Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wispy clouds - June 28th, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Storm debris clouds - Morning of June 25th, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunny summer afternoon - Manhattan Beach
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Gloomy evening - Hermosa Beach
Friday, June 26, 2009
Weekly Drought Monitor - as of June 23rd, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
EPA study: 2.2M live in areas where air poses cancer risk
FROM: USA Today
By Brad Heath and Blake Morrison, USA TODAY
The government's latest snapshot of air pollution across the nation shows residents of New York, Oregon and California faced the highest risk of developing cancer from breathing toxic chemicals.
The results, compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency, represent the most sweeping analysis to date of the state of the nation's air. The analysis is based on emissions from 2002, the latest year for which the EPA had detailed estimates of pollution from across the nation.
Called the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, or NATA, the study is used by the EPA to identify parts of the country where residents could face the greatest health threats from air pollution.
The assessment found air pollution generally presented high health risks around major cities such as New York and Los Angeles — although some of the counties where the air was even worse were in rural areas of Mississippi and Kentucky.
Almost 2.2 million people lived in neighborhoods where pollution raised the risk of developing cancer to levels the government generally considers to be unacceptable. There, toxic chemicals were significant enough that people who breathed the air throughout their lives faced an extra 100-in-1 million risk of getting cancer.
Many of those people — about 847,000 — lived in New York City. The worst single neighborhood lay between two freeways in Cerritos, Calif., outside Los Angeles. There, the EPA estimated an excess cancer risk of more than 1,200 in 1 million, 34 times the national average.
Pollution threats are still less pronounced than risks such as smoking, says John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Even so, the assessment "shows we have a problem we should expect government to solve by reducing toxic air pollution, because it makes a lot of people sick."
By Brad Heath and Blake Morrison, USA TODAY
The government's latest snapshot of air pollution across the nation shows residents of New York, Oregon and California faced the highest risk of developing cancer from breathing toxic chemicals.
The results, compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency, represent the most sweeping analysis to date of the state of the nation's air. The analysis is based on emissions from 2002, the latest year for which the EPA had detailed estimates of pollution from across the nation.
Called the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, or NATA, the study is used by the EPA to identify parts of the country where residents could face the greatest health threats from air pollution.
The assessment found air pollution generally presented high health risks around major cities such as New York and Los Angeles — although some of the counties where the air was even worse were in rural areas of Mississippi and Kentucky.
Almost 2.2 million people lived in neighborhoods where pollution raised the risk of developing cancer to levels the government generally considers to be unacceptable. There, toxic chemicals were significant enough that people who breathed the air throughout their lives faced an extra 100-in-1 million risk of getting cancer.
Many of those people — about 847,000 — lived in New York City. The worst single neighborhood lay between two freeways in Cerritos, Calif., outside Los Angeles. There, the EPA estimated an excess cancer risk of more than 1,200 in 1 million, 34 times the national average.
Pollution threats are still less pronounced than risks such as smoking, says John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Even so, the assessment "shows we have a problem we should expect government to solve by reducing toxic air pollution, because it makes a lot of people sick."
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Beyond CO2: Study Reveals Growing Importance of HFCs in Climate Warming
FROM: NOAA
Some of the substances that are helping to avert the destruction of the ozone layer could increasingly contribute to climate warming, according to scientists from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory and their colleagues in a new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The authors took a fresh look at how the global use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is expected to grow in coming decades. Using updated usage estimates and looking farther ahead than past projections (to the year 2050), they found that HFCs — especially from developing countries — will become an increasingly larger factor in future climate warming.
“HFCs are good for protecting the ozone layer, but they are not climate friendly,” said David W. Fahey, a scientist at NOAA and second author of the new study. “Our research shows that their effect on climate could become significantly larger than we expected, if we continue along a business-as-usual path.”
HFCs currently have a climate change contribution that is small (less than 1 percent) in comparison to the contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The authors have shown that by 2050 the HFCs contribution could rise to 7 to 12 percent of what CO2 contributes. And if international efforts succeed in stabilizing CO2 emissions, the relative climate contribution from HFCs would increase further. HFCs, which do not contain ozone-destroying chlorine or bromine atoms, are used as substitutes for ozone-depleting compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in such uses as refrigeration, air conditioning, and the production of insulating foams. The Montreal Protocol, a 1987 international agreement, has gradually phased out the use of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances, leading to the development of long-term replacements such as HFCs.
Though the HFCs do not deplete the ozone layer, they are potent greenhouse gases. Molecule for molecule, all HFCs are more potent warming agents than CO2 and some are thousands of times more effective. HFCs are in the “basket of gases” regulated under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
The new study factored in the expected growth in demand for air conditioning, refrigerants, and other technology in developed and developing countries. The Montreal Protocol’s gradual phasing out of the consumption of ozone-depleting substances in developing countries after 2012, along with the complete phase-out in developed countries in 2020, are other factors that will lead to increased usage of HFCs and other alternatives.
Decision-makers in Europe and the United States have begun to consider possible steps to limit the potential climate consequences of HFCs. The PNAS study examined several hypothetical scenarios to mitigate HFC consumption. For example, a global consumption limit followed by a four percent annual reduction would cause HFC-induced climate forcing to peak in the year 2040 and then begin to decrease before the year 2050.
“While unrestrained growth of HFC use could lead to significant climate implications by 2050, we have shown some examples of global limits that can effectively reduce the HFCs’ impact,” said John S. Daniel, a NOAA coauthor of the study.
The authors of the PNAS study, “The large contribution of projected HFC emissions to future climate forcing,” are Guus J.M Velders of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Fahey and Daniel of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, Mack McFarland of DuPont Fluoroproducts, and Stephen O. Andersen of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Some of the substances that are helping to avert the destruction of the ozone layer could increasingly contribute to climate warming, according to scientists from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory and their colleagues in a new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The authors took a fresh look at how the global use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is expected to grow in coming decades. Using updated usage estimates and looking farther ahead than past projections (to the year 2050), they found that HFCs — especially from developing countries — will become an increasingly larger factor in future climate warming.
“HFCs are good for protecting the ozone layer, but they are not climate friendly,” said David W. Fahey, a scientist at NOAA and second author of the new study. “Our research shows that their effect on climate could become significantly larger than we expected, if we continue along a business-as-usual path.”
HFCs currently have a climate change contribution that is small (less than 1 percent) in comparison to the contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The authors have shown that by 2050 the HFCs contribution could rise to 7 to 12 percent of what CO2 contributes. And if international efforts succeed in stabilizing CO2 emissions, the relative climate contribution from HFCs would increase further. HFCs, which do not contain ozone-destroying chlorine or bromine atoms, are used as substitutes for ozone-depleting compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in such uses as refrigeration, air conditioning, and the production of insulating foams. The Montreal Protocol, a 1987 international agreement, has gradually phased out the use of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances, leading to the development of long-term replacements such as HFCs.
Though the HFCs do not deplete the ozone layer, they are potent greenhouse gases. Molecule for molecule, all HFCs are more potent warming agents than CO2 and some are thousands of times more effective. HFCs are in the “basket of gases” regulated under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
The new study factored in the expected growth in demand for air conditioning, refrigerants, and other technology in developed and developing countries. The Montreal Protocol’s gradual phasing out of the consumption of ozone-depleting substances in developing countries after 2012, along with the complete phase-out in developed countries in 2020, are other factors that will lead to increased usage of HFCs and other alternatives.
Decision-makers in Europe and the United States have begun to consider possible steps to limit the potential climate consequences of HFCs. The PNAS study examined several hypothetical scenarios to mitigate HFC consumption. For example, a global consumption limit followed by a four percent annual reduction would cause HFC-induced climate forcing to peak in the year 2040 and then begin to decrease before the year 2050.
“While unrestrained growth of HFC use could lead to significant climate implications by 2050, we have shown some examples of global limits that can effectively reduce the HFCs’ impact,” said John S. Daniel, a NOAA coauthor of the study.
The authors of the PNAS study, “The large contribution of projected HFC emissions to future climate forcing,” are Guus J.M Velders of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Fahey and Daniel of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, Mack McFarland of DuPont Fluoroproducts, and Stephen O. Andersen of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Flying radar system to help track California's earthquake faults
FROM: Los Angeles Times
A new radar imaging system on the belly of a Gulfstream jet that is flying over California’s complicated network of faults has started collecting some of the most detailed images yet of the Earth’s surface shifting and straining with seismic energy, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.
