Abrupt Climate Change - How Bad Could It Be?  

WorldChanging has a look at two abrupt climate change scenarios. The choice is between the bad (mini northern hemisphere ice age) and the awful (everything goes haywire).

If global warming results in the "abrupt climate change" scenario of a "little ice age" in the Northern Hemisphere, just how bad might it be? A couple of new studies take a look at the paleogeological evidence to find out.

Although the idea of global warming triggering an ice age may be couter-intuitive, the science is pretty solid. Melting icepack in Greenland results in the dumping of large amounts of fresh water right into the path of the North Atlantic warm water flow, resulting in the slowing and eventual cut-off of the circulation; this, in turn, results in lower temperatures in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, with Europe likely to be hit the hardest. Such a pattern has happened in the past due to the slower natural cycles of global temperatures; the fossil and ice core evidence suggests that the shift from a warm, wet environment to a cold, dry climate could take place over a matter of a few years.

Recent findings that the warm water flow may, in fact, be seeing a dramatic reduction has turned this concept from a theoretical possibility to a very real threat. But what would that world look like? Two studies give us very different images of what might happen...

WorldChanging also links to an interview with climate scientist Kerry Emanuel.

Climate scientist Kerry Emanuel knows hurricanes, and has historically been extremely cautious about drawing connections between global warming and hurricane strength or frequency. So when he published an article this past summer in Nature arguing a strong connection between climate change-driven ocean warming and hurricane intensity, the scientific world took notice. And when hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast a couple of weeks later, lots of other people took notice, too.

Today's New York Times has a brief profile and interview with Dr. Emanuel, one that helps to underscore the shift he has made from caution to concern.

There is no doubt that in the last 20 years, the earth has been warming up. And it's warming up much too fast to ascribe to any natural process we know about.

We still don't have a good grasp of how clouds and water vapor, the two big feedbacks in the climate system, will respond to global warming. What we are seeing is a modest increase in the intensity of hurricanes.

I predicted years ago that if you warmed the tropical oceans by a degree Centigrade, you should see something on the order of a 5 percent increase in the wind speed during hurricanes. We've seen a larger increase, more like 10 percent, for an ocean temperature increase of only one-half degree Centigrade.

Katrina was just the beginning.

TreeHugger has a post on cheaper insurance premiums for hybrid car drivers.

Owners of hybrid cars already get to feel deep personal satisfaction every time they watch other people fill up their gas guzzling SUVs. Starting next month, hybrid drivers will have yet another reason to pat themselves on the back (besides, you know, helping to save the planet): cheaper insurance. An insurance company will begin giving ten percent discounts to hybrid owners next month, based on early indications that the type of people attracted to hybrid cars are also those who qualify for low-risk car insurance.

The insurance provider, St. Paul Travelers, found that hybrid drivers tend to use their cars mainly to commute between home and work, according to a Reuters story. They also tend to be married, in their 40s or 50s, and drive within the speed limit. All these factors are associated with low-risk drivers, who are eligible for discounted insurance.

Fifteen percent of cars on the road in the next 10 years could be hybrids, according to St. Paul Travelers. The company is the first to offer discounted insurance premiums for hybrids.

Energy Bulletin has a link to a story about a Japanese plan to build a ocean thermal energy conversion (which seems to serve a strategic purpose as well).

he government is considering installing an ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) system around Okinotorishima island, the country's southernmost uninhabited island, government sources said Wednesday.

Japan is at odds with China over the establishment of exclusive economic zones (EEZ) around the atoll--which is about 11 kilometers in circumference--under the U.N. Convention of the Law of Sea.

If the findings of the research confirm the feasibility of an OTEC system around Okinotorishima island, the government will go ahead with its OTEC plan for the territory by fiscal 2006, beginning with the selection of a spot where an ocean temperature gradient power generation system will be set up, the sources said.

The temperature gradient system uses warm seawater from the surface to vaporize liquid ammonia into steam for driving the power-generating turbines. The steam is then cooled with low-temperature water pumped from the sea depths, which returns the ammonia to liquid form for use again in the system.

I've seen quite a few articles on this one, but Past Peak has distilled down some of the relevant reportage relating to China's decision to start diversifying its foreign currency reserves away from the US dollar.

Mike Whitney has some more commentary on this at The Smirking Chimp (which I feel slightly uneasy linking to for some reason), which he also to the phenomena of the soaring gold price, dire predictions of future inflation and the Fed's decision to discontinue reporting M3 in a couple of month's time. This is at least an alternative to the Iran oil bourse / petroeuro theory of the M3's demise.

