Ever wonder what's really happening to the low-lying islands in the tropics?
My former student Cory Kleinschmidt and I made this video about complicated geological and social dynamics at play in loss of Bikeman, an islet in the lagoon of Tarawa Atoll, the capital of Kiribati. The science behind this story and others in the ongoing "Battle of Tarawa" is described my feature in the latest issue of EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union.
I'm heading to Kiribati to do some climate and coral reef monitoring with colleagues in the local government. I'll try to post about our work periodically, provided the internet cooperates, and our boat doesn't sink.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Is the sea ever actually level? The lesson of Bikeman, Kiribati
Monday, April 16, 2012
Climate experience makes some corals more resistant to heat stress
Preserving coral reefs, and everything they provide to communities across the tropics, on a warming planet will require identifying what might make a coral less susceptible to heat stress.
In the lastest publication on this research, my colleagues Jessica Carilli (the lead author), Aaron Hartmann and I describe how massive corals on the atolls which naturally experience more frequent heat stress appear to have been more resistant to the recent El Nino-driven ocean heat waves. For an accessible summary of our findings, I recommend listening to this past weekend's episode of CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks. But you can also read the paper itself: the journal PLoS-One is online and open access to all.
The research involved drilling coral cores, Jess Carilli's area of expertise, from sites around three different atolls, followed by some exhaustive lab analysis by my colleagues. The logistics of collecting the samples from the outer islands was unbelievably complicated, even for someone who knows the challenges of working in a remote island country. Just getting all the gear to Butaritari (that's the seat beside my flip-seat on the plane), making it all work and bringing the samples back intact will probably go down as our greatest accomplishment in science. We owe a huge thanks to local colleagues Aranteiti Tekiau, Toaea Beiateuea, Iobi Arabua and the late Moiwa Erutarem, who sadly was lost at sea six months after our expedition.In the month of May, I'll be fundraising for the in-country expenses of a planned, future expedition through the second Scifund crowd-sourcing science funding campaign. By sheer coincidence I will actually be in Kiribati during some coral monitoring during most of the Scifund campaign. I'll try to put trip updates on Maribo whenever I find internet access.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Mountain pine beetle upends the Canadian emissions picture?
The lastest Canadian greenhouse gas emissions data looks very different if Canadian forests are taking into consideration.
There was some rejoicing over the fact that Canada's GHG emissions grew by only 2 Mt CO2e (that includes CO2 plus other GHGs converted to "units" of CO2) or 0.25% from 2009 to 2010, despite the fact that the economy was rebounding from the recession. But if you include land cover, land use change and forestry, GHG emissions grew by 86 Mt from 2009 to 2010.
Why such a large change? According to the Canadian government model, forests went from a net sink of 17 Mt in 2009 to a net source of 72 Mt in 2010 (see Table 7-1 in NIR). If you
There are large, natural year-to-year variations in forest carbon balance, so it's important not to read too much into the jump from 2009 to 2010. What the 2010 number does reflect, however, is the very large amount of carbon, in the form of dead wood, in BC that is waiting to be respired to the atmosphere (if we don't use sequester it in buildings). For that, we can largely thank the Mountain Pine Beetle, the outbreaks of which have been linked to climate change. From the National Inventory Report:
The upward trend in dead organic matter (DOM) decay since the year 2000 reflects the long-term, growing effect of past disturbances, especially insect epidemics that have left substantial quantities of decaying DOM. Over the last decade, insect epidemics have affected a total of over 56 Mha3 of managed forests, with 72% being located in the Montane Cordillera reporting zone and corresponding to the epidemics of Mountain Pine Beetle. In contrast, much of the interannual variability of the GHG budget of managed forests hinges on the occurrence and severity of fires.
Before you start screaming "cover-up", it is standard UN reporting practice, to not include land use, land cover and forestry in the "total" at the top of the GHG inventory tables. This is done for a number of legitimate reasons, not the least of which being that net emissions from forests must be estimated by models and, as I've said, the results vary from year to year because of climate variability. Nonetheless, it is striking that climate change, via its effects on Canadian forest, might be undoing the reported progress in curbing, or starting to curb is a better term, greenhouse gas emissions from some sectors of the Canadian economy.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Canadian GHG emissions in perspective
For some perspective, here's a plot of Canada's GHG emissions since 1990, together with various policy targets (Kyoto, Canada's own 2020 target, the EU reduction target for 2020) and emissions projections (Energy Information Administration's 2020 projection for Canada). It was quickly adapted from a recent presentation. The "decoupling", if real, which is questionable given that Canada's economy is shifting more towards resource-intensive industries, has to seriously accelerate even to hit Canada's much-criticized 2020 goal.
