March 21, 2008

* Climate change impacts study - DC's National Airport

March 6, 2008

* CO2 prices per ton could add $8-25/MWhr to cost of coal electricity by 2012-2012

* Exelon has jumped fullsquare onto CO2 control bandwagon

* Effects of various Congressional bills on CO2 emissions compared

* CO2 reduction - technology portfolio for power industry

February 6, 2008

Sudan - problems linked to climate change, sez India FM

Excerpt from External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's speech at the 10th Asian Security Conference organised by Institute of Defence Studies and Analyis in New Delhi on February 5:

You will recall that a few months ago UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon highlighted the correlation between climate change and the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. Climate change is truly a global problem and it requires global solutions...

[Source: Pranab Mukherjee (India's External Affairs Minister), "Security in the Asian Century", Rediff News, February 6, 2008]

November 4, 2007

Forget the other climate scares: rainfall pattern change will cause massive migration of people seeking food supply, sez Stanford's Somerville

... there is a crisis coming if we don't do something, and the crisis is not widely understood. It's really a political crisis that will be caused by changes in rainfall patterns around the world that cause people to migrate on a massive scale. It's not the drowning polar bears that are the real problem, it's the people who won't be able to feed themselves because of changing rainfall patterns.

[Source: Chris Somerville (Stanford U, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology), interviewed by Fareed Zakaria, "'It's Not a Silver Bullet'; A prominent plant biologist says that biofuels are only one part of a green energy solution", Newsweek, U.S. Edition, November 5, 2007 cover date, p. 54]

November 3, 2007

First commercial-sized CO2-capture project announced - Texas coal-fired power plant

NRG Energy Inc. said Friday it will install the country's first commercial-scale carbon-capture technology at its W.A. Parish coal-fired power plant near Sugar Land at a cost of $150 million to $200 million. NRG's partner, Powerspan, is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop its process for removing carbon dioxide from the flue gas by using ammonia. The facility, expected to capture 90 percent of the incoming carbon dioxide, would begin operating in 2012.

"We question why, if they are trying to clean up CO2 at one old plant, are they hell-bent on building another coal plant without CO2 controls?" Tom "Smitty" Smith, head of the Texas office for consumer advocate Public Citizen, said in an e-mail.

The company plans to sell the colected CO2 to oil companies in South Texas which will inject the gas into aging oil wells in order to boost production. The project is part of NRG's strategy to protect itself from potential climate change laws that might limit carbon dioxide emissions. NRG aims to share the cost of the project with Powerspan, a New Hampshire pollution control company that will design, install and operate the carbon-capture equipment. NRG is also scouting for government grants and other help for the project. Thad Hill, president of NRG's Texas operations, said the company expects to spend around $30 or $40 million itself. He doesn't know for sure that the revenue will make up for the investment in the equipment. The oil well plan would require NRG or some oil partner to build a pipeline from the coal plant to an oil field. NRG could eventually sell carbon dioxide offset credits if the U.S. regulates greenhouse gas emissions. Some people expect the government to implement a system that allows heavy carbon dioxide emitters to buy credits from companies with lower emissions than required. NRG could also sell pollution offset credits, since the technology NRG will install will remove more sulphur dioxide than regulations require. Mr. Hill said the technology requires that other pollutants are removed to work properly.

To date, carbon dioxide capture demonstrations on coal-fueled power plants have been conducted only at pilot scale, one to five megawatts of electricity.

[Source: Elizabeth Souder (Dallas Morning News), "NRG announces Texas carbon-capture project", Dallas Morning News (TX), November 2, 2007, 9:48 am CT, updated 10:36 pm]

Climate change - precautionary principle is more rooted in religion than science

Phillip Adams is a regular contributor to The Australian. He is an example of the folks whom your humble nuclear.com editor has come to call "true believers" in CO2-climate alarmism. His column this morning starts off with comments which illustrate one facet of the modern "church of global warming", although this was surely not his intent. Here's what he wrote: "A variation of the argument Pascal applied to belief in God can be applied to climate change. Pascal's 'wager' says it's better to bet on God's existence than against it. If he exists, you'll be an eternal winner; if not, you've lost nothing. On the other hand, Pascal argued, to bet against God and to lose means you've lost everything. For years John Howard joined George Bush in betting against the reality of climate change. On this issue these Christian gentlemen were effectively atheists. And they've been proved disastrously wrong. Now they're being politically punished. Trouble is, so are the rest of us."

[Ref: Phillip Adams (former chairman, Australian government's Commission for the Future), "Vote change of climate", The Australian, November 3, 2007]

"Climate change" seen as a Bush soft-pedal term

[Australia prime minister John] Howard saw climate change (Bush's soft-pedal term for the crisis) as some sort of insidious, ideological attack on the very lifeblood of capitalism... Now with our rivers dying, dams drying and our cities and food production in crisis, he admits there is a problem.

[Ref: Phillip Adams (former chairman, Australian government's Commission for the Future), "Vote change of climate", The Australian, November 3, 2007]

October 30, 2007

72% of US power industry executives expect mandatory CO2 controls within 5 years

A recent Black & Veatch survey of U.S. electric utility executives showed that 72 percent believe federal legislation to limit carbon emissions will be approved in the next five years.

[Source: Dean Oskvig (president of Black & Veatch's energy business) and Rodger Smith (president of Black & Veatch's management consulting division), "Choosing the best energy sources for the future", Kansas City Star (MO), posted on Oct. 29, 2007 10:15 PM]

October 16, 2007

CO2 cap-and-trade system urged by NRG CEO

In this op ed, the CEO of the nation's tenth largest power generation company paints a pathetic picture of himself and his company -- and he falsely, in nuclear.com's humble opinion, tars the rest of Americans with the same brush. He clearly buys in to the alarmist view of CO2-climate issue: "We are not running out of time; we have run out of time. Decisions we make today in the U.S. power industry will have a significant impact on the size of the [climate change] problem we bequeath to our children." But as long as CO2 emissions are "free", he argues, companies like his will "build a veritable tidal wave of traditional coal-fired power-generation facilities." His language builds on the "addicted to oil" theme voiced by President Bush. The article title ("Make us stop"), and the lead ("I am a carboholic. As Americans, we are all carboholics, but I am more so than most.") are pretty explicit in the portrayal of power companies as being related to CO2 in the same way as alcoholics are related to alcohol. There's so much wrong about this perspective that it's surprising that investors would trust this fellow with their hard-earned cash. If he really believes that CO2 is doing the kind of damage he describes ("The vast amount of CO2 being emitted worldwide by coal-fired power plants is the heart of the global warming issue", he writes, adding "Never before have we faced the prospect of fundamentally damaging our global ecosystem by the day-to-day activities of each and every one of us"), then how much is he budgeting to pay the alleged damages when his company gets sued by folks who agree with his attribution of climate change to CO2? The "we're all carboholics" defense seems an invitation to give away the company to those who join in some class action suit.

[Source: David Crane (CEO, NRG Energy Inc.), "Make us stop",
Austin American-Statesman (TX), October 17, 2007]

August 31, 2007

BLIX - CO2 EFFECTS IN NEXT 50 YEARS ARE MORE WORRISOME THAN A GRAM OF PLUTONIUM LEAKING 10,000 YEARS FROM NOW

Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission chairman Hans Blix has been quizzed on his views during a visit to New Zealand. He points out that conventional power sources create waste such as sulphur and carbon dioxide. Dr Blix is more worried about greenhouse gas effects in the next 50 years than a gram of plutonium leaking in 10,000 years from now.

[Source: NewstalkZB radio (Auckland 89.4), "Former weapons inspector supports nuclear", Sept 1, 2007 0924 am

August 2, 2007

Climate science has been hijacked by a bunch of name-calling pretenders

In his editorial this week, the Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine again proclaims that the science is settled enough about anthropogenic CO2 emissions and climate.

In his view, there's the clear scientific consensus and then there's the "denialists". "Climate: Game Over" is his headline [Donald Kennedy, Science 317:425, 27 July 2007].

He writes of the "relentless progress of science". But I suspect that you'd be better informed if you substitute the "relentless bias of Science magazine's Editor-in-Chief".

Over at Nature, there's a peer-reviewed paper in today's issue that is a good example of how spin can be applied to that relentless progress. The paper to which I refer is Ramanathan et al's "Warming trends in Asia amplified by brown cloud solar absorption" [Nature 448:575, 2 Aug 2007]. The research itself was well-conceived and apparently carried out quite smoothly. To measure the effect of the "brown cloud" over Indian Ocean, drones were outfitted with instruments and flown before and after the cloud rolled in. The finding that brown cloud warms the troposphere seems unequivocal. The spin comes in the part where the authors bring in greenhouse gases.

Look how strong the statement is about the effects of brown cloud, with nary a 'maybe' or a 'might be' or a 'suggest' kind of word to be found: "We found that atmospheric brown clouds enhanced lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50%." Now contrast that with the language -- I call it apologia -- about how greenhouse effect fits in: "Our general circulation model simulations, which take into account the recently observed widespread occurrence of vertically extended atmospheric brown clouds over the Indian Ocean and Asia [see Ref 3], suggest that atmospheric brown clouds contribute as much as the recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower atmospheric warming trends. We propose that the combined warming trend of 0.25 K per decade may be sufficient to account for the observed retreat of the Himilayan glaciers [see Refs 4-6]."

Their proposed assessment in that last sentence is a very simple split of a regional warming trend into two factors -- I call it the half-n-half proposal. But what about other factors? Surely some of this brown cloud falls out onto surface. Yet there's not a tenth of a degree left in the half-n-half proposal to give up? Soot on ice causes direct melt by warming, and albedo change too. Are either of these accounted for in the modeling? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. And what about human traversal of glaciers? All of these have been shown to be significant climatic factors in the literature in recent years.

To sum up: The observational evidence clearly shows that brown cloud has caused big part of warming trend in Asia. None of the attribution estimates ballyhooed by the "consensus" has ever given nearly enough credit to soot in explaining observed trends. Now we find that half of the warming in one of the areas of the globe where temperature trend has been greatest is not possibly due to CO2. And meanwhile, the Editor-in-Chief of Science is insulting anybody and everybody who dares see things differently that the so-called consensus he asserts.

What's the proper reaction to the sorry state of affairs that the insulting scientific elites seem to be relentlessly promoting. Well, it's on a par with the reaction of Christopher Hitchens some years ago to Bill Clinton's abuses of power: "You can't eat enough to puke enough" to do justice to this kind of behavior. Amen to that, Chris.

March 27, 2007

* Exclusive: Report Charges Broad White House Efforts to Stifle Climate Research
Justin Rood, ABC News

Based on dozens of interviews with public affairs staff, scientists, reporters and others, and on thousands of e-mails, memos and other documents obtained through whistleblowers and Freedom of Information Act, the Washington-based NGO Government Accountability Project has prepared a report, to be released at a House Science Committee hearing tomorrow, on the subject of White House-directed efforts to stifle, delay or dampen the release of climate change research that casts the White House or its policies in a bad light.

Tarek Maassarani, the report's author, told ABC news that he did not see evidence of a single coordinated White House effort to block credible climate research. Instead, he believed officials acted only when a piece of research or particular issue showed up on their political radar. "They're reacting to situations most of the time," Maassarani said.

