Climate: LNG in B.C. vs Alberta tarsands

[agentaqua]

Maybe Imhofe doesn't have a direct line to God afterall...

http://mic.com/articles/108572/pope-francis-has-sent-the-world-a-powerful-message-on-climate-change
Pope Francis Has Sent the World a Powerful Message on Climate Change
Tom McKay's avatar image By Tom McKay January 15, 2015

Pope Francis has some harsh words for climate-change deniers: You're wrong.

While en route Thursday to the Philippines to meet with survivors of the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, the Guardian reports the pontiff took a few moments to clarify that it is beyond all doubt that humans are driving global climate change.

"I don't know if it is all [man's fault] but the majority is, for the most part, it is man who continuously slaps down nature," Francis said. "We have, in a sense, lorded it over nature, over Sister Earth, over Mother Earth.

"I think man has gone too far," he added" Thank God that today there are voices that are speaking out about this."

The pope also criticized the delegates at last month's climate meeting in Peru for a "lack of courage," saying he was disappointed at the lack of progress being made. Francis added that he hoped this year's U.N. climate meeting in Paris would finally "move forward with this."

The background: Pontifical Academy of Sciences chancellor Bishop Marcelo Sorondo said near the end of last year that 2015 would see the start of a massive effort by the pope to mobilize the word's 1.2 billion Catholics against climate change. The pontiff is specifically targeting the this year's meeting in Paris (the culmination of 20 years of negotiations) in an attempt to push the delegates toward a deal that will actually have a serious impact on the environment.

Under Francis' direction, the Vatican wants to cast climate change as a moral issue and failure to act as condemning future generations to a spoiled planet. The Atlantic's Tara Isabella Burton argued that Francis was using "his pulpit to actively shape public discourse about the nature of creation" and linking climate change to a "profoundly optimistic vision of what it means to be human."

The pope's in good company: Francis' stance on the environment broadly mirrors the scientific consensus on global climate change, which virtually every relevant scientist agrees is primarily driven by human activity. Climate scientists are about as confident that human influence is the dominant cause of post-1950s warming as doctors are smoking causes cancer.

While it remains unclear how much influence the pope will ultimately wield on the climate-change debate, there's little doubt that the rapid action he is advocating is necessary to safeguard the planet. The year 2014 was likely the hottest year in recorded human history, while another recent study concluded that sea levels are rising much more rapidly than previously thought.

To avoid catastrophe, humans will need to work together, and it certainly doesn't hurt to have the head of the Catholic Church on board going into the crucial Paris meeting, which could be one of the world's last chances to start a framework that will avoid the worst.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.alternativesjournal.ca/c...level-rise-isnt-only-problem-melting-glaciers

Sea-level Rise Isn't the Only Problem with Melting Glaciers
A new study predicts a substantial carbon impact resulting from the loss of glaciers and ice sheets.
BY ANDREW REEVES
JAN 23 2015 | IN CURRENT EVENTS
CATEGORIES: WILDLIFE - WATER - HABITAT PROTECTION - CLIMATE CHANGE

Antarctic Ice Shelf Loss Comes From Underneath by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center \ CC BY 2.0 via Flickr
WE KNOW SEA levels are rising as climate change causes glaciers to melt. But it turns out rising seas may not be the only catastrophic by-product of glacier melt we need to worry about.

A new study from researchers at Florida State University published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience has discovered there will be a substantial carbon impact resulting from the loss of glaciers and ice sheets that cover roughly 11 per cent of the Earth’s surface.

Glaciers act as sinks for both local and distant sources of carbon, released downstream if and when the ice melts or breaks away into the sea.

Robert Spencer, a professor of oceanography at Florida State working with researchers in Alaska and Switzerland, used measurements of ice sheets from Greenland, the Antarctic and mountain glaciers from around the world to determine just how much carbon was being stored there and how quickly they anticipate its release.

Glaciers act as sinks for both local and distant sources of carbon, CO₂ that is then released downstream if and when the ice melts or breaks away into the sea.

The results aren’t good. Spencer and his colleague Eran Hood, an environmental scientist at the University of Alaska Southeast, predict the outflow of organic carbon will increase by 50 per cent by 2050.

But the Antarctic ice appears more stable than ice contained in Greenland or on mountain peaks. It’s the mountain glaciers that are likely to release the largest volume of dissolved organic carbon, they found, while the Greenland sheets are projected to release the largest volume of particulate organic carbon. (Dissolved organic carbon can pass through a 0.45 micrometre filter, whereas particulate organic carbon contains particles larger than 0.45 micrometres and cannot pass through the same filter.)The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains roughly six petagrams of organic carbon (approximately six trillion kilograms) in its glacier ice, more than the carbon stored in mountain glaciers or the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Spencer and Hood also found that loss of glacier mass is responsible for roughly 13 per cent of the yearly fluctuation in how much dissolved organic carbon a glacier releases. Other factors impacting glacier melt include warming temperatures, evaporation and scouring by wind.

Climate change is speeding up the process. Glacier melt is expected to result in a cumulative release of 15 teragrams (15 billion kilograms) of CO₂ by 2050. This is “equivalent to about half of the annual flux of dissolved organic carbon from the Amazon River,” according to the report.

“The loss of glacier mass worldwide, along with the corresponding release of carbon, will affect high-latitude marine ecosystems, particularly those surrounding the major ice sheets that now receive fairly limited land-to-ocean fluxes of organic carbon," Hood said in a release.

