A landowner in Indonesia may soon find it more profitable to sell carbon credits from untouched forest than to clear the land for agriculture, according to new research. As a case study, the researchers looked at 8.2 million acres that are slated to become plantations in Kalimantan, the Indonesian region of the island of Borneo. The researchers found that paying to conserve the forest was more valuable than plantations as long as poorer nations could earn between $10 and $33 for each tonne of CO2 saved. Currently a credit representing a tonne of CO2 sells for about $20 in the European Union, which has the world’s largest greenhouse gas trading system [The New York Times].
Since forests act like sponges for carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas driving global warming, they can play a role in carbon credit markets that are used in international climate treaties. Industries that can’t cut their emissions enough pay landowners to leave their forests standing, so the trees can suck up carbon and offset the industrial emissions. What’s more, researchers say that such systems could also be a roundabout way to protect endangered species. The 800 proposed plantations that were studied contain 40 of the region’s 46 threatened mammals including orangutans and pygmy elephants [AP].
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A radar survey conducted between 2004 and 2008 by Japanese, Chinese, and British scientists reveals how the ice on Antarctica grew, and what the land looks like beneath the ice. At the center of the continent, a nearly two-mile-thick slab of ice has clung to Antarctica’s rocky surface for 14 million years; this is the first time scientists have gotten a virtual glimpse beneath the sheet’s surface.
The topography beneath the ice is mountainous, with peaks and valleys like the European Alps, according the study published Nature. Scientists say that 34 million years ago, small glaciers expanded from the mountaintops and shifted to carve out the terrain. To collect the data, scientists drove huge trains of caterpillar tractors in tight lines over Dome A, a plateau of ice at the heart of Antarctica. The tractors carried radars that pinged down through the ice and sent back profiles of the frozen rock landscape below [New Scientist]. Scientists knew the velocity of the radar’s radio waves, so they calculated the depth of the ice by timing how long it took the waves to hit the rock and come back to the surface.
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As global warming gradually melts away the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, the oil and gas deposits buried in that inaccessible region are becoming a lot less theoretical to the five northern nations with claims to those riches. “For better or worse, limited exploration prospects in the rest of the world combined with technological advances make the Arctic increasingly attractive for development,” said Paul Berkman, … who specialises in the politics of the Arctic [The Guardian]. Now, a new study has estimated how much oil and gas may lie beneath the Arctic seabed, declaring that it contains about 30 percent of the planet’s undiscovered natural gas reserves and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil.
Researchers estimate that the Arctic holds about about 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, but say that’s not enough to challenge the dominance of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states. Meanwhile, the researchers say that the Arctic’s estimated 1,550 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is concentrated in marine territory claimed by Russia, ensuring that Russia will continue to be the world’s largest producer of gas. “These findings suggest that in the future the … pre-eminence of Russian strategic control of gas resources in particular is likely to be accentuated and extended,” said Donald L. Gautier, lead author of the study [AP].
Russia has not been shy about pressing its claim to the polar region: In 2007 two Russian civilian mini-submarines descended to the seabed to collect geological and water samples and drop a titanium canister containing the Russian flag [AP]. The other four northernmost nations — Canada, the United States, Norway, and Denmark (via Greenland) — have also sought some jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic.
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Fierce dust storms this spring have stained Colorado’s snow-covered peaks with brown, red, and pink dust, and state officials point out that this isn’t just a change in scenery. The darker snow is absorbing more radiation from the sun and is therefore melting faster and sooner than it normally would, which is upsetting the careful water rationing that defines life in the American West. Twelve dust storms barreled into the southern Rockies from the deserts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico so far this year…. That, coupled with unseasonably warm temperatures, has sped up the runoff here, swelling rivers to near flood stage, threatening to make reservoirs overflow and fueling fears that there will not be enough water left for late-summer crops [Los Angeles Times].
In Colorado, melting snow accounts for about 80 percent of the water that flows through rivers and ends up in the state’s lakes and reservoirs. Colorado water engineer Scott Brinton explains that the early snowmelt could spell disaster for thousands of farmers and ranchers in the region who depend on slowly melting snow to provide water flows over the dry summer months…. “Those people who were relying on the mountain snowpack are going to have difficulty later in the year…. There’s not a whole lot we can do about it,” Brinton said. “We’re telling people, ‘You’ll be getting your water early this year, so use it while it lasts’” [Greenwire]. But scientists note that this may not be just a year of freak storms, it may be a harbinger of things to come.
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President Obama proposed new fuel efficiency standards today, establishing the first nationwide regulation for greenhouse gases [Washington Post]. The proposal is centered around the strictest plan ever for increasing fuel standards for passenger vehicles, sharply raising pressure on struggling automakers to make more efficient cars and trucks [Reuters]. Under the plan, cars would be required to reach an average efficiency of 35.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2016—four years earlier than the deadline imposed by the 2007 energy bill. Light trucks would be required to reach 30 mpg.
