Vietnam Airforce and Navy ready to take on the Chinese

U.S. Navy Carriers Prepare for X-47B Unmanned Aircraft Arrival Next Year

Greenland is melting at incredible rate

The combination-image below shows how much the ice on Greenland melted between July 8 (left) and July 12 (right).

On July 8, about 40% of the ice sheet had undergone thawing at or near the surface. In just a few days, the melting had dramatically accelerated and some 97% of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. 

In the image, the areas classified as “probable melt” (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as “melt” (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting. The satellites are measuring different physical properties at different scales and are passing over Greenland at different times. Credit: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory.

For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its two-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists.

On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet and the rest is lost to the ocean. But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97% of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July.

This extreme melt event coincided with an unusually strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland. The ridge was one of a series that has dominated Greenland's weather since the end of May. "Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one," said Mote. This latest heat dome started to move over Greenland on July 8, and then parked itself over the ice sheet about three days later. By July 16, it had begun to dissipate.

As the ice warms, it loses albedo, i.e. less sunlight is reflected back into space. Darker surface absorbs more sunlight, accelerating the melting. The image below shows the Greenland ice sheet albedo from 2000 to 2011.

Credit: NOAA Arctic Report Card 2011.

The image below, from the meltfactor blog and by Jason Box and David Decker, shows the steep fall in reflectivity for altitudes up to 3200 meters in July 2012. 

The image below, from the meltfactor blog, shows how the year 2012 compares with the situation at approximately the same time in previous years, 2011 and 2010, which are recognized as being record melt years. 

The photo below shows how dark the ice sheet surface can become.

Photo shot by Jason Box on August 12, 2005

Loss of albedo occurs as the darker bare ground becomes visible where the ice has melted away. Darkening of snow and ice can start even before melting takes place. Warming changes the shape and size of the ice crystals in the snowpack, as described at this NASA Earth Observatory page. As temperatures rise, snow grains clump together and reflect less light than the many-faceted, smaller crystals. Additional heat rounds the sharp edges of the crystals, and round particles absorb more sunlight than jagged ones. 

Dirty ice surrounds a meltwater stream near the margin of the ice sheet. Compared to fresh snow and clean ice, the dark surface absorbs more sunlight, accelerating melting. © Henrik Egede Lassen/Alpha Film, from the Snow, Water, Ice, and Permafrost in the Arctic report from the U.N. Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme. From NOAA Climatewatch.

Another factor contributing to darkening is aerosols, in particular soot (i.e. black carbon) from fires and combustion of fuel, dust and organic compounds that enter the atmosphere and that can travel over long distances and settle on ice and snow in the Arctic. 

The July data since 2000, from the meltfactor blog, suggest a exponential fall in reflectivity that, when projected into the future (red line, added by Sam Carana), looks set to go into freefall next year. 

Is a similar thing happening all over the Arctic? Well, the map below, edited from a recent SSMIS Sea Ice Map, shows that sea ice concentration is highest around the North Pole. 

So, can water be expected to show up at the North Pole? Well have a look at the photo from the North Pole webcam below. 

Photo from the North Pole webcam

It does look like melting is going on at the North Pole. Water is significantly darker than ice, meaning the overall reflectivity will be substantially lowered by this water. 

It's important to realize that surface albedo change is just one out of a number of feedbacks, each of which deserves a closer look. 

As shown on the image below, the IPCC describes four types of feedbacks with a joint Radiative Forcing of about 2 W/sq m, i.e. water vapor, cloud, surface albedo and lapse rate. 

The image below, from James Hansen et al., may at first glance give the impression that all aerosols have a cooling effect. 

