Could oysters clean up Chesapeake Bay?

Science Daily: Chronic water quality problems caused by agricultural and urban runoff, municipal wastewater, and atmospheric deposition from the burning of fossil fuels leads to oxygen depletion, loss of biodiversity, and harmful algal blooms. This nutrient pollution is prevalent in many coastal marine and estuarine ecosystems worldwide. Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America and although many efforts have been taken to improve its water quality, nutrient pollution still keeps it at unacceptable levels.

In a study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration and administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, biologists at Virginia Commonwealth University measured the nutrient removal capacity of the Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica.

Researchers found that an additional 2.5 cm of growth allowed a farmed oyster to remove 2.2 times the nutrients of a regular oyster. In fact, a large scale oyster farm harvesting 1 million of these 76 mm oysters can remove 132 kg of nitrogen, 19 kg of phosphorus, and 3,823 kg of carbon. The full study is available in the January/February 2011 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality.

Oysters were a novel yet obvious choice to enhance the ecosystem's water quality. They process nutrients while feeding on phytoplankton and then store the nutrients in their shells and tissue through a process known as bioassimilation. Although Chesapeake Bay is a natural habitat for the Eastern oyster, 99% of the native population has been lost. This prompted researchers to explore the use of commercial oyster farms.

…According to Colleen Higgins of Virginia Commonwealth University, "Based on these results, it would take eight large-scale oyster farms harvesting one million (of these) 76 mm oysters per year to remove one ton of nitrogen from the Bay, providing managers with the ability to determine the practical implication of such an ecosystem service."…

Virginia oysters, shot by Dheillyx, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Water pacts 'could bring Mideast peace'

UPI: Water scarcity in the Middle East can be the catalyst for reducing, rather than causing, conflict in the volatile region, a Beirut think tank says in a report that urges a major "paradigm shift" in how regional states view the problem of dwindling water resources.

The report entitled "The Blue Peace: Rethinking Middle East Water," issued by the Carnegie Middle East Center, suggests that a radical "paradigm shift" is needed to change how these states view the political and environmental issues at the core of the water crisis, a region-wide approach rather than the piecemeal, largely bilateral, efforts made so far that have achieve almost nothing.

"It is possible … to anticipate conflict between countries due to disagreements over shared water resources," the report observed. "Indeed conventional thinking about water in the Middle East tends to be pessimistic and alarmist.

"The challenge is to rethink water in the Middle East, to treat it as an opportunity for peace and development," the Carnegie Middle East Center declared. The report focuses primarily on Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Turkey, a choice "governed by the potential of opportunities to rethink water."

The purpose is to develop "a common political framework for the future, for sustainable management of water resources across several basins and not a negotiating platform for dividing water resources in any individual basin or aquifer." The report, released Thursday in Beirut, envisions these states establishing a monitoring system through which they can collaborate and determine a more equitable sharing of water resources in the region….

Solomon's Pools and ancient aqueducts, near Jerusalem. Inflow of Wadi el-Biyar aqueduct into the upper pool, between 1934 and 1939

Climate change impacts on agricultural crops

American Society of Agronomy: Changes in temperature, CO2, and precipitation under the scenarios of climate change for the next 30 years present a challenge to crop production. This comprehensive review, published in Agronomy Journal, focuses on the impact of temperature, CO2, and ozone on agronomic crops and the implications for crop production.

Understanding these implications for agricultural crops is critical for developing cropping systems resilient to stresses induced by climate change. There is variation among crops in their response to CO2, temperature, and precipitation changes and, with the regional differences in predicted climate, a situation is created in which the responses will be further complicated.

The frequency of years when temperatures exceed thresholds for damage during critical growth stages is likely to increase for some crops and regions. The increase in CO2 contributes significantly to enhanced plant growth and improved water use efficiency (WUE); however, there may be a downscaling of these positive impacts due to higher temperatures plants will experience during their growth cycle.

A challenge is to understand the interactions of the changing climatic parameters because of the interactions among temperature, CO2, and precipitation on plant growth and development and also on the biotic stresses of weeds, insects, and diseases. Agronomists will have to consider the variations in temperature and precipitation as part of the production system if they are to ensure the food security required by an ever increasing population….

Smoke over wheat fields in Afghanistan, US Army photo.

Dogs of law are off the leash

Richard Ingham in AFP: From being a marginal and even mocked issue, climate-change litigation is fast emerging as a new frontier of law where some believe hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. Compensation for losses inflicted by man-made global warming would be jaw-dropping, a payout that would make tobacco and asbestos damages look like pocket money.

Imagine: a country or an individual could get redress for a drought that destroyed farmland, for floods and storms that created an army of refugees, for rising seas that wiped a small island state off the map.In the past three years, the number of climate-related lawsuits has ballooned, filling the void of political efforts in tackling greenhouse-gas emissions.

Eyeing the money-spinning potential, some major commercial law firms now place climate-change litigation in their Internet shop window. Seminars on climate law are often thickly attended by corporations that could be in the firing line -- and by the companies that insure them.

But legal experts sound a note of caution, warning that this is a new and mist-shrouded area of justice. Many obstacles lie ahead before a Western court awards a cent in climate damages and even more before the award is upheld on appeal….

Francesco Hayez, 1844, L'ultimo abboccamento di Jacopo Foscari (con suo padre, il doge Francesco Foscari). In the Pitti Palace, Florence

ASEAN explores tools to address climate change

MCOT via ANTARA: Over 50 ASEAN representatives and climate change experts gathered in Jakarta this week to exchange ideas and best practices in addressing current and future impacts of climate change.

"During the two-day workshop, participants learned from other's current programs, such as municipal building retrofits in Jakarta, the carbon neutral initiative in the Philippines' Puerto Princessa and various available tools for measuring and monitoring greenhouse gas," said a statement of the Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat here, Saturday. Attendees also discussed how ASEAN cities can raise awareness and generate necessary support to develop effective carbon reduction and adaptation activities.

