Arctic Time Melting Away

A newly finished piece, one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy. - D.B. Clay

Arctic Time Melting Away

Caption Contest!!!

We will be sending a free 11" x 17" signed print to the best caption for this piece, titled 'Crudecifixion.' Please leave your caption as a comment, contest will close Wednesday 2/4 at 9:00 PM EST. Best of luck to all!

Crudecifixion - May the best caption win!

El Niño - The Child Is Near

Expectations of a strong El Niño this year are prevalent.  The Pacific waters off South America's west coast around the equator are warming up.  We will soon see how warmer waters will affect our atmosphere this year. An El Niño this year will be compounded with a positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation.  The PDO warms waters in the Pacific off North America's west coast. We are at the beginning of a warmer period that may last up to thirty years and possibly centuries to come. The last warm phase attributed to PDO was in the years 1975 through 1998.  The period before that was 1920 through 1945. Don't worry you'll still have winters on the planet.  The sun will still not shine at the poles during the winter.  Cold air will come down from the poles and the polar vortex storms may even get worse This years double whammy of PDO and El Niño will undoubtedly create the perfect storms for Earth's atmosphere to explode.
              Mankind has set the stage for what's coming.  We can never see a rainbow when we're in the storm.  I have always believed that we as a species will never change our ways until things are FUBAR ( #@%X  messed up beyond all repair).  The time is near and we can only hope that it's not too late.  Some models predict 2015 to be the warmest year on record.  We just came off 2014 as the record busting warmest year on record.  Some climate models are expecting back to back El Niño's.  The 9 degree warming has begun and as the overall atmospheric temperature rises so will the havoc that Mother Nature will bring to the planet.  Time for us to cool down and keep cooler heads. Da Nile is in Egypt and those who are in this state should be like the Ostrich and bury their heads in the sand while visiting it in Africa.
                 Please attempt to lessen your carbon footprint.  Individually-Commercially-Industrially. There are times when change is needed and this is one of those times.  Thanks for your help- all species and beings will appreciate the change.

Polar Bears

About 5,000 polar bear cubs were born in the Arctic around New Year's Day, according to the World Wildlife Fun (WWF). The end of December is typically when the bears give birth. A time when the northern polar region is blanketed by some of the coldest and darkest conditions of the year. WWF celebrates the polar bears birthday on December 29th and estimates the global population of the iconic animals is between 20,000 and 25,000. The bears which can typically live to be about 25 years old, are threatened by poachers, global warming, and pollution. They have become the poster animal for climate change and the resulting melt of their Arctic ice cap homes.

Please stop taking my todays and then you won't steal my tomorrow. Today is tomorrow from yesterday's perspective. - D.B. Clay

Ice Cover In Polar Regions Seeing Dramatic Changes

Arctic:  The ice cap around the North Pole shrank to its sixth-lowest size on record on Sept.17. reaching a minimum coverage of 1.94 million square miles.  That’s down slightly from last September, but nearly as low as the record-setting minimum of 1.32 million square miles in 2012.  While the famed North-West passage in Arctic Canada failed to become ice free this summer, the Northern Sea route opened with little ice along the shipping route off Siberia

Earthweek   |   Steve Newman

The Plain Dealer February 22, 2014

New Jet Stream Path May Lead To Weather Extremes

Residents from North America to Britain, weary of ice, blizzards and catastrophics flooding this winter, may have to get used to weeks or even months of such miserable conditions on a regular basis.  That’s the conclusion of a Rutgers-NOAA study that found the jet stream is now taking a longer more erratic path due to global warming.  The jet stream is a powerful, high altitude river of air that transports weather systems around the planet.  It’s fueled by differences in temperature by the Arctic and the middle latitudes.  And because temperatures across the Arctic have been rising two to three times more rapidly than in the rest of the world, those differences are now less and causing the jet stream to slow.  This is resulting in weather that remains the same for prolonged periods, like the barrage of blizzards that buried parts of Canada and the United States and the onslaught of oceanic storms that has swamped and battered Britain.

The polar vortex can drop the jet stream way south of where it used to be. The warming of the Alaskan Gulf may help this dip.

D.B. Clay

Dolphins

Dolphins - Original artwork by D.B. Clay

Long live the dolphins. Who knows how long they, and the rest of our planet, will be around.

Ocean Churning Hides Solar Radiation Heat Gain

A new and detailed study into the recent 13 year pause in global surfacing warming points to stronger trade winds in the Pacific as the primary cause.  Scientists recently explained that the deep oceans have been absorbing the brunt of excess solar radiation due to higher greenhouse gas levels, but they didn’t know exactly how that was happening.  Research just published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that the strengthening of the trade winds has churned the Pacific so much that heat is being drawn from the air down to the waters between about 300 and 1,000 feet in depth. The same churning brings up cooler waters, cooling the air above the ocean surface.  Further accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere is expected to eventually overpower the factors behind the pause in global warming.

