(Also see “Manhattan-Size Ice Island Cracks in Half.”)

The crevasse stretches 19 miles (30 kilometers) long and up to 260 feet (80 meters) wide, as shown in a picture taken by NASA’s Terra satellite in October and featured this week as a NASA Image of the Day.

Snaking across the floating tongue of the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, the crack is expected to create an iceberg 350 square miles (907 square kilometers)—versus 303 square miles (785 square kilometers) for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx combined, according to NASA.

As for when the iceberg might shove off, “that is very difficult to predict,” said oceanographer Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “but in the coming months for sure.”

Glacier “Contributing Most to Sea Level”

Usually there’s nothing extraordinary about a glacier calving, said glaciologist Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

Glaciers that flow into the sea, like the Pine Island Glacier, go through a normal cycle in which the floating section grows, stresses mount, and an iceberg breaks off, Scambos said.

“That is nothing unusual in most cases.”

But when the pattern deviates, glaciologists take notice. In this case, the crack is forming significantly farther “upstream” than has previously been the case. That “signifies that there are changes in the ice,” he said.

When “that point of rifting starts to climb upstream, generally you see some acceleration of the glacier.” That means that the ice will flow into the ocean at a faster rate, contributing even more to sea level rise.

(Related: “Hundreds of Glaciers Melting Faster in Antarctica.”)

 Such an acceleration is of particular concern at the Pine Island Glacier, because, among Antarctic glaciers, it’s “the one that’s contributing the most to sea level rise.”

In fact, he said, ice flows from that glacier alone account for a quarter to a third of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea level rise.

“It’s moving at about three kilometers [almost two miles] per year,” Scambos said. And, he noted, “it’s been accelerating quite a bit.”

(Pictures: Antarctica Warming.)

Cracking Glacier “Really Important”

As far as sea levels are concerned, changes in the Pine Island Glacier and other West Antarctic glaciers are far more important than shifts among the continent’s other glaciers, such as East Antarctica’s Mertz Glacier—despite Mertz’s much publicized release of a Luxembourg-size iceberg in early 2010.

That’s because the “Luxembourg” iceberg came from a glacial ice tongue that had just been “sitting there,” said oceanographer Doug Martinson of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

By contrast, “West Antarctica has ice streams, of which Pine Island is one. Those are fast-flowing streams of ice,” said Martinson, who specializes in polar oceans.

When ice breaks off the Pine Island Glacier, he said, more ice can flow in faster from the mountains above—ice that will eventually wind up contributing to sea level rise.

“This glacier,” NSIDC’s Scambos added, “is really important.”

Source National Geographic

Within the next seven days the world will decide on what will happen with stock markets around the world. Within 12 hours from now the Australian Stock Exchange will open for business on Monday August 8^th.

For some time I have argued and promoted that economic growth; consuming out of balance without consideration of sustainable resources; is a designed for demise model. The world is living on a credit card that it cannot and does not intend to repay.

There are many such issues with the current ‘business and living as usual model’ that we are now encountering. Climate change is accelerating out of balance with how we can adapt. Resources are being depleted out of balance with how the future generations will continue to need to consume. We are living on a global credit card with a finite credit limit.

As the Cree Indian prophecy proclaimed “Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”

Within the next week the economic domino may fall. It may only wobble. But the certainty is that if we continue on the current path of demanding economic growth without regard to the finite outcome…….it will fall.

Excerpt from the book ZERO Greenhouse Emissions. 

They could see that the business as usual model adopted and passed onto developing nations, irrespective of any of the Kyoto protocol aspirations, presents a high threat of pushing the global thermometer to four, five or even six degrees of warming by 2100. They now knew as with finite resources it was not if, it was when. And it wasn’t going to be later, it was sooner. When would the circle of economic dominos start to fall, and just like a hurricane, where would it strike first?

Around the world the business-as-usual model of the economically powerful was at risk.

