to withstand. “We’ve been building the power grids larger and larger, with higher operating voltages that connect to each other extraordinarily well, but also couple extraordinarily well to the earth’s geomagnetic fields during storms.”

Sten Odenwald, an astronomer affiliated with NASA and Catholic University, said that while researchers have made considerable progress in understanding the sun, they haven’t yet developed the ability to predict the occurrence of solar flares. “We expect the sun to behave in certain ways, but it can behave in a more-intense way that we haven’t seen yet,” Odenwald said. “Space weather is very hard to predict, because a flare does not automatically [lead to] an increase in radiation.”

Unlike hurricanes, which generally strike within a relatively small region, the effects of an electromagnetic storm can be continent-wide and arrive with very little warning. A flare caused by a large solar storm, for instance, can reach the earth’s electromagnetic field within eight minutes. Routine solar storms can degrade the performance and lifespan of satellites by, for example, damaging memory circuits or the solar panels that recharge the satellite’s batteries. The effects of those storms can range from momentary disruptions to the accuracy of GPS devices to more severe consequences.

A solar storm that disrupts radio communications over the north pole, for example, could prevent air travel though the region and lead to disruptions similar to those caused by the Icelandic volcano ash earlier this month. Similarly, large-scale disruptions to underseas communications cables could affect financial and currency trading. Solar flares have disrupted electrical grids and communications before. In 1989, for instance, a large geomagnetic storm damaged Quebec’s power grid and left six million people without power for more than nine hours. Less severe storms have disrupted shortwave and maritime radio communications in 1930 and 1978.

Kappenman said the large transformers that increasingly serve high-voltage power grids are expensive and time-consuming to manufacture, which means replacing a large number of them after an electromagnetic storm could be difficult. In response to the risk, Kappenman said electrical utilities are starting to cooperate with federal regulators and the U.S. Congress on design and code requirements for transformers and other parts of the electrical grid. Such efforts remains in early stages.

Dire warning: U.S. Unprepared for Solar Storm

post by Sherry Mazzocchi on NYDailyNews June 23, 2010

U.S.A.unprepared for massive solar flare storm; could lose power, communications

It may sound like the premise for the next Michael Bay, big-budget action extravaganza—but scientists say a storm from space could change life on Earth as we know it. And the United States is woefully unprepared for such a disaster, according to a new report. The potential threat, detailed in a National Academy of Sciences, Severe Space Weather Events report, said radiation bombarding the planet from powerful solar flares could result in the loss of power, water and communications on a global scale. “It’s very likely in the next 10 years that we will have some impact like that described in the National Academy report,” Dr. Richard Fisher, director of NASA’s heliophysics division, told the Daily News. “Although I don’t know to what degree.” Fisher explained that the sun works on an 11-year cycle, and is now emerging from its quiet period.

The next phase—the solar maximum—lasts from 2012 to 2015. During this period of time, massive solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can occur which could be strong enough to knock out satellites, disable high-voltage transformers, and cripple communications worldwide.

Doug Biesecker, top solar physicist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told the News severe solar storms have occurred in the past. The strongest was in 1859, and rendered telegraph machines useless. Another slightly smaller geomagnetic storm occurred in 1921. “If the 1921 storm happened today, it would knock out power from Maine to Georgia,” Biesecker said. It would affect “130 million people and 350 transformers.” Transformers, he noted, can take over a year to fix and are not made in the U.S. “This raises all kinds of geopolitical issues,” said John Kappenman, a principal of Storm Analysis Consultants and the lead technical expert for a study conducted by the Metatech Corp. on the potential impact of solar storms. “If the blackout affected more than one country, the U.S. would not necessarily be the first in line to get one,” he said, noting that transformers are made in Europe, Brazil, China and India.

