Global Warming

[Hoosier8]

What I do know is that the earth is in trouble. Global warming is a touchy subject. I say we just scratch the word global warming off the list. Instead just focus on clean tech, and all the ways that we can have less of an impact on our climate, and surroundings. That alone will solve it if we do it right. If there is global warming it might help. If not well, we will live in a cleaner and more advanced world. I vote for the ending of global pollution. That includes things like nuclear waste, coal, fracking, all that mess that makes this earth desolate and polluted. Even strip mining and deforestation. There are better ways. It does not mean we will go back to the stone age. It means we can still use all the same tech but move forward advance to new techs that do not pollute, or kill nearby residents. That would be great. That is what I care about. I care about it more than the argument about global warming. Yeah it is hotter than ever in some places and colder in some. Storms seem to be off the hook. Fires seem to burn without a season. There is a lot to consider. It does appear that things are changing. But I think we should stop blaming and just talking about is global warming a hoax or what, and do what we gotta do to take better care of our precious planet earth. We treat her like we have an infinite supply, and strip her grain by grain transforming everything that made the earth the earth in to something it is not. We are destroying our earth. It is the saddest thing.

Doing things cleaner is always good but there are no trends in things like fires, storms, floods, etc. That is all fear mongering.

[waltky]

Arctic voyage finds global warming impact on ice, animals...

Arctic voyage finds global warming impact on ice, animals
Aug 14,`17 -- The email arrived in mid-June, seeking to explode any notion that global warming might turn our Arctic expedition into a summer cruise. "The most important piece of clothing to pack is good, sturdy and warm boots. There is going to be snow and ice on the deck of the icebreaker," it read. "Quality boots are key."

The Associated Press was joining international researchers on a month-long, 10,000 kilometer (6,200-mile) journey to document the impact of climate change on the forbidding ice and frigid waters of the Far North. But once the ship entered the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, there would be nowhere to stop for supplies, no port to shelter in and no help for hundreds of miles if things went wrong. A change in the weather might cause the mercury to drop suddenly or push the polar pack into the Canadian Archipelago, creating a sea of rock-hard ice. So as we packed our bags, in went the heavy jackets, insulated trousers, hats, mittens, woolen sweaters and the heavy, fur-lined boots. Global warming or not, it was best to come prepared.

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Learn more about the Arctic and read dispatches sent by a team of AP journalists as they traveled through the region's fabled Northwest Passage last month: https://www.apnews.com/tag/NewArctic

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If parts of the planet are becoming like a furnace because of global warming, then the Arctic is best described as the world's air-conditioning unit. The frozen north plays a crucial role in cooling the rest of the planet while reflecting some of the sun's heat back into space. Yet for several decades, satellite pictures have shown a dramatic decline in Arctic sea ice that is already affecting the lives of humans and animals in the region, from Inuit communities to polar bears. Experts predict that the impact of melting sea ice will be felt across the northern hemisphere, altering ocean currents and causing freak weather as far south as Florida or France. "Things are changing in the Arctic, and that is changing things everywhere else," said David 'Duke' Snider, the seasoned mariner responsible for navigating the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica through the Northwest Passage last month.

Researcher Tiina Jaaskelainen points out a possible sighting of wildlife aboard the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it traverses the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Saturday, July 22, 2017. As the icebreaker entered Victoria Strait, deep inside the Northwest Passage, those onboard looked for a shadow moving in the distance or a flash of pale yellow in the expanse of white that would signal the presence of the world's largest land predator.

Researchers on the trip sought a first-hand view of the effects of global warming already seen from space. Even the dates of the journey were a clue: The ship departed Vancouver in early July and arrived in Nuuk, Greenland on July 29th, the earliest transit ever of a region that isn't usually navigable until later in the year. As it made its way through the North Pacific - passing Chinese cargo ships, Alaskan fishing boats and the occasional far-off whale - members of the expedition soaked up the sun in anticipation of freezing weeks to come. Twelve days after the ship had left Vancouver, the ice appeared out of nowhere.

