Desdemona Despair

[This one’s for Gail.]

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2011) – Ground-level ozone is an air pollutant that harms humans and plants. Both climate and weather play a major role in ozone damage to plants. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now shown that climate change has the potential to significantly increase the risk of ozone damage to plants in northern and central Europe by the end of this century.

"The increased risk of ozone damage to vegetation is mainly due to rising ozone concentrations and higher temperatures in the future," says Jenny Klingberg at the University of Gothenburg's Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. "The most important effect on agricultural crops is premature aging, which result in smaller harvests with lower quality."

Ozone is an atmospheric gas that is found at a height of 10-40 kilometres above Earth's surface. Here the ozone layer protects against the sun's ultraviolet rays and is vital for life on Earth. Ozone is also formed at ground level when car exhaust fumes react in the presence of sunlight. This ground-level ozone is an air pollutant that is toxic to humans. Plants are more sensitive than humans and ground-level ozone generates large costs in the form of reduced crop yields in agriculture and reduced forest growth.

Researchers have traditionally estimated the risk of ozone damage to plants based on the concentration of ozone in the ambient air. The negative effects of ozone on vegetation are more closely related to the uptake of ozone through the stomatal openings on the plant leaves. The study carried out by Klingberg is one of the first to use this method to estimate the risk of ozone damage to vegetation in the climate of the future.

"The results show that the risk of ozone damage to plants is greatest in central Europe where ozone concentrations are high and climatic conditions promote uptake of ozone through the stomata. Weather and climate affect both the concentration of ground-level ozone in the ambient air and to what degree the stomata are open."

However, the risk of ozone damage is also affected by the carbon dioxide concentration in the air. Research indicates that the plants' stomata are less open when the concentration of carbon dioxide increases. […]

Climate change increases the risk of ozone damage to plants, Swedish research finds

By Pete Wilton
June 28, 2011

Half the elephants from West and Central African savannahs have vanished in the past 40 years, scientists report in PLoS One.

A team, including Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, estimate that around 7,750 elephants remain in the Sudano-Sahelian zone, which covers 20% of the continent, a 50% decline in four decades.

Of the 23 elephant populations studied half are now thought to number less than 200 animals and so are unlikely to survive. The survey covered protected areas so populations in unprotected regions are likely to have fared even worse.

A reduction in rainfall and increasing competition with humans for land and water resources used for livestock and agriculture are, the researchers believe, the main factors behind the decline. Warfare and the illegal trade in ivory have also helped to drive some elephant populations to the brink of extinction.

The loss of these elephant populations would affect many other species which rely on the habitat created by these giant herbivores as they browse, clear the brush and disperse seeds.

To protect the remaining animals the researchers propose that eight new protective corridors be established as soon as possible to connect the main elephant populations.

They also recommend working with private sector wildlife initiatives and channelling more wildlife revenues to local communities as a way of securing the future for elephants on Africa’s northern savannahs.

Elephant numbers halved

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com
30 June 2011

A prolonged drought in East Africa is bringing many of the region's impoverished to their knees: the World Food Program (WFP) is warning that 10 million people in the region are facing severe shortages. While not dubbed a famine yet, experts say it could become one. Meanwhile, a recent study by FEWS NET/USGS has revealed that the current drought is the worst in 11 of 15 East African regions since 1950-51. Worsening droughts are one of the predictions for the region as the world grows warmer.

"The World Food Program is aiming to feed more than 6 million of the most vulnerable, but resources are thin and at the very moment that we should be ramping up operations, we have been scaling back some programmes in Ethiopia and Somalia," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of WFP. The WFP has seen resources dwindle from the international community since Wall Street's economic crisis in 2008.

Mark Bowden, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, estimates that assistance for conflict-torn Somalia is currently only 40 percent funded. Hunger is pushing tens of thousands of Somalians into Kenyan refugee camps every week.

"In some areas the situation is close to that of famine. We are at the emergency stage which precedes that of famine. But the situation can still evolve," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the AFP.

The WFP estimates that 3.5 million people in Kenya, 3.2 million in Ethiopia, 2.5 million in Somalia, over half a million in Uganda, and over a hundred thousand in Dijbouti are in need of food assistance. Rising food prices have worsened the situation.

While the people of East Africa are accustomed to drought periods, the current and long-lasting drought is unusual. A study this year in Climate Dynamics found that dry conditions in East Africa would likely continue due to climate change.

"Global temperatures are predicted to continue increasing, and we anticipate that average precipitation totals in Kenya and Ethiopia will continue decreasing or remain below the historical average," said USGS scientist Chris Funk. "The decreased rainfall in eastern Africa is most pronounced in the March to June season, when substantial rainfall usually occurs. Although drought is one reason for food shortages, it is exacerbated by stagnating agricultural development and continued population growth." […]

Worst drought in 60 years brings starvation fears to East Africa

June 30 (KOAT) – The Las Conchas Fire is now estimated to be 92,735 acres and a 1/2 of a mile from the closest home.

Evacuations Still In Place, Fire Chief Says

By Peter Ford, Staff writer, Christian Science Monitor
27 June 2011

Ichiro Monakata sits at a small table in his cramped and dusty village store and swats flies all day. Sometimes, for a change, he goes into a backroom to watch the daytime soaps on his television.

“You can see nobody comes here,” he laughs ruefully. “I’m alone.”

Mr. Monakata is one of the very few people still living in the bucolic countryside just outside the 12.5-mile radius exclusion zone surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where three reactors exploded after the March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. But fears of radiation have spread far beyond the hills around this hamlet.

The government says it is safe to live here, but with the invisible threat of radioactivity hanging over the area, hardly anybody wants to.

