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Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, the US , and the Fossil Fuel Elites — Understanding the Global War that’s happening right now and what it means for the Anthroposphere.

This image is a metaphor for our world. In this image the “ocean” around the island is the Earth’s Oceans. The world’s temperature is set by this ocean. If it cools, the world cools. If it warms, the world warms.

This is a reasonable way to understand the real Earth’s Climate System.

80% of the solar energy the earth captures happens along the equator.

90% of that energy goes into the world’s oceans.

Global Warming is Ocean Warming.

The ocean in the image encircles the island and touches every part of it.

Every part of the island’s middle ring is touched by, and influenced by, the encircling ocean. Every part is affected if the ocean cools or warms.

Every part of the Biosphere is affected by changes in the Earth’s Temperature. EVERY PART. EVERYWHERE.

The Arctic has warmed over 4C. In 2021 NO PLACE on Earth was cooler than it had been between 1950–1980.

The list of things “going wrong” in the biosphere is endless. Because the Biosphere we live in, is completely connected to the “Climate” we have caused to rapidly get hotter.

Our Anthroposphere is in CRISIS.

The castle in the middle represents the “Anthroposphere”. The constructed world we have built over the last 10,000 years.

EVERYTHING happening in the WORLD, in the Anthroposphere, is connected to GLOBAL WARMING and the CLIMATE CHANGE it brings.

WE ARE IN CRISIS AND IT’S ABOUT TO GET A LOT HOTTER.

The green circle is where we are right now February 2023, the blue circles represent various forecasts of how warm the rest of this year is likely to be. The “zero line” in this chart is the 1981–2010 average of global temperatures.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Triple Crisis in the Anthropocene Ocean.

November 13, 2020

Triple Crisis in the Anthropocene Ocean.

Part Three: The Heat of 3.6 Billion Atom Bombs

Continuing Ian Angus’s examination of the ‘deadly trio’ of CO2-driven assaults on ocean life. Part three: ocean warming and permanent heatwaves

“Triple Crisis” has been published in three parts

- Part One: Corrosive Seas
- Part Two: Running Low on Oxygen
- Part Three: The Heat of 3.6 Billion Atom Bombs

“The world’s oceans (especially the upper 2000 m) in 2019 were the warmest in recorded human history…. The past five years are the top five warmest years in the ocean historically with modern instruments, and the past ten years are also the top ten years on record.”[1]

Until the 1970s, the constant flow of energy that Earth receives from the sun was offset by heat reflected back into space, so the planet’s overall energy level did not change very much over time. The amount of incoming solar energy has not changed, but rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are trapping ever more of the reflected heat, preventing it from leaving the atmosphere. Climate scientists call this Earth’s Energy Imbalance.

The excess energy is not distributed evenly through the Earth System. Although global warming is usually expressed as increased air temperatures, the ocean is actually much better at storing heat than the atmosphere — one degree of ocean warming stores over 1000 times as much heat energy as one degree of atmosphere warming — so it isn’t surprising that the ocean has taken up most of the excess solar energy. Just seven percent warms the air and land and melts snow and ice — 93 percent is absorbed by the ocean.[2]

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Doomsday postponed? What to take from the big new Antarctica studies

February 8, 2019

ICE TO KNOW YA

Doomsday postponed? What to take from the big new Antarctica studies

There’s grim, mixed news out about Antarctica.

Two new papers on melting Antarctic ice come just days after NASA scientists announced the discovery of a massive subterranean hole in West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, the Florida-sized hunk of ice which alone could unleash more than two feet of sea-level rise should it collapse.

One study found that all this melting could have surprising and profound impacts on weather while the other (controversial) study scaled back previous Doomsday estimates. Still, the takeaway from both studies is clear: If we keep on our current path, things could go downhill for humanity very, very quickly.

The worst-case scenario that’s emerging is shockingly bad

In the first paper, an international team of researchers examined the impacts of melting ice on global ocean circulation and weather patterns.

As relatively cool, salt-free meltwater spreads from Antarctica and Greenland across the world’s oceans, it will have dire impacts: The circulation of the Atlantic Ocean will slow, changing how the planet distributes heat, and prompting “a complex pattern of atmospheric and oceanic changes” worldwide, according to the paper.

Weather would worsen almost everywhere, with year-to-year swings in temperature and precipitation increasing in severity by more than 50 percent, especially in eastern North America.

