tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23290924475775156642024-03-12T15:03:12.337-07:00The 100 Metre LineA blog alerting all citizens living in coastal areas of the need to move our civilization above the highest level the ocean will rise to once all the ice sheets are gone, in the hope that we will take precautionary action; prepare for the worst while wishing for the best.Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-70775270696155377942019-03-05T03:14:00.000-08:002019-03-05T03:14:42.385-08:00Global Mean Sea Level data and CO2 level update.A great source of mean sea level data is now presented at: <a href="https://www.sealevels.org/" target="_blank">Sea Levels . Org.</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVtx_O1qpEse12MxroPt1931n-6Q9rU278yK2YtRSLOfkCPNeVUoaPOqu8SDdsRXbXe2TRxegWQw9PYiPNXBh6p_ucYWYiJtkrqrJ6h2RjKCge78FXCmxCVqOxLRw-BsgGDUgUCKDX3qDe/s1600/GlobalMeanSeaLevel20190306a.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="758" data-original-width="1262" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVtx_O1qpEse12MxroPt1931n-6Q9rU278yK2YtRSLOfkCPNeVUoaPOqu8SDdsRXbXe2TRxegWQw9PYiPNXBh6p_ucYWYiJtkrqrJ6h2RjKCge78FXCmxCVqOxLRw-BsgGDUgUCKDX3qDe/s320/GlobalMeanSeaLevel20190306a.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This confirms the trends we estimated a decade ago, with what appears to be almost an exponential trend from 1900 through today.<br />
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I see too that the <a href="https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/" target="_blank">Global monthly mean CO2 levels</a> are now at 408.16 ppm compared with 405.49 ppm this time last year.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ww6Z34XIB34AAnWOK6n2ADiLtUspbP-LWMSTyhYLS7ePD6UskRZDnrG2MskpISj1pEGIcd9DSieEycYVe-ogvaADWow4efZiVhZr51d_M8BM4Z0dptI3INV8qy_jz8orMGo-1nD4pUlH/s1600/GlobalCO2+20190306a.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="929" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ww6Z34XIB34AAnWOK6n2ADiLtUspbP-LWMSTyhYLS7ePD6UskRZDnrG2MskpISj1pEGIcd9DSieEycYVe-ogvaADWow4efZiVhZr51d_M8BM4Z0dptI3INV8qy_jz8orMGo-1nD4pUlH/s320/GlobalCO2+20190306a.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Nothing to be complacent about here.<br />
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NNigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-58499787326955342892016-07-14T00:58:00.001-07:002016-07-14T00:58:24.747-07:00Great sea-level rise maps re New Zealand<a href="http://www.musther.net/nzslr/" target="_blank">New Zealand Sea Level Rise</a><br />
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>A series of maps depicting New Zealand in various sea-level rise scenarios</i></span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i>By <a href="http://www.musther.net/">Jonathan Musther</a></i></span></div>
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A wonderful resource Jonathan has put together.<br />
Review, and ponder!Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-44814064729220534022015-04-14T00:09:00.003-07:002015-04-14T00:09:48.581-07:00'...the future course is being prepared for a 70 meter rise in sea level.'Read the last line first...<br />
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<a href="https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/andy-lacis-responds-to-steve-koonin/" rel="bookmark" sl-processed="1" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: black; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Andy Lacis responds to Steve Koonin</a> </h2>
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'...<b style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Physicists should not be confused by these random-looking quasi-chaotic fluctuations about the local climate equilibrium point, and should instead focus more on the changing energy balance equilibrium point of the climate system.</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;"> They should also pay attention to the geological record that points to an atmospheric CO2 level of 450 ppm as being incompatible with polar ice caps, a level that is expected to be reached by the end of this century. While it may take a thousand years for the polar ice to melt, the future course is being prepared for a 70 meter rise in sea level.'</span></div>
Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-78613693153443841592014-08-01T22:44:00.003-07:002015-04-27T01:18:45.473-07:00Time to break out the gum boots?This just in from Arctic News<br />
<a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/more-than-25m-sea-level-rise-by-2040.html" target="_blank">...2.5m Sea Level Rise by 2040???</a><br />
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'<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">A polynomial trendline applied to the data points at a sea level rise of more than 2.5 m (8.2 ft) by the year 2040.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;"> ..'</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">The analysis considers whether the trend in increase in sea levels should be considered as linear (same amount next year as last year) or polynomial (more next year than last year, and more again the year after). The conclusion appears to be that the rate of rise will continue to increase, leading to the conclusion that SLR will get to 2.5 meters by 2040, and of course it will continue to behave exponentially until a balance is achieved between the amount of grounded ice left to melt and the rising global air and sea temperatures, when the rate of rise will fall back to zero when the last ice block is melted in a world that is somewhere between two and five (God help us!) degrees warmer than today. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">Hansen a while back (2011) discussed doubling times of the observed sea level rise and showed how (like compound interest) this would predict a rise of <a href="http://the100metreline.blogspot.co.nz/2011/01/hansen-5-metres-by-2100.html" target="_blank">5 metres by 2100</a> .</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">This new work suggests that with 'business as usual warming (including the accelerated warming the polar areas are experiencing - they always get more than their fair share of the additional heat - the sky is the limit for global temperatures, and with those temperatures comes faster melt, as well as all the other interesting side effects of a more energetic climate.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">As evidence of those unfortunate effects we have an<a href="http://gulfnews.com/news/region/algeria/bad-weather-likely-cause-of-fatal-air-algerie-crash-says-french-officials-1.1363516" target="_blank"> airliner at cruising altitude taken out and destroyed, by the weathe</a>r. A sad pointer to times to come. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2893411/Stricken-AirAsia-plane-soared-fast-fighter-jet-dropped-vertically-Java-Sea-thrust-giant-hand-crash-experts-revealed-today.html" target="_blank">And another.</a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">(As part of preparations, and recognising the weather we are getting already, I'm working on plans for a storm-proof greenhouse, as we just lost a lot of seedlings due to storm and we don't want that to happen again.)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">Keep up the great work!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">N </span>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-4209067278712583582014-07-08T02:03:00.000-07:002014-08-01T22:45:49.873-07:00Recent research. The outlook is not improving.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To set the scene:-</span><br />
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<span class="style39" style="color: #8d8066; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 190px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span class="style57" style="font-size: 170px;">401.30</span><span class="style40" style="font-size: 20px;">ppm</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-large;">Atmospheric CO</span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span class="style62" style="font-size: 16px;">2</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-large;"> for June2014</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://co2now.org/" target="_blank">CO2 Now</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now, the news...</span></div>
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1.</div>
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Antarctic glaciers melting twice as fast as previously estimated: scientists</div>
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<tr><td align="left" class="sj" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" width="43%"><a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english2010/" style="border: none; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">English.news.cn</span></a> 2014-07-08 09:03:09</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/sci/2014-07/08/c_133467402.htm</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'..</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21.700000762939453px;">sub-surface ocean temperatures down to 700 meters are rapidly changing around Antarctica because of shifting wind patterns, thought to be partly due to global warming.</span><br />
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"It certainly was for me a very frightening result," Spence said.'</div>
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"It's not unlike an avalanche of snow, where you don't quite know when it's going to happen but when it happens, it can happen quickly," Spence said.</div>
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The Australian Antarctic Division's Tas van Ommen said the effects of a rapidly transforming Antarctica are now likely to be felt this century.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 22.22222328186035px; font-weight: bold;">2.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 22.22222328186035px; font-weight: bold;">The runaway glaciers in West Antarctica </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.44444465637207px; line-height: 21.700000762939453px;">http://climatestate.com/2014/07/05/the-runaway-glaciers-in-west-antarctica/</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #3a7cdb; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable">NASA/JPL</a><span style="color: #626262; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 26.399999618530273px;"> press release, May 12, 2014: A new study by researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, finds a rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5c68; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 29.040000915527344px;">“The collapse of this sector of West Antarctica appears to be unstoppable,” he said. “The fact that the retreat is happening simultaneously over a large sector suggests it was triggered by a common cause, such as an increase in the amount of ocean heat beneath the floating sections of the glaciers. At this point, the end of this sector appears to be inevitable.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 22.22222328186035px; font-weight: bold;">3.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 22.22222328186035px; font-weight: bold;">Global warming and the vulnerability of Greenland's ice sheet</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-vulnerability-greenland-ice-sheet.html</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The level our oceans will rise to in the next decades and centuries depends strongly on how fast the </span><a class=" u-underline" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/greenland" style="color: #0046aa; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none;">Greenland</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> <span class="skstip advanced" id="skstip4" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 68, 64); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #004440;">ice sheet</span> will melt.</span></div>
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Aside from the importance of deep troughs to ice motion, the extension inland means that <span class="skstip beginner" id="skstip16" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 68, 64); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #004440;">glacier</span>s will have to retreat further than anticipated inland in order to reach a position above sea level. “Some of them will stay in contact with the ocean for centuries, when we thought that in a couple of decades they would stabilize.” said Mathieu Morlighem.</div>
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The <span class="skstip advanced" id="skstip17" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 68, 64); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #004440;">ice sheet</span> is therefore more vulnerable than predicted, and existing <span class="skstip advanced" id="skstip18" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 68, 64); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #004440;">projection</span>s of sea level rise contribution from Greenland are too conservative and need to be revised.</div>
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As the authors state in the paper, “Our findings imply that the outlet <span class="skstip beginner" id="skstip20" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 68, 64); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #004440;">glacier</span>s of Greenland, and the <span class="skstip advanced" id="skstip21" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 68, 64); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #004440;">ice sheet</span> as a whole, are probably more vulnerable to ocean thermal forcing and peripheral thinning than inferred previously from existing numerical ice-sheet models.”</div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">4.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mercury Rising: 2014 Sees Warmest May Ever Recorded Following on From 2nd Warmest April</span></h2>
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Posted on 1 July 2014 by Rob Painting</h4>
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<a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mercury-Rising-2014-Sees-Warmest-May-Ever-Recorded.html" style="color: #0046aa; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;"></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mercury-Rising-2014-Sees-Warmest-May-Ever-Recorded.html</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; text-align: justify;">
...with April 2014 being the 2nd warmest in 135 years of measurement (tied with 1998), and May 2014 the warmest ever in 135 years. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; text-align: justify;">
2014 is currently on track to be one of the warmest years ever recorded, perhaps even the warmest. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 15px; text-align: center;">
--/--</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="skstip beginner" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 68, 64); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #004440;"><br /></span></div>
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Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-50012145728157226552014-05-29T03:40:00.002-07:002014-05-29T03:43:52.572-07:00Yup. It's happened before: One metre every 20 years... As I was saying...<table class="wsite-not-footer" id="blogTable" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #8f8f8f; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; table-layout: fixed; width: 681px;"><tbody>
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<a class="blog-title-link" href="http://www.climateoutcome.kiwi.nz/blog/rising-sea-levels-from-melting-ice" style="color: #387c0e; text-decoration: none;">Rising Sea levels from melting ice.</a></h2>
