US wildfires are what global warming really looks like, scientists warn

Scorching heat, high winds and bone-dry conditions are fueling catastrophic wildfires in the US west that offer a preview of the kind of disasters that human-caused climate change could bring, a trio of scientists said on Thursday.

Homes are destroyed by the Waldo Canyon fire in the Mountain Shadows area of Colorado Springs. Scientists say the fires offer a preview into the kind of disaters that climate change could bring. Photograph: Jerilee Bennett/AP

"What we're seeing is a window into what global warming really looks like," said Princeton University's Michael Oppenheimer, a lead author for the UN's climate science panel. "It looks like heat, it looks like fires, it looks like this kind of environmental disaster … This provides vivid images of what we can expect to see more of in the future."

In Colorado, wildfires that have raged for weeks have killed four people, displaced thousands and destroyed hundreds of homes. Because winter snowpack was lighter than usual and melted sooner, fire season started earlier in the US west, with wildfires out of control in Colorado, Montana and Utah.

The high temperatures that are helping drive these fires are consistent with projections by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said this kind of extreme heat, with little cooling overnight, is one kind of damaging impact of global warming.

Others include more severe storms, floods and droughts, Oppenheimer said.

The stage was set for these fires when winter snowpack was lighter than usual, said Steven Running, a forest ecologist at the University of Montana.

Mountain snows melted an average of two weeks earlier than normal this year, Running said. "That just sets us up for a longer, drier summer. Then all you need is an ignition source and wind."

Warmer-than-usual winters also allow tree-killing mountain pine beetles to survive the winter and attack western forests, leaving behind dry wood to fuel wildfires earlier in the season, Running said.

"Now we have a lot of dead trees to burn … it's not even July yet," he said. Trying to stop such blazes driven by high winds is a bit like to trying to stop a hurricane, Running said. More

 

Who do you trust: Mother Nature or Mr. Wizard?

Why we should respect planetary boundaries?

Just when you thought weird weather and dying oceans might get us all thinking about how to reduce human impact on this little planet we call home, along comes Breakthrough Institute to propose a “solution” worthy of the Army Corps of Engineers:

 

“We screwed it up, so we should take charge of it.”

Here’s the idea in a nutshell. Most geoscientists now agree that human activity is overwhelming natural systems. Whereas civilization developed under planetary conditions that have prevailed since the last Ice Age, a period known as the Holocene epoch, we humans appear to be propelling Earth into a “new normal” through soaring carbon emissions, deforestation, ocean acidification, and a laundry list of other assorted global impacts. Geoscientists have pretty much agreed to call this new period the “Anthropocene,” to reflect the fact that planetary systems are now being shaped substantially by human activity.

This being the case, what are we to do? Shrink away from our new role as world-redevelopers, or embrace it? Conserve or geo-engineer?

The geo-engineering approach makes sense to enough people that it has become codified into a school of thought known as neo-environmentalism. And that’s where Breakthrough Institute comes in. Its new report, “The Planetary Boundaries Hypothesis: A Review of the Evidence,” pushes back against a conceptual framework (based on broadly accepted environmental principles) that’s recently been adopted by United Nations bodies and leading nongovernmental organizations like Oxfam and WWF. This framework, which Breakthrough calls a “hypothesis,” identifies limits for nine key variables—climate change, land-use change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen levels, freshwater use, aerosol loading, chemical pollution, ocean acidification, and ozone depletion—that define a “safe operating space for humanity.” More

 

Heat Waves and Climate Change

There has been a remarkable run of record-shattering heat waves in recent years, from the Russian heat wave of 2010 that set forests ablaze to the historic heat wave in Texas in 2011 and the “Summer in March” in the U.S. Midwest in 2012. These events typify the on-going trend driven by climate change.

This report, Heat Waves and Climate Change, summarizes our current scientific understanding of the connection between climate change and the recent increase in extreme temperatures, as reported in peer-reviewed research articles published through May 2012.

Overview

Climate change is already affecting extreme weather. The National Academy of Sciences reports that the hottest days are now hotter.1 And the fingerprint of global warming behind this change has been firmly identified.2 3 4

Since 1950 the number of heat waves worldwide has increased, and heat waves have become longer.5 The hottest days and nights have become hotter and more frequent.6 7 In the past several years, the global area hit by extremely unusual hot summertime temperatures has increased 50-fold.8 Over the contiguous United States, new record high temperatures over the past decade have consistently outnumbered new record lows by a ratio of 2:1.9 In 2012, the ratio for the year through June 18 stands at nearly 10:1.10 Though this ratio is not expected to remain at that level for the rest of the year, it illustrates how unusual 2012 has been, and how these types of extremes are becoming more likely.

The significant increase in heat extremes we have witnessed associated with a small shift in the global average temperature is consistent with climate change. The percentage change in the number of very hot days can be quite large.11 Global warming boosts the probability of very extreme events, like the recent “Summer in March” episode in the U.S. in which thousands of new record highs were set, far more than it changes the likelihood of more moderate events.12

Higher spring and summer temperatures, along with an earlier spring melt, are also the primary factors driving the increasing frequency of large wildfires and lengthening the fire season in the western U.S. over recent decades.13 The record-breaking fires this year in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain Region are consistent with these trends.

The impact of these changes can be devastating. The drought, heat wave and associated record wildfires that hit Texas and the Southern plains in the summer of 2011 cost $12 billion. More

 

After Rio, we know. Governments have given up on the planet

The post-summit pledge was an admission of defeat against consumer capitalism. But we can still salvage the natural world.

Our children must ‘experience something of the delight in the natural world and of the peaceful, unharried lives with which we have been blessed'.

It is, perhaps, the greatest failure of collective leadership since the first world war. The Earth's living systems are collapsing, and the leaders of some of the most powerful nations – the United States, the UK, Germany, Russia – could not even be bothered to turn up and discuss it. Those who did attend the Earth summit in Rio last week solemnly agreed to keep stoking the destructive fires: sixteen times in their text they pledged to pursue "sustained growth", the primary cause of the biosphere's losses.

The efforts of governments are concentrated not on defending the living Earth from destruction, but on defending the machine that is destroying it. Whenever consumer capitalism becomes snarled up by its own contradictions, governments scramble to mend the machine, to ensure – though it consumes the conditions that sustain our lives – that it runs faster than ever before.

The thought that it might be the wrong machine, pursuing the wrong task, cannot even be voiced in mainstream politics. The machine greatly enriches the economic elite, while insulating the political elite from the mass movements it might otherwise confront. We have our bread; now we are wandering, in spellbound reverie, among the circuses. More

 

The Earth Cannot Be Saved by Hope and Billionaires

Rio 2012: it's a make-or-break summit. Just like they told us at Rio 1992

World leaders at Earth summits seem more interested in protecting the interests of plutocratic elites than our environment


Worn down by hope. That's the predicament of those who have sought to defend the earth's living systems. Every time governments meet to discuss the environmental crisis, we are told that this is the "make or break summit", on which the future of the world depends. The talks might have failed before, but this time the light of reason will descend upon the world.

 

'To see Obama backtracking on the commitments made by Bush the elder 20 years ago is to see the extent to which a tiny group of plutocrats has asserted its grip on policy.' Illustration above by Daniel Pudles

We know it's rubbish, but we allow our hopes to be raised, only to witness 190 nations arguing through the night over the use of the subjunctive in paragraph 286. We know that at the end of this process the UN secretary general, whose job obliges him to talk nonsense in an impressive number of languages, will explain that the unresolved issues (namely all of them) will be settled at next year's summit. Yet still we hope for something better.

This week's earth summit in Rio de Janeiro is a ghost of the glad, confident meeting 20 years ago. By now, the leaders who gathered in the same city in 1992 told us, the world's environmental problems were to have been solved. But all they have generated is more meetings, which will continue until the delegates, surrounded by rising waters, have eaten the last rare dove, exquisitely presented with an olive leaf roulade. The biosphere that world leaders promised to protect is in a far worse state than it was 20 years ago. Is it not time to recognise that they have failed?

If world governments do not have the vision, the foresight and the compassion to do the right thing, then it is up to us, the People, to bring about change, and if change means a change of government, so be it. This is about a planetary emergency, about a decent life for our children, about our childrens survival. Editor

 

Rio+20: Expert panel's call to 'seize moment'

Governments must seize the "historic opportunity" of the Rio+20 summit to put the world on a new sustainable course, says a panel of Nobel laureates, ministers and scientists.

The evidence that society is "on the edge of a threshhold of a future with unprecedented environmental risks" is unequivocal, they conclude.

Their declaration will be presented to government delegations here.

In the main negotiations, nations are reportedly closing in on an agreement.

The Brazilian government, which is now chairing the talks, wants negotiators to finish work on the draft text by the end of Monday.

Heads of government from about 130 countries, and ministers from others, will begin their session on Wednesday and would sign off the text by the end of the week.

While the majority of people here expect a deal to be done, there are warnings from various organisations that it will not go nearly far enough towards sorting out the environment and development issues facing humanity.

Without explicitly criticising the draft agreement, the panel's declaration makes it clear that they agree.

"The combined effects of climate change, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience at a time of increased demand, poses a real threat to humanity's welfare," they write.

"There is an unacceptable risk that human pressures on the planet, should they continue on a business as usual trajectory, will trigger abrupt and irreversible changes with catastrophic outcomes for human societies and life as we know it." More

 

Rio+20: Prince Charles in climate change warning

The Prince of Wales has warned of the "catastrophic" consequences of inaction on issues such as climate change, at a UN sustainability conference in Brazil.

Prince Charles said he had "watched in despair" at the slow pace of progress on the "critical issues of the day," in a pre-recorded video address in Rio.

He urged world leaders to adopt a more integrated approach to issues such as climate change and food security.

Waiting for the worst to happen would be "too late to act at all", he said.

Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, is attended by heads of state and representatives from governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector.

In his address, the prince said scientific evidence showed the potential consequences of ignoring the risks.

'Sceptical reluctance'

"Like a sleepwalker, we seem unable to wake up to the fact that so many of the catastrophic consequences of carrying on with 'business-as-usual' are bearing down on us faster than we think, already dragging many millions more people into poverty and dangerously weakening global food, water and energy security for the future," he said.

It is, perhaps, a trait of human nature to act only when the worst happens, but that is not a trait we can afford to rely on here”

"One thing is clear. We need to be much more informed about the actual state of the planet. More

 

Studying Soil to Predict the Future of Earth's Atmosphere

ScienceDaily (June 15, 2012) — When it comes to understanding climate change, it's all about the dirt. A new study by researchers at BYU, Duke and the USDA finds that soil plays an important role in controlling the planet's atmospheric future.

The researchers set out to find how intact ecosystems are responding to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Earth's current atmospheric carbon dioxide is 390 parts per million, up from 260 parts per million at the start of the industrial revolution, and will likely rise to more than 500 parts per million in the coming decades.

What they found, published in the current issue of Nature Climate Change, is that the interaction between plants and soils controls how ecosystems respond to rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

"As we forecast what the future is going to look like, with the way we've changed the global atmosphere, often times we overlook soil," said BYU biology professor Richard Gill, a coauthor on the study. "The soils matter enormously and the feedbacks that occur in the soil are ultimately going to control the atmosphere." More

 

Union of Concerned Scientists backtracks on GE donations claim

The Union of Concerned Scientists has revised a report accusing major US companies of distorting the public conversation about climate change, saying it made a mistake counting donations from General Electric to thinktanks.

The survey of 28 companies found a big gap in some instances between corporate messages on climate change and less visible activities, with some companies quietly lobbying against climate policy or funding groups which work to discredit climate science.

The campaign group concluded that such confusion set back efforts to address climate change.

The Guardian reported on the study last month.

But the campaign group said on Wednesday it had been wrong to count funds GE gave to four conservative thinktanks that work to undermine climate science and block action on climate change. It also released arevised version of the report.

