Sunday, August 23, 2009

Climate Progress

Climate Progress


NYT Editorial: "One would think that by now most people would have figured out that climate change represents a grave threat to the planet.."

Posted: 22 Aug 2009 05:12 AM PDT

One would think that by now most people would have figured out that climate change represents a grave threat to the planet. One would also have expected from Congress a plausible strategy for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that lie at the root of the problem.

That has not happened. The House has passed a climate bill that is not as strong as needed, but is a start. There are doubts about whether the Senate will pass any bill, given the reflexive opposition of most Republicans and unfounded fears among many Democrats that rising energy costs will cripple local industries.

So begins a very good New York Times editorial, "The Climate and National Security."  The piece goes on to explain one reason why we are in this political mess and one message that may have some traction in the Senate:

The problem, when it comes to motivating politicians, is that the dangers from global warming — drought, famine, rising seas – appear to be decades off. But the only way to prevent them is with sacrifices in the here and now: with smaller cars, bigger investments in new energy sources, higher electricity bills that will inevitably result once we put a price on carbon.

Mainstream scientists warn that the longer the world waits, the sooner it will reach a tipping point beyond which even draconian measures may not be enough. Under one scenario, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, now about 380 parts per million, should not be allowed to exceed 450 parts per million. But keeping emissions below that threshold will require stabilizing them by 2015 or 2020, and actually reducing them by at least 60 percent by 2050.

That is why Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – no alarmist – has warned that "what we do in the next two or three years will determine our future." And he said that two years ago.

Advocates of early action have talked about green jobs, about keeping America competitive in the quest for new technologies, and about one generation's moral obligation to the next. Those are all sound arguments. They have not been enough to fully engage the public, or overcome the lobbying efforts of the fossil fuel industry.

Proponents of climate change legislation have now settled on a new strategy: warning that global warming poses a serious threat to national security. Climate- induced crises like drought, starvation, disease and mass migration, they argue, could unleash regional conflicts and draw in America's armed forces, either to help keep the peace or to defend allies or supply routes.

This is increasingly the accepted wisdom among the national security establishment. A 2007 report published by the CNA Corporation, a Pentagon-funded think tank, spoke ominously of climate change as a "threat multiplier" that could lead to wide conflict over resources.

This line of argument could also be pretty good politics – especially on Capitol Hill, where many politicians will do anything for the Pentagon. Both Senator John Kerry, an advocate of strong climate change legislation, and former Senator John Warner, a former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, say they have begun to stress the national security argument to senators who are still undecided about how they will vote on climate change legislation.

One can only hope that these arguments turn the tide in the Senate. Mr. Kerry, Mr. Warner and like- minded military leaders must keep pressing their case, with help from the Pentagon and the White House. National security is hardly the only reason to address global warming, but at this point anything that advances the cause is welcome.

I'll be writing a great deal more about messaging in the coming weeks.  As I've said, this is a necessary message, but not sufficient (see here).

AP on record ocean warming: "Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land."

Posted: 21 Aug 2009 12:10 PM PDT

[Update:  I'm posting a longer version of the AP story below.]

http://www.pinnacleoptima.com/blog/image.axd?picture=2009%2F5%2FBlog%25202%2520Boiling_Frog%5B1%5D.jpg

It's not news to CP readers (see here), but the AP's Seth Borenstein delivers the big news to the rest of the nation with his short piece, "In hot water: World's ocean temps warmest recorded."

And we need all the warnings we can get given that humans are not like slowly boiling frogs, we are like slowly boiling brainless frogs.

Here's an extended excerpt of the full story:

July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of record-keeping.

The average water temperature worldwide was 17 C, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. June was only slightly cooler, while August could set another record, scientists say. The previous record was set in July, 1998, during a powerful El Nino weather pattern.

Meteorologists said there's a combination of forces at work: A natural El Nino system just getting started on top of worsening man-made global warming, and a dash of random weather variations. The resulting ocean heat is already harming threatened coral reefs. It could also hasten the melting of Arctic sea ice and help hurricanes strengthen.

