Two years, three record heat waves in southeastern Australia

Summer 2009 — 2010 hasn’t even begun in Australia, and yet we are already sweltering under another record heat wave — the third in two years. Temperature records for the month of November have been broken across the region, caused by a blocking high pressure system over the Tasman Sea. This follows an abnormally hot winter, including Australia’s hottest August on record.

In my home city of Adelaide, we’re still experiencing the first official November heat wave since records began (a ‘heat wave’ being defined here as five or more consecutive days above 35°C). Last Saturday 7th Nov, the mercury climbed to 34.4°C, and on Sunday the heat wave officially commenced. From Sun 8/11 to Sat 14/11, the maximum temperatures have been 36.7°C, 37.0°C, 38.6°C, 39.2°C, 39.0°C, 38.7°C  and 39.5°C. The forecast for Sun 15/11 is 40 °C, after which the temperatures will drop back to the high 20s for a few days, and then another burst of days in the low-40s. If Sunday’s scorcher is realised (confirmed: 39.4°C), the heat wave will have lasted for 8 days [confirmed] (almost 9, with Sat 7/11 also almost reaching the threshold 35°C). Not a great time to hold a Christmas pageant — poor Santa!

Time for some context. The closest Adelaide has ever come to a spring heat wave was 4 days in a row 1894. This month’s event will double that — a doubling like this is not twice as unlikely, it’s orders of magnitude more unlikely. Consider that in prior to 2008, the record length for an Adelaide heat wave in any month was 8 days (all occurring in summer). Now, in the space of less than 2 years, we’ve had a 15 day event in Mar 2008 (a 1 in 3000 year event), a 9 day sequence in Jan/Feb 2009 (which included 8 days above 40°C and 13 consecutive days above 33°C), and now, another 8 day event in Nov 2009. How unusual is this? There have been 6 previous heat waves that lasted 8 days, many more of 7 days, more still of 6, and so on — the return time is logarithmically related to it’s length. Given these data, and the fact that the latest spring event has equaled previous all-time summer records (!), and the alarm bells should rightly be ringing. Statistically speaking, it’s astronomically unlikely that such a sequence of rare heat waves would occur by chance, if the climate wasn’t warming. But of course, it is.

The November 2009 heat wave has not been restricted to Adelaide — it’s affecting most of southeastern Australia. Here’s a useful report from NSW (ABC Sydney) by Graham Creed, which noted:

Adelaide’s run of record November heat has been in the media spotlight for much of the week but there have been longer runs of heat. Batchelor, a mining town 100km south of Darwin with a permanent population under 400, has just recorded its 80th consecutive day of temperatures at or above 34.7 degrees.

A regularly updated summary of the current heat wave and the records that it’s breaking, can be found on Wikipedia.

Regarding potential links to climate change, BNC commenter ‘perps’ notes:

In this clip from the “7.30 report” both John Nairn from the Bureau of Meteorolgy and Euan Ferguson from SA Country Fire Authority attribute tthe conditions to climate change as indicated by the IPCC who now say that a trend is emerging. John Nairns also explains why we are seeing these extreme heatwaves – high pressures keep re-establishing over SE Austalia without the intervening lows which used to bring cooler southerly winds.

Further along this line, ABC News radio’s The World Today program ran a story on the Nov 2009 heat wave yesterday: Adelaideans cower under scorching heatwave. Here are a few quotes from me:

NANCE HAXTON: The extreme weather pattern has left many wondering what’s caused the heatwave.

The weather bureau puts it down to a stationary high pressure system over the Tasman Sea, which has prevented cooler air moving up from the Southern Ocean to South Australia and Victoria.

But other experts see another pattern at work. Professor Barry Brook from the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute says the increasing occurrence of heatwaves in recent years is pointing to climate change.

BARRY BROOK: Heatwaves are going to become more frequent and I think that’s what we’re seeing. That the sort of heatwaves that may have occurred once every few summers in Adelaide in the past, may be a yearly event now and occasionally we’re going to get heatwaves that far exceed anything we’ve had in the past, such as what we had in January this year and in March last year.

NANCE HAXTON: And so that would have policy implications as well?

BARRY BROOK: Well in the immediate term heatwaves are bad for public health, especially those people who are vulnerable to heat stress and haven’t got the ability to cope with that by turning on the air conditioner or going in a pool or whatever.

And that’s what happened in the major heatwave that we had in January, that a lot of elderly people especially died in their homes as a result of heat stroke. So that puts a stress on emergency services and of course it’s bad for the community.

In the broader context hot temperatures early in the year or late in the year put a lot of stress on the plants and animals that live around this area too. It increases their water stress and of course it changes their physiological ability to tolerate heat.

And so all of that put together means more young animals tend to die, more trees die off that are vulnerable and ultimately you get a shift from one type of flora and fauna in a region to another.

And it’s going to get hotter and more hot days, more heatwaves, drier conditions and Adelaide is going to end up looking more desert-like than it currently does today.

Of course they had to end with some quotes from a ’sceptic’; this time it was William Kininmonth with the usual “natural cycle”, “random things” happen, etc. line.

Another regular commenter, John Newlands, points out an interesting implication for energy supply -

Later on I would like to know the capacity factor this week for South Australia’s 800 MW of nameplate windpower. I’ve pointed out before that SA’s power demand of 2.8 GW in March 2007 gives us (Aust pop 22m)/(SA pop 1.1m) = 20 so that a ‘national’ heatwave would give Australia a peak demand of 56 GW…

… Wishes can come true, the AEMO website already had capacity info for 10/11/09

The demand in the South Australian region peaked at 2947 MW at 16:30hrs, due to temperatures reaching a high of 38.6ºC in Adelaide. Wind generation in the afternoon was less than 70 MW. Demand in Victoria reached 9386 MW and temperatures reached 35.2ºC in Melbourne.

