CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY SAVE OR ENVIRONMENT ?

3. GLOBAL WARMING: WHY BE CONERNED?

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Paul H. Carr, Ph. D.AF Research Laboratory & U Mass Lowell Emeritus

email: paulcarr@alum.mit.edu

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INCREASING HURRICANES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, & WILDFIRES

1. Nature’s beauty versus its utility. 2.Can new technology save us in time? Limits to Growth. Food Crash.

3. Why be concerned about Global Warming? Weather Extremes. 4. Data supporting anthropogenic global warming.

5. Technology and policies are available to save us.

CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT?

GLOBAL WARMING: WHY BE CONCERNED?

1. BAD NEWS

RISING SEA LEVELS: 2 TO 6 FEET BY 2100

WET AREAS WILL GET WETTER. DRY AREAS GET DRIER.

INCREASING HURRICANES, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, & WILDFIRES FROM GLOBAL WARMING 2. GOOD NEWS

TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES CAN REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING

IMPROVED CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY

1880-1980: 0.3 C TEMP INCREASE1980- 2012: 0.55 TEMPERATURE INCREASE (Hansen, J., Ruedy, R., Sato, M., and Lo, K., 2010: Global surface temperature change, Rev. Geophys. 48, RG4004.)

RATE OF TEMPERATURE RISE HAS INCREASED IN THE LAST 30 YEARS

GLOBAL WAMING OVER THE CENTURIES

Understanding the

Climate

A darker Arctic is boosting global warmingFrom1979 to 2011, less reflecting ice, more absorbing water made

North Pole warm twice as fast as the rest of the earth. http://www.pnaorg/content/early/2014/02/13/1318201111.abstract

Proc. National Academy of Science, Feb 18, 2014.

3. ARCTIC MELTING IN THE LAST 32 YEARS SATELITE PHOTO

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ARCTIC IS MELTING FASTER THAN UN IPCC 2007 PREDICTIONS PREDICTEDPREDICTIONS

UN IPCC CONSERVATIVE PREDICTIONS OF 300 SCIENTISTS FROM 40 NATIONS.

From World Without Ice H. Pollack.

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• The Sept 2012 minimum area set a record low.• Sept 2013, 2014 is larger but not trend changing.• http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/ Nat. Snow & Ice Data Ctr.

ARCTIC SEA ICE AREA VS. DAY OF THE YEAR •The Sept 2012 minimum area set a record low (red).•Sept 2013 is larger but the long-term pattern of melting continues. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/the-vital-long-view-in-tracking-diminishing-arctic-sea-ice/?ref=earth

Cryosphere Today (UIUC)

PAST COLD ARCTIC PRESENT WARMER ARCTIC

Higher pressure sub-tropic constrained the low-pressure arctic

Lower pressure difference allows waves of arctic air to invade the South: Warmer & Colder Winters.

Weather Extremes: Cold Air Oscillates South from the ArcticThe Arctic is warming faster than the rest of our earth.

Therefore the temperature and the accompanying pressure difference that used to keep arctic air up North comes South, bringing cold air to Atlanta & New Orleans.

The Winters of our Discontent Charles H. Green, Scientific American, pgs 51-55, Dec.2012

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Gravity Satellite Ice Sheet Mass Measurements

Greenland Ice Sheet Antarctic Ice Sheet

Source: Velicogna, I. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L19503, doi:10.1029/2009GL040222, 2009.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578149073844418936.htmlA Reconciled Estimate of Ice-Sheet Mass Balance Science 30 November 2012, Vol. 338 no. 6111 pp. 1183-1189 DOI: 10.1126/science.1228102About 30% of seal level rise is due to this melting. About 50% is from thermal expansion.

Blue: Sea level change from tide-gauge data (Church J.A. and White N.J., Geophys. Res. Lett. 2006; 33: L01602)Red: Univ. Colorado sea level analyses in satellite era (http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/SeaLevel/).

Sea level rise has increased to 3.1 mm/year at present from 0.8 mm/year 1870– 1924.

12 in./100 years.

7.5 in./100 years

3 in. /100 years

Most recent prediction for 2100: 3 to 6 feet

GREENLAND IS MELTING: Reflecting snow replaced by absorbing water & land. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/06/viking-weather/essick-photography

The tragic beauty of Greenland’s melting glaciers.