The dead, brown stalks of last year’s rice harvest poke from untilled paddy fields that at this time of year should be vivid green with a fresh crop. In village after deserted village, shops are shuttered, homes are locked and abandoned, mailboxes are empty.

Monakata says he is untroubled by the potential danger of the radiation that has leaked from the Fukushima plant to hang in the air and contaminate the soil. But few others in Fukushima prefecture are so insouciant.

In the small city of Date, 35 miles from the plant, the anxiety is palpable – especially among parents of young children.

“I’m afraid for my son,” says Kumiko Anzai as she finishes her weekly shopping at a local supermarket. “He’s only 2, so I don’t let him play outside. I keep the windows shut, and I don’t dry my laundry outside.”

The authorities in Date have banned schoolchildren from playing outdoors and obliged them when they are in school to wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers, or tights for girls, to try to reduce their exposure to radiation in the air. […]

Beyond Japan's Fukushima exclusion zone, shuttered shops speak to radiation doubts

WASHINGTON, June 28 (MSNBC) – It's been more than 300 months since the average global average temperature was below average, scientists and the U.S. government said in the annual State of the Climate report released Tuesday.

The experts tracked 41 climate indicators during 2010, four more than in the previous year, and "they all show a continued tendency," said Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center. "The indicators show unequivocally that the world continues to warm."

"There is a clear and unmistakable signal from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans," added Peter Thorne of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites at North Carolina State University.

Carbon dioxide increased by 2.60 parts per million in the atmosphere in 2010, which is more than the average annual increase seen from 1980-2010, Karl said. Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas accumulating in the air that atmospheric scientists blame for warming the climate.

The warmer conditions are consistent with events such as heat waves and extreme rainfall, Karl said at a teleconference. However, it is more difficult to make a direct connection with things like tornado outbreaks, he said.

"Any single weather event is driven by a number of factors, from local conditions to global climate patterns and trends. Climate change is one of these," he said. "It is very likely that large-scale changes in climate, such as increased moisture in the atmosphere and warming temperatures, have influenced — and will continue to influence — many different types of extreme events, such as heavy rainfall, flooding, heat waves and droughts.

The report, published by the American Meteorological Society, lists 2010 as tied with 2005 for the warmest year on record, according to studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. A separate analysis, done in Britain, lists 2010 as second warmest.

Deke Arndt, chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at NCDC, noted that every month since early 1985 has been warmer than the 20th century average for the month.  […]

"The arctic is changing faster that most of the rest of the world," added Walt Meier, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado. "This has long been expected." In addition, he said, the September Arctic sea ice extent was the third smallest in 30 years, older, thicker sea ice is disappearing, there is a shorter duration of snow cover, and the permafrost is melting. […]

Other findings of the report:

• Alpine glaciers shrank for the 20th consecutive year.
• Even with a moderate-to-strong La Niña during the latter half of the year, which is associated with cooler equatorial waters in the tropical Pacific, the 2010 average global sea surface temperature was third warmest on record and sea level continued to rise.
• Oceans were saltier than average in areas of high evaporation and fresher than average in areas of high precipitation, suggesting that the water cycle is intensifying. […]

Report: 25 years since global temps were below average

By P. SOLOMON BANDA and SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press
30 June 2011

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) – A wildfire that is threatening the nation's premier nuclear weapons laboratory and a community in northern New Mexico is poised to become the largest fire in state history.

The fire near Los Alamos has charred nearly 145 square miles, or 92,735 acres.

The blaze has been growing by tens of thousands of acres a day. It's close to surpassing New Mexico's largest fire, the Dry Lakes fire. That blaze charred more than 94,000 acres in the Gila National Forest in 2003.

Crews have managed to contain only 3 percent of the fire near Los Alamos. They're bracing for winds that could gust up to 40 mph Thursday afternoon.

Fire information officer Sandra Lopez says crews are dealing with rugged, steep country, hot temperatures and erratic winds.

NM Fire Poised to Be Largest in State History

By Karolin Schaps; editing by Jason Neely
29 Jun 2011

(Reuters) – An invasion of jellyfish into a cooling water pool at a Scottish nuclear power plant kept its nuclear reactors offline on Wednesday, a phenomenon which may grow more common in future, scientists said.

Two reactors at EDF Energy's Torness nuclear power plant on the Scottish east coast remained shut a day after they were manually stopped due to masses of jellyfish obstructing cooling water filters.

Nuclear power plants draw water from nearby seas or rivers to cool down their reactors, but if the filters which keep out marine animals and seaweed are clogged, the station shuts down to maintain temperature and safety standards. […]

Increasing fishing activity and global warming are giving jellyfish populations a boost, scientists said, potentially making jellyfish invasions at nuclear power plants located near the open sea more common in the future.

"There are suggestions from some science data that over the past few years there has been an increase in swarms of jellyfish. It's possible it's linked to climate change," said Steve Hay, a plankton ecologist who specializes in jellyfish research at the Marine Scotland Science laboratory in Aberdeen.

Overfishing of small fish which feed off jellyfish leaves them less exposed to natural predators and gives them more room to reproduce, the Marine Biological Association said.

Jellyfish keep UK nuclear plant shut

By BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press
28 June 2011

LUBBOCK, Texas — West Texas farmer Billy Brown remembers the devastating drought that spanned the state in the 1950s — and believes this one is worse. […]

"The grass just crackles underneath the feet," Brown, 72, said of walking across his acreage in the town of Panhandle where he grows corn, cotton, wheat and grain sorghum. "It will be that way until we get sufficient rain to turn everything around."

The Agriculture Department designated 213 of Texas' counties directly affected by drought as disaster areas, and the remaining 41 also qualified for assistance because they are contiguous. Thirty-two counties in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico also garnered the designation because they are adjacent to Texas counties.

Many producers have lost their entire crop because of drought and wildfires, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in the news release. […]

The state just endured its driest-ever eight-month span — ending May 31 — and some parts have not seen significant precipitation since August, prompting drastic drops in lake and underground water levels. Burn bans are in place in 235 of the state's 254 counties and nearly 260 water suppliers, most around the San Antonio area, have either voluntary or mandatory restrictions on water use.

May, typically the state's wettest month, did little to alleviate the problem, yielding less than half its average rainfall at an estimated 1.65 inches.

The state is also enduring its worst wildfire season ever. More than 3 million acres have been scorched by the wildfires that have not even spared the more humid East Texas region.

It all means Texas agriculture could sustain its worst single-year loss, potentially topping the 2006 record of $4.1 billion. There will be no dryland crops in the Panhandle and South Plains regions. Even irrigated cotton acres are fighting for survival as incessantly windy conditions dry out moisture that farmers put onto fields. […]

Feds: All of drought-stricken Texas now a disaster

By LAWRENCE HURLEY AND PAUL QUINLAN of Greenwire
29 June 2011

A federal appeals court handed Georgia an enormous victory in long-running, tri-state water litigation yesterday, overturning a decision by a federal judge that could have sharply curtailed the availability of water in Atlanta beginning next summer.

The three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the Army Corps of Engineers has authority to allocate additional water from Lake Lanier, a reservoir about 25 miles north of downtown Atlanta, to meet the increasing drinking water needs of the Atlanta metro area. The court gave the Army Corps a year to come up with a new plan for managing the lake.

In an unsigned joint opinion (pdf), the court reversed the July 2009 ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson of the District of Minnesota, who was assigned to handle the multi-district litigation.

Magnuson held that the Army Corps could not draw increasing amounts of water from Lake Lanier. Currently, the corps allocates more than 21 percent of Lake Lanier's storage space to water supply. Magnuson gave Georgia, Alabama and Florida until July 2012 to figure out a solution or Atlanta would face water drastic cutbacks in how much water it could draw from the lake.

The complex litigation involves numerous parties, including the states of Georgia, Alabama and Florida, in addition to the Army Corps. The battle has pitted the drinking water needs of the fast-growing and thirsty metro Atlanta region, on one end, against the oysters of Florida's Apalachicola Bay, which lies downstream at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River. […]

Apalachicola Riverkeeper executive director Dan Tonsmeire said the region's seafood and tourism industries depended on a sustained, adequate flow of freshwater from the river. During the last drought of 2007, 80 percent of the oyster beds disappeared from the bay and fisheries declined more than 60 percent -- new lows from which they have never fully recovered.

"Compare the ecosystem to a rubber band. You can stretch it out so far and take it to a certain point and it will rebound," he said. "But at some point, you take it on past that, and the rubber band doesn't come back." […]

Court Hands Big Victory to Ga. In Tri-State Water War

By Steve Savage
27 June 2011

I tend to be a “glass half full” sort of person, particularly about the prospects of successfully feeding the 9-10 billion people we expect by 2050.  My optimism is based on daily contact with the innovative public and private entities who develop technology for agriculture.  It is also based on the track record of small and large farmers who integrate these new options into their production systems.  Farming has the largest physical “footprint” of any human enterprise, so it will never be without consequences. I believe that feeding 10 billion people well while preserving the environment in within the realm of possibility. Even so, I have some concerns about how we are going to pull this off.  My list of existential threats includes:

1. Rising energy costs
2. Peak Phosphorus
3. An aging workforce
4. Our lack of a viable and humane guest worker program
5. The low level of land ownership by farmers
6. Climate change
7. Competition for water
8. Pest resistance to chemicals and genetic traits
9. A failure to invest public funds in agricultural research
10. The growing influence of anti-science forces
11. Rising uncertainty about private investment in agricultural research

Rising energy costs

After labor, land, and often water, the next largest cost of most farming operations is energy.  It takes fuel to drive tractors and combines. It takes energy to manufacture and transport fertilizers. It takes energy to heat, light or cool greenhouses, and it takes energy to chill, store and transport food. As we move into an era of “peak oil,” it becomes difficult to simply pass along these rising costs to consumers – particularly to the poor.  The solutions are the use of waste heat and the use of LED lighting at only the wavelengths needed for plant growth.

Peak Phosphorus

Phosphorus is the second most important element for plant growth. It has been mined from deposits of “phosphorus rock” and released with acid to make commercial fertilizer.  Those mines are running out and soon the only major source will be in North Africa.  That is not a good scenario.  Phosphorus is soluble in water, so some of it moves into ground water and into streams and rivers.  It is as much a driver of the Gulf “dead zone” as is nitrogen. We can reclaim phosphorus in rivers and particularly in from municipal waste, but the process is expensive.  We need to drive down that cost and start re-using all this fertilizer we are currently wasting. […]

10 Existential Threats to Global Agriculture via The Oil Drum

MOSCOW, June 29 (RIA Novosti) – The volume of annual runoff of almost all of Russia's rivers will be substantially affected by global climate change, the Emergencies Ministry's Natural Disaster Center said on Wednesday.

"Owing to the expected shifts in temperature and rainfall amounts, the annual runoff of rivers located in the Central and the Volga federal districts will change significantly by 2015 - in comparison with today's levels, winter river runoff will increase by 60-90 percent and the summer runoff will rise by 20-50 percent," the center's head Vladislav Bolov said.

In other federal districts there will be a 5-40-percent increase in the annual runoff.

