NASA’s forecast for solar cycle 25 reveals it will be the weakest of the last 200 years.

The ‘Maunder Minimum’ is the name given to the period from 1645 to 1715 when the number of sunspots – ‘storms’ on the sun – became almost zero.

The period is named after the solar astronomer Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928), who was working at The Royal Observatory at Greenwich when he discovered the dearth of sunspots during this period.

During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum there were only about 50 sunspots compared with a more typical 40,000. Maunder was a driving force in the foundation of the British Astronomical Association and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The sun was well observed during the period of the Maunder Minimum and this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar inactivity corresponded to a climatic period called the ‘Little Ice Age’ when in Europe rivers that were normally ice-free, froze and snow fields remained at low altitudes throughout the year.

There is evidence the sun had similar periods of inactivity during the years 1100-1250 and 1460-1550. Sunspots generally follow a cycle of about 11 years, but cycles have varied from eight-15 years. The connection between solar activity and the earth’s climate is an area of ongoing and sometimes controversial research.

An approaching Grand Solar Minimum is gaining “support” including NASA  with their recent SC25 prediction — though they stay clear of the implications. NASA’s forecast for the next solar cycle (25) reveals it will be the weakest of the last 200 years.The maximum of this next cycle — measured in terms of sunspot number, a standard measure of solar activity level — could be 30 to 50% lower than the most recent one. The agency’s results show that the next cycle started in 2020 and reach its maximum in 2025. 

The new research was led by Irina Kitiashvili, a researcher with the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in California’s Silicon Valley. It combined observations from two NASA space missions – the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and the Solar Dynamics Observatory – with data collected since 1976 from the ground-based National Solar Observatory. One challenge for researchers working to predict the Sun’s activities is that scientists don’t yet completely understand the inner workings of our star. Plus, some factors that play out deep inside the Sun cannot be measured directly. They have to be estimated from measurements of related phenomena on the solar surface, like sunspots.

Time will tell whether the sun will once again go into another ‘Maunder Minimum’ within the lifetime of the present generation, but if this happens we’re likely to have a much colder climate for a few decades.

Full post

The post Solar Activity and the next Maunder Minimum appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum.

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April 20, 2021 at 09:46AM

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the Climate Crisis is upon us. My question – did anyone notice the crisis?

Climate change indicators and impacts worsened in 2020

Tags: ClimateClimate change19

Published 
19 April 2021
Press Release Number: 19042021

2020 was one of three warmest years on record, despite cooling La Niña

Extreme weather and COVID-19 combined in a double blow

New York/Geneva, 19 April 2021 (WMO) – Extreme weather combined with COVID-19 in a double blow for millions of people in 2020. However, the pandemic-related economic slowdown failed to put a brake on climate change drivers and accelerating impacts, according to a new report compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and an extensive network of partners.

The report on the State of the Global Climate 2020 documents indicators of the climate system, including greenhouse gas concentrations, increasing land and ocean temperatures, sea level rise, melting ice and glacier retreat and extreme weather. It also highlights impacts on socio-economic development, migration and displacement, food security and land and marine ecosystems.

2020 was one of the three warmest years on record, despite a cooling La Niña event. The global average temperature was about 1.2° Celsius above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level. The six years since 2015 have been the warmest on record. 2011-2020 was the warmest decade on record.

“It has been 28 years since the World Meteorological Organization issued the first state of the climate report in 1993, due to the concerns raised at that time about projected climate change. While understanding of the climate system and computing power have increased since then, the basic message remains the same and we now have 28 more years of data that show significant temperature increases over land and sea as well as other changes like sea level rise, melting of sea ice and glaciers and changes in precipitation patterns.  This underscores the robustness of climate science based on the physical laws governing the behaviour of the climate system,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.

“All key climate indicators and associated impact information provided in this report highlight relentless, continuing climate change, an increasing occurrence and intensification of extreme events, and severe losses and damage, affecting people, societies and economies. The negative trend in climate will continue for the coming decades independent of our success in mitigation. It is therefore important to invest in adaptation. One of the most powerful ways to adapt is to invest in early warning services and weather observing networks. Several less developed countries have major gaps in their observing systems and are lacking state of the art weather, climate and water services.” said Prof. Taalas.

