Feb 20 2009

Climate Changes

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

• A leading climate scientist, Stanford University's Christopher Field, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that global warming is likely to proceed much faster than predicted due to feedback effects. One of the many factors he cited is melting of the artic permafrost, which could release vast amounts of methane, a much more potentent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
• Armed with new estimates of the rate of global warming, scientists now think sea levels could rise three to six feet by the end of the century, nearly triple the level predicted just two years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Much of Florida may be submerged, but cruise lines will enjoy free sailing in the Arctic.
• NASA plans to launch a new Orbiting Carbon Observatory next week to measure levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and to detect were it is being produced and where it is being absorbed.
• A research firm, New Carbon Finance, reports that the single biggest cause of lower greenhouse emissions in the European Union last year was its carbon trading system, not the economic downturn. Emissions there dropped about 3 percent in 2008.
• Nonetheless, global concentrations of carbon dioxide jumped almost 2.3 percent last year. Overall the growth rate for the greenhouse gas this decade is running 40 percent ahead of the rate in the 1990s.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed to seek Senate action on global warming by the end of summer. Failing to "take a whack" at the problem, he told The Associated Press, "would be neglectful."  

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