There is one disturbing diary up now about Saudi Arabia and here is one more. It turns out that Saudi Arabia has convinced Qatar and Kuwait to join together to block a U.N. Climate Change study, in an apparent effort to protect their Oil Based Economy. While there has been an orchestrated effort by Fossil Fuel lobbyists to weaken international Climate Change legislation, this is the first time a state Government has openly blocked reforms. The immediate losers are the people who are members of A.O.S.I.S. - the Alliance of Small Island States - and what they have to lose by this action. crossposted at Huffington Post, Square State, FDL and PRAER.org It is no secret that Saudi Arabia would stand to lose a significant chunk of change if a Climate Study concluded that greenhouse gases created by Oil were going to cause the disappearance of low lying islands. This is disappointing because while the European Union, Australia and New Zealand joined in support of AOSIS' efforts, the United States remained on the sidelines, quietly agreeing through silence with Saudi Arabia's efforts. The United States' endless addiction to Oil profits feed by our transportation sector stands in the way of change to an all electric fleet and high speed rail which would help mitigate the already dangerous sea level rise that islanders face.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday blocked a call by vulnerable island states at climate talks for a study into the impact of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming, delegates said. The appeal came from the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), gathering low-lying islands in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific, which is lobbying hard for the UN climate arena not to abandon the 1.5 C target. The goal is receding as emissions of greenhouse gases rise and political problems for tackling climate change multiply. AOSIS, supported by the European Union (EU), Australia and New Zealand, called for a technical report on the cost of reaching the 1.5 C target and the consequences of breaching it. But it was thwarted by Saudi Arabia, with support from Kuwait and Qatar, under the UN's consensus rule, the sources said. Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers argue that ratcheting up action on carbon emissions will hurt their revenues as fossil-fuel consumers switch to cleaner energy. "Some small island states could become stateless from sea level rise, which is why they are calling for global temperature rise to be kept below 1.5 C," added Wendel Trio of Greenpeace. "That Saudi Arabia, a country with such obvious oil interests, exploited the UN consensus rule to stop the world's most vulnerable countries from getting a much-needed summary of the latest climate science is breathtaking for its criminal disregard for the human impacts of climate change."

(Hattip to Dr. Rolph Payet) As I have made the case before, only when citizens realize that the way they power their cars is directly causing the loss of entire ways of life, will the demand change. Unfortunately, while we failed to convince people do at Copenhagen, the BP oil spill and the planet itself is showing the limits she can withstand. I also humbly ask to also do the following: #1 sign the Environmental Refugee Legal Status petition that changes the legal status of Environmental Refugees from Migrants to actual refugees - guaranteeing them the right to asylum and monetary restitution. #2 sign the Gulf Oil Spill Electric Car Credit petition, and mention it to your elected officials. #3 Talk to your candidates about Environmental issues - until they start to show that they are listening - I know one candidate in my state who has listened and promised some of the most progressive renewable energy legislation if elected to the Senate. #4 Get involved with 350.org and tck, tck, tck.

NEW DELHI -- For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone.

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.

Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.

Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) annually, he said.

Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well, Hazra said.

"We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water," he said.

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18 percent of Bangladesh's coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 2050 as projected by some climate models.

read more by Nirmala George:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/new-moore-island-disappea_n_511162.html

The North Carolina Coastal Resource Commission just finished the first study of sea level rise in the United States. The most significant part of the study was what the report said about what the market has decided about sea level rise.

...even if the public and governments drag their feet on reacting to a changing coast, others aren't waiting to adapt. State Farm, for example, announced this week that it will no longer write or renew insurance policies for structures on barrier islands to reduce its exposure in areas prone to catastrophic events like hurricanes.

Crossposted at Square State Here is the real point of this story - that insurance companies, which are based on the so-called 'invisible hand of the free market' have seen the writing on the wall and are no longer in the business of insuring new homes on the Outer Banks in my home state of NC. This is the lesson I want deniers who are in positions of power in our government to hear - the market is denying your denial. Capitalism is recognizing something you refuse to do, based mostly either on your ignorance or perhaps on your close ties to fossil fuel industry lobbyists. And when you protest with your bully pulpit, average people become misinformed and impede the ability for our leaders and governments to take action or achieve meaningful goals (hint:Copenhagen), even as science shows us that the earth is continually heating, and that this past decade was the warmest on record. In the UK a similar study was recently completed http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/asia/091203/australia-environment-sinking-continent?page=0,1

The report suggests private property owners "withdraw, relocate or abandon assets that are high risk." Residents on the east coast of the United Kingdom, in Norfolk, are also feeling the sting of abandonment from local and national governments in some coastal areas, which have been deemed too costly to protect. More than 15 million people live near the U.K. coastline, but Britain's Environment Agency has already said that the area known as the Norfolk Broads will probably be left to be reclaimed by the sea.

And their government is starting to plan a course of action: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8460089.stm

About 10 million people in England and Wales live in flood risk areas. The project, launched on Friday, is a joint venture between the Institution of Civil Engineers (Ice) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba). The report, Facing up to Rising Sea Levels, urges the government, planning authorities and the public, to act sooner rather than later. "If we act now, we can adapt in such a way that will prevent mass disruption and allow coastal communities to continue to prosper," said Riba president Ruth Reed. "But the key word is 'now'," she added. The study warns that rising sea levels, an increase in the frequency of storms and sinking landmasses could leave many UK coastal areas vulnerable to extreme flooding.

