While the Arctic is melting the Gulf Stream remains

A press release from the University of Bergen (Norway): The melting Arctic is not the source for less saline Nordic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream that has provided less salt. A new study published Sunday in Nature Geoscience documents that the source of fresher Nordic Seas since 1950 is rooted in the saline Atlantic as opposed to Arctic freshwater that is the common inference.

This is an important finding as it shows that the Gulf Stream is not about to short circuit. A halting Gulf Stream has been a concern with ongoing climate change; its collapse was taken to the extreme in the Hollywood blockbuster “The Day After Tomorrow”, says Tor Elde
vik, professor in oceanography at the University of Bergen and the Bjerknes Centre.

The Nordic Seas have freshened substantially since 1950. This has happened at the same time as there has been observed increased river runoff and net ice melting in the Arctic. The concurrence of a less saline ocean and Arctic freshwater input has given the climate research community reason for concern.

 It has been a concern that a layer of Arctic freshwater could impede the Gulf Stream’s Arctic branch. Going back in time – into and through ice ages – such a freshwater lid has been understood to reduce ocean circulation and thus the Gulf Stream’s poleward heat transport, says Tor Eldevik.

Eldevik is co-author of the study where Mirjam Glessmer and colleagues at the Bjerknes Centre in Bergen, Norway, show that change in the Nordic Seas is at the receiving end of change in the more global climate system. The Nordic Seas are in this case not a precursor in a real world parallel to “The Day After Tomorrow”....

Because the story is from Norway: a fjord. Shot by Karamell, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Nordic development fund eyes new climate project

Katia Moskvitch in SciDev.net: The Nordic Development Fund (NDF) that helps facilitate climate change investments in developing countries has started discussing several new project ideas with the World Bank — as the small fund celebrates its 25th anniversary.

One is an initiative to mitigate coastal erosion affecting West African cities, a problem that climate change is expected to worsen, says Sari Söderström Feyzioğlu, sustainable development manager at the World Bank.

The NDF, a joint development finance institution of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, helps the World Bank “add creative, cutting-edge climate change components to traditional lending and knowledge-generating projects”, she says. For example, the NDF will make it possible to “assess the robustness of future hydroelectric power investments in the face of climate change in the major [African] river basins,” says Feyzioğlu.

Another project under discussion is in Mozambique, she says, where the fund will support efforts to improve the governance of local, artisanal fisheries and transform fishing — a sector already facing habitat loss and degradation due to unsustai
nable use, and that climate change will further damage. The NDF was founded in 1989 to promote economic and social development by providing financing to developing countries. In May 2009, its aim became to provide financial support to developing countries on climate change issues.

It also works with partners such as the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)....

Norway fund tightens rules to protect forests

Reuters: Norway's $650 billion sovereign wealth fund has started asking companies it invests in to minimize their impact on rainforests, green groups said on Friday, welcoming a shift they hoped would make it rethink some deals. The fund, one of the world's biggest investors, made the changes to its guidelines in September without fanfare.

"We hope this will mean Norway stops investing and pulls out of many companies that are damaging rainforests," said Nils Hermann Ranum, spokesman of the Rainforest Foundation Norway.

Environmentalists have in the past accused Norway of investing uncritically in industries that threaten forests, such as palm oil, oil and gas, cattle ranching, logging, pulp and paper and hydropower dams. A central bank official did not comment on the specific accusations but said the fund, which manages the country's surplus oil revenue, had a long-running policy of not investing in companies that damaged the environment.

The fund's guidelines, posted online, said Norway "expects companies to manage risk associated with the causes and impacts of climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions and tropical deforestation."

The companies had to provide information on the impact of their work on forests over time and how it complied with international standards to protect forests, according to the rules. The fund's guidelines had referred to global warming in the past, but it was the first time they had mentioned rainforests, said the green groups....

A foggy forest in Telemark, shot by Ernst Vikne, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

The Barents Sea warms up from behind

Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research: The temperature of the subsurface Atlantic Water in the northern Barents Sea increased rapidly during the late 1990s. A recent study by the Institute of Marine Research, the University of Bergen and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research in Norway shows that the northwest Barents Sea warmed substantially during the last decades. The temperature of the subsurface Atlantic Water in the northern Barents Sea increased rapidly during the late 1990s.

This was partly caused by the general warming of Atlantic Water in the North Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, a regional wind pattern indirectly strengthened a warm deep current that enters the Barents Sea from the north.

A warm deep current enters the Barents Sea from the north. The current is a branch of the Arctic Ocean Boundary Current. The branch enters the Barents Sea below the ice cover and the colder and fresher upper waters (shown in blue). © 2012 Sigrid Lind

The warm deep current enters the Barents Sea from the Arctic Ocean. It flows into the Barents Sea below colder and fresher upper waters. The current is a branch of the Arctic Ocean Boundary Current that carries warm Atlantic Water below the cold surface waters through the Arctic Ocean.

The branch enters the Barents Sea between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. It carries warm Atlantic Water far into the Barents Sea. On its path through the northern Barents Sea the Atlantic Water gradually mixes with the cold waters above, such that the cold waters are warmed from below.

The cold waters protect the ice cover on the surface from the warm Atlantic Water below. And more importantly, the cold waters protect the ice cover from the massive amount of even warmer Atlantic Water south of the ice edge....

A warm deep current enters the Barents Sea from the north. The current is a branch of the Arctic Ocean Boundary Current. The branch enters the Barents Sea below the ice cover and the colder and fresher upper waters (shown in blue). © 2012 Sigrid Lind

Climate change could chill international relations in Arctic

Jeremy Warren in the Star Phoenix: A new cold war is on the horizon in international politics, warns a report coauthored by a University of Saskatchewan researcher. This cold war is a fight over commercial opportunities in the Arctic, an increasingly important issue in international relations as climate change thaws out frozen transportation routes, says the report, Climate Change and International Security: The Arctic as a Bellwether.

"The Arctic is the first place where we're starting to see the security impacts of climate change and the geopolitical tensions," said Heather Exner-Pirot, a researcher with the U of S International Centre for Northern Governance and Development. "It's about oil and gas. These weren't accessible before. This would never have been profitable if the Arctic was still frozen. Now you can go in there with ships."

Strategic transportation routes - which can shorten trips by up to two weeks - are opening up in the Arctic because of a rapid decline in sea ice cover that has outpaced scientific projections, said the report, which Exner-Pirot co-wrote with University of Calgary researchers Rob Huebert and Adam Lajeunesse, along with Jay Gulledge from the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions.

The report suggests the Arctic could be a "bellwether for how climate change may reshape geopolitics in the post-Cold War era" as the world's largest economies hunger for more natural resources. The United States Geological Society estimates about 30 per cent of the world's undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of the undiscovered oil could be found in the Arctic.

Some states - such as Russia and Norway - have responded to the changes by rebuilding military resources for the Arctic while other states have established plans to rebuild....

Norwegian oil rig Statfjord A, shot by Marcusroos 08:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Quantifying risks from invasive species

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim): ...A coalition of researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and staff from the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre have created a unique quantitative method that enables researchers and others to assess the environmental risks posed by non-native species. While the method is tailored to the Norwegian environment, it can easily be adapted to other countries, and fills a vital need internationally for a quantifiable, uniform approach to classifying and assessing alien species, the developers say.

"This provides an objective classification of these species' potential impact on the Norwegian environment. We relied on much of the same principles as are used in the preparation of the 'Red List' of endangered and threatened species," says Professor Bernt-Erik Saether at NTNU's Center for Conservation Biology (CCB), who has spearheaded the development of the new methodology with the help of a coalition of other Norwegian scientists and Biodiversity Information Centre staff.

The method classifies species according to their reproductive ability, growth rate, individual densities, population densities, prevalence and their effect. This information allows the researchers to plot the risks posed by each species on two axes, one which shows the likelihood of the species' dispersal and ability to establish itself in the environment (along with its rate of establishment, if applicable) and the other shows the degree to which the alien species will affect native species and habitats.

