Climate, Weather and the Media

There is an excellent blog post on the Economist's 'Democracy in America' blog about the media's handling of two weather events of the last year: the snowstorms and the Russian fires.  He presents an analogy of coverage of weather as part of climate change to coverage of the WWII on the Eastern Front: a small German victory in 1943 shouldn't have been mistaken as anything other than the exception to the rule of "the Red Army advancing implacably across western Russia in 1943-44." 

I've written two posts in the last two days about Russia's heat, so I don't have much more to say on that.  In the western media, M.S. is right that there has been vanishingly little efforts to link the fires and drought to climate change, but the Russian media has not had such a problem: in fact, one commentator went so far as to blame the drought on the US military's 'climate change weapons'.  I should also note that other countries similarly have no problem calling a single event evidence of climate change: Pakistan's Environment Minister recently said that global climate change is to blame for this year's flooding and heavy rains.  Likewise, Nigeria's Environment Minister said “The effects of climate change have been wide spread in Nigeria."


Perhaps it is because of the tradition of presenting both sides in a news article that our media is reluctant to cover it in this way - but I think that is a false balance.  As M.S. said, if something is part of a larger trend (as these droughts are) then it should be presented in that way.  

In addition, there are new studies showing that abnormally cold weather in the northern hemisphere (as we had last winter) may actually be a factor of an abnormally warm arctic.  If that turns out to be the case, last winter wasn't actually an exception, it was just another example of the trend: global warming is happening at an accelerated rate, and we should not expect the weather of the future to be analogous to the weather of the past.

Greenland Melting Faster

A new study (subscription required) in Science shows that the ice sheets of Greenland are melting at a fast and accelerating rate. This is yet another example of how the latest science is showing that the effects of climate change are moving faster than even the worst-case scenarios of the IPCC's 2007 consensus report.

The report, based on satellite observations, states that the Greenland ice sheet lost approximately 1500 gigatons of ice mass from 2000-2008. This is about 0.46 millimeters per year of global sea level rise. And, the rate of loss is increasing. Since 2006, high summer melt rates have increased Greenland ice sheet mass loss to 273 gigatons per year (0.75 millimeters per year of equivalent sea level rise).

Importantly, this article appears to resolve much of the uncertainty about how much the ice sheet is melting. The article used two independent methods, one based on observations and the other on remote gravity measurements made by satellites. By getting these two approaches to agree, we can get a clearer, more precise view of what is actually happening. I have said before that policymakers are asking for better science. Unfortunately, its not pretty.

Whether we can keep the Greenland ice sheet intact will be an important factor in keeping Bangladesh, the Maldives, or New York above rising sea levels. The water contained in these ice sheets could account for 7 meters of sea level rise.

Geo-engineering: Implications for International Stability

The security and climate community must plan for the prospect of unilateral geo-engineering. As the consensus that climate change is real grows, geo-engineering has recently emerged as a possible policy option. Foreign Affairs last month has an excellent article detailing the projected costs of geo-engineering that states:

“…just one kilogram of sulfur well placed in the stratosphere would roughly offset the warming effect of several hundred thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide…there is general agreement that the strategies are cheap; the total expense of the most cost-effective options would amount to perhaps as little as a few billion dollars, just one percent (or less) of the cost of dramatically cutting emissions.”

From the view of that state, geo-engineering could be the rational and affordable choice if global carbon emissions continue to grow. Countries like the US have the infrastructure to withstand severe storm damage or disease outbreak. Most of Africa does not. Last year, the Council on Foreign Relations published a report discussing this scenario. Key passage:

“A nation that has not done much to prepare, either in reducing its contributions to global emissions or in building adaptive capacity, might conclude that the consequences of climate change had become sufficiently severe that it was going to unilaterally engage in geoengineering – imposing large negative externalities on the rest of the world in order to reduce its own impacts.”

If climate change continues largely unabated, what’s to stop a country facing monsoon after monsoon from unilaterally trying to cool the Earth? For “$25 billion and $50 billion a year” a country could repeatedly emit sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to keep reflecting solar radiation despite the acid rain and unpredictable effects on plant growth for the rest of the world

The disparity between which states have the highest emissions and are the most able to adapt to climate change and the states who have low emissions but are the most vulnerable raises the prospect of rogue geo-engineering or attempts by states vulnerable to climate change to persuade more developed states who can afford it.

China or Russia are better equipped to develop geo-engineering technology and could do it with less fear of international sanction. Coincidentally, these countries have been resistant to cut back their emissions. Russia’s vulnerable economy benefits from high demand for natural gas and oil; China’s government has experimented with geo-engineering for decades. Cooling the planet is also much cheaper than cutting carbon emissions, which require large scale changes in transportation, energy and manufacturing. Regardless of which country is geo-engineering, there is no way for geo-engineering’s effects to be restricted. There are inevitable externalities that may cause global conflict and tension.

Hence, large scale research and development of geo-engineering technologies must coincide with effective international governance to prevent the possibility of “rogue” geo-engineering. Even better, making necessary cuts in carbon emissions would preclude the need to riskily geo-engineer.

New Report on the Effects of Climate Change on the US

Today, the Obama Administration released a new report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program on the effects of climate change on the United States. This report was released at 1:30 this afternoon with a news conference featuring John Holdren of the White House Office of Science and Jane Lubchenco, the Administrator of NOAA at the White House.

I watched part of this event, and I thought it was well presented and thorough. Too often, these events get too deep into the issues -- which is great for us wonks, but can undercut their use to the general public. The Obama team, however, knows PR and they rolled this out with a strong presentation. Here is a link to the report, and the PowerPoint can be found here.

Both Joe Romm at ClimateProgress and Bradford Plummer at The Vine have excellent summaries of the finding of the report. I won't try to replicate their analysis, but I would say the most compelling sections of the report lay out the direct consequences of climate change on the US. Too often, when talking about the security effects of climate change, we focus only on unstable regions in the developing world. This report makes clear in direct language that major portions of the United States' infrastructure is at risk from climate-induced sea change rises, including downtown New York, pictured at left.

This report doesn't contain any new science, but if it is handled and promoted correctly, it could become as important to US policymakers as the IPCC reports have become. This report should be given directly to every Member of Congress by Dr. Holdren. It is a strong report, with important language, but it must communicated correctly, or it will be lost among the many other reports.

Antarctic Ice will only raise seas by 10 feet

Andy Revkin at the NYTimes' DotEarth blog has posted the lead story on the New York Times' website this afternoon, saying that the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea levels by 10 feet, not 20. For most scientific disciplines, these arguments over magnitude and implications of change take place quietly. However, climate change is a major topic of public policy, so the scientists get front-page coverage. This is not he best place for these arguments to happen, because it muddies the water, and promotes paralysis.

There seems to be a continuing litany of studies -- some extrememly worrying, and some that are vaguely reassuring (i.e. Downtown Manhattan will only be partially, not completely flooded). It is unfortunate, however, for leaders and policymakers that there seems to be so much 'noise' but little consensus.

In 2007, the IPCC created a strong international consensus that climate change was a threat that must be addressed. The result was the Bali roadmap.

Two years later, the studies and observations are almost uniformly worse than IPCC predictions. Unfortunately, these studies often disagree and there is no coordination. The result is this 'noise' that only serves to undermine political will and cause paralysis among leaders. I'm afraid the result will be the collapse of Copenhagen.

The IPCC must move faster in preparing their next report.

Scientists are growing increasingly worried about the policy response to climate change

Top climate scientists from around the world are gathering in Copenhagen on 10-12 March to call attention to the growing sense of urgency arising from recent scientific findings. Media coverage of the event has highlighted the scientific community’s increasing fear that currently planned mitigation measures may not be enough to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.

This has led to some scientists advocating a serious look into ‘Plan B’ options, such as geoengineering (that is, the deliberate manipulation of the Earth’s natural processes to reduce the impacts of climate change). For example, an article in the latest Foreign Affairs discusses the opportunities and risks of geoengineering, and concludes that ‘It is time to take geoengineering out of the closet [...] so that the nations of the world can collectively decide whether to raise the shield if they think the planet needs it.’

While geoengineering may provide hopes for solving the climate change problem, it is unlikely to provide a ‘magic bullet’ solution. Investments into combating climate change should be based on sober cost-effectiveness analysis that ensures most ‘bang for a buck’ for public expenditure. Such a policy would most likely include a mix of mitigation, adaption and possibly geoengineering measures.

New research since the IPCC’s two-year old assessment report has suggested that climate change may be progressing faster than previously thought, casting doubt on the feasibility of the current policy response. This week’s meeting in Copenhagen is a welcome reminder of the magnitude of the challenge.

The Effects of Climate Change: We Still Need Better Information

By necessity, climate change policy is driven by science. Only by using scientistific observation, theory, and projection can we adequately understand how increased greenhouse gases are increasing temperatures and changing the climate. There are literally thousands of climate scientists involved in producing the IPCC's reports.

Unfortunately, as this article makes clear, social science on climate change, particularly on economic and political issues, is not as clear or as developed as the climate and meteorological science. Partly this is because humans are by nature much more difficult to predict than the interaction of molecules in the atmosphere.

As the article asks, how can we know what events will trigger climate change induced migration?

"One study says 100 million people will be displaced by global warming. Another
puts it at 250 million. Meanwhile, a sweeping report from Christian Aid warns
that 1 billion people, an almost unthinkable crush of humanity, could be forced
from their homes by midcentury because of climate change and the increase in
natural disasters, which will exacerbate regional conflicts."

There are different assumptions about human behavior in each study, and global numbers of this magnitude are almost impossible to acurately predict. Instead of presenting such large-scale, global studies, perhaps it would be better for social scientists doing research on the effects of climate change to focus on defined regional or local trends?

Mapping the Human Toll of Climate Change

The Science Progress blog, a project of the Center for American Progress, has put up a new global map, using the GoogleMap program, that shows the human toll of climate change. The map can be found here.

This is a fascinating map which places data points at various places across the globe, each showing a particular vulnerability of the area to climate-related phenomena. For example, by clicking a point off the Southwestern coast of Africa, I learn that Namibia fishing stocks, which account for 6% of GDP, are at risk of being depleted by warmer waters and changing seawater composition. This map is interactive, and anyone can add a data point, so long as it is backed-up by scientific research.

An interesting aspect of this map, and of climate research overall, is that it appears that the effects on western countries, especially the US, will be more dramatic than the rest of the world. If you focus on the US as part of the map, the data points are dense and ominous, whereas Russia seems to be reasonably unaffected, for example. Of course, this only betrays a selection bias. Just because more research has been done on the US, it does not mean that Russia is safe, while the US is doomed to burn. It only means that scientists in the US are more active in this area than Russian scientists.

One of the goals of the TDCCS is to expand that base of knowledge beyond the developed world, and to better publicize the risk of climate change to areas around the world.