Methane, the ticking time bomb, will go off!

Methane the ticking time bomb will go off!
 
Katey Walter Anthony, aquatic ecologist and biogeochemist

I have been watching the work of this young scientist for sometime. Much of her research into methane releases presently being emitted from the thawing permafrost and bubbling from lakes in the far north of Alaska has passed under the radar of climate change discussions. This is very troubling as you’ll note that what is happening is not included in the IPCC models for upper levels of atmospheric concentrates of heat trapping greenhouse gases. Katey Walter Anthony’s work is detailed in the book ZERO Greenhouse Emissions and she is also featured in the Letters from 2030 series here.

I highly recommend we all start paying more attention to her work! Following is a recent article in National Geographic.

“It’s a worldwide responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint and its effects on the atmosphere. We’re researching the greenhouse gas that could have the most powerful affect of all on global warming.”

Deep below the glistening surface of a frozen Arctic lake, something is bubbling—something that could cause global warming to accelerate beyond all previous projections. Dr. Katey Walter Anthony steps onto the ice, to tell us why.

“The bubbles are methane, a strong greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide,” Walter Anthony explains. It’s being released at an accelerating rate from thawing permafrost, frozen soil that holds vast amounts of carbon. When the Earth’s rising temperatures cause it to suddenly thaw, lakes form. “All that carbon was locked up safely in the permafrost freezer for tens of thousands of years,” Walter Anthony says. “Now the freezer door is opening, releasing the carbon into Arctic lake bottoms. Microbes digest it, convert it to methane, and the lakes essentially burp out methane.”



Scientists estimate that permafrost holds up to 950 billion tons of carbon. As it thaws, 50 billion tons of methane could enter the atmosphere from Siberian lakes alone. “That’s ten times more methane than the atmosphere holds right now,” Walter Anthony notes. “Since methane traps heat so efficiently, temperatures will rise higher, faster.” In the atmosphere methane spreads rapidly too, circling the globe in just one year.

Walter Anthony’s research in Alaska and Russia explores this dangerous, self-perpetuating cycle: thawing permafrost caused by global warming releases methane, which contributes to global warming. The bubbles she observes in the wilds of Siberia will soon be felt by the entire planet.

Walter Anthony’s comparative measurements of the speed of permafrost thaw and level of methane release reveal some Alaskan lakes eating into permafrost with exceptional speed. “We need to determine if this represents the near future of other regions like Siberia,” she says. Her data feed into scientific models that help predict global warming and ultimately inspire ideas to reduce it.

It’s a good thing Walter Anthony loves the solitude and stark beauty of Arctic landscapes. Her fieldwork is wet, risky, and very, very cold. “Just when temperatures dive, snow starts piling up, and everyone heads inside, we pack up our tents and go camping,” she smiles. Some areas she visits have been dubbed “drunken forests”—places where thawing permafrost has transformed woodlands into soggy wetlands dotted with dead and dying trees tilting at haphazard angles. “We get up in the morning, put on frozen-stiff clothes, and venture out onto thin lake ice,” she describes.

After shoveling off snow, Walter Anthony’s team hacks open holes in the ice and lowers plastic bubble traps into the water. “A valve allows us to take a sample and bring it back for lab analysis,” she says. But for on-the-spot confirmation of gas contents, Walter Anthony strikes a match. When flames leap—often as high as trees—she’s found methane.

Does the methane that threatens world climate have a silver lining? Walter Anthony seeks ways to harness it as an alternative energy source. “Capturing and burning it has already been done around the world on a small scale,” she says. Soaring over Alaska in a small plane, she looks for ways to fuel an entire village. “We knew methane seeps existed in this particular area, but weren’t sure where.” An aerial view revealed “fantastic seeps that looked like clusters of black grapes against the white snow. After landing we went out in snow machines, racing across the tundra to locate them.” Now her research and economic feasibility studies determine how to most efficiently bring the gas to the village for power and heat. “People living there would love to have local methane solve their energy crisis.”

Walter Anthony’s connection with Siberian people and places began when she was a high school exchange student and continued when she was a university graduate student in a far north science station. “Russian scientists led the way in connecting thawing permafrost with methane release. I really came to love and admire the people and country. Now, my long-term understanding of the unique capabilities of these scientists helps me arrange collaborations between Alaska and Russia to monitor climate change,” she says.

“I feel such a strong emotional tie with these extreme remote places. People who can last here love it. We chop firewood, collect berries, and fish. I like preserving those relationships with the land. When life is a little bit hard, it makes you appreciate the times you can come in and have a cup of soup.”

Link:  http://greenhouseneutralfoundation.org/articles/2009/11/22/methane-the-ticking-time-bomb-will-go-off/

Scientific American (December 2009), "Methane -- A Menace Surfaces" by Katey Walter Anthony

Scientific American Magazine, December 2009

Methane: A Menace Surfaces 

by Katey Walter Anthony

Touchdown on the gravel runway at Cherskii in remote northeastern Siberia sent the steel toe of a rubber boot into my buttocks. The shoe had sprung free from gear stuffed between me and my three colleagues packed into a tiny prop plane. This was the last leg of my research team’s five-day journey from the University of Alaska Fairbanks across Russia to the Northeast Science Station in the land of a million lakes, which we were revisiting as part of our ongoing efforts to monitor a stirring giant that could greatly speed up global warming.

These expeditions help us to understand how much of the perennially frozen ground, known as permafrost, in Siberia and across the Arctic is thawing, or close to thawing, and how much methane the process could generate. The question grips us—and many scientists and policy makers—because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, packing 25 times more heating power, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide. If the permafrost thaws rapidly because of global warming worldwide, the planet could get hotter more quickly than most models now predict. Our data, combined with complementary analyses by others, are revealing troubling trends.

[you can read the rest if you have a subscription or buy the issue -- hint, hint, somebody please send me a copy of this article if possible]

Link:  http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=07A9A210-237D-9F22-E8B42A4D79A6EAAE

James Hansen: Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit -- Lessons From a Grandchild

Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit: Lessons From a Grandchild

by James Hansen, November 30, 2009

This note and an opinion piece submitted to The Observer in answer to the question:
Is There Any Real Hope of Cutting Global Carbon Emissions? are available at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf

My opinion piece was published in The Observer on 29 November 2009, but with the wording of the question slightly altered.

