Use Venus to find Mercury in March

Tonight – March 3, 2018 – and for the coming weeks, you can use the dazzling planet Venus, the sky’s third-brightest celestial object after the sun and moon, to find Mercury, the solar system’s innermost planet. Do you have binoculars? They’ll come in handy, as Venus and Mercury are only a little more than one degree apart – about the width of your little finger at arm’s length – for the next several days. Venus and Mercury will remain close enough together on the sky’s dome to fit inside a typical binocular field of 5^o for the first three weeks of March 2018.

You might be able to spot both worlds now with the eye alone. If you spot Venus, but not Mercury, aim binoculars at Venus to see both worlds in a single binocular field.

For the Northern Hemisphere, Mercury is just starting its best evening apparition of the year. Both Venus and Mercury are getting farther from the sunset glare day by day.

People have been photographing Venus since mid-February, 2018. David Scharf in Tampa, Florida caught the young moon and Venus on February 16. See more photos.

To see Venus and Mercury, find a unobstructed horizon in the direction of sunset. Then look for the planets near the sunset point on your horizon, beginning around 30 to 40 minutes after sundown. At mid-northern latitudes, Venus and Mercury set about one hour after sunset. At the equator, the twosome sets about 45 minutes after the sun; and at temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Venus and Mercury barely stay out longer than one-half hour after the sun goes down. Click here for recommended sky almanacs; they’ll give you Venus and Mercury’s setting times for your sky.

Mercury is considered the most elusive planet. But it’s not hard to see because it’s faint. Although Venus is about 12 times brighter than Mercury now, Mercury is the third-brightest celestial object to light up the (very early) evening sky right now. It’s only a touch dimmer than Sirius, the brightest star of the nighttime sky.

Yet Mercury won’t look as bright as Sirius. That’s because it has to contend with the dusky thickness of Earth’s atmosphere near your horizon. Again, binoculars can help.

Tanvi Javkar in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada caught Venus after sunset on February 27, 2018. You’ll want a very clear sky all the way to the horizon in early March to see both Venus and Mercury.

Throughout the month, Mercury will dim somewhat (because of its waning phase). Even so, Mercury will climb up higher up in the sky at sunset and stay out longer after sunset. Venus will do likewise, and that’s why both worlds will be easier to view later this month. In fact, Mercury will reach its greatest eastern elongation (maximum angular distance from the setting sun) on March 15, 2018. At that juncture, Mercury and Venus will stay out about 80 minutes after the sun at mid-northern latitudes.

Watch for the young waxing crescent moon to sweep by Mercury and Venus on March 18, 19 and 20, as shown on the sky chart below. Think photo opportunity!

Look for the young waxing crescent moon to pair up with the planets Mercury and Venus around March 18, 19 and 20, 2018!

Bottom line: We’d love to see how many EarthSky readers catch the two inferior planets – Venus and Mercury – after sunset in the coming week or so. Let us know in the comments below.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2CTMdm9

Tonight – March 3, 2018 – and for the coming weeks, you can use the dazzling planet Venus, the sky’s third-brightest celestial object after the sun and moon, to find Mercury, the solar system’s innermost planet. Do you have binoculars? They’ll come in handy, as Venus and Mercury are only a little more than one degree apart – about the width of your little finger at arm’s length – for the next several days. Venus and Mercury will remain close enough together on the sky’s dome to fit inside a typical binocular field of 5^o for the first three weeks of March 2018.

You might be able to spot both worlds now with the eye alone. If you spot Venus, but not Mercury, aim binoculars at Venus to see both worlds in a single binocular field.

For the Northern Hemisphere, Mercury is just starting its best evening apparition of the year. Both Venus and Mercury are getting farther from the sunset glare day by day.

People have been photographing Venus since mid-February, 2018. David Scharf in Tampa, Florida caught the young moon and Venus on February 16. See more photos.

To see Venus and Mercury, find a unobstructed horizon in the direction of sunset. Then look for the planets near the sunset point on your horizon, beginning around 30 to 40 minutes after sundown. At mid-northern latitudes, Venus and Mercury set about one hour after sunset. At the equator, the twosome sets about 45 minutes after the sun; and at temperate latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, Venus and Mercury barely stay out longer than one-half hour after the sun goes down. Click here for recommended sky almanacs; they’ll give you Venus and Mercury’s setting times for your sky.

Mercury is considered the most elusive planet. But it’s not hard to see because it’s faint. Although Venus is about 12 times brighter than Mercury now, Mercury is the third-brightest celestial object to light up the (very early) evening sky right now. It’s only a touch dimmer than Sirius, the brightest star of the nighttime sky.

Yet Mercury won’t look as bright as Sirius. That’s because it has to contend with the dusky thickness of Earth’s atmosphere near your horizon. Again, binoculars can help.

Tanvi Javkar in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada caught Venus after sunset on February 27, 2018. You’ll want a very clear sky all the way to the horizon in early March to see both Venus and Mercury.

Throughout the month, Mercury will dim somewhat (because of its waning phase). Even so, Mercury will climb up higher up in the sky at sunset and stay out longer after sunset. Venus will do likewise, and that’s why both worlds will be easier to view later this month. In fact, Mercury will reach its greatest eastern elongation (maximum angular distance from the setting sun) on March 15, 2018. At that juncture, Mercury and Venus will stay out about 80 minutes after the sun at mid-northern latitudes.

Watch for the young waxing crescent moon to sweep by Mercury and Venus on March 18, 19 and 20, as shown on the sky chart below. Think photo opportunity!

Look for the young waxing crescent moon to pair up with the planets Mercury and Venus around March 18, 19 and 20, 2018!

Bottom line: We’d love to see how many EarthSky readers catch the two inferior planets – Venus and Mercury – after sunset in the coming week or so. Let us know in the comments below.

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2CTMdm9

Actions today will decide Antarctic ice sheet loss and sea level rise

A new study published in Nature looks at how much global sea level will continue to rise even if we manage to meet the Paris climate target of staying below 2°C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures. The issue is that sea levels keep rising for several hundred years after we stabilize temperatures, largely due to the continued melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland from the heat already in the climate system.

The study considered two scenarios. In the first, human carbon pollution peaks somewhere between 2020 and 2035 and falls quickly thereafter, reaching zero between 2035 and 2055 and staying there. Global temperatures in the first scenario peak at and remain steady below 2°C. In the second scenario, we capture and sequester carbon to reach net negative emissions (more captured than emitted) between 2040 and 2060, resulting in falling global temperatures in the second half of the century.

The authors found that global average sea level will most likely rise by about 1.3 meters by 2300 in the first scenario, and by 1 meter in the second. However, there is large uncertainty due to how little we understand about the stability of the large ice sheets in Greenland and especially Antarctica. At the high end of possible ice sheet loss, we could see as much as 4.5 meters of sea level rise by 2300 in the first scenario, and close to 3 meters in the second scenario.

Carbon emissions (top frames), global temperatures (middle frames), and sea level rise (left frames) in the study’s two scenarios (left and right frames). Illustration: Mengel et al. (2018), Nature Communications

The study also shows that it’s critical that our carbon pollution peaks soon. Each 5-year delay – a peak in 2025 instead of 2020, for example – most likely adds 20 cm of sea level rise by 2300, and could potentially add a full meter due to the uncertainty associated with the large ice sheets:

we find that a delay of global peak emissions by 5 years in scenarios compatible with the Paris Agreement results in around 20 cm of additional median sea-level rise in 2300 … we estimate that each 5 years of delay bear the risk of an additional 1 m of sea-level rise by 2300 … Delayed near-term mitigation action in the next decades will leave a substantial legacy for long-term sea-level rise.

And remember, this is all for scenarios in which we meet the Paris climate targets, which we’re currently not on pace to achieve. If we miss the Paris targets, sea levels will rise higher yet.

Another new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that sea level rise has been accelerating. If the rate of acceleration continues – which the lead author notes is a conservative estimate – we would see an additional 65 cm (close to a meter above pre-industrial sea level) of sea level rise by 2100.

Yet another new study published in The Cryosphere using satellite data found that while the East Antarctic Ice Sheet has remained stable in recent years, ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has accelerated. Antarctica is now discharging 1.93 trillion tons of ice each year, up from about 1.89 trillion tons per year in 2008. When accounting for snow accumulation, the continent is losing about 183 billion tons of ice per year – enough to raise sea levels by about 3 to 5 millimeters per decade by itself. The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is likewise accelerating and is now responsible for about 25% of annual sea level rise (8.5 millimeters per decade).

The flow of Antarctic ice, derived from feature tracking of Landsat imagery. Illustration: NASA Earth Observatory

Meanwhile, the Arctic has been remarkably warm in February – as much as 35°C hotter than average in some areas. In mid-winter, when sea ice should be growing, in the Bering Sea it’s instead shrinking.

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FKYb4s

A new study published in Nature looks at how much global sea level will continue to rise even if we manage to meet the Paris climate target of staying below 2°C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures. The issue is that sea levels keep rising for several hundred years after we stabilize temperatures, largely due to the continued melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland from the heat already in the climate system.

The study considered two scenarios. In the first, human carbon pollution peaks somewhere between 2020 and 2035 and falls quickly thereafter, reaching zero between 2035 and 2055 and staying there. Global temperatures in the first scenario peak at and remain steady below 2°C. In the second scenario, we capture and sequester carbon to reach net negative emissions (more captured than emitted) between 2040 and 2060, resulting in falling global temperatures in the second half of the century.

The authors found that global average sea level will most likely rise by about 1.3 meters by 2300 in the first scenario, and by 1 meter in the second. However, there is large uncertainty due to how little we understand about the stability of the large ice sheets in Greenland and especially Antarctica. At the high end of possible ice sheet loss, we could see as much as 4.5 meters of sea level rise by 2300 in the first scenario, and close to 3 meters in the second scenario.

Carbon emissions (top frames), global temperatures (middle frames), and sea level rise (left frames) in the study’s two scenarios (left and right frames). Illustration: Mengel et al. (2018), Nature Communications

The study also shows that it’s critical that our carbon pollution peaks soon. Each 5-year delay – a peak in 2025 instead of 2020, for example – most likely adds 20 cm of sea level rise by 2300, and could potentially add a full meter due to the uncertainty associated with the large ice sheets:

we find that a delay of global peak emissions by 5 years in scenarios compatible with the Paris Agreement results in around 20 cm of additional median sea-level rise in 2300 … we estimate that each 5 years of delay bear the risk of an additional 1 m of sea-level rise by 2300 … Delayed near-term mitigation action in the next decades will leave a substantial legacy for long-term sea-level rise.

And remember, this is all for scenarios in which we meet the Paris climate targets, which we’re currently not on pace to achieve. If we miss the Paris targets, sea levels will rise higher yet.

Another new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that sea level rise has been accelerating. If the rate of acceleration continues – which the lead author notes is a conservative estimate – we would see an additional 65 cm (close to a meter above pre-industrial sea level) of sea level rise by 2100.

Yet another new study published in The Cryosphere using satellite data found that while the East Antarctic Ice Sheet has remained stable in recent years, ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has accelerated. Antarctica is now discharging 1.93 trillion tons of ice each year, up from about 1.89 trillion tons per year in 2008. When accounting for snow accumulation, the continent is losing about 183 billion tons of ice per year – enough to raise sea levels by about 3 to 5 millimeters per decade by itself. The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is likewise accelerating and is now responsible for about 25% of annual sea level rise (8.5 millimeters per decade).

The flow of Antarctic ice, derived from feature tracking of Landsat imagery. Illustration: NASA Earth Observatory

Meanwhile, the Arctic has been remarkably warm in February – as much as 35°C hotter than average in some areas. In mid-winter, when sea ice should be growing, in the Bering Sea it’s instead shrinking.

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FKYb4s

What role did climate change play in this winter’s US freezes, heat, and drought?

This is a re-post from the Citizens' Climate Lobby Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and Doug Sinton, CCL Science Policy Network Team

There is growing scientific evidence suggesting that human-caused global warming is causing rapid changes in the Arctic, which in turn is altering the atmosphere, causing wavy patterns to form more frequently in the jet stream. On the West Coast, this can cause persistent high-pressure systems to form in the Pacific, exacerbating droughts by blocking storm systems. It can also allow frigid Arctic air to spill into the USA, creating especially cold winter weather. In sum, these freezes, heat, and droughts are made more likely by rising global temperatures, and as they rise further, such extremes may well become more common.

Abnormal winter weather

This winter, the eastern USA was hit by frigid cold weather, although at the same time, the western states (and most of the rest of the world) were relatively toasty:

North American surface temperatures for Dec. 26, 2017 – Jan. 2, 2018, from NASA Earth Observatory

This prompted a presidential tweet suggesting, “Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming.” It’s a natural reaction, when in the midst of frigid weather, to wonder how such cold conditions can strike in a world that’s being heated by global warming. However, scientific research has suggested that, counterintuitively, climate change appears to be playing a role in making these cold winter weather events happen more often in some regions.

Connecting global warming, the Arctic, and the wobbly jet stream

The jet stream plays a key role here. Jet streams are bands of fast-moving air currents about five to seven miles above Earth’s surface. The polar jet stream influences weather in North America, and in turn is influenced by changes in the Arctic due to human-caused global warming.

The Arctic is the fastest-warming part of the planet, in large part because sea ice is disappearing so rapidly. White ice is reflective, but dark oceans aren’t. When sea ice sitting on top of the ocean melts, the Arctic surface becomes less reflective, absorbing more sunlight, which in turn melts more ice in what’s known as a “positive feedback.” Because the colder Arctic is warming faster than the warmer area to its south (e.g. North America), the temperature difference between the regions is shrinking.  

That temperature difference is a big part of what normally keeps the jet stream strong and moving in a straight west-east line. When it shrinks, that allows more and larger wobbles (waves) to form in the weakened jet stream. As a result, weather patterns can get stuck as those waves slow down in the weaker jet, and the weather systems can become quasi-stationary or “blocked.” Picture a river with a slower current having more and larger meanders than a faster flowing one. (2)

Consequences: Drier West Coast, cold weather in the East

These jet stream waves (3) tend to cause different types of extreme weather in different parts of the country. On the West Coast, persistent high-pressure ridges tend to form in the Pacific Ocean, creating warm, dry weather in California as storms pass to its north. One such high pressure system, coined “the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge,” contributed to California’s 2012–2016 drought, which a 2014 study concluded was the state’s most intense in over 1200 years. A 2016 study published in “Science” found that these persistent high-pressure ridges are forming more often off the West Coast in a hotter world.

In the Midwest and on the East Coast, a southward dip in the jet stream tends to cold Arctic air to spill into those states. Rutgers climate scientist Jennifer Francis described this scenario:

“In response to the strengthened western ridge of atmospheric pressure, the winds of the jet stream usually also form a deeper, stronger trough downstream. Deep troughs act like an open refrigerator door, allowing frigid Arctic air to plunge southward, bringing misery to areas ill-prepared to handle it. Snowstorms in Texas, ice storms in Georgia and chilly snowbirds in Florida can all be blamed on the Terribly Tenacious Trough of December 2017 and January 2018.”

While this is a topic of active research and significant uncertainty, a 2018 study published in “Nature Communications” found additional evidence that the jet stream has become increasingly wavy over the past 50 years, to a degree unprecedented in the past 290 years, which “can generate more frequent mid-latitude blocking patterns and facilitate persistent periods of extreme weather.”

How to accurately communicate climate-extreme weather connections

Communicating these sorts of climate-weather connections can be tricky. It’s often tempting to begin by hedging that “we can’t say that any given weather event was caused by global warming.” However, that approach emphasizes what we don’t know instead of what we do know.

A National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change Attribution report tackled this question:

“A reoccurring theme of this report is the importance of the framing of any attribution question. Although climate scientists are frequently asked ‘Was a given observed weather event caused by climate change?’ we believe this is a poorly formed (or ill-posed) question that rarely has a scientifically satisfactory answer. The report discusses appropriate ways to frame attribution questions as well as the interplay between meteorological and human-made factors in the realization of extreme events.”

When Barry Bonds was setting home run records during the steroid era, people used to ask if his latest homer was due to steroid use. The same dynamic occurs after each extreme event and global warming. It’s more useful to assign a higher probability to extreme weather events because of global warming just as it was more instructive to look at Barry Bonds’ overall home run record than any single home run.

As climate scientist Kevin Trenberth noted in a 2012 paper, all weather events now happen on a planet with a climate that we’ve made hotter:

“The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”

That is the proper framing when discussing these types of extreme weather events. In this case, there is growing scientific evidence suggesting that human-caused global warming is causing rapid changes in the Arctic, which in turn is altering the atmosphere, causing wavy patterns to form more frequently in the jet stream. On the West Coast, this can cause persistent high-pressure systems to form in the Pacific, exacerbating droughts by blocking storm systems.  It can also allow frigid Arctic air to spill into the USA, creating especially cold winter weather.

Footnotes:

1. Volunteers should carefully consider what audience this information may be most appropriate for. For example, if presented to a “layperson,” ensure it is done in a manner that is easy to understand.
2. Rutgers climate scientist Jennifer Francis explains these changes to the jet stream and impacts on weather systems here.
3. A video illustrating the jet stream waves is available here.

Dana Nuccitelli is an Environmental Scientist and writes about climate change for The Guardian and Skeptical Science. Doug Sinton is a meteorology professor at San Jose State University (retired).  

The Science Policy Network is a team of CCL leaders and supporters with a diverse background in the field of climate science. These network contributors write regular guest posts, offering thorough insight into topics that fall within their expertise. This post and other resources are available in the form of white papers on CCL Community. 

 

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2takwWp

This is a re-post from the Citizens' Climate Lobby Blog by Dana Nuccitelli and Doug Sinton, CCL Science Policy Network Team

There is growing scientific evidence suggesting that human-caused global warming is causing rapid changes in the Arctic, which in turn is altering the atmosphere, causing wavy patterns to form more frequently in the jet stream. On the West Coast, this can cause persistent high-pressure systems to form in the Pacific, exacerbating droughts by blocking storm systems. It can also allow frigid Arctic air to spill into the USA, creating especially cold winter weather. In sum, these freezes, heat, and droughts are made more likely by rising global temperatures, and as they rise further, such extremes may well become more common.

Abnormal winter weather

This winter, the eastern USA was hit by frigid cold weather, although at the same time, the western states (and most of the rest of the world) were relatively toasty:

North American surface temperatures for Dec. 26, 2017 – Jan. 2, 2018, from NASA Earth Observatory

This prompted a presidential tweet suggesting, “Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming.” It’s a natural reaction, when in the midst of frigid weather, to wonder how such cold conditions can strike in a world that’s being heated by global warming. However, scientific research has suggested that, counterintuitively, climate change appears to be playing a role in making these cold winter weather events happen more often in some regions.

Connecting global warming, the Arctic, and the wobbly jet stream

The jet stream plays a key role here. Jet streams are bands of fast-moving air currents about five to seven miles above Earth’s surface. The polar jet stream influences weather in North America, and in turn is influenced by changes in the Arctic due to human-caused global warming.