Prof. Taalas joined United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in launching WMO’s flagship report at a press conference on 19 April. It comes ahead of the 22-23 April virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, convened by the United States of America. President Biden is seeking to galvanize efforts by the major economies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet the targets of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change to keep temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, and to 1.5°C if possible.

“This report shows that we have no time to waste.  The climate is changing, and the impacts are already too costly for people and the planet.  This is the year for action.  Countries need to commit to net zero emissions by 2050.  They need to submit, well ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, ambitious national climate plans that will collectively cut global emissions by 45 per cent compared to 2010 levels by 2030.  And they need to act now to protect people against the disastrous effects of climate change,” said the UN Secretary-General.

In 2020, COVID-19 added a new and unwelcome dimension to weather, climate and water-related hazards, with wide-ranging combined impacts on human health and well-being. Mobility restrictions, economic downturns and disruptions to the agricultural sector exacerbated the effects of extreme weather and climate events along the entire food supply chain, elevating levels of food insecurity and slowing the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The pandemic also disrupted weather observations and complicated disaster risk reduction efforts.

The report illustrates how climate change poses a risk to the achievement of many of the Sustainable Development Goals, through a cascading chain of interrelated events. These can contribute to reinforcing or worsening existing inequalities.  In addition, there is the potential for feedback loops which threaten to perpetuate the vicious cycle of climate change.

Information used in this report is sourced from a large number of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and associated institutions, as well as Regional Climate Centres. UN partners include the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO), International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization.

It updates a provisional version released in December 2020 and is accompanied by a story map on global climate indicators.

…

Read more: https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/climate-change-indicators-and-impacts-worsened-2020

This is it? Did anyone experience climate change so severe you now want to volunteer to pay more tax to fix it? Or is the World Meteorological Organisation claim that we are already experiencing an unaffordable expensive climate crisis overblown nonsense?

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April 20, 2021 at 08:28AM

If a couple of these babies should pop off, we could be looking at lots more melting ice.
_____________

“Scientists discover 91 volcanoes below Antarctic ice sheet,” read the headline in The Guardian on 12 Aug 2017.

This is in addition to the 47 subglacial volcanoes already known about in Antarctica, wrote Robin McKie.

This makes it the largest volcanic region on Earth, and it’s hidden 1.2 miles (2 km) below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica.

A project by Edinburgh University researchers revealed the 91 volcanoes – with the highest as tall as the Eiger, which stands at almost 4,000 meters (13,123 ft) in Switzerland.

Put another way, the highest of these newly discovered volcanoes stands more than two miles tall!

The tips of some of the volcanoes actually lie above the ice and have been spotted by polar explorers over the past century.

Geologists say this huge region is likely to dwarf that of east Africa’s volcanic ridge, currently rated as having the densest concentration of volcanoes in the world.

And the activity of this range could have worrying consequences, they warn. “If one of these volcanoes were to erupt it could further destabilise west Antarctica’s ice sheets,” said glacier expert Robert Bingham, one of the paper’s authors. “Anything that causes the melting of ice – which an eruption certainly would – is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.

But how many lie below the ice? Max Van Wyk de Vries, who was then an undergraduate at the university’s school of geosciences and a self-confessed volcano fanatic, set up the project with the help of Bingham. They analysed measurements made by previous surveys using ice-penetrating radar, then compared the results with satellite and database records and geological information from other aerial surveys. “Essentially, we were looking for evidence of volcanic cones sticking up into the ice,” Bingham said..

These newly discovered volcanoes are all covered in ice, which sometimes lies in layers that are more than 2.5 miles (4km) thick in the region. These active peaks are concentrated in the west Antarctic rift system, which stretches 3,500km from Antarctica’s Ross ice shelf to the Antarctic peninsula.

“We were amazed,” Bingham said. “We had not expected to find anything like that number…. We also suspect there are even more on the bed of the sea that lies under the Ross ice shelf, so that I think it is very likely this region will turn out to be the densest region of volcanoes in the world, greater even than east Africa, where mounts Nyiragongo, Kilimanjaro, Longonot and all the other active volcanoes are concentrated.”

The discovery is particularly important because if heat from these volcanoes should melt the ice, meltwater outflows into the Antarctic ocean could trigger sea level rises. “We just don’t know about how active these volcanoes have been in the past,” Bingham said. “That is something we need to determine as quickly as possible.”

