Geology News - Earth Science Current Events

Photo of the Gulkana Glacier by USGS

The United States Geological Survey has three glaciers that they are closely monitoring in an effort to understand hydrologic processes and climate change. These are the Gulkana and Wolverine Glaciers in Alaska and the South Cascade Glacier in Washington. At each of these glaciers, mass balance, runoff, temperature, ice thickness, weather and other data are being accumulated along with photographic documentation.

An example of one of the mass balance charts for the Gulkana Glacier is shown below. This chart clearly shows the seasonal changes in mass balance along with a steep decline indicating a wasting of this glacier in response to climate change.

You can learn more about these "Benchmark Glaciers" by visiting the USGS website.


Image by USGS

Labels: Glaciers, Global-Warming

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One of the best learning documents for global climate change is available at the Manchester Metropolitan University website. Their Global Climate Change Student Guide provides a comprehensive overview of this important subject. The contents of their guide consist of...

• Introduction
• Climate System
• Causes of Climate Change
• Empirical Study of Climate
• Climate Modeling
• Palaeoclimatic Change
• Contemporary Climate Change
• Epilogue

(From Chapter 1) The overall state of the of the global climate is determined by the balance of solar and terrestrial radiation budgets. How this energy balance is regulated depends upon the fluxes of energy, moisture, mass and momentum within global climate system, made up of its 5 components, the atmosphere, the oceans, the cryosphere, the biosphere and the geosphere.

Arguably there is a sixth component, an anthropogenic system, mankind. In the last 200 years, through increased utilization of the world's resources, humans have begun to influence the global climate system, primarily by increasing the Earth's natural greenhouse effect.

(From Chapter 6) If climate model projections prove to be even moderately accurate, global temperatures by the end of the next century will be higher than at any time during the last 120,000 years.... Failure to introduce some form of global greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy will merely extend the time frame of anthropogenic global warming that humanity may already be witnessing.

I believe that this document is worth the attention of anyone interested in learning more about global climate change. As shown in the quote above it addresses the many causes of global climate change and provides a projection for the future. Read the Global Climate Change Student Guide at the Manchester Metropolitan University website.

Labels: Global-Warming, Meteorology, Oceanography

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NASA Climate Change Animation - click image to view.

NASA reports that 2006 was the fifth warmest year on record and 2007 will likely be even warmer - possibly the warmest year in the history of instrumental measurements. Over the past 30 years Earth has warmed by about 0.6 degrees Centigrade or 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit.

NASA has documented this increase with an animation. The first and last frames of their climate change animation can be seen in the image at right. It shows the increase in annual mean temperature in one year increments between 1880 and 2006.

When watching the animation you will see that temperatures have warmed at nearly all locations worldwide and that the greatest temperature changes have occurred in very high latitudes. Since the largest changes have occurred in areas where there are very few people this suggests that the warming is not due to local effects of heat pollution by people, but is instead a global climate change. A graph of global-mean surface temperature change for the same time period is shown in the graph below.

"Climate Change" Graph - Image by NASA

Labels: Arctic-Antarctic, Global-Warming

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Image by lanl.gov

The warm weather experienced in the eastern United States early this winter had many people talking about climate change. Here is an interesting quote on that subject from the USGS website...

Let’s set the record straight! Record warm temperatures are being set in the eastern United States. The mild weather conditions for much of the country this winter have some pointing a finger at climate change. However, weather and climate are not the same. Weather is the state of the atmosphere (i.e. temperature, precipitation, wind) for a particular time and place. Climate is the average weather conditions for a place over a longer period of time.

The Earth's climate patterns are constantly changing. Anyone who has heard of "The Great Ice Age" knows that. And our climate has warmed enough within the past two decades that the National Arbor Day Foundation has updated their Hardiness zone map - shifting major portions of the US one zone warmer and some areas two zones.


Hardiness Map by arborday.org - (Creative Commons Image)
Although the warm temperatures of early winter in the east are really a result of the "weather", we are living in a time when the average global temperature is increasing - and that increase will cause major problems for society if it continues. It doesn't matter if the driving force of this increase is natural or human. The actions of people have kicked it up a notch mainly through their extensive use of fossil fuels.

Reducing our consumption of these fuels will make that resource last longer and reduce our impact of the global temperature rise. It's a no-brainer.

