Category: Climate News Roundup

On Wednesday, the Center for Media and Democracy released over 7,500 pages of emails from EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s time as Oklahoma Attorney General after that office turned them over to a state court in Oklahoma.  They revealed several instances of close coordination between his former office and oil interests in Oklahoma.  Both The Washington Post and The New York Times also covered the story.  In addition, there are contradictions between Pruitt’s Senate testimony and statements in an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his swearing in that have caused some to sense a “bait and switch.”  Mike Catanzaro was recently appointed as President Donald Trump’s top energy aide.  Writing on Desmog, Steve Horn reviews his history and writings on climate and energy.  President Trump is expected to sign an executive order calling for the repeal of the Clean Power Plan.  But as explained by Brad Plumer on Vox, “… crafting a new rule will take many months, if not years, and Pruitt will face a slew of procedural and legal hurdles in trying to undo Obama’s plan.”

Scott Pruitt’s appointment, along with the activities of Rep. Lamar Smith (R, TX), chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, has some climate scientists concerned about future harassment.  Thus, it is encouraging that the National Academy of Sciences has called for continuing support of the U.S. Global Change Research Program following a new review of their activities.  Nevertheless, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has just reported that the 114^th Congress was the most polarized on environmental issues in the 46-year history of the LCV scorecard, which does not bode well for environmental votes in the new Congress.  It is within this atmosphere that the March for Science is being planned for April 22, Earth Day, on the Mall in Washington, D.C.  Although the planned march has drawn criticism and concern from some, Rush Holt, chief executive of AAAS, has emphasized that the march is “for science rather than against anyone.”

Climate

New research, published in the journal Science Advances, has asserted that six marine “hotspots” of exceptional biodiversity are being impacted negatively by warming sea temperatures, weakening ocean currents, and industrial fishing, putting them at risk of losing many of their species.

The flooding in California this week has been attributed to the arrival of “atmospheric rivers” from the Pacific.  With respect to the effect of climate change on those “rivers”, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain has said “There is now quite a bit of evidence that future droughts here will be warmer and more intense, yet will be interrupted by increasingly powerful ‘atmospheric river’ storms capable of causing destructive flooding.”  Further east, the flow of the Colorado River has dropped more than 19% during the drought gripping the river basin since 2000.  A study published in the journal Water Resources Research has concluded that about one-third of the decline is due to a warming atmosphere induced by climate change.  How people in the Colorado River basin deal with the problem is an important indicator of how we will adapt to climate change.  Zack Colman visited southeastern Nevada to see how they are coping with the changes.

The U.S. Geological Survey has just announced that the record warm February temperatures in the U.S. are another symptom of climate change.  One bit of evidence of the link to climate change is that there were many more record daily high temperatures than record lows – 5,294 versus 84 through Feb. 20.  This has prompted Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic to ask “Is It Okay to Enjoy the Warm Winters of Climate Change?”.  If you are interested in the psychology of climate change, Yale Climate Connections has provided a list of books and reports on the subject.

It is summer in Australia, really summer, with temperatures in Sydney reaching 117°F.  As has happened elsewhere, this has reduced the number of people who deny human-caused climate change.  According to Simon Bullock, senior campaigner on climate change at Friends of the Earth, “Sadly, people are now seeing and experiencing climate change in their own lives.  No amount of media misinformation from climate deniers can alter that.”  Another place where people are “experiencing climate change in their own lives” is La Paz, Bolivia, a high-altitude city whose water previously came from glaciers.  Now that the glaciers are gone, they face severe challenges.  Leslie Kaufman described how the city is coping.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has issued a new report, “The Future of Food and Agriculture: Trends and Challenges,” in which they warn that countries must undertake “major transformations” in the way they grow and distribute food if future widespread starvation is to be avoided.  Some of the challenges are increasing population, the shifting of diets from grain to meat-based, groundwater depletion, and climate change.  Meanwhile, the U.N. has issued an urgent plea for funds to help avert starvation in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

In October, almost 200 countries signed the Kigali Amendment as an update to the Montreal Protocol, agreeing to reduce their reliance on hydrofluorocarbons in refrigeration and air conditioning because of their strong global warming potential.  After considering thousands of options, scientists have narrowed the list of candidate replacements to 27, all of which have problems, according to a new paper in Nature Communications.

A 2013 World Bank report ranked Boston as the eighth most vulnerable major city in the world to property damage from rising seas, among 136 studied, with much of the waterfront only a foot above sea level during high tide.  Consequently, studies are underway to determine the most feasible way to protect the city from future sea level rise, including building a large sea barrier.

Energy

The burning of biomass in large power plants to generate electricity was back in the news this week with the release of a report by the UK’s Chatham House asserting “Although most renewable energy policy frameworks treat biomass as though it is carbon-neutral at the point of combustion, in reality this cannot be assumed, as biomass emits more carbon per unit of energy than most fossil fuels.”  Jocelyn Timperley of Carbon Brief has examined the main arguments of the report and concluded that “The debate over biomass [burning]is unlikely to be resolved soon.”

Two lobbying groups representing auto manufacturers, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, sent letters to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, urging him to roll back the 2025 fuel economy standards established by the Obama administration.  Environmentalists objected.  Nevertheless, at about the same time, Royal Dutch Shell Plc announced that it will build seven fueling stations for hydrogen cars in California through a partnership with Toyota Motor Corp.

A 4.6 MW, community-based project in Red Lake Falls, MN will be the country’s first commercial integrated solar-wind hybrid power generation facility.  It will use two 2.3 MW wind turbines and 1 MW of solar panels.  The wind turbines will provide peak energy in winter and the solar panels will provide peak energy in summer.  On the topic of renewable energy, there is a very interesting editorial in the British magazine The Economist dealing with the impacts of renewable energy on the conventional electricity industry.  It provides some important insights into why some electricity providers are fighting renewable energy.

The U.S. started exporting liquefied natural gas last year and is increasingly piping more natural gas to Mexico while importing less gas via pipeline from Canada.  According to the Energy Department, the U.S. will likely become a net exporter of gas next year and a net exporter of total fossil energy products shortly after 2020.

Economics is the main cause of the closing of coal-fired power plants, and as long as natural gas continues to be cheap, that is likely to continue.  Thus, it is not surprising that President Trump’s election hasn’t slowed the pace of closings for those plants.  A case in point is the Navajo Generating Station that I wrote about last week.  Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Evan Halper characterized its closure as the first major test of “Trump’s vision for a coal industry resurgence.”

Computing technology can contribute to the success of wind energy installations by adding smart intelligence to machines, helping them operate more efficiently, and alerting developers about needed maintenance.

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.

Dr. Will Happer, an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University, is being considered for the position of science adviser or director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Trump Administration.  Andrew Revkin has an interesting and enlightening interview with him at ProPublica.  On Friday, the Senate confirmed Scott Pruitt as Administrator of EPA by a vote of 52 to 46.  According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, a complicated legal battle would await the Trump administration if it tried to withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty under which the Paris Climate Agreement lies.  Finally, let’s hope Jason Samenow (and the rest of us) doesn’t regret his article in The Washington Post entitled “NASA is defiantly communicating climate change science despite Trump’s doubts.”

Climate

Preliminary data from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center have shown that sea ice around Antarctica has shrunk to the smallest annual extent on record.  The smallest annual extent is typically reached in mid to late February during summer in the southern hemisphere.  This year, sea ice extent contracted to 883,015 square miles on Feb. 13, which is slightly smaller than the previous low of 884,173 square miles recorded on Feb. 27, 1997.  Satellite records date back to 1979.  In 2005 ice loss from the glaciers on the Queen Elizabeth Islands of Canada was almost equally split between calving glaciers and surface melt.  By 2015, however, 90% was due to surface melting.  In fact, according to a study just published in Environmental Research Letters, surface melt increased from 3 gigatons a year to 30 gigatons a year over that period because of warming air temperatures.

A new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature by scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Germany, found a decline of more than 2% in ocean oxygen content worldwide between 1960 and 2010.  Because oxygen is not evenly distributed in Earth’s oceans, the 2% overall decline means there is a much larger decline in some regions than in others.  The study attributes less than 15% of the oxygen loss to warmer ocean temperatures, which create lower solubility.  The rest was attributed to other factors, such as a lack of mixing.