My question is, if we don’t even know for sure how many volcanoes may be lurking beneath the ice even today, how do we know how much ice they (and not humans) may be melting? We love blaming humans for outcomes driven by strictly natural forces.

See entire article by Robin McKie:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/scientists-discover-91-volcanos-antarctica

The post At least 138 volcanoes buried beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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April 20, 2021 at 07:44AM

New research shows Greenland has been much warmer in the past, with many areas being ice-free.

Researchers just rediscovered and analyzed an ice core bored in the 1960s during the Cold War when a military base was developed there. Here’s what they found:

Deep ice … some 75 miles inland from the [present] coast and only 800 miles from the North Pole—entirely melted at least once within the last million years and was covered with vegetation, including moss and perhaps trees. The new research, supported by the National Science Foundation, lines up with data from two other ice cores from the center of Greenland, collected in 1990s. Sediment from the bottom of these cores also indicate that the ice sheet was gone for some time in the recent geologic past.

This research shows life thrived in Greenland wholly without any human influence, where now there exists only a frozen kingdom of ice. Although this particular study is new, its findings are hardly “discoveries.” Scientists have long known the globe has shifted between long glacial periods and short interglacial periods over the past million years. During previous interglacials, areas now under tons of ice were ice-free, coastlines were much farther inland, and seas were significantly higher, including in Greenland. Green ecosystems expanded and life thrived, only to be snuffed out across vast parts of the globe when the next ice age occurred.

“Our study shows that Greenland is much more sensitive to natural climate warming than we used to think—and we already know that humanity’s out-of-control warming of the planet hugely exceeds the natural rate” (emphasis added), one of the authors of the study told Science Daily.

“The new study provides strong evidence that Greenland is more sensitive to climate change than previously understood—and at risk of irreversibly melting,” Science Daily states.

In fact, this research shows nothing about “humanity’s out-of-control warming of the planet.” As Eric Utter writes in American Thinker, “Science Daily … drew exactly the wrong conclusions from the ‘stunning’ discovery. How can the fact that the ice sheet once melted away entirely, subsequently regenerated, and is still around today … be proof that it is at risk of irreversibly melting?!” (emphasis in original).

SOURCES: Science Daily; American Thinker

via The Heartland Institute

APRIL 8, 2021

https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-and-biotech-crops-are-the-keys-to-ending-hunger

Feeding the world’s hungry ranks among the greatest difficulties humankind has experienced throughout its history.

With the Earth’s population expected to top nine billion between 2050 and 2100 (before starting a rapid decline), this challenge will likely worsen in coming decades unless people embrace increases in carbon dioxide and genetic engineering of crops.

Far from being an impediment to continued human existence, rising levels of carbon dioxide are part of the solution to world hunger.

The fact is, most plant life arose when carbon dioxide levels were much higher than they are today. During the most recent ice age, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fell to dangerously low levels: just 180 parts per million (ppm). Plants begin to die when carbon dioxide is at or below 150 ppm, because at that point they are unable to use sunlight to photosynthesize food from carbon dioxide and water. After Earth emerged from the most recent ice age, carbon dioxide levels rebounded to approximately 280 ppm, still far below the levels existing when plant life began to colonize the land.

The addition of approximately 135 ppm of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by humans—through the burning of fossil fuels, slash-and-burn agriculture, and various other actions—has helped reduce hunger immeasurably.

Since the widespread development and use of fossil fuels, world poverty and hunger have declined rapidly. Despite the addition of 3.2 billion people to the planet since 1968, poverty and hunger have plummeted at a faster rate than at any other time in human history. Although 840 million people worldwide are still undernourished, the number of hungry people has declined by two billion since 1990, according to the United Nations. Research shows there is now 17 percent more food available per person than there was 30 years ago—all occurring during the period of purportedly dangerous climate change.

The reason is not hard to find. The rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased agricultural production per unit of land under cultivation by 70 percent for C3 cereals (such as rice, wheat, oats, cotton, and evergreen trees), 28 percent for C4 cereals (such as sorghum, maize, and various grasses), 33 percent for fruits and melons, 62 percent for legumes, 67 percent for root and tuber crops, and 51 percent for vegetables.