“This will show us where the faults are active,” said Andrea Donnellan, a JPL geophysicist who is one of the project’s principal investigators. “Where the ground is moving tells us what’s going on at depth.”
The data from this project could help scientists figure out where the risk of earthquake activity is highest, though the data will never be so specific as to predict a day, location and magnitude of a quake, she said. “This will help us with the five- to 10-year time horizons,” Donnellan said. “We can see hot spot maps and ... figure out where to target our retrofitting.”
The device, the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (even though it is currently being used on a human-piloted plane), mounted on the plane shoots long-wavelength radar beams at features on the ground and measures the reflections.
Based at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, the plane flies about 45,000 feet above the ground along GPS-guided trajectories.
The project will map faults across about 70% of California, including a wide swath of Southern California, said the project’s chief scientist, Scott Hensley.
It also will fly for other projects, such as studying glacier motion in Greenland. Developing the technology, modifying the plane and collecting data for the first year will cost about $30 million, he said. The first images were collected in December, but have not yet been fully processed.
Satellites operated by other countries have collected radar data on surface deformation for years, but most don’t use the long-wavelength radar that enables the NASA device to penetrate vegetation and focus more on the hard ground surface, said Paul R. Lundgren, another principal investigator on the project.
A plane is also able to fly much closer to the ground than a satellite orbiting in space, improving the resolution by a factor of 10, he said.
Most earthquake scientists are excited about getting another tool, said David Sandwell, a geophysicist at UC San Diego who is not involved in the NASA project. But, he added, “we don’t know what we’ll get out of it.”
-- Jia-Rui Chong
A new radar imaging system on the belly of a Gulfstream jet that is flying over California’s complicated network of faults has started collecting some of the most detailed images yet of the Earth’s surface shifting and straining with seismic energy, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.
“This will show us where the faults are active,” said Andrea Donnellan, a JPL geophysicist who is one of the project’s principal investigators. “Where the ground is moving tells us what’s going on at depth.”
The data from this project could help scientists figure out where the risk of earthquake activity is highest, though the data will never be so specific as to predict a day, location and magnitude of a quake, she said. “This will help us with the five- to 10-year time horizons,” Donnellan said. “We can see hot spot maps and ... figure out where to target our retrofitting.”
The device, the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (even though it is currently being used on a human-piloted plane), mounted on the plane shoots long-wavelength radar beams at features on the ground and measures the reflections.
Based at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, the plane flies about 45,000 feet above the ground along GPS-guided trajectories.
The project will map faults across about 70% of California, including a wide swath of Southern California, said the project’s chief scientist, Scott Hensley.
It also will fly for other projects, such as studying glacier motion in Greenland. Developing the technology, modifying the plane and collecting data for the first year will cost about $30 million, he said. The first images were collected in December, but have not yet been fully processed.
Satellites operated by other countries have collected radar data on surface deformation for years, but most don’t use the long-wavelength radar that enables the NASA device to penetrate vegetation and focus more on the hard ground surface, said Paul R. Lundgren, another principal investigator on the project.
A plane is also able to fly much closer to the ground than a satellite orbiting in space, improving the resolution by a factor of 10, he said.
Most earthquake scientists are excited about getting another tool, said David Sandwell, a geophysicist at UC San Diego who is not involved in the NASA project. But, he added, “we don’t know what we’ll get out of it.”
-- Jia-Rui Chong
Monday, June 22, 2009
The case for a wet winter rests with El Niño
FROM: San Diego Union-Tribune
By Robert Krier, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
The case for a wet winter rests with El Niño
Is San Diego due for a wet winter?
The numbers say yes, but what do numbers know?
Since record-keeping began in San Diego in 1850, the city has not gone a decade ending in zero without at least two years that brought above-normal rainfall. That will change unless the next rainfall year, from July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010, delivers more than 10.77 inches, the 30-year average.
Many decades since 1850 had three or four wet years. The 1990s had five.
