LouisvilleDem
LouisvilleDem's JournalThe Atlantic Ocean Is Acidifying at a Rapid Rate
Bad news on the acidification front...
Over the past 10 years, the Atlantic Ocean has soaked up 50 percent more carbon dioxide than it did the decade before, measurably speeding up the acidification of the ocean, according to a new study.
The paper, published Saturday in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, “shows the large impact all of us are having on the environment,” Ryan Woosley of the University of Miami said in a statement. “Our use of fossil fuels isn’t only causing the climate to change but also affects the oceans by decreasing the pH.”
The burning of oil, coal, and natural gas for energy and the destruction of forests are the leading causes of the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 355 parts per million in 1989 to just over 400 ppm in 2015.
Decreasing pH in seawater can harm the ability of shelled organisms, from microscopic coccolithophores to the oysters and clams that show up on our dinner plates, to build and maintain their bony exteriors.
Atlantic Sea Ice Could Grow in the Next Decade
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/atlantic-sea-ice-could-grow-in-the-next-decadeApparently ice extents are controlled more by ocean currents than global temperatures.
The massive conveyor belts of the ocean and atmosphere transfer energy around the globe and drive Earth’s climate. Improved models and increases in computer power are starting to allow scientists to get a better glimpse of future surface conditions in the Atlantic by taking into account changes in the ocean heat conveyor. The ocean’s influence on sea ice is not obvious, but in a new study, Yeager et al. argue that it plays a key role in accurate projections of sea ice.
The researchers analyzed simulations from the Community Earth System Model, modeling both atmosphere and ocean circulation. They found that decadal-scale trends in Arctic winter sea ice extent are largely explained by changes in ocean circulation rather than by large-scale external factors like anthropogenic warming.
The team emphasized the influence of the thermohaline circulation (THC), a global current that carries heat around the planet and that experts believe has been slowing down in the Atlantic since about 2000. Although anthropogenic warming may produce a long-term global temperature rise, the THC slowdown contributes to short-term cooling in the subpolar Atlantic and, consequently, a decline in the ice melt rate. The researchers make the connection between these circulation changes and satellite observations taken between 2005 and 2015 that show a positive trend in winter ice cover. In other words, slowing circulation hinders heat transport to the North Atlantic, allowing surface waters to stay cool and sea ice to expand.
Ultimately, the rise of global temperatures will generate a loss of sea ice cover over the coming century. This study is a stepping-stone toward the ultimate goal of decadal climate prediction, which is vital to understanding and anticipating the short-term trends and changes that communities will be tackling in the near future.
Rate of Global Deforestation is decreasing. Or is It?
Apparently the actual rate of deforestation depends on who you ask.
http://ensia.com/features/global-deforestation-is-decreasing-or-is-it/
Last year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released its latest Global Forest Resources Assessment. According to the assessment, we have seen a net loss of forests of 129 million hectares since 1990, an area about the size of Peru. But the report, released every five years, also found that the rate of deforestation had slowed recently: forests experienced 56 percent less net loss annually in the past five years than during the 1990s. The Global Forest Resources Assessment found a significant slowdown in deforestation in the tropics, while net forest cover in temperate regions was either stable or rising.
Anssi Pekkarinen, leader of the FAO’s Forest Monitoring and Assessment Team, says the team is “quite confident” that deforestation has slowed in the tropics. Between 1990 and 2000, tropical forests lost more than 9 million hectares (20 million acres) annually, but over the past five years annual losses slightly exceed 6 million hectares (10 million acres), according to the Global Forest Resources Assessment. Critics, however, contend the FAO data are marred by dependence on local governments with varying abilities — and desires — to accurately monitor or report forest cover. Moreover, definitions of forest vary depending on the government and the time period, making comparing forest loss over decades difficult.
Meanwhile, one of the most rigorous studies in recent years found that forest loss actually accelerated by 62 percent in the tropics from 1990 to 2010.
Lead author Do-Hyung Kim, a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park, says the study, published in 2015 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, was meant to provide an “alternative” to FAO data based on “a consistent definition and methods.” To do the analysis, Kim and colleagues analyzed 5,444 Landsat satellite images, comparing past and present forest cover using the same definitions.
On the bright side, it seems a solution that works has been identified:
Finally, experts say that recognizing the rights of local people and indigenous groups to their traditional forests could be one of the easiest, cheapest and most effective ways to protect standing forests from razing. Many indigenous groups still lack legal tenure to their traditional lands in tropical countries, but where they have secured their rights — for example in parts of Brazil — research often shows that forests are well protected. In some cases indigenous groups were even better at halting deforestation than government sanctioned protected areas. Efforts to achieve indigenous rights to forests are ongoing, but sluggish for many of those groups who are watching their forests — and their way of life — vanish to chainsaws.