"Along with this, the spring runoff of rivers located in the Central Black Earth economic region and in the southern part of the Siberian Federal District will fall by some 10-20 percent, which will negatively affect spring floods," he added.

The number of flood disasters Russia will suffer over the next five years is likely to be much higher than the average owing to global climate change, Bolov said earlier this week.

The duration of the average flood period may double from 12 to 24 days, or even more.

The threat of flood disaster is highest in Russia's central European, north European regions, eastern Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Climate change could double flood risk to central Russia says Emergencies Ministry

FUKUSHIMA, June 28 (CBS News) – For ten years, Akiko Murakami has lived a suburban dream -- growing flowers, as she raised four sons, in a leafy corner of Fukushima city. But now she wonders if it's safe to stay here. CBS News reporter Lucy Craft brought a Geiger counter, which measures radiation, to her house.

The home she and her husband built for their kids, ages 12 to 21, is surrounded by pockets of radiation -- known as hotspots.

"I'm always worried about my kids," she said. "I'm always thinking about whether I should leave here or not. I'm always thinking about that."

The government has lowered radiation exposure standards in the Fukushima region to 20 millisieverts a year. That's about the same amount as 50 mammograms. Fukushima City is 40 miles from the nuclear plant, the source of the radiation, but Japan is telling its residents that there's no additional risk. Many international experts and even the prime minister's own nuclear advisor disagree. They claim that Fukushima is no longer safe - particularly for children.

Residents travelled to Tokyo to protest after the government loosened safety limits -- despite the fact that the long-term impact of low-dose radiation is unknown. The uncertainty has especially affected students.

Watari Junior High School has always stood out for its sports and academic achievements. But now it has a more dubious distinction - one of the most contaminated schools in Fukushima City.

Radiation fears have turned students into shut-ins with windows firmly shut. Girls sweat through kendo (sword-fighting) practice. Meanwhile, what used to be outdoor drills are now held indoors. In the school gym, the soccer team can barely squeeze in games, sharing cramped quarters with the track and field squad.

"My job is to watch over these kids and help them thrive," said Yoshinori Saito, principal of the school. "But under these conditions, I can't do my job properly. I'm angry and frustrated that there's nothing I can do." […]

Japan's radiation dilemma: Leave or live in fear

By Bronwyn Herbert
27 June 2011

TONY EASTLEY: Just 41 per cent of Australians think addressing climate change is a serious and pressing issue.

The key finding is in the annual Lowy Institute poll, in which 1000 people were interviewed in March.

The institute also finds three-quarters of adult Australians believe the Federal Government has done a poor job addressing the climate change issue.

It comes as the Government reaches the pointy end of its Multi-Party Climate Change Committee talks on setting a price for carbon.

From Canberra, Bronwyn Herbert reports.

BRONWYN HERBERT: In its seventh year of polling, the Lowy Institute has found one issue is on a downwards trajectory: that's climate change.

MICHAEL WESLEY: Now just 41 per cent of Australian's say global warming is a serious and pressing problem and that we should take steps now, even if this involves significant costs. That's down five points from last year and 27 per cent from its high point in 2006. […]

BRONWYN HERBERT: Dr Wesley says the poll found most people who are against action on climate change also feel most strongly that the Government hasn't done a good job in addressing it. […]

Lowy Poll: public support waning on climate change action

The unusual visit last week of two long-beaked dolphins to waters outside Olympia was just the latest in a string of strange animal sightings in and around Pacific Northwest waters. Lots of creatures that at first glance might not seem to belong have found their way here in recent years.

By Craig Welch, Seattle Times environment reporter
27 June 2011

There was the brown booby, the plunge-diving tropical seabird that inexplicably hopped aboard a crab boat this spring in Willapa Bay.

And fishermen have caught spear-snouted striped marlin off the Washington coast and a 6-foot leopard shark in Bellingham Bay. The shark, in particular, is hardly ever seen north of Coos Bay, Ore.

Even Bryde's whales, which normally range from Chile to northern Mexico, have washed up dead on southern Puget Sound beaches. Twice. Just since early 2010.

The unusual visit last week of two long-beaked dolphins to waters outside Olympia was just the latest in a string of strange animal sightings in and around Pacific Northwest waters. Lots of creatures that at first glance might not seem to belong have found their way here in recent years.

The reasons are as diverse as the beings themselves. Green sea turtles that wind up stranded on Washington beaches often are presumed to have ridden warm-water currents up from California during El Niño years. Once they land in the cold Northwest, they grow too lethargic to make it home or swim at all.

Climate changes or other disruptions probably are driving some species to new homelands. Invasive critters are discarded in marine waters and sometimes take up residence. Birds can hitch rides on air currents — and, yes, fishing boats. […]

"I think it's a little bit past just being weird," said Annie Douglas, a marine biologist with Cascadia Research. "With this many tropical species, I think it's an indication of something. It's just not clear what." […]

Odd visitors in local waters a deep mystery

More violent and frequent storms, once merely a prediction of climate models, are now a matter of observation. This is the first of a three-part series

By John Carey
28 June 2011

Editor's note: This article is the first of a three-part series by John Carey. Part 2, "Global Warming and the Science of Extreme Weather," was posted on June 29. Part 3, “Our Extreme Future: Predicting and Coping with the Effects of a Changing Climate”, was posted on June 30.

In North Dakota the waters kept rising. Swollen by more than a month of record rains in Saskatchewan, the Souris River topped its all time record high, set back in 1881. The floodwaters poured into Minot, North Dakota's fourth-largest city, and spread across thousands of acres of farms and forests. More than 12,000 people were forced to evacuate. Many lost their homes to the floodwaters.

