Climate change can be likened in its destructive scale to the effects of using weapons of mass destruction, according to Britain's leading scientist.

Lord May of Oxford, the president of the Royal Society, will say that the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina is an example of the sort of extreme weather event that climate change can trigger.

The impacts of climate change are many and serious, he contends. They include rising sea levels, changes in the availability of drinking water, and an increase in the risk of extreme weather such as floods, droughts and hurricanes.

The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) is dedicated to studying ice cores taken from the ice pack of Antarctica. By taking core samples from the pack and measuring the makeup of the ice cores, EPICA researchers can see what the atmoshphere was like when the ice formed, compare it to other samples and determine patterns of envorinmental change over hundreds of thousands of years.

Currently the EPICA project has drilled nearly 3.3 km into the Antartic ice, which is roughly equal to 900,000 years of atospheric historical data. Teh scientis now say that after researching the cores back to 650,000 years, the have determined that today's atmospheric levels of Carbon Dioxide and Methane are the highest they have been in that time span. Additonally, they have determined that the rate of increase for Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is 200 times faster than any other time in the 650,000 year data record.

The Amazon Basin has long been considered a huge ally in the fight against global warming due to in enourmous capicity to soak up carbon dioxide through its rainforest vegetation. This scenario is rapidly changing due to the warming sea water of the North Atlantic sucking moisture away from the equatorial regions of South America. The ensuing drought has dramitacally affected the regions ability to filter CO2 from the atmosphere by stunting vegatation growth by as much as 25%.

This is bad news for the global outlook if the pattern continues. As the drought continues, the Amazon Basin may turn from a leading carbon consumer, to a carbon producer. The additional carbon in the atmosphere would add to global warming trends, heating the North Atlantic even more, and prolonging the drought.

Additionally, as the region becomes drier, it becomes more susceptible to fire, which belches more carbon in to the atmosphere - fueling the cycle.

The causes are global in scale, as well as the implications.

Arctic sea ice usually reaches it's minimum level in mid to late September. This minimum is measured by NASA and converted to imagery to show the actual level superimposed on the globe. 2005's data show the greatest loss of sea ice in the recorded sattelite history. NASA has calculated that the overall sea ice loss since 1979 is approximately 8.5% per decade.

We always look forward to this time of year because we created an interactive Polar Ice Cap Melter in 2002 that we update with new data every year. The Polar Ice Cap Melter shows the difference in the minimum arctic sea ice from 1979 through to the latest measurements taken this year.

Two Duke University Physicists have reported that at least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output, rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxide gas released by various human activities.

The physicists, Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West - both of Duke University, claim that their findings indicate that climate models of global warming need to be need to be adjusted for changes in solar activity and its effect on the global climate. Their theory is complimentary to current Climate Change theories, and both emphasized that their conclusions are not meant to compete against the mainstream theory that significant global warming is occurring because of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gas emissions.

This ESA article compiles imagery of Hurricane Rita from many different sources so you can see inside and unederneath the hurricane. Imagery depicts the roughness of surface water under the hurricane, allowing scientist to determine wave heights and wind speed at the water surface.

This week's Time Magazine cover story is the linking the ferocity of this year's Hurricane season to global warming caused by human interaction, asking the Question: Are we making HURRICANES worse? While National Geographic has been reportin on this for years, I am hoping that this subject is now going mainstream and will actually become a topic of discussion that will lead to forming a plan and taking action to change the direction that our society is so quickly heading.

'Imagine the Unthinkable' is the first line of this climate report funded by the Pentagon. "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security" spells out how sudden climate changes pose more of a threat to National and World Security than any Terrorist could. This 22 page document warns of the destabilizing effects of gradual climate change, how it could lead to abrupt climate changes and concludes that if we are not prepared, the people of Earth will face a "significant drop in the human carrying capacity" of the planetary environment.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. It's a great read, but beware of the sleepless night to come!

