The current cold snap may be more than just a blip. Two leading climate researchers have found evidence that the Earth may be heading into a cooling period which could last 20 to 30 years. Better keep those snowshoes handy!
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Old refrigerators guzzle energy: Newer refrigerators use 75% less energy
Courtesy Rich Anderson
More efficient refrigerators have a huge impact
Refrigerators today are bigger than in the 70s but use 75% less energy. This happened because of stricter energy efficiency standards. Efficiency standards can save more energy than current wind, solar, and geothermal energy sources combined!
United Nations summit on climate change
This week at the United Nations' summit on climate change, U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Secretary, Steven Chu, unveiled a $350-million investment plan to bring to the developing world everything from efficient refrigerators to solar lanterns.
Climate REDI
Climate Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (Climate REDI) is a $350-million investment by major economies, including $85 million from the U.S., to bring everything from efficient refrigerators to solar lanterns to the developing world.
"The energy savings from refrigerators is greater than all U.S. renewable energy generation—all the wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaics—just the refrigerators," Chu said in a speech announcing the initiative, noting the refrigerators also cost less. "Energy efficiency is truly a case where you can have your cake and eat it too. [But] it was driven by standards; it didn't happen on its own."
Learn more about the UN energy-efficiency initiative
Source: Scientific American
U.S. Unveils a $350-Million Energy-Efficiency Initiative at Copenhagen
Another young scientist: Desperately trying to get his research noticed. But it may already be too late.
Courtesy RrrrredHey, Buzzketeers. I’m going to be straight with you up front (I always am):
I haven’t actually seen “The Day After Tomorrow,” even though it will feature prominently in this post. I did see the preview, however, and I know the title, so I’m confident that I can sum the film up pretty accurately.
The is how The Day After Tomorrow goes, more or less:
The kid from Spiderman, Peter Parker, is a young scientist trying to make a name for himself in the big city. He has a crippling fear of wolves. Trying to be a famous scientist, however, is a lot like trying to be a Hollywood celebrity: there are a million other kids out there just like you, except that some of them are better looking with bigger muscles, or more feminine ankles, so you have to be willing to act a little crazy, or go on camera naked.
Peter Parker, fortunately, opts for the “act a little crazy” route. He soaks up a couple red bull-vodkas and starts researching. After 7 panicked days and 6 insane nights, Peter says, “Check it out! The Day After Tomorrow, the poop is really going to hit the fan!” But the scientific community was all, “Whatever, Parker. Take that shirt off, and let’s get you on camera.” They were so preoccupied with the thought of Peter’s scientist muscles that they failed to realize that he was right! Like two sick bears squatting on an airboat, the poop was really about to hit the fan.
Sure enough, Peter Parker’s discovery proved to be accurate. The planet’s ocean currents went all haywire, and a couple days later things got really cold and stupid. Peter Parker, despite being shirtless at this point, was more prepared for the situation than everyone else, and he grabbed a sled and went to rescue a friend of his, possibly a beautiful woman or man, who was trapped in an elevator behind some very impressive icicles. Along the way, Peter had to avoid the many wolves that immediately moved into the frozen cities in search of delicious, un-canned human food, but once he rescued his beautiful friend the wolves could no longer be dodged. After a 45-minute-long wolf-fighting scene, Peter emerged bloody and victorious. He had truly conquered this world of the day after tomorrow!
It’s a little silly isn’t it? I mean, everyone knows that ocean currents are vital for spreading heat across the planet, and moderating higher latitude climates. Duh. Surface water is warmed in the tropics, and is pushed into currents by regular wind patterns and the rotation of the Earth. As it reaches colder seas, the water releases heat and moisture into the atmosphere. Colder and saltier now (because the salt in water doesn’t evaporate), the water is denser, and it sinks down to join deeper currents, where it will flow thousands of miles around the planet, before eventually returning to the tropics to be warmed again. Tada. And, of course, shortly after the end of the last ice age, a huge, cold, freshwater glacial lake burst its shores and spilled into the north Atlantic, halting this water cycle and disrupting the Gulf Stream current to plunge the Earth into another thousand years of coldness. But that sort of thing couldn’t happen the day after tomorrow, could it? Noooo. We all know that. It would take years for such a tremendous change in climate to occur. What a silly movie.
Or… maybe not. A new study from the University of Saskatchewan suggests that the story of Peter and the Wolves may not be as far fetched as we all thought. Based on lake core samples, the research seems to indicate that the drastic cooling, at least in Europe, could have occurred over a period as short as just a few weeks, not over the space of years, as was previously accepted.
Lake cores are samples of the deep mud and sediment at the bottoms of lakes, and they’re surprisingly useful for telling what happened above a lake a long time ago. Think about it—if things got really windy, for example, lots of dust and dirt would be blown onto the lake, and it would eventually settle down to the bottom, forming a unique layer. Or if all the plants nearby died suddenly, you’d probably see less pollen in the layer deposited at that time. Scientists can even look at the isotopes of the atoms in lake core layers to learn about what was happening at the time—carbon isotopes can show how much stuff was alive in the lake, and oxygen isotopes can indicate local temperature and rainfall. Examining cores from a very old lake in Ireland, the researchers discovered that the transition to the Younger Dryas period (the sudden return to ice age-like conditions) happened very suddenly, perhaps in as short a time as a month. Peter Parker was right! Peter Parker was right!
As I understand it, though, this rapid and severe change hinges on the North Atlantic Current (the Gulf Stream) being totally shut down very quickly. Cold fresh water released by melting icecaps could very likely affect weather patterns, but something on this scale would require a fairly catastrophic event—some scientists suggest that the Younger Dryas could have been triggered by some sort of extra-terrestrial impact, although the theory is heavily debated.
Still, if some hot young scientist approaches you with some hot young ideas, don’t immediately insist that he take his shirt off—he might be saying something worthwhile
Bristlcone growth record
Courtesy ARTiFactor
Bristlecone Pines Break 4,650-Year Growth Record
The Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson studied 678 tree ring radii of bristlecone pines, both living and dead, from a site on the White Mountains and two sites in Nevada—on Mount Washington and Pearl Peak.
Among bristlecone pines at the tree line, the period from A.D. 1951 to 2000 saw a positive growth period, when the median ring width reached 0.58 millimeter, which was greater than any other 50-year median since 2650 B.C. Scientific American
Climate Science Controversy?
in Earth and Space Science, History and Nature of Science, Scientific Inquiry, and The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate
A controversy is brewing in the world of climate science. On Thursday, November 19, a Russian website posted over 1,000 e-mails and almost 3,000 data files from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain. The CRU is one of the major centers of climate research in the world, and provided much of the data for the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
The e-mails, written by some of the leading climate scientists in Britain and America, seem to suggest some very disturbing behavior:
* manipulating climate data to fit pre-existing theory
* refusing to share data with peers to check for accuracy
* circumventing legal requirements to release information, and even deleting some of it
* pressuring journals to reject papers that don’t fit the theory, and even pushing editors out of their posts
The story has been covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. You can find a good summary of how the story broke on Pajamas Media. Blogger Bishop Hill is keeping a running list of the most controversial e-mails. And, if you just want a quick summary, there’s “Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate.”
The University has acknowledged that its system was illegally hacked, but cannot vouch for the authenticity of every item. (There is also some suggestion that the information may have been leaked by an insider.) Several authors and recipients have verified some of the e-mails as genuine; as of this writing, none of the messages have been refuted. The sheer amount of data – over 170 megabytes – suggests this is not a hoax, though many authors have cautioned that it would be easy for a prankster to slip a few bogus e-mails in with all the legitimate ones.
But, assuming the e-mails are genuine, what do they tell us?
The alleged non-compliance with the Freedom of Information Act is a legal matter. We can say nothing about it, other than no charges have been filed, and everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The e-mails which seem to describe fudging the facts to fit the theory have received the most attention. It would be disturbing indeed if scientists at a major research institute were falsifying data. Though only a handful of papers have so far been implicated, if the allegations are borne out it would cast a pall over these scientists’ other work, their collaborations, and even work done by other scientists which was based on the disputed data.
These particular e-mails have also received the strongest defense. The authors, and even some third-party observers, maintain that the messages are being quoted out of context and misinterpreted, and that some phrases which appear damning actually have innocent explanations. (To date, there has been little reporting on the much larger, much more complex data files, which may shed light on this issue.)
Perhaps most disturbing, from a science standpoint, are the withholding of data from outside researchers, and the pressure put on journals to not publish dissenting views. Science absolutely relies on vigorous, evidence-based debate. If the evidence is not made available, the debate cannot take place. Furthermore, proponents of human-caused global warming have long criticized dissenters for not publishing their papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. However, if it turns out that those journals were controlled by proponents who actively kept dissenters out, then the argument loses merit.
On this last point, global warming proponents and dissenters agree. Writers such as Megan McArdle and George Monbiot argue that the case for human-caused global warming remains strong, but that subverting the peer-review process blocks scientific progress and is a major blow to credibility.
So, what next? Politicians in Britain, Australia and America are calling for investigations. Climate studies are funded with taxpayer dollars, and lawmakers pass legislation based on the information the studies provide. Governments have an obligation to make sure it is accurate. And, as noted earlier, the easy work of reading the e-mails has largely been done. The more difficult task of sifting through the data files will take longer. Already, some programmers are questioning the computer models CRU developed to predict climate. If there are more updates, we’ll be sure to post them here.
Summertime, and the livin' is easy: Keeping cool this past summer was easier than expected.