The Arctic is the fastest-warming part of the planet, in large part because sea ice is disappearing so rapidly. White ice is reflective, but dark oceans aren’t. When sea ice sitting on top of the ocean melts, the Arctic surface becomes less reflective, absorbing more sunlight, which in turn melts more ice in what’s known as a “positive feedback.” Because the colder Arctic is warming faster than the warmer area to its south (e.g. North America), the temperature difference between the regions is shrinking.  

That temperature difference is a big part of what normally keeps the jet stream strong and moving in a straight west-east line. When it shrinks, that allows more and larger wobbles (waves) to form in the weakened jet stream. As a result, weather patterns can get stuck as those waves slow down in the weaker jet, and the weather systems can become quasi-stationary or “blocked.” Picture a river with a slower current having more and larger meanders than a faster flowing one. (2)

Consequences: Drier West Coast, cold weather in the East

These jet stream waves (3) tend to cause different types of extreme weather in different parts of the country. On the West Coast, persistent high-pressure ridges tend to form in the Pacific Ocean, creating warm, dry weather in California as storms pass to its north. One such high pressure system, coined “the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge,” contributed to California’s 2012–2016 drought, which a 2014 study concluded was the state’s most intense in over 1200 years. A 2016 study published in “Science” found that these persistent high-pressure ridges are forming more often off the West Coast in a hotter world.

In the Midwest and on the East Coast, a southward dip in the jet stream tends to cold Arctic air to spill into those states. Rutgers climate scientist Jennifer Francis described this scenario:

“In response to the strengthened western ridge of atmospheric pressure, the winds of the jet stream usually also form a deeper, stronger trough downstream. Deep troughs act like an open refrigerator door, allowing frigid Arctic air to plunge southward, bringing misery to areas ill-prepared to handle it. Snowstorms in Texas, ice storms in Georgia and chilly snowbirds in Florida can all be blamed on the Terribly Tenacious Trough of December 2017 and January 2018.”

While this is a topic of active research and significant uncertainty, a 2018 study published in “Nature Communications” found additional evidence that the jet stream has become increasingly wavy over the past 50 years, to a degree unprecedented in the past 290 years, which “can generate more frequent mid-latitude blocking patterns and facilitate persistent periods of extreme weather.”

How to accurately communicate climate-extreme weather connections

Communicating these sorts of climate-weather connections can be tricky. It’s often tempting to begin by hedging that “we can’t say that any given weather event was caused by global warming.” However, that approach emphasizes what we don’t know instead of what we do know.

A National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change Attribution report tackled this question:

“A reoccurring theme of this report is the importance of the framing of any attribution question. Although climate scientists are frequently asked ‘Was a given observed weather event caused by climate change?’ we believe this is a poorly formed (or ill-posed) question that rarely has a scientifically satisfactory answer. The report discusses appropriate ways to frame attribution questions as well as the interplay between meteorological and human-made factors in the realization of extreme events.”

When Barry Bonds was setting home run records during the steroid era, people used to ask if his latest homer was due to steroid use. The same dynamic occurs after each extreme event and global warming. It’s more useful to assign a higher probability to extreme weather events because of global warming just as it was more instructive to look at Barry Bonds’ overall home run record than any single home run.

As climate scientist Kevin Trenberth noted in a 2012 paper, all weather events now happen on a planet with a climate that we’ve made hotter:

“The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question. All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”

That is the proper framing when discussing these types of extreme weather events. In this case, there is growing scientific evidence suggesting that human-caused global warming is causing rapid changes in the Arctic, which in turn is altering the atmosphere, causing wavy patterns to form more frequently in the jet stream. On the West Coast, this can cause persistent high-pressure systems to form in the Pacific, exacerbating droughts by blocking storm systems.  It can also allow frigid Arctic air to spill into the USA, creating especially cold winter weather.

Footnotes:

1. Volunteers should carefully consider what audience this information may be most appropriate for. For example, if presented to a “layperson,” ensure it is done in a manner that is easy to understand.
2. Rutgers climate scientist Jennifer Francis explains these changes to the jet stream and impacts on weather systems here.
3. A video illustrating the jet stream waves is available here.

Dana Nuccitelli is an Environmental Scientist and writes about climate change for The Guardian and Skeptical Science. Doug Sinton is a meteorology professor at San Jose State University (retired).  

The Science Policy Network is a team of CCL leaders and supporters with a diverse background in the field of climate science. These network contributors write regular guest posts, offering thorough insight into topics that fall within their expertise. This post and other resources are available in the form of white papers on CCL Community. 

 

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2takwWp

Scientists have detected an acceleration in sea level rise

As humans emit heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, the planet warms, and over time consequences become more apparent. Some of the consequences we are familiar with – for instance, rising temperatures, melting ice, and rising sea levels. Scientists certainly want to know how much the Earth has changed, but we also want to know how fast the changes will be in the future to know what the next generations will experience.

One of the classic projections into the future is for sea level rise. It is expected that by the year 2100, the ocean levels will rise a few feet by the end of the century. This matters a lot because globally, 150 million people live within three feet of current ocean levels. We have built our modern infrastructure based on current ocean levels. What happens to peoples’ homes and infrastructure when the waters rise?

But projecting ocean levels into the future is not simple; we need good data that extends back decades to understand how fast the climate is changing. The classic way to measure ocean levels is by using tide gauges. These are placed just offshore, around the globe to get a sense of how the ocean levels are changing. The problem with tide gauges is they only measure water levels at their location, and their locations are always near shore. 

In order to get a better sense of how oceans are changing everywhere, a complementary technology called satellite altimetry is used. Basically, the satellites shoot a radar beam from space to the ocean surface and watch for the reflection of the beam back to space. From this beam, the satellite can calculate the height of the water. Satellites can emit beams continuously as the satellite passes over open oceans, and can gather data far from shorelines. In doing so, they provide the equivalent of a global network of nearly half a million tide gauges, providing sea surface height information every 10 days for over 25 years.

Just recently, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a paper has been published that collects all the available satellite altimetry data and asks whether the sea level rise is accelerating. The authors of the paper are a well-respected team and include Dr. Steven Nerem from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and Dr. John Fasullo, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. 

The authors collected data from four generations of satellites that have carried out this altimetry task. The most recent satellite is called Jason 3, launched in 2016. The satellites generate the data shown below. While in any given year ocean levels may rise a bit or fall a bit, the authors focused on the long-term trend (the white line). They found that the long-term trend is, indeed, accelerating. The rate of acceleration is approximately 0.084 mm per year per year. That may not sound like much, but were this rate of acceleration to continue (a conservative estimate), the authors project that by the end of the century oceans with rise approximately 65 cm (more than two feet). 

Satellite altimetry data. Illustration: John Fasullo

In the study, the authors quantified what was causing the ocean waters to rise. Part of the rise is related to what’s called thermal expansion (warmer water is less dense so it expands). In the past, this was responsible for the majority of sea level rise. More recently, however, melting ice has contributed more and more to sea level rise. As land-based ice melts, the liquid water flows into the oceans and increases the mass of water in the oceans.

The two largest ice sheets (also the two largest contributors to sea level rise) are found on Greenland and Antarctica. There are other sources of melting ice, such as mountain-top glaciers that also are contributing, but the lion’s share of melting contribution is from the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.

Is this acceleration very important?

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FL1AAi

As humans emit heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, the planet warms, and over time consequences become more apparent. Some of the consequences we are familiar with – for instance, rising temperatures, melting ice, and rising sea levels. Scientists certainly want to know how much the Earth has changed, but we also want to know how fast the changes will be in the future to know what the next generations will experience.

One of the classic projections into the future is for sea level rise. It is expected that by the year 2100, the ocean levels will rise a few feet by the end of the century. This matters a lot because globally, 150 million people live within three feet of current ocean levels. We have built our modern infrastructure based on current ocean levels. What happens to peoples’ homes and infrastructure when the waters rise?

But projecting ocean levels into the future is not simple; we need good data that extends back decades to understand how fast the climate is changing. The classic way to measure ocean levels is by using tide gauges. These are placed just offshore, around the globe to get a sense of how the ocean levels are changing. The problem with tide gauges is they only measure water levels at their location, and their locations are always near shore. 

In order to get a better sense of how oceans are changing everywhere, a complementary technology called satellite altimetry is used. Basically, the satellites shoot a radar beam from space to the ocean surface and watch for the reflection of the beam back to space. From this beam, the satellite can calculate the height of the water. Satellites can emit beams continuously as the satellite passes over open oceans, and can gather data far from shorelines. In doing so, they provide the equivalent of a global network of nearly half a million tide gauges, providing sea surface height information every 10 days for over 25 years.

Just recently, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a paper has been published that collects all the available satellite altimetry data and asks whether the sea level rise is accelerating. The authors of the paper are a well-respected team and include Dr. Steven Nerem from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and Dr. John Fasullo, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. 

The authors collected data from four generations of satellites that have carried out this altimetry task. The most recent satellite is called Jason 3, launched in 2016. The satellites generate the data shown below. While in any given year ocean levels may rise a bit or fall a bit, the authors focused on the long-term trend (the white line). They found that the long-term trend is, indeed, accelerating. The rate of acceleration is approximately 0.084 mm per year per year. That may not sound like much, but were this rate of acceleration to continue (a conservative estimate), the authors project that by the end of the century oceans with rise approximately 65 cm (more than two feet). 

Satellite altimetry data. Illustration: John Fasullo

In the study, the authors quantified what was causing the ocean waters to rise. Part of the rise is related to what’s called thermal expansion (warmer water is less dense so it expands). In the past, this was responsible for the majority of sea level rise. More recently, however, melting ice has contributed more and more to sea level rise. As land-based ice melts, the liquid water flows into the oceans and increases the mass of water in the oceans.

