Climate Change: The Next Generation

Contrarians using hacked e-mails to try to fool public on climate science

2009-12-04T08:48:00.000-03:00

Contrarians using hacked e-mails to try to fool public on climate science

by the Union of Concerned Scientists, December 1, 2009

In their ongoing campaign to distort the facts and deceive the public, climate policy opponents are misrepresenting illegally obtained e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain. Opposition groups are taking passages out of context to try to undermine public confidence in climate science.

The e-mails provide no information that would affect the scientific understanding of climate change, as many contrarians are falsely claiming. For years, thousands of scientists working at climate research centers around the world have carefully and rigorously reached a consensus on the extent of climate change, the urgency of the problem, and the role human activity plays in causing it.

While it’s not clear any wrongdoing has actually taken place, scientists should do more to address concerns about openness.

Science flourishes in an atmosphere of transparency and free and open dissent. Suppressing legitimate scientific dissent is wrong. However, it is not clear from the purloined e-mails that the scientists involved actually attempted to hinder the free exchange of scientific information.

The most troubling messages refer to deleting e-mails to avoid disclosure in the event of a freedom of information request. If such deletions did occur, that would be a serious breach of scientific ethics and public trust. The author of the emails, Phil Jones, has stated that he never actually "deleted any emails or data." The University of East Anglia is investigating this matter and, in the meantime, Jones has temporarily stepped down from his post at the school.

Science works because exchanging ideas and criticism helps researchers better understand the world. Scientists have a stake in the credibility of their institutions, including scientific journals, the process of peer review, and consensus reports.

On such issues as global climate change, the scientific community has a special responsibility to the broader public to provide objective, credible information that informs the democratic process. Given the content of some of the e-mails, now is a good time for scientists to recommit to the principles of transparency and scientific integrity.

Evidence for climate change is incontrovertible.

Multiple, independent lines of evidence point to the fact that burning fossil fuels and destroying forests is overloading the atmosphere with carbon and rapidly changing the climate for the worse. This evidence, along with independently developed climate models from many sources, indicates that the more we reduce emissions, the lower the future risks from climate change.

The world's leading scientific bodies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), have affirmed the evidence. In fact, the latest scientific data indicate that climate change is occurring more rapidly than the IPCC previously projected.

The findings of the USGCRP, IPCC and other scientific bodies are based on the work of thousands of scientists from hundreds of research institutions. The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) is just one among many such research institutions. Even without data from CRU, there is still an overwhelming body of evidence that human activity triggering dangerous levels of global warming.

Contrarians are desperately promoting conspiracy theories.

Industry-funded groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) are mischaracterizing the e-mails to advance ludicrous conspiracy theories about climate science, and many bloggers, as well as radio and TV personalities, have been parroting their message. Their intent is to undercut an international climate summit in Copenhagen that begins later this week.

After decades of failing to poke holes in the substance of climate science, opponents of taking action have turned to attacking climate scientists. They have resorted to twisting the words of scientists from illegally obtained e-mails to manufacture doubt about climate science.

Meanwhile, oil and coal companies and their allies continue to spend millions of dollars to confuse the public on climate science and climate solutions. They are the real sources of disinformation and spin in the climate debate.

More information about individual claims from the e-mail is available from the scientists themselves.

Real Climate has been following the hacked e-mail story with posts from scientists explaining what phrases in various e-mails mean.
Phil Jones did an interview with the The Guardian on the e-mails.
Michael Mann covered several of the claims on DeSmog Blog.

Link: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/contrarians-using-hacked-e-mails.html

Arctic Ocean undersaturated for calcium carbonate (aragonite)

2009-12-04T08:45:00.000-03:00

Arctic Ocean undersaturated for calcium carbonate

by Liz Kalaugher, editor, environmentalresearchweb, November 26, 2009

Shelled organisms in the Canada Basin region of the Arctic Ocean could be about to experience a double whammy. Not only did increased ice melt lead to the area's surface waters becoming undersaturated in 2008 for aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate vital for shell-building, but the retreat of sea ice away from the coast means that undersaturated waters from the depths can now upwell and affect organisms living on the sea floor of the Arctic continental shelf.

Rosette recovery

"This is the first evidence of omega aragonite undersaturation in deep basin surface waters," Fiona McLaughlin of the Institute of Ocean Sciences, Canada, told environmentalresearchweb. "In a 2009 publication models predicted that the surface waters might be undersaturated in the Arctic within a decade. We're making those observations now, because the ice has melted so fast. Essentially the papers are almost being written at the same time."

Omega is a measure of the saturation state of calcium carbonate; values below one indicate that the waters will dissolve the mineral while values greater than one indicate favourable conditions for forming shells and skeletons.

Oceans around the globe are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide that man has emitted into the atmosphere. The Arctic Ocean is also experiencing an indirect effect. "The sea ice has melted and the meltwater is very low in alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon, two of the anions that contribute to pH and also to this omega aragonite," explained McLaughlin. In 2007 the extent of Arctic ice was the lowest on record.

Together with colleagues from the Institute of Ocean Sciences, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, and Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, McLaughlin has monitored conductivity, temperature and depth at four locations in the Canada Basin region of the Arctic Ocean from 2002 to 2008. In 2007, when the team realised that the omega ratio was near one, it decided to do aerial sampling the following year to discover the spatial extent of any undersaturation.

In 1997, the surface waters had an aragonite omega reading of 1.4, leading to "no problem at all to organisms." But in 2008 the level was 1 due to the influx of sea-ice meltwater. "So organisms that live in the upper part of the water column, such as larva of pterapods, are at risk," said McLaughlin.

That's not the only effect of the sea-ice melt. "Because of the retreat of the sea ice so far away from the edges of the shelf, now winds can be at work – much like they are on the west coast of Canada – to bring the water that's at 150 m and quite undersaturated up onto the shelf, and affect benthic organisms like clams and molluscs."

As a result two parts of the water column are affected. "We've got undersaturation in the surface in a large area of the Canada Basin, and then on the shelf we've got potential for upwelling of this undersaturated water," said McLaughlin.

This has implications for the food web. "Organisms that have calcium carbonate in their shells will be at risk, things like pterapods and forams," said McLaughlin. "Certainly laboratory studies exposing organisms to waters of different pH show that this puts them at risk. Now we have evidence that those conditions exist."

Because the Arctic food web is quite simple and short, it could be extremely vulnerable to such changes. But McLaughlin says that it takes time to see how populations are decreasing. "I think this has identified that we need to go out and make counts and do a time series so that we can see whether there are effects and what these organisms' tolerance is," she explained.

Study area

Future outlook

The researchers' latest data, which covers a larger area, indicates that the region of undersaturation is even bigger than shown in their paper.

"As there is still ice to melt in the Arctic, this region of undersaturation will continue to grow, I think," said McLaughlin. "It's hard to even say this, but once the permanent icepack melts in summer, that will stop the input of meltwater."

What's more, McLaughlin says that within a decade these low-aragonite surface waters will be leaving the Arctic and entering the North Atlantic. That means the phenomenon could affect a much larger area, providing an additional source of undersaturation on top of the ocean acidification that is already happening.

McLaughlin and colleagues have funding for another five years of surveys in the Canada Basin. "These time series are incredibly powerful in being able to identify change," she said. "We've been doing these measurements in the Arctic since the late 1980s. We're fortunate that the ice has retreated so much because it allows us to survey such a large area in 4–6 weeks; the downside is that the ice is disappearing and becoming thinner. It's an interesting time as a researcher but as a person living on the planet it's more worrisome. The planet is changing much more rapidly than anyone had thought."

The researchers reported their work in Science.

Link: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/research/41070

Nature News: Battle lines drawn over e-mail leak

2009-12-04T08:39:00.000-03:00

Nature (News), 462, 551 (2009); doi:10.1038/462551a; published online 2 December 2009

Battle lines drawn over e-mail leak

Climatologists remain sanguine over incident

by Quirin Schiermeier, Nature News, December 2, 2009

As the blogosphere continues to buzz with discussion about e-mails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, UK, climatologists are insisting that the controversy will not discredit their science, or hamper a global climate deal.

CRU confirmed on 20 November 2009 that more than 1,000 e-mails and documents had been copied from its servers and distributed on the Internet (see Nature 462, 397; 2009). Since then, climate sceptics have seized on the material, citing the contents of selected e-mails as evidence that the case for anthropogenic global warming has been over-stated, and US Senator James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) has promised an investigation into the affair.

Yet climate experts say the broader impact of the leak will be minimal. "Any suggestions that these e-mails will affect public and policy-makers' understanding of climate science give far too much credence to blog chatter and boastful spin," says Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Some, however, are pointing out that certain e-mails highlight a tendency for scientists to respond to critics either by retreating into an ivory tower, or by attempting to quiet dissenting voices. In an open letter posted on http://climateaudit.org, Judith Curry, a climatologist at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, wrote last week: "Scientists need to consider carefully skeptical arguments and either rebut them or learn from them. Trying to suppress them or discredit the skeptical researcher or blogger is not an ethical strategy and one that will backfire in the long run."

The UEA has launched an independent inquiry into both the security breach and whether CRU has dealt appropriately with the deluge of requests for raw climate data it has received under the UK Freedom of Information Act (see Nature 460, 787; 2009). It has also pointed out that more than 95% of the raw data used in CRU climate models has been publicly available for several years.

What the climate experts say

Thomas Stocker, University of Berne
"Science and science institutions should be transparent, but they are not a 24-hour help service for climate sceptics who lack fundamental scientific and technical skills."

Svend Soeyland, of environment group Bellona Foundation, Washington DC
"Only openness will make the buzz go away. If only the vaguest impression lingers on that studies have been cooked up or that facts have been hidden it will feed conspiracy theories for ages."

Eric Rignot, University of California, Irvine
"Given the overwhelming scientific evidence for climate change, we should deal less and less with climate sceptics. Otherwise we should also deal with folks who think Elvis Presley is still alive, that Earth is less than 6,000 years old and that we cannot possibly have descended from monkeys."

Guy Brasseur, National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado
"It is important that scientists make their studies completely transparent, but the least ethical way to accuse others is to highlight a sentence and ignore the context in which this sentence has been written."

Mike Hulme, University of East Anglia, UK
"It is possible that climate science has become too partisan, too centralized. The tribalism that some of the leaked e-mails display is something more usually associated with social organization within pre-modern cultures; it is not attractive when we find it at work inside science."

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
"I doubt that negotiations in Copenhagen will be influenced by this unfortunate incident."
Image credits: (From top) Univ. Bern; F. Bimmer/AP; U. Dahl/Technische Universität Berlin; M. Trezzini, Keystone/AP; JPL/NASA; J. Straube/Bellona

Link: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091202/full/462551a.html

Nature Editorial: Climatologists under pressure

2009-12-04T08:17:00.000-03:00

Nature 462, 545 (3 December 2009); doi: 10.1038/462545a; published online 2 December 2009

Climatologists under pressure

Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.

The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists' scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial 'smoking gun': proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.

This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.

First, Earth's cryosphere is changing as one would expect in a warming climate. These changes include glacier retreat, thinning and areal reduction of Arctic sea ice, reductions in permafrost and accelerated loss of mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Second, the global sea level is rising. The rise is caused in part by water pouring in from melting glaciers and ice sheets, but also by thermal expansion as the oceans warm. Third, decades of biological data on blooming dates and the like suggest that spring is arriving earlier each year.

Denialists often maintain that these changes are just a symptom of natural climate variability. But when climate modellers test this assertion by running their simulations with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide held fixed, the results bear little resemblance to the observed warming. The strong implication is that increased greenhouse-gas emissions have played an important part in recent warming, meaning that curbing the world's voracious appetite for carbon is essential (see pages 568 and 570).

Mail trail

A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists' conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick Energy Environ. 14, 751–771; 2003 and W. Soon and S. Baliunas Clim. Res. 23, 89–110; 2003) and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers.

If there are benefits to the e-mail theft, one is to highlight yet again the harassment that denialists inflict on

some climate-change researchers, often in the form of endless, time-consuming demands for information under the US and UK Freedom of Information Acts. Governments and institutions need to provide tangible assistance for researchers facing such a burden.

The theft highlights the harassment that denialists inflict on some climate-change researchers.

The e-mail theft also highlights how difficult it can be for climate researchers to follow the canons of scientific openness, which require them to make public the data on which they base their conclusions. This is best done via open online archives, such as the ones maintained by the IPCC (http://www.ipcc-data.org) and the US National Climatic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html).

Tricky business

But for much crucial information the reality is very different. Researchers are barred from publicly releasing meteorological data from many countries owing to contractual restrictions. Moreover, in countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the national meteorological services will provide data sets only when researchers specifically request them, and only after a significant delay. The lack of standard formats can also make it hard to compare and integrate data from different sources. Every aspect of this situation needs to change: if the current episode does not spur meteorological services to improve researchers' ease of access, governments should force them to do so.

