The Southern Ocean is an important natural carbon sink
One of Earth's most important absorbers of carbon dioxide (CO2) is
failing to soak up as much of the greenhouse gas as it was expected to,
scientists say.

The decline of Antarctica's Southern Ocean carbon "sink" - or reservoir
- means that atmospheric CO2 levels may be higher in future than
predicted.

These carbon sinks are vital as they mop up excess CO2 from the
atmosphere, slowing down global warming.

The study, by an international team, is published in the journal
Science.

This effect had been predicted by climate scientists, and is taken into
account - to some extent - by climate models. But it appears to be
happening 40 years ahead of schedule

oh jess dont cry im upset by it all 2 butt i do think if we all started
doin it right mother earth could sustain life for a lot longer than we
could all imagine.all the solutions are there they just need to be
implemented . that can only happen when people wake to the plight our
planet is in. this drought is starting to freek the crap out of our
government in aus.if people dont vote the right way this time they are
idiots with their heads buried up their own arses.

Yea! Minnesotans for Global Warming! Break out the Speedo!

Just kidding. That would just be WRONG.

You know Zap...you were saying you want to visit Australia, to see your
friend in cairns?

This information that Duncan posted is real. not some harbinger of
doom..but reality, based on time lapse photography, and then scientific
models.

This will affect Australia, New Zealand,Afrika, and South America,
first...and if you stop for a second, and really look at the health of
these Southern Hemispere nations...it already is.

Reality...not panic merchant stuff...we are living it here.

The whole global warming thing is clearly happening and I understand how
important it is for us to be good stewards of the earth but I also feel
that in the grand scheme of things we aren't as powerful as we think.
Our seasons are wierding out here as well. The earth isn't a constant.
It changes continually but in a much longer time frame than we can
imagine. We can't stop the cyclical changes the earth goes through. We
can only change us. I understand Jess,but I also understand that if we
don't interject a little humor into our lives, we will all end up crying
that the sky is falling. What is your view on China's burgeoning
industrialism and its potential impact on the environment? My mind's
picture is that of the steel mill towns in the U.S. decades ago.

With the current and expected levels of the depletion in the ozone layer
at the south pole what would happen if there was a massive solar flare
in the summer?

Or a Coronal Mass Ejection?

Would we have a new continent to explore. (If we survived?)

China? Yep major challenge..huge consumer of coal and resources...and
emmissions...huge.


Solar flares?

Well New Zealand already gets to have the hole in the ozone layer..

so I guess they would be toast...and we would be right behind
them...crispy critters...

I was more considering what would happen to the Antartic Ice Cap.

I had not considered the fact that New Zealand is so close to that
point.

What a horrible thought.

all the planets in the solar system are going thru changes at the same
time..poles
melting on mars etc...it is a grand cycle not just unique to the
earth...there is
something much bigger going on...we should still do what we can...but we
are
fleas on the back of a large animal...
a large CME would be a global disaster for sure

Coronal Mass Ejection?
Man, I love it when you talk dirty!

If everybody will wear carbon high heels we'll be half way there. Those
carbon footprints will be tiny.

Wouldn't the heels put a deep hole in the soft earth?

Foot print dosen't have to be large to cause a problem.

then you realize you have been manipulated into thinking a theory is
fact and feel really salty.

global warming is not caused by c02 sorry.

Man-made global warming is a scam, there is no supporting evidence.
Global warming is happening on Mars for the same reason global warming
is happening on Earth...increased solar output. If your house is cold,
do you release more CO2 in the air or do you turn up the heat?

Also, Al Gore is a fraud. The Vikings had farms on Greenland around 500
years ago, while Indians lived in Manhattan at the same time. The fact
that Greenland is completely covered in ice now and that Manhattan
island wasn't underwater then disproves Al Gores little movie. Another
thing is that if all the ice on the planet melted, scientists say that
the water levels would raise...18 inches. While Gore says in his movie
that the water level would increase by 22 feet, contradicting science as
a whole.

thank you very much

also take into acount that vulcanos animals PLANTS AND THE OCEAN
realease thousands and thousands of times more CO2 than humans do

the polular global warming theory isnt even scientific, ITS a POLITICAL
AGENDA already if a canadate is "green" he gets more votes. Global
warming is also a way to funnel money into enviromental science.

May I ask how can one speak so assuredly this is a natural cycle?
Universally?

Where did that information come from?

And if it is natural, surely the volume of pollutants into this fragile
atmospere, that is globally contributed to, would have to accelerate
this?

How does one sit without concern, for the children of your children,
when every single day and night, around the clock, vast volumes of
natural resources, (eg, coal and oil) are being removed from the earth?

Whether this is a natural cycle, I feel it is an accelerated cycle, and
if you take a static object and keep removing parts of it, eventually
you run out of static object.

We can all find information to say, it is global warming, and the
opposing information, to say it isn't.

But the realities are harsh, no matter what the causative.

And the impact is huge, on the species.

AutonomousW...how can you state that? Are you part of a scientific study
into the levels of dioxides and co2's in Antartica? Through testing ice
that is 100's of thousands of years old?

Have you ever seen the weather, atmospheric balloons here in the Suthern
Ocean region, testing co2 levels? And I mean seen with your own eyes?

Have you been part of those 'non-scientific', as you call them, studies
over the past 40 or so years, here in the Southern Hemispere?

If you answer no, to any of these questions, please re-think your
statement.

sorry I wont do that your being fooled the raised level of co2 is do to
the increase in tempreture in the earths oceans this change did not
happen over the past 40 years and you are foolish to believe it did, the
current warming started hundreds of years ago and the oceans are only
now warming and release the C02 they naturally take in when cold wheres
my proof, wheres yours? do I have first hand experiance with this yes i
do, will you believe me probably not.

and ICE drillings only prove my point, there have been plenty of times
in witch the earth has had much more co2 and times where the earth has
been much warmer, how ever as stated above by previous posts this
warming is do to solar activity and not Co2 the co2 is a direct result
of the oceans warming. NOT the other way around.


A quote from harvard magazine.

"Another process, called "the biological pump," transfers CO2 from the
ocean's surface to its depths. Warm waters at the surface can hold much
less CO2 than can cold waters in the deep. "This is the 'soda bottle on
a warm day' effect," says Agassiz professor of biological oceanography
James McCarthy, "and is not unique to carbon dioxide; it applies to all
gases dissolved in water. There is a higher capacity to hold a gas with
a lower temperature than with a higher temperature." This means that
when deep ocean waters rise to the surface as part of normal
ocean-circulation patterns, the water heats up and actually releases
CO2.

The biological pump works in the opposite direction. One-celled plants,
the remains of organisms that feed on them, and fecal matter sink, by
force of gravity, into the deep ocean. This phenomenon was first
described in the late 1800s by Harvard's Alexander Agassiz, who referred
to it as the "rain of detritus." Its effect is to pull carbon out of the
upper ocean and cause it to rain down into the depths, where bacteria
and other organisms metabolize and release it back into the water as
CO2, enriching carbon dioxide in the deep ocean. (Either way, the chance
is very small that a carbon atom in the ocean will be incorporated into
organic matter or chemically combined with a carbonate cation to form
calcium carbonate that will end up sequestered in sediments, where it
might remain for hundreds of millions of years.)"

This quote alone confirms that not only does the ocean release
incredible amounts of c02 but that the warming of the oceans results in
higher co2 out put NOt the other way around. this is not a harvard
specific "theory" but a FACT witch is commonly taught in marine biology
class rooms around the globe.

I am also presenting a BBC documentary on subject that can be viewed
here> http://video.google.com/videoplaydocid=4499562022478442170

This documentary discusses and presents scientific principals and common
knowledge witch debunks many theorys that are commonly exchanged and
believed about "global warming"

Im preparing a more formal Essay on this and will gladly post it when it
is complete. just for you.