Global warming

Global alarm over climate change and its effects has risen manifold after the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since then, many of the 2,500-odd IPCC scientists have found climate change is progressing faster than the worst-case scenario they had predicted.

Their studies will be considered for the next IPCC report, but since that will come out only in 2013, the University of New South Wales in Sydney has just put together the main findings in the last three years. Most are by previous IPCC lead authors “familiar with the rigour and completeness required for a scientific assessment of this nature”, a university spokesperson said.

The most significant recent findings are:

* Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were 40 percent higher than in 1990. The recent Copenhagen Accord said warming should be contained within two degrees, but every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding the two-degree warming mark.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas (GHG) warming the atmosphere.

* To keep within the two-degree limit, global GHG emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilise climate, near-zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other long-lived GHG should be reached well within this century.

More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under one tonne carbon dioxide by 2050. This is 80-95 percent below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

* Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19 degree Celsius per decade. The trend has continued over the last 10 years despite a decrease in radiation from the sun.

* The studies show extreme hot temperature events have increased, extreme cold temperature events have decreased, heavy rain or snow has become heavier, while there has been increase in drought as well.

They also show that the intensity of cyclones has increased in the past three decades in line with rising tropical ocean temperatures.

* Satellites show recent global average sea level rise (3.4 mm/year over the past 15 years) to be about 80 percent above IPCC predictions. This acceleration is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice sheets.

New estimates of ocean heat uptake are 50 percent higher than previous calculations. Global ocean surface temperature reached the warmest ever recorded in June, July and August 2009. Ocean acidification and ocean de-oxygenation due to global warming have been identified as potentially devastating for large parts of the marine ecosystem.

* By 2100, global sea level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by the IPCC in 2007; if emissions are unmitigated the rise may well exceed one metre.

The sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilised, and several metres of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

* A wide array of satellite and ice measurements demonstrate that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are melting at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

The contribution of glaciers and ice-caps to global sea level rise has increased from 0.8 mm per year in the 1990s to 1.2 mm per year today. The adjustment of glaciers and ice caps to present climate alone is expected to raise sea level by about 18 cm. Under warming conditions they may contribute as much as around 55 cm by 2100.

The net loss of ice from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated since the mid-1990s and is now contributing 0.7 mm per year to sea level rise due to both increased melting and accelerated ice flow. Antarctica is also losing ice mass at an increasing rate, mostly from the West Antarctic ice sheet due to increased ice flow. Antarctica is currently contributing to sea level rise at a rate nearly equal to Greenland.

* Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of summertime sea-ice 2007-09 was about 40 percent less than the average prediction from IPCC climate models in the 2007 report.

* The studies say avoiding tropical deforestation could prevent up to 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.

* New ice-core records confirm the importance of GHG for temperatures on earth, and show that carbon dioxide levels are higher now than they have been during the last 800,000 years.

Source: Times of India

Barbara Ettinger

Award-winning environmental filmmaker Barbara Ettinger’s latest documentary is about a topic so obscure that even some COP15 attendees haven’t heard of it: ocean acidification. But it’s also a topic of critical importance that threatens human survival. The film, A Sea Change, follows Ettinger’s husband, Sven Huseby (the co-producer of the film and a retired history teacher) in his quest to discover what’s happening to the world’s oceans. He finds that global warming is just part of the problem.

Source: Smart Planet

Global warming

Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending, according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday.

The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record, dating back 150 years, according to a provisional summary of climate conditions near the end of 2009, the organization said.

The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the international weather agency, speaking at a news conference at the climate talks in Copenhagen.

Source: NY Times

Copenhagen climate treaty

To advocates of action on global warming, the Copenhagen summit represents the last, best chance to slow and eventually reverse the growth in greenhouse-gas emissions before climate change begins to spin out of control. To skeptics of climate change, many of whom will attend the conference, Copenhagen is the last defense of another kind — against the growing global momentum to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, an undertaking they think could cripple the international economy. Either way, it is likely to be the most important international environmental conference in history, its importance bolstered by President Barack Obama’s decision to appear at the end of the summit (initially he had planned to arrive at the start), when the most significant discussions occur and a deal might actually be made.

1. Will the U.S. lead? The U.S. delegation to climate summits under former President George W. Bush played the spoiler. Not only were American diplomats generally opposed to building a global consensus on reducing carbon emissions, they actively seemed to enjoy gumming up the works, walking out in the middle of negotiations during the Montreal summit in 2005, for instance, and nearly torpedoing the entire process two years ago in Bali.

2. Will China and India follow? Historically, the U.S. may be the world’s biggest carbon emitter — responsible for more than a quarter of the man-made CO2 in the atmosphere — but developing nations led by China and India will be responsible for the majority of future emissions. At the same time, those nations still have low per capita emissions, and under the Kyoto Protocol, they haven’t been required to take any verifiable actions to control emissions. Until recently, they haven’t shown much interest in doing so, but that may now be changing.

3. The two-step tango. Back in 2007 on the sunny Indonesian island of Bali, negotiators worked out the “Bali road map,” a series of steps toward a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that would guarantee a new global climate treaty by the 2009 conference in Copenhagen. Well, road map or not, the international community got a bit delayed — in part due to the fact that Obama has had less than a year to turn around U.S. climate policy — and no one expects an actual treaty to be negotiated and signed in Copenhagen.

4. Seeing REDD on deforestation. The loss of tropical forests plays a major role in climate change, contributing about 15% of global greenhouse gases, according to the most recent estimate. But deforestation has an environmental impact that goes beyond climate change — tropical forests are home to a wealth of diverse species, and when the trees are lost, wildlife follows.

5. Financing adaptation. Combating climate change isn’t just about reducing carbon emissions. Global warming is coming even if we do act fast, and developing nations will bear the brunt of the impact. That’s why another leg in the global treaty will address funding to help developing nations adapt to climate change — whether that means the building of seawalls, aid for agriculture during increasing droughts or the ability to better respond to natural disasters. “We need clarity on long-term finance for developing countries,” says de Boer.

As the talks begin in Copenhagen, there’s reason for climate-change advocates to feel optimistic — for the first time world leaders will be sitting down to focus solely on global warming — and reasons to worry that everything will collapse. The one thing we know is that this summit will help decide whether the world takes on climate change, or continues risking business as usual. “This is our last chance to avoid a dangerous 2°C of warming,” says Dan Lashof, the director of the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Climate Center. One way or another, now is the time to act.

Source: Time

Climate change

A landmark conference on climate change opened in Copenhagen on Monday, with grim warnings of the apocalyptic dangers for mankind if world leaders fail to agree a way to save future generations.

The impact on humanity of man-made drought, flood, storms and rising seas were spelt out at the start of the 12-day meeting, which will climax with more than 110 heads of state or government in attendance.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen warned that the world turned to Copenhagen to safeguard the generations of tomorrow.

“The world is depositing hope with you for a short while,” he said.

“For the next two weeks, Copenhagen will be Hopenhagen. By the end, we must be able to deliver back to the world what was granted us here today: hope for a better future.”

Source: Business Report