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Category: Climate chaos

The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity. 

  • Climate report describes dysfunctional US

    From The UK Guardian

    South-east

    Summer temperatures in Florida could rise by 4.1C (10.5F), with the heat effect multipled by decreased rainfall under the higher emissions scenario. There would be increased hurricane intensity and rising sea levels leads to loss of wetlands and coastal areas. It would lead to a severe decline in quality of life.

    Mid-west

    Frequent, severe and longer lasting heatwaves in cities – as many as three a year in Chicago under the higher emissions scenario.

    Water levels in the Great Lakes could fall by up to two feet by the end of the century under the higher emissions scenario.

    South-west

    Continued strong warming will threaten flow of Colorado river.

    Alaska

    Has been warming at twice the rate of the rest of the US over last 50 years.

    Temperatures could rise up to a further 5.4C (13F) under the higher emissions scenario. The region should be prepared for drought and increased risk of wildfire.

    North-west

    Declining snowpack is already threatening agriculture. Many salmon species are already threatened

    Costs

    Human health: Rise in deaths due to heatwaves, decline in health because of poor air quality and increase in water borne and insect borne diseases.

    Agriculture: Although some crops will benefit from the longer growing season, heavy downpours could wreak havoc on others. Farmers will be forced to use more pesticides and weed killers against invasive plants. Poison ivy will bcome more abundant and more toxic. Higher emissions scenario would cause a 10% decline in dairy herd in Appalachia.

    Energy: Rising heat index will increase demand on electricity for air conditioning. But water shortages could restrict electricity generation.

    Oil infrastructure, along coast of Louisiana and Florida, is also vulnerable to rising sea levels and intensifying hurricanes.

    Transport: Storm surges and rising sea levels could block the use of ports and coastal airports, roads and rail lines. Six of the top 10 freight gateways are threatened by rising sea levels. Entire road networks on the Gulf Coast could be at risk.

    Ecosystems: Large-scale shifts in species likely to continue. Deserts will become hotter and drier, oceans more acidic. Salmon and trout populations will contract.

  • Australia small-minded on climate change

     

    A paleontologist by trade, he said the white ring-tailed possum has been around for at least five million years but exposure to temperatures above 34 degrees for more than four hours results in its untimely death.

    The last of the species are located atop a few mountains in northeast Queensland.

    ‘And to see it now vanishing from its last refuge in a world heritage area tells me that our climate is changing in ways that we haven’t seen now probably for millions of years,’ Prof Flannery said.

    Forty-seven degree temperatures, winds up to 100km/h and 12 years of drought fuelled bushfires that levelled bush communities outside of Melbourne on February 7.

    Prof Flannery said climate change and such extreme events can act independently, but Black Saturday was an utter surprise.

    ‘The veracity of those fires and the veracity of the heatwaves killing off that little possum weren’t ever really on the radar for me as key near-term events,’ he told the conference.

    Warmer climate zones are expanding all over the globe, he said, and the southern, cooler zones are retracting even further south.

    He said that if carbon emissions were significantly reduced tomorrow, it would be up to 30 years before rising global temperatures would begin to ease.

    Prof Flannery hopes COP 15, the United Nations climate change conference later this year in Copenhagen, will set the stage for the next global greenhouse emissions treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

    Whatever action is taken at the conference bushfires like Black Saturday may be in Australia’s future, he told the bushfires conference.

    ‘If we are successful at Copenhagen this year and if we can see the brokering of a globally-effective treaty, then what is true (is) that you might have to fight ever-more severe bushfires for the rest of your careers, it may be that your children may face a different future,’ Prof Flannery said.

    He recently attended the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen and noted that the climate change debate in Australia takes on a very limited form.

    ‘It’s very easy in Australia to be dismayed by the nature of the climate debate and see it become very partisan and very small-minded,’ Prof Flannery said.

    ‘If I could just say that globally that isn’t the case at all.

    ‘Very major companies, companies from China, companies from the USA, big polluting companies were all represented in this meeting and came together in goodwill.

    ‘With the recognition, of course, that this is going to be hard and this is going to cost, but it’s going to have to be fair – but with the recognition that change was inevitable.’

     

  • Regulations fail to quiet ETS dissent

     

    But Malcolm Turnbull has cited the fact that the regulations are not all available as a key reason to delay a Senate vote on the laws, and chastised business leaders at a closed-door breakfast meeting this week for not attacking the government over the lack of regulatory detail.

    “The scheme itself is comprised by regulations, which have not been published … where are the business leaders … saying ‘this is madness, you cannot possibly have a parliament passing an emissions trading scheme sight unseen?” the Opposition Leader asked Business Council of Australia chief executives on Wednesday.

    The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network said yesterday the government had released just 18 out of possibly 100 or more definitions of the specific “activities” that would qualify for compensation under the scheme.

