Petermann Glacier has calved another gigantic ice island, larger than twice the size of Manhattan, not quite as large as the calving of two years ago. A study this month found that the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is nearing a critical “tipping point.”

by Neven, via the Arctic Sea Ice Blog

This second big calving (spotted this time by Arcticicelost80) is another spectacular event on Greenland, after retreats of the Jakobshavn Glacier and lowest reflectivity of the Greenland ice sheet on record (see blog post), leading to unprecedented flooding in the southwest of Greenland.

From the Icy Seas blog:

This morning Petermann Glacier lost another ice island….

The break-off point has been visible for at least 8 years in MODIS imagery propagating at speeds of 1 km/year towards Nares Strait. The fracture also extended further across the floating ice sheet from the northern towards its southern side.

This event is still evolving, Trudy Wohleben of the Canadian Ice Service noticed it first (as in 2010) after reviewing MODIS imagery. Several people in several countries are monitoring and assessing the situation, but a first estimate of its size is 200 km^2 (3 Manhattans), I will revise this figure as soon as I got my hands on the raw data.

Read more here.

Two years ago Patrick Lockerby was the first to tell the world about the big calving that occurred at Petermann Glacier. The Arctic Sea Ice blog followed suit shortly afterwards. The whole event garnered a lot of attention, popularizing the island of Manhattan as an area measurement tool (metre, kilometre, Manhattan). This second big calving in as many years doesn’t come as a surprise, as attested by this article on the New York Times blog from August last year:

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By Ari Phillips

William deBuys is the author of seven books, including most recently “A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest,” for which I wrote a Dot Earth book review last month.

As part of my summer reporting project on energy and climate change in the Southwest, I had the pleasure of driving deep into the heart of the Santa Fe National Forest and interviewing deBuys at his home about an hour and a half from Santa Fe.

We discussed how he ended up in a far-removed mountain hamlet in New Mexico, what drove him to write his most recent book, and what the biggest takeaways from the project were, among other things.

When did climate change become a focus of your work?

I remember being in a conference in January 2006 in Albuquerque and climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck was giving a talk. He put a slide on the screen about predicted stream flow for the world. I realized this land that I love, the Southwest, is going to be transformed.

I always had this sort of abstract appreciation that it’s going to be hotter and that the climate is shifting and so forth. But seeing that map as a graphic drove it home. Something very very big was afoot. Something truly transformative. And in a sense it was sitting there looking at that map that planted the seed that later grew into “A Great Aridness.”

How did the book develop? How did you choose topics?

I had planned for a while back to write an environmental history of the Southwest. In my grant proposals I said I would write a general environmental history of the Southwest and use the perspective of climate change to organize it. I was fortunate enough to get a Guggenheim Fellowship and as soon as I began working on the book I realized I needed to flip it around – I needed to write about climate change in the Southwest and use the perspective of environmental history to try and understand it.

Were you surprised by your findings relating to ancient cultures and drought?

I’d been aware for some time of megadrought and the impact of drought on Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde culture. A primary thing I took away from the research was that drought isn’t the only big factor. One of main themes of the book is that nothing happens for just one reason. The collapse of the Sand Canyon culture was as much a result of warfare and strife as it was of drought. Warfare over resources, driven in part by refugees flooding the area probably as other regions suffered from climatic shifts.

Climate was a big driver but not the only driver. We’re not just puppets of climate; the things we do to ourselves count a lot too.

You say energy is the most unreported story in the looming water crisis of the Southwest.

Almost all the ways we have of producing electricity require a lot of water, with photovoltaic and wind being exceptions for the most part. Coal-fired thermal production is very water intensive, nuclear is very water intensive. At same time dealing with our water resources is very energy intensive. Well over a fifth of all electricity in United States is used for moving water around.

Anytime we start talking about meeting new energy needs in the Southwest that ups ante in terms of water availability. And anytime we talk about increasing water availability that increases the amount of energy we need to get water from where it is now to anywhere in the Southwest. The water resources we live next to are already being used to their fullest extent. So any increase in water resources has got to come from somewhere else, and that means a whole lot of electrical juice.

The feedbacks reinforce each other. The more water you need the more electricity you need the more water you need etc. It’s not a sustainable relationship. We’ve got to break that circle at some point with renewables and new ways of water budgeting.

I think in the end somehow we’re going to have to level off and maybe even shrink population in the region. As Edward abbey pointed out, continuous growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. How can we add four million people to the Tucson-Phoenix corridor? How can we add more people to Santa Fe and Albuquerque forever and ever and ever? There’s got to be a place that we stop. Read more

Former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), the man leading an initiative to revive Republican talks on climate solutions, predicted “there are a lot of Republicans in foxholes on this hill, ducking as the fire gets intense.” It looks like he is right.

Last week, reports of an informal, bipartisan meeting hosted by American Enterprise Institute on how to effectively price carbon pollution drew immediate fire from conservative groups:

• Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, a climate denial think tank: “Carbon dioxide is not a negative externality, it is a measure of energy use, and energy – as Julian Simon and others have pointed out – is the ‘master resource,’ the single most important input into our economy, the source of prosperity, innovation, and opportunity. The emerging consensus of scientists and economists is that CO2’s effects are either too small to be noticeable or will produce net benefits, not harms.
• National Review: “Disturbing reports are reaching us of a hitherto-secret meeting at the American Enterprise Institute Wednesday afternoon looking at the feasibility of persuading Congressional Republicans to back a “revenue neutral” carbon tax [...] Even if AEI was just providing the venue, one has to ask: What are they thinking?!
• Competitive Enterprise Institute, via Politico: “Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Marlo Lewis noted, ‘In general, when left and right join forces, the appropriate question is: Who is duping whom?’ He denounced the gathering as an ‘AEI-hosted carbon tax cabal.”I am impressed by the coordination,” added GOP energy and environmental strategist Mike McKenna in an email about Wednesday’s meeting. ‘That said, the specifics are ridiculously ugly — starting with $5 a gallon gas and going on from there.’”

Republican Congressional leaders have also come out strongly against a price on carbon. When asked about whether he would support a bipartisan dialogue around carbon pricing, Michael Steel, the spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), offered a simple “No.”  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office also said that the policy is off the table.

GOP icon George Schultz supports a carbon tax. Carbon pricing has bipartisan support from Democratic lamwakers Henry Waxman and Edward Markey and former GOP Representatives. Sherwood Boehlert and Wayne Gilchrest, who argued in an op-ed earlier this year that “no other policy would do as much for our economy, our security and our future as putting a price on carbon.” Inglis’ initiative also draws support from Mitt Romney’s top economic adviser Greg Mankiw, even though Romney continues to raise doubts about climate change.

The vitriolic reaction to AEI’s meeting illustrates the extreme ideological opposition to climate action among Republicans on the far right.

Companies operating along the Mississippi River are seeing a drastic cut in business as severe drought lowers water levels and makes shipping increasingly difficult.

The drought, which now covers more than 1,000 counties across the US, has dropped water levels 50 feet below last year’s levels in some places. Last winter’s lack of snow, the absence of any major tropical storms from the Gulf of Mexico, sweltering temperatures, and the lack of rain this spring and summer are to blame for the shallow water.

The Mississippi is a major trade conduit through the central U.S. Barges, which are often cheaper to operate than trains or trucks, carry goods such as grain, corn, soybeans, steel, rubber, coffee, fertilizer, coal, and petroleum products in and out of the interior of the country.

As the water levels fall, barges have run aground near Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the water is already less than 5 feet deep, and shipping companies have been forced to curtail their business. The Wall Street Journal reports:

‘It’s causing headaches all up and down the river system right now,’ said Martin Hettel, senior manager of bulk sales for AEP River Operations, a St. Louis-based barge company.

Mark Fletcher, owner of Ceres Barge Line of East St. Louis, Ill., said about 70% of his 220 barges aren’t being used now. First, the drought cut crops, reducing demand for shipping. Now, low water levels are making it more costly to ship.

‘It’s not good if you are in the barge business right now,’ he said. ‘In the last 60 days, you’ve watched a whole lot of money go out the window.’

Some river ports have been forced to close temporarily or shut down parts of their operations because of the low water levels. At the port of Rosedale in the Mississippi Delta, port director Robert Maxwell Jr. said water levels are about 50 feet below what they were last year, when flooding shut down the port. If the water falls any lower, there was a ‘high likelihood’ he would have to close, he said. One of the port’s public loading docks is inoperable, with equipment normally in the water now hanging the air. The Army Corps of Engineers is supposed to come this week to dredge, where heavy equipment is used to dig out sediment from waterways to make them passable for shipping.

‘This is absolutely not normal,’ Mr. Maxwell said.

In response to the dramatically low water levels, companies have decreased the number of barges in operation. Without some steady rain soon, “the vast majority of commerce would have to stop,” says P.B. Shah, president of Ingram Barge Co., the largest barge company operating on the Mississippi river.

– by Max Frankel

by Kiley Kroh

Royal Dutch Shell’s preparedness to drill offshore in the harsh and remote Arctic Ocean this summer has been called into question by a series of recent events.

