Nature Newsblog
Gas guzzlers highlight need for new technologies.
An economic assessment predicts that the number of private cars on the world's roads will skyrocket from today's figure of just over 600 million to between 1.4 and 2.7 billion by 2050, doubling or quadrupling their carbon dioxide emissions.
Read the story here.
Erratic rains and water mismanagement cause death and destruction.
Monsoon rains in Asia are behaving ever more strangely, often with catastrophic effects, an Indian official has told climate experts at the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) meeting in Beijing.
Read more here
On Saturday, we were warned of a power outage that might occur in our hotel
between 9pm and 3am. How annoying, I thought. And how do they know in
advance about a power outage? When it came, it lasted but a few moments –
and blacked out just in time for a CNN report on the shooting of several
protestors in the Chinese province of…. (I don’t know. The power went out).
Coincidence?
There are a number of reporters here from the Chinese media, and I was keen
to find out how free they feel to write what they like, when they like. They
seem confused when I ask about this, which I am not sure is a result of a
cultural or language barrier or legitimate confusion about the notion that
they might be restricted. Then again almost all of the Chinese press here
are very young, for some reason – perhaps not old enough yet to have
developed a hard-nosed sense of cynicism.
PS – I pushed an ominous-looking button on my hotel bedside table today that
simply says ‘do not’ (I have been wondering all week what this would do, but
have been too afraid to try till the last day...). Sadly the answer is
rather mundane - but quite clever. It turns on a little red 'do not disturb'
light outside my front door. Ohhh...
That's it from me. See you at the next meeting.
One of my main goals here was to meet Chinese researchers: a rare
opportunity. But there has been a significant language barrier to this task,
which I confess I wasn’t expecting. I naively thought that the younger
generation of scientists would be chirping away in English over their
posters, but this hasn’t quite proven to be the case. For most, their
command of English is admirable – and infinitely better than their foreign
colleagues’ command of Chinese. But it is obvious at this conference, which
is almost entirely about forging communication links between different
research fields and countries, that language is still a barrier to those
goals.
Things are looking good for a Chinese project to attempt to find the oldest
ice in the Antarctic, according to presentations here.
The team aims to drill deep into the ice of Dome Argus (Dome A), smack in
the centre of the continent. This inaccessible site stands some 4,000 metres
above sea level and more than 200 kilometres from shore, and holds the
record as the coldest part of the continent, with average temperatures of
-58C.
Continue reading "Earth System Science: to the coldest bit of the pole" »
The upcoming IPCC working group 1 report highlights something interesting about global climate trends – the eastern United States is an anomaly. For a blob centered roughly on Alabama (and encompassing DC and the white house), things haven’t got significantly warmer between 1901 and 2005. It looks like the only other place in the world for which that’s true is over the water just south of Greenland.
In more recent years, the eastern US hasn’t fallen victim to warmer days (though it has seen warmer nights). The most significant change is that it’s wetter. More cloudy days over the capital might not be hammering home the message that climate change is real and the world is getting warmer…
Scientists here are concerned about data. In Africa, we heard yesterday, the amount of data from river gauges being sent to international databases has decreased by some 90% since 1990 – not a promising statistic given the vast importance of water flow to that continent. And today Kevin Trenberth of NCAR hammered home the potential upcoming problems with earth-observing satellite data.
Many such satellites, including ones monitoring solar radiation for example, aren’t accurate enough to produce absolute numbers. Instead scientists can really only trust the trend in the data. But that confidence dissolves as we switch from one satellite to another. Unless the satellites overlap, in which case you can reasonably compare one to another and carry the data set forwards, it’s difficult or impossible to compare the new data with the old.
Observations typically do overlap. But it isn’t guaranteed. Recent cuts may mean a gap in satellite records sometime around 2013 or so, he says. But they’re petitioning hard to fill that, and will hopefully succeed.
World summary of emissions reveals continuing gains.
Global carbon emissions are now growing by 3.2% a year, according to results presented at an Earth science conference in Beijing on 9 November. That's four times higher than the average annual growth of 0.8% from 1990-99.
Read the story here.