At first, lone floes bobbed on the waves like mangled lumps of Styrofoam. By the time Nordica reached Point Barrow, on Alaska's northernmost tip, the sea was swarming with ice. Snider recalled that when he started guiding ships through Arctic waters more than 30 years ago, the ice pack in mid-July would have stretched 50 miles farther southwest. Back then, a ship also would have encountered much thicker, blueish ice that had survived several summer melts, becoming hard as concrete in the process, he said. He likened this year's ice to a sea of porridge with a few hard chunks - no match for the nimble 13,000-ton Nordica.

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[waltky]

Heat Waves Affecting Oceans, Too...

Heat Waves Affecting Oceans, Too
August 15, 2018 | WASHINGTON — Even the oceans are breaking temperature records in this summer of heat waves.

Off the San Diego coast, scientists earlier this month recorded the highest seawater temperatures since daily measurements began in 1916. "Just like we have heat waves on land, we also have heat waves in the ocean,'' said Art Miller of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Between 1982 and 2016, the number of "marine heat waves'' roughly doubled, and most likely they will become more common and intense as the planet warms, a study released Wednesday found. Prolonged periods of extreme heat in the oceans can damage kelp forests and coral reefs, and harm fish and other marine life. "This trend will only further accelerate with global warming,'' said Thomas Frolicher, a climate scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, who led the research.

Surfers leave the water next to Scripps Pier, Aug. 2, 2018, in San Diego. A recent measurement of seawater temperature off Scripps Pier broke a record — it reached 79.5 degrees Fahrenheit on Aug. 9.

His team defined marine heat waves as extreme events in which sea-surface temperatures exceeded the 99th percentile of measurements for a given location. Because oceans both absorb and release heat more slowly than air, most marine heat waves last for at least several days — and some for several weeks, said Frolicher. "We knew that average temperatures were rising. What we haven't focused on before is that the rise in the average comes at you in clumps of very hot days — a shock of several days or weeks of very high temperatures,'' said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist who was not involved in the study.


A little is too much


Many sea critters have evolved to survive within a fairly narrow band of temperatures compared with creatures on land, and even incremental warming can be disruptive. Some free-swimming sea animals like bat rays or lobsters may shift their routines. But stationary organisms like coral reefs and kelp forests "are in real peril,'' said Michael Burrows, an ecologist at the Scottish Marine Institute, who was not part of the research. In 2016 and 2017, persistent high ocean temperatures off eastern Australia killed off as much as half of the shallow water corals of the Great Barrier Reef — with significant consequences for other creatures dependent upon the reef. "One in every four fish in the ocean lives in or around coral reefs,'' said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland. "So much of the ocean's biodiversity depends upon a fairly small amount of the ocean floor.'' The latest study in Nature relied on satellite data and other records of sea-surface temperatures, including from ships and buoys. It didn't include the recent record-breaking measurements off Scripps Pier in San Diego — which reached 79.5 degrees Fahrenheit on August 9 — but Frolicher and Miller said the event was an example of a marine heat wave.

A Guadalupe fur seal, foreground, passes by as SeaWorld animal rescue team member Heather Ruce feeds a California sea lion at a rescue facility in San Diego, Feb. 26, 2013, when rescue crews were seeing a higher than average amount of stranded sea lions. Marine biologists nicknamed a patch of persistent high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean between 2013 and 2016 “the Blob.” During that period, decreased phytoplankton production led to a “lack of food for many species."

Miller said he knew something was odd when he spotted a school of bat rays — which typically only congregate in pockets of warm water — swimming just off the pier earlier this month. Changes in ocean circulation associated with warmer surface waters will most likely mean decreased production of phytoplankton — the tiny organisms that form the basis of the marine food web, he said. Marine biologists nicknamed a patch of persistent high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean between 2013 and 2016 "the Blob.'' During that period, decreased phytoplankton production led to a cascading lack of food for many species, causing thousands of California sea lion pups to starve, said Miller, who had no role in the Nature study. "We've repeatedly set new heat records. It's not surprising, but it is shocking,'' he said.

https://www.voanews.com/a/heat-waves...o/4530365.html