8. What are the Governments Doing about Climate Change?

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 8

2009 November 2. E.P.A. Lawyers Challenge ‘Cap and Trade’ for Climate. By Andrew C. Revkin, The NY Times. Excerpt: When an economist at the Environmental Protection Agency rejected the Obama administration’s stance on global warming by  writing an unsolicited report challenging the scientific consensus on greenhouse dangers, groups fighting restrictions on greenhouse gases hailed him as  a courageous maverick. Climate campaigners said he was  irrelevant and ill informed.
Now two more functionaries at the agency — Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, who are lawyers and a married couple — have sharply criticized the core element of climate legislation pushed by Democratic lawmakers and President Obama.
Their views are unlikely to be welcomed by either side in the political fight. Like the administration, they say that human-driven climate change poses enormous risks; they just completely reject the  cap and trade system favored by Democratic leaders and some environmental groups. This system would force overall emission reductions but allow flexibility through a market that trades credits accrued by companies or institutions that make extra-deep cuts.
...They argued that the trading system provides far too much leeway for dealing in “offsets,” credits earned by avoiding or preventing emissions of carbon dioxide. In summary, they wrote: “Together, the illusion of greenhouse-gas reductions and the creation of powerful lobbies seeking to protect newly created profits in permits and offsets would lock in climate degradation for a decade or more.”...

2009 October 29. China outperforms US on green issues. By Jim Giles, NewScientist. Excerpt: China is often accused of not doing enough to reduce the carbon dioxide and other pollution pouring from its factories and coal-fuelled power stations. But a new report suggests the country is doing more to tackle climate change than it gets credit for: in fact, its environmental standards surpass the US in some key measures.
The World Resources Institute (WRI), a respected environmental think tank based in Washington DC, says China is on track to meet its main climate change target, which is a 20 per cent reduction in energy intensity – the amount of energy used per dollar of gross domestic product – by the end of next year....
China is also making good progress towards its goal of generating 15 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, according to the report. By the end of the next decade it will have 150 gigawatts of wind power installed – over five times the current US level. One in 10 Chinese homes already has solar heaters, with the number growing by 20 per cent per year....

2009 October 14. Arctic Now Traps 25 Percent of World's Carbon -- But That Could Change. USGS. Excerpt: The arctic could potentially alter the Earth’s climate by becoming a possible source of global atmospheric carbon dioxide.  The arctic now traps or absorbs up to 25 percent of this gas but climate change could alter that amount, according to a study published in the November issue of Ecological Monographs.
In their review paper, David McGuire of the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and his colleagues show that the Arctic has been a carbon sink since the end of the last Ice Age, which has recently accounted for between zero and 25 percent, or up to about 800 million metric tons, of the global carbon sink. On average, says McGuire, the Arctic accounts for 10-15 percent of the Earth’s carbon sink. But the rapid rate of climate change in the Arctic – about twice that of lower latitudes – could eliminate the sink and instead, possibly make the Arctic a source of carbon dioxide....
Carbon generally enters the oceans and land masses of the Arctic from the atmosphere and largely accumulates in permafrost, the frozen layer of soil underneath the land’s surface. Unlike active soils, permafrost does not decompose its carbon; thus, the carbon becomes trapped in the frozen soil. Cold conditions at the surface have also slowed the rate of organic matter decomposition, McGuire says, allowing Arctic carbon accumulation to exceed its release.
But recent warming trends could change this balance. Warmer temperatures can accelerate the rate of surface organic matter decomposition, releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Of greater concern, says McGuire, is that the permafrost has begun to thaw, exposing previously frozen soil to decomposition and erosion. These changes could reverse the historical role of the Arctic as a sink for carbon dioxide....

2009 August 7. Glacier melt accelerating, federal report concludes. By Jim Tankersley, LA Times. Excerpt: ...Washington - The federal government Thursday released the most comprehensive study of melting glaciers in North America -- and the results show a rapid and accelerating shrinkage over the last half a century because of global warming.
One of the glaciers in the study, the South Cascade Glacier in Washington state, has lost nearly half of its volume and a quarter of its mass since 1958, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey said. The two others in the study, the Wolverine and Gulkana glaciers in Alaska, have both lost nearly 15% of their mass.
In all three cases, the melting has increased over the last two decades. The acceleration is the result of warmer, drier climates in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska caused by global warming, the researchers said.
"By having a 50-year record, you can look over what's going on, look over the meteorological, climatological record, and really get an idea of what's going on in the mountains," said Edward Josberger, a scientist with the USGS Washington Water Science Center in Tacoma, Wash., who has worked for a decade on the study.
"Climate change effects are starting to become more and more noticeable," he added, "and this is one of the effects that's being displayed."...

2009 July 16. NASA RELEASE : 09-167. NASA Airborne Expedition Chases Arctic Sea Ice Questions. Excerpt: WASHINGTON -- A small NASA aircraft completed its first successful science flight Thursday as part of an expedition to study the receding Arctic sea ice and improve understanding of its life cycle and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover. The mission continues through July 24.
NASA's Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice Experiment, known as CASIE, began a series of unmanned aircraft system flights in coordination with satellites. Working with the University of Colorado and its research partners, NASA is using the remotely-piloted aircraft to image thick, old slabs of ice as they drift from the Arctic Ocean south through Fram Strait -- which lies between Greenland and Svalbard, Norway -- into the North Atlantic Ocean.
NASA's Science Instrumentation Evaluation Remote Research Aircraft, or SIERRA, will weave a pattern over open ocean and sea ice to map and measure ice conditions below cloud cover to as low as 300 feet.
"Our project is attempting to answer some of the most basic questions regarding the most fundamental changes in sea ice cover in recent years," said James Maslanik, a research professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and principal investigator for the NASA mission. "Our analysis of satellite data shows that in 2009 the amount of older ice is just 12 percent of what it was in 1988 -- a decline of 74 percent. The oldest ice types now cover only 2 percent of the Arctic Ocean as compared to 20 percent during the 1980s."...

2009 July 9. World powers accept warming limit. BBC News. Excerpt: Developed and developing nations have agreed that global temperatures should not rise more than 2C above 1900 levels, a G8 summit declaration says. That is the level above which, the UN says, the Earth's climate system would become dangerously unstable.
US President Barack Obama said the countries had made important strides in dealing with climate change. But the G8 failed to persuade developing countries to accept targets of cutting emissions by 50% by 2050. On Wednesday, the G8 agreed its own members would work towards 80% cuts by the same date.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the G8 had not done enough and should also set 2020 targets. He said that while the G8's Wednesday agreement was welcome, its leaders also needed to establish a strong and ambitious mid-term target for emissions cuts.
...RK Pachauri, who chairs the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, praised the declaration's mention of the 2C limit but said more details were needed.
"It certainly doesn't give you a roadmap on how you should get there but at least they've defined the destination," he told the BBC World Service Newshour programme.
...BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin says the declaration is a significant step, with all big countries rich and poor agreeing there is a scientific limit on the amount we should warm the climate. But there is still a huge way to go, he says, as developing nations like India will not sign up to any 2050 targets unless rich nations show more determination and offer more cash....

2009 June 27. House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change. By JOHN M. BRODER, NY Times. Excerpt: The 219-212 vote marked the first time that either house of Congress has approved a bill aimed at curbing the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change, and it could lead to sweeping changes in the economy.