<div class="blog-date" style="float: left; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1; padding: 0px !important;">
<span class="date-text" style="float: left; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px;">15/05/2014</span></div>
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http://www.climateoutcome.kiwi.nz/blog/rising-sea-levels-from-melting-ice<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">'When the planet moved from the last ice age to the present warm period around fourteen thousand years ago there was a sudden increase in sea levels which amounted to twenty metres over four hundred years or, five metres a century or, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #8d2424; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong>one metre every twenty years.'</strong></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8d2424; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong><br /></strong></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong><span style="color: #2a2a2a;">And today...</span></strong></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong><span style="color: #2a2a2a;"><br /></span></strong></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8d2424; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong>'...</strong></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">six glaciers around Pine Island [Antarctica] .</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #8d2424; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong>.. </strong></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">the grounding line ... has been retreating towards the land at up to thirty five kilometres (twenty two miles) a year.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"> '</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">What price coastal properties now then?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8d2424; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong><br /></strong></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8d2424; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><strong><br /></strong></span>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-36526344483040070562014-02-06T22:12:00.000-08:002014-02-06T22:23:08.650-08:00Reducing emissions - it starts at home.I getting rather tired of well-meaning agencies and individuals calling for us to protest at big oil drilling more wells, big coal ripping our more coal, more nuclear plants being built (insane anyway you look at it) and new power stations being built. Their ostensible objective is (I assume) to see global emissions of greenhouse gasses decline, to avoid catastrophic changes to our climate and the biosphere. (Or is it their objective just to stick their heads in the Bear's mouth, and then complain bitterly about the resulting bad smell - the smell in Mr Putin's prisons?)<br />
<br />
This is an attempt to put all the blame for our emissions onto the providers of the energy. Its the same as putting the blame for problem drinking onto the bottle stores.<br />
<br />
Folks, the problem is not with the pushers of this deadly CO2 drug, its with the users, us. We have to kill the market for greenhouse gas emitting products and systems by reducing the demand, not by trying to attack the supply side.<br />
<br />
Every man and woman on the planet Earth has to reduce their emissions to a level that will give Mother Earth the ability to return the concentration of greenhouse gasses to pre-industrial levels; to around 250 ppm.<br />
<br />
How much can we emit?<br />
<br />
http://www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/greenhouse/quota_GHG.html<br />
<br />
The answer is 1700 kg of CO2 per person per year (1.7 tonnes of CO2 per person per year.). This equates to 141.7 kg CO2 per person per month.<br />
<br />
How do you calculate your CO2 emissions?<br />
<br />
Your own version of the following sum will give you an idea.<br />
<br />
(Litres of petrol x 2.39) + (Litres of Diesel x 2.64) + (Kilowatt-hours of electricity x 0.7) = kg CO2.<br />
<br />
Note that the factor of 0.7 kgCO2 per kWh for electricity use is based on New Zealand's comparatively low-carbon electricity (64% hydro, wind and geothermal), so you may need to find the correct factor for you own electricity provider.<br />
<br />
I calculate the emissions for our three-person household. Over the last three months our emissions averaged 204 kg per person per month (53% from electricity use the remainder from diesel). This is 144% of our allowed 141.7 kg emission target so we have to cut back some more- but we are doing much better than we were a year ago. So we have just moved to a different dwelling right in the middle of town to cut our emissions back some more by living in a smaller and more energy efficient place, and reducing the need to drive the car or use the bus to get to shops, entertainment and university, and to business appointments. <br />
<br />
So when we have our emissions down close to 1.7 tonnes per person per year we will then (and not until then) start to suggest that others do the same. <br />
<br />
Let me know how you get on.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">V32079</span><br />
<v32079></v32079>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-84659489809100336752013-11-09T15:29:00.002-08:002013-11-09T15:29:46.602-08:00National Geographic Map of Sea Level Rise<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">National Geographic http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map">National Geographic Map of Sea Level Rise</a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">'The maps here show the world as it is now, with only one difference: All the ice on land has melted and drained into the sea, raising it 216 feet and creating new shorelines for our continents and inland seas. There are more than five million cubic miles of ice on Earth, and some scientists say it would take more than 5,000 years to melt it all. If we continue adding carbon to the atmosphere, we’ll very likely create an ice-free planet, with an average temperature of perhaps 80 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the current 58 degrees F.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Nat Geo Map referenced in the NZ Herald also:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<h1 style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s, border-color, opacity; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Stag-Serif-Medium, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; transition: background-color 0.2s, border-color, opacity; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11154043">Polar-melt map shows disaster for coastal NZ</a></span></h1>
<h1 style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s, border-color, opacity; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Stag-Serif-Medium, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px 0px 12px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; transition: background-color 0.2s, border-color, opacity; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #999999; font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 24px;">5:30 AM Saturday Nov 9, 2013</span></h1>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 17px;">'Much of northern New Zealand, including Auckland, and parts of the South Island would be almost wiped out by rising sea levels if all the world's ice melted, according to new mapping by National Geographic magazine.</span><br />
<div style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; vertical-align: baseline;">
New Zealand would be among many countries to lose vast amounts of their landscape if the polar ice caps melted, the nature publication said.'</div>
<div style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; vertical-align: baseline;">
'<span style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Niwa chief climate scientist Dr David Wratt</span><span style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"> ... </span><span style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">...</span><span style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">said the IPCC report indicated global warming above a threshold of a few degrees could lead to the near-complete loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet over a millenium or more, causing a global sea level rise over that 1000-year period of about 7m.'</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fff9e7; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Current CO2? </span><br />
<a href="http://co2now.org/">http://co2now.org/</a><br />
<br />
<div style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">Yes indeed. </span><span style="font-size: 14.399999618530273px;">We are still on track for very 'interesting times'.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe, 'Segoe UI', Optima, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 10px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; transition: color 0.2s, background-color, border-color, opacity; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-48828318120810751122013-02-12T02:17:00.000-08:002013-02-12T09:34:36.848-08:00Ten Non-Surprises<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Ten Non-Surprises<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To stop my mind from flying around in circles worrying about ‘everything’ I have
decided to record the things that I know are going to happen anyway – no matter
how hard we try to avoid them. That way
I can stop wondering if I can or should do anything to divert these bundles of sadness
from their destined trajectories and instead carry on with preparations to make
the best of the coming times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The occurrence
of the following ten things in various forms global and local will not surprise
me in the coming decades. In fact, after much contemplation about New Zealand's social and political position and the inertia of vested interests including the majority of elected 'representatives' and professional advisers at all levels of public and private affairs I have satisfied myself that what ever efforts we may apply to these matters we are unable to turn sufficiently away from our present path to avoid these Non-Surprises. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I am content that I am unable to make any suggestion to anybody else that will make any material difference to the course New Zealand and Humanity generally are pursuing. Therefore this post is not to be taken in any way as a criticism of efforts being made by others, rather it is a statement of my own belief. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><i>As I have said before, I believe that the time for attempting to plug the holes in the sinking ship is now behind us, and we should devote our remaining resources and energies to building life boats to carry us in as much comfort as possible to our new future. </i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I therefore relieve myself of my previous duty of trawling the global media for signs of change for the better and for blogging and petitioning the 'powers that be' to seek change to the current course. Instead t</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">he only ‘news’ concerning these matters that is of any interest to me is that
either these things have somehow been permanently avoided (say; a Grand Power
assumes total control of global fossil fuel production and resource extraction and immediately
institutes a 10% reduction in global production every year for the next seven
years), or are likely to be much worse or occur much sooner than expected (say; rising Arctic
ocean and air temperatures lead to abrupt releases of calthrates and tundra methane,
collapse of Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets).</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I would like
to know about Black Swan events and no doubt I can rely on friends (or the
appearance of fire and brimstone on the horizon) to appraise me of these as and when they occur. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Climate<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">1
Air temperatures will continue to rise.
(Some locations become uninhabitable.
For example towns in central Australia where temperatures of 48°C were
recently recorded. Changes in crops grown/not grown in many areas, inability of many
crops to cope with higher temperatures or frost-free growing seasons. Failure
to establish heat-resistant crops in time to replace lost production. Insect issues including increased crop
damage, loss of pollinators. Reduced food production and higher food
costs. Draconian and misplaced controls on food production, distribution and storage. Relocation of populations. Civil
unrest.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2
Droughts will become more extreme and
frequent. (Impacts on public water supplies, farm production and viability and
on frequency and extent of fires. Failure to develop water saving schemes to serve key food production areas. Miss-allocation of funds and resources to poorly chosen agricultural pursuits. Failure to develop and utilise all available public lands including National Parks and reserves as forest food gardens where some portion may survive climate change to provide useful food production on the 'commons'. Increasing cost of food. Abandonment of farms
and towns. Unemployment and population relocation.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">3
Storm events will become more extreme.
(Damage to and eventual abandonment of storm and flood-prone areas, increased
damage to land and soils impacted by drought, unaffordable insurance policies
and hence inability to obtain finance to build or rebuild, reclassification of
land to prevent development. Loss of property values. Inability to afford
repairs to important infrastructure or to build works to withstand storms.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">4 Predictions of end-of-century sea level rise moving to substantially higher values than the current 1.5 metres. (Refusal of
insurance for coastal areas and consequent collapse of coastal property
markets. Impact on coastal food production areas [delta areas producing rice,
for example]. Relocation of populations, Civil unrest and increased pressure on
remaining land and food production areas.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Economy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">5
Increased fragility of financial
systems and ever-increasing risk of progressive and sudden collapse of key
components of the system. (Higher rate
of failure of major financial institutions and big and small businesses. Failure of some businesses and systems to
recover from collapse cycles.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">6
Increasingly frequent malfunction of local banking
systems due to electricity or internet failures. (Cashflow machines empty,
banking system disabled, commerce ceases or becomes cash- and paper-based. Inability to buy or trade fuel due to cash
purchase requirements on service stations by their fuel suppliers. Failure of ‘farmers markets’ to provide food
supply due to reliance on financial and energy systems. Food riots. Breakdown of law and
order. ‘Arab Springs’.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Energy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">7
Progressive increases in cost of energy
– especially oil. (Reduced operating
margins for businesses, reduced spending power for households, spiralling economic and business failure and unemployment.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">8
High risk of sudden failure of oil supply
to New Zealand due to increased demands of ChIndia and other remaining
production hubs, corralling of global oil supplies by major importers and
increased internal consumption of exporters.