Based on the combined values of the two axes, the species can be placed in one of five risk categories:


• Very high risk species that can have a strong negative effect on the Norwegian environment;
• High risk species that have spread widely with some ecological impact, or those that have a major ecological effect but have only limited distribution;

• Potentially high risk species that have very limited dispersal ability, but a substantial ecological impact or vice versa;

• Low risk species, with low or moderate dispersion and moderate to limited ecological effect;
• Species with no known risk factors that are not known to have spread and have no known ecological effects.

Norway's first official foray into evaluating the risks posed by invasive species was with the publication of the 2007 Norwegian Black List, which described the risks posed by 217 of the 2483 alien species then known in Norway....

Alnes, Godøy (seen from Aksla mountain, Ålesund), Giske municipality, shot by Frode Inge Helland, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

42 million people displaced by sudden natural disasters in 2010

Kaja Haldorsen at the Norwegian Refugee Council: Over 42 million people across the world were forced to flee due to disasters triggered by sudden-onset natural hazards in 2010, according to a new study by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)’s Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). In 2009, 17 million people were displaced by such disasters, and 36 million in 2008.

“The scale of displacement is enormous. Every single number in this report is a person whose life is severely affected, and it is vital that those women, men and children who are being displaced by the impact of climate change and natural hazards receive the assistance and protection they need”, said NRC Secretary General Elisabeth Rasmusson at the launch.

“This report provides us with evidence of the extent and urgency of the problem that we cannot ignore. We must increase collaborative efforts to prevent displacement by natural disasters, and do a better job of protecting those displaced”.

The number of natural disasters reported has doubled from around 200 to over 400 a year over the past two decades. In 2010, over 90 per cent of disaster displacement within countries was caused by climate-related hazards, primarily floods and storms. “The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, and this trend is only set to continue. With all probability, the number of those affected and displaced will rise as human- induced climate change comes into full force”, said Rasmusson.

“The humanitarian community will have to be better prepared to respond to large-scale natural disasters and the displacement that follows. The way that the international response system is set up today, we cannot do so adequately”. The huge numbers, and the variations between years, were largely due to the impact of the largest “mega-disasters” such as the massive floods in India in 2009, and in China and Pakistan in 2010, as well as the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti….

Pakistani flood victims collect relief supplies delivered by US helicopters, on September 4, 2010 (US Marine Corps photo by Capt. Paul Duncan/Released)

Indonesia bets on REDD with new moratorium, but can it deliver?

A few snips from an article by Daniel Kandy and David Diaz in Ecosystem Marketplace about Indonesia’s struggle with REDD, or reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation -- a system all-too-vulnerable to corruption and market cooptation: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Thursday signed a two-year moratorium on logging in primary forests and dredging in peatlands to unlock up to $1 billion in seed funding from the government of Norway that could help the country earn billions more by saving tropical rainforests and capturing carbon in trees.

To earn a shot at that less-than-certain income, however, it will have to forego guaranteed billions in concessions from logging, pulp, and palm oil industries – an equation that prompted internal government debate over the definition of “primary forest”, and delayed the signing of the moratorium by five months. The official text is expected to be released on Friday, and those definition are sure to be scrutinized by industry groups and environmentalists alike.

The Norwegian government made the billion-dollar pledge one year ago, following Yudhoyono’s commitment to battle deforestation and reel in the country’s rapidly-rising CO2 emissions. It is earmarked for building up the country’s capacity to measure and monitor its forests – a key step if the country is to earn carbon credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

That funding is to be paid out slowly over the 7-8 years, and is contingent on certain benchmarks – the implementation of this moratorium being one of the first. Indonesian and international observers are looking to the moratorium as an indication of the seriousness of the country’s commitment to the principles and objectives of REDD. Yudhoyono had pledged to sign the moratorium on January 1, but faced stiff opposition from other officials and industry lobbyists who argued that REDD was less lucrative than palm oil, pulp, and timber.

Indonesia’s history of unchecked deforestation earned the nation an unenviable place among the top greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters in the world, ranking third globally. Even before securing this ignominious ranking, however, Indonesia had long been targeted with sustained criticism from environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and foreign governments for its troubling environmental record. It came as a major surprise for many in the international community as Indonesia began taking several serious steps toward initiating a nation-wide REDD program over the past year…

A teak forest in mid-Java from around 1940 (if my Dutch is any good, which it isn't), from the Tropenmuseum Collection via Wikimedia Commons

Indonesia as a leader

Erik Solheim in the Jakarta Post: …the inconvenient truth is that commitment and action from developed countries alone would not solve the climate change challenge, even if all developed countries stopped all emissions today. Developing countries must act as well. Unless we all take large scale remedial action, huge damage worldwide will follow, wreaking havoc with much of the development progress of the last decades.

…Fortunately, even in the most difficult times, there are always alternatives. Tropical forest countries, like Indonesia, are endowed with rich natural resources that sustain essential life support systems both for the region and for the world.

Lasting economic growth can be built on sustainable land use and world class agricultural productivity. Effective and transparent land use planning and improved governance and transparency can be established at all levels of government. What the world needs is good examples of how this could be done: Indonesia is in the process of becoming such an example.
Private enterprise, moreover, benefit from the ecosystem services that standing forests and peatlands provide, and will suffer from the consequences of climate change, such as lack of water and unreliable rainfall patterns.

…Low emission development is a fundamental choice for a country that cannot be imposed from the outside. Norway has pledged to support Indonesia with US$ 1 billion over the next few years. However, the agreement between Indonesia and Norway only captures in writing what Indonesia under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s leadership had already planned to do….

A brook in an Indonesia forest in 1929, from the Tropenmuseum Collection via Wikimedia Commons

Indonesia picks Borneo for forest preservation scheme

Terra Daily via AFP: Indonesia has chosen its Borneo island to conduct a pilot project aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, as part of a deal with Norway, an official said Thursday. Norway agreed in May to contribute up to a billion dollars to help preserve Indonesia's forests, in part through a two-year moratorium on the clearing of natural forests and peatlands from 2011.

"Central Kalimantan (Borneo) is a province with large forest cover and peat land and has faced a real threat of deforestation," the country's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) head Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said in a statement.

Mangkusubroto said the provincial authorities are expected to manage the project properly, ensure its transparency, tackle any corruption and enforce the law against illegal loggers…

A huge log being placed on a railroad car at Batottan, British North Borneo, in 1926, shot by Lieutenant (j.g.) Leonard Johnson; United States Coast and Geodetic Survey

Norway unprepared for climate change

Michael Sandelson in the Foreigner (Norway): Norway’s infrastructure will not be able to tackle higher water levels due to future climate change, according to a new report. The expert panel fears today’s maintenance lag will be tomorrow’s financial and health headache. “[Our] natural environment, buildings, and infrastructure are particularly vulnerable to climate change. We currently have major maintenance lags for water and sewerage, structural, the roads, and railways. We are not even adapted to today’s climate,” says Oddvar Flæte, head of the panel and County Councillor for Sogn og Fjordane.

Wetter weather will threaten power supplies and cause major transport disruptions. The panel claims a 2-4 degree temperature increase by the end of the century will result in more storms, severe flooding, and slides. “Their severity depends on how much the temperature increases,” Mr Flæte says.

There could also be increased health problems, though experts believe there is little risk of a major outbreak. A warmer, wetter climate does mean more favourable conditions for mosquito and tick-borne infectious diseases, however.

…Inadequate drainage may also increase the risk of contracting an infection due to a decline in drinking water quality, according to the report. Norway’s water and sewerage pipes are already in a bad state of disrepair. “Contamination due to drainage and overflow problems could cause several health problems. The most common are gastro-intestinal infections [as well as] other illnesses such as jaundice, caused by Hepatitis A.”…

Norway says more aid needed to save Indonesian forest

Sunanda Creagh in Reuters: Indonesia could match Brazil's success in slowing deforestation but needs far more aid from rich nations such as the United States, Japan and the European Union, Norway's environment minister said on Monday. Norway has signed a $1 billion climate deal with Indonesia, under which Jakarta has agreed to impose a two-year ban on new permits to clear natural forests.

Norway has already released $30 million of the funds, with the bulk to be paid out later after Indonesia proves greenhouse gas emissions have gone down and an independent audit is done. But more aid is needed to save Indonesia's forests, said Norwegian environment minister Erik Solheim.

"$1 billion is a huge amount of money but Indonesia needs quite substantially more to be able to conserve and sustainably manage its forests," Solheim told Reuters in an interview in Jakarta, where he is meeting Indonesian officials. "The United States should come in, Japan, other European nations could come into this scheme to make it robust enough."…

A forest on Java in 1915 or 1916, from the Tropenmuseum Collection, Wikimedia Commons

Indonesia says it won't revoke existing forestry licenses

Niluksi Koswanage Yogyakarta in Reuters: Indonesia won't revoke existing forestry licenses for palm oil firms as part of a deal with Norway to preserve rain forests, a government minister and industry official said on Wednesday.

Chief Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa told reporters that the government had no intention of limiting the expansion of the $15-billion Indonesian palm oil industry, although it was committed to slowing deforestation. "We want to keep to our targets of 40 million tonnes of crude palm oil," he said on the sidelines of an industry conference in Java. "We will not take away the existing licenses."

The country plans to produce 21-23 million tonnes of palm oil this year. "We have food security interests and our export earnings to protect but expansion will be at a sustainable pace for our future generations," Rajasa added.

A two-year commitment to halt new concessions to the industry for the conversion of rainforests and peatlands will go on as planned under the Norwegian deal signed last week, Indonesian Palm Oil Board Vice Chairman Derom Bangun said….

An Indonesian forest from 1940, from the Tropenmuseum collection on Wikimedia Commons

'What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic'

Bruce Henderson in the Charlotte Observer (US): A worried Norwegian ambassador to the United States visited Charlotte on Wednesday to raise awareness of global warming. While warming in the Southeast was negligible for much of the past century, Norway is among a handful of Arctic nations witnessing rapid changes at the top of the globe.

The 2009 mean temperature in Spitsbergen, in the country’s north, was 5.2 degrees above the 1961-1990 average, the government says, warning that traditional sports like skiing may disappear in some areas. And because most Norwegians live on the long coastline, they’re wary of rising seas. “I can jump out of my kitchen window into the ocean,” said Ambassador Wegger Christian Strommen. “That’s why we’re scared.”

Charlotte was Strommen’s third stop in an informal road show to speak to local audiences in partnership with advocacy groups Clean Air-Cool Planet and, in Charlotte, Clean Air Carolina. Mecklenburg County commissioners’ Chairman Jennifer Roberts and Mayor Anthony Foxx greeted his appearance.

Arctic sea ice has declined by 11 percent per decade over the past three decades, said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center. Meier was one of two scientists appearing with Strommen.

Sea ice is disappearing faster than climate models predicted, he said. It’s also thinning to about half its historic depth, releasing more of the ocean’s heat into the atmosphere. That, in turn, influences global ocean currents and wind patterns that can alter climate in distant places like Charlotte.

“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” Meier said….

A beautiful shot of Alnes, Godøy (seen from Aksla mountain, Ålesund), Giske municipality, Møre og Romsdal county, Norway, by Frode Inge Helland, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Norway gives 500 million birr to Ethiopia drought-affected people

AllAfrica.com, via the Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa): Norway has allocated Birr 500 million [very roughly, about 283 Norwegian kronor, or US$55 million] in humanitarian assistance for people affected by the drought in Ethiopia, according to a press statement from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Addis Ababa. The funding is being channelled through the UN, the Red Cross and other NGOs that are already working in the country and that are familiar with its needs, Raymond Johansen, State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying.

Drought and rising food prices have resulted in a critical situation in several regions of Ethiopia. Last week, the UN warned of widespread food shortages as a result of serious drought and rising food prices. According to the UN, more than three million Ethiopians are in acute need of assistance, and the number of people suffering from malnutrition is increasing.

"Even though there has now been some rainfall, important crops have already been lost. The grazing will improve gradually, but it will take time before new crops can be harvested," said Johansen. "Our aim is to mitigate the consequences of the humanitarian crisis now affecting people in Ethiopia," he added….

Map showing location of Ethiopia by "Rei-artur," Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2