Nonetheless, the group says it has identified hundreds of instances where White House-appointed officials interfered with government scientists' efforts to convey their research findings to the public, at the behest of top administration officials. Alleged interference took the form of "delaying, monitoring, screening, and denying interviews" between government scientists and media outlets, as well as delaying, denying or "inappropriate[ly] editing" press releases conveying scientific findings to the public. Political appointees also suppressed, delayed and inappropriately edited reports produced by government scientists for Congress and the public.

nuclear.COMment: The stuff that GAP publicized on this topic a year or so ago was quite underwhelming. They released some documents that a political appointee had actually marked-up. It turned out that the political appointee's comments were absolutely well-grounded in the science. Your humble nuclear.com editor reads a fair share of the press releases from Jim Hansen's and Kevin Trenberth's groups in NASA and NOAA, and it seems to me that more quality control oversight, not less, is warranted. For example, Dr. Trenberth co-authored an op-ed kind of article for Science not too many years ago. The article stated quite matter-of-factly that "In the absence of climate mitigation policies, the 90% probability interval for warming from 1990 to 2100 is 1.7¡ to 4.9¡C." The press release also included that line. Now, the fact that Science accepted the article for publication doesn't change the fact that this stanky statement is a damn lie, because it does not hint at the many assumptions underlying it. I saw an email from Dr. Trenberth which indicated that the article had been reviewed by a lot of distinguished climate scientists before it was submitted. I don't doubt that this was indeed the case. There's something rotten in climate science, and that a whole gaggle of these experts apparently can't distinguish truth from lies is a sad state of affairs. Hansen's group has repeatedly sent out press releases ranking recent year's temperature relative to all the previous years in the record. Yet not one of the press releases notes that such ranking is scientifically unsound, due to the much less extensive monitoring of temperature in the early years of the record. A paper in the Journal of Climate by Duffy et al. some years ago reported this finding. I sure don't begrudge scientists, including those on the government payroll, their opinions. But the notion that they should be given carte blanche to pass off opinion and spin as scientific fact seems silly to me.

March 2, 2007

* Global warming's intellectual dissidents
Thomas Lifson, American Thinker (AZ)

Professor Bob Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania is cited by Philadelphia Magazine as describing Al Gore's documentary as "a political statement timed to present him as a presidential candidate in 2008." And he added, "The glossy production is replete with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, and appeals to public fear as shamelessly as any other political statement that hopes to unite the public behind a particular ideology." This from a guy who voted for Gore in 2000 and says he'd probably vote for him again. [....] A few years ago, Giegengack told the Pennsylvania Gazette, the school's alumni magazine, that the environmental analysis course he teaches often attracts students who want to be environmental activists and carry picket signs outside the offices of the bad guys in the military-industrial complex. "But I want them to understand that these questions are enormously complex," he said.

February 8, 2007

IPCC Chair to address nuclear conference in Aomori, Japan

On April 9-12, 2007, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (AIF) is hosting its 40th Annual Conference. The Japan AIF conference is typically one of the largest nuclear-focused gatherings in the world each year. The hosts anticipate perhaps 800 participants this year. The tentative keynote theme for this year's meeting is "Nuclear Fuel Cyclew for 'Nuclear Energy Powerhouse Japan' -- Promoting Peaceful Use to the World, Consistent with Non-Proliferation". One of the confirmed presenters is the Chair of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra K. Pachauri. Dr. Pachauri is an economist. His presentation title is "Prospect of the climate change issues on the basis of the IPCC's scientific and technical approaches". IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report is being finalized this year. The full report of IPCC's working group on science is scheduled to be released in May. A Summary for Policymakers for the report was approved line-by-line by representatives of IPCC member nations at plenary meeting, and publicly released, last week. Part of the IPCC process is to revise the underlying report to ensure consistency with any changes made to the Summary during the plenary. Nuclear.com has previously editorialized about this part of IPCC process, which seems like a case of the political tail (the plenary) wagging the scientific dog (the underlying report of the Working Group scientists). We don't know if Dr. Pachauri will be taking questions at the Japan AIF conference, but if so, we hope someone will ask him why the underlying report isn't finalized first, and the Summary finalized later, and the basis for the summary's conclusions being made available to public when it is publicly released. I also hope that someone will ask him why the new Summary doesn't apologize for highlighting the famous "hockey stick" graph as policy-relevant in the last Summary. That summary was leaked to press in October 2000 (late in the Bush-Gore presidential campaign that year), but the underlying report was not published until August 2000. For many months, folks saw the nice, scientific-looking error bars bounding the global mean temperature graph for the past thousand years. It turns out that the uncertainty is much greater than depicted by IPCC. What kind of slipshod operation are they running at IPCC? Nuclear.com strongly concludes that the nuclear industry should not contribute to the elevation of the alarmist wing of climate science.

January 24, 2007

* Effects of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment on Calcifying Aquatic Organisms
Sherwood Idso, Keith Idso and Craig Idso, CO2 Science

Recent paper by Langer et al. [Species-specific responses of calcifying algae to changing seawater carbonate chemistry. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 7: 10.1029/2005GC001227 (2006)] tends to support the Idsos conclusion that increasing CO2 concentration in oceans will not cause the kind of widespread dissolving of marine life which has been hypothesized (and which is reportedly highlighted in the new IPCC Summary for Policymakers, the final version of which is being produced by representatives of IPCC member nations at Working Group plenary meeting over the next few days). The paper concludes that "genetic diversity, both between and within species, may allow calcifying organisms to prevail in a high CO2 ocean". One of the findings reported by Langer et al. is a "lack of a CO2 sensitivity of calcification in C. pelagicus" over an atmospheric CO2 concentration range of 98-915 ppm". Langer et al. report that their data "refute the notion of a linear relationship of calcification with the carbonate ion concentration and carbonate saturation state," which notion, the Idsos editorialize, is "the mantra repeatedly proclaimed by the world's climate alarmists".

* Twentieth-Century Global Sea Level Rise
CO2 Science

Recent paper by S.J. Holgate [On the decadal rates of sea level change during the twentieth century. Geophysical Research Letters 34: 10.1029/2006GL028492 (2007)] indicates that the mean rate of global sea level rise has not accelerated over the recent past. The new paper studies the period 1904 to 2003, and builds on previous research co-authored by Holgate regarding 1955-1998. The previous work derived a mean global sea level history from 177 coastal tide gauge records. The new work finds that nine much longer high-quality records from around the world (New York, Key West, San Diego, Balboa, Honolulu, Cascais, Newlyn, Trieste and Auckland) reasonably represent the findings of the earlier work, and thus may be the best data available to quantify global trends from earlier period. Holgate finds that that the mean rate of global sea level rise was "larger in the early part of the last century (2.03 ± 0.35 mm/yr 1904-1953), in comparison with the latter part (1.45 ± 0.34 mm/yr 1954-2003)."

* Global Ocean Warming Since the 1950s
CO2 Science

Recent paper by Gouretski and Koltermann [How much is the ocean really warming? Geophysical Research Letters 34: 10.1029/2006GL027834 (2007)] concludes that most of the warming reported by Levitus et al. reflects a bias in the data rather than actual warming. XBTs -- expandable bathythermographs -- are one of five main types of temperature-measuring instruments used in the Levitus et al. database. When the warm bias of XBTs is considered (bias of 0.2-0.4¡C on average), the reported trend is reduced by a factor of 0.62.

January 12, 2007

* McCain-Lieberman 'Kyoto Lite' bill introduced again in 2007

The introductory statements by some of the cosponsors of the bill in Senate -- Lieberman, McCain, Snowe and Obama -- are presented here. Sen. Lieberman says "the global warming debate is over". He will chair a subcommittee on climate change for the Environment and Public Works Committee. He notes that legislation to curb global warming is one of Sen. Reid's top ten priorities for this session. Sen. McCain says "The science tells us that urgent and significant action is needed", and "There is no doubt; failure to act is the far greater risk." He also stresses the quite independent advantages of national security (related to reducing dependence on foreign oil) and economics (alternate energy industry). He stresses clean and safe nuclear energy, and other clean energy sources -- and concludes that encouraging them is a matter of "simple public necessity". Sen. Snowe says there's "overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is adversely impacting the health of our planet" and characterizes current US policy as the "Nero approach" -- "fiddling as the planet warms". She is co-chair of a group called the International Climate Change Taskforce. It's recent review of the science pegs 400 ppm as appropriate policy goal for atmospheric CO2, to minimize the chance that global mean temperature will rise more than 2 degrees C. She quotes Abraham Lincoln: ""The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present." Sen. Obama says "The consequences of our inaction will be devastating for our children and grandchildren, and will be even worse for the poorest global populations."

Source: Congressional Record, "STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS", January 12, 2007, pp. S511-S515

November 9, 2006

* Global Warming: An Unstoppable 1,500-Year Cycle
Hudson Institute press release

Fred Singer, a well-known atmospheric physicist who has long been expressing doubts in many venues about the CO2-climate alarmism has co-authored a new book -- "Unstoppable Global Warming - Every 1500 Years" (Rowman & Littlefield, 276 pages, $24.95). The book describes physical and historical evidence of the natural climate cycle that ranges from ancient records in Rome, Egypt, and China; to 12,000 antique paintings in museums; to Vikings' tooth enamel in Greenland cemeteries; and to high-tech analyses of ice cores, seabed sediments, tree rings, fossil pollen and cave stalagmites. "We have lots of physical evidence for the 1,500-year cycle," says Singer. "Yet we don't have physical evidence that human-emitted CO2 is adding significantly to the natural cycle. The current warming started in 1850, too early to be blamed on industries and autos." Dr. Singer's co-author is Hudson Institute economist Dennis Avery.

Barnes & Noble offers this book for $19.96

Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years

July 26, 2006

Southern Cal heat waves - few events occur with such regularity or are so quickly forgotten

The heat was unreal -- so blistering that a windowsill thermometer overlooking Olympic Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles blew its top when the mercury hit 130 degrees. People consumed so much water that parts of the city briefly ran dry. Four people died. Dozens were hospitalized. It was still 89 degrees at 1 a.m. The record hot spell did not occur in 2006, but 1955, long before scientists raised the prospect of global warming and climate change. The extreme temperatures of this year's heat wave have been so intense that they have created a sense of fundamental change -- that somehow Los Angeles is on the verge of a searing future. But few events occur with such regularity or are so quickly forgotten as Southland heat waves, with extremes of temperature rising and falling in a regular rhythm like rolling curls of surf... In July 1931, sweltering Angelenos bemoaned the 37th straight day of extreme high temperatures -- at that point the longest stretch of hot, humid local weather in the history of the National Weather Service. Few recalled that, a generation earlier, as temperature records shattered in July 1891, perspiring businessmen sought shelter in the cool of the Grand Opera House and worried that such searing temperatures might mar efforts to market California's perfect climate to Easterners.

[Source: Robert Lee Hotz and Erin Cline (LA Times staff writers), "Hot? Yes. Global Warming? Maybe.; Causes of the current heat wave are complex. Drought, high pressure and sprawl all play roles.", Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2006, p. A1]

Climate change - 'certainty' will only come after centuries of hindsight

... scientific understanding has progressed in lock step with a contentious political debate. The debate eludes resolution because of the difficulty of separating normal temperature swings from longer trends. In the effort to understand climate, certainty comes only with the hindsight of centuries.

[Source: Robert Lee Hotz and Erin Cline (LA Times staff writers), "Hot? Yes. Global Warming? Maybe.; Causes of the current heat wave are complex. Drought, high pressure and sprawl all play roles.", Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2006, p. A1]

Climate change - we're already past the tipping point, sez Barnett

The current high temperatures fit with extremes that have been on an upward arc for the last century and are in line with computer projections for more records in the future. "What we now call extreme events are becoming run-of-the-mill happenings," said Scripps climatologist Tim Barnett. The first six months of 2006 were the warmest in the United States since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990, a trend that a majority of scientists say is in large part attributable to human production of greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere. All told, the planet has been slowly warming for a century, with Earth's average temperature rising by 1.6 degrees. In Los Angeles, the average daytime temperature has increased 3 degrees over the last century, while nighttime temperatures have increased 7 degrees, records show.

"People talk about tipping points," said Scripps' Barnett. "We have gone past it. There is nothing we can do to stop it now. The only question is how big a hit we are going to take."

[Source: Robert Lee Hotz and Erin Cline (LA Times staff writers), "Hot? Yes. Global Warming? Maybe.; Causes of the current heat wave are complex. Drought, high pressure and sprawl all play roles.", Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2006, p. A1]

California heat wave - maybe 1 degree out of the 12-16 degrees is "global warming"

Don't blame the seemingly endless heat wave just on global warming - this one's the product of a high-pressure system to the east and California's rapidly expanding growth, said Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert. Together, he said, they have combined to push the temperature 12 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. "Of the 12 degrees, how much is global warming? I would say 1 degree," Patzert said. "The other 11 degrees is meteorology" and lots of new heat-soaking pavement and other developments. As in most mid-summers, a region of high pressure over Arizona and New Mexico is pulling hot, moist air from the Mexican desert. But this summer, Patzert said, "it's so intense it's actually included us in the pattern. It's kept the marine layer off the coast, what I call Southern California's air conditioner." "We didn't get any May Gray and June Gloom, so we kind of skipped spring," he said. But what has made these conditions especially unbearable, Patzert said, is the new face of California's landscape, repaved by ever-expanding development. "As soon as you start putting in agriculture, golf courses, especially housing developments, it starts to retain heat. The nights are not cooling. That's why we get warmer and warmer temperatures by mid-afternoon, because we're starting warmer," he said. Southern California used to be a land of low, dry brush, collectively called chaparral. "The heat that was gained during the day - like if you go out in the desert - was released at night because the land surface was pretty dry," Patzert said. No longer. Over the past century, Southern California's "extreme makeover" has raised downtown Los Angeles temperatures an average of 3 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 7 degrees at night. "If it seems like it's hotter at night, it is," Patzert said.

As for the forecast for the rest of the summer, "there is definitely no relief in sight," Patzert said. "As we get into August and September, those are usually our hottest months." And there are different difficulties to come. "As that high pressure shifts up north, that's when we get Santa Anas," he said, "That's when the fire danger goes sky high."

[Source: Elise Kleeman (staff writer), "Global warming didn't cause scorcher", Pasadena Star-News (California), July 25, 2006]

July 25, 2006

Heat wave and global warming - alarmists, realists, and chicken littles

"I think there are very good reasons to believe that the current U.S. heat wave is at least partly caused by global warming," Kevin Trenberth, one of the nation's top global-warming computer modelers, wrote in an e-mail. In recent years, studies by several scientific teams show that "the frequency of cold nights dropped everywhere, and warm nights increased everywhere" around the world, said Trenberth, a scientist for the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "Heat waves have also increased most places around the world."

A noted atmospheric scientist and climate modeler, Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, agreed. "It is true that the current heat wave could have occurred by chance. But I believe that the likelihood of such occurrences increases due to global warming," Bala said.

Yet there are doubters -- for example, James O'Brien, Florida's state climatologist. O'Brien criticized colleagues who he thinks are too quick to link short-term and long-term weather. He recalled that in 1988, "we had a big Midwest heat wave ... which (NASA scientist) Jim Hansen told the U.S. Senate was due to global warming." Instead, O'Brien said, the heat wave was caused by high sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific. Likewise, he said, during another recent heat wave, "they said that many people died in Chicago due to this global warming. In fact, it was due to old, poor people not being advised about (how to survive) the heat wave."

Also cautious is Philip Klotzbach, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University: "Heat waves have happened for many years (i.e., the Dust Bowl in the 1930s), so to say that this one particular event is caused by global warming is really impossible," he wrote in an e-mail.

Chris Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's branch at Stanford University, said scientists can't attribute singular weather events to global warming. But many studies conclude that heat waves tend to get hotter as the planet warms. "This week's heat wave might or might not have occurred without global warming, but it is a good bet that heat waves will be hotter and more frequent in the warmer world," Field said.

Michael Mann, a leading global warming expert at Pennsylvania State University, agreed, saying climate change is "stacking the deck" and making heat waves more likely. "As we see more and more such record-breaking extremes," Mann said, "we can increasingly implicate climate change for the shift. This holds for heat waves, droughts and intense tropical storms."

One thing that scientists tend to agree on is an expectation of more extreme weather as global warming continues. "What is worrisome," said Claudia Tebaldi, a climate statistician who works at the Boulder research center, "is that climate models all agree on the intensification of heat waves in the future."

[Source: Keay Davidson (SF Chronicle Science Writer), Scientists split on heat wave cause; Some think culprit is global warming, but jury is still out", The San Francisco Chronicle, July 25, 2006, p. A7]

July 4, 2006

Enhanced greenhouse effect will increase volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis

A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life. University of Alberta geologist Patrick Wu compares the effect to that of a thumb pressed on a soccer ball -- when the pressure of the thumb is removed, the ball springs back to its original shape. Because the earth is so viscous, the rebound happens slowly, and the quakes that occasionally shake Eastern Canada are attributed to ongoing rebound from the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago. Melting of the ice that covers Antarctica or Greenland would have a similar impact, but the process would be accelerated by the human-induced greenhouse effect. "What happens is the weight of this thick ice puts a lot of stress on the Earth," says Wu. "The weight sort of suppresses the earthquakes but when you melt the ice the earthquakes get triggered." When a quake happens under water it can cause a tsunami. Wu said melting of the Antarctic ice is already causing earthquakes and underground landslides although they get little attention. He predicted climate warming will bring "lots of earthquakes." When the glaciers melt, the reliquefied water causes sea levels to rise and increases the weight on the ocean floor, which could also have an effect on the grinding tectonic plates deep below the surface.

Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina, said he was initially incredulous when he found a link between climate and volcanic activity off the coast of California. "But then I went to the library and did some research and found that in many places around the world especially around the Mediterranean they see similar sorts of correlations... When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick... you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed. They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."

[Source: Dennis Bueckert (The Canadian Press), "Warmer world will shake, rattle and blow; Melting ice could cause quakes, volcanic eruptions", The Calgary Herald (Alberta), July 4, 2006, p. A10]

Burying CO2 from power plants could increase electricity rates by 50% (DOE hopes to reduce this to 10%)

... the U.S. Department of Energy estimates carbon-dioxide emissions from American electricity plants have increased 20 percent since 1993. Ohio is a major contributor. The state's 33 coal-fired electricity plants released 138 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2005. In total CO2 releases from all activities, only Texas and California produce more. But the state is trying to do something about the problem. A high-tech movement is growing to pump the gas deep into bedrock. Another plan calls for tying up carbon in farm soils and in trees. Together, these methods could remove billions of tons of human-generated carbon dioxide from the air.

The technology already is in place to start. In the fall, scientists are to begin drilling a hole 7,000 feet deep into the sandstone bedrock beneath a power plant in the Ohio River town of Shadyside in Belmont County. By early 2008, they hope to pump more than 10,000 tons of CO2 into the ground. The four-year, $18.1 million project will replace only a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide generated at FirstEnergy's Burger plant, but it will be enough for scientists to learn whether the idea can work on a larger scale. The idea is for layers of shale and salt above the sandstone to keep the carbon dioxide underground. "Sandstone works really well because the spaces in the rock are interconnected," said Battelle geologist Philip Jagucki. He said limestone works as well. And the gas can be stored in underground reservoirs of ancient salt water or in abandoned oil reservoirs. "In those deep formations, the regional flow patterns are so slow," Jagucki said. "Once it's there, it's going to stay there." The technology also is planned for FutureGen, a federally funded experimental, pollution-free plant that Ohio and several other states are hoping to provide land for. Preliminary studies show the Ohio Valley can handle the challenge. "Modeling indicates we can inject enormous amounts of CO2," said Jagucki.

First test - The test hole will capture only about 1 percent of the carbon dioxide created at the site. If it works and power companies begin to bury CO2, consumers could see their electricity rates increase 30 percent to 50 percent, Jagucki said. The Department of Energy's "goal is to get it down to 10 percent of the cost of the energy production, hopefully less," he said.

The federal government is paying as much as $14.3 million of the experiment's price. The state is contributing $750,000, and more than two dozen regional partners, from universities to trade associations, are paying the remainder. "Burger is an older plant. The challenge is, can you retrofit existing plants to capture and sequester CO2?" said Mark Shanahan, executive director of the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority. The test also is important to the state's coal industry. Shanahan said regulations limiting carbon-dioxide emissions are probably inevitable.

[Source: Mike Lafferty (The Columbus Dispatch), "Burying a problem; Scientists hope plans to pump carbon dioxide into the ground can slow climate damage", The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), July 4, 2006, p. 4B]

UK heatwave - natural variation or enhanced greenhouse effect?

The sizzling weather currently baking the region is a sign Birmingham's climate is turning into that enjoyed by Paris, according to a city meteorology expert. The present heatwave -- which is expected to see temperatures in the West Midlands top 30 C (86F) today -- could indicate that the region is in the grip of global warming and heading towards a climate more like that of the Continent, according to Dr John Thornes, reader in meteorology at Birmingham University... "There's some indication that in the 1990s and into the 2000s we are getting warmer spells of weather in the summer months," said Dr Thornes. "It could be natural variation but the evidence is getting stronger that what we are seeing is enhanced global warming. Predictions for later into the century mean the climate in Birmingham will be more like that of Paris, in that we will have hotter, drier summers and milder, wetter winters. "Previously we have had heatwaves in 2003, 1995 and 1976 and we might see these hot spells becoming closer together," he added.

The Met Office raised its Heat-Health alert to "level three" yesterday after threshold temperatures were reached for two days in a row. At the weekend the Met Office issued a level two alert, which is triggered when forecasters believe that there is an 80 per cent chance that "heatwave" temperatures will be reached for two or more days. The Met Office said it was the first time it had issued a level three alert since the warning service was started in 2004... "Temperatures are due to become cooler by Wednesday -- between 22C (72F) and 24C (75F) ..." said a Met Office spokeswoman.

... The sweltering heat has been causing problems for asthma sufferers, animals and the elderly across Britain, and it is expected to reach a maximum today... A spokesman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said there had been many more call-outs over the past two days to reports of acute asthma attacks, which were associated to the hot weather...

The hot weather, combined with sudden down-pourings of cold rain, has put freshwater fish in shallow lakes in the region at risk for the second time in a month. Yesterday anglers in Harborne, Birmingham, spotted 50-60 of Moor Pool Fishing Club's larger fish floating dead on the water's surface. "Oxygen was being used up by fast-growing algae, which had multiplied in the heat. We estimate about 80 per cent of the stock, mainly carp, has died because of the heat" said angler Steve Smith. Environment Agency officers pumped in a solution of peroxide and oxygen levels were brought up to 80 per cent. "I would appeal to anyone who can help us to restock our pool," added Mr Smith. Last month thousands of fish died at a fishery at Larford Lakes, Stourport, after 3,000 fish died in similar circumstances.

Pets are also bearing the brunt of the heatwave, with the RSPCA reporting 222 incidents of dogs being left in hot cars. At The Royal Show in Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, RSPCA inspectors broke into a BMW to find a dead whippet inside. The heat in the car was more than 47C.

[Source: Emma Pinch, "Heatwave is proof that Brum is the new Paris", Birmingham Post, July 4, 2006, p. 7]

Thailand: Suspected coral bleaching linked to global warming

The patches of a gold-coloured substance found floating offshore in Chon Buri are likely to be leather coral, which is normally yellow-green in colour but may have been bleached by rising seawater temperatures, marine experts said yesterday. Villagers and navy officers in Sattahip District found the coral in the sea over the weekend. They did not say what it was but believed it to be an auspicious sign. Somchai Piansathaporn, acting chief of the Marine and Coastal Resources Department, said the coral was known scientifically as Sarcophyton sp. "The phenomenon is similar to coral bleaching found in hard coral," he said. "In this case, when the sea temperature rises, the soft coral loses plankton that usually covers its skin. This makes the coral appear yellow-gold in colour." The bleaching of soft coral was a short-term phenomenon, Mr Somchai said.

