Climate scientists discover new weak point of the Antarctic ice sheet

Climate scientists discover new weak point of the Antarctic ice sheet

Edge of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea, Photo: Ralph Timmermann, Alfred Wegener Institute

 by R&D Daily, May 15, 2012

The results of the climate modelers from the Alfred Wegener Institute will come as a surprise to the professional world with the majority of experts assuming that the consequences of global warming for Antarctica would be noticeable primarily in the Amundsen Sea and therefore in the western part of Antarctica.

“The Weddell Sea was not really on the screen because we all thought that unlike the Amundsen Sea its warm waters would not be able to reach the ice shelves. But we found a mechanism which drives warm water towards the coast with an enormous impact on the Fichner-Ronne Ice Shelf in the coming decades,' says Dr. Hartmut Hellmer, oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute and lead author of the study.

Using different model calculations, he and his colleagues Dr. Frank Kauker, Dr. Ralph Timmermann and Dr. Jürgen Determann as well as Dr. Jamie Rae from Met Office, Hadley Centre, U.K.,  demonstrate that as a result of a chain reaction large ice masses could presumably slide into the ocean within the next six decades.

This chain reaction is triggered by rising air temperatures above the southeastern Weddell Sea.

“Our models show that the warmer air will lead to the currently solid sea ice in the southern Weddell Sea becoming thinner and therefore more fragile and mobile in a few decades," says  Frank Kauker. If this happens, fundamental transport processes will change.

click to enlargeIllustration of the present conditions of the circulation in the Southern Weddell Sea: A consolidated sea-ice cover forms high-salinity shelf water (blue arrow) that prevents the warm coastal current (red arrow) from passing the coastal shelf and moving into the shelf ice cavity. Graphic: Alfred Wegener Institute

“This will mean that a hydrographic front in the southern Weddell Sea will disappear which has so far prevented warm water from getting under the ice shelf. According to our calculations, this protective barrier will disintegrate by the end of this century," explains Hellmer.

An inflow of warmer water beneath the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf will melt the ice from below.

“We expect the greatest melting rates near the so-called grounding line, the zone in which the ice shelf settles on the sea floor at the transition to the glacier. At this point the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf is melting today at a rate of around 5 m per year. By the turn of the next century the melt rates will rise to up to 50 m per year," says Hellmer’s colleague Jürgen Determann.

How the ice streams behind will react in the event of a melt of such enormous proportions is currently being investigated by Jürgen Determann. One thing is obvious, however: “Ice shelves are like corks in the bottles for the  ice streams behind them. They reduce the ice flow because they lodge in bays everywhere and rest on islands. If, however, the ice shelves melt from below, they become so thin that the  dragging surfaces become smaller and the ice behind them starts to move," explains Hellmer.

"If the high melting rates are completely compensated by  inland ice flow, this loss in mass would correspond to an additional rise in global sea level of 4.4 mm per year," adds Jürgen Determann. According to the latest estimates based on remote sensing data, global sea level rose for the period 2003-2010 at a rate of 1.5 mm per year due to melting of glaciers and ice shelves. This occurs in addition to the 1.7 mm per year due to thermal expansion of the oceans.

The forecasts of the current study are based on independent calculations of the ocean models BRIOS (Bremerhaven Regional Ice Ocean Simulations) and FESOM (Finite Element Sea Ice Ocean Model). The scientists used the atmospheric projections of the British Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter as  forcing data. These included, for example, information on the future development of the wind and of the temperature in Antarctica.

click to enlargeIllustration of simulated conditions for the year 2070: Due to thinning of the sea-ice cover less high-salinity shelf water is formed. This amount of shelf water is too small to prevent the warm coastal current from passing the continental slope. It fills the deeper part of the Filchner Ice Shelf cavitiy, bringing lot of warmth to the bottom side and the grounding line of the ice shelf, which starts to melt from below. Graphic: Alfred Wegener Institute

Hellmer and his colleagues have thoroughly checked  the model results for being realistic: “We started the BRIOS model in 1860 to see whether its results also  represent the current situation. We found that this condition was satisfied. For example, the water temperatures for the Weddell Sea predicted by BRIOS are close to those we have actually measured  in the recent past," says Ralph Timmermann, who adds, “The BRIOS model has been verified on many occasions in the past. It correctly predicts sea ice thickness, concentration, and drift as well as circulation patterns. And FESOM is well on the way to attaining BRIOS status. However, it has a far higher resolution, which is why we have to wait a long time until the computer has calculated several decades and more. BRIOS only needs less than a week for a century."

