Climate Feedback

With an uninterrupted 17-million year sediment record of Antarctic’s climatic past now available, scientists are hoping for unique new insights into the continent’s climatic past.

A few initial results of the Antarctic Geological Drilling programme (ANDRILL) were announced last week at the general assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna. There is an online news story here.

Antarctica’s ice sheets, so it seems, respond more sensitively to climate fluctuations than has been assumed. During warmer periods, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and its floating extension, the western Ross Ice Shelf, have shrunk substantially. Some 3.5 million years ago the ice seems to have disappeared completely for around 200,000 years. There were snow-capped mountains, alpine trees, gushing rivers, quiet lakes – the frozen continent was a place where you would love to go fishing or hiking, were it not for the midges.

The world was warmer then than it is today, but not substantially so. If temperatures continue to rise, glaciers in Antarctic’s warmer western part might begin to retreat again before long. A few million years ago, Antarctic melting probably raised sea levels globally by 10 metres or so. If history repeats itself, we’re headed for trouble.

Quirin Schiermeier

Posted by Quirin Schiermeier on April 24, 2008
Categories: Recent contributors, Categories, Conferences and Meetings, EGU 2008, Palaeoclimate, Quirin Schiermeier | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Judging by the press coverage, it would appear that the Bush administration just turned green. A flurry of stories has hit the press after James Connaughton, a senior environmental advisor, suggested the White House would be willing to “enter into an international agreement” on climate change, “if other countries do, too.” That’s according to the New York Times. The BBC focused on three words - “binding international obligations” - uttered by Daniel Price, a national security advisor to President George W. Bush.

Although it remains unclear what, exactly, this means, it is perhaps telling that such statements could grab headlines around the world. The administration seems eager to clarify what it considers misunderstandings about its position on global warming (namely the general perception that it will stop at nothing to quash or at least cripple any international treaty to protect its industry friends). Bush’s critics aren’t going to buy it, of course, but they appear to be more than happy to watch the president try to wiggle out of what has become an increasingly lonesome political corner.

The problem here is that there isn’t much new. In trying to explain the president’s call for “aspirational” climate goals last year, Connaughton used similarly vague language. Under Bush’s plan, countries could institute various voluntary and regulatory measures at the national level. Those commitments would become binding under an international treaty, he said.

So are those the same “binding international obligations” that Connaughton discussed this week? The answer would appear to be no: Most stories suggest that “binding obligations” refers to various proposals to reduce emissions by some percentage by a specific date.

If that were the case, this might be newsworthy. But Connaughton’s suggestion that major developing nations (think China and India) would have to do the same is, if interpreted literally, a tad unrealistic. It also goes against the administration’s entire strategy for global warming, which has up until this point emphasized a decentralized approach based on various national strategies that could be developed by countries according to their specific needs and resources.

Oddly enough, this is one area where the Bush administration’s arguments seemed to (quietly) resonate. Following the principle of “common but differentiated” responsibilities for poor and wealthy nations, many in the climate community had already come to accept the idea that a one-size-fits-all approach simply would not work. If, on the other hand, Connaughton meant to say that major developing nations could sign up for various national policies as opposed to strict emissions targets, the question is then whether the United States would be able to do the same thing. If that were the case, nothing would have changed.

Where does all this leave us? I’m not sure. Connaughton says he is trying to reframe the administration’s position on climate change by emphasizing what it is willing to do, rather than what it is not willing to do. If would be easier to evaluate if the administration would offer some numbers.

Cross posted from Jeff Tollefson on The Great Beyond

Posted by Olive Heffernan on February 28, 2008
Categories: Recent contributors, Climate Policy, In the News, Jell Tollefson, Mitigation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Bali, Indonesia-

As celebrations got underway to mark the tenth anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol, disputes over whether its successor will be a bigger, better deal intensified at the UN climate-change conference in Bali, Indonesia.