Such negative questions and attitudes are increasing. How refreshing, on cold, windy Thanksgiving Plus One Day, which we spend with our children and grandchildren, when I went outside to shoot baskets with 5-year-old Connor. Connor is very bright, but needs work on his hand-to-eye coordination. I set the basket at a convenient height for him, but his first several shots banged off the backboard off-target. Then he said, very brightly and bravely, “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit.” It seems his karate lessons are paying off.

Some adults need Connor’s help. A Scientific American article by Michael Lemonick, “Beyond the Tipping Point,” described our 2008 paper “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” Lemonick concluded with the almost-obligatory “fair and balanced” opinion, delivered by Steve Schneider. In response to our conclusion that we must get atmospheric CO2 to peak during the next few decades, and then decline back to 350 ppm or less, Schneider opines “It has no chance in hell. None. Zero. The best we can do is to overshoot, reach 450 or 550 parts per million, then come back as quickly as possible on the back end.”

Everyone knows we are overshooting. The 2009 CO2 global mean is 387 ppm, and it is increasing 2 ppm per year. In our “Target” paper we showed that, if coal emissions were phased down linearly to zero in 2030 and emissions from unconventional fossil fuels were prohibited, peak CO2 could be kept at about 425 ppm – or even lower if a rising carbon price made it uneconomic to go after every last drop of oil. But Hillary Clinton recently signed an agreement with Canada for a pipeline to carry tar sands oil to the United States. Australia is massively expanding coal export facilities. Coal-fired power plants are being built worldwide. Unless the public get involved, young people especially, CO2 of 450 ppm or higher may become unavoidable.

What would make Schneider’s “450 or 550” ppm unavoidable is a defeatist attitude. Humanity does have a free will. We do not have to accept the inevitability of extracting and burning all of the most miserably polluting fossil fuels on the planet. What we need mostly is some gumption, some never-give-up fighting spirit. I am sending to Steve, a friend of almost 40 years, the addresses of some karate schools located conveniently.

Cavalier “450 or 550” also warrants comment. Coming back to 350 ppm or less from a temporary peak of 425-450 ppm is something that would be feasible this century, mainly via “natural” actions such as improved forestry and agricultural practices. 550 ppm is a whole different cup of tea, guaranteeing a chaotic situation with climate system amplifying feedbacks and dynamics out of humanity’s control.

The most foolish no-fighting-spirit statement, made by scores of people, is this: “we have already passed the tipping point, it is too late.” They act as if a commitment to a meter of sea level rise is no different than a commitment to several tens of meters. Or, if a million species become committed to extinction, should we throw in the towel on the other nine million? What would the plan be then – escape to Mars? As I make clear in “Storms of My Grandchildren,” anybody who thinks we can transplant even one butterfly species to  another planet has some loose screws. We must take care of the planet we have – easily the most remarkable one in the known universe.

Let’s say we have passed a tipping point – say current atmospheric composition is enough to cause a large eventual sea level rise. What do we do? Wring our hands? What we must do is restore the planet’s energy balance, or make it slightly negative. That does not guarantee that heat already added to the ocean will not further erode ice shelves and cause sea level rise. But it gives us a fighting chance to minimize that problem. Of course, it would help if we knew the current planetary energy balance accurately, and the climate forcings –  that’s the subject in chapter 4 of “Storms.”

Any Hope of Cutting Global Carbon Emissions?

Absolutely. It is possible – if we give politicians a cold hard slap in the face. The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – “goals” for emission reductions, “offsets” that render even iron-clad goals almost meaningless, an ineffectual “cap-and-trade” mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics-as-usual.

Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate conditions out of their control, as described in my book "Storms of My Grandchildren."

Science also reveals what is needed to stabilize atmospheric composition and climate.

Geophysical data on the carbon amounts in oil, gas and coal show that the problem is solvable, if we phase out global coal emissions within 20 years and prohibit emissions from unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale.

Such constraints on fossil fuels would cause carbon dioxide emissions to decline 60 percent by mid-century, or even more if policies make it uneconomic to go after every last drop of oil. Improved forestry and  agricultural practices could then bring atmospheric carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm (parts per million) or less, as required for a stable climate.

Governments going to Copenhagen claim to have such goals for 2050, which they will achieve with the “cap-and-trade” mechanism. They are lying through their teeth. Unless they order Russia to leave its gas in the ground and Saudi Arabia to leave its oil in the ground (which nobody has proposed), they must phase out coal and prohibit unconventional fossil fuels.

Instead, the United States signed an agreement with Canada for a pipeline to carry oil squeezed from tar sands. Australia is building port facilities for large increases in coal export. Coal-to-oil factories are being built. Coal-fired power plants are being constructed worldwide. Governments are stating emission goals that they know are lies – or, if we want to be generous, they do not understand the geophysics and are kidding themselves.

Is it feasible to phase out coal and avoid use of unconventional fossil fuels? Yes, but only if governments face up to the truth: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, their use will continue and even increase on a global basis. Fossil fuels are cheapest because they are not made to pay for their effects on human health, the environment, and future climate.

Governments must place a uniform rising price on carbon, collected at the fossil fuel source – the mine or port of entry. The fee should be given to the public in toto, as a uniform dividend, payroll tax deduction, or both. Such a tax is progressive – the dividend exceeds added energy costs for 60% of the public. Fee-and-dividend stimulates the economy, providing the public the means to adjust lifestyles and energy infrastructure.

Fee-and-dividend can begin with the countries now considering cap-and-trade. Other countries will either agree to a carbon fee or have duties placed on their products that are made with fossil fuels. As the carbon price rises, most coal, tar sands and oil shale will be left in the ground. The market place will determine the roles of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear power in our clean energy future.

Cap-and-trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to the Kyoto Protocol, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy. Cap-and-trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions, and leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground.

Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us, and cheat our children and grandchildren?

Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln faced slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises and half-measures is over.

Can we find a leader who understands the core issue, and will lead?

