Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama

by Dana Nuccitelli, via Skeptical Science

A paper recently published in Global Environmental Change by Brysse et al. (2012) examined a number of past predictions made by climate scientists, and found that that they have tended to be too conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change.  The authors thus suggest that climate scientists are biased toward overly cautious estimates, erring on the side of less rather than more alarming predictions, which they call “erring on the side of least drama” (ESLD).

In this paper, Brysse et al. examined research evaluating past climate projections, and considered the pressures which might cause climate scientists to ESLD.

Conservative Climate Projections

While we have recently shown that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) temperature projections have been exceptionally accurate, several other projections in the IPCC reports have been far too conservative.

Sea Level Rise

For example, Rahmstorf (2007) and more recently Rahmstorf et al. (2012) showed that sea level is rising at a rate inconsistent with all but the highest IPCC scenarios (Figure 1).  Rahmstorf et al. (2012) concluded,

“The satellite-based linear trend 1993–2011 is 3.2 ± 0.5 mm yr^-1, which is 60% faster than the best IPCC estimate of 2.0 mm yr^-1 for the same interval.”

Figure 1: Sea level measured by satellite altimeter (red with linear trend line; AVISO datafrom (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) and reconstructed from tide gauges (orange, monthly data from Church and White (2011)). Tide gauge data were aligned to give the same mean during 1993–2010 as the altimeter data. The scenarios of the IPCC are again shown in blue (third assessment) and green (fourth assessment); the former have been published starting in the year 1990 and the latter from 2000.

The main reason these sea level rise projections have been too low and that the IPCC almost certainly underestimates future sea level rise is that their models do not include the effects of dynamic ice processes from chunks of ice breaking off into the ocean (“calving”), then melting.  The IPCC approach in attempting to account for these processes considers recent contributions to sea level rise from ice sheet melt, then “assume that this contribution will persist unchanged.”  This is certainly a conservative approach, and the primary reason their sea level projections have been low.

Arctic Sea Ice Decline

Three years after the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report was drafted, the 2009 Copenhagen Diagnosis examined the latest climate research to effectively update the IPCC report.  In addition to confirming the Rahmstorf finding that the IPCC has underestimated sea level rise, the Copenhagen Diagnosis also found that the IPCC has dramatically understimated the decline in Arctic sea ice extent (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Observed vs. IPCC modeled annual minimum Arctic sea ice extent

In 2012, Arctic sea ice melt shattered the previous record low, to levels unseen in millennia, increasing the margin by which IPCC projections have been too conservative.

CO2 Emissions

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The International Energy Agency concluded that freshwater use is becoming an increasingly crucial issue for energy production around the world in its 2012 World Energy Outlook.

Between steam systems for coal plants, cooling for nuclear plants, fracking for natural gas wells, irrigation for biofuel crops, and myriad other uses, energy production consumed 66 billion cubic meters (BCM) of the world’s fresh water in 2010. That is water removed from its source and lost to evaporation, consumption, or transported out of the water basin — as opposed to water withdrawn, used, and then returned to its source for further availability, which is a far larger amount.

According to figures it shared with National Geographic, IEA anticipates this water consumption will double from 66 BCM now to 135 BCM by 2035 with most of the growth accounted for by coal and biofuels:

If today’s policies remain in place, the IEA calculates that water consumed for energy production would increase from 66 billion cubic meters (bcm) today to 135 bcm annually by 2035.

That’s an amount equal to the residential water use of every person in the United States over three years, or 90 days’ discharge of the Mississippi River. It would be four times the volume of the largest U.S. reservoir, Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead.

More than half of that drain would be from coal-fired power plants and 30 percent attributable to biofuel production, in IEA’s view. The agency estimates oil and natural gas production together would account for 10 percent of global energy-related water demand in 2035….

The surest way to reduce the water required for electricity generation, IEA’s figures indicate, would be to move to alternative fuels. Renewable energy provides the greatest opportunity: Wind and solar photovoltaic power have such minimal water needs they account for less than one percent of water consumption for energy now and in the future, by IEA’s calculations.

This presents a challenge, since river flows, aquifers, and other sources of fresh water are already being strained by the twin drains of population growth and less reliable rainfall due to climate change. The United Nations is projecting that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will live in regions with severe water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water-stressed conditions. Given water’s importance in different forms of energy production, this presents a double hit: Less available fresh water for human consumption, plus strained and costlier energy supplies.

IEA sees water consumption for coal electricity shooting up 84 percent, from 38 to 70 BCM per year by 2035. So-called “dry cooling” systems could address this, but the plants cost more and generate electricity less efficiently. Nor is carbon capture and sequestration technology likely to help.

