Melting of Totten Glacier Could Trigger 6 Foot Sea-Level Rise

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

A new study published in the journal Nature is drawing attention to the effect of warming water on the world’s largest ice mass, Totten Glacier in East Antarctica. Melting of the glacier, which has an ice catchment area bigger than California, could lift oceans at least two meters (6.56 feet). According to researchers who mapped the shape of the ice sheet as well as the thickness of rocks and sediments beneath it to examine the historical characteristic of erosion of Totten’s advances and retreats, unabated climate change could cause the glacier to enter an irreversible and rapid retreat within the next century.

“While traditional models haven’t suggested this glacier can collapse, more recent models have,” said study co-author Alan Aitken of the University of Western Australia. “We confirm that collapse has happened in the past, and is likely to happen again if we pass a tipping point, which would occur if we had between 3 and 6 degrees of warming above present.”

Aitken said that the Totten Glacier could ultimately account for nearly 15 percent of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise.

Satellite measurements from a previous study show that the glacier is thinning at a rate of about half a meter per year—a thinning that is most likely due to warm ocean water moving under and melting the glacier’s floating front. A retreat of another 100–150 kilometers (62–93 miles) may cause that front to sit on an unstable bed, triggering the Antarctic ice to shrink by 300 kilometers (186 miles).

“The evidence coming together is painting a picture of East Antarctica being much more vulnerable to a warming environment than we thought,” said study co-author Martin Siegert of Imperial College London. “This is something we should worry about.”

Index Suggests Increase, Acceleration of Carbon Dioxide Levels

The latest Annual Greenhouse Gas Index released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are not just rising but accelerating and that the level of methane, another potent greenhouse gas, rose sharply last year. The index, which compares global greenhouse gas emissions to pre-industrial revolution levels, suggests that warming capacity has increased 37 percent since 1990.

“We’re dialing up Earth’s thermostat in a way that will lock more heat into the ocean and atmosphere for thousands of years,” said Jim Butler, director of NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division.

According to the latest index, the global average carbon dioxide concentration for 2015 reached 399 parts per million (ppm), far above the 278 ppm just prior to the Industrial Revolution and a record increase of 3 ppm compared to the year previous.

Following on the heels of that news, NOAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported that last month was the hottest April on record. According to the World Meteorological Organization, April marked the 12th consecutive month of global temperature records, the longest such streak since global record-taking began in 1880.

EPA Proposes Rise in Biofuel Targets

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed an increase in the amount of corn-based ethanol and biofuels that must be blended into the nation’s fuel supply in 2017. The new targets call for 18.8 billion gallons of biofuels, up 4 percent from 2016 but far less than the 24 billion-gallon biofuel target that lawmakers established in a 2007 statute.

The reason for the lower-than-mandated target, EPA says, is lack of infrastructure to blend ethanol into gasoline as well as the cellulosic biofuel industry’s slow development and marketplace constraints, such as lower gasoline and diesel demand than Congress envisioned in 2007.

Nevertheless, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation Janet McCabe said that the Obama administration is “committed to keeping the [biofuels mandate] on track, spurring continued growth in biofuel production and use, and achieving the climate and energy independence benefits that Congress envisioned from this program.”

Under the renewable fuel standard (RFS), the proposed rule sets the 2017 renewable volume obligations (RVOs) for cellulosic biofuel at 312 million gallons and the advanced biofuel RVO at 4 billion, and it sets the 2018 RVO for biomass-based diesel at 2.1 billion gallons.

The proposed volumes would represent growth over historic levels. Between 2016 and 2017, total renewable fuel volumes are expected to increase by nearly 700 million gallons and advanced renewable fuels, which require 50 percent reductions in life-cycle carbon emission, by nearly 400 million gallons.

The proposed volumes are subject to public comment through July 11, and a public hearing is scheduled June 9. The EPA has until Nov. 30 to finalize the 2017 quotas.

 The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Clean Power Plan Court Hearing Delayed to September

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Just weeks before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was scheduled to hear challenges to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, a rule intended to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the existing fleet of fossil fuel-fired power plants, the court announced it will push the hearing back four months and hear the case before the entire court.

Originally planned for June 2 before a three-judge panel, the hearing was postponed to Sept. 27 and will now take place in front of a full bench. The rare “en banc” review is allowed by procedural rules when the case involves a question of exceptional importance. According to The Washington Post, the decision to pursue such a review appears to be on the court’s own initiative. The move to skip the customary three-panel review, as was the case in 2001’s U.S. v. Microsoft, is almost unheard of and could signal that the judges feel the issues of the case are so significant that they all must weigh in.

“The court has anticipated, obviously, the significance of whatever the panel would say and the related likelihood that it would end up en banc. They’ve basically truncated that process,” Richard Lazarus, a Harvard Law School professor, told Bloomberg BNA.

The order follows an announcement by the D.C. Circuit last year that it would hear the Clean Power Plan on an expedited schedule and a stay on implementation of the plan in February by the U.S. Supreme Court while the lower court determines its legality.

