Arquivo da tag: Mudanças climáticas

Durban climate change conference: ‘Sideline the UN’ says leading academic (The Ecologist)

29/11/2011UncategorizedClima, Cultura, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Matilda Lee

7th November, 2011

Ahead of the latest UN climate conference, leading academic Anthony Giddens explains why it’s time to switch to smaller agreements between major world powers

Lord Anthony Giddens, a Labour peer and former director of the London School of Economics

Ecologist: In your book the Politics of Climate Change, you give credit to the green movement for challenging orthodox politics on climate change, yet you say that it’s flawed at source. Why?

Anthony Giddens: I call myself a non-green green because I support a lot of the objectives of some elements of the green movement – globally and locally – but I am not ideologically opposed to nuclear power like many greens, although I am reserved about it. I believe in the primacy of science in trying to resolve these issues, especially around climate change. Although I am interested in protecting the forests in terms of CO2 and so forth, I think what we are trying to save is really a decent future civilisation for us. There are aspects of the development of the green movement that I am not very comfortable with, including not all conservation measures, because while some are worthwhile, sometimes you have got to take risks in the interests of controlling greater risks. Climate change, to me, being one of the primary risks we face in this century.

As far as this country is concerned, I was pleased that the coalition sustained most of the framework that Labour had put into place and I think that is important because as you know, in the US the complete polarisation of climate change issues is really unfortunate for not just the US, but the rest of the world. Here, at the moment, we don’t have that. Of course you can carp about what the government is doing now, whether it’s going back on some of its initial presumptions, and to some degree this is true. Nevertheless, there is a pretty large cross-party consensus. Ideally, I’d like every country to have that. Climate change is not a left-right issue, it concerns everybody. You’ll need all sorts of coalitions to support climate change progressive policies. But there is this tendency to polarise around left or right, especially in the US.

You need long-term policies, you don’t want parties coming in that reverse the positions of the parties before them. My feeling about the UK is that we’ve got a reasonable framework but we don’t have results from that framework. The UK is still way down the league in terms of proportion of energy taken from renewables, if you exclude nuclear. It’s more the framework than a set of substantive achievements. You have to be a bit reserved about British position or other positions where it’s all ends and objectives rather than the substantive achievements, which are in short supply across the world.

Ecologist: You mention renewable energy. Do you think the government has shot itself in the foot with backtracking on the feed-in tariff?

AG: Yes, I do. Unfortunately this has happened in other countries too. Some of the most impressive achievements in introducing renewables happened in Portugal and Spain. They introduced feed-in tariffs and one or two other subsidies and they achieved results which no one could quite believe because they introduced a high proportion of renewables within five or six-year period. We used to think, like in the case of Denmark or Sweden, it took about 25 years to do this. Now with new technology, and if you organise things right, you can do it quickly. I read an account saying that there was one day last year when Portugal met 100 per cent of its energy needs from renewables.

Even though I’m worried about the experiments in Germany, I think it was also quite interesting, the commitment to phase out nuclear power and see if you could achieve 20 per cent of renewables by 2020. I think that could be a very useful experiment for the rest of the world because Germany does have a lot of technological know-how.

Ecologist: How much value do you put on reaching an international post-Kyoto agreement?

AG: I think the UN is an indispensable organisation in global terms, but I think we need to judge in terms of substance and achievement. So far, it’s been pretty limited. I don’t think one could say in spite of 20 years next June since Rio and 17-18 years since climate change negotiations started that those negotiations have had much impact really, in terms of reducing carbon emissions, which is the only feasible measure. I think we have to keep them going, but I think we have to recognise that you’ll need more substantial agreements alongside them that would be bilateral or regional.

I think we are already seeing a change in the pattern of leadership globally, in respect of climate change issues, as a result of what happened in Copenhagen and in Cancun in which some of the large developing countries assumed much more of a leadership position, even as compared to the industrial countries. I think Brazil, under Lula has made important developments. It’s a country which has very unusually energy patterns, since about 80 per cent of its energy comes from non-fossil fuel sources. Latin America is a region that could have a leadership position, hopefully China will. I think the Chinese over the last 6-7 years have really woken up to the dangers of the glaciers melting, the threat of climate change which to me is so real and frightening in its outer edges in terms of risks.

The main joker in terms of international arena is the United States. I was hoping that there’d be important bilateral agreements between China and the US, which would lead to substantial programmes of energy transformation. So far they’ve had talks but these haven’t led to much. Lack of American leadership I find deeply disappointing. When I wrote the first edition of the book, I had high hopes that President Obama would be an inspirational leader for climate change policy. Partly because I think they put the Health Care bill ahead of everything else, it served to polarise the country and now federal leadership is more or less stymied in the US.

Ecologist: Should policy makers be focusing more on adaptation?

AG: We have to focus on adaptation anyway, because it’s close to certain as one could be that fairly high levels of climate change is embedded in the system. I think a lot of lay people hearing that world temperatures increased by 1.4 degrees think that doesn’t sound like very much. But when you think that in the Arctic it has increased several degrees and the main consequence will be extreme weather of all kinds – a combination of droughts and flooding – then you see the thin envelope that we live within, certainly in the poorer countries, we should be spending a lot on what I call “pre-emptive adaption”. But we are not. All the promises of billions flowing from the developed to developing countries – where’s the money? It would surprise me a lot if it was forthcoming in Durban given the economic situation in Europe, which is supposedly one of the main sources of this money. Again you have this distance between ambition and reality.

Ecologist: To what extent do you think developed countries can dictate the terms of development to less industrialised countries?

AG: I don’t think they can dictate terms at all. Whether we like it or not we are in a more multi-polar international environment. Many people wanted that but it is proving to be very difficult to exert systematic governance when you’ve got a more multipolar system. No one is going to be able to tell China or India or Brazil what to do. We hope they will emerge as more important leaders than in the industrial countries, but industrial countries must reform because they’ve created most of the greenhouse gases historically anyway.

I think the main thing is to focus on substance everywhere. It seems to me very important that we concentrate attention on areas where you can really make substantial progress and don’t just talk in terms of endless frameworks and negotiation.

Ecologist: Which areas are you referring to?

AG: I don’t think we are anywhere near resolving the issues without a fairly heavy dose of innovation. Both globally and nationally we should be spending to try and produce such innovation and even though you can’t predict the future, you can certainly see some areas where it would be very valuable. For example, if we could find some way of storing electricity on the large scale, it would be very valuable in terms of promoting the spread of renewable energy. I think we have to start spending now on geo-engineering. At the moment we are just miles away from being able to control carbon emissions. The most effective form of geo-engineering, if someone could make a breakthrough would be finding some way of taking greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere on a large scale. We don’t know whether it will ever be possible to do that but I think we have to invest and investigate to try and find some projects that wouldn’t be counter-productive. As you know, they could be very dangerous as people may interpret this to mean we don’t need to do anything because they’ll be some fix at the end, which is in no sense guaranteed.

I think we need to support hundreds of bottom-up innovations that are going on around the world – whether they are social, political or economic. My view is that we’ve also got to have what I call “utopian realism”. We are living through the end of industrial civilisation as it existed for the past 150 years driven by fossil fuels. This will involve changes in the way people live, which could in principle be very profound over a 20 or 30-year period. I think we’ve got to experiment on how we produce these changes and make them converge with desirable critical outcomes.

One concrete place I try to think about is transportation, which is still driven 95 per cent by oil. Look what the car has done to city centres. I’m sure we could construct more creative cities, more creative transport systems. I quote the MIT study on the future of automobiles – where they envisage a “mobility internet” and big differences from how we organise transport now – bringing down private and public distinctions, organising Smart Cars to enter in transit in different parts of transport systems. Having a fair proportion of driver-less cars on the roads, trying to reintegrate that with designing more effective communities within cities. All of us have got to explore different development models. If we have, after the recession, several years of 1 per cent growth, surely in the West there is a new invitation to discuss the nature of growth and its relationship to prosperity and wider political goals like Tim Jackson suggests in his book Prosperity without Growth.

Ecologist: Why do you suggest we need to do away with the term ‘sustainable development’?

AG: It became a popular term ever since the Bruntland report. Now there are similar terms like “green growth” and the “green economy”. To me, if you examine them they fall apart a bit. Let’s get something more substantial, something that’s not just an empty phrase. Let’s work out what it actually means on the ground and how you might achieve that. If you take the green economy, I’m in favour of it, I might prefer low-carbon economy but the point is we don’t know what a green economy is like. We haven’t done enough intellectual or practical work on it. It’s not going to be an economy where you simply have a few more renewables in it and everyone lives the same way.

Let’s say Denmark has successfully reduced its emissions to zero. It’s going to change lots of things all across the economy: job creation, job structures, transportation systems, lots of things about how people live. We need to work on this some more, and not just make empty claims. The same thing goes about green growth. We know you can create jobs through renewable technologies in some contexts, but they’ve got to be net new jobs and we’ve got to look at what happens when people lose their jobs in sectors that become less prominent.

I think we will get most growth through lifestyle change rather than the introduction of renewable technologies. When people invented the idea of the coffee shop 15 years ago, no one really thought we wanted better coffee because we lived, in the US and UK with bad coffee for hundreds of years. What people who set these things up did was to anticipate emerging trends – it wasn’t just having a dozen new kinds of coffee it was that it intersected with the information technology revolution, with people having more flexibility with where they work and therefore using computers in new places. If you generalise that, there will be many changes produced by a movement towards a more sustainable society.

The Politics of Climate Change, second edition by Anthony Giddens (Polity Press, Sept 2011, £14.24)

[Original article here]

Roteiro para acordo global sobre o clima (Correio Braziliense)

28/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4393, de 28 de Novembro de 2011.

Por Connie Hedegaard

Quando ministros e negociadores de todo o mundo se reunirem, a partir de hoje, em Durban (África do Sul) para a Conferência da ONU sobre o Clima, será um momento decisivo para avançarmos no combate internacional contra as alterações climáticas.

Alguns perguntarão: não poderíamos aguardar um pouco e tratar do problema do clima depois de termos resolvido a crise da dívida na Europa, quando houver uma nova retomada do crescimento? A resposta é não. As inundações na Tailândia e as secas no Texas e no Chifre da África são apenas alguns dos mais recentes alertas de que o problema do clima não perdeu o caráter de urgência, porque as alterações climáticas estão se agravando. O recente relatório World Energy Outlook, da Agência Internacional da Energia (AIE), foi mais um sinal de alarme: o tempo está se esgotando e a fatura vai multiplicar-se assustadoramente se não agirmos já.

Portanto, o que podemos conseguir em Durban? Os comentários da comunicação social nos deixam a impressão de que só há uma forma de aferir o êxito: levar os países desenvolvidos a subscreverem um segundo período de compromisso do Protocolo de Kyoto, após o termo do primeiro, em 2012.

Sejamos claros: a UE apoia o Protocolo de Kyoto. Baseamos a nossa legislação nos seus princípios; somos a região do mundo com o objetivo mais ambicioso no âmbito de Kyoto – e estamos a cumpri-lo. Na verdade, estamos a caminho de ultrapassar o nosso objetivo.

Mas o Protocolo de Kyoto baseia-se numa distinção nítida entre países desenvolvidos e países em desenvolvimento e exige medidas apenas aos primeiros. Não lhes parece que a evolução da economia mundial ao longo das últimas duas décadas tem atenuado cada vez mais essa distinção?

Consideremos Cingapura e Coreia do Sul. São fortes economias de exportação, com indústrias competitivas e classificações impressionantes no Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano publicado pelo Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento. Contudo, no Protocolo de Quioto, figuram como países em desenvolvimento. Ou consideremos uma economia emergente dinâmica como o Brasil. Tem indústrias florescentes, recursos naturais imensos e um rendimento per capita visivelmente superior aos da Bulgária ou da Romênia, por exemplo.

Os padrões de poluição estão igualmente colocando em causa a distinção entre países desenvolvidos e países em desenvolvimento. Segundo a AIE, o atual aumento da poluição pelo CO2 é causado principalmente por economias emergentes dependentes do carvão. E essa tendência só irá acentuar-se. Até 2035, 90% do aumento da procura de energia caberão a países não pertencentes à OCDE. No caso da China, por exemplo, as suas emissões relacionadas com a energia triplicaram desde 1990, o que a torna o maior emissor mundial. Em média, um cidadão chinês emite hoje mais do que, por exemplo, um português, um sueco ou um húngaro. Por conseguinte, o mundo simplesmente não pode combater com eficácia as alterações climáticas sem o envolvimento da China e de outras economias emergentes.

Outro problema é que os Estados Unidos não subscreveram Kyoto – nem jamais subscreverão -, além de que o Japão, a Rússia e o Canadá disseram claramente que não tencionam aderir a um segundo período de compromisso. Significa isso, em suma, que, se a União Europeia subscrevesse um segundo período relativo a Kyoto, juntamente com algumas outras economias desenvolvidas, poderia cobrir, no máximo, 16% das emissões mundiais, quando o primeiro período de Kyoto cobria cerca de um terço. Como se pode chamar a isso uma vitória para o clima? Por outras palavras, esse critério não tem hipótese de manter o aumento da temperatura abaixo de 2°C (3,6°F), que a comunidade internacional reconheceu dever ser o nosso objetivo comum.

Para termos hipótese de alcançar aquele objetivo, o que realmente necessitamos é de um quadro de ação mundial por parte de todas as grandes economias, tanto no mundo desenvolvido quanto no mundo em desenvolvimento. Um quadro de ação que verdadeiramente reflita o mundo do século 21, no qual todos os compromissos tenham o mesmo peso jurídico. A União Europeia está aberta a um segundo período de Kyoto, sob condição de que a integridade ambiental de Kyoto seja melhorada e Durban aprove um roteiro e um calendário claros para a conclusão desse quadro nos anos mais próximos e a sua aplicação, ao mais tardar, em 2020.

É minha esperança que todos os países demonstrem a vontade e a liderança política necessárias para se iniciar um tal processo em Durban. Em Copenhague, os dirigentes juraram manter-se abaixo dos 2°C. Soou a hora de provarem que não falavam em vão.

