47.3% of the Contiguous United States in Moderate or Worse Drought – 25 Apr 2013

According to the Drought Monitor, drought conditions improved recently across some of the US. As of Mar. 12, 2013, 47.3% of the contiguous US is experiencing moderate or worse drought (D1-D4) as the 2011-2012 drought extended well into 2013.  That is the lowest percentage in a number of months. The percentage area experiencing extreme to exceptional drought increased from 14.6% to 14.7%, but this is ~3% lower than it was three months ago. Percentage areas experiencing drought across the West decreased in the past month as a series of late season cyclones impacted the region.  Drought across the Southwest worsened slightly while rain from storms maintained the low-level of drought conditions in the Southeast.

My previous post preceded the series of major winter storm that affected much of the US.  In some places in the High Plains and Midwest, 12″ or more of snow fell.  With relatively high liquid water equivalency, each storm dropped almost ~1″ of water precipitation, of which the area was in sore need.  Unfortunately, these same areas required 2-4″ of rain to break their long-term drought.  In other words, while welcome, recent snows have reduced the magnitude of the drought in many areas, but have not completely alleviated them.  Ironically, a very different problem arose from these storms: flooding.

Figure 1 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions as of April 25th.

If we focus in on the West, we can see recent shifts in drought categories:

Figure 2 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions in Western US as of April 25th.

Some relief is evident in the past month (see table on left), including some changes in the mountains as storms recently dumped snow across the region.  Mountainous areas and river basins will have to wait until spring for snowmelt to significantly alleviate drought conditions.  As you can probably tell, this is a large area experiencing abnormally dry conditions for about one year now.

Here are conditions for Colorado:

Figure 3 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions in Colorado as of April 25th.

There is some evidence of relief evident over the past three months here.  Instead of 100% of the state in Severe drought, only 78% is today.  The central & northern mountains, as well as the northern Front Range (Denver north to the border) enjoyed the most relief since February.  The percentage area in Extreme drought also dropped significantly from 59% to 38%.  Exceptional drought shifted in space from northeastern Colorado to central Colorado while southeastern Colorado remained very dry.

Drought conditions improved somewhat across the southwestern portion of the state in the past couple of weeks.  The percentage area that is experiencing less than Severe drought conditions continues to track downward, which is a good sign.  Unfortunately, Exceptional drought conditions continued their hold over the eastern plains.

Here are conditions for the High Plains states:

Figure 4 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions in the High Plains as of April 25th.

The large storms that moved over this area in the past month reduced the worst drought conditions across Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming.  The percentage area with Exceptional drought dropped from 27% to 7%; Extreme drought dropped from 61% to 28%; and Severe drought dropped from 87% to 70%.

With rather significant areas still experiencing moderate or worse drought across much of the US west of the Mississippi River, drought remains a serious concern in 2013.  I previously hypothesized that much of the 2012 drought was partly a result of natural climate variability and underlying long-term warming.  I wrote about NOAA’s examination into the causes of the 2012 drought a couple of weeks ago in which the authors suggested it was not heavily influenced by long-term warming.

US drought conditions are more influenced by Pacific and Atlantic sea surface temperature conditions.  Different natural oscillation phases preferentially condition environments for drought.  Droughts in the West tend to occur during the cool phases of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, for instance.  Beyond that, drought controls remain a significant unknown.  Population growth in the West in the 21st century means scientists and policymakers need to better understand what conditions are likeliest to generate multidecadal droughts, as have occurred in the past.

As drought affects regions differentially, our policy responses vary.  A growing number of water utilities recognize the need for a proactive mindset with respect to drought impacts.  The last thing they want is their reliability to suffer.  Americans are privileged in that clean, fresh water flows when they turn their tap.  Crops continue to show up at their local stores despite terrible conditions in many areas of their own nation (albeit at a higher price, as we will find this year).  Power utilities continue to provide hydroelectric-generated energy.

That last point will change in a warming and drying future.  Regulations that limit the temperature of water discharged by power plants exist.  Generally warmer climate conditions include warmer river and lake water today than what existed 30 years ago.  Warmer water going into a plant either means warmer water out or a longer time spent in the plant, which reduces the amount of energy the plant can produce.  Alternatively, we can continue to generate the same amount of power if we are willing to sacrifice ecosystems which depend on a very narrow range of water temperatures.  As with other facets of climate change, technological innovation can help increase plant efficiency.  I think innovation remains our best hope to minimize the number and magnitude of climate change impacts on human and ecological systems.

NASA & NOAA: March 2013 9th, 10th Warmest Globally On Record

According to data released by NOAA, March was the 10th warmest globally on record.  Here are the NOAA data and report.  NASA also released their suite of graphics, but their surface temperature data page is down today, so I cannot relay how NASA’s March temperature compares to historical Marches.  Once their site is back up, I will update this post.  [Update: NASA's analysis resulted in their 9th warmest March on record.  Here are the data for  NASA’s analysis.] The two agencies have slightly different analysis techniques, which in this case resulted in not only different temperature anomaly values but somewhat different rankings as well.  The two techniques provide a check on one another and confidence for us.

The details:

March’s global average temperatures were 0.59°C (1.062°F) above normal (1951-1980), according to NASA, as the following graphic shows.  The past three months have a +0.57°C temperature anomaly.  And the latest 12-month period (Apr 2012 – Mar 2013) had a +0.60°C temperature anomaly.  The time series graph in the lower-right quadrant shows NASA’s 12-month running mean temperature index.  The recent downturn (2010-2012) was largely due to the latest La Niña event (see below for more) that ended early last summer.  Since then, ENSO conditions returned to a neutral state (neither La Niña nor El Niñ0).  Therefore, as previous anomalously cool months fall off the back of the running mean, and barring another La Niña, the 12-month temperature trace should track upward again throughout 2013.

Figure 1. Global mean surface temperature anomaly maps and 12-month running mean time series through March 2013 from NASA.

