Archive for the 'Climate Change Science' category
California’s annual conference on Climate Change Research happened earlier this week. There are many new policies and strategies to implement climate change mitigation. Ocean Sequestration was present by Dr. Greg Rau of UC Santa Cruz, who clearly stated the need for research in this field because of the huge carbon storage potential of the ocean.
Link to Greg Rau’s presentation on ocean carbon sequestration
Link to all presentations during conference
Categories: Climate Change Science, Ocean Fertilization
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James Hansen and Pushker A. Kharecha announce a new paper modeling the effect of the world reaching Peak Oil production on atmospheric CO2 levels assuming that coal emissions are phased out by midcentury. The conclusion is that 450 ppm is not an unreasonable ceiling by 2100 if rising prices on allowances and offsets can be sustained and efficiencies can be implemented allowing us to stretch existing reserves.
Unconstrained CO2 emission from fossil fuel burning has been the dominant cause of observed anthropogenic global warming. The amounts of ‘proven’ and potential fossil fuel reserves are uncertain and debated. Regardless of the true values, society has flexibility in the degree to which it chooses to exploit these reserves, especially unconventional fossil fuels and those located in extreme or pristine environments. If conventional oil production peaks within the next few decades, it may have a large effect on future atmospheric CO2 and climate change, depending upon subsequent energy choices. Assuming that proven oil and gas reserves do not greatly exceed estimates of the Energy Information Administration, and recent trends are toward lower estimates, we show that it is feasible to keep atmospheric CO2 from exceeding about 450 ppm by 2100, provided that emissions from coal, unconventional fossil fuels, and land use are constrained. Coal-fired power plants without sequestration must be phased out before midcentury to achieve this CO2 limit. It is also important to ‘stretch’ conventional oil reserves via energy conservation and efficiency, thus averting strong pressures to extract liquid fuels from coal or unconventional fossil fuels while clean technologies are being developed for the era ‘beyond fossil fuels’. We argue that a rising price on carbon emissions is needed to discourage conversion of the vast fossil resources into usable reserves, and to keep CO2 beneath the 450 ppm ceiling.
Categories: Climate Change Science
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NEON Expands its Board of Directors
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) has announced seven additions to its Board of Directors. The NEON, Inc., board conducted an at-large election to fill two open seats, adding Margaret Leinen and David Douglas to the board; five of the new members—Jim Ehleringer, Nancy B. Grimm, Margaret Palmer, Debra Peters, and David S. White—were chosen by voting representatives of NEON founding and institutional member organizations. The representatives nominated 10 candidates from among their ranks to stand for election to five open board seats. This election brings the Board of Directors to its full complement of 15 members. Subsequent elections will be held annually in the fall to fill seats vacated by members whose terms have ended.
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale research platform for discovering and understanding the impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species on ecology. NEON will gather long-term data on ecological responses of the biosphere to changes in land use and climate, and on feedbacks with the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. NEON is a national observatory, not a collection of regional observatories. It will consist of distributed sensor networks and experiments, linked by advanced cyberinfrastructure to record and archive ecological data for at least 30 years. Using standardized protocols and an open data policy, NEON will gather essential data for developing the scientific understanding and theory required to manage the nation’s ecological challenges.
Why NEON?
The National Research Council has identified seven environmental Grand Challenges for the United States: biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, climate change, hydroecology, infectious disease, invasive species, and land use. NEON addresses these challenges by gathering data focused on two overarching questions:
- How are ecosystems across the United States affected by changes in climate, land use, and invasive species over time? How do they respond and at what rates?
- How do biogeochemistry, biodiversity, hydroecology, and biotic structure and function interact with changes in climate, land use, and invasive species across the nation? How do these feedbacks vary with ecological context and scale over time?
NEON is a critical step toward forecasting how ecosystems and organisms interact with changes in climate and land use, and the impact of these changes on people and their enterprises. NEON data will be readily available to researchers, teachers and students, and all citizens with an interest in ecological science and environmental processes.
Categories: Climate Change Science
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The American Geophysical Union recently published a revised policy statement on the Human Impacts on Climate, which makes a causal link between climate change and human GHG emissions. The statement also discusses the range of expected impacts, such as, “Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and—if sustained over centuries—melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters.”
The AGU Council adopts position statements that relate the understanding and application of the geophysical sciences to relevant public policy. In making such statements, the Council limits itself to positions that are within the range of available geophysical data or norms of legitimate scientific debate. The full statement is reproduced after the break.
Categories: Climate Change Science
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