The stolen e-mails have prompted queries about whether Nature will investigate some of the researchers' own papers. One e-mail talked of displaying the data using a 'trick' — slang for a clever (and legitimate) technique, but a word that denialists have used to accuse the researchers of fabricating their results. It is Nature's policy to investigate such matters if there are substantive reasons for concern, but nothing we have seen so far in the e-mails qualifies.

The UEA responded too slowly to the eruption of coverage in the media, but deserves credit for now being publicly supportive of the integrity of its scientists while also holding an independent investigation of its researchers' compliance with Britain's freedom of information requirements (see http://go.nature.com/zRBXRP).

In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values. Yet it is precisely in such circumstances that researchers should strive to act and communicate professionally, and make their data and methods available to others, lest they provide their worst critics with ammunition. After all, the pressures the UEA e-mailers experienced may be nothing compared with what will emerge as the United States debates a climate bill next year, and denialists use every means at their disposal to undermine trust in scientists and science.

Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7273/full/462545a.html

Urban Heat Island Effect: Climate Denial Crock of the Week

2009-12-03T17:35:00.000-03:00

Could the scientists at NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, and every professional scientific organization on the planet really have been so silly as to miss something this obvious?
[Readers, please double-click on the video to go to YouTube and watch the video in its correct size.]

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7OdCOsMgCw

BBC: Major sea level rise likely as Antarctic ice melts

2009-12-03T09:23:00.000-03:00

1 December 2009

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Major sea level rise likely as Antarctic ice melts

By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News, December 1, 2009

The Southern Ocean is the world's most important feeding ground for whales

Sea levels are likely to rise by about 1.4 m (4.5 ft.) globally by 2100 as polar ice melts, according to a major review of climate change in Antarctica.

Conducted by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), it says that warming seas are accelerating melting in the west of the continent.

Ozone loss has cooled the region, it says, shielding it from global warming.

Rising temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula are making life suitable for invasive species on land and sea.
The report - Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment - was written using contributions from 100 leading scientists in various disciplines, and reviewed by a further 200.

Rising seas: A tale of two cities

SCAR's executive director Dr Colin Summerhayes said it painted a picture of "the creeping global catastrophe that we face."

"The temperature of the air is increasing, the temperature of the ocean is increasing, sea levels are rising - and the Sun appears to have very little influence on what we see," he said.

SCAR's report comes 50 years to the day after the Antarctic Treaty, the international agreement regulating use of the territory, was opened for signing, and a week before the opening of the potentially seminal UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

High rise
Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that the global average sea level would probably rise by 28-43 cm (11-16 in.) by the end of the century.

But it acknowledged this figure was almost certainly too low, because it was impossible to model "ice dynamics" - the acceleration in ice melting projected to occur as air and water temperatures rise.

Launching the SCAR report in London, lead editor John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) suggested that observations on the ground had changed that picture, especially in parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

"Warmer water is getting under the edges of the West Antarctic ice sheet and accelerating the flow of ice into the ocean," he said.

Glaciers: If the world's mountain glaciers and icecaps melt, sea levels will rise by an estimated 0.5 m

Thermal expansion: The expansion of warming oceans was the main factor contributing to sea level rise, in the 20th Century, and currently accounts for more than half of the observed rise in sea levels

Ice sheets: These vast reserves contain billions of tonnes of frozen water - if the largest of them (the East Antarctic ice sheet) melts, the global sea level will rise by an estimated 64 m

By the end of the century, he said, the sheet will probably have lost enough ice alone to raise sea levels globally by "tens of centimetres."

The remainder of the projected rise would come from melting of the Greenland cap, melting of mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and Andes, and the expansion of seawater as it warms.

A number of research teams have come up with similar projections.

But this is the first time that an international body such as SCAR has endorsed the likelihood that sea levels will rise enough to threaten some of the world's biggest cities by the end of the century.

Cold store
The Antarctic Peninsula - the strip of land that points towards the southern tip of South America - has warmed by about 3 °C over the last 50 years, the fastest rise seen anywhere in the southern hemisphere, according to the report.

But the rest of the continent has remained largely immune from the global trend of rising temperatures.

ANTARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE

Full report from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research [20MB]

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Indeed, the continent's largest portion, East Antarctica, appears to have cooled, bringing a 10% increase in the sea ice extent since 1980.

This report backs the theory that it has bucked the global trend largely because of ozone depletion - the chemical havoc wrought over 30 years by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other agents in the stratosphere above the polar region.

"We used to have a big blanket of ozone, and when we took it away we saw a cooling," said Professor Turner.

"The Antarctic has been shielded from the impacts of global warming."

But, the report concludes, that will not last forever.

The ozone hole is expected to repair itself in about 50 years, now that the Montreal Protocol has curbed the use of ozone-destroying substances.

As it does so, the SCAR team predicts that greenhouse warming will come to dominate the temperature change across Antarctica, as in other parts of the planet.

Doubling of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere would warm the continent by 3-4 °C, it says.
The majority of Antarctica is so cold that a rise of this magnitude in air temperature would have little impact.
But more warming of the oceans would speed ice loss still further, the report concludes.

On the basis of declines seen around the Antarctic Peninsula, it would also be expected to bring significant reductions in the abundance of krill, a key foodstuff for baleen whales and other animals.

Among humankind, the frozen continent was once a preserve of explorers and scientists.

But now, about 30,000 tourists a year visit, some setting foot on outlying parts of the peninsula.
This increased human traffic, plus the warming on land and sea, are going to change the region's ecology, according to Julian Gutt, allowing organisms to enter and survive that were previously excluded through climate or simple geography.

"A good candidate is the stone crab (aka king crab) such as those found throughout Norwegian waters - they're more than a metre across from toe to toe.

"There are hints of it hopping across from South America - and that could completely change the ecosystem on the sea floor," said the Alfred Wegener Institute researcher.

About one third of one percent of Antarctica's land surface is ice-free; but already, non-native species are competing with native mosses for this meagre resource, Dr Gutt noted.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8387137.stm

Satellite images of healthy Arctic Sea ice prove to be thin "rotten" ice up close

2009-12-03T08:32:00.000-03:00

environmentalresearchweb.org, November 27, 2009

Satellite images of healthy sea ice prove to be thin "rotten" ice up close

Arctic sea ice has duped satellites into reporting thick multiyear sea ice where in fact none exists, a new study by University of Manitoba researcher David Barber has found. In 2008 and 2009 satellite data showed a growth in Arctic sea ice extension leaving some to reckon global warming was reversing. But after sailing an ice breaker to the southern Beaufort Sea this past September Dr. Barber and his colleagues found something unexpected: thin, "rotten" ice can electromagnetically masquerade as thick, multiyear sea ice. And contrary to what satellites recently suggested, we are actually speeding up the loss of the remaining, healthy, multiyear sea ice.

The results of the study have now been accepted for publication in the peer reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters, of the American Geophysical Union. "These are very significant findings since the scientists and public all thought that sea ice was recovering since the minimum extent in 2007," says Barber, a professor of Environment and Geography and Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science.

In September 2009 Barber and others went to various points in the southern Beaufort Sea aboard the research vessel (NGCC) Amundsen. They discovered the multiyear sea icescape was not as ubiquitous as it appeared in satellite remote sensing data. And much of the multiyear ice, which is integral to maintaining the ecosystem and its inhabitants, was so heavily decayed the Amundsen easily broke through floes six to eight meters thick. Indeed, through most of the journey the Amundsen sailed at an average speed of 24km/h; its open water cruising speed is about 25km/h.

"Ship navigation across the pole is imminent as the type of ice which resides there is no longer a barrier to ships in the late summer and fall," Barber says.

So why have satellites been fooled? When studying sea ice, satellites shoot microwaves at the icescape and, among other things, record how they scatter. Each variety of ice was thought to have its own unique scattering characteristics, which researchers could read to determine where certain species of ice reside. But Barber and his colleagues discovered that multiyear ice and the "rotten" ice have similar near-surface temperatures, similar near-surface salinities, and both have similar open water and new sea ice fractions at the surface. So when satellites try to identify who's who, the microwaves behave similar enough that cases of mistaken identity abound.

"Our results are consistent with ice age estimates that show the amount of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere was the lowest on record in 2009 suggesting that multiyear sea ice continues to diminish rapidly in the Canada Basin even though 2009 aerial extent increased over that of 2007 and 2009," the paper concludes.

"This has significant implications for assessment of the speed of global climate change impacts in the Arctic and for increased shipping and industrial development in the Arctic," says Barber.
For media interested in using video of Dr. Barber talking about his study and footage taken from the Arctic right click and save the following:

http://umanitoba.ca/admin/public_affairs/videos/barber_sea_ice.mov
http://umanitoba.ca/admin/public_affairs/videos/arctic_footage_1.mp4
http://umanitoba.ca/admin/public_affairs/videos/arctic_footage_2.mp4
Source: University of Manitoba

Link: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/yournews/41112

I'd rather not know: the psychology of climate denial

2009-12-02T15:16:00.000-03:00

I'd rather not know: the psychology of climate denial

If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it?

by Staff Writers, Paris (AFP), December 1, 2009

The UN's panel of climate scientists, in a landmark report, described the proof of global warming as "unequivocal." That was two years ago, and since then hundreds of other studies have pointed to an ever-bleaker future, with a potential loss of life numbering in the tens of millions, if not more.

Yet survey after survey from around world reveals deep-seated doubt among the public.

A poll published in Britain on November 14, 2009, to cite but one example, found that only 41% of respondents accepted as an established fact that human activity was largely responsible for current global warming.

The majority said the link was not proven, that green propaganda was to blame or the world was not heating up at all.

Last week, a private exchange of emails among climate scientists stoked a firestorm of skepticism after it was hacked and posted on the Web.

The memos expressed frustration at the scientists' inability to explain what they described as a temporary slowdown in warming, and discussed ways to counter the campaigns of climate naysayers.

Experts see several explanations for the eagerness with which so many dismiss climate change as overblown or a hoax.

"There is the individual reluctance to give up our comfortable lifestyles -- to travel less, consume less," said Anthony Grayling, a philosophy professor at the University of London and a best-selling author in Britain.

While deeply anchored in the West, this resistance also extends to emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil where a burgeoning middle class is only today tasting the fruits of a lifestyle they have waited so long and worked so hard to obtain.

For Tim Kasser, a professor of psychology at Knox University in Galesburg, Illinois, the reality of climate change impinges on core aspects of our identity.

"We are told a thousand times a day, notably through advertising, that the way to a happy, successful and meaningful life is through consumption," he said.

"But now scientists and environmentalists come along and say part of the problem is that we are consuming too much or in the wrong way."

Yet there may also be a darker explanation. It is the human instinct to shut out or modify a terrifying truth: that the world as we know it is heading for a smash.

"It's a paradox: when it comes to disasters, people do not allow themselves to believe what they know," explained Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a professor of social philosophy at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

"Because everybody is in denial -- or would like to be in denial -- and would prefer to not shoulder too much of the responsibility for dealing with the problem, you have a kind of disconnect here," Grayling said.

Even scientists reluctantly pushed by their growing sense of alarm into launching public appeals for action have trouble coping.

When Clive Hamilton, a professor of public ethics at Australian National University, attended a September climate conference at Oxford tasked with imagining a world warmed by 4.0 °C (7.2 °F), he was struck by how researchers spoke among themselves.

"It was very revealing. As they relaxed somewhat, they began to speak about their fears, about losing sleep, not wanting to think about the implications of what they do," he recalled.

Under such circumstances, people are resourceful in finding ways to reassure themselves or turn their backs on the threat posed by climate change.

Some applaud their own environmental virtue: "Changing to compact fluorescent bulbs makes people feel good -- 'I've done my bit for today'," said Kasser, describing a common attitude in the United States.

"Blaming China and India is another great psychological defence mechanism."

A more sophisticated variant is to conclude, with a sigh of resignation. that individual action isn't enough.

"Even if all of us were at our most maximally green, it probably wouldn't make much more than about a 0.5% difference," said Grayling in characterising this mentality.

At some point, however, reality may bite.

Hamilton, who is running for Parliament in Australia, said more and more people he meets are having what he calls an "Oh shit!" moment.

"It's that moment when you really get it, when you understand not just intellectually but emotionally that climate change is really happening. I think we will see a rush of that over the next couple of years," he said.

It may take one or more terrible shocks -- national bankruptcies, a major environmental disaster in a vulnerable country like Bangladesh -- for that to happen, said Grayling.

Once it does, "it will be impossible to look back over your shoulder and think, 'it's not true,' or 'there will be a scientific fix, it will all go away.' "

Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Id_rather_not_know_the_psychology_of_climate_denial_999.html

James Hansen Newsweek interview by Sharon Begley: It’s Not the Kind of Thing Where You Can Compromise

2009-12-02T14:48:00.000-03:00

‘It’s Not the Kind of Thing Where You Can Compromise’

Climate scientist James Hansen talks about global warming, Copenhagen, and his new book

by Sharon Begley, Newsweek Web Exclusive, November 24, 2009

On Nov. 25th, 2009, this article was updated with new responses from Dr. Hansen regarding leaked e-mails which discussed potential manipulation of some climate change data.