There's an important and very telling missing nugget in the emissions total. I'll get to that tomorrow.
NOTE: The lines look "steeper" because the y-axis on the chart begins at 400 Mt; the Canadian government report uses a y-axis from 0 - 800 Mt.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Canada's unrealistic greenhouse gas target
Over the past couple years, plenty of policy experts have stated that there is little chance that Canada will meets its 2020 greenhouse gas target (17% below 2005 levels, which is ~3% below 1990 levels) without a serious, and unlikely change in federal policy. I've been rather blunt about this myself:
It is harder to find a seat at a Canucks game than to find an expert who thinks the mix of existing and proposed federal regulations and policies will come close to achieving even the government's own weak emissions target for the year 2020, let alone the much lower target set in the Kyoto Protocol.
For readers not familiar enough with Vancouver's love for the Canucks to appreciate the analogy, the local hockey team just sold out is 400th consecutive game.
Here's a figure from last year's report by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NTREE) as a part of Canada's reporting obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. Even in the "policy" scenario in the Environment Canada model (the green line), greenhouse gas emissions are ~30% over the government's own target.
If you're never heard of the NRTEE, it's job, since 1993, has been to "help Canada achieve sustainable development solutions that integrate environmental and economic considerations to ensure the lasting prosperity and well-being of our nation" through preparing reports, convening perspectives from all sides of issues, and offering advice to the government on "how best to reconcile the often divergent challenges of economic prosperity and environmental conservation". The NRTEE was cut in yesterday's budget.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Storm the Riding: UBC students getting climate change on the agenda
As was reported in Wednesday's Vancouver Sun, a group of UBC students, staff and faculty from a new campus organization UBCC350 will be canavassing door-to-door in BC Premier Christie Clarke's riding on Saturday to draw attention to climate change and carbon exports from Canada. However you feel about political action, it is terrific to see a group of young people willing to spend their free time taking a stance on a public issue.
I've recently expressed my own view on the issue of carbon exports and the proposed oil pipelines, a view shared by UBCC350 founder and UBC political scientist George Hoberg and many in the group.
For more information, check UBCC350's website.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Climate science, then and now
Kudos to Peter Sinclair for this great video about a talk by Mike McCracken that was delivered in 1982:
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Heat wave factoids
A personal favourite, thus far:
At 7 pm EDT, it was 8 degrees C warmer in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario (26C) than in El Paso, Texas (18C). Last time I was in Sault Ste Marie, it was September, and I had just completed a paddling trip that involved fear of snow and hypothermia.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Unprecedented heat wave continues
Some of the record are simply stunning: I've been tweeting examples for the last couple days. in our national capital of Ottawa, the weekend temperature broke the previous high by 8 degrees Celsius. The nighttime lows across a huge swath of the continent have been higher than the normal daytime maximum temperature. Today, it is 20 degrees Celsuis above normal across much of west-central Ontairo.
There have been plenty of other physical, biological and cultural impacts of the heat wave. Here are three which came to my attention in the past day, I'd be happy to see more added in the comments:
- the Great Lakes are now almost entirely free of ice, as seen in these images from the Canadian ice Service. The heatwave has accelerated the end of the ice season. This should be "wettest" winter for the lakes since the beginning of the satellite record in 1980
- a friend in Madison, WI forwarded news about some unusually early bird appearances in the marshlands around town.
- if you type words like "patio" into Google Trends, you'll find a huge uptick in the search index, as people scramble for a place to have a beer on a hot March afternoon.
Monday, March 12, 2012
I wouldn't try skating across the Great Lakes either
Following upon last week's news about a shrinking "skating" season across Canada, a paper in the Journal of Climate reports that the length and extent of the Great Lakes ice season has decreased rather dramatically since the early 1970s.You don't need library access to Journal of Climate to get a sense of the data. The Canadian Ice Service has plots of total Great Lakes ice cover going back to the 1980s (right). One things that's striking about the data, and is analysed at length in the paper, is the periodicity, which seems to follow the El Nino cycle; ice cover is lowest during the 1982/83, 1986/87, 1991/2. 1997/98, and 2009/10, all El Nino event.
El Nino, however, does not tell the whole story. Ice cover is also low during much of the past decade, with the exception of two winters, one of which was a strong La Nina winter (2008/9). And this winter, which was not included in the analysis in the paper will go down as one of the most ice-free. The map at right shows the departure in ice cover from normal. The dark reds covering Lake Erie, Lake Superior and parts of Lake Huron/Georgian Bay are regions where there's "normally" ice in March.
