Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

This resolution should require all born persons to carry parasols to protect themswelves from global warming.

Of course you're right, okie. Only Gawd can halt global warming, or deliver us from its consequences. We better start prayin.

Of course you're right, okie. Only Gawd can halt global warming, or deliver us from its consequences. We better start prayin.

Debating either type can be fun as long as one does not take them too seriously.

Anyhow, so far as AGW is concerned, I continue to keep an open mind and will go with the most persuasive arguments as I have no way of verifying the truth of any of it for myself. To date, I think the skeptics have by far the most persuasive and compelling arguments and this is reinforced that most people with particular expertise in paleoclimatology seem to be skeptical that global warming is significantly human caused or that humans have the ability to stop it.

Paleoclimatology as a discipline has expanded exponentially (as measured, for example, by the output of literature) in the last 25 years. The impetus for this has only partly been societal concerns about global change.

The study of past climate change also helps us understand how humans influence the Earth's climate system. The climatic record over the last thousand years clearly shows that global temperatures increased significantly in the 20th Century, and that this warming was likely to have been unprecedented in the last 1200 years. The paleoclimatic record allows us to examine the causes of past climate change, and to help unravel how much of the 20th century warming may be explained by natural causes and how much may be explained by human influences.

From: Reuters
Published March 26, 2008 07:49 AM

Western Canadian pine beetle infestation spreads


VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - About half of the marketable pine trees in West Coast Canadian province of British Columbia have been ravaged by a nearly decade-long beetle infestation, according to new government statistics.

The outbreak of mountain pine beetles has affected trees over an area of 13.5 million hectares (33.4 million acres) in the Western Canadian province, which is a major source of softwood lumber exports to the United States.

The insects have infested and killed about 710 million cubic meters of timber as of this month, up from 582 million cubic meters at the same time last year, according to a news release posted on the province's Web site.

The tiny black beetles lay their eggs in the lodgepole and ponderosa pines with the hungry larvae killing the trees by destroying their ability to take in water and nutrients. They also carry a fungus that stains the wood blue.

British Columbia has about 1.35 billion cubic meters (4.8 billion cubic feet) of salable pine lumber in its public and private forests, and the province estimates about 76 percent of it will have been killed by 2015.

A provincial report last fall predicted the infestation rate will return to pre-outbreak levels after 2015 because most of susceptible trees will be dead by then, although there are fears the insects will spread into the neighboring province of Alberta (they have already arrived in alberta) .

The insects have lived in Western Canada for thousands of years, but nature has controlled major outbreaks by killing the beetles through extreme winter cold and forest fires.

Much of the infected area has not had the required cold snap in recent years and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell has cited the outbreak as evidence Canada needs to take aggressive steps to address global warming.

The outbreak is contributing to the lumber industry's woes.

Sawmills have rushed to process the dead trees before the wood deteriorates, but are selling the lumber into a market hit hard by reduced demand because of the collapse of the U.S. housing market.

(Reporting Allan Dowd, Editing Peter Galloway)

Beetles and Cold Weather
Cold weather kills the mountain pine beetle. Mountain pine beetle eggs, pupae and young larvae are the most susceptible to freezing temperatures.
In the winter, temperatures must consistently be below -35 Celsius or -40 Celsius for several straight days to kill off large portions of mountain pine beetle populations.
In the early fall or late spring, sustained temperatures of -25 Celsius can freeze mountain pine beetle populations to death.
A sudden cold snap is more lethal in the fall, before the mountain pine beetles are able to build up their natural anti-freeze (glycerol) levels.
Cold weather is also more effective before it snows. A deep layer of snow on the ground can help insulate mountain pine beetles in the lower part of the tree against outside temperatures.
Wind chill affects mountain pine beetles, but is usually not sustained long enough to significantly increase winter mortality.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report

5. Climatologist Dr. John Maunder, past president of the Commission for Climatology who has spent over 50 years in the "weather business" all around the globe, and who has written four books on weather and climate, says "the science of climate change will probably never be fully understood." "It is not always true that the climate we have now (wherever we live) is the best one ... some people (and animals and crops) may prefer it to be wetter, drier, colder, or warmer," Maunder wrote on his website updated on November 27, 2007. "Climatic variations and climatic changes from WHATEVER cause (i.e. human induced or natural) clearly create risks, but also provide real opportunities. (For example, the 2007 IPCC report - see below - shows that from 1900 to 2005, significantly increased precipitation has been observed in eastern parts of North and South America, northern Europe, and northern and central Asia)," he explained. (LINK) Maunder also was one of the signatories of a December 13, 2007 open letter critical of the UN IPCC process. "Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998," the letter Maunder signed stated. "That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling," the letter added.

one of the effects of climate change/global warming has been the survival and spreading of the pine beetles in western canada .

Here is an interesting article about untapped oil in the US...

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.13s.html?fark

Quote:

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America's Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC's short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.

New cracks suggest largest remaining Arctic ice shelf destined to disappear"These changes are happening in concert with other indicators of climate change."

Mr. Mueller and his fellow researchers were expected to release their findings on Saturday. But a patrol of Canadian Rangers travelling west last week from CFB Alert at the northern tip of Ellesmere Island saw the cracks first-hand.

"We're looking at the possible demise of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf," said Doug Stern, a Ranger and Parks Canada employee, who was on the patrol and has been helping Mueller with his research.

Formed by accumulating snow and freezing meltwater, ice shelves are large platforms of thick, ancient sea ice that float on the ocean's surface. Ellesmere Island was once ringed by one, but that enormous shelf broke up in the early 1900s.



The Ward Hunt shelf's characteristic corrugated surface, described by Mr. Mueller "like a giant Ruffles potato chip," is now fractured by dozens of deep cracks in the 3,000-year-old, 40-metre thick ice.

Mr. Mueller found evidence of one of the new cracks in satellite images. Then he and Mr. Stern followed up with an aerial survey earlier this year.

"We were expecting to see one new crack," said Mr. Stern. "But when we flew over, all of a sudden...there's one, there's another one.

"There are not just a couple of parallel cracks. It's multifaceted cracking going on. I was just totally amazed to see them all."

The Rangers found even more, and as part of their patrol they measured and documented as many of the new cracks as they could. One was 10 kilometres long and up to 40 metres wide.

The cracks, easily large enough to swallow a snowmobile, presented an extra hazard for the patrol's scouts as they picked a route across the ice between CFB Alert and Ward Hunt Island.

The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, one of the last five remaining in Canada, has been shrinking since the 1930s. But after a period of stability during the '80s, that deterioration seems to picking up, said Mr. Mueller.

That suggests climate change in the area has crossed some kind of threshold, he added.

Other data on the shelf is also not encouraging.

unless we want more arctic ice to disappear and more insect infestations ,
i do NOT think we need cheaper ( MORE ) oil .
hbg