The study was conducted as part of the EU-funded research programme “Ice2sea." This project brings together scientists from 24 leading research institutions of the European Union and from Chile, Norway and Iceland. Together, the scientists aim for decoding the interactions between ice and climate and in this way facilitate more precise predictions about the effects of melting ice on sea level.

Ice2sea project

Twenty-first-century warming of a large Antarctic ice shelf cavity by a redirected coastal current.

Source: Alfred Wegener Institute

http://rdmag.com/News/2012/05/Environment-Oceanography-Climate-scientists-discover-new-weak-point-of-the-Antarctic-ice-sheet/

North Carolina politicians legislate sea level rise, say scientists are wrong, say to plan only for an 8-inch rise by 2100; in the meantime, Maine plans for over 6 feet

Coastal N.C. counties fighting sea-level rise prediction

Science panel predicts 1-meter sea-level rise by 2100; counties say that could harm economic development

by Bruce Henderson, The Charlotte Observer, May 25, 2012

MORE INFORMATION

• Interactive: Sea levels rising on Carolina coast
• DISAGREEMENT OVER STUDY
  A state-appointed science advisory panel reported in 2010 that sea level along the North Carolina coast is likely to rise 1 meter by 2100. An economic development group, however, argues that the science is flawed. An 8-inch rise is more likely, it says.
  
  
  
• SEA-LEVEL RISE PAST AND FUTURE
  According to tide gauges, sea level rose an average of 1.7 mm a year during the 20th century, NASA says. Satellites, which are considered more accurate, show a rate of 3.17 mm a year since 1993. The International Panel on Climate Change in 2007 projected a rise of 18-59 cm by 2099, depending on how temperatures change.
  
  
  

State lawmakers are considering a measure that would limit how North Carolina prepares for sea-level rise, which many scientists consider one of the surest results of climate change.

Federal authorities say the North Carolina coast is vulnerable because of its low, flat land and thin fringe of barrier islands. A state-appointed science panel has reported that a 1-meter rise is likely by 2100.

The calculation, prepared for the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, was intended to help the state plan for rising water that could threaten 2,000 square miles. Critics say it could thwart economic development on just as large a scale.

A coastal economic development group called NC-20 attacked the report, insisting the scientific research it cited is flawed. The science panel last month confirmed its findings, recommending that they be reassessed every five years.

But NC-20, named for the 20 coastal counties, appears to be winning its campaign to undermine them.

The Coastal Resources Commission agreed to delete references to planning benchmarks – such as the 1-meter prediction – and new development standards for areas likely to be inundated.

The N.C. Division of Emergency Management, which is using a $5 million federal grant to analyze the impact of rising water, lowered its worst-case scenario from 1 meter to 15 inches by 2100.

Several local governments on the coast have passed resolutions against sea-level rise policies.

When the General Assembly convened this month, Republican legislators went further.

They circulated a bill that authorizes only the coastal commission to calculate how fast the sea is rising. It said the calculations must be based only on historic trends, leaving out the accelerated rise that climate scientists widely expect this century if warming increases and glaciers melt.

The bill, a substitute for an unrelated measure the N.C. House passed last year, has not been introduced. State legislative officials say they can’t predict how it might be changed or when or if it will emerge.

Longtime East Carolina University geologist Stan Riggs, a science panel member who studies the evolution of the coast, said the 1-meter estimate is squarely within the mainstream of research.

“We’re throwing this science out completely, and what’s proposed is just crazy for a state that used to be a leader in marine science,” he said of the proposed legislation. “You can’t legislate the ocean, and you can’t legislate storms.”

NC-20 Chairman Tom Thompson, economic development director in Beaufort County, said his members – many of them county managers and other economic development officials – are convinced that climate changes and sea-level rises are part of natural cycles. Climate scientists who say otherwise, he believes, are wrong.

The group’s critiques quote scientists who believe the rate of sea-level rise is actually slowing. NC-20 says the state should rely on historical trends until acceleration is detected. The computer models that predict a quickening rate could be inaccurate, it says.

“If you’re wrong and you start planning today at 39 inches, you could lose millions of dollars in development and 2,000 square miles would be condemned as a flood zone,” Thompson said. “Is it really a risk to wait five years and see?”

