Climate Letter #1582

Posted on December 30, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Australia’s heatwave and bushfires are now forcing evacuations as far south as Melbourne (Phys.org).  “Conditions worsened on Friday with high winds and temperatures soaring across the country—reaching 47 degrees Celsius (117 Fahrenheit) in Western Australia and topping 40 degrees in every region—including the usually temperate island of Tasmania.”  High wind gusts and dry thunderstorms are sparking and spreading the fires.

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News and historical perspectives about wintertime temperatures in Alaska (Forbes).  This magazine article is full of interesting information about a state that experiences all sorts of extremes.  Last week there were some record daily lows, and more are predicted, while annual averages are setting new all-time highs.
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An imaginary weather and climate forecast for the year 2050, by the global environment editor of The Guardian.  A predecessor, Tim Radford, did the same kind of thing in 2004 for the year 2020, with remarkably accurate results, mostly based on pure science.  This new version by Jonathan Watts is trickier because of a greater need to factor in a wide range of possibilities for an outcome largely based on human behavior, which is much more volatile and unpredictable than what science alone teaches.  He is not exactly optimistic:  “The rich have retreated into air-conditioned sanctums behind ever higher walls. The poor – and what is left of other species – is left exposed to the ever harsher elements. Everyone is affected by rising prices, conflict, stress and depression.”
–A link to Tim Radford’s forecast for 2020, published fifteen years ago.  Tim is now a regular contributor to the Climate News Network website, where he sticks to making concise explanations of the meaning of the latest climate research.
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A new study sees little chance of a complete AMOC shutdown in the next 1000 years (University of Groningen).  A temporary partial shutdown, on the other hand, is given a 15% probability in the next 100 years.  The simulations behind these results made use of a methodology heavily dependent on mathematical inputs surrounding multiple uncertainties in the way certain types of conditions constantly change.
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A conversation with eminent biologist Edward O.Wilson (Sierra Club).  Wilson is given credit for conceiving the Half Earth concept for preserving the planet’s biodiversity, revealed in a book published in 2016.  “Only by committing half of the planet’s surface to nature can we hope to save the immensity of life-forms that compose it. Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.”  His arguments are favorably received in the environmental community, and the implications for climate change mitigation are likewise highly positive should they ever come to be.
Carl

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Climate Letter #1581

Posted on December 27, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Things that scientists have learned in the past decade showing that the risks due to climate change are greater than what had been expected earlier.  Bob Berwyn wrote this for Inside Climate News, mostly covering changes in our natural surroundings that are already having an adverse impact on both human welfare and biodiversity.  This is all happening with global temperatures, on average, rising just a bit more than one degree Celsius.  It should be taken as a warning that the next degree of increase would also be likely to have effects worse than expected, possibly in an accelerated manner.  That is why we hear so much more from scientists than just a year or two ago about the need to avoid an increase of 2C no matter what the cost.

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An indication that China may be ready to put environmental goals ahead of economic growth (Reuters).  “China will maintain its environmental protection goals and will not ease off on trying to achieve them even as the economy slows, an environment ministry official said on Thursday…..We have no other choice but to go forward…..China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to 6.0% year-on-year in the third quarter, the weakest in at least 27-1/2 years amid a bruising trade war with the United States, and business owners in industrial areas like Henan province say they are being hit hard by the environmental crackdown.”  While all of the talk is about air pollution, which is still devastating for China, there is no reason why the same attitude could not be adopted and extended in the face of closely related and growing evidence of damage from existing CO2 emissions.  China would see benefit not just by reducing its own emissions but by taking a more active role in persuading other nations, including the US, to follow suit.  It would make a difference.
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An unusually interesting new poll about voter attitudes and behavior in the US (The Guardian).  “Of the registered voters surveyed, 14% named “addressing climate change and protecting the environment” their No 1 priority over all other issues, compared with 2% to 6% before the 2016 presidential election.”  That’s quite a boost, and that same group is highly motivated to actually cast votes.  Otherwise, people who support Trump’s presidency create by far the largest bloc of reliable vote-casters, and they tend to have other priorities in mind.  This  information should all become a key part of the pre-election campaign dynamics next fall.
–The Executive Summary of the polling group’s report is of much further interest:
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Interview with a leading expert on the Amazon rainforest and its value to the global weather system (Mongabay).  Antonio Donato Nobre can explain the problem better than anyone else in the world, and here we have an extensive summary of what he has learned over 40 years of study.  He sees a process of desertificatiion being underway and nearing an irreversible tipping point.  The entire world would be gravely affected by its loss.
Carl

