Week ending 5 August 2012

Arctic sea-ice volume (red line is 2012) from  https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas

Arctic Death Spiral Continues: Record Low Sea Ice Volume Appears Likely
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/04/634901/arctic-death-spiral-continues-new-record-low-sea-ice-volume-appears-likely
Neven, Climate Progress, 4 August 2012
I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re going to have a new record volume low, although the difference with 2010 and 2011 has become smaller. Right now it’s 1249 and 730 km3 respectively.

More Arctic charts
https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/piomas

PICKS OF THE WEEK

Climate policy and our sphere of influence
http://inside.org.au/climate-policy-sphere-of-influence/
Fergus Green, Inside Story, 2 August 2012
Our policies have focused on the small portion of emissions that we account for within Australia. It’s time to start thinking about how we can influence emissions beyond our borders.

Victory declared for the climate denialists
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4169648.html
Graham Readfearn, The Drum, 2 August 2012
A victory has been declared in the field of climate change, but the lap of honour is not being run by research scientists or renewable energy bosses, or by coral reefs, drought-stricken farmers or the citizens of low-lying countries.
ESSAY
A Dark Victory: How vested interests defeated climate science
http://www.themonthly.com.au/how-vested-interests-defeated-climate-science-dark-victory-robert-manne-5853
Robert Manne, The Monthly, August 2012
As greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise, as evidence of global warming has continued to grow, as the unwillingness of the world to act to curb emissions has become increasingly clear, a determination not to notice the looming catastrophe has taken hold of large parts of the population.

Sustainability: the word you shouldn’t use
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/sustainability-word-you-shouldnt-use
Tony Calandro, Guardian, 3 August 2012
A new study shows that understanding a company’s business objectives and avoiding sustainability jargon is the secret to successful sustainability leadership

Farmers: Biofuels Quota Exacerbating ‘Food Crisis’
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/31-0
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, July 31, 2012
Some of the largest farmers in the US are warning the government that the mandated biofuels provisions that demand grain crops to be converted into ethanol for gasoline will make an impending “food crisis” much worse

Visualising climate change
http://talkingclimate.org/visualising-climate-change/
How can some­thing that is largely ‘invis­ible’ be com­mu­nic­ated using visual tools? This is the ques­tion that Professor Stephen Sheppard asks in this guest blog post, sum­mar­ising some of the research in his new book ‘Visualizing Climate Change‘.

FOCUS ON EXTREME WEATHER AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate Change Study Ties Recent Heat Waves To Global Warming
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/04/climate-change-heat-wave-global-warming_n_1742653.html
Seth Borenstein, Huffington Post, 4 August 2012
The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can’t be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

Chronic 2000-04 Drought, Worst in 800 Years, May Be the ‘New Normal’
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120729142137.htm
ScienceDaily, July 29, 2012
The chronic drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 left dying forests and depleted river basins in its wake and was the strongest in 800 years, scientists have concluded, but they say those conditions will become the “new normal” for most of the coming century.

Perth on track for driest July on record
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-30/perth-on-track-for-driest-july-on-record/4164674
ABC News,  July 31, 2012
Perth is on track to record its driest July since records began more than 100 years ago. The city has received just 30 millimetres of rain this month, well below the 170 millimetre average

1988 vs 2012: How heat waves and droughts fuel climate perception
http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2012/07/30/2
Nathanael Massey, ClimateWire, July 30, 2012
A crop-searing drought grips the Midwest and Southeast. In the Rocky Mountains, extraordinary “superfires” rip through thousands of acres of high-elevation pine. The Mississippi River runs so low that barge traffic must be slowed, at times suspended. Across the country, roads buckle under the heat.

Juiced by Climate Change: Extreme Weather On Steroids
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/01/622111/juiced-by-climate-change-extreme-weather-on-steroids
Stephanie Hanson Damassa and Noreen Nielsen, CAP, 1 August 2012
The brutal summer of 2012 is what climate change looks like. It’s only the beginning of August, and yet nearly every corner of the United States has suffered through extreme weather such as oppressive heat waves, damaging storms, and devastating droughts and wildfires

When It Rains, It Pours: New Study Finds Extreme Snowstorms And Deluges Are Becoming More Frequent And More Severe
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/31/616441/when-it-rains-it-pours-new-study-finds-extreme-snowstorms-and-deluges-are-becoming-more-frequent-and-more-severe
Climate Progress, July 31, 2012
As our climate warms, wet areas will generally get wetter (and dry areas drier). One of the consequences of global warming is the severity and frequency of rain and snow storms – fueled by the increase moisture in the atmosphere as the air warms.

Climate change the cause of summer’s extreme weather, Congress told
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/01/climate-change-extreme-weather-congress
Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, 1 August 2012
IPCC scientists tell Senate committee drought, wildfires and hurricanes are becoming normal because of climate change.

‘When It Rains, It Pours’: Global Warming Brings Increased, Heavier Storms
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/31-4
Common Dreams, July 31, 2012
The impacts of human-caused global warming are being felt across the U.S. as increased and heavier storms — predicted by climate scientists — are confirmed in a report released Tuesday.

ENERGY AND INNOVATION

Project’s woes raise questions about brown coal’s future
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3557214.htm
Simon Lauder, TWT, July 31, 2012 
The apparent failure of a brown coal power plant has cast doubt over Victoria’s plans to become a major coal exporter.

Smelling a leak: Is the natural gas industry buying academics?
http://grist.org/natural-gas/smelling-a-leak-is-the-natural-gas-industry-buying-academics/
Tim McDonnell. Grist, 30 July 2012
Last week, the University of Texas provost announced he would reexamine a report by a UT professor that said fracking was safe for groundwater after the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer. It’s the latest fusillade in the ongoing battle over the basic facts of fracking in America

National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Solar Has The Most Potential Of Any Renewable Energy Source
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/30/606271/national-renewable-energy-laboratory-solar-has-the-most-potential-of-any-renewable-energy-source/
Climate Progress,  July 30, 2012
A recently released study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, estimates that the technical potential of photovoltaic cells and concentrated solar power (CSP) in the United States is as much as 200,000 Gigawatts, enough to generate about 400,000 TWh of energy annually.

Shale gas extraction on the rise in Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3559469.htm
ABC PM, 2 August 2012
The shale gas revolution that’s causing huge controversy in the United States is gathering pace in Australia. Some proponents say shale gas production could be bigger than the coal seam industry. 

Utility scale PV market in Australia “about to take off” – First Solar
http://.com.au/2012/utility-scale-pv-market-in-australia-about-to-take-off-first-solar-96881
Giles Parkinson, reneweconomy, 3 August 2012
US solar PV manufacturing giant First Solar has made a bullish assessment of the Australian market, saying the utility-scale sector is about to take off. But it may have more attractive options in markets such as Chile.

Devil in detail of Renewable Energy Target Review
http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/devil-detail-renewable-energy-target-review
Tristan Edis, Climate Spectator, 3 August 2012
The Climate Change Authority is due to provide an issues paper this month outlining the kinds of things it will consider in its review of the Renewable Energy Target.

Australian energy cost estimates: experts respond
http://theconversation.edu.au/australian-energy-cost-estimates-experts-respond-8562
Andrew Blakers and Kenneth Baldwin,The Conversation, 31 July 2012
Renewable energy sources such such as solar photovoltaic and onshore wind could generate the lowest electricity costs in Australia by 2030, according to a report released today by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics.

Record Efficiency for Next-Generation Solar Cells
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120729142319.htm
ScienceDaily, July 29, 2012
Researchers ave made a breakthrough in the development of colloidal quantum dot (CQD) films, leading to the most efficient CQD solar cell ever.

POLITICS AND POLICY

Baillieu back-pedals on environmental protection
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/baillieu–backpedals-on-environmental-protection-20120729-235r1.html
Kelly O’Shanassy, the Age, July 30, 2012
Bipartisan efforts to safeguard the environment appear to be over with the Baillieu government taking environmental protection backwards faster than any Victorian state government since the 1950s.

The new environmentalism: where men must act ‘as gods’ to save the planet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/01/neogreens-science-business-save-planet
Paul Kingsnorth, Guardian, 1 August 2012
For the neogreens, science and business will provide while nature can adapt. It is a messsage gaining traction

We Can Reforest the Earth
http://www.earth-policy.org/book_bytes/2012/wotech10_1
Lester R. Brown, EPI, 31 July 2012
Protecting the 10 billion acres of remaining forests on earth and replanting many of those already lost are both essential for restoring the earth’s health.

Climate Emergency Action Plan
http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/sarah-van-gelder/climate-emergency-action-plan-5-ways-we-can-still-avert-catastrophe
Sarah van Gelder, Yes, July 20, 2012
We can still avoid a devastating climate crisis. But we’ll need a World War II-level mobilization. And we’ll need to stand up to Dirty Energy

Carbon price gloom eases
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/carbon-price-gloom-eases-20120729-236jx.html
Michelle Grattan, the Age, July 30, 2012
A majority of Australians say the carbon price’s introduction has made no difference to them, according to an Age/Nielsen poll that shows Labor slightly narrowing the opposition’s two-party lead.

SCIENCE AND IMPACTS

Tightened constraints on the time-lag between Antarctic temperature and CO2 during the last deglaciation
http://www.clim-past.net/8/1213/2012/cp-8-1213-2012.html
We show that the increase in CO2 likely lagged the increase in regional Antarctic temperature by less than 400 yr and that even a short lead of CO2 over temperature cannot be excluded. This result, consistent for both CO2 records, implies a faster coupling between temperature and CO2 than previous estimates, which had permitted up to millennial-scale lag

Nature soaks up more greenhouse gases, brakes warming
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6E8J18R120120801
Alister Doyle, Reuters, 1 August 2012 
Oceans and land have more than doubled the amount of greenhouse gases they absorb since 1960 in new evidence that nature is helping to brake global warming, a study showed on Wednesday.

Greenland Meltdown Driven by Collapse of Glaciers at Ocean Outlets
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=greenland-glacier-meltdown-at-outlets-slideshow
David Biello, Scientific American, August 2, 2012
The interactions between the island’s glaciers and the surrounding seas may be driving ice loss, according to aerial photographs

Climate Change’s Costs Hit the Plate
http://www.homerdixon.com/2012/07/24/climate-change%E2%80%99s-costs-hit-the-plate/
Thomas  Homer-Dixon, Toronto Globe and Mail, July 24, 20
In the past few years, agricultural scientists have shown that crops critical to humankind’s caloric supply – including corn and soybeans – are extremely sensitive to even short periods of high temperature. Output of these crops increases as the temperature rises to about 30 Celsius, but then it falls sharply as the temperature keeps rising.

Study Shows Planet Keeping Pace With CO2 Emissions
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/new-study-shows-planet-keeping-pace-with-co2-emissions/
Michael D. Lemonick, Climate Central, August 1st, 2012
Climate change is a serious enough problem, but it could be a lot worse. About half of the carbon dioxide we’ve pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by plants and oceans, rather than staying in circulation to drive up temperatures.

Atmospheric CO2 Drove Climate Change During Longest Interglacial
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120731200630.htm
ScienceDaily, July 31, 2012
Known as the marine isotope stage 11 (MIS 11), the interglacial period centered around 400,000 years ago was the longest and possibly the warmest interglacial in the past 0.5 million years.

By James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy (available at PDFhere)

The greatest barrier to public recognition of human-made climate change is probably the natural variability of local climate. How can a person discern long-term climate change, given the notorious variability of local weather and climate from day to day and year to year?

Figure 1: Fire fighters battle the Taylor Creek blaze, one of several fires which have burned over 75,000 acres in southeastern Montana in summer 2012. Image credit: USFWS/Gerald Vickers via InciWeb.org.

The question is important because actions to stem emissions of gases that cause global warming are unlikely until the public appreciates the significance of global warming and perceives that it will have unacceptable consequences. Thus when nature seemingly provides evidence of climate change it needs to be examined objectively by the public, as well as by scientists.
Therefore it was disappointing that most early media reports on the heat wave, widespread drought, and intense forest fires in the United States in 2012 did not mention or examine the potential connection between these climate events and global warming. Is this   reticence justified?
In a new paper (Hansen et al., 2012a), we conclude that such reticence is not justified. The paper attempts to illustrate the data in ways that properly account for climate variability yet are understandable to the public.
We show how the probability of unusually warm seasons is changing, emphasizing summer when the changes have large practical effects. We calculate seasonal-mean temperature anomalies relative to average temperature in the base period 1951-1980. This is an appropriate base period because global temperature was relatively stable and still within the Holocene range to which humanity and other planetary life are adapted (note 1).
We illustrate variability of seasonal temperature in units of standard deviation (σ), including comparison with the normal distribution (“bell curve”) that the lay public may appreciate. The probability distribution (frequency of occurrence) of local summer-mean temperature anomalies was close to the normal distribution in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in both hemispheres (Figure 2). However, in each subsequent decade the distribution shifted toward more positive anomalies, with the positive tail (hot outliers) of the distribution shifting the most.

Figure 2. Temperature anomaly distribution: The frequency of occurrence (vertical axis) of local temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-1980 mean) in units of local standard deviation (horizontal axis). Area under each curve is unity. Image credit: NASA/GISS.

An important change is the emergence of a subset of the hot category, extremely hot outliers, defined as anomalies exceeding +3σ. The frequency of these extreme anomalies is about 0.13% in the normal distribution, and thus in a typical summer in the base period only 0.1-0.2% of the globe is covered by such hot extremes. However, we show that during the past several years the global land area covered by summer temperature anomalies exceeding +3σ has averaged about 10%, an increase by more than an order of magnitude compared to the base period. Recent examples of summer temperature anomalies exceeding +3σ include the heat wave and drought in Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico in 2011 and a larger region encompassing much of the Middle East, Western Asia and Eastern Europe, including Moscow, in 2010.
The question of whether these extreme hot anomalies are a result of global warming is often answered in the negative, with an alternative interpretation based on meteorological patterns. For example, an unusual atmospheric “blocking” situation resulted in a long-lived high pressure anomaly in the Moscow region in 2010, and a strong La Niña in 2011 may have contributed to the heat and drought situation in the southern United States and Mexico. However, such meteorological patterns are not new and thus as an “explanation” fail to account for the huge increase in the area covered by extreme positive temperature anomalies. Specific meteorological patterns help explain where the high pressure regions that favor high temperature and drought conditions occur in a given summer, but the unusually great temperature extremities and the large area covered by these hot anomalies is a consequence of global warming, which is causing the bell curve to shift to the right (Fig. 2).
Yet the distribution of seasonal temperature anomalies (Fig. 2) also reveals that a significant portion (about 15 percent) of the anomalies are still negative, corresponding to summer-mean temperatures cooler than the average 1951-1980 climate. Thus people should not be surprised by the occasional season that is unusually cool. Cool anomalies as extreme as -2σ still occur, because the anomaly distribution has broadened as well as moved to the right. In other words, our climate now encompasses greater extremes.
Our analysis is an empirical approach that avoids use of global climate models, instead using only real world data. Theories for the cause of observed global temperature change are thus separated as an independent matter. However, it is of interest to compare the data with results from climate models that are used to simulate expected global warming due to increasing human-made greenhouse gases.
Indeed, the “climate dice” concept was suggested in conjunction with climate simulations made in the 1980s (Hansen et al., 1988) as a way to describe the stochastic variability of local temperatures, with the implication that the public should recognize the existence of global warming once the dice become sufficiently “loaded” (biased). Specifically, the 10 warmest summers (Jun-Jul-Aug in the Northern Hemisphere) in the 30-year period (1951-1980) were used to define the “hot” summer category, the 10 coolest the “cold” category, and the middle 10 the “average” summer. Thus it was imagined that two sides of a six-sided die were colored red, blue and white for these respective categories. The divisions between “hot” and “average” and between “average” and “cold” occur at +0.43σ and -0.43σ for a normal distribution.
Temperatures simulated in a global climate model (Hansen et al., 1988) reached a level such that four of the six sides of the climate dice were red in the first decade of the 21st century for greenhouse gas scenario B, which is an accurate approximation of actual greenhouse gas growth (Hansen and Sato 2004; updates are provided by a Columbia Univ. webpage). Observed summer temperature anomalies over global land during the past decade averaged about 75% in the “hot category”, thus midway between four and five sides of the die were red, which is reasonably consistent with expectations.
The relation between the bell curve and climate dice is illustrated in Figure 3. Extremely hot outliers already occur more frequently than unusually cold seasons. If the march of the bell curve to the right continues unabated, within a few decades even the seasons that were once considered average will cease to occur.

Figure 3. Frequency of occurrence (vertical axis) of local June-July-August temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-1980 mean) for Northern Hemisphere land in units of local standard deviation (horizontal axis). Temperature anomalies in the period 1951-1980 match closely the normal distribution (“bell curve”, shown in green), which is used to define cold (blue), typical (white) and hot (red) seasons, each with probability 33.3%. The distribution of anomalies has shifted to the right as a consequence of the global warming of the past three decades such that cool summers now cover only half of one side of a six-sided die, white covers one side, red covers four sides, and an extremely hot (red-brown) anomaly covers half of one side..

We have shown that the increased frequency of “hot” seasons is a result of global warming. The cause of global warming is a separate matter, but observed global warming is now attributed with high confidence to increasing greenhouse gases (IPCC 2007a).
Both attributions are important. Together they allow us to infer that the area covered by extreme hot anomalies will continue to increase in coming decades and that even more extreme outliers will occur. Indeed, we conclude that the decade-by-decade shift to the right of the temperature anomaly distribution (Fig. 2) will continue, because Earth is now out of energy balance, with more solar energy absorbed than heat radiation emitted to space (Hansen et al., 2011); it is this imbalance that drives the planet to higher temperatures. Even an exceedingly optimistic scenario for fossil fuel emissions reduction, 6%/year beginning in 2013, results in global temperature rising to almost 1.2°C relative to 1880-1920, which compares to a current level ~0.8°C (Hansen et al., 2012b).

Figure 4. Wildfire frequency and spring-summer temperature in the western United States. Image credit: Westerling et al. (2006).

Practical effects of increasingly loaded climate dice occur mainly via amplified extremes ofEarth’s water cycle. The broadening of the “bell curve” of temperature anomalies is related to interactions of warming with the water cycle. Hot summer anomalies occur when and where weather patterns yield an extended period of high atmospheric pressure. This condition is amplified by global warming and the ubiquitous surface heating due to elevated greenhouse gas levels, thus increasing the chances of an extreme anomaly. Yet global warming also increases atmospheric water vapor overall, causing, at other times or places, more extreme rainfall and floods, consistent with documented changes over Northern Hemisphere land and the tropics (IPCC 2007b).
The (Northern Hemisphere) summer of 2012 is still unfolding. A global map of the anomaly distribution will be provided on a Columbia Univ. webpage once the data are complete; the data so far suggest that parts of the United States and Asia likely will be in the extreme (+3σ) category. One of the consequences of extreme summer heat anomalies is increased area and intensity of wildfires, as shown in Fig. 4. Updates of these data and other climate impacts after the 2012 data are complete will be useful for assessing impacts of continued global warming.

Related Articles
NASA News: How Warm was Summer 2010?
NASA Earth Observatory: Image of the Day, Aug. 9, 2010: Heatwave in Russia
NASA Earth Observatory: Image of the Day, June 29, 2012: Heat Wave Fuels Wildfires in the Rockies
NASA Earth Observatory: Image of the Day, July 17, 2012: Drought Grips the United States

Footnote
1 In contrast, we infer that current global temperature is above the Holocene range, as evidenced by the fact that the ice sheets in both hemispheres are now rapidly shedding mass (Rignot et al., 2011) and sea level is rising (Nerem et al., 2006) at a rate (more than 3 mm/year or 3 m/millennium) that is much higher than the rate of sea level change during the past several millennia.

References
Hansen, J., I. Fung, A. Lacis, D. Rind, Lebedeff, R. Ruedy, G. Russell, and P. Stone, 1988: Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model. J. Geophys. Res., 93, 9341-9364, doi:10.1029/JD093iD08p09341.
Hansen, J., and Mki. Sato, 2004: Greenhouse gas growth rates. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 101, 16109-16114, doi:10.1073/pnas.0406982101.
Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, P. Kharecha, and K. von Schuckmann, 2011: Earth’s energy imbalance and implications. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 13421-13449, doi:10.5194/acp-11-13421-2011.
Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, and R. Ruedy, 2012a: Perception of climate change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., in press. Early draft posted as “Public perception of climate change and the new climate dice”, arXiv.org:1204.1286.
Hansen, J., P. Kharecha, Mki. Sato, F. Ackerman, P.J. Hearty, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, S.-L. Hsu, F. Krueger, C. Parmesan, S. Rahmstorf, J. Rockstrom, E.J. Rohling, J. Sachs, P. Smith, K. Steffen, L. Van Susteren, K. von Schuckmann, and J.C. Zachos, 2012b: Scientific case for avoiding dangerous climate change to protect young people and nature. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., submitted.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007a: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Solomon, S., et al. eds., Cambridge University Press, 996 pp.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007b: Climate Change 2007, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Parry, M.L., Canziani, O.F., Palutikof, J.P., Van Der Linden, P.J., and Hanson, C.E. eds., Cambridge Univ Press, 996 pp.
Nerem, R.S., Leuliette, E., and Cazenave, A., 2006: Present-day sea-level change: A review. C. R. Geosci., 338, 1077-1083, doi:10.1016/j.crte.2006.09.001.
Rignot, E., Velicogna, I., van den Broeke, M.R., Monaghan, A., and Lenaerts, J., 2011: Acceleration of the contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea level rise. Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L05503, doi:10.1029/2011GL046583.
Westerling, A.L., Hidalgo, H.G., Cayan, D.R., Swetnam, T.W., 2006: Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity. Science, 313, 940-943, doi:10.1126/science.1128834.

Contact
Please address all inquiries about this research to Dr. James Hansen.