Planners concerned

State officials say the land below the 1-meter elevation would not be zoned as a flood zone and off-limits to development. Planners say it’s crucial to allow for rising water when designing bridges, roads, and sewer lines that will be in use for decades.

“We’re concerned about it,” said Philip Prete, an environmental planner in Wilmington, which will soon analyze the potential effects of rising water on infrastructure. “For the state to tie our hands and not let us use the information that the state science panel has come up with makes it overly restrictive.”

Other states, he said, are “certainly embracing planning.”

Maine is preparing for a rise of up to 2 meters by 2100, Delaware 1.5 meters, Louisiana 1 meter and California 1.4 meters. Southeastern Florida projects up to a 2-foot rise by 2060.

NC-20 says the state should plan for 8 inches of rise by 2100, based on the historical trend in Wilmington.

The science panel based its projections on records at the northern coast town of Duck, where the rate is twice as fast, and factored in the accelerated rise expected to come later. Duck was chosen, the panel said, because of the quality of its record and site on the open ocean.

The panel cites seven studies that project global sea level will rise as much as 1 meter, or more, by 2100. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated in 2007 a rise of no more than 23 inches, but did not factor in the melting land ice that many scientists now expect.

NC-20’s science adviser, Morehead City physicist John Droz, says he consulted with 30 sea-level experts, most of them not named in his latest critique of the panel’s work. He says the 13-member panel failed to do a balanced review of scientific literature, didn’t use the best available science and made unsupported assumptions.

“I’m not saying these people are liars,” Thompson said. “I’m saying they have a passion for sea-level rise and they can’t give it up.”

John Dorman of the N.C. Division of Emergency Management, which is preparing a study of sea-level impact, said an “intense push” by the group and state legislators led to key alterations.

Instead of assuming a 1-meter, worst-case rise, he said, the study will report the impact of seas that rise only 3.9, 7.8, 11.7 and 15.6 inches by 2100. The 1-meter analysis will be available to local governments that request it.

“It’s not the product we had put the grant out for,” Dorman said, referring to the $5 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that’s paying for the study. Coastal communities will still find the work useful, he predicts.

Finding common ground

The backlash on the coast centers on the question of whether sea-level rise will accelerate, said Bob Emory, chairman of the Coastal Resources Commission.

Emory, who lives in New Bern, said the commission deleted wording from its proposed sea-level rise policy that hinted at new regulations in order to find common ground. “Any remaining unnecessarily inflammatory language that’s still in there, we want to get out,” he said.

New information will be incorporated as it comes out, he said.

“There are people who disagree on the science. There are people who worry about what impact even talking about sea-level rise will have on development,” Emory said. “It’s my objective to have a policy that makes so much sense that people would have trouble picking at it.”

In written comments, the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the legislation that circulated earlier this month appeared consistent with the coastal commission’s policy changes.

But the department warned of the “unintended impacts” of not allowing agencies other than the coastal commission to develop sea-level rise policies. The restriction could undermine the Division of Emergency Management’s study, it said, and the ability of transportation and emergency-management planners to address rising waters.

The N.C. Coastal Federation, the region’s largest environmental group, said the bill could hurt local governments in winning federal planning grants. Insurance rates could go up, it says.

Relying solely on historical trends, the group said, is like “being told to make investment decisions strictly on past performance, and not being able to consider market trends and research.”

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/25/3265614/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/25/3265614/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html#storylink=cpy

The Second Dark Ages (2050-4500): " 'Faster Than We Thought': An Epitaph for Planet Earth" by John Atcheson

'Faster Than We Thought': An Epitaph for Planet Earth

by John Atcheson, Common Dreams, May 23, 2012

Sometime later this century, a writer will sit down and attempt to document how his or her grandparents’ generation could have all but ignored the greatest disaster humanity has ever faced.

It won’t be a pleasant world she lives in. Cities and countries will be locked in an expensive battle with rapidly rising seas; but after spending trillions of dollars, most of the world’s ports will have been abandoned anyway.

Up to 70% of the planet’s species will be wiped out.  Gone. Vanished. Kaput. Songbirds will no longer serenade us.  Butterflies will no longer dazzle us.  The boreal forests – the largest belt of green in the world – will be gone. 

Brutal heat waves will be the norm. Off-the-chart hurricanes and storms will be the rule.  Deserts will have expanded.  Haboobs, giant black blizzards of dust will sweep across vast portions of the US’s high plains and the southwest. The Amazon rainforest will be a shrunken, wizened remnant of a once vast source of life. 

The once bountiful seas will be acidic crypts in which jellyfish and other primitive forms spread in vast sheets across the surface, covering the rotting hulks of the fish we used to eat. 

Agricultural productivity will collapse, famine will be widespread. 

Money for anything other than preventing catastrophe will be scarce.

By 2050, as many as a billion climate refugees will roam the Earth, spreading unrest, poverty, disease and misery. By the century’s end?  Who knows?

As she pieces together this saga, she’ll encounter the usual suspects.

The army of paid politicians who carried the water of the fossil fuel plutocrats.  

A press that, for the most part, failed to cover the most important story in history, and put “balance” above accuracy, context, facts, and reality when they did. 

Economists, who used bizarre abstractions like discounting the future to make it seem like saving the world wasn’t cost-effective.

Environmentalists, who were loath to speak the truth because they didn’t want to be accused of spreading “doom and gloom.” 

Scientists who mumbled warnings under their breath until it was too late because they thought warnings were somehow unseemly.

The IPCC and their infrequent and out-of-date on date-of-issue reports, an organization that, by design, was intended to slow-walk the science and muddle it with misguided neoclassical economic incantations.

But the one thing that will stand out as she attempts to figure out how our generation allowed the entire world to sleep walk into Armageddon will be the annual cavalcade of research and headlines saying “XXX is happening far faster than predicted.”

XXX could be anything related to global warming: the melting of ice sheets or the speed of sea level rise or the rate of warming or the extinction of species or the shift of seasons or theexpansion of deserts and the advent of climate refugees and the increase in famine, or the frequency and intensity of draughts and storms – you name it, and there is nearly an annual updating of the rate and pace at which climate-related catastrophe stalks us. 

For example, consider sea level rise.  In the 2007 IPCC report, projections called for oceans to increase by about 18 millimeters by the end of the century, mostly from thermal expansion. Papers coming out in 2007 showed this projection to be obsolete before the ink dried on the report. This year, there is growing consensus that the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting much faster than expected, and projections for future sea level increases of 3 meters or more seem to be a plausible forecast – 166 times as great as the IPCC projections made just 5 years ago.

Back to our future historian.  She may well ask how it was we didn’t just step back, spot this trend, and recalibrate how we forecasted future effects of climate change.

Good question. 

One answer may be found in our DNA. Growing evidence suggesting our brains aren't wired to handle future threats.  We may be hardwired to deal with the present proximate, not the future probable.

If she’s diligent, she’ll also stumble on the effect of positive feedback  mechanisms – what scientists refer to as amplifying feedbacks. 

I wrote about the granddaddy of all these – methane releases from the Arctic -- in 2004, in the Baltimore Sun, in an article entitled Ticking Time Bomb. 

A little more than a year later, the feedback had begun, as I outlined in another article, Hotter, Faster, Worser. 

Fast forward to today. Scientists  now believe that a sudden 50Gt methane release from the Arctic is possible – even probable.  This would be equivalent to 40 times the amount of all GHGs released in 2009.

Again, the phrase faster than we thought rings out.

There are at least 12 other major feedbacks which could accelerate global warming beyond even our faster than we thought forecasts. 

Our intrepid future historian may discover one other disturbing fact explaining our inaction.  All our models assumed we’d reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.  Even our worst case scenarios estimated peak atmospheric concentrations of about 750 parts per million based on the conviction that we’d act.  But we are now on course for over 900 ppm by century’s end, and we are approaching a tipping point in which our actions may not matter.

John Atcheson is author of the novel, A Being Darkly Wise, an eco-thriller and Book One of a Trilogy centered on global warming. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the San Jose Mercury News and other major newspapers. Atcheson’s book reviews are featured on Climateprogess.org.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/23-5

Why are taxpayers being stuck with the bill to pay this guy's salary? Interior Scientific Integrity Officer Ralph Morganweck has not conducted an investigation of the witch hunt instigated by Sen. Inhoax Inhofe against polar bear researcher Charles Monnett

US science integrity move devolving into mosh pit

by Daniel C. Patterson, The SouthWest Eagle blog, May 22, 2012

WASHINGTON -- A vaunted initiative to restore public confidence in the scientific work of the federal agency with the most tarnished record is foundering, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The U.S. Department of Interior has failed to deliver on its promises to conduct independent investigations of reports of scientific misconduct, prevent political interference or develop protocols to prevent duplicative and conflicting investigations, leaving an opaque jumble of irresolution.