Courtesy tree & j hensdill
Well, summer is officially over. The Weather Service switched to fall on September 1. The rest of the country likes to wait until the day after Labor Day. (The folks who hold out for the equinox are delusional, and best ignored.) So, it's time to update our on-going study comparing summer temperatures to winter temperatures.
For those of you just joining us, last February Buzz blogger extraordinaire Candace noted that the winter of 2008-2009 had been unusually warm. She asked if this meant the following summer would also be warm.
Well, I went to the website of the National Space Science and Technology Center, which very conveniently records the temperature for each month going back to December 1978. I crunched the numbers and found that, yes, there was a connection. Though summer temps fluctuate year-to-year, about half of that fluctuation can be tied to changes in winter temps.
Armed with this information, we anxiously awaited the temperature record from summer 2009. The results are in, and...
...well, this was obviously part of the other half. The winter of 2008-2009 was the 4th warmest in the recording period. The summer of 2009, however, was dead smack in the middle -- 16th out of 31. So disparate were these results that they actually brought down the average for the entire study period: the impact of winter temps on summer temps is now down to just 45%.
Still, for something as complicated as weather, that's a huge impact. So, while the winter-summer connection can't predict what will happen in any given year, over the long run it does still hold true.
Tune in next year for another exciting update!
The Sun in more active times: Sunspot activity, which is linked to weather and other phenomena on Earth, peaked in 2001. But for the last two years there’s been almost nothing.
Courtesy NASA
Our Sun has been burning brightly for some five billion years. But the rate of its burning has not been steady. The Sun goes through a regular 11-year cycle of active periods and quiet periods. The active periods are marked by an increase in sunspots—dark regions of intense magnetic activity on the surface of the Sun.
Now, “active” and “quiet” are relative terms. The amount of energy released by the Sun in its “active” phase is only 1/10th of 1% more than that released during its “quiet” phase. In other words, a quiet Sun is still putting out 99.9% as much energy as an active Sun.
Yet, scientists have long noted a connection between activity on the Sun and temperatures here on Earth. (We have discussed this phenomenon before, here and here.) And the impact is much greater than that 1/10th of 1% would have you believe. How could such a small increase in solar output have such a large effect on Earth?
Well, it looks like we finally have an answer. A new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and published in the journal Science argues that the increased solar output warms ozone in the upper atmosphere. This extra energy creates more ozone, which traps more heat, which creates more ozone, which… you get the idea. It’s a feedback loop. The end result is stronger winds. These winds reduce clouds over the Pacific Ocean, allowing it to warm up as well. So you’ve got heat coming down from the sky, and more heat coming up from the ocean, the end result of which is that the Earth warms more than twice as much as you would expect from the increased Sun activity alone.
(The low number of sunspots over the last couple of years may at least partially explain our unusually cool summer.)
The researchers are careful to say that this work does not explain long-term climate change, but simply periodic weather patterns. However, sunspots have been linked to major climate events of the past, such as the Little Ice Age. Finding the exact mechanism of their influence may simply be a matter of more research.
Let's celebrate weather & climate all month long!
in Earth and Space Science, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, and Forces of Nature
This year has been designated The Year of Science 2009, and the theme for the month of August is weather and climate. What better way to celebrate than to dust off one of my old videos and show it again on the Science Buzz blog. I shot the video over Lake Harriet when one of those typical thunderstorms rolled through Minneapolis a few summers ago. We're obsessed with weather here in Minnesota, and I'm particularly crazy for thunderstorms!
If you want more information about this month's theme you can find it at the Year of Science website.
That's right, folks, whether you wanted him around or not, El Niño has come, and he's going to break your head open! (Climatologically speaking he will.)
One way to describe El Niño might be to say that it's a global weather phenomenon associated with an upwelling of warm water off of the Pacific coast of South America, occurring every two two five years, which causes all sorts of oddness around the world, from droughts in Australia to major flooding in South America, to heavy rains and increased wave erosion in the Pacific Northwest.
Another way to describe El Niño might be this:
(Actually, I'd encourage someone to write something better than this wimpy little post on El Niño. There's a lot to say about it, and it affects billions of people around the world. Check it out, teach us something we didn't know.)
If your answer is "Nothing, yet," then you might consider stopping by the museum.
Minnesota's Water Resources: Impacts of Climate Change
Dr. Lucinda Johnson, National Resources Research Institute, University of Minnesota-Duluth
Thursday, April 9, 2009
7 - 8:30 pm in the Auditorium
Over the past 150 years, Minnesota's climate has become increasingly warmer, wetter, and variable, resulting in undeniable ecological impacts. For example, more recent changes in precipitation patterns combined with urban expansion and wetland losses have resulted in an increase in the frequency and intensity of flooding in parts of Minnesota. Learn about exciting new research which will develop a prediction model for future climate changes specific to Minnesota, and discover its potential economic and civic impact.
Check it out.
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