ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

A rise of at least two meters in the world’s sea levels – within only two or three hundred years – is now almost unstoppable.

That’s the message experts delivered at a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday, September 29.

Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute, said:

The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable. There is no way I can see to stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero emissions.

According to Rahmstorf, the best outcome we can expect is that after temperatures stabilized, sea levels would only rise at a steady rate “for centuries to come” and not accelerate. His best guess is a one-meter rise this century – and up to five meters over the next 300 years. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

There is nothing we can do to stop this unless we manage to cool the planet. That would require extracting the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There is no way of doing this on the sufficient scale known today

The scientists warned that once the world’s ice starts to melt, the momentum may be unstoppable. Wageningen University’s Pier Vellinga said:

Once the ice is on the move, it’s like a tipping point which reinforces itself. Even if you reduce all the emissions in the world once this has started it may be unstoppable. I conclude that beyond 2 degrees global average temperature rise the probability of the Greenland ice sheet disintegrating is 50 percent or more. [That] will result in about 7 meters sea level rise, and the time frame is about 300-1,000 years.

Sea levels have risen about 20 centimeters in the past century – and the rate of rise is accelerating.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports that the Arctic ice melt season has come to a close:

Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third-lowest extent since the start of satellite measurements in 1979. While this year’s minimum extent is above the record and near-record minimums of the last two years, it further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past thirty years.

The report continues:

This year, the minimum extent did not fall as low as the minimums of the last two years, because temperatures through the summer were relatively cooler. The Chukchi and Beaufort seas were especially cool compared to 2007. Winds also tended to disperse the ice pack over a larger region.

While the ice extent this year is higher than the last two years, scientists do not consider this to be a recovery. Despite conditions less favorable to ice loss, the 2009 minimum extent is still 24% below the 1979-2000 average, and 20% below the thirty-year 1979-2008 average minimum. In addition, the Arctic is still dominated by younger, thinner ice, which is more vulnerable to seasonal melt. The long-term decline in summer extent is expected to continue in future years.

Two German merchant ships have traversed the Northeast Passage after global warming and melting ice opened a route from South Korea along Russia’s Arctic coast to Siberia.

But this is not a cause for celebration. It’s a clarion call for immediate action to avert the worst impacts of global warming, before it’s too late.

The merchant ships MV Beluga Fraternity and MV Beluga Foresight arrived this week in Yamburg, Siberia, after traveling from Ulsan, South Korea,  to Siberia by way of the Northeast Passage. The trip was completed in late July without incident.

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. Now the shipping company Beluga Shipping GmbH is planning more trips through the Northeast Passage “over the 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, depending on their destination, into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Northeast Passage can cut a lot of nautical miles off the journey. For example, via the Suez Canal a trip from Korea to the Netherlands is about 11,000 nautical miles (12,658 miles). Using the Northeast Passage saves approximately 3,000 nautical miles (3,452 miles), 10 days, and a lot of fuel.

Although Russia has long used its northern coast for shipping fuel, supplies and other goods to its remote Arctic settlements, this was the first time a commercial shipping company has successfully transited the Northeast Passage. Explorers throughout history have tried, and failed; some have died in the attempt.

National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) scientists report they expect to see the minimum ice extent for the year in the next few weeks. This year won’t see a record low – but that’s small comfort.

While this year’s minimum ice extent will probably not reach the record low of 2007, it remains well below normal: average ice extent for August 2009 was the third-lowest in the satellite record. Ice extent has now fallen below the 2005 minimum, previously the third-lowest extent in the satellite record.

This year is now the third-lowest ice extent in the satellite record, with one to two weeks left in the melt season. The minimum ice extent for the year will probably occur in the next two weeks.

Arctic sea routes have not opened this year as they did last year. The  shallow and narrow southern route of the Northwest Passage – which is not a single passage, but rather a number of possible routes through the channels of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago – appeared to open briefly this August. This route was also open in 2007 and 2008. The deeper northern route, of great interest for potential commercial transport, was open in 2007 but is still blocked by ice this year. On the other side of the Arctic, the Northern Sea Route is open along most of the route, except for a narrow band of ice between the islands of Severnaya Zemlya and the Siberian mainland.