One of the highest profile complaints under Interior’s scientific integrity process (launched in February 2011) involves Arctic researcher Dr. Charles Monnett who charged that his own agency and the Interior Office of Inspector General (OIG) had improperly disrupted his work in a “witch hunt” involving his paper on polar bears drowning after storms. On August 8, 2011, Interior Scientific Integrity Officer Ralph Morganweck wrote that he was “conducting an inquiry into these allegations.” Yet, in a letter to Representative Edward Markey three weeks after pledging to investigate the complaint against OIG (which letter PEER obtained recently under the Freedom of Information Act), Morganweck stated that he had already met with the OIG twice about the. Monnett case and –

“…I will be assisting the OIG in reviewing the scientific integrity claims that have been raised in this matter.”

“This is beyond screwy. How in the name of objectivity can the integrity officer work to assist the subject of a complaint without telling the complainant?” asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who is asking Morganweck to recuse himself from the case but has gotten no reply. “If there is no independence in these reviews, Interior’s scientific integrity process is simply an elaborate exercise in damage control.”

At the same time, the complaint sits in limbo. On April 2, 2012, nearly eight months after accepting the Monnett case, Morganweck wrote to PEER (which represents Dr. Monnett) asking for basic information indicating that he had barely begun a review. Nor has he ever asked to interview Dr. Monnett. Similarly, five months after PEER filed a complaint about improper exclusion of livestock grazing from a massive Bureau of Land Management landscape study there has been little movement. Indeed, the assigned science integrity officer never asked for the list of witnesses PEER had offered.

The conflicting investigations by the OIG and Scientific Integrity Office also prompted promises last summer to develop a protocol to sort out who does what and to insure that OIG probes do not extend into scientific issues for which it has no expertise. Thus, in an August 25, 2011, letter about the Monnett case to Senator James Inhofe, Acting Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote:

“We are, however, in contact with the Department’s Office of Scientific Integrity on this matter and are developing protocols for coordination on such matters in the future.”

Yet, in response to a recent Freedom of Information Act request by PEER for any “protocol, guidance or memorandum of understanding” between the two entities or adopted unilaterally by the OIG on handling scientific misconduct issues, the OIG declared that it had “no documents responsive to your request.”

“Consistent and considered treatment of allegations are among the stated goals of Interior’s Scientific Integrity policy, yet this failure to coordinate makes every scientific controversy into a bureaucratic jump ball,” Ruch added, noting that PEER is preparing a series of reforms it will file as rule-making petitions this summer to fix holes in the procedures. “Interior’s scientific integrity program has broken down coming out of the gate and needs to be retooled.”

link to documents

http://dpatterson.blogspot.com/2012/05/us-scientific-integrity-process.html

Office of Scientific Integrity colludes with the Office of Inspector General the very government agency the OSI is supposed to be investigating in the matter of the bizarre witch hunt against polar bear researcher, Charles Monnett -- how much has this ridiculous investigation cost the U.S. taxpayers!?!

Embattled Alaska polar bear researcher questions inquiry's integrity

by Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, May 22, 2012

Alaska polar bear researcher Charles Monnett's career has been in upheaval since the government last year began probing the integrity of his work. His days of studying polar bears are over. He’s been reassigned to conduct studies about shipping traffic in the Bering Strait, the bottleneck at the top of the world off of Alaska's coast connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean. But the dispute continues.

A 2006 paper Monnett co-authored about polar bears drowning in storms took center stage in the early stages of an investigation that has since branched out to include whether contracts were appropriately awarded. The high-profile inquiry has raised questions about the intersection of politics and science and whether, when it comes to objectivity, the current administration has a myopic view.

Monnett works for the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Regulatory Enforcement (BOEMRE). He has lost oversight of his prior projects due to an investigation by the federal Office of the Inspector General into allegations that he committed scientific misconduct. The inquiry has simultaneously raised questions about the quality of Monnett's work and the motives behind it -- as well as the appropriateness of the inquiry itself, which was national news last summer. At issue his been whether Monnett ever fudged his data or improperly abused his position overseeing contracts in order to influence how other scientists rated his work. [Absolutely no evidence against Monnett has been found. The bogus investigation was instigated at the behest of Sen. Inhofe, who receives almost more campaign contributions from oil companies than any other senator.]

