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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 6, NUMBER 10, OCTOBER 1993

NEWS...
RESEARCH NEWS

Item #d93oct126

Methane emissions from wetlands may be closely related to net ecosystem production. This finding provides a means of better estimating global methane emissions, and suggests a possible positive feedback mechanism for global warming. (See: "Primary Production Control of Methane Emission from Wetlands," G.J. Whiting, J.P. Chanton, ibid., 364(6440), 794-795, Aug. 26, 1993).

Item #d93oct127

N₂O emissions from pastures following tropical deforestation may be overestimated, according to a recent paper by Keller et al. (See this issue's section on Professional Publications/General Interest--Science; and see Science News, p. 180, Sep. 18 1993.)

Item #d93oct128

Arctic emissions of CO₂ are shown to be larger than previously thought after measurements by a Russian team. (See: "Winter Biotic Activity and Production of CO₂ in Siberian Soils: A Factor in the Greenhouse Effect," S.A. Zimov, J. Geophys. Res., 98(D3), 5017-5023, Mar. 20, 1993. And see Science News, p. 264, Apr. 24 1993.)

Item #d93oct129

Climatic fluctuations recently observed in ice cores have now been found in ocean sediments; the same research reveals a previously unrecognized pattern of fluctuations in both records. (See

"Correlations Between Climate Records from North Atlantic Sediments and Greenland Ice," G. Bond, W. Broecker et al., Nature, 365(6442), Sep. 9, 1993: 143-147.)

Item #d93oct130

Iceberg surges: A member of a team at Cambridge University studying Heinrich events in the North Atlantic has summarized some of their recent results in New Scientist. (See

"Waiting for the Polar Meltdown," M. Maslin, New Scientist, 36-41, Sep. 4 1993).

Item #d93oct131

Ozone destruction by a newly-reported mechanism may help explain middle latitude stratospheric ozone loss. (See: "Stratospheric Ozone Depletion by ClONO2 Photolysis," R. Toumi, R.L. Jones, J.A. Pyle, Nature, 365(3441), 37-39, Sep. 2, 1993.)

Item #d93oct132

Skin cancer: A recent study finds that visible and UV-A light effectively induces malignant melanoma, implying that depletion of the ozone layer would have only a minor effect on the incidence of melanoma. (See: "Wavelengths Effective in Induction of Malignant Melanoma," R.B. Setlow, E. Grist et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 90(14), 6666-6670, July 1993. Also see news reports in Chem. Eng. News, pp. 7-8, July 19 1993, and Science News, p. 53, July 24 1993.)

Item #d93oct133

Stratospheric Processes and Their Role in Climate (SPARC), a new project of the World Climate Research Program, has just published its first newsletter, and is about to publish a book, The Role of the Stratosphere in Global Change, through Springer-Verlag (Tiergartenstr. 17, 6900 Heidelberg 1, Ger.) Contact SPARC at Service d'Aéronomie, CNRS, BP 3, 91371 Verrières Le Buisson Cedex, France (tel: +33-1-64 47 43 15; fax: +33-1-69 20 29 99).

Item #d93oct134

Arctic research coordination: The International Arctic Science Committee has established a Global Change Program Office at the University of Lapland's Arctic Center in Rovaniemi, Finland. (Nature, p. 286, Sep. 23.) The office will provide an information clearinghouse, will monitor and advise projects, particularly on the role of the Arctic in climate change, and will integrate research in the natural sciences with social and economic studies.

Item #d93oct135

Sun-climate relationships: Comments on the current unerstanding of the relationship between global temperature and changes in solar irradiance are being solicited by two NASA scientists, who feel the topic deserves more attention in view of concerns over greenhouse warming. The collection of responses may be published. Contact Hongsuk Kim and Kenneth Brown, Code 925, NASA-Goddard, Greenbelt MD 20771 (fax: 301-286-9200).

Item #d93oct136

Model performance: Fossils from continental interiors indicate that temperatures there during the Eocene were much warmer than predicted by current climate models. Modelers have tended to dismiss this discrepancy, but now paleontologists are fighting back, coming up with quantitative evidence that puts into question the ability of such models to simulate future climate change. (See news article in Science, p. 682, Aug. 6 1993.)

Item #d93oct137

"Global Warming Cuts No Ice," M. Redfern, New Scientist, p. 16, Sep. 25. Report of a September meeting in Cambridge, England, where glaciologists from 22 countries could not reach a definite conclusion on whether global warming would cause the Antarctic ice sheet to melt rapidly and cause a catastrophic rise in sea level.

Item #d93oct138

"Back Through the Nests of Time," J. Hecht, New Scientist, p. 10, Aug. 28. A paper presented at the Ecological Society of America meeting concludes that changes in vegetation in four of America's national parks over the past century, due to human disturbance, are more extensive than anything that happened in the previous 5000 years. The changes would probably mask any effects of global warming for the next 20 years.

Item #d93oct139

Special Section: "Computing in Science," Science, Aug. 13. Brief articles include "Fitting Planet Earth into a User-Friendly Database," pp. 846, 848; "ERS-1: A Cautionary Tale of Data Overload," p. 847; "Beyond Databases and E-Mail," pp. 841-843. Includes the major article "Parallel Scientific Computation" (pp. 856-863).

Item #d93oct140

"Biological Approaches to Reducing Atmospheric CO₂," S. Alpert, EPRI Journal, pp. 44-47, Apr.-May (Electric Power Res. Inst., POB 10412, Palo Alto CA 94303). EPRI research shows that capturing and sequestering large amounts of CO₂ through biological processes may be feasible, but further work is needed to determine the costs and practicality on a firm scientific basis.