The 2000s, so far, have brought San Diego only one wet year. That was 2004-05, the third wettest year on record. The rainfall total at Lindbergh Field, the city's official station, was 22.49 inches that year.
Some of the 2000s have been exceptionally arid. The 2001-02 year was the driest on record, with 3.02 inches. The 2006-07 year was the fourth driest, with 3.85 inches, and two other years had less than 5.5 inches. Including this year, the last four have all been drier than average.
So it looks like we're due a doozie, dudes, right?
It may not be safe to count sopping chickens just yet. Mother Nature probably doesn't carry a calculator, and it's doubtful she'd care if the numbers showed she owed us a wet one.
It may all come down to whether Mother decides it's time to let loose the little boy: El Niño. The odds seem to favor that.
“It's been a while since we've had a strong El Niño,” said Ivory Small, science and operations officer at the National Weather Service's Rancho Bernardo office. “This non-El Niño scenario is getting a little long in the tooth.”
El Niños come in various shapes and sizes, but only the strong ones bring reliably wet conditions to Southern California. There hasn't been a strong El Niño since 1997-98.
A couple of El Niños have visited since then, but they were weak to moderate, and long-range forecasters can't predict what the wimpier events will do for us.
Small recognizes the extremely variable nature of rainfall in Southern California, but he's a believer in the “we're due” concept.
“If you get a bunch of subpar years, you'll be likely to end up with some good years,” he said. “You'll get the jet (stream), and you'll get a lot of rain down here.”
The last few years, the jet stream, the high-altitude winds that direct storms around the globe, has “taken a vacation,” Small said. The jet has usually stayed well away from San Diego, and without it, storms have been scarce.
Jan Null, a private forecaster and former National Weather Service meteorologist, expects an El Niño to develop this summer. There were strong El Niños in 1972, 1982 and 1997, so one could argue that we are “more or less” due for another strong one, he said.
But it's too early to tell if the warming sea-surface temperatures in the Central Pacific will continue to trend toward a strong El Niño. Without a strong El Niño, other atmospheric forces could end up having a bigger influence on our winter weather.
“There's always some chaos going on in the atmosphere that we just can't account for,” Null said.
If the atmosphere has a tendency to balance itself out, it happens over decades, not the short term, Null said.
Long-range forecasters have another wild card to deal with, he said.
“You step into the murky ground of what effect global warming will have on the El Niño cycle,” he said.
No one has a good handle on what's going to happen next season, Null said. The various computer forecast models come up with different solutions for the evolving conditions in the Pacific.
“If you could lock down what next season would be, you'd be incredibly wealthy,” Null said. “I don't see any wealthy weather people out there.”
By Robert Krier, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
The case for a wet winter rests with El Niño
Is San Diego due for a wet winter?
The numbers say yes, but what do numbers know?
Since record-keeping began in San Diego in 1850, the city has not gone a decade ending in zero without at least two years that brought above-normal rainfall. That will change unless the next rainfall year, from July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010, delivers more than 10.77 inches, the 30-year average.
Many decades since 1850 had three or four wet years. The 1990s had five.
The 2000s, so far, have brought San Diego only one wet year. That was 2004-05, the third wettest year on record. The rainfall total at Lindbergh Field, the city's official station, was 22.49 inches that year.
Some of the 2000s have been exceptionally arid. The 2001-02 year was the driest on record, with 3.02 inches. The 2006-07 year was the fourth driest, with 3.85 inches, and two other years had less than 5.5 inches. Including this year, the last four have all been drier than average.
So it looks like we're due a doozie, dudes, right?
It may not be safe to count sopping chickens just yet. Mother Nature probably doesn't carry a calculator, and it's doubtful she'd care if the numbers showed she owed us a wet one.
It may all come down to whether Mother decides it's time to let loose the little boy: El Niño. The odds seem to favor that.
“It's been a while since we've had a strong El Niño,” said Ivory Small, science and operations officer at the National Weather Service's Rancho Bernardo office. “This non-El Niño scenario is getting a little long in the tooth.”
El Niños come in various shapes and sizes, but only the strong ones bring reliably wet conditions to Southern California. There hasn't been a strong El Niño since 1997-98.
A couple of El Niños have visited since then, but they were weak to moderate, and long-range forecasters can't predict what the wimpier events will do for us.