(</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Failure of national and international public and private transport systems.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Abrupt disruption to commerce and food production and distribution. Breakdown of law and order. Use of the armed forces against the people. R</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">epressive but i</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">neffective responses to the demands of
the population including takeover of privately stored supplies.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">9
Increased burning of coal to fuel power
supplies and industry - mostly overseas but partly using coal exported from New
Zealand. (Failure to develop and install local demand reduction and energy storage solutions that would cope with energy supply variations arising from 100% renewable energy sources. Failure of raw material supplies for development of renewable energy sources. Continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions and thus temperatures - see above.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Political and Social<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">10 On-going efforts to solve problems by
increasing rather than reducing the complexity of local and national
governments, infrastructure and social support systems. (Increasing cost of
government and development, higher taxes and rates, transfer of subsidies and support
from programmes supporting underprivileged and disadvantaged people to funding the operation of the increasingly irrelevant bureaucracy, increased ‘mindlessness’ of
law-making and enforcement. Dissemination of misinformation about the cause and effect of the crisis. Further reduction in effectiveness of
representation and democratic process, increasing instances of non-compliance
with ‘bad’ laws and rules, increasing separation between policy directions and the actual
condition of the people. State assuming
more local powers to support failed councils (e.g Christchurch). Increased
spending on projects and services that exacerbate already-bad conditions [e.g.
Roads of National Importance]. Increased un-democratisation and privatisation
of key public service utilities and functions. Failure to allow domestic rain water collection and use, composting toilets and domestic greywater re-use in all areas currently served by expensive and poorly-performing water supply and sewage systems.. Failure of utilities including energy suppliers to provide required services and of councils and government to
restore useful control and function of utilities to the people. Increased civil unrest concerning representation and governance and increasingly heavy-handed anddesperate responses by local and national
government agencies.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">None of the
above will surprise me, and unless the biggest possible Black Swan event of all
occurs (viz.; a complete change of mind-set by every human being on the planet Earth
to restore and operate the Earth as a ‘commons’ for the gentle benefit of all) I do
not see any of these issues being avoidable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thus I choose
to watch with interest the coming times, while focussing my attentions fully on making all possible preparations for me and mine to deal intelligently with whatever comes to give us the best
chance for some of our DNA to make it though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Nigel
Williams<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">12 February
2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-62581716671862770122012-11-16T03:56:00.000-08:002012-11-16T05:06:32.608-08:00The Cost of OilThe IEA has just published its World Oil Outlook.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2012/november/name,33015,en.html</b></div>
<div>
<b>http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>It presents an amazingly optimistic perspective. The charts show continued growth in production and continuing increase in price.</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>So the chart I present here shows how much oil will cost the world each day, based on the IEA's own charts of production and price - assuming the current policies scenario is follows, and why not. </b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Qwg4g4d6A7TL1D5qVT0QzVfx15M6RUUtVkO98xjTzkOXtn4QQKK9Bb2dylsR2X5cd4D42f-GvJ0Q8z1yC971d7YBEIfcZnlcj4XPUVLwzw2KGC6YbVlCp_Nc9H9mYWJ5okjcBZ7ecmQ5/s1600/TheCostofOil+20121117a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Qwg4g4d6A7TL1D5qVT0QzVfx15M6RUUtVkO98xjTzkOXtn4QQKK9Bb2dylsR2X5cd4D42f-GvJ0Q8z1yC971d7YBEIfcZnlcj4XPUVLwzw2KGC6YbVlCp_Nc9H9mYWJ5okjcBZ7ecmQ5/s320/TheCostofOil+20121117a.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b>The curve shows the cost of oil to the world each day. The red line marks 2012.</b></div>
<div>
<b>So oil is not expected to cost the world less for quite a while. Remember the cost of oil in 2008 was largely responsible for the global economic crash. Today (2012) we are struggling, and its going to cost us more for many years to come.</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>Interesting.</b></div>
Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-12406488495345572672012-03-12T17:45:00.002-07:002012-03-12T17:46:41.320-07:00Greenland - ready to rumble!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://grist.org/list/study-even-a-small-temperature-increase-will-obliterate-greenland-ice-cap/">http://grist.org/list/study-even-a-small-temperature-increase-will-obliterate-greenland-ice-cap/</a>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With continued growth in coal consumption the return to 350 ppm CO2, and staying below 2 degrees C increase are now both unlikely.</span><br />
<a href="http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-12/peak-oil-review-mar-12"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-12/peak-oil-review-mar-12</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And Hansen reinforces the simple truth: If we dont divert from our present path then we could get 5 metres sea level rise this century. Listen to his latest message on:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html">http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html</a>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing here gives me any cause to change my view about the likely rates of sea level rise.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-11276597389397273112011-10-19T14:07:00.000-07:002011-11-01T15:15:08.485-07:00Sea levels to continue to rise for 500 years? Long-term climate calculations suggest so<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><i><span class="date" style="color: #666666;">ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011)</span> — Rising sea levels in the coming centuries is perhaps one of the most catastrophic consequences of rising temperatures. Massive economic costs, social consequences and forced migrations could result from global warming. But how frightening of times are we facing? Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute are part of a team that has calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere using climate models.</i></span><br />
<i>...</i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><i>In the pessimistic scenario, emissions continue to increase. This will mean that sea levels will rise 1.1 meters by the year 2100 and will have risen 5.5 meters by the year 2500.</i></span><br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">...</i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><i>For the two more realistic scenarios, calculated based on the emissions and pollution stabilizing, the results show that there will be a sea level rise of about 75 cm by the year 2100 and that by the year 2500 the sea will have risen by 2 meters.</i></span><br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">...</i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><i> it would be 2-400 years before we returned to the 20th century level of a 2 mm rise per year,</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">---</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">OK, so its another 'official' view that sea levels will continue to rise for a long time, and even if things 'stabilise' at the 20th century rate of 2 mm per year, its going to keep on keeping on.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">Also check out:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rising oceans: Too late to turn the tide?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110718092220.htm</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>ScienceDaily (2011-07-18) -- Melting ice sheets contributed much more to rising sea levels than thermal expansion of warming ocean waters during the Last Interglacial Period, scientists have found. The results further suggest that ocean levels continue to rise long after warming of the atmosphere levels off.</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">---</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Keep building your arks and planting your spinach!!</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><br />
</span>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-46241975384612091992011-08-21T05:36:00.000-07:002012-10-07T22:19:53.424-07:00How long do we have?This post highlights the potential timeframes we have to deal with as far as any energy-intensive solution to impending climate change and sea level rise is concerned.<br />
<br />
You will recall that with the global CO2 levels now passing through 390ppm, there is nothing standing in the way of an eventual melt-out of most of the global ice sheets, and consequent 70 to 80 metre sea level rise.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">This chart is our view of the future of oil supply for small nations that are net importers of oil.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeCrPTZFcijHmlN0FEt_dmYTV-t00SSvhEzsyrQBLbOOZA8T-144K3fLIyfPFZLtYLZjcA20ZWOaEVP19k_TEagSAF8xST7f8h2Yo1O7sKlJHX5bRVlYPjH1h2MM0v6XscHyO5tyALmty/s1600/HLDWH+Fig+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeCrPTZFcijHmlN0FEt_dmYTV-t00SSvhEzsyrQBLbOOZA8T-144K3fLIyfPFZLtYLZjcA20ZWOaEVP19k_TEagSAF8xST7f8h2Yo1O7sKlJHX5bRVlYPjH1h2MM0v6XscHyO5tyALmty/s320/HLDWH+Fig+3.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></span></div>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">The chart uses two sources of data:- </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Declining production data from the IEA World Energy Outlook 2010's expected crude oil production from Existing fields plus part of the IEA's Fields yet to be developed and Fields yet to be found. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">and</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Consumption data from the CIA World Fact Book:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2173rank.html</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">The net-exporter's consumption is incremented by a modest 2.9% per year from 2010 levels.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">The premise is that net exporting nations will continue to favour supplying their internal consumption over exporting their oil during the next 20 years. These nations will thus become prime locations for global manufacturing as oil supplies to the net importing nations become more tenuous. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">At the same time their production capacity will be affected generally in the same way as the rest of the world, as depicted by the IEA's WEO2010. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">The suggested rate of increase of the internal consumption of the producing nations used in the chart above of only 2.9% per year is likely to be very 'conservative', but things get quite bad enough fast enough with that rate; people can make their own assessment of the more likely rate and the following implications. (Saudi Arabia's internal consumption is rising at about 5.5% per year, for example.)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">The largest oil importers (say the top ten importers including USA, China, Japan, Germany, South Korea and India etc) will make (have made) agreements with other exporters to assure supply of their import requirements over the same period - at any cost. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">This leaves 'what's left' of global oil exports for the other 140 net importing nations, including many nations with little or no internal oil production at all.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">The 'what's left' for these 140 nations is depicted on this chart as what could be termed a 'Triangle of Hope' spanning </span><span style="line-height: 16px;">on the y axis from about 68 to 80 million barrels per day</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"> giving them about 12 </span><span style="line-height: 16px;">mmbl per day today</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">, running out to zero available to them around 2016! </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">==ZERO! FOUR YEARS TIME.== </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">And the internal demand of the net exporters reaches their present day production levels in 20 years time. At which time there is nothing left to send to any of the importers.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">At that stage, 20 years out from now, this chart suggests that the only oil that will be availably to any nation will be the oil it produces itself. It appears that there will not be any nation with a surplus of supply over demand. Its my guess that past that date any global oil movements will be by way of private treaty between parties with something to trade rather than within any open market.</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 16px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I offer this perspective on the global oil supply situation as an incentive to viewers to hasten their personal and community preparations for the coming 'interesting times'.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 16px;">For a fuller version of this post with background info refer to: </span><br />
<a href="http://oilshockhorrorprobe.blogspot.co.nz/2011/10/when-might-new-zealands-oil-imports-dry.html#more">http://oilshockhorrorprobe.blogspot.co.nz/2011/10/when-might-new-zealands-oil-imports-dry.html#more</a>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Kind regards</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Nigel</span></span></span></div>
Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-75192130829856857542011-05-31T13:36:00.000-07:002011-05-31T13:45:18.787-07:00How are we doing? Latest Global CO2 LevelNot doing that well! No sign of any useful levelling-off of CO2 levels, the upward trend appears to be continuing unabated.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHOmSzynyxzxpLbKUv_NiyLS6gIWsgOEh490TmcWCrZnkFLvrD_h6b4ChydNPJFjZiulw4J72UJ5LVXTbMZ5K26ju6nPSD0H9m56tao56of9LSvk3vnfEVmVil1g0Yv7RaIqkOTmP0AIQt/s1600/CO2+201105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHOmSzynyxzxpLbKUv_NiyLS6gIWsgOEh490TmcWCrZnkFLvrD_h6b4ChydNPJFjZiulw4J72UJ5LVXTbMZ5K26ju6nPSD0H9m56tao56of9LSvk3vnfEVmVil1g0Yv7RaIqkOTmP0AIQt/s320/CO2+201105.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