Link to pdf file:  http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091130_FightingSpirit.pdf

Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate: The CRU hack -- context

The CRU hack: Context

Filed under: Climate Science 

 

— gavin @ 23 November 2009; Real Climate blog

This is a continuation of the last thread which is getting a little unwieldy. The emails cover a 13 year period in which many things happened, and very few people are up to speed on some of the long-buried issues. So to save some time, I’ve pulled a few bits out of the comment thread that shed some light on some of the context which is missing in some of the discussion of various emails.

• Trenberth: You need to read his recent paper on quantifying the current changes in the Earth’s energy budget to realise why he is concerned about our inability currently to track small year-to-year variations in the radiative fluxes. 
  
• Wigley: The concern with sea surface temperatures in the 1940s stems from the paper by Thompson et al (2007) which identified a spurious discontinuity in ocean temperatures. The impact of this has not yet been fully corrected for in the HadSST data set, but people still want to assess what impact it might have on any work that used the original data.
• Climate Research and peer-review: You should read about the issues from the editors (Claire Goodess, Hans von Storch) who resigned because of a breakdown of the peer review process at that journal, that came to light with the particularly egregious (and well-publicised) paper by Soon and Baliunas (2003). The publisher’s assessment is here.

Update: Pulling out some of the common points being raised in the comments.

• HARRY_read_me.txt. This is a 4 year-long work log of Ian (Harry) Harris who was working to upgrade the documentation, metadata and databases associated with the legacy CRU TS 2.1 product, which is not the same as the HadCRUT data (see Mitchell and Jones, 2003 for details). The CSU TS 3.0 is available now (via ClimateExplorer for instance), and so presumably the database problems got fixed. Anyone who has ever worked on constructing a database from dozens of individual, sometimes contradictory and inconsistently formatted datasets will share his evident frustration with how tedious that can be.
• “Redefine the peer-reviewed literature!” . Nobody actually gets to do that, and both papers discussed in that comment – McKitrick and Michaels (2004) and Kalnay and Cai (2003) were both cited and discussed in Chapter 2 of the IPCC AR4 report. As an aside, neither has stood the test of time.
• “Declines” in the MXD record. This decline was hidden written up in Nature in 1998 where the authors suggested not using the post 1960 data. Their actual programs (in IDL script), unsurprisingly warn against using post 1960 data. Added: Note that the ‘hide the decline’ comment was made in 1999 – 10 years ago, and has no connection whatsoever to more recent instrumental records.
• CRU data accessibility. From the date of the first FOI request to CRU (in 2007), it has been made abundantly clear that the main impediment to releasing the whole CRU archive is the small % of it that was given to CRU on the understanding it wouldn’t be passed on to third parties. Those restrictions are in place because of the originating organisations (the various National Met. Services) around the world and are not CRU’s to break. As of Nov 13, the response to the umpteenth FOI request for the same data met with exactly the same response. This is an unfortunate situation, and pressure should be brought to bear on the National Met Services to release CRU from that obligation. It is not however the fault of CRU. The vast majority of the data in the HadCRU records is publicly available from GHCN (v2.mean.Z).
• Suggestions that FOI-related material be deleted … are ill-advised even if not carried out. What is and is not responsive and deliverable to an FOI request is however a subject that it is very appropriate to discuss.

Further update: This comment from Halldór Björnsson of the Icelandic Met. Service goes right to the heart of the accessibility issue:

Re: CRU data accessibility.
National Meteorological Services (NMSs) have different rules on data exchange. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) organizes the exchange of “basic data”, i.e. data that are needed for weather forecasts. For details on these see WMO resolution number 40 (see http://bit.ly/8jOjX1).

This document acknowledges that WMO member states can place restrictions on the dissemination of data to third parties “for reasons such as national laws or costs of production.” These restrictions are only supposed to apply to commercial use, the research and education community is supposed to have free access to all the data.

Now, for researchers this sounds open and fine. In practice it hasn’t proved to be so.
Most NMSs also can distribute all sorts of data that are classified as “additional data and products”. Restrictions can be placed on these. These special data and products (which can range from regular weather data from a specific station to maps of rain intensity based on satellite and radar data). Many nations do place restrictions on such data (see link for additional data on above WMO-40 webpage for details).

The reasons for restricting access is often commercial, NMSs are often required by law to have substantial income from commercial sources, in other cases it can be for national security reasons, but in many cases (in my experience) the reasons simply seem to be “because we can”.
What has this got to do with CRU? The data that CRU needs for their data base comes from entities that restrict access to much of their data. And even better, since the UK has submitted an exception for additional data, some nations that otherwise would provide data without question will not provide data to the UK. I know this from experience, since my nation (Iceland) did send in such conditions and for years I had problem getting certain data from the US.

The ideal, that all data should be free and open is unfortunately not adhered to by a large portion of the meteorological community. Probably only a small portion of the CRU data is “locked” but the end effect is that all their data becomes closed. It is not their fault, and I am sure that they dislike them as much as any other researcher who has tried to get access to all data from stations in region X in country Y.

These restrictions end up by wasting resources and hurting everyone. The research community (CRU included) and the public are the victims. If you don’t like it, write to you NMSs and urge them to open all their data.

I can update (further) this if there is demand. Please let me know in the comments, which, as always, should be substantive, non-insulting and on topic.

Link:  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/

Combined Global Land and Marine Surface Temperatures: 1850-2008, & wrt October 2009

The time series shows the combined global land and marine surface temperature record from 1850 to 2008. The year 2008 was tenth warmest on record, exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2001, 2007 and 1997.

Link:  http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

With respect to October 2009:

Link:  http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/

Peter Laut, J. Atmos. Solar-Terr. Phys., 2003, Solar activity and terrestrial climate: An analysis of some purported correlations

Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (Status of 28. February 2003: In press)

Solar activity and terrestrial climate: An analysis of some purported correlations

Peter Laut (Technical University of Denmark, Department of Physics, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark. e-mail: Peter.Laut@fysik.dtu.dk)

Received 14 February 2002; received in revised form 22. January 2003; accepted 4 February 2003.

