Month: January 2016

• First the bad news: A new report entitled Keep It in the Ground, released Monday by Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and 350.org, states that we are rapidly approaching Earth’s carbon budget required to keep warming below 2 degrees C and that if the world’s proven fossil fuel reserves are developed, we will miss the budget three times over. (Although outside of the time frame of this week’s roundup, last week Bill McKibben had an essay about fossil fuel infrastructure and the fight against it.) However, there is good news: In a study published Monday on-line in Nature Climate Change, NOAA and University of Colorado scientists report that the U.S. could slash its greenhouse gas emissions from electric power generation by 78% below 1990 levels within 15 years, all with renewable energy and still produce electricity for 10 cents/kWh, compared to a national average of 9.4 cents/kWh in 2012. An article in Science focused on the part of the study dealing with the power grid while an article in Scientific American emphasized the placement of the renewable energy facilities.
• Joe Romm of Climate Progress discussed projections by the International Energy Agency that renewables will be the world’s major source of electricity by 2030.
• On Monday the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an important clean energy resource, demand response. Utilities using demand response act to limit demand during peak power periods rather than ramping up supply, typically with fossil fuels.
• In a rather unorthodox move, a group of U.S. states led by coal producer West Virginia and oil producer Texas on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put a hold on President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan while its legality is considered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit This action was taken after the Appeals Court refused to issue a stay.
• The first major energy bill in eight years cleared committee in a bipartisan 18-4 vote and moved on to the full Senate for debate. The White House said it has “concerns” with some provisions of the bill but did not threaten a veto. As of Thursday morning, 89 amendments to the bill had been offered and by the end of the day, four had been passed.
• The extension in December of the tax credits for renewable energy was an important step that will have big impacts on the deployment of renewables. Consequently, the U.S. wind industry is expecting 2016 to be even better for wind turbine installations than 2015, which saw 5,001 MW installed capacity in the 4th quarter.
• As part of the weird weather the world has been experiencing for the past few years, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere with its loopy jet stream, east Asia had a brutal cold snap last week, with more than 65 deaths.
• And of course, we had the big snow storm last weekend, which was probably influenced by global warming for a variety of reasons.
• On the other hand, Great Britain has been so warm that a New Year’s Day plant survey found that 612 species of plants were in bloom. Typically, 20 to 30 species bloom at that time of year. In addition, an article published Friday in the journal Environmental Research Letters reports that summer temperatures in Europe since 1986 are warmer than they have been in 2000 years.
• For much of the past three years the temperature of the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska and west of Canada has been anomalously warm. Nicknamed “The Blob”, this region has had major impacts on ocean productivity, as well as on several other phenomena, such as precipitation patterns over land. Now it appears to be breaking up, but no one knows when it might return.
• In a commentary about the impact of climate change on record-setting temperatures, Dana Nuccitelli quotes climate scientist Michael Mann: “The next time you hear someone call into question the threat of human-caused climate change, you might explain to them that the likelihood we would be witnessing the recent record warmth in the absence of human-caused climate change is somewhere between one-in-a-thousand and one-in-a-million. You might ask them: Would you really gamble away the future of our planet with those sorts of odds?”
• Chelsea Harvey also reported on the odds that the recent string of record-setting temperatures would have occurred in the absence of climate change. Furthermore, the current El Nino event is estimated to have contributed only about 10% of the warming observed last year.
• Ted Cruz keeps insisting that Earth hasn’t warmed since 1998. Chris Mooney at the Washington Post examines that claim while John Cook reports at The Conversation that as climate science gets stronger, denial of it does too. Scott Johnson provides a detailed explanation of how the various temperature records are compiled.
• A recent paper by German researchers in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that the contribution of thermal expansion of sea water to sea level rise has been underestimated by a significant amount. As a consequence, the authors estimate sea level to be rising at a global average rate of 2.74 mm/year, or about 1.08 in/decade.
• Barely a month after the historic Paris climate accord was signed, the resolve of the signatory nations is being put to the test by the declining price of oil. Impacts are being felt everywhere, but in the U.S. the main one is the increased purchase of light trucks and SUVs. Meanwhile, the World Bank projects that crude oil prices will remain below $40 a barrel throughout 2016.
• The World Resources Institute has a very informative piece about what will be required for the Paris Agreement to take effect. It’s not yet a done deal.
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Tuesday that the Canadian government would consider greenhouse gas emissions associated with all pipelines and liquefied natural gas export terminals as proposed facilities are undergoing environmental review.
• The health of soils and their ability to provide important services depend on the diversity of their bacterial and fungal communities. Unfortunately, two recently published scientific papers report that the types of environmental changes associated with global warming, such as increased aridity, will negatively impact those microbial communities and reduce soil productivity, threatening the livelihood of millions of people.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

This week’s roundup of climate news is below.  Please pass it on to those you think might be interested.  If they wish to subscribe directly have them send an email to contactcaav [at] gmail.com.

