Profile of Stephen H. Schneider by Regina Nuzzo of PNAS

UPDATE: Link to most recent paper of February 26, 2009, concerning "Reasons for Concern" (free, open-access pdf file), PNAS 2009: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/02/25/0812355106.full.pdf+html

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, November 1, 2005, Vol. 102, No. 44, 15725–1572; doi:10.1073/pnas.0507327102

Profile of Stephen H. Schneider

1. Regina Nuzzo, Science Writer

“We buy fire insurance for a house and health insurance for our bodies. We need planetary sustainability insurance.”

In April 1968, Columbia University (New York) was the center of student protests so violent that faculty were assaulted and the entire university ground to a halt for the academic quarter. Hundreds of students were arrested, but Stephen H. Schneider, now a prominent climatologist, watched the riots from the sidelines as he pursued his engineering doctoral work. Yet when desperate administrators and trustees agreed to negotiate with a few elected students, Schneider felt compelled to come forward and make himself heard. As he learned on the fly to mediate between opposing groups, he unknowingly found a training ground for his future role as a controversial climate change spokesman. Here, Schneider says, he first learned that each value system has its own merits, and that some decisions boil down to a simple trade-off between value alternatives.

Thirty-four years later, in 2002, Schneider was elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his research work in climate modeling and policy applications. One of the earliest researchers in global warming, he developed models to describe the role of cloud height in climate systems and determined the need for time-evolving coupled atmosphere–ocean models. Schneider is now Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences and a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University (Stanford, CA), in addition to being a senior fellow in the Stanford Institute for the Environment and Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

In his Inaugural Article in this issue of PNAS (1), Schneider and postdoctoral fellow Michael D. Mastrandrea use probabilistic models to connect economics and technology to climate change outcomes. Through their models, they attempt to quantify the value systems of various groups affected by climate change and to estimate the likelihoods of exceeding “dangerous” climate impact thresholds given alternative …

[Full Text of this Article]

Link to above text: http://www.pnas.org/content/102/44/15725.extract

4th International Polar Year (IPY) finds accelerated mass loss of Antarctica and Greenland Ice Sheets raising sea level

Polar regions found warming fast, raising sea levels

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Posted 2009/02/25 at 12:17 pm EST

GENEVA, Feb. 25, 2009 (Reuters) — The Arctic and Antarctic regions are warming faster than previously thought, raising world sea levels and making drastic global climate change more likely than ever, international scientists said on Wednesday.

An undated handout photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf disintegrating. REUTERS/Denis Sarrazin/Center for Northern Studies/Handout

---

New evidence of the trend was uncovered by wide-ranging research in the two areas over the past two years in a United Nations-backed program dubbed the International Polar Year (IPY), they said.

"Snow and ice are declining in both polar regions, affecting human livelihoods as well as local plant and animal life in the Arctic as well as global atmospheric circulation and sea-level," according to a summary of a report by the researchers.

An assessment of the findings of the research was still being refined, said the IPY's "State of Polar Research" report.

"But it now appears certain that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing," it said.

"New data also confirm that warming in the Antarctic is much more widespread than it was thought prior to IPY."

More than 63 countries and some 10,000 scientists took part in the $1.5 billion program, which began in March 2007 and ends next month.

IPY experts told a news conference that melting appeared to be speeding up, especially in the Western Antarctic region that stretches to near the southern tip of Latin America and which had earlier been thought stable.

"One could expect to see quite dramatic changes in weather in Chile and Argentina as a result," said Ian Allison, a co-chairman of the program's steering committee.

Such a trend would be felt around the world.

David Carlson, director of IPY's international program office, said levels of salt in the sea around the Antarctic were growing, indicating that the continent's underlying ice shelves were melting.

But the experts said the exact speed of these developments was difficult to measure, and the global effect they were likely to have impossible to predict accurately given the current research tools available.

The overall global warming trend has long been tracked by another U.N.-sponsored body, the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). The mandate of the IPY, which is linked with the IPCC, was to focus on what is happening around the poles.

Like the IPCC, the IPY experts said even a relatively small rise in sea-levels could threaten huge populations of cities in low-lying coastal areas, mainly in developing countries but in Europe and North America as well.

The report said research under the IPY had revealed larger-than-expected pools of carbon in Arctic permafrost, or frozen terrain, which further warming could release into the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gas.

But it gave no estimates of the size of these pools.

While the challenges to funding posed by the economic crisis, the report said governments need to keep pumping money into North and South Pole research in order to keep tabs on global warming pressures.

It was the fourth internationally coordinated scientific program on the polar regions, following previous efforts undertaken in 1882-83, 1932-33 and 1957-58.

The IPY was organized by the independent International Council for Science and the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

(Editing by Katie Nguyen)

Link to article: http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre51o4zx-us-climate-polars/

Peter M. Sandman and George Marshall -- two takes on the Psychology of Climate Change Denial

For an interesting take on the psychology of climate change denial, see this column:

Climate Change Risk Communication:
The Problem of Psychological Denial

by Peter M. Sandman

http://www.psandman.com/col/climate.htm


And also this one by George Marshall,

The Psychology of Denial:
our failure to act against climate change

http://www.ecoglobe.ch/motivation/e/clim2922.htm

Tamino's "What if ...?" post on NASA-GISS temps, Lou Dobbs slanted show and Dennis Avery's obfuscation

What if … ?

January 15, 2009 · 141 Comments

NASA GISS has released the year-end temperature figures for 2008. The numbers are bound to change in the near future, but only slightly, because more data is forthcoming; there’s always a delay receiving all the data from stations worldwide. But enough data has arrived to estimate the temperature anomalies for the year.

Here’s the annual average temperature from 1880 through 2008:

There’s clearly a warming pattern present, especially over the last several decades. Just as clearly, there’s a lot of up-and-down jitter from year to year. The overall pattern is the trend, the jitter is the noise. We can reduce the noise level while preserving the main features of the trend, by computing averages over time spans longer than a single year. These data are already 1-year averages; here are 10-year averages (the last of which has only 9 years, not 10, because 2009 isn’t over yet):

Although taking averages over longer time spans is the simplest way to reduce the noise level and reveal the trend, we can get a better picture by applying a good smoothing method to the data (in this case, a lowess smooth):

Although the smoothed version has more detail, it tells essentially the same story as the 10-year averages. In spite of up-and-down jitter from year to year, over the long haul it’s getting hotter. Clearly the trend is upward. But the year 2008 was below the trend, and cooler than 2007, so last year is only the 9th hottest on record.

We can compute the difference between each yearly value and the smoothed value for the same year. These are the residuals:

It’s evident that the residual for 2008 is negative, but it’s equally evident that the 2008 residual is not at all extraordinary.

Pretty simple, right? Apparently, not to everybody. Realclimate has a post about an episode of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on CNN, in which Dobbs features an extremely one-sided group of so-called “leading experts.”

Even before the live discussion begins, some comments are reported by videotape. First up to bat is Dennis “Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years” Avery of the ultraconservative Hudson Institute, and the first words we hear from him are these:

The earth’s temperatures have dropped an average of 0.6 Celsius in the last two years.

