The environment in the news friday, 09 July, 2010

A strong wind shear reduces hurricanes by breaking up their ability to rise into the air, while less shear means they can climb and strengthen.

Thus, the Climate Prediction Center notes, "there tend to be more Atlantic hurricanes during La Nina because of this expanded area of low vertical wind shear."

In addition, during a La Nina "more hurricanes form in the deep tropics from African easterly waves. These systems have a much greater likelihood of becoming major hurricanes, and of eventually threatening the U.S. and Caribbean islands," according to the center, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The center noted that during June, sea surface temperature continued to decrease across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, with cool areas expanding across the central and eastern Pacific. In addition, increased rainfall persisted over Indonesia, while the area of reduced rain expanded westward over the western and central equatorial Pacific.

The work is being done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Indonesia's Marine and Fisheries Research.

"Explorers expect discoveries that will advance our understanding of undersea ecosystems and volcanic hydrothermal vent activity where biologically unique communities typically are found," an embassy statement said.

The joint research is the result of President Barack Obama's call for stronger scientific ties between the United States and developing countries, particularly from the Muslim world, it added.

The WWF is calling on governments in countries where tigers are still found – including China, India and Bangladesh – to fulfil their commitment to double tiger numbers by 2022.

"If we are still finding new species of fishes in the Gulf, imagine how much diversity, especially microdiversity, is out there that we do not know about."

Writing in the Journal of Fish Biology, Sparks and his colleagues named the species as Halieutichthys intermedius and H. bispinosus. A third already known species called H. aculeatus also only lives in waters affected by the spill, they said.
Pancake batfishes have round, flat bodies with giant heads and mouths they can thrust forward. They use arm-like fins to drag themselves along the bottom and a modified dorsal fin excretes fluid to lure prey.

Sparks said the three species had been considered just one species, but his team found distinct differences.

BP aims to plug the well late this month or in August.

The well has pumped millions of gallons (litres) of oil into the Gulf, coating shorelines and animals and having as yet unknown effects on creatures living in deep waters.

It threatens to devastate the Gulf region's multibillion-dollar fishing and tourist industries.

"A complete conversion to renewable energy by 2050 is possible from a technical and ecological point of view," said Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Federal Environment Agency.

Thanks to its Renewable Energy Act, Germany is the world leader in photovoltaics: it expects to add more than 5,000 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity this year to reach a total of 14,000 megawatts. It is also the second-biggest wind-power producer after the United States. Some 300,000 renewable energy jobs have been created in Germany in the last decade.

About 40% of Germany's greenhouse gases come from electricity production, in particular, from coal-fired power plants.

"The costs of a complete switch to renewables are a lot less than the costs to future generations that climate change will cause," he said.

RONA MEDIA UPDATE

U.S. coverage:

The Associated Press, 7 July 2010

Russell's inquiry into the scandal is the third major investigation into the theft and dissemination of the e-mails, which caused a sensation when they were published online in November, right before the U.N. climate change conference at Copenhagen.

Some skeptics took that as proof that scientists were faking global temperature trends. Russell's report rejected that conclusion, but did say the resulting graph was "misleading" — although not intentionally so.

Russell's report follows a British parliamentary inquiry that largely backed the scientists involved and another independent investigation that gave a clean bill of health to the science itself. Yet both reports have been criticized by skeptics who alleged they were incomplete or biased.

An Ipsos MORI poll published in June suggested that 78 per cent of Britons believed that the world's climate was changing, compared with 91 per cent five years earlier. Seventy-one per cent of respondents expressed concern about global warming, versus 82 per cent in 2005.

The pollster surveyed 1,822 people aged 15 and over in interviews between January and March 2010.
Some scientists say the scandal has made it impossible for researchers to hide data from their critics and has pushed those who do believe in the dangers of man-made global warming to be more vocal about their doubts.
"The release of the e-mails was a turning point, a game-changer," Mike Hulme, a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, told The Guardian newspaper before the Russell report was released. "Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance."
Bob Ward, the policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, agreed that openness was the now the order of the day.

"There is a need to re-establish trust," he said.

The Toronto Star, 7 July 2010, by Raphael Satter, Associated Press

The inquiry by former civil servant Muir Russell into the scandal at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit found there was no evidence of dishonesty or corruption in the more than 1,000 emails stolen and posted to the Internet late last year. But he did chide the scientists involved for failing to share their data with critics.

“We find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt,” Russell said. “But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness.”

Russell’s inquiry into the scandal is the third major investigation into the theft and dissemination of the emails, which caused a sensation when they were published online in November, right before the UN climate change conference at Copenhagen.

The messages captured researchers speaking in scathing terms about their critics, discussing ways to stonewall skeptics of man-made climate change, and talking about how to freeze opponents out of peer-reviewed journals.

The ensuing scandal energized skeptics and destabilized the Copenhagen talks. The research centre’s chief, Phil Jones, stepped down while Russell, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, investigated.