70 MW actual/ 800 installed for SA is an instantaneous c.f. of about 9%. Conclusion: wind doesn’t help in heat waves.

Finally, I see that my old haunt of Darwin also cracked the record books – October 2009 was that northern tropical city’s hottest month on record, with an average maximum temperature of 34.8°C. This beat the previous all-time record (Oct 2008) by 0.4°C and followed hot on the heels of its hottest August on record. Makes me glad I left Darwin in February 2007! (at least Adelaide’s heat waves finally break).

Thinking critically about sustainable energy (TCASE) 1: Prologue

This is the first post in what is planned to be an extended series, ‘Thinking critically about sustainable energy‘ (henceforth TCASE #). As explained in my previous blog entry, A necessary interlude, this series will look in detail at the issues confronting renewable and nuclear energy, with an aim to break down the often complex and multifaceted critiques and promotions being made about various energy generation technologies into simpler, single-issue chunks, which can be more readily pinned down and understood.

I will also profile some of the less well-developed low-carbon technologies, such as tidal, wave, microalgae, and geothermal, as well as nuclear fusion, fusion-fission hybrids, travelling wave reactors etc. and speculate on their possible future roles. I hope in this way that I’ll be able to reinforce people’s understanding of why I no longer hold renewable energy to be a primary solution — and yet, by the same yardstick of maintaining intellectual honesty, acknowledging that I’ll also keep an open mind to unconsidered possibilities and caveats that are raised by commenters (be these against nuclear energy, and/or for renewables). Indeed, I’ll also discuss critically the social and technical impediments facing nuclear power adoption and the Generation III/IV synergy.

First up, a little history of the evolution of my thought on this topic, as documented my professional research and in the archives of this blog.

My scientific training and subsequent research career has, in various ways, involved the use of ’systems models‘. My published works have been largely in the area of ecological complexity, stochastic model evaluation, palaeoecology and statistical inference. So I’ve always had strong interest in how small pieces of a puzzle can fit together to make up the big picture — including trying to: (i) understand and quantify the relative sensitivity, redundancy and irreplaceability of different components; (ii) determine the degree to which they are additive, complementary or substitutable, and (iii) assess whether synergistic interactions can result in amplifying benefits or other emergent non-linear properties. As it turns out, the assessment of such system properties is also rather important for understanding how an integrated energy supply can function effectively.

My interest in energy systems is relatively new, but now constitutes somewhat of an obsession! My first post on topic was a guest blog by Stewart Taggert: “Australia can be a clean energy superpower“. This was followed by the post “Climate ripe for transformative change” in which I said:

The decision to invest heavily – and rapidly – in renewable energies like geothermal (hot rocks), solar thermal (desert mirrors), wave and wind power, and rooftop photovoltaic systems, is a no brainer. These technologies offer the only way to achieve an ongoing, growing energy supply.

and “Thinking big and fast on renewable energy” where I extolled our great clean energy resources:

But if Australia has vision, plays its cards right, and becomes a leader in the global climate solution, we could be humming with global exports of clean energy as world-leading discoveries make exploitation of unlimited energy resources ever cheaper. Australia is incredibly well placed among developed countries to move completely to renewable energy. We have huge, unexploited solar resources in our continental interior akin to the oil fields of the Middle East in the early 20th Century.

It is particularly instructive to look at a couple of the critiques I published at the bottom of that last piece, and my ‘answer’ to them at the time. Ahhh, it’s fun to reflect on the naivety of one’s youth…

Anyway, my focus at this point was pointedly directed at carbon emissions reduction (clean energy was just a means to an end), and it was obvious to me that the logical path to achieve this was renewable sources such as solar and wind power. I was coming at this issue from a genuine concern for eliminating carbon-based energy, and was overwhelmed by a sense of frustration, because I couldn’t understand why the ‘clean energy revolution’ wasn’t happening. Surely, all we had to do was put a price on carbon, to reflect the damage fossil fuel combustion was causing to the environment, and big things would start to happen! Bottom line is, no one could look back over those early posts and imagine that I came at this issue with anything other than a firm conviction that renewable energy was the answer. Indeed, I hadn’t given much thought to nuclear power at this point, not because I was ever ideologically ’anti-nuclear’ — I had simply accepted the ‘peak uranium’ argument and not thought much more about it, as this comment I made back in Dec 2008 indicates.

Then, reality bit me, and it hurt. I remember I was sent an early version of Trainer’s thesis, and against all reason (’what nonsense is this?‘ I recall first thinking), I read the damned thing. Somewhat crestfallen, yet also morbidly fascinated, I followed up, reading ‘The Solar Fraud‘ (the only other book on this topic of renewable limits, according to Trainer’s piece) and then a bookshelf worth of other tomes on this general topic, including ‘Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air‘ and ‘Prescription for the Planet‘ (kicking off my nuclear education in earnest),  followed by various technical analyses, IPCC WG III, blogs, etc. My first post on this blog on nuclear power was on 28 Nov 2008, 3 months after it has been launched. My transformation of thought had begun in earnest, and was reinforced by the work of people such as Peter Lang. The TCASE series is the next, more logically formalised, step in this process.

As a quantitative scientist with a bent towards statistics and models, I was willing to let preconceptions go if the evidence was there that I was wrong. Although it is often misused by those who actually do the complete opposite, the famous quote from Keynes here is apt: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” — although in this instance, it wasn’t the facts that changed as much as my knowledge and understanding of them. So begins a journey with TCASE to look critically at sustainable energy, in all forms. It is written in the hope of providing a resource for others to understand the magnitude of the challenge we face in eliminating our dependence on coal, oil and gas, to signpost the blind alleys to avoid, and to arrive at a rational conclusion as to what the most likely path(s) to success might be.

Addendum: Here is an updated version of the chart profiled in this post.

Australia’s weird winter

Guest post by Blair Trewin. Blair is a senior climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate Centre. He recently took the lead in writing the Special Climate Statement, Exceptional winter heat over large parts of Australia, issued 26th August 2009, updated 1st September 2009.

