Climate Change News

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CHINA’S ACTIONS ARE CRUCIAL ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Research shows China’s impact on climate change, as well as its potential to shape the path forward.

MIT News May 24, 2012

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/c...te-change.html

As climate negotiators wrap-up talks in Bonn, Germany, this week, a major point of contention is who needs to do what to slow global warming. Nations such as China and the United States have held back from making substantial emission reduction pledges in the past, as both nations waited for the other to act. But new research out of MIT shows the importance of all major nations taking part in global efforts to reduce emissions — and in particular, finds China's role to be crucial.

The report — titled The Role of China in Mitigating Climate Change — published in the journal Energy Economics, compares the impact of a stringent emissions reduction policy with and without China's participation. It finds that China's actions are "essential."

http://globalchange.mit.edu/files/do...PGC_Rpt215.pdf

"As the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, without China, climate goals — like the 2 degrees Celsius target that most agree is necessary to prevent serious irreversible consequences — are out of reach," says Sergey Paltsev, the lead author of the study and the assistant director for economic research at MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

Specifically, the study finds that with China's help the global community is able to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, relative to pre-industrial levels. But without China, we miss that mark by about 1 degree Celsius.

Not only will it be close to impossible to achieve the 2 degrees mark without China's participation, but emissions reductions will also be more expensive because substantial costs would shift to only some countries. That is why the researchers argue for a global economy-wide greenhouse gas tax that spreads the burden of responsibility.

But even in this best-case scenario, reducing emissions comes with a steep price tag. China could experience substantial GDP losses by the end of the century under the most stringent policy cases. These losses come from higher energy prices, which influence consumption and export dynamics.

"While strong reductions may turn out to be costly in China and may require some incentives from developed countries," Paltsev says, "that doesn't make China's actions any less important."

The researchers stress, however, that reaching that 2 degrees threshold with China's participation is only possible in the most optimistic case. And these days, there isn't much cause for optimism.

The researchers tested various levels of emission reduction plans — a global carbon tax of $10, $30 or $50. The various taxes would slow warming to 3.5, 2.4 and 2 degrees, respectively, by the end of the century, according to their analysis. With no global policy, the increase in warming is projected to be about 5.5 degrees Celsius.

These scenarios show that, "Even more modest and realistic goals require near universal participation of major greenhouse gas emitters," Paltsev says.

Top energy user today, climate leader tomorrow?

The importance of China's participation in a global climate treaty increases with each year, as the country's population, economy and energy use continue to grow rapidly.

From 2000 to 2010, China's energy use grew 130 percent. That's up from a growth of just 50 percent the previous decade. With a growing, wealthier population, China has become the world's largest energy consumer — and with it, the world's greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

China's share of global energy-related CO2 emissions has increased in just eight years from 14 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2008. Eighty percent of those emissions came from coal, making China the consumer of about half the world's coal.

But China is on a path toward doing something about their rapidly escalating energy use and emissions. They've recently announced they will be testing a pilot cap-and-trade program in select major cities in 2013, and plan to make the program national by 2015.

John Reilly, the co-director of the Joint Program on Global Change, pointed out recently the irony behind the plan. While the United States created the idea of cap and trade, he says, "just as many of our best innovations are produced in China, they may beat us in implementing such a system ... we're really being left behind."

Paltsev agrees that the system would be "a very good start" for China, allowing the country to reach its goal of reducing carbon intensity by 40 percent relative to 2005 and increasing the share of non-fossil fuels by 15 percent by 2020. But, he says, "these actions are still not enough, making almost no substantial difference in reducing global emissions."

In fact, the change, taken by China alone, would only reduce global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius in 2020.

But Tim Yeo, who chairs the United Kingdom Parliament's energy committee, recently told The Financial Times that if China did impose a national cap and trade system, "It's game over for the rest of the world ... Everyone will have to do it, including the U.S."

Paltsev agrees. "While the system would only be a start for China, as the country would still have a long way to go in reducing emissions, it would likely influence other countries — like the U.S. — to follow. But time is really of the essence."

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IFC’S EFFORTS TO ENABEL SUCCESSFUL CLIMATE CHANGE PROJECTS

Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Management June 1, 2012

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) faces significant barriers when promoting climate change projects in developing countries.

Ajay Narayanan, the head of the Sustainability and Climate Business Unit in the Global Markets department at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), was clear from the outset that his lecture would not provide a tidy solution to the issue of mitigating emissions of green house gases (GHG) and promoting energy efficiency projects in developing markets. Instead, he acknowledged that the primary challenge was to frame and understand the problem of climate change in emerging markets. Only then, he posited, can we come close to identifying and supporting businesses and projects which address such issues.

In his role with the IFC, Mr. Narayanan is responsible for identifying new private-sector businesses in developing markets in which the IFC can invest both directly or via financial intermediaries (FI’s) to addresses climate change. While the IFC is a source of debt and equity financing for a wide range of projects in developing nations, its climate change business is a growing segment which will be a significant part of the overall business by 2015. This growth is driven by the current low spending on climate change mitigation (approximately $9B) relative to the huge need for such projects (approximately $100B).

The IFC seeks to enable market conditions necessary for climate change companies and projects to be successful. Efforts to do so typically come in two forms: advisory work to provide audits, sector studies and insights on building codes; and through direct action to provide financing to the company or to support an FI’s financing of the project. In doing this, the IFC lobbies for projects addressing climate change while also creating new market niches for FI’s, transforming the project financing market and turning the spotlight to smaller customers and companies. The end goal, following the IFC’s exit, is for the FI’s to continue financing such projects and companies as part of their normal operations.

Despite its efforts, Mr. Narayanan explained that the IFC runs into two significant barriers when pushing for FI’s to invest in climate change projects. Firstly, transaction costs exist for this extra work which often carries a lower return than other investments. Secondly, risk perceptions about the commercial viability of these projects are pervasive and often lead to inaction when making investment decisions.

Mr. Narayanan demonstrated this second barrier when describing the types of products the IFC develops with FI’s. Typically they are successful in partnering on trade finance projects or long-term credit lines, as these products are more straightforward and typically less leveraged. The downside to them is that they tend to be less impactful or catalytic. The more impactful products, including senior and subordinated risk-sharing facilities, are more complicated products that carry significant leverage and are therefore less frequently accepted by FI’s. This unwillingness of FI’s to take on risk is where the IFC steps in to take a larger share of the leverage.

By being patient and persistent, another key theme to Mr. Narayanan’s lecture, the IFC hopes to keep lobbying for such projects so that FI’s become more tolerant of taking risk to finance such projects. Ideally, as these projects develop the role of the IFC will diminish and the FI’s share of leverage will grow, replacing the role of the IFC. An example of this is the IFC’s role in the Chinese Utility-Based Energy Efficiency Program (CHUEE), where in phase 1 the FI held only 25% of the subordinated debt, while in phase 2 the FI moved to a 50% stake in the subordinated debt. Although this is just one example of the IFC’s strategy of filling the FI’s risk appetite gap, Mr. Narayanan believes that because “banks act like lemmings,” such financing partnerships will over time become more widely accepted and commonplace, allowing the IFC to focus on new areas or projects.

Due to his role in business development, Mr. Narayanan excitedly anticipates a number of these new projects. Examples include advocating sustainable value chains by partnering with local FI’s to upgrade facilities; developing off-grid energy infrastructure in developing markets; promoting organic food and waste management cycles for new urban areas; and what Mr. Narayanan described as the “holy grail,” partnering with energy service companies to mitigate climate change at the source. For each of these areas the IFC aims to partner with local FI’s to gain traction and eventually leading to more sustainable and scalable financing, as was the case in the CHUEE example.