Small recognizes the extremely variable nature of rainfall in Southern California, but he's a believer in the “we're due” concept.
“If you get a bunch of subpar years, you'll be likely to end up with some good years,” he said. “You'll get the jet (stream), and you'll get a lot of rain down here.”
The last few years, the jet stream, the high-altitude winds that direct storms around the globe, has “taken a vacation,” Small said. The jet has usually stayed well away from San Diego, and without it, storms have been scarce.
Jan Null, a private forecaster and former National Weather Service meteorologist, expects an El Niño to develop this summer. There were strong El Niños in 1972, 1982 and 1997, so one could argue that we are “more or less” due for another strong one, he said.
But it's too early to tell if the warming sea-surface temperatures in the Central Pacific will continue to trend toward a strong El Niño. Without a strong El Niño, other atmospheric forces could end up having a bigger influence on our winter weather.
“There's always some chaos going on in the atmosphere that we just can't account for,” Null said.
If the atmosphere has a tendency to balance itself out, it happens over decades, not the short term, Null said.
Long-range forecasters have another wild card to deal with, he said.
“You step into the murky ground of what effect global warming will have on the El Niño cycle,” he said.
No one has a good handle on what's going to happen next season, Null said. The various computer forecast models come up with different solutions for the evolving conditions in the Pacific.
“If you could lock down what next season would be, you'd be incredibly wealthy,” Null said. “I don't see any wealthy weather people out there.”
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Lightning Safety Week: June 21-27, 2009
FROM: NOAA
Summer is the peak season for one of the nation's deadliest weather phenomena— lightning. But don't be fooled, lightning strikes yearround. The goal of this Website is to safeguard U.S. residents from lightning. In the United States, an average of 62 people are killed each year by lightning:
- To date, in 2009, 15 people have been killed by lightning
- In 2008, 28 people died due to lightning strikes
- Hundreds of others were permanently injured. Of the victims who were killed by lightning in 2008:
100% outside
79% male
36% males between the ages of 20-25
32% under a tree
29% on or near the water
The reported number of injuries is likely far lower than the actual total number because many people do not seek help or doctors do not record it as a lightning injury. People struck by lightning suffer from a variety of long-term, debilitating symptoms, including memory loss, attention deficits, sleep disorders, numbness, dizziness, stiffness in joints, irritability, fatigue, weakness, muscle spasms, depression, and an inability to sit for long.
Summer is the peak season for one of the nation's deadliest weather phenomena— lightning. But don't be fooled, lightning strikes yearround. The goal of this Website is to safeguard U.S. residents from lightning. In the United States, an average of 62 people are killed each year by lightning:
- To date, in 2009, 15 people have been killed by lightning
- In 2008, 28 people died due to lightning strikes
- Hundreds of others were permanently injured. Of the victims who were killed by lightning in 2008:
100% outside
79% male
36% males between the ages of 20-25
32% under a tree
29% on or near the water
The reported number of injuries is likely far lower than the actual total number because many people do not seek help or doctors do not record it as a lightning injury. People struck by lightning suffer from a variety of long-term, debilitating symptoms, including memory loss, attention deficits, sleep disorders, numbness, dizziness, stiffness in joints, irritability, fatigue, weakness, muscle spasms, depression, and an inability to sit for long.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
NOAA: Fourth Warmest May for Globe
FROM: NOAA
The combined average global land and ocean surface temperatures for May 2009 ranked fourth warmest since worldwide records began in 1880, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
The analyses in NCDC’s global reports are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.
Temperature Highlights
- The May 2009 combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 0.95 degrees F (0.53 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 58.6 degrees F (14.8 degrees C).
- Separately, the global land surface temperature was 1.19 degrees F (0.66 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 52.0 degrees F (11.1 degrees C), the eighth warmest for May on record. - The global ocean surface temperature was 0.86 degrees F (0.48 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 61.3 degrees F (16.3 degrees C), the third warmest for May on record.
- For the year to date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 56.5 degrees F (13.6 degrees C) tied with 2003 for the sixth warmest January-May period on record. This value is 0.97 degrees F (0.54 degrees C) above the 20th century average.
