-Enviromental Defense Foundation
Earth's water cycle has been pushed to its limit. The amount of water evaporating off the land and into the atmosphere hit a maximum 12 years ago and is now in decline, new calculations show.
Martin Jung of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, and colleagues calculated trends in evapotranspiration – the amount of water vapour that entered the atmosphere – between 1982 and 2008. This moisture is either evaporated off the land by the sun's heat or released by plants.
They found that evapotranspiration rose steadily until 1998, as would be expected in a warming global climate. But the trend reversed in 1998, and the amount of moisture being cycled into the atmosphere began to drop.
Team member Steven Running of the University of Montana in Missoula says that in some regions, rising temperatures have sucked all the available water out of the ground. Though that moisture returns to the ground as rain, most of it falls elsewhere, leaving dry regions like Australia parched.
- Water Cycle Goes Bust As The World Gets Warmer
-October 10, 2010
-Michael Marshall
Very interesting article was posted not too long ago on Physorg.com about a recent study about 'missing' heat energy. The study was led by NCAR's Kevin Trenberth.
Roughly half of the world's heat energy that has built up over recent years is unaccounted for, according to the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, and by NASA.
This 'missing' heat energy is likely building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system on earth that current observational tools such as satellite sensors and ocean floats are unable to track.
Excerpts from the Physorg.com article.....
Satellite instruments indicate that greenhouse gases are continuing to trap more solar energy, or heat, but scientists since 2003 have been unable to determine where much of that heat is going.
Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured, such as the deepest parts of the oceans. Compounding the problem, Earth's surface temperatures have largely leveled off in recent years. Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound effects on the planet.
Tracking the growing amount of heat on Earth is far more complicated than measuring temperatures at the planet's surface. The oceans absorb about 90 percent of the solar energy that is trapped by greenhouse gases. Additional amounts of heat go toward melting glaciers and sea ice, as well as warming the land and parts of the atmosphere. Only a tiny fraction warms the air at the planet's surface.
Until 2003, the measured heat increase was consistent with computer model expectations. But a new set of ocean monitors since then has shown a steady decrease in the rate of oceanic heating, even as the satellite-measured imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy continues to grow.
Some of the missing heat appears to be going into the observed melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as Arctic sea ice, the authors say. Some of the missing heat may be deep in the oceans.
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"Global warming at its heart is driven by an imbalance of energy: more solar energy is entering the atmosphere than leaving it," says NCAR scientist John Fasullo. "Our concern is that we aren't able to entirely monitor or understand the imbalance. This reveals a glaring hole in our ability to observe the build-up of heat in our climate system."
"The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later," says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the lead author. "The reprieve we've had from warming temperatures in the last few years will not continue.
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Heads Up!
http://global-warming.accuweather.com/
Roughly half of the world's heat energy that has built up over recent years is unaccounted for, according to the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, and by NASA.
This 'missing' heat energy is likely building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system on earth that current observational tools such as satellite sensors and ocean floats are unable to track.
Excerpts from the Physorg.com article.....
Satellite instruments indicate that greenhouse gases are continuing to trap more solar energy, or heat, but scientists since 2003 have been unable to determine where much of that heat is going.
Either the satellite observations are incorrect, says Trenberth, or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured, such as the deepest parts of the oceans. Compounding the problem, Earth's surface temperatures have largely leveled off in recent years. Yet melting glaciers and Arctic sea ice, along with rising sea levels, indicate that heat is continuing to have profound effects on the planet.
Tracking the growing amount of heat on Earth is far more complicated than measuring temperatures at the planet's surface. The oceans absorb about 90 percent of the solar energy that is trapped by greenhouse gases. Additional amounts of heat go toward melting glaciers and sea ice, as well as warming the land and parts of the atmosphere. Only a tiny fraction warms the air at the planet's surface.
Until 2003, the measured heat increase was consistent with computer model expectations. But a new set of ocean monitors since then has shown a steady decrease in the rate of oceanic heating, even as the satellite-measured imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy continues to grow.
Some of the missing heat appears to be going into the observed melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as Arctic sea ice, the authors say. Some of the missing heat may be deep in the oceans.
-------
"Global warming at its heart is driven by an imbalance of energy: more solar energy is entering the atmosphere than leaving it," says NCAR scientist John Fasullo. "Our concern is that we aren't able to entirely monitor or understand the imbalance. This reveals a glaring hole in our ability to observe the build-up of heat in our climate system."
"The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later," says NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the lead author. "The reprieve we've had from warming temperatures in the last few years will not continue.
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Heads Up!
