Category: Climate chaos

One morning each week, a scientist takes a stroll on the barren upper slopes of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, a basketball-sized glass sphere in hand. At some point, the researcher faces the wind, takes a deep breath, holds it and strides forward while twisting open a stopcock. With a whoosh lasting no more than a few seconds, 5 liters of the most pristine air on the planet replaces the vacuum inside the thick-walled orb.

Once every couple of weeks, a parka-clad researcher at the South Pole conducts the same ritual. At these remote sites and dozens of others, instruments also sniff the air, adding measurements of atmospheric chemistry to a dataset that stretches back more than 50 years. The nearly continuous record results from one of the longest-running, most comprehensive earth science experiments in history, says Ralph F. Keeling, a climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. He carries on the effort his father, Charles Keeling, began as a graduate student in the 1950s.

Possible solutions range from boosting natural forms of carbon capture and storage, or sequestration – fertilizing the oceans to enhance algal blooms, say, or somehow augmenting the soil’s ability to hold organic matter – to schemes for snatching CO2 from smokestacks and disposing of it deep underground or in seafloor sediments.

Success in sequestering carbon comes down to meeting two challenges: How to remove CO2 from the air (or prevent it from getting there in the first place) and what to do with it once it has been collected.

Read the rest of the article on Science News

The team studied core samples taken from the bottom of the ocean, which allow C02 levels to be tracked millions of years ago. They show that when the world began to glaciate at the start of the Ice age about 35m years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere stood at about 450ppm.

“If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice – that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster – a guaranteed disaster,” Hansen told the Guardian.

At levels as high as 550ppm, the world would warm by 6C, the paper finds. Previous estimates had suggested warming would be just 3C at that point.

Hansen has long been a prominent figure in climate change science. He was one of the first to bring the crisis to the world’s attention in testimony to Congress in the 1980s.

But his relationship with the Bush administration has been frosty. In 2005 he accused the White House and Nasa of trying to censor him. He has steadily revised his analysis of the scale of the global warming and was himself one of the architects of a 450ppm target. But he told the Guardian: “I realise that was too high.”

The fundamental reason for his reassessment was what he calls “slow feedback” mechanisms which are only now becoming fully understood. They amplify the rise in temperature caused by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases. Ice and snow reflect sunlight but when they melt, they leave exposed ground which absorbs more heat.

As ice sheets recede, the warming effect is compounded. Satellite technology available over the past three years has shown that the ice sheets are melting much faster than expected, with Greenland and west Antarctica both losing mass.

Hansen said that he now regards as “implausible” the view of many climate scientists that the shrinking of the ice sheets would take thousands of years. “If we follow business as usual I can’t see how west Antarctica could survive a century. We are talking about a sea-level rise of at least a couple of metres this century.”

The revised target is likely to prompt criticism that he is setting the bar unrealistically high. With the US administration still acting as a drag on international efforts, climate campaigners are struggling even to get a 450ppm target to stick.

Hansen said his findings were not a recipe for despair. The good news, he said, is that reserves of fossil fuels have been exaggerated, so an alternative source of energy will have to be rapidly put in place in any case. Other measure could include a moratorium on coal power stations which would bring the C02 levels to below 400ppm.

Hansen’s revised position will pile yet further pressure on Britain over plans to build a new generation of coal power stations. Last year he wrote to Gordon Brown urging him to block the first such power station; the Royal Society has made similar suggestions to the government.

The International Monetary Fund said in a report released today that sharply reducing the world’s carbon emissions will cost relatively little economically if a carbon-pricing scheme is adopted soon that includes all the major-emitting countries. The report didn’t endorse one specific pricing mechanism, but said that either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system could work if it gradually increased the price of carbon. "There are significant risks from climate change; damages could be severe," said IMF economist Natalia Tamirisa. "The costs of mitigation could be moderate provided that policies are well designed."

Meanwhile, at the ongoing United Nations climate conference in Bangkok, the IMF’s partner institution (and fellow predatory lender) the World Bank floated proposals to combat climate change that proved unpopular with developing nations. Instead of funneling cash through the U.N. climate program to aid developing countries, the World Bank suggested it should administer a $10 billion clean-technology fund, and possibly other such funds. Critics of the proposal said the World Bank is too closely controlled by G8 countries and has a shady history of shafting poorer nations.

From The Age 

A GLOBAL agreement binding all significant countries, rich and poor, offers the best hope for tackling climate change, and could halve the cost of countries trying to tackle it alone, the International Monetary Fund advises.

In its latest World Economic Outlook, to be released today, the IMF calls on national leaders to draft a global agreement quickly that establishes either a common tax rate on carbon, or an emissions trading scheme in which permits can be traded internationally, so emissions can be reduced where it is cheapest to do so.

The global financial watchdog endorses concerns over global warming from an economic standpoint, warning that the risk of potential damage, especially in poor countries, "could be large and even catastrophic if global warming is unchecked".

The IMF presents modelling suggesting that a global carbon tax or emissions trading scheme could stabilise greenhouse gas levels at 550 parts per million (roughly equivalent to a warming of three degrees) while still more than doubling the world’s output by 2040.

With the cost of emission permits starting low and rising gradually to $US86 a tonne by 2040, this can be done while reducing consumption by just 0.6%, the IMF study finds.

But it will be crucial to make the scheme inclusive, because the cheapest place to reduce emissions is in China, where the use of clean technology will see huge emission cuts, allowing it to sell surplus permits to the West.

The IMF also suggests higher petrol taxes and tougher vehicle emission standards in some countries, noting that China now has higher emission standards than Australia or the US.

"Climate change can be addressed without imposing heavy damages either on the global economy or on individual countries," the IMF concludes.

But it emphasises two points: First, it is crucial to include the main developing countries, because they will produce 70% of emissions in the next 50 years. Second, the cost of reducing emissions will be halved if permits can be traded internationally.

The study finds that the global costs of action will be least if emissions levels are set on the basis of population, rather than current entitlements. Rich countries, it says, are far better able to adjust to higher energy prices, and should provide cheap clean technology to poor countries.

"Poor countries will be hit earlier and harder, owing to their geography, heavier reliance on agriculture, and more limited capacity to adapt," it says.

"Their health and water systems may come under stress from more frequent natural disasters, coasts may be flooded, and populations may migrate."

The study points out three potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change:

■The melting of the west Antarctic ice shelf could cause sea levels to rise over coastal cities such as New York, Shanghai and Melbourne.

■The reversal of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic could make northern Europe far colder.

■More extreme monsoons in South Asia could cause serious destruction and loss of life.

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