When components are split out further, it becomes clear though that some aerosols are reflective and have a cooling effect, whereas black carbon has a warming effect, while changes in snow albedo also contribute to warming. On the interactive graph below, you can click on or hover over each component to view their radiative forcing. When isolated from other factors, it's clear that snow albedo has an increasing warming effect.
How much could Earth warm up due to decline of snow and ice? Professor Peter Wadhams estimates that the drop in albedo in case of total loss of Arctic sea ice would be a 1.3 W/sq m rise in radiative forcing globally, while additional decline of ice and snow on land could push the the combined impact well over 2 W/sq m.

Locally, the impact could be even more dramatic. The image below, from Flanner et al., shows how much the snow and ice is cooling the Arctic. 

Image, edited by Sam Carana, from Mark Flanner et al. (2011).

Conversely, above image shows how much the Arctic could warm up without the snow and ice. Due to albedo change, sunlight that was previously reflected back into space will instead warm up the Arctic. What could have a big impact locally is that, where there's no more sea ice left, all the heat that previously went into melting will raise temperatures instead, as described at Warming in the Arctic.

The big danger is methane. Drew Shindell et al. show in Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions that inclusion of aerosol responses will give methane a much higher global warming potential (GWP) than the IPCC gave methane in AR4, adding that methane's GWP would likely be further increased by including ecosystem responses. Indeed, as pictured in the image below, accelerated warming in the Arctic could trigger methane releases which could cause further methane releases, escalating into runaway global warming. 

Women serving in the Armed forces of the world

Israeli women soldiers

Chinese women soldiers

Vietnamese women soldiers

Runaway Global Warming

If you like, you can order prints of above image at Shutterfly (8 x 10 size works best).

Indian Navy commissions INS Sahyadri multi-role stealth frigate

India will be building total 12-15 INS Shivalik class frigates.

F49 INS Sahyadri

F 47 - INS Shivalik of the same class

Armament:
• OTO Melera 76mm SRGM
• 2 x AK-630 30mm guns
• 32 x Barak SAM [5]
• 9M317 (SA-N-12) SAM, total of 24 missiles
• 8 x Klub/Brahmos cruise Missiles [6]
• 90R missiles (ASW)
• DTA-53-956 torpedoes
• Klub ASW Missile
• 2x RBU-6000 (RPK-8)

How to part ways with a climate denier that has incredible stamina...

Paul Beckwith, with other scientists in Ottawa
protesting against the "Death of Evidence"

By Paul Beckwith,

On a Canadian chess blog (chesstalk.com) there is a thread called “The NEW One and Only Climate Change Whatever” that has been ongoing for over two years. Basically, I educate the chess community on climate change and many chess players that are rabid deniers gang up and hurl invective and deny fervently. A waste of time for me? Perhaps? Likely not, since it has hardened my resolve and energized me in my climate change study/research/lobbying/etc. etc. In fact, now I generally have great fun at hurling invective back until it starts to get out of hand. Then it is no longer fun or useful so I part-ways with the person, as happened tonight…


Mr/Mrs. XXXXX,

It used to bother me when people such as yourself that know absolutely squat about climate change (a subject in which I am an expert and forever striving to increase that expertise) make claims that are completely without scientific merit, in fact that are downright wrong, quite often intentionally wrong. Why? In most subjects this would not matter. Not so with climate change. Because our climate is collapsing around us and there are still many many people that fail to see this. So humanity will not act, and it will get worse and worse until there will not be a single person on the planet that does not experience gut-wrenching change. People are dying now, and will be dying in ever greater numbers from the near-term changes that are underway. Massive crop failure in the U.S. this year will not starve people in North America but will stress the economy and pocketbooks of many residents. It will starve people already in poverty who pay 25% or 50% of their incomes on food now. North Americans will not panic over one year of crop failure. However if it happens the following year, and the one after that, and after that then the system will snap.

Climate denialism and such nonsense no longer bothers me because I have learned how to deal with such people and views. As is absolutely required for anyone in the field of climatology. How? I initially take the time to explain some science and educate but when it is clear that I am dealing with an immovable object like yourself or yyyyy I just have some fun with it and hurl a few insults, etc. However this gets old and distracting and unproductive very quickly and wastes a lot of time. As it has now, in your case.