Yet the disaster unfolding in North Dakota might be bringing even bigger headlines if such extreme events hadn't suddenly seemed more common. In this year alone massive blizzards have struck the U.S. Northeast, tornadoes have ripped through the nation, mighty rivers like the Mississippi and Missouri have flowed over their banks, and floodwaters have covered huge swaths of Australia as well as displaced more than five million people in China  and devastated Colombia. And this year's natural disasters follow on the heels of a staggering litany of extreme weather in 2010, from record floods in Nashville, Tenn., and Pakistan, to Russia's crippling heat wave.

These patterns have caught the attention of scientists at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They've been following the recent deluges' stunning radar pictures and growing rainfall totals with concern and intense interest. Normally, floods of the magnitude now being seen in North Dakota and elsewhere around the world are expected to happen only once in 100 years. But one of the predictions of climate change models is that extreme weather—floods, heat waves, droughts, even blizzards—will become far more common. "Big rain events and higher overnight lows are two things we would expect with [a] warming world," says Deke Arndt, chief of the center's Climate Monitoring Branch. Arndt's group had already documented a stunning rise in overnight low temperatures across the U.S. So are the floods and spate of other recent extreme events also examples of predictions turned into cold, hard reality?

Increasingly, the answer is yes. Scientists used to say, cautiously, that extreme weather events were "consistent" with the predictions of climate change. No more. "Now we can make the statement that particular events would not have happened the same way without global warming," says Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

That's a profound change—the difference between predicting something and actually seeing it happen. The reason is simple: The signal of climate change is emerging from the "noise"—the huge amount of natural variability in weather. […]

Storm Warnings: Extreme Weather Is a Product of Climate Change

Sea level predicted from paleo-temperature data, using sea-level proxy data from the whole period. Shaded error bands indicate 1σ and 2σ uncertainties. A correction of −0.2 K was applied to temperatures for AD 500–1100. Sea level predicted from adjusted temperature (gray) and summary of proxy-reconstructed sea levels from North Carolina (pink). GIA-adjusted sea level expressed relative to AD 1400–1800 average.

We present new sea-level reconstructions for the past 2100 y based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. The data from North Carolina reveal four phases of persistent sea-level change after correction for glacial isostatic adjustment. Sea level was stable from at least BC 100 until AD 950. Sea level then increased for 400 y at a rate of 0.6 mm/y, followed by a further period of stable, or slightly falling, sea level that persisted until the late 19th century. Since then, sea level has risen at an average rate of 2.1 mm/y, representing the steepest century-scale increase of the past two millennia. This rate was initiated between AD 1865 and 1892. Using an extended semiempirical modeling approach, we show that these sea-level changes are consistent with global temperature for at least the past millennium.

Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia [pdf]

By Darryl Fears
26 June 2011

From his government office in Virginia Beach, Clay Bernick can see the future, and that future looks a rather lot like the movie Waterworld.

The sea level is rising in Virginia Beach and the entire area known as Hampton Roads because of the warming climate, and the area also happens to be sinking for other geological reasons.

Within 50 years, a big part of Virginia Beach’s identity — its beach — could be lost if nothing is done, said Bernick, the city’s environment and sustainability administrator. Large pieces of land could also be lost to the ocean in Norfolk within a few generations.

In fact, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that, outside of greater New Orleans, Hampton Roads is at the greatest risk from sea-level rise for any area its size.

“It’s a significant threat,” Bernick said. “At this point, I wouldn’t put it in the category of fear, because it’s a long way off.” But he added: “You’ve got multiple factors with flashing lights saying, ‘Okay, guys, what are you going to do?’ ”

To help answer that question in the past, municipalities turned to a manual published by the Army Corps of Engineers since 1954 on how to protect shores by holding back the sea.

But earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published the first manual on how not to hold it back, arguing that costly seawalls and dikes eventually fail because sea-level rise is unstoppable. The federal Global Change Research Program estimates that the sea level will rise 14 to 17 inches in the next century around Hampton Roads.

The analysis, Rolling Easements [pdf], published on the EPA’s Web site, hopes “to get people on the path of not expecting to hold back the sea” as the warming climate is expected to melt ice around the globe, EPA researcher James G. Titus said. […]

A new way of thinking as sea levels rise

By RAPHAEL MINDER
24 June 2011

MADRID — In March, local officials inaugurated a new airport in Castellón, a small city on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. They are still waiting for the first scheduled flight.

To justify the grand opening, Carlos Fabra, the head of Castellón’s provincial government, argued that it was a unique opportunity to turn an airport into a tourist attraction, giving visitors full access to the runway and other areas normally off-limits. This Sunday, it will be used as the starting point for part of Spain’s national cycling championships, featuring the three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador.

Castellón Airport, built at a cost of 150 million euros ($213 million), is not the only white elephant that now dots Spain’s infrastructure landscape. Spain’s first privately held airport — in Ciudad Real in central Spain — was forced to enter bankruptcy proceedings a year ago because of a similar lack of traffic.

Across the country, nearly empty toll roads are struggling to turn a profit. Other projects are surviving only with continued public financing, which has been cast into doubt by Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

Over the last 18 months, Spain has been in investors’ line of fire after permitting its budget deficit to balloon during a long property bubble, which finally burst alongside the worldwide financial crisis. To clean up the mess, the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero introduced austerity measures last year that, among other things, shrank spending on infrastructure. That has left some projects in limbo, despite political pledges to keep them alive. […]

The debt crisis and the slump in construction have also left Spain with several half-built or deserted museums, stadiums, public libraries, administrative offices and shopping malls.