….Liana Bratasida, Chairperson of the ASEAN Working Group on Environmentally Sustainable Cities and Special Assistant to the Minister of Environment of Indonesia, said that while ASEAN cities have varying capabilities and capacities in handling climate change, the discussions show that they are all "taking innovative approaches to counter the effects of climate change through initiatives in adaptation, mitigation and climate proofing."

Map of current ASEAN members by Ichwan Palongengi, Wikimedia Commons

National broadband vulnerable to the wet

Christian Kerr in the Australian: The Brisbane floods disaster has exposed serious potential problems with the National Broadband Network, telecommunications industry figures warn. "All the telco quality-of-service figures look fantastic because we've had a decade of drought," one industry source told The Weekend Australian. "No one has started to think about the implications of . . . changes to the weather from climate change."

While the industry is divided over the full implications for the NBN of the flooding and loss of power, some sources say the government is removing a layer of redundancy that could be vital in an emergency by insisting Telstra tear up its existing network.

The major telcos run duplicate networks between the capitals to ensure services can continue if one link fails. "The core principal in telecommunications is building as much physical redundancy into the network as you can," an industry insider said. "Requiring Telstra to scrap its network means the government is removing a layer of redundancy that would otherwise be there."

Unlike copper cable, which carries a weak electric current that enables customers to still make voice calls from blacked-out premises, NBN services will require power at both ends…. "Power outages could have a profound impact on the NBN," one respected communications consultant warned, adding the recovery process could be considerably longer if equipment at both ends was damaged by water. The consultant fears that, in floods, fewer services would be available than Brisbane residents have had in recent days….

Colleges Crossing flooded in Queensland, shot by lordphantom74, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Drought to persist in southern US

NOAA: While wet and snowy weather has dominated the western U.S., persistent drought conditions are likely to linger in the Southern Plains and Southeast through mid to late spring, according to NOAA’s National Weather Service. La Niña has kept storms and most of their precipitation in the north, leaving the South drier than normal.

“The speed with which the drought developed across the southern United States is rather unusual considering that just last year El Niño dominated the region with abundant precipitation,” said Bill Proenza, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service southern region.“ Then it was as if a switch was flipped during the summer, changing to La Niña conditions.”

One of the major aspects of the emergence of La Niña was a very busy Atlantic hurricane season, which spawned 19 tropical storms, making it the third most active on record. Despite the large number of storms, only Hurricane Alex and Tropical Storm Hermine produced any appreciable rainfall in the southern United States. Those storms only affected Texas; no significant rainfall from an organized tropical system fell along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida.

Sparse tropical rainfall and the dry conditions associated with La Niña combined to create severe to extreme drought conditions for nearly a third of the South and Southeast by late fall and early winter.

While the drought touches all of the Gulf Coast states, Texas and Florida are the most affected. From October through December, Texas received only five to 50 percent of normal precipitation, with portions of the lower Rio Grande averaging less than five percent of normal. During that period, for example, Brownsville received only 0.14 inches (normal is 6.55 inches) and Del Rio received 0.04 inch (normal is 3.89 inches). To the north in Austin, only 1.55 inches of rainfall was observed, compared to the normal of 8.34 inches….

New regional plan proposes 'climate adaptation' for Taos County

Matthew van Buren in the Taos News (New Mexico): A newly released plan for Taos County approaches climate change as inevitable and suggests ways in which the county should change to deal with its looming effects. The Forest and Water Climate Adaptation plan, which explores the issue from a variety of perspectives, was created using a grant obtained by the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps. Town of Taos Planner Matthew Foster was its primary author.

"This plan is adaptation. It's not mitigation," he said. "As a long-range planner, it's a topic I'm really interested in." Where mitigation seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent climate change, adaptation accepts climate change as an inescapable force whose effects are already being seen in Taos County and around the world.

…The plan identifies risks associated with climate change, including extremes in surface water flow, from large floods to inadequate water supplies, prolonged drought that could lead to "catastrophic" wildfires and reduced watershed health, and declining water quality due to erosion and ash, as well as associated effects on Taos County's economic health and "built environment." The plan indicates Taos County's infrastructure would be threatened by increased flooding and wildfires, and higher temperatures for longer amounts of time "will increase demand for energy-intensive air conditioning."

With increased air temperatures, the plan suggests Taos County can expect shorter winters and longer summers, which would impact skiing, rafting and the availability of water in general. Higher temperatures could also lead to increased evaporation, "causing losses of soil moisture and consequent soil desiccation."

…The plan calls for cooperation among governmental and other organizations into the future, with climate adaptation being incorporated into mission statements, comprehensive plans and ordinances, and updated research and monitoring of climate change being made a priority. "That seems to be the number one strategy," Foster said….

A pueblo church in Taos, shot by http://www.flickr.com/photos/byrdiegyrl/35098783/, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Coral moves north in response to warming seas

Marissa Cevallos in Science News: Some Pacific corals have done the equivalent of moving from sunny Atlanta to Detroit, possibly in response to rising ocean temperatures. A new study of reefs around Japan reveals that a handful of coral species have migrated from the balmy subtropics to temperate climate zones over the last 80 years. The study is the first to track coral reefs for such a long time and over several latitude lines, a Japanese team reports in an upcoming Geophysical Research Letters.

The team, led by geographer Hiroya Yamano of the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Japan, analyzed maps of corals from four time periods starting in the 1930s. They found that of nine common coral species, four had expanded northward, and two went as far as temperate waters. The study confirms what marine biologists and fishermen have speculated for years. “There were eyewitness accounts of the occurrence, but the data wasn’t so reliable,” says Yamano. “Now we can show very solid evidence.”