At the end of last week, a powerful low-pressure storm system in the northern Atlantic helped carry warm air up to the Arctic, sending temperatures at the North Pole more than 36°F above the 1979-2000 average.  It was the third such warming event this winter, whereas 50 to 60 years ago, such events only occurred once or twice a decade.  In addition, record warmth was being recorded in the central U.S. and Australia.

Peter Sinclair has released an interesting new video in which he examines the ability of models to forecast what will happen as the climate changes.  It was featured by Yale Climate Connections on Wednesday.  Also, if you missed his video “Standing Up for Science” you can see it here.  Sinclair recently received a Friend of the Planet award from the National Center for Science Education, as did the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Geoff Summerhayes, from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), Australia’s financial regulator, has warned that climate change poses a material risk to the entire financial system, and has urged companies to start adapting.  Summerhayes said “Some climate risks are distinctly ‘financial’ in nature. Many of these risks are foreseeable, material and actionable now.”  Meanwhile, managers of 16 funds with assets totaling more than $2.8 trillion called for the G20 economies to phase out fossil fuel subsidies within the next three years to avert a catastrophe.  On the other hand, writing on Yale Environment 360, Mark Gunther examines the question “Why Won’t American Business Push for Action on Climate?”.

At the single-day Climate and Health Meeting in Atlanta on Thursday, the main theme was that climate change is poised to unleash an unprecedented, global public health crisis, although the participants left a little room for hope.  You can watch a recording of the meeting here.

In a meta-analysis of 130 studies reported between 1990 and 2015, scientists found that 47% of mammals and 24.4% of birds on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species are negatively impacted by climate change – a total of about 700 species.  The analysis was published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Energy

The members of the EU Parliament narrowly approved an overhaul of the EU emissions trading scheme in hopes of balancing greater cuts in greenhouse gases with protection for energy-intensive industries.  Environmental organizations denounced the legislation for not going far enough in strengthening the cuts.  The legislation will now enter negotiations between the European parliament, commission, and council, which represents member states.  Here in the U.S., Charles Komanoff of the Carbon Tax Center had an essay in The Nation about the carbon tax proposal put forth last week by the Climate Leadership Council.  Central to any carbon tax is the social cost of carbon.  Carbon Brief walks you through what it is, how it is calculated, and why it is so important.  Meanwhile, a coalition of conservative groups, including American Energy Alliance, Heritage Action for America, and Americans for Tax Reform, is asking for a meeting with high-level White House officials to rebut last week’s meeting and presentation by members of the Climate Leadership Council.  It appears, however, that members of the coalition are out of step with almost half of Trump voters.

In advance of their upcoming U.S. Solar Market Insight 2016 Year in Review report, set to be released on March 9, GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) announced that the U.S. solar industry installed 14,626 MW of solar photovoltaics in 2016.  This is a 95% increase over the amount installed in 2015.  Nevertheless, U.S. renewable energy capacity still lags way behind that of the EU and China.  For example, of the 24,500 MW of new electrical generating capacity built across the EU in 2016, 21,100 MW – or 86% – was from wind, solar, biomass and hydro.  Here in Virginia, Dominion is investing more than $800 million in solar power, with some 398 MW of solar generation either completed or under development.

On Monday, the utilities that own the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station in Arizona decided to decommission the plant at the end of their lease agreement with the Navajo Nation in December 2019.  This is decades earlier than expected and is the result of low natural gas prices.  On the subject of coal, President Trump on Thursday signed legislation ending the Office of Surface Mining’s Stream Protection Rule, a regulation to protect waterways from coal mining waste.  Federal regulators said the rule would have protected about 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forests over two decades.  Warren Cornwall presented an analysis of what the rule’s demise will mean.

Thanks to generous tax incentives, plug-in electric vehicle sales reached 37% of market share in Norway during January 2017.  In the U.S., automakers played the jobs card in appealing to President Trump to reconsider greenhouse gas standards for vehicles instituted during the Obama administration.

Calling the decision “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law,” the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes filed a motion on Tuesday asking the court to reverse an easement for the Dakota Access pipeline that the Army Corps of Engineers granted.  That easement lifted the final hurdle for the project’s completion.  According to Patrick A. Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law School, “The strongest possible argument is that the Trump administration, with no change in facts, no change in conditions, reversed the government’s position.”  Still, legal experts considered the motion to be a longshot.  Meanwhile, TransCanada Corp filed an application with Nebraska authorities on Thursday to route its Keystone XL pipeline through the state.

As required by an agreement with the UN, on Tuesday the EPA issued its draft report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 – 2015.  It will be available for public comment until March 17, allowing the final report to be released April 15, 2017.  In 2015, greenhouse gas emissions were the lowest they have been since 1992.  Unfortunately, emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, which are potent greenhouse gases, are rising.  Since much of our greenhouse gas emissions come from the oil and gas industry, understanding where the wells are in the U.S. is instructive.  Luckily, Tim Meko and Laris Karklis have presented maps showing where it all comes from.

Wind power was in the news this week.  On Sunday, the Southwest Power Pool (which coordinates the flow of electricity on the high voltage power lines from Montana and North Dakota to New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana) met more than 50% of its electrical demand from wind for a brief period.  This was the first time on any North American power grid.  On the other side of the world, in an effort to save its oil reserves for sale, Saudi Arabia plans to install almost 10 GW of wind and solar energy by 2023.

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.

Scott Pruitt is drawing up plans to repeal climate rules, cut staffing, close offices, and permanently weaken the regulatory authority of the EPA, which he has been nominated to lead.  As a result, on Monday almost 500 former EPA employees sent an open letter to Senate Majority Leader McConnell explaining why they oppose making Pruitt administrator of the agency.  The New York Times‘ Coral Davenport explored how Pruitt might go about his task, using interviews with senior former EPA officials.  In addition, Eric Roston at Bloomberg, examined how EPA’s history and structure might limit Pruitt’s actions.  If you are too young to remember what the U.S. was like before the EPA, then you may want to read this introduction to Documerica.

According to Politico, George David Banks, a former George W. Bush climate aide, is expected to join the National Security Council as an adviser to President Trump on international energy and environmental issues.  He would work with the State Department to help shape the approach to climate change negotiations, including whether the U.S. should remain committed to the Paris Climate Accord.  And according to E&E News, Mike Catanzaro, an energy lobbyist who’s worked on environmental issues in the executive branch and both chambers of Congress, is expected to become special assistant to the president for energy and environmental issues in the National Economic Council.

Climate

You may recall that in 2015 Thomas R. Karl of NOAA and eight coauthors (seven of whom were from NOAA) published a paper in the journal Science correcting the sea surface temperature record to bring older measurements taken in ship engine rooms into line with more recent measurements taken with buoys and other modern techniques.  The paper received a lot of press because the impact of the corrections was to eliminate the “global warming hiatus” that apparently occurred during the first 15 years of the 21^st century.  This caused outrage on the part of those who question whether climate change is occurring.  Now the paper is back under the microscope because of an article published over the weekend in the British paper The Mail on Sunday.  E&E News, the Associated Press, and The Guardian had good coverage of the events while Carbon Brief presented a guest post by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, who fact-checked the article that appeared in the Mail on Sunday.  The bottom line: the science is sound, but some NOAA data handling protocols may have been breached.  There were two good posts on RealClimate related to this incident.  One was about living in a time of fake news and “alternative facts.”  The other presented NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt’s views on the challenges of science communication in a politicized world.

Robert McSweeney at Carbon Brief reported on two new papers that appeared in scientific journals this week.  One, published in Current Biology, concerns African penguins.  Warming sea surface temperatures and overfishing have made food scarce in the usual feeding areas for the penguins.  Unfortunately, young penguins instinctually head north and west for food, while the fish are shifting south and east, setting up an “ecological trap” for the penguins.  The other, published in Nature, concerns the impact of changes in ocean circulation patterns on the amount of CO₂ they take up.  It found that weakening circulation patterns since 2000 have resulted in an increase in CO₂ uptake, but the authors caution that there is no guarantee this will continue in the future.

Towns and cities in the mid-Atlantic region could see more than 160 high tide floods every year by 2045, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS One.  That’s up from once-a-month flooding in the region now.  In addition, high tide floods along southeastern shorelines are expected to strike more than 100 times a year.

A new paper, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, used satellite data and climate change projections for the middle of this century to estimate how climate change will impact the frequency of large wildfires.  The study suggests that there will be a 35% increase in the days with high danger of large fires across the world, with some regions seeing even larger increases, such as the western states of the U.S., southeastern Australia, the Mediterranean region, and southern Africa.  In addition, a paper in the journal Nature suggested that a warming climate will fundamentally change the chemistry of mountain soils by shifting the balance of nutrients, visibly disrupting fragile, high-elevation ecosystems of grasses, flowers, and trees within decades.  That, in turn, will substantially alter the way these sensitive ecosystems function.

