Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Obama: US 'determined to act' on climate change
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UNITED NATIONS - President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared that the United States is a serious partner in combating global warming, telling world peers "we are determined to act."
"The journey is hard. And we don't have much time left to make it," Obama said in brief remarks at a high-level climate summit convened by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Obama sought to show U.S. resolve ahead of crucial talks in Copenhagen in December, when nations will try to reach a new global treaty to address climate change. He spoke at the start of a busy day of diplomacy at the United Nations that also was to include a three-way meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to nudge forward the Mideast peace process.
"We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act," Obama said. "And we will meet our responsibility to future generations."
He spoke after Ban admonished leaders to put aside differences and move more quickly on global warming.
Obama is under pressure to put political capital behind getting a serious clean-energy law at home and show that the U.S., an economic giant, will do its part to cut heat-trapping emissions. The U.S. House passed a bill this summer that would set the first mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, but a Senate version appears increasingly unlikely this year.
In his first presidential visit to the United Nations, Obama also sought to show a clear break from former President George W. Bush without referring to his predecessor by name. Bush's critics said he didn't take climate change seriously enough.
"It is true that for too many years, mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well," Obama said. "We recognize that."
Environmental experts warn of catastrophic changes, from rising sea levels to more drought, if industrial and developing nations cannot collectively address a warming planet.
"Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history," Obama said.
Obama said his administration has made the "largest-ever" American investment in renewable energy. And he called on other nations - the rich and the developing countries alike - to rise to the challenge. He said undertaking costly environmental clean up work is difficult at a time when the world is trying to recover from a recession, but that it has to be done.
"All of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge," Obama said. "But difficulty is no excuse for complacency."
Tuesday's U.N. summit and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh later this week seek to put added pressure on rich nations to commit to greenhouse gas cuts and to pay for poorer nations to burn less coal and preserve their forests.
Obama sought repeatedly to hold everyone accountable. He said developed nations such as the United States have a "responsibility to lead" but rapidly-growing nations must do their part.
As for Obama's Mideast diplomacy efforts, there were no expectations of a breakthrough from Tuesday's three-way meeting. But it was seen as a crucial step for the president nonetheless.
After seeing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas separately, Obama was bringing the two together for the first Israeli-Palestinian meeting since Netanyahu took office in March.
Even if little more than a photo opportunity, it will probably be the most-watched portion of a marathon day of international diplomacy for Obama, a 12-hour sprint through many high-profile global problems and disputes.
The Israeli-Palestinian sit-down wasn't announced until Saturday and comes with the two sides still far apart on what it would take to resume peace talks that broke off in 2008.
U.S. envoy George Mitchell failed last week to bridge the gap between the two sides on the issue of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, putting the long hoped-for three-way meeting in doubt. Obama has asked Israel to freeze all settlement construction, a condition for Abbas to resume negotiations. But Israel has only committed to a partial halt.
Still, the sides decided to go ahead, even though Obama is considered unlikely to resolve the settlement showdown and announce a relaunching of peace talks.
"We have no grand expectations out of one meeting," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
One reason to have the meeting is the need to get momentum going.
"The U.S. wants to and the U.S. needs to negotiate in public," said Jon Alterman, a senior fellow in Middle East policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official in President George W. Bush's first term. "There's a perceived need for the U.S. to visibly be involved in making progress on Arab-Israeli issues."
Obama's agenda on Tuesday also included meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao at a fraught time in the Washington-Beijing relationship; playing luncheon host, as America's first black president, to sub-Saharan African leaders for talks on boosting opportunities for young people in their poverty-stricken nations; delivering key speeches to former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative and to a U.N. heads-of-state session on the stalled issue of climate change; and ending the day with a U.N.-sponsored leaders dinner.
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent
"The journey is hard. And we don't have much time left to make it," Obama said in brief remarks at a high-level climate summit convened by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Obama sought to show U.S. resolve ahead of crucial talks in Copenhagen in December, when nations will try to reach a new global treaty to address climate change. He spoke at the start of a busy day of diplomacy at the United Nations that also was to include a three-way meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to nudge forward the Mideast peace process.
"We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act," Obama said. "And we will meet our responsibility to future generations."
He spoke after Ban admonished leaders to put aside differences and move more quickly on global warming.
Obama is under pressure to put political capital behind getting a serious clean-energy law at home and show that the U.S., an economic giant, will do its part to cut heat-trapping emissions. The U.S. House passed a bill this summer that would set the first mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, but a Senate version appears increasingly unlikely this year.
In his first presidential visit to the United Nations, Obama also sought to show a clear break from former President George W. Bush without referring to his predecessor by name. Bush's critics said he didn't take climate change seriously enough.
"It is true that for too many years, mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well," Obama said. "We recognize that."
Environmental experts warn of catastrophic changes, from rising sea levels to more drought, if industrial and developing nations cannot collectively address a warming planet.
"Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history," Obama said.
Obama said his administration has made the "largest-ever" American investment in renewable energy. And he called on other nations - the rich and the developing countries alike - to rise to the challenge. He said undertaking costly environmental clean up work is difficult at a time when the world is trying to recover from a recession, but that it has to be done.
"All of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge," Obama said. "But difficulty is no excuse for complacency."
Tuesday's U.N. summit and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh later this week seek to put added pressure on rich nations to commit to greenhouse gas cuts and to pay for poorer nations to burn less coal and preserve their forests.
Obama sought repeatedly to hold everyone accountable. He said developed nations such as the United States have a "responsibility to lead" but rapidly-growing nations must do their part.
As for Obama's Mideast diplomacy efforts, there were no expectations of a breakthrough from Tuesday's three-way meeting. But it was seen as a crucial step for the president nonetheless.
After seeing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas separately, Obama was bringing the two together for the first Israeli-Palestinian meeting since Netanyahu took office in March.
Even if little more than a photo opportunity, it will probably be the most-watched portion of a marathon day of international diplomacy for Obama, a 12-hour sprint through many high-profile global problems and disputes.
The Israeli-Palestinian sit-down wasn't announced until Saturday and comes with the two sides still far apart on what it would take to resume peace talks that broke off in 2008.
U.S. envoy George Mitchell failed last week to bridge the gap between the two sides on the issue of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, putting the long hoped-for three-way meeting in doubt. Obama has asked Israel to freeze all settlement construction, a condition for Abbas to resume negotiations. But Israel has only committed to a partial halt.
Still, the sides decided to go ahead, even though Obama is considered unlikely to resolve the settlement showdown and announce a relaunching of peace talks.
"We have no grand expectations out of one meeting," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
One reason to have the meeting is the need to get momentum going.
"The U.S. wants to and the U.S. needs to negotiate in public," said Jon Alterman, a senior fellow in Middle East policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official in President George W. Bush's first term. "There's a perceived need for the U.S. to visibly be involved in making progress on Arab-Israeli issues."
Obama's agenda on Tuesday also included meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao at a fraught time in the Washington-Beijing relationship; playing luncheon host, as America's first black president, to sub-Saharan African leaders for talks on boosting opportunities for young people in their poverty-stricken nations; delivering key speeches to former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative and to a U.N. heads-of-state session on the stalled issue of climate change; and ending the day with a U.N.-sponsored leaders dinner.
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent
Labels: Barack Obama, global warming news, U.N. summit
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Monday, September 28, 2009
2 German cargo ships pass through 'Arctic Passage'
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FRANKFURT - Two German merchant ships have traversed the fabled Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia's Arctic coast to Siberia.
Now the German-owned ships are poised to complete their journey through the cold waters where icebergs abound, heading for Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 3,500 tons of construction parts.
The merchant ships MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight arrived this week in Yamburg, Siberia, their owner Beluga Shipping GmbH said Friday. They traveled from Ulsan, South Korea, in late July to Siberia by way of the Northeast Passage, a sea lane that, in years past, was avoided because of its heavy ice floes.
Scientists report that the Arctic Ocean ice cap has been shrinking to unprecedented levels in recent summers, because of global warming, opening up many passages that were ice-choked in earlier times.
In July, new NASA satellite measurements showed that sea ice in the Arctic was not just shrinking in area, but thinning dramatically.
Niels Stolberg, the president of Beluga, which is based in the German city of Bremen, called it the first time a Western shipping company successfully transited the Northeast Passage.
"To transit the Northeast Passage so well and professionally without incident on the premiere is the result of our extremely accurate preparation as well as the outstanding team work between our attentive captains, our reliable meteorologists and our engaged crew," Stolberg said.
He said the shipping company was planning more voyages through the area in coming months. Traditionally, shippers traveling from Asia to Europe have to go through the Gulf of Aden and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea and, pending their destination, into the Atlantic Ocean.
A journey from South Korean to the Netherlands, for example, is about 11,000 nautical miles (12,658 miles). By going northward and using the Northeast Passage, approximately 3,000 nautical miles (3,452 miles) and 10 days can be shaved off. That means lower fuel costs
Researchers said the ability to navigate the route showed climate change.
"We are seeing an expression of climate change here," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "The Arctic is warming; we're losing the sea ice cover. The more frequent opening of that Northeast Passage is part of the process we're seeing."
"The Arctic is becoming a blue ocean," Serreze told The Associated Press.
For the last few years, including this year, navigator Roald Amundsen's famous Northwest Passage has been navigable. Then in 2007, the more crucial deep water channel called McClure Strait opened up and now the Northeast Passage, Serreze said. The passage "is the traditional choke point," Serreze said.
That northern route "is going to become more and more open on a seasonal basis," Serreze said. But it won't be consistently open because of local weather patterns that could still freeze it up for long time periods.