The two largest ice sheets (also the two largest contributors to sea level rise) are found on Greenland and Antarctica. There are other sources of melting ice, such as mountain-top glaciers that also are contributing, but the lion’s share of melting contribution is from the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.

Is this acceleration very important?

Click here to read the rest

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FL1AAi

Impact of climate change on health is ‘the major threat of 21st century’

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Daisy Dunne

The health of millions of people across the world is already being significantly harmed by climate change, a major new report finds.

From driving up the number of people exposed to heatwaves to increasing the risk of infectious diseases, such as dengue fever, climate change has had far-reaching effects on many aspects of human health in last few decades, the authors say.

In fact, the effect of climate change on human health is now so severe that it should be considered “the major threat of the 21st century”, scientists said at a press briefing held in London.

The report is the first from the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, a project involving 24 academic institutions and intergovernmental organisations from across the world. The project plans to release a report tracking progress on climate change and global health every year.

Feeling the heat

The report uses a set of 40 indicators to track the effects of climate change on global health. The first of these indicators assesses the “direct impacts” of climate change on human health, including the effects of exposure to extreme heat and natural disasters.

One of the report’s findings is that, from 2000 to 2016, the rise in the average temperatures that humans were exposed to was around three times higher than the rise of average global temperatures worldwide.

This is shown on the graph below, where the rise in the global average surface temperature from 2000 to 2016, when compared to the average from 1986 to 2008 (red), is shown alongside the rise in the temperatures that humans are typically exposed to (blue).

The rise in average global surface temperatures from 2000 to 2016 (red), alongside the rise in the average temperatures that people are exposed to (blue), relative to averages taken from 1986 to 2008. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

The average temperatures that humans are exposed to are significantly higher than the global surface average because most people live on land, where warming happens most quickly, explains Prof Peter Cox, an author of the new report and a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Generally speaking, when you look at where people are, the rate of change appears much larger than when we look at global averages. So maybe when we think about global targets, we should be always bearing in mind that the global mean temperature doesn’t really mean much to most people. We don’t live on the ocean, which is two-thirds of the global mean. We live on the land, and on the land that tends to warm fastest.”

The report also finds the number of “vulnerable” people exposed to “heatwave” events increased by around 125 million between 2000 and 2016. “Vulnerable” is here defined as being over the age of 65, while a “heatwave” is defined as three consecutive nights where temperatures are in the top 1% of the 1986-2006 average for the region.

In 2015, a record 175 million more people were exposed to heatwaves, when compared to the average for 1986-2008, the report finds. You can see this in the chart below, which shows the change in the number of people exposed to heatwaves from 2000 to 2016, relative to 1986-2008.

The change in the number of people exposed to heatwaves in millions per year from 2010 to 2016 (blue), relative to the 1986-2008 average. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

These spikes in exposure are a result of an increase in heatwave events, as well as other environmental and social factors, including population growth, Cox says.

Heatwave exposure has previously been linked to an increased risk of premature death in many parts of the world, he explains:

“During the 2003 European heatwave, there were 75,000 extra premature deaths in Europe, including 2,000 in the UK. That was mainly because of people not being able to recover, and I guess breathing gets harder when it’s hot too. There is a correlation between these periods of hot nights and mortality. I suspect there must be a correlation with ill health as well.”

(Carbon Brief has previously reported on the health risks posed by heatwaves.)

Natural disasters

The report finds that the number of weather-related disasters from 2007 to 2016 increased by 46%, when compared with the average for 1990-1999.

Asia is the continent most affected by weather-related disasters, the report says – particularly because of its size and population. Between 1990 and 2016, 2,843 weather-related disasters were recorded in Asia, affecting 4.8 billion people and causing more than 500,000 deaths.

Despite a rise in the number of natural disasters, there has been no discernable rise in the global number of deaths or in the number of people affected by natural disasters, when compared to data from 1990 to 1999, the report finds.

This could indicate that countries are beginning to invest in adaptation strategies to cope with natural disasters, Cox says. However, the mismatch could also reflect a lack of data on deaths from climate-related disasters in the developing world, he adds:

“If you look at what happens when a disaster strikes, if it’s in the rich developed world, it leads to economic damages but we don’t lose people. If it’s in the developing world, then we lose lives.

“It is true that there is a kind of contradiction in that exposure is going up, but actually the number of people affected, at least recorded as affected, is staying flat, which either means we’re building greater resilience [to climate change], which I suspect is not true, or that the data we’re collecting on the amount of money being lost is better than on the amount of people being lost.”

Losses to the global workforce

Another set of indicators explored by the report look at the “human-mediated” impacts of climate change. These are impacts that are intrinsically linked to human society, but often exacerbated by climate change.

The first of these indicators explores how climate change has affected the productivity of the global workforce, particularly in the less economically-developed parts of the world. The report finds that the global productivity in rural labour capacity – defined as those who work in outdoor manual labour in rural areas, but excluding agricultural workers – has fallen by 5.3% from 2000 to 2016.

The chart below shows how this global loss in productivity is spread across the world, with red indicating a percentage loss in productivity and blue showing a percentage gain in labour capacity.

Global changes to labour capacity from 2000 to 2016 as a result of rising global temperatures, relative to average levels from 1986 to 2008. Red shows areas of loss, while blue shows areas of gain. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

In 2016, this drop in productivity effectively took more than 920,000 people globally out of the workforce, the report finds, with 418,000 of these workers being “lost” from India.

One way that higher temperatures threaten labour capacity is by making manual work more physically challenging, the report finds:

“Higher temperatures pose profound threats to occupational health and labour productivity, particularly for people undertaking manual, outdoor labour in hot areas. Loss of labour capacity has important implications for the livelihoods of individuals, families, and communities, especially those relying on subsistence farming.”

An additional “human-mediated” impact of climate change is undernutrition, the report finds. It reports that the number of undernourished people in the top 30 undernourished countries of the world has increased from 398 million in 1990 to 422 million in 2016.

This is at least in part driven by the effect of climate change of yields of staple crops such as wheat, rice and maize, the report says. Climate change affects crop yieldsthrough increasing local temperatures, changes to rainfall patterns and more cases of drought. The report says:

“Increasing temperatures have been shown to reduce global wheat production by 6% for each 1C increase. Rice yields are sensitive to increases in night temperatures, with each 1C increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season resulting in a 10% decrease in rice grain yield. Higher temperatures have been demonstrated rigorously to have a negative impact on crop yields in countries in lower latitudes. Moreover, agriculture in lower latitudes tends to be more marginal, and more people are food insecure.”

Infectious diseases

The report also investigates the “environment-mediated” impacts of climate change. These are impacts on human health that are caused by environmental factors but can be worsened by climate change.

One such impact is the spread of infectious diseases around the globe. Rising temperatures can increase the spread of infectious diseases by allowing pests to conquer new parts of the world, as well as by creating ideal conditions for reproduction and virus replication.

Climate change has affected the prevalence of many infectious diseases, the report notes. However, as an example, the report focuses on how climate change has impacted the spread of dengue fever, a disease spread by mosquitoes native to much of southeast Asia, central and south America, and Africa.

The research shows that the rate of the spread of dengue fever has increased from between 3% and 5.9% globally, when compared to levels from 1990.

The chart below shows how the rate of the spread of dengue fever (vectorial capacity) has increased in the world’s most affected countries from 1950 to 2015. The chart shows results from two species of mosquito, including yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti; left) and Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus; right).

On the heat map, each block represents one year, with red showing an increase in spread and blue showing a decrease in spread. The chart shows that, since 1995, the vast majority of countries have experienced an increase in the rate of the spread of dengue fever.

Change in the rate of the spread of dengue fever (vectorial capacity) in the countries most affected by the disease from 1950 to 2015. The chart shows results from two species of mosquito: the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti; left) and Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus; right). On the heat map, each block represents one year, with red showing an increase in spread and blue showing a decrease in spread. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

The increase in the rate of the spread of dengue fever could be driven by changes in environmental conditions as a result of climate change, says Prof Hugh Montgomery, co-chair of The Lancet Countdown and a professor at University College London. He told the press conference:

“It’s essentially because of the transmissibility, the ability of the virus to be spread by mosquito vector. As you get areas that get wetter, the mosquito has a habitat it can live in; populations go up as it gets warmer, they breed more frequently, they feed faster. So it gets easier to spread the bug, and that’s really why we’re seeing a doubling in the spread rate of dengue cases.”

Outlook

Looking to the future, the report also explores how climate change could bring new health-related woes, including an increase in the displacement of people as a result of sea level rise.

It is clear that both the current and potential future impacts of climate change on health demand immediate action on tackling fossil fuel use, says Cox, adding that it is not too late to stem some of the effects of climate change on human health. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The co-benefits of action on climate are so huge, I think, well, maybe we present this the wrong way. Rather than saying ‘we should tackle climate change and there’s a co-benefit for health’, it should be ‘we need to do this for our health, and there’s a co-benefit on climate’.”

Montgomery echoed the call for immediate action to tackle climate change for the good of human health. He told the press conference:

“It is too late to avoid impacts, they’re here and if we all die tomorrow and stop producing any CO2, we’re still locked in for a temperature rise. There is a lag between CO2 emissions and the warming that will come. It’s like sticking an extra duvet on, the temperature will slowly rise to a new equilibrium. So we’re locked in for change for a long time to come and those harmful effects we’re seeing already from perhaps little around 1C of temperature rise, we’ve got another half degree as a minimum yet to come.”

However, there are reasons to be hopeful, he adds, pointing to progress on climate action within the last decade, including a shift away from electricity produced from coal and an increase in the investment into electric cars. He adds:

“Climate change can be fixed right now, there isn’t a problem with the technology, it’s readily available and deployable. The money is available for it, the only thing that’s lacking is the political will to connect the money to the infrastructure.”