Authors of a new book entitled Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations examined the history of climate and human health and concluded that “The main general conclusion to be made about climatic impacts on health and survival during the Holocene is this: whether in the Arctic, temperate regions, or the tropics, the climatic comfort zone that sustains food and water supplies, stability of ecosystems, and other basic needs is confined within a narrow range of temperatures and a particular pattern of seasonal rainfall.”  That does not bode well for life in the Anthropocene.

Energy

Members of the Climate Leadership Council met Wednesday with White House officials to discuss the idea of imposing a national carbon tax, rather than using federal regulations, to address climate change.  The plan appears to be patterned after the Carbon Fee and Dividend proposal of Citizens’ Climate Lobby.  It comprises four elements: a gradually increasing carbon tax, carbon dividends for all Americans, border carbon adjustments, and significant regulatory rollback.  In an op-ed in The New York Times, members of the Council stated “…an ideal climate policy would reduce carbon emissions, limit regulatory intrusion, promote economic growth, help working class Americans and prove durable when the political winds change.  We have laid out such a plan…”  Nevertheless, the proposal by the group of elder statesmen in the Republican Party “is already meeting entrenched opposition from within their own party.”  Brad Plumer of Vox has an analysis of the carbon tax proposal.  In his article, he states “Every few years, various economists and wonks will try to sell the Republican Party on a carbon tax as a conservative solution to climate change.  And so far, these campaigns have attracted public support from … exactly zero elected Republicans in Washington.”  While this may be technically correct, it apparently ignores the 12 Republican members of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which is exploring policy options for addressing climate change.  Finally, opposition from most Republicans should come as no surprise since the energy industry spent $160 million on federal candidates during the last election cycle, with 80% of it going to Republicans.  In addition, it spends $300 million a year lobbying Congress, deploying three lobbyists per member.

On Wednesday the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the developer of the Dakota Access pipeline formal permission to lay pipe under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota and the developer has resumed work.  Phillip Ellis, a spokesperson for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm representing the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, stated that they will file litigation against the Army Corps within days, but legal experts have said the tribe faces long odds in convincing any court to halt work on the pipeline.  Also on Wednesday, former interior secretary Sally Jewell said that the Corps of Engineers was “reneging” on its commitment to other federal agencies and tribal leaders to conduct a thorough environmental review of the pipeline.

According to a report released on Tuesday by the solar advocacy group The Solar Foundation, jobs in the U.S. solar industry grew 25% last year to include more than 260,000 workers.  In addition, a new report released Wednesday by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Bloomberg New Energy Finance found that Americans spent less of their average annual household income on energy in 2016 than ever before. Furthermore, retail electricity prices fell 2.2% in real terms from 2015.

Wind, solar, biomass and hydro made up 86% of new power added to Europe’s electricity grids last year.  As a result, wind power now contributes 16.7% of Europe’s total power capacity.  In the U.S., during the last quarter of 2016 wind passed hydropower dams to become the largest source of renewable electricity, according to a new study by the American Wind Energy Association, making wind the fourth-largest energy source overall.  And in China, installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity more than doubled last year, rising to 77.42 GW with the addition of 34.54 GW over the course of the year.

California’s three largest utilities have filed proposals with the state’s public utilities commission that would allocate up to $1 billion in new spending to “accelerate widespread transportation electrification.”  The money would come from surcharges on utility bills submitted by all three companies to their subscribers.  The goal is to remove as many medium and heavy duty diesel powered vehicles from the roadways as possible.  Electric vehicle (EV) sales numbers in the U.S. for 2016 were recently released.  Following a 5% decline in sales from 2014 to 2015, U.S. EV sales increased by 37% in 2016.  More than half of all EV sales took place in California.

Recently The Guardian held a roundtable on the future of wind and solar power with participants from several organizations with an interest in energy.  The consensus was that the Trump Administration will have little impact on the prospects for renewable energy because the strength of the renewables sector is driven by decreasing costs and increasing interest among both the public and businesses.  Meanwhile, the nuclear power industry is having to revamp its arguments for government support in light of the views of the Trump Administration about climate change.

If Europe’s 300 coal-fired power plants run to the end of their natural lifespans, the EU nations will exceed their carbon budget for coal by 85%, according to a new report by Climate Analytics.  It says the EU would need to stop using coal for electricity generation by 2030 to meet its Paris climate pledges.

A new paper in the journal Science describes an almost science-fiction like way to increase the cooling of objects, thereby increasing their efficiency in cooling applications.  The technique applies “passive cooling”, which increases the rate of infrared radiation to space without the input of mechanical or electrical energy.  It is papers like this that give me hope that humankind can solve the climate change problem.

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.

In the face of a boycott by Democrats, on Thursday Republican members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works suspended their rules and approved the nomination of Scott Pruitt to head EPA.  The vote was 11-0 to send the nomination to the full Senate.  The Los Angeles Times has explained why a challenge to California’s unique authority to set rules for car and truck emissions would be hard for Pruitt to win if confirmed.  On Tuesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 17-6 to approve Rick Perry’s nomination to head DOE, sending it to the full Senate.  On Wednesday the Senate confirmed Rex Tillerson, former ExxonMobil CEO, as Secretary of State with a vote of 56-43.  Justin Gillis of The New York Times presented an interesting analysis of how the Republican position on climate change has changed subtly over time and how the appointment of Rex Tillerson and Rick Perry may actually give some cause for hope.  Neil Gorsuch is President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.  His position on the Chevron rule may be very important to environmental cases coming before the court.  John Cushman has an explanation of why at Inside Climate News.  In response to statements by members of Congress, the President, and some nominees for leadership positions in the new administration, and actions by the transition team, scientists plan to hold a “Listen to Evidence” march in Washington, DC on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22.  Supporting events will be held around the country, as well as in other countries.  In addition, climate scientist Michael Mann expressed his views about recent events in an op-ed piece on The Hill.

Climate

Writing in The Washington Post, Jason Samenow of The Capital Weather Gang stated: “The Arctic is so warm and has been this warm for so long that scientists are struggling to explain it and are in disbelief.  The climate of the Arctic is known to oscillate wildly, but scientists say this warmth is so extreme that humans surely have their hands in it and may well be changing how it operates.”  One impact of the warmth is that the extent of Arctic sea ice is well below any previously recorded value for this time of year.

A study published Thursday in the Nature journal Scientific Reports has found that ocean acidification (caused by increased CO₂ levels) increases the potency of coral-killing seaweeds, allowing them to take over and kill off coral reefs.  The only effective way to address the problem is to reduce CO₂ emissions and the levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Like California, which just went from extreme drought to intense rainfall, Peru is struggling to cope with heavy downpours and flooding as its drought has ended.  The precipitation has been fueled by unusually warm temperatures in the Pacific, which is odd since an El Niño period just ended last year.  Meanwhile, in Chile, which is still in a decade-long drought, the worst wildfires in the country’s history are raging across the central and southern regions of the country.

According to a recent survey by researchers from the University of New Hampshire, just 25% of people who voted for Donald Trump believe climate change is occurring and is caused by human activity, compared to 90% of Hillary Clinton voters.  Interestingly, 99% of people who voted in the election, but did not cast a vote for president, believe climate change is occurring and is human-caused.

Scientists gathered in Anchorage last week for the Alaska Marine Science Symposium reviewed new research probing the impacts of increasing water temperatures on marine ecosystems.  This article focused on Arctic cod, bird populations in the Bering Sea, and the impacts of toxic algal blooms on marine mammals.

Energy

Recently I have provided links to reports by BP and others stating that fossil fuel demand will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.  Now a new report by The Carbon Tracker Initiative and the Grantham Institute of Imperial College, London, challenges such conclusions.  Rather, their analysis suggests that the fossil fuel giants are vastly underestimating the disruptive power of solar panels and electric cars, which could cause coal and oil demand to peak by 2020.  Carbon Brief has provided two graphs that summarize the findings.  David Roberts at Vox agrees that we are probably underestimating how quickly electric cars will disrupt the oil market.  It is worth noting that the European Union is on track to meet its 2020 goal of getting 20% of its energy from renewable sources.

The owners of Arizona’s Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, announced in early January that low natural gas prices and the rising costs of generating electricity using coal make it too expensive to operate the plant.  A decision on the plant’s fate is expected this spring.