What would be the eventual effect of increased concern for the security of investments? What about the global investment domino? Which investments would be safe and which at risk of panic? Who would panic first? All linked through the Dow Jones, the S&P 500, Nasdaq, the FT100, Nikkei, Hang Seng, the Dax and All Ordinary Index, who would blink first? Which of the growing market concerns would start the selling? What would be the tsunami effect of a market panic? With corporate globalization comes its risks, with corporate diversification of interests, comes cross losses. Who would report the story: “Blue-chip stocks are no longer a good investment for the long haul, the long haul looks a bit shaky! You need to get in quick for a high return and get out of the market before it crashes!” And what of the term “Market Correction?” When I was at school and the math teacher corrected my work, it meant that I had done my sums wrong! How many chances to get it right do these experts in economic finance need?

Are those industries that are exploiting resources identified as in decline at highest risk, or will they be the ones who initially profit from the demand in commodities as the prices rise, while there are still reserves available?

End excerpt

Well within the next week we shall see if the domino wobbles or falls.

An irreversible climate “tipping point” could occur within the next 20 years as a result of the release of huge quantities of organic carbon locked away as frozen plant matter in the vast permafrost region of the Arctic, scientists have found.Billions of tons of frozen leaves and roots that have lain undisturbed for thousands of years in the permanently frozen ground of the northern hemisphere are thawing out, with potentially catastrophic implications for climate change, the researchers said.

A study into the speed at which the permafrost is melting suggests that the tipping point will occur between 2020 and 2030 and will mark the point at which the Arctic turns from being a net “sink” for carbon dioxide into an overall source that will accelerate global warming, they said.

The study is the first global investigation of what will happen in a warmer world to the huge amounts of frozen plant matter that has remained undegraded in the soil since it was incorporated into the permafrost about 30,000 years ago.

It also found that by 2200 about two-thirds of the Earth’s permafrost will have melted, releasing an estimated 190 billion tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the air – about half of all the fossil fuel emissions of greenhouse gases since the start of the industrial revolution.

“Our results indicate that, as the Arctic warms up, this frozen carbon will thaw out, allowing microbial decay to resume and releasing carbon into the atmosphere,” said Kevin Schaefer of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado.

“Our research shows that the release of carbon from permafrost will result in an irreversible climate tipping point in only 20 years… Once the frozen carbon thaws out and decays, there is no way to put it back into the permafrost,” Dr Schaefer said.

The Arctic has experienced some of the greatest climatic changes in the world over recent decades. Summer sea ice has melted back to record minimums, average temperatures have increased dramatically, and scientists have documented significant melting of the underground permafrost, from Alaska to eastern Siberia.

The rising temperatures have lengthened the growing season of the Arctic summer, which has increased plant growth and the consequent uptake of carbon dioxide. However, by around 2025 this will go into reverse and the thawing permafrost will release more carbon than is being taken up by the tundra growing above it, Dr Schaefer said.

“There are two important messages from this study. The first is that the melting permafrost can release huge amounts of carbon and, secondly, the process is irreversible on a human timescale and will affect our targets for reducing fossil fuel emissions,” he said.

“All our emission reduction strategies are designed to hit a target atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration corresponding to a target climate. If we do not account for carbon released from thawing permafrost, we will overshoot this target concentration and end up with a warmer climate than we want,” Dr Schaefer said.

Permanently frozen ground covers about a quarter of the northern hemisphere and starts about a metre below the surface, extending up to 500 metres. The top three metres contain most of the frozen plant matter, primarily grass roots caught up in the last ice age.

Source Independent UK

Economic recession has failed to curb rising emissions, undermining hope of keeping global warming to safe levels Photograph: Dave Reede/All Canada Photos/Corbis

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially “dangerous climate change” – is likely to be just “a nice Utopia”, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.

Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data.

“I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions,” Birol told the Guardian. “It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say.”

Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. “These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100,” he said.

“Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce.”