This is probably bad form, but as my reader from the Fed seems to be rusted on now, I'd like to ask would you (or anyone else) care to explain the official reason for giving up on reporting M3 ?

The only thing keeping the dollar atop its fragile perch is the fact that other countries have been willing to lap up the $600 billion of American red ink every year via the trade deficit. That amounts to roughly $2 billion per day or nearly 7% GDP.

Currently, China is holding $769 billion, the vast majority of its foreign exchange reserves. This is a humongous sum by any measurement and represents approximately 30% of China's gross domestic product. Regrettably, the Bush administration's wasteful spending makes the dollar look like a bad long term investment, so China will either have to change its strategy or face a huge loss on its reserves. It's a thorny predicament and one that China needs to handle delicately. If they move too aggressively it could trigger a sell-off and send the dollar plummeting.

It is unlikely that China will act recklessly, but even the mere suggestion of change has put the markets on edge.

Gold futures already jumped 4% in one week as large institutional buyers are voting with their feet that the dollar is headed for the dumpster. In fact, since Bush took office, gold has gone from the $200 range to $540 on Friday; a sure sign that investors have lost confidence in Washington's ability to curb spending.

Even if China does not begin to cash in its greenbacks, we can expect to see considerable market volatility on Monday.

The Federal Reserve had anticipated China's action for some time. That's why the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve announced earlier this year that they would cease to publish the M3 monetary aggregate (including the following components: large-denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements, and Eurodollars.) That way the Fed can print enough money to absorb the shock waves of a massive sell-off without the nosy public knowing what's going on. It's a clever ruse, and an effective way of bilking the American people out of their hard-earned savings while the dollar continues to burrow into its earthen grave.

Greenspan knew this day was coming, that's probably why he chose to take an early retirement; splashing around in the Barbados while the dog-dung hits the fan.

The BBC has a report on a "huge" find (700 million barrels) offshore Brazil. ASPO Australia puts this in perspective - its just over 8 days of world consumption.

Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, says it has discovered a huge new offshore oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state. Petrobras estimates it contains at least 700 million barrels of crude - about 10% of Brazil's current reserves.

But it would only supply the world for 8.3 days. The world is using about 84 million barrels of oil each day, so we need a string of similar "Huge" discoveries, one every 8.3 days to keep us going.

The Energy Blog has an update on XsunX's "Power Glass" technology, which is one of the more interesting advances in solar power technology.

XsunX, developer of Power Glass -- a thin film solar technology that allows glass windows to produce electricity from the power of the sun -- announced that it ended 2005 with continued progress in the development of its semi-transparent Power Glass thin films, that may allow the Company to begin marketing efforts of its technologies as early as Spring 2006. Power Glass is a solar technology that allows windows to produce electricity from the power of the sun without significantly altering the appearance or use of the window.

The design of the solar cell provides for the manufacture of very thin solar cells on transparent flexible plastics. As part of the manufacturing process numerous individual cells are produced on rolled plastics substrates and interconnected using minimally apparent segmentations. The resulting integrated solar cell design is monolithic or uniform in appearance and simulates tinted solar control films used in window shading applications. The Company believes the advantages to the use of Power Glass films over current solar glass designs lie in improved esthetic appearance, reduced manufacturing or assembly requirements, and lower finished product costs. The company estimates that Power Glass™ solar cells operating at half the efficiency of conventional opaque amorphous solar cells yet costing one fourth to produce results in a 100% efficiency-to-cost gain over conventional opaque solar cells. Final cost to efficiency analysis will be determined upon completion of development.

Another year end milestone is the launch of a program for the development of a new patent-pending 4 Terminal Nano-Crystalline solar cell. The 4 terminal solar cell design uses a combination of thin film transparent cell technology, derived from the Company's Power Glass initiative, with that of a nano-crystalline solar cell. XsunX believes that the combination of these two technologies into a single device holds a promising opportunity to deliver low cost, high efficiency, flexible, and light weight solar cells providing performance characteristics commonly found only in various forms of crystalline wafer technologies. Tom Djokovich, XsunX’s CEO. said: “Expanding our product base to include opaque solar cells will allow us to offer BIPV solutions for transparent building surfaces such as architectural glass, and the balance of buildings opaque surfaces such as residential and commercial roofs systems."

The GristMill has a little list of apocalyptic visions, which closes with "Coming to a boil" (on the topic of global warming, obviously).

