According to a recent article by Ayisha Yahya, BBC Newsproclaims that the world may not be covered with expanding deserts as a result of global warming. As of now it is still just a theory with little to back it up, but scientists have seen some areas of the Sahara shrinking on satalite images. Read the whole article to get a better idea.
More information:
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/40226
PBS Nature is known for it’s amazing nature documentaries. Another amazing episode paints us a picture of the polar bear from their grizzly roots and their ever more complicated challenge to stay alive in a warming climate and changing arctic. Watch for your local showing times at PBS.org
More information on this show can be found here:http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/arctic-bears/introduction/778/
In case you haven’t heard, our feathery friends at Greenpeace climbed Mount Rushmore on July 8th (2009) and displayed a banner reading: “America Honors Leaders, Not Politicians. Stop Global Warming. Greenpeace.” Here is the official video:
“Bill Moyers talked with Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth and Mary Sweeters of Greenpeace USA about why they oppose the legislation in its current form and are calling on President Obama to change tack. Erich Pica lists among the faults of the legislation: ‘One, the bill doesn’t reduce global warming emissions in the United States fast enough. Two, it strips away the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions [...] Three, it gives away a tremendous amount of money — hundreds of billions of dollars — to the polluting industries that have, essentially, caused the problem of global warming [...] Four, and this is kind of overwhelming the entire system, is that it relies on Wall Street to help solve the problem of global warming.’”
More about this at these links:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07172009/profile2.html
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/america-honors-leaders-07-08-09
I was watching NOW on PBS tonight and one of their stories was a “check-up” on global warming. The marine scientist that they interviewed said that scientists have known about global warming for decades. In addition, she explained somewhat how the oceans react to the planet warming up. The ratio of land area to ocean area is 1 to 2.43, respectively. The oceans have a huge impact on our planet’s weather systems. They absorb a lot of the gasses and heat in the atmosphere. A major reason why these huge masses of water can absorb the quantity of heat that they are is the ice caps. A simple experiment that can be done to test this is to put ice in a beaker on a burner with a thermometer in the beaker to take measurements. First, turn the burner on high and take measurements every thirty seconds. If you plot the results out on a graph, you will see that the temperature of the water is relatively slow in rising until the ice melts. Then it starts to rise at an alarming rate in comparison to while the ice was still melting. The scientist being interviewed says to compare these results to the ocean. If this is right, once the ice caps melt, the oceans will rise quickly in temperature. This experiment would be more accurate if salt water were used because salt raises the boiling point of water and lowers the freezing point, thus making it more sluggish. (Ocean water is approximately 3.5% salt – that’s 35,000 parts per million – if you want to try it.) I find these findings very alarming and think you should see the segment for yourself:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/527/oceans-climate-change.html
In addition to this, I found an article regarding the oceans’ absorption of carbon dioxide. It explains that the absorption of carbon dioxide into the oceans has slowed around Hawaii (and all over the Pacific) due to a decrease in precipitation causing more evaporation. These both make salt concentrate near the surface. Read it for yourself.
A wonderful way to better understand the Greenhouse Effect is to watch this animation: http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/diagrams/greenhouse/