Monnett's attorneys believe the investigation is a blatant attempt to squash scientific freedom and choke the credibility of government scientists whose findings might obstruct oil development. In Alaska, the oil industry is mighty and the pursuit of petroleum riches beneath northern waters is the next frontier.

More than a year after the investigation began, Monnett has not been charged with any wrongdoing. His attorneys are balking at a process that is supposed to protect scientists from politically motivated pressure and attacks. Where the current Department of Interior has promised to create a buffer between the two, it has failed, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the group representing Monnett. A newly uncovered letter, obtained by PEER through the Freedom of Information Act, indicates that the very people who should have been looking out for Monnett may have been aligned with his detractors.

The alleged impropriety involves two government entities -- the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which is investigating Monnett, and the Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI), from which Monnett sought help. The latter is designed to block political interference, ensure a competent process of review, and ensure allegations of scientific misconduct are handled by independent investigators.

After he fell under scrutiny, Monnett complained to OSI that his employer BOEMRE and the OIG had improperly disrupted his work. After Monnett came forward, OSI told Monnett and PEER that it would look into his allegations. Yet in a letter sent weeks later to a U.S. Congressman, OSI officer Ralph Morganweck told Rep. Ed Markey last August that he would be “assisting the OIG in reviewing the scientific integrity claims that have been raised in this matter.” Had PEER never requested the correspondence under the Freedom of Information Act, it may never have learned about the tone of the discussions and allegiances taking place behind the scenes.

PEER executive director Jeff Ruch calls the situation “beyond screwy.”

“If there is no independence in these reviews, Interior’s scientific integrity process is simply an elaborate exercise in damage control,” he said in a prepared statement.

Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/embattled-alaska-polar-bear-researcher-questions-inquirys-integrity

Heartland Institute reflects on its beating: The ultra-conservative group's climate conference showed how far it has fallen after an internet sting and a disastrous adheart

Heartland reflects on its beating

The ultra-conservative group's climate conference showed how far it has fallen after an internet sting and a disastrous ad

• 
• • by Suzanne Goldenberg in Chicago, guardian.co.uk, May 22, 2012

Peter Gleick's face was on mugs at the Heartland climate conference. Photograph: Paul Chinn/The Chronicle

It was an odd choice of icon for the ultra-conservative Heartland Institute. But there he was in round glasses, beard, and halo of curls staring out from T-shirts and coffee mugs at their gathering of climate changecontrarians this week, the scientist whose internet sting set Heartland on its current course of collapse.

Heartland's seventh climate conference, which runs until Wednesday, was a much diminished event, compared to earlier lavish gatherings which spilled out over several floors of a hotel in New York's Time Square, and attracted up to 800 followers.

The tables were set for 270 at this year's gala, featuring the Czech president and climate contrarian Václav Klaus, and there were well over 100 no-shows. In a further sign of Heartland's cash crunch, meals were not included in this year's conference package.

"We have been under a lot of pressure over the last four months," Heartland's president, Joseph Bast, told the conference. "And I think we have discovered who our real friends are."

Now even those friends are upset with Heartland. Jim Sensenbrenner, the conservative Republican member of Congress from Wisconsin who was the only US politician to attend this year's conference, signalled his displeasure with the provocative billboard in his speech on Tuesday.

Sensenbrenner did not mention the billboard directly, but an aide told reporters earlier his words were intended as a criticism for Bast for leading Heartland into disaster. "How we conduct ourselves in this debate matters," Sensenbrenner said. He went on to accuse climate scientists of being partisan, but concluded: "Civility matters."

Other speakers were not concerned with civility, however. Britain's leading climate contrarian Christopher Monckton got a standing ovation for telling a series of "birther" jokes.

The pressure point occurred last February when the scientist on the conference mugs, Peter Gleick, used deception to obtain confidential documents from Heartland, including a donors list and plans to indoctrinate school children against belief in climate change.

Bast told the conference Heartland had met with the US attorney's office to discuss criminal charges against Gleick. He said Heartland was waiting for a formal decision before deciding whether to sue Gleick.