As explained in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, as carbon dioxide increases, plant fitness and flower pollination improve, plants develop more extensive root systems to extract greater amounts of nutrients from even poor-quality soil, plants use water more efficiently by reducing the number and openness of stomata through which they lose moisture during transpiration, and plants produce greater amounts of of natural substances that repel insects and fight off competing weeds.

Thousands of experiments and the work of agronomists, botanists, farmers, and greenhouse operators worldwide show both crop and non-crop plants do better at higher carbon dioxide levels.

Fossil fuels are integral to the kind of large-scale food production that has proven critical to feeding Earth’s growing population. Gasoline- and diesel-powered tractors are used for planting, fertilizing, and harvesting crops and transporting and caring for farm animals. Gasoline- and diesel-powered trucks deliver crops to warehouses, store shelves, food pantries, and emergency shelters. Fossil fuels power irrigation systems and maintain climate-controlled storage facilities and refrigeration systems to keep crops from rotting and being devoured by pests. In addition, fossil fuels are the foundation of modern chemical fertilizers and pesticides that improve and expedite crop growth and prevent loss to weeds, insects, and other pests.

However, fossil fuels and the foreseeable levels of carbon dioxide probably cannot by themselves eliminate hunger and feed the world’s growing population calorically sufficient and nutritious daily diets. This is where genetically modified crops (GMC) come in.

Feeding Earth’s growing population will require industrial agriculture on steroids, with large farms producing 300 percent more food by 2050 and 500 percent more by 2100. Even if all land were equally capable of being used as cropland (which it isn’t) and we could find massive new sources of fresh water for crop production, substantially expanding the amount of land under active cultivation would be a disaster for wildlife and native plants. The reason for this is the lands most likely to be converted to agriculture are forests, rangelands, and other wildlands.

The most efficient, effective, and environmentally friendly strategy for feeding greater numbers of people is to farm land currently under cultivation more intensively by applying the best technologies, including high inputs of pesticides and fertilizers and broader use of GMCs.

Over the past 20 years, I have written extensively on the virtues of using bioengineering to improve crop yields and nutrition, to improve crop pest resistance, and to enhance plants’ abilities to grow and use inputs such as water and minerals in the soil more efficiently in the face of extreme climate and weather conditions. Those who object to genetic engineering are either misinformed—ignorant of the overwhelming body of evidence and science that has repeatedly shown the technologies to be safe—or are misanthropes, people harboring ill-will toward humanity.

In a recent article, Indian researcher Vijay Jayaraj eloquently discusses how genetically engineered crops, arguably the most thoroughly vetted products ever to be developed, are essential for solving the hunger crisis that still persists:
With the advancement of genetic technology, scientists now can achieve even greater improvements, with higher precision, in less time [than through conventional crossbreeding]. Many [GMCs] are scientifically tested, approved by the world’s top medical agencies, and declared safe by hundreds of Nobel Prize–winning scientists.More than 100 independent, U.S., European, and international scientific societies have approved G.M. crops for their safety and recognize that they do not pose a risk to the environment or human health.According to scientists, the benefits of G.M. crops include increased yield; improved quality; and adaptability to specific abiotic and biotic stresses such as drought, pests, and disease, among others.A study that assessed the environmental effects of G.M. crops globally found that G.M. crop use reduced pesticide spraying by 352 million kilograms between 1996 and 2008. G.M. variants of rice, maize, wheat, cotton, canola, potatoes, aubergines (eggplant), squash, soya beans, papaya, and sugar beets have already been approved and commercially cultivated in more than 185 million hectares across the globe. People and wildlife around the world would benefit from the further development and wider use of GMCs. In addition, the greatest benefits would accrue to the poorest of the poor in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, those areas where abject penury, hunger, and malnourishment still reign supreme across a large percentage of their respective populations.

Climate change, whatever its causes and effects, is not causing nearly as much human suffering today and for the future as do hunger and malnourishment and the ills they bring in their train, such as premature infant mortality and stunted physical and mental development. This has been true since the end of the last ice age and is likely to remain so until the next ice age arrives
—    H. Sterling Burnett

SOURCES: Cornwall Alliance; National Center for Policy Analysis; Roanoke Times; Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change; Climate Realism

via The Heartland Institute

APRIL 8, 2021 By H. Sterling Burnett

https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-and-biotech-crops-are-the-keys-to-ending-hunger

It may be late-April, but spring 2021 is a no show across much of Europe.