Birol said disaster could yet be averted, if governments heed the warning. “If we have bold, decisive and urgent action, very soon, we still have a chance of succeeding,” he said.

The IEA has calculated that if the world is to escape the most damaging effects of global warming, annual energy-related emissions should be no more than 32Gt by 2020. If this year’s emissions rise by as much as they did in 2010, that limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule, making it all but impossible to hold warming to a manageable degree.

Emissions from energy fell slightly between 2008 and 2009, from 29.3Gt to 29Gt, due to the financial crisis. A small rise was predicted for 2010 as economies recovered, but the scale of the increase has shocked the IEA. “I was expecting a rebound, but not such a strong one,” said Birol, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on energy.

John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said time was running out. “This news should shock the world. Yet even now politicians in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world’s last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic. You don’t put out a fire with gasoline. It will now be up to us to stop them.”

Most of the rise – about three-quarters – has come from developing countries, as rapidly emerging economies have weathered the financial crisis and the recession that has gripped most of the developed world.

But he added that, while the emissions data was bad enough news, there were other factors that made it even less likely that the world would meet its greenhouse gas targets.

• About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These “locked-in” emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere.

“It means the room for manoeuvre is shrinking,” warned Birol.

• Another factor that suggests emissions will continue their climb is the crisis in the nuclear power industry. Following the tsunami damage at Fukushima, Japan and Germany have called a halt to their reactor programmes, and other countries are reconsidering nuclear power.

“People may not like nuclear, but it is one of the major technologies for generating electricity without carbon dioxide,” said Birol. The gap left by scaling back the world’s nuclear ambitions is unlikely to be filled entirely by renewable energy, meaning an increased reliance on fossil fuels.

• Added to that, the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled. “The significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago,” said Birol.

He urged governments to take action urgently. “This should be a wake-up call. A chance [of staying below 2 degrees] would be if we had a legally binding international agreement or major moves on clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and other technologies.”

Governments are to meet next week in Bonn for the next round of the UN talks, but little progress is expected.

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, said the global emissions figures showed that the link between rising GDP and rising emissions had not been broken. “The only people who will be surprised by this are people who have not been reading the situation properly,” he said.

Forthcoming research led by Sir David will show the west has only managed to reduce emissions by relying on imports from countries such as China.

Another telling message from the IEA’s estimates is the relatively small effect that the recession – the worst since the 1930s – had on emissions. Initially, the agency had hoped the resulting reduction in emissions could be maintained, helping to give the world a “breathing space” and set countries on a low-carbon path. The new estimates suggest that opportunity may have been missed.

Source Guardian

Greenland's Petermann Glacier in 2009. Researchers say a quarter of the ice shelf has broken away.

August 7^th — A piece of ice four times the size of Manhattan island has broken away from an ice shelf in Greenland, according to scientists in the U.S.

The 260 square-kilometer (100 square miles) ice island separated from the Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland early on Thursday, researchers based at the University of Delaware said.

The ice island, which is about half the height of the Empire State Building, is the biggest piece of ice to break away from the Arctic icecap since 1962 and amounts to a quarter of the Petermann 70-kilometer floating ice shelf, according to research leader Andreas Muenchow.

“The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson rivers flowing for more than two years. It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days,” Muenchow said.

Muenchow’s team is studying ice in the Nares Strait separating Greenland from Canada, about 1,000 kilometers south of the North Pole.

Satellite data from NASA’s MODIS-Aqua satellite revealed the initial rupture which was confirmed within hours by Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service, according to the University of Delaware website.

Muenchow said the island could block the Nares Strait as it drifts south, or break into smaller islands and continue towards the open waters of the Atlantic.

“In Nares Strait, the ice island will encounter real islands that are all much smaller in size,” he said.

“The newly born ice island may become land-fast, block the channel, or it may break into smaller pieces as it is propelled south by the prevailing ocean currents. From there, it will likely follow along the coasts of Baffin Island and Labrador, to reach the Atlantic within the next two years.”