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Australia has just experienced an exceptionally warm August. Almost the entire country experienced above-average temperatures during the month, but the warmth was most extraordinary in the subtropics. Over most of the southern Northern Territory and the southern half of Queensland (away from the coast), maximum temperatures for August were more than 5°C above the long-term average. Maximum temperatures were the highest on record for August over 49% of Australia.

Averaged over Australia as a whole, maximum temperatures were 3.20°C above the long-term August average, and daily mean temperatures (day and night combined) were 2.47°C above average. Both values are the highest on record for August by close to a degree. In terms of how far the month was above normal, the maximum temperatures in August 2009 are also the highest on record for any month, breaking the record of +3.11°C set in April 2005; the daily mean temperatures rank second behind April 2005.

The month was marked by some individual days which were exceptionally hot for August, especially in northern NSW and Queensland. State records were set for August in both states (37.8°C at Mungindi and 38.5°C at Bedourie respectively). Perhaps more exceptional were the margins by which some records were broken, and the number of days on which previous records were exceeded. Collarenebri broke its pre-2009 August record by 5.4°C, and numerous other locations, including Murwillumbah, Moree, Gatton, Miles and Taroom, broke August records by 4°C or more. Such margins are not unheard of at exposed coastal sites – where everything has to go right to achieve an extreme high temperature (not only having a very hot air mass, but having the wind in the right direction to prevent conditions being moderated by sea breezes) – but are virtually unknown at inland locations.

Many locations exceeded pre-2009 August records on five or more days. An especially striking example was Windorah in western Queensland, which prior to 2009 had never reached 35°C in August. In 2009 it happened seven times, and their August record was lifted six times, eventually peaking at 38.0°C on the 29th.

The extremely warm August combined with generally above-average (but not record-breaking) temperatures in June and July to give record or near-record winter temperatures in many areas. Australian daily mean temperatures for winter (1.33°C above average) fell just 0.01°C short of the 1996 record, and maximum temperatures surpassed the record set in 2002. NSW, Victoria and South Australia all had their warmest winters on record, which may come as a surprise to residents of the latter two states, in a season which was distinguished more by an almost complete absence of significant cold than by any major warm extremes.

In terms of weather systems, the month was marked by a persistent high-pressure ridge over the subtropics, preventing cooler air from penetrating from the south into central and northern Australia (until the last two days of the month, by which time it was too late to make much difference). Pressures were also well below normal south of Australia, resulting in very strong and persistent westerlies south of Australia (which made it an extremely wet month in Tasmania). An interesting comparison exists with October 1988, which had very similar pressure patterns, and was also dry over the mainland and very wet in Tasmania. In October 1988 Australian mean temperatures were 2.16°C above average, which was a record at the time (it now ranks fourth). The difference of 0.31°C between the two months is close to the size of the warming trend over Australia in that 21-year period, and suggests that the long-term background warming trend is playing a role in increasing the frequency of high temperature extremes of the type seen in August 2009.

Transportation Pollution and Global Warming

By Nadine Unger

The main anthropogenic global warming culprit is carbon dioxide (CO₂), but human activity produces a host of other, shorter-lived pollutants that contribute to climate change, among them gases that react to form ozone smog and fine particles such as black carbon. Until recently, most of the attention paid to these short-lived pollutants focused on their threat to human health. But because these pollutants disappear from the atmosphere relatively quickly, global efforts to reduce their emissions can produce an immediate benefit and help avoid dangerous tipping points in the climate system over the next few decades.

Our new study offers additional insight into the climatic role of these pollutants. These findings come at a time when activity on domestic and international climate policy in general and on black carbon policy in particular is ramping up.

Figure 1.Climate impacts measured in terms of radiative forcing from the global and U.S. on-road transportation (ORT) and power generation (PG) sectors. The CO₂ radiative forcing shown is for the 20-year time horizon. The sum of total non-CO₂ and CO₂ forcing is indicated above each bar. + View large GIF or PDF of figure

We calculated the overall warming effect of the transportation and power generation sectors, two of the main contributors to CO₂ emissions, for the U.S. and the world. Effective mitigation of global climate change requires action in these sectors for which technology change options exist or are being developed. We primarily used a global climate model developed at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies that simulates the transport of pollutants in the atmosphere by winds and the chemical and physical reactions that transform the pollutants into smog and particles and eliminates them from the atmosphere. The model also calculates the warming or cooling effect of the different pollutants. The results are shown in Figure 1.

We found that transportation would be a particularly good sector to target for emissions controls because it emits a lot of black carbon (most notably through diesel exhaust) and ozone-producing gases in addition to CO₂. In contrast, the power generation sector emits little black carbon, but instead creates much sulfate particle pollution, which although bad for air quality and acid rain, cancels out the warming effect of the sector’s CO₂ emissions in the short-term.

Figure 2. Climate impacts measured in terms of radiative forcing of conversion to plug-in hybrid electric vehicle fleet in the U.S. and globally for two replacement energy sources: (S1) zero emissions renewable sources, and (S2) electric power generation sector in current state. The CO₂ radiative forcing shown is for the 20-year time horizon. The sum of total non-CO₂ and CO₂ forcing is indicated above each bar. + View large GIF or PDF of figure

We also considered a hypothetical example of switching the transportation sector to a zero-emissions or electric power source, such as in plug-in hybrid electric or pure electric technologies. The result was a hefty benefit for the climate. Such a switch would decrease the warming effect when looking just at CO₂. (Increased CO₂ emissions from the electricity generation sector would to some extent offset the decrease in emissions from vehicles.) But non-CO₂ pollutants provide an added benefit for the climate. The technology shift greatly reduces black carbon emissions. Furthermore, switching to electric power, generated predominantly with coal at present both in the U.S. and worldwide, increases emissions of cooling sulfate particles, further reducing global warming.

Of course, the power sector also needs to be cleaned up to address long-term climate damage from CO₂, as well as health problems from sulfate particles, ozone smog and other pollutants. Our results indicate that technology change options that target specific economic sectors may invoke decadal scale climate effects from the air pollutants that dominate the CO₂ effects. Assessment of the full impacts of technology and policy strategies designed to mitigate global climate change must consider the climate effects of ozone and fine aerosol particles.