    And it said the regulations made it clear that “an industry’s fate in qualifying for emission-intensive trade-exposed status is entirely in the minister’s hands and completely outside the legislation, and therefore has no avenue for legal appeal”.

    The AIGN said the crucial definitions should be included in the legislation itself, and said there remained scores of unanswered questions about how the compensation scheme would work.

    But Greens deputy leader Christine Milne said the regulations were far too generous to industry.

    “These draft regulations confirm that the (emissions trading scheme) will be a multi-billion-dollar wealth transfer from the people to the polluters who actively stand in the way of protecting the climate,” Senator Milne said.

    The emissions trading laws will be debated in the Senate next week, but Coalition and independent senators are likely to defer a vote until August or September.

    Senator Wong said the government would continue to try to bring the legislation to a vote.

    “Well, we are pressing for a vote next week, we are pressing for the legislation to be passed, and that remains the government’s position,” she said.

    “We are very clear — this is legislation in the national interest. Mr Turnbull needs to listen to the business community, and he needs to listen to the Australian people. He needs to stop listening to those in his own partyroom who don’t want action on climate change.”

  • Climate report stresses urgent action

     

    “In some aspects it’s moving right near the upper range of earlier projections, this gives us a sense of urgency.

    “A good example of that is sea level rise which is moving right to the upper level of projections we’ve had around now for about 20 years. It’s a pretty fundamental parameter because it is related partly at least to how fast the oceans are warming. That’s where about 90 per cent of the extra heat is going.

    “So we have a very good indicator now that the climate … system is shifting pretty definitely and pretty rapidly.”

    Professor Steffen says time is running out to implement meaningful cuts in emissions.

    “If we want to keep temperatures below two degrees – which is an often quoted guardrail – we pretty much need to see our emissions peak within the next six to 10 years and then drop very quickly after that,” he said.

    Tipping points

    Professor Steffen says some systems like the Great Barrier Reef are reaching their tipping points.

    “Basically a tipping point means that a system is not going to respond in a nice smooth way to increased CO2 in the atmosphere or increased temperature,” he said.

    “You can see temperature rise, temperature rise, and nothing happening to a system. An example being the Indian monsoon. And then with the small additional increase in temperature, it may flip to a much drier state.

    “So basically a tipping element means you can push and push and push a system – a bit like a canoe. If you are starting to tip over in a canoe, it always comes back until you just reach that critical point and then you tip over.

    “Natural systems do this. [An example] is the Great Barrier Reef – a big natural ecosystem which is resilient to a point but once you pass that point, then it will change very quickly.”

    ‘Sense of urgency’

    Professor Steffen says the report lends a sense of urgency to the upcoming climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

    “I think I could paraphrase the Prime Minister of Denmark … who looked at this and said ‘alright, this is giving me a sense of urgency. This is giving me a sense that we have to come out of Copenhagen in December with a widely agreed road map that includes the big developing countries like China and India as well as the major players in the industrialised world like the United States’,” he said.

    “We have to get to that level of remit, we can’t wait for another round of negotiations.

    “So his bottom line message was – he took the science on board and said ‘now is the time we have got to move’.”

  • Coast residents warned to brace for climate change

     

    “The frequency of flooding events is going to increase significantly,” he said.

    “The average for Australia is that if we have a sea level rise of only half a metre, which is very conservative for this century, you’re going to see flooding events increasing by a factor of something like 300.

    “This means that if you’ve got a flooding event that happens every year at the moment, it’s going to be happening every day by the end of the century.

    “I say it’s a risk-based thing, it gives you the probability of a flooding event during the life of the asset.

    “It includes both the uncertainty of when the next storm’s going to come and also the uncertainty of the projections of sea level rise into the future.”

  • Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes

     

    Final Report

    Note: All links are to PDF files.

    Entire Report: Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes

    Plate 1: Map of Arctic Ocean

    Plate 2: Timeline of Climate Events and Time Periods

    For further information regarding this Synthesis and Assessment Product, please contact Dr. Fabien Laurier at SAP-info@usgcrp.gov . Please include “SAPinfo” in the subject line.

     
    This document, part of the Synthesis and Assessment Products described in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Strategic Plan, was prepared in accordance with Section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (Public Law 106-554) and theinformation quality act guidelines issued by the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Geological Survey pursuant to Section 15). The CCSP Interagency Committee relies on the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Geological Survey certifications regarding compliance with Section 515 and Department guidelines as the basis for determining that this product conforms with Section 515. For purposes of compliance with Section 515, this CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Product is an “interpreted product” as that term is used in U.S. Geological Survey guidelines and is classified as “highly influential”. This document does not express any regulatory policies of the United States or any of its agencies, or provide recommendations for regulatory action.

     

     

     

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