Now it appears that some coral species will migrate — and fast — in response to warming waters. Some species Yamano examined migrated as fast as 8.7 miles per year. Yamano calculated that a sample of land-traveling animals migrate only 0.4 miles per year on average. In 80 years, the fastest corals would travel nearly 700 miles. It would be like land plants making the Atlanta-to-Detroit trek between the Great Depression and today.

Coral reefs are important biologically because they house a diverse group of animals — about one in four marine species call a coral reef home. Reefs are made of animals called polyps with a hard skeleton made of calcium carbonate. Each year, the corals around Japan hatch larvae, which can get swept up by warm Pacific currents from the south called Kuroshio and Tsushima currents. But most larvae normally don’t settle far from home….

Coral detail at Perhentian Island (Malaysia), Platygyra sp. or Oulophyllia sp., shot by pakmat, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Europe begins to run short of water

Pavol Stracansky in IPS: Half of the Czech Republic’s population could face water shortages because of climate change, a top climate change expert has warned. The country has become one of the driest in the EU, according to local media, and climatologists say the land, and crucial underground water supplies, are drying up.

Professor Michal Marek, head of the EU-funded CzechGlobe climate change research project, told IPS: "The Czech Republic is already seeing the effects of climate change in more frequent extreme weather events and changes in biodiversity.

"But possibly the most important change is in the increasing drying out of the landscape as drier periods get longer and are followed by bursts of intense rainfall which the dry soil cannot absorb. This has a very significant effect on underground water supplies."

Climatologists and meteorologists in central Europe have said that the region is seeing more and more extreme weather including long periods of dry and hot weather in the summer, severe flooding and bitter winter weather.

While not all parts of central and Eastern Europe will necessarily have the same problems as the Czech Republic with underground water supplies because of local geological conditions and other factors, heavy rains falling on ground dried out by long periods of hot weather and unable to absorb water can increase the risk of flooding.

Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and Germany have all been hit by devastating floods in the last two years….

New earth-observing satellite to address climate uncertainties

Environment News Service: NASA is about to launch an Earth-observing satellite with new technology onboard designed to broaden our understanding of how the Sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth's climate. Aerosols represent one of the greatest areas of uncertainty in understanding Earth's climate system.

Called Glory, the mission is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California early in the morning of February 23. "Glory is going to help scientists tackle one of the major uncertainties in climate change predictions identified by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: the influence of aerosols on the energy balance of our planet," said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

Glory also will extend a legacy of long-term solar measurements needed to address other key uncertainties about climate change. "This mission also marks the first satellite launch under President Obama's climate initiative that will advance the United States' contribution to cutting-edge and policy-relevant climate change science," Freilich said.

Glory will join a fleet of other Earth-observing satellites that fly in tight formation. NASA scientists call them the "Afternoon Constellation" or "A-train" of satellites.

…The mission carries two primary instruments, the Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor and the Total Irradiance Monitor. APS will improve measurement of aerosols, the airborne particles that can influence climate by reflecting and absorbing solar radiation and modifying clouds and precipitation. APS will collect data at nine different wavelengths, from the visible to short-wave infrared, giving scientists a much-improved understanding of aerosols.

NASA's first Earth-orbiting polarimeter, APS will help scientists distinguish between natural and human-produced aerosols. The information will be used to refine global climate models and help scientists determine how our planet is responding to human activities….

Australian fund boosts property sustainability

Ruth Liew in the Financial Standard: The $18 billion government fund ARIA is improving the sustainability of its properties as part of its efforts to mitigate the risk of climate change on the fund's portfolio. The fund said "climate change and energy, food and water security present an element of very long-term risk (50 - 100 years) to asset values, although most estimates of the direct impact on ARIA's portfolio are small".

ARIA's investment managers that manage seven of the fund's directly-owned properties have incorporated sustainability principals and initiatives in their investment processes. As a result, the fund has managed to reduce the energy and water consumption of these properties.

Some of the initiatives include installing sub-metering within buildings, obtaining national energy and water ratings, and a specialist environmental sustainability consultant to assess each building. "ARIA believes that over our investment horizon, an increasingly fragmented policy response is likely to alter prospective returns-for-risk across assets, industries, regions and corporations," according to a fund statement….

Thailand closes dive sites to halt damage to reefs

Jutarat Skulpichetrat in Reuters: Thailand is closing dozens of dive sites to tourists after unusually warm seas caused severe damage to coral reefs in the Andaman Sea, one of the world's top diving and beach resort regions, authorities said on Thursday.

More than half of southern Thailand's 15,000 hectares of coral reefs are suffering from bleaching, or the shedding of coral colors, a phenomenon caused largely by rising sea temperatures over an extended period, officials said.

"We will study the cause and effect and find a way to restore them," Sunan Arunnopparat, director of the Department of National Parks, told Reuters, adding that the reefs will be closed across seven national parks. This is part of an effort to restore the reefs."

He declined to say how many diving spots would be closed or how extensive the damage was to the reefs. He said diving sites where bleaching had spread to 80 percent of the reefs would be shut for an unspecified period.

The coral bleaching -- whitening due to heat driving out the algae living within the coral tissues -- was first reported in May after a surge in temperatures across the Andaman Sea from the northern tip of Sumatra island to Thailand and Myanmar. Other parts of Southeast Asia have also suffered. An international team of scientists studying bleaching off Indonesia's Aceh province found that 80 percent of some species have died between May and August….

Blue-lipped sea krait (Laticauda laticaudata), Anemone Reef, Thailand. Shot by jon hanson, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Will desal be worth its salt?

Penelope Debelle has a long, interesting article in the Adelaide Advertiser (Australia). A few snips: …As rainfall goes, 2010 was a bumper year. In early December, 7.2GL poured into the Hills catchment and we now have enough water for almost a year. But good seasons depart as quickly as they come. The unresolved spectre of permanent climate change still clouds the future and the weather is violently unpredictable.

