Arctic News

Friday, January 11, 2013

President Obama, here's a climate plan!

President Obama, now is the time to act on climate change! Climate change won't wait. There are encouraging signs indicating that a summit is being organized, to be hosted at the White House, to launch a comprehensive climate action plan with broad-based and bipartisan support.

What plan? Well, here's a climate plan!

The first line of action of most climate plans is to cut emissions. Two types of feebates, working separately, yet complimentary, can cut emissions most effectively and can be implemented locally in a budget-neutral way, without requiring complicated international agreements:

energy feebates (pictured above) in sectors such as electricity, heating and transport, and
feebates in sectors such as agriculture, land use, waste management and construction (pictured below).

Pictured on the left are feebates that impose fees on sales of Portland cement, nitrogen fertilizers and livestock products. This will make further cuts in emissions.

The revenues are then used to fund rebates on clean construction and on soil supplements containing biochar and olive sand, which will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in buildings, soil, river banks, roads and pavement.

Working seperately, yet complimentary, energy feebates and feebates in agriculture and other sectors can dramatically bring down carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and oceans; as a result, atmospheric carbon dioxide could be brought back to pre-industral levels of around 280ppm by the end of the century.

For further discussion, also see Towards a Sustainable Economy

Thus, these two feebates will be effective on two lines of action, i.e. on cutting emissions and on reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and oceans.

Even with these measures, temperatures will keep rising for some time, as excess ocean heat will get transferred to the atmosphere over the years and as aerosols (particularly sulfur) fall away that are currently emitted when fuel is burned and thus mask the full wrath of global warming.

Continued warming comes with numerous feedbacks. Combined, these feedbacks threaten to trigger runaway global warming, i.e. warming that will cause mass death, destruction and extinction.

How to avoid mass-scale death, destruction and extinction

This means that, in addition to the first two lines of action, further lines of action will be necessary, i.e. Solar radiation management, and Methane management and further action. Further action includes regulatory measures such as ending commercial flights over the Arctic and support for pyrolysis to avoid burning of biomass. The image below pictures several methods of Arctic methane management that should get high priority, given the threat of hydrate destabilization in the Arctic.

Arctic Methane Management

Fees imposed on commercial flights could fund solar radiation management, while the feebates described above will also be most effective in further lines of action, i.e. in Arctic methane management and further action.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Dark Snow Project - Research into soot on Greenland

Fossil fuel combustion creates carbon emissions that increase atmospheric thickness, warming climate. The occurrence of wildfire increases with climate warming, increasing soot loading of the atmosphere. Some of this soot is transported through the atmosphere and is deposited on glaciers, lowering their reflectivity, increasing solar energy absorption, increasing melt rates.

image from DarkSnowProject.org

In parts of Greenland where winter snow loss during each melt season exposes impurity-rich bare ice, the surface reflectivity drops from 85% to 30%. Consequently, most of the 24-hour sunlight goes into ice melt. In this Dark Zone, the impact of soot manifests strongest in a self-reinforcing feedback loop that research by Jason Box has shown to have doubled melt rates in the past decade.

High on the inland ice sheet where melting is rare, satellite data show surface darkening making the researchers suspect that wildfire and industrial soot are to blame. Darkening here promotes snowpack heating, bringing earlier melt, keeping melt going longer. Here is where this feedback is changing the ice sheet in surprising ways, leading to complete surface melting in year 2012.

To measure the extent to which soot particles enhance melting, Jason Box is organizing a Greenland ice sheet expedition for 2013. The Dark Snow Project expedition is to be the first of its kind, made possible by crowd-source funding.

References

- Fire and Ice: Wildfires Darkening Greenland Snowpack, Increasing Melting (News Release from Byrd Polar Center)
http://bprc.osu.edu/~jbox/DS/20121205_news_release_CALIPSO_etc.pdf

- The DarkSnowProject
http://darksnowproject.org

-Video: Sampling Greenland, the Dark Snow Project, by Peter Sinclair, produced at Greenman Studio, Midland, MI.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT6H7HPWkqU

- Where there’s fire there’s smoke - Blog by Jason Box, the Meltfactor.org

http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/?p=766

Further reading

- Greenland is melting at incredible rate
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/07/greenland-is-melting-at-incredible-rate.html

- Turning forest waste into biochar
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/01/turning-forest-waste-into-biochar.html

- Glaciers cracking in the presence of carbon dioxide
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/10/glaciers-cracking-in-the-presence-of-carbon-dioxide.html

- Aviation Policies
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/12/aviation-policies.html

Anthropogenic Arctic Volcano can calm climate

by Paul Beckwith

Paul Beckwith, B.Eng, M.Sc. (Physics),
Ph.D. student (Climatology) and
Part-time Professor, University of Ottawa

Rational decision making requires realistic risk assessments of alternatives. Humanity is now choosing default door A, which is no change in behavior with fossil fuel energy sourcing and a continuance of rapidly rising anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).