A new paper in Nature Climate Change uses “a nested structure of key indicators to track progress through time” toward the goals established by the Paris Climate Accord.  While many key indicators are consistent with emission levels required to meet temperature goals, the continued lack of large-scale carbon capture and storage is a major threat to their attainment.

On Monday, Honda and General Motors announced an $85 million collaboration in which, beginning in 2020, they will assemble hydrogen fuel cells for both companies at a Brownstown, Michigan, GM plant.  The fuel cells will be used in vehicles from both companies.  The big question is whether the needed hydrogen infrastructure will be available.

On Thursday, the Senate passed 54-45 a Congressional Review Act bill undoing the Interior Department’s Stream Protection Rule, a regulation requiring coal firms to clean up waste from mountaintop removal mining and prevent it from going into local waterways.  The House passed the bill 228-194 on Wednesday night.  Brad Plumer of Vox provided some history on the rule and why Republicans were intent on killing it.

Construction of Generation III+ nuclear reactors is being plagued by delays and cost overruns, causing former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission official Lake Barrett to state: “The cost overrun situation is driven by a near-perfect storm of societal risk aversion to nuclear causing ultra-restrictive regulatory requirements, construction complexity, and lack of nuclear construction experience by the industry.”  This is not the situation globally, however.

Maryland lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Thursday to override Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill to increase the use of renewable energy in the state.  The law requires that 25% of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2020.  The previous requirement had been 20% by 2022.

A new study by the University of Texas Energy Institute published in Nature Energy has found that if your house has solar panels, it is better to stay connected to the grid than to store energy in batteries for use when the sun isn’t shining.  That is because the energy loss associated with batteries results in 8 to 14% more energy use when energy is stored in them.  Despite those losses, as net metering is eliminated or scaled back in some states, battery storage is likely to find increased use.  In addition, electrical companies are increasingly turning to battery farms for energy storage.

One of the vicious cycles associated with global warming is that the warmer Earth gets, the greater the demand for air conditioning, which typically requires electricity to operate, causing more greenhouse gases to be emitted, driving the temperature even higher, etc.  There is another way, however, even though it is not yet in widespread use: solar thermal cooling.  If that sounds like an oxymoron, read this piece, or at least look at the excellent graphics.

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.

As might be expected, much of the news related to climate and energy this week has focused on the Executive Branch and the often contradictory signals about what the Trump Administration (TA) will/won’t do to/about government climate science and related activities.  Since there is so much confusion and press about what is happening, I will limit the number of items I include on this subject.  One example of contradictory signals had to do with climate change information on EPA’s website.  As reported by Robin Bravender and Hannah Hess for E&E News (and reprinted by Science), at first EPA employees were told to scrub all such information from the website, but then were told not to do so.  The Washington Post also covered the story, with a little more historical perspective.  On Wednesday, the lawyers for the 21 children suing the federal government, the fossil fuel industry, and related trade associations hit them with a legal preservation notice.  If a judge agrees, they would all be prohibited from deleting files, taking down websites, etc. without archiving them first.  One development that is in line with the worst fears of anyone concerned about the climate is that computer scientist David Gelernter, a Yale University professor, is being considered for the role of science adviser in the TA.  For this, and other reasons, some leaders of U.S. scientific societies are concerned about the policies of the TA and the keepers of the Doomsday Clock have advanced it forward 30 seconds, making it the closest it has been to midnight since 1953.  There has also been much speculation about what the TA can do about environmental regulations issued by the Obama Administration.  Coral Davenport of The New York Times interviewed several lawyers and legal scholars about this question and has a good summary.  Also, a new tool launched by the Columbia Law School is tracking every step the TA takes to roll back or eliminate existing federal rules on climate change and energy.

In response to the policies of the TA, a new People’s Climate March is being planned for Washington DC by a steering committee of more than two dozen organizations.  Bill McKibben recently wrote about the march in Rolling Stone magazine.

In December there was an interesting infographic online about the reliability of news sources that I missed, but which you will probably find interesting.  While I take some comfort in fact that many of my sources come from the center and upper center, I also must note one of the comments: “The definition of irony: Getting info on what news to trust from an image sharing site…”  The source of the infographic is here.

Climate

A new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA), Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe, has found that extreme weather cost Europe more than $378 billion and ended the lives of 85,000 people over the last three decades.  Furthermore, during the 1980s, the damages averaged about $8.2 billion a year, but by the 2000s the figure had risen to $14.7 billion a year.  While the EEA expressed caution about how much of this could be attributed to climate change, it warned that weather was likely to get worse as the global temperature continues to rise.  In particular, it stated that Europe’s Atlantic-facing countries will suffer heavier rainfalls, greater flood risk, more severe storm damage, and an increase in “multiple climatic hazards.”

Scientists in Sweden have discovered a complex chain of events that increases the level of methylmercury in estuaries and oceans as global temperatures rise in response to climate change.  The increased levels of methylmercury, in turn, increase the level of mercury in fish, thereby elevating human exposure to mercury.  The research was published in the journal Science Advances.

A new study published in Global Challenges: Climate Change has found that “inoculation” may provide the key to effectively debunking misinformation.  The study provides a key message for those fighting against the growing “post-truth”, “alternative facts” culture: facts by themselves are insufficient, but explaining the flaws underpinning associated misinformation can help weaken its effect and increase public acceptance of the facts.

NOAA has released a new technical report on projected sea level rise written by scientists at NOAA, USGS, EPA, and Rutgers University.  The purpose of the report is to update sea level rise projections used by coastal planners in the U.S.  Since the last report in 2012, the increased understanding of sea level rise suggests that under a worst-case scenario, climate change could raise the oceans an average of more than 8 feet by 2100, about 20 inches more than the previous estimate.  Tom Avril reports on what this might mean for the Jersey Shore.

Most articles I link to about Arctic ice are rather coldly analytical (no pun intended).  But in a beautifully written piece for Hakai Magazine, Eli Kintisch describes what changes in the shoreline ice in northern Canada mean to the 1400 residents of Nain, the largest community in Newfoundland and Labrador’s self-governing Nunatsiavut territory.

Energy

Ivy Main has a new post on Power for the People VA about the renewable energy bills that are still alive in the Virginia General Assembly.  The major foci of the two bills in the Senate are on community solar and small agricultural generators.  Bills in the House will be heard by the energy subcommittee on Tuesday afternoon.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s office has announced that Pennsylvania-based Community Solar Energy will build a 100 MW solar energy facility in Southampton County.  Amazon Web Services will purchase power from the new facility.  Speaking of solar energy, in early 2011 U.S. utility fixed-tilt system pricing was close to $4.00/watt.  In early 2017 it is below $1.00/watt, thanks in part to the DOE loan program, which has a loss ratio of 2.33% on $32 billion in commitments.

In contrast to other projections, BP’s Energy Outlook for 2017 predicted that in spite of growth in electric cars and renewable energy, oil demand will still be rising in 2035 because of rising prosperity in emerging Asia.  In addition, the report predicted that global energy demand will grow nearly a third by 2035 and that fossil fuels will still account for 75% of the energy mix, although renewables will be the fastest-growing energy source in coming years.  Carbon Brief had an analysis of how BP’s Energy Outlook has changed over the years.

Just 27% of Americans surveyed this month by the Pew Research Center said they thought the U.S. should prioritize expanding the coal, oil, and gas industries, while 65% thought alternatives like wind and solar should be the priority.  However, adding more renewable energy sources to the grid presents significant challenges, as this article about the Midwest illustrates.  Unfortunately, instead of trying to solve those challenges, some politicians in Indiana appear to be trying to kill rooftop solar.  A new bill in the Indiana legislature would not only eliminate net metering, it would mandate a “buy all, sell all” solar model, in which homeowners with solar panels must sell all the electricity they generate to their power provider at wholesale price and then buy all the electricity they use at retail cost.  Since such a model doesn’t recognize any of the benefits provided to utilities by resident-owned solar panels, let’s hope it gets shot down.

The Long Island Power Authority approved the nation’s largest off-shore wind farm on Wednesday.  It will be between the eastern tip of Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard, although it will not be visible from the former and barely visible from the latter.  The initial phase of the project will have only 15 turbines, but the site contains sufficient space for 200.  Speaking of off-shore wind energy, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind has unveiled its new 9 MW wind turbine, which broke the energy generation record over a 24 hour period.  Meanwhile, in the Midwest, the proximity of regional transmission lines appears to be a big factor in the siting of new wind farms.

