Increase in Carbon Emissions Seen Tripling Since ’90s
Emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning, the main culprit in global warming, have increased three times faster in recent years than they did in the 1990s, international climate researchers reported today.
And human-induced warming may have been responsible for an unprecedented observation reported Monday by a second group of scientists, who said that for the first time in 30 years of U.S. satellite monitoring of Antarctica, there is “clear evidence” of snowmelt on some of the continent’s highest and coldest areas.
The carbon dioxide study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the annual rate of increase for emissions of the main greenhouse gas in 2004 was 3 percent — triple the 1 percent rate during the 1990s.
“This new finding simply highlights the magnitude of the challenge we face,” said Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University. “The bottom line is that we need to make the world more carbon efficient, but in many parts of the world we’re going backwards.”
The study was led by Michael Raupach of the Australian government science agency, who is also the leader of the Global Carbon Project, which analyzes the world’s output of carbon dioxide. Field and climate scientists from France, Germany and Britain also participated.
The scientists concluded that without stronger action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the United States, Europe and Japan, the rate of increase will inevitably climb each year.
The rate of carbon dioxide emissions is climbing most rapidly in developing countries, notably China and India. But “it’s important to remember that the developed economies, with only 20 percent of the global population, still emit nearly 60 percent of all the fossil-fuel carbon dioxide released each year,” Raupach said in an e-mail message to The Chronicle.
The other report on new evidence for a warming planet came from scientists analyzing data from a satellite called QuikSCAT that has been flying over the Earth in polar orbit since 1999.
Earlier satellites, now operated by the Defense Department, also measured snow cover in Antarctica and found no melting, the scientists said. The QuikSCAT spacecraft carries a unique scatterometer radar that detects changes in winds, ocean currents and snow cover.
After analyzing the data for 2005, Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado at Boulder found that for the first time, the spacecraft had detected wide areas of melted snow in some of the least likely places in Antarctica.
Snowmelt was found only 310 miles from the South Pole, where ice had been thought to be all but permanent, and at elevations as high as 6,600 feet, where it has always been extremely cold.
In several areas, the scientists said, the spacecraft’s radar found evidence that the snowmelt continued for as much as a week at a time, with temperatures rising to 41 degrees, before freezing weather returned.
“Warming changes have been seen and measured all over the world,” Nghiem said in an interview, “but we have never seen it so widespread in Antarctica. We had thought that for some reason Antarctica was isolated from the effects of warming, and we’ve been totally surprised to see that it’s happening there, too. We’ve never seen anything comparable there.”
E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.
© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
Destroying the biosphere to keep Big Oil, automakers, military industries, “conservatives” and the oligarchy making big “earnings” in the Wall Street Casino.
There is a global call for action on June 8 to influence the G8 to take serious steps to curb climate change. I’m in!
3 ppm rise in 2004. 6 ppm rise in 2010. 12 ppm rise in 2020. 24 ppm rise per year in 2050. Game over by 2070!
Nice knowing you.
The reality is becoming apparent that we do not yet know how bad it is yet there are those who yet try to prevent us finding out. One can only wonder why. In any case, the effects of global warming seem to be happening faster and each new reports says it is happening faster than we thought it was in our last report. I’ve lost track of how many times faster the rate of warming is getting. If it’s three times faster than we thought but we were underestimating back then…sigh. Antarctica is feeling the heat. Another benchmark that wasn’t supposed to happen for half a century or more…and it’s happening now. you that ‘what goes around comes around’ stuff? Well global warming…made a U-turn and is heading straight for us. Not thirty years from now…us…the next ten years…and then…the future we thought to leave for other generations…that future becomes ours …three times faster
The global economy is accelerating CO2 production despite the increased risk that feedback mechansims will trigger runaway global warming.
The Southern Ocean is CO2 saturated.
Some big changes are coming soon…
The elites think this won’t effect them. If they do become convinced, they will snap into action by punishing the poor.
For the poor it will be the same as before. The elite expects them to die with the minimum of fuss.
The elite will keep enough serfs around for service and amusement so apply today!
“The scientists concluded that without stronger action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the United States, Europe and Japan, the rate of increase will inevitably climb each year.”
People! It’s the MILITARY - INDUSTRIAL complex! A quote from www.HAARP.net
During the 1980’s “rocket launches globally numbered about 500 to 600 a year, peaking at 1,500 in 1989! There were many more during the Gulf War. The Shuttle is the largest of the solid fuel rockets … All solid fuel rockets release large amounts of hydrochloric acid in their exhaust, each Shuttle flight injecting about 75 tons of ozone destroying chlorine into the stratosphere. Those launched since 1992 inject even more ozone-destroying chlorine, about 187 tons, DIRECTLY INTO THE OZONE LAYER!”
Do the math … just for the decade of the 1980s: 500 launches per year x 75 tons per launch = 375,000 TONS at the minimum. DIRECTLY INTO THE OZONE LAYER!!!
Can anyone tell me how many cars it takes to put 375,000 tons of ozone-destroying chlorine DIRECTLY INTO THE OZONE LAYER?!?
Before we can stop the atmospheric descruction of the military - industrial complex, we must get the word out. Talk about the military, talk about the “research” it’s doing, talk about the damage it’s doing.
It’s more than cars, it’s more than politics … It’s the military.
There is much talk today and some action on reducing per capita (including per company etc) consumption. That is, of course an absolute must in dealing with climate change. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to be enough without serious action as well in two areas which are rather taboo:
We’ll need to end the obsession with economic growth, substituting some sort of “ecological economy” such as the steady state economy.
We’ll need, as well, to forthrightly address population growth. (For a list of humane ways of reducing it, see this link.) Population size multiplies with per capita consumption to determine an area’s (or the world’s) total resource consumption. In no part of the world can we deny that math and simply ignore one of the factors in the equation.
http://growthmadness.org/
There is much talk today and some action on reducing per capita (including per company etc) consumption. That is of course an absolute must in dealing with climate change. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to be enough without serious action, as well, in two areas which are rather taboo:
We’ll need to end the obsession with economic growth, substituting some sort of “ecological economy” such as the steady state economy.
We’ll need, as well, to forthrightly address population growth. (For a list of humane ways of reducing it, see this link.) Population size multiplies with per capita consumption to determine an area’s (or the world’s) total resource consumption. In no part of the world can we deny that math and simply ignore one of the factors in the equation.
“shakker May 22nd, 2007 11:50 pm
The elites think this won’t effect them. If they do become convinced, they will snap into action by punishing the poor.”
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
” They have pillaged the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy; if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of “empire.” They make a desert and call it “peace”.”
Roman historian Tacitus
“The country is governed for the richest, for the corporation, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the expoiters.”
Helen Keller