Here’s a brief compendium of news reporting dramatic effects of global warming that are already being felt around the world, from the Arctic to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Troubling bubbles

In the Canadian arctic, pure methane in massive amounts is seeping out of the boggy soil.

“On a calm day, you can see 20 or more ‘seeps’ out across this lake,” said Canadian researcher Rob Bowen, sidling his small rubber boat up beside one of them. A tossed match would have set it ablaze. “It’s essentially pure methane.”

AP correspondent Charles Hanley reports that air temperatures in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 — much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 1.5 inches a year, and according to the IPCC a further 13-degree temperature rise is possible this century. And that’s without calculating in the added effect of methane released from thawing Arctic soils.  Permafrost, tundra soil frozen year-round and covering almost one-fifth of Earth’s land surface, runs anywhere from 160 to 2,000 feet deep and is packed with carbon from tens of thousands of years of accumulated plant and animal matter. The top 10 feet of permafrost alone contain more carbon than is now in the atmosphere.

The prognosis is not encouraging.

How likely is a major release?

“I don’t think it’s a case of likelihood,” he [Stockholm University researcher Orjan Gustafssons] said. “I think we are playing with fire.”

Great Barrier Reef Said to Face Catastrophic Damage

Australian officials, commenting on a report issued by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, warn that catastrophic damage to the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s most extensive bank of coral, may be unavoidable if global warming continues unchecked.

Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said today that warming is hurting reefs and that urgent action is needed to reduce run-off of nutrients and chemicals from farms that poses a second threat.

Here’s an excerpt from the Executive Summary of the report:

Almost all the biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef will be affected by climate change, with coral reef habitats the most vulnerable. Coral bleaching resulting from increasing sea temperature and lower rates of calcification in skeleton-building organisms, such as corals, because of ocean acidification, are the effects of most concern and are already evident.

Change is seen in Atlantic from climate, fishing

The basic makeup of the ocean waters off the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic region has fundamentally changed in the past 40 years because of climate change, commercial fishing pressures and growing coastal populations, according to a new report.

The “new report” referred to is the 2009 Ecosystem Status Report, just released by the Ecosystem Assessment Program at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) of NOAA’s Fisheries Service in Woods Hole, Mass. Global warming impacts include:

• Warming of coastal and shelf waters has led to northward shifts in distribution of some fish species and changes to a warmer-water fish community.

• The community structure of zooplankton, a major food source for whales and many other marine species including fish, has changed, due in part to climate and physical processes acting over the North Atlantic Basin, indicating the importance of winds and atmospheric circulation patterns to the function and structure of this ecosystem.

Here’s the introductory paragraph to the section on climate forcing:

Climate patterns over the North Atlantic are important drivers of oceanographic conditions and ecosystem states.  Steadily increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels can not only affect climate on global and regional scales but alter critical aspects of ocean chemistry. Here, we describe the atmospheric forcing mechanisms related to climate in this region including large-scale atmospheric pressure systems, natural ocean temperature cycles in the North Atlantic, components of the large-scale circulation of the Atlantic Ocean, and issues related to ocean acidification.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reports that 2009 is unlikely to see a new record low in Arctic sea ice extent:

During the first half of August, Arctic ice extent declined more slowly than during the same period in 2007 and 2008. The slower decline is primarily due to a recent atmospheric circulation pattern, which transported ice toward the Siberian coast and discouraged export of ice out of the Arctic Ocean. It is now unlikely that 2009 will see a record low extent, but the minimum summer ice extent will still be much lower than the 1979 to 2000 average.

Arctic sea ice extent is now greater than on the same day in 2008:

The Northern Sea Route appears likely to open soon, but ice still clogs many of the channels in the Northwest Passage.

The planet’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for July, breaking the previous high mark established in 1998 according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The global ocean surface temperature for July 2009 was the warmest on record, 0.59°C (1.06°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F). This broke the previous July record set in 1998. The July ocean surface temperature departure from the long-term average equals June 2009 value, which was also a record.

July 2009 was the 33rd consecutive July with an average global land and ocean surface temperature above the 20th century average. The last July with global temperatures below the 20th century average occurred in 1976.

The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2009 ranked fifth warmest since world-wide records began in 1880.

