Climate Climate & Energy

Glacial melting is accelerating more quickly than projected

Climate change is occurring much faster than the IPCC models project. The Greenland ice sheet is a prime example. Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat recently:

We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at two metres an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 metres deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year.

The glacier's movement is accelerated as water flows down "moulins" (see picture) to the ice-bedrock interface at the bottom and acts as a lubricant for the entire glacier to slide and glide on. This "provides a mechanism for rapid, large-scale, dynamic responses of ice sheets to climate warming," according to research led by NASA and MIT scientists [PDF]. Yet this factor has been given "little or no consideration in estimates of ice-sheet response to climate change."

Greenland glaciers melting at an alarming rate

Depressing climate news, version 17,354: Greenland’s two-mile-thick ice sheet is melting at a rate unforeseen to scientists and climate models. Chunks of ice breaking off are so huge that they’re triggering earthquakes; the glaciers are adding some 58 trillion gallons of water annually to the oceans, more than twice as much as they were 10 […]

Some reviews and criticism of Bjorn Lomborg’s new book Cool It

I was all geared up to recommend this review of Bjorn Lomborg’s new book Cool It, written by The Weather Makers author Tim Flannery, but it turns out to be pretty bad. It’s kind of scattered all over the place a makes no coherent, forceful critique. Much better is Eban Goodstein’s review in Salon, which […]

On the myth that polar bear populations are flourishing

Human-caused global warming is poised to wipe out polar bears. The normally staid U.S. Geological Survey -- studying whether the bear should be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act -- concluded grimly last Friday:

Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately 2/3 of the world's current polar bear population by the mid 21st century. Because the observed trajectory of Arctic sea ice decline appears to be underestimated by currently available models, this assessment of future polar bear status may be conservative.

That's right -- this grim prediction is optimistic, a best-case scenario. In the next post, I'll examine why polar bears are likely to go extinct by 2030 if not 2020. But first I need to dispense with a myth that polar bears are doing well -- a myth propagated by people like Bjorn Lomborg in his new book, Cool It.

Solar-powered plane breaks world record for longest unmanned flight

Ooh, fancy: A lightweight solar-powered plane has smashed the official world record for the longest-duration unmanned flight. The plane flew for 54 hours, through two sunless nights, and was controlled remotely from the ground and by autopilot. And manned (excuse us, personed) flights are on the horizon: A Swiss man has plans to circumnavigate the […]

Carbon sequestration is a costly alternative to renewables, not a transition to them

Half the reason I wrote this post was to respond to this article, and then I forgot to mention it. Check this out: Developing commercially viable carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technology should be a major priority for companies and governments all over the world because renewable energy sources will not be able to […]

Coal-to-liquid is a dead end if there’s a price on CO2

One final post on this week's liquid coal hearing. Forbes wrote up the hearing and got my bluntest quote:

"Coal-to-liquid is just a dead end, from a climate perspective," added Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress. "Liquid coal will not have a future in this country, no matter how much money Congress squanders on it."

Well, I guess "liberal-leaning" is better than "liberal."

Why is liquid coal a dead end? Because, as I explain in my testimony, even a relatively low price for carbon dioxide is fatal to liquid coal's economics, as made clear in two recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration:

Eh …

… who needs sea ice and polar bears anyway.

Enter a climate video contest, win a Toyota hybrid

Watch this short eco-video, then make one of your own and enter it in the Ecospot Contest.

(Having trouble viewing the video? Download the latest version of Flash.)

On the energy potential of geothermal power

Like solar thermal power, geothermal power is too often neglected. Indeed, the Bush administration has proposed zeroing out the geothermal energy program for two years running.

But a major 2007 study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, "The Future of Geothermal Energy" (a 372-page PDF), reveals the potential if we redouble our efforts toward this zero-carbon power source. The MIT-led panel of scientists, economic experts, and engineers found that Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) that use "heat-mining technology, which is designed to extract and utilize the earth's stored thermal energy" could contribute 10 percent of baseload power by mid-century: