--------- Forwarded message ---------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED],[EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:16:50 -0500 Subject: Evidence of Global Warming - Canada, Alaska and the Midwest Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
This post is quite long. It's provided for those who would like more information on the status of global warming. For those who don't wish to read the details, but would like just a quick view, there are graphs of annual global temperatures, averaged over several hundred locations around the world. Two of these follow: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2003/ann/glob_jan-dec_pg.gi f http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleontology_and_Climate/ Please address any questions or comments to the SDdiscuss listserv. Mike Neuman http://www.madison.com/communities/preserveourclimate ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------- >From The Globe and Mail: "The glaciers are melting. The growing season is getting longer. Creatures are turning up in places where they really don't belong. It's time to stop doubting that global warming is the culprit, Martin Mittelstaedt reports:" Some like it hot -- but a robin in the Arctic? By Martin Mittlestaedt, The Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040417/C ENTRE17/TPEnvironment/ Saturday, Apr. 17, 2004 - In the summer of 1993, federal fisheries scientist John Babaluk was on Banks Island, the most westerly of the big islands that stretch across Canada's Far North, when some people showed him what had come up in the nets they had set for Arctic char. No one in the tiny Inuvialuit community of Sachs Harbour had ever seen such a fish, which wasn't such a surprise, considering that it was 1,500 kilometres away from home. They had caught sockeye salmon, normally found on the Pacific coast of British Columbia and Alaska. "We actually saw, recorded, took pictures and did some measurements on some sockeye salmon that had shown up in Sachs Harbour. That was the first time that any of the locals that we talked to had seen them," Mr. Babaluk says. The itinerant salmon is just one of many strange sightings across the country. The Far North is being introduced to the robin, the South's harbinger of spring and a bird so rarely seen above the tree line that the Inuvialuit don't even have a name for it. In Southern Ontario, the Virginia opossum now thrives as far north as Georgian Bay. A few decades ago, it was unknown because the climate was too cold. Wildlife biologists in Manitoba have noted that migratory butterflies are returning earlier in the spring and that polar bears along the province's Hudson Bay coastline are getting thinner because the sea ice is melting earlier, giving the animals less time to fatten up on seals, their main prey. Why is all this happening? There could be many explanations, but the common thread through all the occurrences is that Canada's climate has been getting warmer. That climate change might happen some day is hardly controversial. Humans are adding more carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases to the atmosphere every year. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, concentrations of CO{-2}, the main greenhouse gas, have risen by about 30 per cent, but they will double by the end of this century if usage trends for fossil fuels continue. Scientific models suggest that human-induced changes to the composition of the atmosphere will almost certainly cause temperatures to rise substantially over the next 50 to 100 years. But on the eve of another Earth Day, Canadians might want to consider something more radical on the subject of global warming -- directly from their own backyards. Warming should not be considered an abstraction due to occur at some vague point in the country's future. It has already arrived, and has been under way for the past few decades. A group of federal and provincial scientists have concluded that global warming has had a profound influence on Canada after completing the most exhaustive review ever undertaken of the hundreds of studies on the country's climate trends. They looked at reports of unusual wildlife sightings, such as Mr. Babaluk's salmon, the extent of glaciers on the Rockies and data from weather stations going back more than a century. Except for small parts of the Northeast that have actually become cooler of late, the warming is almost universal -- and not necessarily just a momentary blip. "There are really strong indicators that the climate is changing," says Environment Canada's Linda Mortsch, the scientist co-ordinating the effort, "and I think Canadians should be aware of that." That is why the researchers summarized their findings in a 45-page report, published by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment and made public recently. The publication has not prompted the interest normally associated with a major environmental review because the Winnipeg-based council, which includes the federal, provincial and territorial environment ministers, is little known outside environmental-policy circles. (It normally works on such technical issues as the question of whether Canada should regulate mercury emissions from power-plant smokestacks.) The climate change has been most dramatic in the North. The Mackenzie Basin is now an average of two degrees warmer than it was in the early 1950s, even though parts of Labrador, northern Quebec and Baffin Island have grown cooler. But the best long-term temperature data are for the South, and the report reveals that all of Canada below the line formed by the northern boundaries of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba has become warmer over the past 100 years. In fact, the average increase of 0.9 degrees in Southern Canada is about 50 per cent larger than the rise that has occurred elsewhere on the planet, making this country a global-warming hot spot. This has played out in some major temperature shifts. In Whitehorse, for instance, Environment Canada figures show that the Yukon community used to have an average of 63 bone-chilling days a year during the 1950s and 1960s when the mercury plunged to minus 20 or lower. By the 1980s and 1990s, that number had fallen to 49. The same trend occurred in Yellowknife, where the number of extremely cold days has fallen to an average of 108 a year from 121. And even though 0.9 degrees of warming may appear small -- it's below the amount humans can feel through our senses -- it has had some staggering environmental consequences. There has been a huge increase in frost-free periods each year, as many gardeners probably suspect. In some areas, such as central B.C., the span between the last frost in spring and the first freeze has grown by a stunning 50 days over the past century, with healthy increases also recorded on the Prairies and in Southern Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. The growing season is increasing mainly because the last spring frosts are happening a little earlier each year -- a direct result of nighttime temperatures that aren't falling as much as they used to. But gardeners shouldn't expect to plant tropical varieties any time soon because the trend is unlikely to go on forever, says Joan Klaassen, a climatologist at Environment Canada who has researched the subject. "Eventually, we would have no winter," she says, plus the length of the frost-free period is volatile. As recently as 1980, for instance, Ottawa had its shortest growing season on record -- a mere 110 days, compared with the maximum of 182 days posted in 1990. However, if the fluctuations are smoothed out, the frost-free period has expanded by about 30 days since 1939. The trembling aspen, one of Canada's most common trees, grows in all forested regions, and when springtime temperatures rise enough, it goes into bloom. Aspens don't produce pretty flowers, but their date of first bloom is like a weathervane pointing to dramatic global warming. In Edmonton, researchers at the University of Alberta have been reviewing observations on the first flowering dates for the trees from 1901 to 1997, and have found a huge change. While the trees went into bloom in early May at the beginning of thelast century, by its end, the average date had advanced by nearly a month -- 26 days -- to early April. In the list of planetary threats, warming comes at the top, or close to the top, of any motivating factors for Earth Day. Working to preserve endangered species, cleaning up parks, and planting trees -- typical April 22 activities embraced by thousands of Canadians -- won't mean much if the climate changes so dramatically that it plays havoc with the planet. On paper, Canada has a good position on global warming. It has endorsed the Kyoto Protocol and Prime Minister Paul Martin said in February's Speech from the Throne that his government has unequivocal support for the international pact to cut emissions of planet-warming gases. But the glaring weakness in the government's commitment is that it hasn't fully explained how the country will meet the mind-boggling 240 million tonnes of emission cuts required to comply with the treaty. (To put the challenge of this abstract tonnage figure in perspective, a typical car produces about four tonnes of CO{-2} a year.) One of the big worries about global warming is that melting Antarctic and Arctic ice will cause sea levels to rise, inundating low-lying coastal areas. Canada has the world's longest coastline, making it especially vulnerable to flooding. For example, much of Charlottetown lies only a few metres above sea level, and over the past century, the ocean has been slowly rising up against the picturesque city. The total increase -- 30 centimetres -- means that now even small storms maybe able to produce enough of a surge at high tide to cause extensive damage. Researchers believe that about one-third of the rise at Charlottetown has been caused by global warming and the rest from land subsiding since the last ice age. Other areas at risk include parts of the Gasp� and the �les-de-la- Madeleine in Quebec, along with parts of the Beaufort Sea coastline in the Arctic. Most of British Columbia will be less affected by higher sea levels because of its steep and rocky coastline, although low-lying areas, such as the highly populated Fraser Delta, are vulnerable. Another dramatic sign of global warming is in Canada's extensive glaciers and ice fields. Although not well known, this country has more glacial ice coverage -- 200,000 square kilometres -- than any place in the world, other than Antarctica and Greenland. The area of the most rapid warming in Canada in the past 50 years has been the West, and this heat has been cutting a swath through glaciers. There are about 1,300 glaciers on the eastern slopes of the Rockies, and they are 25 to 75 per cent smaller than in 1850. Elsewhere, alpine ice patches -- in reality, mini-glaciers -- have been melting so rapidly from Yukon mountain ridges that archeologists are having trouble keeping up with all the ancient artifacts being exposed before these materials, such as carvings, wooden darts and leather pouches, succumb to rot. A much bigger problem is that many major Prairie rivers are fed by glaciers, so cities such as Edmonton, Calgary and Saskatoon may face a thirsty future. Recent surveys have found that the amount of glacier water feeding the Saskatchewan, the largest prairie river, has already begun to drop. The arrival of salmon in the Arctic prompted a lot of head scratching at the federal Fisheries Department, and led to an investigation. Was the sighting a result of global warming or just wanderlust? The salmon have kept coming since 1993 -- several were found last year -- but researchers also have gone through historical records and found sporadic visitations in the past. Federal fisheries scientist Sam Stephenson has studied the situation and says he still isn't sure whether the salmon are just looking for new territory to conquer or have been pushed north by warmer water temperatures in the south. "I would be hesitant to say global warming at this stage," he says, adding that "certainly, this is something that bears watching." However, something happening on neighbouring Victoria Island is even more difficult to explain. Mark Ekootak, a wildlife officer for the Northwest Territories government, was surprised by the recent arrival of something "I've never seen growing up" on the barren tundra. Only by consulting a field guide did he finally figure out that he had a tree swallow on his hands -- a bit odd considering that the tree line lies 750 kilometres to the south. Indicators of Local Warming Pacific Ocean - Water temperatures off the B.C. coast have risen substantially in the past 100 years. Mackenzie River - Salmon have begun to appear. Mackenzie Basin - Average temperatures have increased two degrees over the past 50 years. Mackenzie Delta - Received its first-ever tornado warning in 2001. Western Arctic - The area covered by permanent sea ice has fallen 25 per cent since 1969. Rocky Mountains - The 1,300 glaciers on the eastern slopes are 25 to 75 per cent smaller than in 1850. Banks Island - There have been sightings of robins, a bird so are in the Arctic that it has no name in the local Inuvialuit dialect. Central British Columbia - The growing season is 50 days longer than it was 100 years ago. Edmonton - The trembling aspen now blooms in early April compared with early May in 1900. Prairies - Average temperatures have risen 1.5 degrees over the past 100 years. Saskatoon - The number of blizzards has fallen sharply since 1953. Manitoba - Butterflies are appearing up to 12 days earlier in spring than they did 30 years ago. Western Hudson's Bay - Fat levels in polar bear shave been falling since 1980. Hudson Bay - The ice-free season is more than a week longer than it was 30 years ago. James Bay - The Arctic white fox is disappearing from the southern part of its historical range. Great Lakes Average water temperatures have risen 0.5 degrees over the past 100 years. Lake Simcoe Winter ice coverage is much briefer than in the past. Arctic - Thunder and lightning, once very rare in the Far North, are now being experienced fairly often. Southern Ontario - The Virginia opossum, unknown in the area until the 1980s, now thrives as far north as Georgian Bay. Southern Canada - Receives as much as 30 per cent more precipitation than it did in 1900. Quebec - The city of Drummondville has found that the heating requirements have fallen notably in recent years while the demand for air conditioning has risen. Charlottetown - Over the past century, the sea level at the city has risen by nearly 30 centimetres, increasing the risk of flooding during a storm. The Great Lakes and Great Plains Regions A major climate analysis for the Great Lakes region of the U.S. was published in April 2003 by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): "Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Regions". Written by 9 noted science professors of major Midwest universities, this study found that in just the past 4 years (1998-2001), annual average temperatures in the Great Lakes region exceeded the long-term temperature averages at the various stations by 2 to 4 degrees F, and that average winter month temperatures for the region were up to 7 degrees F above their long-term averages at those stations. The study also noted that the occurrence of the last spring freeze in the Great Lakes region has been happening progressively earlier in the year, with the current freeze date being an average of one week earlier than at the beginning of the 1900s, and that growing seasons have also begun to lengthen. Declines in Great Lakes surface water levels -- predicted with global warming because reduce ice cover on the lakes will cause more evaporation -- have been of particular concern to commercial shipping interests using the Great Lakes. The study found that over the past five decades, the frequency of 24-hour and 7-day intense rainfall events -- which result in flooding of stream and rivers -- has been higher relative the long term average in the Great Lakes. Global warming allows the air to hold on to more water at a time, but then when it rains, it rains hard and ends up running off land surfaces faster, and not soaking long enough into the ground. http://www.ucsusa.org/greatlakes Average temperatures for January and February in the U.S. during the period 1998 to 2003 were significantly warmer (in those regions) than the historical average temperature of those regions for January and February. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateConcern/message/6175 In computing five-year annual temperatures averages recorded at 26 NOAA cooperative climate Great Lakes region stations during 1998-2000, Neuman cited increases similar to those identified in the UCS study in temperature. In analyzing annual temperature data at climate stations in the Great Lakes States, he showed that above average annual temperatures occurred from the 1920s through the 1950s and from the 1980s through the year 2002. He noted also that average five year annual temperatures for 1998-2002 were the highest of record at many NWS cooperative climate stations. The 1998-2002 temperature averages for the Great Lakes region exceeded the long-term average temperature records at the various stations by 2.2 degrees F, with a range of increase from 1.1 to 3.6 degrees F above the long-term temperature average for each station. [Reported in "Special Report - Air Temperatures & Dew Points - Great Lakes States", April 16, 2003] Earlier snowmelt runoff in the Midwest and northern Great Plains http://www.mnforsustain.org/climate_snowmelt_dewpoints_minnesota_neuman.h tm http://www.mnforsustain.org/mn_dewpoints_neuman_p_special_report.htm The 2004 snowmelt runoff in the Upper Midwest and Great Plains was once again much earlier in the season than historical averages. The reference shown below includes the Red River at Fargo, ND, the St. Louis River near Duluth, MN and the St. Croix River near St. Croix Falls, WI. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClimateArchive/message/831 Wisconsin Five-year 1998-2002 temperature averages for Broadhead, Marshfield, Oconto, Portage, Sturgeon Bay, Spooner, Watertown and Weyerhaeuser weather stations exceeded their long-term temperature records at the stations by 2.3 degree F, with a range of increase from 1.4 at Oconto to an increase of 3.6 degrees at Spooner, Wisconsin. Five-year (1998-2002) temperature averages for airport weather stations located at Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison and Milwaukee were 2.8, 2.3, 2.5, 2.2, and 2.5 degrees F (respectively) above their "long-term" (before 1950 - 1997) temperature averages at each of those stations (average of 2.3 above long-term averages). High humidity levels are often associated with high temperature readings in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the Great Lakes region, most commonly during the months of July and August. The dew point temperature (the air temperature at which dew begins to form), is often used as a measure of the amount of moisture in the air relative to the air's capacity to hold moisture. Global warming models predict there will be rising dew point levels with continued global warming. Measurable increases in average dew point temperatures in 1998-2002 occurred in Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to Neuman's "Special Report - Air Temperatures & Dew Points - Great Lakes States". During the last 5 years of dew point measurements at the above stations, average annual dew point temperatures records exceeded the average dew point levels at those stations over the period of 1950 to 1997 by 2.7, 2.9, 2.2 and 2.5 degrees F, respectively. The rising average dew point temperatures for the Midwest make any periods of hot weather in Wisconsin and the Midwest more dangerous to human health. A heat wave in 1995 claimed the lives of 154 Wisconsinites and forced another 400 people to seek medical treatment. (739 people died in Chicago from the same weather pattern). The 1995 heat wave holds the record as the number one weather-related killer in Wisconsin since Wisconsin became a state in 1848. In 