I've reported the full story over on Nature News,

Olive Heffernan

Posted by Anna Barnett on December 11, 2007
Categories: Recent contributors, Climate Policy, Conferences and Meetings, In the News, Olive Heffernan, UN Conference on Climate Change, Bali | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bali, Indonesia-

A group of scientists from the estimable Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change yesterday presented ministers of more than 180 nations in Bali with the overwhemling evidence on climate change. I caught up with IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri after the event to get his take on the state of play in Bali…and beyond.

Since being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with former US vice-president Al Gore for their work on climate change, the IPCC has become something of a household name and Pachauri, or ‘Patchy’ as he is known to friends, has come as close to celebrity as is possible in science. With the recognition comes constant requests ...not least for interviews from pushy journalists, I imagine.

We meet in the lobby of the palatial Aston Bali Resort and Spa, where during our brief meeting, he is stopped and congratulated by vitually every passer by. He humbly reminds his admirers that the winning work was that of the many hundreds of scientists who make up the UN body on climate change.

I query if he ever tires of the praise, but he admits that he’s a sucker for it…and says it’s unlikely to last longer than a few weeks anyhow. If anything, he seems to take from it a renewed vigour for communicating the urgency of global warming, a task at which he is certainly adept.

The IPCC has been assessing the status of climate change for nearly 20 years and this November issued a synthesis report, the result of almost two years work that acts as a primer on the scientific understanding of climate change.

The synthesis is not merely a summary of the three latest reports released by the panel in the first half of 2007, which each give a detailed discourse on the science, impacts and options for dealing with climate change, respectively. In addition, the neat 23-page document clearly sets out the consequences of various courses of action. The IPCC presentation at the plenary session here in Bali brought that work formally into the UN negotiating process.

Notable at this round of UN talks on climate change, the 13th conference of its type, no-one is questioning the science. A few lonely looking sceptics can be seen outside handing out flyers and openly admitting ‘We’re the least popular people here”.

Pachauri believes that winning the Nobel Peace Prize has convinced people of the magnitude of the issue. “It brings home that climate change is an issue that affects the future of humanity and a dimension that people haven’t really thought about previously – if we don’t deal with this in time, it could become an issue of peace and national security”, he says.

Continue reading "Interview: Rajendra Pachauri in Bali " »

Posted by Olive Heffernan on December 08, 2007
Categories: Recent contributors, Conferences and Meetings, Olive Heffernan, Opinion, UN Conference on Climate Change, Bali | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Bali, Indonesia-

The second day of the UN conference on climate change has seen some diverse opinions emerge on what the immediate priorities should be for a 'Bali roadmap'.

Environmentalists claimed today that a group of obstructionist nations, including Saudi Arabia, Canada, the US and Japan, was forming against binding emissions targets.

Steven Guilbeault of Environmental NGO Equiterre cited Canada’s “abandonment of it’s targets under the Kyoto Protocol” and Japan’s statement today that it is time to move away from a Kyoto approach to addressing climate change as reasons for their inclusion.

“Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions after 2012," said Guilbeault.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo De Boer said that although Saudi Arabia had expressed concern about whether the time is right to enter formal negotiations, no other nation has openly backed this stance in Bali. Though that’s not to say that others don’t agree.

Describing the mood today in Bali as “mixed”, however, De Boer said that there was a clear divergence of opinion between industrialised and developing nations on where the focus should now lie. Whereas developed nations are honing in on the long term goals for addressing climate change, many developing nations are concerned that this will diverge attention from the need to address immediate priorities, such as establishing a sufficient fund for adapting to climate change and transferring technologies from developed countries, objectives which have not been realised under the Kyoto Protocol.

A open ‘special group’ was established today to address these issues and others that will shape the Bali roadmap, including whether the negotiations up until 2009 will include targets and measurable objectives, or will comprise a looser period of informal dialogue that could faciltate buy-in from major emitters such as the US, China and India.

One thing is clear: as of yet, there is no consensus on what shape the roadmap will take; for now the son of Kyoto is still gestating.

For direct live webcasts of the conference, visit the UNFCCC website.