Following these explanations and examples, Mr. Narayanan once again explained that the takeaways to these issues lead to further questions rather than solutions. What is the objective of the IFC’s efforts: are they looking to maximize return in a hot space or maximize impact while remaining profitable? Should the IFC finance the projects that are out there now, should it support an arguably unviable CSR model, or should it finance anything that provides a marginal gain in mitigating GHG emissions?

It seems to me that what is first required is a change in the mindset and culture of FI’s regarding the scope and riskiness and of investments. Only when these firms integrate the need for climate change financing in their culture and operations will we begin to approach a tipping point. While I believe the IFC’s “patient and persistent” strategy will help move this in the right direction, a change in direction and values at the highest levels of leadership within the FI is necessary to continue the progress. Furthermore, encouraging recent news of a proposal by BRIC nation leaders to create a shared development bank is likely to fuel the growth of such project financing, and I’m sure Mr. Narayanan is excited to gain a new partner in these efforts to lobby for change.

http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/About...-Projects.aspx

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CLIMATE WARMING OPENING UP 46,000 SQUARE KILOMETERS A YEAR THAT HAD ONCE BEEN BOUND IN ICE

June 2, 2012

TROMSO, Norway - Thinning polar ice means more sea traffic through the Arctic at a time of territorial claims to an area that could contain as much as 20 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Norwegian officials to discuss the changing Arctic.



Over the last 20 years, Norwegian climate scientists say the Arctic has been losing 45,000 square kilometers of ice cover a year. That has opened new shipping routes across the north that could make trade between Europe and Asia 40 percent faster than using the Suez Canal.

So Arctic nations are working to protect a region that Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere says is undergoing a profound transformation.

"There are changes going on which are leading to the emergence of a region which used to be frozen both politically and climatically, and now there is a thaw," Stoere said.

The foreign minister brought Secretary Clinton to this city above the Arctic Circle to meet with scientists and business leaders preparing for greater ocean traffic and greater oil exploration in a region that the U.S. Geologic Survey says could hold $9 trillion in oil and minerals.

"A lot of countries are looking at what will be the potential for exploration and extraction of natural resources as well as new sea lanes and are increasingly expressing an interest in the Arctic," Clinton noted. "The United States and Norway are committed to promoting responsible management of those resources and to do all we can to prevent and mitigate the effects of climate change."

Warmer waters and receding ice mean big changes for animals at the top of the Arctic food chain including polar bears and seals.

"In the fjords of Svalbard we used to have a lot of ice and this was a good denning area for the seals. It is also a good feeding area for polar bears. Now there is no ice," explained Geir Wing Gabrielsen, who directs ecotoxicology programs at the Norwegian Polar Institute. "That means that these seals have to find other areas to have the young ones. The polar bears, they don't find the food they used to find in this area."

Higher ocean acid levels also have an impact lower down the food chain as crustaceans such as the Arctic Sea butterfly form weaker shells. That means less food for herring and cod.

"We see the effect of pollutants on these animals. Which is the result of transport of pollutants from industrial areas, from Central Europe, from North America, Asia, Russia. And this is ending up in the Arctic in the food chain," Gabrielsen said.

Gunhild Hoogensen Gjorv is a political science professor at the University of Tromso.

"The environment here is quite pristine. It's something very important to protect. And what happens in the environment here has global consequences. And we know that," he warned.

Mitigating those consequences falls mainly to the five nations with Arctic coastlines: Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, and the United States. Each has an exclusive economic zone within 200 nautical miles of its coast and is dividing the remaining ice around the North Pole through the U.N. Continental Shelf Commission.

Territorial waters are governed by a Treaty of the Sea, to which all of the Arctic nations are a signatory except the United States. Some conservative members of Congress oppose the treaty because they say it unduly restricts the U.S. Navy.

Secretary Clinton told Norwegian officials that the Obama administration is pushing hard for passage of the Treaty of the Sea. Political Science professor Gjorv says it is an important part of moving forward in the Arctic.

"It is going to make it harder for these different actors to come to the table after a while if they feel that there isn't reciprocity coming from the United States with regards to that very important document," Gjorv noted, "particularly as it opens up and we are going to have more activity up here. This is clearly going to be causing strains because we need that as a platform to build on further negotiations on things we have not yet foreseen."

On this trip, Secretary Clinton says she learned that many of the predictions about warming in the Arctic are being surpassed by the actual data, something she says that is not necessarily surprising but is certainly sobering.

http://www.voanews.com/content/arcti...s/1146413.html

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PRICE TAG ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES COULD COST $100 BILLION PER YEAR BY 2050

Reuters June 5, 2012

The region accounts for only 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but it is considered particularly vulnerable to impact from climate change due to its geographic location and reliance on natural resources, the report commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank said.

The development bank released the study days before Brazil hosts the UN's Conference on Sustainable Development, the Rio+20 on June 20-22.

The collapse of the coral biome in the Caribbean, the disappearance of some glaciers in the Andes and some degree of destruction in the Amazon basin were climate change damages highlighted in the report.

For example, the net loss of agricultural exports in the region due to climate change would be between $30 billion and $52 billion in 2050.

"Losses of this magnitude would limit development options as well as access to natural resources and ecosystem services," the report said.

But the development bank pointed out that the cost of helping countries adapt to the effects of climate change would be minor relative to the price tag for potential damage.

It estimates that around 0.2 percent of GDP for the region, or about 10 percent of the costs of physical impacts, would be needed to support climate adaptation.

GREATER EFFORT

Latin America has had recent success reducing greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from changes in land-use policies, such as the reduction of emissions related to deforestation.

According to the report, the region's greenhouse gas emissions fell 11 percent from the start of the century to 4.7 billion metric tons (5.19 billion tons) of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2010.

While progress has been made in preserving land that would be vulnerable to clear cutting for agriculture or other uses, the IDB said more is needed from the region. The transport and power sectors are expected to increase their share of greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050, the report said.

These two sectors alone could contribute per year 2 billion metric tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalence) in the region, according to the report.

This could push total greenhouse gas emissions in the region to 7 billion metric tons (7.7 billion tons) by 2050, or 9.3 metric tons (10.3 tons) per capita of carbon dioxide.

"The reductions anticipated in land use change emissions will be more than compensated by increases in emissions from other sectors," said the report.

The IDB said the region should aim for no more than 2.2 metric tons (2.43 tons) of emissions per capita.

To achieve that goal, the institutions behind the analysis said it would be necessary to invest around $110 billion per year, or 0.6% of projected Latin American GDP in 2050.

"The report concludes that a pathway that promotes land-use policies stringent enough to achieve zero net emissions ... by 2030, combined with efforts to eliminate the carbon footprint in the power and transport sector by 2050 (along with other actions), would achieve the 2 tonnes per capita."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...85408B20120605

The Climate and Development Challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean: Options for Climate Resilient Low Carbon Development

IDB Executive Summary

http://idbdocs.iadb.org/WSDocs/getDo...OCNUM=36898600

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CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO FOOD SECURITY

Reuters June 5, 2012
By Amantha Perera

COLOMBO, Jun 5 - When it comes to expressing the threat to food security posed by changing climate patterns and extreme weather events in Asia and the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) does not mince its words."The greatest threat to food security is climate change," the Bank said in a 45-page report, Food Security and Poverty in Asia and the Pacific: Key Challenges and Policy Issues released late last month.

http://www.adb.org/sites/default/fil...ty-poverty.pdf

The report's findings ring especially true in Sri Lanka, where experts are increasingly expressing concerns about the twin crises of food security and global warming.

The ADB study looked at areas that could affect food security, such as trade policies, development, the demand for food and resource management and possible mitigation efforts. It tagged climate change as a key player in determining food security levels, as interventions needed to stem the impacts of global warming go beyond national borders and surpass the authority of any single government.

"Problems caused by climate change are much more difficult to resolve in the short term and will require long-term and internationally coordinated solutions," it said.

Sri Lankan climate change expert Riza Yehiya, an architect and sustainability consultant, echoed the ADB's sentiments.