2009 June 12. Climate Change Treaty, to Go Beyond the Kyoto Protocol, Is Expected by the Year’s End. By Elisabeth Rosenthal, The NY Times. Excerpt: The world is on track to produce a new global climate treaty by December, the top United Nations climate official said Friday as delegates from more than 100 nations concluded 12 days of talks in Bonn, Germany.
The delegates issued a 200-page document that they said would serve as the starting point for treaty negotiations that open in Copenhagen in December.
...The goal is a climate treaty that would go beyond the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a climate-change agreement that set emissions targets for industrialized nations. Many of those goals have not been met, and the United States never ratified the accord.
The document issued Friday outlines proposals for cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases by rich countries and limiting the growth of gases in the developing world. It also discusses ways of preventing deforestation, which is linked to global warming, and of providing financing for poorer nations to help them adapt to warmer temperatures.
...environmentalists took heart from the strong involvement of many nations, especially the United States and China, which jointly produce 40 percent of the world’s heat-trapping emissions. (In declining to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the United States cited China and India’s lack of participation.)...

2009 April 27. Clinton Says U.S. Is Ready to Lead on Climate. By John M. Broder, The NY Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — After eight years largely on the sidelines of the international policy debate on climate change, the United States is prepared to lead negotiations toward a new global warming treaty, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.
“The United States is fully engaged and determined to lead and make up for lost time both at home and abroad,” Mrs. Clinton told delegates from 16 countries at a State Department conference on energy and climate. “We are back in the game.”
The meeting in Washington was the first of three planned sessions among the participating countries, who together account for roughly 75 percent of emissions of the gases blamed for the heating of the planet....
...Mrs. Clinton said there was no longer any question that growing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases were causing a warming of the planet, with potentially catastrophic results. She said global climate change posed environmental, economic, health and security challenges that must be addressed by individual countries and by the community of nations.
Speaking directly to representatives of developing nations, who are skeptical of the motives of the United States and other industrialized countries on the issue, Mrs. Clinton that the United States would not seek to limit the use of energy in the developing world but would help make it cleaner.
“We want your economies to grow,” she said as representatives of Brazil, China, India and Indonesia listened. “We want your people to have a higher standard of living.”...

2009 April 6. NASA RELEASE: 09-079. Satellites Show Arctic Literally on Thin Ice. Excerpt: WASHINGTON -- The latest Arctic sea ice data from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center show that the decade-long trend of shrinking sea ice cover is continuing. New evidence from satellite observations also shows that the ice cap is thinning as well.
...Scientists who track Arctic sea ice cover from space announced today that this winter had the fifth lowest maximum ice extent on record. The six lowest maximum events since satellite monitoring began in 1979 have all occurred in the past six years (2004-2009).
Until recently, the majority of Arctic sea ice survived at least one summer and often several. But things have changed dramatically, according to a team of University of Colorado, Boulder, scientists led by Charles Fowler. Thin seasonal ice -- ice that melts and re-freezes every year -- makes up about 70 percent of the Arctic sea ice in wintertime, up from 40 to 50 percent in the 1980s and 1990s. Thicker ice, which survives two or more years, now comprises just 10 percent of wintertime ice cover, down from 30 to 40 percent.
According to researchers from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., the maximum sea ice extent for 2008-09, reached on Feb. 28, was 5.85 million square miles. That is 278,000 square miles less than the average extent for 1979 to 2000.
"Ice extent is an important measure of the health of the Arctic, but it only gives us a two-dimensional view of the ice cover," said Walter Meier, research scientist at the center and the University of Colorado, Boulder. "Thickness is important, especially in the winter, because it is the best overall indicator of the health of the ice cover. As the ice cover in the Arctic grows thinner, it grows more vulnerable to melting in the summer."...

2009 February 17. New York Must Prepare for Global Warming, Mayor’s Panel Says. By Mireya Navarro, The NY Times. Excerpt: New York City must prepare for higher temperatures, more rain and an increased risk of coastal flooding in the coming decades as a result of global climate change, an advisory panel said on Tuesday.
The panel, formed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to study the potential effects of global warming on the city, said that mean annual temperatures in New York could increase by up to 3 degrees and the average sea levels rise by 2 to 5 inches by the 2020s. By the 2080s, temperatures could increase by up to 7 ½ degrees, and sea levels could rise 12 to 23 inches by the end of the century, the panel said.
...City officials said that to prepare for the expected effects of climate change, the city should plan to keep cooling centers for people without air-conditioning open longer during heat waves, move critical equipment in city buildings above sea level and incorporate climate changes into the design of buildings, among other measures.
...“Planning for climate change today is less expensive than rebuilding an entire network after the catastrophe,” the mayor said in response to the report. “We cannot wait until after our infrastructure has been compromised to begin to plan for the effects of climate change now.”...

2008 July 16. US EPA Says Greenhouse Emissions Endanger Health. By Deborah Zabarenko, Planet Ark. Excerpt: WASHINGTON - The US Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, a critical finding that has languished in bureaucratic limbo since last December.
In a 149-page document, the agency's scientists said that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and that potential health risks include more heat waves, floods and droughts, insect outbreaks and and wildfires, along with crop failure and decline in livestock and fisheries productivity.
"This is a long-awaited EPA analysis that has been kept under wraps by the White House," said Vickie Patton of Environmental Defense. "It's of critical importance because it looks at the extensive body of science demonstrating that global warming threatens Americans' health and well-being."
The document posted on EPA's Web site was part of the environment agency's response to an April 2007 Supreme Court ruling that for the first time found that greenhouse gases can be regulated as a pollutant under the US Clean Air Act...
This information had been sent to the White House last December by e-mail, but officials there refused to open it...
The Bush administration has opposed economy-wide moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Both major presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have said they would act to stem climate change.

2008 May 28. New Climate Report Foresees Big Changes.By ANDREW C. REVKIN, NY Times. Exerpt: The rise in concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human activities is influencing climate patterns and vegetation across the United States and will significantly disrupt water supplies, agriculture, forestry and ecosystems for decades, a new federal report says.
The changes are unfolding in ways that are likely to produce an uneven national map of harms and benefits, according to the report, released Tuesday and posted online at climatescience.gov. The authors of the report and some independent experts said the main value of its projections was the level of detail and the high confidence in some conclusions. That confidence comes in part from the report's emphasis on the next 25 to 50 years, when shifts in emissions are unlikely to make much of a difference in climate trends. The report also reflects a recent, significant shift by the Bush administration on climate science. During Mr. Bush's first term, administration officials worked to play down a national assessment of climate effects conducted mainly during the Clinton administration, but released in 2000.
The new report, which includes some findings that are more sobering and definitive than those in the 2000 climate report, holds the signatures of three cabinet secretaries. According to the report, Western states will face substantial challenges because of growing demand for water and big projected drops in supplies....

2008 May 14. NASA STUDY LINKS EARTH IMPACTS TO HUMAN-CAUSED CLIMATE CHANGE. NASA RELEASE: 08-127. Excerpt: WASHINGTON -- A new NASA-led study shows human-caused climate change has made an impact on a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa.
Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science in New York and scientists at 10 other institutions have linked physical and biological impacts since 1970 with rises in temperatures during that period. The study, to be published May 15 in the journal Nature, concludes human-caused warming is resulting in a broad range of impacts across the globe.
"This is the first study to link global temperature data sets, climate model results, and observed changes in a broad range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate, and impacts," said Rosenzweig, lead author of the study. ...Observed impacts included changes to physical systems, such as glaciers shrinking, permafrost melting, and lakes and rivers warming. Biological systems also were impacted in a variety of ways, such as leaves unfolding and flowers blooming earlier in the spring, birds arriving earlier during migration periods, and plant and animal species moving toward Earth's poles and higher in elevation. In aquatic environments such as oceans, lakes, and rivers, plankton and fish are shifting from cold-adapted to warm-adapted communities....

