Another week of GW news - December 31, 2006

(Courtesy of H.E.Taylor, here is this week's GW news roundup
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Two stories from the Arctic captured the headlines this week -- polar bears & the Ayles ice shelf:

• 2006/12/31: Wunderground: Huge Arctic ice shelf breaks away
• 2006/12/30: TP: A chunk of ice bigger than the area of Manhattan
• 2006/12/30: Independent(UK): Vast ice shelf collapses in the Arctic
  A vast ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has broken up, a further sign of the astonishing rate at which polar ice is now melting because of global warming. The Ayles ice shelf, more than 40 square miles in extent - over five times the size of central London...
• 2006/12/30: ABC(Au): Arctic ice break raises global warming fears
• 2006/12/29: NatGeo: Giant Ice Shelf Breaks Off in Canadian Arctic
• 2006/12/30: SF Gate: Floating Arctic ice shelf drifts along Canada's northern shore
  2005's high summer temperatures caused slab to break off, scientists say [A 41-square-mile shelf of floating ice]
• 2006/12/29: UPI: Ice shelf breaks off in Canadian Arctic [The 25.5 square-mile Ayles ice shelf]
• 2006/12/29: BoingBoing: Giant arctic ice shelf liberated by climate change
• 2006/12/29: Yahoo: Ice mass snaps free from Canada's Arctic
• 2006/12/29: BBC: Scientists have discovered that an enormous ice shelf broke off an island in the Canadian Arctic last year, in what could be sign of global warming
• 2006/12/29: Guardian(UK): Giant ice island breaks off Arctic shelf
• 2006/12/28: TruthOut: Ice Shelf Collapse Sends Chill
• 2006/12/29: PhysOrg: Ice Mass Snaps Free From Canada's Arctic
• 2006/12/29: WaPo: Ice Mass Snaps Free From Canada's Arctic
• 2006/12/29: TheWest: Giant piece of Arctic breaks loose
• 2006/12/28: CanWest: Ice shelf collapse sends chill - Canada's North changing. Global warming suspected cause of huge breakup on Ellesmere Island
• 2006/12/28: MObjectivist: Chunk of change
• 2006/12/29: OilChange: Canadian Ice Shelf sets sail
• 2006/12/29: CDreams: CTV: Giant Ice Shelf Breaks Free from Canadian Arctic
• 2006/12/28: CBC: Arctic ice shelf collapse poses risk: expert [An ancient ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields]

The US Dept of Interior is considering declaring polar bears endangered:

Click here to read more

• 2006/12/31: Times(UK): The bears are in trouble, but they’re not on thin ice
• 2006/12/28: NSU: United States focuses on polar bears' plight - Government proposes steps to save conservation icon
• 2006/12/28: ABC(Au): US to put polar bears on endangered list
• 2006/12/29: ABC(Au): Polar bear numbers sound alarm bells, say [WWF] conservationists
• 2006/12/29: CSW: Polar Bears, Pt 2: "Habitat loss and inadequate regulatory mechanisms to address sea ice recession"
• 2006/12/28: CSW: Interior Dept. proposal to list polar bear as threatened due to loss of sea ice
• 2006/12/29: STimes: Global warming and polar bears
  It took the threat to an iconic mammal from the coldest reaches of the north to get the Bush administration to entertain a serious debate about global warming.
• 2006/12/29: LA Times: Global warming's poster cubs
  Consider the humble polar bear: Ursus maritimus to the scientists who admire it for its intelligence. Now consider President Bush, who might be classified as Executum obstreperum by the thousands of scientists who say his administration fails to appreciate the gravity of global warming. Is it possible that the polar bear can do what the scientists cannot?
• 2006/12/28: DeSmogBlog: Bush administration waffles over Arctic ice but science doesn't
• 2006/12/29: CentreDaily: Heed the polar bears - Long the poster child of global warming, this week the polar bear became its official icon.
• 2006/12/29: ABC(Au): US government call for protection of polar bears
• 2006/12/28: PerthNow: Polar bear fears may spark warming rethink
• 2006/12/28: CBC: Nunavut fears fallout from polar bear proposal
• 2006/12/27: BBC: The US has proposed listing polar bears as a threatened species because of declining Arctic ice levels
• 2006/12/27: AP: Govt. Sees Polar Bears As 'Threatened'
• 2006/12/28: Guardian(UK): Bush backtracks on global warming with plan to protect polar bears
• 2006/12/27: CliProg: Polar Bears "Endangered" by Global Warming
• 2006/12/26: CliProg: The War on Santa Claus and Superman AND Polar Bears and us
• 2006/12/27: PhysOrg: Polar bear may be listed as 'endangered'
• 2006/12/27: DeSmogBlog: Bush Administration to list polar bears as threatened species
• 2006/12/27: WaPo: U.S. Wants Polar Bears Listed as Threatened

