UXBRIDGE, Sep 20 (IPS) – The carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation, dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting.

“The Arctic sea ice has reached its four lowest summer extents (area covered) in the last four years,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado.

The volume – extent and thickness – of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS.

“I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover,” he said.

There can be no recovery because tremendous amounts of extra heat are added every summer to the region as more than 2.5 million square kilometres of the Arctic Ocean have been opened up to the heat of the 24-hour summer sun. A warmer Arctic Ocean not only takes much longer to re-freeze, it emits huge volumes of additional heat energy into the atmosphere, disrupting the weather patterns of the northern hemisphere, scientists have now confirmed.

“The exceptional cold and snowy winter of 2009-2010 in Europe, eastern Asia and eastern North America is connected to unique physical processes in the Arctic,” James Overland of the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in the United States told IPS in Oslo, Norway last June in an exclusive interview. Paradoxically, a warmer Arctic means “future cold and snowy winters will be the rule rather than the exception” in these regions, Overland told IPS.

There is growing evidence of widespread impacts from a warmer Arctic, agreed Serreze. “Trapping all that additional heat has to have impacts and those will grow in the future,” he said.

One local impact underway is a rapid warming of the coastal regions of the Arctic, where average temperatures are now three to five degrees C warmer than they were 30 years ago. If the global average temperature increases from the present 0.8 C to two degrees C, as seems likely, the entire Arctic region will warm at least four to six degrees and possibly eight degrees due to a series of processes and feedbacks called Arctic amplification.

A similar feverish rise in our body temperatures would put us in hospital if it didn’t kill us outright.

“I hate to say it but I think we are committed to a four- to six-degree warmer Arctic,” Serreze said.

If the Arctic becomes six degrees warmer, then half of the world’s permafrost will likely thaw, probably to a depth of a few metres, releasing most of the carbon and methane accumulated there over thousands of years, said Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and a world expert on permafrost.

Methane is a global warming gas approximately 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2).

That would be catastrophic for human civilisation, experts agree. The permafrost region spans 13 million square kilometres of the land in Alaska, Canada, Siberia and parts of Europe and contains at least twice as much carbon as is currently present in the atmosphere – 1,672 gigatonnes of carbon, according a paper published in Nature in 2009. That’s three times more carbon than all of the worlds’ forests contain.

“Permafrost thawing has been observed consistently across the entire region since the 1980s,” Romanovsky said in an interview.

A Canadian study in 2009 documented that the southernmost permafrost limit had retreated 130 kilometres over the past 50 years in Quebec’s James Bay region. At the northern edge, for the first time in a decade, the heat from the Arctic Ocean pushed far inland this summer, Romanovsky said.

There are no good estimates of how much CO2 and methane is being released by the thawing permafrost or by the undersea permafrost that acts as a cap over unknown quantities of methane hydrates (a type of frozen methane) along the Arctic Ocean shelf, he said.

“Methane is always there anywhere you drill through the permafrost,” Romanovsky noted.

Last spring, Romanovsky’s colleagues reported that an estimated eight million tonnes of methane emissions are bubbling to the surface from the shallow East Siberian Arctic shelf every year in what were the first-ever measurements taken there. If just one percent of the Arctic undersea methane reaches the atmosphere, it could quadruple the amount of methane currently in the atmosphere.

Abrupt releases of large amounts of CO2 and methane are certainly possible on a scale of decades, he said. The present relatively slow thaw of the permafrost could rapidly accelerate in a few decades, releasing huge amounts of global warming gases.

Another permafrost expert, Ted Schuur of the University of Florida, has come to the same conclusion. “In a matter of decades we could lose much of the permafrost,” Shuur told IPS.

Those losses are more likely to come rapidly and upfront, he says. In other words, much of the permafrost thaw would happen at the beginning of a massive 50-year meltdown because of rapid feedbacks.

Emissions of CO2 and methane from thawing permafrost are not yet factored into the global climate models and it will be several years before this can be done reasonably well, Shuur said.

“Current mitigation targets are only based on anthropogenic (human) emissions,” he explained.

Present pledges by governments to reduce emissions will still result in a global average temperature increase of 3.5 to 3.9 C by 2100, according to the latest analysis. That would result in an Arctic that’s 10 to 16 degrees C warmer, releasing most of the permafrost carbon and methane and unknown quantities of methane hydrates.

