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Monday, March 31, 2014

UN’s expert panel IPCC issues devastating report: Impact of global warming ‘irreversible’


UN’s expert panel IPCC issues devastating report: Impact of global warming ‘irreversible’

By Agence France-Presse

Monday, March 31, 2014 7:51 EDT


The United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland and Norway host a global population of 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears (AFP)

Topics:



Yokohama (Japan) (AFP) Mon 31 Mar 2014 08:18:08 AM EDT

 
A young girl walks through a heavily flooded part of the Tomping camp for internal refugees after heavy rains started to fall in Juba on March 13, 2014
Charles Lomodong/AFP/File


A young girl walks through a heavily flooded part of the Tomping camp for internal refugees after heavy rains started to fall in Juba on March 13, 2014

Soaring carbon emissions will amplify the risk of conflict, hunger, floods and mass migration this century, the UN's expert panel said Monday in a landmark report on the impact of climate change.

Left unchecked, greenhouse gas emissions may cost trillions of dollars in damage to property and ecosystems, and in bills for shoring up climate defences, it said, adding the impact would increase with every additional degree that temperatures rise.

"Increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts," a summary said, in a stark message to policymakers.

The report is the second chapter of the fifth assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up in 1988 to provide neutral, science-based guidance to governments.



The last overview, published in 2007, unleashed a wave of political action that at one point appeared set to forge a worldwide treaty on climate change in Copenhagen in 2009.


Map detailing economic damage predicted if climate change continues unchecked
/AFP

Map detailing economic damage predicted if climate change continues unchecked


But a global consensus failed to emerge as the developing world and developed world squabbled, with big polluters like China insisting it was up to rich countries to take the lead, arguing they could not be expected to sacrifice growth.

And in the United States, President Barack Obama's attempts at passing climate change legislation have been stymied in Congress, where some Republicans remain unconvinced of the scientific case for warming and argue that mitigation efforts are an unnecessary block on economic growth.

The new document, unveiled in Yokohama after a five-day meeting, gives the starkest warning yet by the IPCC of extreme consequences from climate change, and delves into greater detail than ever before into the impact at regional level.


It builds on previous IPCC forecasts that global temperatures will rise 0.3-4.8 degrees Celsius (0.5-8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, on top of roughly 0.7 Celsius since the Industrial Revolution.

Seas are forecast to rise by 26-82 centimetres (10-32 inches) by 2100.


- Security risk -

Greenpeace activists protest against global warming outside the venue for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo, on March 30, 2014
Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP


Greenpeace activists protest against global warming outside the venue for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo, on March 30, 2014


Warming of around two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times may cost 0.2-2.0 percent of global annual income, said the new report. UN members have pledged to hammer out a global pact by the end of 2015 to limit warming to 2 C above pre-industrial levels.

The impact amplifies with every degree, and beyond 4 C could be disastrous, said the report.

Climate change could drive turbulence and conflict, prompted by migration from newly uninhabitable areas and jockeying for water and food, it said.


"There are many things that make people vulnerable, and when you combine a climate shock with these factors, you can have bad outcomes," said Chris Field, co-chair of the conference.

"With high levels of warming that result from continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions, risks will be challenging to manage, and even serious, sustained investments in adaptation will face limits."


Large floating contraptions, used by scientists to predict the acidity in the oceans sit offshore the scientific outpost of Ny-Alesund on June 3, 2010
Martin Bureau/AFP/File

Large floating contraptions, used by scientists to predict the acidity in the oceans sit offshore the scientific outpost of Ny-Alesund on June 3, 2010


Rainfall patterns will be disrupted, resulting in a significantly higher flood risk, especially for Europe and Asia -- and magnified drought risks will add to water stress in arid, heavily populated areas, the report said.

This, in turn, will have consequences for agriculture. Yields of staples such as wheat, rice and corn will be squeezed, just as demand will soar because of population growth, it predicts.

The report says climate change will also have a ricochet effect on health, through the spread of mosquito- or water-borne diseases and heatwaves.


Vulnerable plant and animal species, especially in fragile coral reefs and Arctic habitats, could be wiped out.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the document sounded an alarm that could not be ignored.