1999, at least 20 people in Wisconsin died from the effects of heat; in 2001, 15 people died from heat-related effects; and in 2002, the number was 8. Madison, Wisconsin's Lake's Monona and Mendota provide an interesting history of the effects that warmer winter temperature can have on local winter activities. On Lake Mendota, the largest and deepest of the two lakes, the average duration of ice cover has decreased from about four months in the mid-1800s to about three month by the late 1990s. While ice duration has declined over the past 80 years on North Temperate Zone lakes, according to University of Wisconsin Limnologist professor Emeritus John Magnuson, the last 20 years has seen the most rapid reduction. Lake Mendota ice duration record illustrates that trend. The most extreme change for Lake Mendota came in the winter months of 2001-2002, when the lake had the shortest ice duration observed since 1853, and ice cover lasted only 21 days. Magunson says the mean duration of ice cover has been declining on Madison's Lake Monona as well, from 114 days of ice cover in the 1870s, to an average of 82 days in the 1990s. Earth Observatory, NASA, April 2004 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/ Drought Still Ravages Western U.S. April 12 - From the brittle hillsides of southern California to the drying fields of Idaho, from Montana to New Mexico, a relentless drought is worsening across most of the West, water supplies are dwindling and the threat of wildfires is rising. (Associated Press) Global Warming Cited in Turtle Nesting April 11 - Loggerhead sea turtles along Florida's Atlantic coast are laying their eggs about 10 days earlier than they did 15 years ago, a change that a University of Central Florida researcher thinks was caused by global warming. (The Indianapolis Star) Shorter Winters, Drier Summers Hint at Climate Change April 8 - University of Montana scientists believe shorter winters and drier summers are a sign of climate change, that will likely accelerate in the coming years. (The Billings Gazette) Climate Problems for Breeding Birds April 8 - Unpredictable weather has shortened the breeding season for endangered dotterel in the Bay of Plenty. (The New Zealand Herald) Waterbirds Desert Britain as Climate Change Takes Its Toll April 8 - Scientists say more frequent mild winters are causing many migratory bird species to move east due to the effects of climate change. (The Scotsman) Bermuda Airborne Study May Explain Climate Change April 2 - A study says a surprising number of microorganisms have reached Bermuda in air that has traveled across the Atlantic and may be responsible for some diseases in marine organisms and even people. (The Royal Gazette) Much of Europe and several Asian countries last summer experienced deadly heat wavers during certain months of the summer. Upwards of 35,000 Europeans lost their lives as a result of an extreme heat wave that hit most of Europe early last August; heat wave deaths were reported in France, Switzerland and the Mediterranean region, killing upwards of 35,000 people, with 15,000 deaths from the heat reported in France alone. http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update29.htm An acute heat wave took the lives of at least 1,065 people in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, which exceeded the heat wave death toll that occurred in 2002, when another 1,037 people lost their lives as a result of record high temperatures during the daytime and nighttime hours. The coastal regions of Andhra and Telangana experienced temperatures almost 10 degrees higher than the seasonal average last summer. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2003/ann/global.html#Ttrends The NCDC summary report on 2003 for the Southern Hemisphere does not document any heat wave deaths. That does not rule out there having been some, of course. The Southern Hemisphere's experiences summer and winter during the opposite times of the year from the Northern Hemisphere, and that may influence the availability of heat wave death reports. Arctic Circle, Antarctica and Mountain Tops Two of the more obvious signs of global warming are: (1) rates of ice and snow melting increase over the year, and (2) the geographic extent (acres) of snow and ice melting increases from year to year. In both 2002 and 2003, the Northern Hemisphere registered record low ocean ice cover. NASA's satellite data show the Arctic region warmed more during the 1990s than during the 1980s, with Arctic Sea ice now melting by up to 15 percent per decade. Satellite images show the ice cap covering the Northern pole has been shrinking by 10 percent per decade over the past 25 years. On the opposite end of the globe, sea ice floating near Antarctica has shrunk by some 20 percent since 1950. One of the world's largest icebergs, named B-15, that measured near 10,000 square kilometers (4,000 square miles) or half the size of New Jersey, calved off the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000. The Larsen Ice Shelf has largely disintegrated within the last decade, shrinking to 40 percent of its previously stable size. http://cooltech.iafrica.com/science/280851.htm Ice cores drilled through a glacier more than four miles up in the Himalayan Mountains have yielded a highly detailed record of the last 1,000 years of earth's climate in the high Tibetan Plateau. Based on an analysis of the ice, both the last decade and the last 50 years were the warmest in 1,000 years. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/09/000919080927.htm http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/071801_karl.htm On Greenland, once-stable glaciers are now melting. The Jakobshavn Glacier on the island's southwest coast is thinning four times faster now than it did during most of the twentieth century. Each year, Greenland loses some 51 cubic kilometers of ice, enough to annually raise sea level 0.13 millimeters. [Glacial ice melting when it occurs on land adds "new" water to the ocean, whereas the melting of sea ice does not cause any increase in sea level since the water is already present in or on the ocean.] Glaciers in Central Asia's Tien Shan Mountains have shrunk by nearly 30 percent between 1955 and 1990. In arid western China, shrinking glaciers account for at least 10 percent of freshwater supplies. The retreat of the Qori Kalis Glacier in the northern Andes has accelerated to 155 meters a year between 1998 and 2000, which is three times faster the retreat that occurred during the previous three-year period. The Antizana Glacier in Ecuador has retreated more than 90 meters over the last eight years. The Chacaltaya Glacier near La Paz, Bolivia, melted to 7 percent of its 1940s volume by 1998. Scientists say glaciers are melting so fast in parts of Kazakhstan that the livelihoods of millions of people will be affected. Mountains which run for 1,250 miles along the north-west edge of the Tibetan plateau form an important climatic barrier between the Siberian and central Asian air masses. There are 416 glaciers in the region, covering 197 square miles. Between 1974 and 1990, these glaciers lost 1.28% of their volume, each year. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/3077422.stm The Patagonia Icefields of Chile and Argentina, the largest non-Antarctic ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere, are thinning at an accelerating pace and now account for nearly 10 percent of global sea-level change from mountain glaciers, according to a new study by NASA and Chile's Centro de Estudios Cientificos. The Patagonia Icefields (2,140 sq. mi.) lost ice at a rate equivalent to a sea level rise of 0.04 millimeters per year during the period 1975 through 2000. This is equal to nine percent of the total annual global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers, according to the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Scientific Assessment. From 1995 through 2000, however, that rate of ice loss from the icefields more than doubled, to an equivalent sea level rise of 0.1 millimeters per year. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2003/138.cfm Africa's glaciers are also disappearing. Across the continent, mountain glaciers have shrunk to one-third their size over the twentieth century. On Kenya's Kilimanjaro, ice cover has shrunk by more than 33 percent since 1989. In Western Europe, the glacial area has shrunk by up to 40 percent, and glacial ice has declined in volume by more than half since 1850. Glacier National Park in Montana has lost over two thirds of its glaciers since 1850. Glaciers in all of Alaska's 11 glaciated mountain ranges are shrinking. Since the mid-1990s, Alaskan glaciers have been thinning by 1.8 meters a year, more than three times as fast as during the preceding 40 years. http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update32.htm Researchers at the University of Alaska recently surveyed 67 major glaciers and found the rate of melting in the last five years is rapidly growing. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s, the glaciers lost about 13 cubic miles of ice a year to the ocean; in the last 5 years, the annual rate of ice lost increased almost 100% to 24 cubic miles. Over the last half of century, approximately 500 cubic miles of ice have melted off the 67 Alaskan glaciers studied. This summer saw the biggest melt yet in Alaska's sea ice, and winter in the interior was unprecedentedly mild - for the Arctic. NCDC's latest report finds that "much warmer than average temperatures were widespread across much of Alaska last year", that the spring snow cover extent in the Northern Hemisphere again measured below average, with 14 of the last 16 years in the Northern Hemisphere having below average spring snow cover extent. The beetle boom in Alaska is one that locals and scientists alike attribute to global warming. But it's just one in a long list. Some say temperatures have changed more in Alaska over the past 30 years than they have anywhere else on Earth. http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,582593,00.html ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
