The Global Warming Alliance

Superwinds: Plan Ahead Now
The Global Warming Alliance will be holding a mini conference at the Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London W1 on Friday 6th June 2008. For more information on Superwinds, Plan Ahead Now

Berrimilla Update 2nd May 2008 Sourced GWA

At 2025 on 30th April 2008 Alex Whitworth and Corrie McQueen crossed the equator on their epic effort to sail through the North West passage in tiny 33’ Berrimilla. The first leg takes them to Dutch in the Aleutian chain, a 6000 nautical mile distance. Due offering was made to Father Neptune on crossing the line due west of Tarawa in the former Gilbert and Ellis Islands as is the custom. Tarawa, the scene of the bloody WW2 battle in November 1943 will itself be threatened as sea levels rise due to climate change. Bonriki International Airport at the highest point on the island is only 3 metres in elevation. log on here

Two circumnavigators who have earned their titles, not in Club Class but the hard way, by being tossed around in fibreglass yachts, set off from Sydney on 10th April in the 33 foot Berrimilla on the latest of owner Alex Whitworth’s imaginative global voyages.

To highlight the climate changes, Berrimilla intends to plough her way through the North West Passage to Devon Island, which lies west of Greenland deep into arctic territory. Devon Island has topography not dissimilar to Mars and the Haughton Mars Project has a research station there read more

In Hertford Hereford or Hampshire hurricanes hardly happen. Eliza Doolittle may have struggled to pronounce her aitches but the song implied that hurricanes are normally associated with the tropics. There the atmosphere has relatively high surface temperatures to draw on to create the conditions for cyclone generation.

No longer. Last week, a tragic accident occurred in the Western Tyrols in Austria. A business man from Liverpool was killed while driving from Salzburg Airport, crushed in his car by a falling rock which had been shaken loose from the mountain above by a hurricane read more

Captain Ahab’s memorable line from Melville’s Moby Dick could well have been spoken by a latter day ship’s captain as his ship homed in on the west coast of England. Captain Smith, presumably under pressure from his operating company, had decided that conditions were suitable to set out from the Northern Ireland port of Warrenport for Heysham in Lancashire read more .

The Australian delegate covered himself in glory in Bali by signing up to the Kyoto Agreement. Timing was perfect as 187 delegates assembled in Bali to begin the process of shaping up the son of Kyoto, which is due to expire in 2012.

Since the original agreement, which puts statutory limits on greenhouse gas emissions limiting them to 5% below the 1990 levels, Australia had been amongst just two recalcitrant nations which refused to endorse the agreement. read more

Explorer to check ice melt
November 2007, GWA

The Ice Warrior Jim McNeill is seeking volunteers for a range of expeditions to collect crucial climate change data at the four North Poles which will benefit organisations like the Global Warming Alliance who are seeking solutions to the climate change crisis read more

Alice Springs
October 2007

GWA Chairman Donald Burfitt-Dons recently did a trip into the Simpson Desert in Central Australia to see what effect the expansion of the Hadley Cells was having on the arid regions lying along the affected latitudes.With a view to devising a program to offset and reduce the reradiation of the expanding deserts in countries such as Australia and those in the North African Continent, Central Australia was considered to be ideal for a case study read more

As summer draws to a close we can take stock of what the year has brought and there is plenty to reflect on. The world's climate is adjusting to the relentless increase in the earth's temperature and the changes are showing up in a wide variety of ways. Distortions are occurring throughout the planet's cooling systems and it might be timely to refer back to earlier articles which we have published relating to what's going on in the air, oceans and land masses on which our survival depends. (See GWA articles in side panel)

Early summer brought wide spread flooding across many countries. The United Kingdom was particularly hard hit in the worst flooding for 60 years. In Oxfordshire the Thames broke it's banks inundating the surrounding areas. Floods affected not just the low lying and thus vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh and India but also occurred in the mid USA leaving 26 people dead in the Houston area and in Minnesota State. A record 15 inches of rain fell in Houston County. In China mid July brought extensive flooding to the Huai river basin, the worst for half a century and displacing half a million people from their homes. DJBD

Rising sea temperatures increase the air temperature in turn which can therefore hold more water vapour. More water vapour means more rain when the air sample cools to Dew Point.

Fire

August Fires in Greece Image Courtesy NASA
The ongoing forest fires in Greece which have caused over 60 deaths have perplexed even the locals who are inured to the regular summer outbreaks which are fanned by their strong gusty North Easterly winds they call the Meltemia.This year the spontaneous nature of the outbreaks have led to arsonist theories, as uncontrollable fire after fire have swept the Peloponnesian peninsular and the northern island of Evia. Arson may be part of the answer but more likely is that the ancient land has been experiencing ever warmer summers. In the seventies and eighties temperatures in the mid thirties were to be expected. But, as Romania and other eastern European countries experienced this summer, the gauge now tops 40 degrees Celsius for protracted periods. It takes very little to ignite a fire in such hot dry conditions. Simple magnification of the sun's rays through pieces of broken glass can be enough. We have to prepare ourselves for more of the same.

Air
:
Hurricane Dean Forming Image Courtesy NASA

The ongoing forest fires in Greece which have caused over 60 deaths have perplexed even the locals who are inured to the regular summer outbreaks which are fanned by their strong gusty North Easterly winds they call the Meltemia.This year the spontaneous nature of the outbreaks have led to arsonist theories, as uncontrollable fire after fire have swept the Peloponnesian peninsular and the northern island of Evia. Arson may be part of the answer but more likely is that the ancient land has been experiencing ever warmer summers. In the seventies and eighties temperatures in the mid thirties were to be expected. But, as Romania and other eastern European countries experienced this summer, the gauge now tops 40 degrees Celsius for protracted periods. It takes very little to ignite a fire in such hot dry conditions. Simple magnification of the sun's rays through pieces of broken glass can be enough. We have to prepare ourselves for more of the same.

