Bogs may have helped global warming

UCLA study suggests gases aided greenhouse effect, facilitated glacier melting at end of ice age

A new UCLA study suggests the rapid growth of a huge northern bog complex may have helped activate global warming around the time of the ice age. The study may provide insight into current concerns about the impact of global warming on the planet.

Peat bogs, which are masses of organic matter such as leaves and plants, cause plant material to decay without oxygen, and as a result release methane gas into the atmosphere. Peat bogs also play a role in the exchange of carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas.

The findings not only dispel previous assumptions of bogs, but also reveal the environment's potential to change drastically over a short period of time.

Blue Glacier on Mount Olympus used to gauge global warming

OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK -- Blue Glacier is a study in trickle-down ecology -- with a warning that soon there may be nothing left to trickle.

The ancient ice mass on the north side of Mount Olympus is flowing faster as melted water than it is growing in ice.

It's a classic example of global warming, say glacier experts from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington.

Was surprise snowstorm caused by global warming?

This snowstorm caused a lot of grief. Lost lives. Flooded basements. Countless trees destroyed. The trees still had their leaves, and the weight of as much as 2 feet of wet snow caused giant branches to come crashing down. Call it the "October Surprise" or "Our Katrina," it was pretty bad - a storm we won't ever forget.

Climate change to hit Australian wine industry

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Global warming will force changes to Australia's A$4.8 billion (1.9 billion pound) wine export industry, threatening the very existence of some varieties as temperatures rise, a scientist said on Monday.

With Australia in the grip of its worst recorded drought and heading into a searing summer, the country's biggest science organisation, the CSIRO, said wine growers needed to re-think plans to cope with climate change or face possible ruin.

"With earlier harvest in a warmer climate, the temperature of the ripening period in some regions will become too warm to produce balanced wines from some or maybe all grape varieties growing there now," lead researcher Leanne Webb told Reuters.

Global warming study predicts wild ride

WASHINGTON - The world — especially the Western United States, the Mediterranean region and Brazil — will likely suffer more extended droughts, heavy rainfalls and longer heat waves over the next century because of global warming, a new study forecasts.

But the prediction of a future of nasty extreme weather also includes fewer freezes and a longer growing season.

In a preview of a major international multiyear report on climate change that comes out next year, a study out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research details what nine of the world's top computer models predict for the lurching of climate at its most extreme.

"It's going to be a wild ride, especially for specific regions," said study lead author Claudia Tebaldi, a scientist at the federally funded academic research center.

Tebaldi pointed to the Western U.S., Mediterranean nations and Brazil as "hot spots" that will get extremes at their worst, according to the computer models.

Scientists: Ozone hole size sets record

AP Photo: This image provided by NASA was compiled by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura...

WASHINGTON - This year's Antarctic ozone hole is the biggest ever, government scientists said Thursday. The so-called hole is a region where there is severe depletion of the layer of ozone — a form of oxygen — in the upper atmosphere that protects life on Earth by blocking the sun's ultraviolet rays.

Scientists say human-produced gases such as bromine and chlorine damage the layer, causing the hole. That's why many compounds such as spray-can propellants have been banned in recent years.

"From Sept. 21 to 30, the average area of the ozone hole was the largest ever observed, at 10.6 million square miles," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. That's larger than the area of North America.

Antarctic ice collapse tied to greenhouse gases

OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists said on Monday that they had found the first direct evidence linking the collapse of an ice shelf in Antarctica to global warming widely blamed on human activities.

gases, had warmed the Antarctic peninsula jutting up toward South America and contributed to the break-up of the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002, they said.

"This is the first time that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly linking the break-up of the Larsen Ice Shelf to human activity," said Gareth Marshall, lead author of the study at the British Antarctic Survey.

The chunk that collapsed into the Weddell Sea in 2002 was 3,250 sq kms (1,255 sq miles), bigger than Luxembourg or the U.S. state of Rhode Island.

Warming, melting Arctic forces native Alaskan village to move

SHISHMAREF, United States (AFP) - The Inupiaq of Shishmaref have lived in this island village for generations, but with the waters rising all around and ever fierce storms blasting the settlement, they are being forced to move far away from the seas they have always depended upon.

The Alaskan village's plight is a stark example of the dramatic effects of global warming as it challenges an entire community's way of life.

Winds sweep across the island from the broad, endless waters of the Chukchi sea, north of the Bering Strait and just 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Russia.

Battering waves have destroyed boats, fish reserves and storage buildings once well away from the water's threat, said an official overseeing the village's move. A house collapsed and about 20 households had to move away from the shore.

Alaskan storm cracks iceberg in Antarctica: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bad storm in Alaska last October generated an ocean swell that broke apart a giant iceberg near Antarctica six days later, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

The waves traveled 8,300 miles to destroy the iceberg, said Douglas MacAyeal of the University of Chicago and Emile Okal at Northwestern University.

Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, they said their study shows how weather in one region can affect events far away.

"One of the things we're debating in the world right now is whether global warming might increase the storminess in the oceans," MacAyeal said in a statement.