Right now, you could almost swim across Lake Superior, something even these guys probably did not dream was possible. This is one part of the planet where we may need to redefine normal.
Unlike the reported changes in the ice season on small lakes, the subject of our video, or the outdoor skating rink season, the change in Great Lakes ice can have a weather and climate effect. One, that's a bit counter-intuitive, and is perhaps the only piece of good news here for skiers, is that less ice on the lakes can lead to more "lake-effect" snows in east-central Ontario and upstate New York (ever wonder why there are big "freak" snowstorms north of Toronto and around Buffalo in late November? It's from a cold north-westerly winds mass passing over the unfrozen lakes an picking up moisture). Of course, that can only happen with sufficiently cold air masses, which were rare this winter.
The other effect, which as far as I know has not been quantified, is the change in "albedo" or reflectivity. We hear about this all the time with the Arctic - less ice means less reflection of incoming solar radiation. A similar positive climate feedback, albeit smaller in magnitude, should occur in this region dominated by freshwater lakes.
Monday, March 05, 2012
Climate change, outdoor skating and Canadian tradition
A clever new paper coming out in Environmental Research Letters later this week shows evidence that the outdoor skating season has shrunk in the past fifty years across Canada. The authors asked outdoor rink officials how they decide when the weather is right to start, and to the end, operations each year, and then applied the algorithm to historical data from Canadian towns and cities. The Guardian has a news story up describing some of the details.
I read an advance copy of the paper, and found that it very clearly compliments the widespread evidence that the lake ice "season" has been shrinking because of climate warming. As we discussed in the video posted earlier this winter (below), climate change may have a profound impact on the winter traditions of many Canadian families, including my own.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Keeping our cool while the planet warms
Like many out there, I was saddened to hear about the role of Peter Gleick, a co-signatory on a recent op-ed about climate science, in the leak of the Heartland Institute e-mails.
I've worried for the past two years that an incident like this might happen. The segment of the climate science community that is active in outreach is subject to incredibly angry and personal attacks, starting but certainly not ending with the hacking of e-mails at the University of East Anglia. I'm certainly not that famous or public a figure, and even I often get e-mail and comments here on Maribo that make me wonder if I should have police protection. Perhaps it was inevitable that someone in the climate science community would, in a fit of frustration, respond to critics in-kind with similarly dirty tactics. We are human, after all. You can certainly understand why someone who's been unfairly attacked for years would be driven to fight fire with fire.
This is why I've been speaking and writing again and again and again about the importance, and the challenge, of maintaining perspective and humility when discussing climate change. At the risk of irritating regular readers by repeating this passage yet again, here is the conclusion from the recent BAMS paper about climate change and belief:
Reforming public communication about anthropogenic climate change will require humility on the part of scientists and educators. Climate scientists, for whom any inherent doubts about the possible extent of human influence on the climate were overcome by years of training in physics and chemistry of the climate system, need to accept that there are rational cultural, religious, and historical reasons why the public may fail to believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, let alone that it warrants a policy response.
The moderator of Saturday's jam-packed AAAS plenary discussion on science communication repeated the meme that scientists are in a "street fight". That may be true. But as I wrote last month, if climate discourse is a street fight, then we need to do more should not just* fight back with the same dirty tactics. If you want to win a fight, you need to be able to take a punch.
There is no doubt that planet is warming. The question is can we keep our cool long enough to find a solution?
* original language may been misleading
Monday, February 20, 2012
"Stewardship", Rick Santorum and climate change
Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum said the following yesterday:
"The earth is not the objective. Man is the objective, and I think that a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down."