Abstract

The last decade has seen a revival of various hypotheses claiming a strong correlation between solar activity and a number of terrestrial climate parameters: Links between cosmic rays and cloud cover, first total cloud cover and then only low clouds, and between solar cycle lengths and Northern Hemisphere land temperatures. These hypotheses play an important role in the scientific as well as in the public debate about the possibility or reality of a man-made global climate change. I have analyzed a number of published graphs which have played a major role in these debates and which have been claimed to support solar hypotheses. My analyses show that the apparent strong correlations displayed on these graphs have been obtained by an incorrect handling of the physical data. Since the graphs are still widely referred to in the literature and their misleading character has not yet been generally recognized, I have found it appropriate to deliver the present overview. Especially, I want to caution against drawing any conclusions based upon these graphs concerning the possible wisdom or futility of reducing the emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.

My findings do not by any means rule out the existence of important links between sol ar activity and terrestrial climate. Such links have over the years been demonstrated by many authors. The sole objective of the present analysis is to draw attention to the fact that some of the widely publicized, apparent correlations do not properly reflect the underlying physical data.

Key words: Solar activity, solar cycle lengths, cloud cover, galactic cosmic rays, global warming

Link to complete paper in pdf file format at the website of Dr. Stephen H. Schneider of Stanford University:  http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Solar-ClimateLAUTPREPRINT.pdf

Spencer Weart, science historian, expresses his concern over attempts to slander entire community of climate scientists

Science historian Weart: “We’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance. Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers.”

Climate Progress blog, November 29, 2009

Spencer Weart: My most interesting conversations were with historians who have been studying the history of the tobacco companies that did their best, and quite successfully for many years, to cover up the fact that smoking kills people by the million.  Some interesting parallels, but…

So begins a fascinating interview of Weart on the illegally hacked emails by Capital Weather Gang’s Andrew Freedman.  Dr. Weart is a physicist and science historian with the American Institute of Physics.

Weart’s website, “The Discovery of Global Warming,” is one of the places to start if you’re interested in getting the basics of climate science.  Based on the comments posted on CP, RealClimate, WUWT, DotEarth, etc., I think it’s safe to say that the overwhelming majority of the self-proclaimed “skeptics” (aka those who’ve been duped by the professional disinformers) haven’t even bothered to look at the most basic scientific evidence on human-caused global warming.

And the majority of the professional disinformers simply have no regard whatsoever for basic science or an evidence-based search for the truth — which is why they keep pushing talking points that have long been debunked in the scientific literature (see, for instance, Scientists advising fossil fuel funded anti-climate group concluded in 1995: “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of GHGs such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied”).

But as science historian Weart tells Freedman — spreading disinformation about science is nothing new.  What is new is the slander of both individual scientists and the entire scientific community:

Andrew Freedman: What effects do you think this will have on public perceptions of climate science and climate scientists?

Spencer Weart: I don’t expect this to have much impact on public perceptions of climate and climate scientists. Opinions have become so fixed that it would take serious evidence to shift a significant number of people. Since the late 1980s, just about every year and sometimes almost every month, a group of people (mostly the same ones) have exclaimed, “Now in these latest (whatever) we finally have proof that there is no need to worry about climate change!” There is a segment of the public that has believed every new claim. The rest will continue to doubt such claims in the absence of truly solid proof.

AF: What do you think this story reveals about the conduct of climate science?

SW: Back around 2000 leading climate scientists talked to each other mostly about their science–debating one another’s data and analysis and negotiating travel, collaboration and other administration–and a little bit about policy. As time passed they have had to spend more and more of their time answering criticism of the scientific results already established, criticism mostly based on ignorance, fallacious reasoning, and even deliberately deceptive claims. Still more recently they have had to spend far too much of their time defending their personal reputations against ignorant or slanderous attacks.
The theft and use of the emails does reveal something interesting about the social context. It’s a symptom of something entirely new in the history of science: Aside from crackpots who complain that a conspiracy is suppressing their personal discoveries, we’ve never before seen a set of people accuse an entire community of scientists of deliberate deception and other professional malfeasance.
Even the tobacco companies never tried to slander legitimate cancer researchers. In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers.
Extraordinary and, frankly, weird. Climate scientists are naturally upset, exasperated, and sometimes goaded into intemperate responses… but that was already easy to see in their blogs and other writings.

Guess the tobacco companies just weren’t as clever and ruthless as the big fossil fuel polluters and their allies (see On the 150th anniversary of first commerical U.S. well, the oil industry is headed toward oblivion — and trying to take civilization down with it and Obama takes on the anti-scientific delayers, while Australia’s Rudd slams the “deniers” and the “gaggle” of “conspiracy theorists” opposing climate action).

AF: For a science historian such as yourself, how valuable are these e-mails? And what is your impression of them thus far?
SW: There would be a lot to learn if the owner of these e-mails (I suppose the University) would release them for analysis; for example, you could run up statistics on the types of interchanges and the structure of networks of discussion among researchers. Of course no scholar can make use of stolen material, and in particular one cannot legally or ethically quote a private message without the explicit permission of the writer.
Historians do often work with collections of letters that have been donated to archives. Typically we spend countless hours trying to understand the context; scholarly reputations have been ruined by interpretations that turned out to be mistaken. The risk of misinterpretation is far greater with e-mails, written so much more casually than letters. Our society is having difficulty dealing with this new form of communication. Look at last week’s verdict on the Bear Sterns hedge fund managers who were accused of misleading investors. The prosecuters based their case on a few seemingly incriminating sentences drawn from a mass of e-mails. When the jury saw the whole set of e-mails, they quickly found that there was no crime, just ordinary business chatter. From what I’ve seen, I expect that will be the verdict on the climate scientists’ e-mails.