In addition, it would take a well-trained crew to install new transformers, which weigh more than 100 tons and would need to be shipped via ocean liners. Just getting them here “could drag on for several weeks if the transportation sector is compromised,” Kappenman said. Unlike a hurricane, Kappenman said the aftermath of a solar storm could be widespread, with 50% to 75% of the country affected. “We could have a blackout like never before,” he said. It took only a few days to get back to normal after the 1977 or 2003 blackouts. “This time, you might not get back to normal at all.” There would also likely be no immediate help from neighboring areas, and big cities such as New York would be hit especially hard “You couldn’t evacuate,” he said. “Where do you put 8 million people?” A severe blackout would have rapidly deteriorating effects. Without electricity, there would be a loss of potable water and the ability to pump sewage. Perishable food and medication would be lost.

“There are one million type 1 diabetes sufferers in the U.S.,” he said. “Health issues would emerge in just a matter of days.” Telecommunications have a backup for about 72 hours before they degrade. Similarly, hospitals have about a week’s worth of backup power. Nuclear reactors typically have a week of standby diesel fuel. Even if they shut down, they still require electricity to circulate cooling water through the reactor. “This could be a serious problem for 70 or so large reactors,” Kappenman said. “We obsess over oil,” said Kappenman, “but electricity is twice as important.” An even a smaller storm could still wreak havoc. GPS satellites are particularly vulnerable to solar flares. Loss of a satellite could lead to problems with airline flights and communications. Computer systems measure time using GPS. Oil rigs use GPS and water jets to maintain their offshore position as they drill. “They could drop off,” said Biesecker, “and break a pipe.”

“CMEs are like high-energy electromagnetic pulses [HEMP],” he explained. The use of HEMP—its force equivalent to an atomic bomb – by terrorists was the subject of a recent congressional hearing in Washington. “FEMA and other organizations are also looking at what a possible terror attack could do to the grid,” he noted. On June 10, the House of Representatives unanimously passed the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act. It amends the Federal Power Act to protect the nation’s power system against “cybersecurity and other threats and vulnerabilities.” A similar bill has yet to be taken up by the Senate.

Weather Disasters

A great site I have been watching for a number of years that you might really find of interest is Global Disaster Watch. You find what unusual is happening and not being reported by the press.

Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?

post by Robert B. Gagosian, President and Director, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Prepared for a panel on abrupt climate change at the World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland, January 27, 2003, Updated June 2, 2010

[Fascinating read.]

Are we overlooking potential abrupt climate shifts? Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.

Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earth vs climate can shift gears within a decade, establishing new and different patterns that can persist for decades to centuries. In addition, these climate shifts do not necessarily have universal, global effects. They can generate a counter-intuitive scenario—even as the Earth as a whole continues to warm gradually, large regions may experience a precipitous and disruptive shift into colder climates.

This new paradigm of abrupt climate change has been well established over the last decade by research of ocean, Earth and atmosphere scientists at many institutions worldwide. But the concept remains little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur.

It is important to clarify that we are not contemplating a situation of either abrupt cooling or global warming. Rather, abrupt regional cooling and gradual global warming can unfold simultaneously. Indeed, greenhouse warming is a destabilizing factor that makes abrupt climate change more probable. A 2002 report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) said, “Available evidence suggests that abrupt climate changes are not only possible but likely in the future, potentially with large impacts on ecosystems and societies.” The timing of any abrupt regional cooling in the future also has critical policy implications. An abrupt cooling that happens within the next two decades would produce different climate effects than one that occurs after another century of continuing greenhouse warming.

Are we ignoring the oceans’ role in climate change? Fossil evidence and computer models demonstrate that Earth’s complex and dynamic climate system has more than one mode of operation. Each mode produces different climate patterns. The evidence also shows that Earth’s climate system has sensitive thresholds. Pushed past a threshold, the system can jump quickly from one stable operating mode to a completely different one—“just as the slowly increasing pressure of a finger eventually flips a switch and turns on a light,” the NAS report said.

Scientists have so far identified only one viable mechanism to induce large, global, abrupt climate changes—a swift reorganization of the ocean currents circulating around the Earth. These currents, collectively known as the Ocean Conveyor, distribute vast quantities of heat around our planet, and thus play a fundamental role in governing Earth’s climate.

