A major new study has reanalyzed the connection between global warming and the record-breaking temperatures we’ve been seeing.  Stefan Rahmstorf and Dim Coumou conclude in their PNAS paper, “Increase of extreme events in a warming world“:

… the majority of monthly records like the Moscow heat wave must be considered due to the warming trend. In highly aggregated data with small variability compared to the trend, like the global-mean temperature, almost all recent records are due to climate warming.

Basically, they show that when there is a lot of variability in temperature, as there is on in individual days, finding a trend in extreme records at any single location thanks to global warming is small:  “daily data from a single weather station may not yet show a major change in temperature extremes due to global warming.”

But when you look at the monthly and especially yearly temperature data at a location, data that have considerable less fluctuation, then a warming trend is far more likely to create a new record.  And as lead author Rahmstorf explained to me, this matters because “monthly temperature records have much more impact on human society” in terms of impact on human health, mortality, and crop failures.

And, of course, the Russia’s heat wave apparently caused very high mortality.  As Reuters reported last year, “Nearly 56,000 more people died nationwide this summer than in the same period last year, said a monthly Economic Development Ministry report on Russia’s economy.”  And it caused Russia to ban grain exports for over a year after their crops shriveled (see Russian President Medvedev: “What is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past”).

The PNAS study found:

For July temperature in Moscow, we estimate that the local warming trend has increased the number of records expected in the past decade fivefold, which implies an approximate 80% probability that the 2010 July heat record would not have occurred without climate warming.

Global warming increased the chance of this monster heat-wave occurring by a factor of 5.  I’d note that Tamino doing a far cruder analysis had estimated global warming had increased its chances by a factor of 8.

This is only a bombshell because NOAA did a flawed analysis just a few months ago that found no connection between global warming and the record-smashing.   Back in March, NCAR Senior Scientist Kevin Trenberth challenged NOAA’s attribution analysis, “Many statements are not justified and are actually irresponsible,” as Climate Progress reported.  It is unusual for a major study like that to be essentially refuted in such a short time in the peer-reviewed literature.

Rahmstorf told Wired that the NOAA study showed “an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. We found the evidence.”  Here is one key figure:

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Congressional Republicans have spent the better part of three years attempting to cut the federal budget in all sorts of ways, including slashing programs aimed at protecting the environment and developing new renewable energy sources. The GOP’s presidential candidates have followed suit, promising to evaluate the effectiveness of certain subsidies and spending programs. But throughout the debate, tax breaks for oil and gas companies — which cost about $4 billion each year — have been exempt from those discussions, mentioned only when Republicans pretend that all options are on the table.

That hasn’t set well with presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R). Speaking at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Conference today, Gingrich blasted Republicans for exempting oil and gas tax breaks from widespread budget cuts even as they targeted subsidies like ethanol:

GINGRICH: I don’t want to pick a fight with any of my good friends who are running, but I get a little weary of people who represent oil, which has consistently had tax subsidies for its entire history, explaining that they’re really not sure about these subsidies. Notice it’s always these subsidies. It’s never the ones down there. I notice that when Senator [Tom] Coburn [R-OK] introduced a bill that was anti-ethanol, he didn’t include subsidies for gas and oil, because as an Oklahoman, that would be suicidal. So I just think we ought to have a fair playing field.

This kind of tough talk on oil and gas subsidies isn’t new. Republicans from freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) to Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said cutting oil subsidies should be in consideration during budget negotiations earlier this year. Yet, when it came time to vote, all three (and many other Republicans) voted to maintain the subsidies not once, but twice. Ryan, a vocal critic of “corporate giveaways” when he’s at town hall meetings, preserved a $4.1 billion break to oil and gas companies in his fiscal 2012 budget, even while cutting other vital programs. So while Republicans like Gingrich often say the right things when it comes to ending giveaways to Big Oil, it’s rare that they actually back up those words when they get the chance.

Our guest blogger is Jake Schmidt, International Climate Policy Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The House is scheduled to vote today on HR 2594 which would seek to stop the European program to control aviation’s carbon pollution and push the U.S. closer to a trade war with Europe. This bill should be rejected by the House, never even considered by the Senate, and rejected by the Obama Administration. Now is not the time to start a trade war with Europe.