In the Realclimate post, NASA’s Gavin Schmidt says rather plainly:

As for his great cherry pick (0.6 ºC in two years - we’re doomed!), this appears to simply be made up. Even putting aside the nonsense of concluding anything from a two-year trend, if you take monthly values and start at the peak value at the height of the last El Niño event of January 2007 and do no actual trend analysis, I can find no data set that gives a drop of 0.6 ºC. Even UAH MSU-LT gives only 0.4 ºC. The issue being not that it hasn’t been cooler this year than last, but why make up numbers? This is purely rhetorical of course, they make up numbers because they don’t care about whether what they say is true or not.

I don’t think Gavin gives Avery enough credit. Credit for obfuscation, that is. Why, I can get more than 0.7 ºC cooling in the last two years, with GISS data! Of course, I’d have to use monthly rather than annual data to emphasize the noise over the trend as much as possible, but then we already know that two years doesn’t really tell us anything useful about the trend. And of course, it can’t really be “the last two years” because if you end with December 2008 it doesn’t happen. But if you go from January 2007 to January 2008 — from a big el Nino to a big la Nina — then you’ll get the required 0.7 ºC cooling:

Could this be the real trend? It uses one whole year of data!!!

No.

Whether Avery just “made up” his 0.6 Celsius, or got it from the kind of wouldn’t-know-the-trend-from-the-noise-if-it-bit-you-on-the-ass cherry-picking I’ve just illustrated, I don’t know. But I do know that his “statistic” is misleading — deliberately misleading — it’s exactly the kind of statement that prompted Benjamin Disrael to say, and Mark Twain to popularize, a famous quote about lies and damned lies.

Now to the title of this post: What if … I did the exact same thing? Suppose I said that over the last 20 years, global temperature has risen by 0.96 ºC, and the even more important fact is that the rate of warming is 6.7 ºC/century. We’re sure to be drowning in molten lava by the end of the century!

Seriously: what would be the reaction in the blogosphere?

Link to Tamino's most excellent blog: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/what-if/

David Archer: Carbon dioxide emissions could last millennia

Carbon dioxide emissions could last millennia

by Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers, February 24, 2009

WASHINGTON — Until now, most discussion of climate change has been about what scientific evidence shows is likely to happen between now and 2100. However, scientific research shows that the carbon dioxide gas released from burning fossil fuels lasts in the atmosphere much longer than mere decades.

David Archer, a leading climate researcher who teaches at the University of Chicago, has written a new book that looks at carbon dioxide's "long tail" and what it means for changes on Earth in the future.

If the world continues its heavy use of coal over the next couple of hundred years until it's essentially used up, it would take several centuries more for the oceans to absorb about three-quarters of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. In those centuries, there would be a "climate storm" that Archer says would be significantly worse than the forecast from now to 2100.

The remaining carbon dioxide — the long tail — would stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years, leaving a warmer climate. About 10 percent of it would still be in the atmosphere in 100,000 years, Archer wrote in "The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate."

"Ultimately, the amount of fossil fuel available could be enough to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration higher than it has been in millions of years," Archer wrote.

Because of the long life of CO2 from fossil fuels, the climate impacts would last for many thousands of years. Ice sheets would melt, raising seas high enough to swamp 10 percent or more of the world's agricultural land. Other climate impacts could include uncomfortable heat and drier continental interiors, Archer tells his readers. "In the long run, it could be a steep price to pay for a century or so of fossil fuel energy."

Archer studies the carbon cycle of Earth as it interacts with global climate. His slim book is a clear explanation of carbon dioxide and climate change for non-scientists. It also explains how the climate has changed in the distant past and looks ahead to the deep future.

His work has been a part of what John Holdren, whom President Obama named as his science adviser, has called the "tremendous effort" among scientists to reach a "center of gravity" in the understanding of climate change. The results of that work are available in the reports of the National Academy of Sciences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The conclusion, as Holdren summed it up at his confirmation hearing recently: "Climate change is real, it's accelerating, it is caused in substantial part by human activity, it is dangerous and it is getting more so."

Like Holdren and other climate experts, Archer concludes that there's still time to cut fossil fuel emissions enough to avoid disaster.

"The question may come down to ethics, rather than economics," Archer wrote, much as the issue of slavery did more than a century ago. "Ultimately it didn't matter whether it was economically beneficial or costly to give up. It was simply wrong."

Some questions and answers with David Archer:

Q: You write that the climate effects of fossil fuel burning will last longer than nuclear waste. Most discussions of climate change focus on this century. Why did you look farther out?

A: Everyone knows that nuclear waste lasts a long time, and it seems to make a difference to them. It makes a difference to me the longevity of global warming, too.

Q: Some people, though, don't believe it's a problem.

A: There are people who will "believe" anything they want to; the question is whether anyone has a scientifically credible justification for that belief. It was predicted over a century ago that rising CO2 concentrations in the air would warm the planet. Now it seems to be doing just that, just as predicted. If anyone can explain why things should not work in this way, then I'd be interested to hear, but so far there are just no completing ideas, just beliefs stemming from whatever source, and an active campaign at disinformation sponsored by the fossil fuel industry.

Q: What difference does the long view make?

A: The book makes the point that global warming from CO2 emissions will last for thousands of years into the future. To me that changes the picture, especially when thinking about the economics of climate change or the possibility of "engineering" the planet cooler by putting haze in the stratosphere or something like that. It also means that the eventual sea level rise from releasing CO2 could be a hundred times greater than the forecast for the year 2100.

Q: Is Earth doomed to an ice-free state, mass extinctions and rising seas?

A: No, the damage has not yet been done. We could stop releasing CO2. Technologically that is not so hard.

Link to article: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/62735.html

George F. Will's Dishonesty Explained in Detail by A. Siegel of The Huffington Post -- good job!

Will-ful Deceit on Climate Change: Three Blunt Examples

by A. Siegel, The Huffington Post, February 22, 2009

As discussed in WashPost: Complicit in Disformation (or explicit collaboration)?, last Sunday's George Will column was a disgraceful example of distorted discussion of climate change issues. This deceitful piece and the Washington Post's seeming backing of it has created an uproar through the blogosphere that is seriously questioning what this sort of shoddy editorial management of opinion pages means for any Washington Post claim to journalistic integrity.

Now, this issue goes beyond this George F Will column to his serial stretching of fact to beyond the breaking point beyond truthiness. This issue goes beyond Will's repeated will-ful deceit to the repeated Post publication of deception, often dishonest opinion pieces related to global warming and climate challenges. This is more than about Will's deceit in Dark Green Doomsayers. Even so, it is worth returning to this specific deceitful piece to provide a simple summary of how it is deceitful with some quick references.

Here are just three of the explicit arenas of his deceit:

1. Claims that scientists (especially climatologists) were united in concerns over Global Cooling in 1970s. FALSE.
2. States that sea ice is same today as 1979. At best, misleading and disingenuous. And, his source disagrees with him.
3. States that there has been no global warming for a decade. At absolute best, misleading and disingenuous. And, his source disagrees with him.

"Global Cooling."

Will writes:

In the 1970s, "a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950"

And, he has reference after reference seemingly nailing the coffin shut to prove this point. Only problem: it is not true that there was some form of scientific consensus around Global Cooling. Science works from hypothesis to testing of hypothesis to, if it stands up to testing, that hypothesis becoming a theory. Unlike Global Warming / Climate Change, which is a Theory, Global Cooling was never more than "hypothesis" and a "widely" disputed one at that. Last fall, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society published the peer-reviewed review of this issue with the revealing title of The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus. It begins

There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.