So why - courtesy of an announcement from Premier Mike Rann in August delivered as a throwaway line in a press conference about something else - are we being encouraged to undo good habits instilled over many dry years after a single season of plenty?

The answer lies 25km south of Adelaide at Lonsdale where the slumbering desalination beast is coming to life. Like a modern-day alchemist, the plant will turn salt water into fresh. Life will change forever as we look to technology instead of nature. In the next two years we will have 40 per cent more water - even if it rains less. The sprinkler-happy new rules suddenly make sense. There will be water, but we will pay dearly for it. In three years, the price will be 70 per cent higher.

On the state's biggest worksite just north of the Port Stanvac jetty, up to 1400 people a day are completing a massive engineering feat. The plant's complexity is in its size and the way it pumps water from 1.5km out in the Gulf through pipes 25m under the seabed to an underground chamber onshore where the water moves through a series of treatment cycles inside the plant.

… "The desalination plant has always been our insurance policy to protect Adelaide's water security against dry years such as 2006-2007," Paul Caica says.

'The whole idea of the desalination plant is that it's a contingency, it's an insurance policy. As night follows day, we are the country of droughts and flooding rains. While things are looking good at the moment, we know that in 10 or 15 years, those climatic dependent water supplies will again fail."...

The Port Stanvac desal plant while it was under construction, shot by Vmenkov, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Perception of climate change risk depends on world-view

Harvey Leifert in Environmental Research Web: The central question of science communication is: "Why do we see persistent and very intense public conflict over facts that are relevant to policy when those facts, such as those surrounding climate change, have been well established by scientific investigation?" Such a question was put to an audience of science writers by Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University, US, at the 48th annual New Horizons in Science meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, late last year.

…[One] explanation is "cultural cognition", a term that Kahan and colleagues use to describe "the tendency of people to fit their perceptions of risk and related kinds of facts to the values that bind their identities". That dynamic, he said, "is an important part of the political conflict that we see over issues that admit of scientific investigation". Studies show that when people receive new information about, for example, climate-change research, they do not update their prior beliefs but rather assess the new information in the light of those beliefs.

…The subjects' world-views were assessed, using a scale developed by anthropologist Mary Douglas. One axis measures preference for individualist versus communitarian solutions, the other measures preferences for hierarchical versus egalitarian social ordering.

Douglas concluded that people's perceptions of risk cohere with one or another set of those values, Kahan said. Subjects high in hierarchical and individualist values would believe that if climate change is a high risk, it would lead to restrictions on commerce and industry, activities that are important to their world-view. Those ranking high on the communitarian and egalitarian scales are, in contrast, more ambivalent about commerce and industry and more amenable to the notion that climate change posed a real risk to society…

Sri Lankan floods could leave 400,000 children without enough food

Karen McVeigh in the Guardian (UK): Up to 400,000 children in Sri Lanka are facing a food crisis caused by devastating floods, a children's charity warned as it launched a £1m appeal to help those in the worst-hit areas today.

As the floodwaters begin to recede, many of the 350,000 displaced people driven into temporary refugee camps are returning home only to find that their homes, schools, crops and livelihoods have been wiped out by the rains.

In the worst-affected part of the country, the Eastern Province, the damage to agricultural land could leave up to 1 million people, including 400,000 children, without enough food, Save the Children said. Sri Lanka's agricultural ministry reported that 21% of the country's rice crop had been destroyed.

The warning came as the UN launched an urgent $51m (£31m) appeal for victims of the floods – the worst in recent history – which have killed dozens and destroyed thousands of homes and vital clean water sources.

More than 1 million people in the country are affected, with over half estimated to be facing food shortages and the threat of waterborne disease. It is an enormous setback for an area that was only just beginning to recover from the decades-long war and the 2004 tsunami which killed 400,000 people and left 2.5 million homeless….

People tackling the floods of Cyclone Nisha, November 2008, in Vanni, Sri Lanka. (I could not find photos of the 2011 flooding), Shot by trokilinochchi, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

'Early Warming' takes new approach to climate change

Michael Armstrong in the Homer News (Alaska): …Counterpoint Press released "Early Warming: Climate and Response in the Climate-Changed North" last week. Friday, Lord heads to Fairbanks for the start of a short book tour. Traveling with Marybeth Holleman, who wrote "Heart of the Sound," about Prince William Sound, Lord and Holleman do talks about environmental writing and their books. After presentations in Fairbanks and Anchorage, they speak at 7 pm. Jan. 28 at Kachemak Bay Campus.

…In "Early Warming," Lord travels around Alaska and Canada looking at how climate change has begun to affect people. In some places the changes have been subtle, such as on the Kenai Peninsula, with warming salmon streams. In other places the changes have been dramatic, such as coastal erosion in Shismaref and Kaktovik. Lord can document the changes, citing facts like an increase in erosion along one section of the Arctic coast from 22 feet a year in the 1960s to 45 feet a year in the 2000s.

….The people of the north, the ones on the front lines of change, also can be leaders in adapting, Lord said. Alaska Natives in particular have shown a resiliency of culture in adapting to other change. "These cultures are highly adaptive, highly innovative and creative. Let's see what they doing and learn from them," she said…

Climate change growing risk for insurers

David Fogarty in Reuters: Insurers are struggling to assess the risks from climate change, industry officials say, with the floods in Australia and Brazil highlighting the potential losses from greater extremes of weather. Scientists say a warmer world will cause more intense drought, floods, cyclones as well as rising sea levels and the insurance industry says the number of weather-related disasters has already soared over the past several decades.

