Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise in the cleanest air in the world in north-west Tasmania

The cleanest air in the world is becoming more polluted, with air measurements in remote north-west Tasmania poised to hit a new high of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide within two or three weeks.
Key points:

Carbon dioxide levels at Cape Grim were only 300ppm in 1970
Those levels expected to hit 400ppm within the next three weeks
CSIRO scientist predicts "pretty serious climate change problems" if pattern continues

The number sat at slightly more than 300ppm when measurements were first taken at the CSIRO's Cape Grim measuring site in the 1970s.

CSIRO consultant Paul Fraser said the landmark reading did not bode well for the earth's climate.

Climate change could trigger 'tipping point' for East Antarctic Totten Glacier

The Totten Glacier in East Antarctica has an unstable area that could collapse and contribute to more than two metres of sea level rise beyond what is generally predicted if climate change remains unchecked, researchers say.
Key points:

East Antarctica has traditionally been considered to be relatively stable
But evidence is growing that Totten Glacier is bucking the trend
New analysis shows the glacier could contribute over two metres to sea level rise

East Antarctica is the world's largest area of ice and, until recently, was thought to be more stable than the smaller West Antarctic ice sheet.

The Totten Glacier, in particular, has rapidly become recognised as the most vulnerable of all the East Antarctic glaciers, with its floating ice shelf already in retreat.

We confirm that collapse has happened in the past, and is likely to happen again if we pass the tipping point
Dr Alan Aitken, University of Western Australia

"While traditional models haven't suggested this glacier can collapse, more recent models have," said Dr Alan Aitken of the University of Western Australia, co-author of a new study published today in the journal Nature.

Not "In the news", and it's a bit old, but ...

First land plants plunged Earth into ice age

Never underestimate moss. When the simple plants first arrived on land, almost half a billion years ago, they triggered both an ice age and a mass extinction of ocean life.

The first land plants appeared around 470 million years ago, during the Ordovician period, when life was diversifying rapidly. They were non-vascular plants, like mosses and liverworts, that didn’t have deep roots.

About 35 million years later, ice sheets briefly covered much of the planet and a mass extinction ensued. Carbon dioxide levels probably fell sharply just before the ice arrived – but nobody knew why.

Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, UK, and colleagues think the mosses and liverworts are to blame.

Maybe not news so much as information on the utility of regional climate models.

Do regional climate models add value compared to global models?

'Shocking images' reveal death of 10,000 hectares of mangroves across Northern Australia

Close to 10,000 hectares of mangroves have died across a stretch of coastline reaching from Queensland to the Northern Territory.

International mangroves expert Dr Norm Duke said he had no doubt the "dieback" was related to climate change.

"It's a world-first in terms of the scale of mangrove that have died," he told the ABC.

Dr Duke flew 200 kilometres between the mouths of the Roper and McArthur Rivers in the Northern Territory last month to survey the extent of the dieback.

He described the scene as the most "dramatic, pronounced extreme level of dieback that I've ever observed".

Climate change: Advisers warn of climate change domino effect

Climate change could have a domino effect on key infrastructure in the UK, government advisers have warned.

In a 2,000-page report, the Climate Change Committee says flooding will destroy bridges - wrecking electricity, gas and IT connections carried on them.

The committee also warns that poor farming means the most fertile soils will be badly degraded by mid-century.

And it says heat-related deaths among the elderly will triple by the 2050s as summer temperatures spiral.

The projections are based on the supposition that governments keep promises made at the Paris climate conference to cut emissions - a pledge that is in doubt.

Each morning we wake up and think that things cannot possibly get worse - and then they do:

Andrea Leadsom appointed Environment Secretary

Her views on science have probably progressed beyond the 15th century, unlike certain U.S. politicians I can name.

Anthrax kills one, infects 21 others as melting permafrost causes outbreak in Russia's far north

t is the first outbreak of anthrax since 1941 in the region, which lies some 2,000 kilometres north-east of Moscow.

It came after a month of temperatures soaring up to 35 degrees Celsius, which melted upper layers of permafrost, or permanently frozen soil, and sparked wildfires.

Crisis on high

Deep in the Himalayas sits a remote research station that is tracking an alarming trend in climate change, with implications that could disrupt the lives of more than 1 billion people and pitch the most populated region of the world into chaos.

The station lies in the heart of a region called the Third Pole, an area that contains the largest area of frozen water outside of the North Pole and South Pole.

Despite its relative anonymity, the Third Pole is vitally important; it is the source of Asia's 10 largest rivers including the Yellow, the Yangzi, the Mekong, the Irrawaddy and the Ganges — and their fertile deltas.

