Climate change is like my teeth

Many, many years ago, when the Old man was a young boy, he had nice teeth. Like most children, though, there were occasional problems. Being the time when dentistry on the NHS was a primitive matter, with dentists being paid for each extraction, my experience was often unpleasant.

People often told me that I had to look after my teeth, to brush regularly and avoid too much sugar, such as sweets and fizzy drinks. Did I listen? Not wanting to think about my teeth, so loong as they didn’t bother me, I wouldn’t bother with them.
Then, when I was a bit older, I started having a few more problems with them. The advice then was to quit smoking, reduce the sugar, brush regularly, see a hygienist. Some things I did, some I didn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to avoid the problems waiting around the corner, it was more that they were, well, rather distant. They didn’t mean lot at the time; certainly not enough to cause me to take the proper measures to ensure a trouble-free tooth future.

So guess what happened.

In the past year, I have had eleven or twelve (it’s all a bit numb and hazy) extractions, of teeth which were causing agony for months, and were irretrievably rotten. It was like all the discomfort I had been avoiding came all at once, with a bit extra added on for good measure. Not only was is painful, it was depressing.

Now, the old man is the rather self-conscious owner of a new half-set  of beautifully and carefully constructed new teeth. Except, of course, they aren’t my teeth (I suppose they will be when I’ve paid for them). This means I can’t feel or taste food in the same way as I am used to. I have a slight alteration in my voice (I am sure this will go away eventually). I don’t feel especially good about myself, right now, but I’m sure that will go away eventually, too.

So here we are, reaching the end of a year in which the prospects for the environment and for human society arising from projected changes in the future climate are fairly clearly defined and pretty well accepted by the people who make the noises. We are being warned, quite clearly, that our consumption patterns, our habits, our self-indulgences, are leading us to a rocky future. We are also being told that, if we are able to make some rapid, if slightly inconvenient changes to the way we do things, we could well avoid the worst of the problems.

This year, the Old man paid the price for not listening to good advice, because, well, because he didn’t really want to think about it. In this case, the only suffering caused was to me, so it’s not a huge deal. You might want to consider the situation with climate change as a sort of universal warning from the global dentist; get your acts together, or pay the price down the line. Sadly, as far as I know, we can’t replace the lost species of plant and animal with a new, artificial set (of course, this is what Philip K. Dick does, in ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?‘ Likewise, we don’t yet have the technology to provide us with replacements of any kind. So the price will probably be a bit higher than I had to pay, both in terms of suffering and in cash, relatively speaking.

It seems to me that, if I had been a bit more mature, a bit more sensible, about looking after my teeth twenty years ago, I could have avoided some of this year’s unpleasantness. I suppose this is what we need now with climate change, a more mature, sensible, realistic attitude to the advice we are being given. Because, like my teeth, the problems won’t go away, they’ll just build to a crisis.

Have a good weekend.

Two more reasons to be cheerful…

Recent Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent trends and implications for the snow-albedo feedback

Stephen J. Déry & Ross D. Brown

Abstract

Monotonic trend analysis of Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent (SCE) over the period 1972–2006 with the Mann-Kendall test reveals significant declines in SCE during spring over North America and Eurasia, with lesser declines during winter and some increases in fall SCE. The weekly mean trend attains −1.28, −0.78, and −0.48 × 10⁶ km² (35 years)⁻¹ over the Northern Hemisphere, North America, and Eurasia, respectively. The standardized SCE time series vary and trend coherently over Eurasia and North America, with evidence of a poleward amplification of decreasing SCE trends during spring. Multiple linear regression analyses reveal a significant dependence of the retreat of the spring continental SCE on latitude and elevation. The poleward amplification is consistent with an enhanced snow-albedo feedback over northern latitudes that acts to reinforce an initial anomaly in the cryospheric system.