New Zealand and Iceland may warm at a much slower rate than the rest of the world, but ice melt at both poles may actually quicken as heat from the rapidly warming tropical oceans is shunted below the surface where it can stay for hundreds of years. Sub-surface ocean currents would then be able to eat away at the undersides of polar glaciers even more quickly.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ocean Warming Study Criticism Shows How the Scientific Method Works

November 22, 2018

Ocean Warming Study Criticism Shows How the Scientific Method Works

Overhead view of shark swimming in the Maldives

Errors in a recent ocean warming study illustrate global warming’s complexity. They also show the depths to which climate science deniers will stoop to dismiss or downplay evidence for human-caused climate change.

The study by researchers from the U.S., China, France and Germany concluded, “ocean warming is at the high end of previous estimates” and global warming might be advancing faster than scientists thought. British researcher Nic Lewis, who has a math and physics background, found discrepancies, which he noted on a skeptic’s blog. The scientists acknowledged the errors and offered a correction to the study, published in Nature.

The controversy illustrates how the scientific method works. Studies are often amended or overturned as new information becomes available or as inconsistencies or errors are pointed out.

Study co-author Ralph Keeling, a geosciences professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, noted, “The overall conclusion that oceans are trapping more and more heat mirrors other studies and is not inaccurate, but the margin of error in the study is larger than originally thought.”

Some climate science deniers have seized on the error to imply it discredits the mountains of evidence for human-caused climate change amassed by scientists from around the world for close to 200 years — evidence accepted by every legitimate scientific academy and institution and every government except the current U.S. administration.

Those who understand science haven’t taken such a hard line. Even Lewis, who’s skeptical about climate models and warming rate predictions, said the study’s methodology is “novel, and certainly worthy of publication” and that the errors were “serious (but surely inadvertent).” He criticized Nature for not scrutinizing the study better, and mainstream media for extensive, “unquestioning” coverage.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New findings on ocean warming: 5 questions answered

November 6, 2018

New findings on ocean warming: 5 questions answered

The ocean absorbs about 90 percent of the excess heat produced as climate change warms the earth.

Editor’s note: A new study by scientists in the United States, China, France and Germany estimates that the world’s oceans have absorbed much more excess heat from human-induced climate change than researchers had estimated up to now. This finding suggests that global warming may be even more advanced than previously thought. Atmospheric scientist Scott Denning explains how the new report arrived at this result and what it implies about the pace of climate change.

How do scientists measure ocean temperature and estimate how climate change is affecting it?

They use thermometers attached to thousands of bobbing robots floating at controlled depths throughout the oceans. This system of “Argo floats” was launched in the year 2000 and there are now about 4,000 of the floating instruments.

About once every 10 days, they cycle from the surface to a depth of 6,500 feet, then bob back up to the surface to transmit their data by satellite. Each year this network collects about 100,000 measurements of the three-dimensional temperature distribution of the oceans.

The Argo measurements show that about 93 percent of the global warming caused by burning carbon for fuel is felt as changes in ocean temperature, while only a very small amount of this warming occurs in the air.

Normal cycle of an Argo float collecting ocean temperature and salinity data. International Argo Program, CC BY-ND

How dramatically do the findings in this study differ from levels of ocean warming that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported?

The new study finds that since 1991, the oceans have warmed about 60 percent faster than the average rate of warming estimated by studies summarized by the IPCC, which are based on data from Argo floats. This is a big deal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sea sends early warning of heatwaves

April 8, 2016

Sea sends early warning of heatwaves

Feeling the heat as New York City swelters in extreme summer temperatures. Image: Bill via Flickr

Surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean can give the US Midwest and East Coast 50 days’ notice to prepare itself for a dangerous spell of extreme heat.

LONDON, 8 April, 2016 – Americans could have as many as seven weeks’ advance notice of devastating heatwaves. A telltale pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean could presage weeks of intolerable temperatures in the cities and plains of the US.

Research published in Nature Geoscience reveals that a “fingerprint” of sea surface temperatures about 20 degrees north of the Equator – and dubbed the Pacific Extreme Pattern – meant that the chances of sustained and extreme heat 50 days later in the US Midwest and East Coast stepped up from one in six to one in four. And 30 days ahead, the same pattern brought the odds to better than one in two.