Over the weekend, the company’s drilling rig, the Noble Discoverer, appears to have come dangerously close to running aground near Dutch Harbor, where Shell’s fleet has been assembled.  The Noble Discoverer is one of two dozen ships Shell plans to send into some of the most challenging conditions on the planet.  According to the US Coast Guard, the vessel slipped anchor and drifted within 100 yards off shore before being pulled back into deeper water by a Shell tugboat.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The vessel‘s anchor failed to hold and the 514-foot ship began drifting, but its movement was halted when tug boats were called in to assist, Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis told the Los Angeles Times.

“We don’t know exactly what happened yet. We do know that the vessel’s anchor didn’t hold, they began to drift, they let out more anchor chain to slow that drift and called for immediate tug assistance,” Francis said.

Although Shell and the Coast Guard asserted there was no evidence of grounding, onlookers — including longshoreman David Howard and Dutch Harbor captain Kristjan Laxfoss — contradicted this account, saying the vessel was not moving and appeared grounded: “There’s no question it hit the beach. That ship was not coming any closer. It was on the beach.”

Petty Officer Sarah Francis said winds of 27-35 miles per hour likely led to the ship drifting — conditions that are benign compared with the hurricane-force gales, 20-foot swells, and dynamic sea ice the Discoverer could encounter off the North Slope where the company plans to drill offshore.

Pete Slaiby, vice president of Shell Oil in Alaska, noted both the Discoverer and Kulluk drilling ships will be secured by an 8-point anchor system when operating in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

The incident immediately follows the Coast Guard’s refusal to certify Shell’s oil spill response barge, the Arctic Challenger, because of concerns about the fire protection system, wiring, and piping on the 37 year-old vessel. The Coast Guard also expressed doubts about the barge’s ability to withstand harsh Arctic storms. The containment barge is essential to the fleet as it is designed to deliver oil spill response equipment to the five drilling sites. Without it, Shell would not have access to the equipment necessary to contain an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean.

In addition to the extreme and unpredictable weather, there is an alarming dearth of infrastructure necessary to mount a large-scale response effort off the North Slope. As detailed in the Center for American Progress report, Putting a Freeze on Arctic Ocean Drilling: America’s Inability to Respond to an Oil Spill in the Arctic, the area lacks roads, railroads, a permanent Coast Guard facility, a major port, or sufficient infrastructure to house and feed a large influx of people.  As a result, Shell has said that its oil spill response efforts will be largely self-contained.  The fact that the company is experiencing problems with this equipment before even reaching the drill sites raises serious concerns about their contingency plan.

Shell’s flotilla will continue to wait in Dutch Harbor – 1,000 miles south of the proposed drilling sites; the closest major port to the North Slope – while unexpectedly heavy sea ice prevents them from making the voyage to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

Slaiby, Shell’s VP in Alaska, recently told CNN that the company’s proposed exploration in the Arctic will be the “most complex, most difficult wells we’ve drilled in company history.”

Kiley Kroh is the Associate Director of Ocean Communications at the Center for American Progress.

Staffers for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign say the candidate wants to end the wind production tax credit.

That federal credit has allowed the wind industry to compete with heavily-subsidized fossil fuels that do considerable harm to the environment and public health — impacts that are not reflected in their price.

The production tax credit provides wind developers with a tax benefit of 2.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour of wind electricity produced — far below the air pollution damages caused by coal plants. Without Congressional action, the incentive will expire at the end of this year, potentially resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing and construction jobs supported by the sector.

Romney has hinted that he wants to end federal tax support for clean energy, but he has not yet made a definitive statement on the production tax credit. However, the Des Moines Register is now reporting that Romney has taken a more concrete stance on the issue:

Mitt Romney’s opposition to wind power could put a damper on Iowa’s wind industry and its thousands of jobs, advocates say.

The federal wind energy production tax credit is set to expire at the end of the year. Staffers for Romney, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said he wants to end the credit, but didn’t specify whether it should be allowed to expire this year or phased out shortly after. President Barack Obama wants an indefinite extension of the tax credit.

Industry insiders and policymakers in Iowa, Republicans and Democrats alike, say ending the credit would hurt Iowa’s blossoming industry.

“It’s really going to slow down the expansion of wind energy,” said Harold Prior, executive director of the Iowa Wind Energy Association. “This could mean the loss of several thousand jobs in the industry.”

The looming threat of an expiration is making it difficult for developers to plan beyond 2012. As a result, wind companies are delaying projects and laying workers off. In Pennsylvania, a turbine manufacturer furloughed 165 workers; in April, an Ohio wind developer scrapped plans for a $20 million project; in Arkansas, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries halted plans for a $100 million production facility; and Vestas, the world’s largest wind manufacturer, may lay off 1,600 workers if the credit expires.