Melting glaciers and ice sheets, which contain approximately 70 per cent of the Earth’s freshwater, have long been known to contribute to rising sea levels. But their role in sea-level rise was also questioned this week with a new study published January 14 in the journal Nature.

Carling Hay and Eric Morrow, fellows in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, shows the previous estimates of global sea-level rise from 1900 to 1990 (between 1.5 millimetres and 1.8 millimetres per year) were over-estimated by as much as 30 per cent. The rise was closer to 1.2 millimetres annually, they suggest.

The Earth’s oceans have been rising at a much faster rate than previously imagined.

This isn’t cause to celebrate, however. The sea-level rise since 1990 has been systematically low-balled, they believe. Hay and Morrow argue that, for the past 25 years, the Earth’s oceans having been rising at a much faster rate than previously imagined.

"It's a larger problem than we initially thought,” Morrow said of the findings. According to their research, global sea levels have risen by three millimetres annually since 1990.

The disagreement over how significantly sea levels have risen seems, in one sense, to be splitting hairs. Is the difference between 1.2 millimetres and three millimetres a year substantial at the planetary scale? It’s a difference of less than a centimetre, after all.

But Morrow fears any future calculation of sea-level rise based on the old 1900 to 1990 data would be incorrect, given the intricate models used to predict sea-level rise would not have been properly calibrated. “That calls into question the accuracy of projections out to the end of the 21st century,” he said.

As of now, Spencer and his colleagues are unaware of what impact that volume of dissolved and particulate organic CO₂ will have on the world’s water bodies, regardless of how quickly they’re rising.

"People have to think about is what this means for the Earth," Spencer said. "We know we're losing glaciers, but what does that mean for marine life, fisheries, things downstream that we care about? There's a whole host of issues besides the water issue.

Andrew Reeves
Andrew is an award-winning environmental writer based in Toronto with a Masters in Geography from the University of Toronto. Andrew covers Ontario environmental politics for the A\J Current Events blog and on his own blog, The Reeves Report. Follow him on Twitter.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-...tten-glacier-in-antarctica-from-below/6047076

Antarctica's Totten Glacier 'melting from below', Australian scientists find
Updated Wed at 9:19pmWed 28 Jan 2015, 9:19pm

Totten Glacier, Antarctica
PHOTO: Totten Glacier in eastern Antarctica is twice the size of Victoria and contains enough water to raise the sea level by six metres. (Supplied: Esmee van Wijk/CSIRO)
RELATED STORY: New record set for extent of Antarctic sea iceRELATED STORY: Thaw reveals Scott of the Antarctic expedition notebookRELATED STORY: Krill diet discovery predicts threat to Antarctic life
MAP: TAS
Warm ocean water is melting one of the world's biggest glaciers from below, potentially leading to a rise in sea levels, Australian scientists have discovered.

Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis recently returned to Hobart from Antarctica, with a team of 23 scientists who had used new technology to collect the first water samples near the Totten Glacier.

Steve Rintoul from the Australian Climate and Environment Cooperative Research Centre said the results indicated the glacier was being melted by the sea water beneath it.

"The measurements we collected provide the first evidence that warm water reaches the glacier and may be driving that melt of the glacier from below," he said.

The fact that it's changing is something new, we used to think that the glaciers in east Antarctic were very stable and unlikely to change.
Steve Rintoul, Antarctic Climate and Environment research centre
According Australian Antarctic Division estimates, the Totten Glacier holds enough water to raise sea level by six metres and scientists said it had been thinning over the past 15 years.

"We used to think the glaciers in east Antarctica were unlikely to be affected by the ocean because they were a long way away from the warm ocean waters," he said.

"The fact that it's changing is something new, we used to think that the glaciers in east Antarctic were very stable and unlikely to change."

But he said it was too soon to tell if the glacier was melting as a result of a changing global climate.

"What our observations can't tell us is how things have changed over time, because this is the first time anyone has made measurements in this area," he said.

"The measurements we've collected here are crucial for setting a benchmark that can be used to assess future change."

Aurora Australis went where no vessel had gone before

Tony Worby, also from the research centre, said the study was groundbreaking.

"No ship has ever been where the Aurora Australis went on this voyage, the ship managed to get front of the Totten Glacier," he said.

"Over the next year or two we'll process all of that data and get a really great sense of how warmer ocean water is affecting the glacier."

The results from this expedition will be used as the benchmark for next year's trip.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...make-iceland-spring-upward-like-a-trampoline/

Climate change, melting glaciers make Iceland spring upward like a trampoline
By Sarah Kaplan February 2

A man takes a picture of blue icebergs in Jokulsarlon, Iceland, the largest glacier lagoon in the nation, on July 8, 2014. (Joel Saget/AFP)
Sea levels aren’t the only things rising due to climate change — swaths of land are too, including the nation of Iceland.

That’s according to a new study published by a team of geologists from the University of Arizona. According to their research, the melting of Iceland’s glaciers has reduced pressure on the ground beneath them, causing the land to “rebound” from the Earth’s crust.

The notion that rock rebounds is not a new one, Sigrun Hreinsdottir, one of the principal investigators on the project, explained to The Washington Post. Land in Canada and Scandinavia is still slowly rising after being pushed down by glaciers during the last ice age. More recently, there are indications parts of Alaska and Chile are also experiencing a “rebound” phenomenon as glaciers retreat. But if those rocks are like a memory foam mattress, remaining compressed long after the pressure on them is gone, the rising land in Iceland is like a trampoline, springing back at a rate of nearly 1.4 inches per year.