This year is shaping up to have the third lowest amount of Arctic sea ice on record, just behind the worst year set in 2007 and in 2008. But just because 2009 is slightly up from the past two years, it is not an upward trend or a recovery, Serreze said. It reflects a change in local weather patterns that occurred in August, he said.
"It's certainly part of the overall decline of sea ice that we've been seeing," Serreze said.
Both ships, which carried cargo for a power plant project in Surgut, Siberia, were escorted by a pair of Russian icebreakers during portions of their journey. The Beluga Fraternity left South Korea on July 23, followed by the Beluga Foresight on July 28.
They arrived at the Novy Port, a major Russian shipping one on the west side of the Ob Gulf, an open body of water that stretches from the Ob River delta in the south to the Kara Sea in the north.
Verena Beckhusen, a spokeswoman for Beluga, said the Beluga Fraternity had already hoisted anchor and left Novy Port on Thursday. The Beluga Foresight is scheduled to cast off Saturday after its departure "was postponed due to bad weather."
Russia has long used its northern coast for shipping fuel, supplies and other goods to its remote Arctic settlements, though funding for such shipments dwindled after the Soviet collapse.
AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein reported from Washington, D.C. AP Writer Mike Eckel in Moscow contributed to this report.
Labels: Arctic, global warming news, Northeast Passage
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Friday, September 25, 2009
This summer may see first ice-free North Pole
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WASHINGTON - There's a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says.
The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze. He's a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo.
The chances for a total meltdown at the pole are higher than ever because the layer of ice coating the sea is thinner than ever, he said.
"A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice," Serreze said. "That's the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it's thin."
Preliminary February and March data from a NASA satellite shows that the circle of ice surrounding the North Pole is "considerably thinner" than scientists have seen during the five years the satellite has been taking pictures, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said Friday. He thinks there is slightly less than a 50-50 chance the North Pole will be ice-free.
Last year was a record year for ice melt all over the Arctic and the ice band surrounding the North Pole is even thinner now.
There is nothing scientifically significant about the North Pole, Serreze said. But there is a cultural and symbolic importance. It's home to Santa Claus, after all. Last August, the Northwest Passage was open to navigation for the first time in memory.
A more conservative ice scientist, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington, put the odds of a North Pole without ice closer to 1 in 4. Even that is far worse than climate models had predicted, which was 1 in 70 sometime in the next decade, she said.
But both she and Serreze agree it's just a matter of time.
"I would guess within the next 10 year it would happen at least once," Bitz said.
Already, figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center show sea ice in the Arctic as a whole at about the same level now as it was at its low point last year in late June and early July.
The explanation is a warming climate and a weather phenomenon, scientists said.
For the last couple of decades, there has been a steady melt of Arctic sea ice - which covers only the ocean and which thins during summer and refreezes in winter. In recent years, it has gradually become thinner because more of it has been melting as the Earth's temperature rises.
Then, this past winter, there was a natural weather shift called the Arctic Oscillation, sort of a cold weather cousin to El Nino. That oscillation caused a change in winds and ocean that accelerated a normal flushing of sea ice in the Arctic. That pushed the older thicker sea ice that had been over the North Pole south toward Greenland and eventually out of the Arctic, Serreze said. That left just a thin one-year layer of ice that previously covered part of Siberia.
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Labels: global warming news, National Snow and Ice Data Center, North Pole
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Solar finds it hard to squeeze water from desert
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OAKLAND, Calif. - A westward dash to power electricity-hungry cities by cashing in on the desert's most abundant resource - sunshine - is clashing with efforts to protect the tiny pupfish and desert tortoise and stinginess over the region's rarest resource: water.
Water is the cooling agent for what traditionally has been the most cost-efficient type of large-scale solar plants. To some solar companies answering Washington's push for renewable energy on vast government lands, it's also an environmental thorn. The unusual collision pits natural resources protections against President Barack Obama's plans to produce more environmentally friendly energy.
The solar hopefuls are encountering overtaxed aquifers and a legendary legacy of Western water wars and legal and regulatory scuffles. Some are moving to more costly air-cooled technology - which uses 90 percent less water - for solar plants that will employ miles of sun-reflecting mirrors across the Western deserts. Others see market advantages in solar dish or photovoltaic technologies that don't require steam engines and cooling water and that are becoming more economically competitive.
The National Park Service is worried about environmental consequences of solar proposals on government lands that are administered by the Bureau of Land Management. It says it supports the solar push but is warning against water drawdowns, especially in southern Nevada. In the Amargosa Valley, the endangered, electric-blue pupfish lives in a hot water, aquifer-fed limestone cavern called Devil's Hole.
"It is not in the public interest for BLM to approve plans of development for water-cooled solar energy projects in the arid basins of southern Nevada, some of which are already over-appropriated," Jon Jarvis, director of the Park Service's Pacific West Region, wrote to the BLM director in Nevada.