Critical aspects

“Summertime heatwaves are among the deadliest weather events, and they can have big impacts on farming, energy use, and other critical aspects of society,” says Karen McKinnon, a post-doctoral fellow at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

“If we can give city planners and farmers a heads up that extreme heat is on the way, we might be able to avoid some of the worst consequences.”

Climate scientists have consistently predicted that climate change will be driven by global warming that will manifest itself in ever more intense, and more frequent, extremes of heat.

In 2012, the US was hit by an unprecedented and sustained heatwave that broke thousands of local temperature records, and claimed an estimated 100 lives.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

As The Great Barrier Reef Bleaches White, Queensland Government Approves Australia’s Biggest Coal Mine

April 6, 2016

As The Great Barrier Reef Bleaches White, Queensland Government Approves Australia’s Biggest Coal Mine

The Queensland government’s approach to protecting the Great Barrier Reef seems a bit like that of a hypocritical anti-drugs campaigner who preaches the evils of heroin and cocaine while running a meth lab and bong factory in their basement.

The state’s left-wing Labor Government has been simultaneously regretting the lack of global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions that damage the reef while granting approvals for the biggest coal mine in Australia’s history.

As oxymoronic statements go, some of the political rhetoric coming out of the Australian state of Queensland in recent days takes some beating.

Mining minister Anthony Lynham said the approvals for Indian-owned miner Adani’s Carmichael mine were “tangible evidence” of his government’s “commitment to the sustainable development” of the massive but as-yet-untapped coal reserves in the state’s Galilee Basin.

But as the government was drafting its statements, there was some “tangible evidence” elsewhere of the damage the fossil fuel industry is causing to the state’s iconic reef.

The approvals for Adani’s mine came as large sections of the 2300 kilometre (1430 miles) reef, mainly in the northern sections, were turning white.
Mass bleaching

The reef is currently suffering what is likely to be its worst mass coral-bleaching event since the phenomenon was first reported in 1998 by scientists on reefs around the world.

Bleaching happens when the algae that gives corals their colour and much of their nutrients separates from the white skeleton beneath. Corals do not always die from bleaching, but those that survive can take years to recover and are weakened as a result.

Coral scientists say record-high sea surface temperatures in the Great Barrier Reef region have driven the current bleaching event.

This long-term trend of warming ocean temperatures, mirrored globally, is clearly linked to rising levels of greenhouse gases.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oceans are heating up at the double

February 8, 2016

Oceans are heating up at the double

The British survey ship HMS Challenger blazed an oceanic trail a century and a half ago.
Image: William Frederick Mitchell via Wikimedia Commons

Records from a sailing ship’s round-the-world research voyage almost 150 years ago provide further evidence that the Earth is continuing to warm unchecked.

LONDON, 6 February, 2016 – Ocean temperatures first collected during one of the great 19th-century voyages of exploration confirm one of the consequences of climate change: humans have managed to warm even the deepest parts of the ocean.

A new study in Nature Climate Change calculates that the amount of heat absorbed by the ocean has doubled in the last 18 years. A third of this heat has collected in the depths at least 700 metres below the waves − and the same region is rapidly getting hotter.

Peter Gleckler, a research scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, and colleagues started with data collected by the world’s first modern oceanographers aboard the British survey ship HMS Challenger in 1872-76.

Deep-sea soundings

Challenger circumnavigated the globe, sailed 70,000 nautical miles (130,000 kilometres), collected 4,700 new species, and made 492 deep-sea soundings and 283 sets of measurements of water temperatures.

With such systematic findings, the American research team could begin to make estimates of how ocean temperatures have changed between 1865 and 2015.

They calculate that, since 1970, around 90% of the Earth’s uptake of heat associated with man-made global warming, as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion, has been absorbed by the oceans.

In effect, they have used the evidence collected from the depths by 19th-century scientists aboard a three-masted, square-rigged wooden ship to settle a 21st-century puzzle: where has the heat from global warming actually gone?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Oceans Are Becoming Too Hot for Coral, and Sooner than We Expected

October 10, 2015

The Oceans Are Becoming Too Hot for Coral, and Sooner than We Expected

Soon the oceans will be too warm to support thriving coral reefs. USFWS – Pacific Region/Flickr, CC BY

This week, scientists registered their concern that super-warm conditions are building to a point where corals are severely threatened across the tropical Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans. They did so after seeing corals lose colour across the three major ocean basins – a sign of a truly momentous global change.