Last but not least is everyone's favorite: the death-by-carbon-emissions scenario. But exactly how does global warming kill? Will we get swept up in a swirl of chaotic weather, drown in a pool of melted ice sheets, or succumb to a bevy of hot-weather-loving diseases? All of the above. Maybe. According to Susan Joy Hassol, one of the lead authors of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, we're already committed to about another 1 degree Fahrenheit of global warming in this century, which our species could likely adapt to, albeit at some cost. But a worst-case scenario -- in which we lollygag on coming up with energy alternatives and instead burn all the oil and coal we can scrape out of the earth, thus raising average global temperatures 5 to 10 degrees F -- involves, at least by my interpretation, the following Rapture Index categories: floods, plague, wild weather, oil supply/price, global turmoil, beast government, and apostasy.

The bad news: While the rest of the world is trying to deal with this issue, the U.S. sorely needs a national policy that limits CO2 emissions. "We're still speeding in the wrong direction," says Hassol.

The good news: By taking the necessary measures to address global warming, the U.S. could also decrease our dependency on foreign oil, clean up our air, improve our health, and boost our economy. "We can slow the rate and magnitude of global warming," says Hassol. "We have the technologies and we know what we have to do."

Tim Lambert takes a swipe at one of the few remaining global warming deniers and also takes a look at how the disinformation cycle works (in this case he is talking about some sort of chemical industry campaign but the diagram for global warming denial would be similar.



Deconsumption has a post on how to build a zero (net) energy home.

Jeff Christian of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL) Building Technology Center has been on a quest to create an affordable (approx. $100,000) "zero-energy" home design. He was most popularly covered in a Mother Earth News article from December of 2004 which described ORNL's recent success with their "Harmony Heights" project in Lenoir City, TN:

"The four homes Jeff Christian has built, on Bethel Drive in Lenoir City, Tenn., are much more modest in size — just 1,000 to 1,200 square feet — but they might offer the most convincing evidence to date that the dream of affordable net-zero-energy homes is on a fast track to reality. Collectively dubbed “Harmony Heights,” the homes were constructed by Habitat for Humanity volunteers for about $100,000 each. That includes the cost of the photovoltaic solar system and factors in the labor provided by the Habitat volunteers.

Noam Chomsky has taken a look at the recent elections in Iraq.

The US President Bush called last month’s Iraqi elections a "major milestone in the march to democracy." They are indeed a milestone — just not the kind that Washington would welcome. Disregarding the standard declarations of benign intent on the part of leaders, let’s review the history. When Bush and Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, invaded Iraq, the pretext, insistently repeated, was a "single question": Will Iraq eliminate its weapons of mass destruction?

Within a few months this "single question" was answered the wrong way. Then, very quickly, the real reason for the invasion became Bush’s "messianic mission" to bring democracy to Iraq and the Middle East. Even apart from the timing, the democratisation bandwagon runs up against the fact that the United States has tried, in every possible way, to prevent elections in Iraq.

Last January’s elections came about because of mass nonviolent resistance, for which the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani became a symbol. (The violent insurgency is another creature altogether from this popular movement.) Few competent observers would disagree with the editors of the Financial Times, who wrote last March that "the reason (the elections) took place was the insistence of the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who vetoed three schemes by the US-led occupation authorities to shelve or dilute them."

Elections, if taken seriously, mean you pay some attention to the will of the population. The crucial question for an invading army is: "Do they want us to be here?" [...]

"...There’s a good reason why the United States cannot tolerate a sovereign, more or less democratic Iraq. The issue can scarcely be raised because it conflicts with firmly established doctrine: We’re supposed to believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq if it was an island in the Indian Ocean and its main export was pickles, not petroleum." [...]

TreeHugger has a post on another variety of solar powered outdoor tiles.

In the recent past we covered solar lit floor tiles from Chile. The design relied on common rechargeable batteries to store the electricity generated by the built-in SPV panels. All small batteries, unfortunately, have limited design lives, use fairly toxic electrolytes, and have little realistic chance of being recycled. When was the last time you made sure your spent batteries were recycled?

With that as background, we thought these newly designed solar powered floor tiles by Orion, wherein electricity is stored in ultracapacitors was a very positive step forward. "Very" is the right modifier for another reason: the ultra's have a design life of a minimum of 10 years, as compared to two or three for typical rechargeable batteries.

The ultra's manufacturer, Maxwell Technologies, also claims that their storage devices "are made of non-hazardous, non-polluting materials, which present no environmental hazards or human safety concerns". Returning to the tiles, Orion states that the solar cells built into these tiles will gather enough energy, even if not in direct sunlight or on rainy days, to power the lights for at least 12 hours. The lights are LED's of course.

And to close, Monkeygrinder has an excellent rant going on coelecanths, chimps and our possible weedy future (I'll also note that Mobjectivist has been modelling up a storm lately too).