Jarvis' e-mail from February, obtained by The Associated Press, noted that the rare pupfish's dwindling numbers prompted Nevada to ban new groundwater allocations within 25 miles of the pool.
Jarvis urged the BLM to promote technologies that use less water and hold off on permits until it finishes its assessment of the solar program next year. The BLM tried suspending new applications last year but relented under pressure from industry and advocates of renewable energy.
"Water is a big concern and the desert tortoise is a major concern, and the amount of site preparation is a concern," said Linda Resseguie, a BLM project manager. The government in reviewing each project wants to make careful decisions over what it considers "a potentially irreversible commitment of lands," she said.
Water is among the complications in deserts where more than 150 solar applications have been submitted for hot spots in Nevada, California, and Arizona, plus a few in New Mexico.
Companies are wrestling with routes for long-distance transmission lines and habitat for the threatened desert tortoise. They also are worried about a proposal being developed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., for a Mojave national monument, which could put up to 600,000 acres off-limits alongside already protected park and military lands. It could affect at least 14 solar and five wind energy proposals.
The Spanish-owned energy company, Iberdrola, has submitted 12 applications in four states. Its solar managing director, Kim Fiske, said her company is planning to use photovoltaic technology in Amargosa Valley but elsewhere will evaluate each site's feasibility for water. Photovoltaic systems use conducting material to convert sunlight directly to electricity and need only nominal amounts of water to wash their solar panels, compared with the traditional steam-turbine solar that uses much larger volumes of water for cooling towers.
"Water usage is becoming the larger issue. Some companies still want wet cooling and say it's less efficient to do dry cooling, and they need 10 percent more land to get the same output," said Peter Weiner, an attorney representing solar companies. Some are exploring hybrid systems that use water during the hottest part of the day.
The government won't say how much water would be needed by applicants because those proposals are still in flux. But National Park Service hydrologists last fall tallied more than 50,000 acre feet per year — nearly 16.3 billion gallons — proposed by applications in Amargosa Valley alone, or enough to supply more than 50,000 typical American homes. Nevada previously said the basin could support only half that. Since then, some companies have dropped out or switched to photovoltaics, making that estimate of 16.3 billion gallons outdated.
Nevada's policy and legal mandates restrict water in the driest areas. California regulators warn that wet-cooled projects face an uphill climb. The two under review there so far on government land use minimal water. First up is Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy's five-square mile, air-cooled, mirror complex near the Mojave National Preserve.
In Arizona, most solar proposals are away from populous areas with the most water restrictions.
Water is "a hot button for everybody," said Fiske. "Everyone is concerned about water. It's probably one of the biggest issues."
By RITA BEAMISH, Associated Press
Labels: global warming news, pupfish, solar plants
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Study: SE Asia will be hit hard by climate change
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BANGKOK - Southeast Asia will be hit particularly hard by climate change, causing the region's agriculture-dependent economies to contract by as much as 6.7 percent annually by the end of the century, according to a study released Monday.
The Asian Development Bank study focused on Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Those countries are especially vulnerable because they have large coastal populations facing rising sea levels and rely heavily on rice and other agriculture products which could suffer from water shortages as well as floods. Vietnam was found to be the most vulnerable.
"Climate change seriously threatens Southeast Asia's families, food supplies and financial prosperity," said Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, the ADB's vice president for knowledge management and sustainable development. "If Southeast Asian nations delay action on climate change, their economies and people will ultimately suffer.'
If nothing is done to combat global warming, the report said that by 2100 the four Asian countries would see temperatures rise an average of 8.6 Fahrenheit (4.8 Celsius) from the 1990 level. They would also likely suffer drops in rainfall leading to worsening droughts and more forest fires, more destructive tropical storms and flooding from rising seas that could displace millions of people and lead to the destruction of 965 square miles (2,500 square kilometers) of mangroves.
The economic cost, according to the report, would be 2.2 percent of gross domestic product by 2100 if only the impact on markets is considered, 5.7 percent if health costs and biodiversity losses are factored in and 6.7 percent of gross domestic product if losses from climate-related disasters are also included.
That far exceeds the projected cost globally of climate change, estimated at 2.6 percent of gross domestic product each year by the end of the century.
Currently, governments are working to lay the groundwork ahead of a U.N. conference in December in Copenhagen that will attempt to draft a new agreement on regulating carbon emissions. It would replace the 1998 Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.
The ADB said Southeast Asian nations would have to do their part — even though their emissions were minuscule compared to China and the United States. But these countries should get billions of dollars in financial assistance from richer nations to help them address the problem and their efforts at mitigation should not come at the expense of slower development.
"Most politicians are only looking at this from an environment view but this is wrong," said Emil Salim, an environmental adviser to the Indonesian government who also contributed to the report. "You would be forgetting that we have unemployment and poverty."