- Denial is 'malpractice' -

The Los Laureles dam, which supplies with potable water one million inhabitants of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, at a critically low level due to the drought, on March 27, 2014
Orlando Sierra/AFP/File

The Los Laureles dam, which supplies with potable water one million inhabitants of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, at a critically low level due to the drought, on March 27, 2014


"Unless we act dramatically and quickly, science tells us our climate and our way of life are literally in jeopardy," he said. "Denial of the science is malpractice.


"There are those who say we can't afford to act. But waiting is truly unaffordable. The costs of inaction are catastrophic," he added.


The report said the danger could be substantially reduced, especially for those alive at the end of the century, if greenhouse gas emissions are cut swiftly.


Even so, countries will have to shore up their defences -- for instance, by making water supplies, coastal areas, homes and transport more climate-resilient.


Many of the measures for adapting to climate change -- reducing water wastage, planting parks to ease heat build-up in cities, and preventing people from settling in risky areas -- are cheap and achievable, it said.


The report was hailed by campaign groups as a call to arms for political leaders around the world.


"It's not just polar bears, coral reefs and the rain forest under threat. It is us," said Kaisa Kosonen, senior political adviser for Greenpeace International.


"Climate change's impact can now be detected everywhere. It's already hurting us. How bad it will get depends on the choices we will make.


"Governments own this report. Now we expect them to take it home and act on it."


Tom Mitchell of the Overseas Development Institute, a British think tank, said a lowering of ambitions since the failure of Copenhagen might allow progress towards a global plan of action to combat the problem.


"I'm more hopeful that we'll get some kind of agreement, but it's not going to be quite the one that the world needs," he said.

Climate change boosts conflict risk, floods, hunger: UN

Climate change boosts conflict risk, floods, hunger: UN (via AFP)
Soaring carbon emissions will amplify the risk of conflict, hunger, floods and mass migration this century, the UN's expert panel said Monday in a landmark report on the impact of climate change. Left unchecked, greenhouse gas emissions may cost trillions…

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Do Skeptics ‘Reposition’ Warming as ‘Theory’ or Do Alarmists ‘Reposition’ Fear as ‘Fact’? Revisiting an Urban Legend


Global.Warming.org


Post image for Do Skeptics ‘Reposition’ Warming as ‘Theory’ or Do Alarmists ‘Reposition’ Fear as ‘Fact’? Revisiting an Urban Legend

How many times have you heard climate activists claim skeptics are just latter-day “tobacco scientists?” Google “tobacco scientists” and “global warming,” and you’ll get about 1,110,000 results. With so much (ahem) smoke, surely there must be some fire, right?

Al Gore helped popularize this endlessly repeated allegation. In An Inconvenient Truth (p. 263), he contends that just as tobacco companies cynically funded corrupt scientists to cast doubt on the Surgeon General’s report linking cigarette smoking to cancer, so fossil fuel companies fund “skeptics” to create the appearance of scientific controversy where none exists.

Here’s the pertinent passage:
The misconception that there is serious disagreement among scientists about global warming is actually an illusion that has been deliberately fostered by a relatively small but extremely well-funded cadre of special interests, including Exxon Mobil and a few other oil, coal, and utilities companies. These companies want to prevent any new policies that would interfere with their current business plans that rely on the massive unrestrained dumping of global warming pollution into the Earth’s atmosphere every hour of every day.
One of the internal memos prepared by this group to guide the employees they hired to run their disinformation campaign was discovered by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ross Gelbspan. Here was the group’s stated objective: to “reposition global warming as theory, rather than fact.”
This technique has been used before. The tobacco industry, 40 years ago, reacted to the historic Surgeon General’s report linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer and other lung diseases by organizing a similar disinformation campaign.
One of their memos, prepared in the 1960s, was recently uncovered during one of the lawsuits against the tobacco companies in behalf of the millions of people who have been killed by their product. It is interesting to read it 40 years later in the context of the global warming campaign:
“Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing controversy.” Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company memo, 1960s
There’s just one problem with this tale of corruption and intrigue — much of it is false and all of it is misleading. Let’s examine the flaws in this urban legend, going from minor to major.


First, Gore’s alleged source, Ross Gelbspan, is not a Pulitzer Prize winner. Gelbspan’s 1997 book, The Heat Is On, supposedly exposes how fossil fuel companies and conservative politicians collude to ”confuse the public about global warming.” The jacket of the book describes Gelbspan as a “Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist.” But former JunkScience.Com blogger Steve Milloy searched the list of Pulitzer journalists, and found that Gelbspan was not among them. Gelbspan later claimed only to have conceived, directed, and edited a series of articles that won a Pulitzer in 1984.