According to NOAA, March’s global average temperatures were 0.58°C (1.044°F) above the 20th century mean of 12.7°C (54.9°F).  NOAA’s global temperature anomaly map for March (duplicated below) shows where conditions were warmer than average during the month.

Figure 2. Global temperature anomaly map for March 2013 from NOAA.

The two different analyses’ importance is also shown by the preceding two figures.  Despite small differences in specific global temperature anomalies, both analyses picked up on the same temperature patterns and their relative strength.

The very warm conditions found over Greenland are a concern.  Greenland was warmer than average during more months in recent history than not.  In contrast to 2012, northern Eurasian temperatures were much cooler than normal.  This is likely a temporary, seasonal effect.  Long-term temperatures over much of this region continue to rise at among the fastest rate for any region on Earth.

The NASA and NOAA surface temperature maps correlate well with the 500-mb height pressure anomalies, as seen in this graph:

Figure 3. 500-mb heights (white contours) and anomalies (m; color contours) during March 2013.

Note the correspondence between the height map and the NASA & NOAA surface temperature maps: lower heights (negative height anomalies) present over the North Atlantic and northern Eurasia overlay the cold surface temperature anomalies at the surface.  Similarly, warm surface temperature anomalies are located under the positive 500-mb height anomalies.

These temperature observations are of interest for the following reason: the globe came out of a moderate La Niña event in the first half of last year.  During the second half of the 2012 and the first part of 2013, we remained in a ENSO-neutral state (neither El Niño nor La Niña):

Figure 4. Time series of weekly SST data from NCEP (NOAA).  The highest interest region for El Niño/La Niña is NINO 3.4 (2nd time series from top).

The last La Niña event hit its highest (most negative) magnitude more than once between November 2011 and February 2012.  Since then, tropical Pacific sea-surface temperatures peaked at +0.8 (y-axis) in September 2012.  You can see the effect on global temperatures that the last La Niña had via this NASA time series.  Both the sea surface temperature and land surface temperature time series decreased from 2010 (when the globe reached record warmth) to 2012.  So a natural, low-frequency climate oscillation affected the globe’s temperatures during the past couple of years.  Underlying that oscillation is the background warming caused by humans.  And yet temperatures were still in the top-10 warmest for a calendar year (2012) and individual months, including March 2013, in recorded history.

Skeptics have pointed out that warming has “stopped” in recent years (by comparing recent temperatures to the 1998 maximum which was heavily influenced by a strong El Niño even), which they hope will introduce confusion to the public on this topic.  What is likely going on is quite different: a global annual energy imbalance exists (less outgoing energy than incoming energy).  If the surface temperature rise has seemingly stalled, the excess energy is going somewhere.  That somewhere is likely the oceans, and specifically the deep ocean (see the figures below).  Before we all cheer about this (since few people want surface temperatures to continue to rise quickly), consider the implications.  If you add heat to a material, it expands.  The ocean is no different; sea-levels are rising in part because of heat added to it in the past.  The heat that has entered in recent years won’t manifest as sea-level rise for some time, but it will happen.  Moreover, when the heated ocean comes back up to the surface, that heat will then be released to the atmosphere, which will raise surface temperatures as well as introduce additional water vapor.  Thus, the short-term warming rate might have slowed down, but we have locked in future warming (higher future warming rate) as well as future climate effects.

Figure 5. Total global heat content anomaly from 1950-2004. An overwhelming majority of energy went to the global oceans.

Figure 6. New research that shows anomalous ocean heat energy location since the late 1950s.  The purple lines in the graph show how the heat content of the whole ocean has changed over the past five decades. The blue lines represent only the top 700 m and the grey lines are just the top 300 m.  Source: Balmaseda et al., (2013)

Balmaseda et al.’s work demonstrates the transport of anomalous energy through the depth of the global oceans.  Note that the grey lines’ lack of significant change from 2004-2008 (upper 300m).  Observations of surface temperature include the very top part of this 300m layer.  Since the layer hasn’t changed much, neither have surface temperature readings.  Note the rapid increase in heat content within the top 700m.  Given the lack of increase in the top 300m, the 300-700m layer heat content must have increased.  By the same logic, the rapid growth in heat content throughout the depth of the ocean, which did not stall post-2004, provides evidence for anomalous heat location.  You can also see the impact of major volcanic eruptions on ocean heat content: less incoming solar radiation means less absorbed heat.

A significant question for climate scientists is this: are climate models capable of picking up this heat anomaly signal and do they show a similar trend?  If they aren’t, then their projections of surface temperature change is likely to be incorrect since the heat is warming the abyssal ocean and not the land and atmosphere in the 2000s and 2010s.  If they aren’t, climate policy is also impacted.  Instead of warmer surface temperatures (and effects on drought, agriculture, and health to name just a few), anomalous ocean heat content will impact coastal communities more than previously thought.  Consider the implications of that in addition to the AR4′s lack of consideration of land-based ice melt: sea level projections could be too conservative.

That said, it is also a fair question to ask whether today’s climate policies are sufficient for today’s climate.  In many cases, I would say  they aren’t sufficient.  Paying for recovery from seemingly localized severe weather and climate events is and always will be more expensive than paying to increase resilience from those events.  As drought continues to impact US agriculture, as Arctic ice continues to melt to new record lows, as storms come ashore and impacts communities that are not prepared for today’s high-risk events (due mostly to poor zoning and destruction of natural protections), economic costs will accumulate in this and in future decades.  It is up to us how many costs we subject ourselves to.

As President Obama began his second term with climate change “a priority”, he tosses aside the most effective tool available and most recommended by economists: a carbon tax.  Every other policy tool will be less effective than a Pigouvian tax at minimizing the actions that cause future economic harm.  It is up to the citizens of this country, and others, to take the lead on this topic.  We have to demand common sense actions that will actually make a difference.  But be forewarned: even if we take action today, we will still see more warmest La Niña years, more warmest El Niño years, more drought, higher sea levels, increased ocean acidification, more plant stress, and more ecosystem stress.  The biggest difference between efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to scrub sulfur and CFC emissions and future efforts to reduce CO2 emissions is this: the first two yielded an almost immediate result while it will take decades before CO2 emission reductions produce tangible results humans can see.

