Tiempo Climate Newswatch

A review of satellite and weather records for Antarctica has shown that the average temperature of the continent has risen by 0.12 degrees Celsius a decade since the 1950s. The warming has been most marked over West Antarctica (and not the Antarctic Peninsula as previously thought). East Antarctica has also warmed over the overall period, although at a slower rate than the west of the continent. This finding contradicts the belief that this region had cooled in recent decades.

"The sense of 'Oh, it's cooling in East Antarctica,' is based essentially on the 1970-2000 period," lead author Eric Steig of the University of Washington, Seattle, in the United States explained, "and it's warmed since then - although we don't have a lot of data for the most recent period - and it definitely warmed prior to the 1970s." Autumnal cooling over East Antarctica has been linked to the ozone hole. "The hole could be eliminated by the middle of this century. If that happens, all of Antarctica could begin warming on a par with the rest of the world," Steig warned. The assessment rested on the interpolation of data over large areas of the continent and this has lead to some criticism. "This looks like a pretty good analysis, but I have to say I remain somewhat sceptical," commented Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in the United States. "It is hard to make data where none exist."

The "glaring neglect" of the energy needs of the poor is holding back efforts to combat poverty, Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argued at a recent seminar in New Delhi. He believes that giving energy to the poor should have been a Millennium Development Goal. For 1.6 billion people across the planet, a lack of electricity limits their health and education and ability to work.

"As a result of the insistence by some country governments, and in fact particularly just one country government, the whole sector of energy was dropped from the Millennium Development Goals," Pachauri said. "Without the provision of adequate and appropriate supply of energy... we would be falling far short of what is desired and what we need to achieve in eliminating poverty across rural areas across the world," he continued.

Simple changes in grazing practices could remove millions of tonnes of carbon a year from the atmosphere, argues Andreas Wilkes of the World Agroforestry Centre in Beijing. Replanting one or more different plant species or sealing off portions of grassland can boost soil carbon content. "It depends on what the problems causing or preventing proper management are," he told Reuters. "In some places, it will be there are too many animals, so you simply reduce their number. If the soil has already begun to degrade, then maybe planting grasses is the best option... It's a matter of education and often also supporting conditions, such as policies. None of it is rocket science," he continued.

British researchers reckon that growing appropriate crops could cool the climate by reflecting incoming solar heat back to space, thereby offsetting global warming. Andy Ridgwell of Bristol University reports that, "by choosing from among current crop varieties, our best estimate for how much reflectivity might be increased leads us to predict that summer-time temperatures could be reduced by more than one degree Celsius throughout much of central North America and mid-latitude Eurasia. Ultimately, further regional cooling of the climate could be made through selective breeding or genetic modification to optimize crop plant albedo."