Arquivo da tag: Previsão

From the Concorde to Sci-Fi Climate Solutions (Truthout)

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Thursday, 29 January 2015 00:00 By Almuth Ernsting, Truthout

The interior of the Concorde aircraft at the Scotland Museum of Flight. (Photo: Magnus Hagdorn)

The interior of the Concorde aircraft at the Scotland Museum of Flight. (Photo: Magnus Hagdorn)

Touting “sci-fi climate solutions” – untested technologies not really scalable to the dimensions of our climate change crisis – dangerously delays the day when we actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, I took my son to Scotland’s Museum of Flight. Its proudest exhibit: a Concorde. To me, it looked stunningly futuristic. “How old,” remarked my son, looking at the confusing array of pre-digital controls in the cockpit. Watching the accompanying video – “Past Dreams of the Future” – it occurred to me that the story of the Concorde stands as a symbol for two of the biggest obstacles to addressing climate change.

The Concorde must rank among the most wasteful ways of guzzling fossil fuels ever invented. No other form of transport is as destructive to the climate as aviation – yet the Concorde burned almost five times as much fuel per person per mile as a standard aircraft. Moreover, by emitting pollutants straight into the lower stratosphere, the Concorde contributed to ozone depletion. At the time of the Concorde’s first test flight in 1969, little was known about climate change and the ozone hole had not yet been discovered. Yet by the time the Concorde was grounded – for purely economic reasons – in 2003, concerns about its impact on the ozone layer had been voiced for 32 years and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) first report had been published for 13 years.

The Concorde’s history illustrates how the elites will stop at nothing when pursuing their interests or desires. No damage to the atmosphere and no level of noise-induced misery to those living under Concorde flight paths were treated as bad enough to warrant depriving the richest of a glamorous toy.

If this first “climate change lesson” from the Concorde seems depressing, the second will be even less comfortable for many.

Back in 1969, the UK’s technology minister marveled at Concorde’s promises: “It’ll change the shape of the world; it’ll shrink the globe by half . . . It replaces in one step the entire progress made in aviation since the Wright Brothers in 1903.”

Few would have believed at that time that, from 2003, no commercial flight would reach even half the speed that had been achieved back in the 1970s.

The Concorde remained as fast – yet as inefficient and uneconomical – as it had been from its commercial inauguration in 1976 – despite vast amounts of public and industry investment. The term “Concorde fallacy” entered British dictionaries: “The idea that you should continue to spend money on a project, product, etc. in order not to waste the money or effort you have already put into it, which may lead to bad decisions.”

The lessons for those who believe in overcoming climate change through technological progress are sobering: It’s not written in the stars that every technology dreamed up can be realized, nor that, with enough time and money, every technical problem will be overcome and that, over time, every new technology will become better, more efficient and more affordable.

Yet precisely such faith in technological progress informs mainstream responses to climate change, including the response by the IPCC. At a conference last autumn, I listened to a lead author of the IPCC’s latest assessment report. His presentation began with a depressing summary of the escalating climate crisis and the massive rise in energy use and carbon emissions, clearly correlated with economic growth. His conclusion was highly optimistic: Provided we make the right choices, technological progress offers a future with zero-carbon energy for all, with ever greater prosperity and no need for economic growth to end. This, he illustrated with some drawings of what we might expect by 2050: super-grids connecting abundant nuclear and renewable energy sources across continents, new forms of mass transport (perhaps modeled on Japan’s magnetic levitation trains), new forms of aircraft (curiously reminiscent of the Concorde) and completely sustainable cars (which looked like robots on wheels). The last and most obscure drawing in his presentation was unfinished, to remind us that future technological progress is beyond our capacity to imagine; the speaker suggested it might be a printer printing itself in a new era of self-replicating machines.

These may represent the fantasies of just one of many lead authors of the IPCC’s recent report. But the IPCC’s 2014 mitigation report itself relies on a large range of techno-fixes, many of which are a long way from being technically, let alone commercially, viable. Climate justice campaigners have condemned the IPCC’s support for “false solutions” to climate change. But the term “false solutions” does not distinguish between techno-fixes that are real and scalable, albeit harmful and counterproductive on the one hand, and those that remain in the realm of science fiction, or threaten to turn into another “Concorde fallacy,” i.e. to keep guzzling public funds with no credible prospect of ever becoming truly viable. Let’s call the latter “sci-fi solutions.”

The most prominent, though by no means only, sci-fi solution espoused by the IPCC is BECCS – bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. According to their recent report, the vast majority of “pathways” or models for keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius rely on “negative emissions.” Although the report included words of caution, pointing out that such technologies are “uncertain” and “associated with challenges and risks,” the conclusion is quite clear: Either carbon capture and storage, including BECCS, is introduced on a very large scale, or the chances of keeping global warming within 2 degrees Celsius are minimal. In the meantime, the IPCC’s chair, Rajendra Pachauri, and the co-chair of the panel’s Working Group on Climate Change Mitigation, Ottmar Edenhofer, publicly advocate BECCS without any notes of caution about uncertainties – referring to it as a proven way of reducing carbon dioxide levels and thus global warming. Not surprisingly therefore, BECCS has even entered the UN climate change negotiations. The recent text, agreed at the Lima climate conference in December 2014 (“Lima Call for Action”), introduces the terms “net zero emissions” and “negative emissions,” i.e. the idea that we can reliably suck large amounts of carbon (those already emitted from burning fossil fuels) out of the atmosphere. Although BECCS is not explicitly mentioned in the Lima Call for Action, the wording implies support for it because it is treated as the key “negative emissions” technology by the IPCC.

If BECCS were to be applied at a large scale in the future, then we would have every reason to be alarmed. According to a scientific review, attempting to capture 1 billion tons of carbon through BECCS (far less than many of the “pathways” considered by the IPCC presume) would require 218 to 990 million hectares of switchgrass plantations (or similar scale plantations of other feedstocks, including trees), 1.6 to 7.4 trillion cubic meters of water a year, and 75 percent more than all the nitrogen fertilizers used worldwide (which currently stands at 1 billion tons according to the “conservative” estimates in many studies). By comparison, just 30 million hectares of land worldwide have been converted to grow feedstock for liquid biofuels so far. Yet biofuels have already become the main cause of accelerated growth in demand for vegetable oils and cereals, triggering huge volatility and rises in the price of wood worldwide. And by pushing up palm oil prices, biofuels have driven faster deforestation across Southeast Asia and increasingly in Africa. As a result of the ethanol boom, more than 6 million hectares of US land has been planted with corn, causing prairies and wetlands to be plowed up. This destruction of ecosystems, coupled with the greenhouse gas intensive use of fertilizers, means that biofuels overall are almost certainly worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they are meant to replace. There are no reasons to believe that the impacts of BECCS would be any more benign. And they would be on a much larger scale.

Capturing carbon takes a lot of energy, hence CCS requires around one-third more fuel to be burned to generate the same amount of energy. And sequestering captured carbon is a highly uncertain business. So far, there have been three large-scale carbon sequestration experiments. The longest-standing of these, the Sleipner field carbon sequestration trial in the North Sea, has been cited as proof that carbon dioxide can be sequestered reliably under the seabed. Yet in 2013, unexpected scars and fractures were found in the reservoir and a lead researcher concluded: “We are saying it is very likely something will come out in the end.” Another one of the supposedly “successful,” if much shorter, trials also raised “interesting questions,” according to the researchers: Carbon dioxide migrated further upward in the reservoir than predicted, most likely because injecting the carbon dioxide caused fractures in the cap rock.

There are thus good reasons to be alarmed about the prospect of large-scale bioenergy with CCS. Yet BECCS isn’t for real.

While the IPCC and world leaders conclude that we really need to use carbon capture and storage, including biomass, here’s what is actually happening: The Norwegian government, once proud of being a global pioneer of CCS, has pulled the plug on the country’s first full-scale CCS project after a scathing report from a public auditor. The Swedish state-owned energy company Vattenfall has shut down its CCS demonstration plant in Germany, the only plant worldwide testing a particular and supposedly promising carbon capture technology. The government of Alberta has dropped its previously enthusiastic support for CCS because it no longer sees it as economically viable.

True, 2014 has seen the opening of the world’s largest CCS power station, after SaskPower retrofitted one unit of their Boundary Dam coal power station in Saskatchewan to capture carbon dioxide. But Boundary Dam hardly confirms the techno-optimist’s hopes. The 100-megawatt unit costs approximately $1.4 billion to build – more than twice the cost of a much larger (non-CCS) 400-megawatt gas power station built by SaskPower in 2009. It became viable thanks only to public subsidies and to a contract with the oil company Cenovus, which agreed to buy the carbon dioxide for the next decade in order to inject it into an oil well to facilitate extraction of more hard to reach oil – a process called enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The supposed “carbon dioxide savings” predictably ignore all of the carbon dioxide emissions from burning that oil. But even with such a nearby oil field suitable for EOR, SaskPower had to make the plant far smaller than originally planned so as to avoid capturing more carbon dioxide than they could sell.

If CCS with fossil fuels is reminiscent of the Concorde fallacy, large-scale BECCS is entirely in the realm of science fiction. The supposedly most “promising technology”has never been tested in a biomass power plant and that has so far proven uneconomical with coal. Add to that the fact that biomass power plants need more feedstock and are less efficient and more expensive to run than coal power plants, and a massive-scale BECCS program becomes even more implausible. And then add to that the question of scale: Sequestering 1 billion tons of carbon a year would produce a volume of highly pressurized liquid carbon dioxide larger than the global volume of oil extracted annually. It would require governments and/or companies stumping up the money to build an infrastructure larger than that of the entire global oil industry – without any proven benefit.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t see any little BECCS projects in niche circumstances. One of these already exists: ADM is capturing carbon dioxide from ethanol fermentation in one of its refineries for use in CCS research. Capturing carbon dioxide from ethanol fermentation is relatively simple and cheap. If there happens to be some half-depleted nearby oil field suitable for enhanced oil recovery, some ethanol “CCS” projects could pop up here and there. But this has little to do with a “billion ton negative emissions” vision.

BECCS thus appears as one, albeit a particularly prominent, example of baseless techno-optimism leading to dangerous policy choices. Dangerous, that is, because hype about sci-fi solutions becomes a cover for the failure to curb fossil fuel burning and ecosystem destruction today.

É difícil atribuir seca em SP ao aquecimento global (Folha de S.Paulo)

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Entrevista da 2ª – Carlos Nobre

26 de janeiro de 2015

São necessários mais estudos, diz climatologista, para quem o sudeste tem regime de chuvas especialmente imprevisível

MARCELO LEITE DE SÃO PAULO

O renomado climatologista Carlos Afonso Nobre está muito preocupado com a crise hídrica. No Sudeste, para que a estação chuvosa janeiro-março fique na média histórica, seria preciso chover 60% a 80% mais que o usual nos dois meses que faltam.

O problema é que não há como prever se isso vai ocorrer. No ano passado, o bloqueio atmosférico (massa de ar que impede a entrada de umidade) durou até meados de fevereiro. A boa notícia é que, neste janeiro de 2015, ele foi rompido pela frente fria dos últimos dias –mas nada impede a sua volta.

As condições do Sudeste, afirma, fazem dele uma região de baixa previsibilidade para secas e chuvas, mesmo na escala de semanas.

Secretário de Políticas e Programas de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento do Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, Nobre se encontra na posição desconfortável de ser um destacado estudioso da mudança do clima com funções executivas num ministério em que o titular (Aldo Rebelo) já pôs o fenômeno em dúvida. Evita tratar do assunto, porém, por ter convivido pouco com o novo ministro.

De todo modo, Nobre não abandona a prudência científica. “É difícil atribuir ao aquecimento global um extremo climático como as secas do Sudeste”, afirma nesta entrevista, concedida por escrito.

A impossibilidade de se relacionar diretamente a mudança climática a episódios específicos não significa, porém, que governos não devam se preparar para o aumento de eventos extremos causado por ela, diz Nobre.

–

Folha – O verão 2013/14 foi o mais seco em 62 anos no Sudeste, em especial na bacia que alimenta o Cantareira. Já é possível avaliar se o de 2014/15 irá superá-lo ou igualá-lo?

Carlos Nobre – Ainda não, pois fevereiro e março são meses da estação chuvosa. De qualquer maneira, para que a estação chuvosa no Sudeste se encerrasse dentro da média histórica, as chuvas em fevereiro e março deveriam ficar de 60% a 80% acima da média.

Até novembro e dezembro de 2013, as previsões sazonais não haviam sido capazes de indicar a estiagem que viria em janeiro de 2014.

De fato, não há quase nenhuma previsibilidade para a região Sudeste e Centro-Oeste quando se trabalha com uma escala de meses.

Tal região não está entre os locais do planeta com previsibilidade climática sazonal, como o norte do Nordeste, partes da Amazônia e Sudeste da América do Sul (centro-leste da Argentina, Uruguai e Paraguai, e sul do Brasil).

A variabilidade climática no Sudeste é fortemente influenciada por frentes frias e por fenômenos atmosféricos de grande escala, como os bloqueios, que geram os veranicos [com estiagem] no meio da estação chuvosa, que são difíceis da prever. Isso aumenta o nível de incerteza na gestão dos recursos hídricos.

Isso vale para a maior parte do Brasil?

No semiárido do Nordeste, as previsões de secas com antecedência de alguns meses têm alto índice de acerto, quase 80%, e são forma importante para políticas de mitigação dos impactos das secas.

Para a estação chuvosa principal do semiárido, de fevereiro a maio deste ano, as previsões indicam risco de chuvas abaixo da média, um quadro de continuidade do deficit hídrico de vários anos.

No caso da Amazônia, é significativo o risco de grandes incêndios florestais, como em 1998 em Roraima?

Para o norte da Amazônia, especialmente Roraima, as chuvas dos últimos meses têm estado um pouco abaixo da média histórica, e fevereiro e março são meses do período mais seco do ano.

A principal explicação para chuvas abaixo da média no norte da Amazônia é o El Niño [superaquecimento das águas do Pacífico que aquece a atmosfera], ainda que o episódio atual seja considerado fraco e deva se enfraquecer-se nos próximos meses. Não se espera uma seca tão intensa em Roraima como foi aquela de 1997-98, reflexo do mega-El Niño ocorrido então.

Em janeiro de 2014, o bloqueio atmosférico permaneceu até meados de fevereiro. Com a frente fria que chegou a SP nesta quinta-feira (22), pode-se dizer que o pior já passou?

Como disse, prever bloqueios atmosféricos com semanas de antecedência não é factível. Mas, de fato, a situação a partir da chegada de uma fraca frente fria ao Sudeste nos últimos dias é diferente daquela de janeiro e fevereiro de 2014.

A repetição em 2014 e 2015 de condições de estiagem grave, ao menos no Sudeste, pode ter relação com o aquecimento global? Afinal, 2014 foi declarado pela Nasa e pela Noaa o mais quente já registrado. Qual é a chance de que seja apenas uma coincidência?

O fato de que as observações globais indicam a continuidade da tendência de aquecimento global, com 2014 sendo o ano com a mais alta temperatura à superfície desde 1860, é algo bem esperado, em razão da crescente quantidade de gases do efeito estufa na atmosfera.

Por outro lado, é bem mais difícil atribuir ao aquecimento global um extremo climático como as secas do Sudeste. São necessários estudos com modelos climáticos globais complexos, nos quais se simula o clima com e sem os aumentos dos gases-estufa.

Além disso, sempre é necessário estabelecer quais são os mecanismos físicos para a mudança. No caso de bloqueios atmosféricos, envolveria entender mecanismos complexos. Como a propagação de ondas atmosféricas de milhares de quilômetros está respondendo ao aquecimento global? Trata-se de uma tarefa cientificamente bastante desafiadora.

Como se explica que reservatórios relativamente próximos, como Guarapiranga/Billings e Cantareira tenham comportamento tão díspares?

Em anos de bloqueios atmosféricos grandes sobre o Sudeste, toda a região apresenta chuvas abaixo da média. O efeito de ilha urbana de calor [afetadas pela temperatura mais elevada da cidade, massas úmidas de passagem viram tempestades], porém, atua para fazer com que os deficits sobre a região metropolitana de São Paulo sejam menores do que em regiões vizinhas, como o Cantareira.

Por outro lado, mesmo excetuando fenômenos de grande escala como os bloqueios, observa-se uma diminuição relativa das chuvas sobre o Cantareira nas últimas décadas e um aumento das chuvas sobre a cidade. Hipoteticamente, esse efeito de longo prazo pode estar relacionado com a ilha urbana de calor, mas estudos em andamento precisarão comprovar, ou não, essa hipótese.

O governo federal já trabalha com a hipótese de que a Grande São Paulo chegue a um estado de calamidade pública, com esgotamento completo do sistema Cantareira, por exemplo?

O Cemaden (Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais) desenvolveu um modelo hidrológico para o sistema Cantareira e instalou, em abril e maio de 2014, 33 pluviômetros automáticos para melhorar o monitoramento das chuvas sobre as bacias de captação. Como não é factível prever hoje as chuvas em fevereiro e março, pode-se apenas traçar cenários.

No caso de continuidade de chuvas abaixo da média nesses meses, de fato há risco de o reservatório não ter condições de manter o abastecimento nos níveis atuais.

O que o poder público deve fazer no médio e no longo prazos para prevenir a repetição dessa situação limítrofe? Diria que se trata do principal problema no campo da adaptação à mudança do clima?

Adaptação às mudanças climáticas deve ser uma prioridade de política pública. Hidrólogos devem incorporar o fato de que os extremos climáticos estão se tornando mais frequentes e, em muitos casos, mais intensos.

Em outras palavras, as séries históricas de observações hidrológicas não podem mais ser consideradas estacionárias. O planejamento da utilização dos recursos hídricos deve levar em conta isso. A atual crise hídrica já está tendo um impacto em demonstrar que o Brasil precisa urgentemente buscar desenvolver sistemas e infraestruturas resistentes ao aumentos dos extremos climáticos.

Qual é a sua avaliação da Conferência de Lima e sua expectativa com relação a Paris, em dezembro?

Lima trouxe progressos incrementais. Embora exista a expectativa de algo maior em Paris, creio que seja realista não esperar uma revolução. Além disso, é preocupante a relativa diminuição recente dos preços dos petróleo e gás: se persistir, irá causar um inevitável aumento das emissões de gases do efeito-estufa.

“Há tecnologia para redução de emissões”, diz pesquisador Paulo Artaxo (Zero Hora)

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Considerado uma das principais autoridades em mudanças climáticas, físico afirma que o Protocolo de Kyoto “já é letra morta”

por Bruno Felin

24/01/2015 | 11h23

"Há tecnologia para redução de emissões", diz pesquisador Paulo Artaxo Anxo Lamela/Anxo Lamela

Camadas de gelo da Groelândia perdem aproximadamente 258 bilhões de toneladas ao anoFoto: Anxo Lamela / Anxo Lamela

Paulo Artaxo é uma das principais autoridades em mudanças climáticas a representar o Brasil nas conferências da ONU. O físico da Universidade de São Paulo tem mais de 300 trabalhos publicados, parte deles nas grandes revistas científicas do mundo. É uma das pessoas a colocar o país como referência em estudos sobre o clima.

Como o mundo saiu da conferência em Lima, no Peru? Há um rascunho de acordo?
Paulo Artaxo: Não há um rascunho. Há, no máximo, uma tentativa de se fazer um acordo para redução de emissões, mas não há nenhum compromisso concreto com uma possivel verificação (de quem cumpre ou não). Isso, infelizmente, ainda não existe. O Protocolo de Kyoto foi uma ferramenta importante, mas já é letra morta, não foi cumprido pela falta de penalidade para quem não cumpre.

Evidências comprovam a urgência da luta contra o aquecimento global
Mudanças climáticas se tornam debate urgente em 2014
As técnicas mirabolantes da geoengenharia para conter o aquecimento global

O que emperrou para que esse encontro tivesse mais resultados concretos?
Paulo Artaxo: Obviamente, o que emperra são as velhas questões de sempre: quem paga a conta e como é que são divididas as responsabilidades do ponto de vista das reduções de emissões. Alguns países, como os Estados Unidos, não aceitam fazer nenhum tipo de redução se a China, por exemplo, que é o seu grande competidor, também não fizer uma redução. Essa é a questão.

Quanto ao proximo acordo, temos de ficar otimistas ou pessimistas?
Paulo Artaxo: Não é questão de ficar otimista, ou jogo de sim ou não. É fundamental que se façam políticas de redução de emissão de gases do efeito estufa, principalmente no setor de energia. Isso é fundamental, a estabilidade do clima no planeta no futuro depende disso. Agora, isso não é a única coisa relevante no nosso planeta, você tem questões econômicas, tecnológicas e políticas para tratar com isso. Então, não podemos simplesmente imaginar que vamos chegar em Paris, vamos sentar e redigir o novo acordo, e todo mundo vai ficar feliz. Não funciona desse jeito. É um longo processo, que esperamos que tenha sucesso, mas não se espera que saia um acordo para reduzir 80% das emissões. Talvez fique em 20% até 2050.

O que esperar da Cúpula do Clima
Relatório da Onu conclui que emissões de gases têm de zerar até 2100
“O Brasil é um dos exemplos mais importantes”

Temos tecnologia para reduzir a dependência dos combustíveis fósseis. O desafio é barateá-la?
Paulo Artaxo: Na verdade não é uma questão tecnológica. Há tecnologia para redução de emissões em todos os setores. Por exemplo, o setor mais óbvio é a indústria automotiva. Existe tecnologia para reduzir as emissões dos automóveis em pelo menos 50%. A questão é ter políticas públicas que ponham essas tecnologias em uso. Tem que obrigar as fábricas a fazer carros mais eficientes no menor prazo possível. Se isso não acontece, as fábricas vão continuar colocando no mercado carros extremamente ineficientes e totalmente inapropriados para a questão climática como a gente tem hoje.

Nos gráficos abaixo, as evidências demonstram a urgência por ações:

Níveis de CO2Os níveis de CO2 sempre variaram durante a história da Terra. Ao respirar, as plantas retiram o CO2 da atmosfera, ficam com o carbono e soltam oxigênio. Os animais puxam o oxigênio e soltam CO2. Um balanço perfeito. Durante centenas de milhares de anos, os seres vivos foram morrendo e esse material indo cada vez mais para o fundo da Terra. Ao ser exposto a calor e pressão, se transformou nos combustíveis fósseis: petróleo, gás e carvão. E aí mora o nosso problema: todo esse carbono que demorou centenas de milhares de anos para se formar está voltando para a atmosfera em apenas algumas centenas de anos.

Veja animação com o aumento do CO2 ao longo dos anos:

http://www.clicrbs.com.br/sites/swf/zh_grafico_aquecimentoglobal/co2.html

Aumento da temperatura

A temperatura oscilou durante toda a história do planeta acompanhando os níveis de CO2 na atmosfera. Cientistas estimam que os gases do efeito estufa emitidos pelo homem demorem 50 anos para começar a alterar os níveis de CO2 medidos. Por isso é perceptível que, após a revolução industrial, a temperatura tenha aumentado tanto.

http://www.clicrbs.com.br/sites/swf/zh_arte_infograficos_imagem_estatica/index.html?img=http://zerohora.clicrbs.com.br/rbs/image/17179158.jpg


Em animação, veja onde a temperatura aumentou nos últimos anos:
http://www.clicrbs.com.br/sites/swf/zh_grafico_aquecimentoglobal/temperature.html

Aumento do nível dos oceanos

O aumento do nível do mar se dá por dois fatores relacionados ao aquecimento global: a água que vem do derretimento do gelo da terra e a expansão natural da água quando esquenta. Em média, o nível do mar está subindo 3.17 milímetros por ano. No último século, foram 17 centímetros.

Em gráfico, acompanhe o aumento do nível do mar:

http://www.clicrbs.com.br/sites/swf/zh_arte_infograficos_imagem_estatica/index.html?img=http://zerohora.clicrbs.com.br/rbs/image/17179157.jpg

Desmatamento

Manter as florestas de pé é fundamental para combater o aquecimento, pois as plantas absorvem o CO2 e liberam oxigênio. O Brasil tem a segunda maior área de florestas do mundo, atrás apenas da Rússia, e já desmatou muito a Amazônia. Porém, os números vêm reduzindo, somos exemplo para outros países.

Em gráfico, veja o desmatamento da Amazônia nos últimos anos:

http://www.clicrbs.com.br/sites/swf/zh_arte_infograficos_imagem_estatica/index.html?img=http://zerohora.clicrbs.com.br/rbs/image/17179343.jpg

Massa de gelo

As camadas de gelo da Antartica reduziram cerca de 147 bilhões de toneladas por ano enquanto as da Groelândia perderam aproximadamente 258 bilhões de toneladas ao ano. No Ártico, a média de declínio da camada de gelo é de 13,3% por década (relativo às médias de 1981 a 2010).

Veja como ficaram alguns pontos do globo antes e depois dos efeitos das mudanças climáticas:

http://www.clicrbs.com.br/sites/swf/zh_grafico_aquecimentoglobal/antesdepois/index.html

Dahr Jamail | Mourning Our Planet: Climate Scientists Share Their Grieving Process (Truthout)

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Sunday, 25 January 2015 00:00 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Analysis 

Scientists write their feelings about climate change

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

I have been researching and writing about anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) for Truthout for the past year, because I have long been deeply troubled by how fast the planet has been emitting its obvious distress signals.

On a nearly daily basis, I’ve sought out the most recent scientific studies, interviewed the top researchers and scientists penning those studies, and connected the dots to give readers as clear a picture as possible about the magnitude of the emergency we are in.

This work has emotional consequences: I’ve struggled with depression, anger, and fear. I’ve watched myself shift through some of the five stages of grief proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance I’ve grieved for the planet and all the species who live here, and continue to do so as I work today.

I have been vacillating between depression and acceptance of where we are, both as victims – fragile human beings – and as perpetrators: We are the species responsible for altering the climate system of the planet we inhabit to the point of possibly driving ourselves extinct, in addition to the 150-200 species we are already driving extinct.

Can you relate to this grieving process?

If so, you might find solace in the fact that you are not alone: Climate science researchers, scientists, journalists and activists have all been struggling with grief around what we are witnessing.

To see more stories like this, visit “Planet or Profit?”

Take Professor Camille Parmesan, a climate researcher who says that ACD is the driving cause of her depression.

“I don’t know of a single scientist that’s not having an emotional reaction to what is being lost,” Parmesan said in the National Wildlife Federation’s 2012 report. “It’s gotten to be so depressing that I’m not sure I’m going to go back to this particular site again,” she said in reference to an ocean reef she had studied since 2002, “because I just know I’m going to see more and more of the coral dead, and bleached, and covered with brown algae.”

Last year I wrote about the work of Joanna Macy, a scholar of Buddhism, eco-philosophy, general systems theory and deep ecology, and author of more than a dozen books. Her initiative, The Work That Reconnects, helps people essentially do nothing more mysterious than telling the truth about what we see, know and feel is happening to our world.

In order to remain able to continue in our work, we first must feel the full pain of what is being done to the world, according to Macy.” Refusing to feel pain, and becoming incapable of feeling the pain, which is actually the root meaning of apathy, refusal to suffer – that makes us stupid, and half alive,” she told me. “It causes us to become blind to see what is really out there.”

I recently came across a blog titled, Is This How You Feel? It is an extraordinary compilation of handwritten letters from highly credentialed climate scientists and researchers sharing their myriad feelings about what they are seeing.

The blog is run and operated by Joe Duggan, a science communicator, who described his project like this: “All the scientists that have penned letters for this site have a sound understanding of climate change. Some have spent years designing models to predict changing climate, others, years investigating the implications for animal life. More still have been exploring a range of other topics concerning the causes and implications of a changing climate. As a minimum, they’ve all achieved a PhD in their area of expertise.”

With Joe’s permission, I am happy to share the passages below. In the spirit of opening the door to a continuing dialog among readers about our collective situation, what follows are the – often very personal – thoughts and feelings of several leading climate scientists.

Frustration

“Like many others I feel frustrated with the current state of public discourse and I’m dismayed by those who, seemingly motivated by their own short-term self interest, have chosen to hijack that discussion,” wrote Dr. John Fasullo, a project scientist in the climate analysis section of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, on the Is This How You Feel? blog. “The climate is changing and WE are the primary cause.”

Professor Peter B. deMenocal with Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory shared an analogy to the climate scientist’s predicament, comparing it to how a medical doctor would feel while having to inform their patient, who is an old, lifelong friend, of a dire but treatable diagnosis. The friend goes on to angrily disregard what you have to say, for a variety of very human reasons, as you watch helplessly as their pain and illness unfold over the rest of their now-shortened life. “Returning to our patient, I feel frustrated that my friend won’t listen,” he concluded.

Dr. Helen McGregor, a research fellow at the Australian National University’s Research School of Earth Sciences, shared a very emotionally honest letter about her experience as a climate scientist. Here is what she wrote in full:

I feel like nobody’s listening. Ok Sure, some people are listening but not enough of our leaders are listening – those that make decisions that influence all our lives. And climate change is affecting and will continue to affect all our lives.

I feel perplexed at why many of our politicians, business leaders, and members of the public don’t get that increased CO2 in the Earths atmosphere is a problem. The very premise that CO2 traps heat is based on fundamental physics – the very same physics that underpins so much of modern society. The very same physics that has seen higher C02 linked with warmer periods in the geological past. And sure, there have been warm periods in the past and the Earth weathered the storm (excuse the pun) but back then there weren’t millions of people, immovable infrastructure, or entire communities in harms way.

I feel astonished that some would accuse me of being part of some global conspiracy to get more money – if I was in it for the money I would have stayed working as a geologist in the mining industry. No, I do climate research because I find climate so very interesting, global warming or not.

I feel both exasperation and despair in equal measure, that perhaps there really is nothing I can do. I feel vulnerable, that perhaps by writing this letter I expose myself to trolling and vitriol – perhaps I’m better off just keeping quiet.

Hope

Dr. Jennie Mallela with the Research Schools of Biology and Earth Sciences at the Australian National University shared a range of emotions, including optimism.

“I believe people are capable of amazing things and I do believe that climate change can be halted and even reversed,” she wrote. “I just hope it happens in my lifetime. I don’t want to become the generation that future children talk of as having destroyed the planet. I’d like to be the generation that fought back (and won) against human induced climate change. The generation that worked out how to live in harmony with the planet – that generation!”

She wasn’t alone.

“So whilst there is enough good and committed people we can change our path of warming,” wrote Dr. Jim Salinger, an honorary research associate in climate science with the University of Auckland’s School of Environment. However, he went on to add, “I am always hopeful – but 4 to 5 degrees Celsius of change will be a challenge to survive.”

I asked Dr. Ira Lefier, an Atmospheric/Oceanic Scientist whose research has focused on methane how he felt about our current situation. He expressed his concerns and frustration, but also optimism.

“I find the current situation is highly distressing, in that the facts regarding global warming have been known for many decades, because like an aircraft carrier avoiding a collision, course changes can easily be managed well in advance, but become impossible at the last minute – inertia seals the future destiny,” he said. “And I ask myself, what did we (scientists and activists and concerned citizens of the planet), how did we get here, so close to the midnight? And I think that there was a tragic underestimate based on the successful campaign to save the Ozone Layer through the fight against CFCs – a gas with almost no political lobby, that the global society could easily accept the widespread changes needed to address global climate change through reducing CO2 emissions – which affects almost everyone on the planet. And that political change could be engendered simply by scientists presenting their facts and observations.

“So yes, I find it highly distressing that we are having a societal discussion on whether to take climate change seriously, half a century late. Still, I refuse not to be an optimist, – it is not yet too late. I continue to do whatever I can both scientifically and by communicating with the public, firstly, because it is the right thing to do, and secondly, in the hope and belief that even now, positive action will reduce the damage from ma warming climate to the ecosystem. I refuse to accept ‘apres moi le deluge’ [after me comes the flood].”

Concern

“As a human-being, and especially as a parent, I feel concerned that we are doing damage to the planet,” wrote Professor Peter Cox, of the University of Exeter, on the blog. “I don’t want to leave a mess for my children, or anyone else’s children, to clear-up. We are currently creating a problem for them at an alarming rate – that is worrying.”

Professor Gabi Hegerl, a professor of climate system science with the University of Edinburgh, wrote, “I look at my children and think about what I know is coming their way and I worry how it will affect them.”

Dr. Sarah Perkins, a climate scientist and extreme events specialist with the University of New South Wales, shared both her concern and hope about our Earth.

For sometime now I’ve been terribly worried. I wish I didn’t have to acknowledge it, but everything I have feared is happening. I used to think I was paranoid, but it’s true. She’s slipping away from us. She’s been showing signs of acute illness for quite a while, but no one has really done anything. Her increased erratic behavior is something I’ve especially noticed. Certain behaviors that were only rare occurrences are starting to occur more often, and with heightened anger. I’ve tried to highlight these changes time and time again, as well as their speed of increase, but no one has paid attention.

It almost seems everyone has been ignoring me completely, and I’m not sure why. Is it easier to pretend there’s no illness, hoping it will go away? Or because they’ve never had to live without her, so the thought of death is impossible? Perhaps they cannot see they’ve done this to her. We all have.

To me this is all false logic. How can you ignore the severe sickness of someone you are so intricately connected to and dependent upon. How can you let your selfishness and greed take control, and not protect and nurture those who need it most? How can anyone not feel an overwhelming sense of care and responsibility when those so dear to us are so desperately ill? How can you push all this to the back of your mind? This is something I will never understand. Perhaps I’m the odd one out, the anomaly of the human race. The one who cares enough, who has the compassion, to want to help make her better.

The thing is we can make her better!! If we work together, we can cure this terrible illness and restore her to her old self before we exploited her. But we must act quickly, we must act together. Time is ticking, and we need to act now.

Sharing both his frustration and concern, Dr. Alex Sen Gupta with the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales wrote:

I feel frustrated. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. We know what’s going on, we know why it’s happening, we know how serious things are going to get and still after so many years, we are still doing practically nothing to stop it. I feel concerned that unmitigated our inaction will cause terrible suffering to those least able to cope with change and that within my lifetime many of the places that make this planet so special – the snows on Kilimanjaro, the Great Barrier Reef, even the ice covered Arctic will be degraded beyond recognition – our legacy to the next generation.

Anger

“My overwhelming emotion is anger; anger that is fuelled not so much by ignorance, but by greed and profiteering at the expense of future generations,” wrote Professor Corety Bradshaw, the director of ecological modeling at the University of Adelaide. “I am not referring to some vague, existential bonding to the future human race; rather, I am speaking as a father of a seven year-old girl who loves animals and nature in general. As a biologist, I see irrefutable evidence every day that human-driven climate disruption will turn out to be one of the main drivers of the Anthropocene mass extinction event now well under way.”

The rest of his letter is worth reading in full:

Public indifference and individual short-sightedness aside, I am furious that politicians like Abbott and his anti-environment henchman are stealing the future from my daughter, and laughing about it while they line their pockets with the figurative gold proffered by the fossil-fuel industry. Whether it is sheer stupidity, greed, deliberate dishonesty or all three, the outcome is the same – destruction of the environmental life-support system that keeps us all alive and prosperous. Climates change, but the rapidity with which we are disrupting the current climate on top of the already heavily compromised environmental health of the planet makes the situation dire.

My frustration with these greedy, lying bastards is personal. Human-caused climate disruption is not a belief – it is one of the best-studied phenomena on Earth. Even a half-wit can understand this. As any father would, anyone threatening my family will by on the receiving end of my ire and vengeance. This anger is the manifestation of my deep love for my daughter, and the sadness I feel in my core about how others are treating her future.

Mark my words, you plutocrats, denialists, fossil-fuel hacks and science charlatans – your time will come when you will be backed against the wall by the full wrath of billions who have suffered from your greed and stupidity, and I’ll be first in line to put you there.

“The Pivotal Psychological Reality of Our Time”

Joe told me the response to his project has been, in general, positive.

“I have received emails from all over the world from people of all walks of life thanking me for establishing the website – from retired grandmothers through to undergraduate university students,” he said. “The letters have been picked up by various social media sites like Science Alert…and have subsequently reached massive audiences.”

He was happy to add that the responses from scientists have been positive, and said his question of “How does climate change make you feel?” is “something they have not been asked before.”

“Of course there have been some very vocal opponents to my work,” Joe added. “This is to be expected. As I have said in the past, there is a small but very vocal group of people out there whose sole goal is to misinform and mislead the general public about climate change. These people don’t have to use the facts, they don’t have to even use the real data. They can cherry-pick from graphs, or even tell flat-out lies in an attempt to mislead the greater public. To what end, who knows? ITHYF [Is This How You Feel] does not exist to change the minds of deniers. It exists to provide an avenue through which every day people can relate to climate change.”

The term “climate change deniers,” then, has an entirely new – and ever more relevant – meaning when viewed through the lenses of the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief, given that “denial” is literally one of the five stages.

Joe is now asking laypeople to send in their letters about how they feel, and plans to publish those as well.

“This approach is not the only way to communicate on climate change, but it is one way, and I certainly feel that it is effective,” he concluded.

The practice of scientists sharing their feelings runs contrary to the dominant consumer capitalist culture of the West, which guards against – and attempts to divert attention from – the prospect of people getting in touch with feelings provoked by witnessing the wholesale destruction of the planet.

In fact, Joanna Macy believes it is not in the self-perceived interest of multinational corporations, or the government and the media that serve them “for us to stop and become aware of our profound anguish with the way things are.”

Nevertheless, these disturbing trends of widespread denial, disinformation by the corporate media, and the worsening impacts of runaway ACD, which are all increasing, are something she is very mindful of. As she wrote in World as Lover, World as Self, “The loss of certainty that there will be a future is, I believe, the pivotal psychological reality of our time.”

We don’t know how long we have left on earth. Five years? 15 years? 30? Beyond the year 2100? But when we allow our hearts to be shattered – broken completely open – by these stark, cold realities, we allow our perspectives to be opened up to vistas we’ve never known. When we allow ourselves to fully experience the crisis in this way, we are then able to truly see it through new eyes.

Like reaching new heights on a mountain, we can see things we’ve never seen before. Our thinking, attitudes, and outlook on life changes dramatically. It is a new consciousness, one in which we realize the pivotal stage in history we find ourselves in.

Perhaps, within this new consciousness, we can live in this time with grace, dignity, and caring. Perhaps, here, we can find ways to save habitat for a few more species, while we share this precious lives and this precious time with loved ones, in the wild places we love so much, on this rare and precious world.

Monitoramento e análise de dados – A crise nos mananciais de São Paulo (Probabit)

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Situação 25.1.2015

4,2 milímetros de chuva em 24.1.2015 nos reservatórios de São Paulo (média ponderada).

305 bilhões de litros (13,60%) de água em estoque. Em 24 horas, o volume subiu 4,4 bilhões de litros (0,19%).

134 dias até acabar toda a água armazenada, com chuvas de 996 mm/ano e mantida a eficiência corrente do sistema.

66% é a redução no consumo necessária para equilibrar o sistema nas condições atuais e 33% de perdas na distribuição.

Para entender a crise

navegue
Como ler este gráfico?

Os pontos no gráfico mostram 4040 intervalos de 1 ano para o acumulado de chuva e a variação no estoque total de água (do dia 1º de janeiro de 2003/2004 até hoje). O padrão mostra que mais chuva faz o estoque variar para cima e menos chuva para baixo, como seria de se esperar.

Este e os demais gráficos desta página consideram sempre a capacidade total de armazenamento de água em São Paulo (2,24 trilhões de litros), isto é, a soma dos reservatórios dos Sistemas Cantareira, Alto Tietê, Guarapiranga, Cotia, Rio Grande e Rio Claro. Quer explorar os dados?

A região de chuva acumulada de 1.400 mm a 1.600 mm ao ano concentra a maioria dos pontos observados de 2003 para cá. É para esse padrão usual de chuvas que o sistema foi projetado. Nessa região, o sistema opera sem grandes desvios de seu equilíbrio: máximo de 15% para cima ou para baixo em um ano. Por usar como referência a variação em 1 ano, esse modo de ver os dados elimina a oscilação sazonal de chuvas e destaca as variações climáticas de maior amplitude. Ver padrões ano a ano.

Uma segunda camada de informação no mesmo gráfico são as zonas de risco. A zona vermelha é delimitada pelo estoque atual de água em %. Todos os pontos dentro dessa área (com frequência indicada à direita) representam, portanto, situações que se repetidas levarão ao colapso do sistema em menos de 1 ano. A zona amarela mostra a incidência de casos que se repetidos levarão à diminuição do estoque. Só haverá recuperação efetiva do sistema se ocorrerem novos pontos acima da faixa amarela.

Para contextualizar o momento atual e dar uma ideia de tendência, pontos interligados em azul destacam a leitura adicionada hoje (acumulado de chuva e variação entre hoje e mesmo dia do ano passado) e as leituras de 30, 60 e 90 atrás (em tons progressivamente mais claros).

Discussão a partir de um modelo simples

O ajuste de um modelo linear aos casos observados mostra que existe uma razoável correlação entre o acumulado de chuva e a variação no estoque hídrico, como o esperado.

Ao mesmo tempo, fica clara a grande dispersão de comportamento do sistema, especialmente na faixa de chuvas entre 1.400 mm e 1.500 mm. Acima de 1.600 mm há dois caminhos bem separados, o inferior corresponde ao perído entre 2009 e 2010 quando os reservatórios ficaram cheios e não foi possível estocar a chuva excedente.

Além de uma gestão deliberadamente mais ou menos eficiente da água disponível, podem contribuir para as flutuações observadas as variações combinadas no consumo, nas perdas e na efetividade da captação de água. Entretanto, não há dados para examinarmos separadamente o efeito de cada uma dessas variáveis.

Simulação 1: Efeito do aumento do estoque de água

Nesta simulação foi hipoteticamente incluído no sistema de abastecimento a reserva adicional da represa Billings, com volume de 998 bilhões de litros (já descontados o braço “potável” do reservatório Rio Grande).

Aumentar o estoque disponível não muda o ponto de equilíbrio, mas altera a inclinação da reta que representa a relação entre a chuva e a variação no estoque. A diferença de inclinação entre a linha azul (simulada) e a vermelha (real) mostra o efeito da ampliação do estoque.

Se a Billings não fosse hoje um depósito gigante de esgotos, poderíamos estar fora da situação crítica. Entretanto, vale enfatizar que o simples aumento de estoque não é capaz de evitar indefinidamente a escassez se a quantidade de chuva persistir abaixo do ponto de equilíbrio.

Simulação 2: Efeito da melhoria na eficiência

O único modo de manter o estoque estável quando as chuvas se tornam mais escassas é mudar a ‘curva de eficiência’ do sistema. Em outras palavras, é preciso consumir menos e se adaptar a uma menor entrada de água no sistema.

A linha azul no gráfico ao lado indica o eixo ao redor do qual os pontos precisariam flutuar para que o sistema se equilibrasse com uma oferta anual de 1.200 mm de chuva.

A melhoria da eficiência pode ser alcançada por redução no consumo, redução nas perdas e melhoria na tecnologia de captação de água (por exemplo pela recuperação das matas ciliares e nascentes em torno dos mananciais).

Se persistir a situação desenhada de 2013 a 2015, com chuvas em torno de 1.000 mm será necessário atingir uma curva de eficiência que está muito distante do que já se conseguiu praticar, acima mesmo dos melhores casos já observados.

Com o equilíbrio de “projeto” em torno de 1.500 mm, a conta é mais ou menos assim: a Sabesp perde 500 mm (33% da água distribuída), a população consume 1.000 mm. Para chegar rapidamente ao equilíbrio em 1.000 mm, o consumo deveria ser de 500 mm, uma vez que as perdas não poderão ser rapidamente evitadas e acontecem antes do consumo.

Se 1/3 da água distribuída não fosse sistematicamente perdida não haveria crise. Os 500 mm de chuva disperdiçados anualmente pela precariedade do sistema de distribução não fazem falta quando chove 1.500 mm, mas com 1.000 mm cada litro jogado fora de um lado é um litro que terá de ser economizado do outro.

Simulação 3: Eficiência corrente e economia necessária

Para estimar a eficiência corrente são usadas as últimas 120 observações do comportamento do sistema.

A curva de eficiência corrente permite estimar o ponto de equilíbrio atual do sistema (ponto vermelho em destaque).

O ponto azul indica a última observação do acumulado anual de chuvas. A diferença entre os dois mede o tamanho do desequilíbrio.

Apenas para estancar a perda de água do sistema, é preciso reduzir em 49% o fluxo de retirada. Como esse fluxo inclui todas as perdas, se depender apenas da redução no consumo, a economia precisa ser de 66% se as perdas forem de 33%, ou de 56% se as perdas forem de 17%.

Parece incrível que a eficiência do sistema esteja tão baixa em meio a uma crise tão grave. A tentativa de contenção no consumo está aumentando o consumo? Volumes menores e mais rasos evaporam mais? As pessoas ainda não perceberam a tamanho do desastre?

Prognóstico

navegue

Supondo que novos estoques de água não serão incorporados no curto prazo, o prognóstico sobre se e quando a água vai acabar depende da quantidade de chuva e da eficiência do sistema.

O gráfico mostra quantos dias restam de água em função do acumulado de chuva, considerando duas curvas de eficiência: a média e a corrente (estimada a partir dos últimos 120 dias).

O ponto em destaque considera a observação mais recente de chuva acumulada no ano e mostra quantos dias restam de água se persistirem as condições atuais de chuva e de eficiência.

O prognóstico é uma referência que varia de acordo com as novas observações e não tem probabilidade definida. Trata-se de uma projeção para melhor visualizar as condições necessárias para escapar do colapso.

Porém, lembrando que a média histórica de chuvas em São Paulo é de 1.441 mm ao ano, uma curva que cruze esse limite significa um sistema com mais de 50% de chances de colapsar em menos de um ano. Somos capazes de evitar o desastre?

Os dados

O ponto de partida são os dados divulgados diariamente pela Sabesp. A série de dados original atualizada está disponível aqui.

Porém, há duas importantes limitações nesses dados que podem distorcer a interpretação da realidade: 1) a Sabesp usa somente porcentagens para se referir a reservatórios com volumes totais muito diferentes; 2) a entrada de novos volumes não altera a base-de-cálculo sobre o qual essa porcentagem é medida.

Por isso, foi necessário corrigir as porcentagens da série de dados original em relação ao volume total atual, uma vez que os volumes que não eram acessíveis se tornaram acessíveis e, convenhamos, sempre estiveram lá nas represas. A série corrigida pode ser obtida aqui. Ela contém uma coluna adicional com os dados dos volumes reais (em bilhões de litros: hm3)

Além disso, decidimos tratar os dados de forma consolidada, como se toda a água estivesse em um único grande reservatório. A série de dados usada para gerar os gráficos desta página contém apenas a soma ponderada do estoque (%) e da chuva (mm) diários e também está disponível.

As correções realizadas eliminam os picos causados pelas entradas dos volumes mortos e permitem ver com mais clareza o padrão de queda do estoque em 2014.

Padrões ano a ano

Média e quartis do estoque durante o ano

Sobre este estudo

Preocupado com a escassez de água, comecei a estudar o problema ao final de 2014. Busquei uma abordagem concisa e consistente de apresentar os dados, dando destaque para as três variáveis que realmente importam: a chuva, o estoque total e a eficiência do sistema. O site entrou no ar em 16 de janeiro de 2015. Todos os dias, os modelos e os gráficos são refeitos com as novas informações.

Espero que esta página ajude a informar a real dimensão da crise da água em São Paulo e estimule mais ações para o seu enfrentamento.

Mauro Zackiewicz

maurozacgmail.com

scientia probabitlaboratório de dados essenciais

Doomsday Clock Set at 3 Minutes to Midnight (Live Science)

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by Megan Gannon, News Editor   |   January 22, 2015 01:25pm ET

Mushroom cloud over Nagasaki
A gigantic mushroom cloud billowed over Nagasaki, Japan, when an atomic bomb was dropped on the city in 1945.

Credit: U.S. National Archives

The world is “3 minutes” from doomsday.

That’s the grim outlook from board members of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Frustrated with a lack of international action to address climate change and shrink nuclear arsenals, they decided today (Jan. 22) to push the minute hand of their iconic “Doomsday Clock” to 11:57 p.m.

It’s the first time the clock hands have moved in three years; since 2012, the clock had been fixed at 5 minutes to symbolic doom, midnight. [End of the World? Top Doomsday Fears]

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doesn’t use the clock to make any real doomsday predictions. Rather, the clock is a visual metaphor to warn the public about how close the world is to a potentially civilization-ending catastrophe. Each year, the magazine’s board analyzes threats to humanity’s survival to decide where the Doomsday Clock’s hands should be set.

Experts on the board said they felt a sense of urgency this year because of the world’s ongoing addiction to fossil fuels, procrastination with enacting laws to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow efforts to get rid of nuclear weapons.

“We are not saying it is too late to take action but the window for action is closing rapidly,” Kennette Benedict, executive director of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said in a news conference this morning in Washington, D.C. “We move the clock hand today to inspire action.”

For instance, if nothing is done to reduce the amount of heat-trapping gasses, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, Earth could be 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 8 degrees Celsius) warmer by the end of century, said Sivan Kartha, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Some people might not feel alarmed when they see those numbers; they might normally experience that kind of temperature swing in the course of a single day, Kartha said. But, he said a temperature increase of that magnitude was enough to bring the world out of the last ice age, and it will be enough to “radically transform” the Earth’s surface in the future.

Sharon Squassoni, another board member and director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said nuclear disarmament efforts have “ground to a halt” and many nations are expanding, not scaling back, their nuclear capabilities. Russia is upgrading its nuclear program, India plans to expand its nuclear submarine fleet, and Pakistan has reportedly started operating a third plutonium reactor, Squassoni said.

She said the United States has good rhetoric on nuclear nonproliferation, but at the same time is in the midst of a $335 billion overhaul of its nuclear program. (That figure seems to come from a Congressional Budget Office report from December 2013.)

“The risk from nuclear weapons is not that someone is going to press the button, but the existence of these weapons costs a lot of time, effort and money to keep them secure,” Squassoni said, adding that there have been troubling safety discrepancies reported in recent years at power plants.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by scientists who created the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project and wanted to raise awareness about the dangers of nuclear technology. The Doomsday Clock first appeared on a cover of the magazine in 1947, with its hands set at 11:53 p.m.

The clock’s hands shifted quite a bit over the following seven decades. They were closest to midnight in 1953, set at 11:58 p.m., after both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted their first tests of the hydrogen bomb. The clock’s hands were pushed all the way back to 11:43 p.m., 17 minutes to midnight, in December 1991, after the world’s superpowers signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which at the time, seemed like a promising move toward nuclear disarmament.

Crise da água em SP: Especialistas apontam cenários para quando a água acabar e lições a serem tomadas pelo colapso estadual (Brasil Post)

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Publicado: 21/01/2015 11:29 BRST  Atualizado: 21/01/2015 11:53 BRST 

MONTAGEMCRISEDAAGUA

Promessa de campanha do governador Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB), a falta de água em São Paulo é uma realidade há meses em diversos pontos do Estado. Na semana passada, ele admitiu que há sim racionamento (diante da repercussão, tentou voltar atrás), algo que a população – sobretudo a dos bairros mais carentes – já sabia. O que também já se sabe é que, sim, a água vai mesmo acabar. Se não chegar a zerar, terá níveis baixíssimos que afetarão a vida de todos, a partir de março.

Os especialistas ouvidos pelo Brasil Post viram com bons olhos o fato de que o governo paulista, com atraso, reconheceu o racionamento. Também aprovaram a aplicação de multa contra aqueles que consomem muita água – embora a medida, tardia, devesse ser uma política sempre presente, e não para ‘apagar incêndios’ como agora. Contudo, o cenário que se colocará com a chegada do período de estiagem, entre o fim de março e começo de abril, se estendendo até outubro, vai requerer novos hábitos, seja dos gestores ou da população.

“Quando acabar a água serão interrompidas atividades que não são consideradas essenciais, com cortes para o comércio, para a indústria e o fechamento de locais com muito uso de água, como shoppings, escolas e universidades”, analisou o professor Antonio Carlos Zuffo, especialista na área de recursos hídricos na Unicamp. Parece exagerado, mas não é. Segundo o jornal O Estado de S. Paulo desta quarta-feira (21), os seis mananciais que abastecem 20 milhões de pessoas na Grande São Paulo têm registrado déficit de 2,5 bilhões de litros por dia em pleno período no qual deveriam encher para suprir os meses de seca.

Já em 2002, a Saneas, revista da Associação dos Engenheiros da Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo (AESabesp), publicava um texto no qual apontava “uma inegável situação de estresse hídrico”, a qual podia “ter um final trágico, com previsões de escassez crônica em 15 anos”. A Agência Nacional de Águas (ANA) apontava, na outorga de uso do Sistema Cantareirade 2004, que era preciso diminuir a dependência desse sistema. Em plena crise, na tentativa de renovação em 2014, havia uma tentativa de aumentar, e não diminuir, o uso do Cantareira. Ou seja, algo impraticável e ignorando as previsões. Não, a culpa não é de São Pedro.

“Hoje a situação é muito pior que no ano passado. Em janeiro de 2014 tínhamos 27,2% positivos no Cantareira, hoje temos 23,5% negativos. Ou seja, consumimos 50% do volume nesse período. Mantida a média de consumo, a água acaba no fim de março. É preciso lembrar que janeiro é o mês com maior incidência de chuva em SP, seguido por dezembro. No mês passado, choveu 25% a menos do que a média. Esse mês só choveu 22%, 23% da média. A equação é simples: não vai ter água para todo mundo”, completou Zuffo.

Informação e transparência

Para a ambientalista Malu Ribeiro, da ONG SOS Mata Atlântica, a demora em admitir o óbvio por parte das autoridades trouxe mais prejuízos do que benefícios ao longo dos últimos 13 meses. “A sociedade precisa ter a noção clara da gravidade dessa crise. Quando as autoridades passam certa confiança, como era o caso do governo Alckmin, a tendência é que não se alerte da forma necessária e as pessoas se mantenham em uma situação confortável. Muita gente não acredita na proporção dessa crise, muito se agravou e agora é preciso cautela”, avaliou.

As mudanças na Secretaria de Recursos Hídricos e na presidência da Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo (Sabesp), com as entradas de Benedito Braga e Jerson Kelman, respectivamente, também foram benéficas, já que colocam em posições estratégicas dois especialistas no tema. Entretanto, isso não basta. A necessidade de discutir a gestão da água sob o âmbito estratégico, algo muito teórico e pouco prático no Brasil, é vista como fundamental em tempos de crise.

“Há ainda muita ocupação em áreas de mananciais, por exemplo. Então vemos que o comportamento, apesar da crise não ser nova, não mudou. Veja em Itu, onde eu moro, onde a crise foi muito pior e, agora que choveu um pouco, as pessoas acham que não precisam mais poupar, que tudo voltou ao normal. O combate ao desperdício deve ser permanente e temos de ter prevenção. É preciso doer no bolso, por isso a multa deve ser permanente”, disse Malu.

“A falta de informação resultou em uma insegurança, sem informar à população sobre o seu papel na crise. A ONU já apontava que a década entre 2010 e 2020 seria da água, e não por acaso, mas no Brasil há uma timidez nesse sentido. É preciso mudar essa cultura de abundância que se tem no Sudeste e desenvolver um plano estratégico, com mais poder aos comitês de bacia. É absurdo o desperdício de água na agricultura, e isso não é discutido. É hora de acordar”, completou a ambientalista.

‘Água cara’ veio para ficar

De acordo com os especialistas, a crise da água expõe também um cenário já esperado, já que a Terra passa por ciclos alternados entre seca e chuvas a cada 30 anos. O atual, iniciado em 2010 e que segue até 2040, será recheado de períodos de seca em regiões populosas, quadro a se inverter apenas daqui a 25 anos. Assim, é preciso mudar hábitos, antes de mais nada. Mesmo em tempos de calor excessivo, há quem ainda não tenha se dado conta disso.

“Muita gente se vê alheia ao problema e, com o calor, acaba correndo para compras piscininhas e usa a água para o lazer. O Carnaval que está chegando também ajuda a tirar o cidadão comum do foco, como ocorreu durante as eleições. Isso não é mais possível. Há a responsabilidade dos gestores, mas também é preciso que o cidadão se atente ao seu papel, sob pena de termos novas ‘cidades mortas’, como no Vale do Paraíba ou no Vale do Jequitinhonha, onde os recursos naturais foram exauridos”, afirmou Malu.

E que ninguém se anime com a promessa da Sabesp de que ainda há uma terceira cota de 41 bilhões de litros do volume morto do Cantareira, cujo uso deve ser solicitado pelo governo paulista junto à ANA nos próximos dias. “Sabemos que 45% do Cantareira que não é captado é volume morto. A terceira cota restante não é toda ela captável. Teríamos com ela mais uns 10%, suficiente só para mais algumas semanas”, comentou Zuffo.

Medidas sugeridas ao longo da crise, o reuso da água e a dessalinização são medidas caras e que dependem de outros aspectos para serem implementadas – e, com o possível racionamento de energia elétrica, podem não sair do papel. Ou seja, não são a solução a curto prazo. O uso de mais água de represas como a Billings (com sua notória poluição) também dependem de obras – outro entrave para quem gostaria de não ver a falta de água por dias seguidos se tornar uma realidade por meses a fio. Sem chuva, só há um caminho a seguir.

“Há uma variabilidade cíclica natural, que nada tem a ver com o aquecimento global, mas não temos engenharia para resolver a questão no curto prazo. Temos é que ter inteligência para nos adaptar e reduzir de 250 litros para 150 litros, ou ainda menos, o consumo de água por cada pessoa. Há países europeus em que o uso não passa de 60 litros/pessoa. É preciso usar menos e tratar a água de maneira que ela possa ser reutilizada. Tudo depende de tecnologia e novos hábitos”, concluiu Zuffo.

LEIA TAMBÉM

– Brasil desperdiça 37% da água tratada, aponta relatório do governo federal

– Ao invés de seguir a lei federal, governo Alckmin promete brigar na Justiça para sobretaxar consumo

– Especialistas sugerem menos obras e mais políticas de reflorestamento para gestão de recursos hídricos

– Professor da Unicamp afirma que volume captado do Sistema Cantareira tinha de ter sido reduzido há anos

“The Fuse is Blown”. Glaciologist’s Jaw Dropping Account of a Shattering Moment (Climate Denial Crock of the Week)

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January 22, 2015

Peter Sinclair

If you’ve missed the other segments of our interview with Glaciologist Eric Rignot – do not, repeat, do not, miss this one.

Rignot was a co-author of the “holy shit moment” paper from last spring, showing that large areas of the West Antarctic Ice sheet are now in “irreversible decline”.
That news made for one of my most harrowing videos of the last year, which you can, and should view if you have not – below the fold.

I’m keeping these clips from our interviews minimally edited – I want the raw video to speak for itself to current readers, and to historians, who will undoubtedly understand all too well why we were peeling our jaws off the floor after this one.

Is a climate disaster inevitable? (Book Forum)

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JAN 21 2015   3:00PM

From De Ethica, Michel Bourban (Lausanne): Climate Change, Human Rights and the Problem of Motivation; Robert Heeger (Utrecht): Climate Change and Responsibility to Future Generations: Reflections on the Normative Questions; Casey Rentmeester (Finlandia): Do No Harm: A Cross-Disciplinary, Cross-Cultural Climate Ethics; and Norbert Campagna (Luxembourg): Climate Migration and the State’s Duty to Protect. Harvard’s David Keith knows how to dial down the Earth’s thermostat — is it time to try? Renzo Taddei (UNIFESP): Alter Geoengineering. Tobias Boes and Kate Marshall on writing the Anthropocene. People don’t work as hard on hot days — or on a warming planet. James West on 2014 was the year we finally started to do something about climate change. How much is climate change going to cost us? David Roberts investigates. Is a climate disaster inevitable? Adam Frank on what astrobiology can tell us about the fate of the planet. If we’re all headed for extinction anyway—AND WE ARE—won’t it be a lot more enjoyable to run out the clock with everyone looking a little more pleasant? Welcome to the latest exciting opportunity in the sights of investors: the collapse of planet Earth. You can download Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence by Christian Parenti (2011). You can download Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene by Joanna Zylinska (2014).

[Emphasis added]

O que esperar da ciência em 2015 (Zero Hora)

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Apostamos em cinco coisas que tendem a aparecer neste ano

19/01/2015 | 06h01

O que esperar da ciência em 2015 SpaceX/Youtube
Foto: SpaceX/Youtube

Em 2014, a ciência conseguiu pousar em um cometa, descobriu que estava errada sobre a evolução genética das aves, revelou os maiores fósseis da história. Miguel Nicolelis apresentou seu exoesqueleto na Copa do Mundo, o satélite brasileiro CBERS-4, em parceria com a China, foi ao espaço com sucesso, um brasileiro trouxe a principal medalha da matemática para casa.

Mas e em 2015, o que veremos? Apostamos em cinco coisas que poderão aparecer neste ano.

Foguetes reusáveis


Se queremos colonizar Marte, não adianta passagem só de ida. Esses foguetes, capazes de ir e voltar, são a promessa para transformar o futuro das viagens espaciais. Veremos se a empresa SpaceX, que já está nessa, consegue.

Robôs em casa


Os japoneses da Softbank começam a vender, em fevereiro, um robô humanoide chamado Pepper. Ele usa inteligência artificial para reconhecer o humor do dono e fala quatro línguas. Apesar de ser mais um ajudante do que um cara que faz, logo logo aprenderá novas funções.

Universo invisível


O Grande Colisor de Hádrons vai voltar a funcionar em março e terá potência duas vezes maior de quebrar partículas. Uma das possibilidades é que ele ajude a descobrir novas superpartículas que, talvez, componham a matéria escura. Seria o primeiro novo estado da matéria descoberto em um século.

Cura para o ebola


Depois da crise de 2014, pode ser que as vacinas para o ebola comecem a funcionar e salvem muitas vidas na África. Vale o mesmo para a aids. O HIV está cercado, esperamos que a ciência finalmente o vença neste ano.

Discussões climáticas


2014 foi um dos mais quentes da história e, do jeito que a coisa vai, 2015 seguirá a mesma trilha. Em dezembro, o mundo vai discutir um acordo para tentar reverter o grau de emissões de gases em Paris. São medidas para ser implementadas a partir de 2020. Que sejam sensatos nossos líderes.

Grupo de especialistas divulga previsão do clima para o próximo trimestre (MCTI)

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Na primeira reunião de 2015 do Grupo de Trabalho em Previsão Climática Sazonal do Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, pesquisadores alertam que haverá chuvas abaixo da média no Norte e Nordeste e acima da média no Sul do País

Chuvas abaixo da média na região Semiárida do Nordeste e na região Norte do Brasil, com possibilidade de queimadas e incêndios em Roraima, e continuidade de precipitação acima da média na região Sul. Essas são as tendências climáticas para os próximos três meses (fevereiro, março e abril). Elas foram apresentadas nesta sexta-feira (16) na primeira reunião de 2015 do Grupo de Trabalho em Previsão Climática Sazonal (GTPCS) do Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (MCTI).

Paulo Nobre, pesquisador do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe/MCTI), atribuiu os resultados da avaliação do grupo à continuidade do fenômeno El Niño. “Temos uma condição sazonal dessas três regiões onde é possível hoje cientificamente e tecnologicamente fazer essas previsões”, afirmou o especialista que conduziu as atividades do primeiro encontro do GTPCS.

Participam do grupo de trabalho, instituído pelo MCTI em novembro de 2013, as principais lideranças na área de previsão climática no País. A cada mês os especialistas se reúnem para traçar prognósticos para o trimestre seguinte. O objetivo é dar subsídios aos tomadores de decisões sobre o cenário climático que se aproxima.

O secretário de Políticas e Programas de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento do MCTI, Carlos Nobre, alertou que a previsão climática para o próximo trimestre inspira atenção. “O Brasil está vivendo um momento de diferentes extremos climáticos em diferentes partes do país com impactos na economia e na sociedade”, destacou o secretário que também coordena do GTPCS. “As informações geradas pelo grupo de trabalho alimentam imediatamente ministérios e a presidência da República para que sejam tomadas as medidas necessárias.”

Na abertura do encontro, que aconteceu pela primeira vez em Brasília, o ministro da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, Aldo Rebelo, enfatizou a importância de haver previsão climática de curto prazo. “O trabalho dos pesquisadores do GTPCS já contribuiu no ano passado para reduzir os danos da seca no Nordeste e das enchentes em Rondônia”, exemplificou.

Participam do grupo pesquisadores do Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos (CPTEC) do Inpe; do Centro de Ciência do Sistema Terrestre (CCST); do Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (Cemaden/MCTI); e do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (Inpa/MCTI). A cada reunião um dos membros conduzirá as atividades. Nesta sexta, o meteorologista Paulo Nobre, pesquisador do Inpe, coordenou os trabalhos.

Para outras regiões do país não há previsibilidade climática, a exemplo do Sudeste. “O Nordeste, por exemplo, é a região com maior previsibilidade sazonal porque tem a dependência do Oceano e um tempo de variação bem lento. Na região Sudeste, o que causa chuva são as frentes frias que tem um tempo de previsibilidade de uma semana, no máximo duas”, explica Paulo Nobre, pesquisador do Inpe. No limite do conhecimento científico o que se pode afirmar é que as chuvas continuarão abaixo da média neste período.

Acesse aqui o relatório completo emitido pelo GTPCS.

(MCTI)

http://www.mcti.gov.br/visualizar/-/asset_publisher/jIPU0I5RgRmq/content/grupo-de-especialistas-divulga-previsao-do-clima-para-o-proximo-trimestre?redirect=/&

Crise hídrica: Alarme! (Rede Nossa São Paulo)

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19/1/2015 – 03h10

por Oded Grajew*

suspensao racionamento nh Crise hídrica: Alarme!

Diante da crise da água em São Paulo, o coordenador geral da Rede Nossa São Paulo e do Programa Cidades Sustentáveis faz um apelo às autoridades e aos cidadãos para que assumam as devidas responsabilidades. Confira:

A cidade de São Paulo está diante de uma catástrofe social, econômica e ambiental sem precedentes. O nível do sistema Cantareira está em cerca de 6% e segue baixando por volta de 0,1% ao dia. O que significa que, em aproximadamente 60 dias, o sistema pode secar COMPLETAMENTE!

O presidente da Sabesp declarou que o sistema pode ZERAR em março ou, na melhor das hipóteses, em junho deste ano. E NÃO HÁ UM PLANO B em curto prazo. Isto significa que seis milhões de pessoas ficarão praticamente SEM UMA GOTA DE ÁGUA ou com enorme escassez. Não é que haverá apenas racionamento ou restrição. Poderá haver ZERO de água, NEM UMA GOTA.

Você já se deu conta do que isto significa em termos sociais, econômicos (milhares de estabelecimentos inviabilizados e enorme desemprego) e ambientais? Você já se deu conta de que no primeiro momento a catástrofe atingirá os mais vulneráveis (pobres, crianças e idosos) e depois todos nós?

O que nos espanta é a passividade da sociedade e das autoridades diante da iminência desta monumental catástrofe. Todas as medidas tomadas pelas autoridades e o comportamento da sociedade são absolutamente insuficientes para enfrentar este verdadeiro cataclismo.

Parece que estamos todos anestesiados e impotentes para agir, para reagir, para pressionar, para alertar, para se mobilizar em torno de propostas e, principalmente, em ações e planos de emergência de curto prazo e políticas e comportamentos que levem a uma drástica transformação da nossa relação com o meio ambiente e os recursos hídricos.

Há uma unanimidade de que esta é uma crise de LONGUÍSSIMA DURAÇÃO por termos deixado, permitido, que se chegasse a esta dramática situação. Agora, o que mais parece é que estamos acomodados e tranquilos num Titanic sem nos dar conta do iceberg que está se aproximando.

Nosso intuito, nosso apelo, nosso objetivo com este alarme é conclamar as autoridades, os formadores de opinião, as lideranças e os cidadãos a se conscientizarem urgentemente da gravíssima situação que vive a cidade, da dimensão da catástrofe que se aproxima a passos largos.

Precisamos parar de nos enganar. É fundamental que haja uma grande mobilização de todos para que se tomem ações e medidas à altura da dramática situação que vivemos. Deixar de lado rivalidades e interesses políticos, eleitorais, desavenças ideológicas. Não faltam conhecimentos, não faltam ideias, não faltam propostas (o Conselho da Cidade de São Paulo aprovou um grande conjunto delas). Mas faltam mobilização e liderança para enfrentar este imenso desafio.

Todos precisamos assumir nossa responsabilidade à altura do nosso poder, de nossa competência e de nossa consciência. O tempo está se esgotando a cada dia.

* Oded Grajew é empresário, coordenador da secretaria executiva da Rede Nossa São Paulo, presidente emérito do Instituto Ethos e idealizador do Fórum Social Mundial.

** Publicado originalmente no site Rede Nossa São Paulo.

(Rede Nossa São Paulo)

Can Humanity’s ‘Great Acceleration’ Be Managed and, If So, How? (Dot Earth, New York Times)

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By January 15, 2015 5:00 pm

Updated below | Through three-plus decades of reporting, I’ve been seeking ways to better mesh humanity’s infinite aspirations with life on a finite planet. (Do this Google search — “infinite aspirations” “finite planet” Revkin – to get the idea. Also read the 2002 special issue of Science Times titled “Managing Planet Earth.”)

So I was naturally drawn to a research effort that surfaced in 2009 defining a “safe operating space for humanity” by estimating a set of nine “planetary boundaries” for vital-sign-style parameters like levels of greenhouse gases, flows of nitrogen and phosphorus and loss of biodiversity.

A diagram from a 2009 analysis of "planetary boundaries" showed humans were already hitting limits (red denotes danger zones).
A diagram from a 2009 analysis of “planetary boundaries” showed humans were already hitting limits (red denotes danger zones). Stockholm Resilience Center

The same was true for a related “Great Acceleration” dashboard showing humanity’s growth spurt (the graphs below), created by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program.

A graphic illustrating how human social and economic trends, resource appetites and environmental impacts have surged since 1950.
A graphic illustrating how human social and economic trends, resource appetites and environmental impacts have surged since 1950. International Geosphere-Biosphere Program

Who would want to drive a car without gauges tracking engine heat, speed and fuel levels? I use that artwork in all my talks.

Now, both the dashboard of human impacts and planetary boundaries have been updated. For more detail on the dashboard, explore the website of the geosphere-biosphere organization.

In a prepared statement, a co-author of the acceleration analysis, Lisa Deutsch, a senior lecturer at the Stockholm Resilience Center, saw little that was encouraging:

Of all the socio-economic trends only construction of new large dams seems to show any sign of the bending of the curves – or a slowing of the Great Acceleration. Only one Earth System trend indicates a curve that may be the result of intentional human intervention – the success story of ozone depletion. The leveling off of marine fisheries capture since the 1980s is unfortunately not due to marine stewardship, but to overfishing.

And all that acceleration (mostly since 1950, as I wrote yesterday) has pushed us out of four safe zones, according to the 18 authors of the updated assessment of environmental boundaries, published online today by the journal Science here: “Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet.”

The paper is behind a paywall, but the Stockholm Resilience Center, which has led this work, has summarized the results, including the authors’ conclusion that we’re in the danger zone on four of the nine boundaries: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change and alteration of biogeochemical cycles (for the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen).

Their work has been a valuable prod to the community of scientists and policy analysts aiming to smooth the human journey, resulting in strings of additional studies. Some followup work has supported the concept, and even broadened it, as with a 2011 proposal by Kate Raworth of the aid group Oxfam to add social-justice boundaries, as well: “A Safe and Just Space for Humanity – Can We Live Within the Doughnut?”

In 2011, <a href="http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/safe-and-just-space-humanity">Kate Raworth</a> at the aid group Oxfam proposed a framework for safe and just human advancement illustrated as a doughnut-shaped zone.
In 2011, Kate Raworth at the aid group Oxfam proposed a framework for safe and just human advancement illustrated as a doughnut-shaped zone. Oxfam

But others have convincingly challenged many of the boundaries and also questioned their usefulness, given how both impacts of, and decisions about, human activities like fertilizing fields or tapping aquifers are inherently local — not planetary in scale. (You’ll hear from some critics below.)

In 2012, the boundaries work helped produce a compelling alternative framework for navigating the Anthropocene — “Planetary Opportunities: A Social Contract for Global Change Science to Contribute to a Sustainable Future.”

I hope the public (and policy makers) will realize this is not a right-wrong, win-lose science debate. A complex planet dominated by a complicated young species will never be managed neatly. All of us, including environmental scientists, will continue to learn and adjust.

I was encouraged, for instance, to see the new iteration of the boundaries analysis take a much more refined view of danger zones, including more of an emphasis on the deep level of uncertainty in many areas:

A diagram from a paper defining "planetary boundaries" for human activities shows areas of greatest risk in red.
A diagram from a paper defining “planetary boundaries” for human activities shows areas of greatest risk in red. Science

The authors, led by Will Steffen of Australian National University and Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Center, have tried to refine how they approach risks related to disrupting ecosystems – not simply pointing to lost biological diversity but instead devising a measure of general “biosphere integrity.”

That measure, and the growing human influence on the climate through the buildup of long-lived greenhouse gases are the main source of concern, they wrote:

Two core boundaries – climate change and biosphere integrity – have been identified, each of which has the potential on its own to drive the Earth System into a new state should they be substantially and persistently transgressed.

But the bottom line has a very retro feel, adding up to the kind of ominous, but generalized warnings that many environmental scientists and other scholars began giving with the “Limits to Growth” analysis in 1972. Here’s a cornerstone passage from the paper, reprising a longstanding view that the environmental conditions of the Holocene – the equable span since the end of the last ice age – is ideal:

The precautionary principle suggests that human societies would be unwise to drive the Earth System substantially away from a Holocene-like condition. A continuing trajectory away from the Holocene could lead, with an uncomfortably high probability, to a very different state of the Earth System, one that is likely to be much less hospitable to the development of human societies.

I sent the Science paper to a batch of environmental researchers who have been constructive critics of the Boundaries work. Four of them wrote a group response, posted below, which includes this total rejection of the idea that the Holocene is somehow special:

[M]ost species evolved before the Holocene and the contemporary ecosystems that sustain humanity are agroecosystems, urban ecosystems and other human-altered ecosystems….

Here’s their full response:

The Limits of Planetary Boundaries
Erle Ellis, Barry Brook, Linus Blomqvist, Ruth DeFries

Steffen et al (2015) revise the “planetary boundaries framework” initially proposed in 2009 as the “safe limits” for human alteration of Earth processes (Rockstrom et al 2009). Limiting human harm to environments is a major challenge and we applaud all efforts to increase the public utility of global-change science. Yet the planetary boundaries (PB) framework – in its original form and as revised by Steffen et al – obscures rather than clarifies the environmental and sustainability challenges faced by humanity this century.

Steffen et al concede that “not all Earth system processes included in the PB have singular thresholds at the global/continental/ocean basin level.” Such processes include biosphere integrity (see Brook et al 2013), biogeochemical flows, freshwater use, and land-system change. “Nevertheless,” they continue, “it is important that boundaries be established for these processes.” Why? Where a global threshold is unknown or lacking, there is no scientifically robust way of specifying such a boundary – determining a limit along a continuum of environmental change becomes a matter of guesswork or speculation (see e.g. Bass 2009; Nordhaus et al 2012). For instance, the land-system boundary for temperate forest is set at 50% of forest cover remaining. There is no robust justification for why this boundary should not be 40%, or 70%, or some other level.

While the stated objective of the PB framework is to “guide human societies” away from a state of the Earth system that is “less hospitable to the development of human societies”, it offers little scientific evidence to support the connection between the global state of specific Earth system processes and human well-being. Instead, the Holocene environment (the most recent 10,000 years) is assumed to be ideal. Yet most species evolved before the Holocene and the contemporary ecosystems that sustain humanity are agroecosystems, urban ecosystems and other human-altered ecosystems that in themselves represent some of the most important global and local environmental changes that characterize the Anthropocene. Contrary to the authors’ claim that the Holocene is the “only state of the planet that we know for certain can support contemporary human societies,” the human-altered ecosystems of the Anthropocene represent the only state of the planet that we know for certain can support contemporary civilization.

Human alteration of environments produces multiple effects, some advantageous to societies, such as enhanced food production, and some detrimental, like environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, excess nutrients and carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and the loss of wildlife and their habitats. The key to better environmental outcomes is not in ending human alteration of environments but in anticipating and mitigating their negative consequences. These decisions and trade-offs should be guided by robust evidence, with global-change science investigating the connections and tradeoffs between the state of the environment and human well-being in the context of the local setting, rather than by framing and reframing environmental challenges in terms of untestable assumptions about the virtues of past environments.

Even without specifying exact global boundaries, global metrics can be highly misleading for policy. For example, with nitrogen, where the majority of human emissions come from synthetic fertilizers, the real-world challenge is to apply just the right amount of nitrogen to optimize crop yields while minimizing nitrogen losses that harm aquatic ecosystems. Reducing fertilizer application in Africa might seem beneficial globally, yet the result in this region would be even poorer crop yields without any notable reduction in nitrogen pollution; Africa’s fertilizer use is already suboptimal for crop yields. What can look like a good or a bad thing globally can prove exactly the opposite when viewed regionally and locally. What use is a global indicator for a local issue? As in real estate, location is everything.

Finally, and most importantly, the planetary boundaries are burdened not only with major uncertainties and weak scientific theory – they are also politically problematic. Real world environmental challenges like nitrogen pollution, freshwater consumption and land-use change are ultimately a matter of politics, in the sense that there are losers and winners, and solutions have to be negotiated among many stakeholders. The idea of a scientific expert group determining top-down global limits on these activities and processes ignores these inevitable trade-offs and seems to preclude democratic resolution of these questions. It has been argued that (Steffen et al 2011):

Ultimately, there will need to be an institution (or institutions) operating, with authority, above the level of individual countries to ensure that the planetary boundaries are respected. In effect, such an institution, acting on behalf of humanity as a whole, would be the ultimate arbiter of the myriad trade-offs that need to be managed as nations and groups of people jockey for economic and social advantage. It would, in essence, become the global referee on the planetary playing field.

Here the planetary boundaries framework reaches its logical conclusion with a political scenario that is as unlikely as it is unpalatable. There is no ultimate global authority to rule over humanity or the environment. Science has a tremendously important role to play in guiding environmental management, not as a decider, but as a resource for deliberative, evidence-based decision making by the public, policy makers, and interest groups on the challenges, trade-offs and possible courses of action in negotiating the environmental challenges of societal development (DeFries et al 2012). Proposing that science itself can define the global environmental limits of human development is simultaneously unrealistic, hubristic, and a strategy doomed to fail.

I’ve posted the response online as a standalone document for easier downloading; there you can view the authors’ references, as well.

Update, 9:40 p.m.| Will Steffen, the lead author of the updated Planetary Boundaries analysis, sent this reply to Ellis and co-authors tonight:

Response to Ellis et al. on planetary boundaries

Of course we welcome constructive debate on and criticism of the planetary boundaries (PB) update paper. However, the comments of Ellis et al. appear to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to the original 2009 paper than a careful analysis of the present paper. In fact, one wonders if they have even read the paper, including the Supplementary Online Material (SOM) where much methodological detail is provided.

One criticism seems to be based on a rather bizarre conflation of a state of the Earth System with (i) the time when individual biological species evolved, and (ii) the nature and distribution of human-altered terrestrial ecosystems. This makes no sense from an Earth System science perspective. The state of the Earth System (a single system at the planetary level) also involves the oceans, the atmosphere, the cryosphere and very important processes like the surface energy balance and the flows and transformation of elements. It is the state of this single complex system, which provides the planetary life support system for humanity, that the PB framework is concerned with, not with fragmentary bits of it in isolation.

In particular, the PB framework is based on the fact – and I emphasise the word “fact” – that the relatively stable Holocene state of the Earth System (the past approximately 11,700 years) is the only state of the System that has allowed the development of agriculture, urban settlements and complex human societies. Some argue that humanity can now survive, and even thrive, in a rapidly destabilizing planetary environment, but that is a belief system based on supreme technological optimism, and is not a reasoned scientifically informed judgment. Also, Ellis et al. seem to conflate human alteration of terrestrial environments with human alteration of the fundamental state of the Earth System as a whole. These are two vastly different things.

The criticisms show further misunderstanding of the nature of complex systems like the Earth System and how they operate. For example, Ellis et al. claim that a process is not important unless it has a threshold. Even a cursory understanding of the carbon cycle, for example, shows that this is nonsense. Neither the terrestrial nor the marine carbon sinks have known large-scale thesholds yet they are exceedingly important for the functioning of the climate system, which does indeed have known large-scale thresholds such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Sure, it is more challenging to define boundaries for processes that are very important for the resilience of the Earth System but don’t have large-scale thresholds, but it is not impossible. The zone of uncertainty tends to be larger for these boundaries, but as scientific understanding improves, this zone will narrow.

An important misrepresentation of our paper is the assertion that we are somehow suggesting that fertilizer application in Africa be reduced. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if Ellis et al had taken the time to read the SOM, the excellent paper by Carpenter and Bennett (2011) on the P boundary, the equally excellent paper by de Vries et al. (2013) on the N boundary, and the paper by Steffen and Stafford Smith (2013) on the distribution and equity issues for many of the PBs, including N and P, they wouldn’t have made such a misrepresentation.

Finally, the Steffen et al. (2011) paper seems to have triggered yet another misrepresentation. The paragraph of the paper quoted by Ellis et al. is based on contributions from two of the authors who are experts in institutions and governance issues, and does not come from the natural science community. Nowhere in the paragraph quoted, nor in the Steffen et al. (2011) paper as a whole, is there the proposal for a “a scientific expert group determining top-down global limits…”. The paragraph reprinted by Ellis et al. doesn’t mention scientists at all. That is a complete misrepresentation of our work.

We reiterate that we very much welcome careful and constructive critiques of the PB update paper, preferably in the peer-reviewed literature. In fact, such critiques of the 2009 PB paper were very helpful in developing the 2015 paper. Knee-jerk reactions in the blogosphere make for interesting reading, but they are far less useful in advancing the science.

Update, Jan. 16, 2:09 p.m. | Johan Rockström and Katherine Richardson, authors of the boundaries analysis, sent these additional reactions to the Ellis et al. critique:

We are honored that Erle Ellis, Barry Brook, Linus Blomqvist and Ruth DeFries (Ellis et al.) show such strong interest in our Planetary Boundaries research. The 2015 science update draws upon the over 60 scientific articles that have been published specifically scrutinizing different aspects of the Planetary Boundaries framework (amongst them the contributions by all these four researchers), and the most recent advancements in Earth System science. This new paper scientifically addresses and clarifies all of the natural science related aspects of Ellis et al.’s critique. It can also be noted that Ellis et al.’s critique simply echoes the standpoints regarding Planetary Boundaries research that the same group (Blomqvist et al., 2012) brought forward in 2012. Now, as then, their criticisms seem largely to be based on misunderstandings and their own viewpoints:

(1) We have never argued that there are planetary scale tipping points for all Planetary Boundary processes. Furthermore, there does not need to be a tipping point for these processes and systems in order for them to function as key regulators of the stability of the Earth system. A good example here is the carbon sink in the biosphere (approximately 4.5 Gt/year) which has doubled over the past 50 years in response to human emissions of CO2 and, thus, provides a good example of Earth resilience at play;

(2) Establishing the Planetary Boundaries, i.e. identifying Earth System scale boundaries for environmental processes that regulate the stability of the planet, does not (of course) contradict or replace the need for local action, transparency and democratic processes. Our society has long accepted the need for local – and to some extent regional- environmental management. Scientific evidence has now accumulated that indicates a further need for management of some environmental challenges at the global level. Many years of multi-lateral climate negotiation indicate a recognized need for global management of the CO2 emissions that occur locally. Our Planetary Boundaries research identifies that there are also other processes critical to the functioning of the Earth System that are so impacted by human activities that they, too, demand management at the global level. Ours is a positive – not a doomsday – message. It will come as no surprise to any reader that there are environmental challenges associated with all of the 9 Earth System functions we examine. Through our research, we offer a framework that can be useful in developing management at a global level.

It is important to emphasize that Ellis et al. associate socio-political attributes to our work that do not exist. The Science paper published today (16th January 2015), is a natural science update and advancement of the planetary boundaries framework. It makes no attempt to enter the (very important) social science realm of equity, institutions or global governance. The implications attributed to the PB framework must, then, reflect Ellis et al.’s own normative values. Furthermore, Ellis et al. argue that the “key to better environmental outcomes is not ending human alteration” but “anticipating and mitigating the negative consequences” of human environmental perturbation. While Planetary Boundaries research does not dictate how societies should use the insights it provides, “anticipating negative consequences” is at the absolute core of our approach!

Regarding Earth system tipping points. As Will Steffen points out in his earlier response, it would have been scientifically more correct for Ellis et al. to refer not only to their own assessment of uncertainties regarding a potential biosphere tipping point but also to the response to their article by Terry Hughes et al. (2014). These researchers presented the current state of empirical evidence concerning changes in interactions and feedbacks and how they can (in several cases do!) trigger tipping points at ecosystem and biome scale, and that such non-linear dynamics at local to regional scale can add up to impacts at the Earth system scale.

A different worldview. The Ellis et al. critique appears not to be a scientific criticism per se but rather is based on their own interpretation of differences in worldview. They do not substantively put in question the stability of the Earth system as a basis for human development– see Will Steffen’s response. Thus, it appears that we and Ellis et al. are in agreement here. Of course species and ecosystems have evolved prior to the Holocene but only in the stable environment of the Holocene have humans been able to exploit the Earth system at scale (e.g., by inventing agriculture as a response to a stable hydro-climate in the Holocene).

Ellis et al. argue that the only constructive avenue is to “investigate the connections and trade-offs between the state of the environment and human well-being in the context of the local setting..:”. This is clearly not aligned with current scientific evidence. In the Anthropocene, there is robust evidence showing that we need to address global environmental change at the global level, as well as at the regional, national and local contexts, and in particular understanding cross-scale interactions between them.