Precisely — see Reuters: “ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer.”
Related Post:

• Rep. Jay Inslee slams SuperFreakonomics: “People are still trying to write books to deceive the American public” on climate science.
• Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)
• Here’s what we know so far: CRU’s emails were hacked, the 2000s will easily be the hottest decade on record, and the planet keeps warming thanks to us!
• Newtongate: The final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment “thinking”
• Competitive Enterprise Institute to sue RealClimate blogger over moderation policy
• The newspaper that publishes George Will (and Sarah Palin) editorializes: “Many — including us — find global warming deniers’ claims irresponsible.”
• UK Guardian: “To stop a climate catastrophe … Scientists must stop sanitising their message”

Australian climate row highlights Copenhagen rifts

by Rob Taylor, Reuters, November 30, 2009

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's major rivers are shrinking and farms are gripped by drought as scientists warn of climate change, but that has not convinced some skeptical politicians to back carbon-trade laws.
In a pointer to the difficulty of striking a pact to curb global greenhouse gas emissions at climate talks in Copenhagen, Australia's parliament is at an impasse over a scheme to slash carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

The main conservative opposition is split over whether to support the laws in an obstructive upper house of parliament, with its third-most senior member and high-profile Senate leader Nick Minchin convinced climate change is all a conspiracy.

"For the extreme left it has provided the opportunity to do what they've always wanted to do, to sort of de-industrialize the Western world," Minchin recently told Australian television.

"The collapse of communism was a disaster for the left. They embraced environmentalism as their new religion," Minchin said, sparking a blizzard of controversy.

Minchin's climate skeptic views are being echoed in other countries, like the United States, as they seek to reach agreement on climate policy ahead of Copenhagen next week.

Australia is already witnessing the effects of climate change, scientists say, with farmlands in the grip of a decades-long drought, drying riverbeds, record heatwaves and warnings of catastrophic bushfires as well as freak flash flooding in the north.

Large icebergs were also sighted recently near shipping lanes close to nearby New Zealand, much further north than usual.

AIMING TOO LOW
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose government holds the rotating European Union presidency, warned in China on Monday that countries were not aiming high enough to reduce carbon emissions at Copenhagen.

Britain's Gordon Brown has put world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, on notice that they "cannot afford to fail" in Denmark, which British climate expert Nicholas Stern has called the "most important international gathering of our time."

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hopes to land in Copenhagen after sealing passage of controversial laws setting up the largest carbon trading platform outside Europe.

But Rudd's carbon trade laws look doomed with climate skeptics like Minchin, who comes from a state where rivers are drying up, likely to reject or delay the laws.

A leading Nielsen opinion poll on Monday showed 66 percent of Australians back the introduction of an emissions trading scheme. Other surveys have shown support as high as 80 percent.

Rudd's problem, as opponents realize, is that many voters are also wary or even outright opposed to an emissions scheme if it comes at a high personal cost. Fresh elections are due late next year and the emissions row could yet yield a snap poll.

"Australia is not going to do anything that changes the course or nature of the temperature of the globe," said rural-based Senator Barnaby Joyce, who has become something of a maverick "pin-up" for climate skeptics.
"It's a gesture that will be reflected in a massive tax delivered to you from every corner of your house, from every power point, by the price of food, it will be in your fridge as it's going through the middle of the night," Joyce said.

Despite Copenhagen looming, climate fears have also failed to dent Australian consumption, with figures on Monday showing Australians are building the world's largest homes on average and filling them with air conditioning and appliances.

That can only add weight to the arguments of emerging giants like India and China in Copenhagen that they should not curtail economic growth ambitions over climate change, while countries like Australia remain on a path of comfortable consumption.

(Editing by Michael Perry) Link:  http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5AT11N20091130

Climate change: How global warming is having an impact

The Independent, London, Relax News, 30 November 2009

Armin Rose

Arctic warming spike predicted for February 2010

Arctic Global Warming Spike Imminent (Republishing)

Apr.05, 2009

THE ARCTIC SHOULD PREPARE FOR A BLAST OF HEAT IN 2010

 

UK Met Office Arctic Temperature Feb 2009

The respected UK Met Office Hadley Centre has put up some striking maps on Google Earth Outreach: Environment and Science. The one showing projected temperature increase in the Arctic region by next year is surprising and very alarming.

UK Met Office Arctic Temperature Feb 2010

Simplified Instructions:

To view these maps on Google Earth Outreach, first download the latest version of Google Earth. The click on Climate Change in Our World to enter through the Met Office portal. Below the thumbnail image of a mustard-coloured map of Europe, click on “Open this KML.” 

An interactive globe showing the Arctic region will load. The only feature presented on this interface is that of temperature increase from 1999 to 2099, but you should have no trouble making out the shape of Greenland, with yellow and some orange colour marking its shoreline. Scientific data determines the colouring of the map, with deepening shades of yellow to orange, and as time progresses, to red. These colours show temperature anomalies, or above-normal temperatures.

You can use your cursor as a hand or a pointer. You can grab the globe to turn it around. Try using your pointer to move the toggle on the white time-line bar above. You can toggle in ten year increments, flash back and forth from the beginning to the end, or carefully move the toggler year by year.

Moving the toggler a slight bit from 2009 to 2010, you will see the spike in the Arctic temperature that is projected by the beginning of next year. This may make you instinctively lean back from away your computer. Seeing this abrupt change almost like being hit by a blast of heat from your monitor.

As most of you know, the temperature of the air and waters surrounding Greenland is of special significance. Warmer temperatures are causing the ice sheets and glaciers of Greenland to melt and slide into the sea, forcing a global sea-level rise that is now twice as much as was predicted just two years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Moreover, the melting of the floating Arctic sea ice is exposing more and more of the ocean to the heat of the sun and driving more warming for the entire planet. Wind and water currents are being affected, causing unstable climatic conditions and extreme weather.

Through Google Earth Outreach, we are looking at a forceful image of Dangerous Climate Change and a warning to world leaders of the urgency of taking immediate action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

These projections by the Met Office Hadley Centre are in the median range; they don’t show the worst-case scenario. If you toggle all the way to the end of this century, you will see what will happen if we don’t change our way of living on our planet. RIGHT NOW.

Admin

For more information, click here to go to the Met Office Hadley Centre website.

To watch a video about the features of Google Earth Outreach, with much more information, click here to go to the Alternative Energy News website.

Also see Google Earth Warms at the excellent Climate Feedback site.

Update:  West Coast Climate Equity has left a new comment on your post "Arctic warming spike predicted for February 2010":

Tenney, we've just updated this post with a link to a December 10 article in The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6780685/Copenhagen-climate-conference-Met-Office-predict-2010-will-be-warmest-on-record.html.