Labels: Global-Warming

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Report Cover

The Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research have published Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2007. This publication highlights recent and planned research conducted by a number of federal agencies. Summaries for each of the following categories (and others) are included:

• Atmospheric Composition
• Climate Variability and Change
• Global Water Cycle
• Land-Use and Land-Cover Change
• Global Carbon Cycle
• Ecosystems
• Observing and Monitoring the Climate System

This is a large .pdf document of over 200 pages. Copies of Our Changing Planet can be downloaded at the US Global Change Research Program website.

Labels: Global-Warming

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Glaciers of the Himalaya Mountain Range are an enormous reservoir of fresh water and their meltwater is an important resource for much of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Burma. A team of Indian scientists lead by Anil V. Kulkarni of the Indian Space Research Organization, studied surface area coverage for nearly 500 glaciers in the Chenab, Parabati, and Baspa basins using satellite data collected between 1962 and 2001.

They documented that most of these glaciers have retreated significantly. In 1962 a total of 2077 square kilometers was covered by glaciers and in 2001 that area was reduced to 1628 square kilometers. This represents a deglaciation of over twenty percent over a forty year period.


Landsat image showing glaciers of the Himalaya Mountain Range (light blue) and the sediment-choked and braided valley of the Brahmaputra River (purple) of Eastern India. High Resolution Image - 862KB
They also learned the the number of glaciers actually increased in this area. The increase in count was caused by fragmentation. Climate change was blamed for the decrease in sustainability for these Himalayan glaciers.

Read their full article: Glacial Retreat in Himalaya Using Indian Remote Sensing Satellite Data.

Labels: Glaciers, Global-Warming

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Map of the Oil Shale Basins in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.

The Bureau of Land Management issued leases for five oil shale research projects. These are the first federal oil shale leases issued in over thirty years. Increasing demand for energy and increasing oil prices have spurred a renewal of interest in oil shale.

Oil shale is a rock that is rich in an organic material known as kerogen. If it is heated in the absence of air the kerogen will yield liquid oil. The Green River Formation, which underlies large portions of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado contains the world’s largest oil shale resource. According to BLM this deposit could contain over 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil - more equivalent oil than the Middle East. However, this resource has not been developed because the cost of extracting oil from the shale has historically been too high.

Oil Shale - Image by US DOE.

Recent increases in oil prices and demand have spurred a renewed interest in oil shale research. These new BLM leases grant rights to develop the oil shale on 160-acre tracts for a period of ten years. The leases can be extended in time and expanded to up to 5000 acres if specific commercial production levels have been met.

There are two different approaches to extracting oil from the shale. One process involves mining the shale, crushing it and running it through a heat treatment process. The other heats the shale while it is still in the ground and produces the oil through wells. This in-situ conversion is currently favored by many industry experts. Challenges which accompany the development of an oil shale resource include: greenhouse gas emissions, mined land reclamation, disposal of spent shale, and water use.

An interesting article: The Cautious U.S. Boom in Oil Shale can be found at the New York Times website.

Labels: Fossil-Fuels, Global-Warming, Minerals

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NASA has produced an animated map that illustrates changes in global temperatures between meteorological years 1891 and 2006. This animated map is an .mp4 file that can be viewed using a QuickTime player. Each frame in the animation represents a one year increment of the ten year mean temperature anomaly. This animation begins with a historic ten year (1891-1900) mean meteorological year temperature anomaly map and ends with a recent (1997-2006) ten year mean meteorological year temperature anomaly map. The animation clearly illustrates a global warming trend over the time interval.


First Frame of the Global Warming Map Animation by NASA

Last Frame of the Global Warming Map Animation by NASA
You can view the animation or read details at the NASA website.

Labels: Global-Warming, Meteorology

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Images by USGS

Most of the evidence presented to document climate change is quantitative. However, sometimes visual evidence is more convincing or makes a more memorable impact. USGS scientists are creating a photographic documentation of climate change by repeat photography of glaciers in Glacier National Park.

Since 1997, project scientists have been rephotographing the Park's glaciers from the exact location that historic photos of the same glaciers were taken. So far over sixty repeat photographs have been taken of seventeen different glaciers. Thirteen of those glaciers show obvious signs of retreat and some of them are significantly smaller.

Documenting these glaciers properly now is important. In 1850 there were 150 named glaciers in this area and today only 26 of them are still present. Some researchers predict that all of the park's glaciers will melt away by 2030 - just 24 years from now.

Glaciers rephotographed as part of this project include: Agassiz, Boulder, Weasel Collar, Vulture, Shepard, Chaney, Swiftcurrent, Grinnell, Piegan, Sexton, Sperry, Blackfoot-Jackson and Grant.