Industrialized countries are planning their defense of coastal areas and acknowledge that this endeavor will be costly. Other countries in less prosperous economies,however, are struggling with facing this economic reality. Here is one report on the changing coastline of Africa http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BH4PD20091218

The United Nations estimates Africa has 320 coastal cities and about 56 million people living in "low lying" coastal zones, those less than 10 meters above mean sea level. Some expects say sea levels have risen by about 20 cm since the start of the Industrial Revolution in northern Europe. That is no surprise to residents of Abidjan's Port Bouet, where abandoned concrete shacks litter the beach. Some have lost their front walls. Scaffolding is all that remains of others. "Twenty years ago the sea was far away from here," said Samassa Awa, 39, an unemployed nurse whose wooden shack has been flooded by the Atlantic many times. "You see all these destroyed houses? Many people fled but we decided to stay." ............. "We want the authorities of the world powers to come and rescue the poor people from the sea," said Diakite Abdullaye, 46, looking over his shoulder at the ruins of a house he said had already been destroyed by the advancing ocean. "If they can't stop the sea rising, then help us move somewhere else," said the resident of Ivory Coast's biggest city.

as well as here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8369236.stm

Mozambique has been identified as one of the countries likely to be affected most by climate change, and the issue will not go away. Much of what Mozambique would like to do is deemed too expensive While scientists cannot give an exact figure of how much the sea has already risen in Mozambique, the effects are already obvious. "I went to the beach a lot as a child, and I've noticed things are changing," said 34-year-old Jose, who lives in Maputo. "The water is eating the land - little by little it's eating the land." Mozambique has compiled an action plan, and has been offered help from the World Bank, UN agencies and a plethora of other aid agencies. But so far little has been done, and much of what the country would like to do is beyond its budget. "I think people are still at the stage of 'Oh my God - what are we going to do?'" as environmentalist Antonia Reina puts it.

And while too much water is an issue for Coastal inhabitants, not enough water is the other issue for many other people who rely on glacial melt for fresh drinking water - such as in Bolivia, where Scientists recorded the first glacier to 'disappear' from existence this past year. Or in news closer to home, The Winter Olympics in Vancouver are having to use trucks to bring in Ice and Snow for their downhill skiing competition because it has been too mild for snowfall.

Winter Games officials have given up on any help from Mother Nature and will now be trucking in snow for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events at Cypress Mountain, on Vancouver's North Shore.... Mild temperatures and heavy rains earlier this month forced officials to close the mountain ahead of schedule, as snow gave way to mud.

I find it to be the ultimate irony, that at the gathering of the world's countries to compete for Winter Sports, the phrase "giving up on Mother Nature" is being used. How much of Mother Nature's failure will we have to see before we realize what's going on? It seems clear from reading these reports, that action to address these crises needs to start sooner rather than later. However, the United States is home to some of the leading stalwarts of climate change denial and are increasing the severity of the problem. In my other home state of Colorado - Rep. Dave Schulteis has proudly proclaimed why he has decided to vote against Martha Rudolph's appointment to the Executive Director of the Department of Public Health and Environment: http://senatorschultheis.blogspot.com/2010/01/sen-schultheis-votes-no-on-gov.html (hattip sufimarie)

1) Is there an issue with global warming...and is it caused by humans? Her answer to both related questions was an unqualified "yes." 2) Does she consider CO2 to be a pollutant? Her answer: It is a contributor to Global Warming, although it does not fit easily into the federal Clean Water Act... ...Based on her answers to the committee, I voted NO and will debate these issues on the full floor of the Senate when this comes to the full Senate for confirmation

I included this local story, because it seems in every state across this nation, there is a vocal global warming denier making news. And with the recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns, the strength of the global fossil fuel lobbying campaign to impede meaningful legislation on Climate Change just got a whole lot tougher. I take comfort in this video made by Peter Sinclair who debunks climate denial myths. The point of this video indicates that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report discloses that it does not take into account "Rapid Dynamical Change in Ice Flow" - an event where glacial instability tips out of control and melts uncontrollably. This is what scientists are now coming to grips with, that the glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica are destabilizing at an exponential rate. We have had a period of "Rapid Dynamic Change in Ice Flow". The last time we had such an event was 14,000 years ago (12,000 BCE) when Ice sheets suddenly destabilized - this was called the 'Meltwater Pulse 1-A' and in a rapid period of time sea levels rose 75 feet to their current level - which some scientists have speculated could have been caused by an impact from space, but the verdict is still out. (Perhaps not too coincidentally, this is the same date of the massive die off of species in the Western Hemisphere such as the American Horse, Giant Sloth, Sabre Tooth Cat, Dire Wolf, and perhaps most famously, the Great Mastodon - one instance where I believe man has been wrongly blamed for the extinction of species of animals) This event of worldwide sea level rise, I believe, is most likely the common event that is recorded worldwide both in oral and written tradition as the "Great Flood." We are approaching another epic event, and it is now on the horizon, begging us to mitigate it's affects. I have been frustrated by the lack of response by governments to address the threat to the millions of people that are already being displaced on low lying islands and who have no legal status as 'Environmental Refugees' - and even started a petition to remedy this issue of legal limbo. For their sakes, when our legislators realize that their beach houses are going to be threatened, or their ski slopes will be bare, then they will start thinking about the true human cost of their denial of the truth. The inaction of these legislators on Climate Change may not be shameful to them, but in the future their children and their grandchildren certainly will discover they have been denied an honorable namesake.