“Iceland’s crust is showing the current response,” Hreinsdottir said. “It’s hard to find a more ideal place to study this.”


(Courtesy of Sigrun Hreinsdottir)
Hreinsdottir and her colleagues identified this change by examining 20 years of GPS data from more than five dozen points around the country. The height changes they identified, which are concentrated in central Iceland, correlate almost perfectly with the loss of ice documented by glaciologists, Hreinsdottir said. As Iceland’s glaciers continue to melt — the island loses about 11 billion tons of ice per year — the already-rapid rebounding process will accelerate. Relieved of their frozen burden, parts of the country could rise as fast as 1.6 inches per year by 2025 — growing at nearly the same rate as an elementary schooler.

This height change isn’t noticeable to the average human observer, but its consequences will be. Iceland sits atop one of the world’s most active volcanic hot spots, roiling with molten magma. The pressure reductions caused by the melting glaciers and rising land could create conditions that would cause mantle rocks to melt, further feeding Iceland’s already well-supplied volcanoes. Bárðarbunga, a volcano in the center of the island, has been spewing lava uninterrupted since August.

Hreinsdottir said the geological record from the end of the last ice age indicates Iceland saw an increase in volcanic activity after glaciers retreated. And the past five years have been packed with “interesting volcanic activity,” including Bárðarbunga and the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, which is reported to have cost the global economy $5 billion.

“You can’t make any statistics from those few data points of course, but you do notice there might be a connection with the uplift,” Hreinsdottir said. “And our data does indicate that might be exactly what’s happening.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tsx-surges-after-oil-gains-13-in-3-days-1.2943107

TSX surges after oil gains 13% in 3 days
WTI oil contract trading for $51 US, Canadian dollar punches through 80 cents
CBC News Posted: Feb 03, 2015 10:59 AM ET Last Updated: Feb 03, 2015 11:45 AM ET

Toronto stocks surged Tuesday on higher oil prices. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

The Toronto stock market shot up nearly 200 points in early trading Tuesday after oil continued the climb that has seen it gain 13 per cent in the last three sessions.

The S&P/TSX composite index was ahead 141 points at midday Tuesday to 15,041, with strong advances by energy and mining companies.


The TSX energy sector was ahead 3.7 per cent after a 4.5 per cent gain on Tuesday.

The Canadian dollar was trading above 80 cents at 80.29 US, continuing its upward momentum from Monday.

News of a drop in the number of U.S. oil drilling rigs has spurred hope that the glut of oil might ease in the near future.

West Texas Intermediate, the main North American oil contract traded in New York, moved above $51 for the first time in since the beginning of January. It rose $1.56 to $51.11 US a barrel at midday. Brent, the most common international oil contract, rose $1.68 to $56.43.

Western Canada Select, the blend of oil coming out of Canadian oilsands producers, was up 99 cents at $38.56 US a barrel.

Oil companies are delivering earnings reports this week, and many have cut their capital spending for 2015.

On Tuesday, British Petroleum reported a loss of $4.4 billion for the fourth quarter of 2014. BP also said it would pull back on investment, reducing capital spending to $20 billion worldwide, down from its previous guidance of $24-26 billion.

Oil investors also were buoyed by news that the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded in January at the same pace as in December, meaning demand for energy products could rise.


The U.S. dollar, which has made its goods more expensive in the rest of the world, slipped 0.5 per cent against a basket of currencies.

U.S. stocks rose broadly on higher oil prices and signs that the new Greek government won't press for a write-off of its bailout loans.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 170 points to 17,531, the S&P 500 index climbed 12 points to 2,032 and the Nasdaq was up 7 points to 4,693.

 

[GLG]

Rock and a hard place part 1 of 2

[hVy8typJGqc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVy8typJGqc

 

[GLG]

Rock and a hard place part 2 of 2

[178rNDuWo8E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=178rNDuWo8E

 

[GLG]

The real problem....

[l4N-FtjnHak]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4N-FtjnHak

 

[CIVANO]

Using MSNBC as your source lowers my anticipation of honesty and integrity.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Global Warming Pause: Is The End Near?

Global Warming (GW) alarmists are in a pickle: no GW, in spite of rising CO2 levels. True believers are using quasi-religious slogans, like “The End [of the GW pause] is Near” and “Repent [Stop emitting CO2] Before It’s Too Late.”

The observed absence of a global-warming trend (often described as “pause” or “hiatus”), beginning around Yr 2000 (or perhaps even earlier) contradicts the results of every IPCC climate model – all of them driven by a steady increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; see figure.

193992

This lack of model validation has obvious implications for model-based estimates of future climate. Until the cause of the pause is better understood and incorporated into existing models, all policies aiming to stabilize climate are useless and are nothing more than highly uncertain and hugely expensive exercises.

The label of “pause” (used by UN-IPCC alarmists) suggests that absence of a warming trend is only temporary -- and that warming may soon resume. This seems to be the opinion of well-known climate alarmists; climate skeptics, by and large, have not published their views about the end of the pause.

Cause of the pause

As I wrote in American Thinker of Dec 29, 2014:

Scientific efforts to discover mechanisms for the cause of the pause, some dozens of “explanations” so far, have not yet been successful. These include a build-up of heat in the deep oceans, a weakening of solar activity, and aerosols of volcanic ash in the atmosphere that reflect the sun’s rays back into space. However, the impact of solar activity and volcanoes does not appear sufficient to explain the pause and the accumulation of deep ocean heat appears to be somewhat elusive – the measured increase in ocean heat content being less than required to explain the pause.

These various causes can be classified according to “Forcing Imbalance” (FI) at the TOA (top of the atmosphere) – where the components of FI can be tracked precisely by satellites. [FI is the difference between incoming, absorbed solar energy and outgoing heat energy emitted into space.]

1. FI unaffected, and in accord with rising CO2: This implies the existence of “hidden heat” somewhere (deep ocean? but when and how will the trapped heat be released? gradually or suddenly?)

2. FI reduced with regard to rising CO2 by (internal) negative feedback {through an increase in OLW (outgoing long-wave) radiation [by reduced water vapor in upper troposphere], or from an increase in albedo [reflection of incoming short-wave solar radiation] by low-altitude clouds}

But can such a negative feedback really cancel nearly all of CO2 forcing?

3. FI reduced by external offsets, like volcanic aerosols or solar irradiance decline; but this raises many unanswered problems: how to match and offset the steady increase in forcing from rising CO2?

Recent research has implicated long-term cycles in the oceans, but there is no agreed mechanism -- with some papers attributing the pause to Pacific-Ocean cycles, other research pointing to changes in the Atlantic, and one recent paper saying that all the oceans are involved.

There is also a suggestion that the pause is an artifact of the way the data is analyzed, and that it only appears to exist because faster warming in the Arctic has been excluded from the various global temperature analyses. Another possibility is that the pause is an entirely natural variation in the climate cycle around an underlying upward trend in global temperatures. None of these explanations has gained widespread acceptance.

Science historian Rupert Darwall notes that,

“IPCC has sidelined itself in irrelevance until it has something serious to say about the pause and has reflected on whether its alarmism is justified, given its reliance on computer models that predicted temperature rises that have not occurred.”

All these proposed mechanisms should also be able to answer two puzzling questions:

** Why did the pause begin around Yr 2000? ** When will it end – as implied by the word “pause”?

When will the pause end?

Gavin Schmidt is head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS); he is the successor to renowned climate alarmist James Hansen. His views are typical of those of many other climate alarmists:

“Within 5 to 10 years, the steady increase in greenhouse gases will overcome the [cyclical] factors that may be responsible for the pause,” he tells the press. But it’s a pure guess (hope?), not backed by any analysis.

The IPCC has not issued any official pronouncements on the end of the pause. The pause itself is often referred to as a (temporary) “slowing down” of ongoing anthropogenic global warming

A new class of deniers has sprung up: climate alarmists who deny the existence of the pause altogether -- by stitching natural climate oscillations into the surface temperature record in a somewhat arbitrary manner; so far, these are only blog postings.

The most grandiose treatment of the issue has come from Michael ”Hockeystick” Mann – no surprise there. Writing in the Scientific American (March 29, 2014) he states that the Earth will cross the 2-degC temperature “danger threshold” by 2036! He accepts the existence of the pause, but predicts an abrupt end. I doubt he has seen the plot shown below.

193993

No wonder, Jeff Id, in an amusing discussion in his blog The Air Vent (March 22, 2014), refers to Mann’s essay as “climate-****.”

You may be interested in Freeman Dyson's [Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies] comment on the controversy; he is considered the "pope" of quantum field theory, and is a self-declared climate skeptic:

You ask me where the extra trapped heat has gone, but I do not agree with the models that say the extra trapped heat exists.

S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and, more

Source

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.iflscience.com/environme...rs-warming-not-paused-and-modeling-not-flawed

Sorry, Climate Change Deniers: Warming Not “Paused” and Modeling Not Flawed

February 2, 2015 | by Lisa Winter

photo credit: MPI for Meteorology / Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ)

Though 97% of climate scientists agree that human-driven climate change exists, there are still a number of people who deny that claim. The reasons for their dissent are varied, but many claim that the warming of the Earth has actually paused, and apparent increases in global temperature are caused by flawed climate models that overestimate facts. While previous studies have already refuted the idea of “paused” global warming, a new paper in Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7536/full/nature14117.html by Jochem Marotzke and Piers Forster of the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Hamburg has concluded that most climate models are not flawed, and global temperatures are still very much on the rise.

Since 2000, the Earth’s average surface temperature has increased by 0.06° C; a fraction of what was predicted by the IPCC during the 1990s. This apparent plateau has been used as ammunition by climate deniers who accuse scientists of over-inflating results from climate models. Marotzke and Forster’s new paper analyzes the methodologies of climate models, revealing no inherent flaws in the models, even when they don’t match observations. They also conclude that this century’s slight increase in surface temperature, which deniers are labeling as a “pause,” is actually due to natural climate fluctuations. Many other metrics, including ocean temperature, show that the climate is indeed changing.

“The claim that climate models systematically overestimate global warming caused by rising greenhouse gas concentrations is wrong,” Marotzke said in a press release. http://www.mpg.de/8925360/climate-change-global-warming-slowdown

Marotzke and Forster analyzed 114 models by comparing their predictions of annual global surface temperatures in 15 year periods from 1900-2012 against the actual temperature recorded for that year. When these predicted numbers were compared to the actual temperature, they found that the models did a pretty good job. For the most part, the predictions were +/- 0.3° C of the observed temperature. This effectively absolved the models of having fundamental flaws that overestimate the climate's response to atmospheric carbon dioxide.

“On the whole, the simulated trends agree with the observations,” Marotzke continued. “In particular, the observed trends are not skewed in any discernible way compared to the simulations.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean every model is perfect; otherwise they would all match one another as well as observed data. The researchers then compared the models by examining the factors and values that the models considered or assumed, in search of an explanation of why the numbers weren’t aligning. They found that differing models used different degrees of sensitivity to solar radiation and had different assumptions about the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans, which would alter surface temperature predictions. However, even the models that were the most sensitive to carbon dioxide didn’t lead to a prediction that was drastically overestimated, as climate deniers have claimed.

“If excessive sensitivity of the models caused the models to calculate too great a temperature trend over the past 15 years, the models that assume a high sensitivity would calculate a greater temperature trend than the others,” Forster noted.

The researchers concluded that random variations, which cannot be accurately accounted for within computer simulations, are responsible for models and observation not matching up. It is also clear that the climate is definitely warming, with 2014 dubbed as the warmest year on record, and that nine out of the ten hottest years ever have occurred since 2000.

 

[GLG]

Using MSNBC as your source lowers my anticipation of honesty and integrity.

Thanks for posting....
Feel free to link to something that gives us another view on how the GOP can get out of the corner they have painted themselves in.
I was looking on the WSJ video section and could not find anything. Would be open to another view.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Bjorn Lomborg: The Alarming Thing About Climate Alarmism

Date: 03/02/15 Bjorn Lomborg, The Wall Street Journal
Exaggerated, worst-case claims result in bad policy and they ignore a wealth of encouraging data.

It is an indisputable fact that carbon emissions are rising—and faster than most scientists predicted. But many climate-change alarmists seem to claim that all climate change is worse than expected.

This ignores that much of the data are actually encouraging. The latest study from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that in the previous 15 years temperatures had risen 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit. The average of all models expected 0.8 degrees. So we’re seeing about 90% less temperature rise than expected.

Facts like this are important because a one-sided focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies. Yes, Arctic sea ice is melting faster than the models expected.

But models also predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease, yet it is increasing. Yes, sea levels are rising, but the rise is not accelerating—if anything, two recent papers, one by Chinese scientists published in the January 2014 issue of Global and Planetary Change, and the other by U.S. scientists published in the May 2013 issue of Coastal Engineering, have shown a small decline in the rate of sea-level increase.

We are often being told that we’re seeing more and more droughts, but a study published last March in the journal Nature actually shows a decrease in the world’s surface that has been afflicted by droughts since 1982.

Hurricanes are likewise used as an example of the “ever worse” trope. If we look at the U.S., where we have the best statistics, damage costs from hurricanes are increasing—but only because there are more people, with more-expensive property, living near coastlines. If we adjust for population and wealth, hurricane damage during the period 1900-2013 decreased slightly.

At the U.N. climate conference in Lima, Peru, in December, attendees were told that their countries should cut carbon emissions to avoid future damage from storms like typhoon Hagupit, which hit the Philippines during the conference, killing at least 21 people and forcing more than a million into shelters. Yet the trend for landfalling typhoons around the Philippines has actually declined since 1950, according to a study published in 2012 by the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate. Again, we’re told that things are worse than ever, but the facts don’t support this.

 

[OldBlackDog]

How Obama Missed The EV Mark While Hydrogen-Power Sails Forward

Mirai
Toyota Mirai
Leave it to the Obama administration to make book on the wrong technology. First it was solar, and now it's electric vehicles. Below are two stories, one on the unsuccessful, poorly realized potential of electric cars, and the second on the growing hydrogen-powered world being spearheaded by Toyota. As they say, you only have to look to the stars to find your answers. Emphasis added:

Obama Administration Horribly Miscalculated Electric Vehicles Potential (bidness etc):

At his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama predicted that US would have one million electric vehicles (EVs) on road by 2015. This bold prediction has failed to materialize.

Obama administration has been a strong advocate of low or zero carbon emitting vehicles, as global warming and climatic issues take center stage. When it comes to environmental friendly vehicles, the US government has always backed electric cars.

This can also be gathered from the fact that the Obama administration in 2009 ended all funding to hydrogen powered vehicles - fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) - and expanded research on electric cars. In order to further his claim, Obama even granted $2.4 billion to automakers to produce more electric car batteries.

The plan of former US president George W. Bush was something entirely different. Mr. Bush wanted America to have cleaner cars that were powered by hydrogen, and for this purpose allocated $1.2 billion to research this technology. However, the hydrogen initiative was scrapped to further electric vehicles.

Obama’s aim to put a million EV on roads has failed to come into fruition. Despite investing billions into the technology, the president’s dream car has failed to reach the mass market. …snip…

Despite the increased incentives, only 286,390 plug-in vehicles are running on US streets today, according to ETDA. This means Obama’s prediction is about 72% of the mark.

Hydrogen society is no longer sci-fi (my digital finance):

Japan is betting big time on hydrogen society. What is it? Simply put, it is a society where hydrogen becomes a driving force of clean and efficient energy. When hydrogen and oxygen are combined to react together, the chemical process produces water along with electric energy which is called hydrogen power.

It has the potential of bringing about a revolution in how energy is produced and consumed. It can transform the automotive industry. It may change how homes are powered and lighted without transmission lines. These are just two examples of how hydrogen-based energy can change our planet.

