The Age Of Warming

60 Minutes Goes To The Bottom Of The World And To The Top of A Glacier To See The Fastest Warming Place On Earth

(CBS)  American biologists Sue and Wayne Trivelpiece were the first to find trouble in Paradise Cove. Wayne Trivelpiece says, over the years, the population of Chinstrap penguins has changed by about 60 percent.

The Trivelpieces live in a tiny American outpost, where they’ve studies penguins for more than 30 years with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

"I’m curious about the evolution. How long have there been penguins?" Pelley asks.

"Oh, millions of years 30, 40 million years," Sue Trivelpiece says. "There have been six-foot penguin fossils found … and with ten-inch bills and I really don’t think I would want to band one of those guys."

Banding modern penguins led to their discovery. It starts with a roundup: they’ve squeezed ID bands on 70,000 penguins to see if they survive their migration.

Penguins migrate up to 5,000 miles in the coldest water on earth. And if you think penguins don’t “fly” you’ve never seen them underwater, where they can hit 25 miles an hour.

But, after millions of years of endurance, many Chinstrap and Adelie penguins aren’t surviving anymore.

"We knew something was drastically wrong. Something had changed in the ocean," Wayne Trivelpiece tells Pelley.

What do they think was happening?

"We didn’t really know. We knew it had to be something that was going on once they left land and went out to sea," Sue Trivelpiece explains.

"We love working with the Chinstraps. They are far and away the most cooperative," says Sue’s husband Wayne.

"But you know what, Wayne, I’m not sure they like working with you," Pelley remarks.

Getting manhandled may ruffle their feathers, but it was key to discovering their fate.

There were some grown penguin chicks, chasing their mothers for food which she delivers beak to beak. Soon, the chicks will go to sea to hunt a shrimp-like crustacean called "krill."

Krill grow beneath the sea ice, but in the warming ocean, the sea ice is melting away.

"So the penguins have been going to sea and starving to death?" Pelley asks.

"The chicks are declining and we think they just can’t find the krill," Sue Trivelpiece says.

"When you can link a change in warming in air temperature to ice to krill to penguins and show a 50 percent reduction in the penguin population here and connect all the dots you really can’t make it any clearer than that," her husband adds.

If it’s clear the south is warming, Paul Mayewski is also in the region to find out why. He is among the most accomplished Antarctic scientists. He’s director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine and he has been exploring Antarctica since 1968. They’ve even named a mountain after him here.

Asked what some of the big questions are that he is trying to answer, Mayewski tells Pelley, "We’d of course like to be able to demonstrate that over the last few thousand years this temperature change truly is different."

Is warming caused by man’s pollution in the atmosphere? Mayewski says the answer is under our feet. With the help of scientists from Poland’s Arctowski Research Station, 60 Minutes set out to climb to the top of a glacier that was fractured by deep crevasses covered in snow.

Mayewski trekked thousands of miles to discover what the climate was like before humans walked the earth. He’s found evidence all over the Antarctic continent.

Antarctica is one and a half times the size of the United States. It is covered in ice that averages a mile in thickness.

"If you want to learn about the climate you’ve got to get here and you’ve got to experience the place," Mayewski tells Pelley.

[ray_collins]

Don't you think there are natural factors that could be adding the greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere instead of us humans? There are hundreds of active volcanos erupting the so-called greenhouse gasses. Many areas of the world have seen drought conditions that have reduced the green factor for taking carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere. I am a firm believer that temperatures are on the rise, and at an alarming rate, but why put the blame completely on human activity?

[rf35]

Volcanoes have been erupting for far longer than the 850,000 years referenced in the article. Nature always managed to balance out the effects of these. In the last 150 years or so, humans have started having a more dramatic impact that ever on our environment. While human activity is not the sole cause of greenhouse gas emissions, we have most certainly thrown the environment out of the balance that was maintained for so many millions of years. Ever wonder WHY many areas of the world have been experiencing drought conditions? Man has clear-cut forests, paved prairies, and spewed thousands of tons of chemicals into the atmosphere. What do you think that does to the natural balance? The answer is sitting in Antarctica melting and in the next few decades, New York may well be swimming in it!

[dynosor]

This is amazing: Ice melting in one location when most Antarctic weather stations show the temperature going down. Just Google Antarctic station temperature and see for yourself.

