Category: Climate News Roundup

In just 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, the Fort McMurray wildfire in Alberta, Canada grew from 25,000 acres to 215,000 acres, destroying many buildings in the town of 88,000 people, all of whom were ordered to evacuate.  Ironically, because Fort McMurray has been one of the biggest boom towns of Canada’s Athabasca oil sands, the fire was attributed to a combination of human-caused global warming and natural climate variability.  Elizabeth Kolbert reflects in The New Yorker on the responsibility we all bear for this fire.

In early April I provided a link to an article about a federal judge in Oregon who ruled that a group of young people had the right to sue the federal government under the constitution and public trust doctrine for its failure to protect them against the harm associated with climate change.  Now a judge in the state of Washington has ruled in favor of another group of children, ordering the state Department of Ecology to create rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the end of this year.  In announcing her decision, the judge cited an “urgent situation” as a reason.  On a related topic, the latest volume of Future of Children, a joint Princeton University-Brookings Institution publication, outlines how climate change is likely to affect children’s health and wellbeing, identifying policies that could mitigate the harm that climate change will cause.

Virginia Dominion Power submitted its new 15 year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) to the State Corporation Commission last Friday.  The forecast includes four potential plans for complying with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, three of which rely on solar and natural gas.  The fourth relies on construction of a third reactor at the North Anna nuclear site.  The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) strongly disagrees with the IRP.  Perhaps Dominion needs to contact the developers who just submitted a bid to Dubai Electricity & Water Authority to provide solar generated electricity for 2.99 cents/kWh, which is 1.51 cents/kWh cheaper than electricity from a new coal-fired power plant under construction for the same authority.

In a blog post on Weather Underground, meteorologist Jeff Masters has stated: “The greatest threat of climate change to civilization over the next 40 years is likely to be climate change-amplified extreme droughts and floods hitting multiple major global grain-producing ‘breadbaskets’ simultaneously.”  He then goes on to document why he thinks this is true.

Two recent papers in scientific journals have provided more information about how melting ice in the Arctic influences the weather in the Northern Hemisphere.  Basically, warming in the Arctic leads to increased incidence of blocking patterns over Greenland.  This causes increased warming over Greenland, contributing to more melting and sea level rise, but it can also lead to more blizzards on the East Coast of the U.S.  The kicker is that the frequency of the blocking events has increased since the 1980’s, which is thought to be associated with the melting of Arctic sea ice.  On a related note, the authors of a recent paper examining how conditions in the Pacific influence Arctic warming comment on the significance of their findings.

India is suffering its worst water crisis in years, with around 330 million people, or a quarter of the population, experiencing drought after the last two monsoons failed.  Meteorologists forecast an above average monsoon beginning in June.  Meanwhile, in Africa El Nino associated drought has severely impacted Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi and Zambia.  If all this isn’t bad enough, a new report by The World Bank finds that the major impact of climate change is likely to be on water supplies, with inadequate supplies likely to reduce GDP in 2050 by 14% in the Middle East, nearly 12% in the Sahel, 11% in central Asia, and 7% in east Asia under business-as-usual water management practices.  In addition, the future of the Middle East and North Africa is not encouraging, according to another new study that focused on temperature.  Even if global average warming is kept below 2C, summer temperatures are still expected to exceed 114F in daytime and not fall below 86F at night.

One outcome of our efforts to reduce carbon emissions may be an increase in the amount of electricity consumed.  That is a conclusion of a study by the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project.  It follows from the concept that many direct uses of fossil fuels, such as in cars, can be replaced by electricity.  As we are learn how to make electricity without carbon emissions and to store it efficiently, electrification of the economy would be a way to greatly decrease CO2 emissions.  This suggests that electric utilities have less to fear from decarbonization of the economy than the fossil fuel industry.

There were several items related to economics this week.  Not surprisingly, Berkshire Hathaway shareholders rejected a resolution calling for the company to report on the risks climate change creates for its insurance companies.  Climate scientist James Hansen presented remarks at the meeting.  The Berkshire Hathaway shareholders were not alone, as documented in a report by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP).  AODP found that just under a fifth of the world’s top investors were taking tangible steps to mitigate the risk associated with climate change, whereas almost half were doing nothing at all.  Meanwhile, investors in electric utilities are introducing shareholder resolutions requiring them to show their ability to function and make a profit under the constraints that will be necessary to limit warming to 2C.

A new report from the Carbon Tracker Initiative finds that the leading energy companies could make more money by abandoning high-cost projects in deep water and Canadian tar sands, and concentrating on schemes with a goal of keeping global warming to 2C.  Also this week, one of Britain’s most influential energy experts warned that oil companies have 10 years to change their business model, through diversification into renewables, scaling back, and mega-mergers, or meet a “nasty, brutish and short” end.

On Monday, Greenpeace Netherlands leaked documents from negotiations surrounding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  They listed four environmental concerns, including the absence of any statements on climate protection.  EU officials disagreed with much of Greenpeace’s interpretation of the documents.

Climate change communication continues to be a topic of interest, probably because it is so important for building consensus for action.  Heather Smith writes on Grist about the latest approach from Breakthrough Strategies and Solutions, which focuses on three points: The Threat, The Villain, and The Solution.  Dana Nuccitelli, writing in The Guardian, identifies three key points, gleaned from several studies, that lead people to be willing to tackle climate change: recognition that people are causing it; an understanding of how the greenhouse effect works; and awareness of the 90–100% expert consensus on human-caused global warming.  Finally, a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology has found that “Some reassurances about the stability of the economy may help people take information about human-caused climate change more seriously,” according to the lead author.

A new report from the U.S. Office of the Stockholm Environment Institute finds that annual global emissions of CO2 could drop by 100 million tons by 2030 if the Interior Department stopped issuing or renewing leases from federal lands and waters.  Bill McKibben has a new essay about the international movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground and an article in The Guardian quotes Naomi Klein as saying “Fossil fuels, which are the principal driver of climate change, require the sacrifice of whole regions and people.”

Most climate science is very detached from the actual impact of climate change on people, focusing rather on computer modeling or large scale patterns of change.  A recent paper in Nature Climate Change is different.  It is a meta-study that documents the observations of over 90,000 people from 137 countries currently experiencing climate change firsthand.  Closer to home, Michael Hayden writes about the plight of lower-income residents in Atlantic City as sea level rises.

On Wednesday, the Fish and Wildlife Service revived a proposal to allow energy companies to obtain 30-year permits to disturb or kill protected bald and golden eagles, provided that stable or increasing eagle populations are maintained.  The move is aimed at encouraging more firms to commit to eagle conservation measures.