There are more articles on this subject, deserving of a separate post. Right now, it looks as if we're still on track for this warming increase, as the water temperatures in the South Pacific have reached record levels.

[Readers, for the sea surface temperature anomalies that show the intense heat in the middle of the south Pacific Ocean, go to this site:  http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anomaly.html

Pick the date you want and select "full global" to get the big picture.]

Link:  http://westcoastclimateequity.org/?p=2767

Rising sea level poses risk to Qatar, neighbours

Rising sea level poses risk to Qatar, neighbours
Web posted at: 11/28/2009 1:25:6
Source ::: The Peninsula . / BY SATISH KANADY


DOHA: Sea Level Rise (SLR) is posing big risk to Qatar. Like most other Arab countries, the bulk of Qatar’s economic activity, agriculture and population centres are in the coastal zone, making the country highly vulnerable to a possible rise in the SLR.

A remote sensing study ‘On the impacts of Global warming on the Arab region,’ released by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) revealed that a sea level rise of mere 1 meter would directly impact 41,500 km² of the Arab coastal lands. Qatar has been enlisted in the potential threat-facing countries. Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria are the other countries included in the ‘endangered’ list.

The risk can be in the form of both coastal region inundation and increasing salinity of soil and available fresh water resources such as aquifers. The report revealed that the SLR of 1 metre would directly affect 3.2% of the population in these countries, compared to a global percentage of about 1.28%.


The study that used remote sensing techniques to depict the consequences on the Arab world of various climate change impact scenarios said Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing the region today.

The report, second of a series of annual reports produced by the AFED, says that the past century had witnessed a 17 cm rise in the sea level at a mean rate of 1.75 mm per year. A report published by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 predicted seal-level rise of up to 59 cm by 2100.

Taking into account the full “likely” range of predicted increase in temperature, the SLR could even be amplified to up to 1.4 m by the year 2100. Other researches have predicted between 5-6 m SLR in the event of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse.

“The coastal zone of the Arab world is no exception to the threat of SLR. Similar to many parts of the world, capital cities and major towns of Arab countries lie along the coast or on estuaries. Their expansions are extremely rapid and, therefore, these metropolises are at great risk of SLR,” the report said.

The potential impacts of SLR, however, are not uniformly distributed across the Arab region. Egypt will be by far the most impacted in the Arab world.

The current analysis indicates that Bahrain and Qatar would experience a significant reduction of about 13.4% and 6.9%, respectively, of their land as a result of the 5 m SLR scenario. 

Link:  http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&month=November2009&file=Local_News200911281256.xml

NOAA: 2009 Arctic Report Card, updated -- section on Atmosphere

NOAA: 2009 Arctic Report Card, updated -- section on Atmosphere

Atmosphere

J. Overland¹, M. Wang², and J. Walsh ³

¹NOAA, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, WA
²Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
³International Arctic Research Center, Fairbanks, AK

October 9, 2009

Summary

It is apparent that the heating of the ocean in areas of extreme summer sea ice loss is directly impacting surface air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean, where surface air temperature anomalies reached an unprecedented +4°C during October through December 2008. There is evidence that the effect of higher air temperatures in the lower Arctic atmosphere is contributing to changes in the atmospheric circulation in both the Arctic and northern mid-latitudes.

---

The annual mean Arctic temperature for the year 2008 was the fourth warmest year for land areas since 1990 (Figure A1). This continued the 21st century positive Arctic-wide surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies of greater than 1.0° C, relative to the 1961-1990 reference period. The mean annual temperature for 2008 was cooler than 2007, coinciding with cooler global and Pacific temperatures (Hansen, 2009). The outlook is for increased temperatures, because there are currently (October 2009) El Nino conditions which are expected to continue through winter 2009-2010.

Figure A.1. Arctic-wide annual averaged surface air temperature anomalies (60°–90°N) based on land stations north of 60°N relative to the 1961–90 mean. From the CRUTEM 3v dataset, (available online at www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ . Note this curve does not include marine observations.

During October through December 2008 SAT anomalies remained above an unprecedented +4° C across the central Arctic (Fig. A2(A)). This is linked to summer sea ice conditions. The summer of 2008 ended with nearly the same extreme minimum sea ice extent as in 2007, characterized by extensive areas of open water (see sea ice section). This condition allows extra heat to be absorbed by the ocean from longwave and solar radiation throughout the summer season, which is then released back to the atmosphere in the following autumn (Serreze et al., 2009). We expect similar warm fall temperatures over the Arctic in 2009, as in 2007 and 2008.

Figure A.2. Near surface air temperature anomalies for (A, top) October through December 2008 and (B, bottom) January–May 2009. Anomalies are relative to 1968-1996 mean. Data are from the NCEP – NCAR reanalysis through the NOAA /Earth Systems Research Laboratory, generated online at www.cdc.noaa.gov .

Similar to the previous years of the 21st century, in 2009 the spatial extent of positive SAT anomalies in winter and spring of greater than +1°C was nearly Arctic-wide (Figure A2 (B)), in contrast with more regional patterns in the 20th century (Chapman and Walsh, 2007). The exception was the Bering Sea/southwestern Alaska which experienced a fourth consecutive cold or average winter associated with weaker winds and colder temperatures in the North Pacific.

There is evidence that, by creating a new major surface heat source, the recent extreme loss of summer sea ice extent is having a direct feedback effect on the general atmospheric circulation into the winter season (Francis et al., 2009). Fall air temperature anomalies of greater than +1.0° C were observed well up into the atmosphere (Figure 3A), when averaged over 2003-2008 relative to a 1968-1996 base period. The higher temperatures in the lower troposphere decrease the atmospheric air density and raise the height of upper-air-constant-pressure levels over the Arctic Ocean (Figure 3B). These increased heights north of 75 °N weaken the normal north-to-south pressure gradient that drives the normal west-to-east airflow in the upper troposphere. In this sense, the effect of higher air temperatures in the lower Arctic atmosphere is contributing to changes in the atmospheric circulation in both the Arctic and northern mid-latitudes. For example, Honda et al. (2009) suggest a remote connection between loss of Arctic sea ice and colder temperatures over eastern Asia.

