Photo by Nick Russill, Flickr Creative Commons.

People who are skeptical that global warming is something to worry about like to point out that the earth’s climate has gone through many warmings and coolings.  Hence, the term ‘ice age.’

Most scientists, however, agree that today’s climate change is different.  In the first place, it’s human-caused, brought on by increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.  And, as far as we know, it’s happening faster than has occurred in the past. 

A new study from Cornell University gives further proof for this point.  As reported by Agence France-Presse, the study found that the current rate of warming is more dramatic than in any other period over the last 5,000 years.  

For the study, researchers looked at temperatures, oceanic circulation and changes in migration patterns, and then compared their findings to the paleoclimate record. 

Scientists are able to understand paleoclimate, dating back to millions of years ago, by studying ice cores, lake levels, and cave deposits, among other natural records. 

The Cornell research team found that the melting of Arctic ice has brought on significant shifts in the location of plants and animals in the North Atlantic.  Of particular note, the researchers found that microscopic algae have moved from the Pacific to the Atlantic for the first time in 800,000 years. 

By sending more freshwater into the Atlantic, melting Arctic ice can change ocean salinity and circulation, which can in turn alter habitats and species ranges. 

The study comes on the heels of a report that changes in climate are now being detected on every continent.  For that report, scientists at the University of East Anglia looked at climate data from dozens of weather stations in the Arctic and Antarctic, according to the Independent.  They then asked four different computer models to reproduce the observed data. 

The models were only able to do so if human impacts were included in the set of factors, enabling the scientists to draw a direct link between human activities and warming at both of the poles. 

So, climate scientists are clearly busy double-checking their work against both past records and models run on supercomputers.  What more will it take for more non-scientists to take climate change seriously?

If temperatures increase and ice sheets continue to melt, it’s certain sea level will rise.  What’s less certain is by how much and how much fast.

Answering those number questions will take more study of the ice sheets that sit atop Greenland and the Antarctic.

And lots of math.    

A new supercomputer being deployed in Wales is about to be set to work running the many numbers involved. 

The computer – called Blue Ice – will be used to study the behavior of melting polar ice sheets. 

Currently, global climate models, which are run on computers to make projections about future climate, are not able to see all of the important aspects of ice.  While they recognize that a loss of ice means a loss of white areas on the earth’s surface that reflect sunlight, the models are not as smart about assessing ice sheet’s internal physics. 

Blue Ice, which was turned on at Swansea University in Wales on Oct. 31, will be used to study just how glaciers and ice sheets behave in the face of warming. 

According to WalesOnline.co.uk, Tavi Murray, professor at Swansea University, said:

“With many glaciers experiencing rapid thinning, time is of the essence in discovering the effects of these drastic changes. 

“This is where Blue Ice can help.  Its main system has 640 cores and a peak performance of 6.8 Teraflops [an industry-recognized measure of high performance computing where ‘Tera’ equals 1,012 and ‘flops’ stands for floating point operations per second], while its neighboring cell based development platform provides an additional 3.6 Teraflops performance.”

Knowing a good range for how much sea level could rise as ice melts and the ocean’s waters warm and expand is critical for policymakers trying to plan for climate change.  The possible range, however, has been controversial.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report projects a rise between 18 centimeters and 59 centimeters by 2100.  But others have called that projection far too cautious. 

Polar bears may be the most high profile of the animals facing a loss of habitat in a warming world, but it’s safe to say they’re hardly alone. 

Just how many plant and animal species would be impacted by a changing climate, however, and in what way, are tough questions to answer. 

In fact, both questions have been in the news a lot the last few weeks, so read on if you’d like a biodiversity news roundup.    

MacArthur Foundation

At the beginning of October, the MacArthur Foundation allotted $50 million to conservation groups working in eight “biodiversity hotspots,” places with extraordinarily high concentrations of species. 

The places read like a dream vacation itinerary: the Lower Mekong River region, the eastern Himalayas, the Melanesian islands, Madagascar, the Albertine Rift in southern Africa, parts of the Caribbean, and the southern and northern Andes in Latin America. According to the foundation: 

“The scale and urgency of the climate change problem demands that the international conservation community step up its efforts,” said MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton said in remarks at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona. “It is clear that for conservation to succeed in the face of climate change there must be shared science, coordinated action, and the capacity for rapid response, backed up with increased financial resources.”

Over the next five years, the MacArthur money will be used to support efforts to adapt ecosystems to climate change. 

Equator Prizes

Meanwhile, the 2008 Equator Prize Awards went to a list of places that could also make the map for an adventurer’s next voyage. 

The winners include a group of Quichua indigenous families in northern Equador who are working to protect the area’s agricultural biodiversity and reintroduce traditional crops and medicinal plants. 

Groups working in Indonesia, Peru, Sri Lanka and Ghana also won Equator Prizes. 

The awards honor communities that have shown leadership in protecting biodiversity from climate change.  A partnership of civil groups and governments led by the United Nations administers the prizes to encourage biodiversity conservation.

Science

And, finally, a new study that was reported in the journal Science blasts the myth that only polar bears would be impacted by a changing climate.  The study, which analyzed the geographical ranges of 2000 species of plants and insects in Costa Rica, found an increase in temperature of 3.2 C would threaten more than 50 percent of the species. 

With changes in temperature, many species would move up to higher latitudes, leaving lowlands without inhabitants.  And species that already live at the higher latitudes will have nowhere to seek cooler temperatures.  

The study provides information about how climate change could impact species biodiversity in the tropics, about which little is known.  

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report, the earth’s average surface temperature will very likely increase by 2 to 11.5 degrees over the next century.

Knowing this range for average surface temperature, though, doesn’t give people a whole lot of information to go on about the future.  In the first place, it’s a range, and small differences in degrees can change what plants will grow well in a region. 

Add in the fact that projections for future precipitation have an even wider span, in part because of climate models’ inability to deal with clouds very well, and the unknowns multiply even more.  Not to mention that changes in climate will likely manifest differently by region. 

So, the question remains: what will climate change mean? And how do we prepare for it if we don’t understand what it will look like?

It’s a question that a story in the most recent issue of the journal Science reports has been neglected by the Bush administration. 

According to the article, roughly 75 percent of the funding administered by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program has been directed at basic climate science. Climate change impacts and adaptation, meanwhile, receive the remaining 25 percent, which came to about $300 million in 2008.

“They said, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not there on the question of detection and attribution,’ ” says Richard Moss, who ran the Climate Change Science Program until 2006. “There was far less of a shift in the program than [we had proposed].”

William Brennan, the current CCSP director, says the lopsided emphasis within CCSP on characterizing global climate change over identifying impacts reflects “our state of [scientific] understanding.” But the NRC study said the U.S. program lacks the investment in data or modeling capabilities to forecast how warming might create feedbacks, such as carbon released from warming soils or methane from melting tundra. – “Impacts Research Seen As Next Climate Frontier,” By Eli Kintisch

The U.S. National Research Council (NRC), an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued a report about the program in September 2007. It concluded that not enough has been done to provide local officials with information to help them prepare for climate change.

The Climate Change Science Program directs climate research in the U.S., but it has little actual authority over how research money is spent. While it may make recommendations, the 13 government agencies involved in climate research have final say about their own budget expenditures.