Archive by date | August 2009

Ozone: The patient is not getting sicker

Ozone: The patient is not getting sicker

Twenty years after the Montreal Protocol came into effect to regulate substances that deplete the ozone layer, the annual ozone hole above Antarctica shows no signs of recovery. A feature article and editorial in Nature today explain why this is so, and why the Montreal Protocol has been a unique success nonetheless. As things stand, scientists expect the first signs of recovery of springtime ozone depletion in the polar stratosphere around the year 2065. Outside polar regions, where chemical ozone destruction is less pronounced but potentially harmful to human health, it appears as if ozone levels are beginning to increase.  Read more

Military takes aim at climate change

Military takes aim at climate change

Cross-posted from Daniel Cressey on The Great Beyond Climate change may need a military response from America, according to a story from the New York times which is getting a lot of pick up in the world media. While most policy discussions around climate change focus on energy wonks, the Times says that military analysts are increasingly of the view that “climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions”. Food and water shortages or huge floods could push vulnerable regions over the edge into crises that could “demand an American humanitarian relief or military response”, it  … Read more

Timeline: Ice memory

Some of scientists’ gravest concerns about future climate change are rooted in the past. Records studied by paleoclimatologists reveal that the more extreme possibilities for this century and beyond — temperatures soaring, ice sheets vanishing, fertile lands withering into deserts — were realized previously on Earth when atmospheric greenhouse gas levels surged. At this summer’s AGU Chapman Conference on Abrupt Climate Change, researchers described this turbulent history through all manner of proxies – ice, tree rings, corals, marine and lake sediments, among others. But few talks went without a slide showing the wiggly line of a deep ice core.  Read more