Adding to the risks is a growing human population, more people moving into cities, particularly in Asia, and more property in the path of increasingly volatile weather. This makes it harder to tease out a direct climate change link in ever rising losses, experts say. Lack of long-term weather data in some parts of the world is also clouding the picture.

Another problem is the narrow time horizon insurers typically focus on. Reinsurers, for instance, renew their contracts annually based on past losses, meaning they aren't so concerned about trends decades in the future. "There is still a fair amount of uncertainly as to climate change and the attribution of climate change to natural events or man-made and therefore it has not translated yet into the pricing," Yves Guerard, secretary-general of the Ottawa-based International Actuarial Association, told Reuters.

Some insurers are seeing a climate change link and rising risks. "Ignoring global warming will risk an increasing exposure and therefore insured losses will escalate," said Scott Ryrie, CEO of Allianz SE Reinsurance Asia-Pacific in Singapore….

A FEMA shot of the Hurricane Andrew's aftermath in 1992

Airports must plan for snow storms, says EU

Terra Daily via AFP: The European Commission warned airports on Wednesday of looming regulation to prevent a repeat of the Christmas travel chaos and demanded to see battle plans for next winter. European transport commissioner Siim Kallas held a meeting with top executives from the biggest airports after December snow forced passengers to sleep at terminals when tens of thousands of flight were cancelled.

"Volcanic ash is difficult for the aviation industry to predict, but we know that winter arrives every year and we should be ready for it," Kallas said, referring to the Icelandic volcano eruption in April that closed much of Europe's airspace.

"If you have 30 centimetres of snow suddenly in central Europe it is something very exceptional. But if you have one centimetre of snow and you still have announcements that flights are cancelled, this I consider unacceptable," he said.

The transport commissioner urged airports to prepare winter contingency plans and make them public by October, adding that one key issue to correct is the lack of information provided to passengers….

De-icing an Austrian Airlines jet at Zagreb's airport, shot by Zeugma fr, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Congo, Burundi are set to sign Nile River water accord rejected by Egypt

William Davison in Bloomberg: The Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi may soon sign an accord on water usage from the Nile River, paving the way for ratification of a pact that strips Egypt of its rights to the flow from the world’s longest river.

The leaders of the two nations are set to adopt the so- called Comprehensive Framework Agreement once they “fully understand” the issues, Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said in an interview in Addis Ababa, the capital, on Jan. 15. One of the stipulations of the CFA is that it should be signed by Aug. 1.

A 1929 treaty brokered by the former colonial power, Britain, granted Egypt a veto over projects that may alter the flow of the Nile. A 1959 pact between Egypt and Sudan claimed 90 percent of the Nile’s flow for the two countries. The CFA, signed by Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya in May, will establish a commission to oversee dam building and irrigation development, effectively stripping Egypt of the veto. Almost all of Egypt’s water supply comes from the Nile.

Egypt and Sudan need to understand “there is no way out without cooperating,” said Hailemariam, who is also Ethiopia’s foreign minister. Not only was Ethiopia not party to the two treaties, but they are also “obsolete and unjust. It’s very important we have a clear understanding of using the Nile water together, with a win-win approach,” he said….

Satellite image of the Nile flowing through Khartoum, via NASA

Drought may reduce China's wheat output

Sun Zhe in Global Times (China): Drought in the country's major wheat growing regions since late last year might reduce winter output, after seven years of consecutive production increases, said analysts.

The nation's top three wheat producing regions - Henan, Shandong and Hebei provinces - have been in a near continuous drought since late last year. Responsible for more than half of the country's wheat output, the agricultural crisis in these provinces is expected to push up wheat prices in 2010, said Zhang Yanlin research director with CIC Consulting in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in a report released Friday.

These three provinces are among the worst hit areas and make up more than 90 percent of the nation's wheat output. Rainfall in these provinces dropped more than 80 percent from the annual average, the worst since 1970, according to water resource department records….

A field in Gushi, Henan Province, China, shot by sinopitt, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

From Katrina to snowmageddon: lessons government should learn

Matthew E. Kahn, a guest blogger in the Christian Science Monitor: … Consider the Nashville Floods of 2010. Source "The National Weather Service failed to warn of major flooding in Nashville in the spring until after it had already taken place, and residents did not heed warnings because they didn't reflect the urgency of the flooding, which killed 22 people around the state, a new report shows.

The report released by the weather service on Wenesday found that the agency's river forecasters ignored two models that showed more accurate flood predictions for the Cumberland River. Instead forecasters favored a model that relied on inaccurate and untimely information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The weather service continued to use that data despite observations on the ground that proved their flood predictions were inaccurate."

…"The report also criticizes the wording of the flood warnings. On April 30, the weather service's Southern Regional headquarters sent an e-mail to local weather offices reminding them of the option to use "Flash Flood Emergency" in their warnings to the public. But the Nashville office never used the term "flood emergency," despite "the many reports of catastrophic flooding, water rescues, and even fatalities" the report states. And the report found that staffing levels were inadequate for the emergency.

…The assessment notes that progress has been made in interagency communication and cooperation. Haynes also said that high-resolution flood maps are being developed for the Nashville area that will show down to the street level where flooding is expected."…

May 10, 2010, in downtown Nashville, shot by Keith Gallagher, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Alpine glacier may melt, destroying climate data

MSNBC via Our Amazing Planet: The highest glacier in the eastern Alps is little-studied, and could contain within its ice more than 1,000 years of the local climate record. But how long that record will be around is a worrying matter for scientists. Global warming could take a toll on the ice, melting it before researchers can take enough samples. This worry has sent scientists scrambling to retrieve data before the glacier disappears. [Related: Tracking a Retreating Glacier.]

The glacier, Alto dell'Ortles, lies 12,812 feet (3,905 meters) above sea level, and, as far as glaciers go, is dainty: The area it covers is just under a half square mile (1.04 square kilometers). An even smaller area, only about 10 percent of the glacier, likely holds a good climate record, according to a new study in the Journal of Glaciology.