and so the Earth's energy imbalance caused by increased greenhouse gas levels is increasing the required surface temperature and thus driving an ever-increasing forcing on ice melt and the rate of sea level rise. <br />
<br />
We COULD get onto a war footing to do what we can to stop the rot, while making prudent and straightforward provision for the perils of climate change and resource depletion (the perfect storm, isn't it!?!).<br />
<br />
As so many other scientists and commentators have observed. if we do nothing but persist with Business as Usual catastrophe is certain. <br />
<br />
This catastrophe is way more certain than the likelihood of a fire burning down your house (an eventuality that most homeowners pay thousands of dollars a year to insure against), yet right now very few people are making any provision against the consequences of climate change and resource depletion.<br />
<br />
The IMF and IEA are now both shouting that the time of plentiful energy supplies are behind us and we are entering a time of increased scarcity of oil supplies. It would pay to listen.<br />
<br />
But if instead we initiate a national mobilisation to produce our food locally and sustainably, and to reconfigure our entire society to a low-energy operation (which WILL entail turning away from our present economic and social paradigm) then we can give ourselves and our children the best chance that we can to make it through with some sort of dignity and a fair chance of living to a ripe old age.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">We have to paint this truly grim picture plainly and honestly for all people to come to understand what is in front of us, and to thus provide the emotional and intellectual basis for mobilisation. The short-term risks involved in doing this must be determined to be worth enduring if we are to avoid the worst impacts of what at the moment is a certain unravelling of life as we know it as the global economy and energy situation spirals downwards to oblivion.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div>We are in for a low-energy climate-affected future ANYWAY. We will be better off if we accept that, and prepare for it for all we are worth, directing our remaining energy resources towards building our lifeboat, rather than wasting those precious resources on useless trivia such as new motorways or the manufacture of massive volumes of soon-to-be-useless consumer goods.<br />
<br />
Time to write some letters to MPs, Councillors and newspapers, methinks!Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-67067027105766908182011-05-08T03:47:00.000-07:002013-11-09T15:16:59.719-08:00The Road to Utopia<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
The Road to Utopia</div>
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Nigel Williams </div>
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8 May 2011.</div>
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As citizens of this planet Earth, as mothers, fathers, as people with loved ones about whom you care deeply, I ask you to consider what is to be done to get us from the present economic and social condition to a new condition that offers a perpetual and sustainable way forwards for future generations.</div>
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Some folk are anxious about the likely depletion of some critical resources or energy supplies; others are worried more by the possible impacts of changing climate and more extreme day-by-day weather events. These concerns are becoming heightened as the world and the people who inhabit it negotiate a new 'contract' on the availability and operation of the Earth's life-giving resources and functions. </div>
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For some the concern may revolve around the continued viability of their businesses, while for many others it is the desire to be a good parent; to set a good example to our children and grandchildren that is prodding us into action.</div>
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It is difficult for us to imagine how it will be during the transition; every scenario presents so many options - so many ways it can play out - that we cannot plot a clear path through the hazards to a safe end point. The more authors and commentators try and paint a singular picture, the more divergence we find in the probability of that view being true or not, that remedy for that disease being the right cure to apply or not. So contemplation of the transition period itself is often unhelpful.</div>
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Instead we can step back and see where it is that we would like to be when its all settled down again. I believe that we are entitled to paint a utopian view of how we would like it to be for our children and all after them; and with that distant view in mind we can then consider what it is that needs to be done to get us safely there; regardless of the many obstacles in our way. This is my view:-</div>
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An encouraging indicator of our national thinking in relation to the balance between what we take and what our provider, the Earth, can give is embodied in the Act of Parliament passed in 1991; the Resource Management Act. The purpose of this Act is stated as:</div>
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PART II</div>
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PURPOSE AND PRINCIPLES</div>
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5. Purpose---(1) The purpose of this Act is to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources.</div>
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(2) In this Act, ``sustainable management'' means managing the use, development, and protection of natural and physical resources in a way, or at a rate, which enables people and their communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural wellbeing and for their health and safety while---</div>
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(a) Sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources (excluding minerals) to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations; and</div>
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(b) Safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystems; and</div>
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(c) Avoiding, remedying, or mitigating any adverse effects of activities on the environment.</div>
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With the rider that 'minerals' including energy minerals should be included in the protective cover the Act sought to provide (and putting aside the actual outcomes of this well-intentioined legislation), this statement gives us a useful working platform for the function of our future Utopia. </div>
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In 1964 Sir Fred Hoyle put our condition rather bluntly:-</div>
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'It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only.' </div>
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In this statement Hoyle is perhaps mixing the concept of 'intelligence' with that of 'high-level technology'. We are indeed hoping that we can continue to use this high intelligence on a planet that is in balance, albeit in a way that may be viewed as 'primitive'. But in terms of reaching a level of high technological competence in the use of resources and all the goodies that implies we have seen where our 'intelligent' use of the Earth's physical prerequisites has got us to. </div>
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We stand near the end of the Mineral Energy Era with virtually nothing to show for it in terms of the intelligent use we have made of all the resources we have consumed to date. Compared with man of 300 years ago we are no smarter, no better, no happier as people and we have constructed no everlasting bits of fantastic equipment to take us forward on a higher plane into a new era. The impact of this burst of resource consumption will last as long as it takes for a bolt to rust through or a bit of reinforcing steel to fail, or the battery to go flat, a dam to fail and it will all be gone.</div>
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I suggest that our intelligence can be used to take us to a perfectly satisfactory alternate destination that does not (indeed it cannot) entail continued depletion of the Earth's resources. We must apply our intelligence to husband the remaining and renewable resources to make the best of our planetary system's 'one chance'.</div>
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Discussing our ability to somehow dodge the oncoming times of change, Australian writer Reg Morrison observed:- </div>
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'Not only have our genes managed to conceal from us that we are entirely typical mammals and therefore vulnerable to all of evolution's customary checks and balances, but also they have contrived to lock us so securely into the plague cycle that they seem almost to have been crafted for that purpose. Gaia is running like a Swiss watch. ' (Morrison, 1999)</div>
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Putting it simply then; In our Utopia we have to be living within our means. And 'our means' is determined by the natural rate of replacement of the resources we use to ensure that we are 'sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations and safeguarding the life supporting capacity of air, water, soil and natural ecosystems' (from the Resource Management Act 1991).</div>
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Every aspect of our Utopian life must be governed by the rate at which energy arrives on the surface of the Earth day by day, and the bounty that energy yields in terms of the growth of plants, the movement of wind and water and the regeneration of soil and mineral resources.</div>
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If we are to survive long in our Utopia then one of the key provisions of the new system is the supply of food. Food produced in perpetual balance with the daily and annual cycle of solar energy inputs.</div>
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When we look at 'modern' agriculture we find that is unable to operate within this limitation. The use of fossil fuels for farm machinery and agri-chemicals is utterly incompatible with the constraints of our Utopia's energy and resource allocations, as is the maintenance of infrastructure like freezing works, vast dairy factories and the international transport of critical farm inputs such as phosphate and sulphur, and exports of surplus product. </div>
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In terms of its ability to sustain higher animal life the natural New Zealand bush is close to a 'green desert'. There are reports from early European explorers of tribal hunting parties almost starving to death when lost for a time in the bush, and the Europeans themselves, even with indigenous guides familiar with the area, found sustenance hard to find. </div>
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Recent research has found that within a couple of hundred years of their arriving the recent Polynesian migrants to the islands of New Zealand had burned off much of the land's pre-existing forest cover in an apparent effort to create better growing conditions for self-regenerating food crops such as fern roots (an important source of carbohydrate). This effort created an environment that led to the loss of some animal life (the Moa and the Haast Eagle), but which better sustained the local human population. Similar research has led to the appreciation that the forests of North America were heavily modified by the pre-European population to encourage the growth of fauna and flora to support human needs. The turkeys found by the Europeans wandering 'wild' were in fact part of the local people's complex forest food gardens; not some random distribution of wild-fowl. </div>
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Thus there is already a strong and ancient pattern of deliberate large-scale modification of our local plant and animal life as a means of sustaining human habitation, and this points a way to suggesting that again our national food production can be based around the broad productive capability of the entire sunlight-receiving surface of the country from the coast to the alpine bush-line. </div>
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There are many recorded sites of formal gardens near places of pre-European habitation (some older than the recent Polynesian arrivals) and of course the continued operation of the kitchen garden as a source of much of the required food supply will persist. </div>
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The Polynesian settlers were limited in the nature of plants they could introduce as they had a fairly limited pool of viable species to draw from, and transport and propagation of new plants was difficult. We are now comparatively fortunate that in addition to those plants so carefully tended and understood by the pre-Europeans we have a wide range of useful 'exotic' perennial food plants from root vegetables, greens, berries, medicinals, fruit and nuts that can be planted in viable locations to grow 'wild' until they are needed. This will allow us to re-establsh the national forest food garden as a 'common good' for the people of New Zealand to replace the resource-hungry mechanised factory-food-farming of today.</div>
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Beyond food of course our Utopia's gardening efforts will provide various fibres for clothing (harakeki, linen flax and cotton should be broadly re-propagated) and timber sustainably coppiced for energy, tapa cloth (as the climate warms) and building materials.</div>
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Thus our Utopia has its food and primary material needs addressed in a way that demonstrates our intelligent utilisation of the resources we will have available. </div>
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Our Utopia will not have many of the employment opportunities of today; national electricity supply will collapse within a few weeks of the last tanker-load of crude oil arriving at Marsden Point, and with the loss of electricity will go most forms of commerce and employment. Instead we will find work for idle hands in gently guiding the national forest food gardens (the 'commons') through its annual production cycles, caring for each other and maintaing the modest infrastructure of our new more intelligent civilisation. </div>
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We will find time to be gentle with ourselves. We will listen to our bodies and recognise for example that the majority of our population have blood types and genetic backgrounds that find ingestion of gluten (wheat) and dairy products compromises our immune systems. This stress leads to many illnesses and disabilities that can be resolved by adherence to a simpler diet of fresh green vegetables, fruit and nuts and moderate protein intake for some. </div>
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We will live quietly in balance with nature and with each other. No raiding parties, no resource wars, no felling of our forests to provide spars for foreign warships. We will sit in the sun a lot and exchange knowledge with our children and grandchildren, we will come to know the land again and our place within it. </div>
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We will understand that no-one can take more than their share of the 'common' without prejudicing us all. We have tried ignoring this natural rule, and this is where we are today. Thus the intelligence and wisdom of Utopia will be passed on from parent to child, and our performance will be watched over and if need-be softly realigned by those who still remember the cost we paid - that is the cost we will pay in the next few decades. </div>
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We will know that peace that transcends all understanding, the peace of surrender, of faith, and of true companionship with man and with nature. Utopia.</div>
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But. Are we ready for Utopia? Can we simply drop tools, shut down the laptop, say goodbye to the nine-to-five job, step out of the queue at the job search agency, and catch a bus to become a model citizen of Utopia? I think not.</div>
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In New Zealand we are blessed with a vast array of people with different geographic and social backgrounds. Some of us are less than four generations distant from cannibals, while others are direct descendants of those arrogant economic imperialists who enslaved and devoured the souls and spirits of the uncomprehending populations of entire continents of the 'new world'. When we push the pin into this heap of history, of layered cause and effect, we find that in the end no one's pot is really any blacker than the any one else's. Its just not a pretty picture. </div>
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We are not nobly defined by our land, by our government, by our flag, or by our behaviour as citizens. We kill too many children, we murder too many friends, we disobey too many laws. The fact that we have so many laws to disobey is a clear indication of the failure of our moral education at the most basic level. We don't need laws relating to 'Careless use of a motor vehicle causing death' if everybody respects and obeys the basic principle that no one should kill anybody else. We don't need laws relating to 'Converting to his own use ...' if everybody respects and obeys the basic principle that no one should take what doesn't belong to them.</div>
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We give our power to elected representatives knowing that those exercising the power only represent the views of a minority, and then grumble at the outcome of government. We surrender our most basic needs as human beings into the hands of 'the system' and then rial at our sense of powerlessness and cry out "Why doesn't the government do something...!"</div>
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Why do we fear loosing our jobs, dropping off the dole, standing up for ourselves when to do so will mean we cannot buy food for our families, we cannot pay the water supply, electricity and sewerage utilities? Because we have given the power of life and death over our families to the supermarket supply chain, the council, the energy company! </div>
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If you grow your own food - they have no power over you! if you collect your own rain water - they have no power over you! If you convert human waste to humanure to fertilise your garden - they have no power over you! If you use a solar cooker and a small solar electricity unit - they have no power over you! </div>
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Yet how many of us are so independent of 'the system' that we no longer need to care if it exists or not? Very few. Yet therein lies our rite of passage to Utopia. </div>
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By taking these and many other powers back to ourselves we can begin to assume the responsibilities we as adults pretend to our children that we have, but know we don't have. It is for us to determine how much food we eat, and to never fear 'the price of milk', the price of water, the price of energy. But until we are in that position we will always demand that 'they' do something to make it right. We will always be a mouse, rather than a man. </div>
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Yet in our hearts this is not where we want to be is it? In each of us resides the Noble Savage; the Provider and Protector. The Father or Mother figure proud of its brood of well-manered fledglings. </div>
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So now we have a destination; somewhere to aim for. With this knowledge we can define our new direction; we now know in which direction lies peril, and in which direction we will find Utopia. How do we move from where we are today? As usual; we take one step at a time in the right direction.</div>
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Nigel Williams</div>
Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-85571197674532648072011-03-04T01:12:00.000-08:002011-06-12T17:42:05.338-07:00Christchurch and The Emperor's Clothes - Some Harsh Realities<div align="center" class="0CCBodyText" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Christchurch and The Emperor's Clothes - Some Harsh Realities<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="0CCBodyText"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="0CCBodyText" style="text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-GB">Nigel Williams <o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="right" class="0CCBodyText" style="text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-GB">Updated March 5, 2011.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="0CCBodyText"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">This paper gathers together information that is relevant to the condition of Christchurch, New Zealand. It raises some `home truths' that will be unpalatable to many, particularly at a time so close to the recent series of tragic events.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">But as a Christchurch-born boy I feel I have a duty to drag these harsh realities into the open; to discuss The Emperor's Clothes. So, before you shoot the messenger, please listen to what he has to say.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 101.45pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Introduction</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">As the dust begins to settle on another devastating earthquake in my dear hometown, the clamour to resume business as usual and rebuild something new and `iconic' on the rubble of the old is gaining momentum.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Our government is struggling to find the money to help restore the city to its former glory, especially with the multiple hits of the earthquakes on top of the generally depressed economic conditions nationally and globally.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Deep down I'm sure the decision-makers know that they are going to have to be very careful with every penny that is spent on Christchurch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The city is proud of its heritage. The combined European and Polynesian presence has left its mark on place and history stretching back atleast 800 years. If we are to build a new and more resilient city then we must look for a place and manner of community function that has a genuine potential to provide a future at least as long as the city's noble past. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">We must use the knowledge we have of the state of the world today to must ensure that what we re-build today will be of service to our children, and to their children for many generations; to ensure that our efforts will reap the same rewards that we enjoy today from the efforts of our forefathers many centuries ago. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Among the mud, dust and rubble of this trembling town there are many spirits stirring. Some will urge us to take swift and decisive action with the risk of repeating many of the errors of the past; others, three in particular, will demand of us the utmost strength to think deeply of them, and to find the courage to make very hard choices based on what these spirits tell us. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">These three sleeping spirits stand on each other's shoulders; each reinforces the effect of the ones beneath as time passes. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The first spirit will awake and open its eyes in a time frame of years, perhaps months. Its name is FIRE.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The second spirit raises its head in a time frame of decades, perhaps years. Its name is FOOD.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The third spirit bares its teeth in timeframes of centuries, perhaps decades. Its name is FLOOD. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-NZ">FIRE<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">To support in just a few years the building of a third of a city that has taken 150 years to build before will require a significant amount of energy. That first build and work to date was enabled by the fire of cheap readily available high-density energy; first coal, then oil.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">In one of its many increasingly blunt statements about the global energy predicament the International Energy Agency stated in 2009 that "…global oil supply is expected to decline at about 6.7% per year from its peak in 2008."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">This means that by 2020 the theoretical oil supply for NZ will be only 55% of the 1990 level. That's the IEA, and they should (and do) know.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The recent Parliamentary Research Paper <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The next oil shock?</i> restates warnings by other agencies that: "…another supply crunch is likely to occur soon after 2012 due to rising demand and insufficient production capacity…" </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/ParlSupport/ResearchPapers/4/6/a/00PLEco10041-The-next-oil-shock.htm">http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/ParlSupport/ResearchPapers/4/6/a/00PLEco10041-The-next-oil-shock.htm</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The report <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Peak Oil Vulnerability Assessment for Dunedin</i> (Dr Susan Krumdieck et al.; 2010) notes that: "The peak and decline in world oil supply will be a driver for long-term fuel consumption reduction to around 50% of current levels by 2050. The possibility of fuel shocks will be ever-present."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/159857/Peak-Oil-Report-Dec-2010.pdf">http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/159857/Peak-Oil-Report-Dec-2010.pdf</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Comment: These are not idle threats to our way of life; these are plain realities that we ignore at our peril. Sometime soon we will have another oil price spike and within the next 10 to 40 years (2020 to 2050; that long, if we are so lucky) global supplies of conventional oil (the stuff we use to rebuild cities with and to take Johnny to school with) will be down to 50% or less of today's level.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">This will impact not only on the choice of urban form for a rebuilt city but also on our ability to move food supplies long distances, and to obtain materials for the production of essential manufactured goods and agricultural efforts.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The FIRE is flickering now, and it will surely die.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-NZ">FOOD</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Christchurch's new town will continue to rely on the production of its rural hinterland as the cornerstone of its economic wealth and reason for being. How viable is that production? Remember that by 2050 for sure we will be fortunate to have perhaps half the oil for transport, agricultural chemicals and production that we do today. We will `eat local', or we will not eat at all. What else can go wrong with our ability to feed ourselves in Christchurch?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Refer to the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry: The EcoClimate Report - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Climate change and agricultural production</i>. <a href="http://www.maf.govt.nz/">http://www.maf.govt.nz</a> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The EcoClimate report presents projected changes based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) third and fourth assessment reports.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Figure 7: `Projected changes to the frequency of droughts' shows the projected driest annual conditions in the 2080s under (a) low medium and (b) medium high scenarios for conditions that currently occur on average once every 20 years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">This Figure shows Canterbury experiencing once every 20-year drought conditions every 5 to 10 years under the low medium scenario and every 2.5 to 5 years under the medium high scenario.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Comment: So, bearing in mind the necessarily conservative approach adopted by the IPCC, it is virtually certain that Canterbury will be experiencing once-in-20-year drought conditions every 5 to 10 years by 2080, possibly as frequently as once ever 2.5 years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The eastern areas of New Zealand have already had samples of these conditions, and the Ministry's report confirms that these dry conditions will continue to arrive with increasing frequency. Agriculture (particularly with low energy inputs) will be hard to sustain as Plains dry out. 2080.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Because, by 2080, the Earth's atmosphere and temperature will not yet be in balance with the climate-altering forcings we have imposed, these conditions in Canterbury will continue to get worse for some considerable time beyond 2080.