Toyota has already announced the hydrogen fuel cell Mirai car. In Japanese, Mirai means the future. Toyota has an interesting story of how it will drive into the future. It has made the first move by making 5,680 hydrogen fuel cell related patents available for use royalty-free. The list includes 1,970 patents related to fuel cell stacks, 290 associated with high-pressure hydrogen tanks, 3,350 related to fuel cell system software control and 70 patents related to hydrogen production and supply. …snip…

Hydrogen does not mean the end of fossil fuels. Hydrogen can be produced by using a number of different inputs: fossil fuels, lignite, wind, solar and biomass. Why is it critical for India? To begin with, it will enhance the energy security of our country. Hydrogen can be generated from many sources and can be stored for a long time. It can be used as the demand goes up or down without back-down costs. It is also a green source of energy. Hydrogen-based car engines, for example, emit water only. Hydrogen can reduce global warming by reducing the carbon footprint if it is produced from sewage, wind or solar energy.

Among the Japanese automotive companies that are betting on hydrogen fuel cell technology are Toyota, Nissan and Honda. Hydrogen fuel cell based technology will be used in homes and apartments as well. The two Japanese companies that are focusing on this application are Panasonic and Toshiba. Japan has chosen 17 prefectures and 9 cities and towns which are locally developing hydrogen societies at an accelerated pace. While India travels on the path of planning smart cities we should look at this smart energy option as well.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Passion For Climate Change Cools

BlizzardClimate change is becoming a hard sell. When the computer models get the next day's forecast wrong, it's hard to persuade anyone to pay attention to their predictions of what the Earth's climate will be a half-century from now. Saving the world from imaginative calamity and catastrophe is never easy, and President Obama came away from a global-warming sales pitch in India with an echo of what salesmen dread to hear, a slammed door.

The holy grail of environmental fanatics — and their friends in high places, like the White House — is a legally binding agreement among nations to limit greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, they blame for global warming (and never mind that carbon dioxide is essential for life and that the globe isn't actually warming). Since handshakes are more likely to mean something when palms are greased, enthusiasts for the pact are trying to shake down wealthy nations for $100 billion to distribute to developing nations for "green" projects. They hope to make a deal final at the United Nations annual climate summit late this year in Paris.

Mr. Obama flew halfway around the world for the cause last week to persuade India's 1.2 billion consumers to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. He warned an audience in New Delhi of the consequences of not climbing aboard the climate change bandwagon. "Here's the truth," he said, "even if countries like the United States curb our emissions, if growing countries like India — with soaring energy needs — don't also embrace cleaner fuels, we don't stand a chance against climate change." If a pitch to voluntary compliance wasn't enough, he offered $1 billion in assistance for renewable energy products.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn't bite, either the carrot or the stick, and balked at signing on the dotted line. "India was also not willing to make any bilateral commitment until [it] submitted its intended domestically determined contribution," concluded the Hindustan Times. India isn't about to accede to a grand U.S. energy strategy before mapping out something of its own.

It's not the first time Mr. Obama has offered a carrot and got only the essence of onion and garlic in return. In November, the president tried to sell a similar pact to China. He committed the United States to cut U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions by at least 26 percent by 2030, and in return the Chinese said they would try to do something, maybe, and besides, its emissions would probably level off by 2030. Since then, China has rebuffed attempts to make anything binding about that pledge. Promises easily made are easily broken, especially to the easily gulled.

India and China have no doubt noticed the fate of other nations lured into the green embrace and found themselves trapped. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel was tilting toward windmills and other renewable energy projects when she announced a phase-out of its nuclear power plants by 2022 in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Desperate to make up for the loss of 22 percent of its electricity provided by nuclear plants, Germany instead watched its greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals go up in the smoke of new coal-burning power plants. Germans have seen their electricity bills rise 60 percent during the past five years.

Spain offered attractive incentives for customers to install expensive solar panels and in addition sold electricity to consumers below cost, but an exploding deficit forced the government to reduce the subsidies a year ago. In Britain, subsidies for solar and wind energy projects have doubled fuel bills over eight years. The Europeans are beginning

 

[agentaqua]

http://pugetsoundblogs.com/waterway...steady-streamflows-adds-problems-for-chinook/
Climate change disrupts steady streamflows, adds problems for chinook

Christopher Dunagan

Climate change appears to be altering the flow characteristics of Puget Sound salmon streams, and the outcome could be an increased risk of extinction for chinook salmon, according to a new study.

I’ve long been interested in how new housing and commercial development brings more impervious surfaces, such as roads, driveways and roofs. The effect is to decrease the amount of water that infiltrates into the ground and to increase surface flows into streams.

Chinook salmon Photo: Bureau of Land Management
Chinook salmon
Photo: Bureau of Land Management

Stormwater experts talk about how streams become “flashy,” as flows rise quickly when it rains then drop back to low levels, because less groundwater is available to filter into the streams.

The new study, reported in the journal “Global Change Biology,” suggests that something similar may be happening with climate change but for somewhat different reasons.

Climate models predict that rains in the Puget Sound region will become more intense, thus causing streams to rise rapidly even in areas where stormwater is not an issue. That seems to be among the recent findings by researchers with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife:


“Over the last half century, river flows included in our analysis have become more variable — particularly in winter — and these changes are a stronger predictor of chinook population growth than changes in average winter flows or climate signals in the marine environment.

“While other impacts to this ecosystem, such as habitat degradation, may be hypothesized as responsible for these trends in flow variation, we found support for increasing flow variation in high-altitude rivers with relatively low human impacts.”

