IPCC says yes to reform recommendations

All right, to sum everything up: no, in the only scientifically relevant climate report, the 2007 report of IPCC Working Group 1, ‘The Physical Science Basis’, on the fundamentals of climate science – no flaws were observed. Someone did allow a slippery reference about Himalayan glaciers in the subreport of WG2, but that one is on social implications – written by a whole different bunch of people.

Last week the IPCC held a plenary session in Busan, South Korea, to discuss its operations. Governments and participating climate experts of all of the world’s leading climate research bodies agreed on a new course for the scientific climate panel. Once they remove that enormous Yann Arthus-Bertrand banner [nice pictures, but why doesn’t it land on info on the actual new challenge?] they can now indeed move on towards the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), to be released in 2014. (Btw: Rajendra Pachauri gets to keep his job – as long as he doesn’t linger on the reforms. Indians happy.)

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NASA: temperature is all about CO2

Two new studies by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies help improve basic quantitative understanding of the Earth’s greenhouse system. The one, ‘CO2: The Thermostat that Controls Earth’s Temperature’, is a Goddard climate model based study (lead-author Andrew Lacis) to determine equilibrium temperature responses, the other, ‘Taking the Measure of the Greenhouse Effect’ (lead-author Gavin Schmidt) is a parallel study quantifying the respective total infrared absorption of all major greenhouse gases. The first was just published in Science, the second in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Combined they reach the following main conclusions:

  • Water feedbacks are the main climate change engine. Water vapour contributes 50 percent to Earth’s greenhouse effect; water clouds an additional 25 percent. (Apart from reflecting solar radiation, depending on cloud type, clouds also absorb infrared radiation.)
  • Non-condensing greenhouse gases contribute the remaining 25 percent of Earth’s greenhouse effect, of which CO2 is with 20 percent by far the most important, followed by methane, nitrous oxide, aerosols (soot), ozone and CFCs.
  • Water influx however is itself temperature-dependant, creating an important distinction between (atmospheric, fast-acting) climate feedback greenhouse gases and climate forcing greenhouse gases, with only the latter group capable of acting as an external force on the climate system, triggering a greenhouse gas induced climate change. Therefore:
  • CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas, ‘the thermostat that controls Earth’s temperature’. It is the atmospheric CO2 level that determines where a new equilibrium temperature will be reached; it is mainly the water feedback that determines how it will be reached.
  • The Earth’s greenhouse system needs climate forcing gases to be sustained – 80 percent is determined by CO2.
  • Without the climate forcing of non-condensing greenhouse gases (again, mainly CO2), the water feedback would turn negative and a new equilibrium temperature would form around minus 20 degrees C, on average.

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What is biodiversity?

The United Nations have declared the year 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity. This Monday a big biodiversity conference starts in Nagoya, Japan, in order for countries to define and agree upon a combined strategy to slow the decline.

Ahead of the meeting interesting studies were published surveying Earth’s total marine biodiversity – or the extinction threats to plant life.

Biodiversity loss is however not something you can tackle directly, like a food shortage, a banking crisis or even CO2 emissions.

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One less planet, need 3 more

Confusing planetary news today. We recently reported on the discovery of Gliese 581g, an Earthlike planet, 20.5 light-years away, in the Constellation of Libra. It was claimed by two US astronomers. Now colleague astronomers from a Swiss observatory say they can’t find a trace of the possibly life-bearing planet when they zoom in on the same planetary system.

Also today, WWF presented its Living Planet Report, a science-based analysis on the ecological health of planet Earth. Quantifying nature’s productivity vs. human’s grazing habits, they reach the conclusion – under continuation of the present overconsumption (trees don’t grow as fast as we destroy forests, fish birthrates can’t compensate fish catch and pollution losses) – by 2050 we would need 3 Earths.

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Today 33 miners are rescued, this year 12,000 die

The Chilean miners are world-famous, as they are unlikely survivors – after being feared dead for two weeks, following the collapse of a mining tunnel. Luck is very rare at such depths. Every year thousands die in mining accidents worldwide, most of them in Chinese mines.

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Today’s paradox: non-GM crops help promote GMO

This week the EU considers decentralising the rules on the production of Genetically Modified Organisms. If they do so, it won’t be Brussels stating GMO risks are unacceptable, but individual member states deciding for themselves – no doubt weighing in their own economic arguments.

Everything about GMO is politics, with advocates and opponents equally confident of their own arguments. The divide runs parallel to the Atlantic rift. And when you read an American study that focuses on a corn pest named European corn borer, you know you have to be extra careful, Science editors.

They did however publish in last Friday’s edition (vol 330, issue 6001) and it is indeed an interesting read.

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