The bill would tell the U.S. government to work with U.S. companies to break another country’s law. And it tells the U.S.-based airlines to break the law in another country. Could you imagine the outrage if another country told its companies to break the U.S. law when they operate in the U.S.? Well that is exactly what this law directs the U.S. government and U.S.-based carriers to do — break the law. That isn’t a principle that the U.S. should implement. Here is what the bill says:

The Secretary of Transportation shall prohibit an operator of a civil aircraft of the United States from participating in any emissions trading scheme unilaterally established by the European Union. [...]

The Secretary of Transportation, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, and other appropriate officials of the United States Government shall use their authority to conduct international negotiations and take other actions necessary to ensure that operators of civil aircraft of the United States are held harmless from any emissions trading scheme unilaterally established by the European Union.

This is not a vote for or against action on global warming — it’s a vote to tell U.S. companies to break the law in other countries and move the U.S. closer to a trade war. Proponents of this bill are outlining many mistruths. Here are the facts:

1. The Europeans only acted after waiting 15 years for a global solution which never materialized. For almost 15 years, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) — the U.N. body tasked with coordinating international aviation — has failed to come up with mandatory global actions to significantly reduce aviation’s carbon pollution. After this failure, Europe took the reasonable step of passing a law to require carbon pollution reductions from flights that use European airports. The Europeans tried to get a global solution, but a global solution never materialized.
2. The European program is legal. Independent assessments have concluded that the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation in the EU’s program “is consistent with all relevant international provisions and therefore permissible under international law.” In fact, a preliminary court finding from the EU courts has found that the law is legal.
3. The EU program will not lead to massive price increases and will not have huge impacts on airline travel and the airline industry. When the Europeans had this system independently evaluated they found that the program would add a mere $11-57 to a roundtrip ticket — less for shorter flights. On a ticket that easily costs $800-1400 this is a very marginal price change. In fact, it is about the same as the price that airlines charge per checked bag on a domestic flight in the US. Instead the E.U. program will provide an incentive for airlines to find the best way to reduce their fuel use and encourage them to purchase the most efficient aircraft that are already rolling off the production line. These are investments that will spur savings to American consumers as US-based carriers improve the efficiency of their aged fleet.
4. US companies are already competing to produce better airplanes. US-based aircraft and engine manufacturers are already making strides to produce more efficient airplanes. For example, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney tout the fuel saving benefits of their aircraft and engines.
5. The European program regulates only carriers that use their airports. They aren’t applying an arbitrary program targeted at the US or one that is different for flights from another country. Their program applies the same standard for all flights that land at and take-off from European airports — regardless of where that flight takes off. Indeed the EU program allows completely exempts foreign carriers whose own governments take any comparable measures. But rather than clean up carbon pollution here at home, the House wants to prohibit American carriers from complying with other countries’ laws.

What proponents fail to acknowledge is that the only thing this bill will do is move the U.S. closer to a trade war with one of our major trading partners. Given the state of the economy, why would the United States want to risk such an outcome?

This bill is wrong and should be rejected by the House and never taken up by the Senate. It will move the U.S. closer to a trade war with Europe and tell U.S. companies to ignore E.U. laws when they operate at European airports.

I’m happy to introduce our first episode of the Climate Progress Podcast!

As an extension of our coverage here at ClimateProgress.org, our show will be devoted to communicating the science and solutions of climate change through engaging interviews with news makers, thoughtful analysis and occasional documentary-style reporting.

Our first show features a wide-ranging interview with Climate Progress editor Joe Romm, who explains why the scientific community needs a strong voice in communicating the science of climate change. We’ll also chat with Carbon War Room CEO Jigar Shah about how to profitably deploy clean energy solutions.

To listen to the show, launch the player below.

Shah, a solar-industry rock star who founded the pioneering solar company SunEdison, candidly shares his views on why doubters of today’s renewable energy technologies are so wrong:

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Media outlets are drumming up a new phony scandal using a report by ABC News about a company called Fisker Automotive. Fisker, the maker of an innovative line of energy efficient vehicles, received a substantial clean energy loan from the Obama administration as part of the stimulus program. While right-wing partisans and some news agencies are harping on the fact that Fisker is making some of its cars in Finland, they are in many cases ignoring the more important fact that the company is also hiring many American workers at a re-opened plant in Delaware.