30 November 2007. Climate Change May Cost Florida US$345 Billion a Year - Tufts Study. PlanetArk World Environment News. Excerpt: TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - If nothing is done to combat global warming, two of Florida's nuclear power plants, three of its prisons and 1,362 hotels, motels and inns will be under water by 2100, a study released Wednesday said. In all, Florida could stand to lose US$345 billion a year in projected economic activity by 2100 if nothing is done to reduce emissions that are viewed as the main human contribution to rising global temperatures, according to the Tufts University study [report, pdf]...."The status quo, the climate that we have right now, is not an available option unless we act immediately," said Frank Ackerman, a professor at Tufts' Global Development and Environmental Institute and co-author of the study. "Doing something may seem expensive, but doing nothing will be more expensive." ...Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is among a growing list of state officials who have given up waiting for the federal government to take the lead on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and have passed their own measures to cap pollution by power plants and cars. Story
by Michael Peltier.

17 November 2007. U.N. Report Describes Risks of Inaction on Climate Change. By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, NY Times. Excerpt: VALENCIA, Spain, Nov. 16 - In its final and most powerful report, a United Nations panel of scientists meeting here describes the mounting risks of climate change in language that is both more specific and forceful than its previous assessments, according to scientists here. ...the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.
..."This document goes further than any of the previous efforts," said Hans Verolme, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate Change Program. "The pressure has been palpable - people know they are delivering a document that will be cited for years to come and will define policy."
The previous three sections, released between February and April, focused on one issue at a time: the first on science, the second on how the world could adapt to warming and the third about how countries could "mitigate," or reduce the greenhouse gases produced.
This fourth and final assessment - the so-called synthesis report - seeks to combine lessons from all three. ...a powerful guide to what the scientists consider of utmost importance at the end of a five-year process, offering concrete guidelines for policy makers.
"You look to a synthesis report to provide clarity, to clarify what was obscure in previous reports," said Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University. "Now, how can we take these findings and formulate a policy response that's quick enough and big enough?"
While drafts of the panel's reports are written by panels of scientists, the language is reviewed and often altered by delegates from 130 governments who meet before their final approval and release. Those negotiations took place here this week, and were often contentious, with the United States, China and India raising many objections, said scientists who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to publicly refer to any countries by name.
...While the United States, Saudi Arabia and China tried to change the text in order to play down the consequences of global warming, developing nations - which will bear the initial brunt of climate change - were much more forceful than at previous meetings in opposing these efforts, one scientist who was in the negotiating room said....

14 November 2007. Governors Join in Creating Regional Pacts on Climate Change. By JOHN M. BRODER, NY Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - Frustrated with the slow progress of legislation in Washington on energy and global warming, the nation's governors have created regional agreements to cap greenhouse gases and are engaged in a concerted lobbying effort to prod Congress to act. Beginning Monday, three Western governors will appear in a nationwide television advertising campaign sponsored by an environmental group trying to generate public and political support for climate change legislation now before the Senate. The 30-second ad features Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California; Jon Huntsman Jr., Republican of Utah; and Brian Schweitzer, Democrat of Montana, standing in casual clothes in scenic spots talking about the threat posed by greenhouse gas emissions. The nation's governors are acting, but Congress is not, they say. "Now it's their turn," Mr. Schwarzenegger says.
Separately, in Milwaukee on Wednesday, nine Midwestern governors and the premier of Manitoba signed an agreement to reduce carbon emissions and set up a trading system to meet the reduction targets. The Midwestern accord is modeled on similar regional carbon-reduction and energy-saving arrangements among Northeastern, Southwestern and West Coast states.
The advertising campaign is underwritten by Environmental Defense, an advocacy group that is pressing for quick action on a climate change proposal sponsored by Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia.
The Lieberman-Warner legislation would cap carbon emissions at 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and set up a system for polluting industries to trade emissions credits to meet the goals. Like other such bills before Congress, it would provide incentives for research on capturing and storing carbon dioxide from power plants and subsidies to help the poor handle the higher costs of electricity in a carbon-constrained economy....

12 November 2007. UN official warns of ignoring warming. By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer Excerpt: VALENCIA, Spain - The U.N.'s top climate official warned policymakers and scientists trying to hammer out a landmark report on climate change that ignoring the urgency of global warming would be "criminally irresponsible.
Yvo de Boer's comments came at the opening of a weeklong conference that will complete a concise guide on the state of global warming and what can be done to stop the Earth from overheating. It is the fourth and last report issued this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace prize.
...Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning panel, said scientists were determined to "adhere to standards of quality" in the report. It was indirect barb at the government representatives, who have been accused by environmentalists of watering down and excluding vital information from the summaries of earlier reports to fit their domestic agendas.
...The report will provide the factual underpinning for a crucial meeting next month in Bali, Indonesia.
That conference will begin exploring a new global strategy to curb greenhouse gas emissions after the 2012 expiration of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark agreement that assigned binding reduction targets to 36 countries.... On the Net:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch

13 October 2007. Gore Shares Peace Prize for Climate Change Work. NY Times. By WALTER GIBBS and SARAH LYALL. Excerpt: OSLO, Oct. 12 - Former Vice President Al Gore, who emerged from his loss in the muddled 2000 presidential election to devote himself to his passion as an environmental crusader, was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists . The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised both "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change." The prize is a vindication for Mr. Gore, whose cautionary film about the consequences of climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth," won the 2007 Academy Award for best documentary, even as conservatives in the United States denounced it as alarmist and exaggerated. ...The award was also a validation for the United Nations panel, which in its early days was vilified by those who disputed the scientific case for a human role in climate change. In New Delhi, the Indian climatologist who heads the panel, Rajendra K. Pachauri, said that science had won out over skepticism....

25 September 2007. 'Arnie, ' 'Al' Push Climate Action. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. UNITED NATIONS (AP) Excerpt: ''Arnie'' and ''Al,'' Republican and Democrat, shared the world spotlight to press for climate action.....President Bush, who did take part later in a small, private U.N. dinner with key players on climate, rejects the idea of international treaty obligations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other ''greenhouse gases'' blamed for global warming -- an idea central to U.N. climate negotiations.
The Republican Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, has taken the lead on emissions caps at the state level, signing legislation mandating such reductions in California.
.....''The need to act is now,'' Democrat Gore told delegates to the one-day summit, which drew more than 80 world leaders. ''We need a mandate at Bali.''
He was referring the annual U.N. climate treaty conference, scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia, where the Europeans and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.
The 175-nation Kyoto pact, which the U.S. rejects, requires 36 industrial nations to reduce the heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources...
....Bush objects that Kyoto-style mandates would damage the U.S. economy and says they should be imposed on fast-growing poorer countries such as China and India in addition to developed nations...
On Thursday and Friday, Bush will host his own Washington climate meeting, limited to 16 ''major emitter'' countries, including China and India, the first in a series of U.S.-led gatherings expected to focus on those themes.
''The Washington meeting is a distraction,'' Hans Verolme, climate campaigner for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, told reporters here. The Bush administration needs ''to show they are serious and implement domestic legislation to reduce emissions,'' he said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the summit, put the Washington meetings in a different light, describing them as designed ''to support and help advance the ongoing U.N. discussion....''

10 September 2007. Climate Change hits US Federal Land, Water-Report. WASHINGTON. Excerpt: More beetles and fewer spruce trees in Alaska, whiter coral and fewer scuba-divers in Florida and more wildfires in Arizona already show the impact of climate change on US lands and waters, a congressional watchdog agency reported on Thursday.
..."Undertaking activities that address the effects of climate change is currently not a priority" for the five US agencies that manage this territory, the report by the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress said.
These agencies are the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Interior Department, which includes three of the five agencies, ordered them in 2001 to analyze potential climate change effects on US-managed lands, but has not yet provided direction to managers on how to plan for climate change, the report said.
Resource managers at the other two agencies echoed that sentiment, according to the report.
...The authors based their conclusions on discussions with scientists, economists and federal resource managers, and field studies of four federal areas that represent distinct ecosystems.
These are: the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, representing coasts and oceans; the Chugach National Forest in Alaska, representing forests; Glacier National Park in Montana, representing fresh waters; and the Bureau of Land Management's Arizona field office, representing grasslands and shrublands.
In the Florida Keys, they found rising sea levels that can be attributed to climate change have already affected low-lying areas, and saltwater intrusion on land has cut the fresh water and habitat that support native plants and animals.
... global warming may hamper fishing and tourism in this ecosystem, ....
Warmer temperatures and reduced precipitation associated with climate change in Alaska's Chugach National Forest have contributed to outbreaks of insects, such as the spruce bark beetles which have killed some kinds of spruce trees over the forest's 400,000 acres (161,900 hectares), the report said.
In Montana, the glaciers that give Glacier National Park its name are dwindling, down from 150 in 1950 to 26 now, according to the report.
Arizona's Mojave Desert is suffering more virulent wildfires due at least in part to climate change, the report said, because drought has damaged native plants and allowed invasive grasses to take over, making it easier for fires to start and harder to extinguish them.