Second, Gelbspan was not the source of Gore’s story. Gore discussed the leaked documents in his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance (p. 360), which was published five years before Gelbspan’s book. So how did Gore find out about it? Blogger Russell Cook notes that the documents were first “reported in a 1991 New York Times article which claimed they came from an unnamed source at the Sierra Club.”

Why did Gore credit Gelbspan with breaking the story? Who knows! Maybe because information sourced to “Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter” sounds credible even if the reporter neither won a Pulitzer nor broke the story.

Third, Gore gives the false impression that ExxonMobil and other oil companies were part of the “group” behind the “disinformation campaign” supposedly revealed in the memo that Gelbspan supposedly “discovered.”

The memo was one of several documents drafted by an ad hoc group calling itself Information Council for the Environment. ICE was a project of Southern Company (an electric utility) and Western Fuels Association (a non-profit supply cooperative of consumer-owned electric utilities). No oil companies were involved.

Fourth, the documents are not an adopted plan to ”reposition” global warming but a proposal to “test market” the effectiveness of such messaging.
The actual objectives of the project were to:
1) Demonstrate that a consumer-based media awareness program can positively change the opinions of a selected population regarding the validity of global warming.
2) Begin to develop a message and strategy for shaping public opinion on a national scale.
3) Lay the solid groundwork for a unified national electric industry voice on global warming.
The plan was never developed, much less implemented. As the 1991 New York Times article reported, different members of the electric utility industry took different positions on climate change:
The utility industry is divided on the question of global warming. Two California utilities, Southern California Edison, the nation’s second-largest utility after the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and the Los Angeles Water and Power Department, the largest municipal company, volunteered in May to cut their carbon-dioxide emissions by 20 percent in the next 20 years. Most of the savings, they said, would come from efficiency improvements in lighting, motors and cooling that would pay for themselves.
The Arizona Public Service Company, which serves Flagstaff, declined an invitation to participate in ICE. Mark De Michele, president and chief executive, did not reply to repeated phone calls seeking comment. But he told The Arizona Daily Sun in May, “The subject matter is far too complex and could be far more severe than the ads make of it for the subject to be dealt with in a slick ad campaign.”
The Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group based in Washington that also helped organize the ICE campaign, takes the position that because of the possibility that climate change is a real threat, steps should be taken to cut carbon-dioxide output if those steps are justifiable for other reasons — for example, saving money through higher efficiency or reducing the output of sulfur dioxide from power plants. That chemical causes acid rain.
Some of the advertising messages test-marketed in Flagstaff, Ariz., Bowling Green, Ky., and Fargo, N.D., were goofy. From the Times article:
In Bowling Green, an ad showed a cartoon horse in earmuffs and scarf and said, “If the Earth is getting warmer, why is Kentucky getting colder?” Another, with a cartoon man bundled up and holding a snow shovel, appeared in Minnesota and substituted “Minneapolis” for “Kentucky.”
Did any skeptical scientists endorse those messages? No. As the Times reported, Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, and Sherwood Idso, the ICE science advisory panel, ”said in telephone interviews that the salient element in two of the ads, that some areas might be getting cooler, did not contradict the theory of global warming.” The article also reported that Balling and Michaels “have both asked to have their names removed from future mailings.”

Indeed, as Gelbspan acknowledged in his book, “Michaels has insisted that he dissociated himself from the ICE campaign when he learned of what he called its ‘blatant dishonesty.’” When Balling and Michaels pulled out, the ICE project collapsed. So much for the grand fossil-fueled conspiracy.

Fifth, there is no shame in repositioning as theory that which is not fact.* The “repositioning” memo is dated May 15, 1991 — four and a half years before the IPCC famously concluded, in November 1995, that the ”balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate.” Note too that the IPCC’s iconic formulation is not an assertion of what is demonstrably true, only an assessment of what the “balance of evidence” “suggests.”

From 1979 to 1991, two of the three main data sources — satellites and radiosondes (weather balloons) — showed no warming or even a slight cooling trend in the bulk atmosphere (troposphere). It was the land record that was the odd man out. Given that radiosondes were calibrated to measure global temperature and the satellites were specifically designed for that purpose, while the surface network was designed to measure agricultural weather, which should objective scientists trust least?