"This is a mountain that is very difficult to climb, and that has probably prevented researchers and glaciologists from Europe from going up there to study the ice," said study team member Paolo Gabrielli of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University. However, Gabrielli said, the glacier offers an ideal environment to study climate change in the region….

Il Ghiacciaio del Gran Crou - Alpi Graie - Italy. Wrong glacier, but a great shot by Nostromo-io, who has released the image into the public domain

Extreme weather could follow Sri Lankan floods

Amantha Perera in IPS: Weather experts warned Sri Lankan to be prepared for extreme weather changes with hardly any notice following devastating floods here that have affected over one million people. "Global weather patterns are changing, we should be prepared for extreme changes," Gunavi Samarasinghe, the head of Meteorological Department, said as the country battled floods in the east as temperatures island-wide dropped to sixty year lows.

The drop in temperature was caused by the cloud cover over the island, Samarasinghe said. Colombo registered a temperature of 18.8C, while the central Nuwera Eliya highlands fell to a single digit - 7C. Samarasinghe said that the island was facing the La Nina phenomenon during which temperatures near the Equator have dropped by as much as 5C. "We better be ready to face any kind of weather," he said.

According to reports on Jan. 14, the two-plus weeks of flooding had killed 27 and left 12 missing. The Disaster Management Centre, the government body coordinating the flood relief effort said that over 18,000 houses, 200 small and large reservoirs and parts of 152 major and minor roads were in need of repair after the floods.

Samarasinghe’s assessment that extreme weather patterns were becoming common is substantiated by the growing frequency of flash flooding on the island….

Lake at Kotomale, Sri Lanka, shot by Anuradha Ratnaweera, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Climate change to spur crop shortages by 2020

CTV News (Canada): The world may be 2.4 degrees warmer by the end of this decade, and that could have deadly consequences for global food production, according to a new study overseen by Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist Osvaldo Canziani.

"The Impacts of Climate Change on Food Production: A 2020 Perspective," was published Tuesday afternoon by an Argentina-based non-profit group called the Universal Ecological Fund released (UEF). According to the report, by 2020 there will be a shortfall of 14 per cent for global wheat production, 11 per cent for rice and nine percent for maize. Soybeans will be the only major crop that will meet world demand, with a surplus of five per cent.

The number of people going hungry could therefore jump to 20 per cent of the world's population from the current 14 per cent, the report estimates. The number of hungry children in the world could nearly double.

Those findings were based on a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Researchers at UEF used more recent data from United Nations bodies such as the World Meteorological Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Bank to update the IPCC's conclusions. What they found is that by 2020, population growth and warming temperatures would significantly cut the world's four major food crops by the decade's end.

Liliana Hisas, the report's author, said she was surprised by what they found. "For the last 20 years we've been talking about future generations, and ‘this is not going to happen in my lifetime' and all sorts of other excuses not to take concrete decisions," Hisas said. "Hopefully this will help (us) realize that we better start doing things today, because this is happening much faster than anybody could anticipate."...

A farmer irrigates crops in the Sudan, in Kabkabiya camp in North Darfur. USAID photo

Can we trust climate models? Increasingly, yes

A few snips from a long, worthy piece by Michael D. Lemonick In Yale Environment 360 does a fine job of explaining climate modeling: …[E]ven when you factor out the vagaries of politics and economics, and assume future emissions are known perfectly, the projections from climate models still cover a range of temperatures, sea levels, and other manifestations of climate change. And while there’s just one climate, there’s more than one way to simulate it… How much can we really trust climate models to tell us about the future?

The answer, says Keith Dixon, a modeler at GFDL, is that it all depends on questions you’re asking. “If you want to know ‘is climate change something that should be on my radar screen?’” he says, “then you end up with some very solid results. The climate is warming, and we can say why. Looking to the 21st century, all reasonable projections of what humans will be doing suggest that not only will the climate continue to warm, you have a good chance of it accelerating. Those are global-scale issues, and they’re very solid.”

The reason they’re solid is that, right from the emergence of the first crude versions back in the 1960s, models have been at their heart a series of equations that describe airflow, radiation and energy balance as the Sun The problem is that warming causes changes that act to accelerate or slow the warming. warms the Earth and the Earth sends some of that warmth back out into space. “It literally comes down to mathematics,” says Peter Gleckler, a research scientist with the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison at Livermore National Laboratory, and the basic equations are identical from one model to another. “Global climate models,” he says, echoing Dixon, “are designed to deal with large-scale flow of the atmosphere, and they do very well with that.”

…And the models are constantly being improved. Climate scientists are already using modified versions to try and predict the actual timing of El Ninos and La Niñas over the next few years. They’re just beginning to wrestle with periods of 10, 20 and even 30 years in the future, the so-called decadal time span where both changing boundary conditions and natural variations within the boundaries have an influence on climate. “We’ve had a modest amount of skill with El Niños,” says Hurrell, “where 15-20 years ago we weren’t so skillful. That’s where we are with decadal predictions right now. It’s going to improve significantly.”

After two decades of evaluating climate models, Gleckler doesn’t want to downplay the shortcomings that remain in existing models. “But we have better observations as of late,” he says, “more people starting to focus on these things, and better funding. I think we have better prospects for making some real progress from now on.”

A shelf cloud from a thunderstorm supercell, from NOAA

Philippine senator eiterates call for action against global warming

Manila Bulletin (Philippines): Citing reports from recent studies on climate change, Senator Loren Legarda reiterated on Sunday that the whole nation should waste no time and must work together to immediately establish the necessary mechanisms that would ward off the ill-effects of global warming.

…Legarda, chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change, said that with scientific certainty, the warming global climate is a threat to agriculture and food security to countries with populations heavily relying on the sector.