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Climate Letter #1580

Posted on December 26, 2019 by Carl Campbell
An important new study about how Greenland’s ice cover has melted in the past (Inside Climate News).  The study determined how much melting occurred during the four interglacial periods preceding the one we are just emerging from.  The previous four all had a little more natural warming than the latest, resulting in significant amounts of melting before the descent into a new ice age began.  Today, when we should be cooling down, we are about to expand the warm interval into a new era of warming that goes well beyond the four others.  The final amount of melting will depend on how long the warming lasts as well as how high it goes.

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–The full study has open access and is worth a good look.  The authors see meaningful impacts coming from Greenland in our current situation well before global temperatures reach the 2C target.
–Extra comment:  The four earlier interglacial periods all concluded with CO2 levels not rising above 300 ppm.  That was enough to give them about as much warming as we are getting today with CO2 a good bit higher, exceeding 400 parts.  That relationship raises a number of questions and a search for best answers, none of which are offered in the study.  To me it suggests that sea level rise from Greenland alone will be increasingly dangerous (up to a maximum of 23 feet) over a period of one or two thousand years unless we can somehow bring the CO2 level all the way back down below 300 ppm, perhaps even 280, which is where we were topping out just two hundred years ago.
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A closeup look at the startling developments going on in Alaska (The Seattle Times).  Much of the emphasis is on the impacts from permafrost thawing, which is sure to continue expanding.  “In Alaska, the permafrost retreat requires a fundamental rethinking of the fate of things built on top of it.”  That includes almost everything.
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An update and perspective on the Australian bushfires (The Guardian).  One previous year, 1974, had fires covering about the same amount of acreage, but for different reasons and with far less destruction in populated areas.
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Five reasons why the recent climate talks in Madrid failed (Phys.org).  This fine review digs right into the meat of the subject.  One overarching summary:  “Perhaps the most daunting headwind facing UN climate talks is rising nationalism, populism and economic retrenchment—all at the expense of the multilateralism.  The stalemate over carbon markets is a symptom of a more general polarisation and lack of cooperation among countries.”
Carl

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Climate Letter #1579

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Two notable scientists describe what constitutes the “Amazon tipping point” and say it has already arrived (Science Advances).  This article makes the essential rainwater recycling process clearly understandable.  (Be sure to note that the winds that make it possible regularly move from east to west, unlike our most common experience with winds in the US.)  The authors do not think the drying-out process is irreversible at this point, but soon could be if the remediable actions they recommend are not taken.

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–One of the authors, Thomas Lovejoy, in an interview with George Mason University, went on to talk about the ecological consequences, plus the extensive release of carbon to the atmosphere, that would be caused by further destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
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An interview with a leading “Earth system” scientist (Phys.org).  Johan Rockstrom was an originator of the “planetary boundaries” concept in 2009, “which has since become a central paradigm for evaluating Earth’s capacity to absorb the impact of human activity.”  The concept involves numerous tipping points that have been extensively written about, normally accompanied by warnings of what happens when they are crossed (as in the above story).  He worries about the prospect of complete loss of control: “We don’t want to push the ‘on’ buttons of runaway global warming. The next decade is our window to avoid coming too close to those pressure points.”
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All about the temperature records that tell us global warming is real (Washington Post).  A cleverly constructed post depicts the highlights from three centuries of record-keeping that enable scientists to draw the many charts we see—with reasonable accuracy.  Fun to read with plenty of nifty graphics.
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Moscow is having an extraordinarily mild winter (New Straits Times).  Even Vladimir Putin, known as a big denier of climate change, has noticed that something strange is going on.
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A prominent Australian commentator foresees a major shift in public sentiment beginning at some time in the next five years.  Paul Gilding has had a unique career as a “sustainability activist” for four decades.  From the link to his bio, “He now travels the world alerting people – in business, community groups, government and even the military –  to the global economic and ecological crisis now unfolding around us, as the world economy reaches and passes the limits to growth.”  This post describes the coming shakeup with much of the emphasis on how financial markets will react as the truth sinks in.  All of his facts are documented in footnotes.  Tom Friedman once wrote in the New York Times, “Ignore Gilding at your peril.”
Carl