On global governance. It seems hardly surprising, given the Ellis et al.’s misunderstanding of the Planetary Boundaries framework that their interpretation of the implications of operationalizing the framework rests also on misunderstandings. They claim the Planetary Boundaries framework translates to an “ultimate global authority to rule over humanity”. No one would argue that the current multi-lateral climate negotiations are an attempt to establish “ultimate global authority over humanity” and this is certainly never been suggested by the Planetary Boundaries research. In essence, the Planetary Boundary analysis simply identifies Earth System processes that – in the same manner as climate – regulate the stability of the Earth System, and if impacted too far by human activities potentially can disrupt the functioning of the Earth System. The Planetary Boundaries is, then, nothing more than a natural sciences contribution to an important societal discussion and which presents evidence which can support the definition of Planetary Boundaries to safeguard a stable and resilient Earth system. How this then translates to governance is another issue entirely and important social science contributions have addressed these (Galaz et al 2012). As our research shows, there is natural science evidence that global management of some environmental challenges is necessary. From the social science literature (Biermann et al., 2012) as well as from real world policy making, we see that such global scale regulation is possible to construct in a democratic manner and does establish a safe operating space, e.g. the Montreal protocol, a global agreement to address one of the identified planetary boundaries and which, to our knowledge, is never referred to as a “global authority ruling over humanity”. As noted above, the UNFCCC process is also fundamentally concerned with establishing the global “rules of the game” by which society can continue to develop within a climate planetary boundary. The Aichi targets (within the UN Convention on Biological Diversity) of setting aside marine and terrestrial areas for conservation are also good examples of the political translation of a science based concern over global loss of biodiversity. The coming SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) framework includes a proposed set of four goals (oceans, climate, biodiversity and freshwater), which is a de-facto example of applying planetary boundary thinking to create a global framework for safeguarding a stable environment on the planet for societies and communities across the world. We find it interesting – and encouraging – that societies and the world community are already developing management tools within several “planetary boundary domains”. In all cases, this is happening in good democratic order and building upon bottom-up processes and informed by science. This ought to be reassuring for Ellis et al. who portray implementation of Planetary Boundary thinking as a dark force of planetary rule.

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[Reaction]

The Limits of Planetary Boundaries 2.0 (Brave New Climate)

Back in 2013, I led some research that critiqued the ‘Planetary Boundaries‘ concept (my refereed paper, Does the terrestrial biosphere have planetary tipping points?, appeared in Trends in Ecology & Evolution). I also blogged about this here: Worrying about global tipping points distracts from real planetary threats.

Today a new paper appeared in the journal Science, called “Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet“, which attempts to refine and clarify the concept. It states that four of nine planetary boundaries have been crossed, re-imagines the biodiversity boundary as one of ‘biodiversity integrity’, and introduces the concept of ‘novel entities’. A popular summary in the Washington Post can be read here. On the invitation of New York Times “Dot Earth” reporter Andy Revkin, my colleagues and I have written a short response, which I reproduce below. The full Dot Earth article can be read here.

The Limits of Planetary Boundaries
Erle Ellis, Barry Brook, Linus Blomqvist, Ruth DeFries

Steffen et al (2015) revise the “planetary boundaries framework” initially proposed in 2009 as the “safe limits” for human alteration of Earth processes(Rockstrom et al 2009). Limiting human harm to environments is a major challenge and we applaud all efforts to increase the public utility of global-change science. Yet the planetary boundaries (PB) framework – in its original form and as revised by Steffen et al – obscures rather than clarifies the environmental and sustainability challenges faced by humanity this century.

Steffen et al concede that “not all Earth system processes included in the PB have singular thresholds at the global/continental/ocean basin level.” Such processes include biosphere integrity (see Brook et al 2013), biogeochemical flows, freshwater use, and land-system change. “Nevertheless,” they continue, “it is important that boundaries be established for these processes.” Why? Where a global threshold is unknown or lacking, there is no scientifically robust way of specifying such a boundary – determining a limit along a continuum of environmental change becomes a matter of guesswork or speculation (see e.g. Bass 2009;Nordhaus et al 2012). For instance, the land-system boundary for temperate forest is set at 50% of forest cover remaining. There is no robust justification for why this boundary should not be 40%, or 70%, or some other level.

While the stated objective of the PB framework is to “guide human societies” away from a state of the Earth system that is “less hospitable to the development of human societies”, it offers little scientific evidence to support the connection between the global state of specific Earth system processes and human well-being. Instead, the Holocene environment (the most recent 10,000 years) is assumed to be ideal. Yet most species evolved before the Holocene and the contemporary ecosystems that sustain humanity are agroecosystems, urban ecosystems and other human-altered ecosystems that in themselves represent some of the most important global and local environmental changes that characterize the Anthropocene. Contrary to the authors’ claim that the Holocene is the “only state of the planet that we know for certain can support contemporary human societies,” the human-altered ecosystems of the Anthropocene represent the only state of the planet that we know for certain can support contemporary civilization.

Human alteration of environments produces multiple effects, some advantageous to societies, such as enhanced food production, and some detrimental, like environmental pollution with toxic chemicals, excess nutrients and carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and the loss of wildlife and their habitats. The key to better environmental outcomes is not in ending human alteration of environments but in anticipating and mitigating their negative consequences. These decisions and trade-offs should be guided by robust evidence, with global-change science investigating the connections and tradeoffs between the state of the environment and human well-being in the context of the local setting, rather than by framing and reframing environmental challenges in terms of untestable assumptions about the virtues of past environments.

Even without specifying exact global boundaries, global metrics can be highly misleading for policy. For example, with nitrogen, where the majority of human emissions come from synthetic fertilizers, the real-world challenge is to apply just the right amount of nitrogen to optimize crop yields while minimizing nitrogen losses that harm aquatic ecosystems. Reducing fertilizer application in Africa might seem beneficial globally, yet the result in this region would be even poorer crop yields without any notable reduction in nitrogen pollution; Africa’s fertilizer use is already suboptimal for crop yields. What can look like a good or a bad thing globally can prove exactly the opposite when viewed regionally and locally. What use is a global indicator for a local issue? As in real estate, location is everything.

Finally, and most importantly, the planetary boundaries are burdened not only with major uncertainties and weak scientific theory – they are also politically problematic. Real world environmental challenges like nitrogen pollution, freshwater consumption and land-use change are ultimately a matter of politics, in the sense that there are losers and winners, and solutions have to be negotiated among many stakeholders. The idea of a scientific expert group determining top-down global limits on these activities and processes ignores these inevitable trade-offs and seems to preclude democratic resolution of these questions. It has been argued that (Steffen et al 2011):

Ultimately, there will need to be an institution (or institutions) operating, with authority, above the level of individual countries to ensure that the planetary boundaries are respected. In effect, such an institution, acting on behalf of humanity as a whole, would be the ultimate arbiter of the myriad trade-offs that need to be managed as nations and groups of people jockey for economic and social advantage. It would, in essence, become the global referee on the planetary playing field.

Here the planetary boundaries framework reaches its logical conclusion with a political scenario that is as unlikely as it is unpalatable. There is no ultimate global authority to rule over humanity or the environment. Science has a tremendously important role to play in guiding environmental management, not as a decider, but as a resource for deliberative, evidence-based decision making by the public, policy makers, and interest groups on the challenges, trade-offs and possible courses of action in negotiating the environmental challenges of societal development (DeFries et al 2012). Proposing that science itself can define the global environmental limits of human development is simultaneously unrealistic, hubristic, and a strategy doomed to fail.

Cientistas tentam responder: cadê as chuvas do Cantareira? (Folha de S.Paulo)

Uncategorized, , , , , ,
RAFAEL GARCIA

DE SÃO PAULO

18/01/2015 01h45

As tempestades que têm desabado sobre a cidade de São Paulo desde o fim de dezembro derrubaram árvores e postes, mas não serviram para abastecer as represas do Cantareira, prolongando a crise da água. Cientistas, porém, afirmam que isso é compreensível e era até esperado.

O problema que leva à essa situação paradoxal passa por uma espécie de pane que acontece pelo segundo verão consecutivo no sistema que os meteorologistas chamam de ZCAS (Zona de Convergência do Atlântico Sul). Trata-se de uma banda de nuvens que se estende desde o oeste da Amazônia até Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, São Paulo e segue até alto mar.

“O sistema, que favoreceria as chuvas na região central do Brasil como um todo, não está atuando como deveria”, diz Anna Bárbara de Melo, do CPTEC (Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos), ligado ao Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais.

Em dezembro, a ZCAS entrou em ação, mas no lugar “errado”. “O sistema ocorreu, só que favorecendo a região sul da Bahia e o Tocantins”, diz a pesquisadora. “Todo o estado de Minas, em dezembro, teve menos precipitação que o normal, com exceção de algumas áreas no norte.”
Segundo o climatologista Tércio Ambrizzi, da USP, o fenômeno pode estar relacionado à mudança climática.

“O fato de a atmosfera estar mais aquecida tem gerado uma variabilidade climática maior, enfatizando os eventos extremos”, diz o climatologista. “Em 2010 e 2011, nós estávamos enfrentando as inundações e mortes ocorridas nos deslizamentos do Rio de Janeiro”, conta Ambrizzi.
“Naquele ano o Cantareira estava com mais de 100% da capacidade, vertendo água e prejudicando algumas cidades. Três anos depois, passamos para um extremo seco com chuvas abaixo da média.”

CAPITAL

Mas, se falta chuva na Cantareira, por que tanta água na capital?

Isso se explica por um outro fenômeno, tipicamente relacionado às chuvas de verão: as ilhas de calor.

Em grandes concentrações urbanas, sem vegetação, o pouco de umidade que existe sobre essas áreas tende a subir em função do calor, até atingir temperaturas mais baixas e se condensar. Isso cria nuvens com uma extensão horizontal relativamente pequena, mas uma extensão vertical grande, com bastante água. A chuva então cai numa região específica, com muita violência, explica Ambrizzi. Em geral, tais tempestades ocorrem no início da noite.

Essas fortes descargas, concentradas em horários limitados, não chegaram nem a trazer um volume médio histórico de água nem mesmo para a capital.

Na primeira metade de janeiro, a estação meteorológica do Mirante de Santana, na zona norte de São Paulo, registrou 71 mm de chuva acumulada, quando a média histórica era de 130 mm. No Cantareira, mais ao norte, a situação é pior, com apenas 60 mm de chuva tendo ocorrido até agora, menos da metade do que se esperava. O nível do reservatório caiu de 7,2% para 6,2%, numa época do ano em que costuma subir.

Algumas das chuvas de verão estimuladas pela mancha urbana de São Paulo poderiam até ter contribuído para elevar o nível de algumas represas do sistema Cantareira, mas aí surge o terceiro problema. Segundo hidrólogos, o solo da maior parte das represas já estava tão seco, castigado pelo sol, que boa parte da água foi simplesmente absorvida pela terra, sem causar nenhuma elevação no nível dos reservatórios.

Esse “efeito esponja”, diz Ambrizzi, pode ter anulado qualquer benefício que chuvas de verão tenham trazido para as represas do Cantareira mais próximas da capital.

Atmospheric rivers, cloud-creating aerosol particles, and California reservoirs (Science Daily)

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Date: January 17, 2015

Source: University of California, San Diego

Summary: In the midst of the California rainy season, scientists are embarking on a field campaign designed to improve the understanding of the natural and human-caused phenomena that determine when and how the state gets its precipitation. They will do so by studying atmospheric rivers, meteorological events that include the famous rainmaker known as the Pineapple Express.

An atmospheric river reaches the San Francisco Bay Area, Dec. 11, 2014. Credit: University of Wisconsin

In the midst of the California rainy season, scientists are embarking on a field campaign designed to improve the understanding of the natural and human-caused phenomena that determine when and how the state gets its precipitation. They will do so by studying atmospheric rivers, meteorological events that include the famous rainmaker known as the Pineapple Express.

CalWater 2015 is an interagency, interdisciplinary field campaign starting January 14, 2015. CalWater 2015 will entail four research aircraft flying through major storms while a ship outfitted with additional instruments cruises below. The research team includes scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, NOAA, and NASA and uses resources from the DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility — a national scientific user facility.

The study will help provide a better understanding of how California gets its rain and snow, how human activities are influencing precipitation, and how the new science provides potential to inform water management decisions relating to drought and flood.

“After several years in the making by an interdisciplinary science team, and through support from multiple agencies, the CalWater 2015 field campaign is set to observe the key conditions offshore and over California like has never been possible before,” said Scripps climate researcher Marty Ralph, a CalWater lead investigator. “These data will ultimately help develop better climate projections for water and will help test the potential of using existing reservoirs in new ways based on atmospheric river forecasts.”

Like land-based rivers, atmospheric rivers carry massive amounts of moisture long distances — in California’s case, from the tropics to the U.S. West Coast. When an atmospheric river hits the coast, it releases its moisture as precipitation. How much and whether it falls as rain or snow depends on aerosols — tiny particles made of dust, sea salt, volatile molecules, and pollution.

The researchers will examine the strength of atmospheric rivers, which produce up to 50 percent of California’s precipitation and can transport 10-20 times the flow of the Mississippi River. They will also explore how to predict when and where atmospheric rivers will hit land, as well as the role of ocean evaporation and how the ocean changes after a river passes.

“Climate and weather models have a hard time getting precipitation right,” said Ralph. “In fact, the big precipitation events that are so important for water supply and can cause flooding, mostly due to atmospheric rivers, are some of the most difficult to predict with useful accuracy. The severe California drought is essentially a result of a dearth of atmospheric rivers, while, conversely, the risk of Katrina-like damages for California due to severe ARs has also been quantified in previous research.”

For the next month or more, instrument teams will gather data from the NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown and two NOAA, one DOE, and one NASA research aircraft with a coordinated implementation strategy when weather forecasters see atmospheric rivers developing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. NASA will also provide remote sensing data for the project.

“Improving our understanding of atmospheric rivers will help us produce better forecasts of where they will hit and when, and how much rain and snow they will deliver,” said Allen White, NOAA research meteorologist and CalWater 2015 mission scientist. “Better forecasts will give communities the environmental intelligence needed to respond to droughts and floods.”

Most research flights will originate at McClellan Airfield in Sacramento. Ground-based instruments in Bodega Bay, Calif., and scattered throughout the state will also collect data on natural and human contributions to the atmosphere such as dust and pollution. This data-gathering campaign follows the 2009-2011 CalWater1 field campaign, which yielded new insights into how precipitation processes in the Sierra Nevada can be influenced by different sources of aerosols that seed the clouds.

“This will be an extremely important study in advancing our overall understanding of aerosol impacts on clouds and precipitation,” said Kimberly Prather, a CalWater lead investigator and Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry with appointments at Scripps Oceanography and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego. “It will build upon findings from CalWater1, adding multiple aircraft to directly probe how aerosols from different sources, local, ocean, as well as those from other continents, are influencing clouds and precipitation processes over California.”

“We are collecting this data to improve computer models of rain that represent many complex processes and their interactions with the environment,” said PNNL’s Leung. “Atmospheric rivers contribute most of the heavy rains along the coast and mountains in the West. We want to capture those events better in our climate models used to project changes in extreme events in the future.”

Prather’s group showed during CalWater1 that aerosols can have competing effects, depending on their source. Intercontinental mineral dust and biological particles possibly from the ocean corresponded to events with more precipitation, while aerosols produced by local air pollution correlated with less precipitation.

The CalWater 2015 campaign is comprised of two interdependent efforts. Major investments in facilities include aircraft, ship time, and sensors by NOAA. Marty Ralph, Kim Prather, and Dan Cayan from Scripps, and Chris Fairall, Ryan Spackman, and Allen White of NOAA lead CalWater-2. The DOE-funded ARM Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment (ACAPEX) is led by Ruby Leung from PNNL. NSF and NASA have also provided major support for aspects of CalWater, leveraging the NOAA and DOE investments.

Study Reveals Scary New Facts About Sea Level Rise (Climate Progress)

Uncategorized, , , ,

BY EMILY ATKIN

POSTED ON JANUARY 15, 2015 AT 11:05 AM UPDATED: JANUARY 15, 2015 AT 1:50 PM

A Sri Lankan man throws his bait as he fishes in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, July 1, 2013.

A Sri Lankan man throws his bait as he fishes in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, July 1, 2013.

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/ERANGA JAYAWARDENA

A new study from scientists at Harvard and Rutgers Universities has been sweeping theinternet, and for good reason: it shows, quite alarmingly, that the planet’s seas have been rising much faster than we thought.

The research can be confusing on its face. At first glance, it shows that scientists have actually been overstating the rate of sea level rise for the first 90 years of the 20th century. Instead of rising about six inches over that period of time, the Harvard and Rutgers scientists discovered that the sea actually only rose by about five inches. That’s a big overstatement — a two quadrillion gallon overstatement, in fact — enough to fill three billion Olympic-size swimming pools, the New York Times reported.

But here’s the thing. If the sea wasn’t rising as steadily as we believed from 1900 to 1990, that means that it has been rising much more quickly than we thought from 1990 to the present day. In other words, we used to think the rate of acceleration of sea level rise in the last 25 years was only a little worse compared to the past — now that we know the rate used to be much slower, we know that it’s much worse.

This chart shows as estimate of global sea level side from four different analyses, shown in red, blue, purple, and black. Shaded regions show uncertainty.

This chart shows as estimate of global sea level side from four different analyses, shown in red, blue, purple, and black. Shaded regions show uncertainty.

