WASHINGTON — Delegates from six of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters -- including the United States -- gathered last week for the first time to figure out how private industry can help curb global warming. The Bush administration is promoting this voluntary effort as a practical way to develop clean-energy technology to tackle climate change. But an environmental expert dismissed it as busy-work that would not be as effective as the requirements imposed by the international Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Initially skeptical, the U.S. administration accepts the reality of global climate change, which has been associated with stronger hurricanes, severe droughts, intense heat waves and the melting of polar ice. Greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide emitted by motor vehicles and coal-fired power plants, trap heat like the glass walls of a greenhouse, causing Earth to warm up. More than 300 delegates from the six countries -- Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea, in addition to the United States -- met last week in California for the first working sessions of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.

These six countries account for about half of the world's emissions of climate-heating greenhouse gases. Only one of the six, Japan, is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 under the Kyoto agreement. Unveiled last July in Laos and formalized with a high-level meeting in Australia in January, the partnership aims to spur development of cleaner, more energy-efficient technologies, said Paula Dobriansky, under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs in a telephone briefing as the meetings proceeded at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

U.S. Taps Private Sector to Fix Greenhouse PollutionApril 24, 2006 — By Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters

RESULTS IN SIX MONTHS

The California meeting was the first chance for working groups to discuss "concrete steps," Dobriansky said, adding that the group was aiming for "tangible results over these next six months." The Bush administration has requested $52 million for fiscal 2007 for this program spread among the departments of State, Energy and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency. James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, dismissed a question about the seemingly low level of U.S. government financial backing.

"(That) perspective is completely turned around," Connaughton said in the telephone briefing. "Only with private sector investment does the technology get deployed. The government does not go out into the world and spend the several trillion dollars that are about to be spent on the technologies that are going to be the solutions to this problem." Government's role, he said, is to guide investment.

David Doniger, a former Clinton administration expert on climate change now with the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said that without limits on greenhouse gas emissions, the partnership will be ineffectual. "The partnership is symptomatic of the Bush administration failure to do anything serious at home or abroad about global warming, because it's all voluntary," Doniger said by telephone.

Over the past 30 years, the Earth has warmed by 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit; over the last 100 years, it has warmed by 1.44 degrees F., according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Short term climate variabilityChapter 15

How can we document past climate change?

What causes past climate change?

What factors may cause change on decadal timescales?

Signs of recent change – An Inconvenient Truth

Oxygen isotopes

Pollen and alpine glaciers

Historical documents

Evidence

Figure 15-1a,b,c

Figure 15-1d

Recent temperature change

Palynology is the science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs, including pollen, spores, dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans and scolecodonts, together with particulate organic matter (POM) and kerogen found in sedimentary rocks and sediments.

Dendrochronology - Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the method of scientific dating based on the analysis of tree-ring growth patterns.

To observe a Holocene environment, simply look around you! The Holocene is the name given to the last ~10,000 years of the Earth's history -- the time since the end of the last major glacial epoch, or "ice age." Since then, there have been small-scale climate shifts -- notably the "Little Ice Age" between about 1200 and 1700 A.D. -- but in general, the Holocene has been a relatively warm period in between ice ages.

The Holocene

Small temperature changes can result in large local or regional changes in climate

Vikings in Greenland

The Younger Dryas saw a rapid return to glacial conditions in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere between 12,900 – 11,500 years before present (BP) in sharp contrast to the warming of the preceding interstadial deglaciation. The transitions each occurred over a period of a decade or so.Thermally fractionated nitrogen and argon isotope data from Greenland ice core GISP2 indicates that the summit of Greenland was ~15 °C colder than today during the Younger Dryas. In the UK, coleopteran (fossil beetle) evidence suggests mean annual temperature dropped to approximately -5 °C, and periglacial conditions prevailed in lowland areas, while icefields and glaciers formed in upland areas. Nothing of the size, extent, or rapidity of this period of abrupt climate change has been experienced since.