The oceans also play a pivotal role in the distribution and availability of life-sustaining water throughout our planet. The oceans are, by far, the planet’s largest reservoir of water. Evaporation from the ocean transfers huge amounts of water vapor to the atmosphere, where it travels aloft until it cools, condenses, and eventually precipitates in the form of rain or snow. Changes in ocean circulation or water properties can disrupt this hydrological cycle on a global scale, causing flooding and long-term droughts in various regions. The El Niño phenomenon is but a hint of how oceanic changes can dramatically affect where and how much precipitation falls throughout the planet. Thus, the oceans and the atmosphere constitute intertwined components of Earth’s climate system. But our present knowledge of ocean dynamics does not match our knowledge of atmospheric processes. The oceans’ essential role is too often neglected in our calculations.

Does Earth’s climate system have an Achilles’ heel? Here is a simplified description of some basic ocean-atmosphere dynamics that regulate Earth’s climate—the equatorial sun warms the ocean surface and enhances evaporation in the tropics. This leaves the tropical ocean saltier. The Gulf Stream, a limb of the Ocean Conveyor, carries an enormous volume of heat-laden, salty water up the East Coast of the United States, and then northeast toward Europe. This oceanic heat pump is an important mechanism for reducing equator-to-pole temperature differences. It moderates Earth’s climate, particularly in the North Atlantic region. Conveyor circulation increases the northward transport of warmer waters in the Gulf Stream by about 50 percent. At colder northern latitudes, the ocean releases this heat to the atmosphere—especially in winter when the atmosphere is colder than the ocean and ocean-atmosphere temperature gradients increase. The Conveyor warms North Atlantic regions by as much as 5° Celsius and significantly tempers average winter temperatures.

But records of past climates—from a variety of sources such as deep-sea sediments and ice-sheet cores—show that the Conveyor has slowed and shut down several times in the past. This shutdown curtailed heat delivery to the North Atlantic and caused substantial cooling throughout the region. One Earth scientist has called the Conveyor the Achilles’ heel of our climate system.

What can disrupt the Ocean Conveyor? Solving this puzzle requires an understanding of what launches and drives the Conveyor in the first place. The answer, to a large degree, is salt. For a variety of reasons, North Atlantic waters are relatively salty compared with other parts of the world ocean. Salty water is denser than fresh water. Cold water is denser than warm water. When the warm, salty waters of the North Atlantic release heat to the atmosphere, they become colder and begin to sink.

In the seas, that ring the northern fringe of the Atlantic—the Labrador, Irminger, and Greenland Seas—the ocean releases large amounts of heat to the atmosphere and then a great volume of cold, salty water sinks to the abyss. This water flows slowly at great depths into the South Atlantic and eventually throughout the world’s oceans. Thus, the North Atlantic is the source of the deep limb of the Ocean Conveyor. The plunge of this great mass of cold, salty water propels the global ocean’s conveyor-like circulation system. It also helps draw warm, salty tropical surface waters northward to replace the sinking waters. This process is called thermohaline circulation, from the Greek words thermos (heat) and halos (salt). If cold, salty North Atlantic waters did not sink, a primary force driving global ocean circulation could slacken and cease. Existing currents could weaken or be redirected. The resulting reorganization of the ocean’s circulation would reconfigure Earth’s climate patterns.

Computer models simulating ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics indicate that the North Atlantic region would cool 3° to 5° Celsius if Conveyor circulation were totally disrupted. It would produce winters twice as cold as the worst winters on record in the eastern United States in the past century. In addition, previous Conveyor shutdowns have been linked with widespread droughts throughout the globe. It is crucial to remember two points—

• If thermohaline circulation shuts down and induces a climate transition, severe winters in the North Atlantic region would likely persist for decades to centuries—until conditions reached another threshold at which thermohaline circulation might resume.
• Abrupt regional cooling may occur even as the Earth, on average, continues to warm.

