Study: ‘Apples losing their crunch to global warming’ — But ‘consumers might not perceive these subtle changes’
Apples losing their crunch to global warming – FRANCE 24
http://www.france24.com/en/20130815-apples-losing-crunch-global-warming
15 AUGUST 2013 – 16H10
Apples losing their crunch to global warming
A red apple lies among green ones at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in January. Global warming is causing apples to lose some of their crunch but is also making them sweeter, a study said Thursday.
AFP – Global warming is causing apples to lose some of their crunch but is also making them sweeter, a study said Thursday.
Analysing data gathered from 1970 to 2010 at two orchards in Japan, a research team said there was clear evidence that climate change was having an effect on apple taste and texture.
“All such changes may have resulted from earlier blooming and higher temperatures” during the growth season, they wrote in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
About 60 million tonnes of apples are produced every year, making it the world’s third most popular fruit.
Previous studies had shown that global warming was causing apple trees to flower earlier, and that harvests were also affected by changes in rainfall and air temperature.
The orchards used in the study produce the Fuji and Tsugaru apples, the two most popular kinds in the world.
The farms are located in Japan’s Nagano and Aomori prefectures, which had seen a mean air temperature rise of 0.31 and 0.34 degrees Celsius (0.5 and 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit), respectively, per decade. The orchards were chosen because there had been no changes in cultivars or management practices for extended periods, thus ruling out non-climate factors like technological improvements in the apple change.
The data collected over the years included measures of acid and sugar concentration, fruit firmness and watercore — a disease that causes water-soaked areas in the flesh of an apple.
The analysis showed a decrease in acidity, firmness and watercore, but a rise in sugar concentration over time.
“We think that a sweeter apple is a positive thing and a loss of firmness is a negative thing,” study co-author Toshihiko Sugiura of the National Institute of Fruit Tree Science in Fujimoto told AFP.
“We think most people like sweet and firm apple fruits, although everyone has his own taste. A soft apple is called ‘Boke’ in Japanese which means a dull or senile fruit.”
The study said that the results “suggest that the taste and textural attributes of apples in the market are undergoing …
Obama Says Hurricanes Are Getting More Deadly — Reality Check: ’23 of the 25 deadliest US hurricanes since 1850 occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM. 94% of the deaths occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM. 92% of these deaths occurred before Obama was born’
Via Real Science: Obama Says Hurricanes Are Getting More Deadly
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/obama-says-hurricanes-are-getting-more-deadly
Twenty-three of the twenty-five deadliest US hurricanes since 1850 occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM. 94% of the deaths occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM. 92% of these deaths occurred before Obama was born. Deadliest U.S. Hurricanes of All Time | Weather Underground…
New peer-reviewed paper: ‘Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation’ — ‘Evidence from Greenland ice cores shows that year-to-year temperature variability was probably higher in some past cold periods’
Uh oh: New peer-reviewed paper: “Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.”
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2013/08/uh-oh-new-peer-reviewed-paper-findings.html
No increase in global temperature variability despite changing regional patterns : Nature : Nature Publishing GroupEvidence from Greenland ice cores shows that year-to-year temperature variability was probably higher in some past cold periods…Many climate models predict that total variability will ultimately decrease under high greenhouse gas concentrations, possibly associated with reductions in sea-ice cover. Our findings contradict the view that a warming world will automatically be one of more overall climatic variation.
Sent by gReader Pro…
Report: EPA chief Lisa Jackson illegally contacted lobbyist from private email
EPA chief Lisa Jackson illegally contacted lobbyist from private email
The Washington Free Beacon reports: Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson used her private email to conduct official business, including with a lobbyist, in a possible violation of federal record laws. The emails were part of the latest batch of documents released through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the […]
Sent by gReader Pro…
New review paper finds climate sensitivity to CO2 is miniscule
New review paper finds climate sensitivity to CO2 is miniscule
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-review-paper-finds-climate.html
A new review paper from SPPI and CO2 Science finds on the basis of observations that the response of the climate to radiative forcing from clouds indicates that the “concomitant 20-year change in radiative forcing due to CO2 alone would have had to have been truly miniscule, which suggests that all of the angst manifest by climate alarmists over anthropogenic CO2 emissions may be wholly misplaced” and “it would appear that earth’s climate is much less responsive to changes in radiative forcing than the world’s climate alarmists and most climate modelers claim it to be.”
For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.
[Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version]
Excerpts:
Understanding how clouds respond to anthropogenic-induced perturbations of our planet’s atmosphere is of paramount importance in determining the impact of the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content on global climate; for as Charlson et al. (2001) have noted, “man-made aerosols have a strong influence on cloud albedo, with a global mean forcing estimated to be of the same order (but opposite in sign) as that of greenhouse gases.” And because of the great importance of this complex subject, this summary presents a brief review of a number of scientific papers that address various aspects of this crucial issue.
he estimated cooling power of these aerosols -which they said was generally believed to be equivalent to the strength of the warming effect of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases – may actually be too conservative.
Although real-world studies thus continue to elucidate the workings of the planet’s complex climate system and improve our understanding of it, there continue to be major problems with computer models that attempt to mimic it.
