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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (55473)	3/5/2007 6:05:34 PM
From: mph	Respond to of 90947

ecotality.com A blogger on Gore. I lol'd at the part where he wonders if Gore is some terminator from the future who needs to be recharged as an explanation for his massive use of electricity in his houses....

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (55473)	3/6/2007 4:01:56 PM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Respond to of 90947

Asia smog fuelling Pacific storms 'will melt Arctic ice' · Scientists highlight threat from big rise in emissions · 'Severe pollution' blamed on rapid industrialisation Alok Jha, science correspondent Tuesday March 6, 2007 The Guardian Smog and air pollution from Asian cities have intensified storms over the Pacific Ocean, which will result in increased warming of the Arctic, scientists have warned. They report that the number of storm clouds in the region has increased by up to a half over the last 20 years as rapidly industrialised cities in countries such as India and China burn more coal as they grow. The Pacific's storm system plays an important role in the circulation of the Earth's atmosphere, transporting heat and moisture to the northern latitudes. Renyi Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, said this weather system had been affected by aerosols - tiny particles of pollution such as soot produced when burning coal. "Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation in Asia have caused severe air pollution over many countries, including China and India. Long-term satellite measurements have revealed a dramatic increase in aerosol concentrations over Asia," wrote Dr Zhang yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The increasing aerosol trend has been explained by sulphur dioxide and soot emissions, with an increase in sulphur dioxide emissions of 35% per decade over the same region." Damian Wilson, an atmospheric scientist at the Met Office in Exeter, said the Pacific storms formed in the central part of the ocean and headed west, hitting Canada and the northern US. "It's caused by the temperature difference between the northerly latitudes and the more southerly, tropical latitudes - the storms mix the heat around." The weather system is active all year long, reaching its peak every winter in December and a minimum around July. Aerosols can affect weather by influencing the formation and duration of clouds, but to what extent this happens is not well understood. "Aerosols affect the size of water droplets," said Dr Wilson. "The more pollution particles there are in the air, the smaller the water droplets will be." Smaller droplets are less likely to run into each other and coalesce into drops of rain, meaning clouds stay in the air longer. To work out how pollution was changing the Pacific weather system Dr Zhang led a team of researchers in analysing the information recorded on clouds over the Pacific from 1984 to 2005. They found that the clouds which make up many of the Pacific storms, called deep convective clouds (DCC), seemed to arise in connection with pollution emission from Asia. His data showed that the number of these clouds from 1994 to 2005 had increased by 20% to 50% compared with the previous 10-year period. "Our results suggest that the winter Pacific is highly vulnerable to the aerosol effect. The intensified storms over the Pacific in winter are climatically significant and represent a detected climate signal of the aerosol-cloud interaction associated with anthropogenic pollution." The intensified storms highlighted by Dr Zhang would also transfer more of the aerosols further north. "In particular, efficient northward transfers of sensible heat and anthropogenic aerosols can exacerbate warming at higher latitudes," he wrote. This could have devastating implications for the Arctic. The recent assessment of global warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that some of the largest warming occurs over the polar regions. This is partly due to the reduction in ice cover (which means that less sunlight is reflected away) but also because of the increasing presence of aerosols from pollution in the region. "Warming in the polar regions has catastrophic climate consequences, such as polar ice caps shrinking and sea level rising," wrote Dr Zhang. "The change in the Pacific storm track and its associated climate impacts require further studies from a large scientific community, including investigation with global climate models." guardian.co.uk