Update [2005-12-8 12:3:16 by Steven D]: For an explanation of how phony and cynical Bush’s pledge to cut “greenhouse gas intensity” by 18% over the next decade really is, scroll to the end of this diary for an addendum that explains exactly what “greenhouse gas intensity” really means — Steven D.
Ps. I’ve posted this at Dkos in slightly different form. If you’re so inclined please go there and recommend it. Thanks, Steven
Glaciers are melting.
In Greenland:
SAN FRANCISCO Dec 7, 2005 — Two of Greenland’s largest glaciers are retreating at an alarming pace, most likely because of climate warming, scientists said Wednesday.
One of the glaciers, Kangerdlugssuaq, is currently moving about 9 miles a year compared to 3 miles a year in 2001, said Gordon Hamilton of the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.
The other glacier, Helheim, is retreating at about 7 miles a year up from 4 miles a year during the same period.
“It’s quite a staggering rate of increase,” Hamilton said at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting.
In Alaska:
Alaska’s rapidly disintegrating Columbia Glacier, which has shrunk in length by 9 miles since 1980, has reached the mid-point of its projected retreat, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
Tad Pfeffer, associate director of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, said the glacier is now discharging nearly 2 cubic miles of ice annually into the Prince William Sound, the equivalent of 100,000 ships packed with ice, each 500 feet long. The tidewater glacier — which has its terminus, or end, in the waters of the Prince William Sound — is expected to retreat an additional 9 miles in the next 15 years to 20 years before reaching an equilibrium point in shallow water near sea level, he said.
Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people, the conservation group WWF has claimed.
In a report, the WWF says India, China and Nepal could experience floods followed by droughts in coming decades.
The Himalayas contain the largest store of water outside the polar ice caps, and feed seven great Asian rivers.
. . . “The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers, causing widespread flooding,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF’s Global Climate Change Programme.
“But in a few decades this situation will change and the water level in rivers will decline, meaning massive eco and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and northern India.”
WASHINGTON – Glaciers once held up by a floating ice shelf off Antarctica are now sliding off into the sea — and they are going fast, scientists said on Tuesday [Note: article is from September, 2004].
Two separate studies from climate researchers and the space agency NASA show the glaciers are flowing into Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, freed by the 2002 breakup of the Larsen B ice shelf.
. . . It was not clear how the loss of the Larsen B ice shelf would affect nearby glaciers.<p.
But soon after its collapse, researchers saw nearby glaciers flowing up to eight times faster than before.
“If anyone was waiting to find out whether Antarctica would respond quickly to climate warming, I think the answer is yes,” said Theodore Scambos, a University of Colorado glacier expert who worked on one study.
“We’ve seen 150 miles of coastline change drastically in just 15 years.”
The political stability of a key central Asian state could be imperilled by climate change, researchers say.
They say glaciers are melting so fast in parts of Kazakhstan that the livelihoods of millions of people will be affected.
They found the area’s glaciers were losing almost two cubic kilometres of ice annually during the later 20th Century.
With regional temperatures rising, they believe climate change is responsible.
The Patagonia Icefields of Chile and Argentina, the largest non-Antarctic ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere, are thinning at an accelerating pace and now account for nearly 10 percent of global sea-level change from mountain glaciers, according to a new study by NASA and Chile’s Centro de Estudios Cientificos.
Researchers Dr. Eric Rignot of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Andres Rivera of Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile; and Gino Casassa of Centro de Estudios Cientificos, Valdivia, Chile, compared conventional topographic data from the 1970s and 1990s with data from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, flown in February 2000. Their objective was to measure changes over time in the volumes of the 63 largest glaciers in the region.
Results of the study, published this week in the journal Science, conclude the Patagonia Icefields lost ice at a rate equivalent to a sea level rise of 0.04 millimeters (0.0016 inches) per year, during the period 1975 through 2000. This is equal to nine percent of the total annual global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers, according to the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Scientific Assessment. From 1995 through 2000, however, the rate of ice loss from the icefields more than doubled, to an equivalent sea level rise of 0.1 millimeters (0.004 inches) per year.
I’m no expert, but this looks like a trend to me.
Meanwhile back at the climate summit discussing proposals to extend the Kyoto Protocols on global warming:
Montreal, Canada – Despite fierce international pressure at a climate summit, the United States signalled that it would continue to go its own way on global warming, citing its investments in alternative energy and bilateral pursuits.
. . . Ministers are debating a draft proposal during three days of talks on how to combat climate change, wrapping up the 180-nation, two-week meeting.
The proposal calls on nations to negotiate a new pact against global warming by the end of 2007, but suggests no firm emission cuts.
However, French President Jacques Chirac, in a message to the conference, called for a halving of greenhouse emissions by 2050. This would mean a 75 per cent reduction from current levels if one factors in growth in developing countries, he said.