Spain’s Building Spree Leaves Some Airports and Roads Begging to Be Used via Calculated Risk

[Update: As usual, optimism is not supported by the evidence: Paved road across Serengeti will go on as planned – World Heritage site to be mined for uranium.]

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
24 June 2011

Controversial plans to build a tarmac road across the Serengeti National Park have been scrapped after warnings that it could devastate wildlife.

The Tanzanian government planned a two-lane highway across the park to connect Lake Victoria with coastal ports.

But studies showed it could seriously affect animals such as wildebeest and zebra, whose migration is regarded as among the wonders of the natural world.

The government confirmed the road across the park will remain gravel.

In a letter sent to the World Heritage Centre in Paris, the Department of Natural Resources and Tourism says the 50km (30-mile) section of road across the park will "continue to be managed mainly for tourism and administrative purposes, as it is now". […]

Last year, a group of scientists warned that the proposed road across the park could bring the number of wildebeest in the park, estimated at about 1.3 million, down to 300,000.

Collisions between animals and traffic would be unavoidable, they said.

And with a corridor on either side of the road taken out of the hands of the park authorities and given to the highways agency, fencing would almost certainly result, blocking movement of the herds. […]

Environmental campaigners have welcomed the government's decision, with the organisation Serengeti Watch saying: "A battle has been won". […]

Serengeti road scrapped over wildlife concerns

[Desdemona is pleased to post the occasional good news, but before we start celebrating, here’s what Serengeti Watch says on its Facebook page.]

We have worked hard since the announcement on Thursday, analyzing the letter and talking with our contacts and sources. SW/STSH's position is that the fight is not over. While the letter has some positive elements - that TANAPA (the Tanzania park authority) will be managing any "road" inside the park and not TANROADS, there is still talk of a "road". Currently there is only a two lane dirt track, not a gravel road. The mention of the Southern Route is also positive, but not a for sure thing. So - our work is not done here. We feel that the media over reacted and that people will walk away from the fight - which by now means is over. We must all stay together and work to save the Serengeti in the long term.

Stop the Serengeti Highway

By Steve Kanigher
24 June 2011

It wasn’t long ago that hotels, high-rise condominiums and massive retail and office complexes sprang up in Southern Nevada seemingly faster than one could drive from one end of the valley to the other. Take that same drive today, though, and you’ll likely see vestiges of the Great Recession: partially built structures with exposed foundations or steel beams — or building wraps to hide the evidence — that represent dreams put on hold.

Many mothballed projects face an uncertain future, signs their owners either don’t have the money to complete construction or don’t think the economy has recovered sufficiently to make them viable. Some have also been mired in litigation. Here are prime examples:

Fontainebleau

There is arguably no greater symbol of the valley’s economic struggles than the unfinished $2.9 billion would-be Strip resort that became the nation’s largest commercial construction project to go bankrupt. Snapped up by financier Carl Icahn at a U.S. Bankruptcy Court auction last year for a mere $150 million, one gaming analyst has said it could be at least 2015 before the 63-floor, 3,815-room hotel opens. In a sign of the times, some of its prized furnishings were sold to other hotels. […]

Abandoned projects leave lasting reminder of economic crash via Calculated Risk

By Peter Huck
27 June 2011

This month, as the US reeled from some very nasty weather - floods in Mississippi, drought in Texas, tornadoes in the Midwest - the New York Times got right down to brass tacks: given damage to property, crops and lost business, how much would insurers have to fork out? Ten billion dollars and counting seemed a safe bet.

"There's no question it's above average," says David Smith, a senior vice president with US company Eqecat, which uses modelling to advise the insurance industry on catastrophe risk management. "An average annual loss for severe convective storms - tornadoes, hail, thunderstorms and wind - is about US$6 billion. ($7.4 billion). We'll certainly end the year above that."

Indeed. Add in damage from February's monster blizzard, which shut down much of the Midwest; an "unseasonable" heatwave, dramatised by Arizona's largest wildfire; and, since June 1, a hurricane season the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts will be "above-average", and payouts in the US may set records.

For an industry whose survival means managing risk, these are challenging times. […]

The World Meteorological Organisation ranked last year, 2005 and 1998 as the warmest years ever recorded, confirming a "significant long-term warming trend". […]

For those in the risk management business, simply denying climate change is not an option. Increasingly, the insurance industry is showing the way forward. It involves tough calls to protect the bottom line: dumping customers with properties on floodplains, or in hurricane-prone areas, while insuring "green" technologies that offer the best chance of slowing warming and protecting investments.

Despite "tremendous uncertainties" in scientific modelling of hurricanes and typhoons, Smith says there is a growing industry consensus that the warming climate is amplifying precipitation and floods. He believes some "very significant changes" lie down the road. Insurers face three big questions. How soon? How much? And how to respond? […]

Evan Mills, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and IPCC member who writes about insurance, says weather-related losses, which account for about 90 per cent of all natural disasters, total US$80 billion a year worldwide, of which US$20 billion is insured.

Adjusted for inflation, international economic losses from weather-related events rose eight-fold, and insured losses 17-fold, between the 1960s and the 1990s. The IPCC believes those losses are understated, as in the US "small" events under $25 million in insured losses are excluded from the tally of natural disasters.

German reinsurer Munich Re, which publicly noted concern about climate change way back in 1973, has logged 28,000 events since 1950. The industry's biggest disaster database notes losses from weather-related catastrophes rose "by a factor of three" from 1980 to 2009, from some 133 events a year in the 1980s to over 350 a year today.

Figures compiled by the Insurance Council of New Zealand from 1968 to January 2011, excluding the 2010 Christchurch quake, show a similar trajectory: during the 1990s 36 natural disasters cost $214 million, rising in the noughties to 57 episodes costing some $630 million.

