Another Acceleration Effect for Global Warming

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This update from the Washington Post on a four-year study of the oceanic absorption of CO2 notes:

"The oceans, which have absorbed some excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for centuries, may be losing that ability, a new report says.

"Oceans are believed to absorb about one-quarter of human-related carbon emissions linked to global warming."

The study found that rising wind speeds (resulting from rising temperatures) are preventing the absorption of more carbon in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, and are in fact causing it to release some of the CO2 it has already absorbed.

"'This is serious. All climate models predict that this kind of 'feedback' will continue and intensify during this century,' lead author Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia said in a statement."

For those missing the point, "positive feedbacks" mean yet another force out there accelerating global warming at an even higher level than previously predicted. In other words, if you expect climate change to come quickly or slowly, you should move your timetables up a bit. Or possibly, if a number of positive feedbacks -- like a release of carbon from the oceans, methane from the Arctic permafrost and a meltdown of reflective icecaps -- combine, perhaps you should move them up considerably.

Seriously, if you have any plans for what to do when, say, Greenland melts down -- whether that results in just a 20-foot sea-level rise worldwide or a snap ice age in the Northern Hemisphere -- you might want to review those contingencies now. Because if matters progress quickly, you will want to have made your preparations long before circumstances overtop the levees.

Soc
Future Imperative