Connie Hedegaard é comissária europeia responsável pela Ação Climática.

Conferência sobre aquecimento começa sem clima na África do Sul (Folha de São Paulo)

28/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

C e-mail 4393, de 28 de Novembro de 2011.

COP-17, que reúne 190 países até o dia 10, não tem o objetivo de conseguir um novo acordo.

Já virou clichê dizer que as conferências do clima nunca alcançam o objetivo desejado. A COP-17 (17ª Conferência das Partes da Convenção do Clima das Nações Unidas), que começa hoje sob o signo da crise econômica, deve romper esse padrão: nela, o próprio objetivo foi diluído. Os diplomatas de 190 países que se reúnem de hoje ao próximo dia 10 em Durban, na África do Sul, não perseguem mais um acordo global contra emissões de gases-estufa. O que está em jogo é a continuidade ou não do acordo que existe hoje, o pífio Protocolo de Kyoto.

Para a diplomacia brasileira, a reunião terá sido um sucesso se as nações desenvolvidas concordarem em prolongar a vida do protocolo até 2020. E um fracasso em Durban traria um ônus extra para o Brasil, que sediará a próxima conferência ambiental da ONU, a Rio +20.

Kyoto, assinado em 1997, previa que os países industrializados cortassem suas emissões em 5,2% em relação a 1990 até 2012. Como se sabe, os EUA ficaram de fora, e o acordo teve impacto virtualmente nulo sobre a concentração global de gases-estufa na atmosfera, que cresceu 7% de 1997 a 2011.

Não há acordo sobre o tipo de regime que possa ampliar o combate às emissões de carbono depois que ele expirar. “Se deixarmos morrer Kyoto, o consenso é que não se vai mais conseguir um acordo desse tipo”, disse o embaixador André Corrêa do Lago, negociador-chefe do Brasil na área de clima.

Ainda mais inútil – O problema é que também há consenso de que um eventual segundo período de compromisso de Kyoto será ainda mais inútil do que o primeiro para o objetivo-mor da convenção: evitar que o planeta aqueça mais de 2°C. Os EUA, principal emissor histórico, não ratificarão Kyoto nunca. Os países emergentes, hoje os maiores emissores do planeta, não têm metas obrigatórias pelo acordo.

E outros países industrializados com obrigações no acordo, como Japão e Rússia, já anunciaram que não participarão de um segundo período: apenas dizem que vão implementar as metas voluntárias de corte de emissões com que se comprometeram na conferência de Copenhague, em 2009.

Corrêa do Lago admite que esse cenário deixa dentro de Kyoto apenas a União Europeia e outros países menores, que somam somente 15% das emissões mundiais. Sem Kyoto, porém, os países em desenvolvimento temem que se perca a diferenciação que obriga os países ricos (que poluíram mais no passado) a fazer mais.

Os países desenvolvidos, por sua vez, apelam para um acordo único. Na semana passada, o ministro do Ambiente britânico, Chris Huhne, defendeu que um tratado legalmente vinculante que envolvesse também os emergentes fosse fechado em 2015. O Brasil – que se obrigou, por lei, a cortar emissões até 2020 – não fecha a porta a um acordo desses. Mas antes os ricos terão de entregar Kyoto.

Outro impasse deve girar em torno do dinheiro que os países ricos prometeram desembolsar para o combate à mudança climática nos pobres: US$ 30 bilhões entre 2010 e 2012 e um Fundo Verde de US$ 100 bilhões por ano a partir de 2020. Com a crise da dívida dos EUA e o colapso financeiro da Europa, os principais doadores, falar em dinheiro para o clima é a proverbial corda em casa de enforcado.

A crise tem feito os países ricos levantarem dúvidas sobre que tipo de verba constitui o Fundo Verde. O discurso dos ricos agora, dizem diplomatas brasileiros, é que o dinheiro do fundo verde deve ser sobretudo privado. “Não foram setores privados que se comprometeram com o dinheiro, portanto eles não poderão ser cobrados”, afirmou o diplomata brasileiro André Odembreit.

É tarde para conter aquecimento, diz análise – Enquanto os diplomatas tentam tirar as negociações internacionais sobre o clima da irrelevância, cientistas alertam que é provavelmente tarde demais para evitar a mudança climática perigosa.

Um relatório divulgado na semana passada pelo Pnuma (Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio Ambiente) sugere que o planeta terá em 2020, na melhor das hipóteses, 6 bilhões de toneladas de CO₂ “sobrando” no ar em relação ao que precisaria para cumprir a meta de evitar um aquecimento global maior do que 2°C neste século. Para ter mais de 66% de chance de cumprir a meta, seria preciso limitar as emissões de gases-estufa a 44 bilhões de toneladas de CO₂ em 2020.

Hoje elas são de 50 bilhões de toneladas, e permanecerão nessa faixa somente se todos os países cumprirem estritamente as metas mais ambiciosas com as quais disseram que poderiam se comprometer no Acordo de Copenhague, em 2009 -a UE, por exemplo, disse que cortaria 30% de suas emissões em vez dos 20% que prometeu, mas só se outros países aumentassem sua ambição.

Caso pouco seja feito – o que parece o cenário mais provável considerando o contexto político atual -, as emissões atingirão 55 bilhões de toneladas, e o “buraco” para cumprir a meta será de 9 bilhões em vez de 6 bilhões de toneladas de CO2 em 2020. Mesmo a trajetória mais benigna de emissões põe o planeta no rumo de esquentar de 2,5°C a 5°C até 2100.

O relatório do Pnuma, intitulado “Bridging the Gap” (algo como “Tapando o Buraco”), tenta passar uma mensagem positiva: ele afirma que é “tecnicamente possível e economicamente viável” fechar o buraco de 6 bilhões de toneladas até 2020 cortando emissões em vários setores.

A probabilidade de que isso aconteça, porém, é tão pequena que nem os cientistas que elaboraram o documento acreditam nela. “Até a véspera da divulgação do estudo, nós ainda estávamos divididos sobre se deveríamos passar uma mensagem esperançosa ou pessimista”, disse à Folha Suzana Kahn Ribeiro, professora da Coppe-UFRJ e uma das coordenadoras do trabalho.

Na divulgação, porém, prevaleceu a necessidade política do Pnuma de adotar a estratégia da esperança, para estimular os negociadores em Durban a tentar um resultado mais ambicioso.

Can Climate Science Predict Extreme Weather? (Scientific American)

24/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

This year’s rash of severe weather is changing climate science. As policymakers call for better information, scientists are scrambling to understand the link between increasing emissions and natural disaster

By Joshua Zaffos and The Daily Climate | November 2, 2011

Halloween Weekend Snow Paints a Ghostly Picture in the U.S. NortheastImage: NASA Goddard Photo and Video

DENVER, Colo. – 2011 may well be remembered as the year of extremeweather in the United States, with drought in Texas, floods along the Mississippi River, a freak October snowstorm on the East Coast. Tornadoes alone would make the year memorable, with some 1,270 twisters causing 544 deaths and $25 billion in damages.

The outbreak is reshaping climate science, as researchers hone their abilities to predict severe weather and link the record-shattering destruction to humanity’s increasing emissions.

The goal: To provide better information to policymakers and local officials who must plan for and adapt to changes. “It’s a rapidly developing field,” said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office, Britain’s national weather service.

Stott led one of the first studies attributing a single extreme weather event to climate change: The 2003 European heat wave, which killed 40,000 and was the hottest summer on record since 1540. The study concluded that human influence more than doubled the event’s likelihood.

Last week, a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded there was an 80 percent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 would not have happened without the added push of global warming.

Now, Stott and other researchers are melding weather forecasting skills with pioneering computer models to attribute – or link – individual weather events to climate change. Understanding how climate change influences the weather is increasingly seen as key to predicting natural disasters, Stott said, and the new studies should help policymakers anticipate the conditions and trends associated with weather extremes. “There’s this very strong connection between attribution and prediction,” noted Stott, who spoke on these issues before colleagues last week at the World Climate Research Programme conference here in Denver.

The efforts are steering the next steps of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international body of scientists that reviews and assesses the vast pool of climate research for policymakers worldwide. The next IPCC assessment is due in 2013 – the fifth from the panel since 1990. For the first time it will include “predictions” – near-term and long-term climate forecasts based on actual conditions – instead of “projections” that simulate hypothetical scenarios and carbon emission rates.

The distinction is an advance for climate science and the IPCC, said Kevin Trenberth, who runs the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Previous IPCC assessments have cited projections that are not grounded in current or historical conditions. Instead, policymakers are given “what-if” scenarios, such as how the future climate might react to different greenhouse-gas emissions over the coming decades. The results show changes between two assumed moments in time, Trenberth said, but they lack a starting point tied to observed data and, ultimately, are informed guesses of future carbon dioxide levels and their consequences.

Climate model predictions, on the other hand, are like weather forecasts. They start from a current or historical moment to analyze climate changes. By grabbing more measurements and using new techniques, advanced climate models reveal more clearly how the atmosphere responds to increased water moisture, warmer sea temperatures and melting sea ice, all impacts of increased carbon. Compared to projections, predictions allow scientists to offer near-term climate forecasts, which should help policymakers prepare for potential adaptations in the next few decades.

The change from projections to predictions is made possible in part by a new generation of more powerful computer models. The last IPCC assessment report, published in 2007, made minor mention of feedbacks – environmental processes and interactions that can intensify extreme climate events, said Sonia Seneviratne, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who specializes on the topic. New data have since opened up scientists’ understanding of their importance.

Seneviratne is the lead author of an IPCC special report to be released later this month that focuses on climate change and extreme events. Research in this area has been “substantial and justifies a separate assessment,” she said, adding that it’s particularly a topic of interest for officials concerned with disaster preparedness and risk reduction.

The special report concludes that scientists are “virtually certain” the world will see more extremes in heat and that some places in the world will become “increasingly marginal as places to live,” according to the Associated Press, which obtained a draft. The draft also concludes there is at least a two-in-three chance that man-made global warming has already worsened weather extremes, according to the AP. The document is subject to change and needs approval from diplomats meeting in Uganda mid-month.

There are some caveats to these new climate predictions, however.

Writing in a scientific journal last year, Trenberth warned colleagues that the promise of more accurate representations of climate change will introduce new scientific uncertainties inherent to modeling more complex and realistic situations. Just as weather forecasting evokes its share of skepticism and doubt, climate predictions will likely represent a new communications challenge – and fodder for controversy and criticism – for climate scientists, said Trenberth.

“It’s about communication,” agreed Stott, who is the lead author of the 2013 IPCC report’s section on attribution and detection of climate change. “An understanding of where extreme weather fits into the longer-term picture of a changing climate helps people put this into context, and [whether] this is something that is going to become more common in the future and therefore we need to give more attention and be more prepared for these things.”

Stott and other scientists at a handful of modeling centers worldwide are focusing on the relation between climate change and extreme weather through a new initiative, Attribution of Climate-related Events. Stott says the project will move scientists further along toward forecasting extreme events and mapping the interactions with climate change.

“The goal is to be able to develop the tools and the skills, so we know when we can be confident and provide trustworthy assessments, and to do this in a timely fashion – in the immediate aftermath of a particular situation,” Stott said. “At the moment, we’re not really geared up for that. It’s very much research mode.> We’ve hardly scratched the surface.”

This article originally appeared at The Daily Climate, the climate change news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.

Joshua Zaffos is an independent journalist based in Fort Collins, Colo., His work has also appeared in High Country, Miller-McCune, and Wired. DailyClimate.org is a foundation-funded news service that covers climate change.

The human cause of climate change: Where does the burden of proof lie? (Wiley)

24/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

Dr. Kevin Trenberth advocates reversing the ‘null hypothesis’

Public release date: 3-Nov-2011
Contact: Ben Norman
44-124-377-0375
Wiley-Blackwell

The debate may largely be drawn along political lines, but the human role in climate change remains one of the most controversial questions in 21st century science. Writing in WIREs Climate Change Dr Kevin Trenberth, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, argues that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is now so clear that the burden of proof should lie with research which seeks to disprove the human role.

In response to Trenberth’s argument a second review, by Dr Judith Curry, focuses on the concept of a ‘null hypothesis’ the default position which is taken when research is carried out. Currently the null hypothesis for climate change attribution research is that humans have no influence.

“Humans are changing our climate. There is no doubt whatsoever,” said Trenberth. “Questions remain as to the extent of our collective contribution, but it is clear that the effects are not small and have emerged from the noise of natural variability. So why does the science community continue to do attribution studies and assume that humans have no influence as a null hypothesis?”

To show precedent for his position Trenberth cites the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which states that global warming is “unequivocal”, and is “very likely” due to human activities.

Trenberth also focused on climate attribution studies which claim the lack of a human component, and suggested that the assumptions distort results in the direction of finding no human influence, resulting in misleading statements about the causes of climate change that can serve to grossly underestimate the role of humans in climate events.

“Scientists must challenge misconceptions in the difference between weather and climate while attribution studies must include a human component,” concluded Trenberth. “The question should no longer be is there a human component, but what is it?”

In a second paper Dr Judith Curry, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, questions this position, but argues that the discussion on the null hypothesis serves to highlight fuzziness surrounding the many hypotheses related to dangerous climate change.

“Regarding attribution studies, rather than trying to reject either hypothesis regardless of which is the null, there should be a debate over the significance of anthropogenic warming relative to forced and unforced natural climate variability,” said Curry.

Curry also suggested that the desire to reverse the null hypothesis may have the goal of seeking to marginalise the climate sceptic movement, a vocal group who have challenged the scientific orthodoxy on climate change.

“The proponents of reversing the null hypothesis should be careful of what they wish for,” concluded Curry. “One consequence may be that the scientific focus, and therefore funding, would also reverse to attempting to disprove dangerous anthropogenic climate change, which has been a position of many sceptics.”

“I doubt Trenberth’s suggestion will find much support in the scientific community,” said Professor Myles Allen from Oxford University, “but Curry’s counter proposal to abandon hypothesis tests is worse. We still have plenty of interesting hypotheses to test: did human influence on climate increase the risk of this event at all? Did it increase it by more than a factor of two?”