This is why some climate scientists are calling for a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels, recommending that fossil fuel emissions peak by 2015 and then decline three per cent per year. But even then there’s still a 50-percent probability of exceeding two degrees C current studies show. If the emissions peak is delayed until 2025, then global temperatures will rise three degrees C, the Arctic will be eight to 10 degrees warmer and the world will lose most its permafrost.

Meanwhile, a new generation of low-cost, thin-film solar roof and outside wall coverings being made today has the potential to eliminate burning coal and oil to generate electricity, energy experts believe – if governments have the political will to fully embrace green technologies. 

Should we try to change their minds? Send me your thoughts.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake.

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skepticsmay not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged. It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them — probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.

Because these and other effects of global warming are distributed globally, they are difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location. For example, January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States. Yet from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago.

Similarly, even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.

Here is what scientists have found is happening to our climate: man-made global-warming pollution traps heat from the sun and increases atmospheric temperatures. These pollutants — especially carbon dioxide — have been increasing rapidly with the growth in the burning of coal, oil, natural gas and forests, and temperatures have increased over the same period. Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting — and seas are rising. Hurricanes are predicted to grow stronger and more destructive, though their number is expected to decrease. Droughts are getting longer and deeper in many mid-continent regions, even as the severity of flooding increases. The seasonal predictability of rainfall and temperatures is being disrupted, posing serious threats to agriculture. The rate of species extinction is accelerating to dangerous levels.

Though there have been impressive efforts by many business leaders, hundreds of millions of individuals and families throughout the world and many national, regional and local governments, our civilization is still failing miserably to slow the rate at which these emissions are increasing — much less reduce them.

And in spite of President Obama’s efforts at the Copenhagen climate summit meeting in December, global leaders failed to muster anything more than a decision to “take note” of an intention to act.

Read more of this article by Al Gore

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for the weekly VOICE FOR CHANGE Newsletter and never miss a story! CLICK Bob Williamson and in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE

How can everything have gone so wrong so quickly? A year ago, the prospects for successful climate change regulation were bright: a new US president promised positive re-engagement with the international community on the issue, civil society everywhere was enthusiastically mobilising to demand that world leaders “seal the deal” at Copenhagen, and the climate denial crowd had been reduced to an embarrassing rump lurking in the darker corners of the internet.

Now there seems to have been a complete reversal. Obama is held hostage by a deadlocked Senate, which will agree to neither domestic climate legislation nor US participation in a new legally binding treaty.Copenhagen was a disaster from start to finish, and even the face-saving Copenhagen accord is winning at best lukewarm support even from the countries that helped draw it up. To add to the sense of crisis, the climate denial lobby is suddenly resurgent, and the conspiracy theories that underlie the hacked climate emails controversy are in danger of becoming popular received wisdom.

These are dark times. And the resignation of Yvo de Boer as executive secretary of the UN climate change secretariat today only compounds the sense of gathering crisis. De Boer has been a steady pair of hands guiding the international negotiations through some very rocky periods — not least the dramatic episode in Bali two years ago where he himself burst into tears on the plenary stage — and his trustworthy, solid presence will be sorely missed. Despite the official denials, there can be little doubt that this resignation indicates his frustration at the general unravelling of the process that was so depressingly evident at Copenhagen.

Whether de Boer himself should shoulder any of the blame for the Copenhagen debacle is arguable. Most of the responsibility for the conduct of the negotiations, which were marked by poor organisation, suspicion, bitterness and almost absurd levels of chaos on the final night, rests with the hosts Denmark. But the secretariat also appeared powerless to navigate past procedural blocking tactics employed by Sudan and other retrogressive developing nations, suggesting a creeping lack of confidence on the part of the UN. De Boer seemed to be losing his touch.

Even after Copenhagen was finally over, things continued to deteriorate. It was unclear what, if any, legal standing the accord actually had given that it was only “noted” by the Conference of Parties rather than adopted as a decision. And a 31 January deadline for countries to decide whether they wanted to be “associated” with the accord was allowed to slip, while governments continued to be confused as to what, if anything, they were supposed to be sending the secretariat.

In the meantime, the prospects for a legally binding new treaty being agreed at Cancun, at the next major UN climate meeting in December, seem to recede by the day. The only countries that support a new round of Kyoto targets are those that would not be bound by them — namely the developing countries.

Even the EU, Kyoto’s most stalwart supporter during the Bush era, is now backing away. The more logical idea of tying the world’s biggest emitters – China, the US, the EU, Russia and India, in descending order – into a single, fair framework for emissions reduction seems even less plausible, given the current political mood.