Support for Nuclear == Denial
Apparently support for nuclear is now equivalent to denying climate change:
After the signing of a historic climate pact in Paris, we might now hope that the merchants of doubt – who for two decades have denied the science and dismissed the threat – are officially irrelevant.
But not so fast. There is also a new, strange form of denial that has appeared on the landscape of late, one that says that renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs.
Oddly, some of these voices include climate scientists, who insist that we must now turn to wholesale expansion of nuclear power. Just this past week, as negotiators were closing in on the Paris agreement, four climate scientists held an off-site session insisting that the only way we can solve the coupled climate/energy problem is with a massive and immediate expansion of nuclear power. More than that, they are blaming environmentalists, suggesting that the opposition to nuclear power stands between all of us and a two-degree world
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-form-climate-denialism-dont-celebrate-yet-cop-21
Being one of the four climate scientists mentioned, I guess this means Jim Hansen is a denier. I think Naomi Oreskes has officially jumped the shark.
Billionaires create new investment fund: The Breakthrough Energy Coalition
http://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-zuckerberg-tech-leaders-launch-fund-for-clean-energy-breakthroughs/?tag=nl.e539&s_cid=e539&ttag=e539&ftag=TRE17cfd61Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Richard Branson are among a group of tech titans which have launched the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, an investment fund designed to promote zero-emission technologies.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of the fund over the weekend, just ahead of the COP21 climate change conference in Paris, where world leaders will meet to discuss global warming and today's energy issues.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition aims to encourage investment in carbon-neutral technologies which offer widely available energy which is reliable, affordable and eco-friendly.
The organization is primarily interested in research efforts linked to "novel technologies and innovations which enable current technologies to be dramatically more efficient, scalable, or cheaper."
Bill Gates, known for supporting nuclear and downplaying the importance of wind and solar, continues to hold that view:
In a blog post, Bill Gates says that while wind and solar power have a part to play in a future without carbon footprints, given the scale of the challenge in keeping the world operational as fossil fuels become more scarce, "many different paths" need to be explored. Gates says: "Private companies will ultimately develop these energy breakthroughs, but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund. Both have a role to play."
The legacy of Charles Keeling
The temperature records produced by various organizations (NOAA, NASA, Met Office Hadley Centre, etc) have been challenged from time to time by people calling into question their accuracy. The most notorious of these of course is Anthony Watts, operator of Watts Up With That. Even though no critic has ever been able to disprove the basic truth of those records, that global temperatures are consistently rising and have been for decades, deniers have continued to raise questions about the numbers.
In contrast, the historical record of global CO2 measurements has never been seriously called into question. This fact can be largely attributed to the efforts of one person: Charles Kneeling. For decades he dedicated himself to the seemingly simple task of measuring atmospheric CO2, meticulously improving instruments and documenting processes that would ensure the most accurate measurements possible. An example of his meticulousness can be seen in his 1976 description of how technicians should take their measurements:
The sample taker, to minimize contamination from his own breath, was instructed to sample only when the wind was at least 5 knots. After first breathing normally near the site for some moments, he exhales, then inhales slightly, and finally without exhaling again, walks 10 steps into the wind, where he takes the sample...
An account of the history of his career, including examples of the roadblocks he encountered during the Reagan administration, can be read about in this biography: https://www1.umn.edu/ships/modules/earth/keeling/Keeling.pdf
On warmer Earth, most of Arctic may remove, not add, methane
Interesting study on the impact of a methane-hungry bacteria found in Arctic soils. Apparently the warmer it gets the more methane they consume, thereby potentially negating the methane released by the very same warming.
https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2015/08/14/on-warmer-earth-most-of-arctic-may-remove-not-add-methane-isme-journal/
<snip>
In addition to melting icecaps and imperiled wildlife, a significant concern among scientists is that higher Arctic temperatures brought about by climate change could result in the release of massive amounts of carbon locked in the region’s frozen soil in the form of carbon dioxide and methane. Arctic permafrost is estimated to contain about a trillion tons of carbon, which would potentially accelerate global warming. Carbon emissions in the form of methane have been of particular concern because on a 100-year scale methane is about 25-times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat.
However, new research led by Princeton University researchers and published in The ISME Journal in August suggests that, thanks to methane-hungry bacteria, the majority of Arctic soil might actually be able to absorb methane from the atmosphere rather than release it. Furthermore, that ability seems to become greater as temperatures rise.
The researchers found that Arctic soils containing low carbon content — which make up 87 percent of the soil in permafrost regions globally — not only remove methane from the atmosphere, but also become more efficient as temperatures increase. During a three-year period, a carbon-poor site on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada’s Arctic region consistently took up more methane as the ground temperature rose from 0 to 18 degrees Celsius (32 to 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit). The researchers project that should Arctic temperatures rise by 5 to 15 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years, the methane-absorbing capacity of “carbon-poor” soil could increase by five to 30 times.