James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, is one of the world's most famous climatologists. He testified at a 1988 U.S. Senate hearing that the emission of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels was already producing a greenhouse effect, and during the administration of George W. Bush, political appointees tried to keep him from speaking out about global warming. Hansen, 68, has become increasingly convinced that a climate crisis is upon us, warning this summer that the climate system is racing toward "tipping points" which, if passed, would lead to irreversible and catastrophic effects. On the eve of the publication of his first book, Storms of My Grandchildren, which he finished while recovering from treatment for prostate cancer and which will be published in December, he spoke to me by phone. Later in the week, I followed up to discuss the news of leaked e-mails from researchers who allegedly ignored evidence unfavorable to climate change. Excerpts:

Last week, someone leaked e-mails obtained by hacking into the server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Activists who have long denied the reality of climate change say they show that climatologists have engaged in a grand conspiracy to manufacture a case that global warming is occurring due to human activities. Do the hacked e-mails undermine the case for anthropogenic climate change?
Dr. Hansen: No, they have no effect on the science. The evidence for human-made climate change is overwhelming.

Do the e-mails indicate any unethical efforts to hide data that do not support the idea of anthropogenic global warming or to keep contrary ideas out of the scientific literature and IPCC reports?
Dr. Hansen: They indicate poor judgment in specific cases. First, the data behind any analysis should be made publicly available. Second, rather than trying so hard to prohibit publication of shoddy science, which is impossible, it is better that reviews, such as by IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences, summarize the full range of opinions and explain clearly the basis of the scientific assessment. The "contrarians" or "deniers" do not have a scientific leg to stand on. Their aim is to win a public relations battle, or at least get a draw, which may be enough to stymie the actions that are needed to stabilize climate.

How serious a setback would it be if no agreement on a climate treaty is reached in Copenhagen, where 192 countries are meeting starting Dec. 7?
Dr. Hansen: It's not a setback at all if it allows a careful reassessment of what is needed. The cap-and-trade scheme [that the Copenhagen negotiations were working toward] is just not going to be effective at controlling greenhouse emissions. Political leaders have to realize that the fundamental problem is that fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy, so they will continue to be burned unless we put a gradually increasing price on carbon emissions [through a carbon tax]. That's a much better approach than national goals for emissions reductions, which will probably not be met.

Policymakers who deny the threat of climate change cite the research of Richard Lindzen of MIT and other scientists, who question the link between carbon dioxide and global warming—as the last head of NASA, Michael Griffin, also did. As long as there remains this scientific dispute, why should policy makers act?
Dr. Hansen: These contrarians are not having much effect. None of the major countries are denying the problem anymore, though in the U.S. these contrarians are still widely heard, and when it comes to passing a bill in Congress they may still be an obstacle.

In the 1980s scientists worried about a doubling of pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide, to 550 parts per million. Then 450 started to look like a problem. Now you and others say that 350 is dangerous, and we’re already at 387. What did climatologists learn that caused them to lower the estimate of dangerous CO₂ levels?
Dr. Hansen: The new information came from observations of how the system is responding to 387 ppm and to more detailed information on how earth responded in the past to different atmospheric compositions. For instance, we see that the ice sheets are not stable at 387 ppm; the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass even with current warming. The Greenland ice sheet had been losing between 150 and 200 km³ a year in 2002, and now is losing almost 300 km³ a year. Antarctica had been losing less than 100 km³ a year, and is now losing more than 150, so it seems like we're heading into a period of much more rapid ice sheet loss. Also, in the Arctic we've lost 40% of the sea ice in the warm season, and that will soon be 100% percent. Mountain glaciers are retreating rapidly and could be gone in 50 years. These are not model results but observations: 387 ppm is already too high, and 450 ppm will be far worse.

In Storms of My Grandchildren, you describe climate tipping points. What are some and why are they so dangerous?
Dr. Hansen: Things like methane hydrates on the continental shelf and the tundra: as they warm up they release their methane [which is a greenhouse gas], which we're already seeing in the tundra and elsewhere. Tipping points are so dangerous because if you pass them, the climate is out of humanity's control: if an ice sheet disintegrates and starts to slide into the ocean there's nothing we can do about that.

What caused you to move beyond research and become an outspoken advocate for addressing climate change?
Dr. Hansen: The realization that there was a gap between what had become clear scientifically and what policymakers knew. Then, when I wrote papers and gave talks on climate change, it became clear that the political system just didn't want to react to this. Scientists have to help politicians connect the dots.

George F. Will has argued that reducing U.S. carbon emissions 80% by 2050 would leave us with per capita emissions we last had in the 1800s, implying we'd be back to a horse-and-buggy, pre-electricity era. Is he right?
Dr. Hansen: Not at all. We don't have to decrease our energy use, we just have to decrease our carbon emissions. That's why you want to increase the price of carbon, so let other technologies take over, like energy efficiency and renewables. We'll be moving into a better world, not a worse one, not to a horse-and-buggy world but to one with cleaner air and water once we stop burning coal.

You are critical of the Kyoto climate treaty. Why?
Dr. Hansen: Because it allows carbon offsets and uses cap-and-trade. Emissions from oil, gas, and coal have actually increased under Kyoto. If we just set goals for emissions reductions and allow people to miss them and to use offsets, we're not going to stabilize and reduce greenhouse emissions at the rate needed.

Do we still have time to avert climate calamity, and if so what would it take?
Dr. Hansen: We do, but just barely. If we phase out coal linearly by 2030, CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere will peak at 400-425 ppm, which is low enough that it allows you to get back to 350, especially if there is extensive reforestation of degraded areas. So a fundamental requirement is to phase out the use of coal in 20 years, which means you have to start now and not build any more coal-burning power plants: these have a lifetime of decades, and once they're built, utilities don't want to retire them before their lifetime is up.

You write that energy efficiency and renewables won't be enough to meet the energy needs of China and India in the next few decades. So what do we do?
Dr. Hansen: They will require nuclear power for electricity. They are both moving in that direction, and we really should help them. They have such polluted air and water that they'd love to get off dirty fuels like coal. Of course, you also want to do energy efficiency and renewables, but I think India and China will turn more toward nuclear. I think the prospects for that are quite good, but we have to get going now.

What do you think of the climate bills now before Congress?
Dr. Hansen: They're disasters. We can't allow the polluters to write the bill, but that's what happened. What's needed is putting a price on carbon, not cap-and-trade.

What do you think of Obama's performance on this issue so far?
Dr. Hansen: A lot of individual things have been good, like using EPA to apply pressure for improved vehicle mileage, but I'm disappointed that he hasn't taken a leadership role. He's let the politicians in Washington come up with these bills rather than offering them some guidance. Climate change is analogous to Lincoln and slavery or Churchill and Nazism: it's not the kind of thing where you can compromise. He needs to have some understanding of this [climate] problem himself, and not just listen to his advisers.

Are policies like Cash for Clunkers, or "cash for caulkers" [home weatherizing], or green jobs initiatives useful or just more greenwashing?
Dr. Hansen: They're useful but costly. What you want to do is address [climate change] in the most cost-effective way possible, which is to put a price on carbon. For example, there's a program to let people fold the cost of improving the energy of their home or of adding clean energy [by installing solar panels or other forms of renewable energy] into their monthly mortgage payment. You decrease your monthly energy costs by more than the amount that gets added to your mortgage, since you're averaging the cost over several years. This works best if you have a rising price on carbon.

You write about the need to take to the streets and engage in civil resistance. Such as?
Dr. Hansen: Anything that draws attention to the fundamental problem. We just had this example of the student in Utah who upset the Bureau of Land Management by bidding on oil and gas leases, without even intending to pay for them, in order to stop energy companies from acquiring them and drilling on public lands.

You make it sound like now that you've written the book, you're going to go hole up in your lab. Really?
Dr. Hansen: I wish I could. But when I started to speak out about climate change in 2004, after 15 years of avoiding it, I saw that the problem is not going to be solved easily. I'm afraid this is going to continue.

Sharon Begley is NEWSWEEK's science editor and author of The Plastic Mind: New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform OurselvesandTrain Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves.

Link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/224178/page/1

Chris Hedges: Refuse allegiance to coal, practice non-violent protests to shut down coal-fired power plants

2009-12-02T13:14:00.000-03:00

Chris Hedges' Columns

Refuse Allegiance to Coal

by Chris Hedges, Truthdig, November 23, 2009

There are some 614 coal-fired power plants in the United States, and it is up to us to shut them down. No one in the White House will do it. No one in Congress will do it. And no one at the coming U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen will do it. We will build local movements to carry out acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to halt the burning of coal, or the polar ice caps will continue to dissolve, the Greenland ice sheet will disappear, the glaciers in the Alps, the Himalayas and Tibet will melt, and widespread droughts, rising sea levels and temperatures, acute food shortages, disease and gigantic mass migrations will envelop the globe. We are killing the ecosystem on which human life depends. One of the major polluters is coal, which supplies about half of the country’s electricity. NASA’s James Hansen has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level—below 350 parts per million CO₂—lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity. We are currently at 390 parts per million carbon dioxide.

“The world political system is not about to keel over and give us a treaty that will get us to 350 parts per million anytime soon, or in fact do anything of great note,” the writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben told me when I met him in New York City. The author of “The End of Nature” and “Deep Economy” said: “The news that the Obama administration had punted on the Copenhagen talks is discouraging. The good news, to the extent that there is any, is that we finally have the beginning of a real global movement about climate change.”

McKibben and his group, 350.org, this year organized perhaps the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history: On Oct. 24, 2009, people in 181 countries joined in calling for environmental reform. But such popular calls for change have largely been ignored by the leaders of industrialized nations. The climate crisis will be solved by widespread and sustained civil disobedience or not at all.

“There were no celebrities, no rock stars, no movie stars,” McKibben said of the October protest. “People were rallying around a fairly obscure scientific data point, and the 25,000 pictures or so that have come into the flickr site from the 5,200 events in 181 countries make it clear that the canard that environmentalism is something for rich white people is crazy. It is mostly something for black, brown and yellow people and mostly something for poor people. We are all going to bear the consequences before very long, but Bangladesh and places like Bangladesh get it first. This is why it was so great to see them heavily involved. We have about half the countries in the world that have endorsed the 350 [parts per million] target. Unfortunately they are the poorest countries on Earth. They will not carry the day at Copenhagen or anywhere else, but they have begun to challenge the right of the rich countries of the world to submerge them, burn them up or whatever else.”

There are five countries that are responsible for over half of fossil-fuel-related CO₂ emissions. The United States and China alone account for more than a third. We in the U.S. have been the world’s largest emitters for more than a century, although we have now been overtaken by China, where growth in emissions has been driven by a rapid increase in coal consumption. China is currently opening an average of two coal-fired power plants a week. Emissions there have more than doubled since 1990. The burden to act rests on us, our major trading partner and a handful of other highly industrialized nations.

“The average American family uses more energy between the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve and dinner on Jan. 2 than the average Tanzanian family uses all year,” McKibben said.

The projected rise of sea levels, as much as six feet this century and 23 feet if the Greenland ice sheet disappears, will submerge coastal nations such as Bangladesh, a country of 160 million people, as well as places such as the Mekong Delta, the Maldives and the Marshall Islands. The disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau—glaciers that feed the Indus, Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers—will create catastrophic water shortages and devastate the rice and wheat harvests in China and India, where about 4 of every 10 people live. World food prices will rise dramatically. If we can’t save countries such as the Maldives and Bangladesh, we will also be unable to save Venice, Hawaii, the Netherlands, New Zealand, London, Hong Kong and Manhattan. But don’t expect much from Barack Obama and other leaders in the industrialized world. Their loyalty is not to the planet, or to us, but to the oil and gas industry, the coal industry and the huge corporate polluters who own them.

“Even the inadequate bill before the Congress has been postponed until the spring,” McKibben said, “which in my political calendar is a little too close to the election to be very comfortable. We are getting no leadership from the president, rhetorical or otherwise. All the problems are obvious. The only good news is that there is finally something that looks like the glimmer of a movement.”

It is incumbent on all of us to find out where the nearest coal-powered plant is located—the one closest to me is in Hamilton, N.J.—and begin to organize to shut it down nonviolently. Princeton, where I live, is also home to NRG Energy, the ninth-biggest coal energy producer in the United States. A map of the nation’s coal-fired plants can be found here.

“Coal is the key commodity,” McKibben said. “The ability to cease the combustion of coal will be the thing that decides whether or not we go over the precipice meteorologically in the decades ahead.”