It no longer bothers me because our planet is now committed to this gut-wrenching change. The sea ice will be gone very soon and the roller coaster ride will be unstoppable. If I was Obama or Putin or any other world leader I would declare "War on Warming", cool the Arctic with geoengineering to keep the sea ice intact and the methane in the ground and undergo a crash program to slash emissions. But I am not. So I do what I can to educate people/inform them/get the word out. I join organizations like AMEG (Arctic Methane Emergency Group). I meet with politicians at all levels of government and talk about the urgency of climate change and necessity of rapidly cooling the Arctic. I have a clear conscience because I have tried. I know that many people around the world will die, I know that unbelievable changes are starting to occur and will explode in frequency, amplitude, spatial extent and impact over this decade, and I know that the general public will be in shock when their familiar climate system becomes a complete stranger to them...Personally, as I have acquired more and more knowledge over the course of my Ph.D. studies in abrupt climate change, I have passed through the shock stage, and the subsequent unaccepting stage of grief a long time ago, I am in the acceptance stage now.

Apologies, it was a blast to hurl invective back and forth, but I am not playing that game anymore. I will not be reading ANY of your posts on this thread, for a while anyway. I need a XXXXX break.

P.S. I did not take the time to write this post just for your sake alone. I am posting it, with your name removed, in social media under the heading "How to part ways with a climate denier that has incredible stamina . . .". Thanks for the learning experience.

ARCHITECT LIVES IN EGG SHAPED “HOUSE”:

Personally, I don’t consider anything without a bathroom or a kitchen to be a house, but apparently that’s not stopping Dai Haifei, a 24-year-old architect in Beijing, China. Dai has built himself a mobile, solar powered, egg shaped structure that is small enough to fit on a sidewalk and is made of bamboo strips, wood chippings, sack bags, and grass seed that’s expected to grow in the spring. It cost about $1,0000 to build and features a lamp that is powered by the solar panel.

You can get married to someone who is dead:

French woman marries boyfriend one year after he died. Magali Jaskiewicz and Jonathan George had planned to wed at their local town hall in November 2008, but he was killed just two days before the ceremony in a motorcycle accident.

Ms Jaskiewitz, 32, used a little-known section of the French civil code that allows posthumous marriages if all the formalities for the wedding were completed before one of the partners died, including the setting of a date.

She proved to officials that she and Mr George had been living together since 2004 and that they shared a bank account.

She also provided a photo of the wedding dress she had bought to wear to their wedding.

Standing alone in the aisle at the town hall, she was “married” to Mr George at a ceremony attended by 30 family members and friends in the village of Dommary-Baroncourt, in eastern France, on Saturday.

Around ten posthumous marriages are carried out each year in France, French interior ministry officials said.

The Youngest Confirmed Mother:

Lina Medina (born September 27, 1933, in Ticrapo, Huancavelica Region, Peru) is the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days.

Born in Ticrapo, Peru, Medina was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of five years due to increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Dr. Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima, Peru, prior to the surgery to have other specialists confirm that Medina was pregnant. A month and a half later, on May 14, 1939, she gave birth to a boy by a caesarean section. The surgery was performed by Dr. Lozada. Her son, weighing 2,700 grams or 5.92 pounds, was well formed and in good health. Child and mother were able to leave the clinic after only a few days.

Square Watermelons:

In Japan, farmers of the Zentsuji region found a way to grow cubic watermelons, by growing the fruits in glass boxes and letting them naturally assume the shape of the receptacle. The square shape is designed to make the melons easier to stack and store, but the square watermelons are often more than double the price of normal ones. Pyramid shaped watermelons have also been developed and any polygonal shape may potentially also be used.

Is there such a thing as Bald Bears?