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Climate Letter #1578

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Somalia has gotten the rains it wanted, but then far too much, causing extreme flooding (Phys.org).  “The arid Horn of Africa country has always been hostage to climate extremes.  Rain is erratic, and drought a feature of life.  But catastrophic weather events are occurring in Somalia with ever-greater fury and frequency, trapping millions in a near-constant cycle of crisis.”  Droughts and flooding are both increasing in frequency and intensity, leaving no time for people to recover.

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A new study describes an unexpected and growing problem of aridity for the US corn belt (Columbia University).  “…climate change has triggered two changes that threaten the region’s crop production; warming temperatures are both increasing the evaporation of soil moisture and causing summer storms to carry more moisture away from the Midwest…..With the polar regions warming faster, there is less of a temperature contrast, thus weakening the storms…..Ting’s models indicate the trend only intensifies in the future under climate change.”
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Rice production in the US has dropped over 20% since 2010 because of changes in weather  (New Food Economy).  “Weather changes introduce two obstacles to rice production: an increase in diseases like bacterial panicle blight (BPB), and unpredictable rain patterns that make crops more vulnerable than in the past.”  In addition, higher nighttime temperatures “hampers the plants’ ability to photosynthesize, to harness energy from sunlight by consuming carbon dioxide and forming carbohydrates.  Higher temperatures disrupt the process and lead to decreased yield—chalkier kernels, and fewer of them…..Heat also has a negative effect on pollination.”
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Amazon forest regrowth after deforestation is much slower than previously thought (Lancaster University).  The findings of a new study “could have significant impacts for climate change predictions as the ability of secondary forests to soak up carbon from the atmosphere may have been overestimated…..shows that even after 60 years of regrowth, the studied secondary forests held only 40% of the carbon in forests that had not been disturbed by humans.”  Biodiversity also showed a poor level of recovery.
–A lengthy article written for Mongabay has much more to say about the extent and consequences of tropical deforestation:  https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/paris-accord-impossible-to-implement-if-tropical-forest-loss-not-stopped/
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A plea to save the world’s largest remaining temperate rainforest (Yale e360).  The Tongass National Forest in Alaska is being threatened by the Trump administration with much the same treatment that we are seeing for the Amazon forest under Bolsonaro, just to help the logging industry.  “Paul Alaback, a professor of forestry from the University of Montana, spoke about how the Tongass contained more living plant life per area, and stored and sequestered more carbon, than nearly anywhere else on earth.”
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A new world record for electric power produced by one wind turbine in 24 hours (Renew Economy).  The world’s largest offshore turbine has begun generating power.  It “set a new world record this past weekend by being the first wind turbine ever to generate 262 MWh of clean energy within 24 hours – enough to power 30,000 households, all on its own.”
Carl

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Climate Letter #1577

Posted on December 19, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Another record hot day for the Australian continent (BBC News).  “The nation endured its hottest-ever day on Tuesday, but that record was smashed again on Wednesday – which saw an average maximum of 41.9C (107.4F).  Tuesday’s 40.9C had eclipsed the previous record of 40.3C, set in 2013.”  One city on the southern coast reported a high of 49,9C, or 122F.  Thankfully, the complex of conditions causing this heat will soon change for the better, but it is still early in the summer season.

