EcoRadio

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. 

  • The Gulf Stream

    The Gulf Stream begins upstream of Cape Hatteras, where the Florida Current ceases to follow the continental shelf. The position of the Stream as it leaves the coast changes throughout the year. In the fall, it shifts north, while in the winter and early spring it shifts south (Auer 1987; Kelly and Gille 1990; Frankignoul et al. 2001). Compared with the width of the current (about 100-200 km), the range of this variation (30-40 km) is relatively small (Hogg and Johns 1995). However, recent studies by Mariano et al. (2002) suggests that the meridional range of the annual variation in stream path may be closer to 100 km. Other characteristics of the current are more variable. Significant changes in its transport, meandering, and structure can be observed through many time scales as it travels northeast.

    The transport of the Gulf Stream nearly doubles downstream of Cape Hatteras (Knauss 1969; Hall and Fofonoff 1993; Hendry 1988; Leaman et al. 1989) at a rate of 8 Sv every 100 km (Knauss 1969; Johns et al. 1995). It appears that the downstream increase in transport between Cape Hatteras and 55°W is mostly due to increased velocities in the deep waters of the Gulf Stream (Johns et al. 1995). This increase in velocity is thought to be associated with deep recirculation cells found north and south of the current (Hall and Fofonoff 1993). Examples of these recirculations include small recirculations east of the Bahamas (Olson et al. 1984; Lee et al. 1990), the Worthington Gyre south of the Gulf Stream between 55° and 75°W (Worthington 1976), and the Northern Recirculation Gyre north of the Gulf Stream (Hogg et al. 1986). Recent studies suggest that the recirculations steadily increase the transport in the Gulf Stream from 30 Sv in the Florida Current to a maximum of 150 Sv at 55°W (Hendry 1982; Hogg 1992; Hogg and Johns 1995).

    The Gulf Stream transport varies not only in space, but also in time. According to Geosat altimetry results, the current transports a maximum amount of water in the fall and a minimum in the spring, in phase with the north-south shifts of the its position (Kelly and Gille 1990; Zlotnicki 1991; Kelly 1991; Hogg and Johns 1995). Rossby and Rago (1985) and Fu et al. (1987) obtained similar results when they looked at sea level differences across the Stream. All of these studies found that the Gulf Stream has a marked seasonal variability, with peak-to-peak amplitude in sea surface height of 10-15 cm. The fluctuation is mostly confined to the upper 200-300 m of the water column and is a result of seasonal heating and expansion of the surface waters (Hogg and Johns 1995). Height differences this small, if assumed to decay linearly to zero at 300 m, would only result in annual transport fluctuations of about 1.5 Sv (Hogg and Johns 1995).

    Interestingly, the variations in transport of the deep waters in the current appear to be almost opposite in phase to the surface waters, and their magnitude is more significant (Hogg and Johns 1995). As Worthington (1976) suggested, the maximum transport occurs in the spring, and the amplitude of the annual cycle is as large as 5-8.5 Sv (Manning and Watts 1989; Sato and Rossby 1992; Hogg and Johns 1995). The mechanism Worthington proposed was extensive convection south of the Gulf Stream in winter due to the atmospheric cooling of surface waters. This causes the thermocline to deepen and the baroclinic transport to increase (Fu et al. 1987). Although his idea has been controversial, alternate hypotheses have not adequately explained observations (Hogg and Johns 1995).

    Like transport, the meandering of the Gulf Stream intensifies downstream of Cape Hatteras, reaching a maximum near 65°W. Meanders often pinch off from the current to form Gulf Stream rings. On average, the Stream sheds 22 warm-core rings and 35 cold-core rings per year (Hogg and Johns 1995).

    Once it reaches the Grand Banks, the structure of the Gulf Stream changes from a single, meandering front to multiple, branching fronts (Krauss 1986; Johns et al. 1995). Early oceanographic papers on the North Atlantic (Iselin 1936; Fuglister 1951a, 1951b; Sverdrup et al. 1942) mention the branching, but due to sparse data in this area, the branch points were considered largely theoretical until confirmed by Mann (1967). Mann (1967) showed two branches at 38°30;N 44°W. One branch curves north along the continental slope, eventually turning east between 50° and 52°N. This branch is called the North Atlantic Current and was well known even in Iselin’s time. The other branch flows southeastward towards the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and is called the Azores Current. This southern branch is most likely synonymous with Iselin’s “Atlantic Current” and was formally named the Azores Current in a paper by Gould (1985).