The key for Southeast Asia would be protecting its remaining tropical forests which have fallen victim in recent years to widespread illegal logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations, the report found. Deforestation represents as much as 75 percent of the four country's emissions.
The report advised investing in tree planting programs, better forest management and programs that pay governments to keep trees in the ground.
It also recommended further measures to mitigate the impact of climate change, such as irrigation networks, flood control systems, early warning systems and protecting coastal mangroves.
It estimated such steps would cost $5 billion per year on average by 2020 but that benefits would exceed the cost after 2050. It said by 2100 that the benefits could be 1.9 percent of GDP compared to cost of taking action which would amount to 0.2 percent of GDP.
The report also found that 40 percent of energy-related carbon emissions could be reduced by 2020 if the countries invested in more energy efficient buildings, fuel efficient cars and public transport. Another 40 percent could be reduced by switching from coal to natural gas and renewable energy like solar and wind for power generation.
By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer
Labels: global warming news, rising sea levels, Southeast Asia
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Friday, September 18, 2009
Group seeks emergency protection for 32 species
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Environmentalists are seeking emergency protection for nearly three dozens rare plants, animals and insects under the Endangered Species Act, saying all are at risk due to habitat destruction and other threats.
WildEarth Guardians is asking Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall to list 32 species from across the West - ranging from flowering plants to snails - to ensure they do not disappear.
In an emergency petition sent to officials on Thursday, the group contends the habitat for some of the species has been reduced to just one location.
"The species we have chosen are all at the knife's edge of extinction," the petition states. "Given the location of these species on either no or only one known site on earth, a single event - whether from drought, flood, habitat destruction, pollution, exotic species, or other factors - could literally erase them from the world."
Valerie Fellows, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C., said Monday she was not sure whether the agency's endangered species division had received the petition. She said the agency typically has 90 days to review petitions.
WildEarth Guardians said the species in the petition were selected from a list of 674 the group had sought standard endangered species listing for in a pair of petitions filed last summer. The group followed up with a lawsuit in March, charging that Fish and Wildlife failed to act on the initial petitions.
The emergency petition is an attempt to turn up the pressure on the agency, said John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians.
Horning says the endangered species listing program has nearly ground to a halt. He pointed out that the polar bear was the first U.S. species to be listed in over two years and that all of the listings under the Bush administration have been prompted by either citizen petitions or legal action.
As a result of the lack of action over the past eight years, there's more of a need to invoke the emergency provisions of the Endangered Species Act, Horning said.
He said WildEarth Guardians is looking to the species listed in the emergency petition to help make that case.
"These species deserve immediate, emergency protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to save them from vanishing forever, and we're urging them to use that authority," Horning said.
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press Writer
Labels: Endangered Species Act, global warming news, WildEarth Guardians
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Scientists: Global warming has already changed oceans
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WASHINGTON - In Washington state , oysters in some areas haven't reproduced for four years, and preliminary evidence suggests that the increasing acidity of the ocean could be the cause. In the Gulf of Mexico , falling oxygen levels in the water have forced shrimp to migrate elsewhere.
Though two marine-derived drugs, one for treating cancer and the other for pain control, are on the market and 25 others are under development, the fungus growing on seaweed, bacteria in deep sea mud and sea fans that could produce life-saving medicines are under assault from changing the ocean conditions.
Researchers, scientists and Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter painted a bleak picture Tuesday of the future of oceans and the "blue economy" of the nation's coastal states.
The hearing before the oceans subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee was expected to focus on how the degradation of the oceans was affecting marine businesses and coastal communities. Instead, much of the testimony focused on how the waters that cover 70 percent of the planet are already changing because of global warming.
Ocean acidification or diseases that thrive in acidified, oxygen-depleted seawater could be responsible for oysters not reproducing in Washington state , said Brad Warren , who oversees the ocean health and acidification program of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership in Seattle . A federal study found that two-thirds of larval blue crabs died when exposed to acidity levels like those currently measured off the West Coast , he said.
Federal studies also found acidity levels in the North Pacific and off Alaska are unusually high compared to other ocean regions. The high acidity is already taking a toll of such tiny species as pteropods, which are an important food for salmon and other fish.
As greenhouse gas emissions increase, billions of tons of carbon dioxide from smokestacks and vehicle tailpipes are absorbed by the oceans. The result is carbonic acid, which dilutes the "rich soup" of calcium carbonate in the seawater that many species, especially on the low end of the food chain, thrive in, Warren said.
"If we lose it, it is gone forever," Warren said of the oceans' delicate chemical balance.
In the Gulf of Mexico , Alexandra Cousteau said, the runoff down the Mississippi River from farms in the Midwest has created a dead zone the size of New Jersey where few species can survive. Wetlands in Louisiana are disappearing at the rate of 33 football fields a day as hurricanes grow in strength and frequency because of climate change, she said.