 

Oceanic gas hydrate instability and dissociation under climate change scenarios

Matthew T. Reagan &  George J. Moridis

Abstract

Global oceanic deposits of methane gas hydrate (clathrate) have been implicated as the main culprit for a repeated, remarkably rapid sequence of global warming effects that occurred during the late Quaternary period. However, the behavior of contemporary oceanic methane hydrate deposits subjected to rapid temperature changes, like those predicted under future climate change scenarios, is poorly understood, and existing studies focus on deep hydrate deposits under equilibrium conditions. In this study, we simulate the dynamic response of several types of oceanic gas hydrate accumulations to temperature changes at the seafloor and assess the potential for methane release into the ecosystem. The results suggest that while many deep hydrate deposits are indeed stable under the influence of rapid seafloor temperature variations, shallow deposits, such as those found in arctic regions or in the Gulf of Mexico, can undergo rapid dissociation and produce significant carbon fluxes over a period of decades.

 

So, snow cover extent matches other measures of change; hardly a surprise, but a decent-looking summary of the period. Is there anything contentious in this paper? If not, it is another one to add to the ever-growing list of data supporting recent warming and confirming other observations. Does anyone know of a recent paper calculating the forcing from the albedo effect?

The clathrate ‘problem’ is a sticky one. I wish I could read the whole paper. This is pretty much what has been suggested for a while, that shallow deposits might be vulnerable, but I’d like to know what counts as a ‘rapid seafloor temperature variation’, both in amplitude and rate of change.

If the authors are correct, we have another reason to be concerned about the prospect of oil exploration in the Arctic, a prospect which must be very close, now, given the likelihood of continuing warming (well, in the case of the Arctic, it’s a relative term…). I note that Canada is building a large new deep water harbour in the far North, and also has a new military/observation base planned for Resolute. Goodness only knows what Mr. Putin has planned. It’ll also be interesting to see whether Barrow becomes a ‘boom town’, though after ‘30 days of night‘, some might take a bit of persuading.

 

As a side note, my apologies for relatively little activity recently;  sometimes, life just jumps up and bites you. Thanks to my regular readers and commenters for persisting with me during a ‘dull’ time.

Doing something useful; is there a change in the wind?

The previous entry on our attitudes to the future (Global Warming; it’s the end…), produced a considerable bag of responses (by my modest standards). It’s clearly a subject which many climate bloggers hold dear to their hearts, myself included.

It would have been easy to be discouraged by some of the opinions expressed, the gist being that we probably can do something to mitigate against dangerous change, but few of us have much confidence (in the political process, at least), that enough will be done in the time window available, which most are comfortable to agree is around ten or so years.

But, through a peculiar chain of circumstances, the Old man found himself reading up on wind. That’s the energy source, not the digestive by-product.  And hope starts to spring again, albeit merely a moderate hope. Why? Because, in wind, we have the means to act fast, act big, and act together, in a way which is not allowed by any other energy strategy (as I understand it).

It is true that wind energy has taken a while to find its feet, and that it cannot replace all of the other energy sources required, but it is also true that both ‘large wind’ and ’small wind’ have come on a long way in the last few years and, now that energy prices have leapt, technology and understanding has improved, and public resistance has, to some extent, abated, this energy source is now both economically viable and environmentally friendly. It also has the added advantage of not being a ’security threat’, and being widely (though not universally)  available.

So where are all the wind projects? Where are all the turbines? California has led the way for a long time (in spite of having a relatively poor wind resource compared to some). Iowa and some other states are making moves; Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands are already heavily committed and making progress, whilst the UK, which has at its beck and call around 40% of Europe’s total available wind energy resource, is lagging somewhat behind.

In terms of cutting emissions, the advantages are obvious and (relatively) immediate. Even a complex wind farm project need only take a year or so from inception to construction, if there isn’t too much interference from what appears to be irrational NIMBYish objections. Setting up an installation is not a trivial matter, but it is considerably simpler than building a power plant, or a reactor. Carbon footprint is also excellent; generally, the entire footprint  (including decommissioning) can be accounted for in the first months of operation. It is also considerably easier to set up in otherwise little-used area, so long as the important environmental considerations are not otherwise problematic (and they rarely are).