The new rules would pose a challenge for car manufacturers: the White House estimates the current average efficiency to be 25 mpg. The new standards would resolve the spat between California and auto manufacturers over implementing the state’s emissions regulations [ClimateWire]. In return for the strict national rules, California will drop its plans to impose strict state-wide standards for fuel efficiency, which had been bitterly resisted by both carmakers and President George Bush. In practice California’s rules tend to override milder national regulations, as it is cheaper to follow them than to produce different vehicles [The Economist].
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If global warming melts the West Antarctic ice sheet, the thick slab of ice that covers an area the size of Texas, the situation for coastal dwellers around the world may not be as dire as previously estimated. A new study, which has sparked some debate, suggests that the water released by West Antarctica’s melting glaciers would raise sea levels by about 10 feet, not the 15 to 20 feet that had previously been predicted.
While the results sound like good news, Antarctic experts and the study’s lead author, Jonathan L. Bamber of the Bristol Glaciology Center in England, agreed that the odds of a disruptive rise in seas over the next century or so from the buildup of greenhouse gases remained serious enough to warrant the world’s attention [The New York Times]. They also note that some regions would also experience a larger surge in sea levels than others. “Sea level rise is not uniform across the world’s oceans, partly as a result of disruptions to the Earth’s gravity field,” explained Professor Bamber. “It turns out that the maximum increase in sea level rise is centred at a latitude of about 40 degrees along the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards of North America.” This would include cities such as San Francisco and New York [BBC News].
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The Obama administration announced on Friday that it will keep a Bush-era rule that limits the steps that the government can take to protect polar bears. The rule prevents the Endangered Species Act from being used to curb greenhouse gas emissions, even though those emissions contribute to the shrinking of polar bear habitat by causing global warming and melting Arctic sea ice. The decision comes despite recent moves to undo former president Bush’s environmental legacy. It was announced on Friday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who rejected special authority given to him by Congress and the pleas of Democratic lawmakers, environmentalists and scientists to overturn the regulation [Greenwire].
According to federal officials, the Endangered Species Act was written for a different kind of threat. In cases where an animal is threatened by logging, trapping or land development, it is used to identify—and punish—individual actions that harm them. That framework cannot be applied to climate change, they said, because the sources of that problem are global [San Francisco Chronicle]. Salazar said that the polar bear will still be listed as “threatened,” but instead of protecting it through the Endangered Species Act, the administration would push for legislation to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. A “comprehensive global change strategy” is needed, he said.
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If the human race continues on its present industrial course, by 2040 we will have added more than 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide to the air–which will have caused an average global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s the scenario described in two new studies, both published in Nature, that paint an ominous picture of global warming. A worldwide temperature rise of just a few degrees may not sound like much, but it would lead to wide-scale environmental disruptions including floods and droughts, and more than 100 nations support the goal of keeping temperature rise below 2C [BBC News].
The studies, which used computer models, take a different approach than other research on figuring out how much carbon dioxide in the air is too much. Instead of the proportion of carbon dioxide in the air at any given time, they looked at the total amount spewed out over many decades to arrive at a tipping point of 1.1 trillion tons [AP]. As study coauthor Myles Allen explains, the analysis shows that humanity is hurtling towards that tipping point. Industrial activity since the mid-18th century has already emitted 500 billion tonnes of carbon, so we are halfway there. “But don’t let this fool you,” says Allen. “On current trends we’ll burn the next 500 billion in less than 40 years.” If we carry on regardless, we will exhaust what Allen calls the “carbon budget for the human race” by 2040 [New Scientist].
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The 340 residents of Newtok, Alaska will soon be among the first “climate refugees” in the United States. Global warming has battered the tiny coastal town: As average yearly temperatures rise, coastal ice shelves melt as does the permafrost on which the town sits. The Ninglick River has overtaken the town as the ground level simultaneously sinks [Backpacker blog]. As a result, the town’s scattered buildings are connected by a network of boardwalks across the mud.
With the forces of nature arrayed against them, the townspeople have now voted to relocate their town to a new site nine miles inland, on higher ground by the river. “We are seeing the erosion, flooding and sinking of our village right now,” said Stanley Tom, a Yup’ik Eskimo and tribal administrator for the Newtok Traditional Council…. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that moving Newtok could cost $130 million. Twenty-six other Alaskan villages are in immediate danger, with an additional 60 considered under threat in the next decade, according to the corps [CNN].
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At the bottom of the world, fluctuations in sea ice surrounding the frozen continent of Antarctica have posed a puzzle. In West Antarctica, the vast Wilkins Ice Shelf off the Antarctic peninsula appears to be headed towards a collapse. But in East Antarctica, sea ice has been expanding since the 1970s. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and NASA set out to determine what was going on, and quickly ruled out one possible answer: Global warming is not an illusion, they say, and Antarctica as a whole is gradually warming up, as is the world at large.