"The issues of climate change and food security in Sri Lanka are becoming alarming," he told IPS, adding that changing climate patterns combined with a lack of proper policies to mitigate adverse impact have put the South Asian island in a precarious position.

Though Sri Lanka is yet to experience protracted and deadly food shortages due to changing weather patterns, recent experiences have shown that its vital rice harvest does fluctuate wildly depending on rainfall.

In 2011, close to 20 percent of the harvest was wiped out when devastating floods between January and February were followed by a harsh drought in some flood-hit areas.

The worst affected populations of these twin crises struggled hard to make ends meet. United Nations' updates on the impact of floods on the East coast detailed instances of older children dropping out of school in order to help their families who, as a result of a ruined harvest, had lost their only source of income.

"Too much rain or too little (ruins) any crop, not only paddy. Rainfall fluctuation, especially in 2011, left crops vulnerable," Malika Wimalasuriya, head of the climate change unit at the Meteorological Department, told IPS.

"Sri Lanka, being closer to the equator, is more vulnerable to climate change impacts (than other countries)," Yehiya warned. In fact, the ADB report predicted large crop losses in Asia due to changing climate patterns in the next 100 years primarily due to its proximity to the equator.

"Yield losses are expected to be even larger (than the Pacific) in tropical regions such as South and Southeast Asia, and will continue to drop further toward 2100. In Southeast Asia, the rice yield is projected to fall by about 50 percent in 2100 relative to 1990 yields," according to the study.

Officials at the climate change unit of the Meteorological Department highlighted that severe water scarcity is also a very real possibility for the Sri Lankan agriculture sector in the future, especially since rising temperatures will exacerbate decreasing rainfall.

Yehiya pointed out that overuse of fertiliser has made the land less productive while the demand for food is likely to rise in the future, putting even more pressure on producers.

"One of the biggest problems with Sri Lankan agriculture is the lack of water management," observed Mudalihamige Rathnayake, head of the Department of Geography at the southern Ruhunu University.

He told IPS that Sri Lankan farmers still rely heavily on the Irrigation Department to release water from reservoirs, rather than taking the initiative on water management themselves.

"We still do not have a culture where farmers feel they have to manage their own water resources," he lamented.

"Sri Lanka has been identified as one of the world's future water deficit countries," Yehiya remarked. "This deficit is not (only) due to the inadequacy of water resources but due to the lack of efficient water resource management, policies and programmes."

As ground water supplies dry up, the threat of rising salinity emerges as yet another obstacle to food production and security.

Some of the island's largest rice producing areas in the Digamadulla, Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts along the eastern coast lie very close to the sea, heightening the risk of seawater intrusion due to rising sea levels.

Officials at the Coast Conservation Department (CCD) told IPS that Sri Lanka's western and eastern coasts were susceptible to erosion with some areas showing annual erosion levels of five metres. CCD Director Anil Premarathne told IPS that wave height and intensity rose during the monsoon season, which has become shorter but more extreme.

"Even a small rise in the sea level could increase the salinity in groundwater. You may not see seawater intrusion on the surface, but salinity levels will change below the ground," he said.

The CCD official also noted the difficulty of implementing a clear policy on countering erosion, making the coast vulnerable to extreme weather.

"To achieve these ends (of effectively mitigating impacts), our political leadership and the academia must work together to produce the much-need climate change experts required to spearhead (effective) management of the problem," Yehiya said.

Wimlasuriya said simple strategies, like better coordination among government agencies, could go a long way. According to him, climate change phenomena like El Nino and La Nina could be predicted to some degree, but lack of communication between public bodies prevents any decisive and integrated action getting off the ground.

"What countries like Sri Lanka need is better information management and sharing so that we can plan ahead," he said.

Find out more about the forces behind climate change - but also about the growing citizen awareness and new climate policies towards sustainable development

http://ipsnews.net/climate_change/

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/c...-food-security

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EVIDENCE OF IMPENDING TIPPING POINT FOR EARTH

ScienceDaily June 6, 2012

A group of scientists from around the world is warning that population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation.

"It really will be a new world, biologically, at that point," warns Anthony Barnosky, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and lead author of a review paper appearing in the June 7 issue of the journal Nature. "The data suggests that there will be a reduction in biodiversity and severe impacts on much of what we depend on to sustain our quality of life, including, for example, fisheries, agriculture, forest products and clean water. This could happen within just a few generations."

The Nature paper, in which the scientists compare the biological impact of past incidents of global change with processes under way today and assess evidence for what the future holds, appears in an issue devoted to the environment in advance of the June 20-22 United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The result of such a major shift in the biosphere would be mixed, Barnosky noted, with some plant and animal species disappearing, new mixes of remaining species, and major disruptions in terms of which agricultural crops can grow where.

The paper by 22 internationally known scientists describes an urgent need for better predictive models that are based on a detailed understanding of how the biosphere reacted in the distant past to rapidly changing conditions, including climate and human population growth. In a related development, ground-breaking research to develop the reliable, detailed biological forecasts the paper is calling for is now underway at UC Berkeley. The endeavor, The Berkeley Initiative in Global Change Biology, or BiGCB, is a massive undertaking involving more than 100 UC Berkeley scientists from an extraordinary range of disciplines that already has received funding: a $2.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a $1.5 million grant from the Keck Foundation. The paper by Barnosky and others emerged from the first conference convened under the BiGCB's auspices.

"One key goal of the BiGCB is to understand how plants and animals responded to major shifts in the atmosphere, oceans, and climate in the past, so that scientists can improve their forecasts and policy makers can take the steps necessary to either mitigate or adapt to changes that may be inevitable," Barnosky said. "Better predictive models will lead to better decisions in terms of protecting the natural resources future generations will rely on for quality of life and prosperity." Climate change could also lead to global political instability, according to a U.S. Department of Defense study referred to in the Nature paper.

"UC Berkeley is uniquely positioned to conduct this sort of complex, multi-disciplinary research," said Graham Fleming, UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for research. "Our world-class museums hold a treasure trove of biological specimens dating back many millennia that tell the story of how our planet has reacted to climate change in the past. That, combined with new technologies and data mining methods used by our distinguished faculty in a broad array of disciplines, will help us decipher the clues to the puzzle of how the biosphere will change as the result of the continued expansion of human activity on our planet."

One BiGCB project launched last month, with UC Berkeley scientists drilling into Northern California's Clear Lake, one of the oldest lakes in the world with sediments dating back more than 120,000 years, to determine how past changes in California's climate impacted local plant and animal populations.

City of Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, chair of the Bay Area Joint Policy Committee, said the BiGCB "is providing the type of research that policy makers urgently need as we work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare the Bay region to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. To take meaningful actions to protect our region, we first need to understand the serious global and local changes that threaten our natural resources and biodiversity."

"The Bay Area's natural systems, which we often take for granted, are absolutely critical to the health and well-being of our people, our economy and the Bay Area's quality of life," added Bates.

How close is a global tipping point?

The authors of the Nature review -- biologists, ecologists, complex-systems theoreticians, geologists and paleontologists from the United States, Canada, South America and Europe -- argue that, although many warning signs are emerging, no one knows how close Earth is to a global tipping point, or if it is inevitable. The scientists urge focused research to identify early warning signs of a global transition and an acceleration of efforts to address the root causes.

"We really do have to be thinking about these global scale tipping points, because even the parts of Earth we are not messing with directly could be prone to some very major changes," Barnosky said. "And the root cause, ultimately, is human population growth and how many resources each one of us uses."

Coauthor Elizabeth Hadly from Stanford University said "we may already be past these tipping points in particular regions of the world. I just returned from a trip to the high Himalayas in Nepal, where I witnessed families fighting each other with machetes for wood -- wood that they would burn to cook their food in one evening. In places where governments are lacking basic infrastructure, people fend for themselves, and biodiversity suffers. We desperately need global leadership for planet Earth."