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FaJJlq

This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Daisy Dunne

The health of millions of people across the world is already being significantly harmed by climate change, a major new report finds.

From driving up the number of people exposed to heatwaves to increasing the risk of infectious diseases, such as dengue fever, climate change has had far-reaching effects on many aspects of human health in last few decades, the authors say.

In fact, the effect of climate change on human health is now so severe that it should be considered “the major threat of the 21st century”, scientists said at a press briefing held in London.

The report is the first from the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, a project involving 24 academic institutions and intergovernmental organisations from across the world. The project plans to release a report tracking progress on climate change and global health every year.

Feeling the heat

The report uses a set of 40 indicators to track the effects of climate change on global health. The first of these indicators assesses the “direct impacts” of climate change on human health, including the effects of exposure to extreme heat and natural disasters.

One of the report’s findings is that, from 2000 to 2016, the rise in the average temperatures that humans were exposed to was around three times higher than the rise of average global temperatures worldwide.

This is shown on the graph below, where the rise in the global average surface temperature from 2000 to 2016, when compared to the average from 1986 to 2008 (red), is shown alongside the rise in the temperatures that humans are typically exposed to (blue).

The rise in average global surface temperatures from 2000 to 2016 (red), alongside the rise in the average temperatures that people are exposed to (blue), relative to averages taken from 1986 to 2008. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

The average temperatures that humans are exposed to are significantly higher than the global surface average because most people live on land, where warming happens most quickly, explains Prof Peter Cox, an author of the new report and a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Generally speaking, when you look at where people are, the rate of change appears much larger than when we look at global averages. So maybe when we think about global targets, we should be always bearing in mind that the global mean temperature doesn’t really mean much to most people. We don’t live on the ocean, which is two-thirds of the global mean. We live on the land, and on the land that tends to warm fastest.”

The report also finds the number of “vulnerable” people exposed to “heatwave” events increased by around 125 million between 2000 and 2016. “Vulnerable” is here defined as being over the age of 65, while a “heatwave” is defined as three consecutive nights where temperatures are in the top 1% of the 1986-2006 average for the region.

In 2015, a record 175 million more people were exposed to heatwaves, when compared to the average for 1986-2008, the report finds. You can see this in the chart below, which shows the change in the number of people exposed to heatwaves from 2000 to 2016, relative to 1986-2008.

The change in the number of people exposed to heatwaves in millions per year from 2010 to 2016 (blue), relative to the 1986-2008 average. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

These spikes in exposure are a result of an increase in heatwave events, as well as other environmental and social factors, including population growth, Cox says.

Heatwave exposure has previously been linked to an increased risk of premature death in many parts of the world, he explains:

“During the 2003 European heatwave, there were 75,000 extra premature deaths in Europe, including 2,000 in the UK. That was mainly because of people not being able to recover, and I guess breathing gets harder when it’s hot too. There is a correlation between these periods of hot nights and mortality. I suspect there must be a correlation with ill health as well.”

(Carbon Brief has previously reported on the health risks posed by heatwaves.)

Natural disasters

The report finds that the number of weather-related disasters from 2007 to 2016 increased by 46%, when compared with the average for 1990-1999.

Asia is the continent most affected by weather-related disasters, the report says – particularly because of its size and population. Between 1990 and 2016, 2,843 weather-related disasters were recorded in Asia, affecting 4.8 billion people and causing more than 500,000 deaths.

Despite a rise in the number of natural disasters, there has been no discernable rise in the global number of deaths or in the number of people affected by natural disasters, when compared to data from 1990 to 1999, the report finds.

This could indicate that countries are beginning to invest in adaptation strategies to cope with natural disasters, Cox says. However, the mismatch could also reflect a lack of data on deaths from climate-related disasters in the developing world, he adds:

“If you look at what happens when a disaster strikes, if it’s in the rich developed world, it leads to economic damages but we don’t lose people. If it’s in the developing world, then we lose lives.

“It is true that there is a kind of contradiction in that exposure is going up, but actually the number of people affected, at least recorded as affected, is staying flat, which either means we’re building greater resilience [to climate change], which I suspect is not true, or that the data we’re collecting on the amount of money being lost is better than on the amount of people being lost.”

Losses to the global workforce

Another set of indicators explored by the report look at the “human-mediated” impacts of climate change. These are impacts that are intrinsically linked to human society, but often exacerbated by climate change.

The first of these indicators explores how climate change has affected the productivity of the global workforce, particularly in the less economically-developed parts of the world. The report finds that the global productivity in rural labour capacity – defined as those who work in outdoor manual labour in rural areas, but excluding agricultural workers – has fallen by 5.3% from 2000 to 2016.

The chart below shows how this global loss in productivity is spread across the world, with red indicating a percentage loss in productivity and blue showing a percentage gain in labour capacity.

Global changes to labour capacity from 2000 to 2016 as a result of rising global temperatures, relative to average levels from 1986 to 2008. Red shows areas of loss, while blue shows areas of gain. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

In 2016, this drop in productivity effectively took more than 920,000 people globally out of the workforce, the report finds, with 418,000 of these workers being “lost” from India.

One way that higher temperatures threaten labour capacity is by making manual work more physically challenging, the report finds:

“Higher temperatures pose profound threats to occupational health and labour productivity, particularly for people undertaking manual, outdoor labour in hot areas. Loss of labour capacity has important implications for the livelihoods of individuals, families, and communities, especially those relying on subsistence farming.”

An additional “human-mediated” impact of climate change is undernutrition, the report finds. It reports that the number of undernourished people in the top 30 undernourished countries of the world has increased from 398 million in 1990 to 422 million in 2016.

This is at least in part driven by the effect of climate change of yields of staple crops such as wheat, rice and maize, the report says. Climate change affects crop yieldsthrough increasing local temperatures, changes to rainfall patterns and more cases of drought. The report says:

“Increasing temperatures have been shown to reduce global wheat production by 6% for each 1C increase. Rice yields are sensitive to increases in night temperatures, with each 1C increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season resulting in a 10% decrease in rice grain yield. Higher temperatures have been demonstrated rigorously to have a negative impact on crop yields in countries in lower latitudes. Moreover, agriculture in lower latitudes tends to be more marginal, and more people are food insecure.”

Infectious diseases

The report also investigates the “environment-mediated” impacts of climate change. These are impacts on human health that are caused by environmental factors but can be worsened by climate change.

One such impact is the spread of infectious diseases around the globe. Rising temperatures can increase the spread of infectious diseases by allowing pests to conquer new parts of the world, as well as by creating ideal conditions for reproduction and virus replication.

Climate change has affected the prevalence of many infectious diseases, the report notes. However, as an example, the report focuses on how climate change has impacted the spread of dengue fever, a disease spread by mosquitoes native to much of southeast Asia, central and south America, and Africa.

The research shows that the rate of the spread of dengue fever has increased from between 3% and 5.9% globally, when compared to levels from 1990.

The chart below shows how the rate of the spread of dengue fever (vectorial capacity) has increased in the world’s most affected countries from 1950 to 2015. The chart shows results from two species of mosquito, including yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti; left) and Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus; right).

On the heat map, each block represents one year, with red showing an increase in spread and blue showing a decrease in spread. The chart shows that, since 1995, the vast majority of countries have experienced an increase in the rate of the spread of dengue fever.

Change in the rate of the spread of dengue fever (vectorial capacity) in the countries most affected by the disease from 1950 to 2015. The chart shows results from two species of mosquito: the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti; left) and Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus; right). On the heat map, each block represents one year, with red showing an increase in spread and blue showing a decrease in spread. Source: Watts et al. (2017)

The increase in the rate of the spread of dengue fever could be driven by changes in environmental conditions as a result of climate change, says Prof Hugh Montgomery, co-chair of The Lancet Countdown and a professor at University College London. He told the press conference:

“It’s essentially because of the transmissibility, the ability of the virus to be spread by mosquito vector. As you get areas that get wetter, the mosquito has a habitat it can live in; populations go up as it gets warmer, they breed more frequently, they feed faster. So it gets easier to spread the bug, and that’s really why we’re seeing a doubling in the spread rate of dengue cases.”

Outlook

Looking to the future, the report also explores how climate change could bring new health-related woes, including an increase in the displacement of people as a result of sea level rise.

It is clear that both the current and potential future impacts of climate change on health demand immediate action on tackling fossil fuel use, says Cox, adding that it is not too late to stem some of the effects of climate change on human health. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The co-benefits of action on climate are so huge, I think, well, maybe we present this the wrong way. Rather than saying ‘we should tackle climate change and there’s a co-benefit for health’, it should be ‘we need to do this for our health, and there’s a co-benefit on climate’.”

Montgomery echoed the call for immediate action to tackle climate change for the good of human health. He told the press conference:

“It is too late to avoid impacts, they’re here and if we all die tomorrow and stop producing any CO2, we’re still locked in for a temperature rise. There is a lag between CO2 emissions and the warming that will come. It’s like sticking an extra duvet on, the temperature will slowly rise to a new equilibrium. So we’re locked in for change for a long time to come and those harmful effects we’re seeing already from perhaps little around 1C of temperature rise, we’ve got another half degree as a minimum yet to come.”

However, there are reasons to be hopeful, he adds, pointing to progress on climate action within the last decade, including a shift away from electricity produced from coal and an increase in the investment into electric cars. He adds:

“Climate change can be fixed right now, there isn’t a problem with the technology, it’s readily available and deployable. The money is available for it, the only thing that’s lacking is the political will to connect the money to the infrastructure.”