This is only the third global bleaching event in recorded history.

Underwater heat waves

The situation has been worrying scientists like myself for many months. Over the past 12 months, the temperatures of the upper layers of the ocean have been running unseasonably warm. Underwater heatwaves have torn through these tropical regions over summer, and corals across large areas of reef have lost their colour as the algal partners (or symbionts) that provide much of the food for corals have left their tissues. Bereft, corals are beginning to starve, get diseased and die.

The “heatwaves” that are causing the problem are characterised by extremes that are 1-3 degrees C warmer than the long-term average for summer. It doesn’t seem like much but past experience has shown us that exposure to small increases in temperatures for a couple of months is enough to kill corals in great numbers.

In the first global mass bleaching event in 1998, regions such as Okinawa, Palau and north-west Australia lost up to 90% of their corals as temperatures soared.

By the end of 1998 up to 16% of the corals on the world’s tropical reefs had died.

The key concern here is that corals are not an inconsequential part of the biology of the ocean. While geographically insignificant (less than 0.1% of the ocean), coral reefs punch well above their weight in terms of their importance to the ecology of the ocean and to humans.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Toxic algae blooming off West Coast endangering marine life and forcing seafood bans

August 5, 2015

Toxic algae blooming off West Coast endangering marine life and forcing seafood bans

Algae bloom is 64 km wide and 198 metres deep in places

A vast bloom of toxic algae off the West Coast is denser, more widespread and deeper than scientists feared even weeks ago, according to surveyors aboard a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

This coastal ribbon of microscopic algae, up to 64 kilometres wide and 198 metres deep in places, is flourishing amid unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures. It now stretches from at least California to Alaska and has shut down lucrative fisheries.

Shellfish managers on Tuesday doubled the area off Washington’s coast that is closed to Dungeness crab fishing, after finding elevated levels of marine toxins in tested crab meat.

So-called “red tides” are cyclical and have happened many times before, but ocean researchers say this one is much larger and persisting much longer, with higher levels of neurotoxins bringing severe consequences for the Pacific seafood industry, coastal tourism and marine ecosystems.

Dan Ayres, coastal shellfish manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the area now closed to crab fishing includes more than half the state’s 253-kilometre-long coast, and likely will bring a premature end to this year’s crab season.

“We think it’s just sitting and lingering out there,” said Anthony Odell, a University of Washington research analyst who is part of the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association-led team surveying the harmful algae bloom, which was first detected in May. “It’s farther offshore, but it’s still there.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

As Ocean Waters Heat Up, A Quest to Create ‘Super Corals’

August 5, 2015

As Ocean Waters Heat Up, A Quest to Create ‘Super Corals’

With the world’s coral reefs increasingly threatened by warmer and more acidic seas, scientists are selectively breeding corals to create species with the best chance to survive in the coming century and beyond. Are genetically modified corals next?

In Hawaii this summer, as corals engage in their once-a-year courtship ritual of releasing sperm and eggs into the water by moonlight, Ruth Gates will oversee a unique mating: the coming together of “super-corals” in her lab.

Gates and her team at the Institute of Marine Biology in Kaneohe tagged corals in their local waters that thrived through a heinous hot spell last September. A few of those rugged specimens will be picked for arranged marriages this month, hopefully yielding some offspring even better suited

Australian Institute of Marine Science

Researcher Madeleine van Oppen collects coral fragments for her breeding project.

to thriving in the warmer waters of the future. It will be, she thinks, the first selective mating of corals to try to help them thrive in the face of climate change.

Gates and her colleague, Madeleine van Oppen at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, have been awarded $3.9 million from Paul G. Allen’s philanthropic organization Vulcan Inc. for this and other work into the “assisted evolution” of corals — an attempt to intentionally beef up the genetic stock of reefs to survive the onslaught of climate change. “This idea of homing in on super-performers is a no-brainer,” says Gates. “We have been doing it in the food supply for millennia.”

The work can be tricky — corals don’t like to be touched when breeding. And it’s controversial — some find the idea of active intervention in coral ecosystems disconcerting, since it turns a natural environment into a planned one that might be less biodiverse and less resilient to unexpected challenges like disease. The idea of tinkering with coral genetics is even touchier, even if current work focuses on simple selective breeding for the hardiest corals, rather than on the more controversial prospect of producing corals that have been genetically modified.