Wannakiat Saengtaptim, director of the department's Marine Resources Research and Development Institute, said coral bleaching, caused by global warming, had until last week been noted only in the Andaman Sea. It was the first time it had been reported in the Gulf of Thailand, he said.

Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a leading marine biologist, said leather coral was generally found both in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea. He said the coral, once under threat by excessive poaching, seems to be recovering in the Gulf of Thailand, especially Sattahip which was under the navy's supervision. Mr Thon said the change in the colour was a definite sign of marine ecological change. It may have been caused by global warming and the degradation of seawater quality

[Source: Bangkok Post, "Sattahip Discovery: Mystery sea substance may be leather coral", July 4, 2006, p. 4 (nuclear.com used BBC Monitoring's headline as caption)]

Kyoto - 30 of 34 Annex I nations well on their way to meeting commitments

Most industrialized countries are sticking with the Kyoto accord. 30 out of 34 of them are well on their way to meeting their commitments.

[Source: David Suzuki, "Quebec's Kyoto plan refreshing", Owen Sound Sun Times (Ontario), July 4, 2006, p. A4]

CO2 - highlights of Quebec's plan to reduce emissions to 1.5% below 1990 levels by 2012

Quebec unveiled its climate change plan last week. The plan has a target to reduce emissions - 1.5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. It has a series of initiatives and regulations designed to get the province to its goal. For example, there's a new mandatory building code, to be introduced in 2008, that will update virtually all aspects of design, including building envelope, heating and air conditioning, lighting and ventilation. The new code is expected to improve the energy efficiency of new buildings by 25 per cent. It's an initiative that other provinces have been slow to adopt and one the federal government has largely ignored. Another step: mandating gas mileage standards to be equal to those introduced in California. Canada's fuel-efficiency standards are currently voluntary and weak. By insisting that auto makers sell their cleanest, most modern models in Quebec - the very models that are also destined for California - Quebecers get cleaner air and end up with lower fuel bills. The plan also includes serious investment in wind energy and public transit, and a carbon tax on the bulk sale of oil - a progressive "polluter pay" initiative that helps the market reflect the true cost of fossil fuels on society.

[Source: David Suzuki, "Quebec's Kyoto plan refreshing", Owen Sound Sun Times (Ontario), July 4, 2006, p. A4]

NAS report spurns hockey stick and confirms future forecasting as almost guesswork

Although shooting the messenger is easier, the critics of my letter ("Disaster warnings are based on science fiction," June 22) should study the introductory graph in the U.S. National Academies' report, showing that mean global temperatures have, like the tide, steadily risen, then fallen, then risen again over the past 1,100 years.

The last global warming peak occurred around AD 1000. Prior to that, temperatures rose at about the same rate as today. They then slowly fell for 500 years before rising again. Today, they are a minuscule one-third of a degree Celsius above that earlier peak: An inconvenient truth, indeed.

The National Academies' report spurns earlier "hockey stick" theories and confirms future forecasting as almost guesswork. Yet while reason suggests temperatures will again fall, Al Gore claims they will continue upward, requiring multibillions of dollars in draconian preventive measures. Is it really worth undermining Canada's economy for 0.35 C?

[Source: David Underwood (Carp), "Inconvenient truth", letter to Ottawa Citizen, July 4, 2006, p. A9]

CO2 - China, India growth prospects dwarf any potential US cuts

... any U.S. efforts likely will be dwarfed by rapid economic development and sharply rising energy use in developing nations. For example, China adds one coal-fired power plant a week to satisfy its growing demand for electricity and will eventually be the world's leading carbon-dioxide generator. "China now consumes more basic commodities -- grain, meat, coal, steel than the U.S.," said Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute. "China's paper consumption has doubled. There go the world's forests." With an economy increasing at 8 percent a year, by 2031, Chinese will have incomes allowing them to match the consumption of Americans. India is not far behind. The question is whether the Earth can stand two or even three or more consumption-based countries. "There is no guarantee we're going to make it through," Brown said.

[Source: Mike Lafferty (The Columbus Dispatch), "Burying a problem; Scientists hope plans to pump carbon dioxide into the ground can slow climate damage", The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), July 4, 2006, p. 4B]

No-till farming could reduce CO2 emissions by 1-billion tons/yr (that's 1/7 of CO2 emissions from energy sector)

Better farming practices and renewed forests also will be part of a plan to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, according to Battelle geologist Philip Jagucki. Smart-farming techniques that tie up carbon are cheap. Sequestering carbon in the soil is a natural process, especially compared with drilling wells and storing CO2 in rocks, said Rattan Lal, a global-warming researcher at the Ohio State University School of Natural Resources. Healthy topsoil contains decaying, carbon-rich organic matter that provides nutrients to plants. Growing crops, in turn, absorb carbon dioxide from the air through their leaves. The plant separates the carbon from the oxygen, incorporating the carbon in plant tissue and replenishing oxygen in the atmosphere. Plowing, however, mixes the soil and introduces large amounts of oxygen in the air, which breaks down the organic matter, combining with carbon to create carbon dioxide. Agriculture scientists have developed a way to farm without plowing. Called no-till, the practice leaves crop residues on the ground and in the ground. Carbon dioxide remains there as well. No-till works, said Fairfield County farmer Roger Wolfe. Wolfe has been growing grain this way since the 1970s. He noticed an improvement in the soil after the first couple of years. "Some of our very best soils have degraded, but the loss has been hidden by the use of fertilizers," Wolfe said. David Brandt socks away even more carbon by growing a cover crop and by spreading manure on many of his no-till acres near Carroll, Ohio. "In our operation, no-till takes less labor. We have time to do other things," he said. And the cover crop saves on rising nitrogen fertilizer costs. But experts say for no-till to make a difference, millions of farmers would have to adopt its use.

About 5 percent of the world's cropland is farmed using no-till methods, although the United States lags far behind other nations including Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Chile. If all Ohio farmland was no-till, 39 million tons of carbon dioxide could be removed from the air, according to a recent Ohio Environmental Council report. Farming no-till worldwide would save about 1 billion tons of carbon annually, about one-seventh of the total carbon emitted from burning fossil fuels, Lal said.

[Source: Mike Lafferty (The Columbus Dispatch), "Burying a problem; Scientists hope plans to pump carbon dioxide into the ground can slow climate damage", The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), July 4, 2006, p. 4B]

Forest management could offset up to 1-billion tons of CO2 emissions/yr

Halting tropical-forest clearing and replanting woodlands could offset another billion tons. Because trees are about 20 percent carbon, forests and the organic matter in a forest floor tie up vast amounts of carbon. More than 1 trillion tons of carbon are stored in the world's forests, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. At the same time, forest destruction adds almost 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

Planting more trees, especially in the tropics, and reducing deforestation could make up for about 15 percent of world carbon emissions from fossil fuels over the next 50 years, some experts say. But other researchers say that's too much to expect. A four-year experiment at Duke University suggests that 10 percent is more reasonable, according to William Schlesinger, who led the research. One reason might be that forests that had suffered loss don't rebound well and might not store as much carbon, according to Ohio State scientists. "We're living with the consequences of bad management practices from a hundred years ago," said OSU biologist Peter Curtis.

[Source: Mike Lafferty (The Columbus Dispatch), "Burying a problem; Scientists hope plans to pump carbon dioxide into the ground can slow climate damage", The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), July 4, 2006, p. 4B]

June 19, 2006

Extreme weather events - none, individually, can be attributed to global warming

Western heat waves are likely to increase in severity, frequency and duration in the coming decades as the climate warms in response to the ongoing buildup of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases, said Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. Future warming is likely to intensify the weather patterns responsible for heat waves in some parts of North America, including the West, according to a 2004 NCAR study published in the journal Science. Meehl was lead author of the study, which used computer models to simulate the future climate. "This one was pretty intense pretty early," Meehl said of the metro area's recent heat spell. "And that's the kind of thing you'd expect to see more frequently in the future, as the average climate warms." But no single extreme weather event - whether it's a heat wave or a hurricane - can be blamed on global warming, he said Friday.

[Source: Jim Erickson (reporter - Rocky Mountain News), "Scientists point to heat wave as future; Early June temps unprecedented in Denver records", Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), June 19, 2006, p. 11A]

Climate - liberal groupthink underlies ridicule of scientists sceptical of GHG

Hundreds of qualified, independent scientists dispute the notion that greenhouse gases are causing the earth to warm. But liberal, environmental groupthink posits that this is so, and skeptics are to be ridiculed, not debated.

[Source: Todd Hambleton, "Don't debate the mosaic", Cornwall Standard Freeholder (Ontario), June 19, 2006, p. 8]

Warming may be expected, as may be cooling

It seems clear that over many ages, centuries and years, there have been -- and will continue to be -- wide variations in climate. There have been warmings and coolings that have been mild and temporary. And there have been huge changes over long periods of time that have encased large areas in ice and then have melted them. If all of the current ice did, indeed, melt, the ocean levels would surely rise. But will that major change come before the powerful forces of nature bring another cooling trend? It is wise to consider all evidence and all possibilities -- without rushing to embrace really catastrophic "solutions" for problems that we are not sure are occurring.

[Source: "Sky falling? Oceans rising?", Chattanooga Times Free Press (Tennessee), June 19, 2006, p. B9]

Warming trend in Denver - uncertain attribution

Some changes in Denver temperatures are already apparent, said University of Colorado climatologist Klaus Wolter. But it's unclear if human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, are to blame, he said. Springs and summers have warmed in Denver over the past decade, with the biggest temperature increases in March and July, Wolter said. Eight of the past 10 Denver springs (defined by climatologists as the months of March, April and May) and nine of the past 10 Julys were warmer than the long-term average at the former Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Wolter said. While the official National Weather Service temperatures for Denver are now measured at Denver International Airport, Wolter prefers to use Stapleton data because they contain an unbroken record extending back more than 50 years. "If nine of the last 10 Julys are above average, there's definitely something there that is not just noise," he said. "This is a very significant shift. It's just that we don't understand fully what the causes of the shift are."

[Source: Jim Erickson (reporter - Rocky Mountain News), "Scientists point to heat wave as future; Early June temps unprecedented in Denver records", Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), June 19, 2006, p. 11A]

June 15, 2006

CO2 rationing - Green activist's proposal for UK

The man on the phone was trying to help. "We can be as discreet as you like." I will admit I was sorely tempted. Discretion offered the chance to avoid embarrassment, to follow my impulses secretly, away from prying eyes. But what if I was found out? I felt a frisson of danger, of the sort undercover agents must feel when they come close to being unmasked on a mission. But my mind was made up. "No," I said. "I'd rather everyone knew." I felt the release of honesty wash over me: I'd joined the Conservative Party's working group on climate change. This is not, I hasten to add, the same as joining the Conservative Party. My Green Party membership card sits intact in my wallet, though I did half expect it to spontaneously combust in response to my treachery. I also wish to make it quite clear that I'm not being paid a penny. No one has even offered to take me out to lunch. It's entirely voluntary, not because I'm a sucker - but because I'm doing it for the Cause. ... I have one proposal that I'm looking forward to putting to my fellow members of the climate-change working group - carbon rationing. Instead of the government dictating every aspect of our lives, from what fridge we buy to where we go on holiday, carbon rations would delegate these decisions to each individual. We would each get an allocation, renewed every year, within the context of a declining overall national and international budget of greenhouse-gas emissions. This enshrines the principle of equality, which Cameron seemingly supports, but it also releases the power of the market. With the carbon rations fully tradeable, individuals who use less than their allocation could sell their spare share and pocket the difference. The market would thereby provide incentives for climate-friendly lifestyles. If the Tories want to go green, this is how to do it.