28 August 2007. Greenland's Ice Island Alarm. By Kendall Haven
Excerpt: In early spring, with the summer melt still weeks away, researchers flock like migrating birds to the Greenland Ice Sheet. ...Waleed Abdalati, head of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Cryospheric Sciences Branch, was one of those migrating researchers. His boots were on the ice most years from 1993 through 2004....
Scientists and policy makers asked: Is Greenland melting? If so, how fast, and how high will sea level rise as a result? "Through the 1990s, the only answer scientists could give was 'We don't know,'" Abdalati recalls.
What would large-scale ice loss on Greenland mean to the rest of the world? "Things we've come to count on could change," he explains. Coastlines will recede as sea level rises and ocean water edges inland, threatening coastal cities. The changing ice could impact ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns and the global climate to which life today has adapted. What will be the nature and impact of these changes? Abdalati's answer: "While the future impacts of the changing ice cover are uncertain, the potential effects are scary enough so that we better figure it out."
...Bill Krabill, a geoscientist at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, measured an inland gain of up to 1 meter of snow and up to three times average snowfall in some areas of Southeast Greenland between 2002 and 2003. In 2005, Ola Johannessen, from the University of Bergen's Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, measured a gain of 2.4 inches per year from 1992 to 2003 for elevations above 1,500 meters, with a net ice loss below that elevation. But even if the models were right, which trend-ice gain in the interior, or melting at the margin-would prove greater, and by how much?
...Isabella Velicogna, a scientist with a joint appointment at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and the University of Colorado... explains... "We had to make new model assumptions. ...Her ... results showed a net mass loss for the ice sheet of 248 gigatons per year-enough to raise sea level about half a millimeter each year. (A gigaton is one billion metric tons, the mass of a cube of water that is 1 kilometer wide, tall, and deep.) Although other NASA researchers published similar findings shortly after Velicogna, these GRACE results showed a significantly larger loss-four to five times more ice loss-than most estimates that scientists had published before hers, based on different data from the 1990s through 2003....

See also:

NASA CELEBRATES A DECADE OBSERVING CLIMATE IMPACTS ON HEALTH OF WORLD'S OCEANS
19 September 2007

NASA RESEARCHERS FIND SNOWMELT IN ANTARCTICA CREEPING INLAND
20 September 2007

GREENLAND SNOW MELTING HIT RECORD HIGH IN HIGH PLACES
25 September 2007.

28 August 2007. GREENHOUSE GASES LIKELY DROVE NEAR-RECORD U.S. WARMTH IN 2006. Excerpt: Greenhouse gases likely accounted for more than half of the widespread warmth across the continental United States last year, according to a new study by four scientists at NOAAâs Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, Colo. Last yearâs average temperature was the second highest since record-keeping began in 1895. The team found that it was very unlikely that the 2006 El Nino played any role, though other natural factors likely contributed to the unusual warmth. ...The NOAA team also found that the probability of U.S. temperatures breaking a record in 2006 had increased 15-fold compared to pre-industrial times because of greenhouse gas increases in Earth's atmosphere. Preliminary data available last January led NOAA to place 2006 as the warmest year on record. In May, NOAA changed the 2006 ranking to second warmest after updated statistics showed the year was 0.08 degree F cooler than 1998.

6 August 2007. Catching Up With Climate. Contact: Paul Preuss, science@berkeley lab. From the evidence of tree rings, the last 50 years were the warmest half-century in 1,300 years. Eleven of the past 12 years are the hottest on record since reliable record-keeping began in 1850; since 1870, sea level has risen some eight inches worldwide, and the rate is accelerating; since 1900, glaciers have shrunk 80 percent, and polar ice is melting fast; concentrations of carbon dioxide are 35 percent higher than preindustrial levels. Meanwhile, humans keep pouring CO2 into the air, ratcheting temperatures toward the tipping point. To buy time, we need the best mix of conservation, alternative energy sources, new fuels, carbon sequestration, and other strategies. Decisions we make now, or fail to make, will lead at best to discomfort - or to disaster for many. The shape of things to come may crucially depend on better climate models, based on better climate science. ..."Current climate models are a blunt tool. We want to sharpen that tool," says Bill Collins of Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division (ESD). "Climate models of the future will have to be able to zoom in on the regional scale, make accurate predictions for the near term, and account for what humans actually do."....

11 July 2007. Warming Report Warns of Increased Flooding. By ANTHONY DePALMA. NY Times. Excerpt: One-hundred-year floods could come as often as once every 10 years by the end of this century, Long Island lobsters could disappear and New York apples could be just a memory if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report on the impact of global warming by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report, which covers New York, New Jersey along with the entire Northeast, was released at a news conference at the New York Botanical Garden this morning, in the wake of an intense heat wave of the kind that scientists warned could come far more frequently if business continues as usual. ...New York City might have to swelter through a full month with temperatures over 100 degrees. The prolonged heat could dry up the Catskill Mountain waters that supply the city, and air quality could decline, worsening conditions for people with asthma and allergies.
Some changes, like earlier springs, longer summers and less snowy winters are already being seen.... But scientists said things would become far worse, and much more costly, ... sea levels could rise, inundating coastal areas on southern Long Island and pushing water over parts of lower Manhattan, flooding the financial district and pouring water into the subways, making them inoperable. The impact on New York State's $3.5 billion a year agricultural industry could be devastating, said David Wolfe, professor of plant ecology in the Department of Horticulture at Cornell University.....
Professor McCarthy said the two alternative futures laid out in the study... the regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, in which all the Northeastern states agreed to reduce power plant emissions and establish a carbon trading program, and the recently approved New Jersey legislation to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions in the state to 20 percent of current levels by mid-century.
...The full report can be found at the Union of Concerned Scientists' Web site.

19 June 2007. Maine Law Caps Carbon Dioxide Emissions. By KATIE ZEZIMA. Excerpt: BOSTON, June 18 — Gov. John Baldacci of Maine signed a bill on Monday establishing how the state will reduce pollution and cap power plant emissions in a regional effort to reduce carbon dioxide output. Maine is one of 10 Eastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or R.G.G.I. (pronounced “Reggie”), which is intended to lower carbon dioxide output from power plants. ... Under the regional initiative, other states, including Maryland, can put into effect their rules through their environmental protection departments rather than their legislatures. ... Maine accounts for 3 percent of United States carbon emissions. It will cap its emissions at 5.9 million tons in 2009, and reduce them 10 percent by 2019. Under the new law, six power plants will start paying allowances to the state in 2009 that let them emit carbon dioxide. One allowance will pay for one ton of carbon dioxide emitted, with the price of each allowance dictated by a market in which companies can buy and sell the allowances. ...