USGS has created side-by-side historic/recent photo pairs for many of the repeat glacier photos and has them on display at the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center Website.

Labels: Glaciers, Global-Warming

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Map of the Arctic Ocean and North Pole. Image by CIA

The North Pole is often thought of as a place that is inaccessible - unless you have a submarine or the ability and courage to travel there over the ice. Satellite images taken last month from ESA's Envisat and EOS Aqua satellites show that the Arctic Ocean was clear enough of ice that a ship could sail from locations in northern Europe directly to the North Pole.

This adds to the accumulating evidence that the northern polar ice cover is shrinking as a result of global warming. There are many downsides to global warming but a tiny upside would be opening of The Northwest Passage, a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada and the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans along the northern margins of Europe and Asia.

Read the full article on Ice in the Arctic Ocean at Yahoo! News.

Labels: Arctic-Antarctic, Global-Warming, Oceanography

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Stories about global warming and melting glaciers are showing up in the news everywhere. There must be something to the idea of global warming if numerous investigators are observing glaciers are melting and in consistent retreat in countries worldwide.


Image composed by Geology.com using NASA Landsat data

Here is a sampling of story titles that have appeared over the past few years on the BBC website.

  Europe's glaciers in retreat - 6 Sep 2006
  'Major melt' for Alpine glaciers - 4 Apr 2006
  Earth - melting in the heat? - 7 Oct 2005
  Peru's glaciers in retreat - 25 Aug 2005
  Glaciers in Antarctic 'shrinking' - 21 Apr 2005
  Antarctic glaciers show retreat - 21 Apr 2005
  Himalayan glaciers 'melting fast' - 14 Mar 2005
  Greenland ice-melt 'speeding up' - 28 Jul 2004
  Patagonian ice in rapid retreat - 27 Apr 2004
  South American glaciers' big melt - 17 Oct 2003
  Melting glaciers threaten Peru - 9 Oct 2003
  Kazakhstan's glaciers 'melting fast' - 4 Sep 2003
  Antarctica's ice sheet melting naturally - 3 Jan 2003
  Bolivian glaciers shrinking fast - 10 Dec 2002
  Record ice loss in Arctic - 9 Dec 2002
  Photos show glacier's decline - 8 Aug 2002
  Antarctic ice fringe 'melting faster' - 13 Jun 2002
  Rapid Antarctic warming puzzle - 6 Sep 2001
  Warm-up in the Alps - 26 Aug 2001
  Alpinism: Then and now - 26 Aug 2001
  Kilimanjaro's white peak to disappear - 19 Feb 2001
  Antarctic ice sheet shrinks - 1 Feb 2001
  Earth enters the big thaw - 7 Mar 2000
  Antarctic ice crumbling rapidly - 8 Apr 1999
  The thawing of Alaska - 10 Nov 1998

Any of these stories and more can be found at the BBC website. Here is a link if you want to read any of these articles or check for yourself... "glaciers + retreat".

Labels: Arctic-Antarctic, Glaciers, Global-Warming

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Geological disposal of CO2.

Carbon dioxide is one of the driving forces behind global warming and has long been tied to fossil fuel production and use. Burning coal, oil and natural gas releases significant quantities of carbon dioxide. Drilling for natural gas can also bring up some carbon dioxide from subsurface reservoirs. This waste carbon dioxide is normally vented into the atmosphere.

However, a partial solution to the carbon dioxide problem is to pump the gas down wells and into the same reservoir rocks that yielded the fossil fuels. This is not a new idea. The oil industry has long pumped carbon dioxide into depleting reservoir rocks in an effort to drive the oil to a production well. This can't be done all of the time because the availability of carbon dioxide is not geographically matched with the secondary recovery of oil (see carbon dioxide flooding article at the Occidental Petroleum website).

In the North Sea, Statoil, Norway's largest petroleum company, has been injecting a million tons per year of carbon dioxide into subsurface formations. These efforts are done to save the company $53 million per year in Norwegian taxes on carbon dioxide emissions. For Statoil, disposing of carbon dioxide is a cost-saving response to an environmental protection tax (see article on carbon dioxide emissions buried at sea).

Researchers at Western Michigan University are working on ways to create an income stream by using the billions of cubic feet of porous rock beneath Michigan as a disposal site for waste carbon dioxide. They envision developing injection well fields that are supplied by pipelines full of waste carbon dioxide gas emitted by coal-fired power plants, ethanol plants, cement factories and other facilities (see their article on geological carbon sequestration).