The Gulf of Mexico, where warm water fuels hurricanes, has temperatures dancing around 32. Most of the water in the Northern Hemisphere has been considerably warmer than normal. The Mediterranean is about three degrees warmer than normal. Higher temperatures rule in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The heat is most noticeable near the Arctic, where water temperatures are as much as 12 degrees above average. The tongues of warm water could help melt sea ice from below and even cause thawing of ice sheets on Greenland, said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University of Colorado.

Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land, because water takes longer to heat up and does not cool off as easily as land.

"This warm water we're seeing doesn't just disappear next year; it'll be around for a long time," said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. It takes five times more energy to warm water than land.

The warmer water "affects weather on the land," Prof. Weaver said. "This is another yet really important indicator of the change that's occurring."

Georgia Institute of Technology atmospheric science professor Judith Curry said water is warming in more places than usual, something that has not been seen in more than 50 years.

Add to that an unusual weather pattern this summer where the warmest temperatures seem to be just over oceans, while slightly cooler air is concentrated over land, said Deke Arndt, head of climate monitoring at the climate data centre.

The pattern is so unusual that he suggested meteorologists may want to study that pattern to see what's behind it.

The effects of that warm water are already being seen in coral reefs, said C. Mark Eakin, co-ordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's coral reef watch. Long-term excessive heat bleaches colourful coral reefs white and sometimes kills them.

Bleaching has started to crop up in the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands – much earlier than usual. Typically, bleaching occurs after weeks or months of prolonged high water temperatures. That usually means September or October in the Caribbean, said Mr. Eakin. He found bleaching in Guam Wednesday. It's too early to know if the coral will recover or die. Experts are "bracing for another bad year," he said.

The problems caused by the El Nino pattern are likely to get worse, the scientists say.

An El Nino occurs when part of the central Pacific warms up, which in turn changes weather patterns worldwide for many months. El Nino and its cooling flip side, La Nina, happen every few years.

During an El Nino, temperatures on water and land tend to rise in many places, leading to an increase in the overall global average temperature. An El Nino has other effects, too, including dampening Atlantic hurricane formation and increasing rainfall and mudslides in Southern California.

Warm water is a required fuel for hurricanes. What's happening in the oceans "will add extra juice to the hurricanes," Prof. Curry said.

Hurricane activity has been quiet for much of the summer, but that may change soon, she said. Hurricane Bill quickly became a major storm and the National Hurricane Center warned that warm waters are along the path of the hurricane for the next few days.

Hurricanes need specific air conditions, so warmer water alone does not necessarily mean more or bigger storms, said James Franklin, chief hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Time to jump!

h/t rustneversleeps!

July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of record-keeping. The average water temperature worldwide was 17 C, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. June was only slightly cooler, while August could set another record, scientists say. The previous record was set in July, 1998, during a powerful El Nino weather pattern.

Meteorologists said there's a combination of forces at work: A natural El Nino system just getting started on top of worsening man-made global warming, and a dash of random weather variations. The resulting ocean heat is already harming threatened coral reefs. It could also hasten the melting of Arctic sea ice and help hurricanes strengthen.

The Gulf of Mexico, where warm water fuels hurricanes, has temperatures dancing around 32. Most of the water in the Northern Hemisphere has been considerably warmer than normal. The Mediterranean is about three degrees warmer than normal. Higher temperatures rule in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The heat is most noticeable near the Arctic, where water temperatures are as much as 12 degrees above average. The tongues of warm water could help melt sea ice from below and even cause thawing of ice sheets on Greenland, said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University of Colorado.

Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land, because water takes longer to heat up and does not cool off as easily as land.

"This warm water we're seeing doesn't just disappear next year; it'll be around for a long time," said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. It takes five times more energy to warm water than land.

The warmer water "affects weather on the land," Prof. Weaver said. "This is another yet really important indicator of the change that's occurring."