(crossposted at Huffington post) Update: I will be inserting additional information about the new Earthquakes and Tsunamis that were triggered since Tuesday... In the recent climate change debate, some of our leaders, like Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, are still insisting that these are cyclical, natural changes, or that global warming is not real because "God is still up there". I foresee that a decade from now -- when we see all the damage that has happened -- Sen. Inhofe's comments on climate change will be viewed as some of the most misguided statements ever made by a senator. Why? There was a significant development that occurred yesterday, as an 8.3 earthquake struck Samoa and set off tsunami warnings in the South Pacific. Comparisons were being made to the Indian Ocean earthquake, which was the worst earthquake ever recorded at over 9 on the Richter scale. Update it seems the same fault line in Indonesia has become active - from Huffington Post

A powerful earthquake struck western Indonesia on Wednesday, triggering landslides and trapping thousands under collapsed buildings - including two hospitals, an official said. At least 75 bodies were found, but the toll was expected to be far higher. The temblor started fires, severed roads and cut off power and communications to Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 on Sumatra island. Thousands fled in panic, fearing a tsunami. Buildings swayed hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. In the sprawling low-lying city of Padang, the shaking was so intense that people crouched or sat on the street to avoid falling. Children screamed as an exodus of thousands tried to get away from the coast in cars and motorbikes, honking horns. The magnitude 7.6 quake occurred at 5:15 p.m. (1015GMT, 6:15 a.m. EDT), just off the coast of Padang, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It occurred a day after killer tsunami hit islands in the South Pacific and was along the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 11 nations.

...and the damage in Samoa was worse than previously reported From Huffington Post

APIA, Samoa -- Disaster officials rushed food, medicine and a temporary morgue to the Samoas on Wednesday after a powerful earthquake unleashed a tsunami that flattened villages and swept cars and people out to sea. At least 119 people were killed. Survivors fled to higher ground on the South Pacific islands after the magnitude 8.0 quake struck at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 1748 GMT) Tuesday

Scientists are reporting that these events are unrelated - which very well may be true, however, as you will read below, there is a common denominator to the tectonic instability that is being witnessed. How can this be? Well, the Earth's tectonic plates have sensitive fault lines, which when triggered to move, cause earthquakes and volcanoes. As a sphere, the Earth 'reflects' vibration internally, so that an earthquake in the South Pacific is picked up by seismologists across the world -- say in Alaska. The Indonesian quake resonated so strongly that it set off quakes in Alaska. (Samoa also had a 7.9 earthquake in March.) Now, add in this to the equation. In Greenland, and to a lesser extent, Antarctica, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and more importantly, sliding in rapid bursts. This is caused by moulins, which are holes that melting water form from the top of a glacier to the bottom. The water then lubricates and melts the underside of the glacier, causing them to detach from the bedrock -- and creating a 'slip-n-slide' for glaciers that weigh in the megatons -- some the size of Manhattan.

Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat [Greenland] yesterday: "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 meters an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 meters deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year." The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the sea although in surges it moves even faster. He measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.

The result, each 'slide' of these multi-ton glaciers sets off an 'ice quake' that register an average of 3 to 5 on the Richter scale. This might sound minor, but these are occurring multiple times a year. This means that the Earth is being jolted repeatedly by these ice quakes, destabilizing faults lines which has many, many consequences.

The latest scientific discipline to enter the fray over global warming is geology. And the forecasts from some quarters are dramatic - not only will the earth shake, it will spit fire. A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life. (from Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina) "When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed. "They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."

And it is not likely to slow down, but may instead speed up:

...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.

LET ME REPEAT THAT STATISTIC...

...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.

That is tripling of earthquakes in a 15 year period and more importantly an exponential change in the activity. This trend is causing changes exponentially. For instance, since the Arctic has opened an ice free passage, the Arctic is no longer a stationary sea -- currents from the Pacific and the Atlantic are encroaching into the Arctic circle and creating an additional heating feedback loop -- which is as equally dangerous as a heating feedback loop as the loss of reflective ice. This video highlights the feedback loop that scientists are seeing in Greenland. And, sadly, the latest report from the IPCC reflects this exponential change, as scientists report now that even if the world's countries commit to all of the recommendations to reach by 2050 -- (which the U.S. Senate is likely to block) the Earth's temperature will rise 6.3 degrees by 2100. This is not good, since scientists worldwide have agreed that to survive climate change, we must limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees. So, not only are we on a path that with displace as many as 75 million people by 2050, many of them islanders, but we are also putting many more people in peril due to the threat of this increased tectonic activity. The industrialized countries must change their polluting policies and begin to think about their responsibility for the Indonesian earthquake that resulted in 229,866 people lost, including 186,983 dead and 42,883 missing. These may have been the first wave of people who have died in a widespread fashion from the unintended effects of climate change. And yes, even though as some will argue, tectonic plates have been moving for thousands of years, it is a fact, that the climate is changing, the Arctic is heating, and Ice Quakes are increasing, all due to human made pollution. Since writing this story Tuesday, I feel both vindicated and horrified to see the very things I am worried about happening - and to see that our Senate is still waffling on the middling, do little, but necessary ACES Climate bill. We must do pass much, much more effective legislation and recognize the legal status of Environmental Refugees. There are many changes that are going to happen, and we are going to have to realize, globally, that we are all in this together. Most importantly, we must begin to talk openly about adaptation to these global changes, and not act in merely a reactionary approach.