Abrupt collapse of Arctic albedo due to collapsing terrestrial snow cover (area dropping 17.6% per decade for past three decades) and collapse of sea ice cover (area dropping 49% below 1979 to 2000 long term average) is occurring (NOAA 2012 Arctic Report Card from last week).

The destination is an ice free condition within a few years (by 2015 with PIOMAS volume projections); well before the 30 to 60 year timeframe of the most sophisticated climate change models which are a big FAIL on sea ice. The risk (= probability of occurrence x significance of occurrence) is enormous through door A. Probability of occurrence is 50% within 3 years and significance to human farming, water availability, temperatures and weather extremes is clearly massive.

A recent widely-respected DARA report states that Today climate change is directly/indirectly reducing global GDP by 1.6% and attributing to 400,000 human deaths globally (to increase to 2.6% and 500,000 in about 20 years). A recent UN report is warning of global food shortages in 2013. There is no end in sight to the U.S. drought (climate models predict such droughts can last 20 or 30 years, hopefully they are wrong as they are with sea ice).

I prefer door B - create an Anthropogenic Arctic volcano to calm the climate. Give me two large airplanes with pilots, some sulfur in solution, and a few large nozzles from your local ski hill; they are not needed anyway since the ski industry has estimated losses of $1 Billion over the last decade (about 8% of total revenues); adaptation to zip lining and water parks is possible. With this equipment I will fly into the stratosphere (above the weather) near the North Pole and spread sulfur dust/aerosols to reflect incoming sunlight and rapidly cool the Arctic for several years. This will restore sea ice, straighten the jet streams, and restore a “normal” climate.

Very little sulfur is needed relative to huge emissions from smokestacks into the lower atmosphere from coal burning power plants. It will work; powerful erupting volcanoes that aim upwards (like Pinatubo in 1991) and not sideways (like Mt. St. Helens in 1980) have cooled the climate by a degree or more for 2 to 3 years. They do this by injecting sulfur up into the upper atmosphere, like our aircraft will do.

Door B has two important sub-doors, B-Bad and B-Good. Door B-B is using the sulfur injections to calm climate and continuing the fossil-fuel energy sourcing with rapidly accelerating GHGs. This door will be a false reprieve since the GHGs will continue to rapidly acidify the ocean and destroy the base of the food chain; by the way, ocean phytoplankton levels have dropped 40% since 1950.

Wikipedia image: UN jet with humanitarian relief supplies

Luckily for us, Door B-G exists. Door B-G is using the sulfur injections to calm climate and rapidly slashing fossil-fuel energy sourcing by ramping up conservation, efficiency renewables as fast as is humanly possible; I am talking about retooling on the scale of the Manhattan Project or Apollo Programs. Or even having a U.S. president (or a Chinese one) getting all the CEOs of car manufacturers together in a room and telling them they will produce no cars for 3 years, only wind turbines, geothermal heat exchangers, and solar panels. Is this possible? In WWII the meeting occurred and for the next 3 years only war materials were produced. And keep in mind the industrial revolution of World War Two ushered in one of longest eras of prosperity humanity has known.

Of course there is a caveat with Door B-G. We must start the sulfur injections when the sun rises in the Arctic in the spring in early 2013. Waiting for more sea ice collapse will decrease the odds of success at obtaining Arctic snow cover and sea ice regrowth. Give me a plane, pilot, nozzle, and sulfur and I can calm the climate.

Originally posted January 10, 2013, at Sierra Club Canada; posted here with author's permission

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Turning forest waste into biochar

Too much biomass waste in tundra and boreal forests makes them prone to wildfires, especially when heatwaves strike. Furthermore, leaving biomass waste in the forest can cause a lot of methane emisions from decomposition.

In order to reduce such methane emissions and the risk of wildfires, it makes sense to reduce excess biomass waste in fields and forests. Until now, this was typically done by controlled burning of biomass, which also causes emissions, but far less than wildfires do. Avoiding wildfires is particularly important for the Arctic, which is vulnerable to soot deposits originating from wildfires in tundra and boreal forest. Such soot deposits cause more sunlight to be absorbed, accelerating the decline of snow and ice in the Arctic.

A team of scientists at University of Washington, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, has developed a way to remove woody biomass waste from forests without burning it in the traditional way. The team has developed a portable kiln that can be assembled around a heap of waste wood and convert it to biochar on the spot, while the biochar can also be burried in the soil on the spot.

Demonstration in Kerby, Oregon,
Nov. 6, 2012, by Carbon Cultures.
Credit: Marcus Kauffman at Flickr

The team initially started testing the effectiveness of a heat-resistant blanket thrown over woody debris. The team then developed portable panels that are assembled in a kiln around a slash pile.