"We must start to realize that there can be no standalone policies, especially as they relate to our water resources," Cousteau said. "Energy, transportation, climate change, infrastructure, agriculture, urban development: this is where our ocean policy must begin. It is all interconnected."
Others testified that the economic toll eventually could be enormous for fishing and other ocean-related industries and for the nation's coastal communities. Taken together, the ocean and coastal economies, including the Great Lakes , provide more than 50 million jobs and make up nearly 60 percent of the nation's economy.
"Significant environmental changes, such as sea level and sea temperature rise, oxygen depletion and ocean acidification, will dramatically change the landscape, restructuring an array of natural and physical assets as well as cultural and economic," said Judith Kidlow of the National Ocean Economics Program. "Over the next 30 years, the nation will see the most significant changes in the ocean and coastal economies since the arrival of industrialization and urbanization."
The subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Maria Cantwell , D- Wash. , suggested a doubling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget, which is now about $4 billion , and giving the agency additional responsibilities.
Cantwell, however, said the key has to be passing comprehensive climate change legislation to reduce carbon emissions.
"Protecting our oceans is an environmental and economic imperative," Cantwell said.
By Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers
Labels: degradation of the oceans, global warming news, Ocean acidification
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Monday, September 14, 2009
G8 climate talks seek momentum on emission cuts
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KOBE, Japan (Reuters) - Environment ministers from rich countries and other major greenhouse gas emitters kicked off talks on ways to curb emissions and save species as the United States called for a global fund to develop clean technologies.
Ministers and their representatives said on Saturday that action was urgently needed to tackle climate change, but advanced and developing countries are split on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
The three-day meeting of the Group of Eight and rapidly growing economies such as China and India comes as poor countries balk at global targets to cut emissions, demanding that rich nations cut their own and pay for costly clean energy projects.
Japan said the G8 needed to show initiative for developing countries to do their part in fighting climate change, blamed for droughts, rising seas and more intense storms.
"We need to send a message that we will make it easier for emerging countries to act, with financial mechanisms and technological cooperation," Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita told reporters.
"At the same time, the G8 must make clear their stance that they will act firmly," he said.
Delegates, meeting in the port city of Kobe, are tasked with building momentum for talks on setting long-term targets to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, an issue to be taken up at a leaders' summit in July.
G8 leaders agreed last year in Germany to consider seriously a goal to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a proposal favored by Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan and Canada.
But developing countries, keen to put economic growth first, have resisted targets without the United States doing more to cut emissions and have demanded that rich nations help with funds to pay for clean technology.
"Technology and finance should be taken up in discussions," China's Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, told the meeting.
"China's government will be responsible for its actions and we will have to face up to the challenges."
Earlier, the United States, in talks with Japan, called for a global fund to finance research for clean technologies.
NO JACKETS, NO TIES
Eager to show off its green credentials at the meeting, Japan has sent fuel-cell and hybrid cars from its world-class carmakers to pick up delegates from the airport, and has called on participants to bring their own cups and chopsticks to cut trash.
The dress code will be "cool biz" -- a Japanese campaign every summer for office workers to take off jackets and ties to minimize air conditioning and reduce emissions.
Japan is debating its own long-term reduction target and domestic media have urged the government to also set a mid-term goal to show Tokyo can take the lead on climate change at the G8 and in U.N.-led efforts for a new framework after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
About 190 nations have agreed to negotiate by the end of 2009 a successor treaty to the Kyoto pact, which binds 37 advanced nations to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
But countries are divided on how to shape the new framework and Japan may see limited support this weekend for its proposal for emissions curbs for particular industries, such as steel or cement, that could be added up to a national target.
Many developing nations worry that sector-based targets will throttle their energy-intensive growth.
The Kobe meeting kicked off with a session on biodiversity, which will review steps being taken for a U.N. goal set in 2002 to slow the rate of extinctions of living species by 2010. Most experts say that target is nowhere near being met.
Those discussions, which coincide with a U.N. conference in Germany, will include ways to combat illegal logging and reduce deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries.
Ministers will also talk about how to reduce, reuse and recycle waste.
By Chisa Fujioka, Additional reporting by Linda Sieg in Kobe and Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Bill Tarrant
Labels: g8, global warming news, greenhouse gas emissions
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
Greenland's melt mystery unfolds, at glacial pace
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HELHEIM GLACIER, Greenland - Suddenly and without warning, the gigantic river of ice sped up, causing it to spit icebergs ever faster into the ocean off southeastern Greenland.
Helheim Glacier nearly doubled its speed in just a few years, flowing through a rift in the barren coastal mountains at a stunning 100 feet (30 meters) per day.
Alarm bells rang as the pattern was repeated by glaciers across Greenland: Was the island's vast ice sheet, a frozen water reservoir that could raise the sea level 20 feet if disgorged, in danger of collapse?
Half a decade later, there's a little bit of good news - and a lot of uncertainty.
"It does seem that the very rapid speeds were only sustained for a short period of time although none of these glaciers have returned to the 'normal' flow speeds yet," says Gordon Hamilton, a glaciologist from the University of Maine, who's clocked Helheim's rapid advance using GPS receivers on site since 2005.
Understanding why Greenland's glaciers accelerated so abruptly in the first half of the decade - and whether they are now slowing down - is crucial to the larger question of how fast sea levels will rise as the planet warms.
The issue has gained urgency as scientists rush to supply their latest findings in time for negotiations on a new global climate pact, set for December in Copenhagen.
Scientists say the Greenland ice sheet, which is up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) thick and covers an area almost the size of Mexico, is losing about 7 billion cubic feet (200 million cubic meters) of ice a year - the equivalent of 80,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
That means snowfall on top of the ice sheet is not enough to replace what is lost through surface melting and ice chucked out in the fjords by faster-flowing glaciers. In the process, sea levels rise as towering icebergs plunge into the Atlantic Ocean and displace water - much like an ice cube dropped into a drink.
The dynamics of the ice sheet on Greenland - and the much larger ones on Antarctica - were not included in sea level rise projections by the U.N. expert panel on climate change in 2007 because the phenomenon was poorly mapped at the time.
The picture of what happened in Greenland is just starting to come together, and scientists are still in the dark about how the underlying causes were set in motion, how much was owed to natural variances and how much to man's tinkering with the global climate system.
"This is like medical science in the 15th century," says David Holland, director of the Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science at New York University. "It's going to take a while to find out what's going on with the patient here."
The most popular explanation is that the patient - Greenland's ice sheet - contracted its ailment not from warmer air, but a warmer ocean.
Scientists earlier believed that the biggest factor for the faster flow speeds was meltwater seeping down to the base of the glaciers, lubricating the bedrock. They're now shifting attention to ocean currents believed to have sent pulses of warmer water from southern latitudes to Greenland's glacial fjords.
Holland found that such water was reaching the edge of western Greenland's biggest glacier, Sermeq Kujalleq. A team led by Fiamma Stranneo, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, made a similar discovery last month with probes plunged into the chilly depths of Sermilik fjord, where Helheim Glacier ends.
"We've had a confirmation that the waters are really coming up to the glacier," Stranneo says, her voice nearly drowned by engine noise aboard the Arctic Sunrise, a Greenpeace ship that offered her a chance to test her hypothesis. "This is the first time that we've seen it in these southeast glacial fjords."
In July, the world's oceans were the warmest in almost 130 years of record-keeping. Meteorologists say a combination of factors are at work, including a natural El Nino system, man-made global warming and a dash of random weather.
Coinciding with the shrinking of sea ice on the North Pole and the thawing of the Arctic permafrost, the discovery of Greenland's runaway glaciers earlier this decade raised a sense of urgency among scientists studying the impact of climate change on the frozen north.
It has also been used by advocacy groups like Greenpeace to stress the importance of reaching a deal in Copenhagen to limit global greenhouse emissions.
Fearing that a possible deal is in danger, European foreign ministers announced Thursday they were stepping up efforts to make sure that nations around the world face up to global warming.
Even a partial melt of the ice sheet could have a big impact on sea levels, with dire consequences for low-lying areas from Florida to Bangladesh.
The 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a sea level rise of 7 to 24 inches (20 to 60 centimeters) this century. Adding the potential impact of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, many scientists have estimated the rise will be double.
"It doesn't sound like a lot but it's an important difference by the way you sort of deal with that issue," says Hamilton, taking a break from his GPS measurements on a plateau overlooking Helheim's styrofoam-like bed of jagged ice. "How you engineer for a sea level rise of 30 centimeters is quite different as to how you would ... deal with a sea level rise of 1 meter."
His latest measurements indicate that Helheim is flowing at 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) per year, slightly down from its peak in 2005 but still 50 percent faster than its normal pace.
Other researchers say some - but not all - of Greenland's glaciers have shown similar slowdowns in recent years, suggesting that a sudden, dramatic increase in flow speeds may not be such a cataclysmic and irregular phenomenon after all.
Still, the flows remain fast enough to yield a net loss of mass from the ice sheet. And if the world continues to warm, sudden spurts of glacial acceleration may become more frequent, draining the inland ice until it, eventually, collapses.
No one can say with certainty whether that will take 100 years, or 1,000.
"It's a little embarrassing to know so little," says Ian Howat, a glaciologist based at Ohio State University. "We won't know it's going until it's gone. It feels like that a little bit."
By KARL RITTER, Associated Press
Helheim Glacier nearly doubled its speed in just a few years, flowing through a rift in the barren coastal mountains at a stunning 100 feet (30 meters) per day.