The authors note that studies of small-scale ecosystems show that once 50-90 percent of an area has been altered, the entire ecosystem tips irreversibly into a state far different from the original, in terms of the mix of plant and animal species and their interactions. This situation typically is accompanied by species extinctions and a loss of biodiversity.

Currently, to support a population of 7 billion people, about 43 percent of Earth's land surface has been converted to agricultural or urban use, with roads cutting through much of the remainder. The population is expected to rise to 9 billion by 2045; at that rate, current trends suggest that half Earth's land surface will be disturbed by 2025. To Barnosky, this is disturbingly close to a global tipping point.

"Can it really happen? Looking into the past tells us unequivocally that, yes, it can really happen. It has happened. The last glacial/interglacial transition 11,700 years ago was an example of that," he said, noting that animal diversity still has not recovered from extinctions during that time. "I think that if we want to avoid the most unpleasant surprises, we want to stay away from that 50 percent mark."

Global change biology

The paper emerged from a conference held at UC Berkeley in 2010 to discuss the idea of a global tipping point, and how to recognize and avoid it.

Following that meeting, 22 of the attendees summarized available evidence of past global state-shifts, the current state of threats to the global environment, and what happened after past tipping points.

They concluded that there is an urgent need for global cooperation to reduce world population growth and per-capita resource use, replace fossil fuels with sustainable sources, develop more efficient food production and distribution without taking over more land, and better manage the land and ocean areas not already dominated by humans as reservoirs of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

"Ideally, we want to be able to predict what could be detrimental biological change in time to steer the boat to where we don't get to those points," Barnosky said. "My underlying philosophy is that we want to keep Earth, our life support system, at least as healthy as it is today, in terms of supporting humanity, and forecast when we are going in directions that would reduce our quality of life so that we can avoid that."

"My view is that humanity is at a crossroads now, where we have to make an active choice," Barnosky said. "One choice is to acknowledge these issues and potential consequences and try to guide the future (in a way we want to). The other choice is just to throw up our hands and say, 'Let's just go on as usual and see what happens.' My guess is, if we take that latter choice, yes, humanity is going to survive, but we are going to see some effects that will seriously degrade the quality of life for our children and grandchildren."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0606132308.htm

[fatherofaking]

Why do you think there is so little political will to do anything about this problem?
I would move away from the coast if i were you.

[dodge]

Hi FOAK. The major reason for the lack of action against potential devastating results of climate change is the right-wing corporate propaganda machine. Besides the fact that fossil fuel providers are not interested in alternate forms of energy because that would decrease their profits, removing carbon from emissions is expensive; so corporations hire advertising companies and pseudo scientists to convince people that it isn’t a problem. They’re closely aligned with influential right-wing media and political figures operating a climate change-denying industry. It’s all about maximizing profit for corporate executives and shareholders. This is more important to them than saving the planet from a runaway greenhouse tipping point scenario.

I do live on the coast of northeastern Massachusetts; but I’m not worried about flooding. The problems we face related to human-induced climate change are long-term and will be wide-spread if nothing is done to reduce and remove greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.) from the atmosphere. I don’t have much faith that governments will act soon enough or that we will have the technology to solve it before it’s too late. We may already be past the tipping point. I’m not worried about my future personally, seeing as how I’m heading into my mid-sixties; but I am concerned about future generations and the fate of humanity.

Though Earth has been here about 4.5 billion years, we’ve only existed here on this planet as anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) about 200,000 years. It seems that the flaw in our species is self-destruction. The Earth will survive; but we may just be a failed experiment in evolution, lacking the intelligence to save ourselves from extinction.

[dodge]

RISING SEAS ALONG THE EAST COAST DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING

Forbes magazine June 26, 2012

If you live close to the water on the East Coast of the United States, you might want to take a step or two back. Sea levels are rising around the world due to global warming. But according to a new study in Nature Climate Change, along the heavily-populated coastline from North Carolina to Massachusetts, they’re rising much faster than anywhere else:

U.S. Geological Survey scientists call the 600-mile swath a “hot spot” for climbing sea levels caused by global warming. Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three times to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

It’s not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway “jamming on the accelerator,” said the study’s lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950, and noticed a change beginning in 1990.

Since then, sea levels have gone up globally about 2 inches. But in Norfolk, Va., where officials are scrambling to fight more frequent flooding, sea level has jumped a total of 4.8 inches, the research showed. For Philadelphia, levels went up 3.7 inches, and in New York City, it was 2.8 inches.

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journ...imate1597.html

The study, by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, explains that sea level rise doesn’t happen uniformly: the rate of rise in any location depends on vast forces including ocean circulation, variations in temperature and/or salinity, and the rotation and shape of the earth. It also depends on the local topography of the coast, where land meets water.

The USGS scientists, using tide gauge data and computer modeling, believe that a combination of factors, including the pressures of favorable ocean currents, has actually suppressed sea levels for a time, but that time ended two decades ago, and now the trend is headed upward, much faster than elsewhere. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects seas at New York City will rise 14 to 20 inches by 2100; the study’s authors estimate the accelerated rate could bump that up by 8 to 11 inches.

If it bears out, this is really bad news. Even a small increase in sea level can mean a lot more flooding in a storm, and more frequent floods than in the past. This is simple math, but it’s not something that governments have seriously grappled with.

The vast physical infrastructure along the East Coast is protected both by engineered systems, including floodgates, seawalls and levees, and by legal and economic systems, including zoning, building codes and flood insurance. For the most part, these are based on the assumption of stability: that things in the future will be like they were in the past. If water levels are rising, it requires a major rethinking about protecting what’s there and where and how to build in the future. Just ask people in New Orleans.

But in some places, the very notion that governments, private industry, and individuals might have to plan for this has provoked denial. The North Carolina legislature’s recent vote to prohibit the use of scientific projections of sea level rise in policymaking (now in a conference committee) looks increasingly foolish, as data accumulates that we’re not just dealing with 100-year projections but something that is already happening.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wir...globe-16639189

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun...level-20120624

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmcqu...-east-coast/2/

[dodge]

LOADING THE CLIMATE DICE

The New York Times Opinion Pages July 22, 2012

By Paul Krugman (Princeton University)

A couple of weeks ago the Northeast was in the grip of a severe heat wave. As I write this, however, it’s a fairly cool day in New Jersey, considering that it’s late July. Weather is like that; it fluctuates.

And this banal observation may be what dooms us to climate catastrophe, in two ways. On one side, the variability of temperatures from day to day and year to year makes it easy to miss, ignore or obscure the longer-term upward trend. On the other, even a fairly modest rise in average temperatures translates into a much higher frequency of extreme events — like the devastating drought now gripping America’s heartland — that do vast damage.

On the first point: Even with the best will in the world, it would be hard for most people to stay focused on the big picture in the face of short-run fluctuations. When the mercury is high and the crops are withering, everyone talks about it, and some make the connection to global warming. But let the days grow a bit cooler and the rains fall, and inevitably people’s attention turns to other matters.

Making things much worse, of course, is the role of players who don’t have the best will in the world. Climate change denial is a major industry, lavishly financed by Exxon, the Koch brothers and others with a financial stake in the continued burning of fossil fuels. And exploiting variability is one of the key tricks of that industry’s trade. Applications range from the Fox News perennial — “It’s cold outside! Al Gore was wrong!” — to the constant claims that we’re experiencing global cooling, not warming, because it’s not as hot right now as it was a few years back.

How should we think about the relationship between climate change and day-to-day experience? Almost a quarter of a century ago James Hansen, the NASA scientist who did more than anyone to put climate change on the agenda, suggested the analogy of loaded dice. Imagine, he and his associates suggested, representing the probabilities of a hot, average or cold summer by historical standards as a die with two faces painted red, two white and two blue. By the early 21st century, they predicted, it would be as if four of the faces were red, one white and one blue. Hot summers would become much more frequent, but there would still be cold summers now and then.