Using a conservative prediction of a half meter (20 inches) of sea-level rise, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that by 2070, 150 million people in the world’s large port cities will be at risk from coastal flooding, along with $35 trillion worth of property—an amount that will equal 9 percent of the global GDP.

Sea Level Rise ‘Locking In’ Quickly, Cities Threatenedhttp://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-level-rise-locking-in-quickly-cities-threatened-16296

Published: July 29th, 2013

Carbon pollution to date has already locked in more than four feet of sea-level rise past today’s levels.

That’s enough, at high tide, to submerge more than half of today’s population in 316 coastal cities and towns, home to 3.6 million people, in the lower 48 states.

Other cities projected to be 50 percent underwater: Galveston, Texas, by 2030; Norfolk, Virginia; and Coral Gables, Florida, by 2044.

Marine ice sheets in East Antarctica have potential to raise sea levels by several meters. A. Levermann et. al. Earth Syst. Dynam., 5, 271–293, Aug 14, 2014

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“That’s one place I’m really nervous about,” says Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University and an author of the last IPCC report. “It involves the physics of ice fracture that we really don’t understand.” If the Thwaites Glacier breaks free from its rocky berth, that would liberate enough ice to raise sea level by three meters—nearly ten feet. “The odds are in our favor that it won’t put three meters in the ocean in the next century,” says Alley. “But we can’t absolutely guarantee that. There’s at least some chance that something very nasty will happen.”

INCREASING HURRICANES, DROUGHTS, &

WILDFIRES

UNION BEACH, NEW JERSEY, after HURRICANE SANDY Photograph by Ken Cedeno, Corbis, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, Sept 2013

In Manhattan, Sandy’s surging tide knocked out a Con Ed substation, darkening the city below Midtown. Private generators provided some light, including the blue glow of the new World Trade Center, whose base is three feet above sea level. Photograph by Iwan Baan, Reportage by Getty Images National Geographic, Sept 2013

November 1, 2012

Hurricane Sandy •At least 100 U.S. deaths. •Economic losses expected to climb as high as $50 billion. •Eight million homes without power.

The broadening scientific consensus:

*Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms.

*The oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms.

*The Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-01/its-global-warming-stupid

NY City is highly vulnerable to storm surges.

Storm surges are responsible for much of the damage and loss of life associated with land falling hurricanes.

The combined effects of storm climatology change and a 1 m Sea Level Rise may cause the present NYC 100-yr surge flooding to occur every 3–20 yr.

Reference:Physically based assessment of hurricane surge threat under climate changeNing Lin, Kerry Emanuel, et al MIT Nature Climate Change 2, 462–467 (2012) doi:10.1038/nclimate1389Published online 14 February 2012

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n6/full/nclimate1389.html

President’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, identifies 11 climate-related disasters costing an estimated $110 billion in damages in the last year alone.August 2013

The Next Hurricane, and the NextBy THE NY Times EDITORIAL BOARD

•The rebuilding strategy report, from the President’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, identifies 11 climate-related disasters costing an estimated $110 billion in damages in the last year alone.

•Congress made important changes last year to the financially distressed National Flood Insurance Program, reducing subsidies that have made this insurance affordable.

•Now homeowners can either pay much higher insurance rates if they leave things the way they are or they can reconfigure their houses to prepare for the next disaster. Reconfiguring could mean raising the house on pylons above the high-water level.

•Taxpayers should not be paying to rebuild and then re-rebuild as the sea level rises.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/the-next-hurricane-and-the-next.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

Emanuel, K., 2008: The Hurricane-Climate Connection. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 89, ES10-ES20.

T24 Aug 2005. Tropical Storm ApproachesSouthern Florida.

28 Aug 2005. Katrina, Category 5 Hurricane, gained energetic winds of 175 mph due to the record high temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico.

28 Aug 2005. Katrina, Category 5, 175 mph winds. Absorbed energy from the record high temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico.

29 Aug 2005. Katrina causes $100Bs damage to New Orleans, LA

KATRINA: Tropical Storm to Hurricane

Frequency of occurrence (vertical axis) of local June-July-August temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-1980 mean) for Northern Hemisphere land in units of local standard deviation (horizontal axis). Temperature anomalies in the period 1951-1980 match closely the normal distribution ("bell curve", shown in green), which is used to define cold (blue), typical (white) and hot (red) seasons, each with probability 33.3%. The distribution of anomalies has shifted to the right as a consequence of the global warming of the past three decades such that cool summers now cover only half of one side of a six-sided die, white covers one side, red covers four sides, and an extremely hot (red-brown) anomaly covers half of one side. Source: Hansen, J., Sato, M., and Ruedy, R., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 2012.

Loaded Climate Dice: global warming is increasing extreme weather events.Extreme summer heat anomalies now cover about 10% of land area, up from 0.2%. This is based on observations, not models.

Physics Today, March 2012, pg. 31 NUMBER OF EVENTS WITH DAMAGE OVER $ 1 BILLION (NOAA)

2008: 9 2011: 14 Average since 1980: 3 to 4

• Since 1996 over $1 billion damage doubled compared with the previous 15-year period.

Hurricane Katrina 2005: $146 B

Hurricane Irene 2011: $15B Hurricane Sandy 2012: $50B

MUNICH RE, World’s Largest Reinsurance Firm Report, October 2012.

Insured losses in US from thunderstorms alone in 2011 were highest on record:$26 billion -More than double the previous record set in 2010.

•Nearly 3,000 people were kept from their Northern California homes Sunday, 9/21/2014, due to an arson-related wildfire.•More than 5,000 personnel are fighting the blaze. •Cost $6 Million per day.

Inmate firefighters walk along state Highway 120 as they continue to battle the Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park, Calif., on Aug 26, 2013.(Photo: Jae C. Hong, AP)

Fires Are Increasing World-Wide

Western US area burned

Wildfires in Western US have increased 4-fold in 30 years.

The effects of global warming on temperature, precipitation levels, soil drying, and Western Pine beetles are turning many of our forests into kindling for more wildfires.(Westerling, A.L, et al. (2006) Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire.Science 313, 940 -943 DOI: 10.1126/science.11288340. ))

COLORADO MOUTAIN FLOODS

CUMULATIVE GLOBAL WARMING

EFFECTS

1. Warmer winters no longer kill off Western Pine beetles.2. More kindling for wildfires3. Fewer trees to anchor the soil 4.Higer temperatures: more moisture in the atmosphere5.More severe floods with larger washouts

An Inconvenient Ice:Methane Hydrates Could Power the Planet—or Fry ItMethane hydrates could solve the world's energy challenge—or make global warming worse.Sep 16, 2014 |By Lisa Margonelli

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-hydrates-could-power-the-planet-or-fry-it/

Methane hydrate, "Fire ice natural gas hydrate” is a solid clathrate compound in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice.

Found where temperatures are low and water ice is common, significant deposits of methane clathrate have been found under sediments in the ocean.

It is also trapped within the Arctic tundra.

Methane discovery stokes new global warming fears & shock, as retreat of Arctic releases greenhouse gas

 13 Dec 2011 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/methane-discovery-stokes-new-global-warming-fears-shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-releases-greenhouse-gas-6276278.html

Methane is a greenhouse gas 50 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

“Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter.” Dr Semiletov American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. 

The total amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the overall quantity of carbon locked up in global coal reserves. 

 

Dr. William Dillon,U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole, MA

http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/gas-hydrates/title.html

The Coming Climate Crash:Lessons for Climate Change in the 2008 RecessionBy HENRY M. PAULSON Jr. Secretary of the Treasury under Pres. George W. Bush.JUNE 21, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/opinion/sunday/lessons-for-climate-change-in-the-2008-recession.html http://riskybusiness.org

“We’re staring down a climate bubble that poses enormous risks to both our environment  and economy. The warning signs are clear and growing more urgent as the risks go unchecked.

A tax on carbon emissions will unleash a wave of innovation to develop technologies, lower the costs of clean energy and create jobs as we and other nations develop new energy products and infrastructure.

Climate change is the challenge of our time. We’ve seen and felt the costs of underestimating the financial bubble. Let’s not ignore the climate bubble.”

What Can We Do?

Long Term Solution to Reduce C02 Emissions

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, Markey-Waxman bill passed the House of Representatives by a narrow margin.

A cap and trade system, under which the government sets a limit (cap) on the amount of greenhouse gases, mostly C02, that can be emitted. Utilities like coal that exceed the limit must buy permits from non-carbon emitters, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind. This increases the cost of coal generation, but reduces that of non-carbon emitters.

