The Arctic I.Cc.E. Project

The Future Is Now

A new study on the future the Arctic and the tundra was released this week, published in the Journal of Climate and sponsored by none other than the U.S. Energy Department.

The research predicts that the Arctic tundra will be "all but wiped out by 2100." They also predict that by the end of this century, the Arctic will be 25 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it is now.  And they base these predictions on climate simulations that assume an annual rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations that are lower than the current .50 percent.

What confuses me about this report, which is authored by Dr. Kenneth Caldiera with the Carnegie Institute for Global Ecology and Dr.  Bala Govindasamy of the DOE's Livermore Labs, is that they say it could be 30 years before "the climate and landscape change caused by human inaction is emissions is evident."

Huh?  Perhaps we need to define what we mean by the word "evident".

The dramatic increase of glacial melt in Greenland, the loss of summer sea ice around the Arctic, the shift of many fish and animal species several hundred miles north of their traditional spawning and feeding zones, the shorter winters, shifts in currents and ice patterns, melting permafrost, damage to homes, islands and villages... What is that if not evidence of climate change?  And you'll notice I didn't even mention the steady increase of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes over the past 25 years. I'm still giving that trend the benefit of the climate change doubt.

But of the Arctic, there is no doubt.  As I've noted in this blog repeatedly, I'm no scientist. My views are based entirely on what I've seen and experienced in person, as well as on what the Inuit are saying.  That leads me to agree that the tunrda will be gone by the time my step-daughter is a grandmother, maybe even sooner.  It also leads me to believe that we've already passed the point of no return, that the progressing damage is irreversible. 

I'd like to humbly suggest (well, maybe humbly is an overstatement) to the authors of this otherwise great study, that they reconsider their conclusion about when we'll start to see evidence. It won't be 30 years from now. We're already surrounded by it today.

Thanks to the WWF

It's been almost a month since my last entry.  One reason I've been delinquent about writing is that I've been in Tokyo speaking at a World Wildlife Fund climate change "witness" conference.  Instead of scientists, policy experts and officials, the WWF's climate change witness program relies on the observations of every day folk for information about how warming is affecting lives and environments.

The conference was a truly humbling experience.  And I'm not easily humbled.  I was one of three speakers.  The other two were from Nepal and Fiji. For me, the impact of climate change is sporadic. I feel and see it when I'm in the Arctic. But Norbu and Penina, the witnesses from Nepal and Fiji, live with it every day and they are even seeing people die from it.

Norbu Sherpa lives in the high elevation region of Nepal.  He was a Buddist monk before an environmental disaster forced him to relinquish the priesthood and become a climbing guide.  Climate change is melting the Himalayan glaciers at an alarming rate.  In fact, they are melting so fast that as they retreat, the melt water is captured as lakes, held back by fragile moraines of gravel and rock. A few years ago one of those moraines burst. The village and valley in which Norbu and his family lived was flooded and several of his family members were killed. He became a mountain guide to support the survivors.

Several thousand miles away, Penina Moce struggles with equally heart-rending consequences from climate change.  She is one of 500 people living on a remote Fijian island. What little electricity they have for light bulbs comes from a generator.  They just got telephone last year.  (Note that I said "telephone", not "telephones".) And their only source of fresh water -- for drinking, bathing and subsistance gardening -- comes from the rain.  Unfortunately, there isn't much of that these days.  The climate in Penina's part of the south Pacific is drying up.  The coral that used to protect it from typhoons is bleaching and dying. There isn't enough water to irrigate the meager vegetables that, along with fish, sustain the islanders.   Fiji is a poor country and can't afford to provide the residents with a desalination plant that would allow them to survive on what used to be an island paradise. Penina's ancestors have lived on the island as far back as their oral history goes. It's unclear how much longer Penina and her family can continue to live on the island. But when they do leave, hundreds of years of family history will come to an end.