“It is unlikely that the environmental movement, or any other movement, will come up with as much cash as those industries,” McKibben said of the corporations he opposes. “ExxonMobil made more money last year than any company in the history of money. We better not compete in that currency. We better find something else to compete in. The only thing I can think of is bodies, creativity and passion. These are the sort of things, with all their strengths, the Exxons of the world tend to lack.”

McKibben, along with the writer and activist Wendell Berry, organized a mass act of civil disobedience conducted last March against a coal-fired power plant in Washington, D.C., near the White House. Thousands of demonstrators from around the country arrived to see that in anticipation of the protest a promise had been made to convert the plant from coal to natural gas. But there are over 600 more coal plants to close. And McKibben said that local and regional leaders need to rise up to organize against coal.

McKibben and Berry embrace civility and nonviolence. Protesters in Washington last March were enjoined to arrive “in their Sunday best.”

“If we are going to use civil disobedience we need to reclaim it from people who enjoy taunting the police and showing off,” McKibben said.

“I spent last Sunday night out on Boston Common with hundreds and hundreds of young people from across Massachusetts who were willing to very, very peacefully and unaggressively risk arrest, and in fact we were all cited [by the police] before the evening was done,” he went on. “They were sleeping in Boston Common and refusing to sleep in their dorms for the rest of the fall because [the dormitories] are powered by dirt energy. They have been lobbying for a bill in the Massachusetts Statehouse to close down all the coal-fired power plants within the next 10 years. There were students from every campus. The biggest contingent came from Clark in Worcester. The prize was whoever brought the most students got to have me sleep in their tent.”

McKibben and Berry are right. Nonviolent civil disobedience is the only tool that might work. If we mirror the violence employed by the instruments of state security we will become corrupt, as they are, and obliterate the moral high ground that attracts followers to any movement and sustains the long night of resistance. Violence is a poison that infects all those who use it, even in what can be defined as a just cause. And nothing could make ExxonMobil or the coal industry happier than to see shop windows broken, cars set afire and police lines rushed. The moment we resort to violence the corporate state wins. It will gleefully crush us like flies in the name of law and order and national security. The temptation to violence, especially given the passivity of most of us and the hypocrisy of our ruling elite, including Obama, will mount as climate change begins to create social and political unrest. But it must be resisted. This will be a long, long struggle. The coal companies will only be the start. The other corporations that have disempowered the citizenry, created a state of neo-feudalism and turned our democracy into a sham will be next.

“We are past the point where we are going to stop global warming,” McKibben said. “It is happening already, and more of it is coming no matter what we do. One of our jobs is to start figuring out how to cope with it. We need to build the kind of communities that can deal with that. The key question is scale. Communities need to be smaller. Our way of thinking about the world has to shrink. At the same time we need a global movement to continue this fight to bring carbon emissions under some kind of control. If we don’t, the kind of change we are talking about over the next decades is so big there is no way to adapt … no matter what we do, no matter how wonderfully organic your community has become. Communities still require water. People don’t quite understand what three or four or five degrees increase in the temperature of the planet will mean. One degree was enough to melt the Arctic. This was a bad sign.”

“Nothing important is going to come out of Copenhagen,” McKibben warned, “just a lot of spin. … [Obama’s] vast spin machine will be in full gear. There is no obvious route out of all this. We have started exploring mainly popular movements, and hopefully we have introduced a wild card into this game. Our plans are not even plans at this point. It is easier said than done. We shut down one coal-fired power plant and not a very big one. There are 600 left in the country. I don’t fancy myself up to the task of figuring out how to shut them all down. Hopefully some people will begin to do it.”

Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig every Monday, is a former Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, where he shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism. Hedges also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. He is the author of nine books.

Link: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/refuse_allegiance_to_coal_20091123/

Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois, explains why he sees the disclosed e-mails as a complete distraction from the body of evidence pointing to a human hand on the planet’s thermostat

2009-12-02T12:55:00.000-03:00

From the Dot Earth blog at the New York Times online:

Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois, explains why he sees the disclosed e-mails as a complete distraction from the body of evidence pointing to a human hand on the planet’s thermostat:

I would like to make the following contribution to your blog regarding the recent desperate, the-end-justifies-the-means act of stealing e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, U.K.

1. CRU is not the only group in the world that is tracking the change in global-average near-surface temperature. There are at least three other groups, two in the U.S. (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA), and one in Japan (Japan Meteorological Agency, JMA).

2. As presented below, the temperature record of each of these groups (available at the URLs given at the bottom of this message) shows the same features: (i) a warming of about 0.9 °C (1.6 °F) over the past 150 years and (ii) natural variability with both short and long periods.

Michael Schlesinger / University of Illinois Trends in global temperature estimated by four different research groups are very similar, both in charting pronounced warming and a lot of short-term variability. The groups are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, Britain’s Hadley Center and Climatic Research Unit (Univ. of East Anglia) and Japan’s meteorological agency.

3. In our year-2000 published analysis of these data through 1997 ( Causes of Global Temperature Changes During the 19th and 20th Centuries, Geophysical Research Letters, 27:14, 2137-2140; Natalia Andronova & Michael Schlesinger), we showed that this warming was predominantly due to people. An update of that analysis, which includes the observations since 1997, shows that the observed warming is overwhelmingly due to people.

4. Each of the four records above shows cooling in recent years. But, as is shown in these records, this recent cooling is nothing new. It was because of the likelihood of such a cooling that we concluded in our year-2000 paper referenced above that:

“… it is prudent not to expect continued year-after-year warming in the near future and, in so doing, diminish concern about global warming should global cooling instead manifest itself again.”
The absolute worst thing that humanity could do is mistake a short-term natural cooling for the absence of human-caused global warming and, in so doing, not transition as soon as economically possible from the fossil fuel age to the post-fossil fuel age.

To make this mistake would leave a legacy of global warming for our children, grandchildren and multiple generations thereafter which they likely could not reverse, and for which they would likely not forgive us.

This we must not do.

Data Sources: NOAA, NASA, HADCRU (Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit), JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency), English pages here and here, Japanese page translated into English.

Link: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/more-on-the-climate-files-and-climate-trends/#more-11467

BBC: Australia opposition vote deals climate law blow

2009-12-01T22:39:00.000-03:00

Australia opposition vote deals climate law blow

Tony Abbott: "I am not frightened of an election on this issue"

Australia's opposition Liberal Party has elected a climate-change sceptic as its new leader, dealing a blow to the government's carbon-trading law plans.

Tony Abbott beat incumbent leader Malcolm Turnbull, by 42 votes to 41.

Mr Abbott has vowed to block the Emissions Trading Scheme in the Senate, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Labour Party does not have a majority.

Mr Rudd had wanted the legislation approved before the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen next week.

Correspondents say rejection of the ETS in the Senate would hand the popular Rudd government a trigger for a snap election.

'Great big tax'

Last week, Mr Rudd secured Mr Turnbull's support for the ETS, but it prompted a leadership challenge from some Liberal MPs, who questioned the scientific case for global warming and said they believed the legislation might damage Australia's economy.

Many moderate Liberals are terrified. Malcolm Turnbull had warned that his once-dominant party would face an electoral catastrophe if it appeared before the electorate as the party of climate-change scepticism

Nick Bryant, BBC News, Sydney

Profile: Tony Abbott

At a party meeting in Canberra on Tuesday, Mr Turnbull was narrowly defeated by Mr Abbott in the final round of voting. A third challenger, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, was eliminated in the first round.

Minutes after his surprise victory, Mr Abbott told a news conference that he would fight the ETS bill in the upper house of parliament.

"We will seek to refer the legislation to [a Senate] committee for further scrutiny. If we cannot get the support for that course of action we will oppose the legislation in the Senate this week," he said.

"I think on something of this magnitude, it is much more important to get it right than to rush it," he added.

Mr Abbott said millions of Australians were concerned that the ETS was in reality "a great big tax to create a great big slush fund, to provide politicised hand-outs run by a giant bureaucracy."

"I am really not frightened of an election on this issue," he added.

Senator Christine Milne, Deputy Leader of the Australian Green Party, told the BBC World Service that Mr Abbott's election would lead to the end of the government's carbon scheme.

But she said her party would also vote against the bill, saying its "completely unacceptable" targets did not go far enough.

'Unacceptable'
The ETS, aimed at reducing Australia's carbon emissions by up to 25% below 2000 levels by 2020, is the centrepiece of the government's environmental strategy.

Australia has the highest per-capita carbon emissions among developed nations and coal is its biggest export.
Mr Rudd's immediate hopes of passing the bill before the Copenhagen summit now rest on the possibility of some opposition lawmakers rebelling and voting with the government.

But if the Senate fails to back the scheme -- as correspondents say looks likely -- Mr Rudd could dissolve both it and the House of Representatives, and call snap elections at any time under constitutional rules meant to resolve deadlocks between the two chambers, correspondents say.

Opinion polls suggest Labor would win and could then pass its carbon trading legislation in a joint sitting of parliament.

However, the BBC's Nick Bryant in Sydney says the issue is complicated by the onset of the southern summer and Christmas, when political hostilities tend to be put on hold.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8387653.stm

Prof. Phil Jones steps aside for review of stolen CRU e-mails, stands by the data

2009-12-01T22:14:00.000-03:00

Scientist in climate change data row steps down

Professor Phil Jones has stepped down as director of the CRU

BBC News, December 1, 2009

The research director at the centre of a row over climate change data said he would stand down from the post while there is an independent review.

Professor Phil Jones, director of the Norwich-based University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU), has said he stands by his data.

Sceptics claim the e-mails, leaked after a UEA server was hacked into, showed data was being manipulated.

The hacking of the computer is being investigated by Norfolk Police.
The files stolen from the computer include documents, detailed data and private e-mails exchanged between leading climate scientists.

'Continue research'
Professor Jones said he would stand aside as director until the completion of the independent review.
It is being conducted in the wake of the allegations by climate "sceptics."

The material was taken from servers at the world-renowned research centre before it was published on websites run by climate change sceptics.

Professor Jones said: "What is most important is that CRU continues its world-leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible.

"After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the director's role during the course of the independent review."

Professor Peter Liss will become acting director while the review is conducted, the university said.

'Out of context'
At the time that the theft of the data was revealed climate sceptics picked up on the word "trick" in one e-mail from 1999 and talk of "hiding the decline."

Professor Jones said the e-mail was genuine but taken "completely out of context".
He released a copy of the actual e-email which reads: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Professor Jones said: "The first thing to point out is that this refers to one diagram -- not a scientific paper.
"The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward."

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/8389727.stm

Raypierre of RealClimate commenting about Phil Jones' stepping aside, on the Dot Earth blog of the New York Times

2009-12-01T21:50:00.000-03:00

39. raypierre , Chicago, IL, December 1st, 2009; 7:22 pm

This all reminds me a bit of 1996, shortly after the release of the IPCC Second Assessment Report. At that time, the Science and Environmental Policy Project, the Global Climate Coalition, and Fred Seitz (abetted by the Wall Street Journal) mounted a smear campaign against Ben Santer claiming he had inappropriately altered Chapter 8 of the IPCC report. They managed to spin this out for quite a while, and use the false controversy to manufacture doubt about the conclusions of Chapter 8 -- that the balance of evidence shows a human impact on warming.

Yet, in the end, there was nothing to it. Ben Santer was completely exonerated, though he was put through hell along the way. In 1998 he was awarded a MacArthur Genius grant in recognition of the quality of his work on the climate record.

I cannot comment on the issues raised by Phil's request that people delete certain email, since I do not have the necessary legal background to do so and do not have access to the full record regarding the FOIA requests. However, anybody who has the least familiarity with the work itsellf or the published record can see that all the accusations of "fraud" or fudged data are completely bogus. As far as that goes, this is just a witch hunt.

I don't know if people understand the nature of work in historical climatology. It is very exacting tedius and unglamorous work, involving sifting through ships' logs, thinking about bait tank thermometers, diving into icy lakes after tree trunks, sorting out a hundred factors that do or don't make trees respond to temperature. It's a thankless task, and while I can't defend some of Phil's graceless choice of words in what he thought were private emails, the work itself has been a very important contribution to the subject. If the reward is just to attract the level of harassment these cyber-thugs have directed at Phil, then it is only going to drive competent people out of that subject. I hope somebody will be brave enough to step in and fill the gap, but I fear it will not happen.

The whole field of historical climatology will be impoverished for this. And meanwhile, one of the few agencies working on the temperature record has been at least partly taken out of action. I suppose the manufactured doubt industry is not going to rest until we have lost all ability to analyze what the climate has really been doing in the past. Congratulations on your progress toward that goal.

Link: http://community.nytimes.com/comments/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/head-of-climate-unit-steps-down-pending-inquiry/?permid=39#comment39

Dimitry Olov: Sea level rise and the future of the U.S. East Coast with Boston as a well-defined example of infrastructure loss

2009-12-01T15:35:00.000-03:00

The Oceans are Coming Part II — Living on the Land

Are you still talking about Cyclone Nargis? Have you ever heard of Cyclone Nargis? Here’s a reminder: on 1 May 2008 a weakening low-pressure system suddenly picked up energy as it approached Burma from the Bay of Bengal. By the second day of this rapid strengthening, Cyclone Nargis was blowing in excess of 135MPH and made landfall on the low-lying southern coast of Burma armed with vast reserves of cyclonic energy, a storm surge beneath, and constant heavy rain from above. The Irrawaddy Delta was devastated, causing at least 140,000 human deaths. Most of us have forgotten about it.

