The meek shall inherit the Earth – at least the wet parts of it. The lowly jiggly jellyfish, those simple critters that are mostly water and stomach, may be the big winners in the high-stakes gamble we’re playing in the oceans on a global scale. Beautiful and bizarre, jellyfish are on the rise in many [...]
Posts Tagged ‘global warming’
3 Dec
An ocean of ups, downs, and much uncertainty: sea-level rise in the 21st century
One of the oft-cited results of global warming is sea-level rise. But how does it work? Human-induced climate change contributes to sea-level rise in two ways. Almost two-thirds of the predicted rise will be caused by thermal expansion. The ocean is warming, causing the water in it to expand. There’s only one way for this [...]
23 Jun
The sea is the lifeblood of the planet
I’m heading off to India on Sunday and currently in the midst of last-minute work and packing. I’ll blog about my trip, so stay tuned! For now, I’ll leave you with a revision of a speech I gave a number of years ago to the Independent World Commissions on the Oceans (IWCO) in 1997. The [...]
7 May
“Nothing Happend in Copenhagen. Why?”
The e-course I am taking, “Global Warming in a Still Unequal World,” taught by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in India, opens with this assignment: Write an essay of approximately 500 words on: “Nothing happened at Copenhagen: Why?”Alternatively, you could submit cartoon strip made by you. As I am not much of a [...]
4 May
Personal Lessons in Climate Change from India
Over the past 9 months or so, I have written a number of posts on climate change in South Asia, particularly at the ‘Third Pole,’ the ice-covered region that includes the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. I have endeavored to learn as much as possible about the science and policy of this issue from the [...]
26 Mar
Winds of Change: How Black Carbon Affects the South Asian Monsoon
In the previous post, I wrote about how the glaciers of the ‘Third Pole’ – the greater Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau region – are melting at a dramatic rate (just not as fast as mistakenly stated in the IPCC report). The key determinant of whether glaciers are retreating or advancing appears to be the South Asian summer [...]
2 Feb
So, What is Happening with the Himalayan Glaciers?
There’s been a lot of news recently about the the IPCC’s erroneous statement about the Himalayan glaciers. Here’s the exact quote from the 4th IPCC Assessment Report, Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability, Section 10.6.2 The Himalayan glaciers: “Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part [...]
1 Dec
Have the Oceans Had Enough? Largest Carbon Sink May Be Slowing Down
More than half of the CO2 emitted by human activities each year are taken up by natural carbon sinks, on land and in the ocean. However, recent studies suggest that anthropogenic emissions may be outpacing the ocean’s ability to take up CO2. Le Quéré et al. (2009) constructed a global CO2 budget for 1959 – [...]
13 Nov
Altering the Abyss: Deep-Sea Ecosystems Affected By Climate Change
The abyssal plains, regions of the ocean below 2000 meters, cover 60% of the Earth’s surface. Scientists have long believed that the ecosystems located at these depths are relatively isolated and stable, immune to the dramatic changes rocking shallower ocean regions due to global warming. However, a recent paper* by Ken Smith, a marine ecologist [...]
15 Oct
Project Surya Aims to Clear the Air and Reduce Global Warming
Welcome to Blog Action Day 2009! Starting early this morning in the Far East until late tonight in the Pacific Islands, more than 8,700 bloggers from 148 countries are stimulating a global conversation about many aspects of climate change. For me, the choice was easy – I write about science, so of course I’ll blog [...]