Leaving aside the politics and sexism, which probably warrant discussion but in more appropriate forums than Maribo, this statement serves as an important reminder about the complexity of religious attitudes about climate change. Climate activists often employ the Biblical notion of stewardship as an argument for action to combat climate change, despite the fact that stewardship is not necessarily viewed that way by their audience. Stewardship is viewed by some religious leaders as support as "our responsibility to protect the planet" and by others as "our responsibility to exploit the planet's resources for the benefit of humankind". As I mentioned in the recent paper about climate change and belief, there are religious groups which rely on the notion of stewardship to both support and oppose environmental laws and climate change action:
...a movement within the U.S. Christian evangelical community urges action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions based on the Biblical concept of stewardship, as well as intergenerational equity and social justice (e.g., ECI 2006). The effect of this movement on the public understanding of climate change in the United States is unclear (McCammack 2007). Attitudes about climate change among evangelical Americans may be influenced more by support for conservative politicians and by the evangelical organizations urging the rejection of climate science and climate action based on the Biblical notion of “dominion” over Earth (e.g., Beisner et al. 2006) than by the stewardship movement.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Why I am opposed to Northern Gateway
After a few months of thinking, I came to the conclusion that there is no choice but to oppose the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline. There are many worthy arguments on either side of this issue, from the economy to First Nations rights, and from the preservation of the BC coastline to the reality of oil consumption here and abroad. My argument, presented in the Mark, is entirely about climate:
If the Harper government were not so consistently obstinate on federal climate policy, people like me (a climate scientist who has long been wary of the NIMBYism of environmental groups) might not become vociferous opponents of projects like Northern Gateway. We are forced to oppose individual carbon-intensive projects because the government refuses to listen to scientific or economic reason on climate change.
My compromise solution is a federal carbon pricing system.
A carbon-pricing system, like those of British Columbia and Australia, would not necessarily prevent pipeline construction. Rather, it could allow the market to decide whether the costs of a new pipeline outweigh the benefits, and ensure that any emissions from such new projects are more than compensated for by cuts elsewhere. This would also help Canada slowly transition towards a 21st-century economy, based on innovation and our plentiful renewable resources, without ignoring extractive industries of our past.
I encourage people to read, consider and comment on this argument. It is not based on concern about the direct effect of an individual pipeline like Northern Gateway on the physics and chemistry of the climate system. The approval of an individual project, and for that matter, the overall expansion of oil extraction in Alberta, would not specifically be - physically or chemically speaking - "game over" for the climate, as some have claimed. They could, however, lead us down the wrong path.
Absent a federal effort to manage carbon emissions, there will be a pitched battle over every new pipeline and every new coal-burning power plant. Many of those seeming slam dunks, like Keystone XL, will clang off the rim. We could keep fighting like this forever. Or we could work together on a federal climate policy.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Who to trust about climate change
My sister is a neurologist. She's highly active in her field and is often asked by the media to comment about her particular area of expertise within the field of neurology.
It is great having a sibling who is a medical doctor. Though she and I do technically both have the title "Doctor", I have zero medical expertise, outside of some wilderness first aid, and maybe little random bits I've gleaned from various sports-related accidents and drinking the water in the wrong village during a field trip. When something medical comes up, I call my sister. She listens, humours me, and provides general advice. But if it is anything important, or that anything is not neurological, she tells me to see my family doctor, who is better equipped to either diagnose and treat the ailment, or to refer me to a specialist who can.
That's the gist of today's Wall Street Journal op-ed from 38 of us climate scientists. It was written in response to an earlier misleading op-ed about climate change by 16 scientists who were speaking far outside their field of expertise.
Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.
The original op-ed argued that "There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy". It's important to deconstruct that statement. Had the authors of that op-ed only argued against action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I would disagree with them, but not protest the publication of their op-ed.
What those 16 scientists did, however, was very different. They took advantage of their scientific credentials to raise questions about the evidence for climate change, using ad hominem attacks and analogies in place of math, before arguing against action to reduce emissions. Their credentials, though certainly legitimate in their fields, simply do not extend to all areas of science, just as my sister is not an expert in all areas of medicine.
Our response reminds the readers what the actual experts in the field of climate science think:
The National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. (set up by President Abraham Lincoln to advise on scientific issues), as well as major national academies of science around the world and every other authoritative body of scientists active in climate research have stated that the science is clear: The world is heating up and humans are primarily responsible. Impacts are already apparent and will increase. Reducing future impacts will require significant reductions in emissions of heat-trapping gases.
It concludes with a response to the original op-eds plea against action on emissions:
It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses. In addition, there is very clear evidence that investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy will not only allow the world to avoid the worst risks of climate change, but could also drive decades of economic growth. Just what the doctor ordered.
Andrew Revkin argues that with this final statement, which mixes science with economics and policy, we are speaking outside our area of expertise:
The reality for most of the signatories of the rebuttal letter is that they are more akin to medical technicians — making sure the thermometers gauging a fever are reliable — and radiologists — interpreting a CT scan — than diagnosticians prescribing the appropriate treatment.
The difference, I would argue, is twofold. First, some of the signatories to the letter actually conduct research at the interface of science (diagnosis, in Revkin's example) and policy (treatment). Second, we recommend a very general response to the diagnosis (reduce emissions) rather than prescribe a particular treatment. Certainly an X-ray technician, after seeing hundreds and hundreds of X-rays and working with doctors over the years, is justified in telling a patient "You should probably put some type of a cast on that broken leg".