Recent natural disasters in Australasia alone, excluding Cyclone Yasi and the 2011 Christchurch quakes, cost the industry up to $15.8 billion according to a Munich Re March estimate.

"Aggregate losses from weather-related natural catastrophes since 1980 now total US$1600 billion, with insured losses increasing on average by 11 per cent each year," says Munich Re's media chief Nikola Kemper. And while she cautions that this rise is partly driven by higher property values and more people living in vulnerable floodplains and seashores, "it would seem that the growing number of weather-related catastrophes can only be explained by climate change". […]

For a taste of what the insurance industry's changing attitudes can mean, take a look at the US. Of the 3 million American homes denied insurance between 2003 and 2007, only half found new coverage. Allstate, one of the major US insurers, said climate change prompted it to cancel or not renew policies in many Gulf Coast states.

The trend spread along America's hurricane-prone Southeastern seaboard. Florida's biggest private insurer, State Farm, stopped writing policies and quit Mississippi altogether. In 2008 Farmers Insurance stopped writing policies for North Carolina and refused to renew existing ones, forgoing US$55 million in annual premiums because of the risk of losses. Elsewhere, premiums increased by 42 per cent to 77 per cent in nine Southern states between 2001 and 2006. […]

"Many of the risks posed by climate change will become uninsurable," predicts Mills. […]

Insurance industry facing a climate of fear via The Oil Drum

By Shigeru Sato and Yuji Okada
23 June 2011

Yasuteru Yamada, a 72-year-old former anti-nuclear activist, will lead a band of pensioners to the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant early next month to help clean up the site of Japan’s worst atomic disaster since World War II.

Yamada, a retired Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. (5405) plant engineer, is waiting for Tokyo Electric Power Co. to allow his volunteer “Skilled Veterans Corps” to carry out preliminary inspections at the plant after the government welcomed the move.

Almost four months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the crisis by damaging the Dai-Ichi plant, 3,514 workers involved in the clean-up have been exposed to radiation, including nine whose readings breached the annual limit of 250 millisieverts for a nuclear plant worker. Tepco said it had 1,044 workers at the plant as of June 19, about half the number a month earlier.

“I’m not on a suicide mission,” said Yamada, a 1962 graduate of Tokyo University. “I am going to try my best to protect myself and come back alive.”

Tepco is struggling to hire workers at the crippled plant that has spewed radiation across at least 600 square kilometers (230 square miles) in northeastern Japan. The Tokyo-based company, which has about 3,100 employees in its nuclear division, is considering ways to make the best use of its workers, said Ai Tanaka, a company spokeswoman, without elaborating.

“People who are willing to sacrifice their daily lives to help the nation resolve these problems are invaluable,” Goshi Hosono, special advisor to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, said in a news briefing in Tokyo today. “First we’ll have to check on their health status, as people at an advanced age working in that kind of environment could fall ill.” […]

Pensioners to Aid Nuclear Plant Clean-Up on Worker Shortage

June 27 (Kyodo) – More than 3 millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of 15 Fukushima residents of the village of Iitate and the town of Kawamata, confirming internal radiation exposure, it was learned Sunday.

Both are about 30 to 40 km from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which has been releasing radioactive material into the environment since the week of March 11, when the quake and tsunami caused core meltdowns.

"This won't be a problem if they don't eat vegetables or other products that are contaminated," said Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University. "But it will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas."

Kamada teamed up with doctors including Osamu Saito of Watari Hospital in the city of Fukushima to conduct two rounds of tests on each resident in early and late May, taking urine samples from 15 people between 4 and 77.

Radioactive cesium was found both times in each resident.

Radioactive iodine was logged as high as 3.2 millisieverts in six people in the first survey, but none was found in the second survey.

The data indicate accumulated external exposure was between 4.9 and 13.5 millisieverts, putting the grand total between 4.9 to 14.2 millisieverts over about two months, they said.

"The figures did not exceed the maximum of 20 millisieverts a year, but we want residents to use these results to make decisions (to move)," said Kamada.

Fukushima residents' urine now radioactive

By Ashwini Shrivastava
26 Jun 2011

Leh (PTI) – Ten months after a deadly natural disaster claimed over 250 lives, relief and rehabilitation work being carried out by the authorities here is hitting a roadblock-- due to paucity of funds.

Piles of mud and stone are still lying at Choglumsar, which bore the major brunt of the cloudburst and flashflood, inside various houses, shops on the national highway to Manali and at several other places in and around the town.

Excepting national highways, other link roads are awaiting their restoration in the city which were badly damaged in the disaster that struck on the intervening night of August 5-6 last year. […]

The cloudburst had killed 257 people and damaged 1,448 households-- 665 fully and 783 partially. […]

Locals, however, refute all claims made by the government and cite several discrepancies.

"I have yet not received any financial help from the government. We have not got any money in our bank accounts. We are constructing house on our own," said Youchan Dolma, who lives in Saboo village near here.

Her views were echoed by Stanzin Dolma, who lost his 12-year-old son in the disaster. "We need money to rebuild our lives. Government should help us in getting some sort of employment so that we can help our families," Dolma said. […]

Relief Work in Cloudburst-Hit Leh Suffers Lack of Funds

By TOMOKO OTAKE, Staff writer
26 June 2011

In order to address public concerns over post-3/11 food safety, the government should be more forthcoming in the monitoring and disclosure of data regarding radiation contamination of soil, Akira Sugenoya, mayor of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, told this reporter recently.