The exposure led some corporate donors to cut their funds to Heartland – until Bast committed a huge PR blunder, approving a provocative billboard ad likening scientists to psychopaths.

Donor flight accelerated, and Heartland has now lost some $825,000 (£523,000) in funding, according to the campaign group Forecast the Facts. Advocacy groups are meeting with some of Heartland's biggest remaining funders to persuade them to cut their ties.

The crisis forced Heartland to seek funds from the oil and coal industry – despite earlier claims to be independent of fossil fuel interests.

Between them, the nearly 60 organisations listed by Heartland as conference sponsors have received nearly $22m from Exxon Mobil and the Koch oil billionaire family since 1998, according to an analysis by the campaign website Desmogblog.

Listed as a "gold level" sponsor of this week's conference was the Illinois Coal Association, although Heartland told reporters the contribution was only in the hundreds of dollars.

Other allies were scarce. Only three groups set up tables at the conference. The largest was staffed by Americans for Prosperity, the ultra-conservative organisation founded by the Koch oil billionaires.

David From, who heads the Illinois chapter of Americans for Prosperity, said the contribution was only in the hundreds of dollars. He grimaced when asked about the Heartland billboard, which featured the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

"It certainly got a lot of attention," From said.

Going to Heartland conferences was always a bit like entering the portal to an alternative universe. Speakers and audience are almost entirely male, white and getting on in years. Jokes about Al Gore fly fast and furious, and can be counted on to get big laughs.

But this year's event had a sense of desperation. Speakers spoke about being "victimised" by "warmists" and "alarmists" – scientists and politicians who accept that carbon dioxide emissions from industry are a main driver of climate change.

And after nearly 30 years in operation, it is unclear what Heartland stands for when it comes to climate change – beyond resistance to putting any kind of restraint on business.

Klaus, who made his name as an economist before his election as president, sees environmental concerns as a red menace. "It is identical to communism – identical not similar," he warned.

John Dunn, a Heartland policy adviser, sees his role as fighting "enviro-fascist madness." In his speech, he sought to ridicule recorded evidence of growing drought and heatwaves due to climate change. "Warm is good for people, and it's particularly good for people as they get older," said Dunn. "The people that warm spells kill are already moribund." He went on to say that only extreme cold caused extra deaths.

The next speaker called for the return of the insecticide DDT, long banned in the US. "It's cheap, it's effective and it's perfectly safe for humans and for all wildlife."

Bast, meanwhile, in his speech pivoted from discrediting climate science – formerly the main Heartland mission – to policy, attacking Barack Obama for his "anti-energy" agenda.

Other speakers opened up attacks on Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, for failing to be supportive enough of the oil and gas industry.

But despite the coffee mugs and T-shirt giveaway, the biggest issue facing Heartland went largely unaddressed: how will the organisation recover from its twin setbacks, the expose by Gleick and the ad disaster approved by Bast?

Heartland had hoped to use the Gleick episode, which it calls "Fakegate," to gain sympathy, and rebuild a donor network. But even well-wishers acknowledged it would be an uphill climb for an organisation that was once at the hub of the climate contrarian network.

"It certainly raises the cost of doing business when your arch-enemies or a very vocal segment knows what you are up to in every little detail," said Marc Morano, who runs the contrarian website Climate Depot and spoke at the conference.

But he said he was hopeful that Heartland would come back. "I think it's a temporary feeding frenzy," he said. "If Heartland had just started last year and only had 10 donors when that happened it could have been fatal. But this is a hiccup."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/22/heartland-beating-climate-conference

Must-See CBS News: We Are ‘Living On A Planet With A Fever…. This Is Our Society’s Sink Or Swim Moment’

by Joe Romm, Climate Progress, May 20, 2012 

The CBS Evening News  had one of the best segments ever on manmade global warming.  The piece is headlined on their website, “Assessing the risk of climate change” with this description:

The past 12 months were the hottest on record, and forecasters are predicting high temperatures across the U.S. this summer. Science and environment contributor M. Sanjayan explains the risk of climate change.

Watch it:

Kudos to CBS News for running this segment with Sanjayan, who is “the lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy.” Let’s hope CBS makes it a regular feature.