• Another essay was posted to the Washington Post “In Theory” series on climate change after I mailed last week’s roundup. It is by Stephen Gardiner and is entitled “Why climate change is an ethical problem.” It is one of the clearest essays I have read on the difficulties of dealing with climate change as an ethical problem.
• Yale Climate Connections has compiled a list of 2015’s most significant scientific papers concerning climate science. While the material is not technical, it is of most interest to those who like to follow climate science. They have also compiled a list of new climate related books you may find of interest.
• Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is defined as the amount Earth would ultimately warm as a result of doubling the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It is important as an indicator of the possible impacts of CO2 emissions. At the time of publication of? the IPCC 4th assessment report in 2007 there were two techniques for estimating ECS and they gave estimates between 2 and 4.5 degrees C, with a most likely value of 3 degrees C. Between 2007 and the publication of the 5th IPCC assessment report in 2013/14 another estimation technique was developed and it gave significantly lower ECS values, causing the IPCC to?the lower limit of possible ECS values. Now a study has found that the new assessment technique contains a flaw that causes it to underestimate ECS.
• The Japan Meteorological Agency and the independent group Berkeley Earth have both declared 2015 as the hottest year on record. NASA, NOAA, and other governmental agencies are expected to do the same next week.
• A major type is electric power generation that does not emit CO2 is hydroelectric generation. While most suitable hydroelectric sites have been exploited in the developed world, this is not the case in the developing world. Consequently, many countries in Asia and Africa are planning new hydroelectric dams. Unfortunately, dams are not without consequences. For example, a team of 39 aquatic ecologists, writing in the journal Science, has warned that if dozens of hydroelectric dams are constructed in the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong river basins the consequences could be devastating for freshwater biodiversity, putting one-third of the world’s freshwater fish at risk. One example is the potential impact on the aquatic productivity in Tonle Sap, southeast Asia’s largest lake.
• Arch Coal, the U.S.’s second largest coal company, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As a consequence, coal mining companies accounting for more than 25% of U.S. coal production are currently in bankruptcy. Also, on Monday, shares of Peabody Energy Corp, the leading U.S. coal producer, hit a record low. In 2015 coal production hit its lowest level since 1986. On a related note, China’s coal imports fell by 30% last year.
• Currently, aircraft contribute about 2% of global CO2 emissions and the amount is expected to grow as the number of people flying increases in the future. In an effort to curb increases in CO2 emissions, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center is investigating a number of ways in which the fuel efficiency of airplanes can be increased.
• One way in which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere is by the growth of phytoplankton (very small photosynthetic organisms) that take up CO2 in the ocean, grow, and then die and fall to the ocean floor. In the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, the growth of phytoplankton is limited by the amount of iron available in the water, which is very small. Scientists have now found that as giant icebergs (larger than 10 miles on a side) travel away from Antarctica they release iron that had been incorporated into them as the glaciers from which they came scoured the rock over which they traveled. This fertilizes the ocean, stimulating the growth of phytoplankton and helping with the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. More research will be needed to show just how important this is.
• New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Vermont, and Washington, DC are entering into discussions of how they might use market-based approaches to reduce CO2 emissions from the transportation sector.
• Do you or someone you know want to use more energy-efficient light bulbs, but just don’t like the nature of the light from CFLs and LEDs? Well, researchers at MIT may be on the way to providing an incandescent light bulb with an energy efficiency exceeding that of any other technologies available today.
• Murres, common Alaskan seabirds, have been dying in large numbers from starvation. The cause is thought to be loss of forage fish due to warming waters caused either by climate change or El Nino. Unfortunately, these are not the only die-offs that have been observed around the globe recently, all of which may be related to a changing environment. In addition, a recent study has predicted that by mid-century salmon and herring, the fish species relied upon by Canada’s First Nations people, will have moved so far north that they will no longer be a reliable food source.
• Most of the growth in solar electricity installations has been driven by renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), of which Virginia has only a weak, voluntary one. Now, a new study has found that the benefits from strong RPSs are seven times greater than the costs associated with them. In addition, in 2015 the solar industry added jobs 12 times faster than the rest of the economy and now employs more people than the coal industry. Similar changes are being seen on a global scale where total investments in clean energy technology (solar plus wind) amounted to $329 billion in spite of falling prices for oil, gas, and coal. Unfortunately, the total amount of renewable energy in place in the U.S. is still so small that it is having only a minor effect on our CO2 emissions. Furthermore, traditional electricity providers are fighting rooftop solar with additional fees, which has a big negative impact on the industry.
• For the first time in the eleven years that the World Economic Forum has been conducting its survey of economists, a catastrophe caused by climate change ranks as the biggest potential threat to the global economy in 2016.
• A new report by the World Resources Institute finds that putting a price on carbon (either through a carbon tax or a cap and trade system) will have a bigger effect on CO2 emissions than that suggested by computer models run by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
• The National Hurricane Center announced on Thursday that subtropical storm Alex had been upgraded to a category I hurricane with sustained winds of 85 mph. This is the first time since 1938 that an Atlantic hurricane has formed in January and only the third time since hurricane record keeping began. It was downgraded to a tropical storm 24 hours later.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

The Weekly Roundup of Climate News for the week ending Jan. 8, 2016, is below. Please forward it to anyone you think might be interested, or I’ll be happy to add them to our distribution list. Just have them send an email to contactcaav [at] gmail [dot] com.

• In a series entitled “In Theory”, each week The Washington Post “takes on a big idea in the news and explores it from a range of perspectives.” This week the subject was the ethics of global warming and a primer was provided by Christine Emba. Essays were provided by Daniel Farber, Robert Brulle, John Nagle, Thomas Kostigen, and Eric Posner.
• If you would like a review of the top climate stories from 2015 check out Carbon Brief’s top 15.
• In case you missed the broadcast, BBC World Service had an excellent panel discussion entitled “The End of Oil.” It is both interesting and disturbing. Should be a must listen because it provides a picture of the difficulty of the task the world faces in keeping oil in the ground.
• We have been living in the geological epoch of the Holocene since the end of the last ice age. However, for the past several years scientists have proposed that we are in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, so named because of the impacts of humans on the planet. Later this year the question of whether to designate a new epoch will be considered by the geological organization that formally approves such time divisions. Meanwhile, a new study, published Thursday in the journal Science, provides one of the strongest cases yet that Earth has entered a new epoch.
• Given the warm December that we in the Valley experienced last year, it would be easy to expect that 2015 was the hottest year on record in the U.S. However, this was not the case, according to NOAA. Rather, 2015 was second to 2012. Nevertheless, high temperature records were broken all over the eastern U.S. Meanwhile, in the U.K., not only were high temperature records broken, but rainfall records as well, leading to massive flooding. In fact, December was the wettest month ever recorded in the U.K. (Note, 25.4 mm = 1.0 inch.) The flooding has been linked to climate change by some scientists.
• In spite of increasing global temperatures, denial of climate change and humans’ role in it is strong and well, at least in the U.S., according to two studies recently published in scientific journals. One examined the role of conservative think tanks in generating and perpetuating denial, while the other looked at the diffusion of doubt through social media.
• India has been planning to increase its use of coal as its economy develops. Now the low prices associated with two big solar projects are calling those plans into question, with many thinking that coal imports will cease by 2017. Also, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency China will not approve any new coal mines for the next three years. Finally, two large Oregon utilities have agreed to support legislation that would phase out coal-fired power in Oregon by 2030. This is all great news. On the other hand, Zimbabwe has gotten up to 50% of its electricity from hydro-power, but two years of severe droughts have dropped water levels so low that the country is having to turn to diesel, natural gas, and coal for electricity production. This is bad news.
• Water is very important to electricity production by thermal generation (coal, natural gas, and nuclear) in addition to hydroelectric generation. Water availability is of main concern for the latter, whereas both availability and suitable temperature are crucial to the former. Climate change will impact both the temperature and availability of surface water; hence a new study has examined how it will affect the productivity of electric generation facilities. Carbon Brief provides maps showing where the major impacts will occur.
• When melting occurs in a place like Greenland much of the melt water is trapped by the firn (the porous layer of built-up snow that has not yet been compressed into ice) and does not run off into the ocean, where it would contribute to sea level rise. A new study published in Nature Climate Change has found that in West Greenland dense ice layers are forming above the firn, making it impossible for melt water to reach it, causing it to immediately run off instead. This also changes the surface characteristics of the ice sheet, making it absorb more solar heat and melt faster.
• Aircraft contribute around 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions and that number is expected to grow by 3 to 4% a year due to increased air travel. To counteract those contributions to emissions, NASA has been conducting research on ways to increase the fuel efficiency of aircraft. If all of their recommendation were implemented, fuel consumption would be reduced by more than 80 billion gallons over the next 25 years.
• Statoil has received a contract from the Norwegian government to study the storage of carbon dioxide in the Norwegian continental shelf. The study will be carried out at three locations in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
• Later this year Chevrolet will have a new entry in the electric car market, the Chevy Bolt. It will have a range of around 200 miles and can be charged to 80% capacity in 30 minutes. The main competitor to electric cars as the clean energy car of the future is a fuel cell powered car. The current drawback of fuel cell cars is the production of hydrogen, which is their fuel. According to a recent paper in Nature Chemistry scientists at Indiana University have developed a biological catalyst that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, providing a more rapid and cleaner technology for hydrogen production than is currently available.
• TransCanada Corp, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline has announced two legal challenges to President Obama’s rejection of the pipeline. One of those challenges, based on provisions in free trade agreements, constitutes a significant threat to our environmental regulations. The potential impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is discussed in a blog by Ben Beachy, a senior policy adviser for the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program. Ayehsa Rasco of Reuters has analyzed the hurdles that the challenges face.
• On Wednesday the Agriculture Department announced that wildfires in the U.S. burned a record 10.1 million acres in 2015 and required the Forest Service to spend 52% of its budget fighting them. Both scientists and forest agency officials saw a link between climate change and the costly fire season.
• As one might expect, droughts and heatwaves affect grain production negatively. Now scientists have been able to quantify the impacts for both developed and developing nations. According to a paper in the journal Nature the overall average loss in annual crop yields was 10% compared to the three years preceding an event.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.