The continent is suffering a climatic reality similar to that of the previous prolonged spell of reduced solar output: not since the Centennial Minimum (1880-1920) have Europeans suffered an April this cold and snowy.

England’s Coldest April since 1922

Despite the cherry-picking, the UHI-sidestepping, and the unrelenting propaganda, the British Isles simply won’t heat up — the UK’s agenda-shoveling Met Office has admitted as much themselves.

Recently, one of the Met Office’s key data sets revealed that the 2010s actually came out cooler than the 2000s — a fact that goes against ALL mainstream logic: we were told average temperatures would rise “linearly,” always up and up and up on an endless march to catastrophe if no poverty-inducing action was taken…

The Central England Temperature record (CET) measures the monthly mean surface air temperatures for the Midlands region of England. It is the longest series of monthly temperature observations in existence anywhere in the world, with data extending all the way back to the year 1659.

The CET’s mean reading for April, 2021 (to the 18th) is sitting at just 5.8C — that’s 1.5C below the 1961-1990 average (the current standard period of reference for climatological data used by the WMO–an historically cool era btw), and ranks as the coldest April since 1922, and the 18th coldest since records began 362 years ago.

Germany’s Chilliest since 1917

With a mean temperature just of 4.5C, Germany is faring even worse than England — it is on for second coldest April since records began in 1881, and its coldest since 1917, according to German DWD national weather service records.

The following chart shows Germany’s mean temperature anomalies (through the 17th) — it’s been anonymously cold across the entire country:

In addition, this is also turning out to be one of Germany’s snowiest Aprils on record. According to wetteronline.de, the month is coming out as the snowiest since 1986 (solar minimum of cycle 21).

More of the same into May

Looking ahead, more Arctic air looks set to spill unusually-far south–even as the calendar flips to May.

As per the latest GFS run, the final week of April will continue the trend of anomalous cold:

April 26:

April 28:

May 1:

The next 14-or-so days look incredibly snowy, too (by April standards).

As it stands, substantial snow is even forecast for the UK in May, with record-accumulations on the cards for Scandinavia and central Europe in particular:

The northern hemisphere’s climatic REALITY this “spring” is clearly jarring with the mainstream narrative that extreme cold and snow are things of the past. Instead, the setup is falling in line with the Grand Solar Minimum predictions of an ever-prolonging winter, and the subsequent failure of harvests.

With that in mind, April cold is ravaging North America, too; there, reports are coming in warning that a colder second half of April will slow germination in the western and northern Corn Belt.

According to agriculture.com, widespread colder-than-normal temperatures will remain across much of the Central U.S. and may continue into the final days of April 2021. And while drier weather will help to accelerate planting in the Corn Belt, germination will slow as colder-than-normal conditions prevail. In fact, snow showers cannot be ruled out at times in the northern or High Plains, and maybe even into the central Corn Belt.

As forecast by weathertrends360.com, the Corn Belt is on for both its driest AND coldest close to April in many decades:

I’ll close with one final note from meteorologist Joe Bastardi, courtesy of Twitter.

Bastardi points out that mainstream climate models “can always see warm, but have become almost useless at seeing cold” — I don’t think its any coincidence that it’s that way round.

The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING, in line with the great conjunction, historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow (among other forcings).

Both NOAA and NASA appear to agree, if you read between the lines, with NOAA saying we’re entering a ‘full-blown’ Grand Solar Minimum in the late-2020s, and NASA seeing this upcoming solar cycle (25) as “the weakest of the past 200 years”, with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.

Furthermore, we can’t ignore the slew of new scientific papers stating the immense impact The Beaufort Gyre could have on the Gulf Stream, and therefore the climate overall.

Prepare accordingly— learn the facts, relocate if need be, and grow your own.

Social Media channels are restricting Electroverse’s reach: Twitter are purging followers while Facebook are labeling posts as “false” and have slapped-on crippling page restrictions.

So, be sure to subscribe to receive new post notifications by email (the box is located in the sidebar >>> or scroll down if on mobile).

And/or become a Patron, by clicking here: patreon.com/join/electroverse.

The site receives ZERO funding, and never has. So any way you can, help us spread the message so others can survive and thrive in the coming times.

Grand Solar Minimum + Pole Shift

The post England’s Coldest April since 1922, Germany’s Chilliest since 1917 appeared first on Electroverse.