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The internet is a huge contributor to carbon emissions, and growing rapidly (The New Republic).  The author of this fine article has done his homework, and sees all sorts of possibilities for how things will change.  “It is the largest coal-fired machine on the entire planet, accounting for 10 percent of global electricity demand. And the internet’s climate impact is only going to get worse: Around half of the world has yet to log on—a presently disconnected population of more than three billion people eager to begin streaming videos and updating Facebook accounts. The internet’s cut of the world’s electricity demand will likely rise to 20 percent or more by 2030, at which point it will produce more carbon than any country except China, India, and the United States.”  That kind of power demand growth in the near future is assumed to be too much for renewable energy to overcome, meaning cuts will somewhere be necessary.
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Meanwhile, the concrete industry is making real progress toward reducing its carbon footprint (CORDIS).  A new kiln design “will allow all of the process CO2 emissions to be captured without significant energy or capital penalty.”  The system “enables pure CO2 to be captured, in the case of limestone (CaCO3), as it is released during calcination to lime (CaO), as the furnace exhaust gases are kept separate.”  The release of carbon cannot be avoided when making cement and must therefore be captured.  Luckily, there are growing markets for pure CO2 that make it a valuable raw material.
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The shipping industry has new plans for reducing emissions, criticized as wholly inadequate (EcoWatch).  The plan calls for replacing dirty bunker fuels with hydrogen or ammonia but much research must first be done that would take up to a decade before any effective changes got started.  “The global shipping industry creates roughly three percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions…..Investing research to create zero-carbon ships is not a bad thing in itself, but it becomes suspiciously close to a delaying tactic if it is not accompanied by clear reduction targets.”
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The Plastics Pipeline:  A Surge of New Production Is on the Way (Yale e360).  The author, Beth Gardiner, is a veteran science journalist who has written a recent book about air pollution.  Here she presents an overview of expansion plans in the petrochemical industry, its growth projections, and the many kinds of pollution problems that will be generated.  “If even a quarter of these ethane cracking facilities are built, it’s locking us into a plastic future that is going to be hard to recover from.”
Carl

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Climate Letter #1576

Posted on December 18, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Australia has its hottest day on record (Phys.org).  Average highs for the entire continent were 105.6F, and still higher temperatures are expected this week.  “On Saturday parts of Sydney are forecast to tip over 46 degrees celsius (115 Fahrenheit).”  As for the bushfires that continue to engulf Sydney with their smoke, “Turbulent winds of up to 100 kilometres (60 miles) an hour are forecast to also hit the east coast at the same time and worsen the blazes.”

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A grim new concept for predicting the strength of future hurricanes has been reported (NYU Tandon School of Engineering).  With regard to a newly published study, “This approach indicates the destructive power of Atlantic hurricanes off Africa could reach three times their current level if water temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius—well within the range that scientists predict is likely by the year 2100…..The same calculations would apply to any tropical basin on Earth.”  Renowned hurricane specialist Kerry Emanuel is working with the NYU professor who developed the hypothesis, which is based on principles of physics that have been overlooked in the literature of meteorology.
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New information documents the conversion of an Arctic mountain glacier into a fast-moving ice stream (American Geophysical Union).  Scientists are still unsure of the explanation, which causes much more rapid disintegration of the glacier, but are excited by their observations and suspect that global warming is a critical factor.  A short video shows how quickly it happened.
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How oil and gas companies are attacking climate action and why their efforts must fail (Huffpost).  This article covers a lot of ground, starting with a video of Michael Mann being interviewed on television about what needs to be done in the immediate future in order to stave off the worst effects of climate change.  No person can better represent the advanced views of climate science than Dr. Mann, and he lays it on the line.  Most of the article is then devoted to shining a light on the rather sinister efforts to undermine these actions.  I think this article is right on target in both directions.
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The full story of Earth’s hottest decade on record, ending in a climactic way (Inside Climate News).  There is not much new material here, but Bob Berwyn has done a masterful job of putting it all together, sprinkled with excellent chart work.  Actually one of the charts has some new information, concerning recent record Arctic wildfires in the month of June.  In general, the next decade is all but certain to show more of the same effects, but in more extreme ways.
Carl