As the Des Moines Register reports, federal policy uncertainty is forcing companies to move activity outside the American market:

Read more

Climate Progress readers have been among the biggest contributors to The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund — donate here. What follows is a good piece on what the Fund has been doing with your money — JR.

by Doug Bostrom, via Skeptical Science

A year ago Professors Scott Mandia and John Abraham witnessed with growing dismay burgeoning legal attacks on scientists performing climate related research. Mandia and Abraham had discussed for some time how they might help defray legal costs incidental to inconvenient research results being borne by scientists; the pair were catalyzed into action upon learning that Dr. Michael Mann was dipping into personal funds to defend himself against a litigious fishing expedition by the extremist anti-regulatory American Tradition Institute. Mandia and Abraham crystallized their thinking into concrete form and action with the inception of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF).

Launching the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund required a conjunction of several key parts: the idea of formally organizing a combat fund, initiative to put thoughts into action, and most importantly the right people to start the process. John Abraham is the celebrated veteran of a prolonged verbal skirmish with the eccentric yet curiously influential Christopher Monckton. Scott Mandia shares with Abraham the distinction of being threatened with a lawsuit by Monckton, a campaign ribbon in the weird world war of climate reality versus climate fantasy.

Within 24 hours of Climate Science Legal Defense Fund’s announcement over $10,000 dollars were raised for the cause of allowing Michael Mann to proceed with his research with less distraction and worry. This wouldn’t have been possible without the bona fides brought to the project by John Abraham and Scott Mandia.

It wasn’t long before a third participant applied elbow grease to CSLDF. Joshua Wolfe is a professional photographer, coauthor with NASA-GISS scientist Gavin Schmidt of a pictorial illustration of climate change. Wolfe has proven instrumental in driving CSLDF forward. Managing a prolonged fundraising effort with proper accounting, a 501(c)3 imprimatur for tax deductible donations and all the trimmings of a not-for-profit is a lot of work. Mandia and Abraham began their fund as a simple PayPal account but the response to their request for help was overwhelming; with day jobs as professors the two needed a way to scale the fund. Joshua Wolfe forged a partnership between The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER. Joining with PEER taps into a productive, efficient and nonduplicative structure, eliminating a lot of costly overhead.

Joshua Wolfe also instantiated a highly successful fundraising module for CSLDF at the crowdfunding site RocketHub. The Climate Science Legal Defense fund RocketHub fundraising tool has found a warm reception, raising over $11,000 for the fund’s work.

With over $50,000 raised in the year of its existence the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund has swiftly become an important bulwark protecting guileless scientists inadvertently colliding with powerful ideological and commercial interests.

Read more

North Korea dispatched soldiers to pour buckets of water on parched fields and South Korean officials scrambled to save a rare mollusk threatened by the heat as the worst dry spell in a century gripped the Korean Peninsula. [Associated Press]

Parts of both countries are experiencing the most severe drought since record-keeping began nearly 105 years ago, meteorological officials in Pyongyang and Seoul said Tuesday.

The protracted drought is heightening worries about North Korea’s ability to feed its people. Two-thirds of North Korea’s 24 million people faced chronic food shortages, the United Nations said earlier this month while asking donors for $198 million in humanitarian aid for the country.

Most of Central and Eastern Canada is experiencing extreme heat and little rain causing drought conditions, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada says. [CBC]

Preliminary data computed from the Palmer Drought Severity Index shows that 54.6 percent of the contiguous 48 states was in drought at the end of June, the highest percentage since December 1956, and the sixth-highest peak percentage on record. [Weather Channel]

As a relentless drought bakes prairie soil to dust and dries up streams across the country, ranchers struggling to feed their cattle are unloading them by the thousands, a wrenching decision likely to ripple from the Plains to supermarket shelves over the next year. [New York Times]

Nearly $25 million has already been spent to prepare for the immediate aftermath of this year’s wildfires, putting the U.S. Forest Service on track for another possible record year of spending on burned-area recovery efforts. [Huffington Post]

Sharper seasonal variations of ice and snow and temperature are being repeated all across the world from the Himalayas to the Andes, which scientists say are driven by a higher level of energy in the atmosphere from global warming. As a result, climbers have to think twice about what they might expect one year to the next, or even one day to the next, in places they might have climbed for decades. [New York Times]

China is building more eco-cities designed to be low-carbon and energy-saving than any other country, according to a survey by the University of Westminster in London. The USA ranked second. [USA Today]