But, the true extent of Will's deceit goes further than this. One of the authors of this study, John Fleck, wrote both blog posts and an opinion piece following Will's article. In Cherry-Picked Facts Heat Up Climate Debate (which should be a must read for the Post's hand-picked fact checking team), Fleck points out that Will selectively quotes from articles, misrepresenting the actual conclusions. As to Will-ful deceit, Flect notes

When George Will last wrote about this subject, in May 2008, I sent him a copy of the 1975 Science News article, hoping he might get a fuller picture of what was going on at the time. I got a nice note back from him thanking me for sharing it. It doesn't seem as if he read it, which would have been nicer.

After a fact and truth filled piece, Fleck concludes:

George Will is entitled to his own opinions. He is not entitled to his own facts.

Correlation of Will comments with the truth? Zero.

See the rest of this post and the comments and A. Siegel's astute responses at this link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/a-siegel/will-ful-deceit-three-blu_b_168999.html

BLOGGER'S NOTE: Also from the Cryosphere: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/global.sea.ice.area.pdf

Charles J. Hanley: Lord Nicholas Stern uses travel delay to illustrate the danger of mass migration caused by sea level rise and climate change

Mass migrations and war: Dire climate scenario

by Charles J. Hanley, AP special correspondent, physorg.com, February 23, 2009

(AP) -- If we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the eminent economist said.

His audience on Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict.

"Somehow we have to explain to people just how worrying that is," the British economic thinker said.

Stern, author of a major British government report detailing the cost of climate change, was one of a select group of two dozen -- environment ministers, climate negotiators and experts from 16 nations -- scheduled to fly to Antarctica to learn firsthand how global warming might melt its ice into the sea, raising ocean levels worldwide.

Their midnight flight was scrubbed on Friday and Saturday because of high winds on the southernmost continent, 3,000 miles from here. While waiting at their Cape Town hotel for the gusts to ease down south, chief sponsor Erik Solheim, Norway's environment minister, improvised with group exchanges over coffee and wine about the future of the planet.

"International diplomacy is all about personal relations," Solheim said. "The more people know each other, the less likely there will be misunderstandings."

Understandings will be vital in this "year of climate," as the world's nations and their negotiators count down toward a U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December, target date for concluding a grand new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol (the 1997 agreement, expiring in 2012) to reduce carbon dioxide and other global-warming emissions by industrial nations.

Solheim drew together key players for the planned brief visit to Norway's Troll Research Station in East Antarctica.

Trying on polar outfits for size on Friday were China's chief climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua, veteran U.S. climate envoy Dan Reifsnyder, and environment ministers Hilary Benn of Britain and Carlos Minc Baumfeld of Brazil.

Later, at dinner, the heavyweights heard from smaller or poorer nations about the trials they face as warming disrupts climate, turns some regions drier, threatens food production in poor African nations.

Jose Endundo, environment minister of Congo, said he recently visited huge Lake Victoria in nearby Uganda, at 80,000 square kilometers (31,000 square miles) a vital source for the Nile River, and learned the lake level had dropped 3 meters (10 ft.) in the past six years -- a loss blamed in part on warmer temperatures and diminishing rains.

In the face of such threats, "the rich countries have to give us a helping hand," the African minister said.

But it was Stern, former chief World Bank economist, who on Saturday laid out a case to his stranded companions in sobering PowerPoint detail.

If the world's nations act responsibly, Stern said, they will achieve "zero-carbon" electricity production and zero-carbon road transport by 2050 -- by replacing coal power plants with wind, solar or other energy sources that emit no carbon dioxide, and fossil fuel-burning vehicles with cars running on electric or other "clean" energy.

Then warming could be contained to a 2 °C (3.4 °F) rise this century, he said.

But if negotiators falter, if emissions reductions are not made soon and deep, the severe climate shifts and sea-level rises projected by scientists would be "disastrous."

It would "transform where people can live," Stern said. "People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move if you talk about 4-, 5-, 6-degree increases" (7-10 °F). And that would mean extended global conflict, "because there's no way the world can handle that kind of population move in the time period in which it would take place."

Melting ice, rising seas, dwindling lakes and war -- the stranded ministers had a lot to consider. But many worried, too, that the current global economic crisis will keep governments from transforming carbon-dependent economies just now. For them, Stern offered a vision of working today on energy-efficient economies that would be more "sustainable" in the future.

"The unemployed builders of Europe should be insulating all the houses of Europe," he said.

After he spoke, Norwegian organizers announced that the forecast looked good for Stern and the rest to fly south on Sunday to further ponder the future while meeting with scientists in the forbidding vastness of Antarctica.

Link to article: http://www.physorg.com/news154603945.html

IPY 2007-2008: Survey found much more warming than expected in the Arctic, Antarctic, Greenland in the ice sheets -- to cause more sea level rise

Scientists find bigger than expected polar ice melt

February 25, 2009

GENEVA (AFP) — Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread manner than expected, raising sea levels and fuelling climate change, a major scientific survey showed Wednesday.

The International Polar Year survey found that warming in the Antarctic is "much more widespread than was thought," while Arctic sea ice is diminishing and the melting of Greenland's ice cover is accelerating.

The frozen and often inaccessible polar regions have long been regarded as some of the most sensitive barometers of environmental change and global warming because of their influence on the world's oceans and atmosphere.

Preliminary findings from the two year survey by thousands of scientists revealed new evidence that the ocean around the Antarctic has warmed more rapidly than the global average, the World Meteorological Organisation and the International Council for Science said in a statement.

Meanwhile, shifts in temperature patterns deep underwater indicated that the continent's land ice sheet is melting faster than reckoned.

"These changes are signs that global warming is affecting the Antarctic in ways not previously suspected," the statement added.

"These assessments continue to be refined, but it now appears that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing."

Shrinking sea ice was expected around Antarctica, while Arctic sea ice decreased to its lowest level since satellite records began.

During the survey in 2007 and 2008, special expeditions in the Arctic also found an "unprecedented rate" of floating drift ice, providing "compelling evidence of changes" in the region.

But the focus was on the erosion of land-based ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic, which hold the bulk of the world's freshwater reserves and can generate sea level changes of global scale as they melt.

"That was an urgent question three years ago and I think today it's now a more urgent question," IPY director David Carlson told journalists.

When the survey began two years ago, those areas were viewed as largely stable despite some worrying signs of fringe melting.

The joint statement concluded: "The message of IPY is loud and clear: what happens in the polar regions affects the rest of the world and concerns us all."

The survey also revealed that the melting has the potential to feed more global warming in turn as the permafrost melts faster.

Permafrost, the expanse of continuously frozen soil in polar land areas, was found to have larger pools of carbon than expected and the melting could unleash more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The scientists also found that global warming caused substantial changes that were tantamount to a greening of the Arctic landscape.

Vegetation and soil were changing in the region, with shrubbery taking over grassland and tree growth shifting according to changing snowfall, while insect and fungi infestation increased and species move from lower latitudes into polar regions.

Those shifts also disrupted native animals, hunting and local livelihoods, the scientists found.

In some instances, reindeer raised by local herders lost grazing pasture while their migration routes became blocked by building in areas previously regarded as uninhabitable.

The survey around both poles was the first of its kind for half a century, revisiting areas that have not been seen since the 1950s and mobilising 10,000 scientists around the world.