My remarks were about the impact of climate change in the Arctic, about the muskox and reindeer that died of starvation this spring in the Thule region of Greenland, about the grizzly bears being seen for the first time in memory in Sachs Harbor, Canada (400 miles north of the Arctic Circle).  I talked about the village of Shishmaref in Alaska that, because of permafrost melt and storm erosion, is being moved to the mainland at a cost of $180 million.  And I told the audience about the thinning ice, the shifting migration patterns of fish and wildlife, the shortened hunting seasons, the thin, wandering polar bear and homes buckling from melting permafrost, the thawing tundra and the positive feedback mechanisms that appear to be accelerating it all.

The conference confirmed what I already knew: For the most vulnerable people on earth, those who still manage to live by subsistence, climate change isn't a theory, debate or discussion. It's a reality.  A living, breathing, dying reality.

US Bush versus Arctic Shrub

Several years ago I took a picture of a mature alder tree in central Greenland. It was six inches tall.

That's normal.  Here's what's not.  A just-released American Geophysical Union (AGU) study shows that more species of plant life are growing in the Arctic and all the plants, new and native, are growing bigger.

If polar palm trees sound like a good idea to you, you might want to reconsider a career in ecology.  Or any other branch of science.  Many of the new plants not only crowd out the old plants, they also contribute to albedo.

No, albedo is not a botanical sex drive.  It's a heat feedback loop.  It works like this.  Snow and ice reflect light and heat.  When snow and ice melt, soil and plants are exposed. Exposed soil and plants absorb heat.  And the more they absorb, the more they grow. And so on and so forth.  Albedo is one of the reasons scientists believe climate change may actually be accelerating in the Arctic. The AGU research reinforces that fear.

Their study examined a variety of terrain, from forests to tundra.  It found that snow and ice in places where shrubs were exposed began melting several weeks earlier than completely snow-covered areas.  They predict that if this trend continues, winter heating in tundra areas could increase up to 70 percent by the middle of this century.

Which brings me to some news of another type of bush... George. A number of prominent scientists, including Kerry Emanuel of MIT, have issued research over the past few months, building on the already overwhelming body of evidence showing that climate change exists and is leading to countless consequences, including more destructive hurricanes.  The head of President Bush's Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Marburger was asked whether the Administration would reconsider it's climate UN-changed views as a result of this new information.  His response: "I don't think it requires any particular change in the policy respects of this administration."

In fact, Marburger seemed rather proud of his boss's determination not to let scientific evidence affect his thinking.  "The various advocates for different ways of responding to climate change sieze on every new scientific paper to bolster their point of view," Marburger said. "We try to avoid that right here."

I seem to recall the tobacco industry following a similar strategy back in the 60's and 70's.

The Debris of Hubris

Given the magnitude of suffering in New Orleans and the Gulf coast region, few people have had time to consider the science of hurricane Katrina. That will come later.  But one question that will undoubtedly be asked is why hurricane Katrina, which came ashore as a category 4 did so much more damage than Camille, which was a category 5 when it struck.  I think there are a number of reasons, all of them are tied to the environmental hubris that has flooded our national psyche in the past 30 years.

One of the factors contributing to Katrina's destructive power is damage to coastal wetlands.  Since 1969, the barrier islands, marshes, reefs and other natural buffers that cushioned some of Camille's blow, have been replaced by condos, oil rigs, shopping malls and casinos. 

Another factor is the proximity of people to the ocean.  There are more people living closer to the Gulf and harms way than there were in the late 60's.

And then there's climate change.  As noted in an earlier entry to this blog, recent MIT research has found a conclusive correlation between warming sea surface temperatures and the destructive power of hurricanes.

This hurricane may be the first major climate change consequence in the continental U.S.  As such, it's turning up the heat on climate change debate in the U.S.  As much as I care about climate change and the Arctic, I never would have wished to cast a spotlight on the problem through the suffering of others.  Yet the increased discussion of global warming may be one of the few silver linings to this unimaginable tragedy.

The hurricane brought one other thought to mind.  Imagine that 9 out of 10 meteorologists warned that a category 5 hurricane was headed straight toward your home.  They warned of deadly consequences and begged you to leave. Then there was that lone dissenter, that 10th meteorologist who said, "At this point we're not sure which direction the storm will take or how strong it will be when it comes ashore."  Now imagine that you ignored the 9 dire warnings and chose only to listen to the equivocal 10th weather cast.

That's what most Americans are doing with respect to climate change. Call it hubris. Call it denial. Call it whatever you want. The devastating results are the same.

Blow Hards

As I write this, meteorologists and news anchors on channel after channel (with satellite TV, I can wear out my thumb on the remote), are warning that Hurricane Katrina could be the worst ever to hit the United States.  This should not come as a surprise to anyone.  Dozens of studies and reports have predicted that 2005 would see bigger and more frequent hurricanes out of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico because of warmer water temperatures.

Two scientific studies have been released this summer indicating that global warming is behind the growing destructive power of hurricanes and typhoons.  One comes from Kerry Emanuel of MIT whose analysis indicates that wind-caused damage has almost doubled since 1975. Emanuel used peak sustained-wind data in his model and then analyzed the destructive power of hurricanes in two of the most effected areas on earth, the north Atlantic and northwest Pacific.  His model goes back to 1950 and shows a strong correlation between storm ferocity and sea surface temperatures.

Hurricanes are fueled by temperature differentials... the difference between temperatures on the sea surface and those in the air above the storm.  The warmer the water, the tougher the storm. Previous models suggested that the half-degree increase in surface temperatures since 1975 would only intensify the storms by 10%.  That's not what Emanuel found. His study shows that the destructive power of north Atlantic hurricanes has more than doubled over that time, while the force of northwest Pacific storms is up a whopping 75%.  He believes that hike in destructive power is caused by longer storms and larger-than-expected increases in wind power.

Chris Landsea of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division in Miami, says Emanuel's research may have uncovered a smoking gun and says it's the first study to show a clear link between climate change hurricane activity.

The results of Emanuel's work were echoed in a study of storms' kinetic energy conducted by Kevin Trenberth of the U.S. National Center of Atmospheric Research located in Boulder, Colorado. 

Look, I'm not saying that these two studies prove without question or doubt that there's a link between climate distortion and hurricanes.   But as Katrina pounds on doors throughout the Gulf coast tonight, threatening lives, homes and the economy of that region, you gotta wonder what it's going to take to convince climate change naysayers that the phenomenon is real. The people who huff that they haven't seen enough research to convince them that global warming is real.  For them, I suggest a new form of research.  We line all the sceptics along the levees of New Orleans tomorrow morning when Katrina hits and see how long they continue to blow hard.

Too Much of A Good Thing

When the IPCC issued its landmark climate change report last year, it listed a few benefits that might result from arise from global warming.  It suggested that the Northwest Passage could become navigable year-round and that plants -- those hungry absorbers of carbon dioxide -- would flourish if there were more of the gas to consume.

Now comes a new study that debunks that speculation. Dr. Inez Fung of UC-Berkley, one of the world's leading climate scientists, says her work shows that there is a limit to the amount of CO2 plants can handle.  As drought and heat rise, the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide declines until they reach saturation and stop absorbing it at all.  Oceans -- the other major CO2 sink -- can also apparently reach a point of no return. Fung's work suggests that like gluttons at a Thanksgiving dinner, even the voracious oceans can reach a point where they simply cannot eat another bite.

"We're saying 'hold on a second- plants may not be happier in a warmer and drier world,'" Fung told Scotland's Sunday Herald newspaper.  Her model indicates that within 45 years the planet could reach a point where it can no longer keep up with the amount of CO2 being produced and at a minimum planetary temperatures will increase 1.4 degrees. That's Celsius.