This is a global wake up call on Climate Change
this is a map of the theaters hosting the events.
map
see here
AVAAZ Global Wake Up Call

The Global Wake-Up Call Is here!

On 21 September 2009, at more than 2200 events in 128 countries across the globe, an unstoppable global movement is issuing a wake-up call to world leaders on climate change! Call our leader now--you can select your country from the list at left, and the numbers will appear. Be polite but firm; leave a message urging your leader to travel to Copenhagen for the climate talks in December and sign a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty!

If you went to an event, post a note about it below, and email photos or video to photos@avaaz.org (or upload here). And if you make a phone call--post a message below about who you called and what happened. If you keep getting a busy signal, that's a good sign: it means our global wake-up calls are flooding the lines, and our message is getting
through!

August warmth in the southern hemisphere broke all time records.

• The Southern Hemisphere average temperatures for land and ocean surface combined were the warmest on record for August.

This August was the second warmest on record for land and water just behind the super El Nino year of 1998. The cooling effects of the deep solar minimum, the quietest sun in 100 years, were not able to counteract the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and a weak to moderate El Nino.

NCDC scientists also reported that the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for August was second warmest on record, behind 1998. For the June-August 2009 season, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was third warmest on record.

SST Anomalies for August 31, 2009

By NOAA FishOutofWater

I'm enjoying warm water temperatures on vacation body surfing at Cape Hatteras this week. The Gulf Stream has been exceptionally warm. The warm temperatures let me stay in the water comfortably for 5 hours yesterday without a wet suit. However, warm water temperatures are creating hot spots that threaten the health of coral reefs and temperature sensitive marine organisms. The intense hot spots off of central America and western Africa pose severe threats to coral reefs there.

By NOAA FishOutofWater

The warm Atlantic temperatures have not led to an active Atlantic hurricane season because El Nino has caused strong westerly winds at high levels, shearing storms as they approach the north American side of the Atlantic ocean. However, I enjoying surfing waves from hurricane Fred yesterday that were generated before it was torn apart by wind shear.

I suspect that the Pacific ocean is having a very intense hurricane/typhoon season this year because the waters are so warm.

(crossposted at Daily Kos) After news this week that the Arctic is Warmer than it has ever been in the past 2000 years, and that quote

How much energy we're getting from the Sun is no longer the most important thing governing the temperature of the Arctic.

I was glad to hear about the following below: From the President of Maldives, at the sneak preview of the movie "Age of Stupid" staring Pete Postlewaite, which provides a bleak view of our future should we not act to stop Climate Change. From the President Nahseed: and a clip from the movie: I hope this movie will help motivate more action at the Copenhagen summit. More from the BBC on the warming arctic and a statement Secretary General Ban Ki Moon:

Much debate on climate change has centred on the Mediaeval Warm Period, or Mediaeval Climate Anomaly - a period about 1,000 years ago when, historical records suggest, Vikings colonised Greenland and may have grown grapes in Newfoundland. The new analysis shows that temperatures were indeed warmer in this region 1,000 years ago than they were 100 years ago - but not as warm as they are now, or 1,000 years previously. "It shows that the Mediaeval Warm Period is real, and is... an exception from the general trend of cooling," commented Eystein Jansen from Bergen University in Norway, who was not involved in the research. "It also shows there's lots of variability on the 100-year timescale, and that's probably more so in the Arctic than elsewhere." Professor Jansen was a co-ordinating lead author on the palaeoclimate (ancient climate) chapter of the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment

This is the excuse I have heard from Climate Change Deniers: that these cooling and heating trends are the Earth's natural patterns - often citing the warming period where the Vikings settled Greenland 1000 years ago. It seems like these Climate Scientists finally decided to focus on the Denier's claims and research that issue. There is no doubt this refutes that claim.

As the Science study emerged, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was telling the World Climate Conference in Geneva that many of the "more distant scenarios" forecast by climate scientists were "happening now". Earlier this week, Mr Ban visited the Arctic in an attempt to gain first-hand experience of how the region is changing. "Scientists have been accused for years of scaremongering. But the real scaremongers are those who say we cannot afford climate action," he said in his Geneva speech, calling for world leaders to make bigger pledges of action in the run-up to December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

Bravo Secretary General - let's hope our leaders hear this loud and clear.

from the BBC's Richard Black

From the San Francisco Chronicle's Jennifer A. Dlouhy

From the BBC's: David Shukman

One of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago, according to research seen by the BBC.