Even so, some indicate the change may actually speed up the final resolution of the case.

“It definitely shortens the time period for this to get to the Supreme Court,” said Dorsey & Whitney Attorney James Rubin (subscription). “This does show that there is recognition for the need to move this forward. It’ll speed things up to some extent.”

EPA Targets Oil and Gas Industry Methane Emissions

The EPA has taken the first-ever steps under the Clean Air Act to regulate oil and gas industry emissions of methane, announcing a new rule aimed at new or modified oil and natural gas wells. The EPA said the regulations, which the EPA proposed last year, would lower methane emissions by 510,000 short tons—the equivalent of 11 million metric tons of carbon dioxide—in 2025, the year by which the Obama administration’s goal is to reduce the sector’s methane emissions by at least 40 percent compared with 2012 levels.

The rules will require energy companies to provide pollution information to the EPA so it can regulate methane emissions from existing oil and gas wells.

To begin regulating methane leaks from existing oil and gas wells, the EPA is requiring energy companies to notify the agency about their emissions and leak-stopping technology. The information request is expected to be finalized later this year and data collection from the industry, early next year.

According to the EPA, pound for pound, the impact of methane on climate change is “more than 25 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.”

Climate Negotiators Meet in Germany to Make Implementation Plan for Paris Agreement

Climate negotiators met in Bonn, Germany, for the first official meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change since the Paris Agreement last year.

A note to Bonn participants stresses the importance of shifting from negotiation to implementation of the landmark agreement—whereby more than 190 countries pledged to hold the global average temperature increase to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit that increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. More than 175 countries have signed the agreement.

The challenge ahead, writes French Environment Minister Segolene Royal and Morocco’s Foreign Prime Minister Salaheddine Mezouar, the previous Paris COP21 president and incoming COP22 president, is to “operationalize the Paris agreement: to turn intended nationally determined contributions into public policies and investment plans for mitigation and adaptation and to deliver on our promises.”

The two-week meeting is expected to produce an agenda for the ad-hoc working group tasked with implementing the Paris Agreement.

Addressing delegates at the start of the meeting, retiring U.N. climate director Christiana Figueres said “The whole world is united in its commitment to the global goals embodied in the Paris Agreement. Now we must design the details of the path to the safe, prosperous and climate-neutral future to which we all aspire.”

 The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Study Links Vanishing of Solomon Islands to Anthropogenic Climate Change

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters finds that five of the uninhabitated Solomon Islands have submerged underwater and six more have experienced dramatic shoreline reductions due to man-made climate change. The study by a team of Australian researchers offers scientific evidence confirming anecdotal accounts of climate change impacts on Pacific islands. That evidence consists in part of radiocarbon tree dating and of aerial and satellite images of 33 islands dating back to 1947.

According to the study authors, the Western Pacific, where residents in many remote communities must constantly climb to higher elevations, is a hotspot for tracking sea-level rise.

The Solomon Islands have experienced nearly three times the global average of sea-level rise, 7–10 millimeters per year since 1993—rates consistent with those that can be expected across much of the Pacific in the second half of this century, reported Scientific American.

Previous research had attributed Pacific island shoreline changes to a mix of extreme events, seawalls, and inappropriate coastal development as well as sea-level rise. But the new study directly links island loss to climate-related phenomena.

Human disturbances, plate tectonics, hurricanes, and waves can mask the effects of climate change. So to hone in on those effects, the researchers studied islands with no human habitation—Nuatambu Island being the one notable exception.

“Rates of shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves,” the study authors said. “Understanding these local factors that increase the susceptibility of islands to coastal erosion is critical to guide adaptation responses for these remote Pacific communities.”

U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions Fall But Global CO2 Concentrations Rise

Last year, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States fell 12 percent below 2005 levels as a result of electric power sector changes.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA), which released the data, attributed the decline largely to “decreased use of coal and the increased use of natural gas for electricity generation.” Such fuel use changes, the EIA reports, accounted for 68 percent of total energy-related carbon dioxide reductions from 2005 to 2015.

Meanwhile, carbon dioxide concentrations at a remote Australia monitoring station—Cape Grim—are poised to hit a new high of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide for the first time in a few weeks. Though that mark is largely symbolic, the United Nations suggests that concentrations of all greenhouse gases should not be allowed to peak higher than 450 ppm this century to maximize chances of limiting global temperature rise.

“We wouldn’t have expected to reach the 400 ppm mark so early,” said David Etheridge, an atmospheric scientist with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which runs the station. “With El Nino, the ocean essentially caps off its ability to take up heat so the concentrations are growing fast as warmer land areas release carbon. So we would have otherwise expected it to happen later in the year.”

The first 400 ppm milestone was hit in 2013 by a monitoring station in Mauna Loa. Cape Grim and Mauna Loa are among the stations that measure baseline carbon dioxide across the world. Their readings are unaffected by regional pollutions sources that would contaminate air quality.

Companies Relinquish Arctic Drilling Leases

Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and other major oil and gas companies have relinquished oil and gas leases worth approximately $2.5 billion and spanning 2.2 million acres of the Arctic Ocean.