The group said in a statement the funds to those thinktanks were awarded under a matching gift programme that allows individual employees at GE to determine where their donations would go. "By contrast, funds from GE and its corporate foundation are directed by company executives," the campaign group said. More

 

Commentary: Rio+20: Understanding the Present in Light of the Future By Mikhail Gorbachev

GENEVA, Switzerland, June 12, 2012 (ENS) - They say if you want make God laugh share your plans. I planned to come to Rio+20, but my 81st birthday has had unwelcome toll on my plans.

2012 will inevitably be a year of reflection. Those of us who are concerned for the future of our Earth and its inhabitants must do all we can to ensure it is also a year of action, and one that marks the end of a period of apathy and shortsightedness. Overcoming such lack of vision was what brought us to Rio 20 years ago for the first Earth Summit on Environment and Development. But that event's tangible results, and those of the many subsequent conferences here and around the world since, have fallen far short of what is needed to steer our world onto a sustainable path.

Looking back to 1992, when I switched the focus of my activities from national politics to international development and the environment, the situation was very different. During and just after the Rio Earth Summit, there was an overwhelming air of enthusiasm and hope for the future. It was a time of optimism and, in retrospect, innocence, as everyone celebrated the end of the Cold War.

Then, incredible social and political changes that were deemed impossible just a few years earlier were, in fact, implemented. This was no accident. In order to unleash these energies on both sides we had to overcome the strong opposition of the existent power structures that blocked the way ahead. But the changes resonated the hopes of the time and leaders had the courage to respond to the call. The Berlin Wall was brought down in the belief that future generations could solve challenges together.

Today, 20 years later we are instead surrounded by cynicism and, for many, despair. This is hardly surprising at a time of an economic crisis exacerbated by increased pressure on natural resources, spreading of poverty, diminishing human security, continuing violent conflicts, and environmental degradation. More

 

U.S. Experienced Second Warmest May, Warmest Spring On Record, NOAA Reports

ScienceDaily (June 7, 2012) — According to NOAA scientists, the average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during May was 64.3°F, 3.3°F above the long-term average, making it the second warmest May on record. The month's high temperatures also contributed to the warmest spring, warmest year-to-date, and warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895.

The spring season's (March-May) nationally averaged temperature was 57.1°F, 5.2°F above the 1901-2000 long-term average, surpassing the previous warmest spring (1910) by 2.0°F.

Precipitation totals across the country were mixed during May, with the nation as a whole being drier-than-average. The nationally averaged precipitation total of 2.51 inches was 0.36 inch below average. The coastal Southeast received some drought relief when Tropical Storm Beryl brought heavy rains to the region late in the month.

This monthly analysis from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders so they can make informed decisions.

U.S. climate highlights -- May

• Warmer-than-average temperatures occurred across the contiguous U.S. except the Northwest in May. Twenty-six states had May temperatures ranking among their ten warmest.
  
• Precipitation patterns across the contiguous U.S. were mixed during May. The Eastern Seaboard and Upper Midwest were wetter than average. North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont, New Hampshire and Minnesota had May precipitation totals among their ten wettest. Dry conditions prevailed across the Mid-Mississippi River Valley, Southern Plains and the Interior West with Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nevada and Utah having a top ten dry May.
  
• Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall near Jacksonville, Fla., on May 28, bringing beneficial rainfall to parts of the drought-stricken Southeast. Beryl occurred on the heels of Tropical Storm Alberto, which occurred offshore the Carolinas, marking the third time on record that two tropical cyclones reached tropical storm strength during May (prior to the start of June 1 hurricane season) in the North Atlantic basin.
  
• Ongoing drought, combined with windy conditions, created ideal wildfire conditions across the Southwest. The Whitewater-Baldy Fire complex in the Gila National Forest of western New Mexico charred over 210,000 acres by the beginning of June. It surpassed 2011's Las Conchas Fire as largest wildfire on record for the state.
  

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of May 29, 37.4 percent of the contiguous U.S. experienced drought conditions, a slight decrease from 38.2 percent at the beginning of May. Drought conditions improved across the coastal Southeast, the Southern Plains, Northeast and Upper Midwest while they deteriorated for parts of the Mid-South and Southwest. More

 

Is Humanity Pushing Earth Past a Tipping Point?

Could human activity push Earth’s biological systems to a planet-wide tipping point, causing changes as radical as the Ice Age’s end — but with less pleasant results, and with billions of people along for a bumpy ride?

It’s by no means a settled scientific proposition, but many researchers say it’s worth considering — and not just as an apocalyptic warning or far-fetched speculation, but as a legitimate question raised by emerging science.

“There are some biological realities we can’t ignore,” said paleoecologist Anthony Barnosky of the University of California, Berkeley. “What I’d like to avoid is getting caught by surprise.”



In “Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere,” published June 6 in Nature, Barnosky and 21 co-authors cite 100 papers in summarizing what’s known about environmental tipping points.

While the concept was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s accounts of sudden, widespread changes in society, the underlying mathematics — which won physicist Kenneth Wilson a Nobel Prize in 1982 — have far-reaching implications.

In the last few decades, scientists have found tipping behaviors in various natural environments, from locale-scale ponds and coral reefs to regional systems like the Sahara desert, which until 5,500 years ago was a fertile grassland, and perhaps even the Amazon basin.

Common to these examples is a type of transformation not described in traditional ideas of nature as existing in a static balance, with change occurring gradually. Instead, the systems seem to be dynamic, ebbing and flowing within a range of biological parameters. More

 

Western Australia’s catastrophic forest collapse

Recent, unprecedented, climate-driven forest collapses in Western Australia show us that ecosystem change can be sudden, dramatic and catastrophic. These collapses are a clear signal that we must develop new strategies to mitigate or prevent the future effects of climate change in Australian woodlands and forests. But society’s view of forests is ever-changing: are we willing to understand ecosystems and adapt to changing conditions?

The south west of Western Australia has experienced a long-term climate shift since the early 1970s, resulting in dryer and hotter than average conditions. This shifted baseline, or average, has also led to more frequent extreme events. In 2010, the region experienced the driest and second hottest year on record.

These climate changes have resulted in significant decreases in stream-flow and groundwater levels. For example, formerly permanent streams now stop flowing for considerable periods. Groundwater levels have fallen up to 11 meters in some forested areas, with larger decreases in populated areas. Clearly, soil water reserves have dried out substantially and will likely continue to do so; we are now starting to see the implications of this. Although most of the West Australian society, particularly those in urban environments, may be well-buffered from these changes, ecosystems are not.

The climatic changes occurring in the south west of Western Australia are contributing to deteriorating woodland and forest health. In the past 20 years, insect infestations and fungal diseases have plagued many iconic tree species, including tuart, wandoo, flooded gum, marri, and WA peppermint, increasing their mortality rates. Many of these disorders are likely triggered or incited by changing climate conditions. More

 

Latin American and Asian Cities Lead Way in Planning for Global Warming

ScienceDaily (June 5, 2012) — Quito, Ecuador, is not considered a global leader by most measures. But there is one way in which Quito is at the forefront of metropolises worldwide: in planning for climate change. For more than a decade, officials in Ecuador's mountainous capital have been studying the effects of global warming on nearby melting glaciers, developing ways of dealing with potential water shortages and even organizing conferences on climate change for leaders of other Latin American cities.

In so doing, Quito officials represent a global trend: The cities that are most active in preparing for climate change are not necessarily the biggest or wealthiest. Instead, they are often places buffeted by natural disasters and increasing changes in temperature or rainfall. In places where the climate seems to be a growing threat to human lives, resources and urban infrastructure, local officials have been working with scientists, conducting assessments and examining which new measures may best prepare them for the future.

Indeed, as an MIT survey released today shows, 95 percent of major cities in Latin America are planning for climate change, compared to only 59 percent of such cities in the United States.

Leadership on climate adaptation "can come from cities of many different sizes and ilks," says JoAnn Carmin, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning and lead author of the survey's report. While international climate policy measures -- such as potential agreements limiting greenhouse gas emissions -- require agreement among national governments, Carmin says, "cities are able to make some important strides in this area. There are numerous examples from around the world where there are no national policies or explicit support for adaptation, but where local governments are developing plans and taking action to address climate impacts." More