A study of satellite measurements of Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica reveals the surface of the ice is now dropping at a rate of up to 16m a year.

Since 1994, the glacier has lowered by as much as 90m, which has serious implications for sea-level rise.

The work by British scientists appears in Geophysical Research Letters.

The team was led by Professor Duncan Wingham of University College London (UCL).

We've known that it's been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier Andrew Shepherd, Leeds University

Calculations based on the rate of melting 15 years ago had suggested the glacier would last for 600 years. But the new data points to a lifespan for the vast ice stream of only another 100 years.

The rate of loss is fastest in the centre of the glacier and the concern is that if the process continues, the glacier may break up and start to affect the ice sheet further inland.

One of the authors, Professor Andrew Shepherd of Leeds University, said that the melting from the centre of the glacier would add about 3cm to global sea level.

"But the ice trapped behind it is about 20-30cm of sea level rise and as soon as we destabilise or remove the middle of the glacier we don't know really know what's going to happen to the ice behind it," he told BBC News.

"This is unprecedented in this area of Antarctica. We've known that it's been out of balance for some time, but nothing in the natural world is lost at an accelerating exponential rate like this glacier."

The highlighted area shows a dense concentration of crevasses along one edge of the glacier. Large numbers of deep crevasses are a sign that parts of the glacier are moving rapidly.....

Professor Box told BBC News: "The science community has been surprised by how sensitive these large glaciers are to climate warming. First it was the glaciers in south Greenland and now as we move further north in Greenland we find retreat at major glaciers. It's like removing a cork from a bottle."

From: Sydney Morning Herald

Brendan Nicholson and Hamish McDonald in Cairns

August 7, 2009

THE world has fallen well behind in the race to find a formula to deal with global warming in time for December's Copenhagen summit, regional leaders have warned.

After their two-day summit in Cairns, 15 Pacific Islands Forum leaders issued a statement saying the threat was grave and a strong global agreement was vital.

"With 122 days to go, the international community is not on track to achieve the outcome we need unless we see a renewed mandate across all participating nations," the leaders said.

Chaired by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the forum urged all nations to redouble their efforts to secure an agreement.

The leaders called for a program that would set the world on a path to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees or less and to cut global emissions to at least 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The forum nations are part of the Alliance of Small Island States, 39 nations in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean that are likely to be the first - and worst - affected, by global warming.

The alliance was set up in 1990 to provide a voice for small nations, and it says that unless the increase in temperature is kept below 1.5 degrees the result will be disastrous for millions of people on those islands.

Grenada's representative to the United Nations and the alliance leader, Dessima Williams, told the Herald the impact on dozens of low-lying nations would be disastrous.

"We are going to have more devastation of all sorts from sea level rise and hurricanes," Ms Williams said.

"We are going to lose our jobs, our food supply.

"The world is going to see disruption that starts from the small island states. It will be disruption of every sort, more health problems, economic dislocation and more migration."

As well as the climate change plea, the 16 nations are to pool their experiences with energy sources including solar, wind and wave power generation, with Australia putting $25 million into the initiative.

The forum leaders also agreed to pursue common development strategies fostered by growth in the private sector, better state services and governance and investment in infrastructure, and to get aid-donating countries and organisations to co-ordinate their programs with these strategies.

The Pacific Island countries receive the highest amount of foreign aid in the developing world per capita, but Mr Rudd said many were not showing progress towards the Millennium goals of greater welfare by 2015 and some were regressing.

"It is a sobering fact that across our region some 2.7 million people are living in poverty," he said.

Governments in the Pacific were frustrated at the "spaghetti bowl" of aid programs, Mr Rudd said, with half of their officials "offshore running around in various programs being offered by dozens of competing and occasionally conflicting development assistance programs".

He hoped China would also align its aid programs in the Pacific - put at $US208 million ($247 million) in pledges last year.

--
Cross Posted from Rolph Payet's  Climate Change and Sea Level Rise 

From AP's
MAKERETI KOMAI

CAIRNS, Australia -- A group of tiny Pacific Island countries appealed to the world Wednesday to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent to help save them from rising seas.

The seven nations, whose coral atolls rise just a few yards (meters) above sea level, urged rich nations to make the cut in their polluting emissions by 2020.

"As you drive along the roads along the coast, you will see coconut trees in the water - that's an indication of the sea level rise" in Tuvalu, Prime Minister Edward Natapei told reporters Wednesday at the annual summit of South Pacific leaders. At least one village has been abandoned, he said.

The seven countries, part of the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum, said in a statement they are worried about the "serious and growing threat posed by climate change to the economic, social, cultural and environmental well-being and security" of their populations.

read the entire article here

By Huffington Post's

SAMANTHA YOUNG

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Even if the world is successful in cutting carbon emissions in the future, California needs to start preparing for rising sea levels, hotter weather and other effects of climate change, a new state report recommends.

It encourages local communities to rethink future development in low-lying coastal areas, reinforce levees that protect flood-prone areas and conserve already strapped water supplies.

"We still have to adapt, no matter what we do, because of the nature of the greenhouse gases," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary for climate change and energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, who helped prepare the report. "Those gases are still going to be in the atmosphere for the next 100 years."