In June of this year, Fisker announced it had begun hiring at a plant purchased from GM in Wilmington, Delaware. But if you don’t trust the company’s own press release, simply check Fox News. Back then, before the outlet started hyping the story as some type of terrible scandal, Fox reported about the company’s hiring plans after an interview with its CEO, Henrik Fisker. View a screen shot from Fox News’ “Car Report” website below:

Fox News also reported on the increased hiring projected by Fisker going into 2014, thanks to the clean energy loan:

The California-based start-up automaker purchased the facility from Motors Liquidation Corp, better known as “Old GM,” last year for $18 million dollars. At the time of the purchase, Fisker said that it would use a $528.7 million dollar loan from the federal government, along with an additional $175 million dollars in private investment to refurbish the facility to build a lineup of compact luxury plug-in hybrid cars, known as Project Nina, starting in late 2012. [...] The initial round of hiring for the Delaware plant will involve 40 employees in the engineering and electro-mechanical fields this summer, with 80 production workers being brought on board in the fall. Advertisements for the positions will be posted this weekend. Company executives have previously said that they expect to create 2,000 jobs at the facility and an additional 3,000 supplier jobs by 2014 when production reaches its full output of between 75,000 and 100,000 vehicles per year, half of those set for export.

As Media Matters noted, Fox News has tried to puff the Fisker report into a scandal. MMFA’s Shauna Theel reported that last week, “Fox’s ‘straight news’ program America’s Newsroom aired a graphic saying ‘FEDERAL LOAN … FOR FINLAND?’ But host Bill Hemmer never mentioned that the loan supported American jobs, or that Fisker is barred from putting the money towards its overseas plant.”

Providing tax credits or rebates for solar systems is only one element of good policy. In order to establish an effective solar program, rules need to be established that give consumers easy access to the grid.

In the U.S., those rules mostly come in the form of Net Metering and Interconnection standards. Net Metering allows an owner of a residential or small-commercial system to receive credit from a utility for any excess generation fed into the grid. Interconnection standards establish the rules that consumers must follow in order to place a system in service. If the rules are not clear or are too burdensome, adoption of solar is slowed.

So how does your state stack up? The latest “Freeing the Grid” report from the Network for New Energy Choices grades state-level solar programs on consumer access. Here are the rankings:

This is the fifth year the rankings have been established. The state-level landscape has changed a lot since NNEC started grading net metering and interconnection policies. In 2011, 17 states got “A’s” for their net metering policies — up from five in 2007. And this year, 23 states got “A’s” or “B’” for interconnection rules — up from only one “B” in 2007.

Let’s hope we can get all 50 states to make the rankings in 2012. That would be a huge step for the U.S. solar industry.

Greenland Ice Sheet Ties Record for Mass Loss in 2011

Another day, another amplifying feedback or vicious cycle.

The Greenland ice sheet can experience extreme melting even when temperatures don’t hit record highs, according to a new analysis by Dr. Marco Tedesco, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York.  His findings suggest that glaciers could undergo a self-amplifying cycle of melting and warming that would be difficult to halt.

“We are finding that even if you don’t have record-breaking highs, as long as warm temperatures persist you can get record-breaking melting because of positive feedback mechanisms,” said Professor Tedesco, who directs CCNY’s Cryospheric Processes Laboratory….

… melting in 2011 was the third most extensive since 1979, lagging behind only 2010 and 2007. The “mass balance”, or amount of snow gained minus the snow and ice that melted away, ended up tying last year’s record values.

The photo on the right is “Marco Tedesco standing on the edge of one of four moulins (drainage holes) he and his team found at the bottom of a supraglacial lake during the expedition to Greenland in the summer, 2011.”

It’s not news that there are amplifying feedbacks at work on the great ice sheets.  Just this March, the U.S. Jet Propulsion Laboratory published its analysis that Polar ice sheet mass loss is speeding up, on pace for 1 foot sea level rise by 2050.  That study found:

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerating pace, according to a new NASA-funded satellite study. The findings of the study — the longest to date of changes in polar ice sheet mass — suggest these ice sheets are overtaking ice loss from Earth’s mountain glaciers and ice caps to become the dominant contributor to global sea level rise, much sooner than model forecasts have predicted.