Link to article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h3nAjunxpzoPcyIrA4xHBY7NB2Tg

Failure of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory puts pressure on Glory to study effects of aerosols on clouds & Total Irradiance Monitor of sun's output

New Scientist blog, February 24, 2009 11:09 PM

Satellite failure clouds future of US climate science

by Ivan Semeniuk, contributor

The failure of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) is a loss to climate science, but that loss could be doubly compounded if engineers can't correct what went wrong in time for NASA's next climate satellite to fly later this year.

That satellite, known as the Glory mission, is currently set to launch in November, but it is now on hold pending the results of the OCO investigation. Whereas OCO was built to measure greenhouse gases, Glory is designed to study the effects of aerosols on clouds. This has been called the "missing link" of climate science, and it is information that is needed as soon as possible to refine global climate models.

It is well known that clouds reflect sunlight, which has a net effect of making the Earth cooler. It is also known that minute particles called aerosols often become the nuclei around which water droplets form in clouds. But what nobody understands is exactly how much humans are affecting the clouds with all the aerosols we generate through combustion, agriculture and other dust-raising activities.

So a delay in getting Glory off the ground means a delay in filling in this crucial piece of the climate puzzle. But wait -- it gets worse.

One of the instruments on Glory is the "Total Irradiance Monitor" (TIM). Its job is to measure the total light output of the Sun to a degree of precision that is simply unachievable on the ground. This is important because sunlight is the key input into global climate and it drives the whole system. The fact that some climate sceptics still site changes in the Sun's energy output as responsible for climate change speaks to the fact that we don't have a good handle on what the Sun is likely to be doing long-term and more data are urgently needed.

Solar irradiance has been measured continuously from space for about the last 30 years. But during the 1980s, coverage was insufficient and the calibration is not good between instruments that measured the Sun before and after this period. The deficit has led to disputes and to opposite conclusions about the long-term trend in solar irradiance.

Right now the best instrument for measuring solar irradiance is on the SORCE satellite, which was launched in 2003 and is now well past its nominal mission lifetime.

The TIM instrument on Glory is a descendant of this device and scientists involved with the mission say it is vital for the two instruments to observe the Sun together for at least six months to preserve the continuity of the 30-year solar record. If not, says TIM instrument scientist Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado, "it puts the whole record in jeopardy."

That would mean we might not be sure if the Sun is getting brighter, dimmer or staying the same in the coming decades, which is essential information for climate modelling and policy-making.

Glory will be launched on the same model of Taurus XL rocket that failed to place OCO into orbit today. The likely cause of the failure -- a fairing that decided not to separate -- has been established. What is not clear is whether this will require changes that could push back the launch of Glory into 2010 or beyond. Obviously scientists are hoping this will not be the case, and that any changes can be made in parallel with their own preparations for launch. On the other hand, another failure would be disastrous.

Assuming Glory launches safely, there still remains the question of whether OCO will be replaced. An ongoing concern is the shortage of climate-observing satellites on the horizon. Thanks in part to inaction during the previous US administration, there has been less investment in Earth-monitoring satellites than many climate scientists say is needed. "It looks like our capabilities will be much less in the next 5 to 10 years than they were in the previous 5 to 10 years," Drew Shindell, an atmospheric chemist with the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told me.

With climate finally on the front burner in the White House and in Congress, it's ironic that scientists may not be in a position to provide the policy makers with the information they need at a time when they will need it most.

Link to New Scientist blog: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/02/satellite-failure-clouds-futur.html

IPY 2007-2008 Report: Western Antarctic (WAIS) Pine Island and Smith glaciers melting much faster than thought, contributing to sea level rise

Study: Antarctic glaciers slipping swiftly seaward

February 25th, 2009 By ELIANE ENGELER , physorg.com, Associated Press Writer in Space & Earth science / Environment

(AP) -- Antarctic glaciers are melting faster than previously thought, which could lead to an unprecedented rise in sea levels, scientists said Wednesday.

A report by thousands of scientists for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year concluded that the western part of the continent is warming up, not just the Antarctic Peninsula.

Previously most of the warming was thought to occur on the narrow stretch pointing toward South America, said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and a member of International Polar Year's steering committee.

Satellite data and automated weather stations indicate that "the warming we see in the peninsula also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," he told The Associated Press. "That's unusual and unexpected."

During the International Polar Year, thousands of scientists from more than 60 countries engaged in intense Arctic and Antarctic research over the past two southern summer seasons -- on the ice, at sea, and via icebreaker, submarine and surveillance satellite.

The biggest western Antarctic glacier, the Pine Island Glacier, is moving 40% faster than it was in the 1970s, discharging water and ice more rapidly into the ocean, Summerhayes said.

The Smith Glacier, also in western Antarctica, is moving 83% faster than it did in 1992, he said.

All the glaciers in the area together lose a total of around 114 billion tons per year because the discharge is much greater than the new snowfall, Summerhayes said.

"That's equivalent to the current mass loss from the whole of the Greenland ice sheet," he said, adding that the glaciers' discharge was making a significant contribution to the rise in sea levels. "We didn't realize it was moving that fast."

Antarctica's average annual temperature has increased by about 1 °F since 1957, but is still 50 °F below zero, according to a recent study by Eric Steig of the University of Washington.

Summerhayes said the glaciers were slipping into the sea faster because the floating ice shelf that would stop them -- usually 656-984 feet thick -- is melting.

Sea levels will rise faster than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Summerhayes said.

An IPCC panel in 2007 predicted warmer temperatures could raise sea levels by 30-50 inches this century, which could flood low-lying areas and force millions to flee.

"If the west Antarctica sheet collapses, then we're looking at a sea level rise of between 1 meter and 1.5 meters (approximately 3 to 5 feet)," Summerhayes said.

The IPY researchers found that the southern ocean around Antarctica has warmed about 0.36 °F in the past decade, double the average warming of the rest of the Earth's oceans over the past 30 years, he said.

The warming of western Antarctica is a real concern Summerhayes said. "There're some people who fear that this is the first signs of an incipient collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet."

Link to article: http://www.physorg.com/news154766458.html

IPY: Observations indicate a warming of permafrost regions across the Northern Hemisphere -- danger of methane being released

Observations indicate a warming of permafrost regions across the Northern Hemisphere

February 24, 2009 — The International Polar Year provides a unique opportunity to assess the global State and Fate of Permafrost on a Warming Planet. Recent observations indicate a warming of permafrost in many northern and mountain regions with resulting degradation of ice-rich and carbon-rich permafrost. Permafrost temperature has increased by 1-2 °C in northern Russia during the last 30-35 years. This observed increase is very similar to what has been observed in Alaska where the detailed characteristic of the warming varies between locations, but is typically from 0.5 to 2°C. The last 30-years' warming in permafrost temperatures observed in the Russian North and Alaska has resulted in thawing of natural, undisturbed permafrost in areas close to the southern boundary of the permafrost zone. Erosion of coastal permafrost showed signs of increase in many parts of the Arctic with rates doubling over a period of fifty years in some coastal areas of Alaska.

Warming effects vary regionally, and depend on permafrost temperature, ground-ice content, surface conditions and climatic characteristics. These recent changes have implications for building foundations, roads, pipelines, erosion, and to an unknown degree on atmospheric composition. The permafrost-affected regions occupy 24% of the Northern Hemisphere’s land area and all glacier-free areas of Antarctica. To obtain a snapshot of ground temperatures, thawing rates, and organic carbon contents of the permafrost regions, the 26-member, International Permafrost Association (IPA) organized four coordinated IPY permafrost programmes that involve 50 individual projects from 28 countries and hundreds of researchers and students. Geographically, the programme includes both polar regions and covers the mountains and plateau regions of the mid- and low-latitudes.