From 1970 to 1990, typhoons, floods and droughts resulted in an 82.4 percent loss to total Philippine rice production. When tropical cyclones "Ondoy," "Pepeng" and "Santi" hit the country in 2009, the agriculture sector alone lost P29.38 billion covering 30 provinces in seven regions.

"As we continue to face weather in extremes, public health, energy, water security, our biodiversity, and economic growth are also under grave threat. Most at risk are lives that we cannot put a price on," Legarda said.

"With all this in mind, we cannot afford to wait for the next screaming headline about death and destruction from typhoons, floods or drought before we take concrete actions. It is critical that the increased attention, interest, and sense of urgency in responding to the challenges posed by climate change and disaster risks are translated to local actions that effectively reduce disaster vulnerability," she further explained....

October 17, 2010, Super Typhoon Megi approaching the Philippines

Climate change as a priority for Central America

Jose Armando Fernandez Salaz in Political Affairs: International research on the adaptation to climate change for Central America and the Caribbean pointed out in 2008 the main consequences for agriculture, human health and even the style of living in the eastern province of Las Tunas, Cuba.

According to the research, which had the participation of experts from the Dominican Republic and Cuba, proposed 146 actions, which will be implemented depending on the required conditions. In Las Tunas the proposed actions are responses to environmental deterioration, making this province the most deforested region on the island (only 14 percent of the total surface covered with forests) and with the lowest rate of rain (1,038 millimeters a year).

The recent rainy season saw the highest amounts of rainfall relative to previous years. However, 2009 is among the driest seasons since 1901. Figures from the Provincial Meteorological Center show that since 1971 there is a tendency toward a dry phase.

The increase in the minimum average yearly temperature of 1.2 degrees and the period of over 30 days between dry and rainy seasons also confirms the incidence of climate change in eastern Las Tunas province.

Although these developments may be regarded as a work of nature, they are also a response to the uncontrolled exploitation of resources. The main ecological battle is the consciousness of the people. That is why it is so important to promote early consciousness on the need for sustainable development and the adaptation of new environmental circumstances….

Locator map of Las Tunas province in Cuba, created by NordNordWest, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Can Ugandan farmers curb dry spells?

Thomas Ssemakula in AllAfrica.com via New Vision (Uganda): Towards the end of last year, weather experts predicated that Uganda would face a long and dry spell. This prediction has already come to pass with the current hot temperatures sweeping throughmost parts of the country. The drought phenomenon is part of a wave of natural disasters that have hit the world in the past decades as a result of human induced global climate change.

The trend these natural disasters have taken will be aggravated by the projections of extreme weather patterns related to global climate change. Combating this problem, requires the collaborative effort of international, national, regional, and Uganda's development partners.

A report on climate change and adaptation strategies in Karamoja sub-region authored by the Dan Church Aid in may 2010 reveals more shocking facts - that human induced climate change is projected to increase the average temperatures in Uganda by up to 1.5 degrees centigrade in the next 20 years and up to 4.3 degrees centigrade by the 2080s.

…This particular dry season is a challenge to Uganda in that, whereas the predominantly desert countries like Egypt and Israel grow fruits and export juice, Uganda, which is richly blessed with fertile soils and more reliable rainfall patterns is still bound in a business-as-usual approach towards the dry season challenge.

...Dry spells largely impact agricultural production and development by reducing yields and productivity of both crop and livestock products, which culminates into food insecurity.

This catastrophe can be averted with adaptive measures that are cost effective to the farmers.For instance, farmers can use locally available technologies that are friendly to our environment....

North American winter storm forecasts to get boost from high-tech NOAA plane

NOAA: NOAA has dispatched one of its highly specialized aircraft to collect atmospheric data over the North Pacific Ocean to enhance forecasts of winter storms for the entire North American continent. NOAA’s high-altitude, twin-engine Gulfstream IV-SP jet will be stationed at Yokota Air Force Base in Japan through February before repositioning to Honolulu in March. From these locations, the aircraft will be tasked by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction — a division of NOAA’s National Weather Service — to collect information such as wind speed and direction, pressure, temperature and humidity. The data will be sent via satellite to global operational weather forecasting centers and fed into sophisticated computer forecast models.

“Data collected from these flights will help provide a more refined snapshot of the atmosphere, which in turn improves forecasts,” said Louis Uccellini, Ph.D., director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, in Camp Springs, Md.

The reconnaissance missions have had a positive impact on global numerical weather prediction models which means better storm intensity and track forecasts, plus improved wind and precipitation forecasts.

Atmospheric data from the western Pacific, where most of North America’s weather originates, is scarce so NOAA incorporated the Japan-based missions into its annual Winter Storms Reconnaissance program in early 2009. Prior missions were flown from Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

“By expanding our reach to Japan, we are able to gather data upstream of winter storms, thereby gaining more lead time for emergency managers and responders to prepare for the impacts of severe winter weather on lives and property,” said meteorologist and flight director Jack Parrish with the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations….

This Gulfstream IV will be collecting data over the Pacific Ocean to improve winter storm forecasts. Shot from NOAA's website

This isn't about climate change – but it may be the face of the future

Steve Connor in the Independent (UK): Rain in Brazil, rain in Australia and rain in Sri Lanka. Rain is the factor that links all three large-scale disasters unfolding before our eyes in these very different regions of the world.

….Since 1975, disasters of all kinds have claimed the lives of more than 2.2 million people. Storms, floods, droughts and other weather-related phenomena were responsible for two thirds of these deaths, according to the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, which has warned that climate change is likely to increase the frequency and severity of these events.

…Scientists have emphasised that none of the three extreme weather events occurring now can be linked directly to global warming. Two of them, the floods in Australia and Sri Lanka, may be connected with a naturally occurring climatic phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, called La Niña, whereas the landslides in Brazil are the result of heavy, localised downpours falling on badly constructed homes built precariously on steep hillsides.