Because the net global effect of cloud is cooling, any widespread increase in the amount of overcast days could reduce air temperature globally, while local overcast conditions could do so locally.
Finally, Palle et al. note that the increase in radiative forcing produced by the concentration increases experienced by all greenhouse gases since 1850 was something on the order of only 2.5 Wm-2. Compared to the increase in radiative forcing that may have been experiencedbetween 1985 and 2005 as a result of observed changes in total cloud amount and the fractions of clouds located at different elevations (~11 Wm-2, according to the data and analyses of Palle …
Current Wisdom: Even More Low Climate Sensitivity Estimates: The federal government is ‘ignoring all the new science indicating less expected future warming when calculating future damages, and inexplicably doubling the damages estimated to be caused by a given increment of carbon dioxide (a.k.a., social cost of carbon)’
Current Wisdom: Even More Low Climate Sensitivity Estimates
http://www.cato.org/blog/current-wisdom-even-more-low-climate-sensitivity-estimates
Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger
The Current Wisdom is a series of monthly articles in which Patrick J. Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science, reviews interesting items on global warming in the scientific literature that may not have received the media attention that they deserved, or have been misinterpreted in the popular press.
Our periodic compilations of low equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) estimates have become a big hit.
In our on-going effort to keep up with the science, today we update our previous summary with two additional recently published lower-than-IPCC climate sensitivity estimates—one made by Troy Masters and another by Alexander Otto and colleagues (including several co-authors not typically associated with global warming in moderation, or “lukewarming”). There is also a third paper currently in the peer-review process.
The new additions yield a total of at least 16 experiments published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature beginning in 2011 that have found that the most likely value of the ECS to be well below the (previously?) “mainstream” estimate from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since the negative impacts from global warming/climate change scale with the magnitude of the temperature rise, lower projections of future warming should lead to lower projections of future damages. We say “should” because one way around this, as the federal government has figured out, is to ignore all the new science indicating less expected future warming when calculating future damages, and inexplicably doubling the damages estimated to be caused by a given increment of carbon dioxide (a.k.a., social cost of carbon).
Here is a quick summary of the two new papers:
Examining the output of climate models run under increases in human emissions of greenhouse gas and aerosols, Troy Masters noted a robust relationship between the modeled rate of heat uptake in the global oceans and the modeled climate sensitivity. With this relationship in hand, he then turned to the observations to determine what the observed rate of oceanic heat uptake has been during the past 50 years or so. From the observed behavior, he was able to determine the climate sensitivity, and found it to be substantially less than that in the vast majority of the climate models. He found that the most likely value of the ECS from the observations was 1.98°C with a 90 percent …
End Times! UK Guardian: ‘Are you ready to embrace the apocalypse?’ — ‘Facing up to the slow collapse of our planet is hard, but thinking apocalyptically could help us prepare for the crises to come’
Are you ready to embrace the apocalypse? | Hal Niedzviecki | Comment is free | theguardian.com
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/15/embrace-apocalypse?CMP=twt_gu…
New paper finds Greenland melt ‘strongly influenced’ by natural geothermal heating
New paper finds Greenland melt ‘strongly influenced’ by natural geothermal heating
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-paper-finds-greenland-melt-strongly.html
Greenland ice sheet IS melting but much of the heating is coming from INSIDE the earth
Study suggests melting in an area is due to composition of Earth’s mantle
The IceGeoHeat team claims they produced more accurate forecasts by adding their new findings to earlier models on climate change
By ELLIE ZOLFAGHARIFARD The Daily Mail
PUBLISHED: 08:04 EST, 12 August 2013 | UPDATED: 08:25 EST, 12 August 2013
Ice in Greenland is melting partly because of heat from the Earth’s mantle, according to a team of international researchers.
The group claims that they are the first to find a connection between melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the high heat flow from the Earth’s mantle.
The findings, they suggest, could have implications for future predictions on climate change and the reasons behind ice melt in the region.
The Greenland ice sheet is often considered an important contributor to future global sea-level rise over the next century or longer.
In total, it contains an amount of ice that would lead to a rise of global sea level by more than seven metres, if completely melted.
The ice loss from the ice sheet has been increasing over the last decade, with half of it attributed to changes in surface conditions with the remainder due to increased iceberg calving – the process by which ice detaches from the glacier to become an iceberg.
The international research initiative IceGeoHeat, led by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, said that the effect of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle in current climate modelling are too simplistic.
They modelled the Earth’s mantle against the ice sheet and found that melting occurs in a given area due to the composition of the mantle underneath it.
Writing in the current online issue of Nature Geoscience, the group argues that this effect cannot be neglected when putting together data on climate change.
The Greenland ice sheet loses about 227 gigatonnes of ice per year and contributes about 0.7 millimeters to the currently observed mean sea level change of about 3 mm per year.
The team point out, however, that existing model calculations were based on a consideration of the ice cap.
GFZ scientists Alexey Petrunin and Irina Rogozhina have now combined earlier ice and climate models with their new thermo-mechanical model for the Greenland lithosphere. …