Although the findings are primarily associative, an increasing number of scientific studies is suggesting that exposure to ultra-small particles of air pollution from automobiles and other combustion sources can increase the risk of dementia.  This, in turn, suggests that there might be additional benefits associated with moving away from fossil fuels.

On Tuesday, President Trump invited TransCanada to reapply for a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline and on Thursday they did so.  At the same time, President Trump signed an executive order instructing the Army Corps of Engineers to “review and approve in an expedited manner” the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).  The Standing Rock Sioux chairman David Archambault II warned the TA that the legal issues around the DAPL are not subject to change “simply by the president’s whim,” and that the executive order shows a “disregard for tribal diplomatic relations and the potential for national repercussions.”  Bill McKibben had an op-ed piece in The New York Times on President Trump’s actions.

The DOE has released its 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report.  Unfortunately, the news reports that I’ve seen so far appear to have misinterpreted some of the numbers relative to renewable energy, so I haven’t linked to them.  On a related topic, Paul McDivitt at Ensia has an interesting opinion piece asserting that many news articles tend to inflate the contribution of renewables to total electricity generation.  It is a cautionary tale worth reading.

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.

On Wednesday President-Elect Trump’s nominee to head EPA, Scott Pruitt, appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, while on Thursday his nominee to head DOE, Rick Perry, appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.  As was done last week, Science magazine had reporters following the hearings and they have prepared a summary of major points covered in the Pruitt and Perry hearings, as well as others in which science policy was discussed.  Science staff also compiled a list of ten questions scientists might like Perry to answer.  As pointed out by Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney at The Washington Post, there was a remarkable degree of consistency among the nominees regarding climate change.  Indeed, Zack Colman and Amanda Paulson at The Christian Science Monitor argued that the nominees are amplifying small disagreements among model projections to sow doubt about the widely-held conclusion that humans are driving emissions higher and raising temperatures, mainly from burning fossil fuels.  In a recent issue of Nature Climate Change, climate modelers Ben Sanderson and Reto Knutto wrote that if the Trump administration caused 4 to 8 years of U.S. inaction on climate change, it would set back climate efforts by 15 to 25 years.  Science writer Dan Grossman interviewed Sanderson and the transcript was posted on Yale Climate Connections.  Finally, at The New Yorker, Madeline Ostrander interviewed William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of EPA, to learn about EPA’s history and powers, and science writer Elizabeth Kolbert presented her views on the Pruitt hearing.

Our Children’s Trust issued a press release announcing that the U.S. Department of Justice had filed its answers to the youth plaintiffs’ complaint in Juliana v. United States, the lawsuit being brought by a group of young people alleging that governmental action against climate change is insufficient to protect their future rights.  In the press release they listed several allegations admitted by the defendants.  Climate Home had a post about this development.

Climate

NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office/University of East Anglia all confirmed that 2016 was the hottest year on record globally, making it the third year in a row to set a record.  As Chris Mooney of The Washington Post explained, NASA and NOAA disagree on the global average temperature in 2016, primarily because of differences in the way they handle temperatures in the Arctic, with NASA posting a slightly higher temperature.  Roz Pidcock at Carbon Brief offered more details about the year, along with an interview with Gavin Schmidt of NASA.  Schmidt had a post on RealClimate about the new record and James Hansen’s team at Columbia University provided a deeper analysis.  The New York Times provided an interesting interactive showing the daily temperature range from AccuWeather during 2016 for more than 5,000 cities worldwide.

NOAA and Princeton University scientists produced the first global analysis of how climate change may affect the frequency and location of mild weather. The scientists defined “mild” weather as temperatures between 64°F and 86°F, with less than a half inch of rain and dew points below 68°F, indicative of low humidity.  The research, published in the journal Climatic Change, projects that by the end of the century the tropics will lose milder days while the U.S., Canada, and northern Europe will gain them.

A new paper in Nature Communications examined the impact of business-as-usual CO₂ emissions on the yields of corn, wheat, and soybeans at the end of this century in the U.S.  The study found that under rain-fed conditions the yields will fall 49%, 22%, and 40% for the three crops, respectively, compared to yields today.  The expected boost from the extra CO₂ in the atmosphere did little to reduce the loss.  Irrigation, on the other hand, largely eliminated the loss in yield, suggesting that it was primarily due to water stress associated with the elevated temperatures.

A new study published in the journal Science compiled estimates of sea surface temperatures during the last interglacial period, which lasted from about 129,000 to 116,000 years ago.  The global annual mean temperatures were indistinguishable from the 1995–2014 mean.  This is a sobering point, because sea levels during the last interglacial period were 20 to 30 ft higher than they are now.  It should be noted that it would take centuries for sea level to come to equilibrium with temperature.

Global sea ice is now the smallest it has been since measurement began in 1978.  This is due to declines in both the Arctic and the Antarctic.  In the Arctic, sea ice extent is running well below last year, as well as below the expected range observed from 1981-2010.  Sea ice growth is being hampered by a surge of warm air and stormy weather.  Unfortunately, as sea ice melts, more open water is exposed to solar radiation, allowing it to absorb heat, reinforcing Arctic warming.  A new study published in the journal Earth’s Future found that to offset the warming associated with a full month free of Arctic sea ice, global CO₂ emissions would need to reach zero levels 5–15 years earlier and the carbon budget would need to be reduced by 20%–51%, depending on what happened to sea ice thereafter.

A new survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication taken after the election has revealed several important findings relative to climate change.  Sixty-one percent of Americans describe themselves as ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ worried about climate change, with 19% being very worried.  Furthermore, 55% understand that climate change is mostly caused by human activity.  Sixty-nine percent of registered voters think the U.S. should participate in the Paris Climate Agreement and 70% support proposals to set strict CO₂ emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants.

A study of the rings of Picea balfouriana trees, a type of spruce that can live for more than 300 years, revealed that climate change started impacting the Tibetan Plateau as early as the 1870s, at the start of the industrial revolution.  The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Energy

According to Greenpeace, China has suspended work on 104 coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 120 GW that were being planned or were under construction.  A follow-up story provides a map of the locations of the suspended projects as well as more background on the suspensions.  However, coal is still a powerful industry in China and this has hampered full use of the many large wind farms being built.

A group of 13 companies, called the Hydrogen Council, is pledging to invest more than $10 billion during the next five years to accelerate infrastructure-construction and technology advancements to support hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.  The group says that hydrogen “can play an important role in the transition to a clean, low-carbon, energy system.”  Nevertheless, Europe and China are still moving forward with battery-electric vehicles, even though sales have slumped in the U.S.

Within an hour of President Trump’s swearing-in, an “America First Energy Plan” was posted on the White House website and all reference to climate change was removed.  Although written before that posting, Julia Pyper at GreenTech Media reminded us that the U.S. is losing the race on clean energy innovation and examined courses of action that might be taken to develop a truly innovative energy plan.  Meanwhile, even some states led by Republican governors are considering strengthening their renewable energy portfolio standards as a way of stimulating job growth.

According to Jeff St. John at GreenTech Media: “Last summer, First Solar and California grid operator CAISO ran a set of tests to show that utility-scale solar PV, instead of being a disruptive influence on the power grid, could actually help stabilize it.··· All told, the data from CAISO, First Solar and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) indicates that a utility-scale solar farm, equipped with standard inverters and software controls, can serve to smooth out grid fluctuations from the solar itself or from other sources.”

Energy storage with batteries is beginning to see more application, on both large and small scale.  On the large side are the utility scale installations in California that are being made in reaction to the large natural gas leak in the fall of 2015.  On the small side is the installation at Sierra Nevada brewery, which is being used to reduce peak energy charges, thereby reducing cost.

Small modular nuclear reactors were in the news this week.  TVA has submitted an early site permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the site to be approved and ready if such plants are ultimately developed and TVA decides to pursue them.  Meanwhile, NuScale Power, based in Portland, Ore., has submitted a design for a small modular nuclear power plant to the NRC for approval.

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.

During the Christmas break Jeff Goodell had an interview in Rolling Stone with climate scientist James Hansen, but I missed it.  Even though it didn’t come out this week, I thought you might find it of interest.