Environmentalists say ice melt is being caused by global warming with Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reaching their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years, according to a study published in 2009.

Current trends could see the Arctic Ocean become ice free in summer months within decades, researchers predict.

Source CNN

It’s now time to change the charter of the Corporation. WHO should PAY?

The US House of Representatives has voted to more than quadruple a per-barrel oil tax that fills a special trust fund to pay for damages from major spills such as the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The measure called for raising the eight-cent-per-barrel tax to 34 cents, raising nearly $US12 billion ($A14.13 billion) dollars over 10 years for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which currently holds about $US1.5 billion ($A1.77 billion).

The legislation, which passed by a 215-204 margin, also aimed to raise the cap on per-incident trust fund expenditures from $US1 billion ($A1.18 billion) to $US5 billion ($A5.9 billion).

Some analysts have warned that the price tag for the catastrophic oil spill that resulted from the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform run by BP could top $US14 billion ($A16.5 billion).

BP is legally responsible for all cleanup costs, but is only liable for up to $US75 million ($A88.3 million) in economic damages – a cap that vanishes if the British energy giant is found to have been negligent or engaged in wilful misconduct.

To the extent that costs above that are not covered by BP – which has vowed to pay all legitimate claims – up to $US1 billion of the additional damages could come about of the trust fund.

The legislation approved on Friday would raise that ceiling to $US5 billion.

The Senate was expected to pass a different version of the bill when it returns from next week’s break, meaning the two chambers would have to agree on a compromise version to send to President Barack Obama.

The House-passed measure’s main goal was to extend a series of provisions aimed at battling stubbornly high US unemployment and extend jobless benefits to late November.

BP said it had siphoned 2,200 barrels in the 24-hour period to midnight on Thursday, down from an estimate of 5,000 barrels earlier in the day.

The US government has formed a team to develop a more precise estimate of the amount of oil gushing from the well.

BP will attempt to stem the oil flow next week, instead of Sunday as hoped.

The oil leak began more than a month ago, when a rig leased by BP exploded.

The spill has reached Louisiana and is threatening Florida and Cuba.

Thick, sticky oil is washing on to miles of fragile Louisiana wetlands, with brown, foul-smelling globs coating reeds and grasses.

The crude oil has been flowing since the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded off the coast of Louisiana on 20 April and sank two days later.

‘Flow not constant’

It was widely expected that BP would proceed on Sunday with a so-called “top kill” operation to plug the well, which underwater video shows to be gushing oil and gas.

But BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles on Friday said the move would be delayed until next week, perhaps on Tuesday.

In the “top kill” operation, heavy mud would be injected to stem the oil flow, then cement used to block the well permanently.

The delay was announced on the same day the company indicated the amount of oil it has been able to capture from the well was significantly less than initially estimated.

A BP spokesman told Reuters news agency on Friday that the company had only siphoned off 2,200 barrels, or 92,400 gallons, in the 24 hours up to midnight on Thursday.

“The flow changes, it’s not constant,” BP spokesman John Curry said on Friday.

But on Thursday, a spokesman had said the company was collecting 5,000 barrels per day or more.

A live video feed showing the oil gushing from the well has been made available by BP after pressure from a US congressman.

It shows a large, flowing plume of oil and gas next to the tube that is carrying some of it to the surface.

Transparency call

It remains unclear exactly how much oil is streaming from the burst well 5,000ft below the surface, and the US government has formed a multi-agency task force tasked with precisely gauge the amount.

Independent scientists have estimated the flow is as much as 10 times more than the widely distributed figure of 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, per day.

In the meantime, the Obama administration has asked BP to make public all measurements of the growing leak, air and water quality samples, trajectories of underwater plumes and locations of dispersants.

The request came in a letter to BP chief executive Tony Hayward from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson.

It said: “In responding to this oil spill, it is critical that all actions be conducted in a transparent manner, with all data and information related to the spill readily available to the United States government and the American people.”