Figure A.3. Vertical cross section from 60° to 90° N along 180° longitude averaged for October-December 2003 through 2008 (years for which summertime sea ice extent fell to extremely low values) for (A) air temperature, and (B) geopotential height. Data are from the NCEP – NCAR reanalysis available online at www.cdc.noaa.gov.

The climate of the Arctic is influenced by repeating patterns of sea level pressure that can either dominate during individual months or represent the overall atmospheric circulation flow for an entire season. The main climate pattern for the Arctic is known as the Arctic Oscillation (AO) with anomalous winds that blow counter-clockwise around the pole when the pattern is in its positive phase. A second wind pattern has been more prevalent in the 21st century and is known as the Arctic Dipole (AD) pattern (Wu et al., 2006; Overland et al., 2008). The AD pattern has anomalous high pressure on the North American side of the Arctic and low SLP on the Eurasian side. This implies winds blowing more from south to north, compared to the AO, and increasing transport of heat into the central Arctic Ocean. The AD pattern occurred in all summer months of 2007 and helped support the major 2007 summer reduction in sea ice extent (Overland et al., 2008). Fall 2008 and winter/spring 2009 showed a return of the AO pattern, but also considerable month to month variability in the presence of these various climate patterns.

References

Chapman, W. L., and J. E. Walsh, 2007: Simulations of Arctic temperature and pressure by global coupled models. J. Climate, 20, 609–632.
Francis, J. A., W. Chan, D. J. Leathers, J. R. Miller, and D. E. Veron, 2009: Winter northern hemisphere weather patterns remember summer Arctic sea-ice extent. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L07503, doi:10.1029/2009GL037274.
Hansen, J., M. Sato, R. Ruedy, and K. Lo, cited 2009: 2008 global surface temperature in GISS analysis. [Available online at www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20090113_Temperature.pdf.]
Honda, M., J. Inoue, and S. Yamane, 2009. Influence of low Arctic sea ‐ ice minima on anomalously cold Eurasian winters, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L08707, doi:10.1029/2008GL037079.
Overland, J. E., M. Wang, and S. Salo, 2008: The recent Arctic warm period. Tellus, 60A, 589–597.
Wu, B., J. Wang, and J. E. Walsh, 2006: Dipole anomaly in the winter Arctic atmosphere and its association with sea ice motion. J. Climate, 19, 210–225.

Link:  http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/atmosphere.html

Nordell & Gervet, Intl. J. Global Warming,Trapping carbon dioxide or switching to nuclear power not enough to solve global warming problem

Trapping carbon dioxide or switching to nuclear power not enough to solve global warming problem, experts say

ScienceDaily, July 13, 2009 — Attempting to tackle climate change by trapping carbon dioxide or switching to nuclear power will not solve the problem of global warming, according to energy calculations published in the July issue of the International Journal of Global Warming.

Bo Nordell and Bruno Gervet of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden have calculated the total energy emissions from the start of the industrial revolution in the 1880s to the modern day. They have worked out that using the increase in average global air temperature as a measure of global warming is an inadequate measure of climate change. They suggest that scientists must also take into account the total energy of the ground, ice masses and the seas if they are to model climate change accurately.

The researchers have calculated that the heat energy accumulated in the atmosphere corresponds to a mere 6.6% of global warming, while the remaining heat is stored in the ground (31.5%), melting ice (33.4%) and sea water (28.5%). They point out that net heat emissions between the industrial revolution circa 1880 and the modern era at 2000 correspond to almost three quarters of the accumulated heat, i.e., global warming, during that period.

Their calculations suggest that most measures to combat global warming, such as reducing our reliance on burning fossil fuels and switching to renewables like wind power and solar energy, will ultimately help in preventing catastrophic climate change in the long term. But the same calculations also show that trapping carbon dioxide, so-called carbon dioxide sequestration, and storing it deep underground or on the sea floor will have very little effect on global warming.

"Since net heat emissions accounts for most of the global warming there is no or little reason for carbon dioxide sequestration," Nordell explains, "The increasing carbon dioxide emissions merely show how most net heat is produced.

The "missing" heat, 26%, is due to the greenhouse effect, natural variations in climate and/or an underestimation of net heat emissions, the researchers say. These calculations are actually rather conservative, the researchers say, and the missing heat may be much less.

The researchers also point out a flaw in the nuclear energy argument. Although nuclear power does not produce carbon dioxide emissions in the same way as burning fossil fuels it does produce heat emissions equivalent to three times the energy of the electricity it generates and so contributes to global warming significantly, Nordell adds.

Link:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713085248.htm

H. Damon Matthews et al., Nature 459 (2009), The proportionality of global warming to cumulative carbon emissions

Nature, 459, 829-832 (11 June 2009); doi: 10.1038/nature08047; received 4 December 2008; accepted 14 April 2009.

The proportionality of global warming to cumulative carbon emissions

H. Damon Matthews* (Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd W., Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8, Canada), Nathan P. Gillett (Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment Canada, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada), Peter A. Stott (Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon EX1 3PB, U.K.) and Kirsten Zickfeld (Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment Canada, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada) 

Abstract

The global temperature response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ is often quantified by metrics such as equilibrium climate sensitivity and transient climate response¹. These approaches, however, do not account for carbon cycle feedbacks and therefore do not fully represent the net response of the Earth system to anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. Climate–carbon modelling experiments have shown that: (1) the warming per unit CO₂ emitted does not depend on the background CO₂ concentration²; (2) the total allowable emissions for climate stabilization do not depend on the timing of those emissions^{3, 4, 5}; and (3) the temperature response to a pulse of CO₂ is approximately constant on timescales of decades to centuries^{3, 6, 7, 8}. Here we generalize these results and show that the carbon–climate response (CCR), defined as the ratio of temperature change to cumulative carbon emissions, is approximately independent of both the atmospheric CO₂ concentration and its rate of change on these timescales. From observational constraints, we estimate CCR to be in the range 1.0–2.1 °C per trillion tonnes of carbon (Tt C) emitted (5th to 95th percentiles), consistent with twenty-first-century CCR values simulated by climate–carbon models. Uncertainty in land-use CO₂ emissions and aerosol forcing, however, means that higher observationally constrained values cannot be excluded. The CCR, when evaluated from climate–carbon models under idealized conditions, represents a simple yet robust metric for comparing models, which aggregates both climate feedbacks and carbon cycle feedbacks. CCR is also likely to be a useful concept for climate change mitigation and policy; by combining the uncertainties associated with climate sensitivity, carbon sinks and climate–carbon feedbacks into a single quantity, the CCR allows CO₂-induced global mean temperature change to be inferred directly from cumulative carbon emissions.