And so it has proved. As documented in a new paper by Dr. Hansen and others, cold summers by historical standards still happen, but rarely, while hot summers have in fact become roughly twice as prevalent. And 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000.

But that’s not all: really extreme high temperatures, the kind of thing that used to happen very rarely in the past, have now become fairly common. Think of it as rolling two sixes, which happens less than 3 percent of the time with fair dice, but more often when the dice are loaded. And this rising incidence of extreme events, reflecting the same variability of weather that can obscure the reality of climate change, means that the costs of climate change aren’t a distant prospect, decades in the future. On the contrary, they’re already here, even though so far global temperatures are only about 1 degree Fahrenheit above their historical norms, a small fraction of their eventual rise if we don’t act.

The great Midwestern drought is a case in point. This drought has already sent corn prices to their highest level ever. If it continues, it could cause a global food crisis, because the U.S. heartland is still the world’s breadbasket. And yes, the drought is linked to climate change: such events have happened before, but they’re much more likely now than they used to be.

Now, maybe this drought will break in time to avoid the worst. But there will be more events like this. Joseph Romm, the influential climate blogger, has coined the term “Dust-Bowlification” for the prospect of extended periods of extreme drought in formerly productive agricultural areas. He has been arguing for some time that this phenomenon, with its disastrous effects on food security, is likely to be the leading edge of damage from climate change, taking place over the next few decades; the drowning of Florida by rising sea levels and all that will come later.

And here it comes.

Will the current drought finally lead to serious climate action? History isn’t encouraging. The deniers will surely keep on denying, especially because conceding at this point that the science they’ve trashed was right all along would be to admit their own culpability for the looming disaster. And the public is all too likely to lose interest again the next time the die comes up white or blue.

But let’s hope that this time is different. For large-scale damage from climate change is no longer a disaster waiting to happen. It’s happening now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/op...mate-dice.html

[Kestrel]

LOADING THE CLIMATE DICE

The New York Times Opinion Pages July 22, 2012

By Paul Krugman (Princeton University)

A couple of weeks ago the Northeast was in the grip of a severe heat wave. As I write this, however, it’s a fairly cool day in New Jersey, considering that it’s late July. Weather is like that; it fluctuates.

And this banal observation may be what dooms us to climate catastrophe, in two ways. On one side, the variability of temperatures from day to day and year to year makes it easy to miss, ignore or obscure the longer-term upward trend. On the other, even a fairly modest rise in average temperatures translates into a much higher frequency of extreme events — like the devastating drought now gripping America’s heartland — that do vast damage.

On the first point: Even with the best will in the world, it would be hard for most people to stay focused on the big picture in the face of short-run fluctuations. When the mercury is high and the crops are withering, everyone talks about it, and some make the connection to global warming. But let the days grow a bit cooler and the rains fall, and inevitably people’s attention turns to other matters.

Making things much worse, of course, is the role of players who don’t have the best will in the world. Climate change denial is a major industry, lavishly financed by Exxon, the Koch brothers and others with a financial stake in the continued burning of fossil fuels. And exploiting variability is one of the key tricks of that industry’s trade. Applications range from the Fox News perennial — “It’s cold outside! Al Gore was wrong!” — to the constant claims that we’re experiencing global cooling, not warming, because it’s not as hot right now as it was a few years back.

How should we think about the relationship between climate change and day-to-day experience? Almost a quarter of a century ago James Hansen, the NASA scientist who did more than anyone to put climate change on the agenda, suggested the analogy of loaded dice. Imagine, he and his associates suggested, representing the probabilities of a hot, average or cold summer by historical standards as a die with two faces painted red, two white and two blue. By the early 21st century, they predicted, it would be as if four of the faces were red, one white and one blue. Hot summers would become much more frequent, but there would still be cold summers now and then.

And so it has proved. As documented in a new paper by Dr. Hansen and others, cold summers by historical standards still happen, but rarely, while hot summers have in fact become roughly twice as prevalent. And 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000.

But that’s not all: really extreme high temperatures, the kind of thing that used to happen very rarely in the past, have now become fairly common. Think of it as rolling two sixes, which happens less than 3 percent of the time with fair dice, but more often when the dice are loaded. And this rising incidence of extreme events, reflecting the same variability of weather that can obscure the reality of climate change, means that the costs of climate change aren’t a distant prospect, decades in the future. On the contrary, they’re already here, even though so far global temperatures are only about 1 degree Fahrenheit above their historical norms, a small fraction of their eventual rise if we don’t act.

The great Midwestern drought is a case in point. This drought has already sent corn prices to their highest level ever. If it continues, it could cause a global food crisis, because the U.S. heartland is still the world’s breadbasket. And yes, the drought is linked to climate change: such events have happened before, but they’re much more likely now than they used to be.

Now, maybe this drought will break in time to avoid the worst. But there will be more events like this. Joseph Romm, the influential climate blogger, has coined the term “Dust-Bowlification” for the prospect of extended periods of extreme drought in formerly productive agricultural areas. He has been arguing for some time that this phenomenon, with its disastrous effects on food security, is likely to be the leading edge of damage from climate change, taking place over the next few decades; the drowning of Florida by rising sea levels and all that will come later.

And here it comes.

Will the current drought finally lead to serious climate action? History isn’t encouraging. The deniers will surely keep on denying, especially because conceding at this point that the science they’ve trashed was right all along would be to admit their own culpability for the looming disaster. And the public is all too likely to lose interest again the next time the die comes up white or blue.

But let’s hope that this time is different. For large-scale damage from climate change is no longer a disaster waiting to happen. It’s happening now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/op...mate-dice.html

---

I will expose myself to the risk of breaking one of FN's "rules" by interjecting the following Dodge:

• I can educate myself with this topic far more effectively by exposing myself to venues such as FreeSpeach TV, and the Tom Hartmannn program. Your synopsis is "lackluster" to say the least if the goal is to educate us viewers on climate issues.
• That said, is FN really an appropriate venue for this discussion, albeit the discussion is relevant to our times?
• If willful ignorance which is exercised by a group or individual over any matter (weather it be religious, political, or environmental), and is considered to fit certain criterion for making a case for a "cult", then this forum might want to consider investing in more server space.

Seriously, if the focus is to mimic some mini-portal, then may suggest changing the mission statement on FN; but don't dilute this site's focus with the addition of environmental discussion unless it has been instigated by a cult. For instance: if Tom Cruise suddenly advocates that we can rewire our country's collective engrams by allowing the Keystone pipeline to go through America's backyards, and allowing kids everywhere to stay up late lighting their drinking water on fire during sleep overs- then we have something viable to post in relation to the topic.

Otherwise, the messages can be drowned by the din of white noise, in which case the whole effort becomes compromised.

Just my sincere thoughts on this.

Kestrel

[theadmin]

Hi Kestrel. Although the “focus” here at FactNet has always been destructive cults, we have for a long time provided a venue for other topics of interest. There have, for instance, been many threads through the years that have been devoted to Bible study and criticism, atheism versus creationism debates, and politics not related to cults.

If you noticed, threads concerning climate change and evolution have been set up in their own “forums,” separate from the cult section. On the front page our volunteers have been posting news stories related to climate change in hopes of attracting others who have an interest in talking about it.

We’re not trying to “mimic mini-portals” (whatever that means), we’re merely attempting to open up discussion concerning important issues of our times. Yes, you can certainly educate yourself about the science behind climate change elsewhere; but you can also add your voice to the debate here if you wanted to...Or not, it’s your choice.

Thank you for your “sincere thoughts” though.

[dodge]

CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE -- AND WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT

By James E. Hansen, Star Tribune, August 5, 2012

For the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988, I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind's use of fossil fuels.