Recent Carbon Market News – April 2013

I wrote about some carbon market-related items I ran across last month. While I haven’t had time yet to read the RGGI report that Jason Brown linked to (research and family duties leaves very little time for anything else), I have read additional items since that post that I want to collect here for when I do have more time.  Let me state at the outset that I think carbon markets are one piece of a large puzzle.  From what I’ve read to date, I get the impression that most carbon markets are not set up in such a way (yet) that actually addresses what I think they’re supposed to address: a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2.  Part of the reason for this is the way the groups set up and managed markets.  This results from lack of appropriate policy that demands of and allows for organizations to set up and run an efficient market.  To close this introduction, I will observe again that most economists recommend a carbon tax if the true intent of a policy is to reduce emissions.  I was surprised to learn this since I don’t think most economists are bleeding-heart liberals; nor do I think they are part of the vast conspiracy to establish a one-world government that controls every aspect of our lives.  They base their recommendation on fundamental economic principles – a scary thought in today’s reactionary world, I know.

First, some news: “The European Parliament this week voted 334-315 (with 60 abstentions) against a controversial “back-loading” plan that aimed to boost the flagging price of carbon, which since 2008 has fallen from about 31 euros per tonne to about 4 euros (about $5.20). Since the vote, the price has fallen even farther, to 2.80 euros.”

What does “back-loading” mean?  Back-loading would have taken some allowances out of the European market for two years.  Without as many allowances, the price of carbon likely would have increased. How over-allocated is the market?  “The surplus is 1.5 billion-2 billion tonnes, or about a year’s emissions.“  There are varying opinions as to what the appropriate price should be to achieve behavioral change.  Back-loading might have increased the price to ~10 euros (1/3 its original price, which many people think is the minimum necessary).  As I wrote last year, one fundamental problem with the European market was the number of allowances was far too high.  But even if the price was “right”, would carbon markets work?  Probably not right away.  Another problem with them is intense lobbying by fossil fuel entities (to weaken the efficacy of the market; they abandon calls for “free market” support when it comes to carbon taxes/markets) as well as the corruption and non-transparency in the market.

The California cap-and-trade scheme establishes a floor and a ceiling for price, which might alleviate some of the problems the Euro ETS has.  The European scheme, by keeping carbon prices so low, sends the wrong signal.  Thus, power utilities are switching from natural gas to coal, despite the fact that burning coal releases twice as much carbon per unit of energy produced.  In that sense, the US energy market is acting correctly when falling natural gas prices encourage utilities to switch from coal to natural gas.  The European’s situation leads to an interesting dilemma.  They have admonished the US for decades on lack of climate action.  Yet Europe did not achieve the first round of Kyoto Protocol-inspired emissions targets and if they continue the switch from cleaner fuels to dirtier fuels, they will not hit the next round they set for themselves either.

Steffen Böhm’s Guardian article ends with this:

None of these will provide a one-fits-all solution. But we cannot afford to lose another 15 years in our quest to rapidly decarbonise our economies, businesses and societies. Carbon markets have given the appearance of us doing something about climate change, while actually legitimising the constant rise of emissions. We need to go back to the drawing board and come up with solutions that actually work in practice.

One solution could be the implementation of new cap-and-trade schemes in other countries, as this CleanTechnica article discusses.  If other planners examine the European scheme and make efforts to correct as many mistakes as possible, then include mechanisms to trade with other schemes around the world, the Europeans may not abandon their market.  That would also give the Europeans time to see what solutions are implemented around the world and eventually include them in their own program.  The Chinese, as is other energy-climate topics, are very important in this regard, not only because they are currently the largest global emitters.  The Chinese government can put programs in place that are not subject to the same kind of political pressures present in the US or Europe.

The US is also very important for the future of markets, emissions, and concentrations.  The US of course currently does not have a cap-and-trade scheme, thanks to the outsized political influence fossil fuel companies have.  Small schemes exist or are coming on-line however.  The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has been in operation across the Northeast US for six years and has a mechanism to reduce allocations, which was beneficial with the recent coal-to-gas switch.  California’s system came online within the last year.  Given the size of the California economy, if this market is more successful than the European market, we can expect additional good news and participation.  If gruops connect existing these markets, and new ones, the prospect for emissions reductions is better than it looks today.  As Böhm wrote, the time for half-measures is long gone.  The world needs smart, aggressive action to avoid the worst global change effects at the end of the century.  Carbon markets are likely a part of the solution, so long as they’re planned and managed well.

No Significant Climate Change Signal In 2012 US Drought

A team of atmospheric scientists, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, issued a report this week that presented initial results of an examination into the extreme 2012 US drought.  Its core finding was the drought likely resulted mostly from natural variability.  Any climate change signal is relatively small but likely made conditions across the Midwest US a little dryer and a little warmer than they otherwise would have been absent climate change.

The 2012 drought did not grow out of the 2010-2011 Southern drought that impacted Texas and Oklahoma, as many, including myself, theorized as the drought developed.  Instead, a stubborn ridge of high pressure took hold over the Plains, which cut off the vital Gulf of Mexico water supply upon which the region depends for agriculture.

This sentence, in the Executive Summary, is key: “The interpretation is of an event resulting largely from internal atmospheric variability having limited long lead predictability.”  Many people think severe weather events should be easy to forecast, but the opposite is true.  The rarer the event, the more difficult it is to accurately forecast with any kind of time difference.  Additionally, the connection to low-frequency climate oscillations (i.e., La Niña: “the 2012 drought occurred in concert with an appreciably warmer ocean in most basins than was the case for any prior historical drought”) were minimal in the 2012 drought, contrary to what I have theorized.  That’s the beauty of science, of course.  You can be incorrect about something and demonstrate as such when data are analyzed.

Recently, some folks have characterized this event as a “flash drought”, owing to the sudden onset of such an event, as the first graphic below shows.  The term obviously borrows from the better known “flash flood” concept.  Unlike a flood however, droughts have longer-term impacts on human and ecosystems.  Costs are still only estimated at this time (because the drought is ongoing) at $12 billion.  While significant, the 1980 drought event that caused 56 billion (2012$) and the 1988 drought that caused 78 billion (2012$) of damages eclipsed the 2012 event (so far).  The $12 billion figure is likely to grow as the drought impacts water supply reductions and livestock.  The 2012 crop yield deficit was the greatest since 1866.

Figure 1 – U.S. Drought Monitor maps showing the evolution of the 2012 “flash drought” across the US Great Plains.  Little evidence existed in November 2011 or even May 2012 that the drought would achieve the extent and intensity that it did.

The drought was the worst on record for WY, CO, NE, KS, MO, and IA, as the following graphic shows.  The region experienced a 53% rainfall deficit (39.3mm vs. 73.5mm) in 2012.  1934 held the previous record of -28.4mm deficit.  The 2012 deficit corresponds to a 2.7 standardized deficit, which approaches a 1-in-100 event.  This relates well to the precipitation time series in the graph below.

Figure 2 – Precipitation and temperature departures from normal for the six states impacted by the 2012 drought.  Note the extreme minimum in precipitation on the right side of the top graph.  2012 temperatures as a whole were not as extreme as those recorded twice during the 1930s, but July 2012 still ranks as the warmest month on record for the six states as well as the entire US.

The analysis also suggests that we should not expect similar 2013 precipitation anomalies on the basis of 2012 anomalies alone (based on the report’s Figures 10 and 11).  Put another way, just because 2012 was drier than normal, 2013 shouldn’t automatically be drier also.  Dry epochs occurred in this region before: in the 1930s and 1950s.  Subsequent dry years occurred then due to longer-term changes in natural variability as well as land use practices.  The currently is no indication that the 2010s will similarly be a dry epoch.  As with the 2012 drought, such a prediction remains beyond current skill.

The diagnosed linkage to low-frequency forcing is interesting.  Warm tropical sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Indo-West Pacific Oceans and cold east Pacific conditions tend to dry the mid-latitudes in the winter/spring season and not the summer season.  As the first graphic demonstrates, the 2012 drought flashed in the summer and not the winter.  So despite primed conditions for drying in winter 2011-12, the Great Plains drought occurred for different reasons.

Of further interest to the future is the following graphs.  The researchers generated a 20-member NCAR CAM-4 ensemble with monthly varying SSTs, sea ice, and specified external radiative forcings consisting of greenhouse gases (e.g. CO2, CH4, NO2, O3, CFCs), aerosols, solar, and volcanic aerosols via observations through 2005 and then an emission scenario thereafter (RCP6.0, a moderate emissions scenario pathway developed for the upcoming IPCC’s AR5).

Figure 3 – Model results of the 1996-2012 precipitation minus the 1979-1995 precipitation.

The NCAR CAM4 model might be representing the actual climate well for this time period.  Left unsaid in the report is any analysis of the model’s future projections.  Other model studies suggest that the central US could experience 2012-type temperature and precipitation conditions more regularly by the end of the 21st century.

Figure 4 – Model probability density functions of precipitation deficits for the six study states.

This figure suggests that the latter half of the time period (1996-2012) modeled had a higher probability of being drier than did the former half (1979-1995).  The report did not present a potential cause for this shift in probability.  If this probability does not revert back to the 1979-1995 distribution, dry conditions could become a more regular feature of future years.

Figure 5 – Model probability density functions of precipitation surpluses for the six study states.

This figure is not the logical companion to the previous figure.  The probability of being wetter and drier could increase if the overall probability density function existed in a certain way.    This is not the case however.  Instead, the probability of the six states experiencing wetter conditions in the second half of the period studied decreased with respect to the first half.

This report is useful in diagnosing what happened prior to and during the 2012 US drought and in trying to ascertain how predictable such an event might have been.  There is considerable interest in accurately predicting this type of event well in advance so as to prepare those who might be affected.  This capability remains beyond us for now since this event was primarily driven by natural variability enhanced slightly by underlying change.  With climate model projection studies indicating a much warmer and somewhat drier future for this region, stakeholders will likely have to adapt farming and ranching practices.  Similarly, municipalities will have to prepare for extremely dry years in their infrastructure planning and practices.  Of course, future change could be reduced as a result of our efforts to mitigate anthropogenic forcing.  The scale of that endeavor is much larger than most people are aware and thus not likely to take place any time soon.  Climate and energy policies need significant revamping at all levels.

Recent Carbon Market News

A couple of carbon market-related news items caught my eye recently.  While not an exhaustive list, these items are important to discuss:
EU Cancels Carbon Auction, Prices Drop
RGGI Nets $106 Million For Clean Energy, May Hit $2 Billion By 2020

The EU auction failed because bids didn’t reach a secret reserve price.  “In the past five years, carbon prices on the ETS have plummeted nearly 90 percent.”  The core problem with the ETS is oversupply of credits.  The article points out possible solutions: backloading or long-term structural change.  I’m not an expert on carbon markets, but my understanding leads me to support the long-term structural change course.  The ETS tried to please too many vested interests simultaneously (too complex) and resulted in pleasing too few while not achieving its core objective of emissions reductions resulting from a market signal.

On the other hand, The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative had its successful 19th auction of CO2 allowances earlier this month.  I wouldn’t characterize it as bad news, but the clearing price of $2.80 per ton, above the reserve price of $1.98 per ton, is too low to directly impact CO2 emissions; it is also lower than the price in Europe and California.  Utilities in the region are switching to cheaper fuel sources because they’re cheaper, not because they emit fewer CO2 emissions.  According to the article, a significant portion (63%) of the $105.9 million in this quarter’s revenue and the $617 million in historical revenue are earmarked for clean energy technologies like energy efficiency, renewables, and climate change adaptation across RGGI’s nine Northeast US member states.  I would certainly like to read a more in-depth analysis of this claim.  Where specifically have the investments gone and what are the results to date?

The RGGI realizes their reserve and clearing price are too low:

Just over a month ago, the RGGI states decided to reduce the 2014 CO2 budget (the “cap” in cap-and-trade) from 165 million to 91 million tons and retire unsold 2012 and 2013 allowances.  This 45% cut is expected to boost allowance prices to $4 per ton in 2013 and up to $10 per ton in 2020, creating billions of new revenue every year. By comparison, RGGI allowance auction clearing prices have never risen higher than $3.51.

That 2020 price is still too low to have much of a direct impact on carbon emissions.  The obvious benefit is the additional revenue however.  The more revenue we have available to invest in innovation and deploy efficient infrastructure and technologies, the more we will decrease CO2 emissions.  The investment portion of the RGGI policy is a positive feature (I have read less about what the EU does with ETS revenue; I don’t claim with certainty that the RGGI system is “better” than the ETS system).  Any national-level tax-and-dividend system will be complex.  But even$20 per ton today would not, absent subsidies, provide enough incentive for utilities to switch from fossil fuels to zero-carbon sources.

US Carbon Intensity

I saw this article today – “US Getting More Economic Bang for Its Energy Buck” and wanted to make some observations about it.  The article contains the following assertion:

Energy intensity, or the amount of energy we use to create one dollar of GDP, has plummeted 58 percent between 1949 and 2011. Even more impressive is the 66 percent decrease in carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon emitted per real dollar of GDP.

The data are what the data are.  This comment follows the data:

These improvements are what greens miss when they call for Americans to make painful, costly cutbacks on energy usage.

Let’s take another look at that data, now that we know the bias of the author.  There are 62 years in the data cited.  That means there was a 0.94% annual decrease in energy intensity. The good news is there was a decrease. We generated the same GDP dollar for less energy, as we expect in an advanced society with research and innovation.  Similarly, there was a 1.06% reduction in carbon intensity. This value is important for energy and climate policy. The amount of carbon required for every GDP dollar fell over the past 62 years. Again, this is a good thing generally speaking. Technological efficiency permeated the economy over that time, which reduced the amount of carbon we emitted.

Now an important question: What caused this decrease? Was it emission reductions? No, US emissions have increased since 1950, with only a couple of periods when emission values didn’t increase every year. The US emitted just over 600 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon in 1950 and over 1500MMT in 2011. If carbon intensity is a measure of carbon per unit GDP, then the denominator increased faster than the numerator (GDP rather than carbon), in order for the ratio to decline over time. In 1950, the US real GDP was $2 trillion; in 2011, it was $13 trillion. Indeed, GDP increased faster than carbon emissions over the past 60 years.

What magnitude carbon intensity decrease is necessary to achieve carbon concentration reductions? First of all, carbon emissions have to decrease. Granted this has to occur globally, but let’s keep our focus on the US since we can actually control those emissions. Something between 3% and 4% annual decrease would do the trick. That is 3 to 4 times the historical rate! Let’s go back to the ratio: what has to change to achieve this decrease? It’s one of two things: carbon emissions or GDP. If GDP increases at the same rate it has historically, carbon emissions would have to decrease in value. If carbon emissions increased at the same rate they have historically, GDP would have to triple or quadruple in value.  The former case is more likely because while we want GDP to grow as much as possible, tripling or quadrupling the rate of GDP growth won’t happen.

So our goal should be to decrease carbon emissions. If we can simultaneously increase GDP along the way, so much the better. We obviously should not look at “solutions” that decrease GDP. Walter Russell is unfortunately partially correct when he says that some greens miss part of reality. They place too much focus on decreasing emissions regardless of the consequences. In the real world, people still have to eat and pay for the mortgage. Walter does miss his own share of reality however. These graphs do not indicate a wildly efficient economy. We should not break out into celebration because of the graphs. We should instead examine them soberly and then determine what our goals should be. Do we want to decrease emissions and concentrations and if so to what level? Those goals will help us establish the requisite policies to achieve them. I for one do not think we are decarbonizing nearly fast enough and I think we can decarbonize faster via some common sense policies.

51.4% of the Contiguous United States in Moderate or Worse Drought – 12 Mar 2013

According to the Drought Monitor, drought conditions improved recently across some of the US. As of Mar. 12, 2013, 51.4% of the contiguous US is experiencing moderate or worse drought (D1-D4).  That is the lowest percentage in a number of months. The percentage area experiencing extreme to exceptional drought increased from 17.7% to 16.5% in the last month. Percentage areas experiencing drought across the West stayed mostly the same while snowpack generally increased. Drought across the Southwest decreased slightly and rain from storms improved drought conditions in the Southeast.

My previous post preceded a major winter storm that affected much of the US.  In some places in the High Plains and Midwest, 12″ or more of snow fell.  With relatively high liquid water equivalency, this snow represented ~1″ of water precipitation.  Unfortunately, these same areas required 2-4″ of rain to break their long-term drought.  In other words, while welcome, recent snows have not substantially reduced drought severity affecting the middle of the nation, as the following map shows.

Figure 1 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions as of the 12th of March.

If we focus in on the West, we can see recent shifts in drought categories:

Figure 2 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions in Western US as of the 12th of March.

Some small relief is evident in the past couple of weeks, including some changes in the mountains as storms recently dumped snow across the region.  Mountainous areas and river basins will have to wait until spring for snowmelt to significantly alleviate drought conditions.  As you can probably tell, this is a large area experiencing abnormally dry conditions for almost a year now.

Here are conditions for Colorado:

Figure 3 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions in Colorado as of the 12th of March.

Drought conditions improved somewhat across the southwestern portion of the state in the past couple of weeks.  The percentage area that is experiencing less than Severe drought conditions continues to track downward, which is a good sign.  Unfortunately, Exceptional drought conditions continued their hold over the eastern plains.

Here are conditions for the High Plains states:

Figure 4 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions in the High Plains as of the 12th of March.

Again, even with large snowfalls in the past month, little drought relief is evident across this region.  What these states need are frequent soaking rains in the spring and summer to alleviate their long-term drought.  Agriculture certainly could use that relief this year.

And finally the area that experienced the most relief in the past month, the Southeast:

Figure 5 – US Drought Monitor map of drought conditions in the Southeast as of the 12th of March.

The shifts in the numbers in the table tell a good story.  Frequent storms tracked over this region recently, which helped bust the worst conditions (Severe and worse).  Look at the ‘None’ category now versus three months ago: the percent area doubled!  Now the rains need to continue through the rest of the year.

US drought conditions are related to Pacific and Atlantic sea surface temperature conditions.  Different natural oscillation phases preferentially condition environments for drought.  Droughts in the West tend to occur during the cool phases of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, for instance.  Beyond that, drought controls remain a significant unknown.  Population growth in the West in the 21st century means scientists and policymakers need to better understand what conditions are likeliest to generate multidecadal droughts, as have occurred in the past.

As drought affects regions differentially, their policy responses vary.  A growing number of water utilities recognize the need to be proactive with respect to drought impacts.  The last thing they want is their reliability to suffer.  Americans are privileged in that clean, fresh water flows when they turn their tap.  Crops continue to show up at their local stores despite terrible conditions in many areas of their own nation.  Power utilities continue to provide hydroelectric-generated energy.

That last point will change in a warming and drying future.  Regulations that limit the temperature of water discharged by power plants exist.  Warmer conditions include warmer water today than what existed 30 years ago.  Warmer water into a plant either mean warmer water out or a longer time spent in the plant, which reduces the amount of energy the plant can produce.  We can continue to generate the same amount of power if we are willing to sacrifice ecosystems which depend on a very narrow range of water temperatures.  As with other facets of climate change, technological innovation can help increase plant efficiency.

Can Researchers Do Simple Math?

An upcoming paper in Energy Policy challenges an affirmative answer to that question.  Here is the paper’s topic: “Examining the Feasibility of Converting New York State’s All-Purpose Energy Infrastructure to One Using Wind, Water and Sunlight,”.   That sounds great from an environmental perspective.  The authors claim that by 2050, NY state can transform its entire energy infrastructure so that the state will not use any fossil fuel sources.  Based on my knowledge of the climate system and having done some work in the energy infrastructure realm, I challenge the conclusions drawn in the paper.  According to Andy Revkin, who wrote about this paper, the authors issued the following as part of their press release:

According to the researchers’ calculations, New York’s 2030 power demand for all sectors (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry) could be met by:

4,020 onshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
12,770 offshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
387 100-megawatt concentrated solar plants
828 50-megawatt photovoltaic power plants
5 million 5-kilowatt residential rooftop photovoltaic systems
500,000 100-kilowatt commercial/government rooftop photovoltaic systems
36 100-megawatt geothermal plants
1,910 0.75-megawatt wave devices
2,600 1-megawatt tidal turbines
7 1,300-megawatt hydroelectric power plants, of which most exist

Kudos to the researchers for generating an actual list which we can use for discussion.  It is this list on which I base by answer.  And here is why.  What do all the numbers mean in that list?  They mean that if construction on this infrastructure began to finish as of January 1, 2013, the following would have to be built every year until 2030:

236 onshore 5MW wind turbines (~1 per day)
7512 offshore 5MW wind turbine (~2 per day)
23 100MW concentrated solar plants
49 50MW photovoltaic power plants
294118 5kW residential rooftop PV systems (806 per day!)
29412 100kW commercial/government PV systems (81 per day!)
2 100MW geothermal plants
153 1MW tidal turbines

It should be relatively easy to see the magnitude of the task in front of the researchers’ claim.  The social and political landscape is currently not one that supports doing this.  Where will this infrastructure be built?  What policies will we put in place to ensure this happens?

Look at the residential rooftop PV systems number: 1471MW needs to be installed every year: 294118 * 5kW * 1MW/1000kW.

And the commercial/industrial rooftop PV systems number: 2941MW needs to be installed every year: 29412 * 100kW / 1MW/1000kW.

If we add these two together, NY needs about 4,412MW of solar PV systems installed per year, for a total of 75,000MW by 2030.  We can compare these numbers to installation numbers maintained by different sources.  I couldn’t find anyone who tracks number of system installs per year.  In 2011, New York installed 60MW of solar capacity across residential, commercial, and utility projects, or 1.4% of the researchers’ stated goal.  That is a huge discrepancy.

MW installation won’t have to double every year to achieve the 75,000MW goal – that’s the good news.  The bad news is the installation will have to grow by 150% every year for the next 17 years.  What could possibly get in the way of that achievement?

We can also look at the number of PV installations: 806 and 81 per day!  While the solar industry has certainly grown considerably over the past decade, are there 81 100kW commercial and industrial rooftop PV installations taking place every day in the the state of NY?  How about 806 residential systems?  Every. Day.  If installers are not doing this at that rate today, those systems have to be installed at some point in the future in order to achieve the goals.  Will 1,000 installations take place every day by 2030?  It might be nice to hope so, but that ignores a whole suite of policy requirements.  Any delay in installation in the near term imposes a higher required rate of growth in the future to meet 2030 goals.

Zero off-shore wind turbines were installed as of the end of 2012.  The numbers listed above translates to 63.85GW of installed wind by 2030.  That exceeds the national goal of 54GW announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu just two years ago.  Goals can and should change, but they require people with vision and insight to establish them and set a course to meet them.  What happens if future Interior and Energy secretaries some from the fossil fuel industry?  What roadblocks will NY face in achieving 64GW of off-shore wind by 2030?

On the practical side, where is natural gas in this energy portfolio?  Do the researchers make a credible assumption that recent natural gas finds will remain in the ground for the next 17 years while renewable energy infrastructure booms?  How will that happen?  What about energy efficiency and net energy reduction?  The authors make a huge assumption that efficiency gains of 5%/year are achievable.  A further assumption is made that New Yorkers will consume less net energy over time.  Is that realistic?  If not, the above numbers would have to grow in size even further.  What technological innovations have to occur?  How will NY handle renewable energy variability?

