New more complex explanation for 20th century sea-level changes

Throwing all predictions into doubt

The movement of a colossal "mounds" of water in the North Atlantic and Pacific oceans may have caused sea levels to suddenly begin rising more quickly in the 1920s, researchers say. Their analysis presents a more complex picture of sea-level change and suggests that the rate of change has been more dramatic than previously thought.

Data collected using tidal gauges dotted along the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines during the late 19th and 20th centuries suggest that sea levels suddenly began rising more quickly around the 1920s, from about 1 millimetre per year to about 1.8 mm per year. This change has previously been attributed to climate change. However, precisely why oceans suddenly began rising more quickly in the 1920s has remained a mystery.

Warming temperatures boost sea levels in two ways: melting glaciers release more water into the ocean (see What's behind the big polar meltdown?) and seawater expands as it warms. Over the past few decades, sea level measurements taken using satellites show that this trend has continued, with the current rate of increase standing at about 3.36 mm per year.

Now, evidence gathered by Laury Miller of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Bruce Douglas, of the Laboratory for Coastal Research in Florida, US, suggests that this change may be partly explained by the pressure-related movement of gigantic amounts of water. The researchers studied atmospheric pressure records for the late 19th and 20th centuries and used these records to try and work out how rising sea levels may be been affected by shifting ocean peaks, known as "gyres", in the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. These ocean peaks are produced by water swirling in a circular direction around the ocean as a result of atmospheric pressure, wind and heating. The movement, combined with the turning of the Earth, causes water at the centre of the circle to rise upwards, forming a peak, or gyre. The North Atlantic and Pacific gyres are each about 1 metre taller at the centre than at the edge.

But atmospheric records suggest that the gyres in both oceans sank during the 1920s, releasing water held in the centre and allowing it to flow towards the coasts. This would explain the sudden change in the rate at which sea levels changed at this time, measured by coastal instruments. Since tidal gauges only measure sea-levels along the coasts, they could not have detected the drop in levels towards the oceans' centres.

If the researchers are correct, this means the overall sea levels were in fact rising more slowly at the time. This, in turn, implies that the rise of sea levels accelerated faster over the 20th century than previously thought. However as measurements have only recently become sufficiently accurate, it may take some time before the full picture will be known. "My guess is that it will be 20 or 30 years before we are able to identify how fast sea-level rises are truly accelerating," Miller says.

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BRAVE GREEN WORLD: BRITONS FACE RATIONING, ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN AND JOB LOSSES

Britons face a future of green taxes, higher fuel prices and even flight rationing under anti-pollution laws unveiled yesterday. A Climate Change Bill would make the UK the only country with legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The five-yearly goals would cost the UK up to 12billion a year for the next 42 years.

The Government was warned that a switch to a low-carbon economy would trigger an economic slowdown and job losses while giving politicians the excuse for unpopular taxes, hike the cost of fuel and even bring in "personal carbon quotas". Critics also point out the move would be pointless if countries such as China, Russia and India refuse to introduce similar targets.

Launching the Bill yesterday, the Government said Britain has a duty to lead by example. It argues that the costs of climate-change related flooding, droughts and illnesses would be far higher if it failed to act.

The Bill does not say how carbon dioxide emissions will be cut. However, it commits the Government to a 60 per cent reduction by 2050. One method could be personal carbon-allowances, where everyone is given a fixed amount of carbon to use each year. Each time they travel in a plane, buy petrol, go shopping or eat out would be recorded on a plastic card. The more frugal could sell spare carbon to those who want to indulge themselves. But if you were to run out of your carbon allowance, you could be barred from flying or driving.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the Bill sets Britain "firmly on the path to the low-carbon economy". He added: "We need to provide the framework that will give a clear idea of how we're going to tackle climate change. "We also need to show that we're taking decisive action within our borders and not asking other countries, in particular poorer countries, to do what we're not willing to do ourselves." Petrol: Would become a 'luxury' under new proposals

According to the food and farming agency Defra, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent would shrink gross domestic product by 1.6billion to 12billion each year as the UK switches to more expensive renewable energy and energy intensive industries shut. That does not include the costs of building "greener" power stations, creating better public transport or closing polluting factories.