Best of all (to me), is that wind energy is now something which many more people can participate in on an individual, business, community or  group level. Efficient and cost-efficient products, tested by time and shown to work, already exist, in ranges from about 5-6kW up to 250kW, perhaps beyond. This means that homes can have them, small businesses, branches of corporate entities (such as discount warehouses or shopping malls), villages and towns, schools and police stations… actually, the list is very long.

There are still problems. Urban wind – arguable the place where the most potential need exists – still presents some logistical difficulties (wind shear, turbulence, surface roughness, etc…) , but even in a large town or city, it is still possible to find high rises, blocks of flats or apartments, and, perhaps most usefully, industrial/commercial estates, where an installation would cause few if any problems, and where the energy returned would more than match the cost of installation.

So why aren’t wind turbines of all sizes springing up everywhere? Well, the main problems are twofold: in the case of large installations such as wind farms, the planning process can be hopelessly slow; apparently, there’s a backlog of about 2gW of apllications in the UK alone waiting for completion of the planning process. In the case of smaller installations, the cost has been  high in relation to the return expected, and little or no incentive has been offered in terms of grants or discounts, so far.

But I think all this is about to change. First, several energy companies have emissions reduction targets to meet, with penalties for non-compliance. Some of these also offer green tariffs, which are in high demand, but for which they currently lack the capacity to satisfy. At least two energy providers are now offering around 9pence (18cents) per kWh for any excess energy returned to the grid. On top of this, they are compelled, through ROCs, to credit wind users at least 4.5pence/kWh for the energy they use (though these companies also offer a better rate than this). Businesses can claim full credit for the CCL tax (about .45p/unit) on all the energy they use, if they source at least a proportion of their energy from renewables. A couple of companies are now manufacturing turbines on a production line, which reduces the cost, and there is much less resistance to installation from energy companies (in fact, they generally try hard to be helpful, now, for the reasons above).

So, both ’small’ and ‘large’ wind power installations are now economically viable. Payback times vary with installation size, but the range goes from around five years up to around twenty, for good quality, well-sited and well-installed projects. These vary mainly with the available wind regime, but  small turbines should pay back in regimes with a mean wind speed at hub height of around 5.5-6 metres/second, and large ones at regimes around 3.5-4 m/s.

So, here’s the Old man advocating a rapid acceleration of the wind energy programme, at all levels, at least in the UK, and arguably in several other countries where the energy source is viable (by no means all countries, or all regions). So, what has he overlooked? Where’s the problem? Critically, why aren’t there more active governmental incentives programmes to support the (perceived) high installation cost? If you are willing to accept that the Old man has done his background reading on the subject, and that the ’standard’ objections are, by and large, mostly disguised prejudices against change, rather than reasons not to go ahead, what is stopping us, as either individuals (as long as we own a big enough space in a ‘good’ wind area), companies/institutions, or, critically, nations (especially the UK), from doing this?

As ever, my prognostications are fraught with the potential for error and misunderstanding, but I’d like to know from anyone why they think we should not see a very rapid acceleration of wind installations in the coming ten years, starting more or less immediately. Go on; make me miserable again…

Short-term forcings in the Arctic; new discussion paper

In ACPD this week, a new paper by P.K.Quinn et. al. (co-authors include Shindell), looks at the things which effect the Arctic climate in the short-term (anthropogenic forcings other than CO2), and discuss possible strategies for mitigation. Link to the abstract here, from where you can download the discussion paper.