In 1998, the Remote System Sensing (RSS) team led by Frank Wentz discovered an orbital decay-induced spurious cooling in the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH) satellite record. The UAH scientists corrected their record, the balloon record was also revised, so all three records showed a warming trend. Only at that point did global (as distinct from urban or local) warming become a “fact” — a trend confirmed by multiple independent observations. But then, irony of ironies, global warming plateaued in the RSS record, and “the pause” has persisted for 17 and a half years.

Even today, calling anthropogenic global warming a ”fact” – meaning conclusively demonstrated – would still be an exaggeration.

A study published last year by Benjamin Santer and colleagues in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, alluding to the IPCC’s iconic attribution statement, proudly proclaimed “clear evidence for a discernible human influence on the thermal structure of the atmosphere.” Since 1979, the middle atmosphere has warmed (albeit less than predicted) while the stratosphere has cooled. This observed pattern matches the model-predicted vertical structure (“fingerprint”) of anthropogenic climate change.

Why is that evidence of anthropogenic warming? If the Sun were responsible for global warming, the stratosphere should also get warmer. But if warming is due to rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the troposphere, then the stratosphere should cool because more upwelling heat is trapped in the layer beneath it.

Santer et al., however, chose their words carefully — perhaps artfully. A “discernible human influence” can include the cooling effects of manufactured substances, chiefly hydroflourocarbons, that destroy ozone in the troposphere. Ozone is itself a greenhouse (heat absorbing) gas. So some significant part of stratospheric cooling could be due to ozone depletion rather than to greenhouse gas emissions trapping more heat in the troposphere. A study cited by the Santer team, led by one of its co-authors, acknowledges that possibility:
In the mid and upper stratosphere the simulated natural and combined anthropogenic responses are detectable and consistent with observations, but the influences of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances could not be separately detected in our analysis.
Sixth, when read in context, “reposition as theory, rather than fact” refers not to anthropogenic warming per se but to the prediction “that higher levels of carbon dioxide will bring a catastrophic global warming.” For example, an ICE document quotes then University of Virginia climatologist Patrick Michaels: “I am one of many scientists who believe the vision of catastrophic global warming is distorted.”

The key climate science question for policymakers and citizens is not whether anthropogenic global warming is real but whether, in Al Gore’s words, climate change is “a planetary emergency — a crisis that threatens the survival of civilization and the habitability of the Earth.” The climate alarm narrative was not a “fact” in 1991 and certainly is not today.

Mounting evidence indicates that the climate is substantially less sensitive (reactive) to greenhouse gas emissions than “consensus” science had assumed. The oft-asserted link between warming and extreme weather continues to elude researchers. More importantly, the climate trilogy of terror – ocean circulation collapse, rapid ice sheet disintegration, and runaway climate change (the methane “bomb”) – has far less scientific plausibility today than it did in 1991.**

Gore and other climate campaigners have been trying for decades to reposition fear as fact. Their j’accuse directed at skeptics is Orwellian.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

* In colloquial English, a “theory” is any supposition or hypothesis, which may or may not jibe with “facts” or observations. In strict scientific parlance, however, a “theory” is the highest form of cognition. As one commentator explains:
A theory is really one of the pinnacles of science – what nearly everyone strives to make out of their hypotheses. A hypothesis is elevated to a theory when it has withstood all attempts to falsify it. Experiment after experiment has shown it sufficient to explain all observations that it encompasses. In other words, a “theory” has never been shown to be false, despite – usually – hundreds if not thousands of separate attempts to break it. It explains the observations with one or more mechanisms and, because it provides that mechanism, it is considered to be above the level of a Law.
** For references to the peer-reviewed literature, see pp. 23-26 of the free-market organizations’ comment letter on the social cost of carbon.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Climate Change: ‘Abrupt,’ ‘Unpredictable,’ ‘Irreversible’ and ‘Highly Damaging’







Climate Change: ‘Abrupt,’ ‘Unpredictable,’ ‘Irreversible’ and ‘Highly Damaging’



Waves crash against the cliffs of Big Sur, Calif. A new report says erosion could cause coastal cliffs to retreat more than 100 feet by 2100. April 2005. (AP Photo/Anja Schlein, FILE)
 
(AP Photo/Anja Schlein)
 
 
In a rare move, the world’s largest scientific society released a report nudging the public to wake up to the scientifically sound and increasingly frightening reality of climate change.

