Climate Project briefing with Dr. Mike MacCracken

Based on the new GRACE gravitational sensing satellites the current scientific consensus is that we will see an additional meter or more of sea-level rise by the end of the century.

Based on latest compiled emission data we are at or above the IPCC  worse case scenarios in terms of emissions.  Recent estimates were changed from 6.5 to over 8 billion tons of carbon per year - primarily from China and the factor of warmer oceans slowing their uptake of carbon.

The retreat of Arctic sea ices is unprecedented and going faster than the models are predicting.

To find out how this is affecting us in Virginia hit the flip.

 


Dr. MacCracken explained that the Arctic ice acts as our air conditioner and during the summer here in Virginia the typical pattern is for cold air to come down over the Appalachian mountains, meeting warmer air from the tropics and lifting it up to form the thunderstorms that give us summer rains.

The smaller Arctic circle during the summer reduces the amount of cold air that comes over the Appalachians resulting in drier Virginia and wetter western Pennsylvania.

Dr. MacCracken mentioned that many of the key American reviewers of the IPCC Third Assessment in 2001 thought it too cautious on sea level rise.  There is not a long record of the mass of Greenland's ice cap.  Radar satellites have given us a few decades of measurements of the Greenland's volume.  But it hasn't been until the recent measurements of the GRACE gravitational satellites that we have had accurate readings on Greenland's mass.

Snow has different mass than ice, and what the GRACE sats have found is that the center of Greenland is gaining snow - the warming edges are loosing ice to meltwater.

Data for 2006 shows that Greenland lost 101 cubic miles of ice mass and that loss is accelerating.



  A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies from former CIA Director James Woolsey and former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta talks about national security implications of global warming:

Across the globe, the spreading desertification in the Darfur region has been compounding the tensions between nomadic herders and agrarian farmers, providing the environmental backdrop for genocide.

In Bangladesh, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, the risk of coastal flooding is growing and could leave some 30 million people searching for higher ground in a nation already plagued by political violence and a growing trend toward Islamist extremism.

  Neighboring India is already building a wall along its border with Bangladesh.

An independent not-for-profit organization called the Carbon Disclosure Project with 310 investor groups controlling $41 trillion in investment capital has been formed to ask about companies' carbon and sustainability goals.

Please take 10 minutes out of your day tomorrow and email Senators Reid, Warner and Webb to urge that we keep our commitment to a sustainable future.

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