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FaJJlq

New research, February 19-25, 2018

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

 

Climate change impacts

Biosphere

1. Warmer winters reduce the advance of tree spring phenology induced by warmer springs in the Alps

"Our results showed that for similar preseason (i.e. after dormancy break) temperatures, warmer winters significantly delayed budburst and flowering along the elevation gradient (+0.9 to +5.6 days °C⁻¹) except for flowering of Corylus and budburst of Picea. For similar cold winter temperatures, warmer preseasons significantly advanced budburst and flowering along the elevation gradient (−5.3 to −8.4 days °C⁻¹). On average, the effect of winter warming was 2.3 times lower than the effect of spring warming. We also showed that warmer winter temperature conditions have a significantly larger effect at lower elevations. As a consequence, the observed delaying effect of winter warming might be beneficial to trees by reducing the risk of exposure to late spring frost on a short term. This could further lead to partial dormancy break at lower elevations before the end of the 21st century, which, in turn, may alter bud development and flowering and so tree fitness."

2. Precipitation alters temperature effects on ecosystem respiration in Tibetan alpine meadows

3. Non-uniform time-lag effects of terrestrial vegetation responses to asymmetric warming

"NPP responds to asymmetric warming (AW) with near 12-month lags globally."

4. Contrasting shrub species respond to early summer temperatures leading to correspondence of shrub growth patterns

"We found that annual growth variability of both species at this site is strongly driven by early summer temperatures, despite their contrasting traits and habitats."

5. Warmer temperatures reduce net carbon uptake, but do not affect water use, in a mature southern Appalachian forest

"Warm temperatures in early 2012 caused leaf-out to occur two weeks earlier than in cooler years and led to higher seasonal carbon uptake. However, these warmer temperatures also drove higher winter ecosystem respiration, offsetting much of the springtime carbon gain. Interannual variability in net carbon uptake was high (147 to 364 g C m⁻² y⁻¹), but unrelated to growing season length. Instead, years with warmer growing seasons had 10% higher respiration and sequestered ∼40% less carbon than cooler years."

6. Limitations to winter and spring photosynthesis of a Rocky Mountain subalpine forest

"We tested the hypothesis that this warming has been significant enough to allow photosynthesis during sunny warm days in winter. Using thermal imagery, we found that foliage in winter was sometimes near the temperature optimum for photosynthesis, but no net carbon gain occurred for most of the cold season."

7. Predatory strategies and behaviours in cephalopods are altered by elevated CO2

8. Drought timing and local climate determine the sensitivity of eastern temperate forests to drought

9. Antagonistic effects of growing season and autumn temperatures on the timing of leaf coloration in winter deciduous trees

10. Ocean acidification affects coral growth by reducing skeletal density

"Here, we show that skeletal density is directly sensitive to changes in seawater carbonate ion concentration and thus, to OA, whereas extension is not."

11. Tundra plant above-ground biomass and shrub dominance mapped across the North Slope of Alaska

12. Macroalgal response to a warmer ocean with higher CO₂concentration

13. Climate Change Impacts on Net Ecosystem Productivity in a Subtropical Shrubland of Northwestern México

14. Sea surface temperatures and seagrass mortality in Florida Bay: Spatial and temporal patterns discerned from MODIS and AVHRR data

15. Experimental strategies to assess the biological ramifications of multiple drivers of global ocean change – a review

16. It takes a few to tango: Changing climate and fire regimes can cause regeneration failure of two subalpine conifers

17. Partitioning of ecosystem respiration in a beech forest

Mankind

18. Understanding the Changes in Global Crop Yields through Changes in Climate and Technology

19. Analysis of the relationship between rainfall and economic growth in Indian states

20. Climate change impacts on regional rice production in China

21. Climate change and potential impacts on tourism: evidence from the Zimbabwean side of the Victoria Falls

22. Impacts of 1.5 versus 2.0 °C on cereal yields in the West African Sudan Savanna

23. Economic development and declining vulnerability to climate-related disasters in China

24. Multi-scale assessment of social vulnerability to climate change: An empirical study in coastal Vietnam

25. Managing Climate Risks on the Ranch with Limited Drought Information

26. Emergence of new knowledge for climate change adaptation

27. Coastal low cloudiness and fog enhance crop water use efficiency in a California agricultural system

Climate change mitigation

28. Not carbon neutral: Assessing the net emissions impact of residues burned for bioenergy

29. Have fossil fuels been substituted by renewables? An empirical assessment for 10 European countries

"The paper provides evidence for the substitution effect in solar PV and hydropower, but not in wind power sources."

30. Multi-model comparison of CO₂ emissions peaking in China:Lessons from CEMF01 study

31. Effectiveness of pilot carbon emissions trading systems in China

32. National contributions to climate change mitigation from agriculture: allocating a global target

33. The impact of global dietary guidelines on climate change

"Our results show a wide disparity in the emissions intensity of recommended healthy diets, ranging from 687 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e) capita⁻¹ yr⁻¹ for the guideline Indian diet to the 1579 kg CO₂e capita⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in the USA. Most of this variability is introduced in recommended dairy intake."

34. The impact of the Tokyo Metropolitan Emissions Trading Scheme on reducing greenhouse gas emissions: findings from a facility-based study

35. Optimize emission reduction commitments for international environmental agreements

36. The challenge of coordinated civic climate change education

37. A comparative study of the economy’s environmental impact between states in the USA and provinces in China

38. Would constraining US fossil fuel production affect global CO2 emissions? A case study of US leasing policy

39. Integrated Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Removal

40. Participatory arts and affective engagement with climate change: The missing link in achieving climate compatible behaviour change?

41. Coastal people dispute offshore oil exploration: toward a study of embedded seascapes, submersible knowledge, sacrifice, and marine justice

42. Household air pollution, health, and climate change: cleaning the air

Climate change

43. Observation-based detection and attribution of 21st century climate change

44. Deciphering the contrasting climatic trends between the central Himalaya and Karakoram with 36 years of WRF simulations

Temperature and precipitation

45. Human influence on Canadian temperatures

"Most of the observed warming of 1.7 °C increase in annual mean temperature during 1948–2012 [90% confidence interval (1.1°, 2.2 °C)] can only be explained by external forcing on the climate system, with anthropogenic influence being the dominant factor. It is estimated that anthropogenic forcing has contributed 1.0 °C (0.6°, 1.5 °C) and natural external forcing has contributed 0.2 °C (0.1°, 0.3 °C) to the observed warming. Up to 0.5 °C of the observed warming trend may be associated with low frequency variability of the climate such as that represented by the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and North Atlantic oscillation (NAO)."

46. Northern Galápagos corals reveal twentieth century warming in the eastern tropical Pacific

47. Mean and extreme temperatures in a warming climate: EURO CORDEX and WRF regional climate high-resolution projections for Portugal

48. Air temperature changes in Toruń (central Poland) from 1871 to 2010

49. Impacts of internal variability on temperature and precipitation trends in large ensemble simulations by two climate models

"Because of ICV, local and regional P trends may remain statistically insignificant and differ greatly among individual model simulations over most of the globe until the later part of the twenty-first century even under a high emissions scenario, while local Tas trends since 1979 are already statistically significant over many low-latitude regions and are projected to become significant over most of the globe by the 2030s."

50. Underestimated interannual variability of East Asian summer rainfall under climate change

51. Contributions of natural climate changes and human activities to the trend of extreme precipitation

52. Bias correction and projection of surface air temperature in LMDZ multiple simulation over central and eastern China

53. An assessment of high-resolution gridded temperature datasets over California

54. Precipitation and temperature trends over central Italy (Abruzzo Region): 1951–2012

55. Role of Natural Climate Variability in the Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change Signal for Mean and Extreme Precipitation at Local and Regional Scales

56. A three-stage hybrid model for regionalization, trends and sensitivity analyses of temperature anomalies in China from 1966 to 2015

Forcings and feedbacks

57. A New Research Approach for Observing and Characterizing Land-Atmosphere Feedback

58. WIVERN: A new satellite concept to provide global in-cloud winds, precipitation and cloud properties

59. Long-term series and trends in surface solar radiation in Athens, Greece

60. Increase of surface solar irradiance across East China related to changes in aerosol properties during the past decade

61. Changing response of the North Atlantic/European winter climate to the 11 year solar cycle

62. The role of the water vapor feedback in the ITCZ response to hemispherically asymmetric forcings

63. The climatological impacts of continental surface evaporation, rainout, and sub-cloud processes on δD of water vapor and precipitation in Europe

Cryosphere

64. Changes in glacier dynamics in the northern Antarctic Peninsula since 1985

"Since 1985 a total frontal retreat of 238 km2 and since 1992 regional mean changes in ice flow by up to 58 % are observed. The trends in ice dynamics are correlated with geometric parameters of the glacier catchments and regional climatic settings."

65. New mass-conserving bedrock topography for Pine Island Glacier impacts simulated decadal rates of mass loss

66. Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation modulates the impacts of Arctic sea ice decline

67. Land Ice Freshwater Budget of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans. Part I: Data, Methods and Results

68. Climate warming over the past half century has led to thermal degradation of permafrost on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

"Approximately 88 % of the permafrost area in the 1960s has been thermally degraded in the past half century over the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. The mean elevations of the very cold, cold, cool, warm, very warm, and likely thawing permafrost areas increased by 88 m, 97 m, 155 m, 185 m, 161 m, and 250 m, respectively. This degradation may lead to increases in risks to infrastructure, flood, reductions in ecosystem resilience, and positive climate feedback."

69. Optimising assimilation of sea ice concentration in an Earth system model with a multicategory sea ice model

70. Greenland iceberg melt variability from high-resolution satellite observations

Hydrosphere

71. Limited predictability of extreme decadal changes in the Arctic Ocean freshwater content

Extreme events

72. Historical and future drought in Bangladesh using copula-based bivariate regional frequency analysis

73. Future heat-waves, droughts and floods in 571 European cities

"We find that HW days increase across all cities, but especially in southern Europe, whilst the greatest HW temperature increases are expected in central European cities. For the low impact scenario, drought conditions intensify in southern European cities while river flooding worsens in northern European cities. However, the high impact scenario projects that most European cities will see increases in both drought and river flood risks. Over 100 cities are particularly vulnerable to two or more climate impacts. Moreover, the magnitude of impacts exceeds those previously reported highlighting the substantial challenge cities face to manage future climate risks."