Warming oceans are threatening to set off a vicious positive feedback loop. The National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK) reports a new study shows the warming of an Arctic current over the last 30 years has triggered the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from methane hydrate stored in the sediment beneath the seabed. Scientists found more than 250 plumes of bubbles of methane gas rising from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin in the Arctic, in a depth range of 150 to 400 meters. The results indicate that the 1° warming of the northward-flowing West Spitsbergen current over the last thirty years has caused the release of methane by breaking down methane hydrate in the sediment beneath the seabed.

Methane hydrate is an ice-like substance composed of water and methane which is stable in conditions of high pressure and low temperature. At present, methane hydrate is stable at water depths greater than 400 meters in the ocean off Spitsbergen. However, thirty years ago it was stable at water depths as shallow as 360 meters. The scientists claim this is the first time that such behavior in response to climate change has been observed in the modern period.

Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO₂) over a 100-year period – but its short-term impacts (i.e., over a 25-year period) are much greater.  Methane in the atmosphere is eventually oxidized, producing carbon dioxide and water. It remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years, with a “half life” of about seven years.

Professor Tim Minshull expressed surprise at the findings:

Our survey was designed to work out how much methane might be released by future ocean warming; we did not expect to discover such strong evidence that this process has already started.

Professor Graham Westbrook issued a stark warning:

If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of megatonnes of methane per year – equivalent to 5-10% of the total amount released globally by natural sources – could be released into the ocean.

The Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica – one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica – is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago. Satellite measurements show the surface of the ice is now dropping at a rate of up to 16m a year. At this rate, the glacier could be gone within 100 years.

Scientists fear that the collapse of the Pine Island glacier could lead to a rapid disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS). Professor Jason Box of Ohio State University said :

It’s like removing a cork from a bottle.

The WAIS is fundamentally far less stable than the Greenland ice sheet because most of it is grounded far below sea level. Its collapse could result in 20-30cm of sea level rise.

Glaciers are rapidly melting in North America, too. A new U.S. Geological Survey report shows the South Cascade Glacier in Washington state has lost nearly half of its volume and a quarter of its mass since 1958. The two others in the study, the Wolverine and Gulkana glaciers in Alaska, have both lost nearly 15% of their mass.

Human activities are releasing gigatonnes of carbon to the Earth’s atmosphere annually. Consequently, oceans are changing physically, in some ways at unprecedented rates – and biological change is likely to be commensurately quick. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in Current Biology titled “Impacts of Climate Change on Marine Organisms and Ecosystems” (a summary is also available).

Direct consequences of cumulative post-industrial emissions include increasing global temperature, perturbed regional weather patterns, rising sea levels, acidifying oceans, changed nutrient loads and altered ocean circulation. These and other physical consequences are affecting marine biological processes from genes to ecosystems, over scales from rock pools to ocean basins, impacting ecosystem services and threatening human food security.

Study authors Andrew S. Brierley and Michael J. Kingsford note that oceans play an essential roles in planetary function and provision of human sustenance. Our grand challenge is to intervene

before more tipping points are passed and marine ecosystems follow less-buffered terrestrial systems further down a spiral of decline.

What needs to be done to save the oceans? The answer is simple:

The principal brake to climate change remains reduced CO₂ emissions.

As the authors point out, when Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago there were no oceans. The surface water that accumulated in the ocean basins have been the “reaction chamber” for the development of life on Earth. They play a fundamental role in the ongoing evolution of the planet’s climate. The oceans’ life forms are not just passive occupants that are impacted by physical change. They make active and climate-influencing contributions to planetary function. For example, marine organisms have important roles in the cycling of carbon (the biological pump), nitrogen and other key elements, turbulent mixing and the production of cloud condensation nuclei. There are numerous interactions between climate, physical oceanographic processes and marine biology that are ignored at our peril.

The authors warn:

At current emission rates it is possible we will pass the critical level of 450 parts per million CO₂ in the atmosphere by 2040.  That’s the level when, it is generally agreed, global climate change may become catastrophic and irreversible. At that point we can expect to see the loss of most of our coral reefs and the arctic seas.