“As scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do or must believe about the rising threat of climate change,” the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) wrote in the introduction to its new report, “What We Know.” “But we consider it to be our responsibility as professionals to ensure, to the best of our ability, that people understand what we know: human-caused climate change is happening, we face risks of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes and responding now will lower the risk and cost of taking action.”

“They are very clearly saying that we as the scientific community are completely convinced, based upon the evidence, that climate change is happening and human-caused,” said Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. “The more people understand that the experts have reached this agreement, the more they in turn decide, ‘well, then I think it’s happening, and I think it’s human-caused, and I think it’s a serious problem, and in turn it increases people’s support for policy.”


The report noted that even though 97 percent of experts agree climate change is happening and we humans are causing it, Americans remain under the impression that the question is still unsettled. According to a 2013 report by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, 33 percent of Americans said they believed there was widespread disagreement among scientists and four percent said that “most scientists think global warming is not happening.” Only 42 percent of Americans knew that “most scientists think global warming is happening.”

These numbers suggest that disinformation circulated by the fossil fuel industry, utility companies and their political and media allies has successfully confused the public about the truth of global warming. Spreading the perception that scientists are still undecided is key to their strategy.

Leiserowitz likened it to the campaign waged for decades by tobacco companies. “This in fact was [Big Tobacco's] primary strategy — to sow doubt,” he said. “They literally wrote, ‘doubt is our product.’ As long as they could give people a false perception that the health community was still undecided about whether smoking caused human health problems, people would continue to smoke. They used that strategy very successfully to delay action on smoking for many years. And it’s been very well-documented that the groups that oppose climate action lifted chapter and verse the exact same strategy right out of the tobacco playbook.”

“That’s the backdrop to this particular statement — that is said very clearly by AAAS — and why it is so important.”

The evidence that human behavior — such as our economies’ reliance on fossil fuels — is causing our climate to change and putting our planet and society at increased risk is overwhelming, the report authors write. “[L]evels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising. Temperatures are going up. Springs are arriving earlier. Ice sheets are melting. Sea level is rising. The patterns of rainfall and drought are changing. Heat waves are getting worse as is extreme precipitation. The oceans are acidifying.”

Whether they link it to global warming or not, Americans already detect that something is changing. In 2013, the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication report found that 51 percent said weather in their local area had been worse over the past several years. That observation is in line with research. “These problems are very likely to become worse over the next 10 to 20 years and beyond,” the AAAS authors write. By becoming aware of the science behind global warming now, Americans will be better prepared to make “risk management” choices.

The AAAS says that “What We Know” will have an associated outreach campaign to scientists, economists, community leaders, policymakers and the public through media and meetings.


Read the report and learn more about it at whatweknow.aaas.org »





John Light writes blog posts and works on multimedia projects for Moyers & Company. Before joining the Moyers team, he worked as a public radio producer. A New Jersey native, John studied history and film at Oberlin College and holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Extinction!



Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice


Extinction!

The American Museum of Natural History/NY (AMNH-NY) conducted a survey about the likelihood of a mass extinction event. The majority of the 400 scientists polled were convinced that a “mass extinction of plants and animals is underway,” posing a threat to humanity in the next century. According to that same poll, the public is “dimly aware” of this threat of an extinction event.
The AMNH-NY survey took place in the year 1998; thus, “the next century” that they referenced is here now. Also, since 1998, above and beyond additional loss of habitat for plants and animals, the state of the climate has deteriorated considerably. Here’s why: Global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning fossil fuels; i.e., oil, gas, and coal, have increased, on an annualized basis, by nearly 50% over the past 16 years. 1  Ipso facto, the world’s climate has turned turbulent.

Perilously, the planet does not divulge extinction events. Rather, extinctions are clandestine, shrouded in mystery, and occur far away from where humans tread. Extinctions start under the water, at the top of the world, and in far away places unpopulated, remote, and hidden from the wandering eye of the human species, unbeknownst until it is too late.

Ergo, stating the obvious, the worst possible outcome for the planet is an extinction event because geologic history shows that 75% to 90% of all life is wiped out. But, without question, an extinction event takes some time to complete, like centuries or millennia, or longer, something along those lines.
Still, what if an extinction event is on steroids, happening much, much faster than geologic history indicates?

Then, what?

Tipping Point

This article explores the possibility that an extinction event is on steroids, right now, threatening all humanity.

