Month: August 2012

NZ ETS, you are the weakest (international) link

Simon Johnson (Mr February) argues that the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZETS) is “the weakest link” due to its high exposure to the international carbon market. The strong “international linkage” is the other side of the coin of the uncapped design of the NZETS. Both features reinforce just how ineffective the NZETS is in providing an incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Who remembers the The Weakest Link? The quiz show with Anne Robinson the disciplinarian female host with the popular catchphrase “You are the weakest link. Goodbye!” Yes that’s today’s bonkers metaphor for another post on the NZETS. In addition to the observation that I would love to say “Goodbye!” to the ETS, there really is a relevant connection to the economics literature.

“Linking” of emissions trading schemes means that units from one ETS can be imported and surrendered by emitters regulated by a different ETS. There are papers and blog posts about international linkage. The key economic benefit claimed for linking two or more ETS, assuming that they are otherwise sensibly designed, is that the lowest-cost ways of reducing emissions within the linked schemes become available (via emissions trading) to the emitters of the linked schemes.

Continue reading “NZ ETS, you are the weakest (international) link”

Pump up the volume (before the ice is gone)

Early results from the European Space Agency’s Cryosat-2 satellite, launched in 2010, suggest that the Arctic sea ice volume in summer is currently being lost at the rate of 900 cubic kilometres per year, Robin McKie reports in The Guardian. By combining Cryosat data with other sources they have concluded that there has been a dramatic reduction in sea ice volume over the last eight years:

In winter 2004, the volume of sea ice in the central Arctic was approximately 17,000 cubic kilometres. This winter it was 14,000, according to CryoSat.

However, the summer figures provide the real shock. In 2004 there was about 13,000 cubic kilometres of sea ice in the Arctic. In 2012, there is 7,000 cubic kilometres, almost half the figure eight years ago. If the current annual loss of around 900 cubic kilometres continues, summer ice coverage could disappear in about a decade in the Arctic.

Ten years (or less) ’til its gone in summer. I hate to say I told you so, but…

Continue reading “Pump up the volume (before the ice is gone)”

Arctic sea ice forecast: it’s going to be tough to stay cool

Bad news from the Arctic is piling up as we head into the last few weeks of the melting season. The various measures of sea ice area, volume and extent are plummeting towards a new record minimum. I have therefore reviewed the history of Arctic sea ice melting seasons since 2007, and compiled my own forecast of how the rest of the year is going to pan out. Remember, you read it here first…

When Arctic sea ice area sets a new record low in the next couple of weeks, the usual suspects ((Being Watts, Goddard, Bastardi, Jo Nova, Delingpole, the GWPF, Morano and their NZ poodle, Richard Treadgold.)) will say: “You can’t trust area, sea ice extent is the only valid metric“.

When Arctic sea ice extent sets a new record low in September, the following arguments will be run in parallel:

  • There will be a frantic search for a definition of extent in which a new record was not set
  • There will be a complaint that the satellite record has been blighted by the failure of a sensor and the calibrations needed to get a new sensor in operation have corrupted the record ((With added bonus insinuations of fixing and fraud by “warmist” scientists.))
  • It will be claimed that it was all caused by the major Arctic storm that hit in August, and thus can’t be attributed to global warming ((In 2007, the record low was all down to winds, remember?))
  • It’s cyclical — it’s all happened before, in the 1930s ((Or pick a date (any date), based on an old press clipping reporting anecdotal evidence of ice loss.)), and is therefore nothing unusual
  • That it’s irrelevant, because it’s not global and not happening where anyone lives so can’t possibly matter.

When the sea ice extent and area anomalies blow out to record levels in early October because of the delayed freeze-up, there will be silence.

When the re-freeze starts, and the Arctic basin is covered in ice once more (early December), Anthony Watts will report on the record rate of ice formation, calling it a “stunning recovery“.

When a cold spell hits the Eastern US and/or Western Europe in December/January, caused by a major Arctic Oscillation excursion and the resulting big slow-moving loops in the polar jetstream ((A result of massive heat loss from the Arctic Ocean during the refreeze, see the work of Jennifer Francis, reported earlier.)), the usual suspects will cackle loudly that global warming has suffered another mortal blow from which it will never recover.

Long range forecast for the next five years, until the Arctic Ocean is ice free in summer? Rinse and repeat.

Cold Cash, Cool Climate

I’m no entrepreneur, but I enjoyed reading energy scientist Jonathan Koomey’s book Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs. It’s comforting to be reminded that not everything in the mitigation of climate change depends on governments, that there is a lively creativity abroad in the entrepreneurial world which can take up the challenge without waiting on the interminable processes of governmental negotiation or the rigidities of big business.

Koomey makes much of this. He records that in his experience it is those who carry the entrepreneurial spirit who are most comfortable with rapid change and least tolerant of fossilised thinking.  “Their whole purpose in life is to intensify and encourage what the economist Joseph Schumpeter called ‘creative destruction’, and they are famously scornful of the phrase ‘it can’t be done’.” 

Continue reading “Cold Cash, Cool Climate”

Greenland’s extraordinary summer #2: still melting

Petermann20120806

Greenland’s extraordinary summer is far from over. The ice island that broke off the Petermann glacier tongue last month — now dubbed PII-2012 — is edging its way out into the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Island, as this satellite image, snipped from NASA’s fabulous daily Arctic Mosaic shows. For updates on events in Nares Strait, check out Dr Andreas Muenchow’s Icy Seas blog — he’s up there at the moment. Elsewhere on the great ice sheet, melting continues apace. Jason Box reports that ice sheet albedo has dipped again into record levels for the time of year, and there are reports of further extensive surface melting at the end of July. Box also reports that a recent update of the Greenland temperature record shows that current temperatures are unprecedented in at least the last 172 years. There’s also excellent coverage of the summer at Greenland melting.

Meanwhile, and rather unsurprisingly, New Zealand’s little band of climate deniers are insisting that there’s nothing special going on up North. And, equally unsurprisingly, they’re totally wrong.

Continue reading “Greenland’s extraordinary summer #2: still melting”