Joseph Anderson of WDFW told me that chinook salmon, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, may be particularly vulnerable to dramatic changes in streamflows. That’s because spawning chinook tend to show up before winter storms arrive — when the rivers at their lowest levels. The fish are forced to lay their eggs in a portion of the river that will undergo the most forceful flows once the rains begin to fall.

High flows can scour eggs out of the gravel and create serious problems for emerging fry, Joe said. Other factors may come into play, but the researchers found a strong correlation between the sudden variation in streamflows and salmon survival.

In the lower elevations, where development is focused, flow variability could result from both impervious surfaces on the land and more intense rainstorms. Efforts to infiltrate stormwater into the ground will become even more important as changes in climate bring more intense storms.

Stormwater management is an issue I’ve written about for years, including parts of last year’s series called “Taking the Pulse of Puget Sound.” See Kitsap Sun, July 16, 2014 (subscription). Rain gardens, pervious pavement and infiltration ponds are all part of a growing strategy to increase groundwater while reducing the “flashiness” of streams.

Other strategies involve restoring rivers to a more natural condition by rebuilding side channels and flood plains to divert excess water when streams are running high.

According to the report’s findings, the variability of winter flows has increased for 16 of the 20 rivers studied, using data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The only rivers showing less variability were the Cedar, Duwamish, Upper Skagit and Nisqually.

The effect of this streamflow variability was shown to be a more critical factor for chinook survival and growth than peak, total or average streamflow. Also less of a factor were ocean conditions, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and related ocean temperature.

Eric Ward, of Northwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author on the study, said many researchers have focused attention on how higher water temperatures will affect salmon as climate change progresses. High-temperature and drought conditions in California, for example, could damage the organs of salmon, such as their hearts.

Salmon swimming up the Columbia River and its tributaries could encounter dangerously warm waters as they move east into areas growing more arid. Some salmon species are more vulnerable to temperature, while streamflow may be more important for others. Coho salmon, for example, spend their first summer in freshwater, which makes extreme low levels a critical factor.

Eric told me that further studies are looking into how various conditions can affect each stage of a salmon’s life, conditions that vary by species. One goal is to build complex life-cycle models for threatened species, such as chinook and steelhead, to determine their needs under the more extreme conditions we can expect in the future.

 

[GLG]

OBD I see you got the team together again. I'm not going to bother commenting as it's just more nonsense from your denial websites. Not worth my time or effort since you and your team are on your way to being irreverent. You never answer any question that I put to you so I'll just mock your team as that is all it's worth ......

I heard the US got all there best "I'm not a scientists" together and came up with a plan to lower the temperature..... they are going to convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius.

 

[GLG]

How Obama Missed The EV Mark While Hydrogen-Power Sails Forward

Mirai
Toyota Mirai
Leave it to the Obama administration to make book on the wrong technology. First it was solar, and now it's electric vehicles. Below are two stories, one on the unsuccessful, poorly realized potential of electric cars, and the second on the growing hydrogen-powered world being spearheaded by Toyota. As they say, you only have to look to the stars to find your answers. Emphasis added:

Obama Administration Horribly Miscalculated Electric Vehicles Potential (bidness etc):

At his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama predicted that US would have one million electric vehicles (EVs) on road by 2015. This bold prediction has failed to materialize.

Obama administration has been a strong advocate of low or zero carbon emitting vehicles, as global warming and climatic issues take center stage. When it comes to environmental friendly vehicles, the US government has always backed electric cars.

This can also be gathered from the fact that the Obama administration in 2009 ended all funding to hydrogen powered vehicles - fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) - and expanded research on electric cars. In order to further his claim, Obama even granted $2.4 billion to automakers to produce more electric car batteries.

The plan of former US president George W. Bush was something entirely different. Mr. Bush wanted America to have cleaner cars that were powered by hydrogen, and for this purpose allocated $1.2 billion to research this technology. However, the hydrogen initiative was scrapped to further electric vehicles.

Obama’s aim to put a million EV on roads has failed to come into fruition. Despite investing billions into the technology, the president’s dream car has failed to reach the mass market. …snip…

Despite the increased incentives, only 286,390 plug-in vehicles are running on US streets today, according to ETDA. This means Obama’s prediction is about 72% of the mark.

Hydrogen society is no longer sci-fi (my digital finance):

Japan is betting big time on hydrogen society. What is it? Simply put, it is a society where hydrogen becomes a driving force of clean and efficient energy. When hydrogen and oxygen are combined to react together, the chemical process produces water along with electric energy which is called hydrogen power.

It has the potential of bringing about a revolution in how energy is produced and consumed. It can transform the automotive industry. It may change how homes are powered and lighted without transmission lines. These are just two examples of how hydrogen-based energy can change our planet.

Toyota has already announced the hydrogen fuel cell Mirai car. In Japanese, Mirai means the future. Toyota has an interesting story of how it will drive into the future. It has made the first move by making 5,680 hydrogen fuel cell related patents available for use royalty-free. The list includes 1,970 patents related to fuel cell stacks, 290 associated with high-pressure hydrogen tanks, 3,350 related to fuel cell system software control and 70 patents related to hydrogen production and supply. …snip…

Hydrogen does not mean the end of fossil fuels. Hydrogen can be produced by using a number of different inputs: fossil fuels, lignite, wind, solar and biomass. Why is it critical for India? To begin with, it will enhance the energy security of our country. Hydrogen can be generated from many sources and can be stored for a long time. It can be used as the demand goes up or down without back-down costs. It is also a green source of energy. Hydrogen-based car engines, for example, emit water only. Hydrogen can reduce global warming by reducing the carbon footprint if it is produced from sewage, wind or solar energy.

