Footprints mark the bank of a partially dried-up pond near downtown Dallas, Texas August 1. Scorching heat and lingering drought across Texas have pushed electric use to a new all-time peak according to the state grid operator. (Tim Sharp / Reuters)
Global warming is extracting real costs, even in states where the governors are in denial.
By Eugene Linden August 28, 2011
Leon Trotsky is reputed to have quipped, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." Substitute the words "climate change" for "war" and the quote is perfectly suited for the governors of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, all of whom have ridiculed or dismissed the threat of climate change even as their states suffer record-breaking heat and drought.
In his book, "Fed Up!," Texas governor and presidential aspirant Rick Perry derided global warming as a "phony mess," a sentiment he has expanded on in recent campaign appearances. Susana Martinez, the governor of New Mexico, has gone on record as doubting that humans influence climate, and Mary Fallin of Oklahoma dismissed research on climate change as a waste of time. Her solution to the extraordinary drought: Pray for rain (an approach also endorsed by Perry).
Although they may dismiss climate change, a changing climate imposes costs on their states and the rest of us as well.
In Texas, the unremitting heat has been straining the capacity of the electric grid, killing crops and livestock, and threatening water supplies. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the grid's governing body, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, bases its forecasts on the average demand over the previous 10 years. In a world without the threat of global warming, this is an entirely reasonable approach. But what if climate change makes the past an unreliable guide to the future? Then Texas is left with the present situation, in which the grid operator is forced to procure power in a tight market where wholesale prices have skyrocketed to 60 times normal.
Grid problems in Texas are but one pixel in a vast panorama of weather-related costs. In 2010, extreme drought in Russia and floods in Australia contributed to a doubling of grain prices. This year, floods from the Dakotas to Louisiana, and drought in the American Southwest and parts of Europe, have kept grain prices high.
The floods in Australia also contributed to a rise in steel prices in 2010 by closing Brisbane's port and interrupting the shipment of iron ore. The Mississippi floods this spring affected the delivery by barge of materials ranging from grain to such basic manufacturing chemicals as caustic soda and cumene. This year may surpass the 2008 record of $9-billion-plus weather-related disasters, and it probably will be the costliest in U.S. history in terms of tornado damage. Add it all up — well, you can't because, as in the case of the Mississippi floods, it's hard to pry apart weather-related damage from the compounding effect of dunderheaded human actions such as walling off the river from its natural flood plain.
Politicians who dismiss the risk of climate change like to talk about the uncertainties of the science. And, at least in one sense, they're right. It's impossible to assert that global warming contributed X amount of damage to this year's floods, much less finger climate change as a precise component of the extraordinary violence of this spring's tornadoes. The best climate science can say is that a warming globe provides a nurturing context for more intense storms and weather extremes. Scientists can offer only scenarios, rather than a script, as to how that will play out.
Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory labs offered one such scenario in a much-discussed paper in the journal Science. It postulated that a warming globe would shift upper-atmosphere circulatory patterns and lead to "perpetual drought" in the American Southwest and other subtropical regions around the world.
Given that events on the ground have been playing out in a way that supports Seager's hypothesis, one would think, for instance, that planners for electrical grids and other sectors likely to be affected would stress-test their models for situations in which prolonged heat and drought became more frequent events. Via email, Seager told me that, indeed, the study had prompted concerned government officials to contact him. But how likely is any follow-up action if the very highest elected officials in the affected states dismiss the threat with scorn?
Though there have yet to be political costs to adopting an anti-scientific posture on the threat of climate change, the real economic costs of mispricing this risk have caught the attention of a good segment of the business community, from commodity traders to insurers. Reinsurers in particular (companies that insure the insurers against catastrophe) see risks on a global scale and have the data that allow them to sort out local effects from global trends. Insurers also are the best equipped to price those risks — when politicians let them.
For instance, increased hurricane risk in Florida caught the attention of insurers and reinsurers in the 1990s, even as people flocked to the coast to live. Responding to the perceived threat, insurers tried to raise rates, but a succession of Florida governors stymied these increases, causing many insurers to abandon the market and the state to form an insurance pool to provide protection for homeowners. Rick Scott, the new governor, remarked on the record that he does not believe in climate change, which means Florida's taxpayers — and the rest of us, if a major disaster strikes — have joined him in making a bet that global warming is a myth.
In the states governed by climate-change deniers — and in the nation as a whole, where we are doing too little to address the threat of a warming globe — nature seems to be calling that bet.
