Permafrost Could Be Climate's Ticking Time Bomb

Permafrost, or frozen ground, covers approximately 20 to 25 percent of the land-surface area in the northern hemisphere, and is estimated to contain up to 1,600 gigatons of carbon, primarily in the form of organic matter. (One gigaton is equivalent to one billion tons.)

By comparison, the atmosphere now contains around 825 gigatons of the element as carbon dioxide.

"Permafrost historically has served as a carbon sink, largely isolating carbon from participating in the carbon cycle," says Jacobson, whose research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. "However, global warming could transform the Arctic into a new carbon source by accelerating the rate of permafrost melting. This undoubtedly would have a dramatic effect on the global carbon cycle."

Jacobson says the key concern is that permafrost carbon will oxidize to carbon dioxide as melting accelerates, causing a positive feedback to global warming. A vicious cycle is created as a warmer climate facilitates more carbon release, which in turn favors more warming.

Forest fires force thousands to flee in Canada

VANCOUVER — Raging forest fires in western Canada forced some 11,000 people to spend their third night away from home with thousands more poised to flee the flames, local officials said.
Hundreds of firefighters backed by dozens of helicopters and air tankers battled fires in Canada's westernmost province to contain the blaze that began consuming thousands of acres at the weekend.
Officials have ordered another 6,000 people to be on evacuation alert in case fires worsen in suburbs adjacent to forests, mostly in the Okanagan resort and wine-growing area in British Columbia.
"Given the dry fuels and difficult steep terrain, and very hot temperatures and low relative humidity, we are taking no chances," fire information officer Jerry Wearing told AFP.
"We're into an historically-high fire danger situation" especially in the southern interior, said Wearing.
Weather forecasts from the Environment Canada service predict continued hot dry weather in the area, with daytime temperatures reaching 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit).

Strange Cloud Observations

The heavens have been really showing off these past few weeks -- what with volcanic clouds, blue moons, rainbow clouds, and UW-shaped lightning. Tuesday night was no different. Astute observers from around the northern latitudes of the world noticed a dazzling display of "noctilucent" clouds. They are clouds at the very edge of space, hundreds of thousands of feet in the air. The air is very cold and very dry at that level of the atmosphere, but in the summer time, the rising air from the hotter surface can gradually push a little water moisture to those space-high altitudes (that's why they're seen only in the summer). Scientists are still not quite sure of all the details that cause the clouds to form, although the glow is from simple sunlight -- the clouds are so high they reflect sunlight even after the sun appears well below the horizon from the ground. There are theories that volcanoes can cause them -- and we just had a big eruption of a volcano in Russia last month. Sightings used to be limited to areas above 50 degrees north latitude, but spaceweather.com says the clouds are being seen at lower and lower latitudes these days -- they've seen it a few times in the U.S. Northwest between 45-48 degrees north, and there was a sighting in Nebraska Tuesday night, which is down at 41 degrees north

Red sky at night

The night skies over Britain will turn a deep shade of crimson this week as the fallout from a Russian volcano blast hits the UK. Millions of tonnes of dust, ash and sulphur dioxide were thrown up to 30 miles into the air when Sarychev Peak on Matua Island in the Kuril Archipelago erupted last month. The blast created what experts call a ‘volcanic aerosol’ - a colourful mixture of ash and sulphur compounds - in the stratosphere. This scatters an invisible blue which, when mixed with the red light of the setting sun, produces a ‘volcanic lavender’, or vivid crimson/violet hue. Strong winds blew the soaring plume more than 2,000 miles across the northern hemisphere before its effects were noticed in Britain last Thursday. The RARE phenomenon has been caught on camera. Meteorologists say the sunset spectacle will last for several days, but will only be visible on clear evenings. It will then continue on its journey across the Atlantic and into the skies above North America
Image: A particularly fiery red sky over fields in Leicestershire last night after an eruption at Sarychev Peak in Russia unleashed a colourful mixture of ash and sulphur.  When this 'volcanic aerosol' in the stratosphere mixes with the red light of the setting sun, it produces a vivid crimson hue

Eastern Aral Sea has shrunk by 80% since 2006

The eastern lobe of the disaster-struck Aral Sea seems to have shrunk by four-fifths in just three years, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Friday.

It released an overlay of photographs taken by one of its Earth observation satellites, Envisat, on July 1 2006 and July 6 2009.

Once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water but now a byword for ecological calamity, the Aral Sea has been retreating over the last half-century after rivers that fed it were diverted for Soviet cotton irrigation projects.  Image: Satellite image shows the dramatic retreat of the Aral Sea?s shoreline.

Around two decades ago, it split into the Small Aral Sea in the north, located in Kazakhstan, and the Large Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The horseshoe-shaped Large Aral Sea began to split into eastern and western lobes, in 2000.
"The eastern lobe retreated substantially between 2006 and 2009," ESA said in a press release.
"It appears to have lost about 80 percent of its water since the 2006 (image) acquisition, at which time the eastern lobe had a length of about 150 kilometres (93 miles) and a width of about 70 kms (43 miles)."
The Large Aral Sea is expected to dry out completely by 2020, it added.

Frozen carbon a climate change threat

An Australian-led team of scientists says it has determined the amount of frozen carbon in Earth's northern regions is more than double previous estimates.

We now estimate the deposits contain over 1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere, said Charles Tarnocai of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the study's lead author.

Pep Canadell, executive director of Australia's Global Carbon Project and study co-author, said the existence of super-sized deposits of frozen carbon means any thawing of permafrost due to global warming might lead to significant emissions of carbon dioxide and methane -- both greenhouse gases.

Freak weather terrorizes Muscovites

Freak weather terrorizes Muscovites. A downpour, a hail, and in a few hours a totally clear sky – that’s what the Moscow weather is now all about. For the last few days millions of Muscovites and those who live in the Moscow region have been waking up having absolutely no idea what they will see beyond their windows. The conditions outdoors are changing so rapidly that listening to the weather forecast seems to be a waste of time. Yet another surprise awaited the local population on Friday morning. In some parts of Moscow precipitation levels reached 50 mm overnight, which is MORE THAN A HALF-MONTHLY RATION. 

Elsewhere, the heavy rain destroyed parts of the city’s road surface, while somewhere on the roads the puddles were 30 centimeters in depth. Such meteorological capriciousness resulted in kilometers-long traffic jams all around Moscow. The bedlam outside, which Moscow and many other parts of the country fell victim to, has sparked concerns over climate change. For the past five-to-ten years, Muscovites have become acquainted to several different “weather manifestations” uncommon for this part of the country, such as recent tornadoes, the mild winter of 2007 whose snow only appeared in mid-January, while conversely 2003 saw snowfall in June.

Millions hungry as warming shifts seasons

Rainfall more erratic, shorter. Interviews Oxfam carried out with farmers in 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America show that SEASONS ARE SHRINKING IN NUMBER AND VARIETY. This is destroying harvests, pushing farmers to abandon traditional crops and causing widespread hunger -- which, the agency predicts, will likely be "climate change's most savage impact on humanity in the near future". Rainfall is reported to be more erratic, shorter and more violent. UNUSUAL weather events -- including storms, drier spells and fluctuating temperatures -- are happening more often. And farmers say winds and storms have got stronger. "We think that 'changing seasonality' may be one of the most significant impacts of climate change for poor farmers, and that is happening now." "In sub-Saharan Africa, (yields of) maize, which is a staple crop, will decrease by 15 percent by 2020 and that is a big number. Drought is now happening on a yearly basis, and there is increased hunger and starvation because of declining food stocks."

Torrential rain in China leaves at least 20 dead

BEIJING: At least 20 people have died and more than 670,000 had to be evacuated in China after torrential rain and floods destroyed houses, damaged roads and caused rivers to overflow, state media said on Sunday.

The fatalities occurred over several days of relentless heavy rain in the centre and south of the country, also leaving another five people missing, according to Xinhua news agency. 

Water levels of some rivers in the southern Guangxi region were the highest since 1998, when downpours led to the worst flooding in over 100 years and resulted in more than 3,600 deaths nationwide, China Central Television said Saturday.

Rhine three degrees warmer than 100 years ago

BERLIN (AFP) — The Rhine river between Germany and the Netherlands is on average three degrees warmer than 100 years ago, with power stations the main culprits, the German green group BUND said on Tuesday.
According to a study commission by BUND, this stretch of the river is warmed two degrees Celsius by waste water pumped in by industry and by nuclear and coal-fired power plants, and by one degree by global warming.
The warming of one of Europe's biggest rivers affects wildlife, with salmon known to stop swimming upstream to spawn if the water temperature reached 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), BUND said. Temperatures of 28 degrees (82 Fahrenheit) have been recorded.
"The waste heat from all German power plants would be enough to warm every single building in the country," Joerg Nitsch, head of BUND in the German state of Hesse, said in a statement.
"This gigantic waste of heat that the Rhine has to deal with shows how utterly inefficient producing electricity with coal and nuclear power is," he said.