All in all, the next few months look grim. There is now no serious prospect of Obama getting legislation through the Senate, this year, or possibly ever. Following the sustained attack by climate deniers on both individual scientists and the IPCC, public confidence in climate change as an urgent issue is also steadily eroding, further reducing the room for manoeuvre by politicians. The next round of intermediate negotiations,due to start in Bonn on 31 May, look set to take place in a poisonous atmosphere of bitterness and rancour.

No wonder Yvo de Boer wanted to get out.

Source Mark Lynas Guardian

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for the weekly VOICE FOR CHANGE Newsletter and never miss a story! CLICK Bob Williamson and in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE

Source Yale Climate Media Forum

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for the weekly VOICE FOR CHANGE Newsletter and never miss a story! CLICK Bob Williamson and in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE

Their comments after EU ambassadors met in Brussels confirmed the 27-nation bloc’s commitment to unilateral target carbon dioxide emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.

Some EU countries such as Poland, Italy, Cyprus and Malta had opposed making the more ambitious conditional offer because of concerns that it would be too costly for industry.

“Italy and Poland said at the meeting that they were concerned but they wouldn’t stand in the way,” an EU envoy said.

Before United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen in December, the EU offered to deepen its cuts to 30 percent of 1990 levels if other rich countries made similar efforts.

Ambassadors agreed the EU should sign up to the accord with the 20 percent cuts in a letter to be sent to the U.N. on Thursday, but that the 30 percent conditional offer should still be made, even if the conditions behind it are far from being met.

The meeting in the Danish capital ended without agreement on binding cuts to climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions, leaving countries until January 31 to submit their own plans.

Experts say the total cuts offered there by rich countries amount to no more than 18 percent and fall far short of the 25-40 percent that U.N. scientists outline as necessary to avert dangerous climate change.

The world is on track for temperatures to rise to 3.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, which would bring catastrophic melting of ice sheets and rising seas, some scientists say.

Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands were among the countries that defended the 30 percent offer.

“The UK remains committed to the conditional offer of 30 percent to stay on the table to ensure that we do not lose the momentum that has been generated over the last few months,” said an official from Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Source Reuters

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for a weekly email and never miss a story! Email to Bob Williamson in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE

The Government’s formal submission to the Copenhagen Accord – the widely criticised agreement hatched between the US and major developing countries at the conference last month – pledges to cut emissions between 5 and 25 per cent below 2000 levels. It is the same range taken to the December meeting, bucking some expectations the Government would commit to a specific target.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government would stick to its minimalist position unless there was substantial and verifiable action internationally.

If the impasse in global climate negotiations is not resolved in 2011, the Government will set a 5 per cent target under its proposed emissions trading scheme, giving business certainty for the planned start of full trading in July 2012.

Green groups criticised the Government for putting the onus on developing countries to prove they are serious about tackling climate change before Australia moves beyond 5 per cent.

Several analyses have estimated that commitments made in the lead-up to last year’s Copenhagen summit would trigger Australia signing up to about a 15 per cent cut.

But Senator Wong said Australia’s position ”was consistent with our commitments to do no more and no less than the rest of the world”.

The target would not be increased above 5 per cent until:

? Global climate policies become ”sufficiently clear”, including specific targets from major rich nations and verifiable climate policies from China and India.

? The credibility of other countries’ commitments is established through either a ”robust” agreement at the next major climate conference in Mexico in November or verifiable commitments to action by the US, India and China and other major emitters.

? The assumptions underpinning global emissions accounting and carbon markets are clear.

It is the first time Australia has placed demands on specific countries in setting out its conditions for an emissions cut of greater than 5 per cent. It suggests Australia will not increase its target unless climate legislation passes the US Senate.

Interpretation of the conditions will also depend on the definition of ”verifiable” emissions cuts. China and India have fiercely resisted demands they allow external scrutiny of their emissions, agreeing only to pass on their own measurements to be followed by ”international consultations and analysis”.

Former government climate adviser Ross Garnaut last night said it was appropriate that the Government kept to its 5-25 per cent range until it had seen that other countries had confirmed their promises in formal submissions, due by January 31.

The announcement of the accord targets comes as the Government is set to introduce its revamped emissions trading legislation next Tuesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard refused to be drawn on whether the Government would bring back the legislation if it was defeated so it could be put to a joint sitting if there was a successful double dissolution.

Source Sydney Morning Herald

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for a weekly email and never miss a story! Email to Bob Williamson in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE

Source AFP