A digital atlas is being planned to map out the world’s water usage. There are already a handful of such projects, but this one plans to do it all (there’s a theme at this conference, of doing things bigger – I guess that comes of all that interdisciplinary research). It will – in an all-singing and dancing online format - show global maps of water in terms of how much is in the ground, how much rains down, runs off, gets drunk or sucked up for industry, how many dams and reservoirs there are, etc. etc. etc. (see a document about it here).
The issue is important, the presenter told meeting participants, because water use is skyrocketing. In the 1970s we ‘consumed’ 1,300 cubic kilometres a year. Now that’s up to 2,000. So that’s water, water, everywhere and some of it we drink.
Mike Raupach, of the ESSP’s global carbon project, confessed today that while he bought carbon ‘credit’ to offset his trip here for the conference, and he’s sure that the group he bought it from is legitimate, he doesn’t really, actually know how the carbon is counted up or if his trip is truly offset. I must admit that having recently bought my brother carbon credits for his birthday I faced the same problem. I’m pretty sure my money is going to the greater good of the planet, but exactly how I don’t know.
But if I don’t know, and he doesn’t know, then who does know? “Good question,” says Mike. Perhaps we all need some guidance on this.
The ESSP welcomes today a brand new project… in addition to ones on carbon, water and food security, they now have a tops-it-all programme on human health.
There are a handful of centres around the world that already look at the interactions between climate change and health. The difference here will be an even broader remit. No longer just concerned with how rising temperatures will shift pests from one place to the next, or how monsoon patterns affect mosquito booms and malaria outbreaks, researchers will also be looking at how biodiversity loss affects health. That’s a mind bender. If fish die out then I suppose the answer is clear – that means less protein and vitamins for someone somewhere. But what if we lose all our dung beetles? Or one variety of grass in Africa? Can the elimination of polar bears make us ill? We perhaps will soon know.
from the Earth System Science Partnership conference - see blog page here.
Vice Premier Hui Liangyu has just joined the conference attendees for dinner, to congratulate the scientists on their endeavour and to re-affirm China’s belief that “the planet Earth is the shared responsibility of all countries”. What a good thing to hear.
from the Earth System Science Partnership meeting - see blog page here.
To clear things up: the partnership was started in 2001 as a way to spur scientists across fields (from ecology to economy, geography to geophysics) to look not at humanity’s effect on planet Earth, but at planet Earth with humans as part of the overall equation. This shift is/was meant to bring clarity to understanding things such as the carbon and water cycles of the planet.
It sounds very Gaia-esque, and James Lovelock apparently once pointed to an ESSP document and said ‘looks like you’ve proved my theory’, says Will Steffen, one of the plenary speakers here and pro vice chancellor for research at the Australian National University in Canberra. But, he adds, ESSP research has shown many feedback systems that accentuate change, leading to tipping points past which the planet is a very different place, as well as Gaia-like feedbacks that serve to restore balance.
Continue reading "Just what IS an Earth system science partnership anyway?" »
from the Earth System Science Partnership conference - see blog page here.
The news on television at the conference hotel this morning went like this: CNN – all election, all the time. CCTV (China Central Television) – drought in Heibei, and a police crack-down on illegal oil smuggling, complete with the discovery of sand-bag-hidden pipes on the beach leading from ship to shore.
The environmental problems in China, well known internationally and of obvious interest to the local press too, were summarised nicely this morning by co-chair and director of the China Meteorological Administration Qin Dahe (who is, apparently, somewhat famous in China for his adventurous meteorological adventures in the Antarctic and on the Tibetan glaciers).
Continue reading "Earth System Science: the climate in China" »
From the Earth System Science Partnership conference - see blog page here.
When my plane touched down in Beijing at 6:30am there was the most impressively depressing sunrise that I’ve ever seen: blood red pooling over a dark city, with dark high-rises poking up like tombstones in the gloom.
I’d expected Beijing to be dirty, this being one of the most polluted cities in the world. But surprisingly, come 10am a swift wind blew away the smog and the clouds and things were surprisingly clear.
Everyone here talks about the weather, and the pollution. And you get two sides of a story.
Continue reading "Earth System Science: And the pollution today…" »
The first ever conference of the international Earth System Science Partnership meets in Beijing this week to discuss global environmental change and how we can prevent and cope with it. Get behind the scenes with diary reports here from 9-12 November.
Find all the entries here.