The Younger Dryas

Possible Cause for the Younger Dryas

North Atlantic deep water formation – cut off by the cap of relatively light freshwater

Figure 15-2

Last time, we saw that climate changes can be abrupt

Is a change in North Atlantic deep water formation (i.e. cut off by the cap of relatively light freshwater) a possible cause for the Younger Dryas cold period ca. 12,000 years ago?

Figure 15-2

A few years!Accumulation of snow (similar record in dust)

Short term climate variability – continuedChapter 15

What factors may cause change on decadal timescales?

Volcanoes

Solar luminosity

Changes in patterns of climate states

What about volcanic eruptions?

Produce SO2 aerosols Increase albedo

Average of five eruptions

Box Figure 15-1

Recent evidence indicates that climate changes are not gradual, but rather occur abruptly, shifting between two very different states…

except recently!

Does it matter?

What about sunspots?

Figure 15-8

Length of sunspot cycle vs. temperature anomaly

Problem – what is the mechanism? The change in solar output with sunspot activity does not appear to be large enough to explain the changes in temperatures (at least, according to models)

El Nino

Impact of El Nino on weather

Figure 15-9

What if we include volcanoes and solar forcing into the model?How do the results compare to observations?

Observed T larger than modeled in recent times

Good agreement

Figure 15-10

Add in radiative forcing from observed CO2 changes

Increases 0.5o

Which of the following factors contribute to climate variability?

(a) Volcanoes

(b) Solar luminosity

(c) Cloud cover

(d) Greenhouse gases

(e) All of the above

Why do we care about ozone in the stratosphere?

(a) It is the source of oxygen for life on Earth

(b) It reflects infrared light from the Sun, keeping Earth cool

(c) It absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun

(d) It helps in formation of clouds

(e) All of the above

When was ozone discovered?

(a) In 100 BC

(b) In the late 1700s

(c) In the early 1900s

(d) In 1960

(e) In 1985

How are stratospheric ozone depletion and global warming related?

(a) Increased ultraviolet from the Sun due to ozone depletion warms the earth.

(b) Some of the same gases that cause ozone depletion can cause some greenhouse warming of the earth.

(c) Changes in climate may lead to changes in ozone.

(d) (a) and (b)

(e) (b) and (c)

Figure 17-14

Evolution of agreements to limit production of CFCs

How did things happen so quickly with ozone depletion, anyway?

1973 – Rowland and Molina propose that CFCs will harm ozone layer

1975 – first measurements showing breakdown product of CFCs in stratosphere

1975-1985 – CFC producers argue with scientists over significance of problem

1985 – Joseph Farman reports on “ozone hole” over Antarctica

1986/87 – measurements over Antarctica indicate that ozone hole is due to chlorine from CFCs

1987 – Montreal Protocol established to limit further growth in production of CFCs (but note, emissions will still continue)

1989 – first signs of ozone hole over Arctic detected

1989 – du Pont announces plans to stop all production of CFCs – urges countries to take action

1990 – London Agreement further restricts production of CFCs

1991 – Soviet Union collapses

1992 – US Senate votes 96-0 to ban all production of CFCs

Three major things happened that helped to ‘solve’ the CFC/Ozone problem

1. A major and unexpected environmental ‘catastrophe’ occurred (the ozone hole) that was ultimately explained by emissions of CFCs

2. There was political ‘will’ to deal with the problem, and resistance from a major superpower was minimal as the Soviet Union collapsed

3. du Pont voluntarily halted production of CFCs when they found new substitutes and were able to create a new market

Will the same elements be necessary for solving the CO2/Global Warming problem?

1. Has there been a major environmental catastrophe? If so, has it been proven to be caused by CO2? probably not

2. Is there political will to solve the problem? certainly not yet in the US and other major countries like China – note that even Canada has decided that limiting CO2 may be too costly

3. Are there substitutes for fossil fuel? YES! Companies are pretty smart – you have to be is you want to exploit new markets. However, they are also likely to continue to reap profits from the lucrative fossil fuel market until there is the will to solve the problem.

What is it going to take? You decide!

Polar bears sink deeper into danger