[Source: Mark Lynas, "Green thinking: The awkwardness of a green going blue", New Statesman, June 19, 2006 - released June 15]

Buildings - if they aren't 'green', they're obsolete

Douglas Durst The New York construction and real-estate magnate's motto is, "People who aren't building green buildings are building obsolete buildings." And he has been as good as his word, championing the erection of energy-self-sufficient office towers in Manhattan.

[Source: Elizabeth Kolbert, "Can America go green?", New Statesman, June 19, 2006]

April 7, 2006

* Coral reef bleaching threat is grossly overblown - Australia Great Barrier Reef example

* Global warming alarmism is undermining reputation of entire science community

* Warming water increases reef growth via red algae calcification

April 3, 2006

* Climate - Hansen and friends' political tactics

March 30, 2006

* Methane from thousands of underwater volcanoes

* [2006-03-29] PM: nuclear power can save climate
Gerri Peev, The Scotsman

* [2006-03-16] EIA: Nukes Win, Coal Loses in Trading
The Electricity Daily

Nuclear power should prosper in a CO2 cap-and-trade environment, according to a recent analysis by the Energy Information Administration. EIA's reference case sees 6 GW of new nuclear capacity through 2030. But in the trading regimes that it analyzed, nukes add between 25 GW and 123 GW (which would represent more than double the number of nuclear plants in the U.S. today). EIA, at the request of Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), looked at several trading programs patterned on a 2004 report from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a private, bi-partisan group (1ED, Dec. 13, 2004). EIA did a similar analysis in 2005, using its Annual Energy Outlook 2005 for base-case estimates of energy prices (2ED, April 25, 2005). Salazar requested the new analysis because of the recent major increases in energy prices, reflected in EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2006. So the statistical arm of the Energy Department ran the analysis against the base higher price scenario.

By the way, although the two most stringent regimes would lead to declines in coal generation below 2004 levels, none of the scenarios that EIA examined will result in lower annual total USA emissions of greenhouse gases than in the 2004 base year. "In all cases except the most stringent one," says EIA, GHG emissions continue to increase over the entire 2004 through 2030 period. In the most stringent case, GHG emissions increase slowly through 2018 and then fall until they are only 0.5 percent above the 2004 emission level in 2030."

* [2006-03-08] Cleaner, cheaper, more secure - a new report reveals the real answer to Britain's energy needs
Greenpeace UK

* [2006-03-07] Nuclear Power: Boom or Bust?
Greenpeace UK

* [2006-03-07] Energy Crisis Remedy Unveiled
Greenpeace UK

* [2006-03-06] Scientists in revolt against cuts that will undermine Britain's climate research
Michael McCarthy, The Independent

February 28, 2006

Speaking truth to power

The prime cause of current climate change is probably the magnetic pole moving towards the geographic pole like it did around 1,000 AD when it also got rapidly warmer. If man were not here climate would be changing just the same. This was part of the earful that Sir David King, the UK's top government science official, heard when he called on the first public questioner after his alarmist speech today at the UK Trades Union Congress-Confederation Of British Industries - Carbon Trust Happy Clappy Day Conference. The commenter was long-term weather forecaster Piers Corbyn, who added: "Climate Change hysteria is a political force rather than science."

February 14, 2006

"Creation Care" emphasis on "pro-life" values seen as a "reframing" perspective in climate policy debate

Global warming isn't just a "blue state" issue anymore. "If you were to ask me how the tide will turn in red states, the religious, the business, and the agriculture communities are going to come together to change the dynamics," says Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

[Source: Peter N. Spotts (Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor), "Hotter issue in red states: global warming; From evangelicals to students to business groups, climate change is a rising political concern", Christian Science Monitor, February 14, 2006, p. 3]

February 13, 2006

Newfoundland - lack of sea ice bad news for seals and seal hunters

The lack of ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is bad news for harp and hood seals. There is no ice northeast of Prince Edward Island over to the Magdalene Islands, an area usually ice-blocked by February. And without ice, there are fears in the scientific community it will wreak havoc on seal reproduction since many of the animals have their pups on the ice. Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who has made global headlines with his anti-seal-hunt protests, fears the situation could spell disaster. "Seals need ice - there could be an incredible mortality if there's no ice," Watson told The Telegram. Ludrick Crane of Cox's Cove has been a fishermen for 25 years, and says the lack of ice this year, complete with unseasonable warmth and a lack of snow, is nothing short of startling. "There's not a bit of ice to be seen," he said. "Every other year by this time you can put bikes and Ski-Doos, even trucks and cars on it. According to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), ice conditions comparable to this year's have been recorded twice previously, in 1969 and 1981.

[Source: Jamie Baker (St. John's Telegram), "Lack of ice bad news", St. John's Telegram (Newfoundland), February 13, 2006, p. A1]

February 10, 2006

* NOAA's Flood: The government's junk science
John B. Judis, The New Republic, February 20, 2006, p. 11

Many respected climate scientists, including some who work for NOAA, believe the organization's official line on the link between global warming and hurricanes is wrong. In the broader scientific community, there is grumbling that NOAA's top officials have suppressed dissenting views on this subject -- contributing to the Bush administration's attempt to downplay the danger of climate change. Don Kennedy, the editor-in-chief of Science, says "There are a lot of scientists there who know it is nonsense, what they are putting up on their website, but they are being discouraged from talking to the press about it." According to Kennedy, forthcoming papers by Emanuel [Kerry Emanuel of MIT, one of the nation's most respected climate scientists] and by Kevin Trenberth of NCAR could strengthen the case for a link between hurricanes and global warming. According to The New York Times, officials at NASA have attempted to discourage its chief climate scientist, James Hansen, from speaking out on global warming. The same thing may be happening to scientists at NOAA. Francesca Grifo, the head of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says a NOAA scientist complained last year of "being what we now call Hansenized." Emanuel, who regularly talks with NOAA scientists, says, "Scientists who don't toe the party line are being intimidated from talking to the press. I think it is a very sad situation. I know quite a few people who are frightened, but they beg me not to use their name."

The main instrument of suppression seems to be NOAA's policy on contact with the press. Since June 2004, NOAA, which is part of the Department of Commerce, has had a policy that its employees have to notify a public affairs officer if a member of the press contacts them for an interview. But the policy was often ignored. Then, on September 29, in the midst of growing public debate over hurricanes and global warming, public affairs official Jim Teet issued a memo requiring that "any request for an interview with a national media outlet/reporter must now receive prior approval by DOC [Department of Commerce]." NOAA Public Affairs Director Jordan St. John insists that Teet's memo merely restated the existing policy, but, by requiring approval and not merely notification, Teet's order -- first publicized by reporter Larisa Alexandrovna of "The Raw Story" -- erected an entirely new hurdle in the face of NOAA scientists who want to talk to the press. NOAA employees, speaking on background, described the policy to me as "strange" and "unfortunate." Georgia Tech's Judith Curry, who serves as a NOAA adviser on its Climate Working Group, thinks that what is happening at the organization is an "absolute disgrace." Curry knows of NOAA scientists who disagree with NOAA's position on hurricanes and global warming but are being told not to talk to the press. "They are being muzzled," she says. Curry also says that officials have been trying to prevent certain scientists at the National Climactic Data Center from even working on the problem of hurricanes and global warming. "You hear about Hansen, but NASA is not really that bad. NOAA is really, really bad," she says.

Perhaps the most telling indictment of NOAA comes from Jerry Mahlman. Mahlman joined NOAA in 1970, the year it was established, and served from 1984 to 2000 as the director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Retired from NOAA, he is now a senior research associate at NCAR in Boulder, Colorado. Mahlman, who has continued contact with NOAA scientists, says that dissenting scientists are being intimidated from talking to the press and that their papers are being withheld from publication. Mahlman tells me, "I know a lot of people who would love to talk to you, but they don't dare. They are worried about getting fired." According to Mahlman, the architect of NOAA's policy on global warming and hurricanes is its director, Lautenbacher, not underlings like Mayfield and Bell. Lautenbacher, a former naval officer with a Ph.D. in applied mathematics whom Bush nominated to head NOAA in September 2001, has been an administration point man on global warming at international conferences, where he justifies the administration's rejection of the Kyoto treaty. At a U.N. climate conference in Milan in December 2003, Lautenbacher declared, "I do believe we need more scientific info before we commit to a process like Kyoto." Lautenbacher's predecessors regularly voiced their opinions on scientific subjects, but they usually tried to steer clear of politics, and they didn't pretend to be presenting an official position on a scientific controversy. But, under Lautenbacher, NOAA has been plunged into Bush administration politics. With the issue of hurricanes and global warming, the organization has entered the even murkier realm of scientific censorship. NOAA, which once exemplified the constructive relationship between science and government, has become an instrument of what author Chris Mooney calls "the Republican war on science." And, in this war, the public is the real casualty.

nuclear.comMENT: Any scientist who would let his scientific papers be suppressed, as Dr. Mahlman's quote seems to clearly state has occurred at NOAA, isn't worth a cup of spit, so could any papers they might have produced be presumed to be of higher integrity than they? The answer is no. Seeing comments from the editor-in-chief of Science in this biased article is no surprise -- his publication has presented some quite biased work on climate change itself. One particularly reprehensible piece was by federal scientists Karl and Trenberth [Science 302:1719-1723, December 5 2003], which included "In the absence of climate mitigation policies, the 90% probability interval for warming from 1990 to 2100 is 1.7¡ to 4.9¡C." Aided and abetted by pre-publication press release, this stanky comment was picked up by at least the following:
* States News Service distributed the press release verbatim on December 2. The Rocky Mountain News reported on December 3 that "In their Science article, Karl and Trenberth say there's a 90 percent probability global temperatures would rise 3.1 to 8.9 degrees by 2100 due to human influences." Also on December 3, Greenwire reported that "The report predicts there is a 90 percent chance the climate will warm somewhere between 3.1 and 8.9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, which would exceed any natural climate shifts during the past 10,000 years."
* In a page 1 story on December 4, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "They estimate that by the end of this century there is a 90 percent chance that the world's climate will heat up between 3.1 and 8.9 degrees Fahrenheit because of those human influences."
* Denver Post's story on December 5 reported that "The study, published today, predicts that during the next century,ÊÊhumans can expect to live in a world that is 3 to 9 degrees warmer,ÊÊand one marked by vanished glaciers, sinking snowpack, rising seaÊÊlevels, more intense storms, longer droughts and bigger wildfires."
* A Reuters story published in Canada's National Post on December 5 reported that "Karl and Trenberth estimate there is a 90% probability that average global temperatures will rise over 1990 to 2100 by 1.7 to 4.9 degrees Celsius because of human influences on climate. Such dramatic warming will further melt already crumbling glaciers, inundating coastal areas."
* On December 7, the IPS - Inter Press service article put it as follows: "Two leading U.S. scientists have turned up the heat on the BushÊadministration in another new report that states there is a 90Êpercent chance global temperatures could rise 4.9 degrees C.,Êmelting the world's ice sheets. The study, which reviewed all of the available scientific data,Êwas carried out by Thomas Karl of the National Oceanic andÊAtmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data CentreÊin the state of North Carolina, and Kevin Trenberth, director ofÊthe Climate Analysis Section at the National Centre for AtmosphericÊResearch (NCAR) in Colorado. It appears in the Dec. 5 issue of theÊjournal 'Science'."