But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks' time, it's likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.

These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.

Twenty-four years ago, I introduced the concept of "climate dice" to help distinguish the long-term trend of climate change from the natural variability of day-to-day weather. Some summers are hot, some cool. Some winters brutal, some mild. That's natural variability.

But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time.

But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal summers or a typically cold winter. Don't let that fool you.

Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate (up about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century), the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide.

When we plotted the world's changing temperatures on a bell curve, the extremes of unusually cool and, even more, the extremes of unusually hot are being altered so they are becoming both more common and more severe.

The change is so dramatic that one face of the die must now represent extreme weather to illustrate the greater frequency of extremely hot weather events.

Such events used to be exceedingly rare. Extremely hot temperatures covered about 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the globe in the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. In the last three decades, while the average temperature has slowly risen, the extremes have soared and now cover about 10 percent of the globe.

This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it - the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.

There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution.

The future is now. And it is hot.
- - -----
James E. Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/1...6.html?refer=y

[Kestrel]

CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE -- AND WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT

By James E. Hansen, Star Tribune, August 5, 2012

For the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988, I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind's use of fossil fuels.

But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.

In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.

This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.

The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks' time, it's likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.

These weather events are not simply an example of what climate change could bring. They are caused by climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.

Twenty-four years ago, I introduced the concept of "climate dice" to help distinguish the long-term trend of climate change from the natural variability of day-to-day weather. Some summers are hot, some cool. Some winters brutal, some mild. That's natural variability.

But as the climate warms, natural variability is altered, too. In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time.

But loading the die with a warming climate changes the odds. You end up with only one side cooler than normal, one side average, and four sides warmer than normal. Even with climate change, you will occasionally see cooler-than-normal summers or a typically cold winter. Don't let that fool you.

Our new peer-reviewed study, published by the National Academy of Sciences, makes clear that while average global temperature has been steadily rising due to a warming climate (up about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century), the extremes are actually becoming much more frequent and more intense worldwide.

When we plotted the world's changing temperatures on a bell curve, the extremes of unusually cool and, even more, the extremes of unusually hot are being altered so they are becoming both more common and more severe.

The change is so dramatic that one face of the die must now represent extreme weather to illustrate the greater frequency of extremely hot weather events.

Such events used to be exceedingly rare. Extremely hot temperatures covered about 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the globe in the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. In the last three decades, while the average temperature has slowly risen, the extremes have soared and now cover about 10 percent of the globe.

This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it - the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.

There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time. We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution.

The future is now. And it is hot.
- - -----
James E. Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/1...6.html?refer=y

---

In an effort to show good "will", I add the following as a contribution to this thread. As one can see, even the "experts" aren't immune from incorrect hypothesis which result from human foibles.

IMAO, this link should have already been provided to add momentum to this "conversion" on climate change: it is, perhaps, one of the most significant news stories in the last few weeks with relation to the topic.

Further, please excuse the following hyper-criticism, however I feel that FN will benefit from this current enlightenment; that is if taking action on the climate is now a heightened priority for discussion among some of it's members.

Here is the Science Friday discussion from NPR only this past week. It's chalked full of revelation, even for NPR.

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/03/158085161/changing-views-about-a-changing-climate

I truly hope this helps anyone serious about understanding this issue, and good luck- since we're already well beyond the "tipping point", as far as the overall plan is concerned.

All's that's left is to reap the fruit of our individual, as well as collective harvest's.

Everyone decide for yourselves those fruits of the plan.......

Always most Sincerely,
Kestrel

[dodge]

Hi Kestrel -- I read Richard Muller’s piece in the op-ed section of the New York Times last month (July 28). His change of opinion concerning “global warming” came from his objective analysis of data through the organization he and his daughter founded, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project that was funded, in part, by the Koch brothers.

The project confirmed that “global warming is real,” and that “it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.”

http://berkeleyearth.org/

Muller tells us that “as carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise,” and that the next step is “agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done.”

Richard A. Muller is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Thanks for mentioning Professor Muller.

[theadmin]

RATE OF ARCTIC SUMMER SEA ICE LOSS FIFTY-PERCENT HIGHER THAN PREDICTED

New satellite images show polar ice coverage dwindling in extent and thickness.

By Robin McKie, science editor of The Guardian August 11, 2012

Sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing at a far greater rate than previously expected, according to data from the first purpose-built satellite launched to study the thickness of the Earth's polar caps.

Preliminary results from the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 probe indicate that 900 cubic kilometres of summer sea ice has disappeared from the Arctic ocean over the past year.

This rate of loss is 50% higher than most scenarios outlined by polar scientists and suggests that global warming, triggered by rising greenhouse gas emissions, is beginning to have a major impact on the region. In a few years the Arctic ocean could be free of ice in summer, triggering a rush to exploit its fish stocks, oil, minerals and sea routes.

Using instruments on earlier satellites, scientists could see that the area covered by summer sea ice in the Arctic has been dwindling rapidly. But the new measurements indicate that this ice has been thinning dramatically at the same time. For example, in regions north of Canada and Greenland, where ice thickness regularly stayed at around five to six metres in summer a decade ago, levels have dropped to one to three metres.

"Preliminary analysis of our data indicates that the rate of loss of sea ice volume in summer in the Arctic may be far larger than we had previously suspected," said Dr Seymour Laxon, of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London (UCL), where CryoSat-2 data is being analysed. "Very soon we may experience the iconic moment when, one day in the summer, we look at satellite images and see no sea ice coverage in the Arctic, just open water."

The consequences of losing the Arctic's ice coverage, even for only part of the year, could be profound. Without the cap's white brilliance to reflect sunlight back into space, the region will heat up even more than at present. As a result, ocean temperatures will rise and methane deposits on the ocean floor could melt, evaporate and bubble into the atmosphere. Scientists have recently reported evidence that methane plumes are now appearing in many areas. Methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas and rising levels of it in the atmosphere are only likely to accelerate global warming. And with the disappearance of sea ice around the shores of Greenland, its glaciers could melt faster and raise sea levels even more rapidly than at present.

Professor Chris Rapley of UCL said: "With the temperature gradient between the Arctic and equator dropping, as is happening now, it is also possible that the jet stream in the upper atmosphere could become more unstable. That could mean increasing volatility in weather in lower latitudes, similar to that experienced this year."

CryoSat-2 is the world's first satellite to be built specifically to study sea-ice thickness and was launched on a Dniepr rocket from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 8 April, 2010. Previous Earth monitoring satellites had mapped the extent of sea-ice coverage in the Arctic. However, the thickness of that ice proved more difficult to measure.

The US probe ICESat made some important measurements of ice thickness but operated intermittently in only a few regions before it stopped working completely in 2009. CryoSat was designed specifically to tackle the issue of ice thickness, both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. It was fitted with radar that can see through clouds. (ICESat's lasers could not penetrate clouds.) CryoSat's orbit was also designed to give better coverage of the Arctic sea.

"Before CryoSat, we could see summer ice coverage was dropping markedly in the Arctic," said Rapley. "But we only had glimpses of what was happening to ice thickness. Obviously if it was dropping as well, the loss of summer ice was even more significant. We needed to know what was happening – and now CryoSat has given us the answer. It has shown that the Arctic sea cap is not only shrinking in area but is also thinning dramatically."

Sea-ice cover in the Arctic varies considerably throughout the year, reaching a maximum in March. By combining earlier results from ICESat and data from other studies, including measurements made by submarines travelling under the polar ice cap, Laxon said preliminary analysis now gave a clear indication of Arctic sea-ice loss over the past eight years, both in winter and in summer.

In winter 2004, the volume of sea ice in the central Arctic was approximately 17,000 cubic kilometres. This winter it was 14,000, according to CryoSat.