The draft report to be released Monday by the California Natural Resources Agency provides the state's first comprehensive plan to work with local governments, universities and residents to deal with a changing climate. A final plan is expected to be released in the fall after the public weighs in......

To minimize the potential damage from climate change, the report recommends that cities and counties offer incentives to encourage property owners in high-risk areas to relocate and limit future development in places that might be affected by flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise. State agencies also should not plan, permit, develop or build any structure that might require protection in the future.

Read the entire story here

 

Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.

Read the rest of this article in the Guardian

(by Suzanne Goldenberg and Damian Carrington)

Climate change experts in North and South America are increasingly worried by the potentially devastating implications of higher estimates for possible sea level rises.

The Americas have until now been seen as less vulnerable than other parts of the world like low-lying Pacific islands, Vietnam or Bangladesh.

But the increase in the ranges for anticipated sea level rises presented at a meeting of scientists in Copenhagen in March has alarmed observers in the region.

Parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and Ecuador are seen as most at risk. New York City and southern parts of Florida are also thought to be particularly vulnerable.....

A November 2008 study by UN-Habitat on the world's cities pointed out that in most Caribbean island states, 50% of the population lives within 2km (1.2 miles) of the coast. They would be directly affected by sea level rise and other climate impacts.

The Bahamas, the Guyanas, Belize and Jamaica have been pin-pointed by the World Bank as being particularly at risk from a one-metre rise.

The coastal plains around the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, the country's main economic hub, are also known to be vulnerable to a combination of sea level rises, storms and sea surges.

New York would see an additional rise of about 20cm (7.8in) above the global mean due to Amoc by the turn of the century, according to Dr Yin's research published this year in the journal, Nature Geoscience. Florida would experience less than 10cm (3.9in).

"A one-metre rise could be a disaster for parts of Florida, particularly in the southern part of the state," Dr Yin told the BBC.

"Sea level rise superimposed on hurricane vulnerability makes for a very worrying situation."

Many scientists stress that it is not too late to mitigate the possible effects.

"We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce coastal developments," Dr Yin says.

continue here

for the article

JOHANNESBURG, 10 March 2009 (IRIN) - In the past few months, newspapers across the globe have been flooded with a debate over new studies projecting a higher and faster sea-level rise by the next century, which would sound the death-knell for low-lying countries and coastal cities. The debate has been fuelled by varying interpretations of the impact of melting ice, and by a new projection of up to 1.4m in sea-level rise by 2100, rather than a 2007 projection by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) of between 18cm and 59cm by that time, depending on a range of greenhouse-gas emission scenarios


ased on IPCC's findings a sea-level rise of 50 cm projected for the next 100 years is expected to occur mostly in the second half of the next century, according to Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory of UK's Natural Environment Council. "Consequently, rises of level for the next 20-30 years (your remaining lifetime) can be expected to be similar to those for the past 30 years (of the order of 10cm)". The impact of the sea-level rise is already unfolding. Island states such as the Papua New Guinea are already feeling the impact: in 2005, 1,000 residents on its Carteret atoll had to be evacuated as the rising sea level was slowly drowning their land. "We will also see an increase in storm surges," said Robert Bindschadler, chief scientist at the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist and oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Germany, who made the 1.4m projection and is attending the Copenhagen conference, said it was "very critical" that governments take into account the new findings "because of the long time-scale of sea-level rise". "Once set in motion, sea-level rise is impossible to stop. The only chance we have to limit sea-level rise to manageable levels (say, one metre, which is severe enough) is to reduce emissions very quickly, early in this century. Later it will be too late to do much," Rahmstorf commented.


Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/1cef4bf164bb445d9e4a5d2a2b0226b7.htm

. . . . . . . . . . As mentioned in this film, the diet of the residents of this island has diminished in the past five years from planted crops and fish, to merely coconuts and fish. Food is running out, and since 1999, two islands have disappeared. Do we really need to keep burning Coal?

By Cristine Russell

February 28th, 2009; Vol.175 #5 (p. 24)

Summarised by Veronique Carola, Sea Level Rise Foundation

Special and Vulnerable

The island nations of Maldives and Kiribati highlight a hidden challenge for coping with climate change. It is now about figuring out what to do for localities threatened with the possibility of extinction from rising ocean waters. As says Harvard University biological oceanographer James J. McCarthy, "They didn't cause the problem, but they will be among the first to feel it."

These two exotic equatorial paradises may soon be the lowest spots on Earth and consequently are in danger of becoming the first drowning victims of global warming and sea level rise. In island and coastal countries, the impact may become so drastic that adaptation is not really an option, eventually forcing people out of their homes.

Since taking office in November, President of Maldives, Mr Mohamed Nasheed has been drawing international attention with his proposal to set aside funds to purchase lands abroad and relocate his population within this century.

For Kiribati, President Anote Tong has travelled the globe speaking to the UN and other international gatherings on how his country will suffer with climate change. He is not optimistic on getting land elsewhere but he is asking for help from various countries such as New Zealand and Australia.