Eugene Linden is the author of "The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations," among other books. In 2005, he helped edit "Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions," a project undertaken by Harvard Medical School and sponsored by the United Nations Development Program and Swiss Re, a worldwide reinsurer.
250-500 Million MW of Extra Energy Now Roiling the Earth’s Climate System
Smoke over the Atlantic from fires in Georgia and North Carolina, May 2011 Credit: NASA
As extreme weather events multiply, scientists are still in the early stages of understanding how more energy is influencing complex weather phenomena
By Lisa Song, SolveClimate News Jul 29, 2011
Despite America's intense political polarization over climate change, the scientific measurement of global warming is not in dispute. Since 1900, the earth as a whole has warmed by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, an empirical fact that has become an official U.S. government statistic of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [ http://www.noaa.gov/ ].
It is a seemingly minuscule and barely perceptible increase of average temperature, but spread over the entire surface of the earth that extra energy accumulates into an enormous force. Just what the impacts are on the climate system is something that scientists are only now beginning to understand.
"Seemingly very small changes can have very big implications," said Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research [ http://ncar.ucar.edu/ ] (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.
The 1.4 degree rise in average temperature means the entire surface of earth's 500 million square kilometers has become home to between 250 and 500 million megawatts of energy that used to escape the planet's atmospheric shell into space. That's an extra 0.5 to 1 watts, or roughly one Christmas light bulb's worth of heat, falling on every square meter of land and sea.
"It might seem small, but it actually is very significant when you look at earth's history," said Pushker Kharecha, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies [ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/ ] and The Earth Institute at Columbia University [ http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sections/view/9 ]. For the climate to be relatively stable, he said, the energy balance must remain "within a small fraction of a watt [per square meter]."
"No question about it, it's a lot of energy," said Warren Washington, a senior scientist at NCAR.
In a year's time, this energy imbalance is roughly equivalent to 15 to 30 times the global energy consumption of 2007, or to the amount of power generated by 250,000 to a half a million large coal-fired power plants.
Natural fluctuations in solar output are "somewhat" responsible, Kharecha said. But "when we look at the interdecadal trends, it's very clear that the human forcing is what's causing the vast majority of change in recent decades."
"What humans are doing is creating an imbalance," said Jeff Kiehl, a senior scientist in the climate modeling section of NCAR. "We're ... putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which limits the amount of flow of infrared radiation [heat] going back out into space."
As a result, the planet as a whole is heating up, Kiehl said, because "[earth's] response is to warm up or cool down in response to any energy imbalance."
"It's a fundamental law of physics that energy is conserved. It can't be created or destroyed. It can be transferred or transformed," he continued. "If we're trapping infrared radiation on this planet that energy has to go somewhere. It can't just disappear."
Extra Energy and Extreme Weather
So where exactly does all the extra energy go and how does it influence earth's complex weather phenomena?
"Some goes into the oceans and some as latent heat in the atmosphere, and that energy is available to be transformed into things like storms," Kiehl explained.
Scientists say most of the extra energy ends up warming the world's seas because of water's enormous capacity to trap heat. The rest goes into the ground or toward raising temperatures in the atmosphere. That captured heat can melt ice caps and evaporate water, creating additional water vapor, a greenhouse gas.
The extra moisture can also power climatic extremes, including severe thunderstorms.
Consistent with this picture of rising heat and moisture in the atmosphere, Kiehl said, is that the "frequency and intensity of extreme weather events should also increase," including record heat waves, floods, blizzards and droughts.
"The big question is, is that what we're seeing today?"
Climate scientists say the lack of uniform and lengthy historical data and the complexity of the climate system makes it difficult to draw a cause-and-effect relationship between the extra heat and extreme weather events, which seem to be occurring with alarming frequency in recent years.
"There's a lot of complexity," said Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at NCAR. "You can't understand the [climate] system with simple links."
But amid the current wild extremes the question is growing in importance. A quick look at some recent devastating weather events reveals why:
• Across the U.S. Midwest and East Coast temperatures climbed to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit this month. According to NOAA's National Weather Service [ http://www.weather.gov/ ], 1,149 daily high maximum temperature records were broken between July 1 and July 19.
• July 2010 was Russia's hottest July in at least 130 years. Temperatures reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Moscow as wildfires burned hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and peatlands. The fires destroyed about a third of Russia's cultivable land, leading to a temporary ban on wheat exports that sent food prices soaring.
• The ongoing drought in East Africa is the worst to strike the region in six decades. Somalia has been particularly hard-hit as crop failure exacerbates a humanitarian crisis caused by military conflict and years of famine. The UN estimates that 10 million people are threatened by starvation.