Last week I provided a link to an article about the eco-right and how they are working to combat climate change.  On Tuesday Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D, RI) had an opinion piece in The Washington Post entitled “Republicans want to fight climate change, but fossil-fuel bullies won’t let them.”  Of course, as indicated by last week’s link, not all businesses are opposed to action to combat climate change.  For example, more than 530 companies and 100 investors are calling on the Trump administration and the new Congress to support policies to accelerate a low-carbon future.  Furthermore, on Monday, President Obama had an article published in Science in which he asserted that the clean-energy revolution is irreversible and highlighted the economic benefits of cutting carbon emissions and investing in renewable energy.

On Tuesday the National Academy of Sciences issued a report entitled “Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide.”  The social cost of carbon dioxide is an important metric used in doing cost/benefit analyses required when promulgating federal regulations.  It also will be central to any discussion of a carbon tax.  Andrew Revkin examines this important parameter and its possible future during the Trump administration.  Chelsea Harvey also has an excellent discussion of the metric.

Climate

In a report released Thursday, the World Economic Forum summarized the opinions of 750 experts on what the most likely and most impactful risks facing humanity are in 2017.  Extreme weather ranked as the most likely and the second-most impactful risk.  Several other factors also influenced by climate change ranked high on the risk matrix.

Late in the day last Friday (Jan. 6), climate reporter Eric Holthaus took to Twitter to share his despair about climate change and how he is dealing with it.  Then on Wednesday of this week, Andrew Freedman, a climate reporter to whom I frequently link, devoted his column on Mashable to the emotional toll of covering climate change.  Members of the Education and Events committee of CAAV are currently developing plans for providing a space where people in the Harrisonburg area can have open discussions about climate change, including how it is making them feel.  Look for an announcement soon about the first meeting.

The extent of sea ice globally took major hits during 2016, according to an analysis released January 6 by the National Snow and Ice Data Center.  At both poles, “new record lows were set for both daily and monthly extent,” according to the analysis.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a plan to save the threatened polar bear.  Unfortunately, it identified the rapid decline of sea ice as “the primary threat to polar bears” and said “the single most important achievement for polar bear conservation is decisive action to address Arctic warming,” something it has no control over.

A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has reported that short-lived greenhouse gases (such as methane) contribute to sea level rise due to thermal expansion of the ocean over much longer time scales than their atmospheric lifetimes.  In addition, the paper reported that the longer the world waits to reduce methane emissions, the longer seas will stay elevated.

A report from the Japanese environment ministry said that around 90% of the coral in Okinawa Prefecture’s Sekisei lagoon had suffered bleaching because of high water temperatures and that 70% had died.  The lagoon covers an area of approximately 150 square miles and had been a popular dive destination.

A week of powerful storms has significantly eased California’s water shortage, pulling nearly all of Northern California out of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.  However, much of Central and Southern California, are still locked in what officials classify as “extreme drought” — or worse.

A new report updating the plan for climate-related research at 13 federal agencies until 2021 was submitted to Congress this week by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.  For the first time it calls for research into geoengineering, specifically CO₂ removal from the atmosphere and reflection of infrared energy from the sun.

Energy

Ivy Main has a new blog post in which she summarizes the energy-related bills before the Virginia General Assembly this session.

The Department of the Interior released a report on Wednesday calling for major changes to the federal program by which the U.S. manages the leasing of publicly-owned land to companies for exploration and production of coal.  The report proposes a series of changes to the current program, including charging a higher royalty rate, factoring in the climate impact of the coal by imposing an additional charge, and setting an overall carbon budget for the nation’s coal leasing program.  Speaking of coal, NRG Energy Inc said on Tuesday it had begun operations at a $1.04 billion carbon capture facility at a Texas coal-fired power plant.  This is the largest carbon capture project of its kind in the world.

New investment in clean energy worldwide fell to $287.5 billion in 2016, down 18% from a record high of $348.5 billion in 2015, according to new research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.  The primary cause of the investment drop was a slowdown in China and Japan.  In spite of that, clean energy investment in China is outpacing investment in the U.S., causing Joel Jaeger and coauthors at the World Resources Institute to state: “China is poised to leap ahead of the United States on clean energy to become the most important player in the global market.”  Still, questions remain about China’s CO₂ emissions.  In a “Memo from China” to The New York Times, Edward Wong examines the factors influencing China’s ability to accurately measure and report those emissions.

A new study by Abt Associates finds that the nine member states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) (the six New England states plus New York, Delaware, and Maryland) have cut emissions two and a half times more than non-RGGI states while reaping $5.7 billion in benefits due to savings in health care costs and restored productivity.  On a related note, a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory examined states’ renewable energy goals and found that, while renewables add costs, they more than make up for it in the health and environmental benefits they provide.

Automakers, both here and abroad, are working to bring to market a new generation of fuel-saving vehicles.  Those efforts are summarized by Jason Mathers of the Environmental Defense Fund.  Despite that, most of automakers’ advertising is for cars with traditional internal combustion engines.  Ariel Wittenberg looks at this practice on E&E News.  Finally, the EPA has rejected a request from the auto industry to weaken fuel efficiency standards for model years 2022 through 2025.

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.

As we near the start of the Trump administration, Kate Aronoff of The Atlantic provides a rundown of the “eco-right” and how it might combat climate change.  Then for a reality check, you might want to read the article by Jennifer Dlouhy in Bloomberg Politics about the Institute for Energy Research and the associated American Energy Alliance, which appear to have Trump’s ear on energy matters, at least during the transition.

Climate

In a new paper, climate economist William Nordhaus has added his voice to the chorus pointing out the difficulty of holding global warming below 2°C.  After incorporating the newest information into his economic model, known as DICE, he concluded: “The international target for climate change with a limit of 2°C appears to be infeasible with reasonably accessible technologies – and this is the case even with very stringent and unrealistically ambitious abatement strategies.”

You may recall that in the summer of 2015 NOAA scientists became the target of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Committee on Science, when they published a paper updating global temperature data by reconciling old and new techniques for estimating sea surface temperature.  The apparent problem was that the new record wiped out the “hiatus” in global warming and Smith thought the findings were politically motivated.  Now a new (and totally independent) study has shown that the NOAA scientists were correct.  John Abraham at The Guardian reports on the study while Robert McSweeney at Carbon Brief takes a deeper dive into the data analysis.  Also in The Guardian, Dana Nuccitelli explores the presumed “hiatus” and warns against its resurrection with 2016 as the starting point.  Finally, in his column, Abraham mentions Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech who has been a vocal critic of “climate alarmists.”  She has just announced her retirement because of the “craziness” in the field.  Scott Waldman at E&E News reports on an interview of her.

On Sunday, there was a fascinating article by Chris Mooney on the front page of The Washington Post about the efforts of two scientists to retrieve data from their instruments on the Petermann Ice Shelf on Greenland.  The electronic version contains an equally fascinating video.  A wonderful combination of human interest, science, and beautiful scenery; a must-see.  Scientists at World Weather Attribution have turned their attention to the Arctic warming that has occurred this fall and have concluded that it is both unprecedented and likely caused by climate change.  Although the study has not been peer-reviewed, other scientists contacted by Chris Mooney at The Washington Post agreed with its conclusions.  At the other pole, scientists watching the growing rift across the Larsen C ice shelf warn that at some point soon the ice shelf will shed an iceberg the size of Delaware.  This will have no impact on sea level, however, because the ice shelf is already floating, but it could well speed up the flow of the glacier toward the sea.

A new study published in the journal Nature suggests that when climatic conditions in the tropical Atlantic are conducive to the formation of hurricanes, they also create a buffer zone that weakens the storms as they approach the U.S. coast.  Conversely, during periods of low hurricane activity, those storms that do form are likely to become stronger as they approach the U.S. coast.

The ocean current known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) transfers a lot of heat from the south to the north Atlantic Ocean, thereby modulating temperatures in Europe.  Because there is concern about how accurately the AMOC is handled in climate models, a group of scientists has compared models with greater and lesser sensitivity to the AMOC to determine how important the AMOC is to future warming.  The results, published in the journal Science Advances suggests that climate models need to better represent the AMOC if they are to accurately predict changes hundreds of years from now.  A second study published in Geophysical Research Letters sought to determine the impact of meltwater from Greenland and determined that AMOC collapse could be avoided by CO₂ mitigation.

In addition to likely being the hottest year on record globally (the final tally hasn’t yet been released), 2016 was also a record year in the U.S. for several categories.  For example, 98% of weather stations had a warmer than normal year, the largest percentage in 95 years of record keeping, and 85% of extreme temperature records were of the hot variety.  In addition, 19 separate floods occurred, the largest number since records began in 1980.  Furthermore, according to a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, this trend is likely to continue, at least in the northeastern U.S.