Reference

Unger, N., D.T. Shindell, and J.S. Wang, 2009: Climate forcing by the on-road transportation and power generation sectors. Atmos. Environ., 43, 3077-3085, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2009.03.021.

Contact

Please address all inquiries about this research to Dr. Nadine Unger.

We need a real global plan for carbon mitigation

I’m in Japan this week, attending the 1st Asian Heads of Research Council Joint Symposium in Nagoya, with a follow-up workshop for training junior researchers later in the week. This is my fifth trip to Japan, but it’s always an exciting place to visit — and I have a special connection to this country, as my wife is Japanese. Today, after an intensive morning session at which I gave a keynote talk on my work on integrating bioclimate and population models to improve forecasts of species extinction under climate change, we visited the Ramsar-listed Fujimae Tidal Flats and the stunning Kaisho forest.

Reflecting on the energy situation in Japan and its chances for complete decarbonisation, this is a country with few natural advantages — almost no domestic fossil fuel reserves or uranium supplies (fast breeders anyone?), poor conditions for solar thermal (today was 32C and cloudy — such is the rainy season), and few suitable locations for onshore wind (offshore may be more viable for any serious expansion). Its hydro resource is mostly tapped. The Greenpeace [r]evolution scenario for Japan, for what it’s worth, demands huge gains in energy efficiency and conservation, and yet is still left with a disturbingly large dependence on fossil fuels (one wonders why they eliminated Japan’s nuclear power…).

Anyway, to the main point of this post — to reproduce the third in a series by Steve Kirsch on IFRs as a solution to the global energy crisis. Like the previous two articles, Steve published this originally on the Huffington Post. I’m mirroring it here because its material is obviously highly relevant to the ongoing BNC discussion on the prospects for IFR nuclear power — and Steve (now a good friend of mine via regular electronic  conversations!) has a real knack of asking the right questions about climate change mitigation. He, like me, is seeking a real solution, that will WORK, globally. Take it away Steve:

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How Does Obama Expect to Solve the Climate Crisis Without a Plan?

The climate crisis is the most important issue of all time. But the White House has no plan to solve it. How do we save the planet without a viable plan?

The ship is sinking slowly and we are quickly running out of time to develop and implement any such plan if we are to have any hope of saving the planet. What we need is a plan we can all believe in. A plan where our country’s smartest people all nod their heads in agreement and say, “Yes, this is a solid, viable plan for keeping CO2 levels from touching 425ppm and averting a global climate catastrophe.”

At his Senate testimony a few days ago, noted climate scientist James Hansen made it crystal clear once again that the only way to avert an irreversible climate meltdown and save the planet is to phase out virtually all coal plants worldwide over a 20 year period from 2010 to 2030. Indeed, if we don’t virtually eliminate the use of coal worldwide, everything else we do will be as effective as re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Plans that won’t work

Unfortunately, nobody has proposed a realistic and practical plan to eliminate coal use worldwide or anywhere close to that. There is no White House URL with such a plan. No environmental group has a workable plan either.

Hoping that everyone will abandon their coal plants and replace them with a renewable power mix isn’t a viable strategy — we’ve proven that in the U.S. Heck, even if the Waxman-Markey bill passes Congress (a big “if”), it is so weak that it won’t do much at all to eliminate coal plants. So even though we have Democrats controlling all three branches of government, it is almost impossible to get even a weak climate bill passed.

If we can’t pass strong climate legislation in the U.S. with all the stars aligned, how can we expect anyone else to do it? So expecting all countries to pass a 100% renewable portfolio standard (which is far far beyond that contemplated in the current energy bill) just isn’t possible. Secondly, even if you could mandate it politically in every country, from a practical standpoint, you’d never be able to implement it in time. And there are lots of experts in this country, including Secretary Chu, who say it’s impossible without nuclear (a point which I am strongly in agreement with).

Hoping that everyone will spontaneously adopt carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is also a non-starter solution. First of all, CCS doesn’t exist at commercial scale. Secondly, even if we could make it work at scale, and even it could be magically retrofitted on every coal plant (which we don’t know how to do), it would require all countries to agree to add about 30% in extra cost for no perceivable benefit. At the recent G8 conference, India and China have made it clear yet again that they aren’t going to agree to emission goals.

Saying that we’ll invent some magical new technology that will rescue us at the last minute is a bad solution. That’s at best a poor contingency plan.

The point is this: It should be apparent to us that we aren’t going to be able to solve the climate crisis by either “force” (economic coercion or legislation) or by international agreement. And relying on technologies like CCS that may never work is a really bad idea.

The only remaining way to solve the crisis is to make it economically irresistible for countries to “do the right thing.” The best way to do that is to give the world a way to generate electric power that is economically more attractive than coal with the same benefits as coal (compact power plants, 24×7 generation, can be sited almost anywhere, etc). Even better is if the new technology can simply replace the existing burner in a coal plant. That way, they’ll want to switch. No coercion is required.

Since Obama doesn’t have a plan and I’m not aware of a viable plan that experts agree can move the entire world off of coal, I thought I’d propose one that is viable. You may not like it, but if there is a better alternative that is practical and viable, please let me know because none of the experts I’ve consulted with are aware of one.

The Kirsch plan for saving the planet

The Kirsch plan for saving the planet is very simple and practical. My plan is based on a simple observation:

Nuclear is the elephant in the room

70% of the carbon free power in America is still generated by nuclear, even though we haven’t built a new nuclear plant in this country in the last 30 years. Hydro is a distant second. Wind and solar are rounding error. Worldwide, it’s even more skewed: nuclear is more than 100 times bigger than solar and more than 100 times bigger than wind. If I drew a bar chart of nuclear vs. solar vs. wind use worldwide, you wouldn’t even see solar and wind on the chart.