"The earth is entering a climate space we've never seen before," Fung says.  "We don't know what the threshold is.  You might think that a one or two degree increase is not all that much, but if we're on the threshold, it could make a big difference."

Fung's research, which points to cummulative planetary damage over the past 30-40 years, was echoed by a separate piece of science published in Nature magazine last week.  A US-led team of geologists say that the collapse of the Larsen B iceshelf in Antarctica in 2002 is unprecedented in the past 11,000 years and was probably triggered by climate disruption. 

The scientists says that the Larsen B - aka the LIS-B - has been intact since the begining of the Holocene, the period which began at the end of the last ice age 11,000 years ago.   Although it has thinned gradually over the millennia, it was the dramatic warming that has occured over the past 30-40 years that caused it to calve off the continent.  The 3,250 square km shelf, which was 220 meters thick, has since broken into smaller icebergs.

The Antarctic Penninsula, like the Arctic, is considered a global warming hot spot where temperatures have climbed by about 2 degrees Celsius over the past century. In the past few years alone, the frozen continent has lost ice shelves totalling more than 12,500 square kilometers -- roughly four times the area of Luxembourg. Most of the planet's fresh water is locked up in Antarctica.

If You Can't Take the Heat...

MEMORANDUM

To:     Sen. James Inhofe, Sen. Energy Comm. Chairman 

          Cong. Joe Barton, House Energy Comm.Chairman

Fr:      House/Senate Leg. Assistants on the Environment

Re:      Your Health and Safety This Summer

Date:  July 25, 2005

___________________________________________________________________

Recommend that you avoid travel to Phoenix this week due to health dangers from a heat wave that has broken over 200 records throughout the western U.S.  18 people have died from the 100 degree+ temperatures in the past few days -- more than all heat-related deaths reported in the surrounding Maricopa County last year. (Note: This does not include any heat-related deaths to illegal immigrants, who are counted separately.)  Temperatures hit an all-time high of 116 on Sunday and are expected to remain at record or near-record levels for several days to come.

In addition to Phoenix, you should avoid Las Vegas, Chicago, Tucson, Philadelphia, Georgia, the Carolinas, most of the midwest and the entire mid-Atlantic region, including Washington, D.C. where the heat index is expected to reach 110 degrees today. We recognize that staying out of the Nation's capitol while Congress is in session makes it harder to do your jobs, but believe the sacrifice is warranted. You can't be of much help to the oil companies if you're laid up from heat exhaustion or worse, if you die from the swelter.

Most of the people who have died from the heat so far this year been either homeless or elderly.  Unlike them, you have access to climate controlled homes, offices and cars.  Still, we believe it is appropriate that you take extra precautions -- like staying in a cooler climate -- and remain well-hydrated.  People who exert themselves outside in high temperatures can lose up to a gallon of water an hour.

Unfortunatley, traveling to Europe to escape the U.S. heat wave is not an option.  That continent is also experiencing record swelter that, so far this year, has killed dozens of people, caused crop-crippling drought, led to water rationing in the U.K., Spain, France and Portugal, is melting glaciers at a record rate and has led thousands of farmers to seek emergency help from governments.

On the bright side, we have received another report from ExxonMobil scientists repeating earlier findings that they find no evidence of climate change or global warming. This confirms what you've been saying in speeches and articles for several years. As a result, we believe Cong. Barton should continue demanding the research work and funding sources of scientists who claim to have evidence of climate change. Letting them know they'll be held accountable for such claims is the most effective way to curb their campaign of fear and misinformation.

Barton. It Rhymes with Dishearten.

Maybe someone can explain to me why some Texas Republicans are so threatened by the notion of climate change? The latest example is House Energy Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Barton, who has asked several prominent climate scientists to turn over the field research, data, the computer codes they used to reach conclusions about climate change and even their funding sources.  He says it is so he can better understand their reasoning.  (Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge.)