But the new CCNY study, based on in situ observations “during a four-week expedition to the Jakobshavn Isbræ glacier in western Greenland,” lays out for the first time a very specific amplifying feedback occurring way up north:

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JR: At the end, I’ll add some more on GOP hypocrisy on this issue.

by Dave Roberts in a Grist cross-post

Here we go again.

ABC News and iWatch have a big new report out that desperately tries to lend an air of scandal to another Department of Energy loan guarantee. It’s a remarkable package, nearly 3,000 words and three ABC News segments full of handwaving and innuendo suggesting that there’s something shady going on, using the word “Solyndra” as often as possible, but in the end there’s … nothing. Not a single bit of evidence of wrongdoing or corruption. It’s a gigantic nothingburger. It just describes the loan program working exactly as it was intended to, but in a tone of dark insinuation.

The fact that there’s no there there will of course not impede the U.S. scandal machine. Already the Drudge Report has linked it, Sarah Palin has Tweeted it, right-wing blogs are flogging it … Next thing you know, other media will be hyping it to, because, you know, “questions have been raised.” And it’s off to the races all over again.

Just for the record, let’s walk through the facts.

The loan program in question is the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program, established in 2007 by the energy bill passed under George W. Bush. It’s intended to speed the introduction of more efficient vehicles into the U.S. market and help stand up domestic industries to supply those vehicles.

The ATVM program was fully funded in 2008 and began issuing loans in 2009. In June of that year, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the first three recipients: $5.9 billion to Ford, $1.6 billion to Nissan, and $465 million to electric automaker Tesla.

Then, in September 2009, DOE announced a fourth recipient: $529 million to California-based Fisker Automotive. The loan was finalized in April 2010 and announced at an event with Vice President Joe Biden.

At the time, Fisker had one vehicle under development and another planned, both plug-in hybrids; the loan was split between them. The smaller portion, $169 million, was devoted to helping Fisker work with U.S. suppliers to finish up the Karma, a $97,000 four-door luxury sedan. The larger portion, $359 million, was devoted to Project Nina, Fisker’s plan to develop a mid-market plug-in sedan. The company expects the Nina to cost around $39,000 and be in mass production (75,000-100,000 a year) by late 2012, with delivery to begin in 2013.

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by Melanie Hart

There is no way to get around this fact—China aims to modernize its energy infrastructure at home and dominate clean energy technology markets abroad. At the 2011 Smart Grid World Forum in Beijing late last month, China’s State Grid Corporation announced plans to invest $250 billion in electric power infrastructure upgrades over the next five years, of which $45 billion is earmarked for smart grid technologies. According to its three-stage plan, China will invest another $240 billion between 2016 and 2020 (including another $45 billion toward smart grid technologies) to complete the build-out of a “stronger, smarter” Chinese power grid.

When complete, this system will improve energy efficiency, lower carbon emissions, and give Chinese consumers more control over their utility bills. Chinese leaders are betting that upgrading to a smarter electricity grid will also drive technology innovation and move the country up the manufacturing value chain. The Chinese view smart grid technology as the next industrial revolution—and they want to make sure that once other countries start upgrading their own grids, they will buy most of their equipment from China.

This issue brief details why the United States should take note of China’s ambitions and step up our own smart grid efforts. We, too, need a stronger, smarter electricity grid, and in many smart grid sectors, our enterprises are already producing the best technologies. All they need is a bit more policy support at home to speed up interoperability, to drive down equipment prices, and to ensure the smart grid revolution will be a market driver not only for China but also for the United States both at home and in export markets abroad.

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As news outlets hype the ABC News piece about Fisker Automotive, a company that received an Obama administration loan program while creating jobs both in Finland and Delaware, Republicans are likely to pounce as well. Already, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) appeared on Fox News to tout the Fisker story as part of a larger narrative about the failure of the Obama administration’s loan program. “On Solyndra, people are going to draw comparisons about [Fisker],” piped Fox News’ Bill Hemmer.

Republicans exaggerated and misconstrued the controversy over Solyndra, a failed solar company that received a subsidized loan (originating from the Bush administration), to call to cutting all clean energy loan programs.

But before Republicans turn on the right-wing echo chamber to twist the Fisker story into some sort of case of wrongdoing, they should consider this ThinkProgress report about GOP lawmakers who have requested the same type of clean energy loans. According to the report, at least 62 requested green energy subsidies from the Obama administration. Both the Indiana and Louisina Republican delegations requested taxpayer money for energy efficient start-up car companies — using the same type of program obtained by Fisker Automotive:

– Reps. Todd Young (R), Larry Bucshon (R), Marlin Stutzman (R), Todd Rokita (R) and Dan Burton (R) signed a letter along with other Indiana lawmakers to Secretary Steven Chu requesting expedited action on a clean energy loan to Carbon Motors Corporation. The grant, the lawmakers claimed, would bring 1,500 jobs to Indiana while achieving “a positive impact on the environment.” View a copy of the Indiana letter supporting Carbon Motor’s Department of Energy grant request here. All five lawmakers voted ‘aye’ in a protest vote against Department of Energy clean energy grant programs.

– Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wrote two letters to Secretary Steven Chu asking for clean energy loans for a plant that would build electric cars. The letter, sent in June of 2009, claimed that the company could create 4,000 jobs. The Associated Press and Climate Progress have reported on the letters here.

– Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) sent a letter to Secretary Steven Chu requesting “expedited consideration” of a fuel efficiency loan grant for V-Vehicle Company to build a plant in his state. The entire Louisiana congressional delegation cosigned the June 2, 2010 letter, including clean energy critics Reps. Bill Cassidy (R), John Fleming (R), Steve Scalise (R), and Rodney Alexander (R). Vitter also sent letters recommending clean energy loan guarantees for Red River Environmental Products and Next Autoworks Company. View a copy of Vitter’s clean energy loan requests here. Fleming, Cassidy, Scalise, and Alexander voted “aye” in a protest vote against Department of Energy clean energy grant programs.

Read the rest of the report here.

Other Key Stories below:  Solar Power is Beginning to go Mainstream

Crop Scientists Now Fret About Heat, Not Just Water

Crop scientists in the United States, the world’s largest food exporter, are pondering an odd question: could the danger of global warming really be the heat?

For years, as scientists have assembled data on climate change and pointed with concern at melting glaciers and other visible changes in the life-giving water cycle, the impact on seasonal rains and irrigation has worried crop watchers most.

What would breadbaskets like the Midwest, the Central Asian steppes, the north China Plain or Argentine and Brazilian crop lands be like without normal rains or water tables?

Those were seen as longer-term issues of climate change.

But scientists now wonder if a more immediate issue is an unusual rise in day-time and, especially, night-time summer temperatures being seen in crop belts around the world.

Interviews with crop researchers at American universities paint the same picture: high temperatures have already shrunken output of many crops and vegetables.

“We don’t grow tomatoes in the deep South in the summer. Pollination fails,” said Ken Boote, a crop scientist with the University of Florida.

The same goes for snap beans which can no longer be grown in Florida during the summer, he added.

“As temperatures rise we are going to have trouble maintaining the yields of crops that we already have,” said Gerald Nelson, an economist with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)….

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by Melanie Hart and Daniel J. Weiss

New and improved horizontal drilling, combined with hydraulic fracturing technologies, enable the United States to develop its abundant supply of natural gas from shale rock deep below the earth’s surface. China holds huge shale reserves as well and plans to follow suit. It would like to import technologies from the United States to do so, but the United States and its oil companies should not supply China with hydraulic fracturing technology without combining that technology with safety standards and environmental best practices. This includes capturing fugitive greenhouse gas emissions, monitoring the chemicals used in fracking fluid, and treating the wastewater to avoid contaminating local waterways.

This brief will review the factors leading China to seriously consider shale gas development and the potential problems the country faces in making this development a reality. It then examines shale development in the United States before closing with recommendations on how both countries can safely extract shale gas.

We start with a brief look at what shale gas is and the potential environmental problems shale development can produce if it does not follow best practices.

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