The researchers found that this ability stems from an as-yet unknown species of bacteria in carbon-poor Arctic soil that consume methane in the atmosphere. The bacteria are related to a bacterial group known as Upland Soil Cluster Alpha, the dominant methane-consuming bacteria in carbon-poor Arctic soil. The bacteria the researchers studied remove the carbon from methane to produce methanol, a simple alcohol the bacteria process immediately. The carbon is used for growth or respiration, meaning that it either remains in bacterial cells or is released as carbon dioxide.
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The Rise and Fall of the Kyoto Protocol
Interesting read. It is the Phd thesis of a woman who got her Phd while serving as a member of the European Parliament from Finland.
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/136507/Therisea.pdf?sequence=1
<snip>
• During climate actions global emissions have increased forcefully, especially in developing countries. The Kyoto Protocol has not been able to intervene in this development. In the case of industrialized countries, no significant differences can be traced between countries that have taken up Kyoto obligations and those that have not. The ratifiers of the Kyoto Protocol have not succeeded significantly better, especially if also consumption is taken into account. The carbon-intensity (CO2 per GDP unit) of human kind has not decreased.
• Climate change became the next grand narrative after the Cold War dominating the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century. It bypassed many concrete and severe problems and a record amount of attention and resources were sacrificed to it. During this hype, emissions increased both relatively and absolutely. Environmental thinking took some steps backwards while climate change was cannibalizing other problems. Still, the main environmental problems are caused by overpopulation, poorly planned land-use and over-exploitation of natural resources.
• Climate change has turned out to be a so-called wicked problem, which is hard to define, hard to solve, and whose solving does not have a clear end point and whose resolution attempts generate additional problems. Climate problem is a problem of decision-making.
• The Kyoto Protocol is not suitable for the solution to a wicked problem, because it is a copy of other agreements for tame and clearly definable problems. Thus, Kyoto has, as a matter of fact, worsened the situation as demonstrated by the increase in emissions. EU climate action cannot be considered successful, neither from the viewpoint of emissions reduction nor the angle of decision-making.
• The problem of EU climate policy is the abundance of overlapping control mechanisms. As individual cures they may work, but when used in an overlapping fashion they outlaw one another. Different correcting measures to fix these overlaps have created an unpredictable and insecure investing environment for the European industry.
• Emissions trading has been the most important EU climate policy instrument. In principle, it could offer a more cost-effective mechanism to reduce emissions.Applied by the EU, it has not led to the reduction of consumption based CO2 emissions nor has it been able to contribute to the creation of a functioning carbon market. Because of overlapping legislation emissions trading has not been granted the peaceful operational environment it needs. Limited to Europe it has created additional costs for us, which the EU’s competitors do not have.
• The success of climate actions has also been disturbed by a massive and unpredictable global change. In 1997–2002, nobody guessed that China, India and partly South America’s economic growth will absorb industrial production so forcefully out of Europe and the US. The emission share of Kyoto countries was marginalised from 63% at the entry into force to 13–14% under Kyoto II.
• Climate policy should be split into pieces that are promoted decisively. Poverty, energy shortages ,loss of biodiversity, desertification or the problems of developing countries cannot be reduced to a mere climate problem. These issues have to be dealt with as such because they are concrete problems.
• Scientific uncertainty is an acceptable fact of life, and the discussion on the causes of climate change will continue. We will never reach a stage in which research should end and politics should start based on this. Both have to be advanced simultaneously, also while uncertainty reigns. This poses a challenge to politics: it has to be so robust, sturdy or grounded in certainty and focused on relevant issues, that it does not have to be regretted significantly when scientific truths change.
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Infrastructure planning in the Age of Climate Change
Interesting study of what works and what doesn't when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions.
http://canadianenergyissues.com/2014/01/29/how-much-does-it-cost-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-a-primer-on-electricity-infrastructure-planning-in-the-age-of-climate-change/
The goal is to produce cheap clean electricity:
This is where various key countries land in that evaluation:
So what do the worst countries (Quadrant II) have in common? A national emphasis on "renewable" energy: mostly wind and solar. And what do the best countries (Quadrant IV) have in common? Lots of nuclear.
Good news on Climate Change front
Several peer reviewed papers say we probably have more time to act on climate change than was originally thought. All of the urgency to lower CO2 emissions stem from computer model projections that say the 2C target might be exceeded as soon as 2040 if economic and population growth continue as they have. However, observed temperature changes over the last 15-20 years now make that prediction seem extremely unlikely. Moreover, new evidence suggests that those climate models are using climate sensitivity figures that are twice the actual figure, meaning we have more time than we originally thought to avoid a 2 degree increase in global temperatures.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-014-2342-y#page-1
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/260740743_Bayesian_estimation_of_climate_sensitivity_based_on_a_simple_climate_model_fitted_to_observations_of_hemispheric_temperatures_and_global_ocean_heat_content
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/otto13nat.pdf
http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/5/139/2014/esd-5-139-2014.html
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