--
Posted By Rolph Payet to Climate Change and Sea Level Rise at 3/11/2009 01:07:00 A

From: The West

2nd March 2009, 13:15 WST

A group of Australian scientists is helping to save a tiny central Pacific island nation from a dangerous byproduct of rising sea levels.   

Kiribati is slowly being swamped by salt water, shrinking the land mass and threatening the islanders' precious supply of fresh water stored in underground reservoirs.   

A team of experts from the Australian National University in Canberra has devised a plan to help the small nation of 100,000 secure its water supply against seawater and other contamination.   

"They're living in a precarious situation in terms of their water resources," said project leader and environmental expert Professor Ian White.   

"They don't know how much they've got, and what they do have is in danger of mixing with salt water as the sea level intrudes and making people very sick.   

"In that sense, it was vital to come up with a plan to help protect it and therefore the population who rely on it."   

Kiribati is made up of 33 atolls, almost all of which sit just six metres or less above sea level.   

The nation, which has strong ties to Australia and uses the Australian dollar, is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change in the world, along with Tuvalu and the Maldives.   

It was one of the first countries selected by the Global Environment Facility to trial new strategies to adapt to climate change, but a recent survey showed water supply was the biggest and most pressing concern.   

Prof White said investigations revealed the underground water supply was in danger of being tainted with salt water or becoming polluted as reservoir areas became more built up.  

This was particularly true in urban areas with a density of 12,000 people per square kilometre, significantly more than in Sydney's Kings Cross.   

"They have very limited land areas and they're all living over the fresh water reserves and because these atolls are very porous, things get in the water very quickly," Prof White said.   

"As a result, the health issues they face are among the worst in the world in terms of infant mortality to water-borne diseases."   

The new water policy, developed in partnership with Fiji and France, aims to conserve water through sustainable use and efficient management.   

Climate change experts have warned that countries like Kiribati have just 50 to 100 years before they lose large areas of land to the sea and salt water renders other land useless for living and farming.   

AAP

by DarkSyde

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/25/105730/464/224/687262

It's tough to imagine that a few million years ago, Antarctica was a green continent of lush cool rain forests, wooded hills, and bountiful plains. But the narrow straits separating Antarctica from the tip of South America and Australia finally widened enough that a system of circular ocean currents locked arms and thermally isolated it. The flora and fauna that flourished in ancient, temperate Antarctica will never be well understood. Rivers of ice have patiently sanded off the softer, fossil bearing surface rock and dumped it into the southern ocean, easier than a belt sander ripping through old wood finish.

Over time, a new global climate arose marked by advancing and retreating glaciers bordering tropical belts of rain forest and savanna. This is the world hominids evolved on, the home that 7 billion people think of as somewhere between normal and eternal today. For us, a frozen southern continent is a good thing. It's a massive heat sink and solar reflector that has acted like a damper on climate since its formation. That's the obligatory kernel of truth expertly woven into a finely hewn distortion still popular among apologists for the greenhouse gas industry: Until now:

"The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that's not the case," said Eric Steig of the University of Washington in Seattle, lead author of the study in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature. The average temperature rise was "very comparable to the global average," he told a telephone news briefing. Skeptics about man-made global warming have in the past used reports of a cooling of Antarctica as evidence to back their view that warming is a myth.

The borg are already half-heartedly working to discredit the study -- with an occasional swipe at algore. Then there's the usual yammering that 'scientists themselves admit' the earth has undergone disastrous upheavals before. Many times in fact. That the planet is none the worse for the wear. That it's normal, even natural, and therefore, somehow ... "OK."

"
 
    
 

65 million years ago, a hefty rock struck the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn't nearly as large as the one in the Large Impact Simulation that peeled the earth like an orange. But it was large enough that its top was still in the stratosphere when its bottom was already vaporizing a swath of shallow ocean and sandy seabed bigger than Sicily. So much ejecta was splashed into low earth orbit that within minutes, as each mountain or molehill burned back in, the skies over much of the world glowed as bright as the sun, entire rain forests and whole herds of dinos lit up like torches where they stood. Land and sea were bombarded by meteors and bleached bare by acid rain. The earth survived. But all over the planet most every link in the food chain snapped: in about one day an exquisite, interlocking set of global ecologies forged over a hundred and seventy million years, from microbes to monsters, utterly disintegrated. And as bad as the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction sounds, there was at least one other event far worse.

There were many, many others. And while we cannot say with metaphysical certainty exactly why they each happened, they all have one thing in common: We know how deadly those events were because all over the world, by virtue of slow erosion and uplift, the pitiful, fossilized remains of their innumerable victims rise up from stony graves and bob to the surface like corpses in a lake. At the risk of mixing metaphors, imagine that same, conservative it's-happened-before-so-it's-OK-now 'logic' used for a much smaller disaster, like Hurricane Katrina: what might we think of someone who pointed to bloated bodies floating in stagnant flood waters to glibly argue we needn't bother keeping on eye on the weather, or worry about storm warnings, and anyone who says otherwise is an alarmist liberal moonbat?

Given the evidence, the idea that we shouldn't worry about climate change because it's happened before has to rank among the most perverse, deranged arguments ever made. It's like reassuring the lobster, by pointing out the pot and water will always survive his imminent boiling. Cu-cu-Cachoo.