Your humble nuclear.com editor saw the pre-publication press release and thought it likely that the "90% probability" claim was based on an assumption-laden statement in a previous Science paper by Wrigley and Rapier. Sure enough, that is the paper referenced by Karl and Trenberth. It's an absolute disgrace that any of our government scientists submit pap like this statement to a journal, and highlight it in a press release. It's also disgusting that a highly-regarded journal like Science could let this same pap stink up its pages. To see some of these same folks decrying the suppression of such pap would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

January 25, 2005

* Does global warming mean more frequent and severe earthquakes?
Stephen Gray, Reinsurance Magazine, February 1, 2006, p.17

Big earthquakes that kill thousands occur in clumps. In 1976 there were four that killed over 5000 people, including the century's biggest, which left up to 650,000 dead in China. But in the whole of the 1950s, there was not one such seismic event. 2003, 2004 and 2005 represent the worst three-year run in more than a hundred years. "If you accept that the ice caps may be melting, if you accept that sea and atmospheric temperatures may be increasing, then you accept that global warming may be occurring. And you must also accept that the frequency and severity of earthquake activity may also be on some terrible march. If the temperature of the outer skin of the planet alters, then an inter-reaction with movements from the crust to the hot molten lava inside must follow. That is basic physics." The author is an insurance broker and novelist.

post-facto nuclear.comMENT: Climate scientist James Annan coined a memorable phrase that seems appropriate to note here: He referred to "people being able to invent climate catastrophe theories more rapidly than they can be reasonably ruled out." [Ref: James Annan, January 28, 2006 post to sci.environment thread titled "Lovelock"]

December 21, 2005

Nuclear fuel cycle's CO2 burden 2-6 grams/kWh, compared to 100-360 grams/kWh for gas-oil-coal

Previous research has overestimated the energy costs and carbon emissions generated by the construction of nuclear power plants and for mining uranium, according to a study by a group of scientists from the University of Melbourne, led by Associate Professor of Physics Martin Sevior. Prof Sevior said "It is suggested in debates that the energy cost of extracting uranium from new mines would be so high that there is little point in developing a nuclear power industry - that is simply not true." The study concluded that previous research by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith - widely considered the industry standard in Australia - had overestimated the energy cost of mining uranium by as much as a factor of 10. The study also concluded that nuclear process emits 2-6 grams of carbon equivalent per kilowatt-hour, while coal, oil and natural gas emit 100-360 grams of carbon per kilowatt-hour.

[Ref: Darrin Barnett (Australian Associated Press), "Melbourne Uni researchers talk up domestic nuclear power", AAP Newsfeed, December 21, 2005 5:26 pm AEST]

November 8, 2005

* Tony Blair's Suspicions Confirmed: New Studies Reveal Severe Economic Costs to Europe From Kyoto Protocol; Emissions Reduction Targets to Lead to Average Rises of 26% in Electricity Prices Across UK, Italy, Germany and Spain

November 7, 2005

IEA oil demand and CO2 emission scenarios through 2030

The International Energy Agency expects to global demand for oil to rise 1.3%/year to 115.4-mil b/d in 2030, with energy-related carbon dioxide emissions 52% higher in 2030 than in 2003. The agency also gave an alternative policy outlook, in which consumers act to trim demand. The IEA estimates demand could be 10% lower in 2030 and emissions 16% lower than its reference case. Under delayed investment, growth would be cut to 1.1%/year and demand would hit 105-mil b/d in 2030.

[Source: Platts Oilgram News, "IEA sees risk of delays on E&P investment; In new outlook, hikes 2010 oil price forecast", November 8, 2005, p. 1]

November 4, 2005

Climate change - nuclear power isn't the answer

As a response to global warming, [nuclear power] is too slow, too expensive and too limited...

[A] nuclear industry relying on hugely energy-intensive fuel extraction from low-grade ore is far from carbon-free. One of the only full life-cycle analyses of nuclear plants, by retired nuclear physicist and former nuclear advocate Philip Bartlett Smith, concluded that even in the best case nuclear required significant emissions. In the worst case, using low grade ores, it was less climate-friendly than a gas-fired power station...

In terms of the relative costs of reducing carbon emissions to tackle global warming, nuclear power comes at the end of a long list of options including: energy efficiency, combined heat and power, wind power, micro hydro, energy crops and wave power.

... We must also beware the law of unintended consequences. The energy review by the government's performance and innovation unit warned that investment in new nuclear power plants could adversely affect the development of other technologies. Finland, the only developed country with a new nuclear programme, has been criticised by the IEA for underfunding and missing the goals of its renewable energy plan and has seen its emissions rise. Nuclear power, perversely, could hasten global warming.

[Source: Andrew Simms (policy director - New Economics Foundation), "The fallacy that nuclear energy will prove to be our saviour", Financial Times (London, England), November 4, 2005, p. 17]

November 3, 2005

State of Fear now available in paperback

Larry Thornberry of Tampa Florida had a review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear published on The American Spectator Online today ["Hot and Cool" was the title]. Here's some highlights

* The message is that global warming is a hoax of Piltdown proportions brought to us by hysterical Chicken Little environmental groups, by careerist "scientists" prepared to produce the answers their patrons want in order to keep the grants and the publications coming, by gullible and scientifically illiterate journalists who wouldn't know the scientific method from the rhythm method, by limousine liberals and preposterously rich Gulfstream enviro-wackos (Hollywood branch) trying to pump meaning into their otherwise pointless lives, and by politicians desperate to find threats to appear to save their constituents from (or to at least get some good moral posing out of) in return for votes.

Folks with their eyes even halfway on the ball already know that global warming is quackery gone to town and belongs on the dumb-idea ash-heap with previous enviro-alarums -- see Alar, DDT, acid rain, asbestos, African killer bees, holes in the ozone layer, et al. -- all whooped up as threats to life as we know it and all, in due course, proven to be either totally harmless or of not much account.

* ... scientifically the global warming threat has about as much support as an 11-year-old in a training bra.

* ... State of Fear ... is what the intellectual aluminum-siding salesmen flogging global warming want us to be in ...

* ... a transparent fraud like global warming can become something that millions believe in without ever giving any real thought to.

* What's important in State of Fear is the science and the take on how environmental groups operate to sell Americans on really bad ideas. ... Crichton shows how Big Environment is just another part of the political and cultural establishment and is as manipulative as anyone else in town.

With any luck, thousands of thriller readers who pick up "Fear" with nothing on their minds but entertainment will stay the course and have their minds fortified against one of the frauds of the ages.

* Don't wait for the movie to come out on this one, though. It's far too un-PC to ever be made. It has given reviewers with establishment leftie organs the vapors. The NYT review, for example, huffs with words like "shrill," "preposterous," "right-wing," "ham-handed," "screed," and such like. Any book that sets the NYT this much on a boil is probably worth a few hours of reading time.

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October 29, 2005

CO2 not needed to explain temperature record since 1880



Silvia Duhau is a solar physicist at Universidad de Buenos Aires, Lab. de Geofisica. The graph shown above is from her presentation this summer at a regional International Astronomical Union meeting. It shows that three variables -- (1) total solar irradiance, (2) geomagnetic index, and (3) length of day -- can be combined to match the northern hemisphere surface temperature record since 1880. Here's a graph showing relative effect of each of the three variables she cites:

Dr. Duhau has concluded that 70% of the increase in global surface temperature during the last 100 years has been due to the increase in intensity and frequency in solar coronal mass ejections.

The IAU meeting website should soon have her manuscript available online or as part of hard copy proceedings

In the meantime, here's some highlights:

INTRODUCTION

Notwithstanding the fact that the solar radiative flux from the sun is the principal source of heating of the Earth atmosphere, its variation might explain only 30% of the Earth's global average surface temperature increases that occurred in the last 400 years (Lean and Rind, 1999). Most of this increase ... has occurred during the last century in synchronicity with the fast process of industrialization that produced exponential increases in CO2 content in the boundary layer of the Earth atmosphere. Therefore it has been hypothesized that the increases in global temperature in the last 50 yr was mostly due to anthropogenic CO2 impact on climate.

However, other scenarios of regional nature have been proposed for anthropogenic impact on climate changes, namely: urbanization and land uses (Kalnay and Cai 2003) and surface temperature changes related to CO2 direct impact on surface temperature over industrialized areas (Laat and Maurellis, 2004).

On the other hand Earth surface global temperature increases have been synchronic also with increases of solar dynamo magnetic field strength, and so in solar activity. This increase occurred during a short -- less than 30 yr -- chaotic episode that started at 1923. After this episode the average solar activity reached a value 60% larger that that prior to 1923 (Duhau and Chen, 2002; Duhau, 2003a), the highest one for the last 1700 yr. This unusual state of very elevated solar activity was unstable (Oliver et. 1996). Consequently -- around 1993 -- the solar dynamo system started a descending chaotic episode (Duhau, 2003a; Duhau, 2003b) during which -- by means of strong and very frequent CME events -- the solar dynamo system is getting rid of the excess of MHD energy to come back to a more stable state.

Near solar activity maxima the CMEs driven shock waves produce increases of energetic particles of several order of magnitude in the heliosphere (Lario and Simnett 2004); and has an important impact in the Earth's environment by increasing geosynchronous energetic particles flux within the magnetosphere (Barker, 1986; Baker et al., 1989; Gonzalez et. al., 1999; Lee et. al, 2005). Also CMEs lead to strong changes in the magnetosphere-ionosphere-ground electrical circuit. This processes involve changes in ozone concentration and surface temperature through several linking mechanism (Thorne 1977; Thorne 1980; Bucha, 1983; Callis et. al., 1991; Bucha and Bucha, 1998; Tinsley and Yu, 2004; Jackman and McPeters, 2004).

Geomagnetic field strength and morphology controls the entrance of energetic solar protons in the polar cap (geomagnetic latitude ³ 60¡) (for a review see Jackman and McPeters, 2004) and relativistic electrons in the subauroral belt (geomagnetic latitude between 60¡ to 75¡) (Baker et. al, 1987). Evidences of an enhancement of its effect at high latitudes modifying NH atmospheric wind patterns (Bucha and Bucha 1998) and total ozone (Duhau and Favetto, 1989; Lastobicka, 1991; Baker et. al, l989; Martinez and Duhau, 2002) were found.

The above phenomena provide a link between CMEs and climate. 'In situ' measurements of CME events and consequence on Earth environment are being pursued only for less than two solar cycles, fortunately sudden commencement geomagnetic storms -- that has been observed by a century -- gives an estimation of CMEs strength and frequency (Duhau, 2003b). A relationship between geomagnetic index SSC, as defined by Duhau (2003b), and global surface temperature and Ozone depletion have been found by Duhau (2003c) and Duhau and Martinez (2003), respectively.

On the other hand, evidences that geomagnetic storm time variations, being the strongest ones due to CMEs (see e.g. Gonzalez et al. 1999), induces changes on the geomagnetic field for time scales above the decadal one has been found by Duhau and Martinez (1995). Also a connection between geomagnetic field morphology and strength and climate in scales of the 10 Kyr are known since thirty years ago (Wollin, 1971) which implies that the evolution of the geomagnetic field might play an important role on inducing climate changes on those time scales.

The above relationships and the mechanisms able to explain them are reviewed and the causes of glacial and interglacial periods are discussed in this framework, in the new light that provides the latest finding on the impact of CMEs in the Earth's environment.

...

GEOMAGNETIC FIELD EVOLUTION

... The excess of length of day (LOD) is due to an interchange of angular momentum between the mantle and the core (see e.g. Jackson et al., 1993). This leads to a shear on zonal motions within the liquid core which by interacting with the preexisting magnetic field produces a Lorenz force that drive electrical currents so inducing new magnetic field. Therefore, the core-mantle momentum interchange must be linked to changes in the geomagnetic field (Vestine , 1953). In fact, Le MoŸel et al. (1981) found evidences that decade fluctuations in geomagnetic westward drift and in LOD follows each other closely, LOD lagging WD by about a decade.

A close relationship between R and LOD eleven-year running means historical time series, for R shifted head by 94 years (see figure 6), was found by Duhau and Mart’nez (1995). To interpret this result the authors considered that regarding to LOD variations, R was acting as a proxy data, in the long term, for geomagnetic storm time variations (see their figure 1) and they presented a mechanisms by which these geomagnetic variations might lead to core-mantle momentum interchange by inducing electrical currents at the top of the liquid core.