And year end wrapup stories proliferated:

• 2006/12/31: StarTrib: Climate: Another year of living dangerously
• 2006/12/29: BBC: Climate 2006: Rhetoric up, action down
  "The gap between what the science tells us is necessary and what the politics is delivering is still significant." Not the words of a environmental campaigner or a frustrated climate scientist, but the plain assessment from Britain's Environment Secretary David Miliband as the 2006 round of United Nations climate negotiations whimpered to a close.
• 2006/12/22: Grist: The top 10 green stories of the year
• 2006/12/: Discover: The Top 8 Earth Science Stories of 2006 - Global warming as hot topic...
• 2006/12/29: TruthOut: Review of the Year: Global Warming -- Our worst fears are exceeded by reality.
• 2006/12/28: TechRevu: The Year in Energy -- Biowaste to fuels, cars that plug in, lithium-ion batteries that don't explode, and cheap energy from the sun.
• 2006/12/29: TerraDaily: Record Number Of Dangerous Weather Events Hits Russia In 2006
• 2006/12/29: ClimateArk: Review of the year: Global warming -- Our worst fears are exceeded by reality
• 2006/12/28: Tyee: Year's Big Story #2: Iraq, the climate, and the big reckoning
• 2006/12/27: RealClimate: 2006 Year in review
• 2006/12/26: UPI: Analysis: Europe's year in energy

The DailyAstorian has published a climate change series:

• 2006//: DailyAstorian: Climate change series
• 2006/12/27: DailyAstorian: Oregon's climate guru shrugs off criticism,focuses on science
• 2006/12/26: DailyAstorian: A tiny bit of the stratosphere holds key to greenhouse gas woes
• 2006/12/26: DailyAstorian: Climate change fuels a desire for action

China has issued its first climate change report:

• 2006/12/27: TerraDaily: Dire Warnings From First Chinese Climate Change Report
• 2006/12/28: TreeHugger: China's Climate Change Report: "It's Getting Hot in Here"
• 2006/12/27: PhysOrg: Dire warnings from China's first climate change report
• 2006/12/27: ChinaDaily: Global warming could wreak havoc in China
• 2006/12/27: CDreams: AFP: Dire Warnings from China's First Climate Change Report
• 2006/12/31: IHT: China had hottest year in 2006 since 1951

The Stern Review is still getting kicked around:

• 2006/12/30: BDL: The Stern Review on Global Climate Change Once Again
• 2006/12/29: Forbes: U.K. Study [Stern Review] Raises Global Warming Fears
• 2006/12/27: JQuiggin: Sensitivity analysis [Stern]

They're still talking about ANDRILL:

• 2006/12/29: PhysOrg: Scientists Work on Map of Climate Change
• 2006/12/28: CNN: Drilling into the past to predict the future
• 2006/12/26: ABC(Au): Scientists look for climate change evidence in ice shelf [ANDRILL]

The ozone layer was supposed to be healing, but...:

• 2006/12/26: TruthOut: Antarctic Ozone Layer 90 to 99 Percent Gone
• 2006/12/26: PhysOrg: Study shows extreme contrast in ozone losses at North, South Poles

Glaciers are melting:

• 2006/12/31: WaPo: On Africa's Great Peaks, Glaciers Are In Retreat - Recent Report Blames Loss of Equatorial Ice On Post-'70s Warming
• 2006/12/30: ChinaDaily: Global warming threatens [Qinghai-Tibet] plateau
• 2006/12/31: Hindu: Global warming can affect water resources in China, India
• 2006/12/26: TStar: Glaciers are dying

Meanwhile in near earth orbit:

• 2006/12/30: SciDaily: Innovative Satellite System [COSMIC] Proves Worth With Better Weather Forecasts, Climate Data

Tim questions that flooded island story:

• 2006/12/31: Deltoid: Did Global Warming claim an inhabited island?
• 2005/09/15: EnvironmentalGeology: Rapid erosion of the coast of Sagar island, West Bengal - India by Girish Gopinath and P. Seralathan
• 2006/12/29: FPB: Global warming claims its first inhabited island
• 2006/12/27: IMC: Global Warming: Rising Seas creates 70,000 Climate Refugees
• 2006/12/26: DeSmogBlog: Rising Waters Submerge First Inhabited Island

The impacts of GW are becoming clearer:

• 2006/12/30: PhysOrg: North Europe to ring in New Year with ice-free Baltic Sea
• 2006/12/29: InfoZine: Global Warming May Threaten Human Health
• 2006/12/29: BostonGlobe: Christmas counters find fewer birds going south
• 2006/12/29: Yahoo: North Europe to welcome new year with ice-free Baltic Sea
• 2006/12/28: Australian: Fish 'starving to death' - Fish species on the Great Barrier Reef are starving to death because climate change is killing off their food source, an environmental study has found.
• 2006/12/27: DailyIndia: Global warming starving Great Barrier reef fish species to death
• 2006/12/26: PhysOrg: Warmer Winters Change Washington Foliage
• 2006/12/25: IHT: Unusual warm weather hits sales of winter wear -- Retailers are calling it the Coat Crisis of 2006, a fashion fiasco...

And then there are the tropical rainforests:

• 2006/12/30: PhysOrg: Researchers: Warming May Change Amazon
• 2006/12/30: ClimateArk: Brazil: Struggling to Save His Amazon, From the Top of a Death List
• 2006/12/31: ClimateArk: Brazil: Death of Amazon rainforest possible, researcher warns
• 2006/12/29: Yahoo: Researchers: Warming may change Amazon
  Global warming could spell the end of the world's largest remaining tropical rain forest, transforming the Amazon into a grassy savanna before end of the century, researchers said Friday.

Yes we have no wacky weather, except:

• 2006/12/30: JFleck: Storm of the Century and Stuff
• 2006/12/28: CBC: Wet, windy, snowy B.C. tops year's weather list

The Australian drought is setting records:

• 2006/12/30: PerthNow: Perth has driest year on record
  Perth has recorded it's driest year on record. The 2006 rainfall is just 466.8mm, beating the previous record low of 508.7mm set in 1940. Our average yearly rainfall is 859mm.
• 2006/12/29: JFleck: Climate Change and Australian "drought"

Notice how the nuanced statements get turned into a denial headline:

• 2006/12/29: TheAge: Rain won't end our problems: climate expert
  Australians should not stop being concerned about climate change when the drought eventually breaks, a retired climate scientist has warned. Barrie Hunt, the former head of the CSIRO's climate modelling program, said there seemed to be widespread confusion about the causes of the drought sapping south-eastern Australia, with some people convinced it was entirely due to global warming. Using climate models to try to replicate how weather might change over 10,000 years, Mr Hunt has concluded that the drought is part of a naturally occurring cycle of dry and wet periods in Australia. But he said there were also clear signs that climate change was making the drought worse, with a run of record hot weather in recent years contributing to drier ground and record low run-off of rain. "The temperature signals we're getting are very clear, distinct greenhouse signals," he said. "The warming over the past 10 years, you can't explain that. There isn't any great variability from year to year; it's going up and up and up. If it was natural variability you would be having years of below-average temperature." But he said that judging the effects of climate change on rainfall patterns was much more complex. It could take another 20 to 30 years for a clear trend to emerge.
• 2006/12/29: Australian: Greenhouse gases 'not to blame' [Barrie Hunt]
• 2006/12/28: TerraDaily: Nature Not Humans To Blame For Long Lasting Australian Drought
• 2006/12/29: PlanetArk: Australia's Drought Natural, Researcher [Barrie Hunt] Says

And speaking of floods & droughts:

• 2006/12/17: TerraDaily: UN International Year Of Deserts Ends With Stark Warnings
• 2006/12/27: VOA: Experts Ask 'What Now?' for Desertification
• 2006/12/27: ADevNews: Afghanistan's forgotten drought
• 2006/12/26: JFleck: Texas Drought
• 2006/12/25: CNN: Afghanistan's forgotten drought
• 2006/12/25: al Jazeera: Indonesian flooding kills 80
  Floods and landslides in Indonesia's Aceh and North Sumatra provinces have killed at least 80 people and forced tens of thousands to flee to higher ground.
• 2006/12/25: BBC: Bid to save Sumatra flood victims - A big rescue operation is under way in Indonesia to help survivors of flash floods in northern Sumatra.
• 2006/12/27: PlanetArk: Indonesia Floods Recede, at Least 100 Dead

Elsewhere on the mitigation front:

• 2006/12/29: TreeHugger: GHG Emission Reductions from Appliance Recycling in Japan

Meanwhile in the journals:

• 2005/09/15: EnvironmentalGeology: Rapid erosion of the coast of Sagar island, West Bengal - India by Girish Gopinath and P. Seralathan
• 2006/12/28: GRL: SAM and regional rainfall in IPCC AR4 models: Can anthropogenic forcing account for southwest Western Australian winter rainfall reduction? by Wenju Cai and Tim Cowan
• 2006/12/26: PNAS: An approach to designing a national climate service by E. L. Miles et al.
• 2006/12/26: PNAS: Integrated model shows that atmospheric brown clouds and greenhouse gases have reduced rice harvests in India by Maximilian Auffhammer et al.
• 2006/12/26: PNAS: Air pollution and climate change both reduce Indian rice harvests by Wolfgang Cramer

Before we get into politics, there was some science done:

• 2006/12/30: SciDaily: Western Wildfires Linked To Atlantic Ocean Surface Temperatures
• 2006/12/29: Eureka: Understanding the Arctic -- NSF-funded expeditions cover new ground in climate science [Healy-Oden Trans-Arctic Expedition (HOTRAX)]
• 2006/12/26: SciDaily: Ocean Temperature Predicts Spread Of Marine Species
• 2006/12/26: Eureka: New study links Western wildfires to Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures
• 2006/12/25: Eureka: Ocean temperature predicts spread of marine species
• 2006/12/26: PhysOrg: New Study Links Wildfires to Ocean Temperatures

On the American political front:

• 2006/12/26: FramingScience: San Jose Mercury News Declares That Climate Change Has Hit Crisis Level
• 2006/12/24: FramingScience: The Terminator Frames his Environmentalism in Public Health Terms: Says He Is No "Tree Hugger;" Compares Calif.'s Lead on Global Warming to the State's Role in Popularizing Bodybuilding
• 2006/12/28: MiamiHerald: Let Congress set greenhouse gas limits
• 2006/12/29: BBC: Climate: Irony in the USA - The US stance on global warming is changing, but...
• 2006/12/27: BWeek: Gov't watchdogs under attack from bosses [top government officials]
• 2006/12/27: IHT: Norway to invite US politicians to observe climate change in Arctic
• 2006/12/26: TruthOut: [California] Warming Law Applies Pressure to Industries
• 2006/12/25: CliProg: The Muzzling Continues
• 2006/12/24: GristMill: More on science politicization
• 2006/12/26: Mercury: Climate change at crisis level

Richard Clarke mourns the opportunity cost of Iraq as regards GW:

• 2006/12/31: WaPo: While You Were at War...
• 2006/12/31: GristMill: The opportunity costs of the Iraq War
• 2006/12/30: ERabett: Without oxygen, the brain dies...

And in the UK:

• 2006/12/27: Telegraph(UK): London-on-Sea: the future of a city in decay

While in Europe:

• 2006/12/27: PlanetArk: [EC President, Jose Manuel] Barroso Says Germany Must Meet Lower CO2 Targets
• 2006/12/27: PlanetArk: German Industry Can Cut Greenhouse Gas, [environmental protection] Office Says

Meanwhile in Australia:

• 2006/12/28: WSWS: Australia: A grim start to the summer bushfire season
• 2006/12/26: IHT: Researchers: Giant, prehistoric animals in Australia likely driven to extinction by humans
• 2006/12/29: ABC(Au): More rain forecast amid signs El Nino fading

The difficult question of aviation & GHGs is in the air:

• 2006/12/31: WaPo: A Little More Green, a Little Less Gas [aviation carbon]

Here is something for your library:

• 2006/12/26: MObjectivist: Monbiot [_Heat_ revu]

And for your film & video enjoyment:

• 2006/12/31: GWW: An Inconvenient Truth conveniently on YouTube
• AzU: (video/audio podcasts) Global Climate Change: A Series of 7 Lectures Exploring Our World and Ourselves

Wrestling over a new energy infrastructure continues unabated:

• 2006/12/31: TEB: Ethanol Production Update
• 2006/12/30: EnergyBulletin: How to claim the energy battleground
• 2006/12/30: DFW: Alternative energy growing in Michigan, but coal still king
• 2006/12/30: UPI: Analysis: U.S. nuke energy expands in 2007
• 2006/12/30: SHS: Nuclear power doesn't add up: ALP
• 2006/12/30: ABC(Au): [New South Wales] Opposition promises solar power for state schools
• 2006/12/27: TruthOut: Democrats Seek to Use Oil Cash for Renewables
• 2006/12/28: EnergyBulletin: Ethics of Biofuels
• 2006/12/27: STimes: Coal fueling energy debate
• 2006/12/26: CanWest: Coal-fired power plants stir up controversy -- BC Hydro: The plants are among 38 proposed independent power projects
• 2006/12/26: TEB: Audubon Society Stands Up in Support of Wind Energy
• 2006/12/26: TEB: Energy Efficiency Standards Proposed in Boston
• 2006/12/26: TEB: [NY] Governor Pataki's Energy Indepence Plan
• 2006/12/25: TEB: New York State's Plug-in Hybrid Inititive