Earthweek   |   Steve Newman

The Plain Dealer February 22, 2014

As the world churns. 

D.B. Clay

Continued Global Warming May Lead To More El Ninos

The world’s most influential global weather phenomenon is likely to more than double in frequency if efforts to limit global warming fail, according to a new report. An international team writing in the journal Nature Climate Change says that the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions will bring twice as many as extreme outbreaks of El Nino ocean warming to the tropical Pacific over the next century as has ever occurred over the previous 100 years.  “Our research shows this will double to one event every 10 years,” said study author Agus Santuso.  El Nino events can trigger large scale weather shifts that brings storms or drought to various parts of he world.  The last extreme El Nino wreaked havoc on global weather patterns in 1997-1998, causing billions of dollars in damage and killing approxiamately 23,000 people.

Earthweek   |   Steve Newman

The Plain Dealer January 25, 2014

Get a load of what the next one will be blamed for.

Arctic Lifeboat

Arctic Lifeboat

While this painting may appear gruesome to some, it is undeniable that our approaching future on this planet is as well. Not only will the lives of precious animals be affected, but the lives of humans as well. Time is short.

Leading Experts Anticipate Accelerated Global Warming

Earth’s atmosphere reacts far more to greenhouse emissions than previously thought,  leading experts  predict the planet’s surface temperature will rise by an average of 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.  Writing in the journal Nature, a team of Australia based researchers says it has found how cloud formation plays a role in climate, which has been one of the greatest uncertainties in the prediction of global warming.  The group says that while climate models show a relatively low global temperature reaction to carbon dioxide emissions, those models currently do not factor in all the water vapor released into the atmosphere.  The report concludes that “real world observations” show that accepted models are wrong.  They point to fewer clouds forming than the clouds project , which means more sunlight will enter the atmosphere, making the atmosphere far more sensitive to the warming effects of heat trapping greenhouse gases.  “Climate skeptics like to criticize climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit that they are not perfect,” said lead author Steven Sherwood.  “But what we are finding is that mistakes are being made by those models (that) predict less warming, not those that predict more.”

Earthweek   |   Steve Newman

The Plain Dealer January 4, 2014

Last of Stable Greenland Ice Sheet Shrinks Dramatically

Greenland’s last remaining stable portion of ice sheet has now lost it’s grip due to climate change and is stable no longer, according to researchers.  Once thought to be immune to the effects of global warming, the Zachariae glacier began shrinking rapidly in 2003 and has since lost 10 billion tons of ice per year, retreating by more than 12 miles.  Three years of exceptionally warm weather just after the turn of the 21st century broke the blockage that had kept the river of ice in place, according to a report published in the journal Nature Climate Change.  Grenland’s ice cap has been a yardstick for global ocean rise because if it melted entirely. Global sea levels would rise by about 23 feet.

Earthweek   | Steve Newman

The Plain Dealer March 22, 201

Wow ! One glacier alone is losing 10 billion tons of ice per year.  If I am correct that equates to 2 to 2.5 trillion of gallons of water per year.  Where does all that water go to ?  Oh yes, eventually if not immediately it goes right into our oceans.  Thereby the ocean and sea levels are raised.

The Last Stand (Blue Hue)

The Last Stand 2

Weather Agency Predicts Centuries of Warming

The head of the U.N. weather agency says that global warming has not stopped and will continue for at least centuries due to the burning of fossil fuels by humans.  Michel Jarraud made the pronouncement as he presented the World Meteorological Organization’s annual review of the world’s climate. The report concludes that last year tied with 2007 as the sixth hottest since reliable records began over 150 years ago.  It also says that 13 of the 14 warmest years on record have occurred in this century.  “Greenhouse gases are at record levels, meaning that our atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come.  The laws of physics are non-negotiable,” Jarraud told a news conference.

Earthweek   |   Steve Newman

The Plain Dealer    March 29,2014 A2

“The laws of physics are non-negotiable” Michel Jarraud

Look out, here it comes. 

2014 was hottest recorded since reliable records kept

Last year was the world’s hottest since reliable records began in the late 1800’s, and was also likely the hottest in the history of human civilization, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The Tokyo-based agency is one of four worldwide that calculate global trends in somewhat different ways.  A day after the JMA announcement, the University of Alabama in Huntsville said 2014 was the third warmest in the 36-year global satellite temperature record.  But researchers there cautioned that the difference from previous hot years as measured by satellites was so narrow as to be “not statistically different than zero.”  Data from other agencies pointed to unprecedented ocean warmth as the main driver of the new record atmospheric heat.