74. Examining the role of unusually warm Indo-Pacific sea surface temperatures in recent African droughts

75. Effects of anthropogenic heat due to air-conditioning systems on an extreme high temperature event in Hong Kong

76. Territorial early warning systems for rainfall-induced landslides

77. Changing population dynamics and uneven temperature emergence combine to exacerbate regional exposure to heat extremes under 1.5 °C and 2 °C of warming

Other papers

78. Keep your feet warm? A cryptic refugium of trees linked to a geothermal spring in an ocean of glaciers

79. The Ross Sea Dipole – temperature, snow accumulation and sea ice variability in the Ross Sea region, Antarctica, over the past 2700 years

"Temperature and snow accumulation records from the annually dated Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core show that for the past 2 700 years, the eastern Ross Sea warmed, while the western Ross Sea showed no trend and West Antarctica cooled. From the 17th century onwards, this dipole relationship changed. Now all three regions show concurrent warming, with snow accumulation declining in West Antarctica and the eastern Ross Sea."

80. Digitizing the plant phenological dataset (1750–1875) from collections of Professor Adolf Moberg: Towards the development of historical climate records

81. Sensitivity of the Eocene climate to CO₂ and orbital variability

"In the Eocene (~ 55 million years ago), the Earth had high levels of atmospheric CO₂, so studies of the Eocene can provide insights into the likely effects of present-day fossil fuel burning. We ran a low-resolution but very fast climate model with 50 combinations of CO₂ and orbital parameters, and an Eocene layout of the oceans and continents. Climatic effects of CO₂ are dominant but precession and obliquity strongly influence monsoon rainfall and ocean–land temperature contrasts, respectively."

82. Differentiation of high-latitude and polar marine faunas in a greenhouse world

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FNshVe

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

 

Climate change impacts

Biosphere

1. Warmer winters reduce the advance of tree spring phenology induced by warmer springs in the Alps

"Our results showed that for similar preseason (i.e. after dormancy break) temperatures, warmer winters significantly delayed budburst and flowering along the elevation gradient (+0.9 to +5.6 days °C⁻¹) except for flowering of Corylus and budburst of Picea. For similar cold winter temperatures, warmer preseasons significantly advanced budburst and flowering along the elevation gradient (−5.3 to −8.4 days °C⁻¹). On average, the effect of winter warming was 2.3 times lower than the effect of spring warming. We also showed that warmer winter temperature conditions have a significantly larger effect at lower elevations. As a consequence, the observed delaying effect of winter warming might be beneficial to trees by reducing the risk of exposure to late spring frost on a short term. This could further lead to partial dormancy break at lower elevations before the end of the 21st century, which, in turn, may alter bud development and flowering and so tree fitness."

2. Precipitation alters temperature effects on ecosystem respiration in Tibetan alpine meadows

3. Non-uniform time-lag effects of terrestrial vegetation responses to asymmetric warming

"NPP responds to asymmetric warming (AW) with near 12-month lags globally."

4. Contrasting shrub species respond to early summer temperatures leading to correspondence of shrub growth patterns

"We found that annual growth variability of both species at this site is strongly driven by early summer temperatures, despite their contrasting traits and habitats."

5. Warmer temperatures reduce net carbon uptake, but do not affect water use, in a mature southern Appalachian forest

"Warm temperatures in early 2012 caused leaf-out to occur two weeks earlier than in cooler years and led to higher seasonal carbon uptake. However, these warmer temperatures also drove higher winter ecosystem respiration, offsetting much of the springtime carbon gain. Interannual variability in net carbon uptake was high (147 to 364 g C m⁻² y⁻¹), but unrelated to growing season length. Instead, years with warmer growing seasons had 10% higher respiration and sequestered ∼40% less carbon than cooler years."

6. Limitations to winter and spring photosynthesis of a Rocky Mountain subalpine forest

"We tested the hypothesis that this warming has been significant enough to allow photosynthesis during sunny warm days in winter. Using thermal imagery, we found that foliage in winter was sometimes near the temperature optimum for photosynthesis, but no net carbon gain occurred for most of the cold season."

7. Predatory strategies and behaviours in cephalopods are altered by elevated CO2

8. Drought timing and local climate determine the sensitivity of eastern temperate forests to drought

9. Antagonistic effects of growing season and autumn temperatures on the timing of leaf coloration in winter deciduous trees

10. Ocean acidification affects coral growth by reducing skeletal density

"Here, we show that skeletal density is directly sensitive to changes in seawater carbonate ion concentration and thus, to OA, whereas extension is not."

11. Tundra plant above-ground biomass and shrub dominance mapped across the North Slope of Alaska

12. Macroalgal response to a warmer ocean with higher CO₂concentration

13. Climate Change Impacts on Net Ecosystem Productivity in a Subtropical Shrubland of Northwestern México

14. Sea surface temperatures and seagrass mortality in Florida Bay: Spatial and temporal patterns discerned from MODIS and AVHRR data

15. Experimental strategies to assess the biological ramifications of multiple drivers of global ocean change – a review

16. It takes a few to tango: Changing climate and fire regimes can cause regeneration failure of two subalpine conifers

17. Partitioning of ecosystem respiration in a beech forest

Mankind

18. Understanding the Changes in Global Crop Yields through Changes in Climate and Technology

19. Analysis of the relationship between rainfall and economic growth in Indian states

20. Climate change impacts on regional rice production in China

21. Climate change and potential impacts on tourism: evidence from the Zimbabwean side of the Victoria Falls

22. Impacts of 1.5 versus 2.0 °C on cereal yields in the West African Sudan Savanna

23. Economic development and declining vulnerability to climate-related disasters in China

24. Multi-scale assessment of social vulnerability to climate change: An empirical study in coastal Vietnam

25. Managing Climate Risks on the Ranch with Limited Drought Information

26. Emergence of new knowledge for climate change adaptation

27. Coastal low cloudiness and fog enhance crop water use efficiency in a California agricultural system

Climate change mitigation

28. Not carbon neutral: Assessing the net emissions impact of residues burned for bioenergy

29. Have fossil fuels been substituted by renewables? An empirical assessment for 10 European countries

"The paper provides evidence for the substitution effect in solar PV and hydropower, but not in wind power sources."

30. Multi-model comparison of CO₂ emissions peaking in China:Lessons from CEMF01 study

31. Effectiveness of pilot carbon emissions trading systems in China

32. National contributions to climate change mitigation from agriculture: allocating a global target

33. The impact of global dietary guidelines on climate change

"Our results show a wide disparity in the emissions intensity of recommended healthy diets, ranging from 687 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e) capita⁻¹ yr⁻¹ for the guideline Indian diet to the 1579 kg CO₂e capita⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in the USA. Most of this variability is introduced in recommended dairy intake."

34. The impact of the Tokyo Metropolitan Emissions Trading Scheme on reducing greenhouse gas emissions: findings from a facility-based study

35. Optimize emission reduction commitments for international environmental agreements

36. The challenge of coordinated civic climate change education

37. A comparative study of the economy’s environmental impact between states in the USA and provinces in China

38. Would constraining US fossil fuel production affect global CO2 emissions? A case study of US leasing policy

39. Integrated Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Removal

40. Participatory arts and affective engagement with climate change: The missing link in achieving climate compatible behaviour change?

41. Coastal people dispute offshore oil exploration: toward a study of embedded seascapes, submersible knowledge, sacrifice, and marine justice

42. Household air pollution, health, and climate change: cleaning the air

Climate change

43. Observation-based detection and attribution of 21st century climate change

44. Deciphering the contrasting climatic trends between the central Himalaya and Karakoram with 36 years of WRF simulations

Temperature and precipitation

45. Human influence on Canadian temperatures

"Most of the observed warming of 1.7 °C increase in annual mean temperature during 1948–2012 [90% confidence interval (1.1°, 2.2 °C)] can only be explained by external forcing on the climate system, with anthropogenic influence being the dominant factor. It is estimated that anthropogenic forcing has contributed 1.0 °C (0.6°, 1.5 °C) and natural external forcing has contributed 0.2 °C (0.1°, 0.3 °C) to the observed warming. Up to 0.5 °C of the observed warming trend may be associated with low frequency variability of the climate such as that represented by the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and North Atlantic oscillation (NAO)."

46. Northern Galápagos corals reveal twentieth century warming in the eastern tropical Pacific

47. Mean and extreme temperatures in a warming climate: EURO CORDEX and WRF regional climate high-resolution projections for Portugal

48. Air temperature changes in Toruń (central Poland) from 1871 to 2010

49. Impacts of internal variability on temperature and precipitation trends in large ensemble simulations by two climate models

"Because of ICV, local and regional P trends may remain statistically insignificant and differ greatly among individual model simulations over most of the globe until the later part of the twenty-first century even under a high emissions scenario, while local Tas trends since 1979 are already statistically significant over many low-latitude regions and are projected to become significant over most of the globe by the 2030s."