The Bill will set up a new quango - the Committee on Climate Change - which will monitor the Government's progress. It will also introduce a carbon trading scheme for local councils, supermarkets and other big retailers. Kendra Okonski, of the development charity International Policy Network, said: "The UK's emissions are insignificant compared to China and India. We are in danger of cutting off our noses to spite our faces. We will impose costs on our economy which will harm the poor, but do nothing to help the climate."

But Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said: "Climate legislation is desperately needed but the Government must strengthen its proposals to make it truly effective."

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Another College Paper Shocker: Global Warming is Killing Us…Not!

Post below lifted from Newsbusters.

The more college newspapers I look at, the more I wonder if Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his global warming sycophants in the press have overplayed their climate alarmism. First there was an editorial in the Harvard Crimson bashing Gore, then a positive article at the Stanford Daily concerning a luncheon address by global warming skeptic S. Fred Singer, followed by a marvelous piece at San Diego State's The Daily Aztec seemingly mocking those that believe we're all going to die because temperatures are rising.

Regardless of the answer, business administration senior Justin Weisbrod cleverly began his article with a tad of misdirection I'd like to think was satirizing the current media hysteria (emphasis added throughout):

The world is ending. In the wake of the San Diego wildfires, many residents of the county may be nodding their heads, as they might already know.

The blazes that torched our county are another sign of the "inconvenient" disaster that's ruining our world, at least according to some.

Environmentalists are begging us to ponder, "What will you do when the water is so polluted you can't drink it and the air is so chock-full of smog you can't step outside?"

Could have been the introduction to any number of hysterical pieces at major newspapers and magazines lately, right? Well, strap yourself in, for he was just kidding:

Before you torch my house (or invite me to a party) for being an Earth-loving hippie, let me make this point: We polluted the crap out of the land, air and sea on planet Earth. But, Earth also pollutes itself. Gasses and elements from volcanoes, fires, storms, meteors and earthquakes all naturally contribute to Earth's warming and cooling processes.

The only thing we did was speed it all up.

As such, global warming is not a problem we can fix. Earth's history is riddled with warm times as well as cold times. And let's remember Earth began from nothing and will end with nothing. We are a grain of sand on a never-ending beach and fully exposed to all the elements. Global warming will not end the existence of planet Earth.

I really like this kid. But there's more:

What does global warming really mean? It means the planet is warming, the ice is melting thus, global warming equals a warmer planet. It's that simple. Guess what comes next? Global cooling. But what if the pollution doesn't allow Earth to do its natural cycles? In the '70s, people thought we were heading into an ice age. What happened in just 30 years?

The weather has its ups and downs, as volatile as the stock market complete with trends, cyclicality, skeptics and believers. Just like the stock market, there is little we can do as individuals to create a dramatic impact.

Sanity from someone so young. What does this tell us? Are these folks not buying into the charade specifically because of their education? Or, are they smelling a rat concerning all the hype that folks many years their senior seem to be either intentionally or incompetently missing? Whatever the answer, it certainly is refreshing to think that not all college kids are buying into the environmentalist nonsense being hawked to them 24/7. Bravo, Justin!



CLIMATE CHANGE NOT BIG ISSUE IN US ELECTIONS SAY EXPERTS

Three American political commentators do not see global warming as one of the defining issues for the upcoming presidential campaign. The next president will probably be chosen on the basis of personality and domestic issues unless there is a new terrorist attack before November 2008.

The three journalists, Rick Burke (NY Times), Carroll Doherty (Pew Research Center) and Jonathan Weisman (Washington Post) were invited to Brussels for a debate organised by the US German Marshall Fund.

None of the three dared to make any predictions as to the outcome of the Presidential race which will start with preliminaries in Iowa in January 2008. The Democrats have the better chances but this is more a result of the frustration with Bush than because of the Democrats’ own merits, according to the US journalists. The names most mentioned during the briefing as potential runners were Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama for the Democrats and Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney for the Republicans, but watch out for Mike Huckabee (Republican), dixit Burke. A double ticket Clinton-Obama would be too much breaking the taboos, agreed all three.

Jonathan Weisman felt that, contrary to the last two campaigns, foreign policy would play less of a role. Health care, energy costs, immigration and tax policies are the issues that matter to the American people this time.

Asked by different speakers from the audience about climate change, the three experts did not see Europe’s hot topic playing a major role in the campaign, although they admitted that all Democrat candidates are trying to present their special climate change plans. Energy security (and oil independence) could be more of an issue, said Weisman, especially if gasoline prices would go to 4 dollars a gallon.

Let me add my two-cents worth: it is clear that even the press experts are quite uncertain about the outcome of the next Presidential elections. They all see that the country is ready for a big change but in what direction and with whom seems to be wide open. I also think they underestimate the energy security issue and, linked to that, the growing anti-globalisation mood in the US. If the US were to go into a recession, energy prices would rise spectacularly and unemployment would start to grow considerably, we might be in for some strange surprises, even an influential independent candidate (Bloomberg?) who might not be the ultimate winner but could surely change the cards in a considerable way. I generally agree with the GMF speakers though that Europeans overestimate the impact climate change will have on the campaign.

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KING COAL STILL GOING STRONG

NO UTILITY with any respect for its shareholders' money, says Michael Morris, the boss of the biggest one in America, AEP, would build a heavily polluting coal-burning power station in America these days, for fear that it would become a liability if the government moved to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Europe already has a cap on emissions, which is designed precisely to discourage dirty fuels such as coal. So why is it that utilities in both places are running their coal-fired plants at full throttle, have several new ones under construction and would like to build even more?

Using coal to generate electricity produces more greenhouse gases per resulting watt than using oil or natural gas, but coal is cheap. In countries where there are no limits on emissions and where demand for power is growing rapidly, such as India and China, coal is booming. Energy lore has it that in China a new coal-burning plant is fired up every week. What is certain is that China has become a net importer of coal for the first time this year. India's imports have been growing steadily for the past 20 years. The International Energy Agency, an energy watchdog for rich countries, projects that demand for coal will grow by 2.2% a year until 2030—faster than demand for oil or natural gas. Coal-mining firms in Indonesia and Australia, the biggest exporters, are digging as fast as they can but are still struggling to cope with the surge in orders. Freighters are literally queuing up off Newcastle, Australia, the world's busiest coal port.

But poor and fast-growing places are not the only ones with a hunger for coal. In America, more coal-fired generation is being built than at any time in the past seven years, despite the threat of emissions caps, according to the Department of Energy. In Europe, several power companies are building new coal-fired plants, even though every tonne of carbon dioxide that they emit will require an expensive permit. For example, RWE, a German utility, plans to spend €6.2 billion ($9.1 billion) on three new coal-fired plants by 2012. One of them is already under construction.

All this has helped to push the price of coal steadily upwards in the past few years. Nonetheless, it has risen less quickly than that of oil or natural gas. Coal is now by far the cheapest of the common fuels for power stations relative to the amount of heat it generates when burnt (see chart). At the very least that is encouraging utilities to run their existing coal-fired plants flat out. But it is also prompting some to convert oil-fired plants to run on coal instead. Enel, Italy's former electricity monopoly, has already performed one such refurbishment, and has two more under way, at a cost of €3.8 billion. Leonardo Arrighi, who supervises the firm's investments in generation, says it would like to build “more and more” coal-fired plants.

In theory, the carbon price (in Europe) and the threat of one (in America) should dent this enthusiasm for coal. But in practice many utilities are betting that the disparity in fuel prices will outweigh the cost of extra permits to pollute. At the moment such permits cost pennies in Europe, because governments handed out too many of them. Although there should be more of a shortage starting next year, the futures price would have to rise from the current 22 euros per tonne of carbon to over 30 per tonne to prompt a significant switch away from coal over the next two years, according to Henrik Hasselknippe of Point Carbon, a consultancy.

To be fair, many of the coal-fired power stations under construction in Europe and America are very efficient, and so emit less carbon per watt of output than existing plants. RWE and Enel both claim that their new plants will be among the most efficient in Europe. AEP is building a similar plant in America, which will remain profitable at carbon prices of up to $20 a tonne, according to Mr Morris. Meanwhile, many American firms are cancelling or delaying plans to build grubbier coal-fired plants until they have a clearer idea of future carbon prices.

Politicians in both Europe and America talk of carbon prices eventually being so high that coal-fired plants will be viable only if they capture their emissions and store them underground. But no such plants yet exist. Most of those under construction are not even “capture-ready”, as the industry jargon has it, since utilities do not consider the extra expense worthwhile. Even in Europe, with its steadily tightening emissions cap, much higher carbon prices or stricter regulation will be required to get utilities to build capture-ready plants, says John Krenicki, the head of the energy division at General Electric.

In fact, governments are sending out conflicting signals. Germany, for example, is making it easier to build new coal plants by granting them free emissions permits, even though it aims to reduce emissions to 40% below the 1990 level by 2020. Enel hopes to persuade the governments of Bulgaria and Romania to do the same. In America, the most prominent proposals for regulations to reduce emissions all involve generous hand-outs to the coal industry. For a supposedly dying breed, advocates of coal-fired generation still seem to have plenty of clout with Europe's and America's politicians.

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Prolonged cooling in South America

Latin America was rocked this week by a four-word sentence. During a summit in Chile King Juan Carlos of Spain told the president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez to shut up: "Por que no te callas" (Why do you not shut up?). Someone must tell Al Gore the same or invite him to visit this corner of the world. It is a never ending winter here in South America. “What a hell is happening this year with a seven-month winter”, asked a famous TV journalist about the unusual climatic winter of 2007 that began with fury in May and still persist in November. Buenos Aires recorded this Thursday (November 15th) the lowest temperature for the month of November in 90 years. Temperature in the Downtown weather station reached 2.5C. Since records began more than a century ago, only two days had colder lows in November. It was in 1914 (1.6) and 1917 (2.4). And ninety years ago the urban heat island effect was much less pronounced than nowadays, what turns the temperature observed today remarkable.

The much colder than usual weather was not confined to Argentina. This Thursday had near-freezing temperatures and frost in Uruguay. Weather stations recorded 1.5ºC in Trinidad; 1.8ºC in Durazno; 2.4ºC in Tacuarembó; 3ºC in Artigas; 3.2ºC in Melo and Florida; 3.8ºC in Treinta y Tres; 4.1ºC in Paso de los Toros; 4.6ºC in Rivera and 4.8ºC em San José.

In the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil temperatures fell to 2.3ºC degrees in several towns near the border with Uruguay on Thursday. Wind and cloud cover prevented lower temperatures in the higher altitudes, but earlier in the week several towns in the Sierras region recorded temperatures near zero Celsius and frost. In Sao Joaquim, the low was 1.6 below zero with moderate frost on Monday (November 12th).

Frequent cold air incursions are prompting a very stormy spring in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. More than one hundred towns declared emergency due to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in recent weeks. One man died. Some towns experienced almost complete destruction twice in just ten days.

Further south, the problem is the excessive ice. The Brazilian Base Comandante Ferraz (file image above) in Antarctica is rationing water. Never in the last twenty years the weather was so cold and snowy this time of the year in the Brazilian post in the South Pole. The nearby lakes that provide water to the base are frozen since September. The heliport that allows the arrival of food and bottled water by air is under three meters of snow. Water for human consumption is limited to the fifty Brazilian researchers in the region and the situations turns more dangerous each day. So, por que no te callas Al Gore ?

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