Nature Features
An ever warmer Adriatic now 'no longer knows winter'
By Hanns-Jochen Kaffsack Sep 12, 2007, 12:59 GMT
Rome - The Adriatic, vacation paradise for millions of seaside vacationers, threatened by climate change and environmental pollution to be transformed into 'a closed basin in which life is no longer possible,' say experts at Italy's first national conference on global warming.
The conference taking place Wednesday and Thursday in Rome is giving Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio an appropriate platform for his alarm call.
'Our sea no longer knows winter,' he says.
The Adriatic is heating up. While the Tyrrhenian Sea stretching from Italy's west coast to Sardinia is also getting warmer, a dramatic emergency signal is being transmitted from Italy's eastern side in the Adriatic, according to the studies out of Rome.
The arrival of tropical fish off the Apulian coast ('the heel') of Italy, plagues of jellyfish and so-called killer algae are the obvious signals of the change, which has intensified since 2003. In that year the winter temperature of the water lay in the normally cold Gulf of Trieste several degrees higher than usual.
The wind was no longer cooling the sea, and the north-south currents needed for water circulation and nutrient enrichment switched off.
Such currents however are 'the real motors on which all life in the Mediterranean depend,' says Silvio Greco, science director of the Italian sea research institute Icram. 'If such a conveyor of life energy is blocked as in 2003, this results in a short circuit in the entire Mediterranean.'
If the sea currents stop such as they did four years ago and this anomaly becomes the norm owing to climate change, then the sea's ability to breathe will be threatened.
A decrease in microalgae - the essential basis for the food chain in the water - will put sea life on a very unstable diet.
And as is so often in the ecosystem, something else is lying in wait behind the trend: 'Fewer nutrients in the sea and higher temperatures also mean that the sea can absorb less carbon dioxide,' says Greco.
This would further lead to an acceleration of the greenhouse effect that scientists believe triggered the problem in the first place.
What is there to do? The 100 experts gathered at the conference have the numbers and trends on the table, and the environment minister knows what for him is the wrong solution.
'It will now make no sense to squander public money for gigantic machines to circulate the Adriatic,' Scanio says, explaining that nature should regulate this.
People, he says, should support nature by making certain there are clean and nutrient-rich rivers and by keeping the 500 often poisonous 'immigrant' species to the sea in check.
The minister adds that above all 'sensible fishing' could contribute to a return of equilibrium in the Mediterranean.
'The Adriatic in agony, warmth is killing her,' said the Rome- based La Repubblica concerning the environmental threat.
If the Bora - the regional north-wind - is no longer able to cool the sea, 'we will urgently need a plan that counteracts this,' says Greco, stressing the need to find a remedy.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Total fake USA hate from another terror denier...Good job trying to stir the pot. I would gurantee your an american, Probaly just a good old Oil spinster with old information, and let me guess, its hotter and dryer where you live. Exactly, go up your dose of lexapro and find new sources besides Al Gore and Google...Tell Tonni hello for me and SP4.
No I'm not american - but you should be able to detect this as I'm not so ill-educated as to spell 'you're' as 'your'
Ok, Will...nothing intelligent to add, just attack the grammar...good job. Least it wasn't old news or Oil spin.
Jim, Will,Pete,Tonni, Whatever your name this week, Please tell us where your from...'“You’re” is always a contraction of “you are.” If you’ve written “you’re,” try substituting “you are.” If it doesn’t work, the word you want is “your.” Your writing will improve if you’re careful about this.'...Maybe you need to rethink your(your)grammer, seems like your wrong again.
Any half educated person knows that - hence my indication that 'your an American' is incorrect in an earlier post.
I truly believe your an american without a doubt. Just misguided.As you know Americans dont have all this haterade for everyone else, guess thats why the USA does the most charity spending.
Ah yes - like your 'charity' expenditure in Iraq ?
Yes, Soon Bush will be gone and we will be back to ignoring terrorists like you would like and then we will cycle back to another 911 and another war, Kinda like Global warming huh?...Oh yeah grammar error present.
Americans spend so much money on charity, that they can't afford apostrophes or spell checking.
19 Sep 07 - This chilling conclusion came from NASA scientist S. I. Rasool, a colleague of James Hansen's at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, after resorting in part to a new computer program developed by Mr. Hansen that studied clouds above Venus.
Oh. Wait. That article appeared in 1971.
'U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming,' blares the headline of the July 9, 1971, article, which cautions readers that the world 'could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts.'
The 1971 article, discovered this week by Washington resident John Lockwood while conducting related research at the Library of Congress, says that 'in the next 50 years' — or by 2021 — fossil-fuel dust injected by man into the atmosphere 'could screen out so much sunlight that the average temperature could drop by six degrees,' resulting in a buildup of 'new glaciers that could eventually cover huge areas.'
Today’s article, written by John McCaslin and published in the Washington Times, begins with the words, 'NASA scientist James E. Hansen, who has publicly criticized the Bush administration for dragging its feet on climate change and labeled skeptics of man-made global warming as distracting 'court jesters,' appears in a 1971 Washington Post article that warns of an impending ice age within 50 years.'
'If sustained over 'several years, five to 10,' or so Mr. Rasool estimated, 'such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.'
Which computer program should we believe?
The one that says that humans will cause an ice age
by injecting fossil-fuel dust into the sky?
Or the one that says that we’ll cause global warming
by injecting fossil-fuel dust into the sky?
Funny, isn't it, how both scenarios blame humans?
Which James Hansen face should we believe?
Or is it possible that humans aren't to blame after all?
If you do a little research into Global Dimming, you will find that the dust has indeed caused a decrease in the solar radiation reaching Earth - and the effect still exists, but much less than the rampant effect which would have occurred if the World had not begun cleaning up its pollution levels back in the 50s (anyone living in England at that time may recall the frequent 'Smog' which was caused by the particles in the atmosphere from coal burning, but which no longer exists because of these clean-up efforts.
If Global Dimming had progressed at such a rampant pace, then bringing the next Ice Age closer was a reasoable prediction at the time.
However, the Greenhouse Effect overtook this - which just demonstrates how effective even small amounts of CO2 are in retaining heat and warming Earth
Wow, Took you awhile to figure that out?...Unreal
WIMB:Inland temperatures today are expected to be 15 to 20 degrees below normal, Miguel Miller said. Records for the coolest highs and lows are possible.
In Riverside, the lowest high for Sept. 22 is 67 degrees, Miller said. Today's high temperature is predicted to be 72 degrees.
In Big Bear City, a low of 30 degrees is being predicted for Sunday, Miller said. The record low is 25 degrees for that date, he said.
Temperatures are expected to be 5 to 10 degrees below normal Sunday and be back to normal Monday, Miller said.
Several temperature records were broken Friday.
In Idyllwild, the low temperature of 33 degrees broke the record of 38 degrees from 1988. In Banning/Beaumont, the low of 44 degrees broke the record of 48 degrees from 1961.
For the second consecutive day in Palm Springs, the record for lowest high was set. Friday's high of 80 degrees broke the record of 82 degrees from 1988.
Ice Man's item about unusually cold weather is actually a strong sign that climate change is happening - models have long shown that as climate change progresses the fluctuations and extremes of weather will become wider and more rapid. A few days of very cold weather ranks alongside the unprecendented warmth in Europe (in Spring rather than Summer), the extreme rainfall in Africa, India, Far East, the flooding in Europe, Australia, the snow in South America, etc, etc.
Thanks Ice Man for further confirmation that the climate models are pretty good in their predictions
Global warming is real, It is in the bible, repent now while you can.
Global warming may be a problem in some areas, but there is great benefit in others. Look at the marvellous Porthemmet beach created in Cornwall by the effect of CO2 - a few years ago there was nothing there, now a paradise. Go to www.porthemmet.com and see the wonders of warming
page: 1
PeteSep 13th, 2007 - 15:27:12
I'm waiting for the anti-warmers to 'prove' this isn't happening with their usual mumbo-jumbo anti-science claims. But then I realised - most of them are americans, so with their complete lack of knowledge about the world outside america, they probably don't know where any of these locations are
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