Alarm bells rang as the pattern was repeated by glaciers across Greenland: Was the island's vast ice sheet, a frozen water reservoir that could raise the sea level 20 feet if disgorged, in danger of collapse?
Half a decade later, there's a little bit of good news - and a lot of uncertainty.
"It does seem that the very rapid speeds were only sustained for a short period of time although none of these glaciers have returned to the 'normal' flow speeds yet," says Gordon Hamilton, a glaciologist from the University of Maine, who's clocked Helheim's rapid advance using GPS receivers on site since 2005.
Understanding why Greenland's glaciers accelerated so abruptly in the first half of the decade - and whether they are now slowing down - is crucial to the larger question of how fast sea levels will rise as the planet warms.
The issue has gained urgency as scientists rush to supply their latest findings in time for negotiations on a new global climate pact, set for December in Copenhagen.
Scientists say the Greenland ice sheet, which is up to 2 miles (3 kilometers) thick and covers an area almost the size of Mexico, is losing about 7 billion cubic feet (200 million cubic meters) of ice a year - the equivalent of 80,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
That means snowfall on top of the ice sheet is not enough to replace what is lost through surface melting and ice chucked out in the fjords by faster-flowing glaciers. In the process, sea levels rise as towering icebergs plunge into the Atlantic Ocean and displace water - much like an ice cube dropped into a drink.
The dynamics of the ice sheet on Greenland - and the much larger ones on Antarctica - were not included in sea level rise projections by the U.N. expert panel on climate change in 2007 because the phenomenon was poorly mapped at the time.
The picture of what happened in Greenland is just starting to come together, and scientists are still in the dark about how the underlying causes were set in motion, how much was owed to natural variances and how much to man's tinkering with the global climate system.
"This is like medical science in the 15th century," says David Holland, director of the Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science at New York University. "It's going to take a while to find out what's going on with the patient here."
The most popular explanation is that the patient - Greenland's ice sheet - contracted its ailment not from warmer air, but a warmer ocean.
Scientists earlier believed that the biggest factor for the faster flow speeds was meltwater seeping down to the base of the glaciers, lubricating the bedrock. They're now shifting attention to ocean currents believed to have sent pulses of warmer water from southern latitudes to Greenland's glacial fjords.
Holland found that such water was reaching the edge of western Greenland's biggest glacier, Sermeq Kujalleq. A team led by Fiamma Stranneo, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, made a similar discovery last month with probes plunged into the chilly depths of Sermilik fjord, where Helheim Glacier ends.
"We've had a confirmation that the waters are really coming up to the glacier," Stranneo says, her voice nearly drowned by engine noise aboard the Arctic Sunrise, a Greenpeace ship that offered her a chance to test her hypothesis. "This is the first time that we've seen it in these southeast glacial fjords."
In July, the world's oceans were the warmest in almost 130 years of record-keeping. Meteorologists say a combination of factors are at work, including a natural El Nino system, man-made global warming and a dash of random weather.
Coinciding with the shrinking of sea ice on the North Pole and the thawing of the Arctic permafrost, the discovery of Greenland's runaway glaciers earlier this decade raised a sense of urgency among scientists studying the impact of climate change on the frozen north.
It has also been used by advocacy groups like Greenpeace to stress the importance of reaching a deal in Copenhagen to limit global greenhouse emissions.
Fearing that a possible deal is in danger, European foreign ministers announced Thursday they were stepping up efforts to make sure that nations around the world face up to global warming.
Even a partial melt of the ice sheet could have a big impact on sea levels, with dire consequences for low-lying areas from Florida to Bangladesh.
The 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a sea level rise of 7 to 24 inches (20 to 60 centimeters) this century. Adding the potential impact of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, many scientists have estimated the rise will be double.
"It doesn't sound like a lot but it's an important difference by the way you sort of deal with that issue," says Hamilton, taking a break from his GPS measurements on a plateau overlooking Helheim's styrofoam-like bed of jagged ice. "How you engineer for a sea level rise of 30 centimeters is quite different as to how you would ... deal with a sea level rise of 1 meter."
His latest measurements indicate that Helheim is flowing at 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) per year, slightly down from its peak in 2005 but still 50 percent faster than its normal pace.
Other researchers say some - but not all - of Greenland's glaciers have shown similar slowdowns in recent years, suggesting that a sudden, dramatic increase in flow speeds may not be such a cataclysmic and irregular phenomenon after all.
Still, the flows remain fast enough to yield a net loss of mass from the ice sheet. And if the world continues to warm, sudden spurts of glacial acceleration may become more frequent, draining the inland ice until it, eventually, collapses.
No one can say with certainty whether that will take 100 years, or 1,000.
"It's a little embarrassing to know so little," says Ian Howat, a glaciologist based at Ohio State University. "We won't know it's going until it's gone. It feels like that a little bit."
By KARL RITTER, Associated Press
Labels: global warming news, Greenland, Helheim Glacier
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