Are worrisome signals developing in the ocean? If the climate system’s Achilles’ heel is the Conveyor, the Conveyor’s Achilles’ heel is the North Atlantic. An influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic’s surface could create a lid of more buoyant fresh water, lying atop denser, saltier water. This fresh water would effectively cap and insulate the surface of the North Atlantic, curtailing the ocean’s transfer of heat to the atmosphere. An influx of fresh water would also dilute the North Atlantic’s salinity. At a critical but unknown threshold, when North Atlantic waters are no longer sufficiently salty and dense, they may stop sinking. An important force driving the Conveyor could quickly diminish, with climate impacts resulting within a decade.

In an important paper published in 2002 in Nature, oceanographers monitoring and analyzing conditions in the North Atlantic concluded that the North Atlantic has been freshening dramatically—continuously for the past 40 years but especially in the past decade. The new data show that since the mid-1960s, the sub-polar seas feeding the North Atlantic have steadily and noticeably become less salty to depths of 1,000 to 4,000 meters. This is the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments. At present, the influx of fresher water has been distributed throughout the water column. But at some point, fresh water may begin to pile up at the surface of the North Atlantic. When that occurs, the Conveyor could slow down or cease operating.

Signs of a possible slowdown already exist. A 2001 report in Nature indicates that the flow of cold, dense water from the Norwegian and Greenland Seas into the North Atlantic has diminished by at least 20 percent since 1950. At what threshold will the Conveyor cease? The short answer is—we do not know. Nor have scientists determined the relative contributions of a variety of sources that may be adding fresh water to the North Atlantic. Among the suspects are melting glaciers or Arctic sea ice, or increased precipitation falling directly into the ocean or entering via the great rivers that discharge into the Arctic Ocean. Global warming may be an exacerbating factor. Though we have invested in, and now rely on, a global network of meteorological stations to monitor fast-changing atmospheric conditions, at present we do not have a system in place for monitoring slower-developing, but critical, ocean circulation changes.

The great majority of oceanographic measurements was taken throughout the years by research ships and ships of opportunity—especially during the Cold War era for anti-submarine warfare purposes. Many were taken incidentally by Ocean Weather Stations—a network of ships stationed in the ocean after World War II, whose primary duty was to guide transoceanic airplane flights. Starting in the 1970s, satellite technology superseded these weather ships. The demise of the OWS network and the end of the Cold War have left oceanographers with access to far fewer data in recent years.

Initial efforts to remedy this deficit are under way, but these efforts are nascent and time is of the essence. Satellites can measure wind stress and ocean circulation globally, but only at the ocean surface. Also, recently launched (but not nearly fully funded) is the Argo program—an international program to seed the global ocean with an armada of some 3,000 free-floating buoys that measure upper ocean temperature and salinity. Measuring deep ocean currents is critical for observing Conveyor behavior, but it is more difficult. Efforts have just begun to measure deep ocean water properties and currents at strategic locations with long-term moored buoy arrays, but vast ocean voids remain unmonitored.

New ocean-based instruments also offer the potential to reveal the ocean’s essential, but poorly understood, role in the hydrological cycle—which establishes global rainfall and snowfall patterns. Global warming affects the hydrological cycle because a warmer atmosphere carries more water. This, in turn, has implications for greenhouse warming, since water vapor itself is the most abundant, and often overlooked, greenhouse gas.

What can the past teach us about the future? Revealing the past behavior of Earth’s climate system provides powerful insight into what it may do in the future. Geological records confirm the potential for abrupt thermohaline-induced climate transitions that would generate severe winters in the North Atlantic region. A bad winter or two brings inconvenience that societies can adapt to with small, temporary adjustments. But a persistent string of severe winters, lasting decades to a century, can cause glaciers to advance, rivers to freeze, and sea ice to grow and spread. It can render prime agricultural lands unfarmable.

About 12,700 years ago, as Earth emerged from the most recent ice age and began to warm, the Conveyor was disrupted. Within a decade, average temperatures in the North Atlantic region plummeted nearly 5° Celsius. This cold period, known as the Younger Dryas, lasted 1,300 years. It is named after an Arctic wildflower. Scientists have found substantial evidence that cold-loving dryas plants thrived during this era in European and U.S. regions that today are too warm. Deep-sea sediment cores show that icebergs extended as far south as the coast of Portugal. The Younger Dryas ended as abruptly as it began. Within a decade, North Atlantic waters and the regional climate warmed again to pre-Younger Dryas levels. A similar cooling occurred 8,200 years ago. It lasted only about a century—a blip in geological time, but a catastrophe if such a cooling occurred today.