If carbon dioxide emissions become stringently regulated then it is likely that companies will try to find ways to match the production of waste carbon dioxide and uses of that gas for economic gain. Secondary oil recovery could consume very large amounts of carbon dioxide. The gas is also used for methanol production, urea production, propellants, refrigerants and many other minor uses (see uses of carbon dioxide at the UIG website).

Labels: Global-Warming

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University of Alberta geologist Patrick Wu hypothesizes that glacial melting due to climate change could cause increased volcanic activity and earthquakes. His linkage between them is the reduction in pressure on land areas as the ice (which can be over 1 KM thick in areas of Greenland and Antarctica) melts, and an increase in pressure upon the sea floor as sea level rises.

Many geologists might doubt this relation, however, very broad areas will be exposed to these changes and locations teetering on the verge of eruption or release could be enabled. Alan Glazner of the University of North Carolina reports that he also sees linkages between climate change and volcanic activity. ""When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed."

Read the article "Climate change could cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions" at K-LightFM.com

Labels: Earthquakes, Global-Warming, Volcanoes

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Lloyd's of London has a new publication in their 360 Risk Project Series. One of the goals of this series is to stimulate debate on the growing threat of climate change and the threat to the built environment. Rolf Tolle, a Lloyd's director, says: "Although it’s almost two decades since the UN recognized that climate change was a catastrophic threat to earth, it’s clear that the insurance industry has not taken catastrophe trends seriously enough. As an industry we must work together to understand and manage these new risks, and to change our behaviour."

The publication focuses on several topics which include: greenhouse gases, sea temperatures, sea levels, land and air temperatures, rain and snow and unstable climate.


Publication Cover - Lloyd's of LondonRead more at Lloyd's Climate Change page.

Labels: Global-Warming

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The Earth Institute at Columbia University has published an interesting study that relates sea level rise to population density and economics. Their study focused on low elevation coastal zones (LECZ) - areas that are less than 10 meters above sea level. Their more interesting findings include:

• approximately 10% of world population lives within LECZ
• some of the least developed countries have a very high percentage of their populations living within LECZ
• approximately 13% of world urban population lives within LECZ

. The information provided in this study should be of increasing interest as world awareness of tsunami, hurricane and other coastal hazards increases.

A more detailed summary and link to the full report can be found at the Earth Institute Website.

Labels: Global-Warming

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Three news releases from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and MIT provide information that supports the idea that global warming will produce more powerful hurricanes - both in number and in storm strength.

• Hurricanes are getting stronger - NCAR
• Hurricanes growing fiercer with global warming - MIT
• Hurricanes to intensify as Earth warms - NCAR

Images from NASA

Labels: Global-Warming, Hurricanes

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A very good summary of the Global Warming Tipping Point can be read at TheDailyJournal.com. This concept is causing concern for many scientists. They agree that human activity is contributing to global warming and that if nothing is done to curb the contribution of people to the warming process soon then it will have progressed beyond the point of reversing the trend.

Read more about the Global Warming Tipping Point at TheDailyJournal.com.

Labels: Global-Warming

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NASA has posted an extensive series of graphs and maps that illustrate the time trend and geographic extent of global warming. Tabular data are also available for those who want to do their own analysis. The information and summaries at the NASA site make interesting reading and could be used in a variety of educational and research projects.


Images by NASAView the Global Warming Graph and Map Resources at NASA.

Labels: Global-Warming

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CBC News Online has posted an interesting feature and interactives on the topic of global warming and Arctic climate change. The site is rich with photos, audio, video and slideshows. Topics include: ice breakup, fewer gulls, warmer lakes, bio-invaders, ice melt, polar bears, warmer winters, permafrost, boreal, beetles invade, forest fires, tree ring records, carbon trap, sea rise and more.

Screenshot from CBC NewsLearn more about Arctic Climate Change at the CBC website.

Labels: Arctic-Antarctic, Global-Warming

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The United Nations Environment Programme has released "One Planet Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment". This atlas documents, through the use of 80 spectacular satellite image pairs, 30 case studies and numerous maps, how our planet is changing, mainly in result to the pressures of humans on the environment. A pdf copy and other information can be viewed on the web at the United Nations Environmental Programme Website.

Labels: Global-Warming, Satellite-Images

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