Students have set up a company, Carbon Cultures, to promote the technology and to sell biochar. CEO of Carbon Cultures is Jenny Knoth, also a Ph.D. candidate in environmental and forest sciences.

The kiln restricts the amount of oxygen that can reach the biomass, which is transformed by pyrolysis into biochar. The woody waste is heated up to temperatures of about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 Celsius), as the kiln transforms some 800 pounds of wood into 200 pounds of biochar in less than two hours. “We also extinguish with water because it helps keep oxygen out and also activates the charcoal [making it more fertile in soil].”

Currently, the total costs of disposing of forest slash heaps (the collections of wood waste) approximate a billion dollars a year in the United States, according to Knoth.

And of course, adding biochar to the soil is a great way to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. “Biochar is proven to fix carbon for hundreds of thousands of years,” Knoth said.

Demonstration in Kerby, Oregon, November 6, 2012, organized by Carbon Cultures. Credit: Marcus Kauffman at Flickr

As said, when biomass waste is left in the open air, methane emissions are produced during its decomposition. Moreover, such waste will fuel wildfires, which produce huge amounts of emissions. The traditional response therefore is to burn such waste. Pyrolyzing biomass produces even less greenhouse gases and less soot, compared to such controlled burning.

Biochar is produced in the process, which can be added to the soil on the spot. This will help soil retain moisture, nutrients and soil microbes, making forests more healthy, preventing erosion and thus reduces the risk of wildfires even further, in addition to the reduction already achieved by removal of surplus waste.

A healthy forest will retain more moist in its soil, in the air under its canopy, and in the air above the forest through expiration, resulting in more clouds that act as sunshades to keep the forest cool and return the moist to the forest through rainfall. Forests reinforce patterns of air pressure and humidity that result in long-distance air currents that bring moist air from the sea inland to be deposited onto the forest in the form of rain. Finally, clouds can reflect more sunlight back into space, thus reducing the chance of heatwaves.

References

- Recycling wood waste - The Daily of the University of Washington
- Helping Landowners with Waste Wood While Improving Agribusiness and Energy - National Science Foundation

Related

- Biochar
- CU-Boulder gets into biochar

- Fires are raging again across Russia
- Abrupt Local Warming

Monday, December 31, 2012

How to avoid mass-scale death, destruction and extinction

The image below shows the FAO Food Price Index (Cereals), updated to October 2012.

[ image from earlier post ]

The above FAO Food Price Index shows that high food prices have been around for the past few years. The FAO, in its recent Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, explains that we can expect prices to rise, as illustrated below.

The Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture mentions, in its Food Price Outlook, 2012-2013, that the "drought has affected prices for corn and soybeans as well as other field crops which should, in turn, drive up retail food prices".

Global food supply is under stress as extreme weather becomes the new norm. Farmers may be inclined to respond to drought by overusing ground water, or by slashing and burning forest, in efforts to create more farmland. Such practices do not resolve the problems; instead, they tend to exacerbate the problems over time, making things progressively worse.

The diagram below shows that there are many climatological feedbacks (ten of which are pictured) that make climate change worse. At the top, the diagram pictures vicious cycles that are responses by farmers that can add to make the situation even worse. Without effective action, the prospect is that climate change and crop failure combine to cause mass death and destruction, with extinction becoming the fourth development of global warming.

How can we avoid that such a scenario will eventuate? Obviously, once we are in the fourth development, i.e. mass-scale famine and extintion, it will be too late for action. Similarly, if the world moves into the third development, i.e. runaway global warming, it will be hard, if not impossible to reverse such a development. Even if we act now, it will be hard to reverse the second development, i.e. accelerated warming in the Arctic.

The most effective action will target causes rather than symptoms of these developments.

Part 1. Since emissions are the cause of global warming, dramatic cuts in emissions should be included in the first part of the responses. In addition, action is needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans. Storing the carbon in the soil will also improve soil quality, as indicated by the long green arrow on the left.

Part 2. Solar radiation management is needed to cool the Arctic.

Part 3. Methane management and further action is needed, e.g. to avoid that methane levels will rise further in the Arctic, which threatens to trigger further releases and escalate into runaway global warming. Measures to reduce methane can also benefit soil quality worldwide, as indicated by the long green arrow on the right.

Thus, the proposed action tackles the prospect of mass death and extinction by increasing soil fertility, as illustrated by the image below.

As indicated at the bottom of the image, the most effective policies to accomplish the goals set out in both part 1. and part 3. are feebates, preferably implemented locally.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

High methane levels persist in December 2012

The image below was posted earlier at Methane contributes to accelerated warming in the Arctic. As mentioned there, this is a compilation of images produced by Dr. Leonid Yurganov, comparing methane levels between November 21-30, 2008 (below left), and November 21-30, 2012 (below right).

