2006 Likely Sixth Warmest Year on Record
According to the records maintained
by Members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the
year 2006 is currently estimated to be the sixth warmest year on
record. The global mean surface temperature in 2006 is currently
estimated to be + 0.42°C above the 1961-1990 annual average (14°C/57.2°F).
Since the start of the 20th century,
the global average surface temperature has risen approximately
0.7°C. But this rise has not been continuous. Since 1976, the
global average temperature has risen sharply, at 0.18°C per
decade.
Instrumental temperature records
date from 1861. Final figures for 2006 will not be released
until March 2007.
Click on the following link for the
full news story: Science
Daily
British Sea Life Moves as Waters Warm
Britain's small sea life, including
barnacles, limpets and seaweeds, are moving north and east in
response to climate change and looking for cooler waters. Some
have moved over 100 miles over the past 50 years. A four-year
research project, called the Marine Biodiversity and Climate
Change and coordinated by the UK Marine Biological Association,
mapped 57 species across the British Isles.
Larissa Naylor of the UK Environment
Agency said, "We've seen many of these species moving from
the areas they are normally found, mainly due to rising sea
surface temperatures....The creatures are moving to find more
suitable homes in new locations."
"Climate change is having a big
impact on British shorelines," said Dr. Nova Mieszkowska of
the Marine Biology Association. "Biodiversity is going to
be changed, possibly irreversibly, within a reasonably short
time because it's only going to get warmer and warmer quicker
and quicker according to the scenarios."
Click on the following links for the
full news stories: BBC and
Guardian
Prince of Wales Calls for Climate Action
The Prince of Wales, known for his
environmentalism, has described climate change as the
"biggest threat to mankind" and warned that action
must be taken now before it is too late. "Climate change is
now a critical issue for every Commonwealth country," he
wrote in CPQ, the quarterly magazine of the Commonwealth Press
Union (CPU).
The Prince said, "The challenge
is to find ways to mobilize the whole of their society in
tackling this ultimate threat to mankind. I believe that mankind
has all the necessary skills, resources and ingenuity to tackle
climate change effectively. The question is not whether we can
do this, but whether we will, and whether we will do so in time
to affect the outcome."
Click on the following link for the
full news story: Guardian
Air Travel GHG Emissions Growing Rapidly
With the projected explosion in
worldwide travel, air pollution from aviation is a growing
concern among scientists, and it's drawing increased scrutiny
from governments, particularly in Europe. By 2050, emissions
from planes are expected to become one of the largest
contributors to global warming, according to the Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution, an independent group of
scientists that advises the British government.
The European Commission has proposed
that airlines operating in the EU should pay for any increase in
their carbon emissions above current levels. "Aviation
emissions need to be brought under control, because they are
rising very fast," said European Commission Environment
Commissioner Stavros Dimas. "Since 1990, they have gone up
about 90 percent and, by 2020, they are going to be doubled, if
business continues as usual."
The European Commission plan would
bring airlines into the European Union emissions trading scheme
(ETS). Environmentalists criticized the plan as too weak. BBC
Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin said, "...perhaps most
seriously, they [the airlines] don't have to account for
emissions of other greenhouse gases, probably three times more
powerful than CO2, that happen not to be included in the trading
scheme."
Indian Islands Threatened by Sea Level Rise
A six-year study of the impact of
future climate change on the Sunderbans, a world natural
heritage site that India shares with Bangladesh, has found that
two Indian Islands that were home to 10,000 people have
succumbed to rising sea level and have vanished.
The region, composed of 100 islands,
is home to a total of 1.8 million people on 52 of the islands.
Sugata Hazra, director of Kolkata's School of Oceanography
Studies at Jadavpur University, said "A dozen others on the
western end of the inner estuary delta are threatened. As the
islands sink, nearly 100,000 people will have to be evacuated
from the islands in the next decade."
As reported by AFP, Hazra
blames global warming and the depletion of mangrove areas for
the rising sea levels in the world's biggest delta. Hazra says
the relative mean sea level in the Bay of Bengal is rising at a
rate of 3.14 millimeters a year due to global warming. "And
if this trend continues, the rising sea will devour nearly 15
percent of the islands in the Sunderbans," he adds.
Click on the following link for the
full news story: AFP
Spanish Bears Stop Hibernating
On December 20, scientists revealed
that female bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of
northern Spain. Due to warmer temperatures in recent years,
European brown bears have been seen lumbering through the
forests of Spain's Cantabrian mountains in December, when
normally they would already be in their long, annual sleep.
"If the winter is mild, the
female bears find it is energetically worthwhile to make the
effort to stay awake and hunt for food," said Guillermo
Palomero, Spain's Brown Bear Foundation (La Fundación Oso Pardo
- FOP) president and the coordinator of a national plan for bear
conservation.
"Mother bears with cubs make
the effort to seek out nuts and berries if these have been
plentiful, and snow is scarce," Mr Palomero said, adding
that even for those bears - mostly mature males - who do close
down for the winter, "their hibernation period gets shorter
every year".
The behavior change suggests that
global warming is responsible for this revolution in ursine
behavior, says Juan Carlos García Cordón, a professor of
geography at Santander's Cantabria University, and a climatology
specialist. "We cannot prove that non-hibernation is caused
by global warming, but everything points in that
direction."
EIA Releases Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases for
2005
The Energy Information
Administration (EIA), an independent statistical and analytical
agency in the U.S. Department of Energy, released the report
titled "Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases, 2005:
Summary" on December 22.
The Voluntary Reporting of
Greenhouse Gases Program, required by Section 1605(b) of the
Energy Policy Act of 1992, records the results of voluntary
measures to reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gas
emissions. For the 2005 reporting year, 221 U.S. companies and
other organizations reported to the EIA that they had undertaken
2,379 projects to reduce or sequester greenhouse gases in 2005.
The reported greenhouse gas emission reductions for the projects
included 294 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent
(million MTCO2e) of direct reductions, 67 million MTCO2e of
indirect reductions, 8 million MTCO2e of reductions from carbon
sequestration, and 13 million MTCO2e of unspecified reductions.
Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 are estimated at
7,147.2 million MTCO2e.
Click on the following link for the
full news story: EIA
EESI
Briefings
DVD’s
Available: Copies of DVD's
are available of EESI's recent climate
briefings: "Agriculture
and Climate Change: Threats and Opportunities," May
24, 2005; "What
Does Climate Change Mean for the Arctic? How is Alaska Being
Affected?,"
March 15, 2005; "Perspectives
on Climate Change: Business Initiatives to Reduce Greenhouse
Gas Emissions," November
18, 2004; “State
and Local Government Climate Change Efforts,” September
28, 2004; “Climate
Change Post 2100,” September 21, 2004; “Abrupt
Climate Change,” September 15, 2004; and
“Discussing Climate Change: A Multi-faceted View
of the Climate Stewardship Act,” June 3, 2004.
The discs are $20
ea. (incl. shipping/handling) plus tax 5.75%
(DC residents only). Click on the following link to
order a DVD: EESI
Climate Change DVD's
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