The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has just published a new report on climate change in the Arctic — Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications [PDF], and it’s a fascinating read. Over the last two years I’ve blogged regularly on the changes being seen in the Arctic — sea ice reductions, melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the danger of increased carbon release from permafrost and sea floor methane hydrates, and the possible impacts on northern hemisphere weather patterns and climate. WWF’s report — written by some of the leading names in the field (including Serreze, Stroeve, Cazenave, Rignot, Canadell, and for the methane hydrate chapter Shakhova and Semiletov) — pulls together all those strands to paint a picture of a region undergoing rapid change. The authors provide a fully-referenced review of our current understanding of the processes at work as the pole warms, with chapters covering atmospheric circulation feedbacks, ocean circulation changes, ice sheets and sea level, marine and land carbon cycle feedbacks, and sea floor methane hydrates. It’s compelling stuff, and well worth reading in full, but for this post I want to focus on the excellent overview of methane hydrate feedbacks provided by Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.
Category: Climate science
Celsias NZ up and running
Celsias is a world famous (and not just in NZ) web site with Kiwi roots. They’ve finally got a New Zealand site up and running, and so I asked editor Chris Tobias to tell us what they’re up to:
Celsias.co.nz has launched in New Zealand. The goal of the site is to help kiwis working in the “sustainability space” to come together, share knowledge, build community, and take action. Whether your passion is organics, climate change, green buildings, or healthy lifestyles, find more cool switched on people on Celsias.
An open letter to John Boscawen and his party
Dear John, four months ago, when you were sitting in for Rodney on an ETS Review committee hearing, you wondered why the evidence I gave in my submission was so different to the submitters who preceded me at that session. You asked me if I would, as a personal favour, examine their evidence and explain why they were wrong. The chairman, Peter Dunne, made your request a formal one, and I happily agreed. I submitted my comment on the McCabe Environmental Consultants evidence on April 22, and I slept easy in the knowledge that I had met your request. You see, I think it’s important that those who seek to guide the ship of state are well-informed, and I was glad of the chance to cast a little light into the dark corners of your understanding of climate science.
But you didn’t read my evidence, did you John?
Continue reading “An open letter to John Boscawen and his party”
Nepal: warming in the high Himalaya
Oxfam climate change reports keep coming. This time it’s Nepal, a country about which New Zealanders who share Edmund Hillary’s values will care. Oxfam spoke to people in fourteen rural communities across three ecological zones in that country. What those people had to say is remarkably consistent with the current climate change projections. But it’s not because they know what those projections are. These are mainly poor people, often not well educated, and unlikely to be aware of the IPCC reports. Here are a few of the statements:
“There has been no rain this winter, and the monsoon doesn’t arrive on time any more. Four or five years ago we grew enough rice and wheat to eat for five months, now it is not enough for one month. Before we had lots of green vegetables, fruits and sugarcane, but now we can grow very little, only where there is water close by.â€
A solemn warning on coral reefs
Australian scientist and coral reef expert John Veron reckons there’s a “great big gorilla in the cupboard†— advancing ocean acidification. It cleans out reefs, leaving them “horrible places – dead, empty, slime-covered.†He paints this grim picture in a lecture given to the Royal Society in London last month. It’s available on line and I have just watched it – twice. His seriousness and the weight of his concern are deeply impressive. Veron warned that his talk would not be a happy one. Usually his talks on coral are fun. This one wouldn’t be, but “I’ve never given a more important talk in my life.†It was highly focused and informative, accompanied throughout by a range of illuminating pictures and graphs. I watched it carefully, anxious to fully understand its import, and have pulled out a rough summary of some of his major points.  Â