Utilities in the U.S. have announced the retirement of 101,673 MW of coal-fired power plants since 2010.  The Energy Transitions Commission’s goals are to accelerate change toward low-carbon energy systems that enable robust economic development and to limit the rise in global temperature to well below 2C.  They have recently released a position paper that highlights what needs to be done to achieve those goals.  At a meeting in Washington, DC on Thursday, Jim Young Kim, president of the World Bank, said that if the planned coal-fired power plants in China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia are built, “That would spell disaster for us and our planet.”

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Representatives from 175 nations gathered at the U.N. headquarters in New York City last Friday, Earth Day, to sign the Paris Climate Agreement.  According to Mark Trumbull of the Christian Science Monitor, the signing is evidence of the changed mind-set that made the accord possible.  On the other hand, writing in The Guardian, Suzanne Goldenberg reminds us that we have a long way to go to put the promises of Paris into action.

This next item comes under the category of “Why didn’t I think of that?”.  It is widely recognized that for intermittent generators like wind and solar to become major sources of electricity, large scale energy storage will be required.  One technique currently in use at nuclear power plants (which work best with constant output) is pumped storage.  Unfortunately, building reservoirs has large environmental impacts and can only be done where there is adequate water.  So, how about moving something else up and down hill, such as electric trains carrying heavy loads that use electricity to get up the hill and generate it coming down?  That is what a company called ARES is doing.

Peter Sinclair has a new video entitled “Surveilling the Scientists” in his Climate Denial Crock of the Week series.  Meanwhile a new poll by Yale and George Mason Universities finds that the Republican electorate is showing increased acceptance of the threat posed by climate change.

Leaders of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other major global institutions say cutting CO2 emissions enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change will not be possible unless all fossil fuel polluters are forced to pay for the CO2 they emit.  Toward that end, the first High Level Assembly of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) was held at the World Bank recently.  The mission of the CPLC is to identify and advance ways to build effective, transparent, and equitable carbon pricing into the national climate action plans of the parties to the Paris Accord.

The count of oil and gas rigs in the U.S. has dropped by 78% from its high in October 2014 to the lowest number since Baker Hughes began compiling data in 1944.  On Monday, The Hill published a special magazine on energy and environment policy, “The Future of Energy in the United States.”  On Wednesday, the Institute for Energy Economics issued a report questioning the necessity for building both the Atlantic Coast pipeline and Mountain Valley pipeline.  Speaking of energy, infrastructure is indeed important.  Blocking pipeline projects is an important tool in the effort to keep fossil fuels in the ground, but what about blocking transmission lines carrying wind power from the mid-west to the east or west?

China has issued new energy guidelines halting construction of new coal-fired power plants in many parts of the country until at least 2018.  Meanwhile, here in Virginia our legislature and governor continued their battles over coal in the one-day veto session.  Ivy Main provides her thoughts on the outcome.  The use of coal in the U.S. has declined 29% since 2007.

Research by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the World Resources Institute has found that while micro-grids have brought light to poor families in India and Nepal, they have not provided sufficient electricity to help business or spur industry.

In partnership with Geostellar, a national solar installer, Etsy will help its sellers install solar panels on their home studios or businesses as a way to reduce Etsy’s carbon footprint.  Meanwhile, according to a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity, 10 states account for more than 35% of the total rooftop-solar technical potential in the contiguous U.S., but less than 3% of total installed capacity, thanks to weak or nonexistent policies. Virginia is among them.

The Internet offers us a wealth of information.  Unfortunately, much is of unknown credibility.  This is particularly true of articles about climate change.  Now a new resource is available to us to help us assess the credibility of articles about climate: Climate Feedback.  An article in The Guardian by the founder and an editor explains what they do and how they do it.

In prior Weekly Roundups I have linked to articles about the importance of framing issues to the values of the target audience.  Now a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology has shown that when climate issues were re-framed in terms of patriotism, loyalty, authority and purity, values important to conservatives, conservatives were more likely to adopt favorable attitudes.

Tracking the extent of Arctic sea ice is very important for a number of reasons, not least of which is its value as an indicator of global warming.  Tracking is done by satellite using an instrument that detects microwaves emitted from Earth.  The value of this type of sensor is that it can collect data in the presence of clouds and the absence of sunlight.  Unfortunately, the major satellite that scientists have been relying on experienced operational failures that compromise its data, other satellites are getting old, and currently there are no plans to launch a new one.  Satellites have proved useful for tracking climate change in other ways.  For example, using data from satellite sensors collected over the past 30 years, an international team of scientists has been able to document a greening of Earth’s vegetation due to fertilization by the added CO2 in the atmosphere.  Their results have been published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Although satellites have proven to be useful for tracking climate change, the record available from them is relatively short.  For longer term records, scientists must turn to surrogate measurements or direct observations kept over long periods.  Perhaps the longest continuous record of observations is that made by Shinto priests in the Kino Mountains of central Japan, who have recorded the date of appearance of an ice ridge on Lake Suwa each year since 1443.  Or, consider the glaciers in the Austrian Alps, which have been measured by a variety of groups since the 1800’s.  Both of these provide important records against which to compare surrogate measurements.

Berkshire Hathaway will hold its annual shareholder meeting on April 30 and investors everywhere will pay attention to every word uttered by Warren Buffett.  Once again consideration will be given to a shareholder resolution requiring the company to disclose climate risks facing its insurance business.  James Hansen will speak, urging Buffett to consider the future of young people in his investment strategy.  Writing in Inside Climate News, Nicholas Kusnet describes the extensive fossil fuel holdings of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s response to climate change, and investor’s attempts to change it.  However, as pointed out by Mindy Lubber in Forbes, not all business is standing on the sidelines of the climate change fight.

Only a handful of states have enacted a price on carbon and all of them use cap-and-trade.  A ballot initiative in Washington seeks to make that state the first to adopt a revenue neutral carbon tax.  John Upton at Climate Central describes the arguments going on over the initiative.  Closer to home, in an editorial posted late on Tuesday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has come out in favor of a carbon tax.

New research published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles has found that as the world warms more low oxygen zones will develop in the oceans, impacting life there.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

I recently got around to reading the April 4 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society, and read an article I thought I should share with you.  It is an opinion piece by Jack N. Gerard, the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.  I am including it this week just so you can read what the other side thinks.  Along those same lines, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seen by some as a way for the fossil fuel industry to continue, although as this article shows, CCS faces significant financial hurdles.  The battle to leave fossil fuels in the ground will indeed be long and difficult.

