BBCclimatechange

Now that the political machinations have reached a hiatus at the end of COP15  -It is worth looking at the BBCs Heat Maps as temperature targets of 1.5 and 2 degrees C were mentioned.

An average global temperature rise of 2C will cause major problems in many parts of the world, but is considered relatively safe compared with the impacts associated with a rise of 4C.

And what about sea levels….

The majority of the current global average sea level rise of about 3mm each year is from the thermal expansion of the oceans.

As greenhouse gases become more concentrated, more heat energy is trapped in the atmosphere. This energy is absorbed by the world’s oceans, causing it to warm and expand.

Another contributor is melt water from mountain glaciers. Data shows that, on average, snow and ice cover in the world’s mountain ranges have declined.

The run-off increases the volume of water flowing into rivers and lakes, which in turn ends up in the seas.

One of the latest assessments suggest that sea levels are likely to rise by about 1.4m (4ft 6in) globally by 2100 as polar ice melts.

However, there are big question marks over how much the vast polar ice sheets, which have the potential to have a catastrophic impact, will contribute to future sea level rise.

The world’s three ice sheets – Greenland, West Antarctic and East Antarctic – are vast bodies of ice, containing billions of tonnes of frozen water.

At present, their contribution to average sea level rise is relatively small. However, they are projected to become key drivers.

In its benchmark Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected a sea level rise of up to 43cm by 2100.

However, it acknowledged that it could not predict how the ice sheets would respond to a warming world.

Leading up to the publication of the AR4, researchers had gathered evidence of glaciers in Greenland and parts of the Antarctic were flowing more quickly, feeding more ice into the oceans, which could translate into faster sea level rise.

Since 2007, there have been more much more research into the dynamics of the ice sheets, resulting in a number of updated projections.

By the end of the century, it projected, the sheet will probably have lost enough ice alone to raise sea levels globally by “tens of centimetres”.

It added that the Antarctic Peninsula – the strip of land that points towards the southern tip of South America – has warmed by about 3C over the last 50 years, the fastest rise seen anywhere in the southern hemisphere.

But the rest of the continent has remained largely immune from the global trend of rising temperatures.

Indeed, the continent’s largest portion, East Antarctica, appears to have cooled, bringing a 10% increase in the sea ice extent since 1980.

Other observers project a global average sea level increase of about one metre by 2100.

But there is a scientific consensus that the IPCC’s 2007 projection of 43cm was too conservative.

However, for many people the debate over the extent of future rises are academic.

Leaders of small island nations – especially in the South Pacific – are fearful for the fate of their populations.

Even a small increase will result in the small islands disappearing beneath the waves.

Continue on the BBC site to look at how water resources may be limited during the next century…

Residents of Petite Martinique have called on the government for assistance in protecting a section of the island that appears to be quickly disappearing into the sea. Officials are now studying a proposal by a couple of experts who visited the section of the island, where Petite Martinique’s only playing field is located. Residents of the area claim that almost 20 feet of land were lost in the past four months.

An observation of the area was undertaken Tuesday (December 8th 2009) by minister for Carriacou & Petite Martinique affairs, Senator George Prime. He was accompanied by ministry of works advisor Juan Carlos Perez, a specialist in sea and harbor protection, and Anthony Appiah – an officer with the commonwealth fund for Technical Corporation. Mr. Perez and Mr. Appiah noted that the sea water level appears to be rising, saying it’s an example of the effects of climate change. In order to mitigate the problem in the short term, they advised that a concrete break-away system be built.

For the original report go to http://www.klassicgrenada.com/index.pl/article?id=16700595

While the world’s eyes are on Copenhagen, spare a thought for Kiribati. Kiribati is sinking and predictions are within fifty years the entire nation of 32 atolls and a raised coral island stretching over 3,500,000 square kilometres, a larger area than India, across the central tropical Pacific Ocean may well be permanently submerged and consequently unlivable for its 100,000 citizens. It along with fellow Pacific island nation, Tuvalu – and its 10,000 citizens, stand to lose the most from climate change and resultant sea level rises with the two nations predicted to be the first to go under.

Tuvaluan village - a tropical paradise soon to be lost forever

Whilst, both island nations are veritable tropical paradises, their key vulnerability is their tiny elevations above sea level, an average of just two metres for Kiribati and a highest point of just 4.5 metres above sea level for Tuvalu, the second lowest in the world. (The Maldives actually has the lowest maximum elevation of just 2.3 metres above sea level and an average of just 1.5 metres above sea level. It, too is in danger of sinking fast having already experienced sea level increases of 20 centimetres in the last century).

Activists in Copenhagen protesting on behalf of island nations for a better deal in dealing with climate change and resultant sea level rises affecting their nations

The situation has become so tense that the Kiribati President, Anote Tong, called on Australia and New Zealand to accept his citizens as permanent refugees, having stated that the country has already reached “the point of no return”. He also has stated that he will consider buying land to relocate his citizens if no other situation options can be found. Adding that “to plan for the day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful but I think we have to do that.”

Australia and New Zealand, the largest nations in Oceania, to their credit have started to make preparations to help and support the beleaguered I-Kiribatis and Tuvaluans by assisting in training and education programmes.  But, Kiribati officials in Copenhagen are saying that the regional powers of the south Pacific are not doing enough to address the potentially catastrophic consequences of having over 100,000 individuals having to emigrate and be permanently relocated due to environmental factors in the near future.

The oncoming, endless waves of the Pacific inundating a Kiribati village. A depressing but increasingly common sight in Kiribati

Unfortunately for the citizens of Kiribati and Tuvalu, it appears Anote Tong may be right, we have already reached the point of no return. Whether you agree that climate change has been accelerated by human activities or not, this is regardless a tragedy of epic proportions for the Pacific island residents of Kiribati and Tuvalu, whose nations have done next to nothing to contribute to climate change but will be the first to bear the consequences of it. For this reason, I hope and trust the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, along with other developed nations – the prime contributors to accelerated climate change, do their utmost to repatriate, house and educate these innocent victims of global climate change.

The tragedy of a real paradise lost in the near future

The East Antarctic ice sheet has been losing mass for the last three years, according to an analysis of data from a gravity-measuring satellite mission.

"Hell of a job, Brownie!"

Rising CO2 Will Cause Catastrophic Sea Level Rise Finds Antarctic Study by Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentThe Telegraph/UK

Sea levels could rise by up to six metres if the world fails to get pollution under control, according to the latest study in the Antarctic.

The British Antarctic Survey is the latest research to warn of the consequences of increased greenhouse gases on the Earth’s climate. Carbon dioxide is rising at record rates putting the world on a pathway for a 6C rise in temperature, which will cause a sea level rise of up six metres, threatening coastal cities like London, New York and San Francisco.

The recent studies add pressure on world leaders to agree to an international deal on climate change at a UN summit in Copenhagen this December.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/18-6

How Limousine Liberals, Water Oligarchs and Even Sean Hannity Are Hijacking Our Water Supply By Yasha Levine, AlterNet.

A group of water oligarchs engineered a disastrous privatization scheme to make a fortune out of California’s most precious natural resource.

A group of water oligarchs in California have engineered a disastrous deregulation and privatization scheme. And they’ve pulled in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars without causing much public outrage. The amount of power and control they wield over California’s most precious resource, water, should shock and frighten us — and it would, if more people were aware of it. But here is the scary thing: They are plotting to gain an even larger share of California’s increasingly-scarce, over-tapped water supply, which will surely lead to shortages, higher prices and untold destruction to California’s environment.

California is in year three of a fairly nasty dry spell. And some very powerful forces are not letting this mini-crisis go to waste, fiercely lobbying Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein, paying off corporate shills like Fox News’ Sean Hannity and capitalizing on people’s fear of drought to push a massive waterworks project that will pump more water, build more dams and keep sucking the state’s rivers dry. …This drought hysteria is nothing more than political theatrics, a scare tactic backed by big agribusiness to strong-arm California voters into building a multi-billion dollar system of dams and canals that would not really help small farmers — of which there are very few anyway — but would deliver more water to corporations, subsidize their landholdings, fuel real estate development and enable large-scale water privatization. At its core, it is a war waged for water by California’s megarich on everyone else.  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/water/144020/how_limousine_liberals%2C_water_oligarchs_and_even_sean_hannity_are_hijacking_our_water_supply

Rachel Maddow Interview with Former Evangelist Frank Schaeffer: Christian Right Is ‘Trolling for Assassins’ AlterNet.

Schaeffer: “There is a crazy fringe [receiving] messages that have been pouring out of FOX News … talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him.”  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/144054/rachel_maddow_interview_with_former_evangelist_frank_schaeffer%3A_christian_right_is_%27trolling_for_assassins%27

Shocking Benefits of Legalizing Pot By Ami Cholia, AlterNet.

There are some pluses to legalization that you probably haven’t heard about.

The war on drugs may be a noble intention, but the illegal growing of marijuana is destroying our environment.

Primarily run by Mexican drug cartels California’s illegal growers aren’t your typical peace-loving hippies of the 70s. These men live illegally on farms all summer, putting tons of waste into the soil and water. Pesticides drain into creeks and enter the food chain, sickening wildlife.  Each plant also uses about 15 gallons of water per day soaking up a large part of the water resources around.

Organized crime groups who cash in on the drug war’s distortion of supply and demand dynamics have little regard for the environment. Even illegal growers of organic marijuana impact the environment by felling trees in national forests to make room for illicit grow sites. The plants are seasonal, but the environmental damage lasts forever.

There is a serious exception to be made. Many medical – legal – marijuana growers are among the most responsible citizens around. They buy soil in bulk, use rat traps instead of poison, water with timers and drip systems. They have very little physical impact on the land.

Outside of the obvious benefits of hemp — bio-diesel, burns cleanly, soil builder, better cheaper paper, etc. — organic and sustainable practices for growing marijuana would bring in tons of revenue for the states, clean up the environment, and save the government $150 billion on policing and courts, since 47.5% of all drug arrests are marijuana-related.

We’re not promoting drug addiction.  The positive benefits to the environment by making marijuana legal definitely seem enough to take action.

Even Glenn Beck seems to think this is worth it.  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/environment/144052/world%27s_biggest_polluters_strike_a_deal%3A_u.s._and_china_agree_to_comprehensive_clean_energy_and_climate_plan?page=3

World’s Biggest Polluters Strike a Deal: U.S. and China Agree to Comprehensive Clean Energy and Climate Plan By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress.

The overall plan is much more ambitious in scope and depth than anticipated.

A comprehensive plan for U.S.-China cooperation on clean energy and climate change was announced in Beijing by President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao. The plan contains directives to create various institutions and programs addressing a wide array of cooperation on clean-energy technologies and capacity building, including very important efforts on helping China build a robust, transparent and accurate inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions.

These efforts include cooperation in the following areas:

1.      Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

2.      Joint Clean Energy Research Center. (Factsheet)

3.      Electric Vehicles. (Factsheet)

4.      Energy Efficiency. Building on the Ten Year Framework on Energy and Environment Cooperation, government officials of both countries will “work together (Factsheet)

5.      Renewable Energy. (Factsheet)

6.      21st Century Coal. The two countries will “launch a program of technical cooperation to …develop clean coal and carbon capture and storage technologies.” (Factsheet)

7.      Shale Gas. The U.S. and China will “assess China’s shale gas potential, promote environmentally-sustainable development of shale gas resources, conduct joint technical studies to accelerate development of shale gas resources in China, and promote shale gas investment in China through the U.S.-China Oil and Gas Industry Forum, study tours, and workshops.” (Factsheet)

8.      Nuclear. The two countries reaffirmed the goals of the Third Executive Committee Meeting of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership to promote the peaceful use of civilian nuclear energy, and “agreed to consult with one another in order to explore such approaches—including assurance of fuel supply and cradle-to-grave nuclear fuel management so that countries can access peaceful nuclear power while minimizing the risks of proliferation.”

9.      Public-private partnerships on clean energy. A new U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP) will “leverage private sector resources for project development work in China across a broad array of clean energy projects, to the benefit of both nations.”

The two countries hope that the upcoming United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen will follow this example and focus as much on bottom-up technological strategies for achieving real reductions in emissions as it will on top-down targets for carbon caps.  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/environment/144052/world%27s_biggest_polluters_strike_a_deal%3A_u.s._and_china_agree_to_comprehensive_clean_energy_and_climate_plan?page=3

Push to Curb Credit-Card Rates Fades as Democrats resist consumer outcry by Michael KranishThe Boston Globe

WASHINGTON – Efforts in Congress to cap credit-card interest rates are faltering because of opposition from Democrats and a lack of specific support from the White House, despite growing consumer outrage over a rush by banks to impose rates as high as 30 percent.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama vowed to back a strict limit on credit-card interest rates. But the White House is not yet behind any plan.

The Senate soundly defeated legislation in May introduced by Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont Independent, to cap most credit-card interest rates at 15 percent. Nearly half of the Democratic senators joined Republicans in defeating the measure, 60 to 33.

Consumer groups say the problem of skyrocketing interest rates has worsened since that vote, as banks scramble to boost rates in advance of a new rule scheduled to take effect in February, requiring banks to give consumers a 45-day advance notice of rate increases.

Sanders said many of the credit cards in the hands of American consumers are issued by four banks that received taxpayer bailout money after last year’s economic meltdown: Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.

“People are disgusted. We bailed these [companies] out and they then had the gumption to raise interest rates on the American people,” Sanders said in an interview. Sanders said he plans to reintroduce his proposal to cap rates at 15 percent; he predicted it will have more support this time.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/18-7

A December 2009 international conference in Copenhagen focuses  on the issues of global warming.  The effect of melting ice melting on sea levels is one of the issues. The below link  is an excellent summary of a study about  ice melting in Greenland and how it is increasing sea levels.

From Reuters on Greenland’s melting ice.

From the BBC  -  Q & A on the Copenhagen conference in December 2009.

What preparations are being made if the rising seas cannot be stopped, and what if all that exists along our coasts will be flooded?  The rate of the rising sea levels seem so minimal right now that they don’t feel scary, but the projections are serious. We cannot merely hope that science will solve the problem before the projected ill-effects become unfixable. Governments need to address the projections by policy changes. We need to address the projections by each changing our life styles.

Even if the warming is partly a natural environmental cycle, the effects will still be incredible. We need to reduce our contributions to the warming. We simply need to prepare for the end effects, regardless of the cause.  How will our children look back at us? Will they rightly blame us for spending more time arguing so much about the cause that we missed the opportunity to prepare for what more and more science  projects will happen to their world?

Some say it is only a gloomy projection. That is a weak argument. But even if, by some chance, all the global climate changes turn out to be not dangerous, we should nonetheless respect our planet more. We need to help it provide us with a safe place to live. The earth is not endlessly forgiving of our choices. This is a prime example of the precautionary principle. But the precautionary principle takes self-discipline and personal responsibility.

About 12 miles off the coast of Maine near the mouth of Penobscot Bay an island rises out of the Atlantic like a great whale.  Monhegan Island is about a 1.7 miles long and .7 miles wide…a small fishing and artist community that today supports around 70 people year-round and too many “summer complaints” in the summer.  I grew up there as a “summer complaint” in our family’s home, built by my great-grandmother back in the 1920’s and it is here that I learned what island life has to teach us all. 

Living on an island makes one aware of your own “footprints on the beach”.  You pay attention to the water you need, the food you eat, the sewage you cause, the energy you use, the trash you generate, the noise you make and your own behavior because anonymity is not an option.  These are all valuable lessons that more of us should heed not only for our environment but for our society as well.  Living on an Island in Maine is a juxtaposition of American Yankee fiscal conservatism with moderate social allowances and a time-tested and honored wisdom of the intertwining of the environment and the economy.  It’s a higher evolved balance of human social attitudes which translates into behavior that while never perfect and always evolving is still a higher standard than I have found on most mainland communities.  In all my travels whatever self-description and uniqueness island people put on themselves–it’s still a familiar worldview that Islanders around the world share.  Which is why I want bring the whole concept of Climate Change back to islands and freshwater. 

Long before the sea levels rise to overtake and flood low-lying islands, such as those in Oceania or in the Caribbean basin, the rising sea will intrude upon the freshwater resources of these islands–all islands low or tall.  It begins with the physics of water:

• Ocean saltwater weighs about 8.55 lbs per gallon [metric conversion:  3.878 kilograms per 3.785 liters];
• Freshwater weighs about 8.34 lbs per gallon [metric conversion:  3.783 kilograms per 3.785 liters].

So freshwater weighs less than saltwater…common sense since the freshwater doesn’t have all those salts nor as many minerals.  On an island, rainwater percolates through the bedrock and forms a “freshwater lens” that literally floats on top of saltwater.

This freshwater is also influenced by tidal changes and by storm surges.  As the ocean rises it pushes up the freshwater lens.  As long as your well is dug very carefully you will not pierce the lens and extract saltwater.  Here’s video of a simulation of a freshwater lens and in the author’s words: 

“This movie shows the development of a fresh water lens over a 2-year period beneath a small island surrounded by tidal flats subject to a semi-diurnal tide. Red colors indicate saline water, blue colors indicate fresh groundwater. The blue prism surrounding island represent the surface water in the lagoon. Groundwater recharge only occurs in the center of the island.” [no audio in the simulation video]

As you can see the freshwater lens on an island is a dynamic phenomenon.  Pulling water out of the lens requires great sensitivity to precipitation and recharge, sea levels, storm surges and pollution.  Once the lens is polluted you don’t have other choices like people on the mainland have.

Freshwater is an issue of national security for island nations.  In the Bahamas, the residents and tourists of the capital city Nassau need approximately 8.1 million gallons of freshwater everyday.  The government must barge over approximately 4.33 million gallons everyday from the neighboring island of Andros because Nassau [island of New Providence] doesn’t have enough water to satisfy the demand.  If the freshwater lens of Andros becomes compromised the inhabitants and tourists, upon which the economy of the Bahamas is so dependent upon, will find themselves with half their freshwater cut off.  That’s not enough to sustain the population.

Here’s some information from the Bahamian Water and Sewage Corporation at:  http://www.wsc.com.bs/Information.asp

“All freshwater in the Bahamas is only available as groundwater, which comes about as a result of rainfall. The freshwater resources occur as concave lens-shaped bodies:   

90% of all freshwater lenses are within five feet of the surface.  Freshwater resources occur as three-dimensional lens-shaped bodies, which overlies brackish and saline waters at depth.  The size, shape and orientation of the island, the subsurface, geology and the amount of rainfall control the shape, size and thickness of freshwater bodies.  The only source of drinking and irrigation water is from groundwater lenses, which float on brackish water due to differing densities.  Due to the shallow depth of the freshwater lenses, the resources are vulnerable to several environmental risks.  Additionally, over-extraction of groundwater lenses is an ongoing concern. 

In order to meet the water requirements of a growing population on the island of New Providence, the water lenses have been used beyond their sustainable or safe yields.  This has caused a mixing of fresh and brackish lenses resulting in a steady rise in the salinity of the water supplied.”

On the other side of the globe the islands of the South Pacific face water security issues as well.  Here’s an excellent primer from Islands First:  http://www.islandsfirst.org/

“An important problem already affecting numerous coastal areas including small islands is salt water infiltration in soils or salinisation, especially on atoll countries such as Tuvalu, Maldives, or Kiribati.  Atolls get their freshwater supplies from rainfall or groundwater (rainfall filtered in the ground). Freshwater is lighter than salt water; a lens is formed under the atoll with freshwater on top. This reserve of freshwater is vulnerable to decrease in rainfall (as the lens cannot replenish) and over drilling which can contaminate the lens water with brackish water.

As projections from the IPCC have shown, there is strong evidence that water resources and distribution of rainfall on small islands will be compromised with climate change. In Kiribati, for instance, a 10% reduction in average rainfall by 2050 would lead to a 20% reduction in the size of the freshwater lens. In addition, increase frequency of extreme weather events, sea level rise and resulting land loss, are likely to increase the stress on freshwater lens on atolls. For example, studies in Tarawa, Kiribati, demonstrated that a 50 cm rise in sea level accompanied by a reduction in rainfall of 25% would reduce the freshwater lens by 65%.

These negative impacts of climate change cumulated with population increase put the availability of fresh water resources at risk. Water quality is likely to be degraded by salt water infiltration. This could lead to health problems related to the scarcity of freshwater, and to the spread of water born diseases. As freshwater runs scarce, life on islands will be more difficult to sustain. The inhabitants of the Carteret islands in Papua New Guinea are currently suffering increase water shortage and rely on coconut water since average precipitations have decreased and their freshwater supplies have been contaminated by saltwater infiltration.

Salt water infiltration has also severe adverse impacts on agricultural practices. As salt water infiltrates the aquifers and soils, many salt intolerant traditional crops, such as taro or pulaka, die from salt contamination, which affects the traditional diet of islanders. For example, across the Pacific, taro crop is a fundamental element of islanders’ diet. Because of salt contamination in soils, many island communities have been forced to relocate their plantations further inland or in higher grounds. For atolls, which culminate at less than 5 meters above sea level, the situation is even more precarious: some island communities, in Tuvalu for instance, have started growing traditional crops in tin cans since they are unable to relocate to higher grounds…

Fresh water is lighter than salt water. Therefore, fresh water “floats” on top of salt water. This principle becomes extremely important when considering the drilling of a well in order to tap into the ground water of any island. The weight of the rain water that percolates into the ground depresses the salt water beneath it forming a profile that has the appearance of a lens. This is called the Ghyben-Herzberg lens. The principle of this relationship was discovered independently by a Dutch scientist named Baden-Ghyben and a German scientist named Herzberg.

The underground boundary that separates the fresh water layer from the salt water is not a sharp boundary line. In reality, this boundary is a transition zone of brackish water (fresh/salt mixture). This is caused by seasonal fluctuations in rainfall, tidal action, and the amount of water being withdrawn either by humans or by natural discharge.”

Islands teach us about resource management in an “in your face” style.  Managing an islands resources in a sustainable manner is critical for survival and for economic development…and nothing is more critical than freshwater.  Pressures of irrigating crops for food along with freshwater needs for hydration and hygiene are all wrapped up in a world where you are dependent upon a fragile freshwater lens sitting on top of saltwater.  

Changes to the hydrologic cycle, like cyclonic events, are predicted to get stronger as a result of climate change and sea levels are already rising.  The Bahamas experienced this with Hurricane Katrina…Andros [Arawak Cay] pumped salt water for a few days until the sea level subsided and the freshwater lens settled back down to the well points. These are all real challenges to islands and island nations. They hold lessons for those of us on the mainland as these issues, while magnified by the nature of island living, are our issues as well.

When the wells run salt there is nowhere to go.  It’s like being on a ship at sea and the ship catches fire…there’s nowhere to go…you have to deal with it and do it quickly.  Otherwise you abandon ship or in this case de-populate in a planned manner, die from dehydration, or succumb to chaos in a desperate bid for survival when the veneer of civility is stripped off us:  no water…no civility…no civilization 

It is our responsibility to plan ahead, conserve our resources and come up with some fresh[water] ideas for a thirsty planet or islands in this case. 

Pay attention to the islands.  They are the Miner’s Canary. 

But for now, as winter sets into the northern hemisphere, for all my friends in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas we all still know ”…it’s better in the Bahamas…” 

[P.S. for those in the South Pacific and feel it is better there just send a plane ticket and I'll be happy to come verify that--preferably around January or February up here in Maine...I know, shameless appeal for a free trip to the tropics]

Since the mid to late 1800’s sea levels have been very slowly rising…about 1 cm a year which is so small who would notice?  It’s now been about a century and some change and the rate of rising is starting to accelerate to about 2 cm a year. The tiny changes over the years are becoming noticeable.  Sea levels are rising and we are learning that in the last decade alone the rate is up to about 3cm a year.

