Climate Change

Terry Chapin receives Volvo Environment Prize 2019

An ecology professor who has spent decades doing research and field work in the challenging conditions of the Arctic is the winner of the Volvo Environment Prize 2019. Over the 30 years of the prize, the jury has often selected prize-winners whose research has proven to be vital in shaping the modern sustainability agenda. Terry Chapin is no exception to this rule. As an Ecology Professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, he has spent long periods in the tundra of Siberia and Alaska, studying processes that we now know can have dramatic effects on the global climate. For the past 10 years he has been linking his knowledge of ecology to ethics, creating the concept of Earth Stewardship. Decades ago, only a few scientists, including Terry Chapin, began to understand the impact of climate change on the carbon-rich tundra, permafrost and boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere. Says Terry Chapin: – Climate change happens twice as fast in Alaska and in the rest of the Arctic as for the globe as a whole. And since Alaska is so sensitive to temperature, this is where processes are going to be most affected. It is already happening. Wildfires have always occurred in the Alaskan wilderness, but the past decade they have increased dramatically. The wildfires are larger and more frequent, due to warmer temperatures and drier weather conditions. That is why the city of Fairbanks, Alaska, located in pristine wilderness and far away from polluting industries, can for weeks have some of the worst air quality found anywhere on Earth when nearby wildfires spread their vast plumes of smoke. Scientists at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, are closely monitoring the changes that are occurring in the frozen ground. Thawing releases carbon under anaerobic conditions to emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. […]

Climate explained: why we need to cut emissions as well as prepare for impacts

First, let’s accept climate change is happening and will have major negative impacts on New Zealand. Second, let’s also accept that even if New Zealand did absolutely everything possible to reduce emissions to zero, it would still happen, i.e. our impact on climate change is negligible. Third, reducing our emissions will come with a high financial cost. Fourth, the cost of dealing with the negative impacts of climate change (rising seas etc), will also come at a high financial cost. To argue that we should not act to reduce emissions because it is not in our interests to make a contribution to global mitigation is ultimately self-defeating. It would be to put short-term self-interest first, rather than considering both our long-term interests and those of the wider global community. Our options on climate are looking increasingly dire, since we as a global community have postponed combating climate change so long. But in New Zealand – and indeed in any country – we should still do as much as we can to reduce the extent of climate change, and not, at this stage, divert significant resources away from mitigation into “preparing for” it. Starting with the physics, it is clear that climate change is not a given and fixed phenomenon. It is unhelpful to say simply that “it is happening”. How much heating will occur will be determined by human actions: it is within humanity’s grasp to limit it. Any significant action taken over the next decade in particular will have high payoffs in terms of reducing future warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in effect says emission cuts of 45% or more over the next decade might just avert catastrophic change. Inaction, on the other hand, could condemn humankind to experiencing perhaps 3℃ or more of heating. Each further […]

Scientists amazed as Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years early

Matthew Green – Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.General view of a landscape of partially thawed Arctic permafrost near Mould Bay, Canada, in this handout photo released June 18, 2019. The image was captured in 2016 by researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks who were amazed to find the permafrost thawing 70 years faster than models predicted. A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilized the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia. “What we saw was amazing,” Vladimir E. Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters by telephone. “It’s an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years.” The team’s findings, published on June 10 in Geophysical Research Letters, offered a further sign of a growing climate emergency. The paper was based on data Romanovsky and his colleagues had been analyzing since their last expedition to the area in 2016. The team used a modified propeller plane to visit exceptionally remote sites, including an abandoned Cold War-era radar base more than 300 km from the nearest human settlement. Diving through a lucky break in the clouds, Romanovsky and his colleagues said they were confronted with a landscape that was unrecognizable from the pristine Arctic terrain they had encountered during initial visits a decade or so earlier. The vista had dissolved into an undulating sea of hummocks – waist-high depressions and ponds known as thermokarst. Vegetation, once sparse, had begun to flourish in the shelter […]

IoT start up set to benefit farmers

A BloomSky weather station on display at the Farming2020 event in South Waikato. Fonterra farmers will come together to trial innovative technology that will allow them to take insights from the weather and bring greater precision to New Zealand dairy farms. Fonterra is playing its part in fuelling the revolution of on-farm weather forecasting by working with MetService and BloomSky – a smart weather camera station that delivers hyperlocal weather information in real-time to any laptop, tablet or smartphone. More than 70 BloomSky weather stations will be installed by farmers across the country in the coming months. MetService will use observations from the devices to provide forecasting and greater seasonal insights through data analytics to all users of Agrigate – the online dashboard developed by Fonterra Farm Source and LIC to give farmers the data they need to make faster and smarter decisions. Fonterra farmer Kevin Argyle is trialling the solar-powered ‘SKY2’ device as well as the wireless add-on called ‘Storm’, and has seen first-hand how the BloomSky system measures temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed, wind direction, UV and barometric pressure to give him a detailed view of his farm’s climate. “It really personalises it and enables us to make optimal on-farm decisions,” says Argyle. “People often underestimate the variability within relatively small geographical areas. The other day we had 29 millimetres of rain and a few kilometres down the road they had five. That’s a big difference when you’re thinking about the best time to cultivate a paddock or move stock. “Weather is one of the more significant risks that impacts a farming operation so to have a real-time app that provides insights in terms of what has happened, what the current weather is and what it’s forecast to be for your property has huge potential value.” BloomSky, which […]

Worried about shark attacks or terrorism?

AuthorsBen Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, UNSW Chris Donkin, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, UNSW Dan Navarro, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science, UNSW The world can feel like a scary place. Today, Australia’s National Terrorism Threat Level is “Probable”. Shark attacks are on the rise; the number of people attacked by sharks in 2000-2009 has almost doubled since 1990-1999. Travellers are at a high risk of getting the Zika virus in places where the disease is present, such as Brazil and Mexico. However, despite their tragic outcomes, these events are all extremely rare. Since 1996, only eight people have been killed by terrorism attacks in Australia. There have been 186 shark attacks in the 20 years from 1990 to 2009. Best estimates indicate that only 1.8 people for each million tourists would have contracted Zika at the Rio Olympics. To be fair, it is extremely difficult to judge the incidence of rare events. So how should we think about these risks? Default to safe Decision scientists study rare events by bringing people into the lab and asking them to make choices. For example, in their Nobel Prize-winning work, researchers Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky had people make choices between two options: one safe, one risky. A typical choice might involve a safe option where you’d walk away with $5, guaranteed. Alternatively, you could choose to take a gamble and receive $15 with 90% probability. However, if you lost the gamble, you would have to pay $35. If you’d just take the $5, then you’re not alone. Despite the gamble being clearly better than taking $5, in terms of what you would win on average (0.9 x $15 – 0.1 x $35 = $10), the loss of $35 looms so large in the mind that many of us tend to choose the […]

Trump tears down US climate policy, but America could lose out as a result

Kumuda Simpson, Lecturer in International Relations, La Trobe University US President Donald Trump has followed through on his promise to undo Barack Obama’s climate policies, signing an executive order to review his predecessor’s Clean Power Plan and any other regulations that “burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources”. The move potentially paves the way for the United States to walk away from its commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement. America’s leadership on climate change has been patchy at best, yet under Obama the country made an important diplomatic shift – one that now looks to be fundamentally unravelling. Trump’s executive order, released on Tuesday, aims to dismantle the network of institutions and laws that regulate greenhouse emissions, and those that conduct globally important research to track climate change. The consequences, both at home and abroad, will be severe. The order comes as little surprise. Trump, after all, has previously claimed that climate change is a conspiracy perpetrated by the Chinese government to gain economic advantage at America’s expense, and made a campaign promise to undo the Paris deal. His administration has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former chief executive of ExxonMobil. Trump also greenlit the controversial Dakota Access pipeline. Trump’s appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) caused alarm among environmental activists and EPA staff alike. Pruitt has a history of suing the EPA during his time as Attorney General of Oklahoma, and hundreds of recently released emails attest to his close relationship with the oil and gas industry. The new executive order signals that Trump does not want climate research to be carried out by government agencies such as the EPA, NASA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In […]

Climate change plays havoc with Pacific weather

Climate change is already delivering more extremes of wet and dry to the Pacific region. AUTHORS: Scott B. Power,Head of Climate Research/International Development Manager, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Brad Murphy Manager, Climate Data Services, Australian Bureau of Meteorology;Christine Chung, Research Scientist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; François Delage Assistant scientist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Hua Ye, Climate IT Officer, Australian Bureau of Meteorology This research was supported by the National Environmental Science Programme and the Australian Climate Change Science Programme. Global warming has already increased the risk of major disruptions to Pacific rainfall, according to our research published today in Nature Communications. The risk will continue to rise over coming decades, even if global warming during the 21st century is restricted to 2℃ as agreed by the international community under the Paris Agreement. In recent times, major disruptions have occurred in 1997-98, when severe drought struck Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, and in 2010-11, when rainfall caused widespread flooding in eastern Australia and severe flooding in Samoa, and drought triggered a national emergency in Tuvalu. These rainfall disruptions are primarily driven by the El Niño/La Niña cycle, a naturally occurring phenomenon centred on the tropical Pacific. This climate variability can profoundly change rainfall patterns and intensity over the Pacific Ocean from year to year. Rainfall belts can move hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometres from their normal positions. This has major impacts on safety, health, livelihoods and ecosystems as a result of severe weather, drought and floods. Recent research concluded that unabated growth in greenhouse gas emissions over the 21st century will increase the frequency of such disruptions to Pacific rainfall. But our new research shows even the greenhouse cuts we have agreed to may not be enough to stop the risk of rainfall disruption from growing as […]

This country made so much clean energy it had to pay people to use it

On a bright and blustery day last month, a surreal event took place in the world of German energy prices. Sunny and windy weather lit up the country’s solar and wind farms, causing a surge of clean energy that amounted to almost all of Germany’s 45.8 gigawatt daily demand. Topped up by the supply from traditional power plants, the sum of energy being produced that day was well in excess of the amount needed. And that means that for a brief moment in time, energy prices were negative: consumers were effectively being paid to use energy. The below chart shows Germany’s power production and consumption on 8 May 2016: you can see the gigawatts peaking between 10am and 12am. Image: Source: Agora Energiewende Germany isn’t the only country living the green dream: for four consecutive days last month, Portugal managed to run entirely on wind, solar and hydro power. It’s a bright point in a generally cheery picture for Portugal, with renewable sources now providing almost half its energy each year. Sixteen countries have now hit 100% renewable electricity production, according to 2013 data from the Energy Information Administration. Costa Rica made headlines recently by running entirely on clean energy for 75 days of 2015. Iceland has achieved its target of becoming 100% renewable-powered, with Norway close behind on 98%, according to the data. And it’s a bright (and hopefully windy) outlook for sustainable energy the world over. The alternative energy sector has grown more in 2016 than in any other year since records began, according to the recently released Renewables 2016 Global Status Report, which also notes that by the end of 2015, renewable capacity was “enough to supply an estimated 23.7% of global electricity”.

Cities worldwide commit to combating emissions

Through bold climate commitments, 228 cities around the world are taking the lead on climate action. Over 200 cities have set greenhouse gas reduction goals or targets. Action in these cities, which represent a combined population of 439 million people, could propel countries to meet their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)—–the national greenhouse gas reduction pledges embodied in the Paris Agreement. According to Can a City Be Sustainable?, the latest edition of the annual State of the World series from the Worldwatch Institute, cities and their inhabitants are playing a lead role in achieving global climate action goals “The challenge over the next several decades is an enormous one,” write Michael Renner and Tom Prugh, contributing authors and co-directors of the report. “This requires not change around the edges, but a fundamental restructuring of how cities operate, how much they consume in resources and how much waste they produce, what they look like, and how they are structured.” Growing numbers of cities have pledged themselves to climate commitments and sustainability goals. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group has expanded to over 80 cities. The Compact of Mayors, launched at the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit, is the largest coalition of city leaders addressing climate change. ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability works with more than 1,000 cities around the world. Cities today host more than half of the earth’s human beings and represent about 70 percent of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. If trends continue, urban populations are expected to increase to 6 billion by 2045, at which point two-thirds of all people will live in urban environments. “If current trends in urbanization continue unabated, urban energy use will more than triple, compared to 2005 levels, by 2050,” write Renner and Prugh. It is no surprise that cities collectively account […]

Could indigenous knowledge systems combat climate change?

www.themirrorinspires.com As the global scientific community combines technology and brains to track climate change patterns and effects, indigenous populations have been noting these changes in a landscape they know intimately. In the Philippines and Indonesia, scientists and nongovernmental organisations are working with indigenous communities to map territories for future research and for hazard mapping during times of natural disasters. In India, farmers in arid and semi-arid regions rotate crops and change the dates for sowing seeds based on climate conditions. In the Koli community of Mumbai, they change their fish catch patterns to enhance the availability of fish in the future. This is part of the Navdanya programme, which promotes biodiversity conservation with the help of local tribal people. Among its activities, the programme maintains and engages with religious and tribal traditions such as rainwater harvesting, growing medicinal plants and maintaining biodiversity by conserving varietal flora and fauna. “Indigenous peoples across the globe have been confronting climate change and variability on a regular basis due to their heavy dependence on natural resources for their livelihoods,” says Vijaya Gupta from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering in Mumbai. The unique knowledge systems held by indigenous populations can play an important role in monitoring small climatic changes and events that might go unnoticed by scientific tracking. During the July 2015 climate change conference in Paris, scientists called on the global research community to seize the opportunity to collaborate with indigenous populations that are often taken for granted. “Indigenous people are living on the land so they are being exposed to ecological changes. [Thus], they would be able to monitor, evaluate and read the signs … of how we are adapting to climate change,” explains Anne Poelina, managing director of Madjulla Inc., an indigenous non-governmental community development organisation based in Australia. In order […]

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