While biofuels’ water consumption will be lower than coal’s — 41 BCM in 2035, up from 12 BCM today — its increase of 242 percent will be much larger. Irrigation requires a lot of water, though estimates vary wildly and the industry claims it’s finding ways to cut back. IEA puts it between four and 560 gallons of water needed to produce one gallon of corn ethanol. Other estimates put it as high as 10,000 gallons of water per one gallon of biofuel. And that’s all bound up with the damaging effect biofuel production is having on world food supplies.

There are solutions, such as moving to less water-intensive methods like pump irrigation, but the trade-off is far more electricity use from potentially unsustainable sources. Cellulosic ethanol, made from non-food sources, is another possibility, but IEA estimates it won’t be commercially viable until at least 2025.

Also, as National Geographic notes, biofuels’ level of water consumption is grossly out of whack with their contributions to world energy supplies: They provide a mere 3 percent of the energy that drives cars, trucks, ships, and aircraft, and IEA projects they’ll increase to just 5 percent by 2035 under current government policies.

As for fracking, IEA’s estimates covered the entire source-to-carrier production process, and under this framework natural gas’ water consumption reach just 2.85 BCM by 2035, or 2 percent of total consumption. Though the concentration of water use at individual fracking projects can still put a strain on water supplies for local commentaries.

So it turns out that burning nearly as much coal as the rest of the world combined is not good for public health.

“Beijing’s daily peak and average concentrations of PM2.5, the airborne particulate matter that raises risks for lung and heart diseases, as measured by the U.S. Embassy. The 2013 daily average was 194 micrograms per cubic meter, with an intraday peak of 886 on Jan. 12, the data show. By contrast, PM2.5 levels averaged 166.6 in 16 airport smoking lounges in the U.S.” (Via Bloomberg)

Significantly, though, as one Brigham Young University professor points out, “Unlike cigarette smoking, exposure to ambient air pollution is involuntary and ubiquitously effects entire populations.”

And that reminds me of the line from the Hitchock-esque movie, Diabolique, where a man says to the femme fatale as she lights up a cigarette, “Second-hand smoke kills, you know.” Blowing smoke in his face, she (Sharon Stone, of course) replies, “Not reliably.”

Living in Beijing kills far more reliably. Indeed, during the peak pollution weekend, “the number of emergency room patients with heart attacks roughly doubled” at one hospital.

A World Bank study performed with China’s national environmental agency, concluded “outdoor air pollution was already causing 350,000 to 400,000 premature deaths a year. Indoor pollution contributed to the deaths of an additional 300,000 people, while 60,000 died from diarrhea, bladder and stomach cancer and other diseases that can be caused by water-borne pollution.”

And that was in 2007! One can only imagine what the deaths from pollution in China are now that it burns 40% more coal than it did 6 years ago

By Steve Horn Via DeSmogBlog

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - known by its critics as a “corporate bill mill” – has hit the ground running in 2013, pushing “models bills” mandating the teaching of climate change denial in public school systems.

January hasn’t even ended, yet ALEC has already planted its ”Environmental Literacy Improvement Act“ - which mandates a “balanced” teaching of climate science in K-12 classrooms - in the state legislatures of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona so far this year.

In the past five years since 2008, among the hottest years in U.S. history, ALEC has introduced its “Environmental Literacy Improvement Act” in 11 states, or over one-fifth of the statehouses nationwide. The bill has passed in four states, an undeniable form of “big government” this “free market” organization decries in its own literature.

ALEC’s “model bills” are written by and for corporate lobbyists alongside conservative legislators at its annual meetings. ALEC raises much of its corporate funding from the fossil fuel industry, which in turn utilizes ALEC as a key - though far from the only – vehicle to ram through its legislative agenda through in the states.

A Frankenstein Co-Created with Heartland Institute

A DeSmogBlog investigation last year found that the Environmental Literacy Improvement Act’s orgins date back to 2000.

The Act’s creation is directly connected to the ongoing efforts of another corporate-funded group, the Heartland Institute – of “Heartland Institute Exposed” fame – a group well plugged into the climate change denial machine.

ALEC’s Natural Resources Task Force, now known as its Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, adopted this model at a time when the Task Force was headed by Sandy Liddy Bourne. Bourne, who served in this capacity from 1999-2004, would eventually ascend to the role of Director of Legislation and Policy for ALEC in 2004.

Upon leaving ALEC in 2006, Bourne become Heartland’s Vice President for Policy Strategy. Today she serves as Exectutive Director of the American Energy Freedom Center, an outfit she co-heads withArthur G. Randol. Randol is a longtime lobbyist and PR flack for ExxonMobil, a corporation which endowed the climate change denial machine for years.