30 May 2007. Research Finds that Earth's Climate is Approaching 'Tipping Point'. Press Release, NASA. Excerpt: "NASA and Columbia University Earth Institute research finds that human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth's climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet. From a combination of climate models, satellite data, and paleoclimate records the scientists conclude that the West Antarctic ice sheet, Arctic ice cover, and regions providing fresh water sources and species habitat are under threat from continued global warming. The research appears in the current issue of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics... This study finds that global warming of 0.6¼C in the past 30 years has been driven mainly by increasing greenhouse gases, and only moderate additional climate forcing is likely to set in motion disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet and Arctic sea ice. Amplifying feedbacks include increased absorption of sunlight as melting exposes darker surfaces and speedup of iceberg discharge as the warming ocean melts ice shelves that otherwise inhibit ice flow... Lead author James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, concludes: 'If global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the rate of the past decade, this research shows that there will be disastrous effects, including increasingly rapid sea level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones... While the researchers say it is still possible to achieve [an] alternative scenario, they note that significant actions will be required to do so. Emissions must begin to slow soon... With another decade of business-as-usual it becomes impractical to achieve the alternative scenario because of the energy infrastructure that would be in place.'"

18 May 2007. SOUTHERN OCEAN CARBON SINK WEAKENED. NASA Earth Observatory -- Excerpt: In research published today in Science, an international research team - including CSIRO's Dr. Ray Langenfelds - concludes that the Southern Ocean carbon dioxide sink has weakened over the past 25 years and will be less efficient in the future. Such weakening of one of the Earth's major carbon dioxide sinks will lead to higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the long-term. Dr. Paul Fraser, ... leads research into atmospheric greenhouse gases at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research.... "The researchers found that the Southern Ocean is becoming less efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide due to an increase in wind strength over the Ocean, resulting from human-induced climate change," Dr. Fraser says. "The increase in wind strength is due to a combination of higher levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and long-term ozone depletion in the stratosphere, which previous CSIRO research has shown intensifies storms over the Southern Ocean." The increased winds influence the processes of mixing and upwelling in the ocean, which in turn cause an increased release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, reducing the net absorption of carbon dioxide into the ocean....

15 May 2007. NASA FINDS VAST REGIONS OF WEST ANTARCTICA MELTED IN RECENT PAST. NASA Earth Observatory. Excerpt: A team of NASA and university scientists has found clear evidence that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warm temperatures. This was the first widespread Antarctic melting ever detected with NASA's QuikScat satellite and the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades. Combined, the affected regions encompassed an area as big as California. Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, led the team. Using data from QuikScat, they measured snowfall accumulation and melt in Antarctica and Greenland from July 1999 through July 2005.
...Evidence of melting was found up to 900 kilometers (560 miles) inland from the open ocean, ...and higher than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level. Maximum air temperatures at the time of the melting were unusually high, reaching more than five degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) in one of the affected areas. They remained above melting for approximately a week. "Antarctica has shown little to no warming in the recent past ... but now large regions are showing the first signs of the impacts of warming as interpreted by this satellite analysis," said Steffen. ...Changes in the ice mass of Antarctica, Earth's largest freshwater reservoir, are important to understanding global sea level rise. Large amounts of Antarctic freshwater flowing into the ocean also could affect ocean salinity, currents and global climate....

9 May 2007. Clean Power That Reaps a Whirlwind. By KEITH BRADSHER, The New York Times. Excerpt: HOUXINQIU, China - The wind turbines rising 180 feet above this dusty village at the hilly edge of Inner Mongolia could be an environmentalist's dream... are also part of a growing dispute over a United Nations program that is the centerpiece of international efforts to help developing countries combat global warming. ...the Clean Development Mechanism, ...raising billions of dollars from rich countries and transferring them to poor countries to curb the emission of global warming gases. ...China is expected to pass the United States this year or next to become the world's largest emitter of global warming gases. ...the Clean Development Mechanism ...has grown at an extraordinary pace, to $4.8 billion in transfer payments to developing countries last year from less than $100 million in 2002. The Clean Development Mechanism ...helps advanced industrial nations stay within their Kyoto Protocol limits for emitting climate-changing gases like carbon dioxide. For each ton of global warming gases that a developing country can prove it has eliminated, the secretariat of the Clean Development Mechanism... awards it a credit. Developing countries sold credits last year... for an average price of $10.70 each. ...China captured $3 billion of the $4.8 billion.... African countries... totaled less than $150 million last year.... Even when very poor countries are able to organize development projects, they may lack expertise and must sometimes pay out as much as half the credits in the form of fees for international consultants and credit brokers. ...before manufacturers can obtain the subsidies, their national governments need to set up a legal framework for handling the money, which some of the poorest countries have not yet been able to do....The wind turbine project here in Houxinqiu ...generates nearly 24 megawatts of electricity that would otherwise come from coal. China is already building enough coal-fired power plants each year to light all of Britain. ...Li Guohai, a local peasant ...explained how he had received free electricity since the wind turbines were erected four years ago. He has saved enough money that he bought an all-steel plow for his mules to pull; the new plow now frees his son to finish junior high school and perhaps go to high school, Mr. Li said. The project is narrowly profitable even without Clean Development Mechanism payments, Mr. Tao, the general manager, said. But the payments made the project more attractive and made it easier to raise money for it.
...the wind farm saves the equivalent of 35,119 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year. At $8 a credit, that is worth $281,000....

6 May 2007. When Carbon Is Currency. By HANNAH FAIRFIELD. NY Times. Excerpt: AMID steadily increasing carbon emissions, and a federal government hesitant to take the lead on climate legislation, 10 states have joined to create the first mandatory carbon cap-and-trade program in the United States. They aim to reduce emissions from power plants by 10 percent in 10 years. Leaders of state environmental and energy regulatory agencies hammered out the detailed model for the program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, over the course of three years. The program sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that the 10 states - as a whole - can emit. Starting in 2009, each state will receive a set amount of carbon credits for its power plants, and each plant must have enough allowances to cover its total emissions at the end of three-year compliance periods. In 2003, George E. Pataki, then New York's governor, invited governors of 10 other states from Maine to Maryland to discuss a program to cut power plant emissions. All but one of the states joined the program; Pennsylvania has observer status. Officials have closely watched the European Union, which started its carbon trading market in 2005. ... In Europe, power companies received these credits directly and could buy or sell from one another as needed. But most companies passed the cost of the credits on to consumers even though they received them free - giving the companies windfall profits. Power companies in Britain alone made about $1 billion from free credits in 2005, according to a study by the British government....

1 May 2007. Arctic Sea Ice Melting Faster, a Study Finds. By ANDREW C. REVKIN, NY Times. Excerpt: Climate scientists may have significantly underestimated the power of global warming from human-generated heat-trapping gases to shrink the cap of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean, according to a new study of polar trends. The study, published online today in Geophysical Research Letters, concluded that an open-water Arctic in summers could be more likely in this century than had been estimated in the latest international review of climate research released in February by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "There are huge changes going on," said Julienne Stroeve, a lead author of the new study and a researcher at the National Snow and Ice Datajn Center in Boulder, Colo. "Just with warm waters entering the Arctic, combined with warming air temperatures, this is wreaking havoc on the sea ice, really." The intergovernmental panel concluded that if emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide were not significantly reduced, the region could end up bereft of floating ice in summers sometime between 2050 and the early decades of the next century....