The paper focusses on Methane, Tropospheric Ozone and Aerosols (with an emphasis on black carbon in the latter part). For those who can’t be bothered, here’s what the abstract says:

Short-lived pollutants in the Arctic: their climate impact and possible mitigation strategies

P. K. Quinn¹, T. S. Bates¹, E. Baum², N. Doubleday³, A. M. Fiore⁴, M. Flanner⁵, A. Fridlind⁶, T. J. Garrett⁷, D. Koch⁶, S. Menon⁸, D. Shindell⁶, A. Stohl⁹, and S. G. Warren¹⁰

Abstract. Several short-lived pollutants known to impact Arctic climate may be contributing to the accelerated rates of warming observed in this region relative to the global annually averaged temperature increase. Here, we present a summary of the short-lived pollutants that impact Arctic climate including methane, tropospheric ozone, and tropospheric aerosols. For each pollutant, we provide a description of the major sources, the mechanism of forcing, seasonally averaged forcing values for the Arctic, and the corresponding surface temperature response. We suggest strategies for reducing the warming based on current knowledge and discuss directions for future research to address remaining uncertainties.

The most powerful forcing is still related to tropospheric aerosol indirect effects, though it is interesting to note that, whilst the biggest factor by far is in Summer, the largest net effects are felt in other seasons, notably Winter. The table at the end of the paper provides a useful summary.

There may be some questions about the forcing values of cloud longwave emissivity; I am not sure that this is an entirely convincing part of the paper, but I’ll hope that one of you can provide a reasoned discussion of this section.

Another slightly surprising result of their analysis is the (relatively) low values of forcing from Methane to date. The paper does, however, point out that this variable is particularly open to sudden changes as a result of changes in land – permafrost degradation and wetland production, as well as vegetation typology – and still contains a degree of uncertainty. My intuition is that this particular forcing has considerable potential for non-linear, rapid change in the coming decades, and may play a more significant role than is implied in the paper’s estimates of current relative  forcing values.

The paper is worth reading for anyone who is interested in looking for an explanation of why, for example, 2007 might have been such an exceptional year for Summer sea-ice loss. The unusually high number of boreal forest fires in Siberia and Alaska in 2006 may well have been an exceptional factor affecting ice-melt onset, and thus the ensuing record low.

This is a rich paper with much to consider, not least in the implications for our expectations of future changes in the Arctic, and possibly for those of you who have taken a bet with William. I’d appreciate some feedback from those in the know…

The peculiar synchronicity of curves

A bit sideways, this one, but just something I noticed. Here is a new paper (under discussion), from The Cryosphere. The subject matter is the mass balance of the McCall glacier, Alaska.

The paper is interesting in itself, and at only 25 pages, worth a read, not least for the work on internal accumulation and its relation to mass balance, which seems to be quite original.

But the main reason for posting it id to draw your attention to the graphics in the latter part of the paper.  No surprise to learn that the glacier has been shrinking for some time now (100 years, in total), nor that the rate of change of mass balance has accelerated since the 1980’s.  What is interesting is that the graphs bear an uncanny resemblance to others I have seen recently, such as the ones showing long-term ice extent trends for the Arctic on Cryosphere Today.

In fact, the shape of the graph is similar to very many of those showing changes related to climate in the Arctic. On the principle that coincidence may be plausible for two discrete measurements, but not for a whole set, it may be acceptable to conclude – tentatively – that the consistency carries for a number of measures and data. This, again, probably comes as no surprise to those of you who observe the progress of the Cryosphere.

But it does have implications. The shape is suggestive of the first part of a hyperbolic curve, where increase goes from negligeable, to noticeable, to substantial, in a logarithmic (?) relation. The question we could be asking, then, is whether the line of best fit for likely future changes in glacier mass balance, sea-ice area, GIS mass balance, should continue along this curve.

I cannot say that this should be the case, nor claim that it is likely, but it is plausible. If so, this suggests that the impacts of climate change for glaciers, sea ice, and other elements of the cryosphere, is starting to accelerate rapidly. This in turn has implications for the estimates of 21st Century sea level rise, and also for water resource availability in the next ten-twenty years.

I would be interested to know if there are scientists out there, or knowledgeable amateurs, who are willing to speculate that this is the case, and, if so, what the implications might be.

If you decide to post a comment, it won’t go up ’til Sunday, as I’m off line for two days, but don’t let that stop you if the mood takes you: I’ll update as soon as I get back.

Enjoy the weekend.