A climate station and borehole site in Northern Alaska showing. Vlad Romanovsky (far left) explains the observations to a group of visitors.

Project 50: Permafrost Observatory Project: A Contribution to the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP)
Project 33: Antarctic and sub-Antarctic Permafrost, Periglacial and Soil Environments (ANTPAS)
Project 90: Arctic Circumpolar Coastal Observatory Network (ACCO-Net)
Project 373: Carbon Pools in Permafrost Regions (CAPP)

The IPA-IPY goals are:
- Develop a network of permanent permafrost observatories
- Establish a sustainable data system
- Develop the next generation of permafrost researchers.

Plots summarizing the recent evolution of permafrost temperatures.

The major focus of the programmes are to observe and document current changes in permafrost conditions. These measurements serve as a baseline against which to evaluate future changes and to validate current models. Major existing networks include boreholes for ground temperature measurement (Thermal State of Permafrost: TSP), and seasonal thaw depth or active layer thickness (Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring Network: CALM), both of which comprise the GCOS/GTOS Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P). Temperature measurements are being recorded in over 600 boreholes and the active layer thaw measured annually at over 150 circumpolar sites, many of which have historical measurements for establishing recent trends. The IPY resulted in drilling of more than 300 new boreholes in both the Northern Hemisphere and the Antarctic; the latter, a region where permafrost conditions are still poorly understood. The IPY provided the opportunity to expand the TSP and CALM-S networks mainly on the Antarctic Peninsula and in the Dry Valleys, and also to start a network of TSP permafrost boreholes with continuous temperature monitoring in the Svalbard and Norway.

Drilling in Crater Lake, Deception Island, Maritime Antarctic. Russian-Spanish-Portuguese-Argentinean collaboration in projects PERMAMODEL-PERMANTAR (January 2009, photo: Gonçalo Vieira)

The Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN) was organized during the IPY and has 646 members in 43 countries. Many students participated in the 136 International University Courses on Permafrost (IUCP) given in 17 countries.

Initial results of the IPY permafrost programmes and current knowledge and practices on permafrost science and engineering were presented at the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost in Fairbanks, Alaska, in summer 2008 (www.nicop.org). Our IPY “snapshot” conclusions will be presented in June 2010 during the IPY Science Conference in Oslo and at the Third European Conference on Permafrost (EUCOP III) the following week at the University Centre in Svalbard, UNIS (www.eucop2010.org).

Additional information is available from contacts listed below (*attending the February 25 Science Forum), the IPA Secretariat, based at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, the IPA web site (http://ipa-permafrost.org) and from national programmes.

Prof. Vladimir Romanovsky, +1 907 474 7459
* Prof. Hanne H. Christiansen +47 90 04 11 26
Prof. Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten +49 331 288 2100 (IPA President)
Dr. Sharon Smith +1 613 947 7066
* Dr. Hugues Lantuit +49 331 288 2162
* Dr. Goncalo Teles Vieira +351-966475980
* Prof. Jeronimo Lopez
(* attending Feb 25 events)

Link to above article: http://www.ipy.org/index.php?/ipy/detail/observations_indicate_a_warming_of_permafrost/

First Solar claims $1-a-Watt ‘industry milestone’ for its photovoltaic cells

New York Times, Green Inc. blog, February 24, 2009, 4:30 pm

First Solar Claims $1-a-Watt ‘Industry Milestone’

by James Kanter

The Tempe, Arizona-based maker of photovoltaic cells said government subsidies of the sort provided in Germany are helping to make the solar industry competitive.

The solar photovoltaic industry has plenty of supporters, but wider uptake of the technology has long been hampered by cost.

High costs have not just prevented consumers and companies plastering more homes and offices with solar cells. They also have bolstered the claim that large quantities of fossil fuels and nuclear power will be necessary in the future in part because solar panels do not provide value for money.

On Tuesday, First Solar, a global photovoltaic cell maker based in Tempe, Arizona, said it had reached an “industry milestone” by reducing its production costs to the point where making solar cells that produce one watt of power costs $1.

In a statement — seen by Green Inc. on Tuesday — First Solar, which has produced modules for solar installations in several countries in Europe, said it had brought costs down to $1 from $3 over the past four years through economies of scale by increasing its production capacity by 50 times, and by passing-on those savings to customers and consumers.

First Solar’s chief executive, Mike Ahearn, tipped his hat to countries like Germany that have offered generous tariffs to producers of solar electricity.

“Without forward-looking government programs supporting solar electricity, we would not have been able to invest in the capacity expansion which gives us the scale to bring costs down,” Mr. Ahearn said in the statement.

Much of that investment has come by way of so-called feed-in tariffs, which allow solar operators, large and small, to earn a higher price for each unit of energy they produce for a grid than utilities reliant on electricity from dirtier sources like coal. The higher tariffs help operators to cover the comparatively higher cost of production.

My colleague Kate Galbraith has written about how states and cities in the United States, including Gainesville, Fla., are exploring the use of such tariffs.

“The Company’s long-term financial model suggests manufacturing cost targets of 65 cents to 70 cents by 2012 and it believes reductions below these levels are possible over time,” Mr. Ahearn said.

The implication of what Mr. Ahearn is saying seems to be this: Continue government support for the industry, now, and solar power will be able to match peak-hour pricing by from coal and natural gas by 2012 – meaning that the industry would not need subsidies anymore.

That certainly makes it sound like solar is close to enabling clean, renewable electricity at competitive prices. What do you think?

Link to the New York Times' Green Inc. blog post: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/first-solar-claims-1-a-watt-industry-milestone/

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory NASA Satellite Fails to Reach Orbit

NASA Satellite Fails to Reach Orbit

by KENNETH CHANG, New York Times, February 24, 2009

A NASA satellite to track carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere failed to reach its orbit during launching Tuesday morning, scuttling the $278 million mission.

Enlarge This Image

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory lifted off Tuesday morning but failed to reach orbit. Andrew Lee/U.S. Air Force, via Associated Press.

Related Satellite Will Track Carbon Dioxide (February 23, 2009)

“It’s a huge disappointment to the entire team that’s worked very hard over years and years and really did their best to see it through,” said Charles P. Dovale, the launch manager. “The reason not everyone is able to do this is it’s hard. And even when you do the best you can, you can still fail. It’s a tough business.”

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory lifted off on schedule at 1:55 a.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a four-stage Taurus XL rocket.

But three minutes later, during the burning of the third stage, the payload fairing — a clamshell nose cone that protects the satellite as it rises through the atmosphere — failed to separate as commanded.

The third and fourth stages burned properly, but because of the added weight of the nose cone, the satellite did not reach orbit.

“The fairing has considerable weight relative to the portion of the vehicle that’s flying,” said John Brunschwyler, manager of the Taurus rocket program for Orbital Sciences of Virginia, which built both the rocket and the satellite.

“So when it separates off, you get a jump in acceleration,” said Mr. Brunschwyler. “We did not have that jump in acceleration. As a direct result of carrying that extra weight, we could not make orbit.”

The satellite fell back to Earth, landing in the ocean just short of Antarctica.

NASA will convene a mishap investigation board to investigate the failure. For Orbital Sciences Corporation of Virginia, which built both the satellite and the launch rocket, it was second failure in eight launches of the Taurus XL.