May 2007. EU hammers out pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Karen H. Kaplan - Physics Today May 2007, page 26. (Full article can only be viewed by members of American Geophysical Union with password) Excerpt: European leaders applauded successful efforts by German chancellor Angela Merkel, current head of the European Union and a physicist, to guide the 27-member bloc in March to an agreement that is widely considered both a critical and impressive step in the battle against climate change....Under the pact, achieved after months of negotiations, the EU will cut greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth from 1990 levels and produce one-fifth of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. As part of the plan, the EU also set a 10% minimum target on the use of biofuels for transport by 2020. The agreement aims to address climate change after the commitments for industrialized nations contained in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012. EU member states are among 140 governments worldwide that participate in Kyoto, which the US refused to ratify (see PHYSICS TODAY, January 2002, page 26)...."We can say to the rest of the world, 'Europe is taking the lead. You should join us in fighting climate change,' " Barroso said....In January 2005, the EU adopted the Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme, under which each member state has a national allocation plan that specifies caps on carbon emissions for individual power plants and other emissions sources. Each facility gets a certain emissions allowance for a particular period. To comply with the cap, facilities can either cut their emissions or buy allowances from other facilities....In BP's hydrogen program, coal is burned to produce CO2 and hydrogen; the CO2 is separated out and buried underground while the hydrogen is burned to generate power. "Needless to say, it's more expensive than the traditional way, just burning the coal and venting the CO2 to the atmosphere," Koonin acknowledged. "But we believe we can reduce costs."

25 April 2007. NASA's AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) spacecraft began its two-year mission. The AIM mission is the first dedicated to exploring mysterious ice clouds that dot the edge of space in Earth's polar regions. These clouds have grown brighter and more prevalent in recent years and some scientists suggest that changes in these clouds may be the result of climate change. With AIM, Hampton University in Virginia becomes the first Historically Black College and University to lead a NASA satellite mission. Dr. James M. Russell, III, professor and co-director of Hampton University's Center for Atmospheric Sciences, is AIMs principal investigator.

24 April 2007. Satellites Offer Sunny Outlook on Understanding Polar Climate, With Help of Cloudy Skies. NASA Goddard News. Excerpt: Far beyond signaling the day's weather, clouds play a key role in regulating and understanding climate. A team of researchers recently completed a project to confirm what NASA satellites are telling us about how changes in clouds can affect climate in the coldest regions on Earth. ... In 2006, NASA simultaneously launched a pair of satellites, CloudSat and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), which together use state-of-the-art instruments as they orbit the globe to reveal detailed information about clouds and their effect on climate. ... "The polar regions are very sensitive indicators of climate change," said Deborah Vane, project manager and deputy principal investigator for the CloudSat mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It's been well reported now that the polar ice caps are undergoing net melting. There's a complicated interaction between clouds and climate in polar regions that can contribute to temperature changes, and, in turn, speed the rate at which ice melts." ...CloudSat peers into clouds from hundreds of miles above to allow researchers a sneak peek into just how cloud droplets change to become rain or snow. CALIPSO uses laser technology called lidar to gather data globally that researchers will use to analyze how clouds and aerosols affect the atmosphere....

24 April, 2007.  First Mission to Explore Those Wisps in the Night Sky. By KENNETH CHANG. NY TIMES. Excerpt:…NASA is launching a small satellite to take a closer look at these clouds at the edge of outer space and to try to understand why, in recent years, they are appearing more often over more parts of the world. They are also becoming brighter. The clouds are called noctilucent or "night shining," because from the ground they can be seen only at night as they float about 50 miles above the surface, illuminated by light from a Sun that has already set below the horizon.  The clouds form in the polar regions from mid-May to mid-August in the Northern Hemisphere, mid-November to mid-February in the Southern Hemisphere…A British sky watcher named Thomas William Backhouse was perhaps the first to notice the odd blue wisps in 1885, and many scientists thought that the phenomenon was an atmospheric effect caused by ash thrown up by the gigantic volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia two years earlier. Although the ash settled out of the air, the noctilucent clouds persisted and spread …..Since 1980, when regular space-based observations of noctilucent clouds began, their number has increased about 28 percent per decade, and they are reflecting more light, because the ice crystals are bigger….."The most plausible and leading theory is CO2 buildup, which causes global warming," Dr. Russell said. Increasing temperatures near the surface actually cause the upper part of the atmosphere to cool, and cooler temperatures could spur the formation of more clouds. "If that's true and we are changing the atmosphere in a remote location like this, that means we're changing the entire atmosphere," he said…..

23 April 2007. Climate Change Adds Twist to Debate Over Dams. By William Yardley. NY TIMES. KLAMATH FALLS, Ore., April 19 - Excerpt: The power company that  owns  four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River says the dams provide a crucial source of so-called clean energy at a time when carbon emissions have become one of the world's foremost environmental concerns. The clean-energy argument has entered a debate over dams. But the American Indians, fishermen and environmentalists who want the dams removed point  to what has happened since the first one was built nearly 90 years ago: endangered salmon have been blocked from migrating, Indian livelihoods have been threatened, and, more recently, the commercial fishing industry off the Oregon and California coasts has been devastated.. …The Klamath dams provide enough power to serve about 70,000 homes, a small fraction of PacifiCorp's 1.6 million customers, which span six Western states. But the company says only coal or natural gas are likely to be reliable enough to replace the river, which hits hydroelectric turbines four times on its way to the sea from east of the snow-capped Cascade Range. Those who support removing the dams largely dismiss the clean-energy argument, saying the benefits outweigh losing a relatively small source of hydropower. They note that PacifiCorp's increased interest in the environment comes as recent rulings by judges and federal fisheries agencies have given new momentum for removal. The company's federal license to run the dams expired last year, and the government has said PacifiCorp must build fish ladders over the four dams to get a new license, a proposition that could cost $300 million and reduce the power the dams generate, potentially making removal a less costly choice……The Klamath runs more than 250 miles from southwest Oregon to the California coast, connecting two states where power and water supply have long been contentious issues……The Northwest, where more than 80 percent of the power generated comes from hydroelectricity, has long had some of the lowest electricity rates in the nation. It has also been the setting for epic environmental fights that reflect the tension across the region's topographic and demographic divides……

19 April 2007. SCIENTISTS TRACK IMPACT OF ASIAN DUST AND POLLUTION ON CLOUDS, CLIMATE CHANGE. NASA Earth Observatory. Excerpt: Scientists using one of the nation's newest and most capable research aircraft are launching a far-reaching field project this month to study plumes of airborne dust and pollutants that originate in Asia and journey to North America ...Known as PACDEX (Pacific Dust Experiment), the project will be led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. ...The first mission will be launched in late April, depending on weather patterns in Asia. It will continue for two months.
To study the changes in the plumes as they move through the atmosphere from Japan to the western United States, the PACDEX team will deploy the NSF Gulfstream-V aircraft.... ...explains NCAR scientist Jeff Stith, a principal investigator on the project... "We want to determine how the various particles of dust and pollutants influence clouds and climate, and how far downwind those effects occur." ...As Asia's economies boom, scientists are increasingly turning their attention to the plumes, which pack a combination of industrial emissions (such as soot, smog, and trace metals) and dust from storms in regions such as Central Asia's Gobi Desert. The plumes can alter global temperatures by interacting with large-scale, mid-latitude cloud systems over the Pacific that reflect enormous amounts of sunlight and help regulate global climate....

7 April 2007. Late Changes Made Report More Dire, and Less. By ANDREW C. REVKIN. NY Times. Excerpt: Since it was created in 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been criticized from all sides at one time or another. ...The summaries of the panel's voluminous reports are fought over with particular vigor, especially at the point when they must pass muster with governments before they are officially approved. In final work among authors and a late-night showdown between authors and government officials, the wording of the latest report was adjusted in some cases to play up uncertainty and in others to spell out the downside of climate-related trends. In at least one section, on climate impacts in Europe, those with a more dire view clearly had their way. "In Southern Europe, climate change is projected to worsen conditions (high temperatures and drought) in a region already vulnerable to climate variability, and to reduce water availability, hydropower potential, summer tourism, and in general, crop productivity. It is also projected to increase health risks due to heat waves and the frequency of wildfires." "In Central and Eastern Europe, summer precipitation is projected to decrease, causing higher water stress." "Health risks due to heat waves are projected to increase. Forest productivity is expected to decline and the frequency of peatland fires to increase." In Northern Europe, climate change is initially projected to bring mixed effects, including some benefits such as reduced demand for heating, increased crop yields and increased forest growth. However, as climate change continues, its negative impacts (including more frequent winter floods, endangered ecosystems and increasing ground instability) are likely to outweigh its benefits." "Many millions more people are projected to be flooded every year due to sea-level rise by the 2080s. Those densely populated and low-lying areas where adaptive capacity is relatively low, and which already face other challenges such as tropical storms or local coastal subsidence, are especially at risk."