One reason you may have heard of Cyclone Nargis at the time, is that for a short while it was the cause of a major diplomatic incident, with the Burmese Junta refusing to accept aid and assistance from the West, while continuing with a meaningless referendum. Another reason you may have heard of Cyclone Nargis is because you live near to Burma; and there’s the rub – proximity is the single most important factor in deciding whether a story is newsworthy in the mainstream media, and until Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005, devastating coastal flooding was just something that happened to “other people” as far as the vast majority of Americans were concerned.

That’s not going to change anytime soon – it’s partly down to our natural tendency for prioritising the local and the immediate, for survival reasons; but to a large extent it is also down to the cultural conditioning that exists in most civilisations in order to only value that which benefits the system that you are deemed to be part of. If you are American then that means that anything that doesn’t affect America, doesn’t matter. You can safely repeat that mantra for any civilised nation. It’s not necessarily good, but it’s true.

In Part I of this article, we examined the best available research, and, given the current best forecast of 2 metres and the consistent tendency of climate forecasters to undershoot their own subsequent observations, we concluded that a 4 metre sea level rise over the course of this century is quite likely.

In this part, we focus on two areas that are most familiar to the two authors, and also relevant to the majority of readers: Dmitry is going to look at the likely impact of future sea-level rise on the Eastern Seaboard of the USA, not just in terms of the direct effects of flooding on habitation, but the many different indirect effects that sea-level rise will have; Keith is going to do the same for the east coast of England and the Netherlands, two places that have seen their fair share of flooding in the past, and are bound to suffer in the future.

The View from New England

by Dimitry Olov, ClubOrlov blog, November 13, 2009

When it comes to addressing the effects of sea level rise that is expected to occur over the course of this century, there are many ways to immerse yourself in the subject. You might do some reading and make some field trips, talk to knowledgeable people, attend some seminars, and write some research papers. Or you might take an entire year to slowly traverse the landscape in question, and get a feel for it through a lot of direct observation, which is what I did. I spent about a year sailing around the Eastern Seaboard of North America, from the submerged coastal mountain range that is the coast of Maine north of Portland to the shifting sand dunes of St. Augustine in Florida, and most points in between, looking at both nature and historic sites along the way.

There certainly is nature to be found further inland, but rather few historic sites. It is very important to understand that, unlike the ancient and compact settlement patterns of Europe, and unlike its dense and active network of navigable rivers and canals, North America consists of a rather narrow but thickly settled coastal zone known as the Northeast Corridor, and the vast expanse of Wild West. Historically, the colonies survived through ocean trade. Until the advent of coal-fired railroads, the only parts of the interior that were economically viable were the ones that were within easy reach of a navigable waterway. Even then many inland settlers found grain to be too bulky for trade, and used it to make whiskey. The Erie Canal made Chicago a town rather than just a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The reason was simple: before the advent of railroads, it cost as much to transport cargo 30 or so miles overland as it did to ship it across the ocean. Until a railroad was built across Massachusetts, goods shipped from Chicago to Boston via the Erie Canal had to be loaded onto barges and floated down the Hudson River to New York, then transferred to schooners that took them up the coast.

It is also very important to understand that global trade is not, as one unfortunately often hears, only possible thanks to fossil fuels. Until the 1920s much of the shipping in Boston Harbour was by sail. Most of the ships were relatively small, with vast numbers of schooners of around 60 feet and crews of 10 or fewer. The age of container ships, bulk carriers, roll-on roll-offs (ROROs), and other monstrous oil-thirsty craft is quite recent, while the history of global trade is ancient, and proceeded in one of two ways: on foot (leading caravans of pack animals) or by sail. It is also important to note that coal never became competitive with sail in transporting bulk goods, and sail-based shipping persisted until the age of the marine diesel engine, which burns bunker fuel (a slightly upgraded crude oil). This substance will most likely no longer be available in the vast quantities required just a few decades from now, and certainly well before the end of the century. It seems plausible to think that the age of fossil fuels will end as it started, with oil giving way to coal, giving way to wind.

And so, in looking at the future of North America, it makes sense to examine historical settlement patterns and patterns of trade. Even after the powerful economic stimulant of fossil fuels is no longer flowing freely, the perennial choice will remain the same: make and ship trade goods, or remain backward and poor. The transportation options will once again be largely limited to the waterways, with the vast landlocked areas of North America becoming stagnant backwaters, unable to trade, and steadily depopulating. Many people look at the end of the fossil fuel age and envision a future that is much more local; and surely it will be, but what they do not envision is the effect of a radically altered transportation topology. The current tightly interconnected transportation mesh of rail links, highways, and airports will be gone; and in its place will arise a sparse, seasonal network favouring single modes of transport for each link (pack animal, river barge, or ocean sailboat), heavily weighted in favour of water transport, and even more heavily weighted in favour of sail. Transporting a few tons of cargo per crew member across the Atlantic will require a few weeks' worth of rations for the crew members and a bit of sailcloth for the ship, but the wind will still be free. Hauling the same amount of freight across the Appalachian mountain range, which runs the length of the Eastern Seaboard, would become something of an epic undertaking.

Looking, once again, at the historical settlement patterns along the Eastern Seaboard, it becomes clear that how prosperous and populous any given coastal settlement becomes has a lot to do with how good a harbour it has. The Carolinas present an excellent example of this: their climates and populations are broadly similar, yet North Carolina is poor while South Carolina is prosperous. The difference can be brought down to a single, overwhelming factor: South Carolina's Charleston Harbour. This is a splendid deep-water harbour, sheltered, with a wide inlet. North Carolina is dominated by Cape Hatteras, an area of shifting shoals and wide, shallow bays. To make matters worse, the Cape brings together the warm Gulf Stream, flowing north and turning east, with the terminus of the cold Labrador Current flowing south, and the mixture of the two creates a lot of unsettled weather. To make matters worse yet, it is within reach of tropical cyclones, which shift sand dunes, close and open ocean inlets, and play havoc with coastal communities that depend on access to the ocean. While Charleston Harbour is a major asset, Cape Hatteras is a world-class hazard to navigation. And so South Carolina grew rich by importing African slaves and exporting rice, indigo, and cotton through Charleston Harbour; while North Carolina, with its many shoals and few and treacherous navigable ocean inlets, developed no major towns and subsisted largely through fishing.

I've looked closely at many of the successful port towns, large and small, along the Eastern Seaboard: Portland, Newburyport, Salem, Boston, Newport, New York, Charleston, and St. Augustine, plus a few others. All of these have accumulated centuries of history, much of it connected with the sea and, hence, with faraway peoples and places, and this makes them major tourist destinations. The quality of the harbour, it turns out, had much to do with the relative success of a port: Boston's excellent harbour, with a wide channel and ample anchorages with good holding ground in the lee of a good set of sheltering harbour islands, allowed Boston to compete with New York in transatlantic trade. But beyond geological luck, something else stands out: the quality of the transition between water and land. In every good port there are dredged and marked approaches to piers and jetties, good seawalls high enough to keep out most storm surges, and dry land beyond, which is solid and graded flat. Over its long history as a port town, a hilly town, such as Portland, Boston, or New York, slowly grows an apron of land that is just high enough to be out of reach of most waves. Although some of these shoreline reinforcements are the result of ambitious projects (the cut-stone embankment in Newburyport is a good example), many of them are the result of a slow process of accretion by generations of people plying maritime trades, adjusting the shoreline to different uses by floating in and dumping rip-rap and solid fill, building seawalls, jetties and piers, seeing them pruned back by storms, and learning their lessons. Just how close to the margin these old structures already are became apparent to me last summer: during high tide, and thanks to the extra two feet of water we got for no adequately understood reason, some of the older, abandoned piers in Salem, Massachusetts were awash.

Most of these structures have been designed hundred-year floods in mind, presumably because having to rebuild them every century or so is not such a bad thing. But then, given the expected ocean level rise, every hundred years will become every 10, then every year, and then every neap tide, then every high tide when there is an easterly wind, and then permanently awash at high tide. Who would be up to the thankless task of piling up more rocks and driving in more pilings, just to see them washed away a decade or so later? A related problem is the silting up of channels caused by accelerated erosion. Once waves can reach a stretch of land that hitherto only had to contend with rainwater and snow melt, it often dissolves catastrophically, and what was for centuries a waterside pasture or marshland protected by a bit of rock is transformed within a season or two into a gradually sloping mud flat. The mud then gets scoured out by each tide and settles in the deepest spots, which are the navigation channels. At what point everyone will decide that all of this very temporary shoring up and dredging is just too much work is entirely unclear, but it seems likely that enough other problems will occur at the same time to make the question moot. As we prepare to say "hello" to the rising waters, we should also prepare to bid "adieu" to deep-draught dockage.

What other problems might we have? The United States Environmental Protection Agency was nice enough to publish some approximate maps, colour-coding the results of an ocean level rise of up to 1.5m as red and up to 3.5m as blue for the entire Atlantic coast of North America. Since I am particularly well-acquainted with Boston, that part of their map drew my attention first. The resolution is not very high, but sometimes precision is superfluous. If you expect to find yourself standing on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in 2050, should you expect the water be up to your navel, your nipples, or your eyeballs? Certainly, this would not be the map to consult on that particular occasion, but then would that be a time to consult a map at all? Broad brushstrokes are perfectly fine for the purposes of this discussion, just as a wrecking ball need not be swung with any great precision.

But to start with, here is a neat and tidy map of Boston within its current shoreline. Entering Boston Harbour from the Atlantic, we pass between Deer Island with its sewage treatment plant on the right and Long Island on the left. We proceed down the main channel into the inner harbour, passing between City Point on our left and Logan International Airport on our right. Past that, on our left we find the port of South Boston, which handles container ships, and the World Trade Centre, where cruise ships dock, while on our right is East Boston with its one remaining shipyard and marina, but where once the mighty clipper ships for the China tea trade were built. Further down the channel, we round the downtown with its skyscraper-studded financial district on our left. To our right is Mystic River, which has a liquefied natural gas tanker terminal, a dock for scrap iron barges, and a car ferry port. Turning further left, we pass Charlestown Navy Yard and the Charles River Dam (which should have properly been called the Charles River Pumping Station). Beyond is the Charles River Basin, ringed by lovely waterside parks, which, on good days and bad, are full of bicyclists and joggers. The river itself is also normally quite full of sailing dinghies, rowing sculls, canoes, and kayaks. Three large universities — Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Boston University — are located right on the river, and each has a boathouse. (Northeastern University is landlocked, but has a boathouse nevertheless.)

Before the Charles River Dam was built, Charles River was brackish and tidal, and smelled rather bad. The pumping station houses several large diesel engines that drive turbines that pump down the river during high tides and heavy rains, to prevent the river from leaving its banks. I have spent a year or so living at a marina directly downstream of the dam, and have observed that the pumping station does not run very often, but when it does it is quite an impressive sight. The tidal range is about 3 metres, and so with a 1.5-metre rise it would have to be running over half of the time, a 3m rise would force it to run continuously, and a 4m rise would likely put it underwater for good.

And here is the map prepared by our friends at the EPA. What's red goes under at 1.5 metres rise, what's blue goes under at 3.5m rise, tan is either dry or uncovers at low tide at 3.5 metres rise (distinction not shown), and light blue is currently water. As we enter the harbour, Deer Island on our right is now again an island because the dam connecting it to the town of Winthrop is gone, as is much of Winthrop. Long Island, the barrier island on our left, is mostly washed out as well. Logan International Airport still has its control tower above water, but now only caters to sea planes. Port of South Boston and World Trade Centre are no more; same with East Boston's shipyard facilities. Downtown stands as an island, but is rather hard to reach because all the highway tunnels are underwater, as are the docks. Mystic River facilities are gone as well. Charles River Dam is out of commission, and Charles River Basin is once again brackish and tidal all the way upstream to Watertown (off the map to the left), so-called because it has another, smaller dam, and supplied all of Boston's water before an aqueduct was built to a reservoir quite far away. Prior to closing their doors, MIT, Harvard, and Boston University have spent the remainder of their rapidly dwindling endowments on dikes, dams, and pumping stations, to no avail.

To be perfectly candid, looking at this map does not fill me with optimism for the future of our fair City on a Hill. It seems that in due course it will turn into a landscape studded with abandoned wrecks of buildings standing knee-deep in a swirling colloidal suspension of excrement and garbage. What are the chances of preserving road access, or the electric grid, or water and sewer services under such conditions? And is it worth anyone's trouble to even try, if it is understood that another decade will bring another few centimetres of ocean level rise, and that in response the shoreline will move a few kilometres further inland? Would it not be wiser to abandon entire areas as the water comes in, understanding that once it is in, it is there to stay?

But that leaves open an important question: What about Boston as a port? The same question applies to any other port, or, for that matter, just about any stretch of shoreline, for, as we will see in Part III, Boston's case is quite typical. Suppose you are a planter, happily growing wheat close enough to the coast to walk it down to the waterline with the help of some mules, and you would like to exchange that wheat (baked into hard biscuits and packed in waterproof tins) with some sailors in exchange for a few bottles of wine, some chocolate, and some silk cloth for a bridal gown (life goes on, you know). You pack the tins in panniers, strap the panniers onto your mules, and walk in stately procession toward the coast (mules aren't exactly swift animals, and 1 mile per hour is what they generally peg out at). With port facilities permanently submerged, where do you intersect with your sailor friends to effect the exchange?

Things are not as hopeless as they would seem. After all, we did manage to colonise the entire planet using sailboats and without any port facilities to start with. A variety of techniques, some ancient, some decidedly twenty-first century, can be brought to bear to solve this problem. The problem most people face in adapting to the rapidly transforming landscape is not technical but psychological: they will insist on attempting to run their existing systems until they crash, simply because they have so much invested in them. This will mean that most people will simply deal themselves out of the game, and that the volume of global trade will diminish, perhaps by several orders of magnitude. But it will not stop altogether, and may eventually recover somewhat.

Link: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

William Patterson: Younger Dryas began in months, not years, when Lake Agassiz flowed into the Arctic Sea and North Atlantic Ocean

2009-12-01T13:57:00.000-03:00

Big freeze plunged Europe into Ice Age in months

ScienceDaily, November 30, 2009 — In the film The Day After Tomorrow, the world enters the icy grip of a new glacial period within the space of just a few weeks. Now new research shows that this scenario may not be so far from the truth after all.

William Patterson, from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, and his colleagues have shown that switching off the North Atlantic circulation can force the Northern hemisphere into a mini "ice age" in a matter of months. Previous work has indicated that this process would take tens of years.

Around 12,800 years ago the northern hemisphere was hit by a mini ice-age, known by scientists as the Younger Dryas, and nicknamed the "Big Freeze," which lasted around 1300 years. Geological evidence shows that the Big Freeze was brought about by a sudden influx of freshwater, when the glacial Lake Agassiz in North America burst its banks and poured into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. This vast pulse, a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined, diluted the North Atlantic conveyor belt and brought it to a halt.

Without the warming influence of this ocean circulation temperatures across the Northern hemisphere plummeted, ice sheets grew and human civilisation fell apart.

Previous evidence from Greenland ice cores has indicated that this sudden change in climate occurred over the space of a decade or so. Now new data shows that the change was amazingly abrupt, taking place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.

Patterson and his colleagues have created the highest resolution record of the 'Big Freeze' event to date, from a mud core taken from an ancient lake, Lough Monreach, in Ireland. Using a scalpel layers were sliced from the core, just 0.5 mm thick, representing a time period of one to three months.

Carbon isotopes in each slice reveal how productive the lake was, while oxygen isotopes give a picture of temperature and rainfall. At the start of the 'Big Freeze' their new record shows that temperatures plummeted and lake productivity stopped over the course of just a few years. "It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard, creating icy conditions in a very short period of time," says Patterson, who presented the findings at the European Science Foundation BOREAS conference on humans in the Arctic, in Rovaniemi, Finland.

Meanwhile, their isotope record from the end of the Big Freeze shows that it took around two centuries for the lake and climate to recover, rather than the abrupt decade or so that ice cores indicate. "This makes sense because it would take time for the ocean and atmospheric circulation to turn on again," says Patterson.
Looking ahead to the future Patterson says there is no reason why a 'Big Freeze' shouldn't happen again. "If the Greenland ice sheet melted suddenly it would be catastrophic," he says.

This study was part of a broad network of 38 individual research teams from Europe, Russia, Canada and the USA forming the European Science Foundation EUROCORES programme 'Histories from the North -- environments, movements, narratives' (BOREAS). This highly interdisciplinary initiative brought together scientists from a wide range of disciplines including humanities, social, medical, environmental and climate sciences.

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091130112421.htm

Methane from permafrost, methane from the floor of the Arctic Sea discussed by Dan Miller of the Roda Group

2009-12-01T10:58:00.001-03:00

CLIMATE CHANGE: Four Degrees of Devastation by Stephen Leahy

2009-12-01T09:05:00.000-03:00

CLIMATE CHANGE: Four Degrees of Devastation

by Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 9 (IPS) - The prospect of a four-degree Celsius rise in global average temperatures in 50 years is alarming - but not alarmist, climate scientists now believe.

Eighteen months ago, no one dared imagine humanity pushing the climate beyond an additional two degrees C of heating, but rising carbon emissions and inability to agree on cuts has meant science must now consider the previously unthinkable.

"Two degrees C is already gone as a target," said Chris West of the University of Oxford's UK Climate Impacts Programme.

"Four degrees C is definitely possible...This is the biggest challenge in our history," West told participants at the "4 Degrees and Beyond, International Climate Science Conference" at the University of Oxford last week.

A four-degree C overall increase means a world where temperatures will be two degrees warmer in some places, 12 degrees and more in others, making them uninhabitable.

It is a world with a one- to two-metre sea level rise by 2100, leaving hundreds of millions homeless. This will head to 12 metres in the coming centuries as the Greenland and Western Antarctic ice sheets melt, according to papers presented at the conference in Oxford.

Four degrees of warming would be hotter than any time in the last 30 million years, and it could happen as soon as 2060 to 2070.

"Political reality must be grounded in physical reality or it's completely useless," John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told the conference.

Schellnhuber recently briefed U.S. officials from the Barack Obama administration, but he says they chided him that his findings were "not grounded in political reality" and that "the [U.S.] Senate will never agree to this".

He had told them that the U.S. must reduce its emissions from its current 20 tonnes of carbon per person average to zero tonnes per person by 2020 to have an even chance of stabilising the climate around two degrees C.

China's emissions must peak by 2020 and then go to zero by 2035 based on the current science, he added.

"Policymakers who agreed to a two-degree C goal at the G20 summit easily fool themselves about what emission cuts are needed," Schellnhuber said.

Even with a two-degree rise, most of the world's coral reefs will be lost, large portions of the ocean will become dead zones, mountain glaciers will largely vanish and many other ecosystems will be at risk, Schellnhuber warned. And there is the risk of reaching a tipping point where the warming rapidly accelerates.

The planet has already warmed 0.74 C over the past century and the warming is now increasing at a rate of 0.16 C per decade, according the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report.

With 2008 emissions at the very top end of the IPCC's worst case estimates, it is time to look at what that may mean for the planet, said Richard Betts of the Climate Impacts research team at the Met Office Hadley Centre in London.

Continuing on the current high emissions path means average global temperatures would increase by 4.0 to 5.6 degrees by 2090. Brazil, much of Canada, parts of the U.S., Siberia and Central Europe would be eight degrees warmer than in the past 50 years, computer models show. Rainfall in the north will increase but wet tropics will become 20 percent drier.

The models are based on human emissions alone, and do not include heat-amplifying feedbacks from melting ice or changes in carbon sinks. When those are factored in, it moves the timetable forward so that "reaching four degrees by 2060 is a plausible, worst-case scenario" with the median being 2070. By 2100, 5.5 degrees is possible, he said.

Few places would experience the global average temperature, Betts cautioned, noting that the computer models show the Arctic warming 15 degrees while many other regions of the world would experience 10 degrees of additional warming.

These scenarios do not include potential tipping points like the release of the 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon in northern permafrost or the melting of undersea methane hydrates.

What would the world look like when it is four degrees warmer? It will likely mean one to two billion people will not have access to adequate fresh water because of the major shift in rainfall patterns, said Nigel Arnell, director of the Walker Institute for Climate Systems Research at the University of Reading in Britain.

Up to 15 percent of existing or potential cropland - and 40 percent in Africa - will become too dry and too hot for food production. While there might be some gains in northern areas like Canada and Russia, generally the soils there are not suitable for crops, he said.

Flooding will affect at least 500 million people because sea levels will rise more than one metre by 2100. The somewhat contentious issue of future sea level rise has been resolved with a new computer model that almost perfectly matches the historical changes in sea level since 1880, reported oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

The new model projects sea level rise by 1.2 to 1.9 metres from 1990 levels by 2100, said Rahmstorf.

"We're expecting a really big sea level rise in the longer run," he said.

Even at two or three degrees of warming, sea level will inevitably rise many metres higher in the centuries to come. The main questions are how fast levels will increase, and whether vulnerable countries like Holland can build seawalls fast enough to keep up with the rising water levels and the extraordinary costs involved, he said.

In a four-degree warmer world, adaptation means "put your feet up and die" for many people in the world, Oxford's Chris West said bluntly. "In accepting the many alarming impacts, we see that it (a four-degree C increase) is not acceptable."

The climate negotiators heading to Copenhagen in December must accept the fact that the world's carbon emissions must eventually stop - and stop completely. There is no sustainable per capita carbon emission level because it is the total amount of carbon emitted that counts, explains Myles Allen of the Climate Dynamics group at University of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department.

Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for many centuries, which makes it the most important greenhouse gas to reduce and eliminate. The current focus on CO2 concentrations like 450 ppm or 350 ppm is the not the right approach since it is the total cumulative emissions that determine how warm the planet will get, Allen told the conference.

If climate negotiators only look at slowing rates of carbon emissions, then natural gas will be substituted for coal because it has half of the carbon - but the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere will continue to increase.

"We didn't save the ozone layer by rationing deodorants," said Allen.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48791

SCAR: First comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate

2009-12-01T09:03:00.000-03:00

First comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate

Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment

The first comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate and its relationship to the global climate system is published this week (Tuesday 1 December 2009) by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The review - Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment – presents the latest research from the icy continent, identifies areas for future scientific research, and addresses the urgent questions that policy makers have about Antarctic melting, sea-level rise and biodiversity.

Based on the latest evidence* from 100 world-leading scientists from 13 countries, the review focuses on the impact and consequences of rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and the Southern Ocean; rapid ice loss in parts of Antarctica and the increase in sea ice around the continent; the impact of climate change on Antarctica's plants and animals; the unprecedented increase in carbon dioxide levels; the connections between human-induced global change and natural variability; and the extraordinary finding that the ozone hole has shielded most of Antarctica from global warming.

Dr. Colin Summerhayes, Executive Director of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research said, "Antarctica is an unrivalled source of information about our planet. This review describes what we know now and illustrates how human activity is driving rapid climate change. By integrating this multidisciplinary evidence into a single source we will help scientists and policy makers understand the distinction between environmental changes linked to the Earth's natural cycles, and those that are human induced. The work is particularly important because it puts Antarctic climate change into context and reveals the impact on the rest of the planet."

Professor John Turner of British Antarctic Survey is the lead editor of the review. He said, "For me the most astonishing evidence is the way that one man-made environmental impact – the ozone hole – has shielded most of Antarctica from another – global warming. Understanding the complexities surrounding these issues is a challenge for scientists – and communicating these in a meaningful way to society and to policymakers is essential. There is no doubt that our world is changing and human activity is accelerating global change. This review is a major step forward in making sure that the latest and best evidence is available in one place. It sets the scene for future Antarctic Research and provides the knowledge that we all need to help us live with environmental change."

Notes for editors:
Stunning broadcast-quality footage and stills of Antarctica, as well as location maps are available from the British Antarctic Survey Press Office.

Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment
This review draws together important information from different scientific disciplines (such as meteorology, glaciology and biology) and therefore different aspects of the global climate system.

*Key findings from the review are highlighted in 85 key points, which you can see in full at: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/SCAR_ssg_ps/ACCE.htm

A summary of the report's findings are detailed in the following 10 key points:

1. Hole in ozone layer has shielded most of Antarctica from global warming
The ozone hole has delayed the impact of greenhouse gas increases on the climate of the continent. Consequently south polar winds (the polar vortex), have intensified and affected Antarctic weather patterns. Westerly winds over the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica have increased by around 15%. The stronger winds have effectively isolated Antarctica from the warming elsewhere on the planet. As a result during the past 30 years there has been little change in surface temperature over much of the vast Antarctic continent, although West Antarctica has warmed slightly. An important exception is the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, which has seen rapid summer warming. This warming is caused by stronger westerly winds bringing warm, wet air into the region from the ocean.

2. Warming of the Southern Ocean will cause changes in Antarctic ecosystem
The largest ocean current on Earth (the Antarctic Circumpolar Current) has warmed faster than the global ocean as a whole. The Southern Ocean is one of the major sinks of atmospheric CO2, but increasing westerly winds have affected the ocean's ability to absorb CO2 by causing the upwelling of CO2 rich water. If temperatures continue to rise 'alien' species may migrate into the region, competing with and replacing original Antarctic inhabitants. Key species in the food chain like planktonic snails could suffer from ocean acidification. Changes in the food regime are likely to decrease the rich Antarctic seabed biodiversity.