Olive Heffernan

Posted by Olive Heffernan on December 04, 2007
Categories: Recent contributors, Climate Policy, Conferences and Meetings, Olive Heffernan, UN Conference on Climate Change, Bali | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Bali, Indonesia-

The long-awaited United Nations Conference on Climate Change kicked off this morning on the idyllic island of Bali, where some 10,000 delegates from 187 nations will spend the next two weeks discussing how to reach an international agreement on climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

International governments are now feeling the pressure for urgent action on climate change as the world watches in hope of a Bali breakthrough. At the opening address of the conference, Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia’s environment minister and newly appointed president of the thirteenth session of the conference of parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP13) said “We now have a better understanding of the complexity of the climate problem. What we need is political will. I hope that Bali can deliver the breakthrough the world is waiting for”.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, described the mood as “very upbeat and encouraging”. He highlighted Pakistan’s statement on behalf of the G77 member states and China indicating their willingness to engage in international dialogue on climate change.

Up until now, failure of two of the world’s largest industrialised nations, the US and Australia, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol has been seen by many as a major obstacle to its success. And buy-in from both nations is believed to be crucial to agreeing a workable ‘son of Kyoto’.

One day into the talks…and half of that goal has already been achieved. Newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who defeated conservative leader John Howard nine days ago, today pledged to ratify Kyoto just hours after being sworn in. Rudd also announced his intention to attend the talks in Bali next week.

De Boer described the response from delegates to the news as “an emotional and spontaneous reaction to a very significant decision on the part of the Australian government” . He said that “the long applause reflected people’s appreciation for Australia to engage even more strongly internationally on climate change”.

But achieving the other half is likely to prove much more difficult. The shift in Australia’s stance will undoubtedly leave the US feeling out in the cold in Bali, but not enough to pressurise the Bush administration to change its stance on ratifying Kyoto.

Responding to the announcement, Harlan Watson, US Senior Climate Negotiator and Special Representative, said today in Bali that it was “up to each individual nation how to move forward” and that the US “respected the decisions of other nations and likewise expected them to respect their decision”.

Watson wouldn’t comment on what the US may be willing to agree to, but said that that it “wants a regime that is both environmentally friendly and economically viable” and that any agreement must “include all major emitters and developed and developing nations”.

Judging from various statements made at the plenary session this morning, it seems that many expect the Bali conference to lead to a very general rather than detailed roadmap on how to proceed on climate change over the next two years. While this may be the only way to get the US on board, it hardly seems like the urgent international response that it being called for. While the EU is very strongly in favour of binding international commitments that can be monitored, President Bush has made it clear that he favours a voluntary approach to cutting greenhouse gases.

But some believe that whatever the US says in Bali will be largely irrelevant, given the forthcoming presidential elections next November.

More delegates are expected to arrive in Bali next week, when any agreements will be finalised, including former US vice –president and Nobel laureate Al Gore and Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In the meantime, I’ll be keeping you updated with daily posts direct from the talks in Bali here on Climate Feedback.

Olive Heffernan

Posted by Olive Heffernan on December 03, 2007
Categories: Recent contributors, Climate Policy, Conferences and Meetings, In the News, Olive Heffernan, UN Conference on Climate Change, Bali | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Olive Heffernan

The latest news from the G8 Summit meetings in Heiligendamm, Germany is that leaders of G8 nations have agreed to a ‘compromise deal’ to tackle climate change. According to the BBC, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that

'nations have agreed that CO2 emissions must first be stopped and then followed by substantial reductions.’

Although Merkel pushed for a mandatory 50% slash in carbon emissions by mid century, no specific emissions reductions targets have been agreed. Leaders have purportedly said they will negotiate the successor to the Kyoto Protocol within a UN framework. If true, this in itself would be an achievement, as the US recently announced its refusal to participate in global post-2012 negotiations scheduled for the end of the year. Without a consensus on mandatory global emissions reductions, however, today’s compromise deal may be worth little. The need for effective emissions caps is simply the first of numerous contentious issues to be hammered out in determining a global post-Kyoto pact, as reported by Amanda Leigh Haag on Nature Reports: Climate Change, launched today.

Launching in the midst of the G8 climate talks, the site has kicked off with a strong focus on climate policy, emissions reductions, carbon storage and offsetting, as well as covering climate science in research highlights, news and views and in the Journal Club. In our main feature, Amanda takes an in-depth looks at how the Kyoto Protocol has fared thus far – its major triumphs and downfalls. Perhaps the most prominent disappointments have been the failure of some nations to meet what seemed to be modest emissions reduction targets at the outset, and the backtracking of the US on their commitments in 2001. As well as bringing the US back on board, key issues beyond 2012 will include persuading countries such China, India and Brazil to take bold steps to reduce emissions in the next phase, assisting developing nations to adapt to climate change, and avoiding further deforestation, to name but a few.

While some believe that a global extension of the European Trading Scheme is what is needed for mandatory and aggressive reduction of emissions, others are not convinced. In a Commentary, also published today on Nature Reports: Climate Change, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, argues against ‘an unwieldy global emissions permit system that would be virtually impossible to negotiate and even harder to police’. Yet, despite the considerable global efforts needed to reduce emissions, avoiding dangerous climate change is both practically and economically achievable, says Sachs, if we use a targeted approach aimed at specific sectors.

Continue reading "Shaping the Kyoto successor" »

Posted by Olive Heffernan on June 07, 2007
Categories: Recent contributors, Climate Policy, Climate Science, Conferences and Meetings, GHG emissions, In the News, Olive Heffernan | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Olive Heffernan on behalf of Alex Witze

June 1 is almost here, and for residents of the eastern US, Caribbean and Central America that means just one thing: stock up on the plywood and batten down the hatches, for the Atlantic hurricane season is upon us.

This week’s Nature features a minor rush of hurricane-related items. First off, in a technical manuscript, Ryan Sriver and Matthew Huber of Purdue University spell out how tropical cyclones could play a significant role in mixing the ocean’s topmost layers. They find that about 15 percent of the peak ocean heat transport can be linked to the ocean mixing caused by cyclones. Kerry Emanuel of MIT has had much the same idea before, but the Purdue work extends and better quantifies the role of hurricanes. It’s an interesting study that turns some conventional wisdom on its head: instead of worrying about how climate change affects hurricanes, maybe we should be worrying instead about how hurricanes affect climate change. Quirin Schiermeier, our correspondent in Munich, has a longer news feature on this, plus more on ocean mixing in general. (See also Martin Visbeck’s essay on ocean mixing from last week).

I've got a short news story previewing the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. The National Hurricane Center in Miami has put out almost exactly the same forecast as last year, calling for an above-average number of storms. The 2006 predictions didn’t pan out so well – blame a late summer El Nino that surged unexpectedly, quashing the number of expected hurricanes. This year, forecasters don’t expect that to happen – and in fact anticipate a weak La Nina, the opposite weather pattern that should permit more hurricanes to form. In other words, buckle up.

One of the interesting things about this year’s season is that there is a new director for the hurricane center. This is a very big and high-profile job in the US; the center director serves as a public face for warning of dangerous storms, including trying to get people to evacuate when necessary. The previous director, Max Mayfield, was well liked by nearly everyone (even if New Orleans officials didn’t listen to his warnings as much as perhaps they should have as Hurricane Katrina approached the city in August 2005). Now the hot seat belongs to Bill Proenza, a former director of the southern region of the National Weather Service. He’s a frequent and outspoken critic of his bosses, and this month has been complaining that his center doesn’t get enough money for forecasting. He may be right, but the Atlantic is by far the best-funded and best-studied of all the world’s hurricane regions. Let us not forget the Pacific or the Indian oceans, which get hammered regularly without the benefit of a highly regarded, highly publicized hurricane center to spread warnings.

The other thing to pay attention to is the relative merits of the different ways of studying wind directons above the sea surface. The US currently has two satellites that measure this factor, but in two very different ways. The QuikSCAT satellite is a scatterometer, bouncing microwaves off the surface and measuring them when they return. The Coriolis satellite uses a radiometer, which measures microwave emissions from the ocean surface itself. Which is the better approach? Each has its merits for detecting wind vectors and each has its disadvantages. Members of Congress, though, are upset that no plans are in the works to replace the QuikSCAT scatterometer, which is far past its intended lifetime. One thing that didn’t make it into the story is the fact that Europe operates its own scatterometer, ASCAT.