Insurance and re-insurance companies are feeling the heat:

2006/12/29: GCC: Munich Re: Weather-Related Catastrophes Will Increase with Rising Loss Potentials

2006/12/29: PlanetArk: Munich Re Sees Natural Catastrophes on the Rise

• 2006/12/27: Guardian(UK): Norwich Union-owner [Aviva] goes carbon neutral
• 2006/12/29: PlanetArk: Munich Re Sees Natural Catastrophes on the Rise
• 2006/12/25: BSD: Let's see the denialists spin this bit of insurance news [Allstate stopping property insurance]

The carbon lobby are up to the usual:

• 2006/12/30: ERabett: Benny and the dunk tank
• 2006/12/30: ERabett: Ms. Rabett's Nude Scientist Test...
• 2006/12/30: ERabett: Statistical Russian Roulette part II...
• 2006/12/27: DeSmogBlog: Tim Ball's Last Gasps? Hope So
• 2006/12/29: Deltoid: Piñata returns [denial]
• 2006/12/28: PRWatch: Anxious About Greens
• 2006/12/28: DenverPost: [Former Interior Secretary, Gale] Norton will join Royal Dutch Shell
• 2006/12/28: CK: Gale Norton: Shilling for Shell
• 2006/12/26: ERabett: Another dog doesn't bark in the cyclone wars...
• 2006/12/25: PhysOrg: Producer: Teachers won't accept [An Inconvenient] 'Truth'

Kevin Vranes ponders marketing AGW & raises some comment:

• 2006/12/27: ERabett: Kevin Vranes opens a new window in the Exxon AR4 advent calendar...[AGW oversold?]
• 2006/12/27: Deltoid: AGW: Oversold or not?
• 2006/12/26: GristMill: [Dessler] Have we oversold climate science?

Coby Beck is continuing to post his excellent "How to Talk to a Global Warming Sceptic" series on GristMill:

• 2006/12/29: GristMill: 'It's the sun, stupid'
• 2006/12/28: GristMill: 'Historically, CO2 never caused temperature change'
• 2006/12/27: GristMill: 'Geological history does not support CO2's importance'
• 2006/12/27: GristMill: 'CO2 doesn't lead, it lags'
• 2006/12/26: GristMill: 'There is no proof that CO2 is causing global warming'
• 2006/12/25: GristMill: 'Water vapor accounts for almost all of the greenhouse effect'
• 2006/12/24: GristMill: 'Climate scientists dodge the subject of water vapor'

Then there was the usual news and commentary:

• 2006/12/25: VDM: Viridian Note 00483: Green Plutocracy
• 2006/12/30: CDreams: Scotsman: Climate Change: The Crack of Doom?
• 2006/12/29: RPTT: What's hidden under Greenland ice?
• 2006/12/29: CliProg: Resolving to Kiss Carbon Emissions Goodbye
• 2006/12/28: CliProg: Battle of Bad Words
• 2006/12/29: RealClimate: On Mid-latitude Storms
• 2006/12/29: CPunch: Laurie David and Me [NSTA, AIT DVDs, etc]
• 2006/12/28: CDreams: IHT: The End of the West as We Know It?
• 2006/12/28: CSM: A grass-roots push for a 'low carbon diet'
• 2006/12/27: GristMill: [Dessler] Video podcasts on climate change

• 2006/12/26: JFleck: A Greenhouse Calculation

• 2006/12/28: TheAge: It is time Australians listened to the stories of the land
• 2006/12/24: RealClimate: AGU Hangover

And here are a couple of sites you may find interesting and/or useful:

• AGO: Australian Greenhouse Office
• PCMDI: IPCC Model Outputs
• Carbon Sink
• Carbon Balanced by the World Land Trust
• EDF: Environmental Defense Fund
• USPIRG: U.S. Public Interest Research Group - Global Warming
• Pembina: Ecological Fiscal Reform (EFR)
• Fire Ecology
• Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast [Draft of a textbook by David Archer]
• The Yes Men
• JIW: Jim Inhot Water
• Argo [world ocean temperature and salinity collection project]
• U.S Climate Emergency Council
• CCNB: Conservation Council of New Brunswick

--regards--

-het

PS. You can access the previous postings of this series here

--

"We're running the planet like a company in liquidation." -Al Gore

Global Warming: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/enviro/globalwarming.html

GW News: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/enviro/gwnews.html

GW News Archive: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/enviro/gwna.html

H.E. Taylor http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/