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The absence of readily available or affordable oil for transport, agri-chemicals, fertiliser, and energy for irrigation will make it very difficult for Canterbury to sustain a form of agriculture that will provide local food to a population of four to five hundred thousand people. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Agricultural production will be in dire straights, as will one of Christchurch's main reasons for being. In Christchurch by 2080 the combination of the energy situation and the increasing frequency of drought conditions will mean that FOOD will be hard to find. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-NZ">FLOOD<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">If we are looking at local food supplies, then the most productive land (before much of it was filled over for housing – Bad move!) was on the coastal soils including Marshland and in the rich soils of the valleys of the Port Hills (Watch that rock-fall!). In common with all coastal cities, Christchurch has to consider the impact of sea level rise on its plans for investment in the development of the repaired town. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Hansen recently suggested that a 10-year doubling time in the rate of ice sheet melting was plausible; pointing out that such a doubling time from the current observed base of 1 mm per year ice sheet contribution to sea level in the decade 2005-2015 will lead to a cumulative 5 metre sea level rise by about 2095. Hansen has found that actual data points to a shorter doubling time of around 8 years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf</a> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Comment: The steps into Christchurch's Cathedral are at 6.197m above mean sea level, or less than 5 metres above high tide.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">So by the Year of Our Lord 2100, high tide will see ocean fish nibbling the Cathedral's altar cloth and the coastal strip containing the premium market gardening soils will be awash. By 2200 AD with at least 10 m of sea level rise Captain Cook will be right, its 'Banks Island' not 'Banks Peninsula'; Lyttelton Port becomes inaccessible from The Mainland and two-thirds of present-day Christchurch City is reclaimed by the sea. 200 years is barely the duration of European association with the Cathedral City. Not long. Certainly not long enough.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">With the absence of cheap oil that will be evident by late in the century our ability to transport food and commodities long distances will be compromised, and drought conditions will make it difficult to produce sufficient food to meet the local demand of a large city. Rising seas will by 2100 have inundated prime coastal market gardening areas further exacerbating the food supply situation, as well as taking over a third of the existing urban area including most of the parts of Christchurch which have suffered the worst effects of liquefaction in the recent earthquakes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The sea will rise faster and faster over a number of centuries until the amount of grounded ice left to melt begins to decline significantly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">As James Hansen declared in his 2008 testimony to Congress: "No stable shoreline would be re-established in any time frame that humanity can conceive."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Sea levels will eventually stabilise when all the ice that there is to melt is melted, and the seas have risen about 75 metres, plus a bit for thermal expansion. Rangiora and Rolleston will be gone, and Dunsandel and Ashburton will be seaside towns perched on the 15 metre high eroding sea cliffs of the shrinking and desolate Canterbury Plains.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/69eskta"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">http://tinyurl.com/69eskta</span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">By late in the century the lack of oil-powered transport and construction equipment will mean that it is impractical to consider building any sort of barrier to the rising sea (after all it would have to be built by hand), and the inevitability of continued sea level rise for centuries makes any development or reconstruction within the long reach of the rising ocean a temporary arrangement at best, and a criminal waste of the effort, money and resources used in its construction at worst.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">By 2100 the sea's inroads will confirm that the continued habitation of what is currently Christchurch City is unwise, and indeed pointless.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">In time FLOOD will wipe clean the slate that was Christchurch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">We have lit the fire and consumed the oil, the burning of the fire has changed the climate, the changed climate is bringing the heat and drought, and the heat is melting the ice that is filling the oceans.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Within the next couple of years the all-sustaining fire of cheap energy is going to flicker, and oil (and all it means for us) will be beyond our economic reach within 10 to 40 years. In particular the city’s ability to source staple food supplies from long distances away will be compromised; the principal source of food will have to be that grown locally. Two years to perhaps 40 years, if we're lucky.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Over the next 60 to 70 years progressively worsening drought conditions on the Canterbury Plains will become so extreme that, in combination with the lack of oil supplies to support drought-tolerant agricultural production, the overall viability of large-scale commercial food production will be suspect. 60 to 70 years, and it will not get better.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Within the next 50 to 100 years the progressive and inexorable rise in sea levels will become evident as coastal areas are inundated. By 2100 the surf could be running through Cathedral Square. The sea will continue to rise and "...No stable shoreline would be re-established in any time frame that humanity can conceive".</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">These are the realities that a local view of the much-discussed impacts of resource depletion, climate change and the inevitable and progressive rise in sea levels will have on the existing city of Christchurch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">Over our lifetimes and the lives of our children and grandchildren these impacts are – as far as we are concerned – inevitable and unavoidable.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-NZ">So Where and How for Christchurch?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The changed climate is expected to give rise to more floods in the rivers over the plains. Perhaps a modest new city in the foothills at the top of the plains watered by gravity fed canals from the great rivers may be a possibility.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">The hills above Timaru will eventually be the best harbour on the edge of the plains, and the downs there may become a safe haven if water supply can be assured.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">But whatever the solution we have a marvellous opportunity to take part in a consciously joyful process to re-establish a meaningful and viable city that can look forward to a future at least as long as its past. To achieve that we must bring the talents of the entire community to bear on the realities that confront us.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">We must ask: “Where is the best place to apply the effort and money we are planning to spend rebuilding Christchurch?” Sadly, one place is sure; NOT Christchurch.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">We have no time and no money to loose. The informed community must debate the final answer to that question before any more money is wasted. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-NZ">With the right outcome from this debate we can look forward to the best and most meaningful times of our lives.</span></div></div><div align="center" class="0CCBodyText" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">~/~<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">Update 13 June 2011.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">Article in Christchurch Press re Hansen referring to The 100 Metre Line:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/5130776/Flood-risk-grows-as-ground-slumps</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">Commented in:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.rebuildchristchurch.co.nz/blog/2011/6/flood-risk-in-christchurch#comments</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">and</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">http://astroblognz.blogspot.com/2011/05/christchurch-quake-warnings-extended-by.html</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">and</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">http://www.silobreaker.com/flood-risk-grows-as-ground-slumps-5_2264631227124285530</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">~/~</span></div><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-46783610448886757752011-02-09T05:39:00.000-08:002011-02-09T05:45:41.767-08:0080m Sea Rise Maps - Scandinavia, Western Russia, Caspian and Black Sea<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">Using Google Maps and the Sea Level Rise applet, the following maps show 80 metres of sea level rise.</span></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;"><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><b></b><b>Areas shaded red are those areas inundated.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1yitzr7olbgOfObGU4wdYcZNrlJiRdu6C-brc-SkWk2yclOCb3fzigrQSSVxpcge4Aj4hi4QZ1XXyTcwXJX_cpgBGA61BkJsIaLfjdrDTWg033lhvZzyNJsX9iH-p8BJoioErav-lfQ-/s1600/80m+EEu+01+N.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX1yitzr7olbgOfObGU4wdYcZNrlJiRdu6C-brc-SkWk2yclOCb3fzigrQSSVxpcge4Aj4hi4QZ1XXyTcwXJX_cpgBGA61BkJsIaLfjdrDTWg033lhvZzyNJsX9iH-p8BJoioErav-lfQ-/s320/80m+EEu+01+N.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Scandinavia and Western Russia </b></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
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</b></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-LZgy7mI7iViYatbb2gi0qnAEMbBIjkUGyyIwqcn8D8eFNVj9BOYs3svh9QSkVYMFyeRlP0LTXoEBmyK1LKSxZJ8kuJw1P8WDn6zGGNIW3vUddNtcBTNepzVhyphenhyphenp8KZf1_XQXX4F74ZRCh/s1600/80m+EEu+02+BlackCasp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-LZgy7mI7iViYatbb2gi0qnAEMbBIjkUGyyIwqcn8D8eFNVj9BOYs3svh9QSkVYMFyeRlP0LTXoEBmyK1LKSxZJ8kuJw1P8WDn6zGGNIW3vUddNtcBTNepzVhyphenhyphenp8KZf1_XQXX4F74ZRCh/s320/80m+EEu+02+BlackCasp.png" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></span></b></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Caspian and Black Sea Area</b></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>I strongly recommend you check with your local maps to review the location of the 80 metre contour in your area of interest.</b></div></span></span></div></div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-15829219263160050372011-01-22T16:59:00.000-08:002011-01-22T19:04:57.697-08:00The Promise of DoublingIn seeking to understand the implications of this latest paper from Hansen et al (see my earlier posts), a useful place to start is with Hansen’s observation that:<br />
<br />
“…Hansen (2007) suggested that a 10-year doubling time was plausible pointing out that such a doubling time from a base of 1 mm per year ice sheet contribution to sea level in the decade 2005-2015 would lead to a cumulative 5 m sea level rise by 2095. ”<br />
<br />
While we know that in fact the 2005-2015 base to start the doubling from is probably somewhat higher than that. <br />
<br />
As with any compounding calculation the final result is very dependent on the starting conditions. Hansen notes in the paper that recent data suggests a 6 to 8 year doubling rather than the 10 year he uses in Figure 7. So his sea level rise in 2100 is very ‘conservative’. <br />
<br />
<div class="edit-comment" id="edit-comment23408" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent;">For instance:<br />
"Since the beginning of the 20th century, the seas have continued to rise at an average rate of 1.7 ± 0.5 mm per year, according to the IPCC (Bindoff et al., 2007). This increase, however, has not happened at a constant rate. The first noted increase was over the period of 1961 to 2003, when the average rate of sea level rise was 1.8 ± 0.5 mm per year (Church et al, 2001; Church and White, 2006; Bindoff et al., 2007). Global mean sea level measurements have become even larger since 1993. According to the IPCC, “For the period 1993 to 2003, the rate of sea level rise is estimated from observations with satellite altimetry as 3.1 ± 0.7 mm yr–1, significantly higher than the average rate.”<br />
<a href="http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaLevelRise.asp?MR=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaLevelRise.asp?MR=1</a><br />
<br />
So starting at 3.1mm/yr and using that rate doubling in say every 8 years gives over 75 metres rise before 2100, i.e. all grounded ice in the world melted. Most coastal cities (including most of London, Washington, Tokyo, Berlin and Beijing, for example) gone.<br />
Not a good look!<br />
<br />
Alternatively, if we use Hansen’s 1.0 mm rise contribution from ice sheets C2010, then we find (as Hansen’s figure 7 shows) we get to 5 metres sea level rise by 2095 with 10-year doubling in the rate of ice sheet loss, by year 2080 with 8-year doubling, and by 2065 with 6-year doubling; and of course the curves just keep on getting steeper after those dates; such is the nature of exponential growth. That is, the melt rate will continue to increase until the volume of ice left to melt starts to diminish, and then the melt will continue until all the ice is gone. <br />
<br />
Neither of these approaches yield pleasant outcomes for humanity.<br />
<br />
Nigel</div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-36850736533086918602011-01-19T13:30:00.000-08:002011-01-19T13:31:26.056-08:00Hansen 5 metres by 2100...From Hansen today in addition to my previous post:<br />
<br />
Its worth reading the paper in full, please:<br />
<br />
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf<br />
<br />
Hansen says:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYjyoZaUbULeLFwWfL_f5Q0FvDPTHihNUeiSAcB2PE3vDyRbwDisNYJOYx0x-SYSldQsoeHWwnBuHXfSRi1W5fuyYITxYUmVvSDIH87jv-n5ju4O6_jAcoQKpyovUK_EwjHA5F80J4ifdQ/s1600/Hansen5m2100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYjyoZaUbULeLFwWfL_f5Q0FvDPTHihNUeiSAcB2PE3vDyRbwDisNYJOYx0x-SYSldQsoeHWwnBuHXfSRi1W5fuyYITxYUmVvSDIH87jv-n5ju4O6_jAcoQKpyovUK_EwjHA5F80J4ifdQ/s320/Hansen5m2100.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;">Fig. 7. Five-meter sea level change in 21</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7px/normal 'Times New Roman';">st </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;">century under assumption of linear change (Alley, 2010) and exponential change (Hansen, 2007), the latter with a 10-year doubling time. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span></div>...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px;">These projections are typically a factor of 3-4 larger than the IPCC (2007) estimates, and thus they altered perceptions about the potential magnitude of human-caused sea level change. </span><br />
<br />
<div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> Alley (2010) reviewed projections of sea level rise by 2100, showing several clustered around 1 m and one outlier at 5 m, all of which he approximated as linear. The 5 m estimate is what Hansen (2007) suggested was possible, given the assumption of a typical IPCC's BAU climate forcing scenario. Alley's graph is comforting, making the suggestion of a possible 5 m sea level rise seem to be an improbable outlier, because, in addition to disagreeing with all other projections, a half-meter sea level rise in the next 10 years is preposterous. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> However, the fundamental issue is linearity versus non-linearity. Hansen (2005, 2007) argues that amplifying feedbacks make ice sheet disintegration necessarily highly non-linear. In a non-linear problem, the most relevant number for projecting sea level rise is the doubling time for the rate of mass loss. Hansen (2007) suggested that a 10-year doubling time was plausible pointing out that such a doubling time from a base of 1 mm per year ice sheet contribution to sea level in the decade 2005-2015 would lead to a cumulative 5 m sea level rise by 2095. </div><br />
...<br />
<br />
<div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">By mid-century most of Greenland would be experiencing summer melting in a longer melt season. Also some Greenland ice stream outlets are in valleys with bedrock below sea level. As the terminus of an ice stream retreats inland, glacier sidewalls can collapse, creating a wider pathway for disgorging ice. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">...</div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> PIG and neighboring glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica, which are also accelerating, contain enough ice to contribute 1-2 m to sea level. Most of West Antarctica, with at least 5 m of sea level, and about a third of East Antarctica, with another 15-20 m of sea level, are grounded below sea level. This more vulnerable ice may have been the source of the 25 ± 10 m sea level rise of the Pliocene (Dowsett et al., 1990, 1994). If human-made global warming reaches Pliocene levels this century, as expected under BAU scenarios, these greater volumes of ice will surely begin to contribute to sea level change. Indeed, satellite gravity and radar interferometry data reveal that the Totten Glacier of East Antarctica, which fronts a large ice mass grounded below sea level, is already beginning to lose mass (Rignot et al., 2008). </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">...</div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> These data records are too short to provide a reliable evaluation of the doubling time, but, such as they are, they yield a best fit doubling time for annual mass loss of 5-6 years for both Greenland and Antarctica., consistent with the approximate doubling of annual mass loss in the period 2003-2008. There is substantial variation among alternative analyses of the gravity field data (Sorensen and Forsberg, 2010), but all analyses have an increasing mass loss with time, providing at least a tentative indication that long-term ice loss mass will be non-linear. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> We conclude that available data for the ice sheet mass change are consistent with our expectation of a non-linear response, but the data record is too short and uncertain to allow quantitative assessment. The opportunity for assessment will rapidly improve in coming years if high-precision gravity measurements are continued. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> Finally, we note the existence of a strong negative feedback described by Hansen (2009) that comes into play when the rate of sea level rise approaches the order of a meter per decade. Such an iceberg discharge rate temporarily overwhelms greenhouse warming, cooling high latitude atmosphere and ocean mixed layer below current levels. Ice sheet mass loss may slow in response to this cooling, but, as described qualitatively by Hansen (2009), it will be no consolation to humans. Stronger storms driven by increased latitudinal temperature gradients, combined with multi-meter sea level rise, will produce global havoc. </div><br />
<br />
<div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">...</div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> However, we must expect ice sheet mass balance changes will occur simultaneously in both hemispheres. Why? Because ice sheets in both hemispheres were in near-equilibrium with Holocene temperatures. That is probably why both Greenland and Antarctica began to shed ice in the past decade or so, because global temperature is just rising above the Holocene level. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> Ice sheet disintegration in Antarctica depends on melting the underside of ice shelves as the ocean warms, a process well underway at the Pine Island glacier (Scott et al., 2009). The glacier's grounding line has retreated inland by tens of kilometers (Jenkins et al., 2010) and thinning of the ice sheet has spread inland hundreds of kilometers (Wingham et al., 2009). </div><br />
<div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">...</div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><i>d. Scenarios and predictions </i></div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> Predictions of future sea level change are inherently difficult because, we assert, ice sheet disintegration is fundamentally a non-linear process. However, in addition, the climate forcing scenario is uncertain. When predictions are made, or statements that can be construed as predictions, it is important to be clear what climate forcing scenario is being considered. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> IPCC BAU (business-as-usual) scenarios assume that greenhouse gas emissions will continue to increase, with the nations of the world burning most of the fossil fuels including unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> An alternative extreme, one that places a substantial rising price on carbon emissions, would have CO<span style="font: normal normal normal 8px/normal 'Times New Roman';">2 </span>emissions beginning to decrease within less than a decade, as the world moves on energy systems beyond fossil fuels, leaving most of the remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels in the ground. In this extreme scenario, let's call it fossil fuel phase-out (FFPO), CO<span style="font: normal normal normal 8px/normal 'Times New Roman';">2 </span>would rise above 400 ppm but begin a long decline by mid-century (Hansen et al., 2008). </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> The European Union 2°C scenario, call it EU2C, falls in between these two extremes. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> BAU scenarios result in global warming of the order of 3-6°C. It is this scenario for which we assert that multi-meter sea level rise on the century time scale are not only possible, but almost dead certain. Such a huge rapidly increasing climate forcing dwarfs anything in the peleoclimate record. Antarctic ice shelves would disappear and the lower reaches of the Antarctic ice sheets would experience summer melt comparable to that on Greenland today. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> The other extreme scenario, FFPO, does not eliminate the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise, but it leaves the time scale for ice sheet disintegration very uncertain, possibly very long. If the time scale is several centuries, then it may be possible to avoid large sea level rise by decreasing emissions fast enough to cause atmospheric greenhouse gases to decline in amount. </div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"> What about the intermediate scenario, EU2C? We have presented evidence in this paper that prior interglacial periods were less than 1°C warmer than the Holocene maximum. If we are correct in that conclusion, the EU2C scenario implies a sea level rise of many meters. It is difficult to predict a time scale for the sea level rise, but it would be dangerous and foolish to take such a global warming scenario as a goal. </div><br />
<div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">.End.</div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><br />
And from me in 2009, taking an empirical view...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjKm5-7SXWzA0vP1tPnkbIZGDxzXq8Ej3IkXcb2H3C9fnVrVKFj5fZIBtQeNM2xIlIDzKak3i2FcOqEunrIO3YsoJSXvGpdQmQ8D9eWWkZ-SJbQFv9DeLOd2DzfmdY6qLiGdw6R89hsKZD/s1600/SLR+T100mL.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjKm5-7SXWzA0vP1tPnkbIZGDxzXq8Ej3IkXcb2H3C9fnVrVKFj5fZIBtQeNM2xIlIDzKak3i2FcOqEunrIO3YsoJSXvGpdQmQ8D9eWWkZ-SJbQFv9DeLOd2DzfmdY6qLiGdw6R89hsKZD/s320/SLR+T100mL.png" width="288" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Nigel Williams' estimate of sea level rise. Note the exponential curve through 5 metres rise at 2100, </div><br />
As noted in earlier postings, once ice sheet disintegration gets under way, unless there is some drastic (and currently not anticipated) reversal in climate forcings the process will simply continue until the bulk of the ice sheets are gone.<br />
<br />
We're on our way to a very wet and wild time!<br />
<br />
<div style="font: 11.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-33561998869301974952011-01-19T12:11:00.000-08:002011-01-19T12:11:10.797-08:00Hansen: "...implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century."<div style="font: 12.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">A draft of a paper by Hansen et al just out today..</div><div style="font: 12.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 16.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><b>Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change </b></div><div style="font: 14.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato, January 2011</div><div style="font: 12.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf</div><div style="font: 14.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 16.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 14.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Abstract:</div><div style="font: 12.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 11.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="font: 12.0px Times New Roman;">"... </span>Deglaciation, disintegration of ice sheets, is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. If warming reaches a level that forces deglaciation, the rate of sea level rise will depend on the doubling time for ice sheet mass loss. Gravity satellite data, although too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century. "</div><div style="font: 11.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 11.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">As I was saying...!</div><div style="font: 11.0px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 12.0px;"><br />
</div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-45387243554446442302011-01-11T01:13:00.000-08:002011-01-11T01:16:17.436-08:00It is a moral issue.In response to a post in Hot-topic.co.nz I suggested that the solution to the present issues confronting us can best be addressed by moral force:-<br />
<br />
"Erentz; I most respectfully but strongly disagree with your contention that government is a necessary element in the process of advancing the change required. <br />
<br />
I see the issue as a moral issue, not one that 'government' can or even needs to get involved in.<br />
<br />
We are told repeatedly by 'government' that the market can lead to change in the products and systems we have to use; carbon-free transport for example. If that is the case, (and it has been for a while) then we-the-market can choose to force those changes. <br />
<br />
For example I suggested at a City Council hearing that the most effective thing our city could do to reduce food miles and non-recyclable packaging would be to include a dozen sheets of small stickers which read "I didn't buy this product today because it came from too far away!" and "I didn't buy this product today because the packaging is not sustainably produced or recyclable!". Include these with every notice to householders for a year for them to take with them shopping and the change would be remarkable. They saw the threat to their commercial rates-base however, and demurred.<br />
<br />
The moral issue here is well known to most of us:-<br />
<br />
It is wrong to keep on doing what we are doing to the Earth. It is wrong because it is having an impact on all of us today, and the impacts on our children and future generations are certain to be worse than we can imagine. Therefore the moral issue relates to the choice between business-as-usual and some other thing.<br />
<br />
We do not need government to make these choices, and we do not need government to make these choices known to the market or to any powers-that-be who may have any useful interest in our choices.<br />
<br />
The greatest issues of our times have not been solved by government cooperation or action, but by moral action declared by conscious non-violent actions as evidence of the moral stand. The two great examples of the use of moral force are South Africa's abandonment of apartheid and India's freedom from the British. Neither of these remarkable events required the 'cooperation' of governments, but rather the governments fell beneath the force of the moral onslaught.<br />
<br />
These shining lights contrast markedly with every other 'solution' that has been tried; with perhaps the notable exception of the elimination of CFCs in relation to the ozone layer depletion - which was achieved cooperatively because (again) the problem and solution were clear and morally it was the morally right thing to do.<br />
<br />
There is no other practical way forwards for us;<br />
*We must resolve and declare the nature of the moral issue in terms that the poorest most uneducated and disadvantaged members of our society can grasp, see the rightness of and act on;<br />
*We must apply our individual moral force to the issue by 'becoming the change you want to see in the World' (MKG). If this change is seen as good, then it will encourage others to the rightness of the need for change.<br />
*We must, if need-be, apply non-violent means, including civil non-cooperation against established institutions which are obstacles to the required change to achieve the morally correct end. <br />