Download the PDF

This article discusses a press release of the Australian Medical Association that describes the connection between climate change and the southward spreading of Australia's 'Dengue Zone'. Dengue fever comes in two forms - Dengue (DF) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). Both are erelatives of the Ebola virus and both are transmitted by mosquitos.

The report describes the direct correlation of heat related illnesses and the level of greenhouse gas pollutants in Australia - and suggests courses of action to delay or halt the outcome of a "do-nothing" scenario. You can download the full report (45 pages) here.

The growing power and frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico can be directly linked to warmer sea surface temperatures created by global warming according to Sir John Lawton, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. With Hurricane Rita approaching the coast of Texas and Hurricane Katrina still very fresh in the world memory, Sir John spoke out against the Bush administration's stance that global warming is not an issue stating, "If what looks like is going to be a horrible mess causes the extreme sceptics about climate change in the US to reconsider their opinion, that would be an extremely valuable outcome"

As a child growing up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, I was trapped on Ten Pound Island in the middle of Gloucester Harbor during a violent Summer Squall. I remember begging God to help me get my boat started before the Storm came, buy to no avail. I helplessly sat and waitied as the storm raged over and off of the mainland and across the Harbor, darkening the sky and relighting it with crackling lighting that shot sideways. The thunder was so loud that I could feel the sound thumping through my entire body, and the rain fell in heavy drops soaking me to the bone almost instantly. I had to ride out the storm on Ten Pound Island with no shelter from the elements, totally exposed to the awesome power an entity I had not yet discovered.

Needless to say, I was very wet and very scared by the time that I had rowed my 13' Boston Whaler to the mainland of Rocky Neck. It was only about 400 yards from shore to shore, but the distance was completely unpassable during the storm. That day, I learned a very important lesson that would stick with me for the rest of my life - never underestimate the weather, and always be prepared.

As I have grown older, my interest in the weather has grown exponentially. The town that I grew up in was at the center of the Perfect Storm story. Until the book 'The Perfect Storm' came out, the storm was referred to as 'the day the tide never went out' by my parents. Indeed the tide never did go out that day, in an area where the difference between high tide and low tide can range as high as 13 feet during extreme tidal cycles.

Reading The Perfect Storm got me into researching weather and climate on the internet, and actually motivated me to find the National Data Bouy Center Online. There, I could see the actual readings from the buoy nearest the Andrea Gail before it disappeared (both the boat and the buoy). It's one thing to read the information in a book, but it's another to see the information officially published for all to see in the name of science.

Soon enough I found myself meandering through the mountains of data that our government gathers regarding climate and weather. There has been evidence of global warming trends for years and the data is sitting right there to prove it. This info is found everywhere including NASA, NOAA, USGS and many other governmental sources in the United States alone. There are lifetimes worth of research just sitting out there to show the trends of what we are all facing now - more extreme weather more frequently.

Years ago Global Warming was treated as science fiction, but now the evidence is becoming undeniable - melting polar ice, large chunks of Antarctica braking off and melting, more frequent hurricanes and cyclones, snow in Southern Australia, Tornados on the west coast - all signs of the times.

I am convinced that man has a lot to do with the weather changes we are seeing, but we cannot rule out other natural forces that shape our climate - from earthquakes, to volcanoes, to holes in the ozone, to Forest Fires. These may not seem like weather events, but they influence the weather in very particular ways. Volcanic Eruptions dump millions of tons of particulate matter into the atmosphere - changing temperature, and affecting cloud mass. Earthquakes can cause tsunamis, which have the ability to change weather patterns by disrupting the water column that it travels through. Holes in the ozone allow more ultra violet light from the sun to melt ice in the Arctic and Antarctic - warming the water and dumping more water vapor into the atmosphere. Forest Fires can burn so hot that they acually create their own mini weather systems!

So this is what we are going to talk about at Everybody's Weather - our changing climate, as well as the natural and man-made causes of the climate.

Thanks for visiting and welcome to discussion!