Eduardo Porter had a thought-provoking column in the Economy section of The New York Times entitled “Liberal Biases, Too, May Block Progress on Climate Change“.

The current issue of Yes! magazine is devoted to “Life after Oil”, with articles by Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, and more.

On Wednesday the Senate passed a bipartisan energy bill that has some good clean energy provisions but also some things that groups concerned about climate change find disturbing.  Among the latter is a provision that declares the burning of biomass “carbon neutral.”  The Senate bill must be reconciled with the bill passed earlier by the House.  Closer to home, the Virginia General Assembly failed to override Governor McAuliffe’s veto of a bill that would have extended tax credits associated with coal.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has issued a new paper entitled “Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future.”  The concepts presented in the paper have been summarized in 12 charts by the authors and Chelsea Harvey has a summary in The Washington Post.  Meanwhile, a new paper in Nature Communications reports on a thought experiment that investigated scenarios for meeting the world’s food needs in 2050 within the constraint of no more deforestation.  Finally, another interesting article from WRI summarizes six climate milestones that have occurred since Paris.

It is only April, yet many places in India are experiencing temperatures in excess of 40 C (104 F).  On the other hand, a new study published in Nature has found that over the past 40 years Americans have experienced warmer (i.e., more pleasant) weather in January, while July temperatures have not increased sufficiently to be uncomfortable.  Thus, Americans’ experience with the weather has not served as a motivation for climate action.

Houston, Texas experienced record rainfall Sunday night and Monday, with one unofficial weather station reporting 20 inches.  Houston is 50 miles inland and has an elevation of 50 ft, so things are pretty flat there.  Consequently, there was lots of flooding.  This is the second time in a year that Houston has experienced severe flooding.  So what do they mean by a 100 year flood?

On Monday faith leaders signed an Interfaith Statement on Climate Change, which urges “all Heads of State to promptly sign and ratify the Paris Agreement.”  More than 80 groups and 3,600 individuals of Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Muslim faith signed on.  Some, however, question just how soon ratification should occur.  Carbon Brief explains the difference between adoption, signing, and ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement.  The World Resources Institute unveiled its interactive Paris Agreement Tracker this week to help us keep track of progress toward ratification and The New York Times presented a status report on where the major players lie in meeting their pledges.

The Paris Climate Agreement pledged to “hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C.”  This raises the question of how much less the impacts of a 1.5 C world will be.  To try and answer that question researchers at Climate Analytics in Germany ran simulations with the models used in the 2013 IPCC report and the results were published Thursday in the journal Earth Systems Dynamics.  Roz Pidcock of Carbon Brief summarizes their results and provides a graphic for easy comparison of the impacts at the two temperatures.

There was still more bad news this week about coral in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.  Scientists have finished a survey of the entire reef and have found extensive bleaching in all three regions, with more than 99% in the north, 90% in the central, and 75% in the south.  Interestingly, scientists say that Queensland’s largest newspaper, the Courier Mail, is not adequately covering the coral bleaching event and consequently, they have taken out a full page ad in the paper to inform the public about what is happening.  Later in the week bleaching was also reported in western Australia.

In a paper published Monday, Canadian scientists report on the effect of declining sea ice on polar bear populations in the Beaufort Sea and Hudson Bay. The scientists worked with data from GPS collars that detailed the bears’ movements and compared them with satellite imagery detailing the extent of sea ice.  They found that only one-quarter of the bears had to swim more than 30 miles in 2004, whereas the number had risen to two-thirds by 2012.  Scientists at the meeting of the European Geophysical Union in Vienna have told Robert McSweeney of Carbon Brief that several signs suggest that the extent of Arctic sea ice could shrink to a new record low this summer.

A recent essay in Nature Energy argues that solar still has some hard economic obstacles to overcome before it can become a major energy source.  As adoption of solar expands, a significant problem will be “value deflation”, in which the electricity generated by solar panels gets less and less valuable as more panels come online.  Writing for Vox, Brad Plummer discusses this problem and explains how the solar industry might overcome it.  Joe Romm has an extensive article in Climate Progress debunking once again the idea that we need a miracle to get off of fossil fuels.  We can do it with existing technologies.

Apex Clean Energy has initiated the process for approval of their proposal to site 25 wind turbines atop North Mountain in Botetourt County.  Globally, though, China dominates the wind energy market with more capacity installed than anyone else.

In an earlier Weekly Roundup I provided a link to an article about Wrightspeed, a company that has been converting garbage trucks and other heavy vehicles to electric motors.  Now New Zealand’s biggest urban bus company has signed a contract with them to convert their fleet of over 1000 buses.

There were a couple of articles this week dealing with trees.  One reported on a new report from Woods Hole Research Center about the state of tropical forests, which are still being lost at significant rates.  Part of that article was devoted to the role of indigenous people in maintaining intact forests.  The other article deals with the threat of climate change to the coastal redwoods of the North American west coast.  These are such magnificent trees of such unimaginable age that it is particularly sad to think that we are still threatening their existence.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Talking about climate change is difficult for a whole host of reasons.  This article in Grist by Amelia Urry has lots of good sound advice about how to do it.  On the other hand, a recent study published in Nature Climate Change found that focusing on risk reduction is a worthwhile strategy for convincing people of the need for action.  Perhaps Apple’s new initiative, called “Apps for Earth”, will increase the public’s conversations about climate change and other environmental issues.  It is pretty hard to summarize it in a sentence so you’ll have to read about it if you’re an Apple user.

In a recent Weekly Roundup I included an item about Dominion Power filing a brief supporting the Clean Power Plan.  In a post on her blog, Ivy Main presents her take on why they did this.  One possible reason is that Dominion’s parent company transmits and sells natural gas.  However, there are real questions about whether the shift to natural gas from coal for electricity generation will have the desired effect of slowing climate change because of the leakage of methane (the main component of natural gas and a powerful greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere.  Chris Mooney ofThe Washington Post had a good retrospective this week on the methane issue.  Finally, climate scientist James Hansen offers his opinion on how fracking and methane impact the presidential election.

Over 130 nations, including the U.S. and China, have announced that they plan to be present at the U.N. headquarters in New York City on April 22 to sign the Paris Climate Agreement.  The strong interest in signing now has arisen because if 55 countries accounting for at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions sign the agreement before the end of President Obama’s term of office, the next president would have a difficult time pulling out of the agreement should he/she want to.

Sammy Roth had an interesting essay in USA Today about the “Keep it in the ground” movement.  He writes about Kaitlin Butler, a Salt Lake City-based researcher with the Science and Environmental Health Network and “Keep it in the ground” supporter, who thinks climate advocates can win that battle if they promote an “empowering” message.  Her message of choice: “that if we make good decisions today, we can improve the lives of our children, grandchildren and thousands more generations.”  Isn’t that what we all want?

Recognizing that limiting warming to 2 C may not provide adequate protection to vulnerable areas of Earth, the Paris Climate Agreement included an aspirational goal of limiting warming to 1.5 C.  Given the fact that 85% of the world’s energy use is from fossil fuels and that time will be required to wean us from them, it is likely that meeting the agreed-upon 2 C limit, let alone the aspirational goal, will require the use of “negative emission technologies.”  In other words, we will have to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  This week Carbon Brief presented a series of articles on negative emission technologies: 1, Ten negative emission technologies; 2, feasibility of negative emissions; 3, History of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS); 4, Do we need BECCS to avoid catastrophic climate change?; and 5, Analysis, is the UK relying on negative emissions to meet its climate targets?

One proposed pathway to a clean energy future is to rely on hydrogen gas for many uses, with the hydrogen being produced by electrolysis of water using electricity generated from solar or wind facilities, or by steam reforming of methane, with the resulting CO2 being captured and stored.  Now it looks as if the city of Leeds in the UK will be the first to try this on large scale, with complete conversion by 2025-2030.

Peabody Energy, the largest U.S. coal company, announced early Wednesday that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Concerning the cause, Benjamin Hulac of E&E News wrote: “Cheap and plentiful natural gas, as well as an oversupplied market of inexpensive coal — not environmental regulations — are the primary forces behind Peabody Energy Corp.’s bankruptcy and others in the U.S. coal industry, a wide range of financial experts said.”  Meanwhile, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund sold its shares in 52 coal-dependent companies, thereby divesting from coal.

In addition to the melting of glaciers due to global warming, there are several natural phenomena that contribute to sea level rise.  Now a new paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, has found that over the period 1970 to 2005, two-thirds of sea level rise was due to human influences.  In addition, subsidence, both natural and human-caused, is making a significant contribution to “recurrent flooding” in a region from Delaware to northern North Carolina, according to a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.  Finally, another new paper in Nature Climate Change has found that many more small island will become arid in the face of climate change than had been thought previously.  Now it is thought that 73% are at risk of aridity, rather than 50%.

An analysis by the World Resources Institute has found that dedicating just a small percentage of a carbon tax to the redevelopment of communities in West Virginia’s coal country would have a major impact on preventing economic collapse in the region.  That information was presented at a national energy conference in Morgantown focusing on the future of West Virginia.  A more detailed accounting of the conference can be found here.

For the first time in three years, U.S. solar panel manufacturer First Solar Inc. is producing panels for less than China’s largest supplier, Trina Solar, Ltd., thereby justifying more than $3 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. government.

A new meta-analysis of the various papers estimating the percent of climate scientists that agree that humans are causing climate change by emitting long-lived greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has confirmed that the value is between 90% and 100%.

The start of the melt season in Greenland is defined as the day the percent of the ice sheet undergoing melting equals or exceeds 10%.  The record earliest start date was May 5, 2010.  Well, on Monday (April 11, 2016) 12% of the Greenland ice sheet was melting, setting a new record for earliest start.  Perhaps that was because January through March was the hottest three month start to any year on record, according to NASA.  Also, March 2016 was the hottest March on record according to both NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Although wind turbines kill far fewer birds than do buildings and domestic cats, bird mortality, particularly for eagles and other raptors, is still a concern.  At a recent American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) conference in Charleston, SC two new technologies were showcased that help detect birds and bats flying near wind farms.  Also AWEA announced in Denver this week that wind produced 4.7% of the nation’s electricity in 2015.

Information continues to come to light concerning what and when the oil and gas industry knew about the link between CO2 emissions and climate change.  This time the focus is on the American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for oil and gas.  The Center for International Environmental Law has revealed that the Stanford Research Institute presented a report to API in 1968 that warned the release of CO2 from burning fossil fuels could carry an array of harmful consequences for the planet.  Meanwhile, ExxonMobil has sued to block a subpoena issued by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands seeking more of its documents on climate change.

More bad news about coral this week.  A new paper in the journal Science has found that there has been a mechanism operating in the Great Barrier Reef that protects the coral from death when it experiences a bleaching event due to elevated temperature.  Unfortunately, in the future as temperatures continue to warm that mechanism will no longer happen.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

 

There was an important decision this week in the children’s lawsuit against the federal government over the government’s failure to protect them from the impacts of climate change.  Lawyers from the government and the fossil fuel industry had asked to have the lawsuit dismissed, but the judge refused, noting that the go-nowhere political debate about climate change “necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government.”  The judge’s ruling is here.

There were a couple of articles this week about sea level rise that weren’t all doom and gloom.  One deals with how Norfolk is responding in a positive way, seeing opportunities for developing the city to be more resilient and becoming a case study for others to emulate.  The other describes how the UNC Institute of Marine Science in Morehead City, North Carolina is working with NOAA on a citizens’ science project to document where flooding occurs during King Tides as a way of anticipating what the future may bring.  While neither will stop the inevitable rise of the sea, they both demonstrate a willingness to tackle the problem in a positive way.  We can also learn from what others are doing all over the U.S. and the rest of the world to adapt to higher seas, as outlined in an article in Smithsonian.  Speaking of sea level rise, NASA unveiled a new site this week that allows you track what’s going on around the world.

If you suffer from seasonal allergies caused by airborne pollen, then climate change brings bad news.  Climate change is causing longer growing seasons and warmer temperatures are increasing the rate of plant growth.  In addition, CO2 is a plant “food” because it provides the carbon needed in photosynthesis.  Combined, these factors mean more pollen and as a result, doctors are seeing an increase in the number of people with allergies and in their responses.  Other health related impacts of climate change are documented in a massive new report issued by the Obama administration on Monday.  The White House issued a fact sheet and Rebecca Leber does a good job of summarizing the key findings on Grist.

Growing rice the traditional way in flooded fields results in significant methane emissions.  Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, it would be great if growing techniques could be modified to reduce those emissions.  Well, U.S. rice farmers and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have done that and EDF is working with rice farmers in India and Vietnam to see if the technique will work there as well.  EDF has also been working with utilities to apply a new sensor that allows detection of methane leaks from natural gas distribution systems in cities.  The work has shown that cities with old distribution systems can have a much larger number of significant leaks than cities with newer systems.  The good news is that the sensor allows the utilities to pinpoint exactly where in their distribution system the worst leaks are occurring, allowing them to be repaired on a priority basis.

When Saudi Arabia starts moving out of oil, is that an indication of a major shift in the oil industry?  Thirty-year-old Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has revealed that the country will begin selling shares in its oil company and transfer the assets to the Public Investment Fund, creating over a 20 year period the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.

Strip mining and mountain top removal for coal have left a legacy of destroyed landscapes across the U.S.  Coal companies are supposed to remediate their damage and must post a bond to cover the costs in case they go out of business and the government has to do the job.  A provision in the law allows larger companies to self-bond.  Unfortunately, as coal declines, several of those companies are in bankruptcy and others may also declare.  This raises the question as to who will pay for the restoration of the land?  Also, what will happen to the laid-off coal miners?

Another economic article of interest concerns a modeling study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.  It found that climate change could cut the value of the world’s financial assets by $2.5 trillion, but if action was taken to limit warming to 2 C the losses would be reduced $1.7 trillion, even after the cost of limiting warming was accounted for.  Another account of the study can be found here.

A group of current and former lawmakers, as well as several tech companies, has filed a brief supporting the EPA in the lawsuit challenging its authority to regulate CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants.  And, wonder of wonders, so has Dominion Power.  Several other friendly filings were made this week ahead of an impending deadline.

In a run-up to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance Conference in New York this week, Joe Ryan surveys the major players in renewable energy and asks whether one will become dominant, much like John D. Rockefeller did in the emerging oil market of the late 19th century.  Speaking of renewable energy, it is worth noting that it grew at the fastest rate on record in 2015.  Still new ideas are in the pipeline; columnist David Ignatius writes about some of the innovative ideas coming out of the ARPA-E program at the Department of Energy.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) of CO2 emitted by power plants is a technology that has been difficult to make effective and economic at large scale.  Nevertheless, a new study in Nature Climate Change has found that it will be essential if we are to keep atmospheric levels of CO2 low enough to limit warming to 2 C.  Perhaps Net Power has the answer on how to make CCS economic (both in dollars and energy efficiency).

Also in the good news category this week is an analysis that shows that 21 countries have reduced their CO2 emissions while also managing to grow their economies.  Carbon Brief extended the analysis to a greater number of countries, finding an additional 14 that have cut the tie between economic growth and CO2 emissions.  On a similar note, the University of Notre Dame has released the latest rankings in its Global Adaptation Index, indicating which countries are doing the best and worst in preparing for climate change.

And then there are the good news/bad news items, such as the impacts of retreating sea ice.  Some whales are evidently prospering right now (long-term prospects are unknown), in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, whereas polar bears in the Arctic are hurting, having lost significant weight because of reduced opportunity to hunt seals on ice.  If you want to know more about sea ice Roz Pidcock at Carbon Brief has an analysis of ice behavior this year.

A new study published this week in Science examines the role of mixed-phase clouds (i.e., those containing both ice and liquid water) in the reflection of sunlight and the absorption of infra-red radiation from Earth, factors that contribute to the global energy balance.  Although the press release from Yale, where the study was done, emphasized that the results from the study show that climate models underestimate the amount of warming associated with increased CO2 in the atmosphere, Chris Mooney quotes NASA’s Gavin Schmidt as saying such a conclusion is premature.  Like many things in climate science, it’s complicated.

The World Bank, the world’s biggest provider of public finance to developing countries, said it would spend 28% of its investments directly on climate change projects, and that all of its future spending would account for global warming.

There was more information about food waste and its impact in the news this week.  A new study by the German Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, found that up to 14 percent of emissions from agriculture in 2050 could be avoided by managing food use and distribution better.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Antarctica and sea level rise are in the news again because of another new paper, this one in the journal Nature.  This modeling study provides additional evidence that the IPCC sea level projections are too conservative and that sea level rise by 2100 may be twice as high as they predicted, if we continue emitting CO2 as usual.  According to glaciologist Eric Rignot, as quoted by The Washington Post, “People should not look at this as a futuristic scenario of things that may or may not happen. They should look at it as the tragic story we are following right now.”  A main take-home from the paper – a lot depends on what we do about our CO2 emissions.  Also in The Washington Post, Chris Mooney has done an excellent job of drawing together the findings from several recent studies on Greenland and Antarctica.  And Elizabeth Kolbert adds a bit of history in The New Yorker.

Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Monday that the Arctic sea ice cover attained an average maximum extent of 5.607 million sq miles on 24 March, the lowest winter maximum since records began in 1979.

A new documentary, “Ice and the Sky”, illuminates the work of French scientist Claude Lorius, 84, who was instrumental in obtaining the first ice cores from Antarctica, as well as many other activities that have led to what we know today about the climate.  Another scientist who made early discoveries important to our understanding of climate change is the late Charles David Keeling, father of the iconic Keeling curve showing the rising saw-shaped curve of atmospheric CO2 over time.  Eric Roston remembers his accomplishments.

Last week I linked to an article about coral health around remote uninhabited islands, which indicated that it was better than that around inhabited islands.  Unfortunately, not all scientists agree with that conclusion, as indicated in this post on Storify by John F. Bruno, a marine ecologist and professor at UNC Chapel Hill.  (Note, the article I linked to was also by Joshua Emerson Smith, but was in The San Diego Union-Tribune rather than the LA Times.)  So maybe the news was not so good after all.  On a similar note, on Tuesday Australian scientists announced that the most pristine section of the Great Barrier Reef was experiencing the worst, mass bleaching event in its history.

Also last week I provided a link to an article about Missouri denying approval of the Grain Belt Express high voltage power transmission line proposed by Clean Line Energy Partners to carry electricity from wind farms in Kansas to users in Illinois and Indiana.  Now, in a similar case, the Department of Energy has invoked a 10 year old law to prevent Arkansas from blocking approval of the Plains and Eastern Clean Line proposed by the same company to carry clean energy from Oklahoma to Tennessee.  The decision has created considerable controversy.

Much of China’s renewable energy is generated in the northern and western inland, far from the eastern coastal regions where most power is used.  Because China’s grid is inadequate to carry all of the renewable energy, large amounts go to waste.  China is responding to this situation in two ways.  First, the country’s energy regulator has ordered power transmission companies to provide grid connectivity for all renewable power generation sources and end the bottleneck that has left some clean power idle.  Second, it has halted construction of new wind power facilities until the grid can be upgraded.

According to a new earthquake map issued by the U.S. Geological Survey that includes both natural and man-made (mostly due to pumping fracking wastewater into deep wells) earthquakes, areas of Oklahoma have as high a chance of an earthquake as areas around San Francisco Bay in California.  In addition, a new Canadian study has shown that fracking itself, not just wastewater injection, can cause earthquakes.  Interestingly, a new Gallup poll finds that 51% of Americans oppose fracking, up 11% in the last year.

Lawyers for the Obama administration defended the Clean Power Plan for power plants in court Monday, writing “The rule reflects the eminently reasonable exercise of EPA’s recognized statutory authority.”  In addition, the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and a coalition of 54 local governments filed arguments in federal court Friday morning in support of the Clean Power Plan.  One option that many are counting on for meeting their obligations under the Clean Power Plan is carbon capture and storage (CCS).  Unfortunately, the only large-scale power plant employing CCS has run into many problems during its first year of operation.  The question now is whether they can be solved in a timely manner.

Writing in Grist, Ben Adler analyzes Bernie Sanders proposal to phase out nuclear power.  Lightbridge, a company in Reston, Virginia, has unveiled a metallic fuel for nuclear reactors that it says will make reactors’ fuel rods safer and more efficient.  Others, however, are less enthusiastic.

Wasted food is an issue that is receiving a lot of attention now, primarily because of the need to feed more and more people on the planet.  Another reason for concern, however, is the carbon footprint associated with that food.  In a 2011 report, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that in 2007, the global carbon footprint of all of this wasted food was about 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalents — that’s 7% of all global emissions.

You may recall that 10 years ago, on April 3, Time magazine published its special report on global warming, with its admonition to “Be worried.  Be very worried.”  I certainly do, and I did.  On Tuesday Joe Romm looked back at what has transpired over the last 10 years to prevent us from being any better prepared than we are to solve the problem.

A study published Thursday in the journal Science has found that birds that were expected to do well in the face of climate change have outperformed other species in the past 30 years in both Europe and the U.S.

On Thursday Tesla Motors introduced its long awaited $35,000 Model 3 electric car.  By Friday morning 180,000 people had preordered the car.  Still, Tesla faces some significant hurdles in making the car a reality.

Technology need not be complex to help in the fight against global warming.  For example, in Africa simple biogas reactors coupled with plastic storage bags for the methane generated are providing cooking gas for households while providing income for those operating the reactors and preventing methane from escaping to the atmosphere.  In the U.S., on the other hand, where we have a complex infrastructure, leakage of methane to the atmosphere from aging infrastructure is a problem in need of innovative solution.

A set of four duplex apartment buildings in Blacksburg achieved the first net-zero energy certification in Virginia.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

In a new essay in The Nation, entitled “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Chemistry,” Bill McKibben summarizes recent research on methane emissions and the impact of the fracking “revolution” on global warming.

Another new essay this week, also appearing in The Nation, is by Madeline Ostrander, a freelance writer and contributing editor to Yes! Magazine.  It introduces readers to the Conceivable Future project, an organization cofounded by Meghan Kallman (partner of climate activist Tim DeChristopher) and Josephine Ferorelli (former Occupy activist) to help people deal with the difficult question of whether to have children.  I found this essay to be very moving and thought-provoking.

A significant event this week was the publication of a paper entitled “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2°C global warming could be dangerous” in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.  The paper was written by former NASA scientist James Hansen and 20 other scientists.  I point this paper out to you for two reasons.  First, is its content.  If Hansen and his coauthors are correct (note that some disagree), the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than heretofore thought.  Chris Mooney of The Washington Post summarizes the major findings, as does Dr. Hansen in a video.  If you prefer to read a transcript of the video, it can be found here.  Second, it provides a window into peer review.  Peer review is the process that journal papers must go through before being accepted for publication.  This journal makes all of the peer review information public, which is unusual.  So, if you are interested you can go to the journal’s website, click on the “peer review” tab, and scroll down to the section “Peer review completion.”  There you will see the reviews by the referees, the author responses, and the editor’s decisions.  This journal is also unique in having an open “interactive discussion” during the review process and in revealing the referees names.

Hydroelectric dams have been the power generation method of choice in the Amazon basin, with 191 dams already present and almost 250 more being planned.  While such dams provide carbon-free electricity, a new paper in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation suggests that construction of the planned dams can significantly negatively impact the area in three ways.

Last week I provided a link to an article about coral bleaching resulting from warmer oceans.  Now for some good news about coral.  Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have reported that coral around remote islands is much healthier than coral around inhabited islands.  This suggests that efforts to reduce pollution around coral reefs is indeed worthwhile to the survival of coral as oceans warm.

After negotiators in Paris agreed on a goal of limiting global temperature increases, climate activist Bill McKibben said: “We’re damn well going to hold them to it. Every pipeline, every mine.”  His promise is playing out all over the country and around the world as activists challenge new fossil fuel infrastructure projects.  In fact, consulting engineering firm Black and Veatch recently reported that the most significant barrier to building new pipeline capacity was “delay from opposition groups.”  As an example, more than 300 climate activists protested in New Orleans on Wednesday morning at a federal auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

If people in developed countries were to eat less red meat and move steadily toward a vegetarian or vegan diet, they could live longer and lower medical costs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food production by 29 to 70% by 2050, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  (Note: At least one news source incorrectly reported that total greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 29 to 70%.)

Two related news items this week painted a pretty dim picture for life on Earth.  First, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) was uncharacteristically blunt in its Status of the Global Climate report.  In releasing the report, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas stated “The future is happening now…The alarming rate of change we are now witnessing in our climate as a result of greenhouse gas emission is unprecedented in modern records.”  Second, a new paper in Nature Geoscience reports that humans are currently releasing CO2 to the atmosphere 10 times faster than at any time in the past 66 million years, including during the PETM, which caused a warming event that lasted 100,000 years and had major impacts on biodiversity.  There is some good news about meteorologists in the U.S., however: more than 95% now think climate change is happening and more than 80% estimate human activities are at least half-responsible (more than 66% “mostly” responsible).

Yale Climate Connections has an interesting post about the history of sea level rise in North Carolina and the techniques that have been used to estimate it.  In addition, a study published in Nature Climate Change found that about 70% of the shoreline from Virginia to Maine could evolve naturally to meet rising sea levels, slowing the loss of land that has been projected by other research.  The resilient shoreline comprises mostly natural ecosystems, which is what allows it to adapt.

China plans to increase its total wind power capacity by 22% in 2016.  After adding 33 GW in 2015, it plans to add an additional 31 GW, the National Energy Administration announced on Monday.  China is having to limit some local authorities’ planning of new wind projects because of the inability of the grid to handle new power flows, suggesting that once that problem is solved they will expand wind power even more rapidly.  On a similar front, Germany is working on a plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 95% from 1990 levels by 2050.  The last coal-fired power plant in Scotland closed on Thursday.  A new report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016, released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Programme, contains both good and bad news about the global energy outlook.  The good news: the world spent more money setting up new wind, solar and other renewable installations than it spent on all new coal, gas, and nuclear plants.  The bad news: “the outlook for power sector emissions remains alarming — despite the agreement at COP21 in Paris, and despite the growth of renewables detailed in this report.”

Twelve Representatives, including Virginian Barbara Comstock, have formed the House Republican Energy, Innovation and Environmental Working Group, which will pursue market-based solutions to our energy and climate problems.  They join a similar group formed in the Senate in the fall.  Unfortunately, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination insists “I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission told ExxonMobil that it must allow its shareholders to vote on a proposal that would require the company to outline the way climate change and energy legislation impact its ability to operate profitably.  Meanwhile the Rockefeller Family Fund plans to divest from all fossil fuel stocks, singling out ExxonMobil for “morally reprehensible conduct.”

Although the adoption of electric cars has been hindered by high prices, limited range, a lack of charging stations, and competition from cheap gasoline, heavier-duty systems are undergoing rapid innovation for applications like battery-powered city buses, delivery trucks, freight loaders, and ferries.

The best winds for land-based wind energy are in the southwestern and midwestern U.S., but the major needs are in the east and far west.  Thus new transmission lines are required to move electric power from source to point of use, but such lines are running into increased opposition.  Approval is also complicated by the fact that it must be obtained in each state that must be passed through and each state has its own unique regulations.

A paper published Thursday in the journal Science holds out the promise for solar cells that are both less expensive and more efficient.  And on the subject of solar, a new report from Rocky Mountain Institute argues that the potential for community solar to expand is vast.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

One thing that makes preparing the Weekly Roundup interesting is that you never know what you’re going to find.  Who would have known that when I clicked on a link to an article about Mennonites building climate resilient bridges in West Virginia I would learn that the bridge in the article was designed by Harrisonburg’s own JZ Engineering?  Way to go Johann and team!  You can find a wonderful video about the project on Johann’s website.

Because there are farmers in the Valley using many of the techniques in the cover story of the March 7 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, I thought you might find it of interest.  There is also an article about biochar in the same issue.

It is now official: February 2016 was the hottest February on record, not just in the U.S., but globally, according to both NASA and NOAA.  Not only that, according to NASA the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35 C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever seen before.

Sulfates and other aerosols can block solar radiation from reaching Earth, thereby exerting a cooling effect.  Because such aerosols are part of the air pollution emitted from coal-fired power plants, many have suspected that as those plants are cleaned up and fewer aerosols are emitted, their cooling effects will be lost, allowing CO2’s warming effect to be even more evident.  Now, two new research papers provide evidence that more severe warming is occurring, particularly in the Arctic, which is heavily influenced by emissions from Europe.

One impact of a warming world is warmer oceans because they store most of the extra heat.  That, in combination with El Nino, has put the world in the grips of the third global coral bleaching event, with the northern region of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef being hit especially hard.

Scientists have known for a couple of years that water beneath Antarctic glaciers is causing them to melt from below.  Now, a new study published in Nature Geoscience provides evidence that the warm ocean water that’s undermining the glaciers may also be weakening their ice shelves by carving 50 to 250 meter deep channels into them.  The concern is that if the ice shelves fracture, the glaciers behind them will flow outward faster and raise sea level more rapidly.

Writing in The Guardian, John Abraham provides a summary of three articles that appeared recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about current and future sea level rise.  In addition, a new study by University of Georgia scientists, published in Nature Climate Change, projects future populations of coastal counties in the U.S. and couples the data with projections of sea level rise to estimate the number of people who will be at risk of flooding.  Under the worst-case scenario, with 1.8 m of sea level rise, 13.1 million people could be impacted.  This study prompted noted shoreline geologist Orrin H. Pilkey and his children to write an opinion piece in The Guardian about the failure of developers to grasp the implications of climate change.

I missed an article that appeared a couple of weeks ago, perhaps because of its title, but upon finding it I thought it was important enough to call to your attention now.  It concerns a paper that appeared recently in the journal Nature Climate Change dealing with the carbon budget.  Apparently, the carbon budget given by the IPCC in the Fifth Assessment Report published in 2013 was too optimistic, suggesting that we will exhaust it more quickly than we originally thought.  This too suggests that it will be difficult to limit warming to 2 C.

On a more positive note, the International Energy Agency announced on Wednesday that for the second year in a row CO2 emissions from the electric power sector did not rise, even though global economic output increased.  This was attributed to surging deployment of renewable power, especially wind, with renewables accounting for 90% of new electricity generation in 2015.  Another contributing factor is that the demand for electricity in the U.S. has been relatively flat over the past decade, while GDP has gone up by about 15%.  Joe Romm has an analysis of how this occurred.  In spite of the optimism in those two reports, two recent papers suggest that it may not be possible to meet the international goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees C and meet future energy demand.

Record rainfall recently occurred in Louisiana, causing extensive damage to thousands of homes.  Further west, while El Nino associated rain has bypassed southern California so far, it has been filling reservoirs in northern California.  El Nino is having the opposite effect in southern and eastern Africa, where it is causing severe drought.  Coupled with record high temperatures, the drought puts more than 36 million people at risk of severe hunger.

Steven Mufson had an interesting article in The Washington Post about Marvin Odum, the outgoing president of Shell Oil.  Odum’s tenure was cut short by Shell’s $7 billion abortive venture drilling in the Arctic.  Meanwhile, oil and gas drilling rigs operating in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest number since the 1040’s.  In addition, the Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is dropping its year-old plan to allow companies to search and drill for oil and natural gas in the Atlantic Ocean off of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, catching Virginia’s three top Democrats off-guard.

FERC has rejected the application of Veresen Inc. to build a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Oregon.  FERC also denied Veresen’s plan to build a pipeline with Williams Partners LP to supply gas to the terminal.

Climate scientists have been extremely cautious when attributing any particular severe weather event to climate change.  That may now change, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that has found that with appropriate studies it is indeed possible to state that a heat wave or prolonged drought has been influenced by climate change.  Chris Mooney has a summary of the report’s findings at The Washington Post while Roz Pidcock takes a deeper dive at Carbon Brief, with interviews with a number of scientists.

Solar energy in Virginia was in the news this week.  A 20 MW solar power facility near Eastville will be the latest renewable energy project on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.  Front Royal is partnering with American Municipal Power and Nextera to build a 2.5-3 MW solar array within the town limits.  A new Solarize program has been initiated in Vienna that will run from March 15 – May 15.  The State of Virginia, Dominion Virginia Power, and Microsoft Corp. will partner to bring a 20-megawatt solar farm to Fauquier County.  However, Ivy Main isn’t sure this is such a good deal for the state.  In spite of the Front Royal project, something we have little of in Virginia is community-scale solar, primarily because of restrictive regulations.  RMI has released a report that enumerates the benefits associated with community-scale solar and argues that they are compelling for investors.

According to Gallup: “Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say they are worried a “great deal” or “fair amount” about global warming, up from 55% at this time last year and the highest reading since 2008.”

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.

Ivy Main has a new blog post that examines the stark choice facing Virginia Governor McAuliffe on the Clean Power Plan.

On Tuesday NOAA announced that the contiguous 48 U.S. states just experienced their warmest winter (Dec-Feb) on record. Alaska had its second warmest winter. In addition, NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory reported this week that the atmospheric CO2 concentration at its Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii increased more from February 2015 to February 2016 than in any other 12 month period since 1959. The increase was 3.76 ppm, leaving the concentration at 404.02 ppm for February. Meanwhile, a new Australian study, published in the journal Plos One, projects that because of increased global energy use per person, the world will reach the agreed-upon limit of 2 degree C much sooner than previously expected.

We tend to think of the biosphere [all the plants, animals and microorganisms living on the surface of the Earth (excluding the oceans)] as a net “sink” for CO2, due to its uptake by plants as they photosynthesize. However, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas associated with the biosphere. Methane, CH4, and nitrous oxide, N2O, are both strong greenhouse gases that are given off by microorganisms living in soil, pond sediments, and rice paddies. Ruminants (cows, sheep, etc.) also release CH4. Now a new study, published this week in Nature, has found that because of modern agriculture, and its associated releases of CH4 and N2O, the biosphere is now a net contributor of greenhouse gases, rather than a sink. Furthermore, atmospheric concentrations of CH4 are increasing after being stable for several years. A new paper in the journal Science attributes that increase primarily to agriculture, although others disagree.

As I have mentioned in previous Roundups there are two types of temperature records, from surface thermometers and from satellites. Peter Sinclair has a new video explaining why scientists trust the surface thermometers more.

President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have agreed to new, coordinated measures to fight climate change. (The relevant part of the linked-to article starts just below the video.) They also pledged to institute new Arctic initiatives, including shipping corridors with low environmental impact and new protections on marine areas. Ed King of Climate Home focuses on one statement in the announcement and what it may mean for the decarbonization of the U.S. economy after President Obama leaves office.

On Wednesday, 21 teenagers appeared in an Oregon courtroom as part of a lawsuit against the federal government contending that it has failed to protect the children against harm from climate change. The lawsuit, brought by the organization Our Children’s Trust, asks the court to hold the government responsible for violating the children’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, property and equal protection under the law. This lawsuit is the second attempt to sue the federal government under public trust doctrine. The first federal lawsuit, which was dismissed, had local ties to climate activists Garrett and Grant Serrels, who, together with their cousin, Alec Loorz (founder of Kids vs Global Warming and iMatter), were plaintiffs on the lawsuit, along with other youth from the iMatter Youth Council. You can find James Hansen’s thoughts on the suit here.

The changing climate is having a severe impact on the world’s lakes with some on the verge of disappearance due to increased evaporation, lower input from rainfall, and increased withdrawals for irrigation. This can greatly decrease the agricultural productivity of areas dependent on the lakes for irrigation. On a similar note, scientists from 14 laboratories and institutions warn in the journal Global Change Biology that climate is changing faster than tree populations can adapt. As a result, even eastern forests “are vulnerable to drought and could experience significant changes with increased severity, frequency, or duration in drought,” according to the authors.

I reported last week that China’s CO2 emissions fell in 2015. Now, some think that China’s emissions may have already peaked, although China’s climate change envoy disagrees. In addition, China just released its newest five-year plan, which calls for an 18% reduction in carbon intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP) by 2020.

Germany’s second-largest energy company, E.ON, has confirmed that it is planning to launch a residential PV-plus-storage offering for the German market in April. The product will be based on Solarwatt’s MyReserve battery systems. It is refreshing to see an energy company embrace distributed storage and work to make it part of their power grid.

Solar Power Rocks is a website that advises consumers on getting solar power and they have just released their 2016 solar power rankings. Because of a variety of factors, Virginia ranks 35th in the nation, with an overall grade of D. Still, if you want to put on panels to cut your fossil fuel use you’ll get an internal rate of return (IRR) of 6.8%, giving a payback time of 14 years for a 5 kW system.

Much of sub-Saharan Africa will become unsuitable for growing key crops during this century if CO2 emissions continue as usual, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change. Up to 60% of areas that currently grow beans, and up to 30% of areas that grow maize and bananas would no longer be suitable in a warmer climate. The study suggests that fundamental changes to farming may be needed to maintain food security.

A new study, published in Nature Climate Change, has found that severe rainfall has increased throughout the world’s wettest and driest regions, with daily rainfall extremes increasing by 1-2% per decade since 1950. The trend is expected to continue for the rest of this century.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is joining a growing list of financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo & Co., that have pledged to stop or scale back support for coal projects. Meanwhile, U.S. utilities closed down over 14 gigawatts of coal-fired electrical power generation capacity in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Ever wonder why Americans aren’t concerned about climate change? Perhaps it’s because they never hear about it on television. During 2015 less time was devoted to climate change by the major news media than in 2014, even though 2015 was filled with climate related events, such as the Paris Summit and several record setting hot months.

The spring issue of Yes! magazine is entitled “Life after Oil.” It contains an explanation by Bill McKibben of why we need to keep 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

These news items have been compiled by Les Grady, member and former chair of the CAAV steering committee. He is a licensed professional engineer (retired) who taught environmental engineering at Purdue and Clemson Universities and engaged in private practice with CH2M Hill, the world’s largest environmental engineering consulting firm. Since his retirement in 2003 he has devoted much of his time to the study of climate science and the question of global warming and makes himself available to speak to groups about this subject. More here.