Short Term Response We can not afford it because it would increase the cost of energy. ”It would ruin our economy.” The Senate did not pass the bill.

We already having to pay:Since 1996 over $1 billion damage doubled compared with the previous 15-year period.

Fixing Climate Change May Add No Costs, Report SaysNY Times, Sept 16, 2014

The Global Commission on the Economy & the Climate.

•An ambitious series of measures to limit emissions would cost $4 trillion or so over the next 15 years, an increase of roughly 5 percent over the amount that would likely be spent anyway on new power plants, transit systems and other infrastructure.

•When the secondary benefits of greener policies — like lower fuel costs, fewer premature deaths from air pollution and reduced medical bills — are taken into account, the changes might wind up saving money.

CAP AND TRADE STATES•California

•REGI, The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont .

•Quebec & British Columbia From Bottom-Up Climate Fix Sept. 21, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/opinion/bottom-up-climate-fix.html?mabReward=RI%3A6&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine

Can new technologies save us in time?

• ELECTRIC CARS NOW GET 100 MILES PER GALLON EQUIVALENT

• INSTALLED COST OF PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR CELLS HAVE ACHIEVED GRID PARITY ($0.07/kWh)

2014 Class B Electric Drive

2014 Mercedes-Benz B-class Electric Drive &  2014 BMW i3 3935 pounds (similar to Volt); 97 MPG 2700 pounds, Carbon fiber, 123 MPG

Tesla Model S

All Electric 260 mile

range.

C-Max Energi

“I would put my money on the sun and solar energy.

What a source of power!

I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” (1931)

Thomas Edison

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

The Photovoltaic Solar Cells have decreased in the last year by 50% to $0.85/WChina is the major manufacturer of silicon photovoltaics.

SOLAR POWER HAS BEEN GROWING EXPONENTIALLY

COST OF ROOFTOP SOLAR PVPresent Average Monthly Bill of $100 for 615 kWh/mo (20 Kwhr/day)

Installed COST of ~20, 5 kW total, Solar PV Panels: $3/kW x 5000 W = $15,000.

CREDITS: Federal Income tax rebate (thought2015) $5000 NH Public Utilities Rebate $3750 Total Rebate $8750

NET COST $15000 - credits - 8750 $ 6250

YEARLY SAVINGS Electricity $1200 Property tax reduction 300 Renewable Energy Credits 240 $1740

• FREE GREEN ELECTRICITY FOR 21 YEARS AFTER A 4 YEAR PAYBACK TIME.

Data source Paul Button www.energy-audits-unltd.com Manchester, NH Tel 603 836 4402

Sunny future: Dow Chemical hopes to transform the solar power industry by integrating solar cells with conventional roofing shingles. Credit: Dow Chemical

Presently they seem to cost about $6/ sq. ft but will come down with production increases.  Any-way, $15K for a 2500 sq. ft. house means a payback of about 6 years.--Gene Norris

Energy Returned On (energy) Investment Dr. Ida Kubiszewski and Dr. Cutler J. Cleveland, The Encyclopedia of Earth.

Corn EthanolSoy Oil Diesel

Www.capewind.org

Nobel Laureate Dr. Steven Chu, Energy Secretary

TECHNOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE TO SOLVE OUR POPULATION & EVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

CAN WE DEPLOY THEM IN TIME TO MINIMIZE HUMAN SUFFERING?When asked if we have enough time to prevent catastrophe, Donella Meadows

always said that we have exactly enough time -- starting now.

• WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE.

• CONSERVE, INVEST IN SOLAR CELLS ($0.10/KWHR) - ELECTRIC CARS, 100 MILES/GAL, WINDMILLS.

• ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO VOTE FOR THE ABOVE.

More than 100,000 people march through midtown Manhattan as part of the People’s Climate March on Sunday in New York. John Minchillo/AP Images for AVAAZ

100,000  to 400,000 people march through midtown Manhattan as part of the People’s Climate March on Sunday, Sept 21, 2014 in New York. John Minchillo/AP Images for AVAAZ

Margaret Mead, Anthropologist (1901-1978)

Star Island IRAS Speaker 1969

“Never doubt that a group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.

Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

CHALLENGE