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Hot topics Thursday 19 June 2008 RAPID ROUNDUP: Warming and rising of oceans (Nature) – experts react. Sea-level rise is predicted to be one of the major outcomes of climate change. The IPCC predicts that ‘thermal expansion’ will be the main component responsible for expected sea-level rises over the 21st century as sea water expands as it warms and shrinks as it cools. However until now, the actual change in sea level rise has been higher than any of the models had predicted it should be. A team of Australian scientists has now closed the gap on this discrepancy reporting in Nature that rapid warming of the upper ocean helps to explain these observed variations in sea-level rise. They report that ocean warming and thermal expansion trends from 1961 to 2003 are actually about 50 per cent larger than earlier estimates but are 40 per cent smaller for the decade from 1993 to 2003 due to previously recognised instrumental errors introducing bias during the 1990s. This corrected data produces far better agreement in the magnitude of the observed and simulated variability, resolving an issue which has been a long standing problem for climate scientists. The AusSMC has rounded up Australian experts to comment on this research. Feel free to use the comments below in your stories. If you would like to speak to an expert, or need a copy of the paper and press release, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 8207 7415 or by email.
Professor Gary Meyers is Director of the Integrated Marine Observing System at the University of Tasmania. “This paper is a landmark in our understanding of change in the global oceans over the last several decades. Using all of the historical data and different data-types and correcting their inherentproblems was a huge statistical challenge. The authors found a solution that is both pragmatic and elegant.” Professor Nathan Bindoff is a physical oceanographer and Director of the Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing (TPAC). Partners include the University of Tasmania, CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC. He was a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC AR4 Working Group 1 chapter on oceanic climate change and sea level observations (Chapter 5). “This paper resolves a long standing problem in fully understanding all of the contributions to sea-level rise. The contributions to sea-level rise just simply didn’t add up from the 1950 to the 1990’s. This has been a problem in the IPCC intergovernmental reports in 2001 and 2007. It could have been either a measurement problem of the contributions from the ice sheets, glaciers, or from the oceans, or the sea-level measurements themselves. This paper provides an explanation for this problem, and uncovers the fact the oceans have been absorbing more heat than we had previously understood. The absorption of heat by the oceans is still the biggest contributor to sea-level, and what is shown so beautifully in this paper is that we now have excellent agreement between the effect of natural forcing on sea-level by volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo and changes in the ocean contribution to sea-level. I find it remarkable, that the observations can now resolve the effects of volcanic eruptions and just increases our confidence in using these corrected data for understanding the climate change and its acceleration in the oceans. For example, this work feeds into issues around the rate of sea-level rise by 2100 and whether there will be decreases in the oceans capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.”
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ACID OCEANS WATER ISSUES SAFETY OF RECYCLED WATER GENETIC VARIATION LINKED TO TRANSSEXUALISM GENETIC VARIATION LINKED TO TRANSSEXUALISM CLIMATE: URGENT CHALLENGE 2008 PM's PRIZES FOR SCIENCE NEW CONCERNS OVER STEM CELL TOURISM NEW CONCERNS OVER STEM CELL TOURISM AUSTRALIAN FLU EXPERT, GRAEME LAVER, DIES IUCN RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES - EXPERTS RESPOND IUCN RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES - JANE GOODALL RESPONDS GARNAUT FINAL REPORT - EXPERTS REACT CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS STILL BOOMING - NEW DATA GOOD BACTERIA MAY PROTECT AGAINST DIABETES ECO-LABELS: A THREAT OR AN OPPORTUNITY? GIVING CHILDREN PARACETAMOL INCREASES ASTHMA RISK - LANCET GIVING CHILDREN PARACETAMOL INCREASES ASTHMA RISK - LANCET CHEMICALS IN PLASTICS LINKED TO CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE AND DIABETES NEW DISEASE THREATS TO AUSTRALIA LHC - WORLD'S BIGGEST EXPERIMENT TO RECREATE BIG BANG REVIEW OF AUSTRALIA'S INNOVATION SYSTEM GARNAUT SUPPLEMENTARY DRAFT REPORT MENTAL HEALTH OF TRUCK DRIVERS
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