October 19, 2011

Good Morning,

All these articles were published in the last couple of days.

If that doesn't raise some alarms...

I guess you can call this issue of Gizmorama a Climate Change special edition.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Task force to seek proactive tack on reefs

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Climate change will be at the forefront when the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force meets to discuss how to protect marine habitats around the world, officials say. Summer temperatures that lead to "bleaching" and die-offs followed by unseasonable cold snaps will be addressed as the multi-agency, multi-state group meets in Fort Lauderdale this week, The Miami Herald reported Monday. Reefs have been in decline in recent years from Florida to Australia, and researchers say it's time to shift the focus from just documenting sick and dying coral reefs to engaging in proactive efforts to save them. "What we're trying to do is help nature help itself,'" Chris Bergh, director of coastal and marine resilience for The Nature Conservancy, said. "What we can do is give coral reefs more time by trying to reduce the stresses we can control. We need to do this as quickly as possible." Among those stresses, researchers say, are leaky sewage and septic systems in the Florida Keys, errant anchors, snagged fishing lines and lobster traps, and clumsy or clueless divers -- all of which will need stricter regulation and expanded protected areas, Bergh said. Many experts fear the battle to save the world's coral reefs may already be lost. "Scientifically, if I am really brutally honest, I think the jury is still out," Margaret Miller, an ecologist with the National Marine Fisheries Services said.


Study says sea level to rise for 500 years

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Scientists in Denmark say climate models suggest the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere will raise sea levels for the next 500 years. "Based on the current situation we have projected changes in sea level 500 years into the future," Aslak Grinsted, a researcher at the Center for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, said. Such sea level elevation from global warming could result in massive economic costs, social consequences and forced migrations, a university release said Monday. In the most pessimistic scenario from the climate models, sea levels will rise 3.6 feet by 2100 and will have risen 18 feet by 2500, the researchers said. Even in the most optimistic prediction, sea levels will have risen 2 feet by 2100 and 6 feet by 2500, the researchers said. "In the 20th century sea has risen by an average of 2mm (0.07 inches) per year, but it is accelerating and over the last decades the rise in sea level has gone approximately 70 percent faster," Grinsted said.


Study: Rivers, streams source of CO2

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Streams and rivers release significant carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which needs to be taken into account in climate modeling, U.S. researchers say. The research by Yale University scientists could change how scientists investigate the movement of carbon between land, water and the atmosphere, a release from the Ivy League school in Connecticut said Monday. "These rivers breathe a lot of carbon," David Butman at the university's School of Forestry & Environmental Studies said. "They are a source of CO2, just like we breathe CO2 and like smokestacks emit CO2, and this has never been systematically estimated from a region as large as the United States." A significant amount of carbon contained in land, which was first absorbed from the air by plants and forests, is moving into streams and rivers and then released into the atmosphere before reaching coastal waterways, the researchers said. They analyzed samples taken from more than 4,000 rivers and streams throughout the United States. "What we are able to show is that there is a source of atmospheric CO2 from streams and rivers, and that it is significant enough for terrestrial modelers to take note of it," Butman said.


Experts warn of climate change threat

LONDON - Climate change threatens the health and security of people around the globe and must be tackled urgently, leading climate experts meeting in Britain said. Chris Huhne, the British secretary of state for energy and climate change who opened the conference hosted in London by the British Medical Journal, urged world governments to work to limit the impact of climate change for a "cleaner, healthier, safer future for us all." Prominent scientists, environmental health experts and public figures at the meeting issued a statement warning that climate change could not only bring a global health catastrophe but could threaten global stability and security as well, a journal release said Monday. "It is not enough for politicians to deal with climate change as some abstract academic concept," Hugh Montgomery of University College London said. "The price of complacency will be paid in human lives and suffering, and all will be affected." Climate change could bring loss of habitat, water and food shortages, spread of diseases, ecosystem collapse and threats to livelihood and cold potentially trigger mass migration and conflict within and between countries, the meeting attendees were told.

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