The officials said that despite claims by BP it was making efforts to keep the public and the government informed, “those efforts, to date, have fallen short in both their scope and effectiveness”.

They said it was “imperative that BP promptly” make public all data on the spill.

Dispersant damage warning

Also on Friday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal demanded the federal government and BP commit to long-term clean up efforts until the tainted beaches and marshlands have been restored to their pre-spill state.

And a top coast guard official in Louisiana speculated that oil had washed ashore because the weather had been too calm for the past two days to use chemical dispersants to mitigate the slick.

The EPA has told BP to use a new dispersant to contain the spill, as fears grow about potential damage from the use of such chemicals.

BP has used a number of dispersants, all approved by the EPA, to try to break up the spill.

It emerged on Wednesday that a small part of the slick had entered the so-called Loop Current, which could take it to Florida and up the eastern US coast.

Florida forecasters said it would be at least a week before the oil reached waters near the state.

Farther south, US officials have been talking to Cuba about how to respond should the spill reach the island’s northern coast.

Source BBC News

BP is ignoring the most effective and safest means of locking up the oil in zones around the fragile coastal zones of the Gulf Coast. Here’s a quick demonstration of how MOP (Maximum Oil Pickup) sorbent works and can be deployed using the MOP Cannon. It can be introduced above the surface or blown in from below the surface to grab the oil as it rises to the surface. It is 100% recycled material and 100% biodegradable and safe for the environment, animals and people. Tell BP to USE MOP. Pass this on please. Help us spread the word, this will help and it works.

BP has known about the effectiveness of the MOP Product for more than a decade but repeatedly has refused to acknowledge a letter written by their own employee.

Which states –

BP Oil Company
1150 South Metcalf St.
Lima, Ohio 45804-1199

October 25, 1994
To Whom It May Concern:
SUBJECT: MOP Absorbent Product
During four separate occasions we have had the opportunity to observe the MOP absorbent product’s performance. Three were hard surface spills of various hydrocarbon products (i.e. 30w oil, transmission fluid, heavy naphtha, diesel oil, and other blended heavy sop oils). On each occasion the absorbents picked up all of the products leaving no apparent residue. We mixed water at some sights and the hydrophobic properties allowed the absorbent to hold the products while allowing the water to run free and clean of oil.
The other test was with booms and pillows in shore line fresh water. The booms and pillows performed above the standards established by other booms (i.e.polypropylene). The booms had excellent penetrations and adequately contained the product spill. The material is light weight and more economical than the competitive brands we have used.
We are extremely pleased with its performance and cost, and would recommend serious consideration of this product before using an alternative.

Sincerely,
Randal S. Fletcher
Safety Specialist

LIMA – A huge glacier broke off and plunged into a lake in Peru, causing a 75-foot tsunami wave that swept away at least three people and destroyed a water processing plant serving 60,000 local residents, government officials said Monday.

The ice block tumbled into a lake in the Andes Sunday near the town of Carhuaz, some 200 miles north of the capital, Lima. Three people were feared buried in debris.

Investigators said the chunk of ice from the Hualcan glacier measured 1,640 feet by 656 feet

“This slide into the lake generated a tsunami wave, which breached the lake’s levees, which are 23 metres high — meaning the wave was 23 metres high,” said Patricio Vaderrama, an expert on glaciers at Peru’s Institute of Mine Engineers.

Authorities evacuated mountain valleys, fearing more breakages.

It was one of the most concrete signs yet that glaciers are disappearing in Peru, home to 70 percent of the world’s tropical icefields. Scientists say warmer temperatures will cause them to melt away altogether within 20 years.

In 1970, not far from Carhuaz, an earthquake triggered an avalanche of ice, rock and mud on the mountain of Huascaran that buried the town of Yungay, killing more than 20,000 people who lived below Peru’s tallest peak, which sits 22,204 feet above sea level.

Source MSNBC

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