Are there abundant renewable resources across America?  Yes, there absolutely are.  The keys to harnessing those resources as quickly and efficiently as possible are available through smart policies – something that this paper should include since it is going to Energy Policy.  At best, this paper presents an interesting thought exercise.  I for one want to see a lot more work on the policy trends required to get NY to these goals.

Research: Volcanic Aerosols Largely Responsible for Recent Warming Slowdown

Climate change skeptics used the recent slowdown in observed surface warming to claim that 20th century warming was temporary and that the Earth would return to lower average annual temperatures.  They offered up many potential explanations for the slowdown, none of which make physical sense.  The Sun’s 11-year cycle (often used to explain away warming), a primary argument brought forth, is not the reason: this cycle’s solar maximum is near at hand, yet warming has slowed down recently.

Recently accepted research points to a viable physical explanation.  In addition to oceanic transport of heat to the deep ocean and recent La Nina events, sulfuric emissions from small and mid-sized volcanoes entered the lower stratosphere and reflected more incoming solar radiation than normal.  This research separated the effect of natural sulfur emissions from anthropogenic emissions, using a model, to determine the former had a much larger influence than thought.  Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is a calculated metric used to represent how opaque or transparent the atmosphere is to different radiation wavelengths.  The layer between 20 and 30 km increased 4-10% per year since 2000, which is a significant change from normal conditions – significant enough to have effects on Earth’s climate.

Here is one of the paper’s graphical results:

Figure 1. Observed and modeled time series of stratospheric AOD from three latitude bands.  Satellite observations are represented by the black line.  Base-line model runs are in green. Model runs with the increase in anthropogenic emissions from China and India are in blue. The dashed blue line depicts a model run with 10x the actual increase in anthropogenic emissions. The model run with volcanic emissions is in red. The black diamonds and initials along the bottom of the plot represent the volcanic eruptions that were included in the model run. (Source: Neely paper; subs. req’d.)

As the caption says, satellite measurements are denoted by the thick black curve.  Note the large increase in AOD (higher opacity) over the tropics in the mid-2000s (b) and the large AOD increase over the northern mid-latitudes in the late-2000s (a).  While not a perfect fit to the observations, the model run with volcanic eruptions (red curve) does the best job of explaining the origin of the SO2.  Individual eruptions are indicated by black diamonds on the bottom of each sub-plot.  The effects of volcanic eruptions on climate are, in a general sense, well-known.  Injections of SO2 into the stratosphere reflects sunlight, which reduces the amount of energy entering the Earth’s climate system.  The difference between one large-scale eruption (e.g. Pinatubo in 1991) or many mid-sized eruptions in a short time-period (see above) is not large as far as the climate is concerned.

This could be good news as far as the climate is concerned, at least in the shorth-term.  If incoming energy were reflected back into space instead of being stored in the system, we can physically explain the observed temperature trend slowdown (see Figure 2) and treat the slowdown as real instead of waiting for that energy to transfer from the oceans to the atmosphere, for example.

There is also bad news however.  From the study (emphasis mine):

The significant portion of the radiative forcing due to increases in stratospheric aerosol from 2000 to 2010, interpreted as a mechanism of global cooling [Solomon et al., 2011], may now be completely attributed to volcanic sources and should not be considered a trend. Rather, the stratospheric aerosol layer should be treated as a natural source of radiative forcing that is continuously perturbed by volcanic injections of a range of sizes, and potentially other sources such as large fires.

Figure 2. Global mean surface temperature anomaly maps and 12-month running mean time series through January 2013 from NASA.

We can see from the 12-month running mean time series (lower-right in Figure 2) that NASA’s temperature index increased more slowly during the latter part of the 2000s than the 1990s.  Neely et al. suggest that there is no physical reason to conclude that slowdown is a trend of opposite sign than that seen throughout the 20th century.  In other words, once the SO2 precipitates from the stratosphere, as it eventually will, the background warming trend will re-establish itself.  Indeed, future warming will likely be stronger than past warming because CO2 concentrations have not decreased in the past ten years.  To the contrary, they have increased at a faster rate than before.  Greenhouse gases have simply had less incoming radiation to absorb than they did 10 years ago due to the recent presence of SO2 in the stratosphere.

Neely’s coauthor Brian Toon had this to say:

Toon of CU-Boulder’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. “But overall these eruptions are not going to counter the greenhouse effect. Emissions of volcanic gases go up and down, helping to cool or heat the planet, while greenhouse gas emissions from human activity just continue to go up.”

This situation provides a good example of another aspect of climate policy.  I wrote about geoengineering earlier this year as part of a Polar Sea Ice post (much more discussion took place here).  One proposed mechanism to reduce the impacts of climate change is human injection of SO2 into the stratosphere, which would mimic natural volcanic effects.  If we implemented such a strategy without simultaneously reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, then abruptly stopped the injection (due to lack of funds or international controversy), the resulting warming signal would be higher post-injection than pre-injection.  The result would be unprecedented due to the large warming signal such a halt would introduce to the climate system.

In one more respect then, policymakers have wasted the past decade.  Instead of developing and implementing climate mitigation policies, international inaction continued.  Once the atmosphere removes the SO2, the climate signal will be stronger than before.  We cannot and should not rely on future volcanic SO2 emissions to mitigate our GHG emissions.  The lack of robust policies is a choice, but it is not a wise long-term choice.

NASA & NOAA: January 2013 Was 6th, 9th Warmest Globally On Record

According to data released by NASA and NOAA last week, January was the 6th and 9th warmest January’s (respectively) globally on record.  Here are the data for  NASA’s analysis; here are NOAA data and report.  The two agencies have slightly different analysis techniques, which in this case resulted in not only different temperature anomaly values but somewhat different rankings as well.  The two techniques provide a check on one another and confidence for us.