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APRIL 20, 2021 CAP ALLON

https://electroverse.net/englands-coldest-april-since-1922-germanys-chilliest-since-1917/

Apr 19, 2021

From the vantage point of space, NASA’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites joins with those of partner interagency and international agencies to investigate and illuminate connections between ecosystems that are continents apart, or right next door. With a global perspective, scientists can observe how factors like deforestation, climate change and disasters impact forests and other plant life – while also studying how changes in vegetation impact air quality, waterways and the climate. Vegetation is the primary energy source for nearly all life on Earth, so monitoring it and forecasting how it could be impacted by climate change is key.

In the Amazon, NASA Earth scientists monitor forests and bring these data into the hands of local decision-makers. NASA data provides information about the clearing of trees for agriculture and ranching as well as the impacts of drought on tree mortality. People cut down forests and then ignite the piles of trees and other vegetation, leading to wildfires, which can be detected by instruments including the thermal imager on the Suomi NPP satellite. In 2020, these sensors detected where 1.4 million fires took place. The fires generate smoke that can drift over the continent and be seen from space.

With instruments that collect images of Earth’s surface, researchers can also track the scale of those fires and forest clearings over the years, and even over decades. With the joint NASA/U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat mission, which launched its first satellite in 1972 and is scheduled to launch Landsat 9 in September 2021, scientists can track changing patterns of deforestation that tells them how Amazonian agricultural practices have changed, from small family holdings to massive ranching operations.

The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world, nearly as big as the continental United States. But every year, less of that forest is still standing. Today’s deforestation across the Amazon frontier is tractors and bulldozers clearing large swaths to make room for industrial-scale cattle ranching and crops. Landsat satellite data is used to map land cover in Brazil with a historical perspective, going back to 1984.Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterDownload this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio

Tracking Plant Health from Space

Satellites can detect how “green” an area is – showing the health of plants that are growing in a particular site. While fires, deforestation and drought lead to the tropical Amazon being less green, warming temperatures in the Arctic lead to tundra and boreal regions becoming greener. Using 87,000 Landsat images spanning nearly three decades, scientists found that a third of the land cover of Canada and Alaska looked different in 2012 as compared to 1985. With warmer temperatures, and longer growing seasons, shrubs become denser on grassy tundras, transforming what they looked like from space.

Since plants take up carbon dioxide from the air as they undergo photosynthesis to make food, it may seem that having a greener Arctic would a result in less of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, a recent study using satellite data and computer models found that any increased carbon uptake in the Arctic is offset by a decline in the tropics. There, warmer global temperatures have led to a drier atmosphere. That means less rainfall and more drought in places like the Amazon, which leads to a drop in tree growth and increases in tree mortality – and less carbon taken from the atmosphere. Soon, water availability could limit the amount of greening in the Arctic as well, the scientists found. As forests expand or are cut back, researchers use data from instruments including MODIS and satellites like Landsat to measure their extent and health.

A new suite of NASA instruments in space also measure the health of forests. The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation – or GEDI – instrument aboard the International Space Station uses lasers to measure the height of trees, allowing researchers to investigate how ecosystems are changing and how the carbon and water cycles are shifting in a warming climate. The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite 2, or ICESat-2, uses a similar technique to measure heights, and can reach higher latitudes to see changes in the Arctic biomes as well. And the Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station, or ECOSTRESS, measures the temperature of plants, to help determine their water consumption and health.

From Forests to Farms

While climate change impacts the growth and health of vegetation, naturally occurring weather patterns have an impact as well. Scientists with NASA Harvest are looking into the connections between El Niño/La Niña weather patterns, and the farming conditions and crop yields in eastern and southern Africa. During El Niño years, winds and currents in the equatorial Pacific Ocean cause water to pile up against South America, impacting weather patterns around the globe – even in Africa. Researchers found that southern Africa tends to have decreased crop yields during El Niño phases, while eastern Africa sees increased crop yields in those years – knowing these relationships can help farmers and policy makers prepare for a given season.

NASA satellites and science also help farmers in the United States monitor and track their crops. Having more information about rainfall, plant health and other data gives farmers information they use to deal with the extreme weather events that are increasing due to climate change, as well as shifting planting zones and other effects like early freezes and heavier spring rains. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates and tracks crop production using farmer surveys and ground observations, with a big-picture assist from Landsat data, NASA computer models and other Earth science resources. They also use MODIS instruments to monitor daily vegetation health – all to help determine what the crop yield will be, and which areas could be facing problems.