The threat of rising sea levels to our coastal cities is being felt around the world such as the  magnificent historical city of Venice, Italy…a place on my “bucket list” [the list of things you want to see and do before you die or "kick the bucket" in American slang].  Poor Venice has a double whammy of both slowly sinking as a result of its own weight on the barrier islands it was constructed upon and a rising Adriatic Sea.  Venice is not alone..more than half of the world’s population lives within 60 Kilometers [36 miles] of the coast and the effects of a rising sea and retreating coastline is a serious issue for all of us.  I’m not going to be focusing on coastal effects here, instead this post is the warm up to the issue of freshwater and island nations.  As you’ve hopefully read in my previous posts I believe that islands hold lessons for the rest of us on the mainlands.  Islands are the “Miner’s Canary” for us and when island nations start running into issues, in this case sea levels and freshwater, we need to pay attention.

You may have seen articles in magazines such as National Geographic on small island nations suffering from sea level rise.   Island nations like Tuvalu, The Maldives, Kiribati, Vanuatu are all feeling the effects of rising sea levels.  It may seem like a marginally interesting or somewhat important issue when something is so far away, it can be hard to feel it and understand its importance to your own world.  But these islands are the harbingers of what’s to come for all of us and we ignore their plight at our own peril.  An organization of these small islands nations called Islands First has an excellent website and is a treasure trove of information on the issues facing these islands:  http://www.islandsfirst.org/

One of my favorite authors is Sir Laurens van der Post and he writes hauntingly beautiful and insightful novels about his life in South Africa.  In his book, “A Story Like the Wind” he writes about geo-political events that effect his characters on the edges of the remote Kalahari desert.  He says of these events, “they are like the wind, they come from a far off place but we feel them here”.  Here is another story like the wind…Kiribati:

…A  small island nation whose government is literally planning for its demise, just like Vanuatu or Tuvalu or the other low-lying atoll island nations of the South Pacific:

There are a couple of factors contributing to sea level rise:  Thermal expansion of the oceans due to warming of the waters, melting glaciers and loss of sea ice.  The Climate Institute has this explanation on this issue and I’ve embedded a NASA video below that presents the information quite nicely:

From the Climate Institute [edited for length] at www.climate.org

Most of the world’s coastal cities were established during the last few millennia, a period when global sea level has been near constant. Since the mid-19th century, sea level has been rising, likely primarily as a result of human-induced climate change. During the 20th century, sea level rose about 15-20 centimeters (roughly 1.5 to 2.0 mm/year), with the rate at the end of the century greater than over the early part of the century. Satellite measurements taken over the past decade, however, indicate that the rate of increase has jumped to about 3.1 mm/year, which is significantly higher than the average rate for the 20th century. Projections suggest that the rate of sea level rise is likely to increase during the 21st century, although there is considerable controversy about the likely size of the increase.

…It should be understood that the melting back of sea ice (e.g., in the Arctic and the floating ice shelves) will not directly contribute to sea level rise because this ice is already floating on the ocean (and so already displacing its mass of water). However, the melting back of this ice can lead to indirect contributions on sea level. For example, the melting back of sea ice leads to a reduction in albedo (surface reflectivity) and allows for greater absorption of solar radiation. More solar radiation being absorbed will accelerate warming, thus increasing the melting back of snow and ice on land. In addition, ongoing break up of the floating ice shelves will allow a faster flow of ice on land into the oceans, thereby providing an additional contribution to sea level rise.

There are three major processes by which human-induced climate change directly affects sea level. First, like air and other fluids, water expands as its temperature increases (i.e., its density goes down as temperature rises). As climate change increases ocean temperatures, initially at the surface and over centuries at depth, the water will expand, contributing to sea level rise due to thermal expansion. Thermal expansion is likely to have contributed to about 2.5 cm of sea level rise during the second half of the 20th century, with the rate of rise due to this term having increased to about 3 times this rate during the early 21st century. Because this contribution to sea level rise depends mainly on the temperature of the ocean, projecting the increase in ocean temperatures provides an estimate of future growth. Over the 21st century, the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment projected that thermal expansion will lead to sea level rise of about 17-28 cm (plus or minus about 50%). That this estimate is less than would occur from a linear extrapolation of the rate during the first decade of the 21st century when all model projections indicate ongoing ocean warming has led to concerns that the IPCC estimate may be too low.

A second, and less certain, contributor to sea level rise is the melting of glaciers and ice caps. IPCC’s Fourth Assessment estimated that, during the second half of the 20th century, melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps led to about a 2.5 cm rise in sea level. This is a higher amount than was caused by the loss of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which added about 1 cm to the sea level. For the 21st century, IPCC’s Fourth Assessment projected that melting of glaciers and ice caps will contribute roughly 10-12 cm to sea level rise, with an uncertainty of roughly a third. This would represent a melting of roughly a quarter of the total amount of ice tied up in mountain glaciers and small ice caps.

The third process that can cause sea level to rise is the loss of ice mass from Greenland and Antarctica. Were all the ice on Greenland to melt, a process that would likely take many centuries to millennia, sea level would go up by roughly 7 meters. The West Antarctic ice sheet holds about 5 m of sea level equivalent and is particularly vulnerable as much of it is grounded below sea level; the East Antarctic ice sheet, which is less vulnerable, holds about 55 m of sea level equivalent. The models used to estimate potential changes in ice mass are, so far, only capable of estimating the changes in mass due to surface processes leading to evaporation/sublimation and snowfall and conversion to ice. In summarizing the results of model simulations for the 21st century, IPCC reported that the central estimates projected that Greenland would induce about a 2 cm rise in sea level whereas Antarctica would, because of increased snow accumulation, induce about a 2 cm fall in sea level. That there are likely to be problems with these estimates, however, has become clear with recent satellite observations, which indicate that both Greenland and Antarctica are currently losing ice mass, and we are only in the first decade of a century that is projected to become much warmer over its course.

While there are obviously many challenges to projecting future sea level rise, even a seemingly small increase in sea level can have a dramatic impact on many coastal environments. Over 600 million people live in coastal areas that are less than 10 meters above sea level, and two-thirds of the world’s cities that have populations over five million are located in these at-risk areas. With sea level projected to rise at an accelerated rate for at least several centuries, very large numbers of people in vulnerable locations are going to be forced to relocate. 

…Unfortunately, many of the nations that are most vulnerable to sea level rise do not have the resources to prepare for it. Low-lying coastal regions in developing countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, and China have especially large populations living in at-risk coastal areas such as deltas, where river systems enter the ocean. Both large island nations such as the Philippines and Indonesia and small ones such as Tuvalu and Vanuatu are at severe risk because they do not have enough land at higher elevations to support displaced coastal populations. Another possibility for some island nations is the danger of losing their fresh-water supplies as sea level rise pushes saltwater into their aquifers. For these reasons, those living on several small island nations (including the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific) could be forced to evacuate over the 21st century.

Sea level rise can effect the very existence of an island nation, but before it floods over these islands there are other more insidious effects of sea level rise and an island’s freshwater resources are a “Miner’s Canary” of the larger climatic issue.  It presents a clear and present threat to the population long before the waves come over the beach. 

Next post: islands and freshwater

I have seen many glaciers and they are truly impressive in their size, silent strength and ability to literally change landscapes. I’ve seen them in the Rockies, the Alps, Iceland, flying over Greenland, and most recently in Alaska where, like the Great Land itself, they make them big! 

But perhaps nothing has ever taken my breath away than the snowpack and glacier of Mount Kilimanjaro.  Rising out of the Serengeti Plain alone in its majesty Mt. Kilimanjaro is a sleeping volcano and its sight fills the landscape.   It is even more impressive and awe-inspiring in person than any picture can do justice to.  Ever since I had read Ernest Hemingway’s “Snows of Kilimanjaro” the mountain has held for me the lure of the exotic, the impressiveness of its permanence, and seemingly improbable contrast of its snow-capped peak surrounded by the arid equatorial plains and wildlife of the Serengeti.

But the snows of Kilimanjaro and glacier have been retreating.  Scientists believe it is a direct result of global warming, not necessarily from rising temperatures at the summit but in changes to the hydrologic cycle and precipitation in East Africa and the Indian Ocean.  The loss of water from seasonal snow melt with its metered out melting holds dire consequences for those living in and around the arid iconic landscape of the Serengeti.

Worldwide we are losing glaciers and ice sheets at rates we have never seen before.  These glaciers and their snowpack with their seasonal cycle of melting and accrual are important sources of freshwater for the environment’s that they are in.  In addition to the water they provide for humans, the amount and timing of water in the streams in the spring run-off has major implications for the spawning cycle of many fish species.