Sugenoya, a medical doctor, speaks from experience, having spent 5½ years from 1996 in the Republic of Belarus treating children with thyroid cancer. He was there because the incidence of that disease in children surged after the Chernobyl disaster in neighboring Ukraine in 1986. In that April 26 event, which involved an explosion and a fire at the nuclear power plant there, large amounts of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere.

Consequently, due to his unique experience, Sugenoya — who has held his position as mayor since 2004 — was asked by Japan's Food Safety Commission to share his opinion as an expert at a series of meetings convened in late March to set emergency radiation limits for domestic food.

Commenting on these to the JT, Sugenoya said it is his understanding that the current limits set by the commission (see table) are "relatively stringent" by international standards.

However, he added that infants, children up to the age of 14 and pregnant and breastfeeding women should avoid eating food contaminated with even the small doses of radiation. In fact he said that adults should leave safer food for these more at-risk segments of the population even if it means they will eat contaminated food themselves.

Sugenoya also pointed out that what is fueling people's concerns in particular is the slow disclosure of soil contamination data, despite the fact that it is only through such data that it becomes clear where, and even whether, safe vegetables can be grown. Instead, he said, the government has been occupied only with monitoring radiation levels in the air.

"I think some municipal governments have only recently begun to release soil data in response to mounting calls from the public," he said. "But the central government should have taken the initiative to release them much earlier … . What the central government must do now is release all data, no matter how bad, because if it doesn't it can only add to people's suspicions that it is manipulating information.

"So many people in Japan are now saying that they can't trust their own government." […]

Experts urge great caution over radiation risks

By NORIMITSU ONISHI
24 June 2011

SHIKA, Japan — Near a nuclear power plant facing the Sea of Japan, a series of exhibitions in a large public relations building here extols the virtues of the energy source with some help from “Alice in Wonderland.”

“It’s terrible, just terrible,” the White Rabbit says in the first exhibit. “We’re running out of energy, Alice.”

A Dodo robot figure, swiveling to address Alice and the visitors to the building, declares that there is an “ace” form of energy called nuclear power. It is clean, safe and renewable if you reprocess uranium and plutonium, the Dodo says.

“Wow, you can even do that!” Alice says of nuclear power. “You could say that it’s optimal for resource-poor Japan!”

Over several decades, Japan’s nuclear establishment has devoted vast resources to persuade the Japanese public of the safety and necessity of nuclear power. Plant operators built lavish, fantasy-filled public relations buildings that became tourist attractions. Bureaucrats spun elaborate advertising campaigns through a multitude of organizations established solely to advertise the safety of nuclear plants. Politicians pushed through the adoption of government-mandated school textbooks with friendly views of nuclear power.

The result was the widespread adoption of the belief — called the “safety myth” — that Japan’s nuclear power plants were absolutely safe. Japan single-mindedly pursued nuclear power even as Western nations distanced themselves from it. […]

Japan, after all, is the world’s leader in robotics. It has the world’s largest force of mechanized workers. Its humanoid robots can walk and run on two feet, sing and dance, and even play the violin. But where were the emergency robots at Fukushima?

The answer is that the operators and nuclear regulators, believing that accidents would never occur, steadfastly opposed the introduction of what they regarded as unnecessary technology.

“The plant operators said that robots, which would premise an accident, were not needed,” said Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, 77, an engineer and a former president of the University of Tokyo, Japan’s most prestigious academic institution. “Instead, introducing them would inspire fear, they said. That’s why they said that robots couldn’t be introduced.” […]

‘Safety Myth’ Left Japan Ripe for Nuclear Crisis via The Oil Drum

By Takemichi Nishibori, Yoshinori Hayashi, Yukiko Nagatomi, and Ryo Inoue
25 June 2011

IWAKI, Fukushima Prefecture – Rubble, some of it potentially radioactive, continues to be a headache for municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture although the government has finally come up with standards to deal with it.

Rubble has piled up since May 2, when the Environment Ministry told municipalities in the Hamadori and Nakadori districts around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to suspend burning or burying rubble from the disaster site.

Sixty percent of the estimated 3.3 million tons of rubble in Fukushima Prefecture is believed to be in the Hamadori district along the Pacific coast, which includes the city of Iwaki.

A mountain of rubble rises 7 to 8 meters in the schoolyard of Toyoma Junior High School in the part of Iwaki that was devastated by the March 11 tsunami.

The first floor of the junior high school was damaged by the tsunami, and the schoolyard has been designated as a temporary storage space for rubble.

Four pieces of heavy equipment were mobilized June 23 to level the upper part of the "mountain" so that more rubble can be brought in. […]

The ministry told municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture that combustible rubble can be burned at a facility adequately equipped to treat exhaust gas.

Under ministry standards, ash from incinerated rubble can be buried if radioactivity levels are 8,000 becquerels or less per kilogram. If radioactivity levels exceed 8,000 becquerels, it should be stored until it is confirmed safe.

An Environment Ministry official said high concentrations of radioactivity are unlikely to be detected from ash if rubble is incinerated with ordinary waste.

But a city government official from Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, said the amount of rubble has overwhelmed its single incineration facility with a 40-ton-a-day capacity.

About 220,000 tons of rubble have already been generated in the city's coastal region between 30 and 50 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The city official said it will be difficult to temporarily store the rubble ash.

The city's disposal facility that can store ash will reach capacity in about 10 years even if it accommodates only household waste. […]

The Environment Ministry also said rubble should be stored in a facility where radioactivity can be shielded if radioactivity levels exceed 100,000 becquerels per kilogram. […]

But Sato refused because officials are concerned that anxiety will grow among residents if waste and ash contaminated with radioactivity are buried in the prefecture. […]

Mountains of rubble remain a headache in Fukushima