          Earthweek   |  Steve Newman

Week ending Jan. 9.

The Plain Dealer    January 10 A2

The Last Stand

The Last Stand

Nine Degrees

                 Over the last 2.4 million years planet earth has been in many ice ages.  The overall temperature of the planet’s surface has changed little over this time period.  The ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland have remained fairly constant.  The ice sheets that are no longer with us covered the northern hemisphere including much of the United States, Europe and Russia. We are now in an interglacial period.  An interglacial period is a warming period between  ice ages.  Our current interglacial period has been warming for more than 10,000 years.  

What caused the end of the last ice age we can only guess at.  The sun goes through cycles where it gives off different amounts of radiation which can warm or cool us.  The earth’s axis and wobbling rotation changes every 41,000 years or so sometimes making winter’s in the northern hemisphere longer and the summers shorter.  Volcanic eruptions on the planet can spew gases and other particles of matter miles in our upper atmosphere blocking the sun’s rays from warming the earth thereby keeping us in an ice age.  When we have less volcanic activity over ten thousand years the sun’s radiation will warm us. Some scientists believe a large comet or meteor hit somewhere near Canada breaking up an ice dam which blocked and trapped fresh water from returning to the ocean.  Once this fresh water hit the Atlantic Ocean it stopped the thermalhaline conveyor system which helps regulate temperature and weather conditions throughout the planet.  The causes are important for us to understand, but what is more important to understand is that we are now warming up.  The cause of the latest warming has happened since the industrial revolution.  Our latest warming has increased in the last 100 years and truly has accelerated in the last fifty years.

Planet Earth’s overall surface and atmospheric temperature has increased 1.1 degrees as of late and is steadily increasing due to the activities of mankind.  Our civilization and culture has made many of us comfortable in our lifestyles, but this comes at a cost.  The cost is a warmer planet.  What will a warmer planet bring upon us?  We will soon find out.  The Pacific Ocean is warming bringing more cyclones to our friends and brothers and sisters in that area.  The sea levels are rising and soon islands and cities throughout the planet will be under water.  Glaciers in our mountain ranges are disappearing at a rate where none will be around in the decades to come.  They bring fresh water and many peoples only freshwater to drink and raise crops with.  I don’t mean to sound like chicken little and say the sky is falling, but these are the effects that our current warming [caused by mankind] is having on the planet.  Areas that have been wet and rainy will only get wetter and perhaps have an increase in flooding.  Areas that have been arid and dry will only get dryer turning more land into desert.  This has been happening in Australia and the four corners area of the United States.

Our various countries and the governments of those countries are responding to this phenomenon very slowly.  Worldwide greenhouse emissions are increasing.  Greenhouse gases are the root cause of our current warming trend.  The leader of greenhouse emissions is carbon dioxide CO2.  CO2 is an integral part of life on planet earth, but too much of anything can have undesirable effects to all of us.  Four billion tons of carbon is not being recycled by mother Earth.  Our oceans and atmosphere has recycled carbon for millions and billions of years.

9 Degrees – a blog site to reveal facts and the views of D.B.Clay towards our warming planet.

What we will see in the next three decades will shake our world.  Somewhere during these next thirty years we will  realize what we have done.  My hope is that we will have an epiphany which will take us to the healing that the world will need.  What we can all do now is just slow down.  A smaller carbon foot print will be the baby steps   needed for us to walk properly again without adding 9 degrees of warmth by our presence.

I had an idea for a Christmas story several years ago.  “Green Science Saves Christmas,”  a fun book to show children and their parents how to do their part to lessen their carbon footprint on mother Earth. I continued researching and learning about our warming and decided to go all in to inform others of my discoveries.   It is my hope that all of us on the planet will do their part to assist Mother Earth at this time. As I dream I wish we will all awaken to our reality.

I have written children's books to assist them in these times. If I am able I'll start writing for all ages Many of my paintings express the climate change theme we are in. I will post them as they are created and ask all to express your views on them. My intention is to have a traveling art show with my artwork and fact parts from this blog to educate the public towards our predicament. A show at zoos or natural history museums would be nice for something like this and if anyone is able to help and assist please contact us. Thanks for your viewing and support. I hope everyone enjoys each of your days and always remember that each has been a gift.

Dana B. Clay

Beginnings

Hello!

Welcome to the personal blog of D.B Clay, Cleveland-based author, artist, and environmental activist. Stay tuned for updates on how to join me in healing the planet and protecting her for our future generations! Together we can fight and win the war against climate change.

Original artwork by D.B. Clay