###

All three papers are free online:

Trenberth. K, “Attribution of climate variations and trends to human influences and natural variability”: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/wcc.142

Curry. J, “Nullifying the climate null hypothesis”: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/wcc.141

Allen. M, “In defense of the traditional null hypothesis: remarks on the Trenberth and Curry opinion articles”: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/wcc.145

Mixed messages on climate ‘vulnerability’ (BBC)

24/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

13 November 2011 Last updated at 14:45 GMT

By Richard Black

There are concerns that climate change may exacerbate flooding in cities such as Bangkok

One of the most striking new voices on climate change that’s emerged since the UN summit in Copenhagen two years ago is the Climate Vulnerable Forum.

The grouping includes small island states vulnerable to extreme weather events and sea level rise, those with immense spans of low-lying coastline such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, and dry nations of East Africa.

It’s currently holding a meeting in Bangladesh, with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as the keynote speaker.

These countries feel vulnerable as a result of several types of projected climate impact.

In increasing order of suddenness, there are what you might call “steady-state” impacts such as rising sea levels; increased separation of weather into more concentrated wet periods and dry periods; and a greater occurrence of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, heatwaves and droughts.

But what can science really tell us about these extremes?

While the vulnerable meet in Dhaka, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be sitting down in Kampala to answer the question.

For almost a week, government delegates will pore over the summary of the IPCC’s latest report on extreme weather, with the lead scientific authors there as well. They’re scheduled to emerge on Friday with an agreed document.

The draft, which has found its way into my possession, contains a lot more unknowns than knowns.

On the one hand, it says it is “very likely” that the incidence of cold days and nights has gone down and the incidence of warm days and nights has risen globally.

And the human and financial toll of extreme weather events has risen.

Human hand fingered?

But when you get down to specifics, the academic consensus is far less certain.

Enhanced glacier melt could speed up sea level rise in the coming decades

There is “low confidence” that tropical cyclones have become more frequent, “limited-to-medium evidence available” to assess whether climatic factors have changed the frequency of floods, and “low confidence” on a global scale even on whether the frequency has risen or fallen.

In terms of attribution of trends to rising greenhouse gas concentrations, the uncertainties continue.

While it is “likely” that anthropogenic influences are behind the changes in cold days and warm days, there is only “medium confidence” that they are behind changes in extreme rainfall events, and “low confidence” in attributing any changes in tropical cyclone activity to greenhouse gas emissions or anything else humanity has done.

(These terms have specific meanings in IPCC-speak, with “very likely” meaning 90-100% and “likely” 66-100%, for example.)

And for the future, the draft gives even less succour to those seeking here a new mandate for urgent action on greenhouse gas emissions, declaring: “Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.

It’s also explicit in laying out that the rise in impacts we’ve seen from extreme weather events cannot be laid at the door of greenhouse gas emissions: “Increasing exposure of people and economic assets is the major cause of the long-term changes in economic disaster losses (high confidence).

“Long-term trends in normalized economic disaster losses cannot be reliably attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change.”

The succour only lasts for so long, however.

If the century progresses without restraints on greenhouse gas emissions, their impacts will come to dominate, it forecasts:

“It is very likely that the length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells, including heat waves, will continue to increase over most land areas…
“It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation or the proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls will increase in the 21st Century over many areas of the globe…
“Mean tropical cyclone maximum wind speed is likely to increase…
“There is medium confidence that droughts will intensify in the 21st Century in some seasons and areas…
“Low-probability high-impact changes associated with the crossing of poorly understood thresholds cannot be excluded, given the transient and complex nature of the climate system.”

The draft report makes clear that lack of evidence or lack of confidence on a particular impact doesn’t mean it won’t occur; just that it’s hard to tell.

Climate a distraction?

It’s impossible to read the draft without coming away with the impression that with or without anthropogenic climate change, extreme weather impacts are going to be felt more and more, simply because there are more and more people on planet Earth – particularly in the swelling “megacities” of the developing world that overwhelmingly lie on the coast or on big rivers close to the coast.

President Nasheed of the Maldives has warned that climate change may mean the end of his nation

The current Bangkok floods are a case in point.

As UK academic Mike Hulme and others have argued, such events will occur whether exacerbated by climate change or not; and vulnerable societies need protection irrespective of climate change.

He’s argued for a divorce, therefore, between the issues of adaptation, which he says could usefully be added into the overall process of overseas development assistance, and mitigation of emissions.

It’s not proved to be a popular notion with developing world governments, which remain determined to tie the two together in the UN climate process.

Governments of vulnerable countries argue that as developed nations caused the climate change problem, they must compensate those that suffer its impacts with money above and beyond aid.

Developing countries like the fact that under the UN climate process, the rich are committed to funding adaptation for the poor.

Yet as the brief prepared for the Dhaka meeting by the humanitarian charity Dara shows, it isn’t happening anywhere near as fast as it ought to be.

Only 8% of the “fast-start finance” pledged in Copenhagen, it says, has actually found its way to recipients.

It’s possible – no, it’s “very likely” – that the IPCC draft will be amended as the week progresses, and presumably the governments represented at the Climate Vulnerable Forum will be asking their delegates to inject a greater sense of urgency.

Although there are sobering messages, they’re not for everyone.

The warning that “some local areas will become increasingly marginal as places to live or in which to maintain livelihoods” under increased climate impacts, and that “for locations such as atolls, in some cases it is possible that many residents will have to relocate” are, in their understated way, quite chilling.

But very few of the world’s seven billion live on atolls; so will this be enough to provide a wake-up call to other countries?

It’s also possible to argue that extreme weather isn’t really the issue for the small island developing states, or for those with long flat coastlines.

The big issue (which the IPCC is much more confident about) is sea level rise – slow, progressive, predictable; capable of being dealt with in some cases (think the Netherlands) provided the will and money are there.

But capable of wiping a country off the map if those two factors are absent.

This is one of the reasons why the Climate Vulnerable Forum established itself.

They felt that although both developed and developing nations understood vulnerability in theory, they didn’t get the message viscerally.

Whether they will by the end of the week when the IPCC releases the final version, I’m not so sure.

The filmmaker: A push to broaden the reach of ‘ski porn’ (The Daily Climate)

24/11/2011Uncategorizedambientalismo, Clima, Educação, Enquadramento, Marketing, Mídia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Nov. 7, 2011

David Mossop and Sherpas Cinemas are transforming ski flicks, turning the usual plot-less, context-less jumble of skiing images into a message about environmental destruction, mass consumption and climate change.

Interview conducted and condensed by Rae Tyson

The Daily Climate

A critically acclaimed film combining action, free-style skiing and a climate impact message debuted this fall. Representing the leading edge of a new wave of ski films, All.I.Can juxtaposes “ski-porn” – plot-less montages of expert skiers flying down and off impossibly steep mountainsides – against images of environmental destruction and mass consumption. Reviewers say the movie, available on DVD and to be released on iTunes on Nov. 14, could change the genre permanently.

With enough creativity, ski films have the capacity to address almost any topic. – David Mossop

British Columbia cinematographers Eric Crossland and Dave Mossop filmed the movie in Chile, Canada, Morocco, Greenland and Alaska. ESPN’s Jamey Voss calls it “the best movie in skiing.” Dave Mossop has been doing ski films and photography for years. This is his first attempt at a film with a strong social message.

Your film company, Sherpas Cinema, has said “the time has come for a ski film that stands for something.” Explain the inspiration for All.I.Can.

The classic ski-porn formula works brilliantly and will always have its place. But skiing is about so much more than just porn. The mountains bring us every emotion in the book. With enough creativity, ski films have the capacity to address almost any topic.

All.I.Can. Official Teaser from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

Has this film altered your view about your ability to affect change?

This project has really opened my eyes to what is possible, and now it almost feels like our duty to see how far that envelope can be pushed.

What convinced you to focus on climate change?

The root of All.I.Can is the relationship between mountain people and nature. Skiers are more reliant on weather and climate than almost any other subculture. A well-crafted film has the potential to act as a trigger: If mountain culture doesn’t stand up, who will?

You traveled around the world to shoot this film. Did you see evidence of the impact of climate change in any of the locations you visited?

A big part of the climate problem is that it is too slow for us humans to perceive. But, at almost every location we went, we would hear stories from the elders indicating a warming trend.

Such as?

The Inuit of Greenland talked about the more challenging hunting conditions due to ice breakup. Bud Stoll and Mary Woodward, two of the older skiers in our film, reminisced about the deep winters the Kootenays when they were youngsters. The Chilean gauchos and Moroccan porters recalled stories of colder snowier winters.

Unchecked, do you believe that climate change might impact skiing – and other winter sports?

I know as little about climate change as everyone else. But it isn’t hard to sense that the human race is running an unsustainable program.

The reviews so far have been impressive. ESPN, for example, called All.I.Can “a wake-up call in many ways.”

We are totally overwhelmed by the response. The world was ready for this kind of cinematic discussion and the idea is striking a chord with skiers and non-skiers alike.

Some question the carbon neutrality of this project. You flew all over the globe and used fuel-guzzling helicopters. How would you respond to that?

We feel that the extra resources used in the film production are far overshadowed by the potential energy of All.I.Can. A truly beautiful film can inspire the whole world and influence countless human decisions in the future.

How did you offset the impact?

We worked with Native Energy to offset the project using carbon credits. They use the money to either counter our carbon emissions directly or invest in future innovations that build toward a sustainable future.

Any plans for future projects with an environmental theme?

I expect an environmental theme will become an undertone in all our future projects, but currently we have no locked plans.

Photos courtesy Sherpas Cinema.

Rae Tyson pioneered the environmental beat at USA Today in the 1980s and today restores and races vintage motorcycles in central Pennsylvania. Climate Query is a semi-weekly feature offered by DailyClimate.org, a nonprofit news service that covers climate change.

World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns (The Guardian)

24/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 November 2011 10.01 GMT

Pollution due to carbon emissions due to rise says IEA : Coal burning power plant, Kentucky, USA

Any fossil fuel infrastructure built in the next five years will cause irreversible climate change, according to the IEA. Photograph: Rex Features

The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

Anything built from now on that produces carbon will do so for decades, and this “lock-in” effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world’s foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.

“The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”

If the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world’s existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of that “carbon budget”, according to the IEA’s analysis, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing.

If current trends continue, and we go on building high-carbon energy generation, then by 2015 at least 90% of the available “carbon budget” will be swallowed up by our energy and industrial infrastructure. By 2017, there will be no room for manoeuvre at all – the whole of the carbon budget will be spoken for, according to the IEA’s calculations.

Birol’s warning comes at a crucial moment in international negotiations on climate change, as governments gear up for the next fortnight of talks in Durban, South Africa, from late November. “If we do not have an international agreement, whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to [holding temperatures to 2C of warming] will be closed forever,” said Birol.

But world governments are preparing to postpone a speedy conclusion to the negotiations again. Originally, the aim was to agree a successor to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the only binding international agreement on emissions, after its current provisions expire in 2012. But after years of setbacks, an increasing number of countries – including the UK, Japan and Russia – now favour postponing the talks for several years.

Both Russia and Japan have spoken in recent weeks of aiming for an agreement in 2018 or 2020, and the UK has supported this move. Greg Barker, the UK’s climate change minister, told a meeting: “We need China, the US especially, the rest of the Basic countries [Brazil, South Africa, India and China] to agree. If we can get this by 2015 we could have an agreement ready to click in by 2020.” Birol said this would clearly be too late. “I think it’s very important to have a sense of urgency – our analysis shows [what happens] if you do not change investment patterns, which can only happen as a result of an international agreement.”

Nor is this a problem of the developing world, as some commentators have sought to frame it. In the UK, Europe and the US, there are multiple plans for new fossil-fuelled power stations that would contribute significantly to global emissions over the coming decades.

The Guardian revealed in May an IEA analysis that found emissions had risen by a record amount in 2010, despite the worst recession for 80 years. Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, a rise of 1.6Gt on the previous year. At the time, Birol told the Guardian that constraining global warming to moderate levels would be “only a nice utopia” unless drastic action was taken.

The new research adds to that finding, by showing in detail how current choices on building new energy and industrial infrastructure are likely to commit the world to much higher emissions for the next few decades, blowing apart hopes of containing the problem to manageable levels. The IEA’s data is regarded as the gold standard in emissions and energy, and is widely regarded as one of the most conservative in outlook – making the warning all the more stark. The central problem is that most industrial infrastructure currently in existence – the fossil-fuelled power stations, the emissions-spewing factories, the inefficient transport and buildings – is already contributing to the high level of emissions, and will do so for decades. Carbon dioxide, once released,stays in the atmosphere and continues to have a warming effect for about a century, and industrial infrastructure is built to have a useful life of several decades.

Yet, despite intensifying warnings from scientists over the past two decades, the new infrastructure even now being built is constructed along the same lines as the old, which means that there is a “lock-in” effect – high-carbon infrastructure built today or in the next five years will contribute as much to the stock of emissions in the atmosphere as previous generations.

The “lock-in” effect is the single most important factor increasing the danger of runaway climate change, according to the IEA in its annual World Energy Outlook, published on Wednesday.

Climate scientists estimate that global warming of 2C above pre-industrial levels marks the limit of safety, beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible. Though such estimates are necessarily imprecise, warming of as little as 1.5C could cause dangerous rises in sea levels and a higher risk of extreme weather – the limit of 2C is now inscribed in international accords, including the partial agreement signed at Copenhagen in 2009, by which the biggest developed and developing countries for the first time agreed to curb their greenhouse gas output.

Another factor likely to increase emissions is the decision by some governments to abandon nuclear energy, following the Fukushima disaster. “The shift away from nuclear worsens the situation,” said Birol. If countries turn away from nuclear energy, the result could be an increase in emissions equivalent to the current emissions of Germany and France combined. Much more investment in renewable energy will be required to make up the gap, but how that would come about is unclear at present.

Birol also warned that China – the world’s biggest emitter – would have to take on a much greater role in combating climate change. For years, Chinese officials have argued that the country’s emissions per capita were much lower than those of developed countries, it was not required to take such stringent action on emissions. But the IEA’s analysis found that within about four years, China’s per capita emissions were likely to exceed those of the EU.

In addition, by 2035 at the latest, China’s cumulative emissions since 1900 are likely to exceed those of the EU, which will further weaken Beijing’s argument that developed countries should take on more of the burden of emissions reduction as they carry more of the responsibility for past emissions.

In a recent interview with the Guardian recently, China’s top climate change official, Xie Zhenhua, called on developing countries to take a greater part in the talks, while insisting that developed countries must sign up to a continuation of the Kyoto protocol – something only the European Union is willing to do. His words were greeted cautiously by other participants in the talks.

Continuing its gloomy outlook, the IEA report said: “There are few signs that the urgently needed change in direction in global energy trends is under way. Although the recovery in the world economy since 2009 has been uneven, and future economic prospects remain uncertain, global primary energy demand rebounded by a remarkable 5% in 2010, pushing CO2 emissions to a new high. Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption of fossil fuels jumped to over $400bn (£250.7bn).”

Meanwhile, an “unacceptably high” number of people – about 1.3bn – still lack access to electricity. If people are to be lifted out of poverty, this must be solved – but providing people with renewable forms of energy generation is still expensive.

Charlie Kronick of Greenpeace said: “The decisions being made by politicians today risk passing a monumental carbon debt to the next generation, one for which they will pay a very heavy price. What’s seriously lacking is a global plan and the political leverage to enact it. Governments have a chance to begin to turn this around when they meet in Durban later this month for the next round of global climate talks.”

One close observer of the climate talks said the $400bn subsidies devoted to fossil fuels, uncovered by the IEA, were “staggering”, and the way in which these subsidies distort the market presented a massive problem in encouraging the move to renewables. He added that Birol’s comments, though urgent and timely, were unlikely to galvanise China and the US – the world’s two biggest emittters – into action on the international stage.

“The US can’t move (owing to Republican opposition) and there’s no upside for China domestically in doing so. At least China is moving up the learning curve with its deployment of renewables, but it’s doing so in parallel to the hugely damaging coal-fired assets that it is unlikely to ever want (to turn off in order to) to meet climate targets in years to come.”

Energy demand

Energy demand Source: IEAChristiana Figueres, the UN climate chief, said the findings underlined the urgency of the climate problem, but stressed the progress made in recent years. “This is not the scenario we wanted,” she said. “But making an agreement is not easy. What we are looking at is not an international environment agreement — what we are looking at is nothing other than the biggest industrial and energy revolution that has ever been seen.”

Where Did Global Warming Go? (N.Y. Times)

24/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, jornalismo, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Published: October 15, 2011

Mark Pernice and Scott Altmann

IN 2008, both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president, Barack Obama and John McCain, warned about man-made global warming and supported legislation to curb emissions. After he was elected, President Obama promised “a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change,” and arrived cavalry-like at the 2009 United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen to broker a global pact.

But two years later, now that nearly every other nation accepts climate change as a pressing problem, America has turned agnostic on the issue.

In the crowded Republican presidential field, most seem to agree with Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that “the science is not settled” on man-made global warming, as he said in a debate last month. Alone among Republicans onstage that night, Jon M. Huntsman Jr. said that he trusted scientists’ view that the problem was real. At the moment, he has the backing of about 2 percent of likely Republican voters.

Though the evidence of climate change has, if anything, solidified, Mr. Obama now talks about “green jobs” mostly as a strategy for improving the economy, not the planet. He did not mention climate in his last State of the Union address. Meanwhile, the administration is fighting to exempt United States airlines from Europe’s new plan to charge them for CO2 emissions when they land on the continent. It also seems poised to approve a nearly 2,000-mile-long pipeline, from Canada down through the United States, that will carry a kind of oil. Extracting it will put relatively high levels of emissions into the atmosphere.

“In Washington, ‘climate change’ has become a lightning rod, it’s a four-letter word,” said Andrew J. Hoffman, director of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainable Development.

Across the nation, too, belief in man-made global warming, and passion about doing something to arrest climate change, is not what it was five years or so ago, when Al Gore’s movie had buzz and Elizabeth Kolbert’s book about climate change, “Field Notes From a Catastrophe,” was a best seller. The number of Americans who believe the earth is warming dropped to 59 percent last year from 79 percent in 2006, according to polling by the Pew Research Group. When the British polling firm Ipsos Mori asked Americans this past summer to list their three most pressing environmental worries, “global warming/climate change” garnered only 27 percent, behind even “overpopulation.”

This fading of global warming from the political agenda is a mostly American phenomenon. True, public enthusiasm for legislation to tackle climate change has flagged somewhat throughout the developed world since the recession of 2008. Nonetheless, in many other countries, legislation to control emissions has rolled out apace. Just last Wednesday, Australia’s House of Representatives passed a carbon tax, which is expected to easily clear the country’s Senate. Europe’s six-year-old carbon emissions trading system continues its yearly expansion. In 2010, India passed a carbon tax on coal. Even China’s newest five-year plan contains a limited pilot cap-and-trade system, under which polluters pay for excess pollution.

The United States is the “one significant outlier” on responding to climate change, according to a recent global research report produced by HSBC, the London-based bank. John Ashton, Britain’s special representative for climate change, said in an interview that “in the U.K., in Europe, in most places I travel to” — but not in the United States — “the starting point for conversation is that this is real, there are clear and present dangers, so let’s get a move on and respond.” After watching the Republican candidates express skepticism about global warming in early September, former President Bill Clinton put it more bluntly, “I mean, it makes us — we look like a joke, right?”

Americans — who produce twice the emissions per capita that Europeans do — are in many ways wired to be holdouts. We prefer bigger cars and bigger homes. We value personal freedom, are suspicious of scientists, and tend to distrust the kind of sweeping government intervention required to confront rising greenhouse gas emissions.

“Climate change presents numerous ideological challenges to our culture and our beliefs,” Professor Hoffman of the Erb Institute says. “People say, ‘Wait a second, this is really going to affect how we live!’ ”

There are, of course, other factors that hardened resistance: America’s powerful fossil-fuel industry, whose profits are bound to be affected by any greater control of carbon emissions; a cold American winter in 2010 that made global warming seem less imminent; and a deep recession that made taxes on energy harder to talk about, and job creation a more pressing issue than the environment — as can be seen in the debate over the pipeline from Canada.

But it is also true that Europe has endured a deep recession and has had mild winters. What’s more, some of the loudest climate deniers are English. Yet the European Union is largely on target to meet its goal of reducing emissions by at least 20 percent over 1990 levels by 2020.

Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner on climate action, told me recently: “Look, it was not a piece of cake here either.”

In fact, many countries in Europe have come to see combating climate change and the move to a “greener” economy as about “opportunities rather than costs,” Mr. Ashton said. In Britain, the low-carbon manufacturing sector has been one of the few to grow through the economic slump.

“One thing I’ve been pleasantly surprised about in the E.U. is that despite the economic and financial crisis, the momentum on climate change has more or less continued,” Mr. Ashton said.

And Conservatives, rather than posing an obstacle, are directing aggressive climate policies in much of the world. Before becoming the European Union’s commissioner for climate action, Ms. Hedegaard was a well-known Conservative politician in her native Denmark. In Britain, where a 2008 law required deep cuts in emissions, a coalition Conservative government is now championing a Green Deal.

In the United States, the right wing of the Republican Party has managed to turn skepticism about man-made global warming into a requirement for electability, forming an unlikely triad with antiabortion and gun-rights beliefs. In findings from a Pew poll this spring, 75 percent of staunch conservatives, 63 percent of libertarians and 55 percent of Main Street Republicans said there was no solid evidence of global warming.

“This has become a partisan political issue here in a way it has not elsewhere,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. “We are seeing doubts in the U.S. largely because the issue has become a partisan one, with Democrats” — 75 percent of whom say they believe there is strong evidence of climate change — “seeing one thing and Republicans another.”

Europeans understand the challenges in the United States, though they sound increasingly impatient. “We are very much aware of the political situation in the United States and we don’t say ‘do this,’ when we know it can’t get through Congress,” said Ms. Hedegaard, when she was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly last month. But she added:

“O.K. if you can’t commit today, when can you? When are you willing to join in? Australia is making a cap-and-trade system. South Korea is introducing one. New Zealand and the E.U. have it already. So when is the time? That’s the question for the U.S.”

MEANWHILE, in the developing world, emerging economies like India and China are now pursuing aggressive climate policies. “Two years ago the assumption was that the developed world would have to lead, but now China, India and Brazil have jumped in with enthusiasm, and are moving ahead,” said Nick Robins of HSBC Global Research.

Buffeted by two years of treacherous weather that they are less able to handle than richer nations — from floods in India to water shortages in China — developing countries are feeling vulnerable. Scientists agree that extreme weather events will be more severe and frequent on a warming planet, and insurance companies have already documented an increase.

So perhaps it is no surprise that regard for climate change as “a very serious problem” has risen significantly in many developing nations over the past two years. A 2010 Pew survey showed that more than 70 percent of people in China, India and South Korea were willing to pay more for energy in order to address climate change. The number in the United States was 38 percent. China’s 12th five-year plan, for 2011-2015, directs intensive investment to low carbon industries. In contrast, in the United States, there is “no prospect of moving ahead” at a national legislative level, Mr. Robins said, although some state governments are addressing the issue.

In private, scientific advisers to Mr. Obama say he and his administration remain committed to confronting climate change and global warming. But Robert E. O’Connor, program director for decision, risk and management sciences at the National Science Foundation in Washington, said a bolder leader would emphasize real risks that, apparently, now feel distant to many Americans. “If it’s such an important issue, why isn’t he talking about it?”

Elisabeth Rosenthal is a reporter and blogger on environmental issues for The New York Times.

Why Culture Matters in the Climate Debate (The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media)

24/11/2011UncategorizedClima, comunicação científica, Cultura, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Keith Kloor, October 25, 2011

A new paper argues that climate educators and communicators are ignoring deeply held beliefs that influence climate skepticism.

It is the great riddle of the day in climate circles: Why is public concern about global warming so shallow, and why do widespread doubts about man-made climate change persist?

Everyone seems to have a pet theory. Al Gore blames the media and President Obama. Some green critics argue that Gore should look in the mirror. Let’s not ignore the recession, scholars remind us. Yes, but the lion’s share of blame must go to those “merchants of doubt”, particularly fossil fuel interests, and climate skeptics, plenty others assert. Err, actually, it’s our brain that’s the biggest problem, social scientists now say.

Commentary

Another reason, similar to that last one, is that cultural and religious beliefs predispose many to dismiss evidence that humans can greatly influence the climate. In fact, geographer Simon Donner in a paper published this week in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, argues:

“Successful climate change education and outreach programs should be designed to help overcome perceived conflict between climate science and long-held cultural beliefs, drawing upon lessons from communication and education of other potentially divisive subjects like evolution.”

Donner is not the first to try to bridge the gap between science and religion. E.O. Wilson gamely attempted to do so several years ago, with his book, The Creation. In a 2006 interview with NPR, Wilson acknowledged that, “the usual approach of secular science is to marginalize religion” in debates on environmental issues. After the book’s publication, this writer facilitated a lengthy dialogue between Wilson, ecologist Stuart Pimm and leading evangelical Richard Cizik, on areas where science and religion could find common ground. Expanding on that public dialogue has proven difficult. If anything, the polarized political landscape and the continuing climate wars have narrowed the space for science and religion to be reconciled.

Still, those who want to overcome obstacles to climate action should be mindful of culture’s importance, Donner stresses in his paper. He writes that “lingering public uncertainty about anthropogenic climate change may be rooted in an important but largely unrecognized conflict between climate science and some long held beliefs. In many cultures, the weather and climate have historically been viewed as too vast and too grand to be directly influenced by people.”

Donner writes that scholars studying public attitudes on climate change should factor in such cultural worldviews when accounting for climate skepticism. He surmises: “Underlying doubts that human activity can influence the climate may explain some of the malleability of public opinion about the scientific evidence for climate change.”

Donner suggests that climate educators and communicators learn from approaches that have worked in the evolution debate. He informs us:

“Pedagogical research on evolution finds that providing the audience with opportunities to evaluate how their culture or beliefs affect their willingness to accept scientific evidence is more effective than attempting to separate scientific views from religious or cultural views.”

Moreover, Donner argues that “reforming public communication” on climate change “will require humility on the part of scientists and educators.” He concludes:

“Climate scientists, for whom any inherent doubts about the possible extent of human influence on the climate were overcome by years of training in physics and chemistry of the climate system, need to accept that there are rational cultural, religious and historical reasons that the public may fail to believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, let alone that it warrants a policy response. It is unreasonable to expect a lay audience, not armed with the same analytical tools as scientists, to develop lasting acceptance during a one-hour public seminar of a scientific conclusion that runs counters to thousands of years of human belief. Without addressing the common long-standing belief that human activity cannot directly influence the climate, public acceptance of climate change and public engagement on climate solutions will not persist through the next cold winter or the next economic meltdown.”

The intersection where science and religion meet is all too often home to an ugly collision. Donner advises that such crack-ups can and should be avoided in the climate debate.

Can it be done?

Keith Kloor is a New York City-based freelance journalist who writes often about the environment and climate change. (E-mail: keith@yaleclimatemediaforum.org)

Scientists Find Evidence of Ancient Megadrought in Southwestern U.S. (Science Daily)

07/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, Seca, Visualidaderenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2011) — A new study at the the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research has revealed a previously unknown multi-decade drought period in the second century A.D. The findings give evidence that extended periods of aridity have occurred at intervals throughout our past.

A cross section of wood shows the annual growth rings trees add with each growing season. Dark bands of latewood form the boundary between each ring and the next. Counting backwards from the bark reveals a tree’s age. (Credit: Photo by Daniel Griffin/Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research)

Almost 900 years ago, in the mid-12^th century, the southwestern U.S. was in the middle of a multi-decade megadrought. It was the most recent extended period of severe drought known for this region. But it was not the first.

The second century A.D. saw an extended dry period of more than 100 years characterized by a multi-decade drought lasting nearly 50 years, says a new study from scientists at the University of Arizona.

UA geoscientists Cody Routson, Connie Woodhouse and Jonathan Overpeck conducted a study of the southern San Juan Mountains in south-central Colorado. The region serves as a primary drainage site for the Rio Grande and San Juan rivers.

“These mountains are very important for both the San Juan River and the Rio Grande River,” said Routson, a doctoral candidate in the environmental studies laboratory of the UA’s department of geosciences and the primary author of the study, which is upcoming in Geophysical Research Letters.

The San Juan River is a tributary for the Colorado River, meaning any climate changes that affect the San Juan drainage also likely would affect the Colorado River and its watershed. Said Routson: “We wanted to develop as long a record as possible for that region.”

Dendrochronology is a precise science of using annual growth rings of trees to understand climate in the past. Because trees add a normally clearly defined growth ring around their trunk each year, counting the rings backwards from a tree’s bark allows scientists to determine not only the age of the tree, but which years were good for growth and which years were more difficult.

“If it’s a wet year, they grow a wide ring, and if it’s a dry year, they grow a narrow ring,” said Routson. “If you average that pattern across trees in a region you can develop a chronology that shows what years were drier or wetter for that particular region.”

Darker wood, referred to as latewood because it develops in the latter part of the year at the end of the growing season, forms a usually distinct boundary between one ring and the next. The latewood is darker because growth at the end of the growing season has slowed and the cells are more compact.

To develop their chronology, the researchers looked for indications of climate in the past in the growth rings of the oldest trees in the southern San Juan region. “We drove around and looked for old trees,” said Routson.

Literally nothing is older than a bristlecone pine tree: The oldest and longest-living species on the planet, these pine trees normally are found clinging to bare rocky landscapes of alpine or near-alpine mountain slopes. The trees, the oldest of which are more than 4,000 years old, are capable of withstanding extreme drought conditions.

“We did a lot of hiking and found a couple of sites of bristlecone pines, and one in particular that we honed in on,” said Routson.

To sample the trees without damaging them, the dendrochronologists used a tool like a metal screw that bores a tiny hole in the trunk of the tree and allows them to extract a sample, called a core. “We take a piece of wood about the size and shape of a pencil from the tree,” explained Routson.

“We also sampled dead wood that was lying about the land. We took our samples back to the lab where we used a visual, graphic technique to match where the annual growth patterns of the living trees overlap with the patterns in the dead wood. Once we have the pattern matched we measure the rings and average these values to generate a site chronology.”

“In our chronology for the south San Juan mountains we created a record that extends back 2,200 years,” said Routson. “It was pretty profound that we were able to get back that far.”

The chronology extends many years earlier than the medieval period, during which two major drought events in that region already were known from previous chronologies.

“The medieval period extends roughly from 800 to 1300 A.D.,” said Routson. “During that period there was a lot of evidence from previous studies for increased aridity, in particular two major droughts: one in the middle of the 12^th century, and one at the end of the 13^th century.”

“Very few records are long enough to assess the global conditions associated with these two periods of Southwestern aridity,” said Routson. “And the available records have uncertainties.”

But the chronology from the San Juan bristlecone pines showed something completely new:

“There was another period of increased aridity even earlier,” said Routson. “This new record shows that in addition to known droughts from the medieval period, there is also evidence for an earlier megadrought during the second century A.D.”

“What we can see from our record is that it was a period of basically 50 consecutive years of below-average growth,” said Routson. “And that’s within a much broader period that extends from around 124 A.D. to 210 A.D. — about a 100-year-long period of dry conditions.”

“We’re showing that there are multiple extreme drought events that happened during our past in this region,” said Routson. “These megadroughts lasted for decades, which is much longer than our current drought. And the climatic events behind these previous dry periods are really similar to what we’re experiencing today.”

The prolonged drought in the 12^th century and the newly discovered event in the second century A.D. may both have been influenced by warmer-than-average Northern Hemisphere temperatures, Routson said: “The limited records indicate there may have been similar La Nina-like background conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which are known to influence modern drought, during the two periods.”

Although natural climate variation has led to extended dry periods in the southwestern U.S. in the past, there is reason to believe that human-driven climate change will increase the frequency of extreme droughts in the future, said Routson. In other words, we should expect similar multi-decade droughts in a future predicted to be even warmer than the past.

Routson’s research is funded by fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Science Foundation Arizona and the Climate Assessment of the Southwest. His advisors, Woodhouse of the School of Geography and Development and Overpeck of the department of geosciences and co-director of the UA’s Institute of the Environment, are co-authors of the study.

The Human Cause of Climate Change: Where Does the Burden of Proof Lie? (Science Daily)

05/11/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2011) — The debate may largely be drawn along political lines, but the human role in climate change remains one of the most controversial questions in 21st century science. Writing in WIREs Climate Change Dr Kevin Trenberth, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, argues that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is now so clear that the burden of proof should lie with research which seeks to disprove the human role.

Polar bear on melting ice. Experts argue that the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is now so clear that the burden of proof should lie with research which seeks to disprove the human role. (Credit: iStockphoto/Kristian Septimius Krogh)

To show precedent for his position Trenberth cites the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which states that global warming is “unequivocal,” and is “very likely” due to human activities.

Governo apresenta oficialmente oito propostas para a Rio+20 (Jornal da Ciência)

01/11/2011Uncategorizedambientalismo, Cidadania, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4376, de 01 de Novembro de 2011.

O governo apresenta nesta terça-feira (1º) a versão oficial do documento com oito propostas para a Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, conhecida como Rio+20, a ser realizada no Rio de Janeiro de 28 de maio a 6 de junho de 2012. O documento foi apresentado hoje pela ministra do Meio Ambiente, Izabella Teixeira e pelo Itamaraty, em coletiva de imprensa, em Brasília.

A primeira proposta é a criação de um programa de proteção socioambiental global, cujo objetivo é assegurar garantia de renda para superar a pobreza extrema no mundo e promover ações estruturantes que garantam qualidade ambiental, segurança alimentar, moradia adequada e acesso à água limpa para todos.

A ideia desse programa, conforme consta do documento, é fazer com que “toda estrutura multilateral opere” para facilitar o acesso a tecnologias, recursos financeiros, infraestrutura e capacitação, a fim de que todas as pessoas tenham a quantidade e qualidade mínima de alimento, água e ambiente saudável.

Pela proposta brasileira, esse programa teria como foco uma estratégia de garantia de renda adequada às condições de cada país, diante de um momento de crise internacional em que se mobilizam vastos recursos globais para a recuperação do sistema financeiro. “O programa seria uma aposta no componente social, importante na solução brasileira para o enfrentamento da crise”, destaca o documento. “Essa é uma plataforma de diálogo global que poderia ser um passo crucial rumo ao desenvolvimento sustentável, com potencial para reforçar o papel virtuoso do multilateralismo”, complementa.

Na segunda proposta, o governo sugere a implementação de “objetivos de desenvolvimento sustentável”, adotando um programa de economia verde inclusiva, em lugar “de negociações complexas que busquem o estabelecimento de metas restritivas vinculantes”. Dentre outros, esses objetivos poderiam estar associados a erradicação da pobreza extrema; a segurança alimentar e nutricional; acesso a empregos adequados (socialmente justos e ambientalmente corretos); acesso a fontes adequadas de energia; a microempreendedorismo e microcrédito; a inovação para a sustentabilidade; acesso a fontes adequadas de recursos hídricos; e adequação da pegada ecológica à capacidade de regeneração do planeta.

Compras públicas sustentáveis – Na terceira proposta, o Brasil sugere um pacto global para produção e consumo sustentáveis. Ou seja, um conjunto de iniciativas para promover mudanças nos padrões de produção e consumo em diversos setores. Dessa forma, poderiam ser adotadas, com caráter prioritário, iniciativas que ofereçam suporte político a compras públicas sustentáveis, já que essas representam parte significativa da economia internacional, de cerca de 15% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) mundial; a classificações de consumo e eficiência energética; e financiamento de estudos e pesquisas para o desenvolvimento sustentável (com o objetivo de qualificar recursos humanos de alto nível e apoiar projetos científicos, tecnológicos e inovadores).

A quarta proposta sugere estabelecer repositório de iniciativas para dinamizar os mecanismos nacionais e de cooperação internacional, inclusive a utilização de recursos dos organismos multilaterais. Já a quinta sugestão propõe a criação de protocolo internacional para a sustentabilidade do setor financeiro.

Na sexta proposta o governo sugere novos indicadores para mensuração do desenvolvimento. Hoje os mais importantes são o Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano (IDH) e o Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) que, como medida de desenvolvimento sustentável, “são claramente limitadas”, por não integrarem a grande diversidade de aspectos sociais e ambientais aos valores econômicos, o que induz, segundo o documento, a percepções errôneas do grau de desenvolvimento e de progresso dos países.

Na sétima proposta o governo sugere a implementação de um “pacto pela economia verde inclusiva. A ideia é estimular a divulgação de relatórios e de índices de sustentabilidade por empresas estatais, bancos de fomento, patrocinadoras de entidades de previdência privada, empresas de capital aberto e empresas de grande porte. Ou seja, além dos aspectos econômico-financeiros, essas instituições incluam nas divulgações, obrigatoriamente, e de acordo com padrões internacionalmente aceitos e comparáveis, informações sobre suas atuações em termos sociais, ambientais e de governança corporativa.

Por sua vez, a oitava proposta é ligada a “estrutura institucional do desenvolvimento sustentável. Essa aborda vários tópicos, dentre os quais a adoção de mecanismo de coordenação institucional para o desenvolvimento sustentável”; reforma do Conselho Econômico e Social das Nações Unidas (ECOSOC), transformando-o em Conselho de Desenvolvimento Sustentável das Nações Unidas; aperfeiçoamento da governança ambiental internacional; o lançamento de processo negociador para uma convenção global sobre acesso à informação, participação pública na tomada de decisões e acesso à justiça em temas ambientais; e a governança da água.

(Viviane Monteiro – Jornal da Ciência)

Brasil já pesquisa efeitos da mudança do clima (Valor Econômico)

29/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

JC e-mail 4373, de 27 de Outubro de 2011.

As pesquisas em mudança climática no Brasil começam a mudar de rumo. Se há alguns anos o foco estava nos esforços de redução das emissões dos gases-estufa, agora miram a adaptação ao fenômeno.

“Sabemos que nos próximos cinco ou dez anos não há perspectiva para que seja firmado internacionalmente um acordo de redução nas emissões de gases-estufa de grandes proporções, com cortes entre 70% a 80%”, diz o físico Paulo Artaxo, da USP, um estudioso da Amazônia. “Esse panorama é cada vez mais longínquo. Portanto é fundamental que se estudem estratégias de adaptação.”

Em outras palavras, as pesquisas devem se voltar para os efeitos da mudança do clima nos ecossistemas, em ambientes urbanos, em contextos sociais. “Não é uma questão de dinheiro, mas de direcionamento dos estudos”, diz Artaxo, membro do conselho diretor do Painel Brasileiro de Mudança Climática, órgão científico ligado aos ministérios da Ciência e Tecnologia e Ambiente. “O País precisa se preparar mais adequadamente para a mudança climática.”

“É preciso pesquisar mais, por exemplo, as alterações no ciclo hidrológico”, cita Reynaldo Victoria, coordenador do Programa Fapesp de Pesquisa sobre Mudanças Climáticas Globais. “Saber onde vai chover mais e onde vai chover menos”, explica. É um dos braços da pesquisa de Artaxo na Amazônia. “Porque não se quer construir uma hidrelétrica onde choverá muito menos nas próximas décadas”, ilustra o físico.

O programa de mudança climática da Fapesp já conta com investimentos de US$ 30 milhões em projetos na área. É um dos braços mais novos da fundação, mas já está ganhando musculatura. Tem 21 projetos em andamento, 14 contratos novos, dois outros em parceria com instituições estrangeiras, como o britânico Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) ou a francesa Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR). Em dez anos, a previsão é de investimentos de mais de R$ 100 milhões.

As pesquisas começam a se voltar para campos pouco estudados. “Vamos analisar questões críticas para o Brasil”, diz Artaxo. Ele cita, por exemplo, o ciclo de carbono na Amazônia – algo muito mais complexo do que estudar a fotossíntese e a respiração das plantas.

Victoria, que também é professor do Centro de Energia Nuclear Aplicada à Agricultura (Cena-USP), diz que a intenção do programa é mirar campos novos, como entender qual o papel do Atlântico Sul no clima da região Sul do Brasil e Norte da Argentina. Outro exemplo é obter registros históricos na área de paleoclima.

Os impactos na área de saúde também serão mais estudados. Já se sabe que a mudança do clima faz com que doenças que não existiam em determinado lugar, passem a ocorrer. A dengue, por exemplo, encontra ambiente propício em regiões mais quentes. Entre as novas pesquisas de doenças emergentes há o estudo de um tipo de leishmaniose, comum na Bolívia e no Peru, que não existia no Brasil e agora ameaça surgir no Acre. Provocada por um mosquito, a doença causa uma infecção cutânea e pode ser mortal.

Os pesquisadores falaram sobre seus projetos durante a Fapesp Week, evento que faz parte da comemoração pelos 50 anos da Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo e terminou ontem, em Washington.

Terra, que Tempo é Esse? (PUC)

29/10/2011Uncategorizedambientalismo, Antropologia, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, História, Incerteza, Mídia, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsão, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Por Gabriela Caesar – Do Portal, 28/10/2011. Fotos: Eduardo de Holanda.

Embora a “soberania nacional e o mercado criem cenário conflitoso”, a população está consciente de que o estilo de vida precisa mudar, acredita o antropólogo Roberto da Matta. Já a jornalista Sônia Bridi pondera que “não adianta discutir ou culpar quem começou”, mas trocar o modelo de produção. Reunidos na PUC-Rio para o debate “Terra, que tempo é esse?” (assista às partes 1 e 2 abaixo), nesta segunda-feira (24), com mediação do professor Paulo Ferracioli, do Departamento de Economia, eles reforçaram a importância de um desenvolvimento mais alinhado às demandas ambientais.

O secretário estadual do Ambiente, Carlos Minc (PT-RJ), acrescentou que a negociação com grandes empresas, como a Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN), deve incluir o acompanhamento de tecnologias que possam não só diminuir as agressões ambientais, mas também resguardar a saúde dos trabalhadores. Ainda em relação a tecnologias “ecologicamente corretas”, Sônia Bridi afirmou que o estado do Rio “erra ao se decidir por ônibus, em vez de veículo leve sobre trilho”.

Diante dos aproximadamente cem estudantes que acompanhavam o debate no auditório do RDC, Roberto da Matta destacou que a mudança para um estilo de vida mais saudável e comprometido com o ambiente revela-se igualmente importante para combater outro problema, segundo ele, agravado pela globalização: a obesidade mórbida, que dá origem ao neologismo “globesidade”. Para diminuir o avanço da doença, que aumentou em um terço na China, o antropólogo é categórico ao propor um padrão social menos consumista.

Usina de contrastes e um dos principais lubrificantes do consumo mundial, a China encara o desafio de reduzir as faturas ambientais – alvo recorrente de críticas em foruns internacionais – e de saúde. Para Sônia Bridi, a locomotiva da economia global investe no longo prazo:

– Até 2020, a China terá 20 mil quilômetros de trem bala. Eles estão preocupados com isso, porque a qualidade da saúde deles está piorando muito.

O trilho do desenvolvimento responsável não passa necessariemente por grandes investimentos. O diretor do Núcleo Interdisciplinar do Meio Ambiente (Nima), Luiz Felipe Guanaes, lembrou que iniciativas como a coleta seletiva, implantada em junho deste ano no campus da PUC-Rio, também aproximam o cidadão de um maior compromisso ambiental e social. Outra oportunidade de a “comunidade se engajar na causa”, lembrou ele, será o encontro de pesquisadores e especialistas na universidade em 2012, para a Rio+20, em parceria com a ONU.

Sônia também contou bastidores da série de reportagem “Terra, que país é esse?” – que mostrou os avanços do aquecimento global e nomeou o debate. No Peru, ela e o repórter cinematográfico Paulo Zero notaram o impacto no cotidiano, até em rituais.

– Num determinado dia, próximo à festa do Corpus Christi, confrarias do país inteiro sobem certa montanha e colhem blocos de gelo. Tiveram de mudar o ritual, que vem do tempo dos incas, incorporado pelo cristianismo. Eles pararam de tirar gelo.

Paulo Zero admite que a produção jornalística, atrelada ao cumprimento de prazos “curtos”, dificulta o tratamento do assunto. Outra barreira, diz Paulo, pode ser a logística. Para a reportagem na Groelândia, por exemplo, ele e Sônia navegaram por seis horas até chegar à ilha. Se o trajeto atrapalhou, a sorte foi uma aliada.

– Chegamos à geleira e, em cinco minutos, caiu um grande bloco de gelo. Ficamos mais três horas lá e não caiu mais nenhum pedaço de gelo. Ou seja, estávamos na hora certa e no lugar certo – contou o cinegrafista.

Parte 1 (clique na imagem)

Parte 2 (clique na imagem)

Limite próximo (Fapesp)

29/10/2011Uncategorizedambientalismo, ciência, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Política, Políticas públicas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Amazônia está muito próxima de um ponto de não retorno para sua sobrevivência, diz Thomas Lovejoy, da George Mason University, no simpósio internacional FAPESP Week (foto: JVInfante Photography/Wilson Center)

27/10/2011

Agência FAPESP – A Amazônia está muito próxima de um ponto de não retorno para sua sobrevivência, devido a uma combinação de fatores que incluem aquecimento global, desflorestamento e queimadas que minam seu sistema hidrogeológico.

A advertência foi feita por Thomas Lovejoy, atualmente professor da George Mason University, no Estado de Virgínia, EUA, no primeiro dia do simpósio internacional FAPESP Week, em Washington, nesta segunda-feira.

O biólogo Lovejoy, um dos mais importantes especialistas em Amazônia do mundo, começou a trabalhar na floresta brasileira em 1965, “apenas três anos depois da fundação da FAPESP”, lembrou.

Apesar de muita coisa positiva ter acontecido nestes 47 anos (“quando pisei pela primeira vez em Belém, só havia uma floresta nacional e uma área indígena demarcada e quase nenhum cientista brasileiro se interessava em estudar a Amazônia; hoje esse situação está totalmente invertida”), também apareceram no período diversos fatores de preocupação.

Lovejoy acredita que restam cinco anos para inverter as tendências em tempo de evitar problemas de maior gravidade. O aquecimento da temperatura média do planeta já está na casa de 0,8 grau centígrado. Ele acredita que o limite aceitável é de 2 graus centígrados e que ele pode ser alcançado até 2016 se nada for feito para efetivamente reduzi-lo.

O objetivo fixado nas mais recentes reuniões sobre o clima em Cancun e Copenhague de limitar o aumento médio da temperatura média global em 2 graus centígrados pode ser insuficiente, na opinião de Lovejoy, devido a essa conjugação de elementos.

De forma similar, Lovejoy crê que 20% de desflorestamento em relação ao tamanho original da Amazônia é o máximo que ela consegue suportar e o atual índice já é de 17% (em 1965, a taxa era de 3%).

A boa notícia, diz o biólogo, é que há bastante terra abandonada, sem nenhuma perspectiva de utilização econômica na Amazônia e que pode ser de alguma forma reflorestada, o que poderia proporcionar certa margem de segurança.

Em sua palestra, Lovejoy saudou vários cientistas brasileiros como exemplares em excelência em suas pesquisas. Entre outros, Eneas Salati, Carlos Nobre e Carlos Joly.

Indigenous Voices on Climate Change

29/10/2011UncategorizedÍndios, Cidadania, Clima, Conhecimento tradicional, Cultura, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Oralidade, participatividade, Política, Previsão, sociedade civil, Visualidaderenzotaddei

Video streaming by Ustream

Weathering Fights – Science: What’s It Up To? (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart)

28/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Enquadramento, Humor, Incerteza, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsão, Sensacionalismorenzotaddei

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:400760

Science claims it’s working to cure disease, save the planet and solve the greatest human mysteries, but Aasif Mandvi finds out what it’s really up to. (05:47) – Comedy Central

Global Warming May Worsen Effects of El Niño, La Niña Events (Climate Central)

27/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, Desastre, El Niño, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Published: October 12th, 2011

By Michael D. Lemonick

Does this mean Texas is toast?

As just about everyone knows, El Niño is a periodic unusual warming of the surface water in the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean. Actually, that’s pretty much a lie. Most people don’t know the definition of El Niño or its mirror image, La Niña, and truthfully, most people don’t much care.

What you do care about if you’re a Texan suffering through the worst one-year drought on record, or a New Yorker who had to dig out from massive snowstorms last winter (tied in part to La Niña), or a Californian who has ever had to deal with the torrential rains that trigger catastrophic mudslides (linked to El Niño), is that these natural climate cycles can elevate the odds of natural disasters where you live.

At the moment, we’re now entering the second year of the La Niña part of the cycle. La Niña is one key reason why the Southwest was so dry last winter and through the spring and summer, and since La Niña is projected to continue through the coming winter, Texas and nearby states aren’t likely to get much relief.

Precipitation outlook for winter 2011-12, showing the likelihood of below average precipitation in Texas and other drought-stricken states.

But Niñas and Niños (the broader cycle, for you weather/climate geeks, is known as the “El Niño-Southern Oscillation,” or “ENSO”) don’t just operate in isolation. They’re part of the broader climate system, which means that climate change could theoretically change how they operate — make them develop more frequently, for example, or less frequently, or be more or less pronounced. Climate change could also intensify the effects of El Niño and La Niña events.

Climate scientists have been wrestling with the first question for a while now, and they still don’t really have a definitive answer. Some climate models have suggested that global warming has already begun to cause subtle changes in ENSO cycles, and that the changes will become more pronounced later this century. But a new study, published in the Journal of Climate, doesn’t find much evidence for that.

But on the second question, the new study is a lot more definitive. “Due to a warmer and moister atmosphere,” said co-author Baylor Fox-Kemper, of the University of Colorado in a press release, “the impacts of El Niño are changing even though El Niño itself doesn’t change.”

That’s because global warming has begun to change the playing field on which El Niño and La Niña operate, just as it’s changing the background conditions that give rise to our everyday weather. The Texas drought is a prime example. Its most likely cause is reduced rainfall from La Niña-related weather patterns. But however dry Texas and Oklahoma might have been otherwise, the killer heat wave that plagued the region this past summer — the sort of heat wave global warming is already making more commonplace — baked much of the remaining moisture out of both the soil and vegetation. No wonder large parts of the Lone Star State have gone up in smoke.

A map of sea surface temperature anomalies, showing a swath of cooler than average waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean – a telltale sign La Niña conditions.

When the next El Niño occurs in a year or two, it will probably bring heavy rains to places like Southern California, whose unstable hillsides tend to slide when soggy. Except now, thanks to global warming, the typical El Niño-related storms that roll in off the Pacific may well be turbocharged, since a warmer atmosphere can hold more water. This is the reason, say many climate scientists, that downpours have become heavier in recent decades across broad geographical areas.

La Niña, plus the added moisture in the air from global warming, have also been partially implicated in the massive snowstorms that struck the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states during the last two winters. Those could get worse as well, suggests the new analysis. “What we see,” says Fox-Kemper, “is that certain atmospheric patterns, such as the blocking high pressure south of Alaska typical of La Niña winters, strengthen…so, the cooling of North America expected in a La Niña winter would be stronger in future climates.” So to pre-answer the question that will inevitably be asked next winter: no, more snow does NOT contradict the idea that the planet is warming. Quite the contrary.

Finally, for those who really do want to know what El Niño and La Niña actually are, as opposed to what they do, you can go to NOAA’s El Niño page. But be warned: there will be a quiz, and the word “thermocline” will appear.

Comments

By Kirk Petersen (Maplewood, NJ 07040)
on October 13th, 2011

Seventh paragraph, third sentence should begin “Its most likely cause”—not “it’s”.

Vital Details of Global Warming Are Eluding Forecasters (Science)

27/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Mediação tecnológica, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

Science 14 October 2011:
Vol. 334 no. 6053 pp. 173-174
DOI: 10.1126/science.334.6053.173

PREDICTING CLIMATE CHANGE

Richard A. Kerr

Decision-makers need to know how to prepare for inevitable climate change, but climate researchers are still struggling to sharpen their fuzzy picture of what the future holds.

Seattle Public Utilities officials had a question for meteorologist Clifford Mass. They were planning to install a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of storm-drain pipes that would serve the city for up to 75 years. “Their question was, what diameter should the pipe be? How will the intensity of extreme precipitation change?” Mass says. If global warming means that the past century’s rain records are no guide to how heavy future rains will be, he was asked, what could climate modeling say about adapting to future climate change? “I told them I couldn’t give them an answer,” says the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, researcher.

Climate researchers are quite comfortable with their projections for the world under a strengthening greenhouse, at least on the broadest scales. Relying heavily on climate modeling, they find that on average the globe will continue warming, more at high northern latitudes than elsewhere. Precipitation will tend to increase at high latitudes and decrease at low latitudes.

But ask researchers what’s in store for the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest, or even the western half of the United States, and they’ll often demur. As Mass notes, “there’s tremendous uncertainty here,” and he’s not just talking about the Pacific Northwest. Switching from global models to models focusing on a single region creates a more detailed forecast, but it also “piles uncertainty on top of uncertainty,” says meteorologist David Battisti of UW Seattle.

First of all, there are the uncertainties inherent in the regional model itself. Then there are the global model’s uncertainties at the regional scale, which it feeds into the regional model. As the saying goes, if the global model gives you garbage, regional modeling will only give you more detailed garbage. And still more uncertainties are created as data are transferred from the global to the regional model.

Although uncertainties abound, “uncertainty tends to be downplayed in a lot of [regional] modeling for adaptation,” says global modeler Christopher Bretherton of UW Seattle. But help is on the way. Regional modelers are well into their first extensive comparison of global-regional model combinations to sort out the uncertainties, although that won’t help Seattle’s storm-drain builders.

Most humble origins

Policymakers have long asked for regional forecasts to help them adapt to climate change, some of which is now unavoidable. Even immediate, rather drastic action to curb emissions of greenhouse gases would not likely limit warming globally to 2°C, generally considered the threshold above which “dangerous” effects set in. And nothing at all can be done to reduce the global warming effects expected in the next several decades. They are already locked into climate change.

Sharp but true? Feeding a global climate model’s prediction for midcentury (top) into a regional model gives more details (bottom), but modelers aren’t sure how accurate the details are. CREDIT: NORTH AMERICAN REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

So scientists have been doing what they can for decision-makers. Early on, it wasn’t much. A U.S. government assessment released in 2000, Climate Change Impacts on the United States, relied on the most rudimentary regional forecasting technique (Science, 23 June 2000, p. 2113). Expert committee members divided the country into eight regions and then considered what two of their best global climate models had to say about each region over the next century. The two models were somewhat consistent in the far southwest, where the report’s authors found it was likely that warmer and drier conditions would eliminate alpine ecosystems and shorten the ski season.

But elsewhere, there was far less consistency. Over the eastern two-thirds of the contiguous 48 states, for example, the two models couldn’t agree on how much moisture soils would hold in the summer. Kansas corn would either suffer severe droughts more frequently, as one model had it, or enjoy even more moisture than it currently does, as the other indicated. But at least the uncertainties were plain for all to see.

The uncertainties of regional projections nearly faded from view in the next U.S. effort, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The 2009 study drew on not two but 15 global models melded into single projections. In a technique called statistical downscaling, its authors assumed that local changes would be proportional to changes on the larger scales. And they adjusted regional projections of future climate according to how well model simulations of past climate matched actual climate.

Statistical downscaling yielded a broad warming across the lower 48 states with less warming across the southeast and up the West Coast. Precipitation was mostly down, especially in the southwest. But discussion of uncertainties in the modeling fell largely to a footnote (number 110), in which the authors cite a half-dozen papers to support their assertion that statistical downscaling techniques are “well-documented” and thoroughly corroborated.

The other sort of downscaling, known as dynamical downscaling or regional modeling, has yet to be fully incorporated into a U.S. national assessment. But an example of state-of-the-art regional modeling appeared 30 June in Environmental Research Letters. To investigate what will happen in the U.S. wine industry, regional modeler Noah Diffenbaugh of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and his colleagues embedded a detailed model that spanned the lower 48 states in a climate model that spanned the globe. The global model’s relatively fuzzy simulation of evolving climate from 1950 to 2039—calculated at points about 150 kilometers apart—then fed into the embedded regional model, which calculated a sharper picture of climate change at points only 25 kilometers apart.

Closely analyzing the regional model’s temperature projections on the West Coast, the group found that the projected warming would decrease the area suitable for production of premium wine grapes by 30% to 50% in parts of central and northern California. The loss in Washington state’s Columbia Valley would be more than 30%. But adaptation to the warming, such as the introduction of heat-tolerant varieties of grapes, could sharply reduce the losses in California and turn the Washington loss into a 150% gain.

Not so fast

A rapidly growing community of regional modelers is turning out increasingly detailed projections of future climate, but many researchers, mostly outside the downscaling community, have serious reservations. “Many regional modelers don’t do an adequate job of quantifying issues of uncertainty,” says Bretherton, who is chairing a National Academy of Sciences study committee on a national strategy for advancing climate modeling. “We’re not confident predicting the very things people are most interested in being predicted,” such as changes in precipitation.

Regional models produce strikingly detailed maps of changed climate, but they might be far off base. “The problem is that precision is often mistaken for accuracy,” Bretherton says. Battisti just doesn’t see the point of downscaling. “I would never use one of these products,” he says.

The problems start with the global models, as critics see it. Regional models must fill in the detail in the fuzzy picture of climate provided by global models, notes atmospheric scientist Edward Sarachik, professor emeritus at UW Seattle. But if the fuzzy picture of the region is wrong, the details will be wrong as well. And global models aren’t very good at painting regional pictures, he says. A glaring example, according to Sarachik, is the way global models place the cooler waters of the tropical Pacific farther west than they are in reality. Such ocean temperature differences drive weather and climate shifts in specific regions halfway around the world, but with the cold water in the wrong place, the global models drive climate change in the wrong regions.

Gregory Tripoli’s complaint about the global models is that they can’t create the medium-size weather systems that they should be sending into any embedded regional model. Tripoli, a meteorologist and modeler at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, cites the case of summertime weather disturbances that churn down off the Rocky Mountains and account for 80% of the Midwest’s summer rainfall. If a regional model forecasting for Wisconsin doesn’t extend to the Rockies, Wisconsin won’t get the major weather events that add up to be climate. And some atmospheric disturbances travel from as far away as Thailand to wreak havoc in the Midwest, he says, so they could never be included in the regional model.

A tougher nut. Predicting the details of precipitation using a regional model (bottom) fed by a global model (top) is even more uncertain than projecting regional temperature change. CREDIT: NORTH AMERICAN REGIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

Even the things the global models get right have a hard time getting into regional models, critics say. “There are a lot of problems matching regional and global models,” Tripoli says. In one problem area, global and regional models usually have different ways of accounting for atmospheric processes such as individual cloud development that neither model can simulate directly, creating further clashes. Even the different philosophies involved in building global models and regional models can lead to mismatches that create phantom atmospheric circulations, Tripoli says. “It’s not straightforward you’re going to get anything realistic,” he says.

Redeeming regional modeling

“You could say all the global and regional models are wrong; some people do say that,” notes regional modeler Filippo Giorgi of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. “My personal opinion is we do know something now. A few reports ago, it was really very, very difficult to say anything about regional climate change.”

But Giorgi says that in recent years he has been seeing increasingly consistent regional projections coming from combinations of many different models and from successive generations of models. “This means the projections are more and more reliable,” he says. “I would be confident saying the Mediterranean area will see a general decrease in precipitation in the next decades. I’ve seen this in several generations of models, and we understand the processes underlying this phenomenon. This is fairly reliable information, qualitatively. Saying whether the decrease will be 10% or 50% is a different issue.”

The skill of regional climate forecasting also varies from region to region and with what is being forecast. “Temperature is much, much easier” than precipitation, Giorgi notes. Precipitation depends on processes like atmospheric convection that operate on scales too small for any model to render in detail. Trouble simulating convection also means that higher-latitude climate is easier to project than that of the tropics, where convection dominates.

Regional modeling does have a clear advantage in areas with complex terrain such as mountainous regions, notes UW’s Mass, who does regional forecasting of both weather and climate. In the Pacific Northwest, the mountains running parallel to the coast direct onshore winds upward, predictably wringing rain and snow from the air without much difficult-to-simulate convection.

The downscaling of climate projections should be getting a boost as the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) gets up to speed. Begun in 2009, CORDEX “is really the first time we’ll get a handle on all these uncertainties,” Giorgi says. Various groups will take on each of the world’s continent-size regions. Multiple global models will be matched with multiple regional models and run multiple times to tease out the uncertainties in each. “It’s a landmark for the regional climate modeling community,” Giorgi says.

Science 23 June 2000:
Vol. 288 no. 5474 p. 2113
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5474.2113

GREENHOUSE WARMING

Dueling Models: Future U.S. Climate Uncertain

Richard A. Kerr

When Congress started funding a global climate change research program in 1990, it wanted to know what all this talk about greenhouse warming would mean for United States voters. Ten years later, a U.S. national assessment, drawing on the best available climate model predictions, concludes that the United States will indeed warm, affecting everything from the western snowpacks that supply California with water to New England’s fall foliage. But on a more detailed level, the assessment often draws a blank. Whether the cornfields of Kansas will be gripped by frequent, severe droughts, as one climate model has it, or blessed with more moisture than they now enjoy, as another predicts, the report can’t say. As much as policy-makers would like to know exactly what’s in store for Americans, the rudimentary state of regional climate science will not soon allow it, and the results of this 3-year effort brought the point home.

“This is the first time we’ve tried to take the physical [climate] system and see what effect it might have on ecosystems and socioeconomic systems,” says Thomas Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, and a co-chair of the committee of experts that pulled together the assessment report “Climate Change Impacts on the United States” (available at http://www.nacc.usgcrp.gov/). “We don’t say we know there’s going to be catastrophic drought in Kansas,” he says. “What we do say is, ‘Here’s the range of our uncertainties.’ This document should get people to think.” If anything is certain, Karl says, it’s that “the past isn’t going to be a very good guide to future climate.”

By chance, the assessment had a handy way to convey the range of uncertainty that regional modeling serves up. The report, which divides the country into eight regions, is based on a pair of state-of-the-art climate models—one from the Canadian Climate Center and one from the U.K. Hadley Center for Climate Research and Prediction—that couple a simulated atmosphere and ocean. The two models solved the problems of simplifying a complex world in different ways, leading to very different predicted U.S. climates. “In terms of temperature, the Canadian model is at the upper end of the warming by 2100” predicted by a range of models, says modeler Eric Barron of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and a member of the assessment team. “The Hadley model is toward the lower end. The Canadian model is on the dry side, and the Hadley model is on the wet side. We’re capturing a substantial portion of the range of simulations. We tried hard to convey that uncertainty.”

On a broad scale, the report can conclude: “Overall productivity of American agriculture will likely remain high, and is projected to increase throughout the 21st century,” although there will be winners and losers from place to place, and adapting agricultural practice to climate change will be key. Where the models are somewhat consistent, as in the far southwest, the report ventures what could be construed as predictions: “It is likely that some ecosystems, such as alpine ecosystems, will disappear entirely from the region,” or “Higher temperatures are likely to mean … a shorter season for winter activities, such as skiing.” Where the models clash, as on summer soil moisture over the eastern two-thirds of the lower 48 states, it explains the alternatives and suggests ways to adapt, such as switching crops.

The range of possible climate impacts laid out by the models “fairly reflects where we are in the science,” says Karl. But he notes that the effort did lack one important input: Congress mandated the assessment without funding it. “You get what you pay for,” says climatologist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. “A lot of it was done hastily.” Karl concedes that everyone involved would have liked to have had more funding delivered more reliably.

Even given more time and money, however, the assessment may not have come up with much better small-scale predictions, given the inherent limitations of the science. Even the best models today can say little that’s reliable about climate change at the regional level, never mind at the scale of a congressional district. Their picture of future climate is fuzzy—they might lump together San Francisco and Los Angeles because the models have such coarse geographic resolution—and the realism of such meteorological phenomena as clouds and precipitation is compromised by the inevitable simplifications of simulating the world in a computer.

“For the most part, these sorts of models give a warming,” says modeler Filippo Giorgi, “but they tend to give very different predictions, especially at the regional level, and there’s no way to say one should be believed over another.” Giorgi and his colleague Raquel Francisco of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, recently evaluated the uncertainties in five coupled climate models—including the two used in the national assessment—within 23 regions, the continental United States comprising roughly three regions. Giorgi concludes that as the scale of prediction shrinks, reliability drops until for small regions “the model data are not believable at all.”

Add in uncertainties external to the models, such as population and economic growth rates, says modeler Jerry D. Mahlman, director of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, and the details of future climate recede toward unintelligibility. Some people in Congress and the policy community had “almost silly expectations there would be enormously useful, small-scale specifics, if you just got the right model. But the right model doesn’t exist,” says Mahlman.

Still, even though the national assessment does not offer the list of region-by-region impacts that Congress might have hoped for, it does show “where we are adaptable and where we are vulnerable,” says global change researcher Stephen Schneider of Stanford University. In 10 years, modelers say, they’ll do better.

The Post-Normal Seduction of Climate Science (Forbes)

27/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, comunicação científica, discurso ambiental, Economia, Enquadramento, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsão, Psicologiarenzotaddei

William Pentland, 10/14/2011 @ 12:22AM |2,770 views

In early 2002, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained why the lack of evidence linking Saddam Hussein with terrorist groups did not mean there was no connection during a televised press conference.

“[T]here are known ‘knowns’ – there are things we know we know,” said Rumsfeld. “We also know there are known ‘unknowns’ – that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown ‘unknowns’ – the ones we don’t know we don’t know . . . it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

Rumsfeld turned out to be wrong about Hussein, but what if he had been talking about global warming? Well, he probably would have been on to something there. Unknowns of any ilk are a real pickle in climate science.

Indeed, uncertainty in climate science has induced a state of severe political paralysis. The trouble is that nobody really knows why. A rash of recent surveys and studies have exonerated most of the usual suspects – scientific illiteracy, industry distortions, skewed media coverage.

Now, the climate-science community is scrambling to crack the code on the “uncertainty” conundrum. Exhibit A: the October 2011 issue of the journal Climatic Change, the closest thing in climate science to gospel truth, which is devoted entirely to the subject of uncertainty.

While I have yet to digest all of the dozen or so essays, I suspect they are only the opening salvo in what is will soon become a robust debate about the significance of uncertainty in climate-change science. The first item up on the chopping block is called post-normal science (PNS).

PNS is a model of the scientific process pioneered by Jerome Ravetz and Silvio Funtowicz, which describes the peculiar challenges science encounters where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.” Unlike “normal” science in the sense described by the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, post-normal science commonly crosses disciplinary lines and involves new methods, instruments and experimental systems.

Judith Curry, a professor at Georgia Tech, weighs the wisdom of taking the plunge on PNS in an excellent piece called “Reasoning about climate uncertainty.” Drawing on the work of Dutch wunderkind, Jeroen van der Sluijs, Curry calls on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to stop marginalizing uncertainty and get real about bias in the consensus building process. Curry writes:

The consensus approach being used by the IPCC has failed to produce a thorough portrayal of the complexities of the problem and the associated uncertainties in our understanding . . . Better characterization of uncertainty and ignorance and a more realistic portrayal of confidence levels could go a long way towards reducing the “noise” and animosity portrayed in the media that fuels the public distrust of climate science and acts to stymie the policy process.

PNS is especially seductive in the context of uncertainty. Not surprisingly, Curry suggests that instituting PNS-like strategies at the IPCC “could go a long way towards reducing the ‘noise’ and animosity” surrounding climate-change science.

While I personally believe PNS is persuasive, the PNS model provokes something closer to revulsion in many people. Last year, members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a petition challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‘s Greenhouse Gas Endangerment seemed less sanguine about post-normal science:

. . . the conclusions of organizing bodies, especially the IPCC, cannot be said to reflect scientific “consensus” in any meaningful sense of that word. Instead, they reflect a political movement that has commandeered science to the service of its agenda. This is “post-normal science”: the long-dreaded arrival of deconstructionism to the natural sciences, according to which scientific quality is determined not by its fidelity to truth, but by its fidelity to the political agenda.

It seems unlikely that taking the PNS plunge would appreciably improve the U.S. public’s perception of the credibility, legitimacy and salience of climate-change assessments. This probably says more about Americans than it does about the analytic force of the PNS model.

Let’s face it. Americans do not agree on a whole hell of a lot. And they never have. Many U.S. institutions were deliberately designed to tolerate the coexistence of free states and slave-owning states. Ironically, Americans appear to agree more on climate-change science than other high-profile scientific controversies like the safety of genetically-modified organisms.

While it pains me to admit this, I am increasingly convinced that the IPCC’s role in assessing the science of climate change needs to be scaled back. The IPCC was an overly optimistic experiment in international governance designed for a world that never materialized. The U.N. General Assembly established the IPCC in the months immediately preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only two few years later, the IPCC’s first assessment report and the creation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

A new world order seemed to be dawning in those days, which is probably why it seemed like a good idea to ask scientists to tell us what constitutes “dangerous climate change.” Two decades and two world trade towers later, the world is a decidedly less hospitable place for institutions like the IPCC.

