An op-ed in today’s New York Times, How We Know It Was Climate Change, is well worth reading. The author of the op-ed, N.S. Diffenbaugh, lays out the rationale for a link between climate change and extreme weather events. Diffenbaugh’s op-ed is based on a journal article written by himself and others that was published…
Category: earth surface systems
A Year of Weather for 2013 Via an 8-minute Video
Watch this video to see the day by day weather of 2913 compressed into 8 minutes. The video content comes from American, European, and Japanese satellite imagery. EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, compiled the video, complete with audio commentary. NASA’s Blue Marble project is the source for the video background….
Rising Seas and Carbon Footprint Visualizations
New sets of interactive maps help to visualize both the impact of rising seas on the world’s coastlines and U.S household carbon footprints.National Geographic has posted a set of world-wide interactive maps that show new coastal outlines resulting from the premise of all ice melting and thus raising sea level approximately 216 feet. As noted…
Dead Mud Encroaches On To Maine’s Shellfish Flats
“Dead mud” is not a geologic term that I had heard before. But it well describes a geologic event that may have catastrophic implications for coastal areas as oceans continue to acidify. The Maine coastal areas are being particularly hard hit with dead mud: The spread of “dead mud” among Maine’s shellfish flats could have…
Human Influence On The Climate System Is Unmistakable
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s (IPCC) much awaited report, the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), concludes that scientists are 95% certain that humans are the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s. A policy makers’ summary for AR5, IPCC’s latest report on physical evidence for climate change, was released today. The full report will be released…
The Anthropocene Is Here
The last 250 years of human history have vastly changed out planet. During this time, human activities have greatly transformed geologically significant conditions and processes. The change is so immense that many geologists now refer to our current time as the Anthropocene – a word coined in 2000 by Eugene Stoermer and Paul Crutzen, a Nobel-winning Dutch chemist. The word…
Siberian Cave Climate Records Indicate Permafrost Melt
Climate records from Siberian caves suggest an impending permafrost thaw and a resulting global warming acceleration. Permafrost regions cover 24% of the northern hemisphere land surface, and hold an estimated 17,000 Gt of organic carbon. Thawing releases CO2 and CH4, creating positive feedback during greenhouse warming. The researchers, led by Gideon Henderson at the University of…
First Intact Samples Collected From An Antarctic Subglacial Lake
The Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) field team drilled through 800 m of ice and intersected Subglacial Lake Whillans on 28 January 2013 at 0500 h. The team sampled mud and water from the floor of the subglacial lake, making this the first time that clean whole samples have been recovered from…
Climate Change Impact on Earth Surface Systems
As Congress continues to stonewall on climate change legislation, I think that a recent article published in the Perspectives section of Nature Climate Change, The impacts of climate change on terrestrial Earth surface systems, is worth contemplating. The authors, Jasper Knight and Stephan Harrison, argue that “… at present, governments’ attempts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions…