Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide
Surfer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration
The Observer, Sunday 26 July 2009
<Start extract>
Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in
the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs,
taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent
years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer
months.
The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of
George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week.
President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and
the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change
caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000
photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow.
One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the
shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal
waters were entirely ice-free.
The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the
Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice - a record
loss - were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous
year.
Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. Ice cover for 2008 was
almost as bad as for 2007, and this year levels look equally sparse.
"These are one-metre resolution images, which give you a big picture
of the summertime Arctic," said Thorsten Markus of Nasa's Goddard
Space Flight Centre. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled
about it. One-metre resolution is the dimension that's been missing."
Disappearing summer sea ice poses considerable dangers, scientists
have warned. Ice shelves are used by animals such as polar bears as
platforms for hunting seals and other sea creatures. Without them,
they could starve. In addition, ice reflects solar radiation. Without
that process, the Arctic sea could warm up even more. The phenomenon
threatens to set off runaway heating of the planet, say
climatologists.
The latest revelations have triggered warnings from scientists that
they no longer have the funds to keep a comprehensive track of climate
change. Last week the head of the US's National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Professor Jane Lubchenco, warned
that the gathering of satellite data - crucial to predicting future
climate changes - was now at "great risk" because America's ageing
satellite fleet was not being replaced.
"Our primary focus is maintaining the continuity of climate
observations, and those are at great risk right now because we don't
have the resources to have satellites at the ready and taking the
kinds of information that we need," said Lubchenco, who was appointed
by Obama. "We are playing catch-up."
Even before her warning, scientists were saying that America, the
world's scientific superpower, was virtually blinding itself to
climate change by cutting funds to the environmental satellite
programmes run by the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Nasa.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences this year warned that the
environmental satellite network was at risk of collapse.
In February, a Nasa satellite carrying instruments to produce the
first map of the Earth's carbon emissions crashed near Antarctica only
three minutes after lift-off.
The satellite would have measured carbon emissions at 100,000 points
around the planet every day, providing a wealth of data compared to
the 100 or so fixed towers currently in operation in a land-based
network.
The NOAA is under additional pressure to provide environmental data
because of the re-emergence of the El Ni�o climate phenomenon, where
warming of the tropical Pacific causes heatwaves, droughts and
flooding around the world. June's land and sea surface temperatures
were the second hottest on record, and scientists are predicting this
will be the warmest decade in recorded history. The last major El Ni�o
was in 1998, the hottest year in recorded history.
The Obama administration has already taken steps to tackle America's
flagging scientific lead. The president's economic recovery plan
allotted $170m (�100m) to help close the gaps in climate modelling.
The NOAA is seeking an additional $390m in its 2010 budget to upgrade
environmental satellites, and help make data more available to
researchers and government officials.
<End extract>
Morton Davis
"Surfer" <n...@spam.net> wrote in message
news:kh6vj55msv4ojcq4o...@4ax.com...
>
>
Man made climate change/global warming is a proven lie.