Climate Blog and News Recap: 2010 08 27

SB10: On the Diagnosis of Feedback in the Presence of Unknown Radiative Forcing
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer-Braswell-JGR-2010.pdf

Our JGR Paper on Feedbacks is Published (Spencer)

Wu,etal 2010: Simultaneous estimation of global present-day water transport and glacial isostatic adjustment
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo938.html

Ice Sheet Loss Cut In Half (Hoffman) (h/t Id tAV)

SurfaceTemperatures.Org

Real Climate has a brief mention of http://www.surfacetemperatures.org/ which has been sitting on the internet for at least a few months now but is ramping up in conjuction with an upcoming conference. Nick Barnes and Dave Jones of the CCC, are going, as well as Steve Easterbrook.

Data Challenges in Creating a new Surface Temperature Record (Easterbrook)

Follow-up on some of last weeks chatter include …

On Liu and Curry:
Accelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice? (Connolley)

On McShane and Wyner:
Doing it yourselves (rc group)

Replicating McShane and Wyner (climate audit)

Metop-A Completes 20,000th Orbit

Metop-A, Europe’s first polar-orbiting satellite dedicated to operational meteorology, will complete its 20,000th orbit of the Earth on 27 August delivering its data to the EUMETSAT Polar System ground station on Svalbard around lunchtime.

Since its launch on 19 October 2006, from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, Metop-A has travelled over 900 million km and brought in a new era in the way the Earth’s weather, climate and environment are observed — with its state-of-the-art sounding and imaging instruments

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100827082330.htm

‘Dry Water’ Could Make a Big Splash Commercially, Help Fight Global Warming

Carter explained that the substance became known as “dry water” because it consists of 95 percent water and yet is a dry powder. Each powder particle contains a water droplet surrounded by modified silica, the stuff that makes up ordinary beach sand. The silica coating prevents the water droplets from combining and turning back into a liquid. The result is a fine powder that can slurp up gases, which chemically combine with the water molecules to form what chemists term a hydrate

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825174102.htm

A ‘Great Fizz’ of Carbon Dioxide Was Produced at the End of the Last Ice Age

The ventilation of the deep Southern Ocean — the circulation of oxygen through the deep waters — slowed considerably during the last ice age, causing carbon dioxide to build up. Sikes and her co-authors report that, as the ice began to melt, the oceanic bottle cap began to loosen, and the carbon dioxide began to leak back into the atmosphere. Then, as warming intensified, the cap came off, and the carbon dioxide escaped so quickly, and so thoroughly, that Sikes and her colleagues could find very little trace of it in the carbon 14 they examined in their samples

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825131443.htm

How Giant Tortoises, Alligators Thrived in High Arctic 50 Million Years Ago

The team used a combination of oxygen isotope ratios from fossil bone and tooth enamel of mammals, fish and turtles that lived together on Ellesmere Island to estimate the average annual Eocene temperature for the site. They also were able to tease out temperature estimates for the warmest and coldest months of the year, critical data that should help scientists better understand past and future biodiversity in the High Arctic as the climate warms, including the geographical ranges and species richness of animals and plants.

The team concluded the average temperatures of the warmest month on Ellesmere Island during the early Eocene were from 66 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit (19-20 degrees C), while the coldest month temperature was about 32 to 38 degrees F (0-3.5 degrees C). “Our data gathered from multiple organisms indicate it probably did not get below freezing on Ellesmere Island during the early Eocene, which has some interesting implications,” she said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100824132417.htm

Acidifying Oceans Spell Bleak Marine Biological Future ‘by End of Century’, Mediterranean Research Finds

A unique ‘natural laboratory’ in the Mediterranean Sea is revealing the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels on life in the oceans. The results show a bleak future for marine life as ocean acidity rises, and suggest that similar lowering of ocean pH levels may have been responsible for massive extinctions in the past. …

… ‘Previous studies have shown a reduction in diversity of 30%, but this is even bigger for forams’, said Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, one of the study’s co-authors. ‘A tipping point occurs at mean pH 7.8. This is the pH level predicted for the end of this century’.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825093651.htm

Sea Level to Rise Even With Aggressive Geo-Engineering and Greenhouse Gas Control, Study Finds

New findings by international research group of scientists from England, China and Denmark just published suggest that sea level will likely be 30-70 centimetres higher by 2100 than at the start of the century even if all but the most aggressive geo-engineering schemes are undertaken to mitigate the effects of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions are stringently controlled.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100824092408.htm

Carnivore Species Shrank During Global Warming Event

A new University of Florida study indicates extinct carnivorous mammals shrank in size during a global warming event that occurred 55 million years ago.

The study, scheduled to appear in the December print edition of the Journal of Mammalian Evolution and now available online, describes a new species that evolved to half the size of its ancestors during this period of global warming

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100824110848.htm

Limiting Ocean Acidification Under Global Change

Global mean ocean surface pH has already decreased from around 8.2 in 1750 to 8.1 today (remember than a decrease in pH corresponds to an increase in acidity). The simulations suggest that global mean ocean pH could fall to between 7.7 and 7.8 by 2100 if carbon dioxide emissions are not controlled

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100820101400.htm