Among the Japanese automotive companies that are betting on hydrogen fuel cell technology are Toyota, Nissan and Honda. Hydrogen fuel cell based technology will be used in homes and apartments as well. The two Japanese companies that are focusing on this application are Panasonic and Toshiba. Japan has chosen 17 prefectures and 9 cities and towns which are locally developing hydrogen societies at an accelerated pace. While India travels on the path of planning smart cities we should look at this smart energy option as well.

You do realize that it's an electric car right? Sad that we wont see one in Canada when it rolls out because there are no H2 fueling stations. Ask 3X5 how much H2 we also have with the NG. Toyota Canada seemed more then a little disappointed with our lack of vision in this country. I wish them luck as the roll out this new car in USA, Japan and Europe. Perhaps if we were not so back butt forward with climate deniers in this country we would be part of the revolution. No.... we need to invest in buggy whips as there is a future in that, right OBD. Frigging halfwits....

 

[agentaqua]

http://globalnews.ca/news/1808065/10-things-we-dont-know-about-bitumen-toxicity/

effects of oil
February 2, 2015 8:45 pm Updated: February 2, 2015 9:00 pm
10 things we don’t know about bitumen toxicity
By Staff The Canadian Press
A bitumen line from the Total E&P Canada Ltd. Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) facility in the oil sands fields north of Fort McMurray

AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Ten things an unpublished government-commissioned study found remain unknown about the effects of oil and oilsands products in rivers, lakes and oceans:

1. Toxicology: Research on the biological effects of oilsands products is lacking. Report found no peer-reviewed articles at all.

2. Bitumen in water: There is little information on how bitumen, diluted bitumen or products used to dilute bitumen behave in water, including whether bitumen sinks or floats.

3. Metals: Although bitumen has different heavy-metal concentrations and components than conventional oil, their behaviour in a spill hasn’t been studied.

4. Condensate: Not much is known on the toxicity of condensate — a lighter hydrocarbon used to dilute bitumen for pumping — once it enters a body of water.

5. Pathways: The mechanics of how bitumen and other oilsands products interact with organisms is unknown.

6. Air toxicity: More research is needed on the toxicity and deposition of oilsands hydrocarbons through the air.

7. Specific water bodies: Little research has been done on the effects of hydrocarbon spills specific to Canadian waters such as the Great Lakes.

8. Photo-toxicity: Studies should be conducted on whether chemicals in bitumen are made more toxic by sunlight, as happens with some hydrocarbons

9. Dispersants: More needs to be known about the interaction of bitumen, the environment and dispersants, which are chemicals sometimes used to break up and speed the decomposition of oilspills.

10. Ice: The behaviour of oil, bitumen and dispersant in the ice-choked, cold and dark waters of the Canadian Arctic is largely unknown.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.lung.org/about-us/our-impact/top-stories/reducing-power-plant-emissions.html

New Study: Reducing Power Plant Carbon Emissions Would Reduce Other Pollutants and Save Lives
(October 2, 2014)—

Power Plant PollutionAccording to a new report, strong limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants could improve air quality and prevent an estimated 3,500 premature deaths along with other significant benefits to human health.

The report, Health Co-Benefits of Carbon Standards for Existing Power Plants http://www.chgeharvard.org/sites/default/files/userfiles2/Health Co-Benefits of Carbon Standards.pdf , released on September 30 by Harvard, Syracuse and Boston Universities, evaluates alternative approaches for reducing carbon pollution from power plants, and shows that limits must be strong, flexible and enforceable to achieve the greatest health benefits for the American people.

"Millions of Americans live in parts of the country where air pollution from power plants causes life-threatening harm to human health. Unlimited carbon pollution from power plants is making it harder to achieve healthy air in large parts of the country," said Paul Billings, Senior Vice President with the American Lung Association.

Strong standards, big benefits

The study explores what are called "co-benefits"—added health benefits of a carbon standard that would result in reductions to other harmful power plant emissions, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. These pollutants contribute to soot and smog that cause heart and lung disease, aggravate asthma and COPD, and contribute to premature death.

"This important new study shows that adopting strong carbon pollution limits for existing power plants will not only reduce carbon emissions that are fueling climate change, but will also have an immediate, positive impact on public health, by preventing an estimated 3,500 premature deaths as well as asthma attacks, heart attacks, and other illnesses linked to air pollution each year beginning in 2020," said Billings.

Strong carbon pollution limits will not only reduce carbon emissions that are fueling climate change, but will also have an immediate, positive impact on public health.
The American Lung Association is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to adopt a strong Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon pollution from power plants that maximizes health benefits, no later June 2015.

"What's striking is that not all methods of reducing power plant carbon pollution are created equal. A weak approach could actually lead to greater health risks from power plant air pollution in some communities," explained Billings. "That's why the Lung Association is calling on EPA to adopt a plan strong enough to protect the public health. Anything less shortchanges our future, our children and our health."

The first-of-its-kind study compares "business as usual" conditions with three alternatives for limiting carbon from power plants. Results show that a strong, enforceable and flexible approach to reducing carbon pollution would reduce emissions of other harmful pollutants of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by about 775,000 tons each year. As a result of lower emissions, all of the lower 48 U.S. states would experience cleaner air. For more information, the full report summarizing the results of the study is available online.

Tell EPA you support strong carbon pollution limits! To learn more about reducing carbon pollution, and call for strong health protections, send a message to EPA today.
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