When I heard about this, I told myself there was nothing to be gained by calling the man names like "The Joe McCarthy of Climate Change" or "Commissioner of the Thought Police".  No, rather than stoop to that level, I decided to give him some constructive advice.  Earlier today I sent the Chairman an email and suggested that obtaining data from three scientists wasn't enough. No, if he wanted to really do the country a service, he should also demand the details of the science used by the following companies, countries, organizations and individuals when developing their climate change policies. And then went on to list nearly two hundred energy companies, governments, Republican members of Congress, Republican mayors, organizations and individuals.  I won't burden you with the entire list, but here's a small sample. It includes liberal wackos like Sunoco, Shell, BP, GE, and Cinergy.  Entire governments -- like the rogue nations of Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands - have been duped by the tree huggers. The list even includes fringe elements like former Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Ted Stevens (R-Alasksa), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski (also an R).

My point, of course, is that if Cong. Barton does the math, he'll see that he and his cadre of Texans plus one Oklahoman (Sen. Jim Inhofe) are part of a shrinking elite: people who still believe climate change is a hoax. Never mind that we are the only country left on earth that can't read a thermometer.  Never mind that an overwhelming number of scientists believe that not only is climate change a fact and not only have humans contributed to it, but that the phenomenon appears to be accelerating.  And never mind that the few scientists who say "Hog wash" to global warming almost always receive funding from ExxonMobil.

Cong. Barton refuses to let facts stand in the way of his conspiracy theory.  He ignores descriptions of the millions of dollars of climate-related damage occuring in the states of his fellow Republicans.  Cong. Barton even manages to stick his fingers in his ears and sing "La, la, la, la" at the top of his lungs when big oil companies (with the exception of ExxonMobil) try to tell him that the heat is on.

These unbelievable achievements have won Cong. Joe Barton of Texas this month's Big Drip Award, named of course, for the nagging sound that glaciers make when they melt.  A plaque inscribed with the Congressman's name and the words "Believes the Earth is Flat and Tobacco is an Herbal Supplement" will be sent to him shortly.

The Gulf Stream and Other Current Events

A recent Gallup poll shows that Americans are more likely to view climate change as a future problem than a current one.  That view was in evidence last week as I did my own, miniscule, not-so-random and statiscally laughable poll of people on North Carolina's remote Ocracoke Island.  Locals there live close to nature. They're out on the sea and in the open air a lot more than those of us who live, say, in the Nation's Capitol, where walking between an air conditioned car and an air conditioned office are viewed as communing with nature.

I spent time with one Ocracoke boat captain who said that the only environmental changes he'd observed on the island in recent years involved beach erosion. He'd seen no shifts in the currents, temperatures or weather and attributed the late arrival of the flounder to Pamlico Sound this year to water that was about 8 degrees cooler than normal -- an usual, but not unheard of occurance.

Several other locals -- the guy who runs an island surf shop, a local kayaking guide, a restaurant waitress and the mate on one of the local fishing boats --agreed.  They say the wind, weather and water of Ocracoke are pretty much as they have been for years, even decades.

What's interesting about these observations is that Ocracoke -- the entire Outer Banks island system, actually -- is situated where the Labrador Current and Gulf Stream converge.  It's that convergence that creates the elbow-like crook of land on Hatteras Island.   But recent reports have suggested that the Gulf Stream may be slowing. One report points to the cold water "chimneys" in the Greenland Sea that act like pistons, powering the Gulf Stream.  Of the twelve original chimneys, only two are still functioning.  Speculation is that warming waters off the Greenland coast are causing the chimneys to sputter and stall.

If that's true, it's not being felt yet in the Outer Banks, at Diamond Shoals where the two currents collide.  There's no indication of climate change there. In this respect, Ocracoke Islanders are very much like residents of Manhattan; neither have noticed any changes to their environment. On the other hand, even without visible evidence, New Yorkers are adopting emissions policies, while the people of North Carolina, remain blissfully unaware of emission-related environmental problems.  If they think about climate change at all, it's as a issue to be dealt with way down the road.