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Cafe Scientifique, next Tuesday, at the Railway Club
I've got a gig next week at the Railway Club, the fantastic music venue at the corner of Dunsmuir and Seymour in downtown Vancouver. Don't worry, I'm bringing my laptop, not the guitar I have not played (well) in years. I'll be talking about coral reefs as a part of Café Scientifique Vancouver. C'mon down!
Here's the description:
"Beyond Nemo: Coral reefs in a warming world"
Coral reefs, often called the rainforests of the ocean, are thought to be more sensitive to climate change than any other ecosystem on the planet. Drawing on his research in the Central Equatorial Pacific nation of Kiribati, Simon Donner will talk about the effects of changes in climate and ocean chemistry on tropical corals and the potential for adaptation.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Rolling with the punches
In a short article on the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, Keith Kloor compares online climate change discourse to a "roller derby" and a "street fight"
Taken together, the intimidation tactics of climate science bashers and the new pressure campaigns, by allies of the concerned climate community, promise to, if nothing else, ratchet up the rhetoric of both sides and deepen the politicization of global warming. Just what the public discourse doesn’t need. Meanwhile, the conflict-loving media will eat it up and stoke the fires.
For climate campaigners and their adversaries, the escalating war of wits is a fait accompli. They are not constrained by how they might be perceived by the public at large. But the stakes are higher for the climate science community, which must defend itself against scurrilous attacks while staying above the fray. Not an easy balancing act.
I've written and spoken about the need for humility among climate scientists and climate bloggers countless times in the past two years. A recent academic paper of mine on history, belief and climate communication concluded with this statement:
Reforming public communication about anthropogenic climate change will require humility on the part of scientists and educators. Climate scientists, for whom any inherent doubts about the possible extent of human influence on the climate were overcome by years of training in physics and chemistry of the climate system, need to accept that there are rational cultural, religious, and historical reasons why the public may fail to believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, let alone that it warrants a policy response.
Ironically, online "coverage" of that paper drew some amazingly angry and personal comments. Had I followed the ethos of the Nature editorial (which Keith cites) arguing that climate scientists need to realize they are in a street fight, then I suppose I would have fought back in kind.
To what end? You don't change the tone of the discussion by spewing venom. I am interested in the long game here. I certainly hope the same is true for other climate scientists. Better we make the effort to understand why people are so angry about this issue than we win cheap short-term points by responding in kind to every slight. Even if our siblings wish we did (sorry sis).
If climate discourse is a street fight, then we need to do more than fight back. We need to learn how to take a punch.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
You've got mail, skeptical mail
Last week, my colleague Hisham Zerriffi and I each received an envelope full of photocopied articles, from the Wall St. Journal and other sources, and various scribblings all attacking the scientific evidence that humans are primarily responsible for recent climate change.
Receiving mail from an ardent skeptic of climate change is not unusual for us scientists. Over the years I've got small envelopes, large envelopes, handwritten notes, phone calls, all-cap e-mails and no shortage of nasty online comments. I'll guess that Hisham and I were not the only people studying climate change to receive copies of this particular material (let me know in the comments).
This package was unique, however, in one important way. The return address - no name was given - was "One Physics Ellipse" in College Park, Maryland.
A retirement community for physicists, you ask? Well, sort of.
One Physics Ellipse is the Corporate Headquarters for the American Institute of Physics. The AIP, like most scientific bodies on the planet, has as policy endorsed the scientific evidence that humans are contributing to climate change.
While it is true that not all of its members agree on that statement, scientists and certainly physicists are not exactly pros at speaking in one voice, I do find it odd to receive a package of "skeptic" material, much of which was downright silly (CO2 emissions don't "rise"), from the actual headquarters.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Adapting to milder winters
This year, there was no skating or hockey for us. The lake was frozen, but just barely thick enough for one person to walk around. A pile of people on skates was out of the question. The mild daytime temperatures led to some mixed precipitation, which made for a very thick, mushy surface which would have been terrible for skating anyway. That wet sleet and snow also knocked down a lot of trees.
So, in what you might call a bit of climate adaptation, we took advantage of the great packing snow to build this pretty solid snow fort (on land). It was New Year's Eve, so we did a flag-raising and candle-lighting ceremony for the kids in the family. I could just barely reach to light those candles
Here's the video again, in case you missed it:
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