However, the summer figures provide the real shock. In 2004 there was about 13,000 cubic kilometres of sea ice in the Arctic. In 2012, there is 7,000 cubic kilometres, almost half the figure eight years ago. If the current annual loss of around 900 cubic kilometres continues, summer ice coverage could disappear in about a decade in the Arctic.

However, Laxon urged caution, saying: "First, this is based on preliminary studies of CryoSat figures, so we should take care before rushing to conclusions. In addition, the current rate of ice volume decline could change." Nevertheless, experts say computer models indicate rates of ice volume decline are only likely to increase over the next decade.

As to the accuracy of the measurements made by CryoSat, these have been calibrated by comparing them to measurements made on the ice surface by scientists including Laxon; by planes flying beneath the satellite's orbit; and by data supplied by underwater sonar stations that have analysed ice thickness at selected places in the Arctic. "We can now say with confidence that CryoSat's maps of ice thickness are correct to within 10cm," Laxon added.

Laxon also pointed out that the rate of ice loss in winter was much slower than that in summer. "That suggests that, as winter starts, ice is growing more rapidly than it did in the past and that this effect is compensating, partially, for the loss of summer ice." Overall, the trend for ice coverage in Arctic is definitely downwards, particularly in summer, however – a point recently backed by Professor Peter Wadham, who this year used aircraft and submarine surveys of ice sheets to make estimates of ice volume loss. These also suggest major reductions in the volume of summer sea ice, around 70% over the past 30 years.

"The Arctic is particularly vulnerable to the impact of global warming," said Rapley. "Temperatures there are rising far faster than they are at the equator. Hence the shrinking of sea-ice coverage we have observed. It is telling us that something highly significant is happening to Earth. The weather systems of the planet are interconnected so what happens in the high latitudes affects us all."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/11/arctic-sea-ice-vanishing

[dodge]

ARCTIC ICE REACHES RECORD LOW AND COULD WORSEN GLOBAL WARMING

Christian Science Monitor 27 AUG 2012

Arctic sea ice, the white cap that covers the watery northern edge of the planet, has melted back to a record low level.

However, the ice is unlikely to stop shrinking. Arctic sea melts through the summer usually reaching its annual minimum in September.

On Sunday (Aug. 26), Arctic sea-ice extent fell to 1.58 million square miles (4.10 million square kilometers), surpassing the previous low, set on Sept. 18, 2007, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports. Sea-ice extent refers to the area of ocean covered at least 15 percent by sea ice, according to the NSIDC.

The record low, set in 2007, stood at 1.61 square miles (4.17 square kilometers).
But this year's melt is unlikely to stop soon. The melt season still has another two or three weeks to go.

Continuous satellite records of sea-ice extent began in 1979. But in recent years, satellite data have shown a shift in the fluctuating ice cover. For example, including this year, the six lowest ice extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last six years, the NSIDC reports.

Scientists attribute the shift to a combination of natural forces, for example, a storm in early August coincided with an acceleration of melt that occurred at the same time. However, over time, the effects of winds, clouds and other natural conditions should, in theory, balance themselves out. It is the emission of greenhouse gases that alters the long-term trend by warming the planet, Walt Meier, a research scientist at NSIDC told LiveScience last year.

This year's melt rate was much faster than the normal rate for this time of year, the NSIDC reported today (Aug. 27).

Sea ice matters to the animals, such as polar bears and walruses, that depend on it for habitat, and scientists worry the loss of ice could have serious consequences for them.

Sea ice also affects weather and global climate, because it reflects most of the sun's energy back out to space. If sea ice melts, the dark water beneath it absorbs most of the energy, which in turn enters the natural system. In this way, scientists believe the melting of sea ice will aggravate global warming.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...-warming-video

[dodge]

REPORT WARNS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS TO NATIONAL SEASHORES ALONG EASTERN SEABOARD

National Parks Traveler 30 AUG 2012
By Kurt Repanshek

When it grows grey and ugly, its sea foam whipped by and carried on the winds, the Atlantic Ocean chews into the Eastern Seaboard, at times tearing islands in half, at others rearranging beaches by pushing sand around.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore witnessed that in August 2011, when Hurricane Irene dredged through the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge just north of the national seashore and ripped out sections of Highway 12. Tropical Storm Ida in 2009 inflicted much damage to Assateague Island National Seashore, leaving in its wake beach erosion, overwash, and damage to infrastructure.

Similar scenarios, and worse, are likely to happen in the years ahead if nothing is done to blunt climate change, according to a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.

Sea Level Rise

Lying at sea level as they do, the seashores -- Cape Cod, Fire Island, Assateague Island, Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, Cumberland Island, and Cape Canaveral -- are helpless when the Atlantic is churned up by storms, and to sea levels that rise as the polar caps melt.

Much of the land in those seashores is barely 1 meter above the current sea level, Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. That low-lying landscape makes them highly susceptible to overwash and higher sea levels, he said.

"In five of these seashores, five out of the seven, over half of the lands, in all cases I think well over half of the lands, are low-lying enough to be below that 1-meter threshhold, meaning they are vulnerable to being submerged by the ocean during this century," said Mr. Saunders.

According to the report, Atlantic National Seashores In Peril, the Cape Cod, Fire Island, Assateague, and Cape Hatteras seashores already are "experiencing above-average rates" of sea-level rise.

http://www.rockymountainclimate.org/programs_15.htm

And while Cape Cod is somewhat invulnerable to barrier-island-busting storms, when compared to the other seashores, because geologically it is "a relatively stable peninsula," the report stated that the other seashores are much more vulnerable to more powerful hurricanes, which climate change is predicted to spawn.

Such potential was demonstrated last August, when Hurricane Irene tore into Cape Hatteras. The hurricane sliced through North Carolina Highway 12 in several places just north of Rodanthe, outside of the national seashore. The largest breach went through the national wildlife refuge.

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com...l-seashore8710

At Cape Lookout National Seashore to the south of Hatteras, the wake of Hurricane Irene left the seashore's dock at Harker's Island needing to be rebuilt, damaged all cabins on Great Island to varying degrees, inflicted "heavy damage" to Cape Lookout Village, and washed away the dump station at Cape Point. Overwash from the hurricane also covered most of the national seashore with 2 feet of sand.

Assateague Island National Seashore hasn't been cut in half, but storms in years past have done substantial damage, so much so that seashore officials are keeping climate change in mind as they work on updating their General Management Plan for managing the seashore. Though the GMP is still in draft stage, one scenario seashore officials are keeping in mind is the possibility that a storm could knock out the Verrazano Bridge that ties Maryland's mainland to the seashore.

"The bridge on the Maryland end is a state bridge, it's not owned by the National Park Service. So the decision on whether or not the bridge would be put back would be up to the state of Maryland," Superintendent Trish Kicklighter said Wednesday. "However, there's no guarantee that there would be an island for the bridge to connect to. So what we would propose in a couple of the alternatives is to develop a ferry shuttle, a pedestrian ferry shuttle to the island."

With the prospect of more potent storms breaching barrier islands and knocking out roads and bridges, the sheer cost of repairing or replacing this infrastructure will become considerable, Mr. Saunders said.

"One of the first major impacts that we'll experience, before we have actual inundation by the ocean, is that we will have loss of visitor access through the bridges and roads that provide that access now. We have already had much more expensive repair work that has to be done on bridges and roads that go out to these seashores," he said.

Hotter Summers and Fleeting Political Will

Beyond sea-level rise and island-dredging storms, the report said climate change threatens to boost the average summertime temperatures at these seashores anywhere from 3 degrees Fahrenheit at Cape Hatteras and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit at Fire Island by mid-century under "medium-high" greenhouse gas emission levels, to as much as 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit at Fire Island by century's end. Already, the report notes, high seashore temperatures recorded from 2000-2011 were as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 1961-1990 readings.