• In May 2011, the combination of heavy rains and snowmelt from a stormy winter fueled the worst floods to hit the Mississippi River Basin since at least 1937, prompting the Army Corps of Engineers to blow up levees to save cities from the surging waters.
• Last year in Australia heavy precipitation triggered mass flooding from December 2010 to January 2011. In Queensland, flooding covered an area equal to the size of France and Germany. Thousands were evacuated from their homes, with total damage estimated to be $20 billion.
Not So Simple
"These things are consistent with the kind of changes we expect to see [from global warming]," said Kathleen Miller, a NCAR scientist who studies natural resource systems and the impact of climate change on societies. But she was wary of identifying global warming's role.
"Anything you see is some combination of natural internal variability and the effects of climate change," she said. "For any particular event, you can't clearly separate out what is the primary influence."
"We're more certain of some things than others," said Meehl. "Temperature is the one where there's the greatest certainty."
That same trend is seen in decadal average temperatures, said Washington of NCAR, which "have gone up over time." Other statistics show "the number of heat waves is increasing and the number of cold waves is decreasing," he said.
Hurricanes, which get their power from hot humid air over the oceans, are also on the rise in parts of the world. Trenberth says there is a direct causal link with extra atmospheric heat.
"It's now 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer and there's four percent more moisture [over the oceans] than 30 to 40 years ago. That's the environment in which all storms now develop ... [and these are] conditions that tend to make storms more intense."
In the tropical North Atlantic, said Kharecha, there's a "strong correlation [ http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/full-report/national-climate-change#key5 ]" between increasing sea surface temperatures and the "frequency and intensity" of hurricanes since the 1950s. But that trend cannot be found in hurricane trends worldwide, and the lack of reliable data before the 1960s — when satellites were first put into use — means more research is needed.
"The hydrological cycle of the earth is spinning up as we put more energy into the climate system," said Kiehl.
A Key Metric
With global average temperature expected to rise another 3.6 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit over the course of the current century, scientific certainty over just how the extra energy will ripple through the climate system will likely lag behind the occurrence of extreme weather events.
But there remains little doubt among scientists that a planetary energy imbalance is changing the weather system. This, more than rising average temperatures, is perhaps the most important metric for understanding changes to the climate system.
"Temperature is a way to measure the heat, it's a great metric," Kharecha said. But energy imbalance is "the most fundamental gauge of the state of the climate system at any given time" and can help provide insight into "how much we must reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas levels to restore the planet's energy balance."
British explorers row 450 miles to North Pole in world first voyage
A group of intrepid British explorers yesterday became the first people to row to the magnetic North Pole after the ice caps melted in a journey that encountered polar bears, collisions with icebergs and biting seals.
Old Pulteney Row To The Pole Challenge. Left to right, David Mans, Billy Gammon, crouching on floor is Mark Delstanche, Mark Beaumont is holding the camera, Rob Sleep is sat in the boat and Jock Wishart standing on the far right Photo: PA
Andrew Hough By Andrew Hough 9:00AM BST 26 Aug 2011
Jock Wishart, an adventurer who has rowed his way across the Atlantic and circumnavigated the globe in a powerboat, said he and his five-man team were "exhilarated" after completing their 450-mile voyage through the Arctic waters.
The group saw around eight polar bears on their journey, one of which came within five feet of them while Mr Wishart even had a seal attack him on his bottom as a reminder he was "still human”.
The successful trip to the Pole, described as the “greatest ocean rows of all time”, was only possible because of more seasonal ice-melt in the Arctic that has opened the waters up.
It was later pointed out by observers that the group had in fact reached the 1996 location of the pole.
The magnetic North Pole constantly changes position but the 1996 location was the first time it had been accurately plotted and the position has become an established objective for Arctic expeditions.
Throughout the journey, the crew, one of whom became a father a few days ago, compiled scientific research to help provide fresh environmental data on the impact of arctic deterioration on the polar landscape.
Mr Wishart, who led the Row To The Pole, described the journey, which took less than a month to complete, as “incredible”.
"I think this is one of my greatest achievements. It was a dream four years ago but now it's reality,” the exhausted explorer said yesterday.
"Up until last night we still could not say with certainty that we would reach our destination, so we are all exhilarated and relieved that weather conditions were in our favour.
"It is an enormous achievement, and a privilege for our team to have been part of what is one of the world's last great firsts."
Speaking by satellite phone the Dumfries-born adventurer and motivational speaker added: “It will go down in history books as the first ever (time) someone has rowed to the North Pole.
“It was a real true global first and probably one of the greatest ocean rows of all time. Everything had gone very much like clockwork.”
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a seal, called King Neptune, had bitten him on his bottom "to remind us what we are all human".
Another member of crew Mark Delstanche, 35, from London, had another reason to celebrate as he became a father to a baby son a few days ago.
The other rowers in the crew were Billy Gammon, 37, from Cornwall; Rob Sleep, 38, and British Army officer Captain David Mans, 28, both from Hampshire.
Mr Wishart has had a lifelong interest in polar exploration and in 1992 was part of the first team to walk unsupported to the geomagnetic north pole.
The father-of-two captained the team that broke the London to Paris rowing record in 1999 and walked unsupported to the North Pole in 1992.
Cyclist Mark Beaumont, 28, from Fife, was also on board making a BBC documentary about the voyage.
The group set out from Resolute Bay in Canada on July 29 in their specially designed boat-cum-sledge the Old Pulteney, which has runners on its underside so that it can be hauled over the ice.
They slept in shifts between rowing stints and were fuelled by 7,000 calorie per day dry rations. Another challenge was floating ice which blocked their route, particularly towards the end of their journey as the ice closed in.
Mr Wishart, who is in his late 50s described how pulling over ice and rubble in the last miles of the journey was a “hard reminder that we are mere mortal”.
He said the local terrain looked similar to that of a “giant car scrap heap” but that was completely white.
"We've been very lucky with the weather but there's been times when we've been trying to find our way through moving ice floes in fog and we're a long, long way from help,” he said.
Mr Beaumont's documentary, titled Rowing The Arctic, will be shown as part of BBC Scotland's Explorers Season this winter.
The exact cause for why the fruiting season has advanced so much remains unknown
By Mark Kinver Environment reporter, BBC News 14 November 2011 Last updated at 22:14 ET
Britain's native trees are producing ripe fruit, on average, 18 days earlier than a decade ago, probably as a result of climatic shifts, a study reveals.
It shows that acorns are ripening 13 days earlier, while rowan berries are ready to eat nearly a month earlier.
Experts warn that one consequence could be that animals' food reserves would become depleted earlier in the winter.
The findings were published by Nature's Calendar [ http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk/ ], a data collection network co-ordinated by the Woodland Trust.
"Some of the changes are really quite big and quite surprising," explained Tim Sparks, the trust's nature adviser.
"This caused me to go back and look at the data again to make sure it was valid because even I did not believe it initially."
Prof Sparks said Nature's Calendar, formerly known as the UK Phenology Network, was established in 1998 to collect spring-time information.
"But the gap in data was in the autumn So, since about 2000, the scheme has also been collecting data on things such as fruit ripening dates, leaf colour change and fall dates, and the last birds seen," he told BBC News.
"We now have 10 years worth of data that can look at and identify changes.
"In terms of looking at the fruit-ripening dates and the thing that came out was that they all seem to have steadily advanced over the past decade."
Disruption concerns
Prof Sparks, from Coventry University, observed: "Rowan was the big one as it seemed to have advanced by nearly a month over the course of a decade."
He added that it was still uncertain what the ecological consequences of the advances would mean.
"Anything that changes out of synchronicity is likely to cause disruption," he said.
"What the actual consequences will be is slightly harder to work out. In this particular case, if all of this fruit is ripe earlier, and if all the mammals and birds are eating it earlier, what are they going to be feeding on during the rest of the winter?
"In terms of feeding birds, you have big flocks of thrushes coming down from Scandinavia and feeding on berry crops in Britain, and they tend to do that after they have exhausted the supply of berries in Scandinavia.
"You get these periods when hedges are being stripped bare, but the birds are going to have to do that earlier because that is when the fruit is ripe."
Although phenological records have shown that the arrival of spring is also advancing, Prof Sparks said it was "still a bit of a mystery" why the ripe-fruit dates had advanced over the past decade.
He suggested: "There is a very strong correlation between these ripening dates and April temperatures, and that might be a result of flowering dates - it might just be that warmer springs result in earlier flowering dates, and subsequently result in earlier ripening.
"But it might be a result of more sunshine; longer, warmer summers and therefore earlier ripening.
"So the exact mechanisms really are still a bit of a mystery. We know it is happening, but we are uncertain why."
Nature's Calendar is a web-based observations network and is a partnership between the Woodland Trust and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
To date, it has more than 60,000 registered recorders across the UK that observe signs of seasonal changes in the natural environment.
The trust is calling on the public to plant a million native trees in gardens as part of its "Jubilee Woods" project.
A spokesman said that the scheme would increase the abundance of food sources for birds and animals in future years.
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