Are little ice ages and megadroughts possible? Scientists are investigating whether changes in ocean circulation may have played a role in causing or amplifying the Little Ice Age between 1300 and 1850. This period of abruptly shifting climate regimes and more severe winters had profound agricultural, economic, and political impacts in Europe and North America and changed the course of history. During this era, the Norse abruptly abandoned their settlements in Greenland. The era is captured in the frozen landscapes of Pieter Bruegel’s 16th-century paintings and in the famous painting of George Washington’s 1776 crossing of an icebound Delaware River, which rarely freezes today. But the era is also marked by persistent crop failures, famine, disease, and mass migrations. The Little Ice Age, wrote one historian, “is a chronicle of human vulnerability in the face of sudden climate change.”

Societies are similarly vulnerable to abrupt climate changes that can turn a year or two of diminished rainfall into prolonged, severe, widespread droughts. A growing body of evidence from joint archaeological and paleoclimatological studies is demonstrating linkages among ocean-related climate shifts, megadroughts, and precipitous collapses of civilizations, including the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia 4,200 years ago, the Mayan empire in central America 1,500 years ago, and the Anasazi in the American Southwest in the late 13^th century. Rapid changes in ocean circulation associated with the abrupt North Atlantic cooling event 8,200 years ago have been linked with simultaneous, widespread drying in the American West, Africa, and Asia. Regional cooling events also have been linked with changes in the Southwest Asian monsoon, whose rains are probably the most critical factor supporting civilizations from Africa to India to China.

What future climate scenarios should we consider? The debate on global change has largely failed to factor in the inherently chaotic, sensitively balanced, and threshold-laden nature of Earth’s climate system and the increased likelihood of abrupt climate change. Our current speculations about future climate and its impacts have focused on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has forecast gradual global warming of 1.4° to 5.8° Celsius over the next century.

It is prudent to superimpose on this forecast the potential for abrupt climate change induced by thermohaline shutdown. Such a change could cool down selective areas of the globe by 3° to 5° Celsius, while simultaneously causing drought in many parts of the world. These climate changes would occur quickly, even as other regions continue to warm slowly. It is critical to consider the economic and political ramifications of this geographically selective climate change. Specifically, the region most affected by a shutdown—the countries bordering the North Atlantic—is also one of the world’s most developed.

The key component of this analysis is when a shutdown of the Conveyor occurs. Two scenarios are useful to contemplate:

• Scenario 1—Conveyor slows down within next two decades. Such a scenario could quickly and markedly cool the North Atlantic region, causing disruptions in global economic activity. These disruptions may be exacerbated because the climate changes occur in a direction opposite to what is commonly expected, and they occur at a pace that makes adaptation difficult.

• Scenario 2—Conveyor slows down a century from now. In such a scenario, cooling of the North Atlantic region may partially or totally offset the major effects of global warming in this region. Thus, the climate of the North Atlantic region may rapidly return to one that more resembles today’s—even as other parts of the world, particularly less-developed regions, experience the unmitigated brunt of global warming. If the Conveyor subsequently turns on again, the deferred warming may be delivered in a decade.

What can we do to improve our future security? Ignoring or downplaying the probability of abrupt climate change could prove costly. Ecosystems, economies, and societies can adapt more easily to gradual, anticipated changes. Some current policies and practices may be ill-advised and may prove inadequate in a world of rapid and unforeseen climate change. The challenge to world leaders is to reduce vulnerabilities by enhancing society’s ability to monitor, plan for, and adapt to rapid change.