He dismissed proposals – heard often from the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush – that humanity must adopt to climate changes, or confront them with technology.
Bush has also argued that the Kyoto protocol, which mandates emission reductions, would hamper economic growth – an idea Chirac disdained.
‘The time has come to rise above the illusory opposition between growth and the fight against climate change,’ Chirac said.
Paula Dobriansky, a State Department official heading the U.S. delegation, insisted that the U.S. was making progress on its own terms.
. . . [S]he insisted the U.S. would reduce greenhouse gas ‘intensity’ – a new standard Washington unveiled in 2002 to answer international criticism – by 18 per cent by 2012. Critics say the new standard is an economic ratio that doesn’t address the added 1.9 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses that would enter the air by then at current U.S. economic growth rates.
The United States, with about 4 per cent of the world’s people, is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases – about 25 per cent.
The official plan at the conference reflects pressure by European and other governments for strong measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions – mainly carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels – after the Kyoto pact expires in 2012.
The final document offered by conference chairman Stephane Dion, Canada’s environment minister, would pledge nations to reach a new U.N. pact against climate change by December 2007.
To sidestep U.S. objections and other countries opposed to binding targets, the draft proposes no specific further emission cuts for industrialized countries.
Lovely.
Fucking lovely.
ADDENDUM: What Bush’s pledge to reduce “greenhouse gas intensity” really means.
What it really means is that in all likelihood actual greenhouse gas emissions by the United States will continue to rise over the next decade. The truth behind Bush’s smoke and mirrors plan to reduce “greenhouse gas intensity” is spelled out in detail right here:
The centerpiece of the new Bush policy is a pledge to reduce the “greenhouse gas intensity” of the U .S. economy by 18% in the next 10 years. Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output as measured by gross domestic product (GDP). According to the White House, the President’s initiative “sets America on a path to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, and-as the science justifies-to stop and then reverse that growth.”
It does no such thing. The President’s approach, according to the nonpartisan Pew Center on Global Climate Change, minimizes the economic impact of curtailing greenhouse gas emissions “by allowing emissions to rise or fall with economic output; however, it provides no assurance that a given level of environmental protection is measured in relation to GDP” In other words, as long as GDP is in the denominator of the equation, the Bush initiative guarantees nothing about the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
Greenhouse gas intensity is likely to decline in the coming decade, but not because of anything the Bush Administration is proposing. The Pew Center’s analysis of the President’s initiative points out that, “although total emissions {of greenhouse gases} continued to rise, greenhouse gas intensity in fact fell over the last two decades.”
Because of improved energy efficiency and the continuing transformation of the US economy toward services, greenhouse gas intensity in the U.S. declined 21% in the 1980s and 17% in the 1990s. If the pattern of the past 20 years continues, the President’s goal for greenhouse gas intensity will be achieved with no changes in our pattern of greenhouse gas production.
To read the Pew Center study on this issue quoted above, go to this link:
Although total emissions continued to rise, greenhouse gas intensity in fact fell over the last two decades. Contributing factors include energy efficiency improvements, the introduction of new information technologies, and the continued transition from heavy industry to less energy-intensive, service-oriented industries. In the 1980s greenhouse gas intensity fell by 21 percent. During the 1990s greenhouse gas intensity fell by 16 percent. The Administration’s strategy aims to cut greenhouse gas intensity to a level of 151 metric tons carbon equivalent per million dollars of GDP by 2012, 18 percent below its present level. While this would represent a very modest improvement over the “business as usual” emissions projections for 2012 used by the Administration, it appears to continue the same trend of GHG-intensity reductions and GHG emissions increases experienced over the last two decades.
In terms of actual emissions, total U.S. GHG emissions would grow 12 percent by 2012, resulting in GHG emissions of 2,155 MMTCE (7,900 MMTCO2E). Emissions in 2012 would be 30 percent above 1990 levels (1990 is often used as a “base year” because the Framework Convention on Climate Change called for industrialized countries to return to their 1990 levels by 2000). The Administration proposes to achieve its GHG intensity target entirely through voluntary measures. Prior experience has shown that despite the existence of a range of voluntary government programs to encourage early reductions, despite significant actions by individual companies, and despite improvements in greenhouse gas intensity, emissions continue to rise as these gains are outpaced by economic expansion, changing consumer preferences, and population growth. Further, because the target (1) is voluntary, (2) represents only a slight change from the “business as usual” path, and (3) does not appear to advance specific policy solutions, it is unclear how this goal will be translated into actual reductions in GHG intensity across various sectors of the economy. Previous voluntary GHG targets, including the UNFCCC’s target of returning to 1990 levels of GHG emissions by 2000, have not been met by the United States.
Seven feet a year, nine feet a year! That’s incredible. That’s horrifying. Quite apart from all the other ramifications of this, it also signals a departure of great beauty from the earth. I’m one of those people who passionately loves glaciers. I had never understood the appeal of them. . .”it’s just ice, isn’t it?”. . .until I looked down into a crevice of one in New Zealand. The beauty that I saw took my breath away, and I fell in love with glaciers in that moment. The power of them, the feeling you get that they’re alive, the power of them, the noises of them the amazing blue color of the ice. . .
Coincidentally, over in the Cafe today there is a photo of AndiF standing near a glacier.
I understand there’s a certain power to “preview,” too. Sigh. Should read:
The power of them, the feeling you get that they’re alive, the noises of them, the amazing blue color of the ice. . .
So! Aha! Kansas gets to edit kansas.
But seriously, folks . . .
I’ve seen the power and beauty of glaciers up close and personal, too, and when you’re in a 22-foot boat off the Labrador coast, you don’t want to get toooo close to those icebergs. Massive, magisterial, immense, very cold, intensely colored (not just blue, but green, pink, yellow).
The glaciers calve off into water and smaller bits come floating down, “growlers.” Melting them produces drinking water, and it’s a very odd sensation to realize you’re making your tea with 10,000-year-old water. No pollution therein.
What a beautifully written post …
making tea with ancient water … wow….
doesn’t it all just make you want to storm the White House?
actually, what we need to do is time-travel back to the industrial revolution and get them to think green from the outset.
The first thing I remember reading specifically about global warming/climate change was a New Yorker article–don’t remember the author, but it could have been Bill McKibben. It was in October 1986, and I was in Spain, standing in line with a friend in the hot and dusty plaza while she paid her taxes at the town hall.
So I’ve been reading, and writing, about this stuff for a long time, and I wanna tell you, I am some discouraged at the shortsighted idiocy of the population. It’s not just the politicians, though god knows they are mostly not rowing with both oars in the water. It’s us, you and me, thinking that we are going to be able to keep on using carelessly a resource that took literally millions of years to create.
It makes me not so much want to storm the White House as make the current residents come out into the real world and have to live without all the multiple layers of isolation from reality.
When I moved to Alaska in the early 90s, Portage Glacier was a top tourist destination – an easy to reach and view glacier feeding a lake. (When my partner had moved there back in the 60s there had been no lake, just a drive-up glacier.) But the glacier was still visible from the road in the 90s, and a boat would take you to the face of the glacier on the lake.
Now, it is gone. Buh-bye.
See for yourself: Where is the Glacier?
How many Hurricanes will hit Fla., the Southern East Coast and the Gulf Coast next year???
when they run out of Greek letters? This year was the first time they had to go beyond names to the Greek alphabet. They made it up to Epsilon. 26 storms, previous record 21 in 1933.
Hurricane Omega has a biblical feel to it.
2005 Hurricane records list here.
What we’re seeing is collateral damage from the war on Christmas. Santa and the North Pole have been under fire from the liberals over at Secular Central, and they won’t stop until every last elf, bow and ribbon commemorating the holy birth of baby Jesus is in tatters.
Shame on the liberals, with their Darwin and their secular science and their “facts”. I hope Santa leaves them all a lump of fossil fuel.
— That’s Glacier National Park in Montana, one of the most stunning tourist destinations I’ve ever visited
LINK
It’s not just the glaciers that are disappearing. With them goes the stored water that allows millions, billions of people to live on the earth without (or with minimal) drought.
Change has to come from the bottom up, since it’s clear that the so-called government is unwilling and unable to do anything constructive. That means all the tiresome little things to reduce demand on energy–energy-efficient bulbs, tuned-up cars, an extra sweater.
And we have to be very vocal about it. People must come to see that their small contribution combined with millions of other can shift the issue.
including the Gulf Coast and hurricanes.
A warmer Gulf Coast region makes hurricanes more powerful.
More water in the oceans makes it more difficult for places like the Netherlands, Venice…and New Orleans.
When I was a girl, I had an interesting dream.
Like my father, who had been an Air Force GI there, I became fascinated with England. I became an English history buff.
One night I dreamt that England was sinking into the ocean. I rode a boat into London’s main streets.
Of course, when I woke up, I pooh-poohed it. England is an island.
Now, I really wonder whether I was given one of those–you know–messages. I have my copy of Waterworld, even though the movie got lousy reviews.
By the way, hurricane winds are also associated with Oya, the Voodoo goddess of change, chaos, earthquakes, storms and cyclones.
I made the Waterworld connection a week or so ago on my randomly-updated blog. It’s getting pretty scary pretty quickly.
I had my copy of Waterworld before all this stuff happened.