CREDIT: NATURE

“What this paper shows is that the sea-level acceleration over the past century has been greater than had been estimated by others,” lead writer Eric Morrow said in a statement. “It’s a larger problem than we initially thought.”

Specifically, previous research had stated the seas rose about two-thirds of an inch per decade between 1900 and 1990. But with the new study, that rate was recalculated to less than half an inch a decade. Both old and new research say that since 1990, the ocean has been rising at about 1.2 inches a decade, meaning the gap is much wider than previously thought.

Most scientists believe that the main driver of sea level rise is the thermal expansion of warming oceans and the melting of the world’s ice sheets and mountain glaciers, two phenomena driven by global warming. Antarctica, for example, is losing land ice at an accelerating rate. In December, scientists discovered that a West Antarctic ice sheet roughly the size of Texas is losing the amount of ice equivalent to Mount Everest every two years, representing a melt rate that has tripled over the last decade.

The common skeptic argument is that while Antarctica is losing land ice, it is actually gaining sea ice. While that’s true, sea ice melt does not affect sea level rise. It’s like an ice cube in a glass — if it melts, nothing happens. Up north in the Arctic, however, the loss of sea ice is just as important to look at, because when it melts, more sunlight is absorbed by the oceans. In Antarctica, sea ice melt is less of a problem for ocean warmth.

In addition, tropical glaciers in the Andes Mountains are melting, threatening freshwater supplies in South America. Some scientists have also predicted that the Greenland Ice Sheet — which covers about 80 percent of the massive country — is approaching a “tipping point” that could also have “huge implications” for global sea levels and ocean carbon dioxide absorption.

“We know the sea level is changing for a variety of reasons,” study co-author Carling Hay said. “There are ongoing effects due to the last ice age, heating and expansion of the ocean due to global warming, changes in ocean circulation, and present-day melting of land-ice, all of which result in unique patterns of sea-level change.”

All that may seem pretty grim, but there is a least one good thing to come out of the research — a new and hopefully more accurate method for measuring sea level rise. Before this study, scientists estimated global sea level by essentially dropping long yard sticks into different points of the ocean, and then averaging out the measurements to see if the ocean rose or fell.

For this study, Morrow and Hay attempted to use the data from how individual ice sheets contribute to global sea-level rise, and how ocean circulation is changing to inform their measurements. If the method proves to be better, it could serve to, as the New York Times put it, “increase scientists’ confidence that they understand precisely why the ocean is rising — and therefore shore up their ability to project future increases.”

NASA, NOAA find 2014 warmest year in modern record (Science Daily)

Uncategorized, , , , ,

Date: January 16, 2015

Source: NASA

Summary: The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists. The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements.

This color-coded map displays global temperature anomaly data from 2014. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.

The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

In an independent analysis of the raw data, also released Friday, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.

“NASA is at the forefront of the scientific investigation of the dynamics of the Earth’s climate on a global scale,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The observed long-term warming trend and the ranking of 2014 as the warmest year on record reinforces the importance for NASA to study Earth as a complete system, and particularly to understand the role and impacts of human activity.”

Since 1880, Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades.

“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt.

While 2014 temperatures continue the planet’s long-term warming trend, scientists still expect to see year-to-year fluctuations in average global temperature caused by phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña. These phenomena warm or cool the tropical Pacific and are thought to have played a role in the flattening of the long-term warming trend over the past 15 years. However, 2014’s record warmth occurred during an El Niño-neutral year.

“NOAA provides decision makers with timely and trusted science-based information about our changing world,” said Richard Spinrad, NOAA chief scientist. “As we monitor changes in our climate, demand for the environmental intelligence NOAA provides is only growing. It’s critical that we continue to work with our partners, like NASA, to observe these changes and to provide the information communities need to build resiliency.”

Regional differences in temperature are more strongly affected by weather dynamics than the global mean. For example, in the U.S. in 2014, parts of the Midwest and East Coast were unusually cool, while Alaska and three western states — California, Arizona and Nevada — experienced their warmest year on record, according to NOAA.

The GISS analysis incorporates surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations. This raw data is analyzed using an algorithm that takes into account the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the calculation. The result is an estimate of the global average temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980.

NOAA scientists used much of the same raw temperature data, but a different baseline period. They also employ their own methods to estimate global temperatures.

GISS is a NASA laboratory managed by the Earth Sciences Division of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. The laboratory is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and School of Engineering and Applied Science in New York.

NASA monitors Earth’s vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites, as well as airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

The data set of 2014 surface temperature measurements is available at:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

The methodology used to make the temperature calculation is available at:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/sources_v3/

For more information about NASA’s Earth science activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

2014: Putting The Hottest Year Ever in Perspective (Climate Nexus)

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Last updated: January 16, 2015

Climate Change Connections and Why It Matters

Introduction

2014 was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20th century average of 14.1°C, making it the hottest year on record since NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center began taking measurements in 1880. The record surpassed the previous hottest year record, shared by 2005 and 2010, by 0.04°C (0.07°F). As the Earth heats up, new temperature records are increasingly common, but 2014’s record-breaking global temperature—which represents the average of land and ocean surface temperatures—is especially remarkable given that 2014 saw little influence from El Niño warming and was an ENSO-neutral year. Here is some important context on how the 2014 temperature record reaffirms long-term, human-caused global warming trends; how recent warming is tied to extreme weather patterns; and how analysts use global temperature datasets to assess the state of the climate. Top points to note include:

Table of Contents

U.S. 2014 Temperature Trends

ENSO

Record Ocean Heat

U.S. Extreme Weather

Global Extreme Weather

Temperature Datasets

  • In 2014, the U.S. saw unprecedented levels of simultaneous extreme heat in the West and cooler than average temperatures in the East, with both trends linked to global warming.
  • 2014’s heat record is alarming in the absence of a full El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and provides yet more evidence that that human-caused warming is now the dominant force driving changes in global temperature trends.
  • Global warming is not only on the rise but is fueling extreme weather and unprecedented patterns of extreme temperature anomalies.
  • Sea surface temperatures in particular are reaching record highs, driving extreme atmospheric patterns that cause heavy rainfall and floods in some countries and droughts in others.
  • Three of the four major groups that track combined ocean and land surface global temperatures—NOAA, NASA, and the JMA— have confirmed that 2014 was the hottest year on record, even with biases that underestimate warming in the ocean and Arctic.

Record Heat Supports Long-Term Warming Trend

Climate change linked to unusual temperature trends in the U.S.

2014 saw five new monthly heat records in the U.S. and was the 18th year in a row where the nationwide annual temperature average was hotter than usual. Though parts of the U.S. experienced cooler than average temperatures (a trend linked to global climate change), Alaska, Arizona, California, and Nevada each had their warmest year on record. Alarmingly, California’s annual average temperature was 2.3°C (4.1°F) above the 20th century average, shattering the old record of 1.3°C (2.3°F) by 1°C.

Average annual temperature in California and the U.S.

Source: NOAA, SFGate

Human-caused warming in 2014 trumped the ENSO signal.

February 1985 was the last month where global temperature fell below the 20th century monthly average, making December 2014 the 358th consecutive month where global land and ocean surface temperature was above average. Each of the last three decades has been much warmer than the decade before. In the 1990s, every year was warmer than the average of the previous decade, and the 2000s were warmer still. Now, according to NOAA, thirteen out of fifteen of the hottest years on record occurred since 2000, and the two exceptions (1997 and 1998) were strong El Niño years. In 2014, six out of 12 months tied or topped previous monthly global temperature records.

The combination of human-caused warming and year-to-year natural variation has generally determined which years set new temperature records. Prior to 2014, 2010 and 2005 tied for the hottest year on record, both of which were El Niño years. This makes sense because, in addition to long-term warming due to an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases, the ENSO can bump global temperatures up or down for one to several years at a time. During El Niño events, some of the heat that gets stored in the oceans spreads out and gets released back into the atmosphere, causing large-scale atmospheric circulation changes and an increase in global temperature. La Niña periods, on the other hand, are characterized by cooler than average temperatures.

What makes 2014 especially remarkable is that it set a new global temperature record during an ENSO-neutral year. From January-February 2014, sea surface temperatures were mostly below average across the eastern equatorial Pacific. By the fall, temperatures were above average, leading to speculation about the onset of an El Niño event. Scientists in the U.S. have three criteria, each of which must be met to officially declare the start of an El Niño. Conditions in the fall of 2014 met the first two criteria (that monthly sea surface temperature anomalies exceed 0.5°C and last across several seasons), but not the final criterion (observance of an atmospheric response associated with more rain over the central Pacific and less rain over Indonesia).

Global annual average temperature anomalies (relative to the 1961-1990 average) for 1950-2013 based on an average of the three data sets from NASA, NOAA and the UK Met Office. Coloring indicates whether a year was classified as an El Niño year (red), an ENSO neutral year (grey) or a La Niña year (blue).

Source: Climate Central, WMO

This means 2014 was the hottest year on record without the added boost from a full-fledged El Niño event, and it will have been even warmer than recent years with moderate ENSO contributions (2010 and 2005). Moreover, this implies that the amount of warming due to human activity is enough to trump the natural year-to-year variation associated with the ENSO cycle. With NOAA holding there is a 50-60 percent chance of a noteworthy El Niño event developing in early 2015, there’s a good chance 2015 will be even hotter, making for two record-setting years in a row. What’s more, as more heat is pumped into the ocean, climate models project a doubling in the frequency of extreme El Niño events in the future.

Record ocean surface temperatures driving 2014’s heat demonstrate the ocean’s role as an important heat sink and are linked to unusual atmospheric patterns.

Global average sea surface temperature (which is a conservative and incomplete cross-section of the ocean) has shown an alarming trend in 2014. From May through November, each month set a new record for global sea surface temperature anomaly (or departure from average), with June also setting a new record for the highest departure from average for any month. The record was short-lived, however, as June’s temperatures were quickly surpassed first in August and then again in September. A study analyzing the record ocean surface warming in 2014 finds that unusually warm surface temperatures in the North Pacific were largely responsible. While it is still too soon to know for sure, this could indicate the start of a new trend where the massive amount of heat being absorbed by the ocean is making its way to the surface, and getting reflected in surface temperatures.

Oceanic warming is especially worrisome because it has broad and complex impacts on the global climate system. Most immediately, the ocean is connected to the atmosphere—the two systems work together to move heat and freshwater across latitudes to maintain a balanced climate. This is known as ocean-atmospheric coupling. Climate scientists are actively researching how changes in ocean and atmospheric heat content impact circulation patterns, in particular how changes in circulation affect the weather patterns that steer storms. For example, one recent analysis found that ocean warming might cause atmospheric precipitation bands to shift toward the poles, causing an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events at middle and high latitudes as well as a reduction in the same near the equator. Already, we are starting to experience patterns consistent with this kind of analysis.

The amount of heat accumulating in the ocean is vital for diagnosing the Earth’s energy imbalance. Studies estimate that over 90 percent of the heat reaching the Earth is absorbed by the ocean and that over the past several decades, global warming has caused an increase in the heat content of both the upper and deep oceans.

Recent observational data has indicated a slowing in the rate of ocean surface warming relative to other climate variables, which scientists have pinned to cool-surface La Niña episodes in the equatorial Pacific. However, it is important to remember that different regions of the ocean heat up differently, and global observational data often underreports changes in regions that are difficult to measure (such as around the poles or in the deep oceans). The deep oceans in particular are responsible for absorbing much of the excess heat. Deep ocean circulation patterns carry sun-warmed tropical waters into the higher latitudes where they sink and flow back towards the Equator, acting as a kind of buffer to climate change by slowing the rate of surface warming. In addition, research shows that three major ocean basins—the Equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic, and Southern Ocean—are important areas of ocean heat uptake and that observational data often fails to capture the full extent of actual warming in these regions. Despite the limitations associated with measuring changes in ocean heat content, however, we are still seeing record-breaking heat in the oceans.

Warmer World Linked To More Extreme Weather

Unusual jet stream patterns, linked to warming in the Arctic and warmer sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, drove extreme drought in the western U.S. and chills in the East.

Temperatures in the U.S. throughout 2014 were exceptional, marked by simultaneous record heat in the West and cooler than average temperatures in the East. While it may seem strange for global warming to sometimes be accompanied by colder winters, recent studies hold that warming in the Arctic and in the western Pacific Ocean has led to changes in the jet stream, which can result in volatile weather patterns and unusually persistent periods of extreme weather in the mid-northern latitudes. The avenues through which warming influences the jet stream represent a new and still emerging facet of climate science.

Throughout 2013 and 2014, the jet stream frequently dipped from the Arctic to the south, creating a persistent dipole—or two opposed atmospheric pressure systems—with the Western U.S. receiving warm, high-pressure air from the Pacific, and the Eastern U.S. receiving Arctic air carried by the sunken jet stream.

Arguably the most severe outgrowth of this recent trend in the U.S. has been the historic 2012-2014 California drought (which forecasters predict will continue into 2015). The state began 2014 with its lowest Sierra snowpack recording—12 percent—in more than 50 years of record keeping. In August, California set a new U.S. Drought Monitor record with 58.4 percent of the state in the worst drought category, known as “exceptional drought.” The dry conditions along the West Coast also fueled a severe wildfire season. On August 2, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency due to the ongoing drought, fires and deteriorating air quality throughout the state. Meanwhile, Oregon and Washington topped the nation in total number of acres burned, with Washington experiencing its largest wildfire ever recorded.

The horizontal line marks the precipitation level of the 2000 – 2004 drought, the worst of the past 800 years up to 2012. Droughts of this intensity are predicted to be the new normal by 2030, and will be considered an outlier of extreme wetness by 2100

Source: Schwalm et al. 2012

By contrast, the Central and Eastern U.S. experienced unusually persistent cold temperatures throughout 2014. The winter of 2013-2014 was among the coldest on record for the Great Lakes, and Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana each had winter temperatures that ranked among the ten coldest on record. Ice coverage over the Great Lakes peaked at 92.2 percent on March 6, the second highest measurement on record. The summer was also cooler than average for the region, which led into an unseasonably frigid fall.

Several U.S. locations experienced their coldest Novembers on record due to a procession of cold fronts tapping air from the Arctic. At the start, the Arctic outbreak was largely the product of the extra-tropical remnant of Typhoon Nuri from the Pacific. The system was the most powerful storm to ever move over the Bering Sea, gaining strength from warmer than average ocean and atmospheric conditions. Due to its strength, the storm caused the jet stream to sink southward bringing Arctic conditions to the United States. As a result, North America snow cover reached a record extent for mid-November—15.35 million square kilometers—crushing the old record from 1985 by over two million square kilometers. On November 16, temperatures were warmer in Alaska (significantly in some cases) than in many Central and Eastern U.S. states. Arctic temperatures ran up to 40 degrees above average (with Fairbanks, Alaska blowing away old temperature records by almost two degrees), while the Central and Eastern U.S. experienced record snowfall and temperatures up to 40 degrees below average.

The weather forecast across the United States from November 16 through November 20

Source: Thinkprogress; National Weather Service

Taken together, 2014 has witnessed a record-setting split in the U.S. between regions of simultaneous hot and cold temperatures. According to Scott Robeson, a climate scientist at Indiana University Bloomington, these hot and cold extremes are important. Robeson recently authored a studyon warm and cold anomalies in the northern hemisphere and found, “Average temperatures don’t tell us everything we need to know about climate change. Arguably, these cold extremes and warm extremes are the most important factors for human society.” Robeson notes that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are considerably more volatile than in the South, where there is less land mass to add complexity to weather systems. The extreme weather observed in 2014 in the U.S. has many layers of complexity, with ocean and Arctic temperatures influencing circulation patterns, and a growing body of scientificevidence suggests global warming may be the common denominator.

Internationally, 2014 saw record heat and drought in some countries, but cold spells and flooding in others. As in the U.S., many of these trends are associated with unusual ocean-atmospheric circulation patterns with likely connections to climate change.

Perturbations in the jet stream have wide ranging climate impacts that vary depending on geographical region. One recent analysis finds a connection between a wavy jet stream pattern—with greater dips from north to south—and increases in the probabilities of heat waves in western North America and central Asia; cold outbreaks in eastern North America; droughts in central North America, Europe and central Asia; and wet spells in western Asia.

Just as most of the weather in the western U.S. is below the jet stream and connected to the Pacific, most of the weather in Europe rides in under the jet stream from the Atlantic. While the jet stream has been unusually far north in the Pacific, bringing high temperatures and drought to the western U.S., the jet stream has been unusually far south across the Atlantic. As a result, the UK was hit by an exceptional run of winter storms and an intense polar vortex at the start of 2014, with rainfall amounts, storm intensities, wave heights, and other extreme weather trends at or near record levels. Related damages from December 23, 2013 – March 1, 2014 added up to $1.5 billion. Global warming has doubled the risk of extreme conditions, as warmer temperatures and melting ice in the Arctic cause the jet stream to push cold air southwards.

In January and February, an exceptional dry spell hit Southeast Asia, with the worst impacts—including water shortages, wildfires, crop failure, and increased incidence of infectious disease—felt in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Singapore suffered its longest dry spell on record between January 13 and February 8, which caused extensive damage to rice crops and fish stocks at several offshore farms. Dengue hotspots in Malaysia experienced a four-fold increase in infections to about 14,000 compared with the same period last year.

Continuous, heavy rainfall in May resulted in some of the worst flooding ever recorded in Southeast Europe, mainly Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and Croatia. Three months’ worth of rain fell in only three days, making it the heaviest rainfall in BiH since records began in 1894. On May 15, the Serbian Government declared a state of emergency for its entire territory. The storm caused $4.5 billion in damage.