The details:

January’s global average temperatures were 0.61°C (1.098°F) above normal (1951-1980), according to NASA, as the following graphic shows.  The warmest regions on Earth coincide with the locations where climate models have been projecting the most warmth will occur: high latitudes (especially within the Arctic Circle).  The past three months have a +0.58°C temperature anomaly.  And the latest 12-month period (Feb 2012 – Jan 2013) had a +0.58°C temperature anomaly.  The time series graph in the lower-right quadrant shows NASA’s 12-month running mean temperature index.  The recent downturn (2010-2012) is largely due to the latest La Niña event (see below for more) that ended early last summer.  Since then, ENSO conditions returned to a neutral state (neither La Niña nor El Niñ0).  Therefore, as previous anomalously cool months fall off the back of the running mean, and barring another La Niña, the 12-month temperature trace should track upward again in 2013.

Figure 1. Global mean surface temperature anomaly maps and 12-month running mean time series through January 2013 from NASA.

According to NOAA, January’s global average temperatures were 0.54°C (0.97°F) above the 20th century mean of 14.0°C (57.2°F).  NOAA’s global temperature anomaly map for January (duplicated below) shows where conditions were warmer than average during the month.

Figure 2. Global temperature anomaly map for January 2013 from NOAA.

The two different analyses’ importance is also shown by the preceding two figures.  Despite differences in specific global temperature anomalies, both analyses picked up on the same temperature patterns and their relative strength.

The very warm conditions found over Greenland and Alaska are a concern.  These areas were warmer than average during more months in recent history than not.  Additionally, Australia was much warmer than usual.  Indeed, Australia’s January average temperature was the highest on record: +2.28°C (4.10°F!) above the 1961–1990 average, besting the previous record set in 1932 by 0.11°C (0.20°F).  In contrast to 2012, Siberian temperatures were cooler than normal.  This is likely a temporary, seasonal effect.  Long-term temperatures over northern Siberia continue to rise at among the fastest rate for any region on Earth.

These observations are also worrisome for the following reason: the globe came out of a moderate La Niña event in the first half of the year.  During the second half of the year, we remained in a ENSO-neutral state (neither El Niño nor La Niña):

Figure 3. Time series of weekly SST data from NCEP (NOAA).  The highest interest region for El Niño/La Niña is NINO 3.4 (2nd time series from top).

The last La Niña event hit its highest (most negative) magnitude more than once between November 2011 and February 2012.  Since then, tropical Pacific sea-surface temperatures peaked at +0.8 (y-axis) in September 2012.  You can see the effect on global temperatures that the last La Niña had via this NASA time series.  Both the sea surface temperature and land surface temperature time series decreased from 2010 (when the globe reached record warmth) to 2012.  So a natural, low-frequency climate oscillation affected the globe’s temperatures during the past couple of years.  Underlying that oscillation is the background warming caused by humans.  And yet temperatures were still in the top-10 warmest for a calendar year (2012) and individual months, including January 2013, in recorded history.

Skeptics have pointed out that warming has “stopped” or “slowed considerably” in recent years, which they hope will introduce confusion to the public on this topic.  What is likely going on is quite different: since an energy imbalance exists (less outgoing energy than incoming energy) and the surface temperature rise has seemingly stalled, the excess energy is going somewhere.  That somewhere is likely the oceans, and specifically the deep ocean.  Before we all cheer about this (since few people want surface temperatures to continue to rise quickly), consider the implications.  If you add heat to a material, it expands.  The ocean is no different; sea-levels are rising because of heat added to it in the past.  The heat that has entered in recent years won’t manifest as sea-level rise for some time, but it will happen.  Moreover, when the heated ocean comes back up to the surface, that heat will then be released to the atmosphere, which will raise surface temperatures as well as additional water vapor.  Thus, the immediate warming rate might have slowed down, but we have locked in future warming (higher future warming rate).

In a previous post on global temperatures, I pointed a few things out and asked some questions.  The Conference of Parties summit produced no meaningful climate action (November 2012).  Countries agreed to have something on paper by 2015 and enacted by 2020.  If everything goes as planned (a huge assumption given the lack of historical progress), significant carbon reductions wouldn’t occur until later in the 2020s – too late to ensure <2°C warming by 2100.  If, as is much more likely, everything doesn’t go as planned, reductions wouldn’t occur until later than the 2020s.  Additional meetings are scheduled for this year, but I maintain my expectation that nothing meaningful will come from them.  The international process is ill-equipped to handle all the legitimate interest groups in one fell swoop.

Instead, actions that start locally and grow with time are more likely to address emissions and eventual warming and other climate change effects.  People started small-scale activities in cities around the world in recent years.  There are also regional and international carbon markets.  While most markets were poorly designed, lessons learned from the first generation can be used to make future generation markets more effective.  As these small-scale efforts grow and their effects combine, larger bodies will need to address differences between them so that they work for larger populations and markets.

Paying for recovery from seemingly localized severe weather and climate events is and always will be more expensive than paying to increase resilience from those events.  As drought continues to impact US agriculture, as Arctic ice continues to melt to new record lows, as storms come ashore and impacts communities that are not prepared for today’s high-risk events (due mostly to poor zoning and destruction of natural protections), economic costs will accumulate in this and in future decades.  It is up to us how many costs we subject ourselves to.  As President Obama begins his second term with climate change “a priority”, he tosses aside the most effective tool available and most recommended by economists: a carbon tax.  Every other policy tool will be less effective than a Pigouvian tax at minimizing the actions that cause future economic harm.  It is up to the citizens of this country, and others, to take the lead on this topic.  We have to demand common sense actions that will actually make a difference.  But be forewarned: even if we take action today, we will still see more warmest La Niña years, more warmest El Niño years, more drought, higher sea levels, increased ocean acidification, more plant stress, and more ecosystem stress.  The biggest difference between efforts in the 1980s and 1990s to scrub sulfur and CFC emissions and future efforts to reduce CO2 emissions is this: the first two yielded an almost immediate result while it will take decades before CO2 emission reductions produce tangible results humans can see.