I say the same thing every time I read and/or write a global warming diary, so don’t read any further if you’ve already seen it. Won’t the descendents of Bushco inhabit the same desolate, spent world as those of the left? Is there a backup earth in escrow somewhere? Idiots.
there’s anything their superior entitlement can’t overcome. When you absolutely don’t care about what happens to anyone else but yourself, you have a much simpler set of lifework than do folks saddled with compassion, empathy, and a long-term view of reality.
For the Bushco kind, being king of a wasteland is better than being an ordinary citizen of paradise. Plus, of course, these sociopaths are absolutely sure that they will be scooped up into heaven any day now, and who cares what happens to the sinners left behind?
Americans decided that charming sociopathy was preferable to hard, complicated reality. The cost of that decision will be paid by many generations to come.
This summer we hiked in the Canadian Rockies. One trail we hiked was the Iceline Trail, a spectacular experience because 100 years ago the area was completely underneath a glacier. Now it is completely exposed, letting us see up close the power and austerity of the glacial landscape but also making us only too aware of what global warming has wrought.
The picture shows a portion of the Emerald Glacier along the Iceline Trail. All the exposed ground was under the glacier during the early 20th century and the most drastic exposures have come within the last few decades.
The (Non-)Snows of Kilimanjaro
Excellent summary.
The world has asked, begged, and cajoled the US to show leadership on this issue, and is being rebuffed at every turn – in fact, even as we speak in Montreal.
So the world will look elsewhere for leadership. Even Australia is starting to back down in Montreal, today’s news says, leaving us ever more alone. When the world finds leadership and begins to address climate change, we will be shunned as moral reprobates on the world stage. A has-been nation, once great but gone bad, selfish to the point of lying to itself and the world to start a war, and using torture to defend it’s self-indulgent access to cheap oil by imperial fiat.
As their economies outpace us due to the new, more efficient technologies they adopt, our economy will begin to sputter and grind and seize up like an engine without oil (ironically enough) until it collapses like the Soviet Union did.
This is what the Bushco junta has brought to America under the shiny veneer of refinanced debt and empty promises of Jesus making it all OK.
But I do not mourn for those who have done well by becoming part of this unholy beast. It’s been a party, and the piper will have his due. I mourn for the peoples of submerging Pacific islands, submerging Bangladesh, submerging New Orleans. None will get but token help until this administration is removed. I mourn for the millions of species driven to extinction. For the environmental refugees that will soon swarm our borders from the south, making our current “border problem” pale in comparison. For what might have been that was lost due to greed, sloth, and stupidity.
But removing Bush is only the first step. Will the Left step to the plate and show leadership? Will they lead America to take the steps necessary to get clean from the oil addiction? Will they begin to act humbly in the world and begin to restore our lost honor?
I wait – we wait – the world waits to see.
But the world will not wait forever. Should 2008 bring only a slightly different version of the same, the world will know America for what it has become, and will move towards treating it the way reprobates have been treated in the past – Stalinist Russia, apartheid South Africa. They will tell us to stuff our free trade agreements, which only serve to destroy the earth and enslave the poor for the sake of cheap geegaws from dank third-world sweatshops. They will decide that the world’s dwindling resources must be directed to those nations that are doing the most in trying to move the world from the brink of disaster.
Is this a recipe for world war? Actually I think not. By the time a nation has decayed to that point from internal dry rot of the soul, it usually turns belly up and exhales one last gasp before perishing, as did Rome, as did the British empire, as did the Soviet Union. But a war is not impossible if the beast does not have the tact to die peacefully. But it is a war we will not win; our hubris has created a monstrous nemesis coming to level the scales.
This is the rough justice that nature and the peoples of the world will mete out to America, if we do not soon change our ways. And who among us can truly look at the last 50 or 100 years of our history vis-a-vis nature and the peoples of the world and say we don’t have it coming?
Yes, we need to worry about elections and supreme court justices and the like. But that’s only stepping around a puddle while we stand between the two rails of an onrushing train. Necessary, but woefully short of sufficient. We who claim to be the reality-based community shouldn’t kid ourselves otherwise.
instead of a ‘trend’ i’d say an fast approaching catastrophe of gigantic proportions.
sorry to sound like a sci-fi film but we have thrown the earth so out of balance that she’s fighting back hard.
Well, I was being using understatement for ironic effect.
The tiny, peacful country of Bhutan, perhaps ther only truly civilized country on the planet), has already experienced catastrophe from glacial melting presumed to be the resultof global warming.
Back in the 1990’s, warming trends in the high Himalayas caused huge “glacial lakes” to form within the boundaries of the ice walls that define the glaciers’ perimeters. As the weight of this water grows, it eventually breaks through the ice containing it and rushes downhill into the valleys. Bhutan is ocated in these valleys beneath about 200+ of these glacial lakes. People there say there’s nothing they can do but wait for the inevtitable floods to destroy their habitat. There is no defense man can devise to prevent these floods from happening.