3. Rapid increase in plant communities across Antarctic Peninsula
Rapid warming has been seen along the western Antarctic Peninsula, along with a switch from snowfall to rain during summer, resulting in expansion of plant, animal and microbial communities in newly available land. Humans have also inadvertently introduced 'alien' organisms such as grasses, flies and bacteria.

4. Rapid ice loss in parts of the Antarctic
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has significantly thinned particularly around the Amundsen Sea Embayment as a result of warmer ocean temperatures. Regional warming caused by intensification of the westerly winds (due to the ozone hole) is melting ice shelves along the eastern Antarctic Peninsula (e.g., Larsen B Ice Shelf). Overall, 90% of the Peninsula's glaciers have retreated in recent decades. However, the bulk of the Antarctic ice sheet has shown little change.

5. 10% increase in sea ice around the Antarctic
Since 1980 there has been a 10% increase in Antarctic sea ice extent, particularly in the Ross Sea region, as a result of the stronger winds around the continent (due to the ozone hole). In contrast, regional sea ice has decreased west of the Antarctic Peninsula due to changes in local atmospheric circulation and this has also been linked with the very rapid warming seen over land on the west coast of the Peninsula.

6. Carbon dioxide levels increasing at fastest pace in 800,000 years
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and CH4 are at higher levels than experienced in the last 800,000 years and are increasing at rates unlikely to have been seen in the (geologically) recent past. Antarctica was warmer in the last interglacial (130,000 years ago) and sea levels were higher, but the contribution of West Antarctica to that rise is currently unknown. Small-scale climate variability over the last 11,000 years has caused rapid ice loss, shifts in ocean and atmospheric circulation and enhanced biological production, showing that Antarctica is highly sensitive to even minor climate changes. Studies of sediments under recently lost ice shelves suggest ice shelf loss in some regions is unprecedented during this time scale.

7. Sea ice loss directly affecting krill levels and penguin colonisation
Loss of sea ice west of the Antarctic Peninsula has caused changes in algal growth. This loss of sea ice has also caused a shift from large to smaller species. Stocks of krill have declined significantly. In some areas Adélie penguin populations have declined due to reduced sea ice and prey species (on the northern Antarctic Peninsula), but they have remained stable or increased elsewhere (Ross Sea and East Antarctica). Historical exploitation of seals and whales has changed the ecosystem, reducing scientists' ability to fully understand the impacts of climate change on krill and other species.

8. Antarctica predicted to warm by around 3 °C over this century
Over this century the ozone hole is expected to heal, allowing the full effects of greenhouse gas increases to be felt across the Antarctic. Models suggest that the net effect will be continued slow strengthening of winds across the Southern Ocean, while sea ice will decrease by a third, resulting in increased phytoplankton productivity. The predicted warming of about 3 °C across the continent is not enough to melt the main ice sheet and an increase in snowfall there should offset sea level rise by a few centimetres.

9. West Antarctic ice loss could contribute to 1.4 m sea level rise
Loss of ice from the West Antarctic ice sheet is likely to contribute some tens of centimetres to global sea level by 2100. This will contribute to a projected total sea level rise of up to 1.4 metres (and possibly higher) by 2100.

10. Improved modelling of polar processes required for accurate predictions
Climate variability in the Polar Regions is larger than in other parts of the world, yet these remote regions are sparsely sampled. These areas need to be monitored in much greater detail in order to detect change, to improve understanding of the processes at work, and to distinguish between natural climate variability and variability caused by human influences. A detailed understanding of past climate is also crucial for understanding this distinction, as is a significant refinement of currently crude climate models.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the main body dealing with the international co-ordination of scientific research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Formed with 12 member countries in 1958 to continue activities begun during the International Geophysical Year of 1957–1958, it is an interdisciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and now has 35 Member countries. SCAR played a leading role in the recently completed International Polar Year (2007–2008).
British Antarctic Survey (BAS), a component of the Natural Environment Research Council, delivers world-leading interdisciplinary research in the Polar Regions. Its skilled science and support staff based in Cambridge, Antarctica and the Arctic, work together to deliver research that underpins a productive economy and contributes to a sustainable world. Its numerous national and international collaborations, leadership role in Antarctic affairs and excellent infrastructure help ensure that the UK maintains a world leading position. BAS has over 450 staff and operates five research stations, two Royal Research Ships and five aircraft in and around Antarctica.

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-11/bas-fcr113009.php

Hunting banned in parts of Austria after hailstones kill 90% of wild game

2009-12-01T08:57:00.000-03:00

Hunting banned in parts of Austria after hailstones kill 90% of wild game

Hunting has been banned in parts of Austria after freak storms with tennis ball-sized hailstones killed up to 90% of the wild game population

The Telegraph, London, 19 October 2009

Hundreds of deer were discovered either dead or so badly injured they had to be put down by wildlife experts.

In the country's rural Salzburg province, 90% of pheasants and 80% of hares were killed in the hail storms.

Sepp Eder, the hunting chief, said: "Animals sought shelter in farms, in fields of grain but the hail was so heavy it smashed right into them. It may take five years for animal numbers to recover, if they ever do so."

Farmers are believed to have suffered more than £60 million in damages to crops and buildings.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/6377192/Hunting-banned-in-parts-of-Austria-after-hailstones-kill-90pc-of-wild-game.html

November 2009 blog posts

2009-12-01T08:54:00.002-03:00

▼ November (128)

Methane, the ticking time bomb, will go off!

2009-11-30T21:51:00.000-03:00

Methane the ticking time bomb will go off!

Katey Walter Anthony, aquatic ecologist and biogeochemist

I have been watching the work of this young scientist for sometime. Much of her research into methane releases presently being emitted from the thawing permafrost and bubbling from lakes in the far north of Alaska has passed under the radar of climate change discussions. This is very troubling as you’ll note that what is happening is not included in the IPCC models for upper levels of atmospheric concentrates of heat trapping greenhouse gases. Katey Walter Anthony’s work is detailed in the book ZERO Greenhouse Emissions and she is also featured in the Letters from 2030 series here.

I highly recommend we all start paying more attention to her work! Following is a recent article in National Geographic.

“It’s a worldwide responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint and its effects on the atmosphere. We’re researching the greenhouse gas that could have the most powerful affect of all on global warming.”

Deep below the glistening surface of a frozen Arctic lake, something is bubbling—something that could cause global warming to accelerate beyond all previous projections. Dr. Katey Walter Anthony steps onto the ice, to tell us why.

“The bubbles are methane, a strong greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide,” Walter Anthony explains. It’s being released at an accelerating rate from thawing permafrost, frozen soil that holds vast amounts of carbon. When the Earth’s rising temperatures cause it to suddenly thaw, lakes form. “All that carbon was locked up safely in the permafrost freezer for tens of thousands of years,” Walter Anthony says. “Now the freezer door is opening, releasing the carbon into Arctic lake bottoms. Microbes digest it, convert it to methane, and the lakes essentially burp out methane.”

Scientists estimate that permafrost holds up to 950 billion tons of carbon. As it thaws, 50 billion tons of methane could enter the atmosphere from Siberian lakes alone. “That’s ten times more methane than the atmosphere holds right now,” Walter Anthony notes. “Since methane traps heat so efficiently, temperatures will rise higher, faster.” In the atmosphere methane spreads rapidly too, circling the globe in just one year.

Walter Anthony’s research in Alaska and Russia explores this dangerous, self-perpetuating cycle: thawing permafrost caused by global warming releases methane, which contributes to global warming. The bubbles she observes in the wilds of Siberia will soon be felt by the entire planet.

Walter Anthony’s comparative measurements of the speed of permafrost thaw and level of methane release reveal some Alaskan lakes eating into permafrost with exceptional speed. “We need to determine if this represents the near future of other regions like Siberia,” she says. Her data feed into scientific models that help predict global warming and ultimately inspire ideas to reduce it.

It’s a good thing Walter Anthony loves the solitude and stark beauty of Arctic landscapes. Her fieldwork is wet, risky, and very, very cold. “Just when temperatures dive, snow starts piling up, and everyone heads inside, we pack up our tents and go camping,” she smiles. Some areas she visits have been dubbed “drunken forests”—places where thawing permafrost has transformed woodlands into soggy wetlands dotted with dead and dying trees tilting at haphazard angles. “We get up in the morning, put on frozen-stiff clothes, and venture out onto thin lake ice,” she describes.

After shoveling off snow, Walter Anthony’s team hacks open holes in the ice and lowers plastic bubble traps into the water. “A valve allows us to take a sample and bring it back for lab analysis,” she says. But for on-the-spot confirmation of gas contents, Walter Anthony strikes a match. When flames leap—often as high as trees—she’s found methane.

Does the methane that threatens world climate have a silver lining? Walter Anthony seeks ways to harness it as an alternative energy source. “Capturing and burning it has already been done around the world on a small scale,” she says. Soaring over Alaska in a small plane, she looks for ways to fuel an entire village. “We knew methane seeps existed in this particular area, but weren’t sure where.” An aerial view revealed “fantastic seeps that looked like clusters of black grapes against the white snow. After landing we went out in snow machines, racing across the tundra to locate them.” Now her research and economic feasibility studies determine how to most efficiently bring the gas to the village for power and heat. “People living there would love to have local methane solve their energy crisis.”

Walter Anthony’s connection with Siberian people and places began when she was a high school exchange student and continued when she was a university graduate student in a far north science station. “Russian scientists led the way in connecting thawing permafrost with methane release. I really came to love and admire the people and country. Now, my long-term understanding of the unique capabilities of these scientists helps me arrange collaborations between Alaska and Russia to monitor climate change,” she says.

“I feel such a strong emotional tie with these extreme remote places. People who can last here love it. We chop firewood, collect berries, and fish. I like preserving those relationships with the land. When life is a little bit hard, it makes you appreciate the times you can come in and have a cup of soup.”

Link: http://greenhouseneutralfoundation.org/articles/2009/11/22/methane-the-ticking-time-bomb-will-go-off/

Scientific American (December 2009), "Methane -- A Menace Surfaces" by Katey Walter Anthony

2009-11-30T21:24:00.001-03:00

Scientific American Magazine, December 2009

Methane: A Menace Surfaces

by Katey Walter Anthony

Touchdown on the gravel runway at Cherskii in remote northeastern Siberia sent the steel toe of a rubber boot into my buttocks. The shoe had sprung free from gear stuffed between me and my three colleagues packed into a tiny prop plane. This was the last leg of my research team’s five-day journey from the University of Alaska Fairbanks across Russia to the Northeast Science Station in the land of a million lakes, which we were revisiting as part of our ongoing efforts to monitor a stirring giant that could greatly speed up global warming.

These expeditions help us to understand how much of the perennially frozen ground, known as permafrost, in Siberia and across the Arctic is thawing, or close to thawing, and how much methane the process could generate. The question grips us—and many scientists and policy makers—because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, packing 25 times more heating power, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide. If the permafrost thaws rapidly because of global warming worldwide, the planet could get hotter more quickly than most models now predict. Our data, combined with complementary analyses by others, are revealing troubling trends.

[you can read the rest if you have a subscription or buy the issue -- hint, hint, somebody please send me a copy of this article if possible]

Link: http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=07A9A210-237D-9F22-E8B42A4D79A6EAAE

James Hansen: Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit -- Lessons From a Grandchild

2009-11-30T18:39:00.000-03:00

Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit: Lessons From a Grandchild

by James Hansen, November 30, 2009

This note and an opinion piece submitted to The Observer in answer to the question:
Is There Any Real Hope of Cutting Global Carbon Emissions? are available at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf

My opinion piece was published in The Observer on 29 November 2009, but with the wording of the question slightly altered.

Such negative questions and attitudes are increasing. How refreshing, on cold, windy Thanksgiving Plus One Day, which we spend with our children and grandchildren, when I went outside to shoot baskets with 5-year-old Connor. Connor is very bright, but needs work on his hand-to-eye coordination. I set the basket at a convenient height for him, but his first several shots banged off the backboard off-target. Then he said, very brightly and bravely, “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit.” It seems his karate lessons are paying off.

Some adults need Connor’s help. A Scientific American article by Michael Lemonick, “Beyond the Tipping Point,” described our 2008 paper “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” Lemonick concluded with the almost-obligatory “fair and balanced” opinion, delivered by Steve Schneider. In response to our conclusion that we must get atmospheric CO2 to peak during the next few decades, and then decline back to 350 ppm or less, Schneider opines “It has no chance in hell. None. Zero. The best we can do is to overshoot, reach 450 or 550 parts per million, then come back as quickly as possible on the back end.”