All human endeavor hinges on the vicissitudes of climate. Thus, the potential for abrupt climate change should prompt us to re-examine possible impacts on many climate-affected sectors. They include—agriculture; water resources; energy resources; forest and timber management; fisheries; coastal land management; transportation; insurance; recreation and tourism; disaster relief; and public health (associated with climate-related, vector-borne diseases such as malaria and cholera). Developing countries lacking scientific resources and economic infrastructures are especially vulnerable to the social and economic impacts of abrupt climate change. However, with growing globalization of economies, adverse impacts (although likely to vary from region to region) are likely to spill across national boundaries, through human and biotic migration, economic shocks, and political aftershocks, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report stated.

The key is to reduce our uncertainty about future climate change, and to improve our ability to predict what could happen and when. A first step is to establish the oceanic equivalent of our land-based meteorological instrument network. Such a network would begin to reveal climate-influencing oceanic processes that have been beyond our ability to grasp. These instruments, monitoring critical present-day conditions, can be coupled with enhanced computer modeling, which can project how Earth’s climate system may react in the future. Considerably more research is also required to learn more about the complex ocean-air processes that induced rapid climate changes in the past, and thus how our climate system may behave in the future. The NAS report is titled Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises. Climate change may be inevitable. But it is not inevitable for society to be surprised or ill-prepared.

References:

• Are We on the Brink of a New Little Ice Age?—testimony to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, Sept. 25, 2002, by T. Joyce and L. Keigwin (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).

• Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises, US National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, National Academy Press, 2002.

• Thermohaline Circulation, the Achilles’ Heel of Our Climate System: Will Man-Made CO2 Upset the Current Balance? in Science, Vol. 278, Nov. 28, 1997, by W. S. Broecker (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University).

• Rapid Freshening of the Deep North Atlantic Ocean Over the Past Four Decades, in Nature, Vol. 416, April 25, 2002, by B. Dickson (Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft, UK), I. Yashayaev, J. Meincke, B. Turrell, S. Dye, and J. Hoffort.

• Decreasing Overflow from the Nordic Seas into the Atlantic Ocean Through the Faroe Bank Channel Since 1950, in Nature, Vol. 411, June 21, 2001, by B. Hansen (Faroe Fisheries Laboratory, Faroe Islands), W. Turrell, and S. østerhus.

• Increasing River Discharge to the Arctic Ocean, in Science, Vol. 298, Dec. 13, 2002, by B. J. Peterson (Marine Biological Laboratory), R. M. Holmes, J. W. McClelland, C. J. Vörösmarty, R. B. Lammers, A. I. Shiklomanov, I. A. Shiklomanov, and S. Rahmstorf.

• Ocean Observatories, in Oceanus, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2000, published by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

• The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850, by Brian Fagan (University of California, Santa Barbara), Basic Books, 2000.

• Cultural Responses to Climate Change During the Late Holocene, in Science, Vol. 292, Apr. 27, 2001, by P. B. deMenocal (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University).

• Holocene Climate Instability: A Prominent, Widespread Event 8,200 Years Ago, in Geology, Vol. 26, No. 6, 1997, by R. B. Alley and T. Sowers (Pennsylvania State University), P. A. Mayewski, M. Stuiver, K. C. Taylor, and P. U. Clark.

• A High-Resolution Absolute-Dated Late Pleistocene Monsoon Record From Hulu Cave, China, in Science, Vol. 294, Dec. 14, 2001, by Y. J. Wang (Nanjing Normal University, China), H. Cheng, R. L. Edwards, Z. S. An, J. Y. Wu, C. C. Shen, and J. A. Dorale.

30 Years: Cooling Coming

post by unknown author on Fox News , Jan. 11, 2010

From Miami to Maine, Savannah to Seattle, America is caught in an icy grip that one of the U.N.’s top global warming proponents says could mark the beginning of a mini ice age. Millions of tropical fish are dying in Florida, and it could be just the beginning of a decades-long deep freeze, says Professor Mojib Latif, one of the world’s leading climate modelers.

Latif thinks the cold snap Americans have been suffering through is only the beginning. He says we’re in for 30 years of cooler temperatures—a mini ice age, he calls it, basing his theory on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the world’s oceans. Latif, a professor at the Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University and an author of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, believes the lengthy cold weather is merely a pause—a 30-years-long blip—in the larger cycle of global warming, which postulates that temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years.