As you have read in earlier posts the world’s glaciers and ice sheets hold about 75% of the world’s freshwater.  Greenland and Antarctica hold the greatest amount of freshwater in their ice sheets and glaciers and their melting is cause for concern of rising sea levels.

The melting of sea ice does not appreciably add to sea level rise as the volume of the frozen freshwater is already in the ocean…glaciers melting over land, especially in Greenland, do contribute to sea level rise.  Sea ice and glacier melting causes a loss of our global reflective surface from the white ice known as “albedo”.  The loss of this surface reflectivity allows for more solar radiation absorption by the newly exposed land and ocean and contributes to more warming and melting.  Not good.

There are a number of stunning videos on Greenland’s loss of glaciers on YouTube that I recommend you surf.  Here is a video on the Greenland deglaciation done by a BBC crew at a NASA research site:

The Climate Institute at  www.climate.org provides a good primer for understanding deglaciation and sea ice melting:

“One of the most pronounced effects of climate change has been melting of masses of ice around the world. Glaciers and ice sheets are large, slow-moving assemblages of ice that cover about 10% of the world’s land area and exist on every continent except Australia. They are the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water, holding approximately 75%.

Over the past century, most of the world’s mountain glaciers and the ice sheets in both Greenland and Antarctica have lost mass. Retreat of this ice occurs when the mass balance (the difference between accumulation of ice in the winter versus ablation or melting in the summer) is negative such that more ice melts each year than is replaced. By affecting the temperature and precipitation of a particular area, both of which are key factors in the ability of a glacier to replenish its volume of ice, climate change affects the mass balance of glaciers and ice sheets. When the temperature exceeds a particular level or warm temperatures last for a long enough period, and/or there is insufficient precipitation, glaciers and ice sheets will lose mass.

One of the best-documented examples of glacial retreat has been on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is the tallest peak on the continent, and so, despite being located in the tropics, it is high enough so that glacial ice has been present for at least many centuries. However, over the past century, the volume of Mount Kilimanjaro’s glacial ice has decreased by about 80%. If this rate of loss continues, its glaciers will likely disappear within the next decade. Similar glacial meltbacks are occurring in Alaska, the Himalayas, and the Andes.

When researching glacial melting, scientists must consider not only how much ice is being lost, but also how quickly. Recent studies show that the movement of ice towards the ocean from both of the major ice sheets has increased significantly. As the speed increases, the ice streams flow more rapidly into the ocean, too quickly to be replenished by snowfall near their heads. The speed of movement of some of the ice streams draining the Greenland Ice Sheet, for example, has doubled in just a few years. Using various methods to estimate how much ice is being lost (such as creating a ‘before and after’ image of the ice sheet to estimate the change in shape and therefore volume, or using satellites to ‘weigh’ the ice sheet by computing its gravitational pull), scientists have discovered that the mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet has become negative in the past few years. Estimates put the net loss of ice at anywhere between 82 and 224 cubic kilometers per year. 

In Antarctica, recent estimates show a sharp contrast between what is occurring in the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets. The acceleration of ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has doubled in recent years, which is similar to what has happened in Greenland. In West Antarctica, as well as in Greenland, the main reason for this increase is the quickening pace at which glacial streams are flowing into the ocean. Scientists estimate the loss of ice from the West Antarctic ice sheet to be from 47 to 148 cubic kilometers per year. On the other hand, recent measurements indicate that the East Antarctic ice sheet (which is much larger than the West) is gaining mass because of increased precipitation. However, it must be noted that this gain in mass by the East Antarctic ice sheet is nowhere near equal to the loss from the West Antarctic ice sheet.  Therefore, the mass balance of the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet is negative.

The melting back of the glaciers and ice sheets has two major impacts. First, areas that rely on the runoff from the melting of mountain glaciers are very likely to experience severe water shortages as the glaciers disappear. Less runoff will lead to a reduced capability to irrigate crops as freshwater dams and reservoirs more frequently go dry. Water shortages could be especially severe in parts of South America and Central Asia, where summertime runoff from the Andes and the Himalayas, respectively, is crucial for fresh water supplies. Also, in areas of North America and Europe, glacial runoff is used to power hydroelectric plants, sustain fish runs and irrigate crops as well as to supply the needs of large metropolitan areas. As the volume of runoff decreases, then the energy, urban, and agricultural infrastructures of such locations are likely to be stressed.  In addition, the melting of glaciers and ice sheets adds water to the oceans, contributing to sea level rise…”

 Commentary:  In Ernest Hemingway’s book, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” there is a brief reference at the beginning of the novel about the presence of a frozen leopard’s carcass near the summit of Kilimanjaro.  What the Leopard was doing at such an altitude and why it was there is not explained but it becomes a focal point of Hemingway’s use of symbolism.

In the story there are two animals used by Hemingway to symbolize our own life challenges between the black and hollow eyes of death [the hyena] and a passionate strong graceful life [Leopard].  Hemingway writes what he knows like all great writers.  When I was in East Africa at the foot of Kilimanjaro I saw hyenas at night and when I flashed a light on them their eyes never reflected back the light like other creatures.  Black hollow eyes.  It was haunting.  One morning while camped out in the Serengeti a leopard attacked and ate a baboon in a tree right over my tent.  Scared the hell out me…the leopard was so graceful and rippled with such strength. 

In the book Hemingway says the name of Kilimanjaro means “House of God”.  The symbolism of the leopard guarding the ”House of God” finds its symbolic inspiration in the leopard that guards Mount Purgatory in Dante’s Divine Comedy. 

Before us today are the retreating snows of Kilimanjaro as well as retreating glaciers and polar ice sheets.  I can’t help but wonder if the Polar Bear is the arctic equivalent of the Leopard of Kilimanjaro reminding us as the guardian of the “House of God” that before us is a choice of paths:  Paradisio or Inferno. 

…We are in our own collective global Purgatory and our actions will decide our future path…

next post:  rising sea levels, freshwater, and small island nations…

As you know from a previous post, the hydrologic cycle is the engine of the world’s freshwater.  It creates freshwater and moves it around the globe, but it doesn’t distribute it equally nor does it deliver the water to where we humans are in the quantities we need.

The effect on the hydrologic cycle from climate change is the introduction of more “energy” into the system because of warmer temperatures which leads to more moisture being put into the cycle through evaporation and transpiration.  Climate change “turbo-charges” the hydrologic cycle….on the face of it that seems like that would be a good thing.  The world’s freshwater factory is creating more freshwater for our rapidly expanding world population!  Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that… 

With all that new energy in the hydrologic cycle we also “turbocharge” our precipitation events with the wet get wetter and the dry get drier…Here’s a video from the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] that explains this very well:

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] and the United States Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] are excellent resources on the issue of climate change.  The IPCC is a global consortium of the worlds leading scientists and experts on climate change.  I’ve posted links on the right hand column of this blog for future reference. 

Here is some information on climate change and freshwater from the EPA: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/water/index.html

“Water Resources:  All regions of the world show an overall net negative impact of climate change on water resources and freshwater ecosystems. Areas in which runoff is projected to decline are likely to face a reduction in the value of the services provided by water resources. The beneficial impacts of increased annual runoff in other areas are likely to be tempered in some areas by negative effects of increased precipitation variability and seasonal runoff shifts on water supply, water quality and flood risks (IPCC, 2007).

The future effects of climate change on water resources in the U.S. and other parts of the world will depend on trends in both climatic and non-climatic factors. Evaluating these impacts is challenging because water availability, quality and streamflow are sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation. Other important factors include increased demand for water caused by population growth, changes in the economy, development of new technologies, changes in watershed characteristics and water management decisions.

Water Availability:  An increase in net solar radiation or temperature will effectively speed up the processes within [the hydrologic] cycle (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, etc).  Due to complex interactions of changes in the hydrologic cycle with global circulation patterns and local weather patterns, an increase in energy in the hydrologic cycle does not necessarily translate into an increase in precipitation in all geographic regions.  It is difficult to predict future changes in regional precipitation patterns. Predicting regional changes in streamflow and groundwater recharge due to climate change also remains challenging, particularly because of the uncertainty in regional projections of how precipitation may change (IPCC, 2007).

Changes in temperature, precipitation patterns and snowmelt can have impacts on water availability. Temperature is predicted to rise in most areas, but is generally expected to increase more in inland areas and at higher latitudes. Higher temperatures will increase loss of water through evaporation. The net impact on water supplies will depend on changes in precipitation (including changes in the total amount, form, and seasonal timing of precipitation). Generally speaking, in areas where precipitation increases sufficiently, net water supplies may not be affected or they may even increase. In other areas where precipitation remains the same or decreases, net water supplies would decrease. Where water supplies decrease, there is also likely to be an increase in demand, which could be particularly significant for agriculture (the largest consumer of water) and also for municipal, industrial and other uses.

Increases in temperature can affect the amount and duration of snow cover which, in turn, can affect timing of streamflow. Glaciers are expected to continue retreating, and many small glaciers may disappear entirely. Peak streamflow may move from late spring to early spring/late winter in those areas where snowpack is important in determining water availability. Changes in streamflow have important implications for water and flood management, irrigation, and planning. If supplies are reduced, off-stream users of water such as irrigated agriculture and in-stream users such as hydropower, fisheries, recreation and navigation, could be most directly affected (IPCC, 2007)….

…Flood magnitudes and frequencies will very likely increase in most regions — mainly a result of increased precipitation intensity and variability — and increasing temperatures are expected to intensify the climate’s hydrologic cycle and melt snowpacks more rapidly (IPCC, 2007). Flooding can affect water quality, as large volumes of water can transport contaminants into water bodies and also overload storm and wastewater systems.

Higher temperatures, particularly in the summer, earlier snowmelt, and potential decreases in summer precipitation could increase risk of drought. The frequency and intensity of floods and droughts could increase, even in the same areas.

Sea level rise may also affect freshwater quality by increasing the salinity of coastal rivers and bays and causing saltwater intrusion, movement of saline water into fresh ground water resources in coastal regions”

Commentary:  The more one knows about climate change, even with a skeptical eye, the more informed our civil discourse on what action[s] we should be taking becomes.  We may debate the severity and extent of change it may have in all of our lives but it demands our attention and our action.  As you read in the previous post, former skeptics and very conservative people are acknowledging the science is becoming more and more compelling. 

I was a member and former Chairman of the United States Federal Invasive Species Advisory Committee [ISAC] under the Bush Administration.  We all know that the Bush Administration fought the notion of climate change for most of the two terms [8 years] Bush was in office.  We saw this firsthand on the ISAC and the parade of political appointees who poo-poo’ed the notion of climate change, and if there was climate change then Man wasn’t responsible, and if Man was responsible then we had no obligation to do anything about it.   I can also testify firsthand that in the last 18 months of the Administration there was a turnaround in attitude towards climate change.  It was quiet and without fanfare, perhaps to “save face”, but it was real.  Too late and too little for any meaningful policy changes but Executive Branch professionals were able to voice their concerns without fear of political backlash.

The mounting scientific evidence was convincing and many die-hard skeptics, many of whom had a political agenda to protect, did what any reasonable person does when faced with new information–they changed their mind.  Some still fight the growing global evidence…there are some people out there who still think the world is flat, there was no holocaust, and that the moon landing was done in a movie set.  In the words of my kids:  whatever… [usually said to me with a LOT more attitude...].

We humans are reluctant to accept anything new without questioning it.  We’re a skeptical bunch for the most part and that’s a healthy survival trait that has been ingrained in us from the ages [such as being skeptical that one can telepathically communicate with a wild grizzly bear is healthy skepticism].  But survival is about adaptation to a constantly changing environment and we are in a state of constant change in this world and in our own personal lives.  As new information becomes apparent to us we evolve our thinking, our attitudes and our behavior…those that do survive, those that don’t do not.

We must evolve our thinking on freshwater because:

no water…no civility…no civilization

In the next couple of posts we’ll look at retreating sea ice, melting glaciers, thermal expansion of the oceans and rising sea levels and what that means for freshwater…especially for small island nations…

My family used to have a house on the beach in the 70s in Fregene just outside of Rome. I spent considerable time in that house that was then a “prima fila” piece of real estate meaning that it was a house located on the first row facing the sea. Growing up, we had already noticed the sea was withdrawing farther from our house each year. As I still visit Fregene occasionally, I know the sea has retreated so much that there is now another row of houses between our old house and the sea.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6426091/Maldives-underwater-cabinet-meeting-was-a-sorry-stunt.html

Excerpts of interest:

This prompted an open letter to President Nasheed from Dr Nils-Axel Morner, the former head of the international Inqua Commission on Sea Level Change. The Swedish geologist, who has been measuring sea-level change all over the world for over 30 years, reminded the president that his commission had visited the Maldives six times in the years since 2000, and that he himself had led three month-long investigations in every part of the coral archipelago. Their exhaustive studies had shown that from 1790 to 1970 sea-levels round the islands had averaged 20 centimetres higher than today; that the level, having fallen, has since remained stable; and that there is not the slightest sign of any rise. The most cautious forecast based on proper science (rather than computer model guesswork) shows that any rise in the next 100 years will be “small to negligible“. President Nasheed is well aware of this, because in 2001, Professor Morner offered to explain his team’s findings on the local TV station, to reassure viewers that their homes were not about to disappear underwater as they had been told. The government refused to allow his film to be shown. Egged on by climate alarmists, successive Maldivan leaders since the 1980s have pleaded for vast sums of international aid to save them from rising sea levels. “For Heaven’s sake,” writes Prof Morner in his open letter, “lift the terrible psychological burden you have placed on the shoulders of all people in the Maldives”, who have been made to live with “a wholly false notion that is nothing but an armchair fiction artificially constructed by mere computer modelling consistently proved wrong by meticulous real-world observation“.

This Saturday, October 24th, 2009, people in 173 countries are coming together to call on world governments to take action on climate change.   In just a couple months, world leaders will be gathering in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Negotiations.  Millions of people are hoping that conference will end with a global accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The end goal is to reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 390 Parts Per Million, the current level, to 350 PPM, what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or below.

The government of Maldives recently held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the fact that their island nation, only an average of 7 feet above sea level, will certainly be underwater if rising sea levels aren’t stopped or reversed.   President Mohammed Nasheed is strongly in favor of all nations acting to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Something else that impressed me was in an email from 350.org: “Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli activists will put aside political differences to push for a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.  On the beaches of their respective shores of the Dead Sea, they will make a big 3, 5, and 0.”  Having recently made a trip to Israel, I know firsthand how tense the relationships between these countries are, and working together like this for a broader goal just touches my heart.

So this Saturday, I’m heading to the San Francisco ferry building at 3 pm to take part in a gathering of eco-minded people to send a message to our leaders. What will you do?  Check out 350.org for events in your area and for more information.  Right now there are 4,517 planned activities registered for Saturday in 173 countries.

the maldives is the lowest nation in the world. the president cares about climate change. he’s holding an underwater cabinet meeting – scuba masks and all. welcome to our future!

 It’s simply not acceptable to assume that the American government cannot pass meaningful and responsible climate change legislation in time for the December United Nations Copenhagen conference on global warming.  We need to be active participants, setting the example, not passive reluctants who fail to show we are ready to act. Yet, despite years of urgent debate and scientific study, Washington may not have legislation ready to prove to the rest of the world that it means business.

Congress, if you have to, work overtime. Reduce your vacation time. Labor night and day. Get the job done. Give the new American Chief Executive, and our nation, momentum on this singularly crucial challenge.  Congress can multi-task and deal with more than just health care reform. There is no reason to wait until early December to take up this issue, a concern which was reported in the New York Times on October 16.

American leadership and creativity is needed on the “five tracks” of the Copenhagen conference as identified by Michael A. Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations in his recent article, “Copenhagen’s Inconvenient Truth.” (Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2009). The blueprint includes: Mitigation (“near-term commitments to cutting emissions”), Adaptation (“Efforts to deal with unavoidable climate change”), Finance (“Schemes to pay for emission cuts”), Technology (“Frameworks for advancing and distributing low-carbon technology”) and Creating A Vision For Long-Term Cooperative Action.  Capitol Hill should not cede leadership to other nations by embracing paralysis and indecision on this issue.

And one more thing…President Obama needs to be head the American presence to Copenhagen, to showcase our committment to deal effectively, and urgently, with global warming issues. But as of the date of this post, his presence is not assured. If this President is truly concerned about our changing natural environment, his absence from the UN conference will be an overwhelming distraction and side track progress.

On October 19, the BBC reported it is not at all certain that President Obama will attend the critical international meeting on climate change. According to the report, “Many observers believe that Barack Obama is the leader whose presence would do most to hasten a deal, but Mr Stern, the US administration’s chief negotiator, said the president’s attendance was not decided.”

We can do better. We must. Now.

Participate in the Debategraph Climate Change discussion, an on-going representation of the issue and its complexities.

“Lots Of Ice In The Winter, Not So Much In TheSummer!” ” – Glenn Beck Clips

About half fo the ice melts every summer but the sea level does not rise! – GB Clips

Average world temperatures will rise by a perilous 4°C by mid-century a team of 130 climate scientists said at a September 28-30 conference in Oxford sponsored by the UK Met Office.

The Met Office ran 17 different climate models to measure the potential for increased warming due to the crossing of climate tipping points. All the models concluded that unless world emissions were cut by at least 3% a year, runaway global warming will become a dreadful reality.

A 4°C world would make the melting of the Arctic ice-cap and the loss of most of the Amazon rainforest unstoppable, the conference concluded. A 4°C world would also make millions of people climate refugees due to rising sea levels.

The higher temperatures would also weaken or interrupt the annual Asian monsoon, an irreplaceable water source for billions of people, the scientists said.

While the climate models predicted an average rise of up to 15°C for the Arctic by 2055, the conference said Australia’s temperature was likely to escape such an extreme temperature hike.

However, it said climate change would worsen drought conditions and could treble the number of extreme fire danger days by 2050. Australian climate scientist David Karoly told the September 30 New Scientist that “even under a low warming scenario, the [extreme fire danger] frequency rises by 10 to 50%. We are unleashing hell on Australia.”

Another climate change report released by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on September 24 also cited evidence that the scale and pace of global warming is far beyond past predictions.

The UNEP report drew on some the latest peer-reviewed science. It concluded that the worst-case scenarios put forward by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) are now highly likely.

“Losses from glaciers, ice-sheets and the Polar Regions appear to be happening faster than anticipated, with the Greenland ice sheet, for example, recently seeing melting some 60 percent higher than the previous record of 1998”, the UNEP said.

The report also said that despite the widespread knowledge about the danger of climate change, carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry are now at record highs. Global emissions grew by 1.1% each year from 1990-1999. From 2000-2007 emissions rose by 3.5% a year, said the UNEP.

Meanwhile, oceanographers have been shocked to discover that carbon dioxide emissions are causing the Arctic ocean to become acidic at rate never seen before.

The October 4 Observer said French oceanographer Jean-Pierre Gattuso thought the results “extremely worrying”.

“We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish — like mussels — to grow their shells”, he said. “But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish.”

When carbon dioxide is dissolved into the oceans it can form carbonic acid. Due to the burning of fossil fuels for energy, huge areas of the Arctic Ocean are becoming too acidic to sustain some forms of marine life.

The Observer said the research suggested “that 10% of the Arctic Ocean will be corrosively acidic by 2018; 50% by 2050; and 100% ocean by 2100”.

A September 23 report on the Yale Environment 360 website said the world’s oceans are “acidifying 100 times faster than at any time during the past 20 million years”.

Last time we looked at the national cost of doing nothing about climate change.  The figures are impressive, but they only go so far.  Often it helps to have a concrete example.

So today, let’s zoom in on one particular area: Chesapeake Bay, North America’s largest and most biologically diverse estuary.  According to an article in the current issue of National Wildlife, sea levels in this region are rising nearly twice as fast as the rest of the world.  This, the article says, is due to two phenomena:

First, the mid-Atlantic is shrinking.  It is an echo of the last Ice Age, when huge glaciers pushed down on the Earth’s crust to the north.  The land here was lifted like the other end of a seesaw, and now it’s slowly dropping.  Second, research presented recently shows that climate change will alter the dynamics of the oean, weakening the system of currents that pulls water away from the shore here.  At the same time, the world’s oceans are inching up — fed by melting polar ice and swelled as warmer water expands in volume.

Many people dismiss rising sea levels as sensational alarmism, imagining The Day After Tomorrow – style catastrophes.  But rising oceans are already affecting coastal communities in a very real way.

The Calvert County, Maryland, shore resort of North Beach spends $25,000 dollars a year in an effort to preserve its three-block-long beach.

“It’s a money pit,” Mayor Michael Bojokles says, but crucial to the town’s tourist economy.  “That has to be said: It’s absolutely necessary.”

Even larger resorts are affected.  State, federal, and local authorities spent $7 million to deposit 100,000 dump truckloads of sand on Ocean City’s beach.  They expect that more sand will be needed next year.

It’s already too late for a few places.  The chief of shoreline conservation and management for Maryland counted at least five “beaches” whose names are now a lie.

While the nation debates whether global warming is a problem or whether it is even happening, residents of the Chesapeake area are experiencing climate change firsthand.  How could they deny something that’s happening in their own backyards?  Yet many people are doing just that, because the areas impacted by climate change are in all of our ecological “backyards.”

And the impacts we’re seeing now are relatively small.  Melting of the current Greenland ice sheet would result in a sea level rise of about 6.5 meters.  The West Antarctic ice sheet — which is especially vulnerable, due to its position below sea level — would cause sea levels to 8 meters if it melted.

If a sea level rise of less than an inch per year is hurting coastal economies, imagine how much trouble a more dramatic rise would cause.  If you include the impact on wildlife, the cost is even greater.  The habitat of diamondback terrapins and brown pelicans, for instance, could be inundated.

It’s not too late to save the Chesapeake, or any other area from the effects of climate change.  But we have to act now; the time for a policy of delaying and denying has passed.

Bill Gates is correct. We need to develop technology to stop Typhoons, Hurricanes and Cyclones. No matter how difficult the task, the need to divert and tame monster storms increases each year.  The ambitious Gates plan is correctly referenced as ”geoengineering.” Applied ethically, it can to save lives and property. 

According to the Economist, in its 9.19.09 edition, “Ten of the developing world’s 15 largest cities are in low-lying coastal areas vulnerable to rising sea levels or coastal surges.” The article, entitled, “A bad climate for development,” adds, “In 1981-85, fewer than 500m people required international disaster assistance; in 2001-05, the number reached 1.5 billion.“

We should be praying Bill’s geo-engineering patents and strategies are implemented, and that others will follow with new ideas to calm down the planet.  Weather related events and their impact seem to be getting worse by the decade, just as human capabilities to effect weather modification increase.  To ignore the opportunity to employ technology in the fight against cyclonic events would be criminal.

We at NARO are thrilled to introduce a new researcher on maize sustainability.  His name is Gideon Yaro, a Ugandan national, who has just returned from a decade of studies abroad, primarily at Cambridge University.

His Phd dissertation was on …

Welcome aboard Gideon!

Climate change has become a big issue in recent decades, and one of the major indicators that many people point to as a worrying potential problem is the rise in sea levels globally. There are island nations buying up land in foreign countries, people moving further inland, worse floods every year from tropical storms and hurricanes – yet perhaps an even more worrying problem is that the land itself is SINKING!

Scientists in the well-known and respected journal “Nature Geoscience” have recently published an article on the impact of human activities on the land drop towards sea level in many deltas worldwide. This closure towards the water, they claim, is far greater than the rise in sea level faced by the same inhabitants. Their abstract, below, will give a quick glimpse into the problem:

“Many of the world’s largest deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed. Yet many of their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and conversions of their land to open ocean. The vulnerability is a result of sediment compaction from the removal of oil, gas and water from the delta’s underlying sediments, the trapping of sediment in reservoirs upstream and floodplain engineering in combination with rising global sea level. Here we present an assessment of 33 deltas chosen to represent the world’s deltas. We find that in the past decade, 85% of the deltas experienced severe flooding, resulting in the temporary submergence of 260,000 km². We conservatively estimate that the delta surface area vulnerable to flooding could increase by 50% under the current projected values for sea-level rise in the twenty-first century. This figure could increase if the capture of sediment upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas.”

Taken from: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo629.html

Chao Phraya River Basin

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Chao Phraya, (see image above) the river which flows through Bangkok is one of the worst affected – parts of the delta have sunk 15cm (six inches)! Compare this to the global rate of sea level rise due to climate change at only 1.8-3.0mm per year – nearly a tenfold difference!

Scientists estimate that the area of land vulnerable to flooding will increase by about 50% in the next 40 years due to a combination of climate change causing sea levels to rise and land sinking due to human causes.

“This study shows there are a host of human-induced factors that already cause deltas to sink much more rapidly than could be explained by sea level alone.” Journal Geoscience Article

The researchers report that the flow of sediment down to the Chao Phraya delta has been almost entirely blocked, due to  irrigation, damming the river, and directing the main flow through just a few channels. In rivers with no dams or man-made controls, the sediment would pass down the river and add to the height of the land, a process known as aggradation. (see image below) Now, the sediment can’t reach many delta areas. The further extraction of water and gas for irrigation, drinking, and industry further compacts the land.

As reported in the BBC yesterday, “Rivers affected include the Colorado, Nile, Pearl, Rhone and Yangtze. Of the 33 major deltas studied, 24 were found to be sinking. About half a billion people live in these regions…“

As the ground falls and sea level rises, people become more vulnerable to inundation during storms.
“Every year, about 10 million people are being affected by storm surges,” said Irina Overeem, another of the study team from the University of Colorado.

So should we be worrying about the inevitable rise in sea levels? Or more focused on the major impacts we are still having on these sinking river deltas, which around the world are home to almost half a billion human beings?

- Sarah Topps

The year is 2035. It is clear that the steps taken to reduce global warning at the summit in Copenhagen in December, 2009 were not nearly enough. Miami Beach is covered with a foot of water. Miami and Fort Lauderdale have suffered the fate of the Maldives Islands, as much of the cities are submerged. The story is the same in the Florida Keys, which were largely evacuated years ago. The predictable environmental disaster of high waters is now of age, and counties adjacent to the expanding Atlantic Ocean have lost billions in tax revenue. Places to live had just disappeared, and once proud condominiums stand as silent monolithic memorials to improper land use planning and the environmental disregard of  past eras.

Hundreds of thousands of environmental refugees have been displaced by waves, sand, fish, and massive pollution and have moved inland. Areas to the west of the waterways, once considered “blighted” and “undesirable” are now the home towns of those who wanted to, but now cannot, live on the once glamorous barrier islands.

Room for lower income housing has been squeezed to the max, and affordable housing itself has been displaced, and along with it, the millions of lower and middle income workers who service our shops, restaurants, hospitals, governments and corporations. It seems as if in only a few short years, affordable housing has become yet another casualty of climate change. Those that cannot afford to live in affluent areas now live distressingly far from their places of work. It is now common place to travel 75 to 100 miles a day, one way, just to get to work in South Florida to earn a living.

Municipal, County and State leaders engaged in political gridlock a mere 26 years ago simply were unable to formulate strategies to achieve meaningful responses to rising sea levels. The largely irrelevant debate about the cause of higher sea levels (man-made or natural causes) has long resolved…it was both. As populations shifted to the now shrunken Florida peninsula, those that were born in 2009 look back, with the curiosity of 26 year olds, and ask, why was there so little planning when they were children. Why, they ask, did it fall upon their generation to deal with the problem of global warming refugees in a state which continues to diminish, mile by mile?

With all the discussion about the effects of global warming, careful scrutiny must be focused in 2009 on the need to provide affordable housing in coastal areas likely to be impacted by rising sea levels. We need strategies designed to cope with the new reality that the sea is going to encroach upon our municipal domains.  Already, in Fort Lauderdale, during the week of September 13, 2009, all one had to do is step out on the soggy commons of Gateway Terrace, along the Intracoastal Waterway, to see high tide waters foretelling a future of submersion. Another few inches at high tide and much of Downtown Fort Lauderdale will experience flooding along the intrusive New River. Responsible thinkers in the Keys are thinking about their tiny islands and survival as those low lying areas, like those in the Pacific, face the prospect of flooding and eventual burial at sea.

It is not too soon to think about moving those who live along the intracostal region to inland areas in future years, the resultant loss of property tax revenues, and the relocation of, well, literally, millions of once comfortable, and dry, residents.

If we are not careful, one of the great casualties of climate change will be affordable housing opportunities and communities. Global warming threatens not just our weather, but it threatens our local real estate and business economies, as well as our future housing options. Unless we are careful today, one can foresee the day

when affordable but economically defenseless communities are uprooted to make room for those who can no longer live on threatened coastal areas. Already we have seen the displacement of thousands of mobile home residents in Broward County, Florida so that new developments can be created. The motive thus far has been purely economic…the goal in the future will be the very survival of counties…to find new homes for those displaced by the growing sea.  Despite the fact that the law of Florida requires comprehensive plans that provide “housing elements” for existing communities, present laws have been insufficient to follow the established public policy of providing affordable housing opportunities. Such statutes will be under greater stress as the impact of sea level rise becomes manifest and society grapples with what to do.

The problem is not limited to Florida, nor is rising salt water levels the only antagonistic and threatening element of global warming.  The conflict between the need to adapt to the effects of climate change but still allow our communities to thrive (by providing affordable housing for those that oil the engine of our economy) is real, and is just beginning, all across America, from Hawaii to California, to the Gulf Coast and the Northeast. If affordable housing is not protected in governmental decisions to adapt to environmental threats, the fabric of our communities will become increasingly frail.

Witness a political press release from the opposition party in New Jersey on January 14, 2009, entitled, “Corzine’s Global Warming Goals Conflict With His Affordable Housing Mandates.” According to the release, “Eliminating sprawl and shortening commutes as called for in the global warming plan are worthy goals, but they will be impossible to achieve when another plan from the administration shifts development from urban centers to the suburbs.”  It is clear…Housing advocates are about to butt heads with environmental activists and planners. Both have worthy aspirations, and each deals with societal imperatives. What’s needed is a careful balance of interests before things get out of hand due to lack of planning and attention.

In a sobering report released on June 16, 2009, the U.S. Global Change Research Program warned, “An increase in average sea level of up to 2 feet or more and the likelihood of increased hurricane intensity and associated storm surge are likely to be the most costly consequences of climate change for this [Southeast] region. As sea level rises, coastal shorelines will retreat. Wetlands will be inundated and eroded away and low-lying areas including some communities will be inundated more frequently-some permanently-by the advancing sea.” The report adds the rapid rise in sea levels will destroy barrier islands.

Since so much of our population is clustered on these islands and low-lying areas, we have a real problem to plan for, not later, but today. We must address the rising conflict between global warming and the need for affordable housing with all deliberate speed, as it involves millions and millions of people and their future.

Local, county and state governments are quietly looking at what do to about the inconvenient issue of a changing environment. The question is, are they looking at how to keep all elements of their cities and towns together, by insuring affordable housing alternatives but still trying to sustain their future existence?  As local and regional governments study the practical problems posed by rising seas in South Florida and New York City, we await the forumlation of realistic action plans.

Putting off these issues for “another day,” even for another year, may be politically expedient, but the represented populations are not well served, nor is the very next generation, if we ignore the dynamic oceans and the challenges they present to  housing policies.

Aye I don’t want to run into any copyright laws so here’s the article from ST posted on someone else’s blog.

Caricom plans to develop strategies to bring more attention to the vulnerability of low-lying countries to rising sea levels. The 15-nation Caribbean Community announced it will hold a regional meeting next month in St. Lucia to seek a unified position ahead of a U.N. climate change summit in Denmark in December.

Trade bloc spokesman Garfield Barnwell said Tuesday that the threat of rising sea levels is the grouping’s key point. More than half the Caribbean’s population lives within a mile of the coast and a recent World Bank report listed six countries in the region as among the most vulnerable to rising seas: Suriname, Guyana, Jamaica, Belize, the Bahamas and Haiti.