Mr. Dovale said that Glory, another climate satellite built by Orbital Sciences and scheduled to fly aboard a Taurus XL in June, would not fly until they understand the failure of the Tuesday’s launching.

The carbon observatory was to precisely measure levels of carbon dioxide — the heat-trapping gas that is driving global warming — in the air. Scientists had hoped the new data, covering the entire planet, would help them improve climate models and better understand the “carbon sinks” like oceans and forests and that absorb much of the carbon dioxide.

Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/science/space/25satellite.html

Marco Tedesco: Graph of above-average melt days on Greenland Ice Sheet in 2008

Melting on the Greenland Ice Cap, 2008

Click on graphic to enlarge the details. Map by Robert Simmon, based on DMSP SSM/I data from Marco Tedesco, City College of New York. Caption by Holli Riebeek. Instrument: DMSP.

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This graphic compares 2008 with the average from the years 1979-2007. I would have really liked to see a graph of 2008 that is comparing the melt days to the average from 1979-2000. However, this particular comparison does show just how extreme the melt was in northern Greenland.

NASA's Earth Observatory, February 25, 2009

The northern fringes of Greenland’s ice sheet experienced extreme melting in 2008, according to NASA scientist Marco Tedesco and his colleagues. This image shows the number of days when melting occurred on the ice sheet compared to the average number of melt days between 1979 and 2007. Red outlines the northern rim and parts of the west coast of Greenland, indicating that the summer melting period in 2008 was longer than average in many places. Many locations in northern Greenland experienced a record number of melt days. Temperatures at nearby ground-based weather stations were correspondingly high. The average temperature between June and August 2008 was as much as 3 °C above average, with new record temperatures at many ground-based weather stations.

Tedesco routinely monitors melting on Greenland using satellite-based microwave measurements. Snow and water emit microwave energy, but each has a distinctive signature. If you were able to see microwave energy, it would seem that the snow suddenly shifted color as it began to melt. By using satellites to record the microwave energy coming from the ice sheet, scientists can track water in snow. This image was made with data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) on board the F13 satellite of the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).

Microwave emissions could be used to do more than record melt days. Satellite measurements of microwave energy could also be used to monitor snow accumulation and temperature change in remote snowy regions. “The data have shown great potential for monitoring snow accumulation rates in certain areas of the [Greenland] ice sheet, yet not in others, and so the question of ‘why’ remains,” says Lora Koenig.

A remote-sensing glaciologist, Koenig spent November 2008 through February 2009 at the National Science Foundation’s Greenland Summit Camp research station where she collected ground measurements to better understand microwave emissions of snow and ice. “My measurements will help us better understand the microwave signal [emitted by the ice and measured by satellite-based microwave instruments] and, hopefully in the future, produce more accurate maps of temperature and accumulation changes on the ice sheets.” To read more about Koenig’s experience on the ice, see Winter Camp: A Blog from the Greenland Summit.

References

Tedesco, M., Fettweis, X., Van den Broeke, M., Van de Wal, R., & Smeets, P. (2008, October 7). Extreme snowmelt in northern Greenland during summer 2008. Eos, 89 (41), 391.

Link to this page at Earth Observatory: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=37215

Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth blog on the NYT: Ike Solem describes Roger Pielke Jr.'s straw man fallacy concerning David Chu, the new Secretary of Energy

BLOGGER'S NOTE: I must reluctantly admit that until now I did not actually know the definition of the term "straw man" argument, even though I had seen it used many times over the past 18 months in the comments sections of climate science blogs. I was too lazy to look it up. Fortunately, today, I came across Ike Solem's marvelous description, which I am posting below:

From Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth blog on the New York Times:

Comment #27: February 12, 2009 7:07 pm

Link

Straw man argument: "The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position."

A further tactic is to then use the discredited straw man as a launching platform for attacks on legitimate science. A good example of that is Roger Pielke Jr.'s all-out assault on the new Secretary of Energy, David Chu, who pointed to the issue of permanent drought in California as one reason to move quickly on carbon emissions and renewable energy.

Roger Pielke Jr. then authored a Feb 4th blog titled "Can Someone Point to the Science?" and asked "Can someone point me to a study suggesting that there will be no more agriculture or cities in California by 2100? What does the IPCC say? What is the consensus view?"

Well, there are numerous published studies that Pielke could have referenced --
Barnett et. al Science 2007

Seager et al Scienec 2008

as well as many references within, reports of the AGU, etc. The effect is based on tropospheric warming and the expansion of the Hadley cells, and it is resulting increased drought and wildfires in Europe, California, Australia, Indonesia, as well as hammering sub-Saharan Africa -- and it will only get worse as mountain glaciers melt in these regions. It's predicted by climate models, and can be observed in the real world.

This could result in the end of California's export agriculture, especially if the state population continues to grow. That is probably what Chu meant to say. Even in a desert, you can eke out subsistence from farming using modern technology -- but water limitations are water limitations -- and crops need water. California produces 1/4 of the nation's fruits and vegetables -- just imagine a 50% reduction in agriculture.

However, by misrepresenting the position of climate scientists ("no more agriculture or cities") and asking a straw man question, Pielke manages to raise doubt -- but notice that he didn't ask about predictions of a permanent drought across the American Southwest as global warming proceeds.

This is an area where the hype is real, not manufactured. Severe droughts exacerbated by powerful heat waves are to be expected with increasing frequency in the subtropical zones, interspersed with very large rainfall events at certain times of year.

Unfortunately, very few press outlets in the U.S. will mention "global warming" in the same article with "drought" or "wildfires." If we are to believe the press, the fires in Australia are all due to out of control arsonists, and the record drought looming in California is all due to La Nina, even though we've had La Ninas every few years for centuries that didn't result in epic droughts. That is nothing but deliberate propaganda intended to draw attention away from the role of global warming.

— Ike Solem, CA

Link to Dot Earth blog thread: http://community.nytimes.com/blogs/comments/dotearth/2009/02/12/british-climate-office-criticizes-cool-and-hot-hype.html?s=1&pg=2

NSIDC experts present new research on Arctic amplification at the AGU Fall Conference

15–19 December 2008

NSIDC experts present new research at American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Conference

NSIDC experts presented posters and oral presentations on new research concerning changing permafrost, Arctic amplification, the international challenges that come with loss of Arctic sea ice, and more in December 2008 at the AGU conference. Please contact the NSIDC Press Office for more information about the presentations or speakers highlighted below: +1 (303) 492-1497 or srenfrow@nsidc.org.

We offered information on new and updated data sets and tools, data resources for cryospheric and Earth science researchers, and information for journalists, educators, and the general public at our booth number 2052.

Climate, Permafrost, and Landscape Interactions on the Tibetan Plateau (Tingjun Zhang, NSIDC Senior Research Scientist, invited oral presentation GC11B-02)

Observational records show that climate warming has been underway on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in China for the past few decades. Our preliminary findings suggest that local land-cover/land-use change and human activities may substantially contribute to the observed climate warming on the Plateau, with subsequent impacts on permafrost and climate feedbacks.

Arctic Sea Ice in 2008: Standing on the Threshold (Mark Serreze, NSIDC Director Elect and Senior Research Scientist, invited oral presentation U24B-01)

Perhaps the most visible sign of global climate change is the Arctic's rapidly shrinking sea ice cover. Concerns are growing that we are approaching a “tipping point,” beyond which there is rapid transition to an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Sea ice extent in September 2007 was the lowest recorded over the satellite era, and likely the lowest in at least a century. Could summer 2007 have been the tipping point? And what was the significance of the second-lowest extent set in September 2008?