So our best bet is to join the parade and get behind supporting the big elephant. We put all the wood behind one arrow: nuclear. We invest in and promote these new, low-cost modular nuclear designs worldwide and get the volumes up so we can drive the price down. These plants are low-cost, can be built in small capacities, can be manufactured quickly, and assembled on-site in a few years.

Nuclear can be rolled out very quickly. About two thirds of the currently operating 440 reactors around the world came online during a 10 year period between 1980 and 1990. In southeast Asia, reactors are typically constructed in 4 years or less (about 44 months)

Secondly, the nuclear reactor can replace the burner in a coal plant making upgrading an existing coal plant very cost effective. Finally, it is also critically important for big entities (such as the U.S. government in partnership with other governments) to offer low-cost financing to bring down the upfront cash investment in a new nuclear reactor to be less than that required to build a coal plant.

Under my plan, we now have a way to economically displace the building of new coal plants that nobody can refuse. People will then want to build modular nuclear plants because since they are cheaper, last longer, and are cleaner than coal. No legislation or mandate is required.

My plan is credible since it doesn’t require Congress to act. Power companies worldwide simply make an economic decision to do the right thing. No force required.

My plan would provide huge economic benefits to the United States. We’d create jobs, improve our trade deficit, and get a nice on-going monthly cash flow from the plants we finance. So whether you believe in global warming or not, this plan works.

The only political impediment to overcome is to convince those countries that have a ban on nuclear to reconsider. However, this is not strictly required since the few countries that have such a ban have relatively small coal emissions compared to the countries that have no such ban.

Nuclear waste and proliferation issues are quite manageable. These issues are covered in my Huffington Post article “Climate Bill Ignores Our Biggest Clean Energy Source.”

Do we really think we solve our biggest crisis without a plan? That would be insane. If the White House doesn’t like my plan then they should propose a more viable plan, communicate it to the world, and start implementing it now, while there is still time.

Climate update – ongoing decline in South-East Australian rainfall

South-East Australia is suffering under an extended drought of unprecedented character. Although local rain events have relieved the worst of the conditions in places like Adelaide, the region as a whole remains parched and tinder dry, and parts of the Murray-Darling river system, such as the spectacular Coorong lakes system, is perilously close to ecological collapse:

“The Murray-Darling Basin is experiencing the worst drought since records began in 1891. Record low inflows to the River Murray through drought and over-allocation are having a significant social, cultural, economic and environmental impact on the Lower Lakes and Coorong region. The unprecedented situation now facing South Australia is that the quality of the State’s water supply could be at risk because of increasing water salinity levels and acidification from exposed acid sulfate soils on the drying lakebeds and wetlands.”

The state of Victoria is experiencing a particularly steep decline in average autumn rainfall, with a 40 per cent decline recorded since 1950 (25 % in South-East Australia as a whole). CSIRO climate scientist Dr Wenju Cai and colleagues have reported that this seems to be connected to rising sea level atmopheric pressure and a a decrease in alternating high and low pressure systems — with connections to climate change.

Now a new paper has been written by Dr. Bertrand Timbal, of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR), as part of the CAWCR Research Letters series, entitled “The continuing decline in South-East Australian rainfall — Update to May 2009“. It details the circumstances surrounding “the worst rainfall deficit in the region within more than a century long instrumental record.”

In brief, the mean annual (autumn) rainfall over the twelve-and-a-half year period Oct 96 — May 09 was 504 (100) mm, which is drier than extreme drought of Jan 35 — Aug 47, which averaged 512 (121) mm. For reference, the average over the entire 1900 — 2009 period is 567 (132) mm. Aside from the autumn decline noted above, a drying trend in spring is now emerging, with spring rainfall below the long term average 6 times during the last 7 years (2002-2008). There is a strong association of these conditions with the intensification of the sub-tropical ridge (STR), which may in turn be linked to the wetting trend and polewards expansion of tropical weather systems and Hadley circulation — a phenomenon predicted by global climate models to occur at a far slower rate than is being observed.

The conclusion to the Timbal 2009 paper sums up the bleak situation (some bolding highlighting and italic expansions by me):

The long-term rainfall deficiency since October 1996 across South Eastern Australia (SEA, south of 33.5ºS and east of 135.5ºE) documented by MT08 [Murphy, B. and B. Timbal, 2008: A review of recent climate variability and climate change in south-eastern Australia, Int J Climatol, 28(7), 859-879] was described as being severe but not unprecedented in the instrumental record. With an additional 3 years of below average rainfall, that statement is no longer true. The recent 12 year, 8 month period is the driest in the 110 years long record, surpassing the previous driest period during WWII [World War II]. The spatial extent of the deficiency covers most of the south-western part of eastern Australia and extends along significant orographic features eastward and northward. The seasonal signature of the rainfall decline has also evolved. It remains dominated by a strong and highly significant autumn rainfall decline, but has been supplemented by recent declines in spring, particularly after 2002. The spring decline is the dominant feature of the very dry 2006-2008 period.

This change in the relative contributions by the autumn and spring seasons now more closely resembles the picture provided by climate model simulations of future changes due to enhanced greenhouse gases. However, the growing magnitude of the rainfall decline is far more severe than any of the IPCC-AR4 model projections except for the lowest deciles from the model uncertainty range, forced with the highest emission scenarios occurring later in the 21st century (2050 to 2070) (CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, 2007).

The most important characteristics of the ongoing rainfall decline (spatial extension, intensification and change in seasonality) are well aligned with the recent evolution of the STR and its known influence on SEA rainfall. Other largescale influences were briefly evaluated. It appears unlikely that the ENSO [El Niño Southern Oscillation] mode of variability has contributed to the worsening of the rainfall decline in the last 3 years. On the contrary, it appears likely that the Indian Ocean mode of variability (with three positive IODs [Indian Ocean Dipole] in a row) may be linked to the strong spring signal in 2006-2008. However, that does not change the fact that the IOD is unlikely to be responsible for the largest component of the rainfall decline (the autumn part) and based on the limited evidence provided here, it is unclear whether the IOD is a contributor, or simply a covarying response to other factors. Finally, the long-term evolution of the SAM [Southern Annular Mode] remains unlikely to explain the longterm decline in SEA due to the seasonal nature of the influence of SAM on SEA rainfall but its role (both positive or negative) is visible while updating month by month anomalies.

