2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit News 12/10/09: Sea Level Rise 3X Faster & Tuvalu’s Leadership

There was an important development at yesterday’s Climate Summit in Copenhagen that should have gotten more attention in the media.  There was also a data update that provides additional context for the importance of that development.

The island nation of Tuvalu wanted legally binding language to be written establishing limits in global atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 350 parts per million and global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.  For clarity, our current global CO2 concentrations, according to observations, is 387ppm.  So we’re already above the limit that scientists have identified as being a threshold we should not be above if we don’t want global temperatures much higher than they are today.  Tuvalu was asking, therefore, for nations to agree to reduce emissions drastically so that the atmospheric concentrations begin decreasing.  Why would they want legally binding language for such an audacious goal?  Because Tuvalu is a set of four reef islands and five atolls whose maximum elevation is 15ft.  They are extremely susceptible to any future potential sea level rise.  Larger, richer countries (like Saudi Arabia and China) would hear none of it.  They want to keep burning dirty fossil fuels and expand their economies like other developed nations did for the past 150 years.  Tuvalu and a group consisting of other island countries and poorer nations can’t afford to wait until China decides they’re ready to switch to 100% renewable energy at some point in the future.  They’re at risk today from climate change that is already occurring.  The issue was suspended for the time being.  Expect it to arise again before the end of next week (not that a solution will be found in that time frame, unfortunately).

Which brings me to the bad news of the day.  I’ve written for months now that the 2007 IPCC AR4 report was good for its time, but it left significant questions unanswered (I haven’t been the only one).  It was good, but didn’t go far enough.  Major drawbacks resulting from a far too conservative approach, an approach that didn’t examine extremes as likely enough to spend much time on.  Since the collection of papers for the 2007 AR4 release, scientists across the world have worked very hard to try to begin finding answers for the toughest questions remaining.  How sensitive is the climate to GHG emissions?  How responsive are temperatures to those emissions?  When will glaciers and ice sheets melt?  What kind of sea level rise can be expected?  Another paper was put together to try to answer that last question.  As with other facets of the research effort, conditions could very well be much worse than what the 2007 Report may have led people to think:

Sea level rise could occur 3 times faster than previously estimated.  Everybody should be able to click on the link and look at the pdf if they want.  Here’s the high-level message: based on our current emissions profile, which is as high as the worst-case scenario the IPCC examined, sea levels could rise by 6 feet (~2m) by 2100.  The rate at which sea levels have been rising has increased in the past 20 and 10 years.  Scientists’ predictions of sea level rise have been too low, contrary to the denialists’ hopes otherwise.  Natural causes alone have not and cannot explain the rise observed.  Like I wrote above, Tuvalu and many other countries are under immediate threat.  They have no more time to wait while rich countries throw tantrums like spoiled children.  This situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.

My 9Dec2009 summary is here.

My 7Dec2009 summary is here.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit News 12/9/09: 2000s Hottest Decade On Record

Lots of activity in Copenhagen happened during the past two days.  As expected, results in the form of agreements or pacts haven’t come yet – that will happen next week.  So here are some more climate-related news items to digest while negotiators do their job.  I’ll add them throughout the day as they come out.

The 2000’s will be the hottest decade on record.  Read that again: the 2000’s will be the hottest decade on record.  Both the World Meteorological Organization and NOAA have come out with separate but agreeing analyses on this topic.  Expect NASA to say the same thing when they release their update in the next week.  We’ll have to wait until a little while into 2010 to get additional confirmation, but climate change is occurring today, period, end of story.  What’s left to debate and decide?  How fast and how much we act in the next 5 years.  After that, it becomes how do we react, because a great deal of change will have been locked into the climate system.

2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit: 12/7/09

This year’s climate summit is being held in Copenhagen, Denmark.  The summit is scheduled to last through the end of next week.  In the run-up to the conference, a large number of analyses and news tidbits have come out.  Since little will be decided in the first few days of the summit, I wanted to collect and share some of them.

Within the past couple of weeks, President Obama announced he was prepared to offer a goal of the United States reducing emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent (baseline?) by 2050.  It’s a target, which is frankly all I can say for it.  Given the state of the climate, the 2020 goal falls far short of what needs to happen.  In contrast, European nations who signed the Kyoto Protocol have already reduced their emissions by 8% of 1990 levels, which were obviously much lower than 2005 levels.  The stranglehold that climate change deniers have on U.S. policy has got to end.

The best summary of what to expect can be found at Climate Progress.

Copenhagen 101 at Grist – good summary.

The New York Times also has a summary – a little too much parroting of Con distraction talking points for me.

You can find Time’s summary here.

Saudi Arabia desperately searches for any reason to prevent any forward progress at the summit.  I hope I’m not the only one who sees parallels between the Saudi’s childish behavior and Con Senator’s childish behavior.  The Cons would love living in Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia is the country which wants compensation for oil they won’t sell when the world switches to renewables (WTF?!).

Speaking of Hacker-gate, a crime was committed.  Is it any wonder the corporate stenographic media is concentrating on what the deniers want them to concentrate on?  I didn’t think so.  Hacking is a crime.  Scientists communicating with each other is not.

Most U.S. States Can Be Energy Self-Reliant

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, but finally have the time to put up something.  I feel like I normally share bad climate- and energy-related news: ice sheets are melting faster than expected, temperatures are rising more than expected, new and dire effects are being discovered, Congress is stupidly delaying progress on legislation, etc.  There is plenty of good news in the climate and energy arena.  People are taking matters into their own hands and actually doing something, and it’s becoming commonplace that they’re doing much more than replacing light bulbs in their house.  This is one of those cases – but on a larger scale.

The New Rules Project in Minnesota released a second and updated edition of a report they originally issued in 2008, “Energy Self-Reliant States“.  In this expanded edition, each state is assessed for commercial potential, not technical potential, of renewable electricity.  The large picture: 64% of states can be self-sufficient in electricity from in-state renewables.  An additional 14% can generate 75% of their electricity within their own borders.  It argues for a decentralized energy approach, which makes the most sense to me.  Why depend on your neighbor for electricity when you don’t have to, whether that neighbor is the state next door or another country.  Keying on that decentralized approach, the report notes that 40 states could generate 25% of their electricity just with rooftop photovoltaic (PV) power.  Generating energy exactly where it is used is by far the best way to go.

You can go to the website I link to above and download the report to see results for your own state, read more about the methodology, etc.  I’m going to concentrate on my own state: Colorado.

Colorado is one of the most advantageous states when it comes to renewable energy potential for electricity.  The report classifies Colorado as being able to generate more than 1000% of our electricity from combined renewable resources (solar plus wind plus geothermal, etc. – note this does not include concentrated solar power, another potentially large source), based on 2007 usage, as seen in this figure:

State of the Arctic (and poles) – 12/1/09

The state of the Arctic ice in December 2009 is the 2nd worst of any December in recorded history.  As has been the case for months now, the areal extent of Arctic sea ice continues to be nowhere near the climatological average.  As I’ve stated before, that’s indicative that a new phase of the Arctic (and Antarctic) has been reached.  Arctic ice through the month of November mimicked the behavior seen in 2007, the year the extent reached the record low.  Slower ice growth was seen in the first half of the month; faster growth was seen in the second half of the month.  Not everything is abnormal.  Ice growth has been observed in the expected locations for the most part.  There is always variability of where the ice grows and when it grows there from year to year.  What hasn’t changed too much since 2007 is the lack of long-term (2-year or older) ice, which resists melting in the summer.  A key point many climate change deniers miss is that the ice will appear winter after winter for many years to come.  The lack of ice in the summer is the issue: increased solar radiation absorption by dark ocean water (instead of being reflected by white ice) adds to global ocean heat content instead of preventing it.  Warmer oceans mean higher sea levels and shifting weather patterns – one aspect of climate change.

Here is my State of the Arctic post for November and for  September.  Here is a satellite representation of Arctic sea ice conditions from yesterday:

For comparison purposes, here is the similar picture from August:

Here is the time series graph with the +/- 2 standard deviations through yesterday:

The NSIDC hasn’t issued their early-month report on the Arctic yet.  When they do, I’ll provide a link to it and share anything I find interesting from it.  Absent that report, I want to share something else I keep me eye on.  The University of Illinois’ Polar Research Group maintains a number of maps and plots for both poles of the cryosphere.  Additionally, they track the state of sea ice globally through time.  As of today, the maximum global extent of sea ice already occurred a couple of months ago and measured ~21 million sq. km.  According to the time series, this is near a record low maximum for the year.  The only other times this value was reached was in 2001 and 2007 (the record extends back to 1979).  The climatological maximum is over 22 million sq. km.  The difference might seem small – 1 million sq. km. – but it’s not.  Egypt has 1 million sq. km. of land area.  So this year, an area of ice the size of Egypt didn’t form.  Of more concern is the low anomalies seen the past three years globally: between 2 and 3 million sq. km. or 2-3 Egypt’s worth of ice.  That’s what I’m talking about when I say a new phase of the poles has been reached.

This larger view is probably something I’ll put more focus on in the future, hence the updated title from my ongoing series on this subject.  Examining the Antarctic is and will be just as important as examining the Arctic.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

New Satellite Data: East Antarctica Also Losing Mass

If the results of the study I’m discussing are robust, and not just true, many more climate change effects will become apparent sooner than many think.  It has been known for a number of years that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has, on net, lost ice mass since ~2005.  This phenomenon has occurred concurrently with the Greenland ice sheet also losing mass over a similar time period.  That mass loss has contributed to a, until now, relatively small amount of sea level rise.

A new study suggests that sea level rise scenarios may need serious revision quickly: the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) has, according to NASA’s GRACE satellite data, also lost mass in the 2005-present time period.  Why is this a potential big deal?  Because east Antarctica contains enough water to raise sea levels by 50-60m (160-200 feet!) if they melted completely.  In contrast, the water in the WAIS and Greenland amount to “only” 6-7m (~20 feet) each if they melted completely.  So the EAIS contains an order of magnitude more water than the other two large ice sheets on Earth.

How Declining Arctic Ice Volume Affects Northern Hemispheric Weather Patterns

Evidence continues to emerge regarding the effects of declining ice volume and areal extent in the Arctic is affecting weather patterns across the Northern Hemisphere.  In a general sense, some kind of effects are of course to be expected.  But what kind, what are their magnitude, etc. need to be explored.  If it were up to the Cons, science would be defunded and we would have no idea what these emerging trends are.  This is the critical importance that science plays in our society.

I’m going to link to another diary and allow readers to explore the material there.  It’s decently written and links to science centers and refereed journals.  Here is the summary:

Today’s Arctic sea ice extent is hovering at the historic record low level for today’s date observed in 2007. Warm water entering the ice free zone from the Atlantic ocean is adding heat to the Arctic, changing the northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation pattern – the weather of the whole northern hemisphere. Even El Nino is different from what it used to be.

Enjoy.

U.S. Record High Temperatures Recorded At Twice The Rate Of Record Lows This Decade

A news release was issued last Thursday that I flat out missed, which was unfortunate (though I’m glad I eventually found out about it).  A study (submitted to Geophysical Research Letters for publication) was conducted by climate scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, Climate Central in Princeton, NJ, the Weather Channel, and the National Climate Data Center in Asheville, NC.  They examined trends in record high temperatures and record low temperatures over the past 6 decades, through 2006.  What they found isn’t terribly surprising: the ratio of record highs to record lows became unbalanced in the 2000s.  There were twice as many record highs as record lows across the continental United States.  That’s an increase from 1.36:1 for the 1990s and 1.14:1 for the 1980s.  Climate change is affecting us today.  Not tomorrow, not later this century.  Today.

State of the Arctic – 11/9/09

The state of the Arctic ice in November 2009 is the worst of any November in recorded history.  Arctic areal sea ice extent didn’t break the 2007 record for the absolute minimum, but it has never been this low in November.  Further, the extent continues to be nowhere near the climatological average, just like it hasn’t been for most of this year.  As I’ve stated before, that’s indicative that a new phase of the Arctic has been reached.  For three years in a row, sea ice extent has bottomed out at well below two standard deviations from the average extent.  For three years in a row, all-time ice-extent lows have been reached at some point in the season.

Here is my State of the Arctic post for Sep and for Aug.  I didn’t post anything in late October because I had a feeling a record low extent would be set shortly, which it did.  The big change since my last post is the presence of weather conditions that have kept ice from refreezing at the rate it normally does this time of year. Two years ago, adverse weather conditions developed during the summer.  This year, they’re around in the fall.  The effect is the same: relatively little ice compared to climatological norms.  Here is a satellite representation of Arctic sea ice conditions from yesterday:

Compared to the minimum reached earlier this year, there has been a recovery in ice in the Canadian archipelago, along the northeast coast of Greenland and from the Arctic Sea toward Siberia.

For comparison purposes, here is the similar picture from August:

Here is the time series graph through yesterday:

Notice the rapid refreezing that occurred in 2007, but which didn’t happen so far this fall.  No, this fall, a high-pressure system sat over the Beaufort Sea, while unusually low pressure dominated the Barents Sea, according to the NSIDC.  This brought 6C (11F!) warmer than normal air temperatures up from Siberia, preventing robust ice growth in that area.

Sea ice extent averaged over October 2009 was 7.50 million sq. km., 1.79 million sq. km. below the 1979 to 2000 mean for October, and only 730,000 sq. km. above the record low for the month, which occurred in October 2007.  I expect the average extent for November to be very close to 2007’s, perhaps a little higher, perhaps a little lower, but in poor shape compared to climatological conditions.

The NSIDC released a report at the beginning of November with an additional time series representation of conditions. It shows the last two years’ worth of time series data, plus 2005’s time series, with +/- 2 standard deviations from the climatological average on the same graph:

This graph was made before 2009’s time series line crossed over 2007’s (as in the graph above), but the point remains: ice extent conditions in the Arctic have entered a new state, a state much lower than the 1979-2000 average.  The volume of ice has decreased year after year recently, leaving one- or two-year old ice the predominant type in the Arctic.  This ice is less capable of withstanding the warmer temperatures that October’s weather patterns produced.  New ice is less able to grow around the younger ice.  While refreezing will occur every winter, the times when ice does or does not refreeze is more dependent on favorable weather regimes.  Additionally, since the Arctic waters absorbed large amounts of solar radiation again this year, the water is warmer than it used to be this time of year.  It has to release a lot of heat to the atmosphere before freezing can occur.  Thus, the past few falls have seen ice growth in fits and starts, remaining well out of the 2 standard deviations of extent, which is becoming increasingly statistically significant.

The U.S. Senate is slowly drawing closer to considering climate and energy legislation.  The 2009 Copenhagen climate summit starts in less than a month.  So there are important policy decision points staring us in the face.  What will we do about them?  The Arctic has demonstrated quite clearly that it has shifted to a new state.  The consequences of a warming planet are showing up all over, in places and in ways that were unforeseen even a few years ago.  The rate of warming and of other climate change indicators are occurring much faster than recent predictions indicated, exposing our lack of understanding of the complex systems in play.  Do we really want to keep trying to kick the can down the road and letting some other group to deal with things?  Or do we recognize that it damage to ecosystems and societies is already occurring and now is the time to act to prevent catastrophic situations?

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Apophis & Antoher Successful Private Rocket Launch

Scientists have continued to refine the asteroid Apophis‘ future trajectory.  Their most recent calculations show a decreasing probability of a potential strike by Apophis on Earth in 2036.  Previous work had already discounted any strike in 2029.  The recent announcement holds some interesting language:

“Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million.”

So the probability decreased from 1-in-45,000 to 1-in-250,000.  Notice how much unlikelier the chance seems when the world million is used.

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Private entry into space comes closer to reality every day.  Progress is measured by relatively short-lived but attention-driven events like rocket launches.  A reusable private rocket test was successful last week.  Colorado had numerous connections to the launch, with launch services provided by UP Aerospace of Denver, CO and the program directed by Advanced Programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Littleton, CO.

New Mexico is trying to secure its place in space history with the world’s first purpose-driven spaceport, currently under construction.  Lockheed Martin has already has three successful test launches from Spaceport America.  Hopefully there are many more to follow.