<br />
That is the only way to take this matter beyond individuals and get the movement that is necessary."<br />
<div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div>Thanks,</div><div><br />
</div><div>Nigel</div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-36531899430888894422011-01-09T02:33:00.000-08:002011-01-09T02:54:22.279-08:00Another perspective - Arctic Ice Gone for Good by 2040?This from October 2010 - a rather more scientific approach than mine earlier.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="headline_area" style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div class="headline_meta" style="color: #888888; font-size: 1em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">by <span class="author vcard fn" style="font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">GARETH</span> on <abbr class="published" style="border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: initial; cursor: help; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;" title="2010-10-18">OCTOBER 18, 2010</abbr><br />
<abbr class="published" style="border-bottom-color: initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: initial; cursor: help; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;" title="2010-10-18">http://hot-topic.co.nz/gone-for-good-arctic-ocean-ice-free-all-year-by-the-2040s/</abbr></div></div><div class="format_text entry-content" style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.538em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 1.538em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><img src="http://hot-topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Arctic.2010112.aqua_.4km.jpg" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;" />A few days ago I used a combination of Arctic sea ice volume data from the University of Washington’s PIOMAS model and NSIDC sea ice extent numbers to <a href="http://hot-topic.co.nz/five-years-threnody-for-arctic-sea-ice/" style="color: #666666; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline;">project</a> that the Arctic Ocean would be effectively ice-free in late summer within ten years. The key to that exercise was the rate at which the volume of sea ice has been declining ...</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1.538em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">As I was saying... </span></div></div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-24557131153440602722011-01-09T02:25:00.000-08:002011-01-09T02:25:19.172-08:00Greenland - a turning point by around 2040.http://beforeitsnews.com/story/346/855/Greenland_s_melting_seems_unstoppable.html<br />
<br />
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<div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Berlingske Tidende<br />
Friday 7 January 2011, 03:53</div><div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">'Even if we turned off all power stations and threw the keys to our car away, we would probably be unable to put a stop to it.</div><div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">'No matter how much we turn down the CO2-burner, Greenland will still reach a significant<span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD6" style="background-attachment: scroll !important; background-clip: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-origin: initial !important; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: repeat repeat !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; cursor: pointer !important; display: inline !important; float: none !important; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif !important; font-size: 14px !important; font-style: normal !important; font-weight: normal !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important; position: static; text-decoration: underline !important;">turning point</span> by around 2040, writes <em>Berlingske Tidende</em>.</div><div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">'Subsequently, the melting of the island's enormous quantities of ice will continue and continue and in principle not stop until most of the ice is gone.</div><div style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"<span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD3" style="background-attachment: scroll !important; background-clip: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-origin: initial !important; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: repeat repeat !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; cursor: pointer !important; display: inline !important; float: none !important; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif !important; font-size: 14px !important; font-style: normal !important; font-weight: normal !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important; position: static; text-decoration: underline !important;">It is</span> a very troubling result, because it shows that the melting can go much <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD2" style="background-attachment: scroll !important; background-clip: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-origin: initial !important; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: repeat repeat !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-width: 1px !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; cursor: pointer !important; display: inline !important; float: none !important; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif !important; font-size: 14px !important; font-style: normal !important; font-weight: normal !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-top: 0px !important; position: static; text-decoration: underline !important;">stronger</span> than we usually imagine," says one of the article's authors, Jens Hesselberg Christensen,<em>Berlingske Tidende</em>.</div><div>'...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">A total meltdown of the ice cap will have the world's oceans to rise with six to seven meters.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">2040. Say no more!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span></div>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-14661422019268954932011-01-01T17:10:00.000-08:002011-01-01T17:26:14.050-08:00Running Hot and Cold<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The recent extreme cold events in Europe have understandably given some folk cause to mutter about the supposed direction of climate change and global temperatures.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But we can be assured that we are on track to our ultimate destination; plus more degrees C than normal civilised life can sustain.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hansen sums it up thus:</span><br />
<div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"...Sea ice insulates the atmosphere from ocean water warmth, allowing surface air to achieve temperatures much lower than that of the ocean. It is for this reason that some of the largest positive temperature anomalies on the planet occur in the Arctic Ocean as sea ice area has decreased in recent years. </span></i></span></div><div style="font: 11.5px Times New Roman; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The cold anomaly in Northern Europe in November has continued and strengthened in the first half of December. Combined with the unusual cold winter of 2009-2010 in Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, this regional cold spell has caused widespread commentary that global warming has ended. That is hardly the case. On the contrary, globally November 2010 is the warmest November in the GISS record...." (Hansen et al 20101211)</span></i></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20101211_TemperatureAndEurope.pdf</span></i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other recent research has attributed the same sea ice effect on the location of the jet streams, and this is found to be a primary cause of the European winter chills.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It is nevertheless no contradiction between a global warming and cold winters in regions like Europe. Rather, recent analysis suggest that the global mean temperature is marching towards higher values (see figure below), and Petoukhov and Semenov argue that the cold winter should be an expected consequence of a global warming..."</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (Rasmus Benestad 20101214)</span></span></span><br />
<h3 class="storytitle" id="post-50" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h3><h3 class="storytitle" id="post-50" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/cold-winter-in-a-world-of-warming/</i></span></span></span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both commentaries note the potential importance of Arctic sea ice cover.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Running totals of sea ice cover are found at:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">in particular the long term record:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg</i></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the time series there is evidence of a steady (and increasingly rapid) decline in seasonal ice cover. The Cryosphere charts show that the minimum ice area has fallen from typical historic lows of about 5 million square kilometres to around three million. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that is only part of the story. The surface of your glass of freshly made lemonade can be covered in ice if that ice is only a thin veneer or if it extends all the way to be bottom to be mashed and swizzled with your straw.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The volume of the sea ice is the key indicator of how things are going. The volume of Arctic sea ice figure is calculated every few weeks by the University of Washington's Polar Science Centre.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php</i></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLPvoS6L_N3fT10TO07d6921xXABS0K74iuM1s6vIfVrAJvvc2dxyuoRGICU9E8t223y11AX9h2geHlpVV9LFPA9BvWMWUxtw79EhJtF3bVmEjMgPi3MSzE4q6h39nPUC9HPFXlcY1MSkJ/s1600/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent20110102a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLPvoS6L_N3fT10TO07d6921xXABS0K74iuM1s6vIfVrAJvvc2dxyuoRGICU9E8t223y11AX9h2geHlpVV9LFPA9BvWMWUxtw79EhJtF3bVmEjMgPi3MSzE4q6h39nPUC9HPFXlcY1MSkJ/s320/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrent20110102a.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But while this shows the anomaly (the variance from a running trend) it does not give us a real clue about how much ice volume remains.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The site comments:</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Monthly average Arctic Ice Volume for Sept 2010 was 4,000 km^3, the lowest over the 1979-2010 period, 78% below the 1979 maximum and 9,400 km^3 or 70% below its mean for the 1979-2009 period.</span></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "</span></i></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the text and chart on the Washington U Ice Volume site I have extracted a few salient points which as far as I can tell give a true indication of how much ice is left in the Arctic glass.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuXMw0_bdAMHQg8_6jo7RoDsxhDZSoS9SsYXQS8q_buLN-3vrGetzzhoPsKmKSUue-H2Q0b412ubnnIdsNViywbQRPOp0ZC6f4XSdugX158ae9msRL_HLadfxjs6BvSm_eIYWIRwIKbod/s1600/NJW+IceVolChart+20110102a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJuXMw0_bdAMHQg8_6jo7RoDsxhDZSoS9SsYXQS8q_buLN-3vrGetzzhoPsKmKSUue-H2Q0b412ubnnIdsNViywbQRPOp0ZC6f4XSdugX158ae9msRL_HLadfxjs6BvSm_eIYWIRwIKbod/s320/NJW+IceVolChart+20110102a.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From this we can see that the summer minimum ice volume has diminished from the 1979 September minimum of 19,000 cubic kilometres to the 2010 September minimum of 4000 cubic kilometres.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have not joined the dots with a curve, as its non-linear, and the site does not give me enough data to confidently make those interpolations. But the points for 1979, 2009 and 2010 provide sufficient evidence for us to see that, while sea ice cover is still remaining fairly high, the actual volume of ice beneath that cover is declining drastically. The ice on your glass is getting very thin indeed. A layman could be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that an ice-free arctic is not many seasons away.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With that ice goes an enormous heat sink and stabilising influence on the rate of global temperature rise, which will further hasten the rate of loss of grounded ice, and the consequent rate of sea level rise.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we think back now to the present anomalous state of Europe's recent summer and winter weather with a very modest loss of Arctic sea ice cover, we can only begin to appreciate what may be in store when that last fragile 4000 cubic kilometres of Arctic ice turns to mush not many summers from now, and the lid comes off the Arctic Ocean Weather Machine.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Keep thinking. Keep acting. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kind regards</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nigel</span>Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2329092447577515664.post-56071022436077469182010-11-22T22:20:00.000-08:002010-11-22T22:37:42.586-08:00The Price of Change - This just out from Dr James HansenThe Price of Change<br />
James E Hansen<br />
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20101122_ChinaOpEd.pdf<br />
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"Sea level rise is one problem. Carbon dioxide amounts of 400ppm (parts per million), expected in 2016 with current emissions, will cause an eventual sea level rise of about 25 metres. China's land area will shrink rapidly, requiring about 250 million people to move inland.<br />
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"How rapidly ice sheets will collapse is uncertain. A sea level rise of one metre every 20 years has occurred in the past ice sheet disintegrations. But the human-made climate forcing is far greater and faster than past natural forcings. Ice shelves - tongues of ice protruding into the ocean and buttressing the great Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets - are melting. Both ice sheets are now loosing over 100 cubic kilometres of ice each [year]. If mass loss continues to accellerate, ice sheet collapse may begin within decades."<br />
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"Governments must recognise this harsh fact: Burning all fossil fuels would increase carbon dioxide to more than 555ppm and create a different planet - a desolate, ice-free planet with sea levels 75 metres higher than today.<br />
---Nigel W.http://www.blogger.com/profile/16032820308733080214noreply@blogger.com1