Next we will be told that it is the combustion of fossil fuels that killed off the dinosaurs.

[chuck8386]

The major influences on climate change are cause by changes in the Earth's orbit and its wobble. These create the 100,000 year glacial cycles. We are in an interglacial period now, but in another 20,000 years there will be a glacier two miles thick here in New England. Shoveling the roof will be really tough.

The temperature difference between now and the glacial period is only 5 degrees celsius. That's why a 1 degree change in global temperature is significant. Disappearing glaciers mean that water sources that support large populations will eventually dry up.

CO2 causes most global warming and virtually all of the CO2 increase is from burning fossil fuels. Got to www.realclimate.org for some excellent science.

[s6060601]

Quick question - why was there no counter opinion offered in this piece? Every other topic gets a pro or con, for or against, etc - why not this 'scientific' topic?

[bill1linda]

On our Alaskan cruise we received a map of Glacier Bay as the ship entered it. In 1750, it was a glacier out to the Inland Passage. By the early 1800's it had retreated 60 miles or so. It seems that the earth is in a warming trend. We are no doubt adding to the problem, but humans probably could have little effect in reversing the trend. See about Glacier Bay: http://www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/glba/.

[michalak4]

So much of the media has addressed global warming, but little time is ever given as to how we as a population can make viable changes our own lives to reverse the trend. 60 Minutes should do a series of segments focusing on the major contributers to global warming and how we can achieve positive impact. Since our dependancy on eating meat is perhaps the single largest contributor to the climate change - even more so than driving cars, I would suggest starting there. Not even Al Gore wants to touch that one.

[rf35]

As a carnivore, I don't plan on cutting meat out of my diet.

The sad thing is that it is too late to do anything about global warming. That's why there is little said about reversing the trend. I still advocate getting the world, especially America, off fossil fuels. It just makes sense to end our dependence on oil and be able to breathe cleaner air. But global warming is too far along to do much about in the short term. Whether human activity caused this or not, humans certainly can%u2019t do anything to reverse it.

[jinxkity]

In the mid 70s through the early 90s we were warned about the effects cutting down the Amazon rain forests would have. 80% - 90% of the earth's moisture came from there. It should be no surprise that the earth is now having to dig into it's reserves to keep our climate moist enough. Whether man exists on this planet or not, the earth, with it's extraordinary ability to survive, will.

[realcrisis]

Al Gore may be a visionary, but if THIS is true, does it not represent the real crisis?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/what_al_gore_really_wants.html

I am buying his book and movie to find out.

[wildriversta]

I don't pretend to understand all of the science regarding global warming. I do question some of the validity and assumptions we are asked to believe. Take for example the ice core drillings that were mentioned in this report of Antartica. By drilling down in the ice to take core samples going back thousands of years we are told that the air samples were purer. This may be viable, but honestly if we are in a global warming trend that we have caused over the last 100 or 200 years, any samples that would have indicated the air quality at that time would have already melted. The idea of drilling down to get core samples of previous years would indicate to me, the average human being using common sense, that we are experiencing a cooling and a deposit of ice formations over the last years. I am aware that only two decades ago they were warning us of global cooling. Regarding my own experience in Minnesota, our records indicate that the land of 10,000 lakes have had no consistant indication of warming trends based on annual reports of ice out dates on area lakes since such records were kept. I have yet to see a direct significant connection to man's contribution to global warming. While there is enough data to show there are climatic changes, can anyone really test all of the variables to make the assumption that man is responsible. In the mean time I do support conservation efforts and am waiting for more verifiable proof.

[nileriver2]

Great job Scott Peley.
One thing though, there is no place on earth named Anartic. It is Anarctic - like the other side of the world from Arctic. I looked it up in the Reader's Digest World Atlas!
Another thing is, there are no polar bears in either the Anartic or the Anarctic. Check - it - out!

[silver9991]

Michalak4:

"Since our dependancy on eating meat is perhaps the single largest contributor to the climate change - even more so than driving cars, I would suggest starting there. Not even Al Gore wants to touch that one."