50. Underestimated interannual variability of East Asian summer rainfall under climate change

51. Contributions of natural climate changes and human activities to the trend of extreme precipitation

52. Bias correction and projection of surface air temperature in LMDZ multiple simulation over central and eastern China

53. An assessment of high-resolution gridded temperature datasets over California

54. Precipitation and temperature trends over central Italy (Abruzzo Region): 1951–2012

55. Role of Natural Climate Variability in the Detection of Anthropogenic Climate Change Signal for Mean and Extreme Precipitation at Local and Regional Scales

56. A three-stage hybrid model for regionalization, trends and sensitivity analyses of temperature anomalies in China from 1966 to 2015

Forcings and feedbacks

57. A New Research Approach for Observing and Characterizing Land-Atmosphere Feedback

58. WIVERN: A new satellite concept to provide global in-cloud winds, precipitation and cloud properties

59. Long-term series and trends in surface solar radiation in Athens, Greece

60. Increase of surface solar irradiance across East China related to changes in aerosol properties during the past decade

61. Changing response of the North Atlantic/European winter climate to the 11 year solar cycle

62. The role of the water vapor feedback in the ITCZ response to hemispherically asymmetric forcings

63. The climatological impacts of continental surface evaporation, rainout, and sub-cloud processes on δD of water vapor and precipitation in Europe

Cryosphere

64. Changes in glacier dynamics in the northern Antarctic Peninsula since 1985

"Since 1985 a total frontal retreat of 238 km2 and since 1992 regional mean changes in ice flow by up to 58 % are observed. The trends in ice dynamics are correlated with geometric parameters of the glacier catchments and regional climatic settings."

65. New mass-conserving bedrock topography for Pine Island Glacier impacts simulated decadal rates of mass loss

66. Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation modulates the impacts of Arctic sea ice decline

67. Land Ice Freshwater Budget of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans. Part I: Data, Methods and Results

68. Climate warming over the past half century has led to thermal degradation of permafrost on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

"Approximately 88 % of the permafrost area in the 1960s has been thermally degraded in the past half century over the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. The mean elevations of the very cold, cold, cool, warm, very warm, and likely thawing permafrost areas increased by 88 m, 97 m, 155 m, 185 m, 161 m, and 250 m, respectively. This degradation may lead to increases in risks to infrastructure, flood, reductions in ecosystem resilience, and positive climate feedback."

69. Optimising assimilation of sea ice concentration in an Earth system model with a multicategory sea ice model

70. Greenland iceberg melt variability from high-resolution satellite observations

Hydrosphere

71. Limited predictability of extreme decadal changes in the Arctic Ocean freshwater content

Extreme events

72. Historical and future drought in Bangladesh using copula-based bivariate regional frequency analysis

73. Future heat-waves, droughts and floods in 571 European cities

"We find that HW days increase across all cities, but especially in southern Europe, whilst the greatest HW temperature increases are expected in central European cities. For the low impact scenario, drought conditions intensify in southern European cities while river flooding worsens in northern European cities. However, the high impact scenario projects that most European cities will see increases in both drought and river flood risks. Over 100 cities are particularly vulnerable to two or more climate impacts. Moreover, the magnitude of impacts exceeds those previously reported highlighting the substantial challenge cities face to manage future climate risks."

74. Examining the role of unusually warm Indo-Pacific sea surface temperatures in recent African droughts

75. Effects of anthropogenic heat due to air-conditioning systems on an extreme high temperature event in Hong Kong

76. Territorial early warning systems for rainfall-induced landslides

77. Changing population dynamics and uneven temperature emergence combine to exacerbate regional exposure to heat extremes under 1.5 °C and 2 °C of warming

Other papers

78. Keep your feet warm? A cryptic refugium of trees linked to a geothermal spring in an ocean of glaciers

79. The Ross Sea Dipole – temperature, snow accumulation and sea ice variability in the Ross Sea region, Antarctica, over the past 2700 years

"Temperature and snow accumulation records from the annually dated Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core show that for the past 2 700 years, the eastern Ross Sea warmed, while the western Ross Sea showed no trend and West Antarctica cooled. From the 17th century onwards, this dipole relationship changed. Now all three regions show concurrent warming, with snow accumulation declining in West Antarctica and the eastern Ross Sea."

80. Digitizing the plant phenological dataset (1750–1875) from collections of Professor Adolf Moberg: Towards the development of historical climate records

81. Sensitivity of the Eocene climate to CO₂ and orbital variability

"In the Eocene (~ 55 million years ago), the Earth had high levels of atmospheric CO₂, so studies of the Eocene can provide insights into the likely effects of present-day fossil fuel burning. We ran a low-resolution but very fast climate model with 50 combinations of CO₂ and orbital parameters, and an Eocene layout of the oceans and continents. Climatic effects of CO₂ are dominant but precession and obliquity strongly influence monsoon rainfall and ocean–land temperature contrasts, respectively."

82. Differentiation of high-latitude and polar marine faunas in a greenhouse world

from Skeptical Science http://ift.tt/2FNshVe

See it! 1st March full moon

Kwong Liew captured the moon above San Francisco’s Bay Bridge and wrote: “It had been raining most of the day, and I wasn’t sure I could see the moon. It appeared on and off behind clouds, and I took as many shots as I could before losing it.” Sony A7RIII with Sigma 150-600mm, MC-11 adapter.

Victor C. Rogus in Arcadia, Florida, wrote: “Tonight’s full moon is also known as the full Worm Moon or Frost Moon or Sugar Moon or Crust Moon … All of these names suggest the arrival of springtime!” Read more about full moon names. Vixen VMC 200L Field Maksutov telescope at f6.1, Losmandy GM-8, mount, Cannon 80d camera.

Full Worm Moon from Wisconsin – March 1, 2018 – from Suzanne Murphy.

Full moon and airplane from Mohammad Alotaibi in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

Full moon, clouds, wind from Juan Manuel Pérez Rayego in Mérida, Spain. DSLR x1.6, 400mm f/5.6 tv 1.3, av 5.6, iso 125 and polarized filter.

March 1 from Steve Pauken in Winslow, Arizona.

Last night over Colorado, from Joe Randall.

Incoming planes and rising full moon over Tempe Town Lake, Arizona, from Kathleen Kingma. Canon 5D Mark III with Sigma 150-600mm at 150mm.

Wally Roth in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, wrote: “I went out this morning to see if I could watch the sun rise, but the eastern sky was clouded over. I looked to the west and was surprised to see the golden moon heading towards the horizon.” Panasonic FZ-1000, 400mm equiv., ISO 100, f/4, 1/4 sec., tripod.

Swami Krishnananda in Purulia, West Bengal, India, wrote: “Today is a very special festival day all over India, called Holi. Apart from its religious significance, it also coincides with the start of the spring season and winter harvest.” Nikon P900.

March 2018 full moon with halo from Miska Saarikko Photography in Stockholm, Sweden.

Full moon rising over Saquarema, Brazil, on March 1, 2018 from Helio C. Vital. Sony DSC-HX300 camera.

Dennis Schoenfelder in Center, Colorado, wrote: “I kept watching clouds on the eastern horizon at track practice (I’m a high school track and field coach), thinking no photographs until the moon was high. Driving home, right on time, I saw that big peach sneaking up at the horizon. I had to use four-wheel drive to extract myself from the potato field I drove into.” Tamron 150-600 Canon6D.

Bottom line: Photos from the EarthSky community of the March 1-2, 2018, full moon.

Read more: March 1-2 is 1st full moon this month

Read more: March 31 is 2nd full moon this month and a Blue Moon

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2oBSLRU

Kwong Liew captured the moon above San Francisco’s Bay Bridge and wrote: “It had been raining most of the day, and I wasn’t sure I could see the moon. It appeared on and off behind clouds, and I took as many shots as I could before losing it.” Sony A7RIII with Sigma 150-600mm, MC-11 adapter.

Victor C. Rogus in Arcadia, Florida, wrote: “Tonight’s full moon is also known as the full Worm Moon or Frost Moon or Sugar Moon or Crust Moon … All of these names suggest the arrival of springtime!” Read more about full moon names. Vixen VMC 200L Field Maksutov telescope at f6.1, Losmandy GM-8, mount, Cannon 80d camera.

Full Worm Moon from Wisconsin – March 1, 2018 – from Suzanne Murphy.

Full moon and airplane from Mohammad Alotaibi in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

Full moon, clouds, wind from Juan Manuel Pérez Rayego in Mérida, Spain. DSLR x1.6, 400mm f/5.6 tv 1.3, av 5.6, iso 125 and polarized filter.

March 1 from Steve Pauken in Winslow, Arizona.

Last night over Colorado, from Joe Randall.

Incoming planes and rising full moon over Tempe Town Lake, Arizona, from Kathleen Kingma. Canon 5D Mark III with Sigma 150-600mm at 150mm.

Wally Roth in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, wrote: “I went out this morning to see if I could watch the sun rise, but the eastern sky was clouded over. I looked to the west and was surprised to see the golden moon heading towards the horizon.” Panasonic FZ-1000, 400mm equiv., ISO 100, f/4, 1/4 sec., tripod.

Swami Krishnananda in Purulia, West Bengal, India, wrote: “Today is a very special festival day all over India, called Holi. Apart from its religious significance, it also coincides with the start of the spring season and winter harvest.” Nikon P900.

March 2018 full moon with halo from Miska Saarikko Photography in Stockholm, Sweden.

Full moon rising over Saquarema, Brazil, on March 1, 2018 from Helio C. Vital. Sony DSC-HX300 camera.

Dennis Schoenfelder in Center, Colorado, wrote: “I kept watching clouds on the eastern horizon at track practice (I’m a high school track and field coach), thinking no photographs until the moon was high. Driving home, right on time, I saw that big peach sneaking up at the horizon. I had to use four-wheel drive to extract myself from the potato field I drove into.” Tamron 150-600 Canon6D.

Bottom line: Photos from the EarthSky community of the March 1-2, 2018, full moon.

Read more: March 1-2 is 1st full moon this month

Read more: March 31 is 2nd full moon this month and a Blue Moon

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/2oBSLRU