Dr. Yurganov has released two further images this year, i.e. for December 1-10, 2012 (below left), and for December 11-20, 2012 (below right).

The images show that the highest methane levels show up above the water, as opposed to above land, indicating that methane is being released from the seabed across the Arctic. The images further show that high levels of methane persist in December 2012.

Apart from comparing 10-day periods, we can also look at methane levels for individual days. The NOAA image below shows methane levels up to 2167 ppb on December 27, 2012, for the morning set of measurements.

To better see where the high (yellow) levels of methane were measured, a map with empty data is added below, showing the location of the continents more clearly on the map.

Pressure levels at which measurements are taken are displayed in hectopascals (symbol hPa) which are numerically equivalent to millibars (mb). A pressure of 600 mb (or hPa) corresponds with an altitude of 13794.9 ft (4204.7 m). By comparison, air pressure at mean sea level is 1013.25 hPa (millibar), or 29.92 inches of mercury.

The map below, from apocalypse4realmethane2012, shows methane measurements taken on the same day (December 27, 2012, morning set), but at 718 mb, which corresponds with an altitude that is a bit closer down to sea level. The map focuses on the Arctic and shows geographic names. If you like, click on the map to enlarge it.

Methane measurements were taken with the IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer) instrument, fitted onto the European Space Agencys (ESA) MetOp series of polar orbiting satellites.

For further analysis, the NOAA image with surface temperature anomalies for December 28, 2012, is added above, showing anomalies up to 20 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the NOAA image with sea surface temperature anomalies for December 27, 2012, is added below, showing anomalies up to 5 degrees Celsius.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Albedo changes in the Arctic

How global warming and feedbacks are causing huge albedo changes in the Arctic.

Snow cover decline

Decline of the snow cover on land in the northern hemisphere is accelerating, as illustrated by the image below and the image underneath on the right. (1)

Image credit: Rutgers University

Fresh snow can have an albedo as high as 0.85, meaning that up to 85% of the sunlight falling on snow can get reflected back into space. As the snow melts, its structure changes making it less reflective, i.e. its albedo will go down, to as low as 40%. (2)

As a result, more sunlight gets absorbed, accelerating the melting process. Eventually, where snow melts away, spots of bare soil become exposed, and dark wet soil has a very low albedo, reflecting only between 5% and 15% of the sunlight. Thus, even more sunlight gets absorbed and the soil's temperature increases, causing more of the remaining snow to melt. (2)

Changes in vegetation can further accelerate this process. Russia's boreal forest - the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world - has seen a transformation in recent years from larch to conifer trees. Larch trees drop their needles in the fall, allowing the vast, snow-covered ground in winter to reflect sunlight and heat back into space and helping to keep temperatures in the region very cold. But conifers such as spruce and fir retain their needles, which absorb sunlight and increase the forest's ground-level heat retention. (3)

Albedo, from Wikipedia

A conversion from larch to evergreen stands in low-diversity regions of southern Siberia would generate a local positive radiative forcing of 5.1±2.6 W m−2. This radiative heating would reinforce the warming projected to occur in the area under climate change. (4)

Tundra in the Arctic used to be covered by a white blanket of snow most of the year. However, as the landscape is warming up, more trees and shrubs appear. Scientists who studied part of the Eurasian Arctic, found that willow and alder shrubs, once stunted by harsh weather, have been growing upward to the height of trees in recent decades. They now rise above the snowfall, presenting a dark, light-absorbing surface. This increased absorption of the Sun's radiation, combined with microclimates created by forested areas, adds to global warming, making an already-warming climate warm even more rapidly. (5 & 6)

Furthermore, encroachment of trees onto Arctic tundra caused by the warming may cause large release of carbon to the atmosphere, concludes a recent study. This is because tundra soil contains a lot of stored organic matter, due to slow decomposition, but the trees stimulate the decomposition of this material. (7)

Sea ice decline

In the Arctic, sea ice volume has fallen dramatically over the years, as illustrated by the image on the right. The trend points at 2014 as the year when Arctic sea ice will first reach zero volume for some time during that year. (8)

The Arctic Ocean looks set to be ice-free for a period of at least three months in 2015 (August, September and October), and for a period of at least 6 months from the year 2020 (June through to November). (9)

Decline of the Arctic sea ice is accelerating, due to numerous feedbacks. As the Arctic atmosphere warms up, any snow cover on top of the ice will melt away ever quickly, decreasing the surface albedo and thus reinforcing the warm-up. As melt ponds appear on top of the ice, the albedo will drop even further.

Sam Carana's Diagram of Doom pictures ten feedbacks that jointly work to accelerate sea ice decline. (10)

The image below shows the three areas where albedo change will be felt most in the Arctic, i.e. sea ice loss, decline of albedo in Greenland and more early and extensive retreat of snow and ice cover in other areas in the Arctic. (8)