May also saw the Eastern Pacific’s strongest May hurricane on record, Hurricane Amanda, which peaked as a top-end Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds. The impressive hurricane was linked to record sea surface temperatures, which measured 0.59°C above the 20th century average of 16.3°C, the highest temperature anomaly on record for May. In July in the Western Pacific, Typhoon Rammasun became the strongest typhoon to hit China’s Hainan Province in 21 years, surprising forecasters as it gained more strength than anticipated. Like Amanda, wind speeds topped out around 155 mph. The typhoon remained very strong as it made landfall, leading to extreme rainfall and flooding in China that caused $7.2 billion in damage. Global warming is expected to increase the rainfall from tropical cyclones.

In Australia, 2014 was the third hottest year on record (with 2013 being the hottest) and was characterized by frequent periods of abnormally warm weather that contributed to huge bushfires in Victoria and South Australia. According to Dr. Karl Braganza, manager of the Bureau of Meteorology’s climate monitoring section, Australia is seeing “reoccurring heat waves, long durations of heat but very little cold weather.” A report by Australia’s Climate Council finds that the frequency and severity of bushfires is getting worse in the southern state of New South Wales each year due to “record-breaking heat and hotter weather over the long term.”

Following the wettest January to August on record, the UK experienced its driest September since records began in 1910, receiving 19.4mm of rain, or 20 percent of the expected average. Monthly temperatures in the UK were also significantly above average. One recent study finds that human-caused global warming has increased the chances of extremely hot summers in parts of Europe tenfold. The UK Met Office is currently researching how jet stream variations and changes to atmospheric circulation may be increasing the risk of patterns that slow the movement of weather systems, allowing heat waves to develop and intensify.

Understanding the Global Surface Temperature Datasets

Three of the major global temperature datasets that combine both ocean and atmospheric temperatures have declared 2014 the hottest year on record.

The 10 warmest years on record according to the NOAA and NASA datasets.

Source: NOAA; NASA

The four most highly cited combined SST and land temperature datasets are NOAA’s MLOST, NASA’s GISTEMP, the UK’s HadCRUT, and the JMA’s CLIMAT. While HadCRUT has yet to confirm, NOAA, NASA and the JMA—using independent data and analysis—have decalred 2014 the hottest year on record. The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) was one of the first agencies to report 2014’s heat record in a preliminary analysis and found that 2014’s global temperature was 0.63°C above average. NOAA’s data holds that 2014’s temperature was 0.69°C above average, and NASA that it was 0.68°C above average.

Satellites that measure temperatures in the lower atmosphere, or troposphere, did not rank 2014 as a record year, but the troposphere is only one region where excess heat gets stored.

Because satellite datasets measure the atmosphere, and not the climate system as a whole, it is inaccurate to compare satellite temperature averages with combined land and SST averages. Combined land and SST datasets are based on instrumental readings taken on site in the ocean and atmosphere, while satellite records focus on the troposphere and infer temperatures at various levels using measurements of radiance (the intensity of radiation passing through a point in a given direction). Both types of datasets improve our understanding of the rate at which the Earth is warming and how the climate system as a whole distributes heat. But because the two types of datasets vary in terms of their scope, it is perfectly possible for the atmospheric temperature average, as measured by satellites, not to set a new record, while the global combined land and SST average does.

This was the case in 2014. The two most widely cited satellite records are the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and the privately owned Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) datasets. According to the RSS data, 2014’s annual average temperature in the lower troposphere was the sixth warmest on record, or 0.26°C above the long-term average. The UAH data has not yet been confirmed, but will likely reaffirm the RSS finding. This is to be expected, however, in a year where record ocean heat was the dominant driver of observed warming.

Temperature analyses provide an important health gauge for the planet.

The instrumental temperature record—based on readings from ships and buoys that measure sea-surface temperature (SST) as well as land-based weather stations—has provided vital information about the Earth’s climate over the last century and beyond. To reconstruct global temperatures, each agency divides the Earth’s surface into latitude-longitude grid boxes that are used to integrate in situ (“on site”) temperature measurements from around the globe.

The three most highly cited combined SST and land temperature datasets are NOAA’s MLOST, NASA’s GISTEMP, and the UK’s HadCRUT. All three datasets report global average temperature as an anomaly, or departure from average, relative to a reference period. This is because absolute temperatures can vary (depending on factors like elevation), whereas anomalies allow for more meaningful comparisons between locations and accurate calculations of temperature trends. HadCRUT uses the most recent reference period to calculate anomalies, 1961-1990, followed by GISTEMP’s 1951-1980 period. MLOST, on the other hand, uses the 20th century, 1901-2000, as its reference period to establish a longer-term average.

Global Land and Ocean Temperature Anomalies, January-December

Source: NOAA

While the concept of these datasets is fairly simple, their construction is challenging due to difficulties in obtaining data; documenting and accounting for changes in instrumentation and observing practices; addressing changes in station location and local land use; understanding random measurement errors; and deciding where and how to fill in missing data in space and time. Each group has approached the above challenges somewhat differently. The final datasets differ in their spatial coverage, spatial resolution, starting year, and degree of interpolation (a method of constructing missing data points based on surrounding, discrete points). For this reason, NOAA, NASA, and UK Met Office global temperature anomalies vary subtly.

Global temperature data often underestimates the amount of warming due to coverage bias.

Analyzing temperature observations at a global scale often comes at the cost of not including important spatial detail. This challenge—known as coverage bias—is something all three of the major global temperature datasets struggle with and attempt to reconcile.

NOAA’s Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (MLOST) uses land surface air temperatures taken from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) dataset and ocean temperatures from the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) dataset, and combines these into a comprehensive global surface temperature dataset. The comprehensive dataset spans from 1880 to the present at monthly resolution on a 5×5 degree latitude-longitude grid. MLOST uses interpolation, but areas without enough data—mainly at the poles, over Africa, and at the center of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—are masked in the data analysis to prevent any overreliance on reconstructions that are based on too little data.

NASA Goddard’s Global Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) also uses GHCN data from 1880 to the present, but GISTEMP has some important differences from NOAA’s MLOST. While GISTEMP has a more focused spatial resolution, with a 2×2 grid, and better coverage at the poles due to the inclusion of data from Antarctic “READER” stations, it only provides data in terms of temperature anomalies. All three of the major global datasets report global temperatures as anomalies to make comparison and computation easier, but GISTEMP is unique in that it works solely with anomaly data from the outset. NOAA and HadCRUT have absolute temperature data from which they derive regional anomalies. As for HadCRUT, it is unique in that it incorporates many additional sources beyond GHCN and is the only global analysis that does not use interpolation. It also has more spatial coverage gaps than MLOST and GISTEMP and a tendency to significantly underreport warming, primarily due to a lack of temperature data at the Arctic, which is warming much fasterthan other regions.

“The Shining Sun,” DeviantArt user edsousa

Seca em São Paulo – 16 de janeiro de 2015

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Chuvas devem continuar abaixo da média em 2015, diz Cemaden (G1)

Ano deve ser influenciado por eventos extremos de 2014, diz especialista

Se o ano passado foi um período de condições climáticas extremas no Brasil, entre elas a seca em diversas regiões, a situação em 2015 pode piorar. Esta é a avaliação feita pelo Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (Cemaden) em Cachoeira Paulista (SP), que já prevê chuvas abaixo da média novamente.

De acordo com o meteorologista do Cemaden, Marcelo Seluchi, neste verão choveu pouco mais da metade do normal para o período. O órgão é uma das extensões do Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (Inpe) para estudos e alertas de desastres naturais. “Comparado com o ano passado, a situação de 2015 pode piorar nas metrópoles em várias regiões do Brasil e no Vale do Paraíba”, afirma.

Leia mais: http://g1.globo.com/sp/vale-do-paraiba-regiao/noticia/2015/01/chuvas-devem-continuar-abaixo-da-media-em-2015-diz-cemaden.html

(Portal G1)

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Cantareira pode secar em julho, prevê centro de monitoramento (O Globo)

Governador Alckmin diz que foi mal interpretado ao falar sobre racionamento

O Sistema Cantareira, responsável por abastecer 6,5 milhões de pessoas na Grande São Paulo, pode secar em julho, caso o consumo de água na Região Metropolitana continue o mesmo e a chuva mantenha o ritmo observado nos últimos meses. A projeção foi feita pelo Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais (Cemaden), ligado ao Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia.

Leia mais: http://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/cantareira-pode-secar-em-julho-preve-centro-de-monitoramento-15066400

(O Globo)

Mais informações sobre o assunto: Presidente da Cedae prevê uso inédito do volume morto de Paraibuna ainda este semestre – http://oglobo.globo.com/rio/presidente-da-cedae-preve-uso-inedito-do-volume-morto-de-paraibuna-ainda-este-semestre-15066522

(O Globo)

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Combinação de seca e calor extremo agrava crise do Cantareira (Estadão)

Dados oficiais mostram que nos primeiros 15 dias do ano o sistema recebeu 35% menos água do que a média de janeiro passado, enquanto as temperaturas máximas na capital batem recordes

Apontada pelo governo Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) como a causa da crise hídrica paulista no início de 2014, a combinação de seca severa nos mananciais e calor extremo na capital está ainda mais crítica em 2015. Dados oficiais mostram que nos primeiros 15 dias do ano o Sistema Cantareira recebeu 35% menos água do que a média de janeiro passado, enquanto as temperaturas máximas na cidade estão batendo o recorde registrado no mesmo período do ano anterior.

O conteúdo na íntegra está disponível em: http://sao-paulo.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,combinacao-de-seca-e-calor-extremo-agrava-crise-do-cantareira,1620492

(Fabio Leite/O Estado de S. Paulo)

Mais informações sobre o assunto: Na Folha de S.Paulo – Cantareira tem ainda menos chuva em 2015 (http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/cotidiano/204210-cantareira-tem-ainda-menos-chuva-em-2015.shtml)

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Nível de oceanos subiu em ritmo 30% maior do que se previa (Folha de S.Paulo)

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Novo estudo indica que nível do mar subiu apenas 1,2 mm entre 1900 e 1990; avaliações antigas diziam que elevação foi de 1,8mm

Do início do século 20 até a década passada, o nível dos oceanos subiu em ritmo 30% maior do que se imaginava, de acordo com um estudo realizado por pesquisadores da Universidade de Harvard (Estados Unidos).

O conteúdo na íntegra está disponível em: http://ciencia.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,nivel-de-oceanos-subiu-em-ritmo-30-maior-do-que-se-previa,1620001

(Fábio de Castro – O Estado de S. Paulo)

Mais informações sobre o assunto: 

O Globo – Nível dos mares tem aumentado mais rápido (http://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/ciencia/nivel-dos-mares-tem-aumentado-mais-rapido-15054794)

Banco Mundial diz que seca no nordeste brasileiro pode piorar (Rádio ONU)

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09/12/2014 – 09h39

por Edgard Júnior, da Rádio ONU

seca Banco Mundial diz que seca no nordeste brasileiro pode piorar

Afirmação foi feita pela assessora sênior para a América Latina e o Caribe da instituição financeira; Karin Kemper afirmou também que aumento do nível dos mares pode ter impacto no Rio de Janeiro.

A assessora regional sênior do Banco Mundial para a América Latina e o Caribe, Karin Kemper, disse, em entrevista à Rádio ONU, que se a temperatura global continuar aumentando, a seca no nordeste do Brasil pode piorar.

“Sabemos que o nordeste sempre sofreu com as secas, mas poderia ter uma frequência mais intensa ou poderia ter secas mais prolongadas. Sabemos que isso tem efeitos econômicos tanto para a população do interior, mas também podemos imaginar que, por exemplo, as cidades grandes do nordeste podem sofrer mais impactos por insegurança hídrica.”

Investimentos

Citando o relatório lançado pelo Banco Mundial na semana passada, Kemper disse ainda que os impactos do aumento da temperatura serão maiores sobre as populações mais pobres, mais vulneráveis, mulheres, crianças, como também grupos indígenas.

A assessora para a América Latina e o Caribe alertou que investimentos que poderiam ser feitos em outros setores vão acabar sendo destinados para combater os efeitos climáticos.

“Se houver um aumento do nível dos mares, por exemplo, o cálculo que temos no relatório para o Rio de Janeiro varia de uma alta de, no mínimo, 62 cm até 1 metro, no máximo. Isso significa que se precisa fazer investimentos nas cidades costeiras. Esse dinheiro poderia ser utilizado em outras coisas como em hospitais, escolas e outros setores de desenvolvimento.”

O relatório do Banco Mundial disse que um novo padrão climático global pode reduzir em 70% a produção de soja no Brasil e a de trigo em 60%.

O documento mostra dois cenários futuros prevendo as consequências de aumentos médios da temperatura global de 2 e 4 graus centígrados, até 2050. Os especialistas calculam que os danos causados por enchentes costeiras devem chegar a US$ 22 bilhões, o equivalente a mais de R$ 56 bilhões.

* Publicado originalmente no site Rádio ONU.

(Rádio ONU)

New insights into predicting future droughts in California: Natural cycles, sea surface temperatures found to be main drivers in ongoing event (Science Daily)

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Date: December 8, 2014

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Summary: Natural oceanic and atmospheric patterns are the primary drivers behind California’s ongoing drought. A high pressure ridge off the West Coast (typical of historic droughts) prevailed for three winters, blocking important wet season storms, with ocean surface temperature patterns making such a ridge much more likely.

Folsom Lake. Top photo taken in 2011, bottom taken in 2014. Credit: CA Dept. of Water Resources

According to a new NOAA-sponsored study, natural oceanic and atmospheric patterns are the primary drivers behind California’s ongoing drought. A high pressure ridge off the West Coast (typical of historic droughts) prevailed for three winters, blocking important wet season storms, with ocean surface temperature patterns making such a ridge much more likely. Typically, the winter season in California provides the state with a majority of its annual snow and rainfall that replenish water supplies for communities and ecosystems.

Further studies on these oceanic conditions and their effect on California’s climate may lead to advances in drought early warning that can help water managers and major industries better prepare for lengthy dry spells in the future.

“It’s important to note that California’s drought, while extreme, is not an uncommon occurrence for the state. In fact, multi-year droughts appear regularly in the state’s climate record, and it’s a safe bet that a similar event will happen again. Thus, preparedness is key,” said Richard Seager, report lead author and professor with Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

This report builds on earlier studies, published in September in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, which found no conclusive evidence linking human-caused climate change and the California drought. The current study notes that the atmospheric ridge over the North Pacific, which has resulted in decreased rain and snowfall since 2011, is almost opposite to what models project to result from human-induced climate change. The report illustrates that mid-winter precipitation is actually projected to increase due to human-induced climate change over most of the state, though warming temperatures may sap much of those benefits for water resources overall, while only spring precipitation is projected to decrease.

The report makes clear that to provide improved drought forecasts for California, scientists will need to fully understand the links between sea surface temperature variations and winter precipitation over the state, discover how these ocean variations are generated, and better characterize their predictability.

This report contributes to a growing field of science-climate attribution-where teams of scientists aim to identify the sources of observed climate and weather patterns.

“There is immense value in examining the causes of this drought from multiple scientific viewpoints,” said Marty Hoerling, report co-author and researcher with NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory. “It’s paramount that we use our collective ability to provide communities and businesses with the environmental intelligence they need to make decisions concerning water resources, which are becoming increasingly strained.”

To view the report, visit: http://cpo.noaa.gov/MAPP/californiadroughtreport.

Early warning signals of abrupt climate change (Science Daily)

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Date: December 8, 2014

Source: University of Exeter

Summary: A new study has found early warning signals of a reorganization of the Atlantic ocean’s circulation which could have a profound impact on the global climate system.

Drought (stock image). Credit: © carloscastilla / Fotolia

A new study by researchers at the University of Exeter has found early warning signals of a reorganisation of the Atlantic ocean’s circulation which could have a profound impact on the global climate system.

The research, published today in the journal Nature Communications, used a simulation from a highly complex model to analyse the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), an important component of the Earth’s climate system.

It showed that early warning signals are present up to 250 years before it collapses, suggesting that scientists could monitor the real world overturning circulation for the same signals.

The AMOC is like a conveyor belt in the ocean, driven by the salinity and temperature of the water. The system transports heat energy from the tropics and Southern Hemisphere to the North Atlantic, where it is transferred to the atmosphere.

Experiments suggest that if the AMOC is ‘switched off’ by extra freshwater entering the North Atlantic, surface air temperature in the North Atlantic region would cool by around 1-3°C, with enhanced cooling of up to 8°C in the worst affected regions.

The collapse would also encourage drought in the Sahel — the area just south of the Sahara desert — and dynamic changes in sea level of up to 80cm along the coasts of Europe and North America.

“We found that natural fluctuations in the circulation were getting longer-lived as the collapse was approached, a phenomenon known as critical slowing down,” said lead author Chris Boulton.

“We don’t know how close we are to a collapse of the circulation, but a real world early warning could help us prevent it, or at least prepare for the consequences” adds co-author Professor Tim Lenton.

The study is the most realistic simulation of the climate system in which this type of early warning signal has been tested.

“The best early warning signals in the model world are in places where major efforts are going into monitoring the circulation in the real world — so these efforts could have unexpected added value’ adds Professor Lenton.

Journal Reference:

  1. Chris A. Boulton, Lesley C. Allison, Timothy M. Lenton. Early warning signals of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation collapse in a fully coupled climate model. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 5752 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6752