    The region of the Gulf Stream’s branch point is highly dynamic and subject to rapid change. The high degree of mesoscale activity, along with rapid changes in the major surface currents, make this a very difficult region to study. Part of this variability arises from the high amount of eddy activity. Eddy kinetic energy along both the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current is at peak values here (Richardson 1983). There is also the presence of elongated, high-pressure cells along the offshore side of the North Atlantic Current (Worthington 1976; Clarke et al. 1980; Baranov and Ginkul 1984; Krauss et al. 1987). These pressure cells may be linked to outbursts of Labrador Current water from the Grand Banks (Krauss et al. 1987) that lead to extensive mixing at the end of the Gulf Stream.

  • Carbon Trading and cash values on forests cannot curb carbon emissions

     

     

    More worryingly, plans for low-carbon technology give the expansion of high-carbon coal power pride of place. The promotional rhetoric is of Carbon Capture and Storage [CCS background guide], yet those from the power sector are blunt about its shortcomings. “One of the plants we are building is CCS ready, although to be quite frank no one really knows what that is at the moment,” claimed Steve Lennon, managing director of South Africa’s Eskom.

     

    The underlying problem is that business adjusts the problem of climate change to neoliberal economics, which judges value according to financial cost rather than environmental sustainability or social justice. This manifests itself in a promise to massively expand carbon markets [emissions trading background guide]. The idea is that governments give out a limited number of permits to pollute; the scarcity of these permits should encourage their price to rise; and the resulting additional cost to industry and power producers should encourage them to pollute less.

     

    Jos Delbeke, deputy director-general for the environment at the European commission, was in Copenhagen claiming that this is how the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is now working. Yet his department’s own data for 2008 shows more international “offset” credits circulating than the level of claimed reductions, while lobbying pressure has resulted in a twin-track system from which every business wins.

     

    On one side, heavy industry like the steel sector has more credits than would be needed to reduce its emissions, so it sells them. Delbeke shared a panel on carbon markets with a representative of ArcelorMittal, which alone gained an estimated subsidy of more than €1bn between 2005 and 2008 by this means.

     

    On the other side, power companies pay less for pollution permits than the cost they pass on to consumers, generating windfall profits that could reach up to around €70bn by 2012. The circulation of these permits does nothing to help new investment in renewables.

     

     

    Other measures to avoid business obligations displace the problem of tackling climate change on to developing countries. The Summit’s final Copenhagen Call talks of a crucial role for forest protection in developing countries, and that such measures should represent around half of the action needed to limit climate change by 2020.

     

    These figures are taken directly from Project Catalyst, an initiative bringing together “climate negotiatiors, senior government officials… and business executives”, whose presentation (marked confidential) more straightforwardly emphasises the “the size of the prize for business”. It also speaks of the opportunities for “companies in forest management, pulp and paper, or construction” to access a “€20-30bn value chain” in developing countries.

     

    Strikingly similar assumptions have found their way into negotiating texts on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), which will be discussed when UN climate negotiations resume in Bonn next week. Yet the whole idea that deforestation can be stopped by simply putting a price on forests is flawed, with forest communities and indigenous peoples warning that it will encourage further land grabs by large companies. They point to evidence that the real drivers of deforestation are the major construction, mining, logging and plantation developments whose owners stand to be rewarded by REDD funds.

     

    These are the voices that the world should be listening to as it seeks to tackle climate change. Even the self-proclaimed “progressives” of big business seem to be putting profit margins above environmental need. Without a more fundamental re-examination, to paraphrase one panellist, they look set to remain on the back end of a horse that is galloping in the wrong direction.

     

    • Oscar Reyes is a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch, a project of the Transnational Institute, and environment editor of Red Pepper magazine.