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Climate Letter #1575

Posted on December 17, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Fascinating new research shows how rapidly the West Antarctic ice sheet can collapse (National Geographic).  Just 10-12,000 years ago, when Earth was cooler than today, it shrank to a size much smaller than now, then recovered because of isostatic rebound of the solid crust below.  “At that time, the ice sheet was already in the midst of shrinking from its Ice Age maximum, when it extended 600 miles further out to sea than it does today. And the ocean floor sat at least 1,300 feet lower than it does today—because the weight of the massive ice sheet had pressed down on the Earth’s crust.  As the ice retreated, thinned, and floated, this allowed warm ocean currents to slither in along the deep ocean floor. That melted the ice ever more rapidly, sending the ice sheet into full-blown collapse. It roared right past its present-day boundaries, retreating at least 120 miles further inland than today.”  The evidence for all this is strong, there was a rebound, and the story is still not over.

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New findings show another way for how Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise could accelerate in this century (Eos).  Broad layers of thick ice located beneath the surface could facilitate runoff from the meltwater pools that form every summer and are growing.  “According to model projections, the ice slabs could double the amount of sea level rise from Greenland’s interior in the coming century.”
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California’s coastal waters are acidifying twice as fast as the global average (Los Angeles Times).  The change in ocean carbon chemistry is very harmful to valuable local fisheries, and the overall effects serve as a warning for the rest of the globe to see what the future may bring.  The reasons behind this exceptionally rapid change are linked to several types of natural oscillations, including El Nino, and how they interact.
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Germany has announced a new climate protection package (Deutsche Welle).  The US$60 billion price tag over four years will be financed largely by raising its current small carbon tax to an initial $28 per ton of CO2 emissions, followed by significant increases.  The plan will enable Germany to implement its share of the original goal of the Paris Agreement of 2015, which so far has suffered from bickering and sidetracking by many other wealthy nations.  This action might give some of them a push to do the same or more, possibly even a combination of the entire EU?
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A new report from a group of Earth system scientists shows how nine critical systems—climate change being one of them—interact with one another and create mutual amplification (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research).  A familiar example:  “Burning down tropical forests to expand agricultural lands for instance increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The additional greenhouse gases contribute to the global temperature increase, the harm done to the forests becomes harm to climate stability. The temperature increase can in turn further enhance stress on tropical forests, and for agriculture. The resulting amplification of effects is substantial even without taking tipping points into account: Beyond a certain threshold, the Amazon rainforest might show rapid, non-linear change. Yet such a tipping behavior would come on top of the amplification highlighted in the analysis now published.”  All of the nine systems need to be regulated individually and held within safe boundaries, with no exception.
Carl

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Climate Letter #1574

Posted on December 16, 2019 by Carl Campbell
Why Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change (BBC News).  A professor of climate science offers this clear and concise explanation.  Here are two of the key reasons:  “First, African society is very closely coupled with the climate system; hundreds of millions of people depend on rainfall to grow their food…..The two most extensive land-based end-of-century projected decreases in rainfall anywhere on the planet occur over Africa; one over North Africa and the other over southern Africa.”  He has much more to tell about.