At a U.N. conference in September, Latif said that changes in ocean currents known as the North Atlantic Oscillation could dominate over manmade global warming for the next few decades. Latif said the fluctuations in these currents could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years. Latif is a key member of the U.N.’s climate research arm, which has long promoted the concept of global warming. He told the Daily Mail that “a significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles—perhaps as much as 50 percent.”

[I’m a little confused. Many say the 1900’s have been cooler than the 1800’s. It is just confusing to them when we have a hot summer? I do understand this confusion. In the 1970’s and 1980’s we had icicles in the winter, our school closed for a week each winter because of frozen pipes. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, we hadn’t had a winter like that. In 2004, 2008, and 2009 winters, here in South Louisiana we had snow. It didn’t stay for long–the 2004 was the worst, but it snowed. From my experience living here in South Louisiana, conditions have to be perfect and Earth has to be really cool for it to snow. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, it didn’t snow but once that I can remember. The year was 1989 and it was so cold we had black ice and huge chucks of ice going down the bayou. So, this baffles me with the global warming stuff. They still don’t get Earth’s natural cycle, do they? Earth warms and cools naturally. It doesn’t matter how much smoke man makes. You don’t think they burned stuff in the 1300’s, or even before Christ? Manmade global warming—every time I read those words, I laugh. If you took science in school before 1990, you wouldn’t see those words because it didn’t exist! It was someone’s theory and to promote it would make them rich, and it did, and the world bought into it. Just like Darwin. All based on speculation and to get popular. Child’s play. You have to be smarted than that. This is what happens when greed and lust get in the way.]

The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSICD) agrees that the cold temperatures are unusual, and that the world’s oceans may play a part in temperatures on land. “Has ocean variability contributed to variations in surface temperature? Absolutely, no one’s denying that,” said Mark Serreze, senior research scientist with NSIDC. But the Center disagrees with Latif’s conclusions, instead arguing that the cold snap is still another sign of global warming. “We are indeed starting to see the effects of the rise in greenhouse gases,” he said.

[Amazing. The icebergs melt and grow. Again, a natural cycle. Earth has gone through many ice ages. Just because man hasn’t seen it, they have to speculate that it won’t happen again. Do you think pass civilizations just disappeared into thin air? The fact is, man hasn’t been around to record an ice age, so they don’t know what to expect, so they make up assumptions to explain to the world what they think is going on. They basically do this to control mass hysteria. It’s logical in a way, but condemning in another. In hurricane world, it’s better to be prepared than not. The hurricane may die, and some have, but we still are prepared. The truth is they don’t know! They have no idea what triggers or what begins an ice age cycle. To be honest, the Indians who pay attention and respect Earth are probably the only ones who really know what’s going on. Maybe these scientist should visit them! I would believe a true Earth-respecting Indian before a scientist any day.]

Many parts of the world have been suffering through record-setting snowfalls and arctic temperatures. The Midwest saw wind chills as low as 49° below zero last week, while Europe saw snows so heavy that Eurostar train service and air travel were canceled across much of the continent. In Asia, Beijing was hit by its heaviest snowfall in 60 years. And as for the cold weather? “This is just the roll of the dice, the natural variability inherent to the system,” explained Serreze.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article erroneously reported that the NSIDC reports concluded that the warming of the Earth since 1900 is due to natural oceanic cycles.

Bizarre Weather Phenomenon

Science-Climate Controversy: Implications

post by Julian Hunt—a visiting professor at Delft University and formerly director general of the UK Meteorological Office. The opinions expressed are his own, Reuters Feb. 17, 2010.

[On this website, you will find many, many experts in the field who have commented on Mr. Hunt’s article.]

In the past few weeks, there has been a steady stream of stories highlighting major concerns over scientific evidence relating to climate change. One example has been the world-wide furore relating to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) assertion that all Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.

