It's Getting Hot in Herre (27 July)

Reviewing The Latest in Environmental, Energy and Sustainability News

Haven't done one of these reviews in awhile (I'm trying to incorporate more enviro news into the morning roundups), but after the heat that's been on the last week here on the West Coast, it's as good as time as any to fire it up. To start off, there's an important op-ed piece in the New York Times by Peter Doran, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose study showing a cooling trend in Antarctica has been used by Global Warming skeptics. But he sets them straight:

My research colleagues and I found that from 1986 to 2000, one small, ice-free area of the Antarctic mainland had actually cooled. Our report also analyzed temperatures for the mainland in such a way as to remove the influence of the peninsula warming and found that, from 1966 to 2000, more of the continent had cooled than had warmed. Our summary statement pointed out how the cooling trend posed challenges to models of Antarctic climate and ecosystem change.

Newspaper and television reports focused on this part of the paper. And many news and opinion writers linked our study with another bit of polar research published that month, in Science, showing that part of Antarctica’s ice sheet had been thickening — and erroneously concluded that the earth was not warming at all. “Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming,” said a headline on an editorial in The San Diego Union-Tribune. One conservative commentator wrote, “It’s ironic that two studies suggesting that a new Ice Age may be under way may end the global warming debate.”

[...]

Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents — all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.

[...]

The disappointing thing is that we are even debating the direction of climate change on this globally important continent. And it may not end until we have more weather stations on Antarctica and longer-term data that demonstrate a clear trend.

In the meantime, I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well.

Doran has some more over at his UIC page:

To get back to our Antarctic climate story, we indeed stated that a majority -- 58 percent -- of the continent cooled between 1966 and 2000, but let’s not forget the remainder was warming. One region, the Antarctic Peninsula, warmed at orders of magnitude more than the global average. Our paper did not predict the future and did not make any comment on climate anywhere else on Earth except to say, in our very first sentence, that the Earth’s average air temperature increased by 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade in the 20th century.

New models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica to the human-induced ozone hole over the continent. Besides providing a protective layer over the Earth, ozone is a greenhouse gas. The models now suggest that as the ozone hole heals, thanks to world-wide bans on harmful CFCs, aerosols, and other airborne particles, Antarctica should begin to fall in line and warm up with the rest of the planet. These models are conspicuously missing from climate skeptic literature. Also missing is the fact that there has been some debate in the science community over our results. We continue to stand by the results for the period analyzed, but an unbiased coverage would acknowledge the differences of opinion.

On the flip (click the Full Post link below), we'll take a swing through the latest news...

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• With Paris, London and Berlin experiencing peak temperatures, matching those of Bangkok, Hong Kong and New Delhi, Europe’s heat wave this summer has already headed for the record books. The severe and prolonged heat has prompted the authorities across Europe to issue advice on everything from personal safety to power use.
  [...]
  Mark Vance, an entertainer at Warwick Castle who wears a full suit of armor and was named the man with the hottest job in Britain by The Daily Express, was photographed frying an egg on the breastplate of his outfit.
  
  In the Netherlands, July will probably qualify as the hottest month since temperatures were first measured in 1706, the Dutch meteorological institute, KNMI, said Tuesday. [NYTimes]
  
  
• When the human body gets to 42C, it starts to cook. The heat causes the proteins in each cell to irreversibly change, like an egg white as it boils. Even before that, the brain shuts down because of a lack of blood coming from the overworked, overheated heart. Muscles stop working, the stomach cramps and the mind becomes delirious. Death is inevitable.
  
  The gruesome effects of overheating have been largely forgotten as Europe swelters under record temperatures, from southern England's 36.5C to Bosnia's 41C. When weather forecasters predicted that the heat would get more intense across the continent today, most of us heaved a sigh at the thoughts of stuffy trains, sweaty buses, parched lawns and boiling offices. But perhaps we are being complacent.
  
  [...]
  
  Heatwaves claim thousands of lives, killing more people each year than floods, tornadoes and hurricanes combined. And it is going to get worse. Scientists calculate that, as global warming bites and average temperatures around the world get higher, the risk of extreme heatwaves will also increase. The World Meteorological Organisation estimates that the number of heat-related deaths across the globe will double in the next 20 years.
  
  To see these statistics in action, think back three years. In 2003, Europe was melting. It was the hottest summer ever recorded in the northern hemisphere and temperatures were consistently soaring to more than 40C across many parts of the continent. Britain recorded its first ever temperature of more than 100F on August 10.
  
  The surprise at the heat was matched only by shock at the scale of the human casualties it caused: more than 2,000 people died in Britain, 7,000 in Germany, 4,000 in Spain and 1,000 in Italy. The largest casualties were in France, where almost 15,000 perished in the first three weeks of August, more than 19 times the global death toll from the Sars epidemic earlier that year. [Guardian]
  
  
• A secret memo by the coal industry details a coordinated campaign to spread misinformation about global warming. The memo expresses fear that if the government addresses climate change — through a carbon tax or regulating greenhouse gasses — it will cut into their profits.
  
  Their solution: “support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists.” (The memo also refers to people who believe in global warming science as those “whose true motivation is to stop growth, develop renewable resources [and] discontinue the use of fossil fuels, especially coal.”) [ThinkProgress]
  
  
• As we've stated before - the debate on global warming is over. Experts on all sides of the political spectrum agree. However after calling it 'the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people' Sen. James Inhofe, the current chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, went a step further this week by telling the Tulsa World that the work of green movement is comparable to the lies of the 'Third Reich'. I guess the debate isn't over for those willing to sink to this level. Senator Inhofe, have you no sense of decency? [World Changing]
  
  
• Coal-burning utilities are passing the hat for one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.
  
  Pat Michaels -- Virginia's state climatologist, a University of Virginia professor and senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute _ told Western business leaders last year that he was running out of money for his analyses of other scientists' global warming research. So last week, a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign to help him out, raising at least $150,000 in donations and pledges.
  
  [...]
  
  Michaels is best known for his newspaper opinion columns and books, including "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media." However, he also writes research articles published in scientific journals.
  
  In 1998, Michaels blasted NASA scientist James Hansen, accusing the godfather of global warming science of being way off on his key 1988 prediction of warming over the next 10 years. But Hansen and other scientists said Michaels misrepresented the facts by cherry-picking the worst (and least likely) of three possible outcomes Hansen presented to Congress. The temperature rise that Hansen said was most likely to happen back then was actually slightly lower than what has occurred. [WaPo]
  
  
• GM's Bob Lutz says that developing hybrids is a political and not a financial decision. He says the technology will always be too expensive to be practical. [...] While GM can continue to turn a blind eye to the possibilities Peugot says it will make a production diesel hybrid car. [Wired's Autotopia]
  
  
• Venezuela has launched a five-year reforestation project for Orinoco headwaters and tributary rivers in which more than 900 conservation committees and students from more than 100 schools will help plant 100 million trees in a 150,000-hectare area.
  [...]
  But the plan is not a panacea for Venezuela's deforestation woes. Miguel Rodríguez, vice minister of environmental conservation, admitted that the planned reforestation will in five years cover an area equivalent to the amount of forest lost each year, which official estimates say total 140,000 of the country's total 90 million hectares. [IPS]