To prove the point, this article examines peer-review scientific articles and leading scientists, their views of the danger of a tipping point (no turning back) occurrence and/or whether the world is already in the zone. As such, the eminent and prestigious National Academies has already weighed-in on three prominent trouble spots where abrupt climate change may be festering right now. Whether those trouble spots trigger a tipping point, only time will tell.

According to Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change, Anticipating Surprises, National Research Council of the National Academies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., December 2013:
The history of climate on the planet— as read in archives such as tree rings, ocean sediments, and ice cores— is punctuated with large changes that occurred rapidly, over the course of decades to as little as a few years.
At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the geologic history the report references occurred millions of years ago before humans started artificially influencing the climate by emitting tonnes and tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of greenhouse gases. Alas, scientific research shows that climate change may very well be on steroids, changing faster than ever, at breakneck speed when contrasted to the historical record.

The National Academies’ 200-page report, as of December 2013, detailing the risks of abrupt climate change, identifies three primary risk areas of abrupt climate change this century: (1) the ocean; (2) the Arctic; (3) Antarctica. Two of these are already out of the starting blocks, up and running.

The Ocean

Ocean acidification today is unprecedented, much faster than any time over the past 300 million years, “… at least 10 times faster than 56 million years ago,” according to Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Oceans Acidifying Faster Today Than in Past 300 Million Years, National Science Foundation, Press Release 12-041, March 1, 2012.

In that regard, the National Research Council of the National Academies’ report concludes: If ongoing pressures of climate change continue, meaning the burning of fossil fuels, then deeper, more pronounced, abrupt climate changes would likely occur before the year 2100.

As of today, fossil fuels are burning more than ever before. Meantime, research confirms that global warming has accelerated over the past 15 years, not slowed as expressed by global warming contrarians.  2

Indeed, an extinction event in the ocean is already under observation: “… nearly all marine life forms that build calcium carbonate shells and skeletons studied by scientists thus far have shown deterioration due to increasing carbon dioxide levels in seawater.” 3

The science is not circumstantial: “…sufficient information exists to state with certainty that deleterious impacts on some marine species are unavoidable, and that substantial alteration of marine ecosystems is likely over the next century.” 4

Humans are already starting to notice the effects: “The first direct impact on humans may be through declining harvests and fishery revenues….” 5

“Ocean acidification is appearing in Washington decades sooner than anticipated….” 6 The state of Washington was initially alerted to the inherent danger of excessive carbon dioxide (CO2) in the water when oyster larvae in hatcheries died in large numbers, threatening the state’s $270 million shellfish industry.

“This report really draws attention to a problem that exists internationally but that has really hit hard right here in the state of Washington.” 7

By all appearances, an extinction event has already started in the ocean as the result of excessive levels of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. And, this dilemma is bound to grow bigger and bigger and escalate ever more rapidly as 1,200 coal-burning power plants worldwide are currently on the drawing boards (75% in China and India), which, in turn, will ramp up the sourcing behind ocean acidification, which is already clocking 10 times faster than anytime throughout geologic history. Does marine life have a fighting chance?

According to Alex Rogers, PhD, professor of Conservation Biology, University of Oxford and Scientific Director, International Programme on the State of the Ocean: “The change we’re seeing at the moment is taking place extremely rapidly… We’re seeing levels of pH [a measure of acidity] in the ocean that probably haven’t been experienced for 55 million years… I find it very difficult to tell people what a scary situation we’re in at the moment. The oceans are changing in a huge way, and I am particularly worried for my grandchildren. The changes we thought would happen in the future… We’re actually seeing them now.” 8

Dr. Rogers claims the ocean is in a critical state.

Accordingly, out of dire necessity, the operative question is: How should the world’s governments respond to an ocean that is in a critical state?

Do nothing or do something?

Methane

Methane (CH4) is the ugly stepsister to carbon dioxide (CO2). Excessively, it’s a killer.

Methane is over twenty times more powerful, over a 100-year period, per molecule, than is carbon dioxide (CO2).  Or, put another way, methane is more effectual than carbon dioxide at absorbing infrared radiation emitted from the earth’s surface and preventing it from escaping into space. Notwithstanding, methane, during its first few years upon entering the atmosphere, is 100 times as powerful as an equal weight of CO2.

As it happens, it appears excessive levels of methane are just now starting to seriously impact the atmosphere in a big way!