Not necessesarily so. Yes, the big bang meat-raising conglomerates are an issue, but sustainable meat ranching IS sometimes better on an energy-use scale than trucking in your (big bang) veggies from 2000 miles away. The artichokes I'm cooking for tonight's dinner came in from the other side of the continent. The venison I ate two nights ago foraged in the wild and didn't take any extra energy to get to my home (because the person who brought it to my doorstep was coming here anyway).

There's a lot of talk about moving to corn for our energy needs. One plus: it gets us off of immediate foreign oil dependency. The negative: we just drop that dependency back a layer or two. It's still there.

There's some talk about animals like goats, which can live in areas where human crops cannot grow, and free-range pasture. This source of meat would not be cheap perhaps, but can provide for sustainable protein production.

My point is that there are a lot of variables on food sources and environmental impact, and we should keep this in mind.

[silver9991]

Ray_Collins: no one has said that there aren't Planet Earth factors adding to the global warming/climate change events.

YES, decidedly they do happen.

The question is: what percentage is us, and what percentage is this planet? I don't know the answer to that.

I don't live in an all-or-nothing world. Things are seldom just one cause, and never something else. They blend. For better, or for worse.

[silver9991]

astro2111 - kudos to you for being able to go out and do your own research!

[johnsmith511]

Thank you for the story, Global Warming/Climate Control.

The stories objectivity was wonderfully shown. That''s right, there''s only one side to global warming, now changed to "climate change".

Why the name change? It''s hard to talk about "Global Warming" when it snows in areas with global warming demonstrations (LOL).

Now that 60 Minutes has told the story from ONLY one side, let''s hear from the other side, those scientists who do not believe in the Global Warming Theory.

When the weather men start predicting the future weather patterns, correctly, then maybe we can look into "your science" into global warming.

Please let me know the airing of the other side.

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Be Good

[smabo]

Something new under the sun?

Interesting climate changes have been occurring since time immemorial.
If climate change is deemed to be such an alarming problem, than why have not the seas risen even an infinitesimal amount in our recent industrial era history?
Certainly we should all be concerned about our environment; but the waters are being murkified and methinks the largest supplier of %u2018warming%u2019 is the hollow hot air emanating from profiteering pundits from each side of the issue.

http://hotairorrealconcern.blogspot.com/

[Terry Mooney]

I watched with great interest your story about the Antarctic warming phenomenon and specifically the conclusion drawn that human activity since the Industrial Revolution is the main contributor to the problem.
A few weeks ago, I had a dream that I wwas receiving a voice-mail and it was from the Chief Economist of the Universe. The subject was global warming and a solution to the problem was offered.Being a musician, I composed a song which I think captures the message. I''m wondering if you are interested in hearing the song?

[extremophil]

Only one answer to this problem: Penguin burgers.

[drwhite48]

I agree with almost all the comments. There was no mention of the fact that the main ice in Antarctica is "thickening" significantly. It seems that even though some warming may be happening, earth is compensating by increasing snows in antarctica so the net effect of sea level rise is near zero. Why don''t you guys show all sides of a question? That''s why I normally watch Fox news.

[drwhite48]

I tell you what, let''s shut the whole thing down. All industry, power production, etc. No more warming. No more food, no more CBS, no more going to see Grandma in the family car, nothing. You eat what you grow or catch. Cuts down on stray dogs don''t it. No grocery stores.
Sounds a bit like the stone age. If that''s where the liberals want to go, well, Gore might just talk them into it.

[hellocbs]

As someone who spent a year at the South Pole Scott Pelley%u2019s praise of Gino Casassa was over rated when he said: He was so respected a mountain was named after him. When Antarctica was mapped the mountains were name after anyone who was there. I worked with a cook and communication person who had a mountain named for them

[dmontaine1]

Thank you for re-airing the alert on global warming in the Southern Hemisphere. I have an idea I have been sending to potential investors to slow glacial melting that I would like to send to Scientist Gino Casassa for his input on how to make it more effective, and on how we might proceed. Basically, I propose we use reflective sailcloth to shield the ice and waters. I would appreciate very much information from you on how I could contact him or send him my thoughts.

Thank you for your inspiring program!

Sincerely,
Dot Montaine

[tnollc]

Why let facts get in the way. The average temperture at the south pole is MINUS 49. Unless there has been a change in the melting point of ice - nothing will melt until the temperature is around freezing. For you at
CBS 60 minutes it is 32 degrees. The south pole is not melting!