The proof is in the pudding – or, in this case, the atmosphere.

Climate Change Tumbles Down Europe’s Political Agenda as Economic Worries Take the Stage (N.Y. Times)

27/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, discurso ambiental, Economia, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Previsãorenzotaddei

By JEREMY LOVELL of ClimateWire. Published: October 13, 2011

LONDON — Climate change has all but fallen off the political agenda across Europe as the resurging economic crisis empties national coffers and shakes economic confidence, and the public and the press turn their attention to more immediate issues of rising fuels bills and joblessness, analysts say.

Sputtering economies, a shift of attention to looming elections and the prospect of little or no movement in the December climate talks in Durban, South Africa, have combined to take the political momentum out of an issue that was a major cause in Europe.

“It is way down the agenda and will not feature in elections,” said Edward Cameron, director of the World Resources Institute think tank’s international climate initiative, on the sidelines of a meeting on climate change at London’s Chatham House think tank. “At a time of joblessness and fiscal crises, it is very difficult to advance the climate change issue.”

That is as true for next year’s presidential elections in the United States as it will be in France, despite the fact that there has been a series of environmental disasters, from the Texas drought this year to Russia’s heat wave and consequent steep rise in wheat prices last year.

According to acclaimed NASA scientist James Hansen, who has been warning of impending climatic doom for decades, the lack of focus on these events is in no small part due to the fact that scientists are poor communicators while the climate change skeptics have mounted a smoothly run campaign to capitalize on any mistakes and admissions of uncertainty.

“There is a strong campaign by those people who want to continue the fossil fuel business as usual. Climate contrarians … have managed in the public’s eye to muddy the waters enough that there is uncertainty why should we do anything yet,” he said on a visit to London’s Royal Society for a meeting on lessons to be learned from past climate change battles.

“They have been winning the argument in the last several years, even though the science has become clearer,” he added.

Nuclear power issue distracts Berlin

In Germany, where a generous feed-in tariff scheme has produced some 28 gigawatts of wind power capacity and more than 18 GW of solar photovoltaic capacity, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government was forced into an abrupt U-turn on a controversial move to extend the lives of the country’s fleet of nuclear power plants. There was a political revolt after the March 11 nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan.

The oldest seven of Germany’s nuclear plants were closed immediately after Fukushima and will now never reopen, while the remainder will close by 2022.

This has had the perverse effect in a country proud of its renewable energy efforts of increasing the use of coal-fired power plants and increasing the likelihood of new coal- or gas-fired plants being built. The price tag will include higher carbon emissions at exactly the time that the Germany along with the rest of the European Union is pledged to cut emissions.

While political observers believe the climate change issue will come back to the fore at some point in Germany — a country where the Greens have played a pivotal political role — the nuclear power issue is so politically charged that it is off the agenda for now.

Even in the United Kingdom, which has a huge wind energy program and where the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came to power 15 months ago pledging to be the “greenest government ever,” there are major signs of backsliding. A long-awaited energy bill has been shelved, and renewable energy support costs and carbon emission reduction targets are either under review or about to be.

At the Conservative Party’s annual conference earlier this month, climate change was consigned to a brief debate on the opening Sunday, when delegates were mostly just arriving and finding their way around or still traveling to get there.

Damned by faint praise in London

Prime Minister David Cameron did not mention the issue in his speech to the conference — a performance that usually sets the broad agenda for the following year — and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne caused environmental outrage but satisfaction to the party’s right wing by pledging that the United Kingdom would not go any faster than its E.U. neighbors on emission cuts.

This is despite the fact that the United Kingdom has a legal target to cut its carbon emissions by at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, with cuts of 35 percent by 2022 and 50 percent by 2025, whereas the European Union’s goal is 20 percent by 2020.

It was widely reported that the 2022 target was only agreed to after a major battle in the Cabinet between supporters of Conservative Osborne and those of Liberal Democrat Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne. It has since been announced that the carbon targets will be reviewed in 2014.

Even in London, where charismatic Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson came to power in 2008 in part on a green ticket, the issue has largely been parked and replaced by transport in the run-up to next year’s mayoral elections. The city’s aging transport system is feared likely to come under massive strain during the 2012 Olympic Games.

Then there is the strange case of a strategic plan on adapting London to climate change, the draft of which was launched with great fanfare and declarations of urgency in February 2010. It was on the brink of publication in September 2010, but after that, it appeared to have vanished without trace.

At the same time, most members of City Hall’s climate change team, set up under the previous Labour administration, have been moved to other jobs.

‘Too difficult — and not a vote winner’

“Political leaders get it, but the treasuries don’t. The men with the money don’t want to be first movers,” said Nick Mabey, co-founder of environmental think tank E3G. “But the political froth has gone. It has become too difficult — and not a vote winner.”

Compounding that problem, at least in the United Kingdom, has been a series of reports underscoring the likely high cost to households of green energy policies at a time when the prices of domestic electricity and gas are already rising sharply.

A recent opinion poll found that the climate change issue has been replaced by concerns over rising fuel bills and energy security.

But Mabey is not too concerned. While the subject may be off the immediate political agenda, behind the scenes, the more enlightened corporate leaders and investment fund managers have been making their own calculations. They are moving their money into the low-carbon economic transformation that in some cases is already profitable and in many eyes essential and inevitable.

The main danger, they say, is that if climate change as a driver of action is allowed to languish too long and become too invisible while energy becomes the main motivator, it will become far harder to resurrect climate change.

For Mabey and WRI’s Cameron, while the deep and seemingly returning global economic crisis has proved a serious distraction internationally as well as domestically, all is not lost.

For a number of reasons, including the rise of a new and major climate player — China — and a series of new scientific reports on climate change due over the next two or three years, 2015 will be the next pivotal moment for the world to take collective action, they say.

“Climate change doesn’t keep people awake at night. Our task for the next few years is to move it back up the political agenda again,” said WRI’s Cameron.

Group Urges Research Into Aggressive Efforts to Fight Climate Change (N.Y. Times)

27/10/2011Uncategorizedciência, Clima, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Opinião pública, Política, Previsãorenzotaddei

By CORNELIA DEAN, Published: October 4, 2011

With political action on curbing greenhouse gases stalled, a bipartisan panel of scientists, former government officials and national security experts is recommending that the government begin researching a radical fix: directly manipulating the Earth’s climate to lower the temperature.

Members said they hoped that such extreme engineering techniques, which include scattering particles in the air to mimic the cooling effect of volcanoes or stationing orbiting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight, would never be needed. But in itsreport, to be released on Tuesday, the panel said it is time to begin researching and testing such ideas in case “the climate system reaches a ‘tipping point’ and swift remedial action is required.”

The 18-member panel was convened by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a research organization based in Washington founded by four senators — Democrats and Republicans — to offer policy advice to the government. In interviews, some of the panel members said they hoped that the mere discussion of such drastic steps would jolt the public and policy makers into meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which they called the highest priority.

The idea of engineering the planet is “fundamentally shocking,” David Keith, an energy expert at Harvard and the University of Calgary and a member of the panel, said. “It should be shocking.”

In fact, it is an idea that many environmental groups have rejected as misguided and potentially dangerous.

Jane Long, an associate director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the panel’s co-chairwoman, said that by spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, human activity was already engaged in climate modification. “We are doing it accidentally, but the Earth doesn’t know that,” she said, adding, “Going forward in ignorance is not an option.”

The panel, the Task Force on Climate Remediation Research, suggests that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy begin coordinating research and estimates that a valuable effort could begin with a few million dollars in financing over the next few years.

One reason that the United States should embrace such research, the report suggests, is the threat of unilateral action by another country. Members say research is already under way in Britain, Germany and possibly other countries, as well as in the private sector.

“A conversation about this is going to go on with us or without us,” said David Goldston, a panel member who directs government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Counciland is a former chief of staff of the House Committee on Science. “We have to understand what is at stake.”

In interviews, panelists said again and again that the continuing focus of policy makers and experts should be on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But several acknowledged that significant action remained a political nonstarter. Last month, for example, the Obama administration told the federal Environmental Protection Agency to hold off on tightening ozone standards, citing complications related to the weak economy.

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to raising the global average surface temperatures by about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years. It is impossible to predict how much impact the report will have. But given the panelists’ varied political and professional backgrounds, they seem likely to achieve one major goal: starting a broader conversation on the issue. Some climate experts have been working on it for years, but they have largely kept their discussions to themselves, saying they feared giving the impression that there might be quick fixes for climate change.

“Climate adaptation went through the same period of concern,” Mr. Goldston said, referring to the onetime reluctance of some researchers to discuss ways in which people, plants and animals might adjust to climate change. Now, he said, similar reluctance to discuss geoengineering is giving way, at least in part because “it’s possible we may have to do this no matter what.”

Although the techniques, which fall into two broad groups, are more widely known as geoengineering, the panel prefers “climate remediation.”

The first is carbon dioxide removal, in which the gas is absorbed by plants, trapped and stored underground or otherwise removed from the atmosphere. The methods are “generally uncontroversial and don’t introduce new global risks,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate expert at Stanford University and a panel member. “It’s mostly a question of how much do these things cost.”

Controversy arises more with the second group of techniques, solar radiation management, which involves increasing the amount of solar energy that bounces back into space before it can be absorbed by the Earth. They include seeding the atmosphere with reflective particles, launching giant mirrors above the earth or spewing ocean water into the air to form clouds.

These techniques are thought to pose a risk of upsetting earth’s natural rhythms. With them, Dr. Caldeira said, “the real question is what are the unknown unknowns: Are you creating more risk than you are alleviating?”

At the influential blog Climate Progress, Joe Romm, a fellow at the Center for American Progress, has made a similar point, likening geo-engineering to a dangerous course of chemotherapy and radiation to treat a condition curable through diet and exercise — or, in this case, emissions reduction.

The panel rejected any immediate application of climate remediation techniques, saying too little is known about them. In 2009, the Royal Society in Britain said much the same, assessing geoengineering technologies as “technically feasible” but adding that their potential costs, effectiveness and risks were unknown.

Similarly, in a 2010 review of federal research that might be relevant to climate remediation, the federal Government Accountability Office noted that “major uncertainties remain on the efficacy and potential consequences” of the approach. Its report also recommended that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy “establish a clear strategy for geoengineering research.”

John P. Holdren, who heads that office, declined interview requests. He issued a statement reiterating the Obama administration’s focus on “taking steps to sensibly reduce pollution that is contributing to climate change.”

Yet in an interview with The Associated Press in 2009, Dr. Holdren said the possible risks and benefits of geoengineering should be studied very carefully because “we might get desperate enough to want to use it.”

In a draft plan made public on Friday, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, a coordinating effort administered by his office, outlined its own climate change research agenda, including studies of the impacts of rapid climate change.

The plan said that climate-related projections would be crucial to future studies of the “feasibility, effectiveness and unintended consequences of strategies for deliberate, large-scale manipulations of Earth’s environment,” including carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management.

Many countries fault the United States for government inaction on climate change, especially given its longtime role as a chief contributor to the problem.

Frank Loy, a panelist and former chief climate negotiator for the United States, suggested that people around the world would see past those issues if the United States embraced geoengineering studies, provided that it was “very clear about what kind of research is undertaken and what the safeguards are.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 4, 2011

An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Frank Loy as the nation’s chief climate negotiator; he is a former chief climate negotiator. It also misstated the name of a federal agency that reported on the potential effectiveness of climate remediation. It is the Government Accountability Office, not the General Accountability Office.

Little Ice Age Shrank Europeans, Sparked Wars (NetGeo)

27/10/2011Uncategorizedambientalismo, ciência, Cultura, discurso ambiental, Economia, História, Incerteza, Meteorologia, Mudanças climáticas, Violênciarenzotaddei

Study aims to scientifically link climate change to societal upheaval.

London’s River Thames, frozen over in 1677. Painting by Abraham Hondius via Heritage Images/Corbis

Brian Handwerk, for National Geographic News

Published October 3, 2011

Pockmarked with wars, inflation, famines and shrinking humans, the 1600s in Europe came to be called the General Crisis.

But whereas historians have blamed those tumultuous decades on growing pains between feudalism and capitalism, a new study points to another culprit: the coldest stretch of the climate change period known as the Little Ice Age.

(Also see “Sun Oddly Quiet—Hints at Next ‘Little Ice Age’?”)

The Little Ice Age curbed agricultural production and eventually led to the European crisis, according to the authors of the study—said to be the first to scientifically verify cause-and-effect between climate change and large-scale human crises.

Prior to the industrial revolution, all European countries were by and large agrarian, and as study co-author David Zhang pointed out, “In agricultural societies, the economy is controlled by climate,” since it dictates growing conditions.

A team led by Zhang, of the University of Hong Kong, pored over data from Europe and other the Northern Hemisphere regions between A.D. 1500 to 1800.

The team compared climate data, such as temperatures, with other variables, including population sizes, growth rates, wars and other social disturbances, agricultural production figures and famines, grain prices, and wages.

The authors say some effects, such as food shortages and health problems, showed up almost immediately between 1560 and 1660—the Little Ice Age’s harshest period—during which growing seasons shortened and cultivated land shrank.

As arable land contracted, so too did Europeans themselves, the study notes. Average height followed the temperature line, dipping nearly an inch (two centimeters) during the late 1500s, as malnourishment spread, and rising again only as temperatures climbed after 1650, the authors found.

Others effects—such as famines, the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), or the 164 Manchu conquest of China—took decades to manifest. “Temperature is not a direct cause of war and social disturbance,” Zhang said. “The direct cause of war and social disturbance is the grain price. That is why we say climate change is the ultimate cause.”

The new study is both history lesson and warning, the researchers added.

As our climate changes due to global warming (see interactive), Zhang said, “developing countries will suffer more, because large populations in these countries [directly] rely on agricultural production.”

More: “Climate Change Killed Neanderthals, Study Says” >>