Earth

NorthWest Passage Image Courtesy NASA

Around the planet 2007 has been a year of extremes with records for wetness, dryness or excessive temperatures being experienced. The Hadley Cells are expanding affecting adjacent latitudes causing increasing droughts while the rising ocean temperatures are loading up the atmosphere in the temperate zones with more moisture. At the poles further reductions of sea ice are being recorded. In northern Canada the search through the legendary North West Passage is about to be achieved. For five hundred years explorers have sought in vain to find a more direct route to the Pacific. Always frustrated by the blocking sea ice August 2007 saw the last remnants in the process of disappearing. Images from Nasa's satellite Aqua show what little remains in the way of achieving that long held ambition. Short term the more efficient transportation of goods from Asia to Europe will benefit us all, but the long term implications of what we are doing to our vulnerable world must make us change our ways before it is too late.

Perhaps the brooding philosophers from classical times are telling us that something is not right. The earth was considered firstly dry and secondly cold. While still dry it is now no longer cold.

Around the planet 2007 has been a year of extremes with records for wetness, dryness or excessive temperatures being experienced. The Hadley Cells are expanding affecting adjacent latitudes causing increasing droughts while the rising ocean temperatures are loading up the atmosphere in the temperate zones with more moisture. At the poles further reductions of sea ice are being recorded. In northern Canada the search through the legendary North West Passage is about to be achieved. For five hundred years explorers have sought in vain to find a more direct route to the Pacific. Always frustrated by the blocking sea ice August 2007 saw the last remants in the process of disappearing. Images from Nasa's satellite Aqua show what little remains in the way of achieving that long held ambition. Short term the more efficient tranportation of goods from Asia to Europe will benefit us all, but the long term implications of what we are doing to our vulnerable world must make us change our ways before it is too late.

Perhaps the brooding philosphers from classical times are telling us that something is not right. The earth was considered firstly dry and secondly cold. While still dry it is now no longer cold.

It hasn’t happened yet because the New Years Eve parties still lie in front of us, but the Met Office has predicted 2006 to be the warmest in the UK for 300 years. Following the hottest July, September and autumn no one is going to be surprised that the whole year looks set break the record book too Read more

The words from the Bing Crosby classic It’s June in January from the 1934 movie “Here is my Heart” weren’t referring to the weather. It was all about love of course, but by the time the old crooner rerecorded it just a month before his death in 1977, world climate was responding to global warming. Ironically, Bing entitled the album “Seasons ”read more

‘Two men died and another was seriously injured yesterday when an oil tanker was hit by a huge wave in gale force winds near Orkney,’ reported the Mail on Sunday, November 12th. ‘The men are believed to have been on the deck of the Singapore-registered tanker, which had just picked up a load of crude oila the Scaapa Flow terminal when it ran into the storm, with winds up to 63mph and a 12-15 ft swell’ for GWA related article comment read Life On the Ocean Wave

At GWA we are always on the lookout for original ideas which can save energy and make a contribution to reducing Man’s heavy carbon footprint on the planet read more.

Grain Markets Explode as the Great Dry Extends
23.10.06
Donald Burfitt-Dons, GWA

The striped shirted traders in the Grain Pits of Chicago are generally first to get the message on what is likely to move the prices of soybeans, corn or wheat. But last week the commodity markets were shocked when Australia announced a massive reduction in the country’s projected wheat crop. Read more

It’s not as sexy or scary as the greenhouse gases we read about every day in the papers such as carbon dioxide, methane or nitrous oxide. Barely a day passes without some pronouncement on what has to be done to reduce these products which we are all producing in too great an abundance for our future well-being. But what about poor old water vapour? Why is it being ignored? Read more

In the harbour, in the island, in the Spanish Seas,
Are the tiny white houses and the orange trees,
And day-long, night-long, the cool and pleasant breeze
Of the steady Trade Winds blowing.

John Masefield’s poem from his Sea Ballads was written over a hundred years ago, but the steady reliable trade winds to which he referred are weakening according to a recent study released in the 4th May issue of Nature read more

Whether flying as a passenger or a pilot you always know when you’ve jumped on board the Jet-Stream. The ride can be exhilarating and also cut watchfulls of minutes off your flight. The telltale signs are a rumbling tremor in the fuselage, punctuated by sudden bursts of wave like turbulence which might concern the pilot enough to put on the seat belt sign. Of course it’s a lot easier to pick up in the cockpit. The pilot has only to look at his navigation system and check the wind strength and O.A.T.(outside air temperature) read more .

So goes the Royal Marines marching song and a catchy number it is but for how much longer mankind will be able to use the seas for his purposes of trade, military expression of power, or simply for pure pleasure is a question that is anything but trivial Read more

The amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface has been steadily reducing since the sixties at 1.4% per decade. It is a widely accepted assumption that the greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane, which we are releasing into the atmosphere, are causing this Read more

We’ve all read about it, worried and wondered about rising sea levels due to melting glaciers and polar ice caps. That’s part of it, but thermal expansion as the surface layer of the sea heats up is viewed by the IPCC * as likely to have the greater effect on sea levels over the 21st century. The oceans around us are a heat sink and after all cover 71% of the earth’s surface.read more

First of all what is the tropopause? Well, it’s the dividing line between the troposphere, which is the lowest layer in the atmosphere and significantly the part where all the weather activity takes place, and the stable layer above called the stratosphere Read more

Climate Change Debate:
The Danube Deluge
Global Warming Models Under Question
GWA member to discover Four Poles