Therefore geomagnetic storms time variations, by inducing geomagnetic variations in time scales above the decadal, might play an important role in geomagnetic field evolution, which in turns controls the entrance of energetic particles to the Earth's environment, so providing a feedback mechanism for climate changes.

...

THE EFFECT OF SOLAR VARIABILITY ON CLIMATE

...Mechanisms by which CMEs force climatic changes

CMEs have a huge impact on Earth's environment since are the main source of energetic particles by converting MHD energy in kinetic energy not only in the heliosphere but also in the magnetosphere itself. Whatever being its origin, solar or heliospheric, energetic ions and electrons populations increase in the heliosphere in three orders of magnitudes along the sunspot cycle (see figure 1 and 2 on Lario and Simnett, 2004) due to MHD interaction between CMEs with heliospheric plasma, by mechanisms that are still in debate.

Energetic proton events (for a review see Jackman and McPeters 2004) play an important role in ozone depletion at the polar cap. Relativistic electrons penetrate at all latitudes, being the cause of 70% of ozone depletion at middle latitudes (Callis et. al 1991). Its effect is enhanced in the subauroral region and in the South Atlantic anomaly where the morphology of the geomagnetic field facilitate the entrance of the energetic electrons (Martinez and Duhau, 2002; Duhau and Martinez 2003). This reduction in total ozone content in turn produces changes in atmospheric circulation (Jadin, 1999).

Also, it is well known that cloud coverage plays a very important role in climate change (see e.g. Svensmark and Friis-Christensen, 1997). One of the mechanisms proposed to facilitate the condensation of water in the atmosphere is electroscavenging (for a review see Tinsley and Yu, 2004) that depends on the buildup of space charge at the tops and bottoms of the clouds as the vertical current density in the global electrical circuit encounter the increased cloud resistivity. Energetic electron events strongly increase the global electric field and current circuit by increasing the electron content at the ionosphere (Duhau et al., 1997; Duhau and Franco, 2000).

Downward winds following the geomagnetic storm onset are generated in the polar cap of the thermosphere and penetrate the stratosphere and troposphere which is seen as a sudden increases of pressure (King, 1974) in such a way that at times of high geomagnetic activity an intensification of the winds not only in the thermosphere but in the troposphere occurs (Bucha and Bucha, 1998). Also relativistic electron events cause strong gradients of ozone content around the subauroral oval such as it causes planetary zonal waves (Martinez and Duhau, 2002).

...On the sources of climate changes during the last century

Besides CMEs, which impact in the Earth's environment may be measured by the SSC index introduced by Duhau (2003a), other sources of climate changes of natural origin are variations in solar radiative output which strength is measured by solar total irradiation index (TSI) (see e.g. Lean and Rind, 1999) and changes in the Earth's rotation rate which is measured by the excess of length of day variations (LOD) (Lambek and Cazenave, 1976; Duhau, 2005).

The best fitting to the long-term trend in NH surface anomaly that includes the superposition of the effect of the above three variables is given by the equation (Duhau, 2003b):
NHT(t-NHT(to)) = 0.0157[SSC(t-SSC(to)] + 0.103[STI(t-STI(to)] - 0.022[LOD(to-LOD(to)],
where XLT(to) is the long-term trend in the X variable at to = 1900 yr. This particular time was chosen prior to the industrialization process. Since data to compute SSC start at 1868 and end at 1993, the three terms of the above equation (figure 7) and its superposition (figure 8) has been computed during this period.

During the second half of the 19th century the temperature fluctuations coming from SSC and TSI compensate each other therefore during this period most of the fluctuations in global temperature come from LOD variations. Temperature fluctuations during the first half of the 20th century are produced by the three variables acting in phase. A 70% and 30% of the rapid increases of the temperature for the second half of the 20th century are due to SSC and TSI, respectively. As TSI follows solar polar magnetic field strength variations and SSC represent the lost to the heliosphere of solar magnetic flux (Duhau, 2003b), we may conclude that during the last century surface global temperature has been determined mostly by the evolution of solar magnetic field strength. In particular, the fast increasing of global temperature seems to be occurring anteceding solar dynamo chaotic events as is the case for the 1923 ascending transition and the 1993 descending one (see figure 3) respectively.

[Ref: Silvia Duhau, "Long term variations in solar magnetic field, geomagnetic field and climate", Proceedings of 9th Asian-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting (2005)]

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October 26, 2005

UK concludes that if greenhouse goals are so important, nuclear shouldn't be sequestered from the effective favour of subsidy

The government is considering extending one of the main state subsidies offered to wind farms and other renewable sources of energy to nuclear power, the energy minister has signalled. Malcolm Wicks told the Financial Times the government would not rule out using next year's review of energy policy to extend the renewables obligation to nuclear and other low carbon sources of energy, such as clean coal. The obligation, which came into force in 2002, subsidises most forms of renewables by forcing power suppliers to generate a minimum proportion of their electricity from renewable sources. This market manipulation is justified by the need to meet the government's climate change goals, Mr Wicks suggested. "It's perfectly proper to have mechanisms which in the early stages of technology offer some financial support," he said. "I don't think that's inconsistent with thinking through (the idea the obligation is extended to nuclear and other clean energy supplies). Our objective . . . is about using carbon more responsibly and less of it and therefore shouldn't we try to explore mechanisms which are technology neutral." The ministerial willingness to consider a radical revamping of the renewables obligation is a victory for pro-nuclear lobbying. Industry groups, which are pressing the government to commit to replacing Britain's ageing fleet of nuclear reactors in next year's energy review, argue that the government will have to introduce several measures - such as the renewables obligations - to give private investors sufficient incentives to make the long-term financial commitment needed to fund new stations.

[Source: Christopher Adams and Jean Eaglesham, "'Green' subsidy considered for nuclear power", Financial Times (London, England), October 26, 2005, p. 2]

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October 23, 2005

Claiming that global warming is a threat to wind energy is probably as iconic as claiming that global warming is the cause of melting the ice atop Kilimanjaro

A Reuters article out of The Netherlands a few days ago probably didn't intend to show how pathetic the CO2-climate alarmists are, but I think it did a pretty good job of doing so. The article itself was slanted in pretty alarmist fashion, including the headline. What made this article memorable was the ease with which failed prediction of higher winds due to global warming prompted turnaround to alarmist prediction of lower winds due to global warming.

"Windmills, one of the Netherlands' trademarks, may go idle because of less wind as a result of climate change, Dutch scientists predict. New research shows scientists could have been wrong when they forecast years ago that global warming would cause more storms and wind in northwestern Europe, Albert Klein Tank of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) said Wednesday. 'We said that 10-15 years ago and what we see in the observations is that the climate is warming, but the number of storms is actually decreasing,' said Klein Tank, who leads a team making climate scenarios for the Netherlands. 'We don't have a good explanation for that,' he said. ... Dutch windmills saw declining energy production in the past decade because of less wind, Klein Tank said. 'My opinion is that this fluctuation will stabilize in the end, but it's not clear at all how it will change in [the] next 20-30 years,' he said. 'It is one of the most difficult parts and the biggest challenges for scientists to say something realistic about future storms.'

"... Scientists say increasing concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), from human activity is to blame for global warming. 'We still make the conclusion that the human factor is dominant in the last 50 to 60 years or so. ... We can be conclusive about that because if you look at the natural factors, the planet would have cooled,' Klein Tank's colleague, Rob Van Dorland, said. He and Klein Tank are among about 120 scientists from around the world involved in producing the next U.N. report on climate change due in 2007. Its conclusions are expected to have a big impact in guiding government policy on fighting global warming."

[Ref: Anna Mudeva (Reuters, from De Bilt, Netherlands), "Change in climate may halt windmills; They're trademark in the Netherlands - Global warming may bring less wind", The Seattle Times, October 21, 2005, p. A14]

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October 21, 2005

CO2 etc & Climate - evidence gets stronger with each passing year

John M. Wallace tried to steer Al Gore away from global warming. The year was 1994 and the vice president was convinced rising temperatures were responsible for recent floods in the Mississippi River Valley. He invited Wallace, a distinguished climate researcher from the University of Washington, to join a small group of scientists for a breakfast discussion in Washington, D.C. As Gore sipped Diet Coke, Wallace nervously left the eggs on his own plate untouched. "It was one of the more awkward audiences I've ever had," he recalled with a chuckle. "I was trying, in a polite way, to tell him he was coming on too strong about global warming." Like many of his peers, Wallace wasn't convinced greenhouse gases were altering the world's climate, and he thought Gore was straining scientific credibility to score political points.

More than a decade later, Wallace still won't blame global warming for any specific heat wave, drought or flood _ including the recent devastating hurricanes. But he no longer doubts the problem is real and the risks profound. "With each passing year the evidence has gotten stronger _ and is getting stronger still." 1995 was the hottest year on record until it was eclipsed by 1997 _ then 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Melting ice has driven Alaska Natives from seal-hunting areas used for generations. Glaciers around the globe are shrinking so rapidly many could disappear before the middle of the century. As one study after another has pointed to carbon dioxide and other man-made emissions as the most plausible explanation, the cautious community of science has embraced an idea initially dismissed as far-fetched. The result is a convergence of opinion rarely seen in a profession where attacking each other's work is part of the process. Every major scientific body to examine the evidence has come to the same conclusion: The planet is getting hotter; man is to blame; and it's going to get worse. "There's an overwhelming consensus among scientists," said University of Washington climate researcher David Battisti, who also was dubious about early claims of greenhouse warming.

Most scientists don't know how to communicate their complex results to the public. Others are scared off by the shrill political debate over the issue. So their work goes on largely unseen, and largely pointing toward a warmer future.

Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at the University of California, decided to quantify the extent of scientific agreement after a conversation with her hairdresser, who said she doesn't worry about global warming because scientists don't know what's going on. "That made me wonder why there's this weird public perception of what's been happening in climate science," Oreskes said. Oreskes analyzed 1,000 research papers on climate change selected randomly from those published between 1993 and 2003. The results were surprising: Not a single study explicitly rejected the idea that people are warming the planet. That doesn't mean there aren't any. But it does mean the number must be small, since none showed up in a sample that represents about 10 percent of the body of research, Oreskes said.

The consensus is most clearly embodied in the reports of the 100-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the United Nations in 1988. Every five to six years, the panel evaluates the science and issues voluminous reports reviewed by more than 2,000 scientists and every member government, including the United States. The early reports reflected the squishy state of the science, but by 2001, the conclusion was unequivocal: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." Stunned by the strong language, the Bush administration asked the prestigious National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the international group's work. The University of Washington's Wallace served on the academy's panel, which assured the president the IPCC wasn't exaggerating. The next IPCC report is due in 2007. Among the new evidence it will include are the deepest ice cores ever drilled, which show carbon-dioxide levels are higher now than any time in the past 650,000 years. In the history of science, no subject has been as meticulously reviewed and debated as global warming, said science historian Spencer Weart, author of "The Discovery of Global Warming" and director of the Center for History of Physics. "The most important thing to realize is that most scientists didn't originally believe in global warming," he said. "They were dragged _ reluctant step by step _ by the facts."

Few were more reluctant converts than Wallace. A self-described weather nut who built a backyard meteorology station as a kid, he has spent his career trying to understand how the atmosphere behaves on a grand scale. By analyzing a decade of global climate records, Wallace was among the first to recognize El Nino's effects in the Pacific Northwest. He was recruited to the University of Washington's fledgling meteorology program in 1966 and has helped build it into one of the world's top centers for atmospheric and ocean research. His first foray into climate change came in the early 1990s after Russian friends told him deer carcasses stored in their "Siberian freezer" _ the porch _ were thawing out. Some scientists blamed global warming. Wallace examined the meteorological records and concluded natural wind shifts were blowing milder ocean air across the land. He briefly thought he had debunked global warming. Then he realized winds could account for only a small fraction of the warming in the planet's northernmost reaches, where average temperatures have now risen between 5 and 8 degrees in the past 50 years. "It was an evolution in my thinking," said Wallace, 64. "Like it or not, I could see global warming was going to become quite a big issue." That's pretty much how the science of global warming has progressed.