The region is estimated to hold 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but tapping these resources has come at great risk for companies.

“Given the current environment, our prospects in the Chukchi Sea are not competitive within our portfolio,” said ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman. “This will effectively eliminate any near-term plans for Chukchi exploration for the company.”

Marketplace reports that data secured through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Shell, ConocoPhillips, Eni and Iona Energy have renounced all but one of their leases in the Chukchi Sea—meaning 80 percent of all area in the American Arctic leased in a 2008 sale has or will be abandoned.

Shell Spokesman Curtis Smith said “After extensive consideration and evaluation, Shell will relinquish all but one of its federal offshore leases in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. Separate evaluations are underway for our federal offshore leases in the Beaufort Sea. This action is consistent with our earlier decision not to explore offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future.”

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Studies Make Predictions about Climate Change Impacts

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Limiting global average temperature increase to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit that increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius—as agreed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris last year—will do little to stop portions of the world from becoming uninhabitable.

That’s according to a new study published in the journal Climatic Change, which compares data from 1986 to 2005 with predictions from 26 climate models over the same period to project climate conditions for two future periods—2046 to 2065 and 2081 to 2100. In both cases, the highest temperature rise is predicted in summer in the Middle East and North Africa. By 2050, both study projections find the global temperature will be close to or have exceeded the 2 degree Celsius target.

“We have been investigating environmental issues, especially airborne dust, air quality and climate change, in the Middle East for many years,” said Jos Lelieveld of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and study co-author. “Recently, we ‘expanded’ our interest to include North Africa, and discovered the important role of desert warming amplification in summer. It is evident that this can affect human habitability in the entire region. Since the Middle East and North Africa are troubled by many unfortunate developments, exceedingly hot summers can be expected to exacerbate problems.”

A separate study by the World Bank suggests that the Middle East, North Africa, and central and South Asia could suffer large economic hits due to water scarcity associated with climate change. These regions could see their growth rates decline by as much as 6 percent of GDP by 2050 due to water-related impacts on agriculture, health and incomes.

“When we look at any of the major impacts of climate change, they one way or another come through water,” said Richard Damania, lead author of the report. “So it will be no exaggeration to claim that climate change is really in fact about hydrological change.”

To mitigate the impact of climate change on water supplies, the report suggests better planning for water resource allocation, adoption of incentives to increase water efficiency and investments in infrastructure for more secure water supplies and availability.

As Ocean Temps Rise, Ocean Oxygen Decreases

According to a new study in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, ocean oxygen levels are decreasing due to climate change—with grave consequences for oxygen-reliant sea life such as crabs, squids, and many kinds of fish. The authors say the deoxygenation effect is already detectable in the southern Indian Ocean and parts of the eastern tropical Pacific and the Atlantic.

“Loss of oxygen in the ocean is one of the serious side effects of a warming atmosphere, and a major threat to marine life,” said lead author Matthew Long, a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The study uses a climate change model to attempt to determine precisely when ocean “deoxygenation” can be attributed to human-induced climate change, suggesting that differentiating between climate change-related losses and natural fluctuations will become increasingly less difficult. It predicts that by the 2030s, climate-change-related oxygen losses will be pervasive and obvious if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked. By the year 2100, it says, a significant fraction of the world’s oceans will experience some deoxygenation due to human activity.

“Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it’s been challenging to attribute any deoxygenation to climate change,” Long said. “This new study tells us when we can expect the effect from climate change to overwhelm the natural variability.”

As seas warm, their capacity to absorb oxygen at the surface decreases, along with water turnover, which in turn decreases the chances that oxygen at the surface will move under the surface. That’s because as water heats, it expands and becomes lighter than the water beneath it and therefore less likely to sink. The low oxygen levels can create dead zones.

Florida Keys Coral Reefs Reach Climate-Related ‘Tipping Point’

Two weeks after the world learned that 93 percent of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been bleached comes word of damage to reefs around South Florida and the Keys as a result of ocean acidification linked to warming waters. According to research in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, reefs in the upper Florida Keys may be losing more limestone than they create each year—a “tipping point” that was projected for 2050 (subscription).

“These bleaching events are an acute problem caused by hot weather spells,” said study co-author Chris Langdon, a professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “Acidification is chronic; it lasts 365 days out of the year. This is one reason we have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions sooner than later.”

Typically, conditions in the ocean, such as water temperature and light, are favorable for the growth of coral limestone in spring and summer and are less favorable in fall and winter. As oceans absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide and ocean pH decreases, the natural summer growth cycle of coral decreases such that the effects of coral dissolution from ocean acidification cannot be offset.

The study findings are based on water samples taken along the 124-mile stretch of the Florida Reef Tract north of Biscayne National Park to the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary. Because the data were collected in 2009 and 2010, the researchers suggest that another analysis should be conducted.

“The worst bleaching years on record in the Florida Keys were 2014–2015, so there’s a chance the reefs could be worse now,” said Langdon.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.