"How much these seashores are affected by climate change depends on how much climate change we humans produce. It is not set how much the climate will change. A whole lot depends on our level of emissions, of heat-trapping gases. Must of the worst impacts can at least be reduced, if not avoided entirely, if we get serious now about reducing the carbon pollution," said Mr. Saunders.

But the federal government has demonstrated little will to address climate change head on. While it once was a major item for the Obama administration, the administration seemingly has decided not to spend any of its scant political capital on the issue, and Congress has largely avoided it as well.

Whether it is mentioned in the presidential campaign remains to be seen. The GOP platform adopted at this week's Republican Convention mentions climate change only in deriding the Obama administration, noting that in the president's National Security Strategy the "word 'climate,' in fact, appears in the current President’s strategy more often than Al Qaeda, nuclear proliferation, radical Islam, or weapons of mass destruction."

Theo Spencer, senior advocate, Climate and Clean Air Program, for the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted the Obama administration's move this week to hike the minimum miles-per-gallon requirements for automobiles between 2012-2025 as a step in the right direction to cut emissions.

"That is the biggest step the federal government has ever taken to cut our oil dependency and our carbon pollution," he said. "Cars, SUVs and light trucks account for 20 percent of America's heat-trapping carbon pollution. Second only to our power plants."

But the NRDC staffer agreed the country has a long way to go to confront climate change.

"For half a century, the federal government has been playing favorites," said Mr. Spencer. "Helping the fossil fuel industry through subsidies and other measures. Now, some in Congress want to stop similar help for clean energy by eliminating the production tax credit that helps provide a level playing field for clean, renewable energy like wind and solar.

"Enough is enough. We need to take serious action to reduce our global-warming pollution 50 percent below 1990 levels by mid-century. Otherwise we have little hope of keeping these special places that we highlight in our report at all, much less the same way they are now."

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com...-seaboard10459

[turtle]

To bad people are so concern about green house gas in the environment but not in their spiritual life. That is the gas needing to be rid of. However dodge, did you here another tornado tonight in NY. I have not gone looked at pics yet, going there now. HOw do tornadoes effect the environmental polution?

[dodge]

University of San Diego’s Climate Education Partners Awarded Five Million Dollar Science Education Grant

SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- (September 11, 2012) – The University of San Diego (USD) today announced a five-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant given to each of only six recipients nationwide who will help implement educational collaborations centered on increasing public understanding of climate science and its impacts on quality of life. Awarded under the NSF's Climate Change Education Partnership (CCEP) program, these partnership grants of nearly $5 million are designed to connect climate scientists, educators and community leaders in creating innovative and transformative education and communication strategies with potential regional and national import.

Climate Education Partners, the group coordinating the effort in the San Diego region, is working with local expert scientists, educators and a wide range of community leaders and their constituencies in seeking solutions and helping San Diegans learn more about how to better prepare for and respond to the impacts of a changing climate on the region's natural resources, economy, tourism and quality of life.

"We will be working closely with a wide range of community leaders from across the region – including elected officials, the Latino community, the real estate development community, faith-based, healthcare, tribal communities and others -- to develop a communication and education program that reflects the views, values and perspectives of the region's political, business and community leaders," stated Michel Boudrias, Ph.D., lead scientist and professor of Marine Science and Environmental Studies at USD. "By working with local expert scientists, educators and a wide range of community leaders, Climate Education Partners will be seeking solutions and helping San Diegans learn more about climate change impacts on our quality of life so we can prepare for and respond to a changing climate."

The NSF grant represents an investment in education that underscores the importance of California's resources, including its coastline, beaches, bays, deserts and mountains, and the important role they play in contributing to the region's and the state's economy. Working together with leaders in the region and the state, Climate Education Partners hopes to lead the way to prepare for climate change, sustain regional quality of life and economic vibrancy and preserve San Diego County's and California's spectacular natural beauty, not just today, but for all future generations, consistent with Californians long-standing pioneering and innovative vision for the state's natural resources.

Climate Education Partners will develop a model for understanding climate science by working with key influentials (leaders and decision-makers from throughout the region) and the general public in the San Diego region. The impacts of a changing climate could include issues such as safeguarding clean air, drinking water and the beaches, bays, mountains, ocean and deserts that define the region. Challenges are already occurring that affect the region's natural resources, tourism and the economy, including hotter and drier climates, water shortages, more frequent and intense wild fires and increasing energy needs.

"This phase II award underscores the importance of this issue to the San Diego region," announced USD President Mary E. Lyons. "We know San Diegans from all walks of life are proud of our natural environment, value our leadership as a region and are committed to preserving our quality of life. The University of San Diego is honored to play a role as part of the Climate Education Partners team that will allow our region to help lead the nation in education and understanding about the impacts of climate change on our daily lives, including our economy, clean air, drinking water and our beaches, bays, mountains, ocean and deserts."

Educational efforts will include: (1) developing climate science education resources for adults outside traditional classroom settings, (2) collaborating with key influentials and their communities using these resources, (3) assessing the effectiveness of these resources and innovative educational learning methods, and (4) reaching out to other regions to assist with their community education and collaboration efforts. The project is expected to build regional knowledge and understanding of how to work with community leaders and non-school- or college-aged community members about locally relevant, cutting-edge climate science. Educational activities are expected to have broad impacts by working with regional leaders as educators themselves and with their impacts on much larger groups throughout the region.

"The NSF Climate Change Education Partnership five-year award of almost $5 million will be used to implement a regional climate change communication program that promotes education, awareness, innovation and action," stated local businessman and long-time community leader Mike McDade, chairman of the Climate Education Partners' External Advisory Board. "Working with other community leaders in areas such as healthcare, education, government, business, real estate, air quality and regional planning, we hope to design a way unique to the San Diego region that will serve as a model for the nation on how to help a region understand, dialogue about and deal with the impacts of a changing climate."

The NSF's national CCEP portfolio encompasses a major interdisciplinary research and development effort designed to promote deeper understanding of, and engagement with, climate science and the impacts of climate change on natural and human systems. The program's vision is to promote a scientifically knowledgeable society that can effectively weigh the evidence regarding global climate change as it confronts regional challenges. The program includes preparing an innovative scientific and technical workforce to advance knowledge of human-climate interactions and develop approaches for the nation's sustainable, prosperous future. With its focus on interdisciplinary approaches and transformative scales of impact, the CCEP program occupies a unique and complementary niche in the group of federal investments related to climate science education and workforce development.

The University of San Diego's project team includes scientists from Marine Science and Environmental Studies at USD and at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, policy experts from the Energy Policy Initiative Center at USD, social and behavioral psychologists from California State University San Marcos, strategic community planners from The San Diego Foundation and strategic communication experts from The Steve Alexander Group.

"The city of San Diego looks forward to continued participation in the University of San Diego's program," said city of San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders. "Recent peaks in energy usage from an unusually hot summer are a concern to all of us. We know our citizens want to learn more about what they can do to prepare for and respond to these very real issues. We hope to play a leadership role as a region as we seek effective government policy, working with regional leaders, local science experts and the community, to maintain the quality of life for our region while optimizing opportunities to strengthen our economy."

"This award is a continued recognition of the work Climate Education Partners is doing on behalf of our region and the state of California," said Chairman Ron Roberts of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. "As a member of the California Air Resources Board, I understand the importance of working collaboratively on air quality and emission programs. Climate Education Partners includes climate scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and social psychologists from California State University San Marcos who can help us address those issues as a region while serving as a model for other communities across the state."

While communication strategies and climate science education are keys to the success of the grant, the ultimate goal is to develop and implement programs that will benefit the region by promoting responses to climate change and its impacts on public health, drinking water, clean air, beaches, bays, mountains and deserts, the economy and tourism. You can find more information about the project at the Climate Education Partners website.

http://www.sandiego.edu/cas/news_eve..._nsf_grant.php