Heartland’s website still lists Bourne as one of its “experts,” stating that ”Under her leadership, 20 percent of ALEC model bills were enacted by one state or more, up from 11 percent.”

Importantly, Heartland is still a member of ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force that originally passed the Environmental Literacy Improvement Act.

According to internal documents leaked to and published by DeSmogBlog in Feb. 2012, Heartland obtained funding for a “Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms” project beginning in 2012. This cirruculum aims to teach that there “is a major controversy over whether or not humans are changing the weather.”

If this sounds similar to ALEC’s model bill, it should, given the fact that the two outfits share funding from the same honey pot. In fact, Heartland actively promotes the ALEC model on its website.

Model Bill Introduced in OK, CO, and AZ

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By Noreen Nielsen and Jackie Weidman

Today, Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips were the first of the Big Five Oil companies to announce their total 2012 earnings, raking in $7.3 billion and $1.8 billion in the fourth-quarter, bringing their yearly profits to a whopping $27 billion and $8.4 billion, respectively.

Despite being some of the most profitable companies in the world, analysts are expressing disappointment with both Shell and ConocoPhillips’ posted earnings. According to the New York Times, the lower than expected profits from Shell are “largely due to lower earnings in Shell’s core exploration and production business, mainly because of weak performance in the Americas, where Shell’s multibillion Alaska drilling program has encountered multiple snafus and delays.” Conoco’s lower earnings are partly a result of the split last year of ConocoPhillips into two companies — ConocoPhillips and Phillips66 — with ConocoPhillips controlling upstream business, and Phillips66 taking over the refineries side.

Shell and ConocoPhillips, which are ranked as the first and ninth-largest companies on the Fortune 500 Global companies list, continue to receive billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsides, while at the same time, funneling millions of dollars toward lobbying against vital environmental and public health protections.

Below are the highlights of where Shell and ConocoPhillips spend their earnings:

Royal Dutch Shell:

• Shell received a $200 million annual tax break in 2011.
• Shell has $18.5 billion in cash-on-hand.
• In the fourth quarter, Shell used $1.7 million of its profits to buy back its own stock.
• Shell’s oil production decreased by 3 percent (1.599 barrels of liquids/day vs. 1.644 barrels per day) compared to this time last year.
• Shell was the top lobbying spender of the oil and gas industry in 2012 – spending over $14.4 million in 2012. It also ranked in the Top 20 Lobbying Spenders across all industries last year.
• Questions have been raised that the impetus for Shell to move the Kulluk on New Year’s Eve, despite the harsh weather conditions, was an attempt to avoid paying an additional $6 million in states taxes. Company spokesman Curtis Smith recently admitted that a Jan. 1 state tax assessment was “a consideration” in the timing of the rig’s move. Shell has a history of tax dodging. For example, it has offshored pre-tax profits to avoid UK taxes.

ConocoPhillips:

• ConocoPhillips receives an estimated annual average of $600 million dollars in tax breaks.
• ConocoPhillips spent $3.8 million lobbying Congress in 2012.
• Conoco has contributed over $622,000 to federal campaigns in 2012, with 89 percent of the contributions going to Republicans.
• Conoco is sitting on $750 million in cash reserves.
• Throughout 2012, the company spent 60 percent of its annual profit — or $5.1 billion — buying back its own stock, enriching its largest shareholders and executives.
• Conoco’s oil and oil equivalent production is 2 percent higher than this time last year.
• Conoco paid an 18 percent effective federal tax rate in 2011. This is nearly half of the 35 percent standard top corporate tax rate.
• Current CEO, Ryan Lance received over $5.9 million in compensation in 2011. He sits on the board of the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying arm of the oil and gas industry.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron will be the next of the Big Five Oil companies to announce their 2012 profit earnings on Friday, February 1.

As America has stood on the sidelines, other countries such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, and even China have leapt ahead of us in developing offshore wind.  Here a speed boat passes by Danish offshore windmills in the North Sea. SOURCE: AP.

By Michael Conathan

Since 1896, when Californians sunk the first oil well into the seabed from a wharf jutting 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean, the American offshore energy industry has been all about fossil fuels.

But our potential is so much greater. “Drill now, drill everywhere” is a closed-minded strategy of the past. And with every day that goes by as we continue to focus on fossil fuels for energy, we fall further behind the rest of the world in the quest to diversify our offshore energy portfolio.

By continuing to prioritize yesterday’s technologies, we are locking ourselves into an energy future that dooms our climate, harms our environment, and sacrifices human health. The costs of coal, oil, and natural gas have all been kept artificially cheap by government subsidies and by our failure to make polluters pay for the negative effects of their emissions. Artificially lowering the price of these commodities slants the playing field, making it harder for new clean energy sources to compete in the marketplace.

