2007
2007 December 16. Climate
Plan Looks Beyond Bush's Tenure.
By THOMAS
FULLER and ANDREW C. REVKIN, NY
Times. Excerpt:
NUSA DUA, Indonesia -
The world's faltering effort to
cut greenhouse gas emissions got
a
new lease on life on Saturday,
as delegates from 187 countries
agreed
to negotiate a new accord over
the next two years....
Many officials and environmental
campaigners said American
negotiators had remained obstructionist
until the final hour of the
two-week convention and had changed
their stance only after public
rebukes that included boos and
hisses from other delegates.
The resulting "Bali Action
Plan" contains no binding
commitments,
which European countries had sought
and the United States fended off.
The plan concludes that "deep
cuts in global emissions will be
required" and provides a timetable
for two years of talks to shape
the first formal addendum to the
1992 Framework Convention on Climate
Change treaty since the Kyoto Protocol
10 years ago.
... in the final tumultuous plenary,
when the American team was booed
for trying to block a proposal
by India.
Kevin Conrad, the negotiator from
Papua New Guinea, rebuked the
American delegation. "If for
some reason you are not killing
to lead,
leave it to the rest of us," he
said. "Please, get out of
the way."
He was alluding to remarks made
by an American official, James
Connaughton, chairman of the White
House Council on Environmental
Quality, last week to a Reuters
reporter, who quoted him as saying,"The
U.S. will lead, and we will continue
to lead, but leadership also requires
others to fall in line and follow."
That statement had become a sore
point to many delegations.
A few more statements were made,
but none of America's traditional
allies came to its defense.
Finally, Paula Dobriansky, the
lead American negotiator, spoke."We
came here to Bali because we want
to go forward as part of a new
framework," said Ms. Dobriansky,
the under secretary of state for
democracy and global affairs. "We
believe we have a shared vision
and
we want to move that forward. We
want a success here in Bali. We
will
go forward and join consensus."
The delegates erupted in lengthy
applause, realizing that a deal
was
finally at hand.
2007 November 1. Is
the ocean carbon sink sinking? RealClimate
website. --David. Excerpt:
The past few weeks and years
have seen a bushel of papers
finding that the natural world,
in particular perhaps the ocean,
is getting fed up with absorbing
our CO2... evidence that the hypothesized
carbon cycle positive feedback has begun.
...If changing climate were to
cause the natural world to slow
down its carbon uptake, or even
begin to release carbon, that would
exacerbate the climate forcing
from fossil fuels: a positive feedback.
The ocean has a tendency to take
up more carbon as the CO2 concentration
in the air rises, because of Henry's
Law, which states that in equilibrium,
more in the air means more dissolved
in the water. Stratification of
the waters in the ocean, due to
warming at the surface for example,
tends to oppose CO2 invasion, by
slowing the rate of replenishing
surface waters by deep waters which
haven't taken up fossil fuel CO2
yet.
... Le Quere et al. [2007] ...
find that the Southern Ocean has
begun to release carbon since about
1990....
A decrease in ocean uptake is more
clearly documented in the North
Atlantic by Schuster and Watson
[2007]. They show surface ocean
CO2 measurements ... rose by about
15 microatmospheres
...The warming at the end of the
last ice age was prompted by changes
in Earth's orbit around the sun,
but it was greatly amplified by
the rising CO2 concentration in
the atmosphere. The orbits pushed
on ice sheets, which pushed on
climate. The climate changes triggered
a strong positive carbon cycle
feedback which is, yes, still poorly
understood.
Now industrial activity is pushing
on atmospheric CO2 directly. The
question is when and how strongly
the carbon cycle will push back.
Note From:Avalone-King,
Debbie J
... I'd like to prompt interested
teachers to examine (online) some
of the buoy's collecting data on
CO2 exchange between air and ocean.
(pertinent web links can be found
in attachment) [See also the] BUOY
DATA WORKSHEET - for HS students
that might provide them with an
interesting classroom exercise
on this topic. This is an activity
I recently put together at a Teacher
Insitute on CC and Oceans as an
educational assignment. I think
it's pretty interesting.
Would love to hear feedback on
the exercise and how it works in
the classroom. I believe I shared
a really neat carbon cycle classroom
activity with this group a few
months back, but if you did get
it - feel free to inquire further.
2007 October 9. Scientist:
Greenhouse Gas Levels Grave.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. Excerpt:
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Strong
worldwide economic growth has
accelerated the level of greenhouse
gas emissions in the atmosphere
to a dangerous threshold scientists
had not expected for another decade,
according to a leading Australian
climate change expert.
Scientist Tim Flannery told Australian
Broadcasting Corp. that an upcoming
report by the U.N. Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change will contain
new data showing that the level
of climate-changing gases in the
atmosphere has already reached
critical levels.
Flannery is not a member of the
IPCC, but said he based his comments
on a thorough review of the technical
data included in the panel's three
working group reports published
earlier this year. The IPCC is
due to release its final report
synthesizing the data in November.
''What the report establishes is
that the amount of greenhouse gas
in the atmosphere is already above
the threshold that can potentially
cause dangerous climate change,''
Flannery told the broadcaster late
Monday. ''We are already at great
risk of dangerous climate change,
that's what these figures say.
It's not next year or next decade,
it's now.'' ...The new data could
add urgency to the next round of
U.N. climate change talks on the
Indonesian island of Bali in December,
which will aim to start negotiations
on a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol, which expires in 2012....
2007 May 8. Sale
of Carbon Credits Helping Land-Rich,
but Cash-Poor, Tribes. By
JIM ROBBINS, The New York Times. Excerpt:
LAPWAI, Idaho - On the Nez Perce
reservation here, land that was
cleared in the 19th century for
farming is being converted back
to forest, in part to sell the
trees' ability to sequester carbon.... "These
forests are a carbon crop," Brian
Kummett, a forester for the Nez
Perce tribal forestry division,
said as he surveyed a vast field
studded with recently planted ponderosa
pine, Douglas fir and larch saplings. "We
can sell the rights from the time
the forest is planted to the time
it's harvested, 80 or 120 years
down the road."...The Nez
Perce are participating in an Indian
tribe "carbon
portfolio" being created by
the National Carbon Offset Coalition
in Butte, Mont., an organization
supported largely by the Energy
Department....An acre of pine forest
captures and holds one to two metric
tons of carbon dioxide per year,
which it uses for photosynthesis.
Untilled cropland holds a third
of a ton of carbon per acre, and
rangeland holds up to a fifth of
a ton. The sequestered carbon dioxide
is measured by soil tests before
and after the planting. The market
for carbon sequestration in the
United States is voluntary. As
a result, the demand has been low
compared with Europe, where emissions
are now restricted by law. ...Tribal
carbon sales have had mixed results
since the first such sale in the
1990s, when the Confederated Tribes
of the Colville Reservation in
Washington sold rights to its land
for 25 cents a metric ton. ...Carbon
dioxide credits now sell for about
$4 a metric ton. Mandatory restrictions,
experts say, could increase the
price to $12 or higher. In Europe,
the cost of a credit sold for sequestering
carbon dioxide has reached $20,
and even $30, a ton....The sale
of carbon sequestration rights
has enhanced land conservation.
Plants on rangeland where carbon
rights have been sold, for example,
have to be kept healthy to assure
that they hold carbon. That means
that they have to be grazed by
a specific number of cows in a
certain way. Forests have to be
managed sustainably....
2007 April 12. Hot Topic, Cool
Science: The Greenhouse Effect
and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory.
Talk by Dr. Charles "Chip" E.
Miller, Deputy Principal Investigator,
Orbiting Carbon Observatory. Carbon
dioxide is the primary greenhouse
gas released into the atmosphere
by fossil fuel combustion and
other human activities. The year
2005 saw atmospheric carbon dioxide
climb to its highest level in
the last 500,000 years - raising
concerns about increased greenhouse
forcing of Earth's climate. NASA's
Orbiting Carbon Observatory [OCO]
mission, scheduled for launch
in 2008 will address these concerns
by collecting precise global
measurements of carbon dioxide
in Earth's atmosphere and revolutionizing
our understanding of the global
carbon cycle. Come learn how
the Orbiting Carbon Observatory
will measure your carbon footprint. http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/
2007 January 22. Scientists
Analyze Corn To Map North American
Carbon Dioxide. NASA Earth
Observatory. Scientists have
developed a novel way of mapping
carbon dioxide levels in various
parts of North America, by analyzing
corn grown in those regions.
Diana Hsueh at the University
of California, Irvine, and colleagues
collected corn from nearly 70 locations
in the United States and Canada.
They found that the Ohio Valley
and California had the most fossil-fuel-emitted
carbon dioxide, while the Colorado
region had the least. ...The scientists
had expected carbon dioxide from
California and other western coastal
states to drift eastward, but they
found that the Rocky Mountains
appeared to provide a barrier.... |
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