One impact of warming global temperatures is on bird migration.  A new study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, which looked at hundreds of species across five continents, found that birds are reaching their summer breeding grounds on average about one day earlier per degree of increasing global temperature.  That may not seem like much, but arriving early can cause birds to miss out on valuable food sources, with dire effects.  In fact, this is thought to be one of the problems facing red knots, one of the Arctic breeding shore birds that are in decline.

Energy

Two reports projecting future energy use were released this week.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration released its Annual Energy Outlook on Thursday in which it projected that the amount of energy Americans use and the pollution from it are not likely to change radically over the next 30 years.  The most surprising finding was that the fate of the Clean Power Plan will have little impact on energy-related CO₂ emissions through 2040.  The other report was the annual Outlook for Energy from ExxonMobil, which also looked out to 2040.  The company believes global energy demand will increase by 25%, but CO₂ emissions will rise by only 10%, peaking in the 2030s and then declining, because of improvements in the efficiency of buildings, transport, industry, and power generation.

China’s National Energy Administration has announced its plan for the period 2016-2020.  During that period, they expect to invest $360 billion in new renewable power generation.

John Schwartz has an interesting article in The New York Times about two new carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities in Texas and the potential fate of the technology during the Trump presidency.  Instead of CCS, Tuticorin Alkali Chemicals in India is practicing carbon capture and utilization (CCU).  Using a process developed by Carbon Clean Solutions they capture CO₂ from a coal-fired boiler and convert it to baking soda, which can be sold.  While the market for baking soda is too small to have a significant impact on global CO₂ emissions, the application is still important because it serves as an example of the use of the new technology from Carbon Clean Solutions, which I reported on in the Weekly Roundup of October 14, 2016.  The article is here.

On Wednesday, Tesla and its partner, Panasonic, announced the start of mass production of lithium-ion battery cells at Tesla’s giant Nevada battery factory.

The question of whether wood pellets are a carbon-neutral fuel for power plants is still unanswered, although the answer has strong implications for the future of forests in the southeastern U.S.  In its cover article, the journal Science explores the status of the question and what may lie ahead.  In addition, while many European countries have embraced waste-to-energy technology, in which trash is burned to generate electricity, the U.S. has not.  Writing in Salon, Diane Stopyra explores this controversial technology.

As the new year opened, 104 wind turbines scattered across 22,000 acres of farmland near Elizabeth City, North Carolina began producing electricity for Amazon Web Services.  This is the first large wind farm in the southeastern U.S.  The big question is, will others follow?

According to Bloomberg, solar power is cheaper than coal in some parts of the world, and in less than a decade, it’s likely to be the lowest-cost option almost everywhere.  However, others disagree, pointing out that the need for back-up systems during prolonged cloudy periods alters the economics.

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 CAAV Steering Committee and I wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  The next Roundup will come out on January 7, 2017, covering the climate and energy news for the week ending January 6.

At the end of a year it is typical for news organizations to have retrospectives, and the same is true for those focusing on science and climate.  Brady Dennis provides an “exit interview” with outgoing EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in The Washington Post.  Carbon Brief looks back at 2016 through 16 numbers.  While some are specific to the EU or the UK, I think you’ll find it interesting.

Inside Climate News, which has devoted considerable effort in the past few years to investigating ExxonMobil’s position on climate change, examines Rex Tillerson’s record on climate change and climate science.  At Climate Unplugged, the blog of the conservative Niskanen Center, Dennis McConaghy argues that now is the time for the oil and gas industry to come forward with specific proposals for a carbon tax.  And, Charles Komanoff of the Carbon Tax Center examines just what might result from adoption of a carbon tax of the size proposed by ExxonMobil.

Climate

Last week there were several news items about the Arctic in response to the extreme warming it is experiencing and the Arctic Report Card from NOAA.  This week the World Weather Attribution project released a report about the extreme temperatures in the Arctic, and it triggered articles in Carbon Brief and The New York Times, as well as in others.  The report attributed the extreme warmth to human activities and stated that what had once been a 1 in 1000-year event, is now a 1 in 50-year event.  The temperature at a buoy 80 miles south of the North Pole climbed to 32°F on Thursday, putting it about 40°F above normal for this time of year.  In addition, some indicators suggest that unseasonable warmth at the pole is becoming more frequent due to global warming and melting sea ice.  The impacts of this warmth on weather in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere is still a matter of debate among climate scientists.

Studies from the Earth Institute at Columbia University published recently in the journal Nature suggest that Greenland was essentially ice free at least once in the past 1.4 million years.  This requires some of the basic assumptions about Greenland to be reevaluated and calls into question the assertion that Greenland’s glaciers are very stable.  Rather, it suggests that they may be subject to collapse.  Speaking of Greenland, Patrick Barkham had an interesting article in The Guardian about the changes being brought there by climate change and how Greenlanders are adapting to them.

The DC Court of Appeals has ruled that climate scientist Michael Mann can proceed with defamation claims against two writers who accused him of fraud and academic misconduct.  Mann brought the case against Rand Simberg, writing for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Mark Steyn, writing for the National Review.  Climate scientist/astronaut Piers Sellers died this week at age 61.  Harrison Smith paid tribute to him in The Washington Post.

Climate change can cause a wide variety of damages to society, including natural disasters, harm to human health, reduced agricultural output, and lower economic productivity.  The combined cost of such damages associated with the emission of one ton of CO₂ is called the “social cost of carbon” and it is central to an assessment of the benefits associated with regulation of fossil fuel use.  The value assigned to the social cost of carbon is likely to be reviewed by the incoming Trump administration.

A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that U.S. attitudes towards climate change are influenced by local weather, with Americans living in places with recent record high temperatures more likely to believe in climate change and people living in areas with record low temperatures more likely to express skepticism.  The authors suggest that the public’s mistaken equating of weather with climate, as well as the idea that “global warming” simply means warmer temperatures, may be responsible for the results.  No matter what the general public thinks, Damian Carrington of The Guardian interviewed several climate scientists and learned that they think that the dramatic melting of Arctic ice is already driving extreme weather that affects hundreds of millions of people across North America, Europe and Asia.

Like their counterparts in Oregon, children in the state of Washington have been granted the right to have their day in court concerning the alleged failure of the state to adequately protect them from climate change.  King County Superior Court Judge Hollis Hill on Monday allowed the young petitioners to move ahead in their case against the state.

Two papers looked at events associated with El Niño episodes.  One, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the combination of climate change and a strong El Niño event created conditions for the recent outbreak of the Zika virus in South America.  Another finding from the paper was that the summer climates of the southeastern U.S., southern China, and some of Mediterranean Europe are warm enough for the Zika virus.  The other paper, in Nature Climate Change, found that small Pacific island nations could be hit by more tropical cyclones during El Niño events as a result of climate change.

Energy

On Tuesday President Obama used a little-known law called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw hundreds of millions of acres of federally owned land in the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean from new offshore oil and gas drilling.  The action was coordinated with similar steps by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to protect large areas of that nation’s Arctic waters from drilling.  However, there is strong disappointment in the Carolinas and Georgia that the U.S. ban did not extend south of Norfolk, VA.

Rocky Mountain Institute has released the first of four posts examining how the future might unfold through the widespread adoption of renewable energy technologies.  Their thesis is optimistic in nature and is based on the premise that renewable energy systems are disruptive technologies that are in the accelerating phases of their adoption curves.  Their advantages almost ensure their wide-spread adoption.  RMI’s essays should make interesting reading.  In case you have been considering sustainable investing you might be interested in this post at the World Resources Institute website that debunks four myths about the subject.

A draft 10-year energy blueprint published this week by the Indian government predicts that 57% of the country’s total electricity capacity will come from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027.  India’s Paris climate accord target was 40% by 2030.  The plan also indicates that no new coal-fired power plants are likely to be required to meet India’s energy needs until at least 2027.  This analysis is consistent with an article in Bloomberg Markets explaining why Indian electricity demand has undershot government forecasts.

A new paper in Nature Climate Change examined the climate policies of the signatories to the Paris Climate Accord in an effort to determine whether their programs to cut carbon emissions are equitable.  Because there is no single definition of “equitable”, the paper looked at different ways to define equity and how countries are measuring up to each of those definitions.  Although the paper is controversial, it concluded that the U.S. is working harder to reduce its emissions than China, while India is making more effort than both.