While Russell’s report said there was no evidence to show Jones or any other scientist had subverted the peer-review process, it did revisit the now infamous email exchange between Jones and a colleague in which the climatologist refers to a a “trick” used to “hide the decline” in a variable used to track global temperatures.

Some skeptics took that as proof that scientists were faking global temperature trends. Russell’s report rejected that conclusion, but did say the resulting graph was “misleading” — although not intentionally so.

Russell also criticized the university for being “unhelpful” in dealing with Freedom of Information requests — something Britain’s data-protection watchdog has already scolded the university for.

University of East Anglia Vice-Chancellor Edward Acton said the report had “completely exonerated” Jones, who would now return to the Climatic Research Unit as director of research — a new position that Acton said would free him from administrative duties.

Acton also said the university has since overhauled the way it dealt with requests for data.

Russell’s report follows a British parliamentary inquiry that largely backed the scientists involved and another independent investigation that gave a clean bill of health to the science itself. Yet both reports have been criticized by skeptics who alleged they were incomplete or biased.

It has been difficult to gauge the impact of the scandal, which played widely in the British and U.S. media. In Britain, there is some evidence that public concern over global warming has been diluted, although not by much.

An Ipsos MORI poll published last month suggested that 78 per cent of Britons believed that the world’s climate was changing, compared with 91 per cent five years earlier. Seventy-one per cent of respondents expressed concern about global warming, versus 82 per cent in 2005. The pollster surveyed 1,822 people aged 15 and over in interviews between January and March 2010.

Some scientists say the scandal has made it impossible for researchers to hide data from their critics and has pushed those who do believe in the dangers of man-made global warming to be more vocal about their doubts.

“The release of the emails was a turning point, a game-changer,” Mike Hulme, a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, told The Guardian newspaper before the Russell report was released. “Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance.”

Bob Ward, the policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, agreed that openness was the now order of the day.

“There is a need to re-establish trust,” he said.

U.S. climate scientists have received increasing amounts of hate mail and death threats, some telling them to "go gargle razor blades" or calling them "Nazi climate murderers," since researchers' e-mails were stolen from the University of East Anglia and leaked on the Internet last November. Local police say they are not able to take action against the senders because of freedom of speech protections.

Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University, has received hundreds of abusive e-mails since his name showed up in the hacked e-mails that critics say showed scientists tried to cover up data about global warming. He said the peak came during the Copenhagen climate change summit, but the amount has recently increased following the publication of a scientific paper he co-wrote that showed 97 percent of climate scientists agree mankind's carbon emissions are causing global temperatures to increase.

The attacks often follow a conservative commentator's attack on climate scientists, he and others said.

"What do I do? Learn to shoot a Magnum? Wear a bulletproof jacket?" Schneider said. "I have now had extra alarms fitted at my home, and my address is unlisted. I get scared that we're now in a new Weimar Republic where people are prepared to listen to what amounts to Hitlerian lies about climate scientists."

The attacks are not as severe in England, where the "Climategate" controversy began. Still, Phil Jones, the UEA scientist at the center of the controversy, said in February that he had been receiving two death threats a week and had contemplated suicide. "People said I should go and kill myself," he said. "They said that they knew where I lived. They were coming from all over the world."

Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said he ignores the threats. "I learned a while ago that there is no way to prevent people who have no idea who you are, or what you think, or what you do, using your name to project their problems onto," he said


Despite emission cuts, temperature will rise by 4 C -- studies

Climate Wire, 7 July 2010, Jowit/Ottery, London Guardian

Despite recent international efforts to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60 countries, global temperatures will rise by 4 degrees Celsius, increasing the risk of major extinctions, destabilizing food supplies and leading to a collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, according to an analysis of the pledges.

The Climate Interactive Scoreboard calculated that in 2100 the world will end up with temperatures nearly double the current goals. In a December meeting in Copenhagen, world leaders agreed to limit temperature rise to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Another study, by Climate Analytics at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, found that there is no way for temperatures to remain around 2 degrees Celsius with the proposed emissions cuts. It found that the rise will likely be 3.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

This is better than the business-as-usual projected rise of 4.8 degrees Celsius, but the United Nations had hoped to officially set a target of a 2-degree-Celsius maximum temperature rise in a December meeting in Cancun, Mexico.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast that a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius will have negative effects on biodiversity and increase floods and droughts. An increase of 4 degrees Celsius will be catastrophic, with a fall in food production, major extinction and a complete loss of Greenland's ice sheet.

"It's arguable the U.N. process has become dangerously cut adrift from the science of climate change," said Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser for Greenpeace.

Still, the U.N. Environment Programme hopes to avoid a 2-degree-Celsius increase in temperature by increasing emissions reduction targets after 2020. Some governments, including those of Canada and the European Union, have said that they don't want to increase their reductions now unless the United States is willing to follow suit.