A much better lesson taken from recent history suggests that not only can we get a handle on this, government investment in alternative energy could lead to millions of jobs for the middle class, and big green piles of cold hard cash for anyone with a knack for marrying scientific innovation and blue-collar manufacturing to good old fashioned American capitalism. That sure beats the hell out of business as usual where, in a few short decades, we have managed to raise global temperature one-fifth of the way to a hypothetical Permian-Triassic trigger. Whatever the source of ignorance and contempt for empirical evidence among those whose collective intelligence barely surpasses the caramelized algal blooms that fueled this threat, if they're given free reign, the next set of mineralized corpses bobbing up out of the earth in silent witness to global disaster could include our own.

 

Sea levels will rise much faster than previously forecast because of the rate that glaciers and ice sheets are melting, a study has found.

Research commissioned by the US Climate Change Science Program concludes that the rises will substantially exceed forecasts that do not take into account the latest data and observations.

The adjusted outlook, announced at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, suggests that recent predictions of a rise of between 7in and 2ft over the next century are conservative.

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5355574.ece

By Cherelle Jackson, Pacific Communications Team, Poznan, Poland
Sunday: December 07, 2008

The African islands of Seychelles today said they identified more with the threats facing Pacific islands due to climate change, more so than their own neighbours.
"The Seychelles and Maldives are similar to the Pacific islands, we have the same fears," says Seychelles Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ronny Jumeau.

"We will lose 60 percent of our islands due to sea level rise, most of our neighbours do not have atolls. Although we are part of the same family we do not feel it. They do not speak the same way I do when it comes to climate change," Jumeau said.
Speaking at the Development and Climate Days side event at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 14 in Poznan, Poland, Jumeau said his country fully supports the stance of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in demanding more proactive actions from developed countries.

 

 

Chief Bill Erasmus of the Arctic Athabaskan Council, and representative of the Indigenous people's movement says that preconceived imagery of countries affected by climate change does not help the cause.
"When you think of the arctic you think of the melting ice caps and the polar bears, you don't really think of the people whose lives are going to change as a result," Erasmus said.

According to him indigenous people like those of the Pacific stand to lose more than their homes as a result of climate change - cultures and ancestoral ties are at stake too.

By Samisoni Pareti

However, unpleasant it may sound, the jetset town of Nadi will need to be relocated to an elevated piece of land by 2027. And so as Navua and Labasa.

That's the word from one of the most esteemed scientists in our part of the ocean, Professor Patrick Nunn of the University of the South Pacific (USP).

 

 

http://www.islandsbusiness.com/fiji_business/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=18434/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday ordered preparations for rising sea levels from global warming, a startling prospect for the most populous U.S. state with a Pacific Ocean coastline stretching more than 800 miles (1,290 km). Recorded sea levels rose 7 inches (18 cm) during the 20th century in San Francisco, Schwarzenegger said in the executive order for study of how much more the sea could rise, what other consequences of global warming were coming and how the state should react. California is considered the environmental vanguard of government in the United States, with its own standards for car pollution and a law to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas contributing to global warming. "The longer that California delays planning and adapting to sea level rise the more expensive and difficult adaptation will be," Schwarzenegger said, ordering a report by the end of 2010. (Reporting by Peter Henderson; Editing by Peter Cooney) http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKTRE4AE0YC20081115?rpc=401&

By Dev Nadkarni As the jet turns in crisp blue equatorial skies on its approach to Kiribati's capital, Tarawa, the vulnerability of the ribbon of atolls unfolds. It is possible to watch the tide batter the fraying edges of the 30-odd km stretch of little atolls which make up Tarawa - never more than a couple of hundred metres wide. The collapsing state of the remote Pacific nation is clear from a drive along the single road that crosses a string of causeways as it runs through the atoll: crumbling sea walls, coconut trees shorn of fronds and fruit because of encroaching salt water and long droughts, mounds of filth lining the coastline, overcrowding uncharacteristic of Pacific islands and poverty. The alarm bells of climate change, sea level rise and global warming have pitchforked this 33-island nation that straddles the equator on to the front pages of the global media. Experts from all over the world have come in droves in search of answers to its impending submergence. Already two small islets have gone from the map. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10539367

 
Ben Doherty
October 17, 2008
 
MORE than 700,000 Australian homes are vulnerable to rising sea levels, with up to $150 billion worth of homes, property and infrastructure at risk of seawater inundation, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Almost all Australians will be affected by rising sea levels, according to the Federal Government's Department of Climate Change.

"Eighty per cent of the Australian population lives in the coastal zone, and approximately 711,000 addresses are within three kilometres of the coast and less than six metres above sea level," the department said in a submission.


http://www.theage.com.au/environment/rising-sea-could-flood-700000-homes-20081016-52es.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9...

More from Al Gore on Climate Refugees here:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/20...

http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news...

http://globalclimatechange.jpl.nasa....

Article on UN resolution on behalf of Island nations threatened by sea level rise. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nichol...

. . . . . . . . . . As mentioned in this film, the diet of the residents of this island has diminished in the past five years from planted crops and fish, to merely coconuts and fish. Food is running out, and since 1999, two islands have disappeared.