The climate is currently warming faster than the worst case known from the fossil record, about 56 million years ago, when temperatures rose about 6 degrees over 1000 years. If emissions continue it is not unreasonable to expect . . .  warming of 5.5 degrees by the end of this century.

It may already be too late to avoid major irreversible changes to many marine ecosystems.  As history has shown us, these marine-based changes could have major earth-system consequences.

NOAA reports the world’s ocean surface temperature in June rose to the warmest since record keeping began in 1880, breaking the previous record set in 2005. The global ocean surface temperature was 1.06 degrees F (0.59 degree C) above the 20th century average of 61.5 degrees F (16.4 degrees C).

Additionally, the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for June was second-warmest on record, 1.12 degrees F (0.62 degree C) above the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees F (15.5 degrees C).

June’s Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius

The National Climatic Data Center reports the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) transitioned from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions across the equatorial Pacific Ocean during June 2009 and cautioned if El Niño conditions continue to mature as projected by NOAA, global temperatures are likely to continue to threaten previous record highs.

Stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 parts per million would still allow for climate change and ocean acidification leading to catastrophic losses – such as the destruction of the world’s coral reefs.

At anticipated rates of  increase in emissions, it is expected that 450 ppm CO₂ will be reached before 2050. At that point, corals may be on a path to extinction within a matter of decades. By 2050, the remaining coral reefs could fall victim to ocean acidification. Such a catastrophe would not be confined to reefs, but could start a domino-like sequence of the fall of other marine ecosystems.

According to scientists at the Royal Society in London:

To ensure the long-term viability of coral reefs, the level [of atmospheric C02] has to be brought down from today’s 387 parts per million to significantly below 350 ppm.

The 350 ppm figure is based on simple correlation. The early 1980s brought the first isolated bleaching events, which were caused by ocean warming in response to earlier rises in carbon dioxide. These events were triggered when 320 ppm was passed. Levels were up to 345 ppm by the 1980s, and at today’s 387 ppm reefs are in serious decline due to repeated mass bleaching. As carbon dioxide continues to climb, ocean acidification will take an additional toll on these ecosystems.

To remain at or below the two-degree threshold, emissions must be reduced by 60 to 80 percent immediately. But physical reality is moving much faster than policy: the concentration of CO2 in the air is already too high, and the oceans are warming up much more quickly than the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumed just two years ago.

But we can’t even get serious about taking the steps necessary to hit the 450 ppm target necessary to limit warming to 2°, much less take steps to get back below 350 ppm. Europe is unhappy with the Obama administration’s refusal to accept aggressive near-term goals for cutting greenhouse gases and to accept language that would limit the rise in global temperatures to 2° Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels. In L’Aquila, Italy, negotiators for the world’s 17 leading polluters have dropped a proposal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by mid-century – developing countries argue that they shouldn’t have to slow or sacrifice their fossil-fuel-based economic growth to help the West atone for its historical consumption patterns. The G8 nations, including the U.S., did agreed this week to cut their emissions 80% by 2050, but failed to reach an accord on shorter-term targets. U.S. officials framed the L’Aquila climate-change declarations as progress. U.S. officials dismissed numerical targets for emissions reductions by 2050 as “largely meaningless anyway”, as the target is so far in the future.

The G8 emissions pledge is scientifically illiterate. The best estimate is that the world needs at least 80 per cent cuts in global emissions – not just G8 emissions – and probably more like 100 per cent, to stay below two degrees.

The world is light years away from mandating a binding reversal in global emissions.

Everybody knows what needs to be done to arrest and then reverse the rise in greenhouse gases: first and foremost, stop burning coal, the sooner the better. Don’t even think about methane hydrates or sources of unconventional oil such as tar sands. Stretch out the world’s remaining oil and gas as long as possible, while learning to minimize energy usage and transitioning to renewable sources such as wind and solar thermal.

But neither the world’s leaders nor publics have yet begun to come to grips with the seriousness of our plight or about global climate strategies. We’re still pretending that cap-and-trade schemes will force us to do what we otherwise cannot muster the will to do.

I had a behavioral psych professor at university who attempted to stop smoking by snapping a rubber band he wore around his wrist every time he took a puff. Cap and trade promises are nothing more than promising to snap rubber bands – someday, we’ll quit. Last time I saw my old professor, he was still smoking.