A 1,000 Mile Stretch Of The Pacific Ocean Has Heated Up Several Degrees And Scientists Don’t Know Why

April 15, 2015

A 1,000 Mile Stretch Of The Pacific Ocean Has Heated Up Several Degrees And Scientists Don’t Know Why

According to two University of Washington scientific research papers that were recently released, a 1,000 mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean has warmed up by several degrees, and nobody seems to know why this is happening. This giant “blob” of warm water was first observed in late 2013, and it is playing havoc with our climate. And since this giant “blob” first showed up, fish and other sea creatures have been dying in absolutely massive numbers. So could there be a connection? And what is going to happen if the Pacific Ocean continues to warm up? Could we potentially be facing the greatest holocaust of sea life in the Pacific that anyone has ever observed? If so, what would that mean for the food chain and for our food supply?

For a large portion of the Pacific Ocean to suddenly start significantly heating up without any known explanation is a really big deal. The following information about this new research comes from the University of Washington…

“In the fall of 2013 and early 2014 we started to notice a big, almost circular mass of water that just didn’t cool off as much as it usually did, so by spring of 2014 it was warmer than we had ever seen it for that time of year,” said Nick Bond, a climate scientist at the UW-based Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, a joint research center of the UW and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Bond coined the term “the blob” last June in his monthly newsletter as Washington’s state climatologist. He said the huge patch of water – 1,000 miles in each direction and 300 feet deep – had contributed to Washington’s mild 2014 winter and might signal a warmer summer.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Baker: New Fish Science Report Paints Dizzying Picture For Industry Future

December 21, 2014

Baker: New Fish Science Report Paints Dizzying Picture For Industry Future.

It might be one of the most important fish science reports in years, but it was released with so little fanfare, you could forgive even the most hardcore of fisheries observers for missing it.

The report was released online in late November and it’s called “Short-Term Stock Prospects for Cod, Crab and Shrimp in the Newfoundland and Labrador Region (Divisions 2J3KL).”

It basically looks at the effect of warming oceans and then sets the table for the next three to five years in the shrimp, crab and cod fisheries. For those of you doing the math, those species represent more than $600 million worth of annual economic activity in the province.

The report is significant for many reasons, the first of which is the fact that it doesn’t look at species independently — it brought all of DFO’s primary scientists (the ones that haven’t been cut by the current federal government anyways) together at one table. That rarely happens.

The report is also significant for the picture it paints. And the news for the fishing industry as a whole is not good.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fast-Warming Gulf of MaineOffers Hint of Future for Oceans by Rebecca Kessler: Yale Environment 360

November 19, 2014

Fast-Warming Gulf of MaineOffers Hint of Future for Oceans by Rebecca Kessler: Yale Environment 360.

The waters off the coast of New England are warming more rapidly than almost any other ocean region on earth. Scientists are now studying the resulting ecosystem changes, and their findings could provide a glimpse of the future for many of the world’s coastal communities.

by rebecca kessler

After hauling in the cages at his island oyster farm near Biddeford, Maine, Mark Green’s boat is loaded with crusty marine life. Baskets of oysters are there, but so are green crabs — invasive and inedible. “My boat will be full,” Green says. “The bottom will just be this undulating mass of green crabs by

Sandy Richard/Flickr

Green crabs have been proliferating in the waters of the Gulf of Maine recently.

the end of the day. I mean thousands.”

A native of Europe, green crabs have been present on the U.S. East Coast for more than a century, but until a couple of years ago they didn’t cause much trouble in Maine. Now, thanks to rapidly warming waters, their population has exploded. While they don’t bother the tough-shelled oysters, the crabs are laying waste to the region’s softshell clams — another important commercial stock — and devastating its seagrass meadows, which Green, an environmental scientist at St. Joseph’s College in nearby Standish, calls “the most crucial habitat that exists in an estuary.”

“It’s crazy,” Green says.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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Deep-sea soundings

The waters off the coast of New England are warming more rapidly than almost any other ocean region on earth. Scientists are now studying the resulting ecosystem changes, and their findings could provide a glimpse of the future for many of the world’s coastal communities.

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