Everyone knows we are overshooting. The 2009 CO2 global mean is 387 ppm, and it is increasing 2 ppm per year. In our “Target” paper we showed that, if coal emissions were phased down linearly to zero in 2030 and emissions from unconventional fossil fuels were prohibited, peak CO2 could be kept at about 425 ppm – or even lower if a rising carbon price made it uneconomic to go after every last drop of oil. But Hillary Clinton recently signed an agreement with Canada for a pipeline to carry tar sands oil to the United States. Australia is massively expanding coal export facilities. Coal-fired power plants are being built worldwide. Unless the public get involved, young people especially, CO2 of 450 ppm or higher may become unavoidable.

What would make Schneider’s “450 or 550” ppm unavoidable is a defeatist attitude. Humanity does have a free will. We do not have to accept the inevitability of extracting and burning all of the most miserably polluting fossil fuels on the planet. What we need mostly is some gumption, some never-give-up fighting spirit. I am sending to Steve, a friend of almost 40 years, the addresses of some karate schools located conveniently.

Cavalier “450 or 550” also warrants comment. Coming back to 350 ppm or less from a temporary peak of 425-450 ppm is something that would be feasible this century, mainly via “natural” actions such as improved forestry and agricultural practices. 550 ppm is a whole different cup of tea, guaranteeing a chaotic situation with climate system amplifying feedbacks and dynamics out of humanity’s control.

The most foolish no-fighting-spirit statement, made by scores of people, is this: “we have already passed the tipping point, it is too late.” They act as if a commitment to a meter of sea level rise is no different than a commitment to several tens of meters. Or, if a million species become committed to extinction, should we throw in the towel on the other nine million? What would the plan be then – escape to Mars? As I make clear in “Storms of My Grandchildren,” anybody who thinks we can transplant even one butterfly species to another planet has some loose screws. We must take care of the planet we have – easily the most remarkable one in the known universe.

Let’s say we have passed a tipping point – say current atmospheric composition is enough to cause a large eventual sea level rise. What do we do? Wring our hands? What we must do is restore the planet’s energy balance, or make it slightly negative. That does not guarantee that heat already added to the ocean will not further erode ice shelves and cause sea level rise. But it gives us a fighting chance to minimize that problem. Of course, it would help if we knew the current planetary energy balance accurately, and the climate forcings – that’s the subject in chapter 4 of “Storms.”

Any Hope of Cutting Global Carbon Emissions?

Absolutely. It is possible – if we give politicians a cold hard slap in the face. The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – “goals” for emission reductions, “offsets” that render even iron-clad goals almost meaningless, an ineffectual “cap-and-trade” mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics-as-usual.

Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate conditions out of their control, as described in my book "Storms of My Grandchildren."

Science also reveals what is needed to stabilize atmospheric composition and climate.

Geophysical data on the carbon amounts in oil, gas and coal show that the problem is solvable, if we phase out global coal emissions within 20 years and prohibit emissions from unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale.

Such constraints on fossil fuels would cause carbon dioxide emissions to decline 60 percent by mid-century, or even more if policies make it uneconomic to go after every last drop of oil. Improved forestry and agricultural practices could then bring atmospheric carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm (parts per million) or less, as required for a stable climate.

Governments going to Copenhagen claim to have such goals for 2050, which they will achieve with the “cap-and-trade” mechanism. They are lying through their teeth. Unless they order Russia to leave its gas in the ground and Saudi Arabia to leave its oil in the ground (which nobody has proposed), they must phase out coal and prohibit unconventional fossil fuels.

Instead, the United States signed an agreement with Canada for a pipeline to carry oil squeezed from tar sands. Australia is building port facilities for large increases in coal export. Coal-to-oil factories are being built. Coal-fired power plants are being constructed worldwide. Governments are stating emission goals that they know are lies – or, if we want to be generous, they do not understand the geophysics and are kidding themselves.

Is it feasible to phase out coal and avoid use of unconventional fossil fuels? Yes, but only if governments face up to the truth: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, their use will continue and even increase on a global basis. Fossil fuels are cheapest because they are not made to pay for their effects on human health, the environment, and future climate.

Governments must place a uniform rising price on carbon, collected at the fossil fuel source – the mine or port of entry. The fee should be given to the public in toto, as a uniform dividend, payroll tax deduction, or both. Such a tax is progressive – the dividend exceeds added energy costs for 60% of the public. Fee-and-dividend stimulates the economy, providing the public the means to adjust lifestyles and energy infrastructure.

Fee-and-dividend can begin with the countries now considering cap-and-trade. Other countries will either agree to a carbon fee or have duties placed on their products that are made with fossil fuels. As the carbon price rises, most coal, tar sands and oil shale will be left in the ground. The market place will determine the roles of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear power in our clean energy future.

Cap-and-trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to the Kyoto Protocol, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy. Cap-and-trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions, and leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground.

Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us, and cheat our children and grandchildren?

Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln faced slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises and half-measures is over.

Can we find a leader who understands the core issue, and will lead?

Link to pdf file: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf

Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate: The CRU hack -- context

2009-11-30T12:26:00.000-03:00

The CRU hack: Context

Filed under: Climate Science

— gavin @ 23 November 2009; Real Climate blog

This is a continuation of the last thread which is getting a little unwieldy. The emails cover a 13 year period in which many things happened, and very few people are up to speed on some of the long-buried issues. So to save some time, I’ve pulled a few bits out of the comment thread that shed some light on some of the context which is missing in some of the discussion of various emails.

Trenberth: You need to read his recent paper on quantifying the current changes in the Earth’s energy budget to realise why he is concerned about our inability currently to track small year-to-year variations in the radiative fluxes.
Wigley: The concern with sea surface temperatures in the 1940s stems from the paper by Thompson et al (2007) which identified a spurious discontinuity in ocean temperatures. The impact of this has not yet been fully corrected for in the HadSST data set, but people still want to assess what impact it might have on any work that used the original data.
Climate Research and peer-review: You should read about the issues from the editors (Claire Goodess, Hans von Storch) who resigned because of a breakdown of the peer review process at that journal, that came to light with the particularly egregious (and well-publicised) paper by Soon and Baliunas (2003). The publisher’s assessment is here.

Update: Pulling out some of the common points being raised in the comments.

HARRY_read_me.txt. This is a 4 year-long work log of Ian (Harry) Harris who was working to upgrade the documentation, metadata and databases associated with the legacy CRU TS 2.1 product, which is not the same as the HadCRUT data (see Mitchell and Jones, 2003 for details). The CSU TS 3.0 is available now (via ClimateExplorer for instance), and so presumably the database problems got fixed. Anyone who has ever worked on constructing a database from dozens of individual, sometimes contradictory and inconsistently formatted datasets will share his evident frustration with how tedious that can be.
“Redefine the peer-reviewed literature!” . Nobody actually gets to do that, and both papers discussed in that comment – McKitrick and Michaels (2004) and Kalnay and Cai (2003) were both cited and discussed in Chapter 2 of the IPCC AR4 report. As an aside, neither has stood the test of time.
“Declines” in the MXD record. This decline was ~~hidden~~ written up in Nature in 1998 where the authors suggested not using the post 1960 data. Their actual programs (in IDL script), unsurprisingly warn against using post 1960 data. Added: Note that the ‘hide the decline’ comment was made in 1999 – 10 years ago, and has no connection whatsoever to more recent instrumental records.
CRU data accessibility. From the date of the first FOI request to CRU (in 2007), it has been made abundantly clear that the main impediment to releasing the whole CRU archive is the small % of it that was given to CRU on the understanding it wouldn’t be passed on to third parties. Those restrictions are in place because of the originating organisations (the various National Met. Services) around the world and are not CRU’s to break. As of Nov 13, the response to the umpteenth FOI request for the same data met with exactly the same response. This is an unfortunate situation, and pressure should be brought to bear on the National Met Services to release CRU from that obligation. It is not however the fault of CRU. The vast majority of the data in the HadCRU records is publicly available from GHCN (v2.mean.Z).
Suggestions that FOI-related material be deleted … are ill-advised even if not carried out. What is and is not responsive and deliverable to an FOI request is however a subject that it is very appropriate to discuss.

Further update: This comment from Halldór Björnsson of the Icelandic Met. Service goes right to the heart of the accessibility issue:

Re: CRU data accessibility.
National Meteorological Services (NMSs) have different rules on data exchange. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) organizes the exchange of “basic data”, i.e. data that are needed for weather forecasts. For details on these see WMO resolution number 40 (see http://bit.ly/8jOjX1).

This document acknowledges that WMO member states can place restrictions on the dissemination of data to third parties “for reasons such as national laws or costs of production.” These restrictions are only supposed to apply to commercial use, the research and education community is supposed to have free access to all the data.

Now, for researchers this sounds open and fine. In practice it hasn’t proved to be so.
Most NMSs also can distribute all sorts of data that are classified as “additional data and products”. Restrictions can be placed on these. These special data and products (which can range from regular weather data from a specific station to maps of rain intensity based on satellite and radar data). Many nations do place restrictions on such data (see link for additional data on above WMO-40 webpage for details).

The reasons for restricting access is often commercial, NMSs are often required by law to have substantial income from commercial sources, in other cases it can be for national security reasons, but in many cases (in my experience) the reasons simply seem to be “because we can”.
What has this got to do with CRU? The data that CRU needs for their data base comes from entities that restrict access to much of their data. And even better, since the UK has submitted an exception for additional data, some nations that otherwise would provide data without question will not provide data to the UK. I know this from experience, since my nation (Iceland) did send in such conditions and for years I had problem getting certain data from the US.

The ideal, that all data should be free and open is unfortunately not adhered to by a large portion of the meteorological community. Probably only a small portion of the CRU data is “locked” but the end effect is that all their data becomes closed. It is not their fault, and I am sure that they dislike them as much as any other researcher who has tried to get access to all data from stations in region X in country Y.

These restrictions end up by wasting resources and hurting everyone. The research community (CRU included) and the public are the victims. If you don’t like it, write to you NMSs and urge them to open all their data.

I can update (further) this if there is demand. Please let me know in the comments, which, as always, should be substantive, non-insulting and on topic.

Link: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/

Climate Change: The Next Generation

Contrarians using hacked e-mails to try to fool public on climate science

Contrarians using hacked e-mails to try to fool public on climate science

Arctic Ocean undersaturated for calcium carbonate (aragonite)

Arctic Ocean undersaturated for calcium carbonate

Future outlook

Nature News: Battle lines drawn over e-mail leak

Battle lines drawn over e-mail leak

Nature Editorial: Climatologists under pressure

Editorial

Climatologists under pressure

Abstract

Mail trail

Tricky business

Urban Heat Island Effect: Climate Denial Crock of the Week

BBC: Major sea level rise likely as Antarctic ice melts

Major sea level rise likely as Antarctic ice melts

Satellite images of healthy Arctic Sea ice prove to be thin "rotten" ice up close

Satellite images of healthy sea ice prove to be thin "rotten" ice up close

I'd rather not know: the psychology of climate denial

James Hansen Newsweek interview by Sharon Begley: It’s Not the Kind of Thing Where You Can Compromise

‘It’s Not the Kind of Thing Where You Can Compromise’

Climate scientist James Hansen talks about global warming, Copenhagen, and his new book

Chris Hedges: Refuse allegiance to coal, practice non-violent protests to shut down coal-fired power plants

Refuse Allegiance to Coal

Michael Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois, explains why he sees the disclosed e-mails as a complete distraction from the body of evidence pointing to a human hand on the planet’s thermostat

BBC: Australia opposition vote deals climate law blow

Australia opposition vote deals climate law blow

Prof. Phil Jones steps aside for review of stolen CRU e-mails, stands by the data

Scientist in climate change data row steps down

Raypierre of RealClimate commenting about Phil Jones' stepping aside, on the Dot Earth blog of the New York Times

Dimitry Olov: Sea level rise and the future of the U.S. East Coast with Boston as a well-defined example of infrastructure loss

The Oceans are Coming Part II — Living on the Land

The View from New England

by Dimitry Olov, ClubOrlov blog, November 13, 2009

William Patterson: Younger Dryas began in months, not years, when Lake Agassiz flowed into the Arctic Sea and North Atlantic Ocean

Big freeze plunged Europe into Ice Age in months

Methane from permafrost, methane from the floor of the Arctic Sea discussed by Dan Miller of the Roda Group

CLIMATE CHANGE: Four Degrees of Devastation by Stephen Leahy

SCAR: First comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate

First comprehensive review of the state of Antarctica's climate

Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment

Hunting banned in parts of Austria after hailstones kill 90% of wild game

Hunting banned in parts of Austria after hailstones kill 90% of wild game

Hunting has been banned in parts of Austria after freak storms with tennis ball-sized hailstones killed up to 90% of the wild game population

November 2009 blog posts

Methane, the ticking time bomb, will go off!

Scientific American (December 2009), "Methane -- A Menace Surfaces" by Katey Walter Anthony

James Hansen: Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit -- Lessons From a Grandchild

Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate: The CRU hack -- context

The CRU hack: Context