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How glacial melting is creating havoc in the Andes mountain region (Climate News Network).  This story is particularly useful in the way it describes the danger of explosive flooding events, like one that killed over 4000 people in 1941.  Otherwise the main fear is over the water shortages that will be coming to farms and cities.
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How the summit conference in Madrid came to a close on Sunday.  Reuters has a quick and sad summary of how little was accomplished in the two-week event.  “The COP25 talks in Madrid were viewed as a test of governments’ collective will to heed the advice of science to cut greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly, in order to prevent rising global temperatures from hitting irreversible tipping points.  But the conference, in its concluding draft, endorsed only a declaration on the “urgent need” to close the gap between existing emissions pledges and the temperature goals of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement – an outcome U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called disappointing…..Brazil, China, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United States had led resistance to bolder action, delegates said.”
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One big country is doing the right things, entirely on its own initiative (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).  “India has been aggressively pivoting away from coal-fired power plants and towards electricity generated by solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. This means that the amount of carbon dioxide the country emits into the atmosphere should come down dramatically.”  This in itself is great news.  Two of the main reasons, the cheap price of renewable energy and the availability of low-cost financing, are also good news because other developing countries should be able to follow on this same path as they seek to modernize.  India, and the others as well, should further benefit from the reduced pollution impacts associated with the shift.
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A gift guide to twelve recent books about climate change and the environment, selected and reviewed by Yale Climate Connections.  Some are about challenges, others about solutions.
Carl

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Climate Letter #1573

Posted on December 13, 2019 by Carl Campbell
More commentary on the permafrost report reviewed in yesterday’s letter.  This review from Vox offers a well-written summary of the key points plus more comments from Ted Schuur, the report’s author, a map of the extensive land coverage of permafrost locations, and bonus coverage of various diseases that could also be released by the thawing. The fact that the Arctic temperatures are warming up about three times faster than the global average—and even more in some spots—cannot be emphasized enough in explaining the strength of both the observations and predictions.  The additional carbon emissions that Schuur refers to and predicts for this century can be thought of as comparable to the effect of adding a whole new airline industry, or cement-making industry, and watching it grow, but with no possible way to directly force stoppage.  Any realistic application of negative emission technology, whenever it becomes available, will first have to be employed in soaking up emissions of this type before turning attention to reducing the gas that was put in the air by burning fossil fuels.  Absent such technology, all existing plans to reduce fossil fuel emissions will need to be accelerated just to offset growth of these emissions that are beyond our control.  Could the estimates stated by Schuur be wrong?  Yes.  They could be high and they could be low.  Every permafrost site is different in some way, and there is no practical way to measure and accumulate all the data pursuant to knowing the true emissions from all of those sites.

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New studies suggest that Arctic sea ice may vanish sooner than expected (Phys.org).  Current models are constructed in ways that do not explain very well certain events known to have happened in the past.  The new models have simulations that could reasonably be enacted in reality and thereby correct the discrepancies.  “They further suggest that their findings do not bode well for the current warming trend, because it suggests that Arctic sea ice will begin vanishing sooner than older climate models have predicted—and less ice means less energy reflection, contributing to faster global warming.”  (They do not say how many years are possibly at stake in the timing difference.   It could not be a big number.)
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Forests in the high Canadian Arctic, 56 million years ago, were much like the boreal forests of today that are far to the south (University of Saskatchewan).  Multiple plant fossils tell the story in today’s tundra zones that have long and dark winters, where hardly anything now grows.  “The presence of these forests gives us an idea about what could happen over long periods of time if our modern climate continues to warm, and also how forest ecosystems responded to greenhouse climates in the distant past…..If we are able to understand how ecosystems long ago responded to global warming, we may be able to better predict how our own modern ecosystems will respond to our own rapidly warming climate.”  The average temperature difference from today was probably at least 5C warmer.
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The oil industry wants the US government to spend more heavily on carbon capture research, and subsidizing of related facilities (Axios).  This perfectly rational idea would usefully help them extend their production life, at no internal cost.  It is especially interesting as a sign that the industry is now being forced to accept the fact that carbon emissions are a problem.  They could easily have asked for the same things many years ago, but then preferred to maintain a policy of complete denial.  I think this move helps to boost arguments in favor of a carbon tax.  It even suggests a reasonable number—$110 per ton of CO2 emitted!
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A much cheaper way to produce hydrogen from water may have been found (University of New South Wales).  Other research groups have the same goal in mind, and there is always one making a similar report of progress.  This is one of the better-looking of such reports.  Cheap hydrogen would have good uses beyond fuel cells, such as the heating of buildings.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1573