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, as of February 2013, methane levels in the atmosphere are measured at 1,874 ppb (parts per billion.) This level, in an historical context, is more than twice the level as any time since 400,000 years before the industrial revolution. In the past, methane has ranged between 300-400 ppb during glacial periods and 600-700 ppb during warm interglacial periods.

The CH4 quagmire, in large measure, is the result of a melting Arctic, which, in turn, exposes methane that has been entrapped for millennia-times-millennia. Here’s the quandary:
We show results from some recent work from submarines, and speculate that the trend towards retreat and thinning will inevitably lead to an eventual loss of all ice in summer, which can be described as a ‘tipping point’ in that the former situation, of an Arctic covered with mainly multi-year ice, cannot be retrieved. 9
The statement by Peter Wadhams, PhD, Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group, Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, goes to the heart of the scope of methane’s threat, for example: Rising temperatures in the Arctic (which are already rising 2-3 times faster than temps elsewhere on the planet) could abruptly trigger the release of 50 Gt (gigatonnes) of methane currently frozen in the seabed within a decade, which would be catastrophic.
It is the summer sea ice loss passing the point of no return, leading to unstoppable catastrophic Arctic methane feedbacks, sooner or later… puts us in a state of planetary emergency today.10
Methane emissions slowed in the 1990s, but “… strong growth resumed in 2007.”11

With methane strongly on the rise again, the news could not be any worse regarding the prospects of an extinction event. As a matter of fact, the recent surge in methane feeds right into the wheelhouse of an extinction event.

Alas, the story only gets worse. The seafloor off the coast of Northern Siberia is releasing over twice the amount of methane as previously estimated, according to new research, as of 2013: “We believe that the release of methane from the Arctic, and in particular this part of the Arctic, could impact the entire globe.”12

“Impact the entire globe” is not at all positive in any way shape, or form; rather, ultimately, it means heat, lots of heat, leading to runaway global warming, and this forecast is why a group of renowned scientists formed the Arctic Methane Emergency Group , which has already sent major governments a letter pleading for: “Emergency intervention is needed both to save the Arctic sea ice and to reduce the risk of catastrophic global warming from a sudden large emission of methane.” 13

“We carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale – I think on a scale not seen before. Some of the plumes were a kilometer or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere – the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal,” says Dr. Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russian cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas. 14

According to the National Academies’ report, abrupt climate change has already started in the Arctic. Whether a tipping point has been reached, or exceeded, time will tell, but it shouldn’t take too long to know, maybe a few years, maybe longer.

As an aside, it would be absolutely wonderful and spectacular if the climate change denialists prove to be correct about ice in the Arctic. Their claim, which appeared all over the mainstream news this past fall, is that the ice at the Arctic is rebuilding beautifully. And, yes it is true Arctic sea ice “extent” and “volume” did increase, which occasionally happens in any given year. However, the basic science, on a long-term secular basis, doesn’t agree with their hysterics.

Accordingly, “Arctic sea ice extent in February 2014 averaged 14.44 million sq. miles. This is the fourth lowest February ice extent in the satellite data record, and is 910,000 sq. kilometres. below the 1981 to 2010 average.” 15

In order for Arctic sea ice to recover from more than 30 years of shrinkage, it will require much more than one season of increased sea ice. It will take many, many seasons of increased sea ice. Meanwhile, the Sword of Damocles hangs over the Arctic, threatening all society with runaway global warming.

In that regard, the Arctic Methane Emergency Group sent a Policy Brief to major governments. Here is their conclusion:
AMEG’s conclusion is that there is now a planetary emergency. Only by grasping the nettle and intervening with great determination, as in a war effort, is there a chance of remedying the situation before it is too late. International collaboration to fight this common ‘enemy’ of Arctic meltdown must bring all nations together, in the cause of our very survival.
“If we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sans and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.” (James  Hansen, Storms of my Grandchildren (Bloomsbury Press, 2009.)

Venus’s atmosphere consists of 96.5% carbon dioxide (CO2), which keeps a lid on the heat as surface temps run 872 degrees F.  The Venus Syndrome happens when climate and atmospheric feedback loops are triggered and cannot be switched off, e.g., greenhouse gases build up, causing more warming, in turn, more greenhouse gases are released, causing more warming, and so on and so forth in a maddening continuum of a vicious feedback loop.