…Urban planning has also played a pivotal role in making Brisbane vulnerable. After 1974, authorities said the newly built Wivenhoue Dam would save Brisbane from severe flooding but what they didn't take into account was that the city and its surroundings would change dramatically over the next 35 years.

Rapid urban development, a growth in the population and the dubious practice of building on flood plains have all raised the flooding risk in areas once considered flood-free. The building of houses, roads, drains and other infrastructure has changed the way water flows through river catchments, said Professor Chris Eves of the Queensland University of Technology….

Aftermath of the flooding in Rio, shot by Valter Campanato/ABr, Wikimedia Commons via Agencia Brasil, under the Creative Commons License Attribution 2.5 Brazil)

We respond well to an emergency, but global warming is an emergency too

WA Today (Australia): …The Queensland floods are the latest in a list of remarkable weather events over the past year. Victorian towns are also going through less dramatic, but still serious, flooding. There have also been snowstorms in the US and Europe, heatwaves and fires in Russia, and catastrophic floods in Pakistan, China and Brazil.

Calls have begun for the Queensland government to conduct a royal commission into the floods, similar in scope to Victoria's Bushfires Royal Commission. The Victorian inquiry examined the circumstances of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, including the impact of climate change. Climate scientists were disappointed its report did not sufficiently emphasise the unique weather contributing to the disaster. Victoria had never had three consecutive days above 42 degrees until January 2009, when there were three above 43 degrees. The heatwave is believed to be responsible for 500 deaths in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, but was largely forgotten after the tragic fires.

Australian weather is believed to be particularly sensitive to climate change. Like Victoria's fires, floods are part of a natural cycle. La Nina, the periodic oceanic cooling phenomenon, is far more directly to blame for the weather Australia is now experiencing. But it would be shortsighted not to take into account the role of global warming in these catastrophes.

Professor David Karoly, from Melbourne University's School of Earth Sciences, says while individual events cannot be attributed to climate change, the extreme weather patterns are in line with scientific predictions that a warmer world will mean more severe droughts, more fires and flooding rains…

On December 26, 2010, the flooding Boyne River cuts the Mundubbera-Durong Road south of Mundubbera, shot by Sweetbixkid, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Study finds that energy limits global economic growt

Environmental Research Web via AIBS: A study that relates global energy use to economic growth, published in the January issue of BioScience, finds strong correlations between these two measures both among countries and within countries over time. The research leads the study's authors to infer that energy use limits economic activity directly.

They conclude that an "enormous" increase in energy supply will be required to meet the demands of projected world population growth and lift the developing world out of poverty without jeopardizing standards of living in most developed countries.

… The team found the same sort of relationship between energy consumption per person and gross domestic product per person as is found between metabolism and body weight in animals. Brown's group suggests the similarity is real: cities and countries, like animals, have metabolisms that must burn fuel to sustain themselves and grow…

A shot from the 1896 Olympic marathon

Glacier melt in Peru becomes more than a climate issue

Heather Somerville in the Washington Post: Glacier melt hasn't caused a national crisis in Peru, yet. But high in the Andes, rising temperatures and changes in water supply over the last 40 years have decimated crops, killed fish stocks and forced villages to question how they will survive for another generation.

Without international help to build reservoirs and dams and improve irrigation, the South American nation could become a case study in how climate change can destabilize a strategically important region, according to Peruvian, U.S. and other officials.

"Think what it would be like if the Andes glaciers were gone and we had millions and millions of hungry and thirsty Southern neighbors," said former CIA Director R. James Woolsey.

Peru is home to 70 percent of the world's tropical glaciers, which are also found in Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile. Peru's 18 mountain glaciers, including the world's largest tropical ice mass, are critical to the region's water sources for drinking, irrigation and electricity.

Glaciers in the South American Andes are melting faster than many scientists predicted; some climate change experts estimate entire glaciers across the Andes will disappear in 10 years due to rising global temperatures, creating instability across the globe as they melt....

The dark-brown area just north of the elongated black lake at the center of this NASA Landsat image is a lava flow from the northern segment of the Huambo volcanic field. The large glacier-covered massif to the east is the Sabancaya volcanic complex.

New schedule seen to improve/strengthen impacts portion of IPCC report

Eli Kintish in Science magazine: Climate scientists hope to improve the most contentious section of the next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by changing how they deal with uncertain data, connect with basic science, and include data from sources that aren't peer reviewed. Meeting this week in Tsukuba, Japan, the scientists hope the changes will make their portion of the three-part 2013 IPCC report even more robust.

Speaking by phone from Japan, ecologist Chris Field, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Palo Alto, California, says that past criticism of the panel on impacts and adaptation strategies, which he chairs, has only strengthened efforts to improve its next report. "If anything, the criticism made authors more willing to be involved," says Field. "The challenges the IPCC faced pulled out the best scientists in the field." …

…Among the tweaks to IPCC's procedures that the scientists are learning about in the 4-day session, which wraps up tomorrow, are new guidelines for dealing with uncertainty, the use of literature not published in journals, and the confidentiality of drafts. The first two are areas in which a high-level independent review of IPCC has called for improvements.

A significant problem facing IPCC is how to make the literature reviewed in the impacts working group reflect the climate scenarios forecasted and reviewed in the first working group's report. (The information is generated by "IPCC runs" on supercomputers of different models given what amounts to identical starting conditions.) In a perfect world, the studies on impacts would reflect the possible scenarios produced by the first group. But in the past there hasn't been enough time to do impacts studies on literature new enough to be included in the IPCC report. So scientists have used future warming scenarios from literature that's older, creating a mismatch in the final IPCC report….

Unsnarling the pendulum, shot by haitham alfalah, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license