Estimating Terrestrial Wood Biomass from Observed Concentrations of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (Kevin Schaefer, NSIDC Research Scientist, poster presentation B33A-0399)

Biomass harvesting, fires, and other disturbances lead to a long-term net sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide from biomass. However, because of a lack of global observations, most terrestrial carbon cycle models assume that biomass is in a steady state. Using a terrestrial carbon cycle model and an atmospheric transport model, we estimate global maps of wood biomass consistent with observed atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

Emerging Arctic Amplification as Seen in the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis (Julienne Stroeve, NSIDC Research Scientist, poster presentation C41B-0502)

Rises in surface air temperature in response to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations will be larger in the Arctic compared to the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. This concept is known as Arctic amplification; models indicate that Arctic amplification will be focused over the Arctic Ocean. Recent observations of conditions over the Arctic Ocean are consistent with model-projected Arctic amplification associated with declining sea ice, suggesting that we may be seeing the emergence of Arctic amplification.

A Reconstructed 1784–2007 Time Series of Greenland Melt Extent (Oliver Frauenfeld, NSIDC Research Scientist, oral presentation C44A-08)

Total melt on the Greenland ice sheet has been rising over the past several decades, with 2007 melt extent setting a new record. We developed a reconstructed history of annual Greenland melt extent from the late 1700s to 2007 using relationships between historical temperature/circulation observations and ice melt. This reconstruction puts 2007 into a historical perspective. The reconstruction indicates that if the current trend toward increasing melt extent continues, total melt across the Greenland ice sheet will exceed historic values of the past two and a quarter centuries.

Impacts of Declining Arctic Sea Ice: An International Challenge (Mark Serreze, NSIDC Director Elect and Senior Research Scientist, invited oral presentation C51B-01)

Recognition is growing that ice loss will have environmental impacts that may extend well beyond the Arctic. What are the major national and international research efforts focusing on the multifaceted problem of declining sea ice? What are the areas of intersection, and what is the state of collaboration? How could national and international collaboration be improved? This talk will review some of these issues.

Synoptic-scale Atmospheric Forcing of Frozen Ground in the Eurasian High Latitudes (Oliver Frauenfeld, NSIDC Research Scientist, oral presentation C52A-04)

Seasonal freezing and thawing of frozen ground plays an important role in ecosystem diversity, productivity, and the Arctic hydrologic system. Long-term changes in seasonal freeze and thaw depths are useful indicators of climate change, but previous assessments only looked at data from 1956 to 1990. Here, we update the assessment through 2000 to include a decade that experienced accelerated climate warming. We find a statistically significant overall change in seasonal freeze depth. We also note that a prominent decrease in freeze depths from 1970 to 1995 appears tied to the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Arctic atmospheric circulation and surface air temperature anomalies: Are the rules changing? (Andy Barrett, NSIDC Research Scientist, oral presentation C53A-07)

Relationships between atmospheric circulation and temperature in the Arctic appear to be changing. The past five years have seen record or near-record sea ice lows and strong positive temperature anomalies over the Arctic Ocean in autumn. We compare recent and past autumns that have similar atmospheric circulation patterns to gain insight into emerging Arctic amplification.

Link to NSIDC webpage: http://nsidc.org/news/events/agu_2008/

Y. Luo et al., Response of Pacific subtropical-tropical thermocline water pathways and transports to global warming

Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L04601; doi:10.1029/2008GL036705.

Response of Pacific subtropical-tropical thermocline water pathways and transports to global warming

Response of Pacific subtropical-tropical thermocline water pathways and transports to global warming

Yiyong Luo, Lewis M. Rothstein (Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, RI, USA) and Rong-Hua Zhang (Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA)

Abstract

Global warming may change the thermocline water pathways and transports from the subtropics to the tropics in the Pacific Ocean, which are known to have profound implications for the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and thereby global climate. This study investigates the changes by comparing solutions between a present-day climate and a future, warmer climate from a set of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) models. As the climate warms, although the total transport from the subtropics to the tropics exhibits no significant change, transport via western boundary pathways increases and via interior pathways decreases. This shift is due to high potential vorticity (PV) zones that extend further westward, thus dynamically guiding thermocline water away from interior pathways to prefer western boundary pathways from the subtropics to the tropics. Additionally, a warmer climate induces a large temperature increase near the sea surface in the eastern tropics and a significantly enhanced Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) in the western and central Pacific; the former is related to the decreased transport through interior pathways and the latter is linked to the increased transport through western boundary pathways. Implications of the results of this study are also discussed.

(Received 17 November 2008; accepted 8 January 2008; published 17 February 2009.)

Luo, Y., L. M. Rothstein, & R.-H. Zhang (2009), Response of Pacific subtropical-tropical thermocline water pathways and transports to global warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L04601; doi:10.1029/2008GL036705.

Link to abstract: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GL036705.shtml

MIT Group Increases Global Warming Projections -- Report: High odds of warming over 5°C (9°F) if no action

MIT Group Increases Global Warming Projections

Report: High odds of warming over 5°C (9°F) if no action

Warming possibilities for "no policy" and policy scenarios between 1990 and 2100. Size of pie slice indicates the likelihood of a given amount of warming under the different scenarios. Graphics courtesy MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

New research from MIT scientists shows that in the absence of stringent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, 21st century climate change may be far more significant than some previous climate assessments had indicated.

The new findings, released this month by MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, showed significantly increased odds that by the end of the century warming would be on the high end of the scale for a so-called "no policy scenario" as compared with similar studies completed just six years ago. The main culprits: the cycling of heat and carbon dioxide in the climate system are now better understood and projections of future greenhouse gas emissions have increased.

The results also showed that even if nations were to act quickly to reduce emissions, it is more likely that warming would be greater than previous studies had shown. However, the increase in projected temperatures under the "policy scenario" was not as large as for the no policy scenario.

Keep reading for more information about MIT's revised projections...

The modeling experiments are not meant to provide precise forecasts of future temperature changes, but rather to serve as what one related MIT study calls "thought experiments" to help policymakers and the public understand how decisions regarding emissions reductions may affect the magnitude of climate change. They show how human activities are loading the dice in favor of a warming climate, and cast doubt on the feasibility of limiting temperature increases to the lower range of what the influential U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in its most recent assessment report in 2007.

To update their findings that were first unveiled in 2002, the MIT researchers used an in-house computer model known as the MIT Integrated Global System Model that incorporated new insight into how the climate system functions.

A main conclusion is that feedbacks within the climate system, which MIT says can be more accurately simulated in the updated version of its model, may act to increase the magnitude of climate change in response to increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. The more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, MIT researchers reported, the more significant the feedbacks may be.

Results of the studies are depicted online in MIT's "Greenhouse Gamble" exercise that conveys the "range of probability of potential global warming" via roulette wheel graphics (shown above). The modeling output showed that under both a "no policy" scenario and one in which nations took action beginning in the next few years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the odds have shifted in favor of larger temperature increases.

For the no policy scenario, the researchers concluded that there is now a nine percent chance (about one in 11 odds) that the global average surface temperature would increase by more than 7 °C (12.6 °F) by the end of this century, compared with only a less than one percent chance (one in 100 odds) that warming would be limited to below 3 °C (5.4 °F) .