Related post:

• As floods and extreme weather devastate the world, CBS News explains the link to global warming

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/20/487280/must-see-cbs-news-we-are-living-on-a-planet-with-a-fever-this-is-our-societys-sink-or-swim-moment/

60% reduction in 40 years in the volume of Antarctic Bottom Water, the cold dense water that drives global ocean currents

Latest Southern Ocean research shows continuing deep ocean change

by John Hartz, Skeptical Science, May 21, 2012

This is a reprint of a press release posted by the Australian Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO)  May 4, 2012.

New research by teams of Australian and US scientists has found there has been a massive reduction in the amount of Antarctic Bottom Water found off the coast of Antarctica.

 

Deploying a mooring carrying a suite of monitoring sensors into the sea ice. Credit: Steve Rintoul

Comparing detailed measurements taken during the Australian Antarctic program's 2012 Southern Ocean marine science voyage to historical data dating back to 1970, scientists estimate there has been as much as a 60% reduction in the volume of Antarctic Bottom Water, the cold dense water that drives global ocean currents.

In an intensive and arduous 25-day observing program, temperature and salinity samples were collected at 77 sites between Antarctica and Fremantle. Such ship transects provide the only means to detect changes in the deep ocean.

The new measurements, which have not yet been published, suggest the densest waters in the world ocean are gradually disappearing and being replaced by less dense waters.

 "The amount of dense Antarctic Bottom Water has contracted each time we've measured it since the 1970s," said Dr Steve Rintoul, of CSIRO and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC. "There is now only about 40% as much dense water present as observed in 1970."

The ocean profiles also show that the dense water formed around Antarctica has become less saline since 1970.

"It's a clear signal to us that the oceans are responding rapidly to variations in climate in polar regions. The sinking of dense water around Antarctica is part of a global pattern of ocean currents that has a strong influence on climate, so evidence that these waters are changing is important," Dr Rintoul said.

The research was carried out by more than 50 scientists on the Australian Antarctic Division's research and resupply vessel Aurora Australis, which sailed to Commonwealth Bay, west along the Antarctic coast, and returned into Fremantle.

The Australian Antarctic Division's Chief Scientist, Dr Nick Gales, said the findings of the oceanographic study are profoundly important.

"Not only will this research improve our understanding of ocean currents, but will also feed into our knowledge of how the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic continent drives the world's climate processes," Dr Gales said.

Dr Rintoul was Chief Scientist on the recent voyage and has made a dozen voyages to the Southern Ocean. "When we speak of global warming, we really mean ocean warming: more than 90% of the extra heat energy stored by the earth over the last 50 years has gone into warming up the ocean.

The Southern Ocean is particularly important because it stores more heat and carbon dioxide released by human activities than any other region, and so helps to slow the rate of climate change" Dr Rintoul said. "A key goal of our work is to determine if the Southern Ocean will continue to play this role in the future."

The causes of the observed changes in the Southern Ocean are not yet fully understood. Changes in winds, sea ice, precipitation, or melt of floating glacial ice around the edge of Antarctica may be responsible. Data collected on the latest voyage will help unravel this mystery.

A major challenge is the lack of observations at high latitude, where much of the ocean is covered by sea ice in winter. During the voyage scientists deployed nine drifting profilers, called Argo floats, which will transmit profiles of temperature and salinity every 10 days for the next five years. These ice-capable floats in the seasonal ice zone in the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean are funded through Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System.

"The Argo floats have revolutionised our ability to measure the ocean, particularly in winter when ship observations are very rare," said Dr Rintoul. "On this voyage, we deployed a new kind of float designed to survive encounters with the sea ice. These floats will allow us to see how dense water forms in winter for the first time."

The Aurora Australis visited Commonwealth Bay as part of a celebration of the centenary of Sir Douglas Mawson's Australian Antarctic Expedition. Dr Rintoul's team had the opportunity to repeat oceanographic measurements made by Mawson's team 100 years ago, obtaining one of the few century-long records obtained anywhere in the ocean.

"Our measurements collected in 2012 are quite different to those collected by Mawson in 1912," Dr Rintoul said. "This is an indication of a change in the ocean currents that may be related to a reduction in the amount of dense water formed near Antarctica."

"Mawson's expedition really marked the transition from the "Heroic Age" of Antarctic exploration to a period where science was the primary motivation for Antarctic expeditions. I think he would have gotten a real kick out of the idea that measurements made by his team a century ago are still useful and that Australian scientists are continuing his legacy by studying Antarctica and its connection to the rest of the globe."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Southern-Ocean-research-shows-continuing-deep-ocean-change_CSIRO.html