A new study has discovered that vegetation not only emits Oxygen, but methane as well. It has long been thought that rotting vegetation on the forest floor was the main source of methane plumes measured coming from rainforests, but new studies have confirmed that living plants actually emit Methane.

This will have a major impact on the Kyoto protocol because part of the agreement states that participating countries can plant forests in lieu of reducing CO₂ emissions. Since Methane is more damaging than Carbon Dioxide, it might not make too much sense to plant more trees if the methane they produce outweighs the benefits of the CO₂ they would absorb.

Even more importantly, plants increase their methane output as the temperature rises. This of course would just accelerate the Global Warming cycle as the trend continued.

A recent Study published in the journal Nature suggests that there is concrete eveidence showing the linkage between global climate change the conditions needed for a pathogenic fungus to thrive. The increased presence of the fungus led to widespread extinctions of harlequin frogs in the middle elevations of mountainous regions in South and Central America.

Andrew Blaustien, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University is quoted in one of Nature's commentary articles. He stated that these extinctions are yet another example of the far-reaching systemic impact in our world-wide ecosystem caused by climate change. Although the amphibious extinction only apply to the a certain kind of frog with specialized habitats, they are a good example of how a species can handle challenges presented by a changing environment.

Until more resaearch focuses on pathogens, parasites and other types of disease transmission and their link to our warming climate, we will not be able to fully understand the full impact of climate change and it's effect on the global biodiversity.

More examples were cited. From nematodes that affect the mortality rate of musk oxen to the shortened life span of a pine beetle aiding in the spread of a fungus that they carry, the changes in the disrupted cycle are becoming more poignant and easier to point out.

So how does this affect you and me? One great example is the spread of Dengue Fever, a dangerous human pathogen and a distant cousin of Marburg and Ebola. Warming treands have increased the spread of Dengue out of it's typically tropical environment, to typically cooler temperature zones. As temperatue rise, Dengue is slowly migrating Northward into the Southern United States, and similar trends are being recorded in Northern Australia where Dengue is moving South.

"This new study is a breakthrough, and the powerful synergy between pathogen transmission and climate change should give us cause for concern about human health in a warmer world", said Blaustein.

Coral is like sea ice. To monitor the effect of global warming, one only has to moinitor what is happening in the poles or in tropical reefs to see what is happening. Coral bleaches when the surrounding water temperature rises 1 or 2 degrees (Celsius) above normal and the colorful part of the coral cannot survive. Coral can recover, but repeated bleachings or persistent water temperature rise will kill the coral off.

Bleached coral is not just a blow to the underwater tourism industry. Coral acts as a nursery and habitat for many forms of marine life, ranging from microscopic plankton, to jellyfish, fish and larger marine predators like the Grat White Shark. If massive amounts of coral die off from bleaching, the habitat loss can cause long term damage to the marine food chain from the bottom up.

Another function of Coral is to oxygenate water and to process carbon in the water, therefore the cycle of bleaching leads to more dead coral, which inturn lead to more carbon in the environment which in turn causes Global Warming and the cycle feeds on itself. You know the story.

On the Great Barrier reef in Australia, scientists and coral experts have raised the alarm. Water temperatures this year have reached an all time high due to the hottest year on record, and many are worried that the consistent presence of above average warm water will push the corals of the Great Barrier beyond their limits.

The resulitng widespread bleaching would be the third such event since 1998, and many are seeing this as the yet another alarm bell for the Global Climate Change Argument.

Ever hear of the name Triana? Neither had I until I found about NASA's climate observation project. Triana was the name of a NASA satellite that that would have sat in the neutral gravity point between the Earth and the Sun known as the Langrange 1 or L1. At L1, Triana would have had a view of the full disk of the sun in one direction and a full sunlit Earth in the other. Triana's purpose would have been to monitor Earth's climate balance, and would have beamed a real time image of our planet back to us. Triana's data would have helped nail down some of the real causes of Global warming - and could have narrowed the scope of research on climate change by eliminating suspected causes other than green house gases.

Development on Triana was started in 1998, and was ready for launch in 2001 with a total cost of $100 Million. So what happened to this project? It was ready for launch and paid for, but one minor thing got in the way - a presidential election. To the victors go the spoils as they say, and the industries that lobbied heavily with the new Bush White House were not big fans of any kind of research that even acknowledged the existence of Global Warming, and the scheduled launch of Triana was postponed.

The White House had other reasons for stopping this project. It was a pet project of Vice-President Al Gore. He did not invent Triana, but his vision and influence helped make Triana a reality, and he was hoping the results of the mission would inspire environmentalists and schoolchildren by giving them access to Triana's real-time data. The project was riduculed as "Gore's screen saver" - but what would Bush's screen saver look like - a photo montage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

In the wake of Katrina and the worst Hurricane season ever in the United States, having a climate observatory out at L1 doesn't seem like a bad idea, even if you had to give Al Gore the credit!