As America has stood on the sidelines, other countries such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, and even China have leapt ahead of us in developing one particularly strong—and commercially viable—renewable resource, which the United States also happens to have in abundance: offshore wind. As of June 2012 the rest of the world boasted 4,619 megawatts of total installed offshore wind energy capacity. Meanwhile, we have not even begun construction of our first offshore turbine. Lack of a clear regulatory structure, inconsistent messages from other ocean stakeholders, congressional budget battles, opposition to specific project siting, and instability in financial markets have all played a role in preventing domestic offshore wind from becoming a reality.

Much of this has changed under President Barack Obama’s leadership. In February 2011 the Departments of Energy and the Interior announced the intention to develop 54 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, and the United States is closing the gap between our domestic offshore wind industry and those of the rest of the world. In 2012 alone the administration and Congress made major strides toward encouraging renewable energy development on the outer continental shelf:

• In November 2012 the Department of the Interior announced the first-ever competitive sales on the outer continental shelf for offshore wind energy. This allows potential developers to bid on 277,550 acres in two wind energy areas—one off the coast of Virginia and another off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. These areas are expected to be able to support more than 4,000 megawatts of wind generation—enough electricity to power an estimated 1.4 million homes.
• In October 2012 the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management signed its first lease under the “Smart from the Start” program with developer NRG Bluewater Wind, giving them rights to build a wind farm off the coast of Delaware. In May and August the bureau issued Determinations of No Competitive Interest for two cable routes to transmit power—one for the Atlantic Wind Connection off the mid-Atlantic seaboard and another for the Deepwater Wind Block Island project off Rhode Island. And in December 2012, the bureau began leasing and approving site assessment/characterization environmental assessments off the coast of Georgia and North Carolina.
• In December 2012 the Department of Energy announced that it will fund seven offshore wind technology demonstration projects, including Fishermen’s Atlantic City Windfarm in New Jersey; technology projects in California, the Great Lakes, Connecticut, and Maine; and two turbines off the coast of Virginia. The recipients are eligible for up to $4 million each in project-development grants.

The U.S. offshore wind industry is beginning to emerge from the political doldrums that clouded its early days, and it is finding champions in Congress, as well as in the Obama administration.

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An overwhelming majority of voters – 62 percent – support the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) setting stricter standards on gasoline and tighter emissions standards for cars, SUVs and trucks, according to a new American Lung Association poll. [ALA]

This bipartisan telephone survey of 800 registered voters, conducted during January 13-16, 2013, finds that nearly two-thirds of voters surveyed across the country support strengthening standards that limit sulfur in gasoline and tighten the limits on tailpipe emissions from new vehicles. These revised standards would reduce pollution from cars, trucks and SUVs, would protect public health and would create jobs by encouraging innovation….

The majority of voters surveyed (53 percent) still favored setting stricter standards on gasoline, even after hearing opposing arguments that cars are already cleaner and allege that this proposal would cost families thousands of dollars, and would increase the cost of gas nine cents per gallon.

Key poll findings include:

• 69 percent of voters favor EPA generally updating standards with stricter limits on air pollution.
• A 2-to-1 majority (62 to 32 percent) support EPA setting stricter standards on gasoline and tightening limits on tailpipe emissions from new vehicles.
• Only 17 percent of voters believe EPA is exceeding its legal mandate to ensure air quality.
• By a 2-to-1 ratio, voters still view the EPA and the Clean Air Act very positively.

ALEC has planted its ”Environmental Literacy Improvement Act,” which mandates a “balanced” teaching of climate science in K-12 classrooms, in the state legislatures of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona. [DeSmogBlog]

A new study concludes that every day renewables are delayed in favor of consuming fossil fuels as one-time energy, there is a future loss of $8.8 billion to $9.3 billion to the economy. [Grist]

A new paper published in Climatic Change examines the increased frequency of record-breaking monthly temperature records over the past 130 years, and concludes these records are now five times more likely to occur due to global warming. [Skeptical Science]

Environmental activist Bill McKibben was recently invited to speak on the issue of climate change in an informal meeting of the Vermont House of Representatives. [WCAX]

A new microbead technology may make the next generation of solar cells much thinner and cheaper. [Clean Technia]

Toronto must overhaul its roads, sewers, storm drains, electrical grids, and overall infrastructure in order to adapt to climate change, according to a new study commissioned by the city. [The Star]

Under a new French law, display lights in shops must be turned off at 1am, and interior lights in offices and other non-residential buildings must be switched off an hour after the last employee leaves. [The Guardian]