On the other hand, most Europeans believe the climate change challenge is both immediate and urgent.  The European media has linked the 2003 heat wave, subsequent flashfloods and other extreme forms of weather to climate change. In fact, Europeans now almost automatically associate extreme weather with this environmental problem.  What's more, European environmental and energy policies are being shaped by climate change. Leaders in those countries not only recognize that the climate is being altered, they're willing to do something about it. 

But here in the U.S., the lack of tangible evidence, combined with relentless claims by the far right and the oil industry that any change in the climate is simply the result of mother nature having a growing pain, has contributed to widespread skepticism among Americans about the problem. The one surprising exception to this pattern is in U.S. business.  In the past, Americans companies have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to change.  Think of the auto industry and mandatory seat belt requirements.  Or the chemical industry and restrictions on DDT.  Or just about any industry and discussions of minimum wage hikes.  American companies have traditionally been laggards, not leaders.  So it's a pleasant surprise to see so many U.S. companies voluntarily adopting policy changes with respect to emissions and the climate.

I realize they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts; their reading of research findings has convinced them that federal climate change policy change is inevitable once George Bush leaves office and they want to get the jump on it. If only we could get the people of Ocracoke Island and the rest of America to view those research findings the same way.

The Fifth Stage of Grief

The doctors removed my chest implant on Friday. (If you expected to read about climate change, hang on. I'm getting to that.) Five years worth of reconstruction attempts after breast cancer ended in painful capsular contracture.  I finally decided to throw in the towel and give up on even the pretense of a breast.  My surgeon removed the implant that had hardened under my pectoral muscle and sewed me back up.  On the left side of my chest where there used to be a speed bump, now there is a pot hole. 

I've spent the past few weeks grieving, mourning the loss of what whas left of my breast, my old identity, the shit-kicking way I used to look.  But here's the weird thing.  Now that it's over, now that I'm concave where I used to be D-cup convex, I'm okay with it.  I looked at myself in the mirror yesterday.  One the right I have a real breast, still full and firm, just like the old days.  And on the left there's this Frankensteinish crater covered with scarred skin.  Yet instead of breaking the mirror, crying, throwing the soap dish at the tiled walls or collapsing against the towel rack, I just thought, hmm, that's me.  I guess I've already reached the fifth stage of grief, acceptance, because I'm able to look at my Jekyl and Hyde chest and go, "Yeah. So?."   In my mind's eye, it's already part of my identity.

So what -- you may be wondering -- what does this have to do with climate change?  Maybe I'm stretching the whole metaphor thing, but to me it says something about human adaptability.  We -- humans -- really do have  tremendous ability to transform, bend, stretch and adapt. 

By saying this, I'm not implying that climate change is okay.  I'm not suggesting that it's alright for the Northwest Passage to become a year-round cruise route.  It's wrong that Newfoundland, previously one of the most inhospital places on earth, will become a golfer's paradise.  The environmental, cultural and economic losses that climate change is producing are unspeakable.  I've called it environmental pornography in the past.  I continue to feel that way.

But I also feel something else.  I guess the word is hopeful.  Like, if I can learn to accept my loss and build a new identity, then maybe we as a society can do the same thing.  In fact, I think the process of adaptation is already underway.

Two weeks ago I attended a conference in London on the finance of climate change.  I learned that some countries (the U.S. is so NOT be one of them ) have accepted reality and are thinking about how to mitigate future damage, as well as how to live in greater partnership with the planet.  They are thinking about how to keep the engines of business chugging away even as some industries, like oil, begin to cough, sputter and smoke. 

My point is that it's all in the way you look at things. I can view myself as lopsided.  Or I can slap on a small prothesis and try wearing ruffley styles of clothing that would have made me look like a fluzzy when I was a D-cup. I can try doing things differently. Likewise, we can see climate change as the end of the world.  Or we can accept it, learn from this grievous mistake and envision a new relationship with this orbiting rock we call home.