Researchers skeptical of the idea have suggested alternative causes for rising temperatures and carbon-dioxide levels. They've theorized about natural forces that might mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases. But no one has been able to explain it away. "You would need to develop a Rube Goldberg-type of argument to say climate is not changing because of increasing carbon dioxide," said Battisti, 49, who directs the University of Washington's Earth Initiative to apply science to environmental problems. Global average air temperatures have risen about 1.2 degrees over the past century. The warming is also apparent in the oceans, in boreholes sunk deep in the ground, in thawing tundra and vanishing glaciers. Earth's climate has swung from steamy to icy many times in the past, but scientists believe they know what triggered many of those fluctuations. Erupting volcanoes and slow ocean upwelling release carbon dioxide, which leads to warming. Mountain uplifting and continental drift expose new rock, which absorbs carbon dioxide and causes cooling. Periodic wobbles in the planet's orbit reduce sunlight and set off a feedback loop that results in ice ages. All of those shifts happened over tens of thousands of years _ and science shows none of them is happening now. Instead, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are increasing at a rate that precisely tracks man's automotive and industrial emissions. "The process is 1,000 times faster than nature can do it," Battisti said. Climate reconstructions show that average global temperatures for the past 2 million years have never been more than 2 to 4 degrees higher than now. That means if greenhouse emissions continued unchecked, temperatures would likely be higher by the end of the century than any time since the human species evolved.

[Source: Sandi Doughton, "Scientists seek to set the record straight on global warming", The Seattle Times, October 21, 2005]

nuclear.comMENT: Anybody who claims, as this article does, that the blue ribbon NAS panel report supports the so-called alarmist consensus, probably needs to read the full report. Your humble nuclear.com editor recalls reading the body of the report the day it was released on NAS website. It was quite more balanced than the alarming press release by the committee's chairman at the time. The summary included with the report matched the press release very well, but not the report body. It was a sad day when we learned that the man responsible for the travesty called a summary was chosen to be the next President of the National Academy of Sciences. We expect a long, biased year from that front. For an example of the mismatch between summary and body, the summary makes a claim regarding temperature rise: "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities". What part of the report is this summarizing? I sure don't know. The so-called summary is quite a contrast with the section on p. 17 titled "The Effect of Human Activities" -- http://books.nap.edu/books/0309075742/html/17.html#pagetop -- which makes no such claim.

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Climate models unable to account for Eocene data, but that makes some model aficionados even more alarmed, not less

These days, University of Washington climate researcher David Battisti ponders the Eocene, a period 35 million to 50 million years ago when alligators lived near the Arctic Circle and palm trees grew in Wyoming. The world was hot because carbon-dioxide levels were three to five times higher than today _ the result of a gradual buildup from volcanic eruptions. But global-climate computer models, which use mathematical formulas to represent complex atmospheric interactions, aren't able to reproduce that warming. When Battisti runs the models under Eocene-like conditions, they come up with much lower temperatures than actually existed _ which means something was going on that scientists don't yet understand.

Models have improved greatly in the past 30 years but still can't anticipate all the ways the atmosphere will respond as greenhouse gases climb. The dozen models in use today predict average temperature increases of 3 to 11 degrees by the end of the century. Though the numbers sound modest, it took only a 10-degree drop to encase much of North America in mile-deep glaciers during the ice age that ended about 12,000 years ago. Skeptics point to uncertainties in the models and conclude the actual temperature changes will be lower than the predictions. Battisti points to the Eocene and warns that unknown factors could just as easily make things worse. Could the skeptics be right, and the majority of the world's experts wrong? The history of science shows consensus doesn't guarantee success. The collective wisdom of the early 1900s declared continental drift bunk. Some Nobel laureates attacked Einstein's theory of relativity. Those blunders occurred when science was less sophisticated and connected than it is now, said Weart, the historian. With the unprecedented study devoted to climate change, the odds that this consensus is wrong are slim, he added. "The fact that so many scientists think it's likely a truck is heading for us means that the last thing we want to do is close our eyes and lie down in the road."

[Source: Sandi Doughton, "Scientists seek to set the record straight on global warming", The Seattle Times, October 21, 2005]

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Buying climate skeptic articles at $500 a piece

"There's a huge disconnect between what professional scientists have studied and learned in the last 30 years, and what is out there in the popular culture," said Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at the University of California, San Diego. Fuel companies contribute to that gap by supporting a small cadre of global-warming skeptics, whose views are widely disseminated by like-minded think tanks and Web sites. ... At 39, geochemist Eric Steig belongs to a generation of climate researchers more open to global warming than the older guard, including Wallace and Battisti. Steig is also more frustrated by the way a handful of skeptics has dominated public debate. "Many of us have felt our voices are drowned out by the very well-funded industry viewpoint." He and several colleagues set out this year to bridge the gap between science and popular perception with a Web log called RealClimate.org. Researchers communicate directly with the public and debunk what they see as misinformation and misconceptions. By giving equal coverage to skeptics on the fringe of legitimate science, journalists fuel the perception that the field is racked with disagreement. "You get the impression it's 50-50, when it's really 99-to-1," Steig said.

Over the past decade, coal and oil interests have funneled more than $1 million to about a dozen individual global-warming skeptics as part of an effort to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact," according to industry memos first uncovered by former Boston Globe journalist Ross Gelbspan. From 2001 to 2003, Exxon Mobile donated more than $6.5 million to organizations that attack mainstream climate science and oppose greenhouse-gas controls. These think tanks and advocacy groups issue reports, sponsor briefings and maintain Web sites that reach a far wider audience than scholarly climate journals. Of course, there's nothing wrong with business questioning whether global-warming science justifies actions that may have profound economic impacts. And science can't advance without an open exchange of ideas. But climate researchers say skeptics are recycling discredited arguments or selectively using data to make points. And as Oreskes showed, few skeptics publish in peer-reviewed journals, which check for accuracy and omissions. Oregon State Climatologist George Taylor is a featured author on the Web site Tech Central Station, funded by Exxon and other corporations and described as the place where "free markets meet technology." He has a master's degree in meteorology and runs a state office based at Oregon State University that compiles weather data and supplies it to policy- makers, farmers and other customers. Taylor is not a member of OSU's academic faculty and has no published research on Arctic climate, but Sen. Inhofe cited Taylor's claim that Arctic temperatures were much warmer in the 1930s as proof global warming is bogus. James Overland, a Seattle-based oceanographer who has studied the Arctic for nearly 40 years, analyzed temperatures across a wider area than Taylor. His conclusion: The 1930s were warm _ but the 1990s were warmer. Two other peer-reviewed analyses agree. Even more significant, Overland found the 1930s warming was typical of natural climate variation: Siberia might be warm one year and normal the next, while another part of the Arctic experienced unusual heat. Now there's persistent warming everywhere. Taylor said in an e-mail that Tech Central Station paid him $500 for global-warming articles. United for Jobs, an industry coalition that opposes higher fuel-efficiency standards and greenhouse-gas limits, also paid Taylor and a co-author $4,000 for an article published on Tech Central Station. Mainstream climate scientists, including Wallace, Steig and Battisti, generally get their research money from the federal government. That doesn't make them immune from bias, said Patrick Michaels, one of the most widely quoted global-warming skeptics. Exaggerating the dangers of climate change can ensure a steady stream of money. "Global warming competes with cancer and competes with AIDS for a finite amount of money," said Michaels, a University of Virginia climatologist and fellow of the libertarian Cato Institute. "Nobody ever won that fight by saying: My issue isn't important." Michaels has received more than $165,000 in fuel-industry funding, including money from the coal industry to publish his own climate journal. Skeptics portray themselves as Davids versus the Goliath of organized science, which is always resistant to new ideas. But global warming is the new idea, said Oreskes. Skeptics, she said, represent the old school of thought _ that climate is so stable man could never tip it out of whack.

[Source: Sandi Doughton, "Scientists seek to set the record straight on global warming", The Seattle Times, October 21, 2005]

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Climate links recommended by Seattle Times

* Arctic science: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/

* Real Climate: scientists' blog: http://www.realclimate.org/

* IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/

* World Glacier Monitoring Service: http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/

* EPA Global Warming: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html

* American Geophysical Union position on global warming: http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/positions/climate_change.shtml

* The Discovery of Global Warming: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

* Paleoclimatology: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleo.html

* National Academy of Science Report: http://www4.nationalacademies.org/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/climate?OpenDocument

* Stephen Schneider, leading climate scientist: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/

* SKEPTICS

* Tech central station: http://www.techcentralstation.com/

* Competitive Enterprise Institute: http://www.cei.org/

[Source: Sandi Doughton, "Scientists seek to set the record straight on global warming", The Seattle Times, October 21, 2005]

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October 20, 2005

CO2 credits - $23-billion market projected as 5 years away

Two projects in Honduras and one in India, financed by donors in Finland, the Netherlands and Italy, are expected to receive the world's first "certified emissions reductions" today. When a project has been shown to work, the greenhouse gas emissions thus avoided will be credited to the developed country's account in the reckoning of whether countries have hit their targets in 2012. More than 20 other projects are awaiting the issue of their carbon credits under the treaty. Point Carbon, an analyst company, estimates that the market in carbon credits will be worth Dollars 450m (Euros 375m, Pounds 255m) this year, and will grow to Dollars 23bn in five years. Many companies have begun to enter the market. Yesterday, Natsource Asset Management said it had commitments of Euros 455m from 26 companies, including Repsol, Eon UK, Norsk Hydro and Endesa.

[Source: Fiona Harvey (Financial Times - London), "First Kyoto carbon credits to be issued", Financial Times (London, England), October 20, 2005, p. 10]

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Hurricane intensity - ocean SST not nearly as big a factor as some model

Just a year ago, two of my scientific colleagues made headlines by running a computer model showing that, by 2080, hurricanes would increase in maximum wind speed by 6 percent and precipitation rate by 18 percent. In the model, 55 percent of the intensity variation of hurricanes was related to warming sea-surface temperatures. Rather than use a computer model, I checked the actual relationship between sea temperatures and hurricane intensity in recent decades --- a period of global warming. In reality (as opposed to the virtual reality of the computer), only 10 percent of storm-to-storm variation in intensity is related to sea surface temperatures. Ninety percent is due to other factors, such as El Nino, (a warm current of water). Some of these factors are actually less favorable to hurricanes in a warmer world.

[Source: Patrick J. Michaels (senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia), "Warming unlikely culprit with hurricanes", The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 20, 2005, p. 17A]

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Severe hurricanes - after 82-degrees, water temperature doesn't seem to affect intensity

Almost all severe hurricanes must experience water of 82 degrees sometime in their life cycle. Oddly enough, there is no relationship between more intense hurricanes and ocean surface temperature once this threshold is reached.

[Source: Patrick J. Michaels (senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia), "Warming unlikely culprit with hurricanes", The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 20, 2005, p. 17A]

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Severe hurricanes - no higher proportion now than in 1940s and 1950s

Georgia Tech's Peter Webster, using data back to 1970, released a paper arguing that hurricane severity has increased. Had he looked at reliable hurricane-hunter aircraft data over the Atlantic back to 1945, he would have discovered that the proportion of severe storms was exactly the same in the 1940s and 1950s as it is now.

[Source: Patrick J. Michaels (senior fellow in environmental studies