  • EU out on a limb with carbon scheme

     

    The Coalition this week gave bipartisan support to the Rudd Government’s proposed target of between 5 and 25 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020 (equivalent to between 4 and 24 per cent of 1990 levels) but said it would not pass emissions trading laws to meet the targets until after the Copenhagen talks.

    New Zealand is reviewing its emissions trading laws and aims to align them with the scheme that emerges in Australia. Canada, which has committed to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, has put its emissions trading laws on hold until the rapidly-evolving US scheme is finalised. In the US the Waxman-Markey bill is likely to be debated in the House of Representatives in August. The scheme will implement President Barack Obama’s emissions reduction targets, which are equivalent to between 0 and 15per cent cuts on 1990 levels by 2020.

    Progress on the legislation is much faster than many observers had believed possible, but few believe the bills will have passed the Senate before Copenhagen.

    Japan – which took on a tough emissions reduction target under the Kyoto Protocol – has said it will announce its new 2020 targets next month. Environment Minister Tetsuo Saito said this week it would be at least 15 per cent of 1990 levels. The Japanese appear to be relying mainly on regulatory measures to achieve the goal.

    South Korea has said it will announce targets later in the year but its recent stimulus package centred on a green new deal that spent $US36 billion ($45 billion) on clean energy and public transport.

    Promises from developing countries have been largely regulatory and measured in different ways.

    China has promised to reduce energy consumption by 20 per cent below 2005 levels by next year and has ambitious targets for renewable energy use. China already has twice the installed renewable energy capacity as the US.

    India has taken a tough line on developed countries proving their bona fides first, but has promised to limit the growth in its per capita emissions to less than the growth in developed nations. Indonesia has pledged to reduce emissions from its energy sector to 17 per cent less than they were projected to be in 2025.

  • John Kerry hails progress of US-China climate talks

     

     

    The senator’s comments mark a further sweetening of the mood music between the two nations that together account for almost half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but this has yet to translate into concrete progress.

    In their formal positions, the two sides remain far apart. China wants developed nations to make a 40% in emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels, far above the goal set by President Obama’s administration.

     

    The United States wants China to set voluntary but verifiable goals to reduce its energy use and, in the longer term, to join richer nations in cutting overall emissions.

     

    But Kerry said senior Chinese politicians had shown a willingness to compromise, particularly over the 40% target that he described as politically impossible in the US at present.

     

    By sharing know-how and conducting joint research into renewable and energy-saving technology, he said China would realise that it can go beyond its current target of a 20% cut in energy intensity relative to economic growth.

     

    The Chinese government has already tripled its target for wind power and will soon announce a $200bn investment in clean energy, Kerry said.

     

    He quoted first vice-premier Li Keqiang as saying “Let’s do it” with regard to bilateral cooperation in the field.

     

    Major sticking points remain over the question of which nations will pay and how much will be spent on measures to mitigate climate change and its impact. It is also far from certain that China will agree to the stringent verification process sought by the US.

     

    How far each side is willing to compromise will be largely determined in June, when the chief US negotiator Todd Stern visits Beijing, US politicians consider new legislation to cut emissions and the United Nations hosts international talks in Bonn at which the first negotiating texts will be on the table.

     

    US house speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said the possibility of a deal on the environment could transform relations between the world’s richest and most populous nations.

     

    “I do see this opportunity for climate change to be … a game-changer,” she told students at the elite Tsinghua University. “The impact of climate change is a tremendous risk to the security and wellbeing of our countries.”

     

    In a sign of shifting priorities, Pelosi has been noticeably quiet about China’s human rights record during this week’s visit. She was previously a vociferous critic of Beijing’s controls on the media, political activists, lawyers and religious groups.

     

    Many doubt the two nations are being ambitious enough. If China sticks to its current energy efficiency goals and growth rate, the consultancy McKinsey estimates that its emissions will double by 2030.

     

    “That will swamp everything that Europe and the US is willing to do,” said Charlie McElwee, a Shanghai-based environmental lawyer.

  • Assessment of CO2 Levels Hansen

    As we must have North Pole Summer Ice to have a “safe” climate system due to its ability to reflect large amounts of Sunlight, it means that “safe” levels of CO2 in the atmosphere lie somewhere between 300 and 325 ppm CO2. Unfortunately we are not sure exactly where that is, so the “safe” target / goal for CO2 concentrations is 300 ppm or below.