Flows from the glaciers that give the pole its name support roughly 1.3 billion people in China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — and the glaciers are melting fast.

Chinese authorities have opened up a remote research station on the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau and revealed alarming research on the pace of global warming.

We Just Lived Through The Hottest Month In Recorded History.
2016 is still on track for the hottest year ever.

Yes, it’s hot out there thanks to global warming.
NASA climate change:

http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2479/nasa-analysis-finds-july-2016-is-warmest-on-record

NASA reports that last month was the hottest July on record.
That follows the hottest June or record, hottest May, April,
March, February, and January. It’s almost like there is a pattern….
How hot was it last month? As the map above shows, parts of the Arctic and
Antarctic averaged as high as 7.7°C (13.9°F) above average.
No wonder we’ve seen records broken for the melting of the ice sheets and Arctic sea ice.
It was so hot that Dr. Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute
of Space Studies, tweeted out Monday, “July 2016 was absolutely the hottest month
since the instrumental records began.” He attached this chart:

Climate warming began 180 years ago
An international research project has found human-induced climate change is first detectable in the Arctic and tropical oceans around the 1830s, earlier than expected.
That's about half a century before the first comprehensive instrumental records began – and about the time Dickens began his novels depicting Victorian Britain's rush to industrialise.
The findings, published on Thursday in the journal Nature, were based on natural records of climate variation in the world's oceans and continents, including those found in corals, ice cores, tree rings and the changing chemistry of stalagmites in caves.
Helen McGregor, an ARC future fellow at the University of Wollongong and one of the paper's lead authors, said it was "quite a surprise" the international research teams of dozens of scientists had been able to detect a signal of climate change emerging in the tropical oceans and the Arctic from the 1830s.
"Nailing down the timing in different regions was something we hadn't expected to be able to do," Dr McGregor told Fairfax Media.
Interestingly, the change comes sooner to northern climes, with regions such as Australasia not experiencing a clear warming signal until the early 1900s (see chart).
Nerilie Abram, another of the lead authors and an associate professor at the Australian National University's Research School of Earth Sciences, said greenhouse gas levels rose from about 280 parts per million in the 1830s to about 295 ppm by the end of that century. They now exceed 400 ppm.
Understanding how humans were already altering the composition of the atmosphere through the 19th century means the warming is closer to the 1.5 to 2 degrees target agreed at last year's Paris climate summit than most people realise.
"We are only talking about a small effect during the 19th century because the increases in greenhouse gases were small compared to the very rapid changes that we see today," Dr Abram said.
"But when you combine that with the fact we're already frighteningly close to that 1.5 degrees target [compared with pre-industrial levels], then even adding a little bit extra human contribution makes a difference."

Bye bye trees. :(

Climate change could shrink habitat of 90pc of Australia's eucalypt species

It may be harder to spot a mountain ash in parts of Australia's mountains or some species of mallee trees in the outback within 60 years as climate change causes the range of many species of eucalypts to shrink or even disappear entirely, new research suggests.

The Paris climate agreement just passed a crucial threshold.
Just one more hurdle remains before the agreement can enter into force.

Last December, nearly 200 countries signed an agreement in Paris pledging to keep the world well below
2 degrees Celsius of warming in an effort to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
Now, that pledge looks closer than ever to becoming a reality.

On Wednesday morning, 31 countries officially ratified the Paris climate agreement,
pushing it over one of the required thresholds needed for the agreement to enter into force.

Sixty parties, representing 48 percent of the world’s emissions, have now officially joined.
For the Paris agreement to enter into force, at least 55 nations,
representing at least 55 percent of global emissions,
must formally ratify. That means that the agreement needs just
7 percent more greenhouse gas emissions before the agreement can enter into force.

Read more here

I hate to rain on your parade, but, all this wouldn’t mean a thing if Donald Trump wins the U.S Presidential election in Nov. He has already stated that he believes that climate change is a “hoax” and will do nothing to enforce the international agreements the U.S. has signed. He may even formally repudiate them.

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The Sydney Morning Herald:
The longest continuous reconstruction of the Earth's surface climate suggests that current greenhouse gas levels could commit the planet to as much ...
Click the following link to read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/todays-greenhouse-gas-levels-could-result-in-up-to-7-degrees-of-warming-20160926-grojp8.html



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Jord posted this over at BOINC Message boards,
So in case some of you don't read the BOINC Message boards,
Click the following link to read more:

Greenland's receding icecap to expose top-secret US nuclear project Iceworm

US nuclear Project Iceworm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm