Source: PlanetArk.com/Reuters
By Alister Doyle
NORWAY: September 6, 2004
OSLO - Global warming is set to accelerate in the Arctic and bring drastic change for people and wildlife in coming decades, according to a draft report that has opened cracks among nations in the region about how to slow the thaw.
"(The) Arctic climate is warming rapidly now and much larger changes are projected," according to the conclusions of the international study, compiled by 600 experts and due for release at a conference in Iceland in November.
Rising temperatures will disrupt life for people, bringing more storms and destabilizing everything from homes to oil pipelines. Melting glaciers could raise global sea levels and spoil habitats for creatures like polar bears, it says.
The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world partly because sea water and dark ground, once exposed, trap far more heat than ice and snow which reflect the sun's rays.
The report's draft summary, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters last week, says the rise in temperatures is being stoked by human emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants.
Arctic temperatures could surge by 8 degrees to 14 degrees Fahrenheit - or roughly double the rate predicted by U.N. studies for the planet as a whole by 2100, it says.
But nations in the Arctic region - the United States, Russia, Canada and Nordic countries - are sharply divided about how to act on the scientists' conclusions, with Washington opposed to any major initiatives, diplomatic sources say.
U.S. OPPOSES CAPPING EMISSIONS
Nordic countries see the study as alarming evidence that the world should act to cap emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.
But President Bush is an opponent of caps and pulled out of the U.N.'s stalled Kyoto protocol in 2001, the main global plan for limiting emissions. He said Kyoto would be too costly and wrongly excluded developing nations.
Ministers from Arctic nations are to meet in Iceland in November, after the report is issued, to agree recommendations.
Among conclusions, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) says the warming in the Arctic will "have worldwide implications."
Run-off from melting glaciers and the Greenland icecap could raise global sea levels and disrupt ocean circulation, it says. And biodiversity elsewhere could be affected because some migratory species breed in the Arctic.
The report also says "Arctic vegetation zones are projected to shift, bringing wide-ranging impacts" and that "Animal species' diversity, ranges and distributions will change, some dramatically."
Meanwhile, it says, many coastal communities and facilities face increasing exposure to storms.
And indigenous peoples would face major economic and cultural impacts, it says. Ultraviolet radiation - known to cause skin cancer and immune system disorders in humans - would also rise sharply.
The report also concludes that "reduced sea ice is very likely to increase marine transport and access to resources." The thaw could open short-cut shipping routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
But on land, buildings, oil pipelines, industrial facilities, roads and airports could need substantial rebuilding if permafrost thaws, it says.
Monday, September 6, 2004
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Global Climate Change & Peak Oil, The Sword of Damocles Has Two Edges - Part I
Source: From The Wilderness
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
April 14, 2004
[Peak Oil is bringing on the agonies of a huge cultural and economic transition. Like the withdrawal symptoms endured by an addict, the effects of the coming petroleum crisis will ravage the American body politic and work necessary but painful changes in the life of the entire human community. Just as that inexorable withdrawal closes in on us, we're acquiring a new awareness of the damage already done by the petroleum addiction itself. Peak Oil is the crisis of getting off petroleum; climate change is the almost- irreversible legacy of two hundred years of fossil fuel pollution. The difficult irony for the United States – whose annual oil consumption dwarfs that of any other nation – is that this day of reckoning comes at a time when our political institutions are at their worst levels of performance since the Civil War.
Corruption, income inequity, narco-traffic, money-laundering, the warfare state, loss of civil liberties, imperial overstretch, racism, and the constant recourse to violence as a tool of domestic and international policy – all the ailments of the republic are interconnected. At their center is an oil economy bound to militarism by the petrodollar money system. Change that system, and the other problems become far more amenable to rational reform – as Catherine Austin Fitts has said, “until we change the way money works, we will remain perpetual victims at the hands of elites who have no incentive to change.”
Climate change should be that missing incentive. Wealth and weapons are not much use under seven meters of melted glacial seawater. Still, the fake statesmen who profiteered from fifty years of nuclear “Mutual Assured Destruction” are unlikely to be moved by any amount of peril, so long as they enjoy coercive economic and political power. It seems the education of the public is the key to a safer world – so we're educating each other. In part one of this three-part story, FTW Science Editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer sets out a detailed picture of the climate change issue and its paramount importance. Part two will consider the dreadful convergence of global climate change and the peak of global oil production. – FTW]
APRIL 13, 2004 0800 PST (FTW) – In October of 2003, the Pentagon published a report on abrupt climate change.1 Its authors were by Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of planning at the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.2 Their task was to assess the likelihood of abrupt climate change within the next twenty years. They were then supposed to develop a scenario of the possible consequences should abrupt climate change occur starting in 2004. Finally, they were to make recommendations to the President based on their study: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.
A few copies were printed and circulated around the Pentagon, which heavily censored the report and is now downplaying its significance.3 It remained effectively buried and all but forgotten until copies were leaked to the media, first to Fortune Magazine,4 and then to The Observer.5 The Pentagon has rightfully pointed out that this is a speculative report; they are not expecting abrupt climate change to begin in the year 2004. Schwartz and Randall are exploring a risk scenario, such as the Pentagon and the CIA draw up all the time – what would happen if the Russians launched a nuclear attack this year; what would happen if California suffered the big one, etc. But the real importance of the report lies in the statement of probability and in the authors' recommendations to the President and the National Security Council.
While no statistical analysis of probability is given in the report as it has been released (any such statistical analysis would most likely be classified), the authors state that “the plausibility of severe and rapid climate change is higher than most of the scientific community and perhaps all of the political community is prepared for.”6 They say that instead of asking whether this could happen, we should be asking when this will happen. They conclude: “It is quite plausible that within a decade the evidence of an imminent abrupt climate shift may become clear and reliable.”7
From such a shift, the report claims, utterly appalling ecological consequences would follow. Europe and Eastern North America would plunge into a mini-ice age, with weather patterns resembling present day Siberia. Violent storms could wreak havoc around the globe. Coastal areas such as The Netherlands, New York, and the West coast of North America could become uninhabitable, while most island nations could be completely submerged. Lowlands like Bangladesh could be permanently swamped. While flooding would become the rule along coastlines, mega-droughts could destroy the world's breadbaskets. The dust bowl could return to America's Midwest. Famine and drought would result in a major drop in the planet's ability to sustain the present human population. Access to water could become a major battleground – hundreds of millions could die as a result of famine and resource wars. More than 400 million people in subtropical regions will be put at grave risk. There would be mass migrations of climate refugees, particularly to southern Europe and North America. Nuclear arms proliferation in conjunction with resource wars could very well lead to nuclear wars.8 And none of this takes into account the effects of global peak oil and the North American natural gas cliff. Not pretty.
At the end of their report, Schwartz and Randall advise that climate change “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern.”9 And while “alternative fuels, greenhouse gas emission controls, and conservation efforts are worthwhile endeavors,” we're urged to “prepare for the inevitable effects of abrupt climate change -- which will likely come regardless of human activity.”10
As stated, the Pentagon is playing down this report and has opted not to send the authors' recommendations on to the White House.
Urgent for humanity or not, this report is a major embarrassment to President Bush and his corporate handlers, who remain content to deny the reality of global climate change and the validity of the overwhelming case for it. A phalanx of corporate-sponsored disinformationists earns their keep by deriding the report, wearing the mantle of scientific authority while selling their intellectual souls. And the mass media within the US have done their part by virtually ignoring the story.
But outside the well-funded mental playworld of Bush and his junk-science hirelings, what is the global scientific consensus on abrupt climate change? How real is global climate change, and what evidence do we have for it? How could global warming result in a miniature ice age in Europe and Eastern North America? What are the differences among “accelerating climate change,” “abrupt climate change,” and “runaway global warming”? And how will Peak Oil and the North American natural gas cliff affect global climate change? This article tries to answer those questions, with some surprising results.
Global Warming is a Reality
In 2001, no fewer than sixteen major academies of science from throughout the world issued a statement which reads, in part:
The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science. We recognize IPCC as the world's most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus. Despite increasing consensus on the science underpinning predictions of global climate change, doubts have been expressed recently about the need to mitigate the risks posed by global climate change. We do not consider such doubts justified.
…we support the IPCC's conclusion that it is at least 90% certain that temperatures will continue to rise, with average global surface temperature projected to increase by between 1.4 and 5.8ºC above 1990 levels by 2100.
It is now evident that human activities are already contributing adversely to global climate change. Business as usual is no longer a viable option. … We urge everyone - individuals, businesses and governments - to take prompt action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The balance of the scientific evidence demands effective steps now to avert damaging changes to the earth's climate.11
In their statement, the scientific academies refer to a four-volume report released by the IPCC in 2001, titled Climate Change 2001.12 The first volume focuses on the scientific case – a giant, multifaceted, multidisciplinary edifice of peer-reviewed empirical research and argumentation converging on a shared set of conclusions. For instance:
Globally, it is very likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the instrumental record, since 1861 (see Figure 1a).
New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years.
Satellite data show that there are very likely to have been decreases of about 10% in the extent of snow cover since the late 1960s, and ground-based observations show that there is very likely to have been a reduction of about two weeks in the annual duration of lake and river ice cover in the mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, over the 20th century.
There has been a widespread retreat of mountain glaciers in non-polar regions during the 20th century.
Northern Hemisphere spring and summer sea-ice extent has decreased by about 10 to 15% since the 1950s. It is likely that there has been about a 40% decline in Arctic sea-ice thickness during late summer to early autumn in recent decades and a considerably slower decline in winter sea-ice thickness.13
Variations in the Earth's surface temperature over the last 140 years and the last millennium. Taken from Climate Change 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
Arctic Sea Ice 1979 — Arctic Sea Ice 2003 Taken from Recent Warming of the Arctic May Affect Worldwide Weather. NASA, 10/23/2003. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html
One of the most dramatic findings of the report concerns the shrinkage of what had been permanent ice shelves inside the Arctic circle. Satellite studies conducted by NASA have shown more recently that Arctic perennial sea ice has been decreasing at an average rate of 9% per decade.14 The above satellite photos demonstrate just how dramatic this retreat is. But its implications go far beyond the transformation of the world's northern landscape. The inexorable melting of sea ice could disrupt oceanic currents which help to regulate and moderate the global climate, leading to abrupt global climate change. These currents are absolutely crucial to the familiar functioning of the biosphere and all its ecosystems, including agriculture. But a major shift in the convection currents of the world's oceans (the Gulf Stream is the most famous) would make the Earth quite a different world from the one to which civilization has adapted. That will be the subject of this article's sequel.
Decreasing snow and ice cover leads to further warming of the Earth's surface. Whereas black objects absorb incoming electromagnetic energy, the bright white snow and ice at the poles is an excellent reflector — so light and heat from the sun bounce off the surface of our planet and back into space (an effect known as albedo). As global warming melts the polar snow and ice cover, the Earth's albedo diminishes, allowing even more of the sun's energy to be absorbed and retained by the Earth. This, in turn, can lead to a further decrease in snow and ice cover, resulting in a positive feedback loop which further increases the effect of global warming.
Returning to the IPCC report, other major observations include a rise in global average sea level over the 20th century, and an increase in global average ocean heat content measured since the 1950s. Average rainfall has decreased in the mid-and higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere during the 20th century, at the same time that rainfall is likely to have risen over equatorial land masses. Mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere have seen an increase in severe weather, as well as an increase in cloud cover. Since the 1950s, there has been a reduction in the frequency of extremely low temperatures, and a smaller increase in the frequency of extremely high temperatures. Episodes of El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon are becoming more frequent, more persistent, and more intense. And in some regions, particularly in Africa and Asia, the frequency and intensity of droughts is increasing.15
The IPCC goes on to quantify the effect of human-induced climate change. They note that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 31% since 1750. The report states that 75% of anthropogenic [human-induced] carbon dioxide emissions over the past 50 years is due to fossil fuel burning, with most of the remainder due to land-use change and deforestation. Atmospheric concentration of methane has increased by 151% since 1750, and atmospheric concentration of nitrous oxide has increased by 17% since 1750.
Long records of past changes in atmospheric composition provide the context for the influence of anthropogenic emissions.
(a) shows changes in the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) over the past 1000 years. The ice core and firn data for several sites in Antarctica and Greenland (shown by different symbols) are supplemented with the data from direct atmospheric samples over the past few decades (shown by the line for CO2 and incorporated in the curve representing the global average of CH4). The estimated positive radiative forcing of the climate system from these gases is indicated on the right-hand scale. Since these gases have atmospheric lifetimes of a decade or more, they are well mixed, and their concentrations reflect emissions from sources throughout the globe. All three records show effects of the large and increasing growth in anthropogenic emissions during the Industrial Era.
(b) illustrates the influence of industrial emissions on atmospheric sulphate concentrations, which produce negative radiative forcing. Shown is the time history of the concentrations of sulphate, not in the atmosphere but in ice cores in Greenland (shown by lines; from which the episodic effects of volcanic eruptions have been removed). Such data indicate the local deposition of sulphate aerosols at the site, reflecting sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions at mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. This record, albeit more regional than that of the globally-mixed greenhouse gases, demonstrates the large growth in anthropogenic SO2 emissions during the Industrial Era. The pluses denote the relevant regional estimated SO2 emissions (right-hand scale).
[Based upon (a) Chapter 3, Figure 3.2b (CO2); Chapter 4, Figure 4.1a and b (CH4) and Chapter 4, Figure 4.2 (N2O) and (b) Chapter 5, Figure 5.4a]
Graphs and caption taken from Climate Change 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
Understanding the science of climate change involves learning a few key terms. Radiative forcing is a measure of the influence a factor has in altering the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth-atmosphere system.16 It's an index of the factor's importance as a potential climate change mechanism. It is expressed in Watts (a unit of power, or energy-per-second) per square meter (a unit of area on the Earth's surface): Wm -2. According to Climate Change 2001, radiative forcing due to increases in greenhouse gases from 1750 to 2000 is estimated to be 2.43 Wm -2 overall: 1.46 Wm-2 from carbon dioxide, 0.48 Wm -2 from methane, 0.34 Wm -2 from halocarbons (chlorofluorocarbons and similar gases), and 0.15 Wm -2 from nitrous oxide. Overall mean radiative forcing is expected to increase further over the next century even if emissions of greenhouse gases decrease, due to the lifetime of present gases in the atmosphere.
The report points out that newer and stronger evidence has made it plain that most of the warming observable over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. Ice core records from Iceland and Antarctica are widely considered to have cinched the case for industrially caused global warming. These ice cores have provided us with a climate record stretching back over 1,000 years. Along with new and more accurate models of climate variability, the extended climate record indicates that the current warming trend is unusual and unlikely to be entirely natural in origin. Improved models of climate response to natural and anthropogenic forcing consistently find evidence of an anthropogenic signature in the climate record of the past 50 years.
Contrary to the politically convenient science preferred by the White House and the petroleum executives who live there, simulation of climate response to natural forcings alone – the much-vaunted variations in solar irradiance and volcanic eruptions – do not explain the warming in the second half of the 20th century. Natural forcings are a contributing factor, but the current generation of computational models can now correct for them effectively (in other words, the new models take into account uncertainty in the magnitude of modeled response to external forcing due to uncertainty in climate sensitivity). Models are becoming sufficiently sophisticated that they now accurately model climate observations made over the last 140 years. These models demonstrate that the estimated rate and magnitude of warming due to increasing greenhouse gases alone is sufficient to account for observed warming.17
Stepping away from the IPCC report, we can find an abundance of evidence supporting global climate change from scientific institutions throughout the world. Seasons and weather patterns are changing; glaciers are retreating; the continental ice sheets of Antarctica are beginning to break up; permafrost in the upper latitudes of North America and Siberia is thawing; the Inuit people of the far north are finding that their traditional lifestyles are endangered by shortened winters and ice flows which are breaking up sooner; islands of Polynesia and elsewhere are being submerged by rising water levels; tundra flora is receding; and subtropical flora and fauna are moving into temperate latitudes.
In December 2003, the World Health Organization announced that global warming is killing an average of 150,000 people per year.18 Global warming is contributing to increases in malaria and other insect-borne diseases, malnutrition and pollution-related diseases, and extreme weather events such as the deadly 2003 summer heat wave in Europe. A recent issue of the journal Nature contained a report signed by numerous prominent scientists warning that as much as one quarter of the animal species on the planet will be threatened with extinction in the next 50 years due to global climate change.19
The economic toll is already considerable; global climate change is now costing the world economy billions of dollars annually. The UN estimates this cost at over $60 billion for 2003 alone, a year of climate change induced disasters such as the killer heat wave in Europe and the massive flooding in China.20 And a group of insurers led by Munich Re has reported to the UN that global climate change could cost the world over $300 billion per year by 2050.21
Meanwhile, a report issued by the German Advisory Council on Global Change has stated that measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions must be at least four times stronger than the Kyoto Protocol if they are to prevent melting of the polar ice caps.22 The Council warns that there is only room for another 1.4ºC of global warming before dangerous climactic changes become probable. The global mean temperature has already risen 0.6ºC since the beginning of the industrial era, so this places the danger threshold at an average global increase of 2ºC, which the Council warns will be exceeded within this century if we do not pursue stringent climate protection policies. Although the Kyoto Protocol is not sufficient to prevent disaster, it would be a first step.
Yet the Kyoto Protocol now appears to be dead in the water. The Russians have followed the US lead in walking away from the protocol because they believe its measures would damage economic growth.23 Between the American culture of fossil fuel addiction and the capture of Congress by corporate money, Kyoto never had a chance in the US Senate. For the moment, then, the struggle to slow and reverse these disastrous climatic trends must proceed from inside the collective insanity of our global economic system.
Yet the risks are much greater than even the sources quoted here have allowed, as will become apparent when we discuss the possibilities of abrupt climate change and runaway climate change, and when we look at how the global oil peak and the North American natural gas cliff could affect global climate change.
1 An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, Schwartz, Peter, and Randall, Doug. October, 2003. http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4591&method=full
2 Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us, Townsend, Mark, and Harris, Paul. The Observer, 2/22/2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1153530,00.html
3 Pentagon downplays report on climate change that it commissioned. AFP, 2/24/2004. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=afp/us_environment_climate
4 Climate Collapse; The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare, Stipp, David. Fortune Magazine, 1/26/2004.
5 Op. Cit. See note 2.
6 Op. Cit. See note 1.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 The Science of Climate Change. 5/17/2001. http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/files/statfiles/document-138.pdf
12 Climate Change 2001, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
13 Ibid
14 Recent Warming of the Arctic May Affect Worldwide Climate, Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA, 10/23/2003. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html
15 Op. Cit.
16 “Radiative forcing is defined as a change in average net radiation at the boundary between troposphere and stratosphere (known as the tropopause). A positive radiative forcing tends on average to warm the surface; there is a net heat flow from troposphere to stratosphere. A negative forcing on average tends to cool the surface; there is a net heat flow from stratosphere to troposphere.” See ‘Alternatives to Traditional Transportation Fuels 1994, Volume 2, Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Appendix A, The Chemistry and Physics of Global Warming: An Overview.' http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/pubs_html/attf94_v2/appd_a.html
17 Ibid.
18 Global warming kills 150,000 people a year, warms UN, Kirby, Terry. The Independent, 12/12/2003. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=472452
19 Extinction Risk from Climate Change, Thomas, Chris D., et al. Nature, Vol. 427, 1/8/2004. http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/extinctions.pdf
20 Climate change ‘cost $60b' in 2003. CNN, 12/11/2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/12/11/un.climate/
21 Impact of climate change to cost the world $US 300 billion a year. United Nations Environmental Programme, 2/3/2004. http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=192&ArticleID=2758
22 Climate Protection Strategies for the 21 st Century; Kyoto and Beyond. German Advisory Council on Global Change. WBGU, 2003. http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_sn2003_engl.html
23 Russia: Kyoto pact harms economy, Reuters. CNN, 12/2/2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/12/02/russia.kyodo.reut/
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
April 14, 2004
[Peak Oil is bringing on the agonies of a huge cultural and economic transition. Like the withdrawal symptoms endured by an addict, the effects of the coming petroleum crisis will ravage the American body politic and work necessary but painful changes in the life of the entire human community. Just as that inexorable withdrawal closes in on us, we're acquiring a new awareness of the damage already done by the petroleum addiction itself. Peak Oil is the crisis of getting off petroleum; climate change is the almost- irreversible legacy of two hundred years of fossil fuel pollution. The difficult irony for the United States – whose annual oil consumption dwarfs that of any other nation – is that this day of reckoning comes at a time when our political institutions are at their worst levels of performance since the Civil War.
Corruption, income inequity, narco-traffic, money-laundering, the warfare state, loss of civil liberties, imperial overstretch, racism, and the constant recourse to violence as a tool of domestic and international policy – all the ailments of the republic are interconnected. At their center is an oil economy bound to militarism by the petrodollar money system. Change that system, and the other problems become far more amenable to rational reform – as Catherine Austin Fitts has said, “until we change the way money works, we will remain perpetual victims at the hands of elites who have no incentive to change.”
Climate change should be that missing incentive. Wealth and weapons are not much use under seven meters of melted glacial seawater. Still, the fake statesmen who profiteered from fifty years of nuclear “Mutual Assured Destruction” are unlikely to be moved by any amount of peril, so long as they enjoy coercive economic and political power. It seems the education of the public is the key to a safer world – so we're educating each other. In part one of this three-part story, FTW Science Editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer sets out a detailed picture of the climate change issue and its paramount importance. Part two will consider the dreadful convergence of global climate change and the peak of global oil production. – FTW]
APRIL 13, 2004 0800 PST (FTW) – In October of 2003, the Pentagon published a report on abrupt climate change.1 Its authors were by Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of planning at the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.2 Their task was to assess the likelihood of abrupt climate change within the next twenty years. They were then supposed to develop a scenario of the possible consequences should abrupt climate change occur starting in 2004. Finally, they were to make recommendations to the President based on their study: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.
A few copies were printed and circulated around the Pentagon, which heavily censored the report and is now downplaying its significance.3 It remained effectively buried and all but forgotten until copies were leaked to the media, first to Fortune Magazine,4 and then to The Observer.5 The Pentagon has rightfully pointed out that this is a speculative report; they are not expecting abrupt climate change to begin in the year 2004. Schwartz and Randall are exploring a risk scenario, such as the Pentagon and the CIA draw up all the time – what would happen if the Russians launched a nuclear attack this year; what would happen if California suffered the big one, etc. But the real importance of the report lies in the statement of probability and in the authors' recommendations to the President and the National Security Council.
While no statistical analysis of probability is given in the report as it has been released (any such statistical analysis would most likely be classified), the authors state that “the plausibility of severe and rapid climate change is higher than most of the scientific community and perhaps all of the political community is prepared for.”6 They say that instead of asking whether this could happen, we should be asking when this will happen. They conclude: “It is quite plausible that within a decade the evidence of an imminent abrupt climate shift may become clear and reliable.”7
From such a shift, the report claims, utterly appalling ecological consequences would follow. Europe and Eastern North America would plunge into a mini-ice age, with weather patterns resembling present day Siberia. Violent storms could wreak havoc around the globe. Coastal areas such as The Netherlands, New York, and the West coast of North America could become uninhabitable, while most island nations could be completely submerged. Lowlands like Bangladesh could be permanently swamped. While flooding would become the rule along coastlines, mega-droughts could destroy the world's breadbaskets. The dust bowl could return to America's Midwest. Famine and drought would result in a major drop in the planet's ability to sustain the present human population. Access to water could become a major battleground – hundreds of millions could die as a result of famine and resource wars. More than 400 million people in subtropical regions will be put at grave risk. There would be mass migrations of climate refugees, particularly to southern Europe and North America. Nuclear arms proliferation in conjunction with resource wars could very well lead to nuclear wars.8 And none of this takes into account the effects of global peak oil and the North American natural gas cliff. Not pretty.
At the end of their report, Schwartz and Randall advise that climate change “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern.”9 And while “alternative fuels, greenhouse gas emission controls, and conservation efforts are worthwhile endeavors,” we're urged to “prepare for the inevitable effects of abrupt climate change -- which will likely come regardless of human activity.”10
As stated, the Pentagon is playing down this report and has opted not to send the authors' recommendations on to the White House.
Urgent for humanity or not, this report is a major embarrassment to President Bush and his corporate handlers, who remain content to deny the reality of global climate change and the validity of the overwhelming case for it. A phalanx of corporate-sponsored disinformationists earns their keep by deriding the report, wearing the mantle of scientific authority while selling their intellectual souls. And the mass media within the US have done their part by virtually ignoring the story.
But outside the well-funded mental playworld of Bush and his junk-science hirelings, what is the global scientific consensus on abrupt climate change? How real is global climate change, and what evidence do we have for it? How could global warming result in a miniature ice age in Europe and Eastern North America? What are the differences among “accelerating climate change,” “abrupt climate change,” and “runaway global warming”? And how will Peak Oil and the North American natural gas cliff affect global climate change? This article tries to answer those questions, with some surprising results.
Global Warming is a Reality
In 2001, no fewer than sixteen major academies of science from throughout the world issued a statement which reads, in part:
The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science. We recognize IPCC as the world's most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus. Despite increasing consensus on the science underpinning predictions of global climate change, doubts have been expressed recently about the need to mitigate the risks posed by global climate change. We do not consider such doubts justified.
…we support the IPCC's conclusion that it is at least 90% certain that temperatures will continue to rise, with average global surface temperature projected to increase by between 1.4 and 5.8ºC above 1990 levels by 2100.
It is now evident that human activities are already contributing adversely to global climate change. Business as usual is no longer a viable option. … We urge everyone - individuals, businesses and governments - to take prompt action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The balance of the scientific evidence demands effective steps now to avert damaging changes to the earth's climate.11
In their statement, the scientific academies refer to a four-volume report released by the IPCC in 2001, titled Climate Change 2001.12 The first volume focuses on the scientific case – a giant, multifaceted, multidisciplinary edifice of peer-reviewed empirical research and argumentation converging on a shared set of conclusions. For instance:
Globally, it is very likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the instrumental record, since 1861 (see Figure 1a).
New analyses of proxy data for the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years.
Satellite data show that there are very likely to have been decreases of about 10% in the extent of snow cover since the late 1960s, and ground-based observations show that there is very likely to have been a reduction of about two weeks in the annual duration of lake and river ice cover in the mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, over the 20th century.
There has been a widespread retreat of mountain glaciers in non-polar regions during the 20th century.
Northern Hemisphere spring and summer sea-ice extent has decreased by about 10 to 15% since the 1950s. It is likely that there has been about a 40% decline in Arctic sea-ice thickness during late summer to early autumn in recent decades and a considerably slower decline in winter sea-ice thickness.13
Variations in the Earth's surface temperature over the last 140 years and the last millennium. Taken from Climate Change 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
Arctic Sea Ice 1979 — Arctic Sea Ice 2003 Taken from Recent Warming of the Arctic May Affect Worldwide Weather. NASA, 10/23/2003. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html
One of the most dramatic findings of the report concerns the shrinkage of what had been permanent ice shelves inside the Arctic circle. Satellite studies conducted by NASA have shown more recently that Arctic perennial sea ice has been decreasing at an average rate of 9% per decade.14 The above satellite photos demonstrate just how dramatic this retreat is. But its implications go far beyond the transformation of the world's northern landscape. The inexorable melting of sea ice could disrupt oceanic currents which help to regulate and moderate the global climate, leading to abrupt global climate change. These currents are absolutely crucial to the familiar functioning of the biosphere and all its ecosystems, including agriculture. But a major shift in the convection currents of the world's oceans (the Gulf Stream is the most famous) would make the Earth quite a different world from the one to which civilization has adapted. That will be the subject of this article's sequel.
Decreasing snow and ice cover leads to further warming of the Earth's surface. Whereas black objects absorb incoming electromagnetic energy, the bright white snow and ice at the poles is an excellent reflector — so light and heat from the sun bounce off the surface of our planet and back into space (an effect known as albedo). As global warming melts the polar snow and ice cover, the Earth's albedo diminishes, allowing even more of the sun's energy to be absorbed and retained by the Earth. This, in turn, can lead to a further decrease in snow and ice cover, resulting in a positive feedback loop which further increases the effect of global warming.
Returning to the IPCC report, other major observations include a rise in global average sea level over the 20th century, and an increase in global average ocean heat content measured since the 1950s. Average rainfall has decreased in the mid-and higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere during the 20th century, at the same time that rainfall is likely to have risen over equatorial land masses. Mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere have seen an increase in severe weather, as well as an increase in cloud cover. Since the 1950s, there has been a reduction in the frequency of extremely low temperatures, and a smaller increase in the frequency of extremely high temperatures. Episodes of El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon are becoming more frequent, more persistent, and more intense. And in some regions, particularly in Africa and Asia, the frequency and intensity of droughts is increasing.15
The IPCC goes on to quantify the effect of human-induced climate change. They note that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 31% since 1750. The report states that 75% of anthropogenic [human-induced] carbon dioxide emissions over the past 50 years is due to fossil fuel burning, with most of the remainder due to land-use change and deforestation. Atmospheric concentration of methane has increased by 151% since 1750, and atmospheric concentration of nitrous oxide has increased by 17% since 1750.
Long records of past changes in atmospheric composition provide the context for the influence of anthropogenic emissions.
(a) shows changes in the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) over the past 1000 years. The ice core and firn data for several sites in Antarctica and Greenland (shown by different symbols) are supplemented with the data from direct atmospheric samples over the past few decades (shown by the line for CO2 and incorporated in the curve representing the global average of CH4). The estimated positive radiative forcing of the climate system from these gases is indicated on the right-hand scale. Since these gases have atmospheric lifetimes of a decade or more, they are well mixed, and their concentrations reflect emissions from sources throughout the globe. All three records show effects of the large and increasing growth in anthropogenic emissions during the Industrial Era.
(b) illustrates the influence of industrial emissions on atmospheric sulphate concentrations, which produce negative radiative forcing. Shown is the time history of the concentrations of sulphate, not in the atmosphere but in ice cores in Greenland (shown by lines; from which the episodic effects of volcanic eruptions have been removed). Such data indicate the local deposition of sulphate aerosols at the site, reflecting sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions at mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. This record, albeit more regional than that of the globally-mixed greenhouse gases, demonstrates the large growth in anthropogenic SO2 emissions during the Industrial Era. The pluses denote the relevant regional estimated SO2 emissions (right-hand scale).
[Based upon (a) Chapter 3, Figure 3.2b (CO2); Chapter 4, Figure 4.1a and b (CH4) and Chapter 4, Figure 4.2 (N2O) and (b) Chapter 5, Figure 5.4a]
Graphs and caption taken from Climate Change 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
Understanding the science of climate change involves learning a few key terms. Radiative forcing is a measure of the influence a factor has in altering the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth-atmosphere system.16 It's an index of the factor's importance as a potential climate change mechanism. It is expressed in Watts (a unit of power, or energy-per-second) per square meter (a unit of area on the Earth's surface): Wm -2. According to Climate Change 2001, radiative forcing due to increases in greenhouse gases from 1750 to 2000 is estimated to be 2.43 Wm -2 overall: 1.46 Wm-2 from carbon dioxide, 0.48 Wm -2 from methane, 0.34 Wm -2 from halocarbons (chlorofluorocarbons and similar gases), and 0.15 Wm -2 from nitrous oxide. Overall mean radiative forcing is expected to increase further over the next century even if emissions of greenhouse gases decrease, due to the lifetime of present gases in the atmosphere.
The report points out that newer and stronger evidence has made it plain that most of the warming observable over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. Ice core records from Iceland and Antarctica are widely considered to have cinched the case for industrially caused global warming. These ice cores have provided us with a climate record stretching back over 1,000 years. Along with new and more accurate models of climate variability, the extended climate record indicates that the current warming trend is unusual and unlikely to be entirely natural in origin. Improved models of climate response to natural and anthropogenic forcing consistently find evidence of an anthropogenic signature in the climate record of the past 50 years.
Contrary to the politically convenient science preferred by the White House and the petroleum executives who live there, simulation of climate response to natural forcings alone – the much-vaunted variations in solar irradiance and volcanic eruptions – do not explain the warming in the second half of the 20th century. Natural forcings are a contributing factor, but the current generation of computational models can now correct for them effectively (in other words, the new models take into account uncertainty in the magnitude of modeled response to external forcing due to uncertainty in climate sensitivity). Models are becoming sufficiently sophisticated that they now accurately model climate observations made over the last 140 years. These models demonstrate that the estimated rate and magnitude of warming due to increasing greenhouse gases alone is sufficient to account for observed warming.17
Stepping away from the IPCC report, we can find an abundance of evidence supporting global climate change from scientific institutions throughout the world. Seasons and weather patterns are changing; glaciers are retreating; the continental ice sheets of Antarctica are beginning to break up; permafrost in the upper latitudes of North America and Siberia is thawing; the Inuit people of the far north are finding that their traditional lifestyles are endangered by shortened winters and ice flows which are breaking up sooner; islands of Polynesia and elsewhere are being submerged by rising water levels; tundra flora is receding; and subtropical flora and fauna are moving into temperate latitudes.
In December 2003, the World Health Organization announced that global warming is killing an average of 150,000 people per year.18 Global warming is contributing to increases in malaria and other insect-borne diseases, malnutrition and pollution-related diseases, and extreme weather events such as the deadly 2003 summer heat wave in Europe. A recent issue of the journal Nature contained a report signed by numerous prominent scientists warning that as much as one quarter of the animal species on the planet will be threatened with extinction in the next 50 years due to global climate change.19
The economic toll is already considerable; global climate change is now costing the world economy billions of dollars annually. The UN estimates this cost at over $60 billion for 2003 alone, a year of climate change induced disasters such as the killer heat wave in Europe and the massive flooding in China.20 And a group of insurers led by Munich Re has reported to the UN that global climate change could cost the world over $300 billion per year by 2050.21
Meanwhile, a report issued by the German Advisory Council on Global Change has stated that measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions must be at least four times stronger than the Kyoto Protocol if they are to prevent melting of the polar ice caps.22 The Council warns that there is only room for another 1.4ºC of global warming before dangerous climactic changes become probable. The global mean temperature has already risen 0.6ºC since the beginning of the industrial era, so this places the danger threshold at an average global increase of 2ºC, which the Council warns will be exceeded within this century if we do not pursue stringent climate protection policies. Although the Kyoto Protocol is not sufficient to prevent disaster, it would be a first step.
Yet the Kyoto Protocol now appears to be dead in the water. The Russians have followed the US lead in walking away from the protocol because they believe its measures would damage economic growth.23 Between the American culture of fossil fuel addiction and the capture of Congress by corporate money, Kyoto never had a chance in the US Senate. For the moment, then, the struggle to slow and reverse these disastrous climatic trends must proceed from inside the collective insanity of our global economic system.
Yet the risks are much greater than even the sources quoted here have allowed, as will become apparent when we discuss the possibilities of abrupt climate change and runaway climate change, and when we look at how the global oil peak and the North American natural gas cliff could affect global climate change.
1 An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, Schwartz, Peter, and Randall, Doug. October, 2003. http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4591&method=full
2 Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us, Townsend, Mark, and Harris, Paul. The Observer, 2/22/2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1153530,00.html
3 Pentagon downplays report on climate change that it commissioned. AFP, 2/24/2004. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=afp/us_environment_climate
4 Climate Collapse; The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare, Stipp, David. Fortune Magazine, 1/26/2004.
5 Op. Cit. See note 2.
6 Op. Cit. See note 1.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 The Science of Climate Change. 5/17/2001. http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/files/statfiles/document-138.pdf
12 Climate Change 2001, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
13 Ibid
14 Recent Warming of the Arctic May Affect Worldwide Climate, Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA, 10/23/2003. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html
15 Op. Cit.
16 “Radiative forcing is defined as a change in average net radiation at the boundary between troposphere and stratosphere (known as the tropopause). A positive radiative forcing tends on average to warm the surface; there is a net heat flow from troposphere to stratosphere. A negative forcing on average tends to cool the surface; there is a net heat flow from stratosphere to troposphere.” See ‘Alternatives to Traditional Transportation Fuels 1994, Volume 2, Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Appendix A, The Chemistry and Physics of Global Warming: An Overview.' http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/pubs_html/attf94_v2/appd_a.html
17 Ibid.
18 Global warming kills 150,000 people a year, warms UN, Kirby, Terry. The Independent, 12/12/2003. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=472452
19 Extinction Risk from Climate Change, Thomas, Chris D., et al. Nature, Vol. 427, 1/8/2004. http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/extinctions.pdf
20 Climate change ‘cost $60b' in 2003. CNN, 12/11/2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/12/11/un.climate/
21 Impact of climate change to cost the world $US 300 billion a year. United Nations Environmental Programme, 2/3/2004. http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=192&ArticleID=2758
22 Climate Protection Strategies for the 21 st Century; Kyoto and Beyond. German Advisory Council on Global Change. WBGU, 2003. http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_sn2003_engl.html
23 Russia: Kyoto pact harms economy, Reuters. CNN, 12/2/2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/12/02/russia.kyodo.reut/
Friday, March 5, 2004
Global Climate Change & Peak Oil - Part II
Source: From The Wilderness
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
May 5, 2004
[In part 1 of this article, we looked at the abrupt climate change scenario leaked from the Pentagon. We noted the authors' recommendation that the President should elevate abrupt climate change to a national security issue. And we observed that the Pentagon's next move was an effort to back off from the report's conclusions and ultimately bury the report. The Bush Administration has ignored the report entirely, aided by a powerful global-warming-denial lobby which promotes junk science produced by industry-sponsored research.
We then turned our attention to the amply published consensus of the world's scientific academies: that global climate change is taking place, and that it poses a threat to life on this planet and to human civilization in particular. Then we reviewed some of the hard evidence of industry-induced climate change as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their voluminous report, Climate Change 2001.1 Finally, we looked at some of the present costs of global climate change — in monetary terms, in environmental terms, and in terms of human life.
But the Pentagon report was more than a summary of the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, and increases in global average temperatures. It was an unprecedented acknowledgement of a much more direct threat to our place in the world: abrupt climate change. That will be the focus of this essay. We will look at the oceans' role in the climate, the ocean conveyer system, the history of abrupt climate change episodes, and the effect of these episodes upon previous civilizations. –DAP]
Abrupt Climate Change
Large bodies of water — particularly the oceans and seas — have a moderating effect upon the weather. As anyone living on an island or near the seashore is well aware, the summers in such an area tend to be cooler than farther inland, and the winters tend to be warmer. As a resident of the state of Michigan, I am well aware that an Alberta clipper which will freeze North Dakota and Minnesota down to -20º F, will be warmed sufficiently upon crossing over Lake Michigan so that this same weather system will only drop Michigan 's temperature down to 0º F. This is because bodies of water tend to have less seasonal variance in their temperature than does stone or soil, and they interact with overriding air masses to transfer heat from one to the other.
This process is much more complex in the oceans than in the Great Lakes. Ocean currents channel warm water from the equator and cold water from the polar regions, with considerable effect upon local weather. Warm waters flowing up from the South Pacific bring heat to the Pacific Northwest and the Alaska Panhandle through the winter, leading directly to the temperate rainforests which dominate the ecology of this area.
Meteorologists have traditionally ignored the oceans' role in meteorological processes. And this would seem to make sense on the face of it: if you are studying the weather it is natural to focus on the atmosphere, not the oceans. But we are coming to understand that the oceans are an equal partner with the atmosphere in producing the weather, and the dominant partner with regard to long-range weather patterns.
The oceans play an important role in heat storage and transport, and are vital to the transportation of heat from the equator to the poles. They are essential to the hydrological cycle as well. Covering 70% of the Earth's surface, the oceans have 1,100 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere. They contain 97% of the free water on the planet—90,000 times as much water as the atmosphere. And they receive 78% of global precipitation.2 Unfortunately, oceanic processes have not been studied nearly so well as atmospheric processes; even environmentally crucial properties such as salinity and heat transference at depth have been relatively neglected until recently. As we'll see, abrupt climate change has everything to do with “thermohaline” dynamics in the ocean depths; that term is a compound of two ancient Greek roots meaning “heat” and “salt.”
But a series of global ship-based observations in the 1990s revealed that the ocean has warmed at depth since similar observations were last made in the 1950s. It turns out that this heat difference corresponds to about half of the greenhouse warming that had been projected by models but had been missing from actual measurements of the atmosphere. Meteorological models had not accounted for the capacity of the oceans to store large quantities of heat on short timescales.3 This capacity has been accounted for in more recent models, with the result that they are now much more accurate in their reproduction of long term heating and cooling trends.
The oceans could accurately be called the long-term memory of the Earth's climate system. The atmosphere is as fickle as it is dynamic. It lacks the permanence to produce decadal patterns. The oceans, however, host a variety of long-term cycles which can and do affect the weather.
Everyone has heard of El Niño and La Niña. Caused by the movement of warm water in the tropical Pacific — particularly off the coast of equatorial South America — these periodic three to five year disruptions are fully monitored by a system of buoys, so that they can now be predicted up to a year in advance. Yet these two phenomena represent only a small fraction of the influence which periodic ocean cycles exert upon the temperature and rainfall over North America. The variability of winter weather is highly correlated to long-term ocean cycles known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO, in particular, has a much stronger influence over the weather of the Eastern United States than does El Niño. Yet both of these long-term cycles are poorly monitored.
Likewise, it is the oceans which regulate the hydrological cycle. A diversion of only 1% of the rainfall currently falling on the Atlantic would double the discharge of the Mississippi River.4 At the other end of the spectrum, an increase of rainfall over the oceans, particularly over key areas such as the Labrador Sea and the North Atlantic, could disrupt the thermohaline circulation of the oceans, with a drastic and immediate effect upon the climate of North America and Europe.
The climate is a dynamic and sensitive energy exchange system held in a self-regulating equilibrium. The interactions of water and air have always been difficult to predict because they're governed by the branch of physics called fluid dynamics, whose recent mathematical formalism is called chaos theory. It's a description of the way that chaotic systems tend to magnify the effects of initially small changes. Depending on the stability of the system, proliferating changes can be compensated for by mechanisms that reestablish equilibrium, or they can overwhelm the system. In the latter case, the result is either a permanent disequilibrium, or a new equilibrium markedly different from the old. Any attempt at large-scale weather manipulation without a reliable model would be like driving down a mountain road with the windows blackened out using a roadmap whose reliability decreases progressively the farther you venture from your point of departure.
The problem with modeling weather patterns is that there are simply too many variables. Many of these variables, such as the NAO and the PDO, are not well understood and are poorly monitored. Even if computer power continues to increase by an order of magnitude every 6 years, it would take over 160 years before models would have sufficient capacity to simulate the smallest ocean mixing processes.
So predictive climate modeling is constrained by two intractable problems: the limitations of our computational equipment, and the inherent uncertainty of the data we put into it. In a different discipline, small initial errors might be averaged out or otherwise corrected-for. But in a domain like the weather – where the behavior of turbulent fluids is influenced by myriad variables all mutually interacting – the smallest numerical error can become enormous as it propagates through the model. If I want to know my county's surface temperature, pressure, rainfall and wind-speed a week in advance, I had better be rigorously correct about the numbers I put into my computer at the beginning.
This sensitivity afflicts long-term climate change modeling as well as short-term weather prediction, albeit in different ways. The chief difference is in the enormous disparity between the atmosphere and the oceans as reservoirs of thermal energy. Dr. Raymond Schmitt of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute describes climate modeling:
An abundance of evidence indicates that the key to long-term prediction is in the workings of the ocean, which has 99.9% of the heat capacity of Earth's fluids. It is the heart of the climate ‘beast,' the atmosphere its rapidly waving tail, with only 0.1% of the heat capacity.6
Thermohaline Circulation — the Oceans' Heat Conveyer
Perhaps the most important role for the oceans in helping to regulate the climate is the absorption of heat from equatorial regions and the transportation of that heat into northern regions. This process helps to distribute heat more evenly around the globe, moderating the heat of equatorial regions as well as the cold of higher latitudes — particularly in the North Atlantic. These currents warm North Atlantic regions by an average of 5º Celsius, significantly tempering the winter season in North America and Europe.7
Taken from Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried? - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 1/27/2003
This global current could be said to originate in the seas which ring the North Atlantic —the Labrador, Irminger and Greenland Seas, where the oceans release large amounts of heat into the cold atmosphere. Evaporation, which has been occurring throughout the North Atlantic, is here increased to the point that these northern waters constitute the saltiest waters in the oceans. The concentration of salts results in a denser solution, as does the loss of heat. And this denser water sinks to the ocean abyss, where it begins a slow migration back down the Atlantic and eastward into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. There it wells up, having lost much of its salinity. Displaced by colder waters moving under it and heated by contact with warmer flows from above, the formerly deep water rises toward the surface and picks up additional heat along the return journey into the Atlantic.
Unfortunately, the ocean conveyer does have an Achilles heel. And this Achilles heel lies in the Northern Atlantic region where the deep limb of the ocean conveyer originates, drawing warm equatorial waters to replace it. If the cold, salty, dense waters of the North Atlantic somehow failed to sink, then the global circulation could slacken and halt. Currents would weaken and/or be redirected, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the whole biosphere.
Were this to happen, the North Atlantic region would cool by an average of 5º Celsius. This would mean that winters in Eastern North America would be twice as cold as the coldest winter on record in the past century, and Europe would be even colder.8 The summer growing season in these areas would be shortened, and summer crops might fail altogether. Previous conveyer shutdowns have been linked to widespread droughts throughout the world, and the disruption of the Asian monsoons.9
The resultant mini-ice age in North America and Northern Europe — and droughts elsewhere in the world — could continue for decades or even centuries, until conditions change sufficiently for thermohaline circulation to resume. Further, this localized mini-ice age might occur even as the Earth, on average, continues to warm.10 As a result, once thermohaline circulation resumed, the Northern Atlantic region could be thrown from one extreme to the other — from an ice age to a hot house.
All that is necessary for this scenario to occur is an influx of fresh water into the surface of the North Atlantic . This buoyant, fresh water would virtually seal off and insulate the denser, saltier waters, preventing them from venting heat and moisture into the atmosphere. The fresh waters would also dilute the salinity of the North Atlantic, further reducing the density of these waters. The force driving the deep limb of the ocean conveyer would quickly weaken and halt. And the cessation of thermohaline circulation would quickly impact the world's climates.
This scenario could take place in a decade or less from the time that fresh water influx in the Northern Atlantic reaches a critical threshold. Unfortunately, though scientists are certain that such a threshold exists, not enough research has been done thus far to determine where this threshold is. Oceanographers have complained that we do not have a system in place to monitor slowly developing ocean circulation changes. While we have thousands of meteorological stations recording temperature on land and in the atmosphere, we have only three sites with anything like a continuous deep record of the North Atlantic. And these sites only make observations once per month.11 Satellites can monitor ocean circulation globally, but only at the surface. For measurements at depth, we need a network of buoys and current-monitoring vessels.
Oceanographers reporting in Nature, in 2002, concluded that a dramatic influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic has taken place continuously within the past forty years, and has accelerated within the last decade.12 This is the largest and most dramatic change in the oceans in the era of modern instruments. So far, the influx has been dispersed throughout the water column. But it is noticeably diluting salinity.13 And, at some point, the continuing influx may begin to pile up at the surface of the North Atlantic. An earlier report in Nature observed that the flow of cold, dense water from the Greenland and Norwegian Seas has slowed by 20% since 1950.14 This indicates that a slowdown of the ocean conveyer may already be occurring. An observation system must be put into place before we can better assess the impact of these developments on thermohaline circulation, and the rate at which the ocean conveyer may be disrupted.
Taken from Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried? - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 1/27/2003
A History of Abrupt Climate Change
Until very recently, scientists believed that major climate change could only occur gradually, over long periods of time. The study of ice cores drilled in Greenland, Antarctica and in alpine glaciers around the world has changed that thinking. These ice cores hold a wealth of information. Aside from a record of annual snowfall, the ice cores hold spores and pollens, and volcanic ash. Also found in tiny inclusions in the glacial ice are trapped remnants of the atmosphere from thousands of years past. These gas inclusions can be analyzed to give an accurate measure of the chemical makeup of the Earth's atmosphere over the course of centuries. It is the study of carbon dioxide levels, as recorded in the air bubbles of these ice cores, which has established the ineluctable proof of industry-induced global climate change.
Thanks to these ice cores, we now have a detailed history of the Earth's climate stretching back nearly twenty thousand years. Reading the ice cores is somewhat similar to reading the growth rings on a tree, but complicated because the yearly layers of ice have been contorted and folded by pressure and ice flow. However, with the help of some applied physics and structural geology, the layers can be unfolded and the record can be read accurately. This endeavor has already yielded remarkable scientific results, including the discovery that abrupt climate change has already occurred in previous eras. In the last fifteen thousand years, there have been several periods of abrupt climate change of varying severity and duration. Let's review four of these abrupt climate change episodes.
Taken from The Two-Mile Time Machine, Richard B. Alley. Princeton University Press, 2000 (reprint edition 2002)
The Younger Dryas— Named for a small subarctic flowering plant which extended its range far southward into North America and Eurasia during this period. The Younger Dryas began about 12,700 years ago when average temperatures in the North Atlantic region plummeted by about 5º C. This abrupt change took place within a decade, and is believed to have been caused by a shutdown of the ocean conveyer due to a sudden influx of fresh water from the deglaciation of North America. The climate remained colder by about 5º C for the next 1,300 years, before another abrupt change caused temperatures to rise by about 7º C in less than a decade.15
Study of the Younger Dryas in particular has led scientists to conclude that there are preferred states of balance in the atmosphere. Should one state be tipped sufficiently out of balance, the atmosphere will cross some critical but unknown threshold and will then transition quickly to another state of balance. This thinking has revolutionized our view of climate change, and holds important implications for industry-induced climate change.
The 8,200-Year Event— This event was not as severe as the Younger Dryas, and lasted only a century. Temperatures in the North Atlantic region dropped by an average of 3º C. This episode seems to be associated with widespread dry conditions. There are two possible explanations for the 8,200-Year Event. The most widely accepted explanation is a disturbance in thermohaline circulation due to freshwater input associated with the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet. Other studies have indicated that a fresh water influx from large proglacial lakes could have produced the 8,200-Year Event, and would even account for a brief warming episode within the event.16
The Medieval Warming Period— This is considered to be a period of abrupt warming which began approximately 1,000 years ago, and then ended abruptly 700 years ago with the beginning of the Little Ice Age. This event was very mild compared to earlier events, and there is much contradictory evidence from this period. Evidence appears to support warming at the beginning of the 20th century in Scandinavia, Greenland, China , the Sierra Nevadas, the Canadian Rockies and Tasmania . However, evidence from the Eastern United States, Mediterranean Europe, and South America show no change in climate. Ice core data from Greenland supports the theory of a warming trend, but needs to be correlated with ice core data from other areas of the globe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that temperatures from the 11th century to the 14th century were only about 0.2º C warmer than temperatures from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and were below average temperatures in the 20th century.17 Though the specific changes in regional temperatures remain difficult to specify, the data clearly indicate that during the past millennium the Earth's climate has varied on a decadal scale.18
The Little Ice Age— This event brought an abrupt end to the Medieval Warming Period. It extended from the 1300s to the mid 1800s. The Little Ice Age was once thought to be a global phenomenon, but now that assumption is less certain. Evidence for the Little Ice Age appears to be stronger than the evidence for the Medieval Warming Period. The IPCC defines this as a period of modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere by less than 1º C.19 It was certainly a period of bitterly cold winters in many parts of the world, and is most thoroughly attested in Europe and North America. It is documented that glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced during this period — even threatening villages. Rivers which are not known to freeze over in recent history did freeze over in this period—the Thames , the Delaware, the Ohio. In the winter of 1780, the New York Harbor froze so thick that people could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. And the sea ice surrounding Greenland closed that island nation's harbors to shipping.20
Scientists believe there were two causes for this cold period. In the middle of the Little Ice Age, from 1645-1715, there was a marked decrease in sun spot activity. This period is known as the Maunder Minimum. The exact link between sunspot activity and climate is not known, but scientists find it highly suggestive that the Maunder Minimum coincides with the coldest years of the Little Ice Age. The other causal factor was increased volcanism throughout the Little Ice Age. Volcanic ash dispersed throughout the atmosphere blocked incoming solar radiation. Sulfuric acid particles derived from sulfuric oxide gases discharged by volcanoes served to reflect more of the sun's rays, further reducing the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface.21
Abrupt Climate Change & Civilization
It seems that the climate conditions on this planet naturally undergo sudden shifts several times per thousand-year period. Clearly, anthropogenic changes like those responsible for global warming are likely to bring the next major shift closer. How will abrupt climate change affect our civilization? How has abrupt climate change affected past civilizations? The Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age took place in relatively recent times. During the Medieval Warming Period, the Vikings colonized Greenland and other areas of the far north, venturing so far as the Americas, where they came into contact with the Inuit peoples. When the climate reversed itself, plunging into the Little Ice Age, the Vikings abandoned their colonies in Greenland, and the population of Iceland fell by half. Famines were frequent and deaths from disease increased. The famine of 1315 claimed 1.5 million lives. The forests of Northern Europe were denuded as people chopped wood for heating. And the severe cold played a major role in spurring the European expansion into the New World and elsewhere.22
It is now thought that the Younger Dryas led the Natufian communities of southwest Asia to abandon their nomadic hunting and gathering and develop labor intensive agriculture. The cooling of the Younger Dryas caused harvests of wild resources to dwindle below the level necessary for subsistence. The Natufians abandoned their nomadic culture, and established permanent settlements in areas where they could cultivate previously wild cereals. The development of agriculture entails the permanently localized settlement that we call civilization (literally, the “culture of the city”). These early farming communities grew in population and socioeconomic complexity until they were hit by another abrupt climate shock around 6400 B.C. This was the last major climate event related to the melting of the continental ice sheets.23
In the Middle East, a 200-year drought is blamed for the abandonment of early agricultural settlements in the Levant and Mesopotamia. The return of a wetter climate in Mesopotamia led to the occupation and development of the Tigris-Euphrates river plain. The collapse of the Late Uruk urban society of southern Mesopotamia may be related to a severe drought which lasted less than 200 years. Such a drought is hinted at in the paleoclimatic record.24
The Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom civilization of Egypt, the Harappan 3B civilization of the Indus valley and the Early Bronze Age civilizations of Palestine, Greece and Crete were all abruptly terminated by 2200 B.C. due to catastrophic drought and cooling. Paleoclimatic evidence shows that rainfall was reduced by 30%, leading to failing agricultural production from the Aegean to the Indus.25
Abrupt climate change also correlates to societal collapses in the Americas. Prolonged drought and severe flooding coincide with the collapse of the Moche civilization in northern coastal Peru. Similarly, the collapse 400 years later of the Tiwanaku civilization of the Central Andes correlates with a period of prolonged drought. The collapse of the Classic Mayans in the 9 th century A.D. coincides with the most severe and lengthy drought of that millennium. And in North America, three decades of severe drought and colder temperatures spelled the downfall of the Anasazi culture in the 13th century.26
Modern civilization, with its technological ingenuity, may be more capable of withstanding an abrupt climate change event than were these ancient civilizations. However, if abrupt climate change happens at a time when modern civilization is already suffering from resource depletion — particularly the depletion of its hydrocarbon energy base — the effect of such a double impact upon our civilization could be very grave indeed. In the past, when abrupt climate change rendered one area uninhabitable, people could migrate to another area. In today's world, that is no longer possible.
Weakening of the North Atlantic Current
As this article was being written, NASA issued a bulletin reporting that satellite records reveal that North Atlantic circulation system weakened considerably in the 1990s from what it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Considering how essential this area is to the ocean conveyer — and consequently to the climate — this evidence of weakening is extremely important. This current, known as the sub polar gyre, is tied in with the NAO as well as the ocean conveyer.27
The pathways associated with the transformation of warm subtropical waters into colder subpolar and polar waters in the northern North Atlantic. Along the subpolar gyre pathway the red to yellow transition indicates the cooling to Labrador Sea Water, which flows back to the subtropical gyre in the west as an intermediate depth current (yellow). In the Norwegian and Greenland Seas the red to blue/purple transitions indicate the transformation to a variety of colder waters that spill southwards across the shallow ridge system connecting northern Europe, Iceland, Green-land, and northern North America. These overflows form up into a deep current also flowing back to the subtropics (purple), but beneath the Labrador Sea Water. The green pathway also indicates cold waters—but so influenced by continental runnoff as to remain light and near the sea surface on the continental shelf.
—Map and caption taken from NASA press release
Satellites record weakening North Atlantic Current
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0415gyre.html
Researchers believe the cause of this slowing is a reduction in the temperature differential between water from the Labrador Sea and waters from the Atlantic. Labrador Sea waters in the core of the gyre appear to have warmed during the 1990s, reducing the contrast with waters from warmer southern latitudes.28 This temperature differential is a major part of the driving force for ocean circulation.
Researchers point out that this is a signal of large climate variability in higher latitudes. Sirpa Hakkinen, lead author of the report and a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, has said, “If the trend continues, it could indicate reorganization of the ocean climate system, perhaps with changes in the whole climate system, but we need another good 5 to 10 years to say something like that is happening.”29
To be Continued…
The final installment of this series will look at the possibility of runaway global warming, and the implications of Peak Oil and the North American Natural Gas Cliff.
-------------------------------
1) Climate Change 2001, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
2) The Ocean's Role in Climate, Schmitt, W. Raymond. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 7/18/2000. http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_schmitt_testim
3) Ibid.
4) Ibid.
5) Chaos: making a new science, Gleick, James. Viking Press, 1987.
6) Op. Cit. See note 2.
7) Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried? Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Prepared for a panel on abrupt climate change at the World Economic Forum. 1/27/2003 . http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/hottopics_climatechange.html
8) Ibid.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid.
11) Op. Cit. See note 2.
12) Rapid freshening of the deep North Atlantic Ocean over the past four decades, Dickson, Bob, et al. Nature, vol. 416; April 25th, 2002.
13) Ibid.
14) Decreasing overflow from the Nordic Seas into the Atlantic Ocean through the Faroe Bank Channel since 1950, Hansen, B, et al. Nature, vol. 411; June 21st, 2001.
15) The Two-Mile Time Machine, Richard B. Alley. Princeton University Press, 2000 (reprint edition 2002).
16) Structure of the 8200-year cold event revealed by a speleothem trace element record, Baldini, J.U.L., McDermott, F., Fairchild, I.J. Science 296: 2203-2206; 2002.
17) Climate Change 2001. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
18) Was there a Medieval Warm Period? Hughes, M.K., & Diaz, H.F. Climatic Change, Vol. 26, p. 109-142, March 1994.
19) Op. Cit. See note 17.
20) The Little Ice Age: How Climate made History 1300-1850, Fagan, Brian. Basic Books, 2000.
21) Volcanic dust, sunspots, and temperature trends, Schneider, S. H., and C. Mass. Science, 190:741-746; 1975.
22) Op. Cit. See note 20.
23) What Drives Societal Collapse? Weiss, Harvey & Bradley, Raymond S. Science, 291: 609-610; 2001.
24) Ibid.
25) Ibid.
26) Ibid.
27) Satellites Record Weakening North Atlantic Current. NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center press release. April 15th, 2004. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0415gyre.html
28) Decline of Subpolar North Atlantic Circulation during the 1990s, Hakkinan, S. & Rhines, P. Science 2004 0: 10949171-0. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1094917
29) Op. Cit. See note 27.
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
May 5, 2004
[In part 1 of this article, we looked at the abrupt climate change scenario leaked from the Pentagon. We noted the authors' recommendation that the President should elevate abrupt climate change to a national security issue. And we observed that the Pentagon's next move was an effort to back off from the report's conclusions and ultimately bury the report. The Bush Administration has ignored the report entirely, aided by a powerful global-warming-denial lobby which promotes junk science produced by industry-sponsored research.
We then turned our attention to the amply published consensus of the world's scientific academies: that global climate change is taking place, and that it poses a threat to life on this planet and to human civilization in particular. Then we reviewed some of the hard evidence of industry-induced climate change as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their voluminous report, Climate Change 2001.1 Finally, we looked at some of the present costs of global climate change — in monetary terms, in environmental terms, and in terms of human life.
But the Pentagon report was more than a summary of the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, and increases in global average temperatures. It was an unprecedented acknowledgement of a much more direct threat to our place in the world: abrupt climate change. That will be the focus of this essay. We will look at the oceans' role in the climate, the ocean conveyer system, the history of abrupt climate change episodes, and the effect of these episodes upon previous civilizations. –DAP]
Abrupt Climate Change
Large bodies of water — particularly the oceans and seas — have a moderating effect upon the weather. As anyone living on an island or near the seashore is well aware, the summers in such an area tend to be cooler than farther inland, and the winters tend to be warmer. As a resident of the state of Michigan, I am well aware that an Alberta clipper which will freeze North Dakota and Minnesota down to -20º F, will be warmed sufficiently upon crossing over Lake Michigan so that this same weather system will only drop Michigan 's temperature down to 0º F. This is because bodies of water tend to have less seasonal variance in their temperature than does stone or soil, and they interact with overriding air masses to transfer heat from one to the other.
This process is much more complex in the oceans than in the Great Lakes. Ocean currents channel warm water from the equator and cold water from the polar regions, with considerable effect upon local weather. Warm waters flowing up from the South Pacific bring heat to the Pacific Northwest and the Alaska Panhandle through the winter, leading directly to the temperate rainforests which dominate the ecology of this area.
Meteorologists have traditionally ignored the oceans' role in meteorological processes. And this would seem to make sense on the face of it: if you are studying the weather it is natural to focus on the atmosphere, not the oceans. But we are coming to understand that the oceans are an equal partner with the atmosphere in producing the weather, and the dominant partner with regard to long-range weather patterns.
The oceans play an important role in heat storage and transport, and are vital to the transportation of heat from the equator to the poles. They are essential to the hydrological cycle as well. Covering 70% of the Earth's surface, the oceans have 1,100 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere. They contain 97% of the free water on the planet—90,000 times as much water as the atmosphere. And they receive 78% of global precipitation.2 Unfortunately, oceanic processes have not been studied nearly so well as atmospheric processes; even environmentally crucial properties such as salinity and heat transference at depth have been relatively neglected until recently. As we'll see, abrupt climate change has everything to do with “thermohaline” dynamics in the ocean depths; that term is a compound of two ancient Greek roots meaning “heat” and “salt.”
But a series of global ship-based observations in the 1990s revealed that the ocean has warmed at depth since similar observations were last made in the 1950s. It turns out that this heat difference corresponds to about half of the greenhouse warming that had been projected by models but had been missing from actual measurements of the atmosphere. Meteorological models had not accounted for the capacity of the oceans to store large quantities of heat on short timescales.3 This capacity has been accounted for in more recent models, with the result that they are now much more accurate in their reproduction of long term heating and cooling trends.
The oceans could accurately be called the long-term memory of the Earth's climate system. The atmosphere is as fickle as it is dynamic. It lacks the permanence to produce decadal patterns. The oceans, however, host a variety of long-term cycles which can and do affect the weather.
Everyone has heard of El Niño and La Niña. Caused by the movement of warm water in the tropical Pacific — particularly off the coast of equatorial South America — these periodic three to five year disruptions are fully monitored by a system of buoys, so that they can now be predicted up to a year in advance. Yet these two phenomena represent only a small fraction of the influence which periodic ocean cycles exert upon the temperature and rainfall over North America. The variability of winter weather is highly correlated to long-term ocean cycles known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO, in particular, has a much stronger influence over the weather of the Eastern United States than does El Niño. Yet both of these long-term cycles are poorly monitored.
Likewise, it is the oceans which regulate the hydrological cycle. A diversion of only 1% of the rainfall currently falling on the Atlantic would double the discharge of the Mississippi River.4 At the other end of the spectrum, an increase of rainfall over the oceans, particularly over key areas such as the Labrador Sea and the North Atlantic, could disrupt the thermohaline circulation of the oceans, with a drastic and immediate effect upon the climate of North America and Europe.
The climate is a dynamic and sensitive energy exchange system held in a self-regulating equilibrium. The interactions of water and air have always been difficult to predict because they're governed by the branch of physics called fluid dynamics, whose recent mathematical formalism is called chaos theory. It's a description of the way that chaotic systems tend to magnify the effects of initially small changes. Depending on the stability of the system, proliferating changes can be compensated for by mechanisms that reestablish equilibrium, or they can overwhelm the system. In the latter case, the result is either a permanent disequilibrium, or a new equilibrium markedly different from the old. Any attempt at large-scale weather manipulation without a reliable model would be like driving down a mountain road with the windows blackened out using a roadmap whose reliability decreases progressively the farther you venture from your point of departure.
The problem with modeling weather patterns is that there are simply too many variables. Many of these variables, such as the NAO and the PDO, are not well understood and are poorly monitored. Even if computer power continues to increase by an order of magnitude every 6 years, it would take over 160 years before models would have sufficient capacity to simulate the smallest ocean mixing processes.
So predictive climate modeling is constrained by two intractable problems: the limitations of our computational equipment, and the inherent uncertainty of the data we put into it. In a different discipline, small initial errors might be averaged out or otherwise corrected-for. But in a domain like the weather – where the behavior of turbulent fluids is influenced by myriad variables all mutually interacting – the smallest numerical error can become enormous as it propagates through the model. If I want to know my county's surface temperature, pressure, rainfall and wind-speed a week in advance, I had better be rigorously correct about the numbers I put into my computer at the beginning.
This sensitivity afflicts long-term climate change modeling as well as short-term weather prediction, albeit in different ways. The chief difference is in the enormous disparity between the atmosphere and the oceans as reservoirs of thermal energy. Dr. Raymond Schmitt of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute describes climate modeling:
An abundance of evidence indicates that the key to long-term prediction is in the workings of the ocean, which has 99.9% of the heat capacity of Earth's fluids. It is the heart of the climate ‘beast,' the atmosphere its rapidly waving tail, with only 0.1% of the heat capacity.6
Thermohaline Circulation — the Oceans' Heat Conveyer
Perhaps the most important role for the oceans in helping to regulate the climate is the absorption of heat from equatorial regions and the transportation of that heat into northern regions. This process helps to distribute heat more evenly around the globe, moderating the heat of equatorial regions as well as the cold of higher latitudes — particularly in the North Atlantic. These currents warm North Atlantic regions by an average of 5º Celsius, significantly tempering the winter season in North America and Europe.7
Taken from Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried? - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 1/27/2003
This global current could be said to originate in the seas which ring the North Atlantic —the Labrador, Irminger and Greenland Seas, where the oceans release large amounts of heat into the cold atmosphere. Evaporation, which has been occurring throughout the North Atlantic, is here increased to the point that these northern waters constitute the saltiest waters in the oceans. The concentration of salts results in a denser solution, as does the loss of heat. And this denser water sinks to the ocean abyss, where it begins a slow migration back down the Atlantic and eastward into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. There it wells up, having lost much of its salinity. Displaced by colder waters moving under it and heated by contact with warmer flows from above, the formerly deep water rises toward the surface and picks up additional heat along the return journey into the Atlantic.
Unfortunately, the ocean conveyer does have an Achilles heel. And this Achilles heel lies in the Northern Atlantic region where the deep limb of the ocean conveyer originates, drawing warm equatorial waters to replace it. If the cold, salty, dense waters of the North Atlantic somehow failed to sink, then the global circulation could slacken and halt. Currents would weaken and/or be redirected, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the whole biosphere.
Were this to happen, the North Atlantic region would cool by an average of 5º Celsius. This would mean that winters in Eastern North America would be twice as cold as the coldest winter on record in the past century, and Europe would be even colder.8 The summer growing season in these areas would be shortened, and summer crops might fail altogether. Previous conveyer shutdowns have been linked to widespread droughts throughout the world, and the disruption of the Asian monsoons.9
The resultant mini-ice age in North America and Northern Europe — and droughts elsewhere in the world — could continue for decades or even centuries, until conditions change sufficiently for thermohaline circulation to resume. Further, this localized mini-ice age might occur even as the Earth, on average, continues to warm.10 As a result, once thermohaline circulation resumed, the Northern Atlantic region could be thrown from one extreme to the other — from an ice age to a hot house.
All that is necessary for this scenario to occur is an influx of fresh water into the surface of the North Atlantic . This buoyant, fresh water would virtually seal off and insulate the denser, saltier waters, preventing them from venting heat and moisture into the atmosphere. The fresh waters would also dilute the salinity of the North Atlantic, further reducing the density of these waters. The force driving the deep limb of the ocean conveyer would quickly weaken and halt. And the cessation of thermohaline circulation would quickly impact the world's climates.
This scenario could take place in a decade or less from the time that fresh water influx in the Northern Atlantic reaches a critical threshold. Unfortunately, though scientists are certain that such a threshold exists, not enough research has been done thus far to determine where this threshold is. Oceanographers have complained that we do not have a system in place to monitor slowly developing ocean circulation changes. While we have thousands of meteorological stations recording temperature on land and in the atmosphere, we have only three sites with anything like a continuous deep record of the North Atlantic. And these sites only make observations once per month.11 Satellites can monitor ocean circulation globally, but only at the surface. For measurements at depth, we need a network of buoys and current-monitoring vessels.
Oceanographers reporting in Nature, in 2002, concluded that a dramatic influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic has taken place continuously within the past forty years, and has accelerated within the last decade.12 This is the largest and most dramatic change in the oceans in the era of modern instruments. So far, the influx has been dispersed throughout the water column. But it is noticeably diluting salinity.13 And, at some point, the continuing influx may begin to pile up at the surface of the North Atlantic. An earlier report in Nature observed that the flow of cold, dense water from the Greenland and Norwegian Seas has slowed by 20% since 1950.14 This indicates that a slowdown of the ocean conveyer may already be occurring. An observation system must be put into place before we can better assess the impact of these developments on thermohaline circulation, and the rate at which the ocean conveyer may be disrupted.
Taken from Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried? - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 1/27/2003
A History of Abrupt Climate Change
Until very recently, scientists believed that major climate change could only occur gradually, over long periods of time. The study of ice cores drilled in Greenland, Antarctica and in alpine glaciers around the world has changed that thinking. These ice cores hold a wealth of information. Aside from a record of annual snowfall, the ice cores hold spores and pollens, and volcanic ash. Also found in tiny inclusions in the glacial ice are trapped remnants of the atmosphere from thousands of years past. These gas inclusions can be analyzed to give an accurate measure of the chemical makeup of the Earth's atmosphere over the course of centuries. It is the study of carbon dioxide levels, as recorded in the air bubbles of these ice cores, which has established the ineluctable proof of industry-induced global climate change.
Thanks to these ice cores, we now have a detailed history of the Earth's climate stretching back nearly twenty thousand years. Reading the ice cores is somewhat similar to reading the growth rings on a tree, but complicated because the yearly layers of ice have been contorted and folded by pressure and ice flow. However, with the help of some applied physics and structural geology, the layers can be unfolded and the record can be read accurately. This endeavor has already yielded remarkable scientific results, including the discovery that abrupt climate change has already occurred in previous eras. In the last fifteen thousand years, there have been several periods of abrupt climate change of varying severity and duration. Let's review four of these abrupt climate change episodes.
Taken from The Two-Mile Time Machine, Richard B. Alley. Princeton University Press, 2000 (reprint edition 2002)
The Younger Dryas— Named for a small subarctic flowering plant which extended its range far southward into North America and Eurasia during this period. The Younger Dryas began about 12,700 years ago when average temperatures in the North Atlantic region plummeted by about 5º C. This abrupt change took place within a decade, and is believed to have been caused by a shutdown of the ocean conveyer due to a sudden influx of fresh water from the deglaciation of North America. The climate remained colder by about 5º C for the next 1,300 years, before another abrupt change caused temperatures to rise by about 7º C in less than a decade.15
Study of the Younger Dryas in particular has led scientists to conclude that there are preferred states of balance in the atmosphere. Should one state be tipped sufficiently out of balance, the atmosphere will cross some critical but unknown threshold and will then transition quickly to another state of balance. This thinking has revolutionized our view of climate change, and holds important implications for industry-induced climate change.
The 8,200-Year Event— This event was not as severe as the Younger Dryas, and lasted only a century. Temperatures in the North Atlantic region dropped by an average of 3º C. This episode seems to be associated with widespread dry conditions. There are two possible explanations for the 8,200-Year Event. The most widely accepted explanation is a disturbance in thermohaline circulation due to freshwater input associated with the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet. Other studies have indicated that a fresh water influx from large proglacial lakes could have produced the 8,200-Year Event, and would even account for a brief warming episode within the event.16
The Medieval Warming Period— This is considered to be a period of abrupt warming which began approximately 1,000 years ago, and then ended abruptly 700 years ago with the beginning of the Little Ice Age. This event was very mild compared to earlier events, and there is much contradictory evidence from this period. Evidence appears to support warming at the beginning of the 20th century in Scandinavia, Greenland, China , the Sierra Nevadas, the Canadian Rockies and Tasmania . However, evidence from the Eastern United States, Mediterranean Europe, and South America show no change in climate. Ice core data from Greenland supports the theory of a warming trend, but needs to be correlated with ice core data from other areas of the globe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that temperatures from the 11th century to the 14th century were only about 0.2º C warmer than temperatures from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and were below average temperatures in the 20th century.17 Though the specific changes in regional temperatures remain difficult to specify, the data clearly indicate that during the past millennium the Earth's climate has varied on a decadal scale.18
The Little Ice Age— This event brought an abrupt end to the Medieval Warming Period. It extended from the 1300s to the mid 1800s. The Little Ice Age was once thought to be a global phenomenon, but now that assumption is less certain. Evidence for the Little Ice Age appears to be stronger than the evidence for the Medieval Warming Period. The IPCC defines this as a period of modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere by less than 1º C.19 It was certainly a period of bitterly cold winters in many parts of the world, and is most thoroughly attested in Europe and North America. It is documented that glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced during this period — even threatening villages. Rivers which are not known to freeze over in recent history did freeze over in this period—the Thames , the Delaware, the Ohio. In the winter of 1780, the New York Harbor froze so thick that people could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. And the sea ice surrounding Greenland closed that island nation's harbors to shipping.20
Scientists believe there were two causes for this cold period. In the middle of the Little Ice Age, from 1645-1715, there was a marked decrease in sun spot activity. This period is known as the Maunder Minimum. The exact link between sunspot activity and climate is not known, but scientists find it highly suggestive that the Maunder Minimum coincides with the coldest years of the Little Ice Age. The other causal factor was increased volcanism throughout the Little Ice Age. Volcanic ash dispersed throughout the atmosphere blocked incoming solar radiation. Sulfuric acid particles derived from sulfuric oxide gases discharged by volcanoes served to reflect more of the sun's rays, further reducing the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface.21
Abrupt Climate Change & Civilization
It seems that the climate conditions on this planet naturally undergo sudden shifts several times per thousand-year period. Clearly, anthropogenic changes like those responsible for global warming are likely to bring the next major shift closer. How will abrupt climate change affect our civilization? How has abrupt climate change affected past civilizations? The Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age took place in relatively recent times. During the Medieval Warming Period, the Vikings colonized Greenland and other areas of the far north, venturing so far as the Americas, where they came into contact with the Inuit peoples. When the climate reversed itself, plunging into the Little Ice Age, the Vikings abandoned their colonies in Greenland, and the population of Iceland fell by half. Famines were frequent and deaths from disease increased. The famine of 1315 claimed 1.5 million lives. The forests of Northern Europe were denuded as people chopped wood for heating. And the severe cold played a major role in spurring the European expansion into the New World and elsewhere.22
It is now thought that the Younger Dryas led the Natufian communities of southwest Asia to abandon their nomadic hunting and gathering and develop labor intensive agriculture. The cooling of the Younger Dryas caused harvests of wild resources to dwindle below the level necessary for subsistence. The Natufians abandoned their nomadic culture, and established permanent settlements in areas where they could cultivate previously wild cereals. The development of agriculture entails the permanently localized settlement that we call civilization (literally, the “culture of the city”). These early farming communities grew in population and socioeconomic complexity until they were hit by another abrupt climate shock around 6400 B.C. This was the last major climate event related to the melting of the continental ice sheets.23
In the Middle East, a 200-year drought is blamed for the abandonment of early agricultural settlements in the Levant and Mesopotamia. The return of a wetter climate in Mesopotamia led to the occupation and development of the Tigris-Euphrates river plain. The collapse of the Late Uruk urban society of southern Mesopotamia may be related to a severe drought which lasted less than 200 years. Such a drought is hinted at in the paleoclimatic record.24
The Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, the Old Kingdom civilization of Egypt, the Harappan 3B civilization of the Indus valley and the Early Bronze Age civilizations of Palestine, Greece and Crete were all abruptly terminated by 2200 B.C. due to catastrophic drought and cooling. Paleoclimatic evidence shows that rainfall was reduced by 30%, leading to failing agricultural production from the Aegean to the Indus.25
Abrupt climate change also correlates to societal collapses in the Americas. Prolonged drought and severe flooding coincide with the collapse of the Moche civilization in northern coastal Peru. Similarly, the collapse 400 years later of the Tiwanaku civilization of the Central Andes correlates with a period of prolonged drought. The collapse of the Classic Mayans in the 9 th century A.D. coincides with the most severe and lengthy drought of that millennium. And in North America, three decades of severe drought and colder temperatures spelled the downfall of the Anasazi culture in the 13th century.26
Modern civilization, with its technological ingenuity, may be more capable of withstanding an abrupt climate change event than were these ancient civilizations. However, if abrupt climate change happens at a time when modern civilization is already suffering from resource depletion — particularly the depletion of its hydrocarbon energy base — the effect of such a double impact upon our civilization could be very grave indeed. In the past, when abrupt climate change rendered one area uninhabitable, people could migrate to another area. In today's world, that is no longer possible.
Weakening of the North Atlantic Current
As this article was being written, NASA issued a bulletin reporting that satellite records reveal that North Atlantic circulation system weakened considerably in the 1990s from what it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Considering how essential this area is to the ocean conveyer — and consequently to the climate — this evidence of weakening is extremely important. This current, known as the sub polar gyre, is tied in with the NAO as well as the ocean conveyer.27
The pathways associated with the transformation of warm subtropical waters into colder subpolar and polar waters in the northern North Atlantic. Along the subpolar gyre pathway the red to yellow transition indicates the cooling to Labrador Sea Water, which flows back to the subtropical gyre in the west as an intermediate depth current (yellow). In the Norwegian and Greenland Seas the red to blue/purple transitions indicate the transformation to a variety of colder waters that spill southwards across the shallow ridge system connecting northern Europe, Iceland, Green-land, and northern North America. These overflows form up into a deep current also flowing back to the subtropics (purple), but beneath the Labrador Sea Water. The green pathway also indicates cold waters—but so influenced by continental runnoff as to remain light and near the sea surface on the continental shelf.
—Map and caption taken from NASA press release
Satellites record weakening North Atlantic Current
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0415gyre.html
Researchers believe the cause of this slowing is a reduction in the temperature differential between water from the Labrador Sea and waters from the Atlantic. Labrador Sea waters in the core of the gyre appear to have warmed during the 1990s, reducing the contrast with waters from warmer southern latitudes.28 This temperature differential is a major part of the driving force for ocean circulation.
Researchers point out that this is a signal of large climate variability in higher latitudes. Sirpa Hakkinen, lead author of the report and a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, has said, “If the trend continues, it could indicate reorganization of the ocean climate system, perhaps with changes in the whole climate system, but we need another good 5 to 10 years to say something like that is happening.”29
To be Continued…
The final installment of this series will look at the possibility of runaway global warming, and the implications of Peak Oil and the North American Natural Gas Cliff.
-------------------------------
1) Climate Change 2001, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
2) The Ocean's Role in Climate, Schmitt, W. Raymond. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 7/18/2000. http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_schmitt_testim
3) Ibid.
4) Ibid.
5) Chaos: making a new science, Gleick, James. Viking Press, 1987.
6) Op. Cit. See note 2.
7) Abrupt Climate Change; should we be worried? Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Prepared for a panel on abrupt climate change at the World Economic Forum. 1/27/2003 . http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/hottopics_climatechange.html
8) Ibid.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid.
11) Op. Cit. See note 2.
12) Rapid freshening of the deep North Atlantic Ocean over the past four decades, Dickson, Bob, et al. Nature, vol. 416; April 25th, 2002.
13) Ibid.
14) Decreasing overflow from the Nordic Seas into the Atlantic Ocean through the Faroe Bank Channel since 1950, Hansen, B, et al. Nature, vol. 411; June 21st, 2001.
15) The Two-Mile Time Machine, Richard B. Alley. Princeton University Press, 2000 (reprint edition 2002).
16) Structure of the 8200-year cold event revealed by a speleothem trace element record, Baldini, J.U.L., McDermott, F., Fairchild, I.J. Science 296: 2203-2206; 2002.
17) Climate Change 2001. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2001. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/
18) Was there a Medieval Warm Period? Hughes, M.K., & Diaz, H.F. Climatic Change, Vol. 26, p. 109-142, March 1994.
19) Op. Cit. See note 17.
20) The Little Ice Age: How Climate made History 1300-1850, Fagan, Brian. Basic Books, 2000.
21) Volcanic dust, sunspots, and temperature trends, Schneider, S. H., and C. Mass. Science, 190:741-746; 1975.
22) Op. Cit. See note 20.
23) What Drives Societal Collapse? Weiss, Harvey & Bradley, Raymond S. Science, 291: 609-610; 2001.
24) Ibid.
25) Ibid.
26) Ibid.
27) Satellites Record Weakening North Atlantic Current. NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center press release. April 15th, 2004. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/0415gyre.html
28) Decline of Subpolar North Atlantic Circulation during the 1990s, Hakkinan, S. & Rhines, P. Science 2004 0: 10949171-0. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1094917
29) Op. Cit. See note 27.
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
Insurer warns of global warming catastrophe
Source: Reuters
By Thomas Atkins
March 3, 2004 10:30 AM
GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's second-largest reinsurer Swiss Re warns that the costs of global warming threaten to spiral out of control, forcing the human race into a catastrophe of its own making.
In a report revealing how climate change is rising on the corporate agenda, Swiss Re said the economic costs of global warming threatened to double to $150 billion (81 billion pounds) a year in 10 years, hitting insurers with $30-40 billion in claims, or the equivalent of one World Trade Centre attack annually.
"There is a danger that human intervention will accelerate and intensify natural climate changes to such a point that it will become impossible to adapt our socio-economic systems in time," Swiss Re said in the report.
"The human race can lead itself into this climatic catastrophe -- or it can avert it."
The report comes as a growing number of policy experts warn that the environment is emerging as the security threat of the 21st century, eclipsing terrorism.
Scientists expect global warming to trigger increasingly frequent and violent storms, heat waves, flooding, tornadoes, and cyclones while other areas slip into cold or drought.
"Sea levels will continue to rise, glaciers retreat and snow cover decline," the insurer wrote.
EXPONENTIAL RISE
Losses to insurers from environmental events have risen exponentially over the past 30 years, and are expected to rise even more rapidly still, said Swiss Re climate expert Pamela Heck.
"Scientists tell us that certain extreme events are going to increase in intensity and frequency in the future," Heck told Reuters by telephone. "Climate change is very much in the mind of the insurance industry."
Over the past century, the average global temperature has increased by 0.6 degrees Centigrade, the largest rise for the northern hemisphere in the past 1,000 years, Swiss Re said.
In the short- and medium-term, simply knowing that the planet is warming will allow society to adapt, for example, through infrastructure to cope with more-frequent floods or by instructing farmers to use drought-resistent cereals.
In other cases, governments need to restrict risk-taking, such as approving housing developments in low-lying areas, and improve catastrophe management capabilities.
In the long term, Swiss Re said, greenhouse gases widely thought to trigger global warming will need to be reduced, the use of fossil fuels cut and new energy technologies developed.
By Thomas Atkins
March 3, 2004 10:30 AM
GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's second-largest reinsurer Swiss Re warns that the costs of global warming threaten to spiral out of control, forcing the human race into a catastrophe of its own making.
In a report revealing how climate change is rising on the corporate agenda, Swiss Re said the economic costs of global warming threatened to double to $150 billion (81 billion pounds) a year in 10 years, hitting insurers with $30-40 billion in claims, or the equivalent of one World Trade Centre attack annually.
"There is a danger that human intervention will accelerate and intensify natural climate changes to such a point that it will become impossible to adapt our socio-economic systems in time," Swiss Re said in the report.
"The human race can lead itself into this climatic catastrophe -- or it can avert it."
The report comes as a growing number of policy experts warn that the environment is emerging as the security threat of the 21st century, eclipsing terrorism.
Scientists expect global warming to trigger increasingly frequent and violent storms, heat waves, flooding, tornadoes, and cyclones while other areas slip into cold or drought.
"Sea levels will continue to rise, glaciers retreat and snow cover decline," the insurer wrote.
EXPONENTIAL RISE
Losses to insurers from environmental events have risen exponentially over the past 30 years, and are expected to rise even more rapidly still, said Swiss Re climate expert Pamela Heck.
"Scientists tell us that certain extreme events are going to increase in intensity and frequency in the future," Heck told Reuters by telephone. "Climate change is very much in the mind of the insurance industry."
Over the past century, the average global temperature has increased by 0.6 degrees Centigrade, the largest rise for the northern hemisphere in the past 1,000 years, Swiss Re said.
In the short- and medium-term, simply knowing that the planet is warming will allow society to adapt, for example, through infrastructure to cope with more-frequent floods or by instructing farmers to use drought-resistent cereals.
In other cases, governments need to restrict risk-taking, such as approving housing developments in low-lying areas, and improve catastrophe management capabilities.
In the long term, Swiss Re said, greenhouse gases widely thought to trigger global warming will need to be reduced, the use of fossil fuels cut and new energy technologies developed.
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
by Mark Townsend and Paul Harris, New York
theguardian
· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
theguardian
· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.
An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.
Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.
A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.
One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.
Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.
Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'
Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.
'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.
'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.
Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.
Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'
Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.
'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'
So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.
The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.
Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'
Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.
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