Going forwards, as the U.K. Government Chief Scientist Professor John Beddington has stated strongly, standards of openness about sources, verification and presentation must be at the highest level. The most regrettable implication of recent events is that further confusion has been sown amongst global publics about climate change. What I believe most people want now is enlightenment, not further argument, about what might be the gravest issue confronting humanity in the twenty first century.

One of the key challenges for scientists and indeed politicians is communicating the reality of climate change to global publics in an accurate and intelligible way. Contrary to belief in some quarters, the leading models that forecast global climate temperature in decades ahead are reliable and this is strongly supported by satellite data.

Dismissive views expressed about climate predictions are often based on the uncertainty of long range weather forecasts. However, this is false because even skeptics know how long it takes to heat water in a sauce pan and that it does not depend on understanding the eddy movements in the pan (which are analogous to weather patterns and are only approximately described by models). What is needed is more openness and clarity about the huge complexity of the climate change phenomenon. For instance, over the last decade, while the Earth’s land surface has been warming overall, trends of weather and climate records reveal larger and more unusual regional and local variations—some unprecedented since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago.

Among such warning signs are the disappearing ice fields around the poles and on all mountain ranges, more frequent droughts in Africa and now in wet regions (such as the 2006 drought in Assam India, previously one of the wettest places in the world), floods in dry regions (as recently, the worst floods in 50 years in northwest India), and ice storms in sub-tropical China in 2008 (for the first time in 150 years). What these data patterns underline is that, while climate change is a reality, it is impacting regions and indeed sub-regions of the world in very different ways.

Although such variations are approximately predicted by global climate models such as the IPCC’s, these data-sets need buttressing with more local measurements and studies for sub-national governments, industry and agriculture to better understand their climatic situation and develop reliable and effective strategies to deal with all the ways that climate change affects their activities and well being. Post-Copenhagen, adopting this approach is especially crucial as we may be heading towards a future in which no long-term, comprehensive successor to the Kyoto regime is even politically possible at the international level. One of the chief flaws in the Copenhagen negotiations was the fact that the negotiations were aimed at an ambitious top level deal that did not account for political imperatives in developed and developing countries.

Experience shows that an bottom-up approach works very effectively. Publics and businesses are far more likely to believe local monitoring reports on climate change. Moreover, it is only when sub-national areas learn how they will be specifically affected that grassroots action can often be aroused. This latter lesson was one I learned as a City Councillor in Cambridge in the 1970s when I helped introduce air pollution measurements to show the effects of traffic in the city’s town centre. Once the high air pollution was measured and better understood by local people, traffic control measures were quickly introduced. I am therefore delighted at the increasing numbers of regional monitoring centres across the world which, by communicating and interpreting climate change predictions and uncertainties, are contributing towards local adaptation plans—

• In China, where provinces require targets for power station construction, regional environmental and climate change centers are now well developed.

• In the United States, a recent report has highlighted the value of non-official centers, such as a severe storm center in Oklahoma, which gives independent advice to communities and businesses, while relying on government program for much of the data.

• In Brazil, a regional data center is providing data and predictions about agriculture and deforestation and informs legislation about policy options.

What this activity points to is the need for a broader global network of such centers to support national climate initiatives, and to facilitate international funding and technical cooperation in delivering the right information to the right place, at the right time.

Local actions can only be effective if measurements of climate and environment are made regularly and are publicized as well as information about targets, and projections of emissions. Experience shows that full exposure is needed about what is happening, what is planned, and how every individual can be involved (as the Danes show by their community investment in wind power). Moreover, as legislators in Globe (Global legislators for a balanced environment) and city governments across the world are already putting into practice, adaptation to climate change also needs to build on existing knowledge and infrastructures in local settings.

Forming loose collaborative networks will enable regional facilitation centers, their experts and decision makers to learn from one another and also draw upon the resources of existing national and international databases and program, such as the growing number of consortia linking major cities, local governments, and the private sector. The overall message is clear. Localization of action and data must be the post-Copenhagen priority if we are to facilitate public understanding of climate change and truly tackle the menace it poses.

Napolitano Controlling Free Speech

Wayne Madsen Reports BP  Tv 2 3