Researchers discover Himalayan glaciers are cooling down, potentially slowing down effects of climate change
Although the glaciers are expected to continue to melt as global temperatures rise, the report shows that Himalayan glaciers have somehow counterintuitively been cooling and drying in recent decades.
According to the report, researchers have found enhanced downslope winds known scientifically as katabatic winds are behind why the glaciers have been cooling and drying.
What are Katabatic winds?
Katabatic winds are downhill winds that are generated when the surface of a mountain is cooler than the adjacent atmosphere, which creates a pressure gradient.
Himalayan glaciers rely on rain from the storms in the region in winter and the rain from monsoon season in the summer.
Winds from the monsoon season are drawn upwards in the daytime and are met with the katabatic winds, the study shows.
The research shows the convergence between the upward monsoonal winds and the downhill winds causes the monsoonal moisture to be lifted, generating a decent amount of rain, snow, sleet or hail over the glaciers.
Increase in katabatic winds may have implications
According to the report the escalation of katabatic winds in recent decades still has consequences.
The first consequence is that daytime temperatures over the glaciers have decreased. This is because of the pumping down of cold air from higher altitudes.
The decrease in daytime temperatures has the tendency to reduce the melting of glaciers, contradicting the observed loss of glacier mass.
The second consequence of the enhanced katabatic winds is to drive the convergence line between upslope and downslope winds further down the mountain.
This means that precipitation has increased at lower elevations, but decreased at the higher elevations where glaciers are situated.
The decrease in precipitation over the glaciers has caused them to lose mass over the past few decades.
The study also suggests the warming of the atmosphere can intensify the katabatic winds, which blocks the flow of moisture from lower elevations.
This is because high altitudes contain so little moisture, which means the glaciers are dependent on the upslope flow of moisture from the low altitudes.
As the Himalayan glaciers have significantly shrunk, it is likely that they are particularly vulnerable to this effect.
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Climate conference pledge to move away from fossil fuels is a farce
So, a deal has been reached. The world has agreed on what Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber has called a ‘robust action to keep 1.5 Celsius in reach’. The world is to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels.
And meanwhile, back in the real world? If the world really had just made a meaningful commitment to end the use of fossil fuels, you might have expected shares in oil companies to have crashed this morning. But have they heck. Shell, BP, all are unmoved. It is expansionary business as usual. The UAE has invested $150 billion (£120 billion) to increase oil production by half to five million barrels a day by 2027. In the US, oil and gas production reached a new record last year.
Even coal production was up 2 per cent. There is enough new gas production in the pipeline to increase output from 11.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day to over 20 billion cubic feet. We can be very thankful for that in Europe – it is us, feeling the absence of Russian gas, who are the main customers. The US agreed to spend a piffling £20 million of aid money on poor countries. The US can’t be blamed for seeking energy security, but can anyone say what was the real difference between having the Biden administration at this conference and having a Trump administration snub it?
The share price of Shell and BP are unmoved by the Cop pledge
As for China, it has built 182 new coal-fired power plants in the past two and a half years – since president Xi Jinping announced he was setting his country a target to reach Net Zero by 2060, comfortably beyond his own reign, in spite of his moves to guarantee himself lifetime presidency. Brazil, which was pressing right up until the last day for Cop 28 to agree to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels rather than simply transition away from them? It plans to expand oil production in its offshore fields to become the world’s fourth largest producer by 2030. Canada, which joined Brazil in demanding a ‘phase out’? It has increased oil production by 375,000 barrels per day over the past two years.
Never mind Cop 28 and its 98,000 gas-guzzling, private jet-using delegates – never has there been such a bonanza in fossil fuels. If this is supposed to be the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels, as the EU’s climate envoy put it, it is a mighty strange one.
Those who have been carefully watching proceedings over the past couple of weeks may have noticed a subtle difference between the language being used by different countries. While activists and numerous groups were certain they were demanding a phase out of all fossil fuels, US climate envoy John Kerry was talking only about ‘unabated’ fossil fuels. Britain, too, was using this language. The difference is that the US position allows for carbon capture and storage – which could allow for the burning of fossil fuels with no, or with very low, emissions.
There is, though, a very big question over this strategy: who is going to pay for carbon capture, if indeed it can succeed as a commercial technology at all? We have had carbon capture since the 1970s – when ironically it was devised by the oil and gas industry as a means of forcing more fossil fuels out of declining wells. But if it is going to be used without that incentive, someone is going to have to pay – as well as finding the room to store all the carbon. Moreover, it is one thing to capture the carbon from the chimney of a gas-fired power stations, quite another to try to capture it from the exhaust of a jet plane.
Don’t, though, be fooled by grand words of transitioning away from fossil fuels. There is scant sign that the world intends to live up to its grand words.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/cops-pledge-to-move-away-from-fossil-fuels-is-a-farce/
*************************************************NZ Deputy PM Responds to Pressure From Greens Over Oil, Gas Mining
New Zealand's Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters, who is standing in for Chris Luxon, responded to accusations from the Green Party over backtracking on old statements made regarding the ban on oil and gas exploration that now appear contra-positional.
The new National-led coalition government has pledged to overturn the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, putting them at odds with the Green Party who hold firm to the 2018 policy that aimed to shift New Zealand towards a carbon-neutral economy by 2050 and a secondary goal, by 2035, of achieving 100 percent renewable electricity.
New Zealand's oilfields, located predominantly in the Taranki region, have produced petroleum since 1865 when the Alpha well was dug near the Moturoa seeps. There are 37 active extraction permits in the country.
In 2018, the previous Labour-led government, helmed by former Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, brought into law the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Act which banned (save for an exemption granted in a small area of Taranaki) new exploration permits within the country's Exclusive Economic Zone.
“There will be no further offshore oil and gas exploration permits granted,” said Ms. Ardern at the time.
The National Party's "Rebuilding the Economy" policy will open up opportunities for permits to again be issued, with the rationale being to reduce reliance on imported coal from Indonesia. About 726,000 metric tons were imported in 2022.
During the pre-election, the National Party stated that it supported the move towards a net-zero economy, but took issue with the blanket banning of mining permits brought in by the previous government.
On Dec. 12, in Parliament, Green Party leader Marama Davidson asked Mr. Peters if he still supported the quotes he made in 2018 concerning the ban, to which Mr. Peters said it "makes sense, and introducing the ban was a change that New Zealanders wanted."
Mr. Peters added that he stood fast with the government's intentions, saying it had "its settings on the future."
Greens Co-leader James Shaw disagreed, telling Mr. Peters; "The vast majority of New Zealanders actually want our government to do more on climate change, not less."
"The simple fact is you cannot stop the climate crisis by burning more fossil fuels," Mr. Shaw said.
Mr. Peters' retort to the Greens questioning was to acknowledge the comments he made and suggest he has changed tack. "With regard to evidence and information at the time of those statements, yes. But, of course, when new information or evidence emerges we acknowledge that and don't just carry on like a bigoted, lefty shill," he said.
"Examine the time and the place when that statement was made. There was a ban on at the time—does that member .... not remember that?"
Ms. Davidson then said the decision to rescind the policy was contradictory given Climate Minister Simon Watts' comments at COP-28 that the tabled draft that was aimed at "reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels, in a just, orderly and equitable manner" did not "align with current global commitment."
"Right now, they are wrestling with that very issue," Mr. Peters said.
The government's new stance on exploration was addressed on a website post by Greenpeace Aotearoa.
Spokesperson Amanda Larsson said, "Our new government’s first official foray on an international stage will result in yet more raised eyebrows as their policy to bring back offshore oil and gas exploration collides with global calls for a fossil fuel phase-out.”
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EU’s green funds are under the guillotine
Billions of euros earmarked to boost renewable energy and slash emissions are on the cutting block after EU leaders proposed moving them over to fund immigration and defense efforts instead.
The move came during this week’s EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, where European Council President Charles Michel proposed axing nearly all of a €10 billion fund meant to help Europe build out energy networks of the future — wind turbines, hydrogen plants, carbon capture. The effort is a crucial part of the EU’s response to the U.S. spending splurge on renewable energy incentives, which includes hundreds of billions in subsidies.
While countries like France, Italy and Spain have publicly backed the €10 billion initiative, Brussels is facing criticism from more frugal European capitals, particularly in the north, that want to limit their EU budget contributions and ensure there is money for competing priorities like curbing illegal immigration and rising military expenditures.
Michel’s compromise would drop the renewables fund — officially dubbed the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform, or STEP — to just €1.5 billion. The remaining money initially meant for the effort would get rolled over into a cash pot for military investments, according to the latest proposal.
In exchange, Brussels would offer countries more flexibility in how they can use payouts from the EU’s “cohesion” fund — budgetary injections for lower-income states designed to reduce economic inequality. In theory, that would enable countries to continue some needed renewable energy investments.
“This allows countries with access to European funds to use them in a simple and flexible way,” said one diplomat granted anonymity to comment on the negotiations.
Yet the potential cut is a foreboding signal of Europe’s mounting struggle to source the massive investments needed to hit its climate goals. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, also had to drastically scale back its climate budget recently after a court ruling. And railing against the EU’s green transition costs has proved a winning political talking point for some on the right.
“We know that it’s not enough money,” said a second diplomat with knowledge of the talks, who acknowledged the diminished fund will only provide enough cash for “targeted” measures.
The “reality is really tough,” the diplomat added. “Budgets are tough everywhere.”
The plan to drastically slash the EU’s green tech fund does not have unanimous support. Leaders were unable to strike a final deal on Thursday night and will have to resume discussions in January ahead of an emergency EU leaders’ summit.
Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, director of EU climate investments and cleantech at the Institute for Climate Economics, warned the compromise could be catastrophic for the clean tech industry, particularly given the growing competition from the U.S. and China.
“Previously, you could guesstimate that around 50 percent of STEP funds would go to climate, and now you can guesstimate it will be around 0 percent: that money could go from 5 out of 10 billion to 0 out of 1.5 billion,” he said.
For the EU, that means a regression in key climate funding just as scientists insist much more money is needed.
“We could end up having less EU funding for clean tech in 2024 than we had in 2022,” Pellerin-Carlin said. “It’s not that we’re stepping up, it’s that we’re discussing stepping down even beyond just keeping the status quo.”
"Cutting important research funding to the benefit of other programs is not acceptable, as it threatens Europe's future wellbeing and competitiveness,” said Christian Ehler, a lead European Parliament negotiator on STEP and the industry, research and energy spokesperson for the center-right European People’s Party group. “We will continue to fight for our budget until there is an agreement that lives up to these promises."
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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
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http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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