You’d have thought a fur coat would have been the ultimate bear necessity.But not for the unfortunate Dolores who has lost all her body hair and has just been left with a few tufts around her head.Vets have been left baffled by the condition of the bespectacled bear, who lives at a zoo in Leipzig.

And Dolores isn’t the only one. The sudden hair loss has affected all female bears at the zoo.Some experts believe it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction.The bears, which originate from South America, normally have fluffy dark brown fur and would now be growing a thicker fur coat to keep warm during the winter.

 

The Banana is a Berry:

Yes, the banana is a berry. Berries are identified as being many seeded with a fleshy inner layer. So, technically a banana is a berry. And, believe it or not, bananas don’t grow on trees! Originally from Asia, the “banana tree” is really not a tree in the true sense. In fact, banana plants have no wood fiber. The banana plant is the world’s largest herb and a member of the lily family. Bananas grow in tropical areas all around the world where the weather is sunny and hot, and there’s plenty of rain.

 

ROTATING HOUSE:

Have you seen the Everingham Rotating House™ yet? It is pretty similar to one of those skyscraper restaurants that rotate like a record player (for those of us who still remember what that is!) to give you a 360° view…it is pretty cool!

Here are a few FAQ’s from their official website:


1. Does it really rotate?

The Rotating House™ rotates a full 360° around a central core of plumbing and electricals. Computer- controlled rotation gives you complete control over your view...

2. Does the house move all the time?

The house can move if and when desired. A touch panel on the wall in the lounge room lets you change the position of the house with a couple of simple presses. You just select which side of the house you want to go to which direction, then press go. Programs have been set up for different times of the year for different functions eg. Follow the sun.

3. How fast does it spin?

The speed can be varied. It takes 2 hours to do a rotation at the slower speed, which is 40 metres per hour. At top speed it takes approximately 30 minutes to do a full rotation, which is 160 metres per hour.

4. Why have a house that can rotate?

Well, why not? It was an idea that grew and grew and finally became a reality. The shape of the house and the rooms are large, interesting and really user friendly. The cost was also comparable to a house of similar size and level of appointment. The ability to move the house to suit whatever the circumstance has proved to be extremely handy! Naturally the weather aspect for heating and cooling, but also for entertaining. Having the living room facing the sun in the mornings for heating and having a leisurely breakfast is great, but come night time, turn the room around to the fixed deck overlooking the river for a fantastic entertaining area!

Some people can sneeze with their eyes open:

Q: Why do we sneeze?
A: Sneezing is a way that your body gets rid of bad things that are in your nose. These things might be bacteria, germs, and other things.

When you suddenly you see a bright light like the sun or a light bulb then you feel like you are going to sneeze. Most people feel like you do when you see the light. Actually 1 out of 3 people sneeze when they see the bright light. Those people are “Photic Sneezers.” Photic really is another word for light. Photic sneezing is something that you get from one of your parents because it is something that runs in one side of your family.

Q: Can you sneeze with your eyes open?
A: Some people can sneeze with their eyes open and some people can’t. Sneezing is a reflex and so is closing our eyes. We have no control over whether or not we close our eyes when we sneeze. Some people don’t have reflex, so when they sneeze then their eyes won’t close.

CORPSE FLOWER – THE LARGEST FLOWER IN THE WORLD:

This giant claims the title of the plant with the largest unbranched flower in the world. Believe It or Not! Its huge flowering structure (inflorescence) rises over 8.2 feet above the ground!

Due to its odor, which is similar to the smell of a decomposing animal, this behemoth of the plant world is also known as the “corpse flower”.

It is not completely certain why they release the foul smells, but it could have something to do with attracting possible pollinators.

These rare plants, while in the wild, only bloom every 30 to 40 years! Every time there is a “scheduled” flowering, huge crowds of people gather to witness the amazing event.

WTF: Real Life Barbie Girl:

The doll you always dreamed of hanging with IRL is here, in the flesh, and it just doesn’t seem right. I mean, even ACTUAL Barbie thinks this is too superficial!