The answer to the riddle, they say, lies in a different (and almost forgotten) environmental problem: the hole in the ozone layer, which has altered weather patterns around Antarctica. These changes have drawn in warm air over the Antarctic Peninsula in West Antarctica and cooled the air above East Antarctica [New Scientist].
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If global warming trends continue unabated, the Colorado River won’t have enough water to supply the 27 million people who depend on it, according to a new study. Less runoff — the snow and rain that fortify the 1,400-mile river — caused by human-induced climate change could mean that by 2050 the Colorado won’t be able to provide all of its allocated water 60 percent to 90 percent of the time, according to two climate researchers [AP].
The Colorado River flows through seven states in the American Southwest and continues into Mexico. It supplies water to households, businesses, factories, and farms, and is also home to several endangered species of fish. The study’s lead researcher, Tim Barnett, says that the findings indicate that tough decisions will have to be made about who will get less water. Agricultural operations use about 80 percent of the water taken out of the Colorado, Barnett said. He knows the arguments, though: Shorting farms could drive up food prices. Curbing development in cities and suburbs will make developers unhappy. Whatever the case, he said, some decisions need to be made soon. “The actions that need to be taken aren’t going to be fun,” Barnett said. “It’s not going to be life as usual” [AP].
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West Africa has a history of severe, prolonged “mega-droughts,” according to a new study, and researchers say that another one is inevitable, although they can’t say when it might occur. Says lead researcher Tim Shanahan: “It’s disconcerting – it suggests we’re vulnerable to a longer-lasting drought than we’ve seen in our lifetime…. If the region were to shift into one of these droughts it would be very difficult for people to adapt; and we need to develop an adaptation policy” [BBC News].
The study, which examined sediment samples on a lake bottom to trace the climate history back 3,000 years, reveals that the infamous 1970s drought of the African Sahel region, which lasted several decades and killed more than 100,000 people, was actually a “minor” event…. “What’s disconcerting about this record is that it suggests the most recent drought was relatively minor in the context of the West African drought history” [New Scientist], says Shanahan. The researchers found that decades-long droughts similar to the 1970s event occur every 30 to 60 years, but that even more severe, century-long droughts have reoccurred as well. The most recent mega-drought began in 1400 and lasted until 1750, during which time forests grew up in dry lake beds.
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A new study of fossilized coral reefs in Mexico has revealed that sea levels have risen abruptly in past epochs, which researchers say supports the theory that ocean levels could rise dramatically again in response to global warming. The study suggests that a sudden rise of 6.5 feet to 10 feet occurred within a span of 50 to 100 years about 121,000 years ago, at the end of the last warm interval between ice ages. “The potential for sustained rapid ice loss and catastrophic sea-level rise in the near future is confirmed by our discovery of sea-level instability” in that period, the authors write [The New York Times].
Other researchers have previously found evidence of rapid sea level rise as ice ages gave way to more temperate eras, causing vast ice sheets to melt. But because the coral shows evidence from a warmer interglacial period—similar to the one we’re in currently—the find boosts the chances that today’s melting ice sheets could trigger rapid sea-level rise, the study authors say [National Geographic News]. However, not everyone is convinced that the authors have proven their case. Some experts argue that the researchers haven’t definitively shown that the coral fossils date from 121,000 years ago.
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Researchers have found that droughts kill pine trees faster when temperatures are higher, a piece of information that bodes ill for forests in a warmer world. A new study examined the effect of dry conditions and temperature on the pinion pine, a hardy evergreen that lives in the American Southwest, and found that “together, drought and temperature can kind of provide a double whammy,” said David Breshears, a researcher involved in the experiment [Reno Gazette Journal].
Researchers could isolate the impact of heat due to the unusual environment where the experiment took place. The study was conducted in Biosphere 2, a glass and steel laboratory that includes recreations of the planet’s savannas, deserts, oceans and forests…. Half the pinions studied were kept in normal temperatures, the others in an environment 7 degrees warmer. Some trees in each group were then deprived of water to simulate droughts common in the past [AP]. Trees subjected to higher temperatures died five times faster than the other trees, suggesting that even short droughts could produce widespread tree mortality in a warmer climate [AP]. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Tourism to Antarctica is likely to soon be regulated, following a joint session last week of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Arctic Council. At the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for tighter controls on cruise ships and tourists to preserve the continent’s pristine beauty and endangered wildlife.
Citing concerns about the recent Antarctic ice bridge collapse, Clinton spoke about the fragile environment of the region and the damage that global warming has already caused. She pointed both to the impact of cruise ships on the environment and to safety issues for visitors. Incidents last year in which two ships ran aground and another hit an iceberg have raised concerns about fuel spills and other environmental hazards, as well as passenger safety. Said Clinton: “We have submitted a resolution that would place limits on landings from ships carrying large numbers of tourists.” Ms. Clinton also called for “greater international cooperation” to avoid further degradation of “the environment around Antarctica” [The New York Times].
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