If you want to stay up to date as the hurricane season progresses, I recommend checking out the Florida newspapers. The Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times are particularly good sources of local information. For more of an overview, check out this week’s New York Times science section , which has a pair of lead stories devoted to hurricanes; John Schwartz, a technology reporter who covered much of the Katrina failure, has a piece on how engineers try to outwit the storms through construction. And Cornelia Dean, who has long covered coastal development issues, has a good overview on the ongoing debates over the potential links between climate change and hurricanes.

Here at Nature, we too will do our part to keep you involved and informed. Complementing our existing coverage online and in print, Nature Reports Climate Change, NPG's dedicated climate change website will be launching next week - check in with us for updated coverage as the season gets underway.

Alex Witze
Senior News and Features Editor
Nature

Posted by Olive Heffernan on May 30, 2007
Categories: Recent contributors, Alex Witze, Climate Science, Hurricanes, In the News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Olive Heffernan on behalf of Michael Hopkin

It looks as if the Southern Ocean - the great white hope for sucking up mankind's carbon emissions - is slowly losing its efficiency as a carbon sink due to largely unforseen climate feedbacks. It's early days, but this first real-world measurement of a slowdown in the ocean's ability to dissolve carbon could have worrying implications for those currently thinking about how to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse levels.

Read more on the Southern Ocean's reduced CO2 uptake here

Michael Hopkin
News reporter, Nature

Posted by Olive Heffernan on May 22, 2007
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Patricia Romero Lankao is Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, US. A sociologist by training, she holds two PhD degrees - one in Regional Development and the other in Agricultural Sciences and Environmental Policy. She taught graduate and post-graduate students in Mexico City for 14 years, has collaborated with the Mexican Government, NGOs and public stakeholders, and has led a range of outreach activities on environmental issues. Additionally she has contributed to a number of interdisciplinary international research networks (Global Carbon Project, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Human Dimensions Programme and Inter American Institute for Global Change Research). Her research interests are at the interface of the human dimensions of global environmental change (e.g. the causes and societal impacts of climate change, especially as applied to cities). She was a lead author of the IPCC WGII Report.

Posted by Olive Heffernan on April 30, 2007
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Olive Heffernan is News Editor on Nature Reports: Climate Change. Following a BA in Zoology at Trinity College Dublin and a PhD in Fisheries Ecology at University College Dublin, Olive moved to the UK as a postdoctoral scientist to continue her work on Northeast Atlantic cod stocks. Her long-standing interest in the broader issues surrounding science made her jump ship in 2004 from research to science journalism. She has since been awarded a fellowship and prize for reporting on ocean sciences. Olive was editor of The Marine Scientist magazine and Associate Editor of the Journal of Offshore Technology, reporting on oceanography, climate, marine technology and renewable energies, before joining Nature Reports: Climate Change in 2007.

Posted by Olive Heffernan on April 26, 2007
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Oliver Morton is Chief News and Features Editor at Nature. Oliver joined Nature in late 2005 - a bit more than twenty years after he started of as a science writer doing an internship at The Economist. In the years in between he edited The Economist's science and technology pages, worked as editor of the UK/Europe edition of Wired, freelanced for everyone from The New Yorker to the Hollywood Reporter, wrote Mapping Mars, a book which the critics liked quite a lot, won a couple of awards, blogged a bit and found a number of other ways to use up half of his life so far.

Posted by Olive Heffernan on April 26, 2007
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Roger A. Pielke, Jr. is a Professor in the Environmental Studies Program and Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado. He has degrees in Math, Public Policy, and Political Science, and spent 8 years at the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research, 1993-2001. In 2006, he received the Eduard Brueckner Prize in Munich, Germany for outstanding achievement in interdisciplinary climate research. His most recent book is The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics (Cambridge University Press).

Posted by Olive Heffernan on April 26, 2007
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