These same satellites can also help scientists track the unwanted products of some agricultural fields, including runoff that flows into waterways. Farms, forests, tundra – all these vegetated ecosystems connect to other spheres of our home planet.

---

By Kate Ramsayer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Last Updated: Apr 19, 2021

Editor: Kate Ramsayer

via Watts Up With That?

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April 20, 2021 at 04:27AM

There seems to be no end to the absurdities spread by the “Green” movement in concert with the media. Your patience with their scams may have let you ignore it. Nevertheless, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been well publicized as another of the great environmental tragedies of our time. They, including CNN, have said it is twice the size of Texas, and that the central Pacific Ocean is completely covered by garbage, mostly plastics. Few folks could ever see it in person, so it was easy to photoshop entire fake pictures on ther Internet. And they claim images of ocean debris such as that which existed following the tsunami off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, in 2011are actually of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

 Satellite photos of the area of the Pacific said to be full of garbage. It is not actually there.

 We are often confronted by hostile audiences that are completely taken in by this fraud because of the realistic but fake pictures. Some insist it is likely floating just beneath the surface so we can’t see it from a plane or satellite. But nearly all plastic either floats or sinks. Pieces of plastic do not each have buoyancy-compensation devices attached to them.

 A tremendous effort continues to make plastic a negative term. Similar to fossil fuels being called “dirty”, plastics are often referred to as “toxic”. Polystyrene and polypropylene are made from oil and polyethylene is made from natural gas. Polyvinylchloride (PVC) is made from natural gas and sodium chloride (table salt). So the war on plastic is actually a proxy for the war on fossil fuels.

 The anti-plastic movement has been very successful at portraying plastic as extremely negative from an environmental perspective. Damage to fish and birds is constantly shown as being at the hands of plastics, which is actually a rare occurrence. It is true that plastic can cause harm in the oceans, for example discarded fishnets continuing to catch fish and entangle other marine species. There is now a continuing international campaign to convince fisherman to bring their damaged nets back to the dock for recycling or disposal.

 The biggest misconception about plastics is that they leach toxic chemicals into the oceans and into marine life. There is a good reason why we keep our foods in plastic containers and wraps. It protects from contamination and spoilage as it is sterile and contains absolutely nothing toxic. Sadly, on a web site hosted by the Smithsonian Institute, the aforementioned lies are repeated, for which they should be ashamed. Greenpeace has been at the center of this disinformation campaign, which it has used for fund raising among the many lovers of ocean wildlife, who cannot see the truth for themselves.

 All birds swallow hard objects like pebbles to aid in the digestion of food in the gizzard. But there are no pebbles in the ocean. So albatrosses and other seabirds purposefully feed their chicks small hard particles, such as floating pumice, wood, and hard nuts, and nowadays bits of hard plastic, to help in their digestion. most of this is regurgited before they first take flight. But all birds must continue to ingest hard objects of the correct size throughout their lives.

 When the ingestion of plastic in seabirds was discovered in the 1960s, scientists at first thought it might cause harm. This led to a great deal of research that proved sharp plastic fragments do not harm the birds, do not give them a false sense of being full and do not prevent them from flying. Beyond this they have learned that plastic is a beneficial alternative to the naturally occurring hard indigestible objects that seabirds have been using for millions of years.

 Greenpeace has totally ignored all this research and doubled down on their description of a growing crisis. You can find this statement on their web site.

 “Our oceans are slowly turning into a plastic soup and the effects on ocean life are chilling. Big pieces of plastic are choking and entangling turtles and seabirds, and tiny pieces are clogging the stomachs of creatures who mistake it for food, from tiny zooplankton to whales. Plastic is now entering every level of the ocean chain and even ending up in the seafood on our plates.”

 You should not believe a single word they say.

Portions of the this article have been excerpted from the 2021 book FAKE INVISIBLE CATASTROPHES AND THREATS OF DOOM with permission of the author Patrick Moore. The book is highly recommended for up to date analysis of the most fraudulent environmental claims of our day.

via CFACT

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By Dr. Jay Lehr, Dr. Patrick Moore