Category: Climate science

Going renewable doable by 2050, new analysis suggests

A new study published in Energy Strategy Reviews this month affirms that sourcing 95 percent of our energy from sustainable sources by 2050 is possible, using already available technologies. The authors are from the Dutch renewable energy consultancy Ecofys. Their paper includes technical detail, but the general salient points are well identified and clear to the non-expert reader. Familiar themes are sounded and buttressed with careful and sensible analysis.

Efficiency and electrification are two key requisites on the way to the 2050 goal.  The scenario proposed by the study envisages a slightly lower power demand in 2050 than in 2000, even allowing for established forecasts of population growth and GDP growth. It surveys demand under three sectors – industry, buildings and transport – indicating in each case the prospects of much lower demand from the application of efficiency measures as compared with current business as usual (BAU) practices. The electrification which plays an important part in lowered demand occurs primarily in the buildings and transport sectors.

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Ice bottom blues

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According to the latest bulletin from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the US, Arctic sea ice is likely to be at or about its minimum extent for the summer (as of Sept 17th). The animation above shows how the ice melt proceeded through the summer (up to Sept 14th), and the graph below shows the extent as of Sept 17th — 3.41 million square kilometres (1.32 million square miles).

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The NSIDC notes:

The current extent is 760,000 square kilometres (293,000 square miles) below the previous record minimum extent in the satellite record (4.17 million square kilometres or 1.61 million square miles) which occurred on September 18, 2007. This difference is larger than the size of the state of Texas. The ice extent currently tracks nearly 50% below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum extent.

For an insight into what the ice is really like, I recommend Julienne Stroeve’s blog of her trip on the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise. This is from her most recent entry (Sept 17th):

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Arctic code red: uncharted territory

Nearly four years ago I reviewed Climate Code Red by Australians David Spratt and Philip Sutton. Even then the authors spoke of the recently released 2007 IPCC report as too conservative in its predictions. Here’s how I described their position:

The authors lament the limitations of the IPCC system, ascribing them partly to pressure from vested interests harboured by some countries, partly to the long process of gathering the information from published material and the early cut-off date for reports, and partly to scientists being uncomfortable with estimates based on known but presently unquantified mechanisms.  It adds up to a process so deficient as to be an unreliable and even misleading basis for policy-making.

They instanced particularly the diminishing Arctic sea ice and its amplifying consequences, the possibility of faster disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet, the vulnerability of the West Antarctic ice sheet and the likelihood of much higher sea rise than anticipated, as well as widespread species and eco-system destruction.

That was four years ago. In a recent striking article David Spratt reacts to the increased loss of Arctic summer sea ice by re-emphasising and extending the message that the science frame has changed considerably since the 2007 IPCC report. Climate changes and impacts are happening more quickly and at lower temperatures than expected, and he details some of them. He quotes Kim Holmen, Norwegian Polar Institute international director, saying that the big sea-ice melt of 2012 is “a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago”. It “has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us”.

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The Climate Show #28: transglobal overground (with added ice)

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The boys are back, and they can’t stop talking. Glenn’s got his studio set up in London, Gareth’s Waipara internet connection is still marginal, but what was meant to be a ten minute proof of international connectibility turned into a 40 minute extended rumination on Glenn’s arrival in London during the wet summer and extended hay fever season, the record-setting Arctic sea-ice melt and what that might mean for the coming northern hemisphere winter and climate in general, the defeat for New Zealand’s climate cranks in the High Court, and the soon to be obligatory plug for Gareth’s new book…

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Bad news but great pictures: dating NZ’s shrinking glaciers shows strong link between ice loss and CO2 increases

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Here’s a superb video from the Department of Education at the American Museum of Natural History, showing how NZ and US scientists are examining the precise timing of glacier advances and retreats in the Mackenzie country around Lake Pukaki using surface exposure dating. Like all good geologists they use big hammers and small explosives to shatter rocks in order to sample “cosmogenic” Be-10 — a beryllium isotope formed when cosmic rays hit quartz in newly exposed rocks. See here for more on recent surface exposure dating work in the Pukaki area. Hat tip to Climate Crocks for spotting the video.