Climate change righteously got a lot of attention the past year. Not only by public plea of celebrities Al Gore and Bill Clinton, but also in many scientific journals like Science and Nature.
In other words, our climate is a “hot” topic, it is “in the air” and “on everybody’s (albeit sunburned) lips”. So, I decided also to do my part by publishing the 2006 Climate Logbook, i.e. climate related news items collected from various sources.
Jan 7:
Climate researchers quarrel whether 2005 or 1998 (the El Niño year) was world wide the warmest recorded year ever.
Jan 21:
Researchers from the University of Utrecht write in Nature that trees do not only absorb carbon dioxyde (CO2) but also emit a bit of methane (CH4), both are green house gasses.
Jan 29:
Eminent climate researcher James Hansen (with NASA) tells the New York Times that he is being silenced by the Bush administration.
Feb 3:
Start of the Hier (Dutch for “Here”), a large Dutch climate program that recognises the immediate neccessity to implement climate conciousness for environmental and social organisations.
Feb 11:
Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie, French historian and former director of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, starts his climate research in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal library in The Hague) over the period 1200-2000.
Feb 21:
Part five in the book series “Duizend Jaar Weer” (thousand years of weather) by Jan Buisman is published. This volume covers the Dutch weather period 1675-1775. Weather pioneer Cruquius started recording the weather in The Netherlands in 1706.
Feb 25:
Global warming non-believer and geologist Salomon Kroonenberg writes in his book “De Menselijke Maat” (the human measure): “Maybe we should even pump CO2 in the air to temper the coming ice age”.
Mar 25:
Science publishes five articles about the melting of Greenland’s ice cap. Yearly 80-220 cubic kilometers of ice fall into the sea.
May 6:
According to an article in Nature by Christiaan Both of NIOO-KNAW (Dutch Institute of Ecology) a small bird, the “bonte vliegenvanger” (Ficedula hypoleuca), has almost disappeared from the Dutch woods. This small bird mainly eats (and prefers) caterpillars which peak during 2-3 weeks, but … because of the climate shift the caterpillars peak much earlier and are already gone when the bird arrives. All birds that are insect-eating long-distance travellers will probably be effected.
May 30:
KNMI (the Dutch metereological institute) presents new climate scenario’s for The Netherlands. Summers will be warmer with heavier rains, milder winters, and the Elfstedentocht (200km long 11 city skating tour in the Netherlands) can not be held anymore.
Jul 7:
First official heat wave of 2006 in The Netherlands. Locally temperatures are 34 °C (93.2 F).
Jul 18:
Two people die and 40 are hospitalised because of the extreme heat at the first day of the Vierdaagse in Nijmegen (a yearly 4 day walking tour in The Netherlands). The event is cancelled.
Jul 21:
Second heat wave in The Netherlands, which is the sixth within 6 years. July 2006 is proclaimed the hottest recorded July month ever. Locally temperatures of 40 °C (104 F) have been reached.
Aug 23:
Dutch sheep are infected with blauwtong (Bluetongue disease) serotype 8. Normally this variant mainly occurs in the area south of the Sahara and in the Carribean. So it was suspected that the carrier of this virus, the Knut mug (a mini-gnat), was able to migrate more north due to warmer weather. Later it became clear that it is much more likely the virus had entered The Netherlands with the import of animals or via the airports at Beek or Aken.
Aug 31:
John Holdren, professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University, warns that the world has already entered a state of dangerous climate change. He revealed that US government spending on energy research has not increased since 2001. In order to make any progress, funding for climate technology needs to multiply by three or four times.
Sep 2:
According to Science, scientific models overestimate the amount of plankton absorbed CO2. Plankton regulates the movement of CO2 between the atmosphere and ocean via photosynthesis and sedimentation to the deep-sea carbon reservoir.
Sep 7:
According to Science, Siberian lakes emit up to five times more methane gas than was formerly known.
Sep 15:
Stephen “Hockey Stick” McIntyre visits KNMI. He claims that weather specialists don’t understand statistics.
Sep 15:
NASA claims that the amount of winter ice in the north pole area has never been so small as in 2004 and 2005.
Sep 16:
Astrophysicist Henk Spruit (Max Planck Institute of Astrophysics, Germany) claims solar variations do not explain the warming of the earth’s atmosphere over the last 30 years. Since 1978 the luminosity of the Sun is measured by sattelites and it does not show any trend. However, it is not excluded that variations in ultraviolet radiation and/or magnetic fields play a role.
Oct 6:
Al Gore visits Amsterdam for the premiere of his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. Many Dutch politicians and industrialists attend and are very interested.
Oct 20:
British prime minister Tony Blair and Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende write an urgent letter to the other EU-leaders in which they state that Europe should be leading the global battle against climate change.
Oct 30:
Nicolas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, publishes his climate change cost study: act now, that is much cheaper than dealing with the causes later.
Nov 7:
Two researchers at the University of Wageningen write in Science that at the end of this century the 0 °C altitude (”snow line”) will on average lie 200-400 meters higher in the Alps.
Nov 17:
The climate summit in Nairobi does not result in an agreement about CO2 reduction after 2012. The goal of the current Kyoto protocol is 8% reduction of CO2 emission in the period 2008-2012.
Nov 30:
Many European skiing areas do not have snow yet. Competitions are cancelled.
Dec 1:
Bird watchers in The Netherlands notice that many birds, like geese and songbirds, have not migrated to the south yet.
Dec 6:
September, October, and November are with their combined average temperature of 13,6 °C the warmest ever in The Netherlands. Normal average is 10.2 °C.
Later, Eumetnet confirms that in most of Western Europe autumn has been warmer than ever before.
Dec 7:
Former US president Bill Clinton visits the palace Soestdijk (former home of the previous Dutch queen and her husband) to promote his Climate Initiative. This initiative urges cities to do something about the changing climate. Rotterdam signs in.
Dec 14:
The W(orld) M(eteorological) O(rganisation) states that the global mean surface temperature in 2006 is currently estimated to be 0.42 °C above the 1961-1990 annual average (14 °C), according to the records maintained by Members of WMO. The year 2006 is currently estimated to be the sixth warmest year on record. Final figures will be released by WMO in March 2007.
Dec 16:
Science says it is possible that the sea level will rise even more than expected by IPCC: up to 1.4 meters in 2100.
Dec 29:
KNMI announces that 2006 is officially the warmest year in The Netherlands since 1706. Average temperature is 11.2 °C.
Finally, here are some interesting links:
- http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity
- http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
- http://thinkprogress.org/gore-nyu
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Earth_Observing_System_of_Systems_%28GEOSS%29
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMO
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