Arizona has been a battleground over net metering for the past couple of years.  That came to an end on Tuesday when the Arizona Corporation Commission voted to end net metering, whereby homeowners with solar panels get retail credits for power they send to the grid, and instead reduce the amount utilities pay homeowners for rooftop solar power.  Next door, in December 2015 the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) phased out retail-rate net metering, almost shutting down the rooftop solar industry overnight.  Now PUCN has voted to restore favorable rates for residential solar customers in NV Energy’s Sierra Pacific Power Company’s service territory.

Low carbon power accounted for 50% of electricity generation in the UK in the third quarter, up from 45.3% last year.  The rise was largely due to new windfarms and solar farms being connected to the grid, as well as to several major coal-fired power plants closing.  Low carbon power also accounted for two-thirds of the new capacity added to the U.S. grid in 2016.

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.

With the selection of Rick Perry as Energy Secretary and Ryan Zinke as Interior Secretary, President-elect Donald Trump continues to nominate individuals for his cabinet who are skeptical of the role of fossil fuel combustion in driving climate change.  However, the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is more complicated, given the company’s endorsement of the Paris Climate Agreement and its support for a carbon tax.  Nevertheless, the next four years will be difficult for the fight against climate change, given the large role of the fossil fuel industry in the new administration.  Consequently, concern about the potential policies of the Trump administration is causing climate scientists to copy important data files from government agencies to private servers to ensure their availability during Trump’s term.  Still, climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern was more sanguine, although he did say “There’s no point wringing hands and weeping into whatever it is we weep into; at the same time, be alert, be very alert. These are difficult times.”

Officials from 24 Republican-led states want President-elect Trump to act on his first day in office against the Clean Power Plan (CPP).  The officials wrote to Trump on Thursday with a four-part plan to undo the CPP and ensure that a future president could not implement a similar policy.  Perhaps the governors of those states should listen to the voters.  According to a new survey from Yale and George Mason Universities, “70% of registered voters support setting strict carbon dioxide emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants to reduce global warming and improve public health, even if the cost of electricity to consumers and companies increased.”  In spite of actions by those seeking to dismantle the CPP, local leaders have vowed to continue their fight against climate change and its effects.  For example, the city council of Portland, OR, voted unanimously on Wednesday to adopt zoning code changes that ban the construction of new major fossil fuel terminals and the expansion of any existing ones.

Climate

A task force composed of executives from major companies, banks, and insurance companies (formed by the Financial Stability Board, an arm of the G-20 industrialized nations) has released its recommendations for improving the ways in which markets can respond to the uncertainties associated with climate change.  Mark Carney and Michael Bloomberg had an opinion piece in The Guardian on Wednesday about the report.

At the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU’s) Fall Meeting in San Francisco this week, scientists reported on last winter’s Norwegian research expedition to study the sea ice near the north pole.  Mats Granskog, chief scientist on the expedition, said “This thinner and younger ice in the Arctic today works very differently than the ice we knew.  It moves much faster.  It breaks up more easily.  It’s way more vulnerable to storms and winds.”  Also, at the AGU meeting, NOAA released its Arctic Report Card for 2016, noting that the Arctic is warming at an “astonishing” rate.

A new paper in Nature Geoscience reports on the retreat of mountain glaciers around the world.  The study’s purpose was to determine whether the retreat has accelerated and whether it can be attributed to climate change.  For 36 of the 37 glaciers studied there is a more than 90% chance that the retreat accelerated because of climate change and for 21 there is a greater than 99% chance.  Meanwhile, warming temperatures in the Arctic are expected to cause polar bear and reindeer populations to decline, according to papers at the AGU meeting.

Two studies have provided a better understanding of the melting of Antarctic glaciers.  In West Antarctica, five glaciers terminate in the Amundsen Sea and contribute more than 10% of current sea level rise.  A team of scientists from the UK’s Centre for Polar Observation and Monitoring has combined almost 25 years of altimetry observations from five different satellites operated by the European and American space agencies to determine how the thickness of the glaciers has changed.  Their results show that all the glaciers are thinning, but each in a unique way.  In East Antarctica, the Totten glacier is the largest and carries more ice toward the sea than any other glacier in that ice sheet.  The second study confirmed that, just like in West Antarctica, the Totten glacier is melting from below because of the flow of “warm” ocean water under its ice shelf.  In addition, a new paper in Nature Climate Change concludes that a large lake on the Roi Baudouin ice shelf in East Antarctica was formed because strong winds blew away reflective snow, exposing the dark ice to the sun’s rays.  There were also buried lakes, calling the stability of the ice shelf into question.  Better understanding of Antarctic glaciers has caused two prominent glaciologists to state that research priorities should be coupled to policy needs to allow appropriate policy decisions for coping with sea level rise likely to exceed 6 ft this century.  (The link is to the abstract.  A subscription to Science or access through a library is required to view the full article.)

Each year members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) assess extreme weather events worldwide to ascertain whether their occurrence was influenced by human-caused climate change and the results of the assessment are released as a special edition of the Bulletin of the AMS.  The report for 2015, which was just released, found that global warming influenced 24 of the 30 events studied.  The Conversation has an infographic that summarizes the report’s findings.

Energy

According to a new report from Arabella Advisors, the value of investment funds committed to divesting from fossil fuels has doubled in just over a year.  The report states: “···the value of assets represented by institutions and individuals committing to some sort of divestment from fossil fuel companies has reached $5 trillion.  To date, 688 institutions and 58,399 individuals across 76 countries have committed to divest from fossil fuel companies···.”  Furthermore, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, formed last year by Bill Gates and other billionaire investors, announced on Monday that it is investing $1 billion in the Breakthrough Energy Ventures Fund to spur clean energy technology.

According to the 4^th Quarter 2016 U.S. Solar Market Insight report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), over 4,100 megawatts of solar PV were installed in the U.S. during the 3^rd quarter of 2016.  A working group of clean energy advocates and utilities has proposed four policy changes that they hope the Virginia General Assembly will enact next year to expand the state’s solar market.  Ivy Main has devoted a blog post to the proposal.

There are 58 “Climatescope” countries and all are regarded as developing nations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East.  According to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, PV solar is now on a par with wind energy and will soon become the cheapest form of energy in those countries.  They also installed more renewables this year than the OECD countries, with 69.8GW deployed versus 59.2GW.

Beginning January 15, 2017 land-based wind farms will be granted 30-year U.S. government permits that allow for the accidental deaths of bald and golden eagles.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the population of golden eagles in the U.S. could withstand a loss of about 2,000 birds annually, whereas bald eagles could sustain as many as 4,200 fatalities a year.  On Monday, the first off-shore wind farm in the U.S. began sending electricity to the grid.

According to a new paper in Environmental Research Letters, in 2014 atmospheric methane concentrations rose 12.5 parts per billion (ppb) and in 2015, 9.9 ppb, compared to an annual increase of about 0.5 ppb a decade ago.  The major source of the increase was agriculture, especially in the tropics.  This finding was consistent with a study published in April in the journal Science.  Meanwhile, the U.S. EPA removed language claiming that hydraulic fracturing has no “widespread systemic impacts” on drinking water from its final report on the subject.

According to an analysis by the Carbon Tax Center, 38% of the electricity sector’s carbon reduction in the U.S. since 2005 is due to energy efficiency and 20% is due to solar and wind; only 42% is due to substitution of natural gas for coal.  According to a new report from the Brookings Institution, 33 states have decreased their carbon emissions since 2000 while simultaneously growing their economies.  Carbon Brief has prepared an interactive graphic illustrating how each state performed.  Finally a new analysis from the University of Texas Energy Institute provides a county-by-county map showing the cheapest energy source for electricity production in the U.S.

A new report by the MIT Energy Initiative, in collaboration with the Institute for Research in Technology at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid, Spain, offers a roadmap for the redesign of the electrical grid.  According to David Unger at Midwest Energy News “the report’s recommendations fall under two broad headings: 1) Charge consumers for electricity in a way that takes into account when and where it is produced and used, and 2) Reform regulations and policies to level the playing field between traditional, centralized power producers and emergent, distributed ones.”

According to The Guardian: “The Canadian government has agreed [to] a deal with eight of the country’s 10 provinces to introduce its first national carbon price, Justin Trudeau has told reporters.  The prime minister said the move would help Canada meet its international climate change obligations.”  The price would start at C$10 (US$7.60) a tonne in 2018, rising by C$10 a year until it reaches C$50 in 2022.

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.