You can download the full paper as a PDF here. It’s 8 pages long, and includes some highly informative statistics, analysis and revealing colour figures. I strongly suggest you take the time to read through it, if you wish to have a well-grounded scientific understanding of the worrying rainfall deficits that this part of the world is now experiencing.

El Niño and sunspots return, sea ice doesn’t

The two main reasons why 2008 was the coolest year since 2000 was that the Pacific ocean was in its La Niña phase, and the sun was remarkably inactive and showed us a blank face for essentially the whole year. Both of these factors (oceanic and solar) exert a mild to strong influence on year-to-year climate variability. The forcing effect of additional greenhouse gases is more subtle in the short term, but ultimately dominates because it is inexorable (until we mitigate our emissions) and accumulative (due to long residence times).

In the first half of 2009, La Niña conditions persisted, despite a brief excursion to a more neutral phase. Now, however, the relevant signs — such as the southern oscillation index (SOI) and Pacific sea surface temperatures — point to the return of El Niño in the second half of 2009 (and perhaps continuing through 2010). There are also clear signs that the sunspots are returning in 2009, after the particularly extended period of quienscence, which recently had some speculating that we may be entering a new Maunder-Mininum-like period (more here).

The Bureau of Meteorology in Australia runs an excellent webpage on the El Niño-Southern Oscillation , updated weekly, called ENSO Wrap-Up. They have concluded the following:

“More evidence of a developing El Niño event has emerged during the past fortnight, and computer forecasts show there’s very little chance of the development stalling or reversing…

Another adverse sign for southeastern Australian rainfall is the recent trend to positive values in the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), as measured by the Dipole Mode Index (DMI)…

The sub-surface of the equatorial Pacific has also continued to steadily warm through June. A large volume of warmer than normal sub-surface water is evident across the entire tropical Pacific…

All international climate models predict the tropical Pacific to continue to warm and to be above El Niño thresholds throughout most of the second half of 2009.”

Both the oncoming El Niño, and the positive values of the IOD, is bad news for the rainfall outlook in eastern Australia. As reported in The Age, “Such an event could send Melbourne’s water storages, already at a record low level of 26 per cent, plummeting well below 20 per cent by next year and force stage 4 restrictions. Rivers — especially the Yarra — farmlands and crops look set to be stressed further. The prediction comes as the bureau confirmed that Melbourne had a record dry start to the year, with just 126.2 millimetres of rain falling from January to June — eight millimetres below the previous record set in 1967 and less than half the long-term average of 307 millimetres.”

Look out for the next update of ENSO Wrap-Up in 3 days time (as of this post).

In related news, a recent paper published in Science has demonstrated that there are at least two distinct types of El Niño with different relative influences on hurricane formation in the Atlantic, with one type (El Niño Modoki) being more inherently predictable. Forming in the central, rather than eastern Pacific, it is associated with a higher storm frequency and a greater potential for making landfall along the Gulf coast and the coast of Central America. Read more here and here.

The return of El Nino suggests that 2009 and 2010 will be considerably warmer than 2008. An additional +0.01 to 0.05C boost in global mean temperature may also come from increasing activity in the sun over this period. Current predictions are for a smaller than usual peak in sunspot activity (the lowest since 1928) during cycle 24, maxing out in mid-2013. What’s particularly interesting is the proposition from solar physicists that they have uncovered a new mechanism which may be influencing the progress of sunspot activity — a migrating jet stream from deep within the sun.  To quote from the NASA press release:

“Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the sun. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years, they explained to a room full of reporters and fellow scientists. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear…  Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10 degree range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle. The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead.”

There is still not likely to be much activity in 2009, but as the report notes with regard to those Maunder Minimum fears, “The sun’s internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not ‘broken’.“.

In other news, the Arctic sea ice is now well on its way to its summer minimum for 2009. A lot of people are interested to see whether the record low of 2007 will be beaten this year (we’ll know by late September), or whether there is some recovery due to the persistent effect of the cooler 2008. Current conditions are tracking about the same as 2008, and still fairly close to the 2007 level, so it’s really anybody’s guess as to what’ll happen next.

The rapid loss of old, thicker multi-year sea ice over the last few years is one major reason to be concerned that a tipping point in this system has already been crossed. My suspicion is that we’ll just miss the 2007 record this year due to the lingering cooler conditions of 2008, but that it’ll be broken in 2010. But such year-to-year records are really besides the point — the long-term decline in Arctic summer sea ice is beyond dispute, and the projections of total summer sea ice loss within the next 40 years now seem absurdly optimistic.

Discussion Thread: Is the EIA forecast of 2016 energy prices realistic?

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently (April 2009) made a forward projection of estimated energy generation costs for 2016 in its Annual Energy Outlook 2009. The results are given in the table I’ve reproduced below (click on it for a larger version) — the original comes from the Next Big Future blog, here. Nuclear Green also has a post on it, with an alternative figure, here, NEI Notes here, and there is an excellent summary provided by the Institute for Energy Research, here and here. The IER are the guys who extracted this data from the AEO 2009 report and summarised it in a useful format. Make sure you read these links: they’re packed with useful analysis.

Prices are expressed in 2007 US dollar terms per megawatt hour [MWh]. To convert these figures to kilowatt hours [kWh] — more relevant to you, perhaps, because you probably use between 120 and 250 kWh per day — simply divide these figures by 10, and read as cents instead of dollars. So, for conventional coal, the table tells you the cost is projected to be 9.4 c/kWh, whilst for wind it is 14.2 c/kWh. O&E stands for “operations and maintenance”. The levelised energy cost is an economic assessment of the cost the energy-generating system including all the costs over its lifetime: initial investment, operations and maintenance, cost of fuel, cost of capital. These costs deliberately exclude state and federal subsidies, to give you the real figures. The AEO 2009 report also includes an energy demand projection through to 2030.