*Correspondence e-mail: dmatthew@alcor.concordia.ca

Link to abstract:  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7248/abs/nature08047.html

Damon Matthews, Nature (June 2009), Carbon emissions linked to global warming in simple linear relationship

Carbon emissions linked to global warming in simple linear relationship

ScienceDaily, June 11, 2009 — Damon Matthews, a professor in Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning and the Environment has found a direct relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. Matthews, together with colleagues from Victoria and the U.K., used a combination of global climate models and historical climate data to show that there is a simple linear relationship between total cumulative emissions and global temperature change.

These findings will be published in the next edition of Nature, to be released on June 11, 2009.
Until now, it has been difficult to estimate how much climate will warm in response to a given carbon dioxide emissions scenario because of the complex interactions between human emissions, carbon sinks, atmospheric concentrations and temperature change. Matthews and colleagues show that despite these uncertainties, each emission of carbon dioxide results in the same global temperature increase, regardless of when or over what period of time the emission occurs.

These findings mean that we can now say: if you emit that tonne of carbon dioxide, it will lead to 0.0000000000015 degrees of global temperature change. If we want to restrict global warming to no more than 2 degrees, we must restrict total carbon emissions – from now until forever – to little more than half a trillion tonnes of carbon, or about as much again as we have emitted since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

"Most people understand that carbon dioxide emissions lead to global warming," says Matthews, "but it is much harder to grasp the complexities of what goes on in between these two end points. Our findings allow people to make a robust estimate of their contribution to global warming based simply on total carbon dioxide emissions."

In light of this study and other recent research, Matthews and a group of international climate scientists have written an open letter calling on participants of December's Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to acknowledge the need to limit cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide so as to avoid dangerous climate change.

Link:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090610154453.htm

E. D. Schulze et al., Nature Geoscience (Nov. 2009), Importance of methane and nitrous oxide for Europe's terrestrial greenhouse-gas balance

Nature Geoscience, published online 22 November 2009; doi: 10.1038/ngeo686

Importance of methane and nitrous oxide for Europe's terrestrial greenhouse-gas balance

E. D. Schulze, S. Luyssaert, P. Ciais, A. Freibauer, I. A. Janssens et al.¹⁷

Abstract

Climate change negotiations aim to reduce net greenhouse-gas emissions by encouraging direct reductions of emissions and crediting countries for their terrestrial greenhouse-gas sinks. Ecosystem carbon dioxide uptake has offset nearly 10% of Europe's fossil fuel emissions, but not all of this may be creditable under the rules of the Kyoto Protocol. Although this treaty recognizes the importance of methane and nitrous oxide emissions, scientific research has largely focused on carbon dioxide. Here we review recent estimates of European carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide fluxes between 2000 and 2005, using both top-down estimates based on atmospheric observations and bottom-up estimates derived from ground-based measurements. Both methods yield similar fluxes of greenhouse gases, suggesting that methane emissions from feedstock and nitrous oxide emissions from arable agriculture are fully compensated for by the carbon dioxide sink provided by forests and grasslands. As a result, the balance for all greenhouse gases across Europe's terrestrial biosphere is near neutral, despite carbon sequestration in forests and grasslands. The trend towards more intensive agriculture and logging is likely to make Europe's land surface a significant source of greenhouse gases. The development of land management policies which aim to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions should be a priority.

Link to abstract:  http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo686.html

Detlef Schulze et al., Nature Geoscience, Intensive land management leaves Europe without carbon sinks

Intensive land management leaves Europe without carbon sinks

ScienceDaily, November 27, 2009 — Of all global carbon dioxide emissions, less than half accumulate in the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming. The remainder is hidden away in oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, grasslands and peat-lands. Stimulating this "free service" of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems is considered one of the main, immediately available ways of reducing climate change. However, new greenhouse gas bookkeeping has revealed that for the European continent this service isn't free after all.
These findings were recently published in Nature Geoscience.

Researchers from 17 European countries cooperating in the EU-Integrated Project CarboEurope, led by Detlef Schulze, of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany have compiled the first comprehensive greenhouse gas balance of Europe. They made two independent estimates: one based on what the atmosphere sees and one based on what terrestrial ecosystems see.

The new bookkeeping effort confirmed the existence of a strong carbon sink of -305 million tonnes of carbon per year in European forests and grasslands. A sink of this magnitude could offset 19% of the emission from fossil fuel burning. However, agricultural land and drained peat-land are emitting CO₂, which cancels part of this sink. The resulting net CO₂ sink of the European continent is 274 million tonnes of carbon per year -- only 15% of the emissions from fossil fuel burning. But this balance is still incomplete, because all European ecosystems are managed and as a by-product of land management other powerful greenhouse gases are released -- for example nitrous oxide from fertilizers applied to grassland and crops, and methane from ruminants and from peat-lands. These previously neglected emissions of greenhouse gases from land-use cancel out almost the entire carbon sink, leaving the landscape offsetting only some 2% of the CO₂ emissions from households, transport and industry.

Compared to Europe as a whole, the situation is even worse for the 25 states of the European Union. Here, although forests and grasslands can compensate for 13% of the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuel burning, emission of powerful greenhouse gases from agricultural emissions and peat mining reduces the effectiveness of the land surface sink to 111 million tonnes of carbon per year, which is only 11% of the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuels.
However, since the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide are relatively higher in the European Union the land surface emerges as a greenhouse gas source of 34 million tonnes of carbon per year. This effectively increases the emissions from fossil fuel burning by another 3%.

Prof Schulze said "These findings show that if the European landscape is to contribute to mitigating global warming, we need a new, different emphasis on land management. Methane and nitrous oxide are such powerful greenhouse gases; we must manage the landscape to decrease their emissions."

Link:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091123114636.htm