Georgia Institute of Technology atmospheric science professor Judith Curry said water is warming in more places than usual, something that has not been seen in more than 50 years.

Add to that an unusual weather pattern this summer where the warmest temperatures seem to be just over oceans, while slightly cooler air is concentrated over land, said Deke Arndt, head of climate monitoring at the climate data centre.

The pattern is so unusual that he suggested meteorologists may want to study that pattern to see what's behind it.

The effects of that warm water are already being seen in coral reefs, said C. Mark Eakin, co-ordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's coral reef watch. Long-term excessive heat bleaches colourful coral reefs white and sometimes kills them.

Bleaching has started to crop up in the Florida Keys, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands – much earlier than usual. Typically, bleaching occurs after weeks or months of prolonged high water temperatures. That usually means September or October in the Caribbean, said Mr. Eakin. He found bleaching in Guam Wednesday. It's too early to know if the coral will recover or die. Experts are "bracing for another bad year," he said.

The problems caused by the El Nino pattern are likely to get worse, the scientists say.

An El Nino occurs when part of the central Pacific warms up, which in turn changes weather patterns worldwide for many months. El Nino and its cooling flip side, La Nina, happen every few years.

During an El Nino, temperatures on water and land tend to rise in many places, leading to an increase in the overall global average temperature. An El Nino has other effects, too, including dampening Atlantic hurricane formation and increasing rainfall and mudslides in Southern California.

Warm water is a required fuel for hurricanes. What's happening in the oceans "will add extra juice to the hurricanes," Prof. Curry said.

Hurricane activity has been quiet for much of the summer, but that may change soon, she said. Hurricane Bill quickly became a major storm and the National Hurricane Center warned that warm waters are along the path of the hurricane for the next few days.

Hurricanes need specific air conditions, so warmer water alone does not necessarily mean more or bigger storms, said James Franklin, chief hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Energy and global warming news for August 21: Natural gas prices plummet to a seven-year low; Nile Delta under threat from rising seas — without the food it produces, Egypt faces catastrophe

Posted: 21 Aug 2009 10:46 AM PDT

Natural gas prices plunged on Thursday to levels last reached in 2002 after an Energy Department report showed that the amount of gas in storage had hit a record high for this time of year.
The sharp price decline of natural gas, to below $3 per thousand cubic feet from a peak of over $13 last summer, has been caused by a drop in demand from factories and homes because of the recession, coupled with a big expansion of domestic production over the last few years….
Gas executives saw a silver lining, arguing that the low prices would help them make a case in the Senate when it takes up energy and climate change legislation later this year. The gas companies want federal incentives to sway utilities to switch to gas from coal, and they want more government entities and businesses to convert their diesel bus and truck fleets to compressed natural gas….

Mr. McClendon said he hoped that low gas prices could stimulate more replacement of coal with gas by utilities, something that is beginning to happen in some places, and he was also hopeful a cold winter would spur demand.

"It doesn't set the stage for $10 gas, but it does set the stage for $6 to $8 gas, which is in our view a fair price for consumers and producers," Mr. McClendon added.

And that is enough to be a climate-mitigation game changer and back out over half of existing coal plants over the next two decades at low cost — if we can pass the climate and clean energy bill.

A farmer ploughs his rice paddy in the Delta

Nile Delta:  "We are going underwater. The sea will conquer our lands":  The Nile Delta is under threat from rising sea levels. Without the food it produces, Egypt faces catastrophe

"We are going underwater," the 34-year-old [farmer Maged] says simply. "It's like an occupation: the rising sea will conquer our lands."

Maged understands better than most the menace of coastal erosion, which is steadily ingesting the edge of Egypt in some places at an astonishing rate of almost 100m a year. Just a few miles from his home lies Lake Burrulus itself, where Nile flower spreads all the way out to trees on the horizon. Those trunks used to be on land; now they stand knee-deep in water.

Maged's imperial imagery may sound overblown, but travel around Egypt's vast, overcrowded Delta region and you hear the same terms used time and again to describe the impact climate change is having on these ancient lands. . . .

Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared Egypt's Nile Delta to be among the top three areas on the planet most vulnerable to a rise in sea levels, and even the most optimistic predictions of global temperature increase will still displace millions of Egyptians from one of the most densely populated regions on earth.

Global warming and a hotter solar cycle will bump up average atmospheric temperatures about a third of a degree by 2014, and then flatten out for the rest of the decade, suggest climate scientists. Temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, "especially Western Europe, will experience the largest warming," almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit, says the study in the current Geophysical Research Letters led by Judith Lean of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C.
Earlier this week — Tuesday, Aug. 18, to be exact — New York City experienced an unlikely late-summer weather event. The high that day was 88 degrees F., just slightly above the average of 82 degrees F., but thankfully lower than the record 94 degrees F. But just before 10 p.m., the wind suddenly picked up, lightning flashed (one New Yorker caught what appears to be a lightning strike on camera), thunder clapped, and the most remarkable sound followed: that of hailstones clattering against cars and – more noticeably to those cowering inside – the outside portions of the city's many air-conditioning units…
On Wednesday, we found out that 70 m,p.h. winds had felled hundreds of century-old trees in Central Park. "Central Park has been devastated," Adrian Benepe, the city parks commissioner, told the New York Times.   "It created more damage than I've seen in 30 years of working in the parks."
…  More intense storms are a common prediction for a warmer world. And to the degree that more powerful storms increase the probability of that droplet going up and down and up again — gaining ice mass with each trip — it's probable that hailstorms may be more intense in the years to come.That was the conclusion of a 2007 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Particularly, the authors note, storm severity increases as the temperature and humidity differences between distinct air masses at different altitudes increases. The cooler the air above relative to that below, the faster the hot air will rise, and the more intense the storm.
Can a direct appeal to our palates succeed where pleas to intellect and conscience have repeatedly come up short? That's the hope of a group of French chefs, sommeliers, and chateau owners who last week published an op-ed in the newspaper Le Monde calling on President Nicolas Sarkozy to ensure that strict targets on carbon emissions be adopted at the UN climate summit this December in Copenhagen. If not, they warned, the nation's vaunted wine industry will likely go up in smoke.
"The jewels of our common cultural heritage," wrote more than 50 wine and gastronomy professionals (including Michelin-starred chefs Jean-Luc Rabanel and Marc Veyrat), are today in serious danger. Summer heat waves, hailstorms in Bordeaux, and new diseases coming from the south are already making the nation's vineyards more vulnerable, and as extreme conditions proliferate, they could result in the permanent destruction of the terroirs responsible for France's "elegant and refined" wines.
Warmer weather will mean higher alcohol levels, over-sunned aromatic ranges, and denser textures, said the letter, which was also signed by Greenpeace; in other words, the loss of the "unique soul" of French wines—not to mention the loss of the nation's winemaking superiority to more northerly nations like Scotland and Sweden.
Talk of wine regions moving north as the climate warms up is nothing new: The website climatechangeandwine.com is devoted to the topic, for example, and in his Pocket Wine Book 2009, British writer Oz Clarke says that a 2-degree-Celcius rise by 2050 would dramatically alter the winemaking landscape. . . Here in the States, supporters of strong mitigation measures have recently hit upon a different strategy.
Just three days ago, the editorial page of The New York Times lamented that though advocates of early action on climate change have talked about everything from the possibilities of green jobs and the importance of keeping America competitive in the quest for new technologies to the moral obligations of one generation to the next, none of that has been enough "to fully engage the public" on the topic (or to overcome the lobbying efforts of the fossil fuel industry). To really get Americans to pay attention (as Dick Cheney could have told you years ago), you have to frame things in terms of national security.
The sharp price decline of natural gas, to below $3 per thousand cubic feet from a peak of over $13 last summer, has been caused by a drop in demand from factories and homes because of the recession, coupled with a big expansion of domestic production over the last few years.