One might choose to dispute any of the entries given above, for a variety of sound reasons. For instance, the cost of Advanced Nuclear is based on an overnight capital cost of about $8 billion per GW installed capacity for the US, when the recent Asian experience (Japan, Korea, China) is considerably lower (between 1/2 and 1/4 this price). Likewise, the price of gas might rise considerably higher than the EIA anticipates, especially regionally, as geographically important supplies dry up in places like the US and LNG prices rise concomitantly due to export/import bottlenecks. I’ll be interested to see the debate that ensues in the comments below, especially from those who advocate cheap renewable energy.

Topics for discussion might include the following: Do you believe the EIA forecast is reasonable overall? What about for your ‘favourite’ energy source? If not, why not? What’s been left out? Have hidden costs (e.g., investor confidence, energy storage and backup, etc.) been adequately represented? Has peak oil or the ongoing effects of the global financial crisis been properly factored in?

Lovelock’s dire vision

James Lovelock, the man who is often credited with being the first ‘Earth Systems Scientist’, has written a new book on the threat and consequences of climate change, called “The Vanishing Face of Gaia“. If you are looking for a dark and dystopian vision of the future, read Lovelock’s prognostications.

In brief, his view is that we have almost certainly gone past the point of no return. That is, climate ‘tipping elements‘ have been set in motion by past and ongoing changes to the Earth’s atmosphere and other interconnected systems (oceans, land surface, cryosphere). Because of this, according to Lovelock, we cannot now avoid a mass extinction of species and a major distruption to the human enterprise — though we may be able to execute a ’sustainable retreat’ as a means of adapting to some of the challenges ahead and avoiding the very worst outcomes. As I understand it, his new book explores these ideas in some detail and evaluates the likelihood of success.

I have not yet read Lovelock’s new book (it’s now on my short-term list!), but I was certainly impressed by his previous treatise, The Revenge of Gaia, which included strong arguments for the use of nuclear power (even without describing the many benefits of Generation IV technology, epitomised by the IFR). On that topic, see also here, for an essay by Lovelock published in 2004 in The Independent: “Nuclear power is the only green solution“.

Lovelock’s views are considered by most in the scientific community to be at the extreme end of the optimism — pessimism scale, but certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility, and frankly, a near certainty if a ‘business-as-usual’ pathway of carbon emissions is kept up for another few decades. A good review of what a ‘1000 ppm’ world might look like can be found here and here. What many would dispute is whether we’re too far gone already. I personally think we still have time to avoid the worst, if we start emergency action now.

Anyway, to whet people’s appetite, below I reproduce an excellent review of the book by a friend and colleague of mine, Tim Flannery. It was published in The Monthly. Tim and I first met back in 2002 at a conference on extinctions in Japan, and have since published a few papers together. You can also click on the image of the book for another interesting perspective by Justin Ritchie.

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Goodbye to All That

James Lovelock’s “The Vanishing Face of Gaia : A Final Warning“

Review by Tim Flannery (Copehagen Climate Council)

The Monthly » June 2009, No. 46

http://www.themonthly.com.au/node/1673

James Lovelock’s latest book,The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (Allen Lane, 192pp; $29.95), has an important message. In a few years, or a few decades at most, abrupt changes in Earth’s climate will begin, which will end up killing almost all of us and cause the extinction of almost all life on Earth. The tropics and subtropics will be rendered uninhabitable by this shift, and the few survivors will cling to favoured regions such as Britain and New Zealand. Lovelock believes there is little we can do to avert our fate, for the causes of the climatic shift are now so entrenched that they are in all likelihood irreversible. In his view the best we can hope for is personal survival in a world of warring nations or, if we are particularly unfortunate, a world ruled by warlords.

Apocalyptic visions such as this are usually the province of doomsday cults or writers of science fiction. It’s unusual to find a scientist advancing one. Yet James Lovelock’s scientific credentials are impeccable. Over a long career he’s made many discoveries of global significance, including the fact that cold and flu viruses are transmitted by physical contact rather than through the air, and that small mammals such as hamsters can be frozen solid for hours or days, then defrosted and returned to life. As a maker of scientific instruments, he is without peer. One of his instruments used to measure air pollution is still in widespread use today; indeed it made detection of the hole in the ozone layer possible. Lovelock’s reputation as one of the world’s most respected scientists was reinforced in 2006, when he received the Royal Geological Society’s Wollaston medal. It’s the highest commendation given in geology, and its previous recipients include Louis Agassiz (the discoverer of the ice age) and Charles Darwin.

The Vanishing Face of Gaia is based upon decades of work in the field for which Lovelock received the Wollaston medal. Called Earth Systems Science or Gaia Theory, it concerns Earth’s methods of self-regulation. Lovelock himself founded the discipline in the ’70s, when he first published his Gaia hypothesis, and the alarming warning issued in his latest book is based upon his almost unparalleled grasp of the subject. Among the many regulatory systems that make Earth habitable is the one by which Earth maintains its temperature. At the heart of this system is a complex series of interactions which have carbon dioxide (CO₂) at their core. In 2004, Lovelock realised that our disturbance of this system, by burning fossil fuels, had set us upon a deadly path, and every book he’s written since then has sounded a more strident warning.

Key to his latest warning is a simple computer model of a kind used by computer scientists principally to diagnose the behaviour of their larger models. Lovelock, however, used it for a different purpose:

[I] made an experiment with this model world to see what would happen if carbon dioxide were added as we are now doing to Earth. I found that as the carbon dioxide was added, at first the global temperature changed only slightly … But as the carbon dioxide abundance approached 400 ppm [parts per million] in the air, signs of instability [in the climate] appeared … Then suddenly, between 400 and 500 ppm of carbon dioxide, a small increase in heat or carbon dioxide causes a sudden 9 degree rise in temperature …

The concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere today is 390 ppm. Before we started burning fossil fuels it was 280 ppm. But that is only part of the story. There are other greenhouse gases in the air, and if we sum up their capacity to warm Earth and express that in terms of CO₂ equivalent (what is called CO₂e), we find that we stand at 430 ppm CO₂e – well into Lovelock’s danger zone. Here is the nub of Lovelock’s urgent warning.