7 April 2007. Scientists Detail Climate Changes, Poles to Tropics. By JAMES KANTER and ANDREW C. REVKIN. NY Times. Excerpt: BRUSSELS, April 6 - In its most detailed portrait of the effects of climate change driven by human activities, the panel predicted widening droughts in southern Europe and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the American Southwest and Mexico, and flooding that could imperil low-lying islands and the crowded river deltas of southern Asia. It stressed that many of the regions facing the greatest risks were among the world's poorest. And it said that while limits on smokestack and tailpipe emissions could lower the long-term risks, vulnerable regions must adjust promptly to shifting weather patterns, climatic and coastal hazards, and rising seas.
Without such adaptations, it said, a rise of 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century could lead to the inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of millions of people. But if steady investments are made in seawalls and other coastal protections, vulnerability could be sharply reduced. The group, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also noted that the climate shifts would benefit some regions - leading to more rainfall and longer growing seasons in high latitudes, open Arctic seaways and fewer deaths from the cold. ...Under pressure from nations including Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, the authors said, sections on coral damage and tropical storms were softened in the summary. ....

5 April 2007. U.N. Draft Cites Humans in Recent Climate Shifts By ANDREW C. REVKIN. NY Times. Excerpt: The latest United Nations assessment of the role of humans in global warming has found with "high confidence" that greenhouse gas emissions are at least partly responsible for a host of changes already under way, including longer growing seasons and shrinking glaciers. ...Some of the changes could be beneficial, but most will prove harmful in the long run, the report says. It finds that global warming caused by humans has almost certainly contributed to recent shifts in ecosystems, weather patterns, oceans and icy regions, and that it will have large and lasting effects on human affairs and on the planet's web of life in this century. The draft report predicts a variety of health effects as well, with "increased deaths, disease and injury due to heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts," but also "some benefits to health such as fewer deaths from cold." Also in the plus column, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide... are contributing to a greener world.... "Based on satellite observations since the early 1980s, ...there has been a trend in many regions towards earlier greening of vegetation in the spring and increased net primary production linked to longer growing seasons and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations," it said. ...Water supplies fed by alpine snows or ice sheets are already experiencing changes and could be greatly disrupted.... Among other findings, the draft says: "Coasts are very likely to be exposed to increasing risks due to climate change and sea-level rise, and the effect will be exacerbated by increasing human-induced pressures on coastal areas." "It is likely that corals will experience a major decline due to increased bleaching and mortality due to rising seawater temperatures." Many of the world's regions that are already vulnerable to climate and coastal hazards are likely to see the biggest effects from additional changes driven by the buildup of greenhouse gases. "Poor communities can be especially vulnerable," it says, "because they tend to be concentrated in relatively high-risk areas, have more limited coping capacities, and can be more dependent on climate-sensitive resources such as local water and food supplies." ....

13 March 2007. Britain Aims for CO2 - Limit Target Dates. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt: LONDON (AP) -- Britain proposed setting legally binding targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions, saying Tuesday it wanted to lead by example in the global campaign against climate change. Environment Secretary David Miliband said the bill, which includes targets for reducing emissions that must be achieved by 2020 and 2050, was ''the first of its kind in any country. The debate on climate change has shifted from whether we need to act to how much we need to do by when, and the economic implications of doing so,'' he said....

9 March 2007. EU Leaders Agree to Cut Greenhouse Gases. By Paul Ames, The Associated Press. Excerpt: European Union leaders on Friday endorsed binding targets to cut greenhouse gases and ensure a fifth of the bloc's energy comes from green power such as wind turbines and solar panels. The deal also noted the role nuclear power could play in tackling greenhouse gas emissions, an inclusion not welcomed by all leaders. ...European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the measures "the most ambitious package ever agreed by any institution on energy security and climate change."...European leaders hope their commitment to tackling climate change will encourage other leading polluters like the United States and China to agree on deep emissions cuts.
...The deal contains a reference to the role of nuclear power, a demand of the French, Czechs, Slovaks and others who argued it could play a crucial part in helping Europe move away from carbon fuels. ...Austria, Ireland and Denmark did not want the EU to sanction nuclear power, and the German government is split over whether to develop atomic energy. "Our Austrian attitude toward sustainable energy definitely does not include nuclear energy," Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik told reporters. Friends of the Earth said it was appalled by the mention of nuclear power. "Nuclear energy is too expensive," said Jan Kowalzig, a campaigner with the group. "Nations should invest more cleverly in developing other energy sources." He called the 20 percent target for renewables "too low," but said the group was pleased it was binding.

2 March 2007. UN REPORT EXCLUSIVE - Climate Change Impact More Extensive than Thought. By Volker Mrasek, Spiegel Online. Excerpt: Global climate change is happening faster than previously believed and its impact is worse than expected, information from an as-yet unpublished draft of the long-awaited second part of a United Nations report obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE reveals. No region of the planet will be spared and some will be hit especially hard....The second part of the [IPCC] report is to be presented in April .... The main conclusion of the report is that climate change is already having a profound effect on all the continents and on many of the Earth's ecosystems. The draft presents a long list of evidence:

• Glacial lakes are increasing in both size and number, potentially leading to deadly floods.
• Permafrost in mountainous regions and at high latitudes is warming increasing the danger of land slides.
• As the temperature of rivers and lakes rises, their thermal stratification and water quality is changing.
• River currents, affected by melting glaciers and ice, are speeding up during the spring.
• Springtime is starting earlier, causing plants to bloom earlier and changing the migrations of birds.
• Many plants and animals are expanding their habitats into mountainous regions and higher latitudes that are becoming milder.....
  Many natural resources are likely to fall victim to climate change according to the IPCC draft report:
• Some 20 to 30 percent of all species face a "high risk of extinction" should average global temperatures rise another 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius from their 1990 levels. That could happen by 2050, the report warns.
• Coral reefs are "likely to undergo strong declines."
• Salt marshes and mangrove forests could disappear as sea levels rise.
• Tropical rainforests will be replaced by savanna in those regions where groundwater decreases.
• Migratory birds and mammals will suffer as vegetation zones in the Artic shift.
  The IPCC expects the following world regions to suffer the most due to climate change:
• The Arctic due to the greatest relative warming
• Small island states in the Pacific as sea levels rise
• Africa south of the Sahel zone due to drought
• Densely populated river deltas in Asia amid flooding....

25 February 2007. LAKES UNDER ANTARCTIC ICE LINKED TO SEA LEVEL RISE - This broadcast of Earth & Sky radio show featured NASA scientist Bob Bindschadler. The show is also available to download as an audio Podcast.

18 February 2007. FROM ICEHOUSE TO HOTHOUSE: MELTING ICE AND RISING CARBON DIOXIDE CAUSED CLIMATE SHIFT. Three hundred million years ago, Earth's climate shifted dramatically from icehouse to hothouse, with major environmental consequences.

