Author: Gareth

Christchurch’s coastal cock up: review panel padded with climate deniers

IssacCordalBerlinThe long running saga of the Christchurch city council’s attempt to introduce new planning guidelines for suburbs threatened by flooding and sea level rise has reached a new level of absurdity. A five person panel appointed to conduct a second peer review of a key report on coastal hazards includes two high-profile climate deniers with strong links to extreme right wing climate propaganda groups. From Friday’s Press:

The list of experts approved by the council included New South Wales University coastal engineer Dr Ron Cox, Canterbury University coastal studies senior lecturer Dr Deirdre Hart, Waikato University earth sciences senior lecturer Dr Willem de Lange, retired Environment Court judge Shonagh Kenderdine and statistician Dr Keston (sic) Green, of South Australia University business school.

Cox, Hart and Kenderdine are all highly respected experts in the field. However, Kesten Green and Willem de Lange both have long histories of working with and for groups seeking to delay action on climate change. It appears they have been added to the panel as a sop to deniers amongst the coastal residents campaigning against the council’s proposals. Continue reading “Christchurch’s coastal cock up: review panel padded with climate deniers”

It’s grim up North (yet again)

The Arctic has had a warm winter and spring, and the heat is taking a toll on the sea ice…

I find to my great shame that it’s three years since I last wrote much about the continuing and calamitous decline in Arctic sea ice. Back in the day, you could scarcely contain my enthusiasm for prognostications about the disappearance of the summer ice. But with the fantastic resource that is Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice blog covering the minutiae of every season, coverage from the other side of the world seems a little superfluous. On the other hand, the recent news is especially troubling… Continue reading “It’s grim up North (yet again)”

Coming soon: RSNZ reports on NZ climate impacts and mitigation options

Expert panels to deliver up-to-date overview of climate risks and mitigation options

Last year the Royal Society of NZ set up two panels to look at what our current understanding of climate change means for New Zealand, and the findings are due to be published over the next two weeks. The first report, Climate Change Implications for New Zealand, will be released on Tuesday, April 19th. It was put together by a team led by VUW’s Prof Jim Renwick, with a brief to:

“prepare a succinct summary of existing New Zealand information around the risks associated with recent and projected trends in greenhouse gas emissions, and the likely consequences for New Zealand in future decades and centuries.”

The second report, Climate Change Mitigation Options for New Zealand, was prepared by a panel led by Prof Ralph Sims, and will be published on April 27th.

The Implications report will be launched at the RSNZ in Wellington at 11 am on Tuesday (free admission, register here), and the Mitigation report will be launched at the same venue in Wellington on the 27th (register here), and in Auckland on the 29th (register here). The RSNZ has also arranged a series of talks by international experts Prof Jean Palutikof (Co-chair of IPCC 5th Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability) and Prof Jim Skea, co-Chair of IPCC Working Group 3, on to accompany the reports. Details here.

I’ll have more on what the reports have to say after their release, but they promise to provide a very useful overview of what we’re confronting, and how we might move forward to address the problem. At the very least they should offer a concise framework for policy-makers and politicians to work with.

Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: Hansen on his magnum opus

Why ice sheets may melt faster than expected, and what that could mean for our near future

In this video Jim Hansen provides a “video abstract” of his latest — and longest — paper, Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming could be dangerous, published this week after a lengthy period in review. He, and his stellar list of co-authors, have also provided an “abbrievated” version of the paper, which I strongly recommend you read.

My abstract is a bit shorter: fresh water from melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica is beginning to change the way that heat moves around in the global ocean, setting up feedbacks that will melt the ice faster. This in turn will lead to much more rapid sea level rise than suggested in the recent IPCC report, and much bigger temperature contrasts between warm and cold oceans in the North Atlantic and around West Antarctica — which will drive the mid-latitude superstorms of the paper’s title.

Not a pretty prospect. And if you think it’s unlikely, consider this. There are already “cold blobs” in the North Atlantic and off West Antarctica, Atlantic storms are becoming much more vigorous , and there are hints of an acceleration in the rate of sea level rise.

Hansen has been right before. I hope, for all our sakes, that this time he’s not.

February’s global temperature spike is a wake-up call

This is the largest warm anomaly of any month since records began in 1880.

This article, by Steve Sherwood, of UNSW Australia and Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, currently working in Australia, first appeared at The Conversation.

Global temperatures for February showed a disturbing and unprecedented upward spike. It was 1.35℃ warmer than the average February during the usual baseline period of 1951-1980, according to NASA data.

This is the largest warm anomaly of any month since records began in 1880. It far exceeds the records set in 2014 and again in 2015 (the first year when the 1℃ mark was breached).

In the same month, Arctic sea ice cover reached its lowest February value ever recorded. And last year carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere increased by more than 3 parts per million, another record.

What is going on? Are we facing a climate emergency?
Continue reading “February’s global temperature spike is a wake-up call”