The median warming value, with even odds of the temperature increase being above or below that value, was 5.1 °C (9.2 °F). For comparison, the same research group's no policy scenario yielded a median value of just 2.4 °C (4.3 °F) in 2002.

"The take home message from the new greenhouse gamble wheels is that if we do little or nothing about lowering greenhouse gas emissions that the dangers are much greater than we thought three or four years ago," said Ronald G. Prinn, professor of atmospheric chemistry at MIT. "It is making the impetus for serious policy much more urgent than we previously thought."

According to the research group, there was no single factor that caused the new computer modeling to project a greater amount of warming compared with their 2002 simulations.

"In our more recent global model simulations, the ocean heat-uptake is slower than previously estimated, the ocean uptake of carbon is weaker, feedbacks from the land system as temperature rises are stronger, cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases over the century are higher, and offsetting cooling from aerosol emissions is lower," the group's web site states. "Rather than interacting additively, these different affects appear to interact multiplicatively, with feedbacks among the contributing factors, leading to the surprisingly large increase in the chance of much higher temperatures."

Under the policy scenario, in which global carbon dioxide concentrations would reach about 550 parts per million by 2100 (the current level is about 385 ppm), the projected magnitude of climate change is significantly less than under the no policy scenario, but it still would warm more significantly than the 2002 projections. Under the policy scenario, there is a 90 % chance that climate change could be limited to below 3 °C (5.4 °F), compared to just a one percent chance of that occurring in the no policy case.

"If greenhouse gas emissions are controlled to relatively low levels then the Earth systems feedbacks are much lower and the slight difference in Earth system properties is not as important -- again a result of the way in which these different factors interact multiplicatively," the researchers stated.

As with any computer modeling work, there are uncertainties involved in the projections, and MIT researchers went to great lengths to quantify them in their estimates of temperature increases and future greenhouse gas emissions. Prinn said that rather than obscuring the uncertainties, the roulette wheels "give our best shot of showing what the uncertainties are and at the same time showing the value of a policy."

The MIT research is sponsored by a consortium of government agencies, including the Department of Energy and U.S. EPA, as well as companies that include several major oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron.

Technical papers accompanying the results can be found here and here.

Link to article: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/02/new_research_from_mit_scientis.html

A. P. Sokolov et al., Probabilistic forecast for 21st century climate ... (using the MIT Integrated Global System Model)

Report 169

Probabilistic forecast for 21st century climate based on uncertainties in emissions (without policy) and climate parameters

by Sokolov, A.P., P.H. Stone, C.E. Forest, R.G. Prinn, M.C. Sarofim, M. Webster, S. Paltsev, C.A. Schlosser, D. Kicklighter, S. Dutkiewicz, J. Reilly, C. Wang, B. Felzer, H.D. Jacoby (January)
Joint Program Report Series, 44 pages, 2009

Abstract

The MIT Integrated Global System Model is used to make probabilistic projections of climate change from 1861 to 2100. Since the model's first projections were published in 2003 substantial improvements have been made to the model and improved estimates of the probability distributions of uncertain input parameters have become available. The new projections are considerably warmer than the 2003 projections, e.g., the median surface warming in 2091 to 2100 is 5.1 °C compared to 2.4 °C in the earlier study. Many changes contribute to the stronger warming; among the more important ones are taking into account the cooling in the second half of the 20th century due to volcanic eruptions for input parameter estimation and a more sophisticated method for projecting GDP growth which eliminated many low emission scenarios. However, if recently published data, suggesting stronger 20th century ocean warming, are used to determine the input climate parameters, the median projected warning at the end of the 21st century is only 4.1 °C. Nevertheless all our simulations have a very small probability of warming less than 2.4 °C, the lower bound of the IPCC AR4 projected likely range for the A1FI scenario, which has forcing very similar to our median projection. The probability distribution for the surface warming produced by our analysis is more symmetric than the distribution assumed by the IPCC due to a different feedback between the climate and the carbon cycle, resulting from a different treatment of the carbon-nitrogen interaction in the terrestrial ecosystem.

Link to full document (1114 kB PDF)

Link to summary: http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=990

Hans-Martin Fuessel: Risks of global warming have been underestimated

UPDATE: Link to most recent paper of February 26, 2009, concerning "Reasons for Concern" (free, open-access pdf file), PNAS 2009: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/02/25/0812355106.full.pdf+html

Risks of global warming have been underestimated

Science Centric, 24 February 2009 —

'Today, we have to assume that the risks of negative impacts of climate change on humans and nature are larger than just a few years ago,' says Hans-Martin Fuessel from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK). Risks would increase drastically with only small increases in global mean temperature exceeding the 1990 level. Many ecosystems like tropical coral reefs prove to be much more susceptible to global warming and the rising concentration of carbon dioxide than assumed in the Third Assessment Report (TAR) by the IPCC in 2001. Extreme weather events as droughts, heat waves or tropical cyclones occur more frequently and cause larger damages than assessed at the beginning of this decade.

Total emissions and records of global temperature rise of the last years are close to the upper limits of IPCC-projections (Rahmstorf et al., 2007). 'If the associated risks are larger, the necessity is also larger to reduce the greenhouse gases emissions and to support affected regions to cope with the unavoidable consequences of climate change,' Fuessel concludes. This will also be a question of justice since many of the countries with the lowest emissions are most affected.

The new assessment by the authors around Joel Smith from Stratus Consulting in Colorado and Stephen Schneider from Stanford University in California is based on observations of global warming impacts and supported by a more thorough understanding of important processes in the climate system. Furthermore, since the publication of the TAR in 2001, the particularly affected regions, sectors and groups have been identified more precisely. Finally, there is growing evidence that — on multiple-century time scales — even modest increases in global mean temperature above 1990 levels could commit the climate system to the risk of very large impacts like melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the authors report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online early edition.

Three of the article's authors are also authors of the chapter in the TAR from 2001 where the five reasons for concern were first described. John Schellnhuber, director of PIK, has contributed decisively to the emergence of this idea and, also, to the form of depiction. 'The burning embers diagram has, as a translation, raised understanding of the complex of problems of climate change,' says Schellnhuber. The updated version points out that the European Union's target to limit global warming to 2 °C is an absolute minimal requirement to protect climate. It would be a failure with severe consequences if the governments at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen did not acknowledge that insight, Schellnhuber says.

Reasons for concern:

Risk to unique and threatened systems: Coral reefs, endangered species, unique ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots, small island states, tropical glaciers, and indigenous communities could be damaged or lost irreversibly.

Risk of extreme weather events: Frequency, intensity, and consequences of extreme weather events like heat waves, floods, droughts, or tropical cyclones increase.

Distribution of impacts: Some regions, countries, and populations face greater harm from climate change than others. The poorest countries that contributed least to climate change and do not have the means to adapt to the impacts are often more affected than the average.

Aggregate damages: Various impacts can be measured comprehensively with a single metric such as monetary damages, or the number of lives affected. So far, monetary aggregation is predominant in literature.

Risks of large-scale discontinuities: Greenhouse gases emissions could push the Earth's climate system past critical thresholds so that important components may 'tip' into qualitatively different modes of operation. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the dieback of the Amazon rainforest, or a substantial reduction or collapse of the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation are examples.

Link to article: http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09022423-risks-global-warming-have-been-underestimated