15 February 2007. Study Questions Prospects for Much Lower Emissions. By MATTHEW L. WALD, NY Times. Excerpt: As Democratic leaders in Congress prepare to put climate change legislation on the agenda, some in the utility industry are arguing that it will take decades of investments and innovation to get substantial reductions in their emissions of greenhouse gases. Electric power companies, which emit about one-third of America's global warming gases, could reduce their emissions to below the levels of 1990, but that would take about 20 years, no matter how much the utilities spend, according to a new industry study. The report, prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit consortium, is portrayed as highly optimistic by its authors, who will present the findings on Thursday at an energy conference in Houston. It assumes that "money grows on trees and all research is successful," said one of them, Bryan J. Hannegan. "This is as good as we think we can get, right now." ...The 1990 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which the Bush administration declined to support in 2001, calls for emissions from large industrial nations to be below 1990 levels by about the year 2010. In an interview, Dr. Hannegan said that cutting carbon dioxide that much would mean pursuing every option, including energy efficiency, zero-carbon wind and sun power; new nuclear reactors; coal plants that capture and sequester their carbon; and even plug-in hybrid electric cars, which would require making more electricity but would reduce carbon dioxide and save gasoline....

15 February 2007. California Air Resources Board (ARB) public workshop on proposed regulations to expand the existing Smog Index Label to include a Global Warming Index Label. See the Vehicle Emissions Labeling web site located at: http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/labeling/labeling.htm. Other interesting info at http://www.arb.ca.gov

7 February 2007. China Says Rich Countries Should Take Lead on Global Warming. By JIM YARDLEY, NY Times. Excerpt: BEIJING, Feb. 6 - China said Tuesday that wealthier countries must take the lead in curbing greenhouse gas emissions and refused to say whether it would agree to any mandatory emissions limits that might hamper its booming economy. Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, said ... "It must be pointed out that climate change has been caused by the long-term historic emissions of developed countries and their high per capita emissions," she said, adding that developed countries have responsibilities for global warming "that cannot be shirked." ...China is the world's second largest emitter of the greenhouse gases contributing to climate change, .... Last November, the International Energy Agency in Paris predicted that China would pass the United States in emissions of carbon dioxide in 2009. ...Qin Dahe, chief of the China Meteorological Administration, told reporters ... "President Hu Jintao has said that climate change is not just an environmental issue but also ... ultimately a development issue." ..."As a developing country that's growing rapidly and has a big population, to thoroughly transform the energy structure and use clean energy would need a lot of money," Mr. Qin said, according to Reuters....

6 February 2007. SCIENTIST AT WORK SUSAN SOLOMON - Melding Science and Diplomacy to Run a Global Climate Review. By ANDREW C. REVKIN NY Times. Excerpt: ..."Thomas Jefferson once said something like, 'Science is my passion, politics my duty,' " Dr. Solomon, 51, said Sunday.... "That's probably how I think about it, too. Science does have a duty, when called upon, to provide information that's important to society the best way it can." In place of making expeditions to the South Pole and Greenland, her old stomping grounds, she spent chunks of the last five years hunkered in gray buildings in Beijing, New Delhi, Marrakech and Paris running meeting after meeting of experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel was convened by the United Nations in 1988 ... to provide regular reviews of climate science to governments to inform policy choices. Dr. Solomon, a senior scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Qin Dahe, head of the Chinese meteorological agency, were charged with generating the fourth report and summary since 1990 of advances in climate science. The final editing ... involved approval by 113 governments. Several participants credited Dr. Solomon with ensuring that last-minute demands, particularly from China and the United States, did not derail the process or distort the science. ...When a reporter asked Dr. Solomon "to sum up what kind of urgency this sort of report should convey to policy makers," she gave the furthest thing from a convenient sound bite. "I can only give you something that's going to disappoint you, sir, and that is that it's my personal scientific approach to say it's not my role to try to communicate what should be done," Dr. Solomon said. "I believe that is a societal choice. I believe science is one input to that choice, and I also believe that science can best serve society by refraining from going beyond its expertise.... Dr. Solomon, who fell in love with science at age 9 after watching Jacques Cousteau's films about the sea, said she was unfazed by the pressures of working on the panel. She faces months of additional work on reports related to the summary. After that, she said, she plans to take a little time off and, for the first time, really, enjoy the Rocky Mountains around her base in Boulder, Colo. "I'm going to learn how to fish," she said.

2 February 2007. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report was released. Download the 21 page document. See also NY Times article:
Science Panel Calls Global Warming 'Unequivocal' By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ANDREW C. REVKIN, Published NY Times: February 3, 2007. Excerpt: PARIS, Feb. 2 - In a grim and powerful assessment of the future of the planet, the leading international network of climate scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is "unequivocal" and that human activity is the main driver, "very likely" causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950. ..."In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely than climate change to affect the future of our children," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program.... The report is the panel's fourth assessment ... global climate is likely to warm 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit if carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reach twice the levels of 1750, before the Industrial Revolution. ...It forecasts a [sea level] rise of 7 to 23 inches by 2100 and concludes that seas will continue to rise for at least 1,000 years to come. ...John P. Holdren, an energy and climate expert at Harvard, said the report "powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable. Since 2001, there has been a torrent of new scientific evidence on the magnitude, human origins and growing impacts of the climatic changes that are under way," said Mr. Holdren, who is the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "In overwhelming proportions, this evidence has been in the direction of showing faster change, more danger and greater confidence about the dominant role of fossil-fuel burning and tropical deforestation in causing the changes that are being observed.".....

10 January 2007. Agency Affirms Human Influence on Climate. By ANDREW C. REVKIN NY Times. Excerpt: ... until yesterday, it appeared that no news release on annual climate trends out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Bush White House had said unequivocally that a buildup of greenhouse gases was helping warm the climate. The statement came in a release that said 2006 was the warmest year for the 48 contiguous states since regular temperature records began in 1895. It surpassed the previous champion, 1998, a year heated up by a powerful episode of the periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean by El Ni–o. Last year, another El Ni–o developed, but this time a long-term warming trend from human activities was said to be involved as well. "A contributing factor to the unusually warm temperatures throughout 2006 also is the long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases," the release said, emphasizing that the relative contributions of El Ni–o and the human influence were not known. A link between greenhouse gases and climate change was also made in a December news conference by Dirk Kempthorne, the secretary of the interior, as that agency proposed listing polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Still, the climate agency's shift in language came as a surprise to several public affairs officials there. They said they had become accustomed in recent years to having any mention of a link between climate trends and human activities played down or trimmed when drafts of documents went to the Commerce Department and the White House for approval. ....

10 January 2007. Schwarzenegger Orders Cuts in Emissions. By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and FELICITY BARRINGER. NY Times. Excerpt: SACRAMENTO, Jan. 9 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he would ask regulators to require the state's petroleum refiners and gasoline sellers to cut by 10 percent the emissions of heat-trapping gases associated with the production and use of their products. ...It is the first example of the practical impact of a deal made last summer between the Legislature and the governor to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 25 percent by 2020. The transportation sector is responsible for about 40 percent of the state's carbon dioxide emissions, state officials said, and cars make up about half that amount. The 10 percent cut in emissions would be accomplished, experts said, largely through the use of alternative fuels, like ethanol and other gasoline blends, which would be provided by the refineries and other producers. Hal Harvey, the environmental program director for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, called Mr. Schwarzenegger's plan "a really big deal." "In my opinion there are no successful rules anywhere in the world, except Brazil, to get carbon out of fuels," Mr. Harvey said. ...Mr. Harvey and Fred Krupp, the president of Environmental Defense, said they hoped that the California approach would be a template for other governments, whether in state capitals, in Washington or abroad. The plan, Mr. Harvey said, is unusual in its focus on the so-called cradle-to-grave emissions associated with each fuel. In the case of ethanol, this can mean carbon emissions generated in the production of fertilizer, in the planting and harvesting of corn, in distilling the fuel and, finally, in transporting it to the distributor and burning it in a car. Thus, two otherwise identical gallons of ethanol could have different greenhouse-gas ratings, if one were refined using carbon-intensive coal-fired electricity, while the other was refined using relatively carbon-light electricity from natural gas.....

Archive of Past Articles for Chapter 8

TOP