    “Safe” Climate = 300 ppm CO2 or below

    Now knowing this, you can see how ridiculous all the proposals to stabilise our Greenhouse gases at levels higher than today are.

    James Hansen suggests that we have only decades to return to a “safe” level of greenhouse gases or we will run the risk of passing points of “no return” for a number of critical global warming positive feedback mechanisms.

    James has proposed an interim target of 350 ppm CO2 and the closure of the coal industry, the latter of which he mentions in a recent letter to Kevin Rudd.

    “Prime Minister Rudd, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired power plants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.”
    James Hansen letter to Kevin Rudd 27 March 2008

    Unfortunately people have already begun to misinterpret Hansen’s call for an interim target and are confusing this with a “safe” target. Please don’t do the same, as 350 ppm CO2 is as much of a death sentence for the planet as 400, 450, 550, 650 etc.

    1. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf
    2. http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/RoyalCollPhyscns_Jan08.pdf

  • What James Hansen really said to Barack and Michelle

     

    The Australian government and coal industry pretend to be in love with carbon capture and storage policies and the government hands out large wacks of money to the coal industry in pursuing this pretence. Professor Hansen has a novel idea. He suggests that the power generation industry actually use carbon capture and storage technology not just talk about it. The alternative is that the use of coal for electricity generation be phased out. It would be interesting to see the faces of coal executives being told that they actually have to deploy the “clean coal” technology about which they talk so unceasingly.

    The second suggestion is that a gradually increasing carbon tax be imposed. Cap and trade emissions trading schemes of the kind proposed by the Rudd Government (and operating for some time in the EU) are rejected as generating lobbyists, special interests and non-productive millionaires at public expense with little gain for the environment. Similar criticism has been recently made of the Rudd Government’s scheme by ZeroGen, a company actually trying to operate a carbon capture and storage scheme. Professor Hansen’s proposal involves returning the revenue raised by the carbon tax to the populace on a per capita basis. Thus, small consumers of carbon will benefit and large consumers shall pay for the privilege. Products which avoid use of carbon in their production will be more competitive in the market place.

    A rising carbon tax provides certainty for industry and deployment of the new low carbon technology is modulated by the rate at which the tax increases. A carbon tax proposal is a slap in the face for the economists who promote the complexity of emissions trading schemes in the name of using the market to promote an efficient allocation of resources.

    Professor Hansen’s third policy recommendation is the allocation of large resources to the research and development of fourth generation nuclear power (with international co-operation). The suggestion that nuclear power in any form is a safe means of avoiding the danger of carbon emissions will challenge many conservationists.

    Professor Hansen anticipates some objections to this proposal. He suggests that concerns that such technology will not be available until too late do not factor in focused Presidential involvement in the process of development of the new technology.

    Fourth generation reactors are promoted by Professor Hansen as not only much safer than previous nuclear technology. He also suggests that have the potential to solve the problems created by earlier nuclear technology including the problem of storing or disposing of nuclear waste. He states: “Existing nuclear reactors use less than 1% of the energy in uranium, leaving more than 99% in long-lived nuclear waste. 4th GNP can ‘burn’ that waste, leaving a small volume of waste with a half-life of decades rather than thousands of years.”

    Professor Hansen warns of tipping points that would take the disastrous trajectory towards an ice free earth out of human control. He indicates that an appropriate level of carbon dioxide equivalent in the atmosphere is less than 350 parts per million, down from the existing 385 parts per million.

    Finally, the Hansen letter is not complimentary of either the coal industry or the existing nuclear industry. The letter states that it is “noteworthy that, even with the presence of poorly designed nuclear power plants in the past, and in some cases demonstrably sloppy operations, the waste from coal-fired power plants has done far more damage, and even spread more radioactive material around the world than all nuclear power plants combined, including Chernobyl.”

    As usual, Professor Hansen’s courage to say what (after careful thought) he thinks outstrips any desire he may have to win friends. Hopefully, at some stage, similar courage might be displayed by Australia’s politicians and public servants.