There is one curious feature of Lovelock’s model world that bears further examination. Just before the deadly temperature spike occurs in his model world, a slight cooling – perhaps lasting only two or three years – takes place. “Do not be misled by lulls in climate change when global temperature is constant for a few years, or even, as I write here in the United Kingdom in 2008, appears to drop,” he warns, for such an event could well mark the beginning of the end. And if Lovelock is right, the beginning of the crisis is likely to come with the onset of a severe El Niño event, which spikes global temperatures. We are currently in a cool La Niña phase, but we are almost certain to experience another El Niño before 2013.

As Lovelock admits, his projections are at variance with those of most other climate scientists, not least the august Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose projections Lovelock argues do not accord “with high quality evidence from Earth obtained by scientists whose job it is to measure and observe“. In this he is right: a slew of recent scientific findings show that the key indicators of the climate system — including sea-level rise, temperature and CO₂ concentration — are tracking the IPCC’s worst-case scenario, which they considered a remote possibility. While Lovelock’s model does fit recent observations, it’s difficult to know what to make of this, for his model predicts only minor perturbations in the climate system before the arrival of the big catastrophe.

While Lovelock’s science is of the highest calibre, his views on society and what we should do about the climate crisis are worth little more than anyone else’s. He argues that wind power is next to useless, that our only hope lies in nuclear power, and that urban-green philosophies are dangerous. His vision of how humanity will respond to the climate catastrophe is just one of many. Musing on this bleak book, I realised that in Lovelock’s view our last chance to avoid catastrophe occurred during the reigns of Howard, Bush and Cheney. It was their backers — companies such as ExxonMobil and many Australian miners, who argued forcefully (and continue to argue) that they should be allowed to go on with ‘business as usual’ – who must bear the brunt of the blame. What a fate it would be to be drawn back into that hateful Bush-Howard world of conflict and avarice by a hand reaching out from the political grave.

James Lovelock is now 90 years old and looking forward to his first visit to space, courtesy of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic launcher. He hopes to see with his own eyes the thing he described as Gaia: to marvel at its spherical shape and its soon-to-be-changed greens and blues. This remarkable man is described by his peers as “completely open and honest, almost to the point of naivety“, and he certainly pulls no punches in his latest work. Most of us will discover first-hand whether his understanding of the way our Earth works is correct or not.

Memo to Stephen Fielding: It’s not the sun

‘Solar variability does not explain late-20th-century warming’, says the title of a short paper published earlier this year by Philip Duffy, Ben Santer and Tom Wigley in Physics Today. The reason I bring up the topic of the sun and climate now is that an Australian Senator, Stephen Fielding of the Family First party, has recently been concerned that the solar variability could be a cause of recent warming, as the vote for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme comes before the Upper House. Apparently, he got this information from the American Heartland Institute. Well, let me put the good Senator’s concerns to rest.

This topic was dealt with in some detail on BraveNewClimate last year, in the post ‘What if the sun got stuck?‘. There is also an excellent coverage of this issue here, here and here. As Graeme Pearman said in the ABC story linked above, it’s an old debate. Pearman:

“Senator Fielding might have just learnt about it, but in fact the science community has been aware of it for many years. The changes of output of the sun are well and truly documented. We’ve been observing this for over a hundred years. We understand that there was probably some warming earlier last century, due to changes of emissions from the sun, but no evidence that the recent warming is due to that. And therefore there’s no anticipation that that will be a major factor through this century.”

The Duffy et al. 2009 paper (download the PDF here) was written in response to an Opinion Piece published in Physics Today in March 2008, by Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West, entitled: “Is climate sensitive to solar variability?” (download here). I strongly recommend that you read the Duffy et al. paper in full (it’s only 2 information-packed pages long), but the conclusion really does say it all:

In summary, the hypothesis of Scafetta and West — that solar variability is the dominant climate influence during the late 20th century — is a non-solution to a non-problem. There is no problem because the history of global temperatures during the 20th century is adequately explained by known phenomena: greenhouse gases, volcanic eruptions, aerosols, and, yes, to a small degree, solar variability. That conventional explanation is simple, self-consistent, and relies on well established physics. The Scafetta and West hypothesis is a non-solution because it is inconsistent with a range of observations and invokes new an unproven physics. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof; Scafetta and West have failed to provide it.

It’s always been amazing to me that some people go to such lengths to try to explain most of the warming over the last 150 years by reference to the sun, rather than ascribing it to an increase in greenhouse gases (GHG). Both, obviously, can change the climate; no argument there. But what about the principle of parsimony, folks? This argument distorts it to the extreme.

The sun delivers our planet almost all of its energy, and an increase in total solar irradiance (for whatever reason) of just a few percent would have a profound effect on Earth’s temperatures. Likewise, a large increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide and other GHG (methane, nitrous oxide, CFCs etc.) would, on the basis of fundamental physics, be expected to invoke a serious planetary warming event.

So, let’s look at the problem in the simplest possible terms:

1. The Earth’s temperature is rising.

2. Solar activity and GHG both force the climate system.

3. There is no trend in solar activity.

4. There is an upwards trend in greenhouse gas concentration.

Simple reasoning will point to the trending driver (GHG) over the non-trending driver (solar) being the culprit. For a solar explanation to work, you not only have to explain why a climate forcing agent would be exerting a directional effect of the climate system when it itself is NOT changing — you also have to explain how that stationary agent is also able to negate another climate forcing agent that IS changing.

Sheesh. Socrates and William of Ockham would have shaken their collective heads in disbelief…