Under those circumstances, Earth risks becoming a pressure-cooking inferno.
Subsidize renewables, not fracking.

Post Script: The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel usage hit record levels (IEA: Carbon Emissions from Fuel Usage Hit New Global Record, Deutsche Welle, Oct. 6, 2013). The IEA also warned that, based upon larger levels of carbon dioxide emissions than previously calculated, the world is on a path to an average temperature rise of between 3.6 and 5.3 degrees C, about double the target set at a UN summit in Durbin in 2010.

On a positive note: A student movement at more than 300 university and college campuses is encouraging endowments to divest holdings of fossil fuel companies. As for one example, Divest Harvard declares: “By sponsoring climate change through our investments, our university is threatening our generation’s future.” 16
  1. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee. []
  2. Magdalena A. Balmaseda, et al, Distinctive Climate Signals in Reanalysis of Global Ocean Heat Content, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 40, Issue, May 10, 2013, 9, DOI: 10.1002/grl.50382 []
  3. Dr. Richard Feely and Dr. Christopher Sabine, Oceanographers, Carbon Dioxide and Our Ocean Legacy, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, April 2006. []
  4. Victoria J. Fabry, et al, Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Fauna and Ecosystem Processes, ICES Journal of Marine Sciences, Oxford Journals, Vol. 65, Issue 3, Feb. 2008. []
  5. Sarah R. Cooley, et al, Anticipating Ocean Acidification’s Economic Consequences for Commercial Fisheries, IOP Science, Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2009. []
  6. Ocean Acidification and Washington State, Department of Ecology, State of Washington, 2013. []
  7. Jane Lubchenco, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Rising Ocean Acidity off Washington State Threatens Shellfish, Panel Says, The Associate Press (AP), Nov. 27, 2012. []
  8. International Programme on the State of the Ocean, OneWorld Video (UK), August 2011. []
  9. Peter Wadhams, Arctic Ice Cover, Ice Thickness and Tipping Points, AMBIO (Publisher: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), February 2012, Volume 41, Issue 1. []
  10. John Nissen, AMEG Chairman, Arctic Methane Emergency Group. []
  11. Euan G. Nisbet, et al, Methane on the Rise-Again, Atmospheric Science, Science Vol. 343, No. 6170, January 31, 2014. []
  12. Natalia Shakhova, et al. Ebullition and storm-induced methane release from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2007, Nov. 24, 2013. []
  13. Arctic Methane Emergency Group []
  14. Steve Connor, Vast Methane ‘Plumes’ Seen in Arctic Ocean as Sea Ice Retreats, The Independent (UK), Dec. 13, 2011. []
  15. Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis, National Snow & Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, March 3, 2014. []
  16. Randall Smith, A New Divestment Focus on Campus: Fossil Fuels, New York Times, September 6, 2013. []
Robert Hunziker (MA in economic history at DePaul University, Chicago) is a former hedge fund manager and now a professional independent negotiator for worldwide commodity actual transactions and a freelance writer for progressive publications as well as business journals. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

30,000-year-old virus from permafrost is reborn (via AFP)

30,000-year-old virus from permafrost is reborn (via AFP)
French scientists said Monday they had revived a giant but harmless virus that had been locked in the Siberian permafrost for more than 30,000 years. Wakening the long-dormant virus serves as a warning that unknown pathogens entombed in frozen soil…

US Lagging Behind On Climate Change Legislation (via Clean Technica)

US Lagging Behind On Climate Change Legislation (via Clean Technica)
Originally published on ThinkProgress. By Rebecca Lefton. Out of 66 countries representing 88 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, 61 of them have legislation aimed at cutting carbon pollution and promoting clean energy sources, according to…

Global warming may threaten World Heritage sites (via AFP)

Global warming may threaten World Heritage sites (via AFP)
The sightseer of 4014 may have to pay a virtual visit to the Tower of London or Statue of Liberty, said a climate study Wednesday that warned of dramatic ocean encroachment on heritage sites. While modern civilisation is fascinated by the pyramids of…

Big Changes in the Deep North Atlantic May Erode Defense Against Global Warming

Big Changes in the Deep North Atlantic May Erode Defense Against Global Warming (via NJTV News with Mike Schneider)
By Ken Branson for Rutgers Today An international team of scientists has discovered that the circulation pattern of deep water in the North Atlantic may be more fragile than previously thought due to a rapid addition of fresh water to the ocean’s…