Other Global Highlights
- Sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean during May continued to increase for the fifth month in a row, supporting the presence of ENSO neutral state.
- Arctic sea ice covered an average of 5.17 million square miles during May. This is 1.6 percent less than the 1979-2000 average extent. By contrast, Antarctic sea ice extent in May was 6.6 percent above the 1979-2000 average. Since 1979, May Arctic sea ice extent has decreased by 2.5 percent per decade, while May Antarctic sea ice extent has increased by 2.1 percent per decade during the same period.
- Based on NOAA satellite observations, Northern Hemisphere snow cover last month was the seventh lowest for May in the 1967-2009 period of record. The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was 0.73 million square miles below the 1967-2009 average of 7.8 million square miles.
The combined average global land and ocean surface temperatures for May 2009 ranked fourth warmest since worldwide records began in 1880, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
The analyses in NCDC’s global reports are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.
Temperature Highlights
- The May 2009 combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 0.95 degrees F (0.53 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 58.6 degrees F (14.8 degrees C).
- Separately, the global land surface temperature was 1.19 degrees F (0.66 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 52.0 degrees F (11.1 degrees C), the eighth warmest for May on record. - The global ocean surface temperature was 0.86 degrees F (0.48 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 61.3 degrees F (16.3 degrees C), the third warmest for May on record.
- For the year to date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 56.5 degrees F (13.6 degrees C) tied with 2003 for the sixth warmest January-May period on record. This value is 0.97 degrees F (0.54 degrees C) above the 20th century average.
Other Global Highlights
- Sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean during May continued to increase for the fifth month in a row, supporting the presence of ENSO neutral state.
- Arctic sea ice covered an average of 5.17 million square miles during May. This is 1.6 percent less than the 1979-2000 average extent. By contrast, Antarctic sea ice extent in May was 6.6 percent above the 1979-2000 average. Since 1979, May Arctic sea ice extent has decreased by 2.5 percent per decade, while May Antarctic sea ice extent has increased by 2.1 percent per decade during the same period.
- Based on NOAA satellite observations, Northern Hemisphere snow cover last month was the seventh lowest for May in the 1967-2009 period of record. The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was 0.73 million square miles below the 1967-2009 average of 7.8 million square miles.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Summer 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Weekly Drought Monitor - as of June 16th, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
NOAA Report Finds Threats to California’s Cordell Bank Marine Sanctuary
FROM: NOAA
A new NOAA report on the health of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary indicates that the overall condition of the sanctuary’s marine life and habitats is fair to good, but identifies several emerging threats to sanctuary resources.
“Global issues of concern such as marine debris, ocean acidification and invasive species have the potential to degrade fragile sanctuary resources and habitats,” said Dan Howard, sanctuary superintendent. “This report provides a baseline for monitoring changes to sanctuary resources and will help us to better understand and respond to these emerging threats.”
Prepared by NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, the peer-reviewed Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary Condition Report indicates that water quality in the sanctuary is generally good due to the sanctuary’s offshore location and distance from major urban population centers. Seafloor habitat quality was rated lower, primarily due to prior impacts from fishing gear that came into contact with the sanctuary’s rocky reef and soft sediment habitats.
The report notes that populations of rockfish, salmon, some seabird species, and leatherback sea turtles that use the sanctuary are depleted, but that fishery closures are helping to rebuild depleted fish stocks.
The report indicates that additional research is needed about contaminants and invasive species. While no maritime archaeological resources have been identified in the sanctuary, only 18 percent of the sanctuary seafloor has been mapped with high resolution tools that could be used to find sunken vessels.
The full sanctuary condition report is now available online. Similar reports are being developed for the other sites in the National Marine Sanctuary System.
Located 42 miles north of San Francisco, Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary is one of 14 marine protected areas managed by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. Designated by Congress in 1989, the sanctuary’s productive waters are a destination feeding area for local and migratory marine life. Its unique rocky undersea thrives with invertebrates and fishes and is surrounded by the softer sediments of the continental shelf.
A new NOAA report on the health of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary indicates that the overall condition of the sanctuary’s marine life and habitats is fair to good, but identifies several emerging threats to sanctuary resources.
“Global issues of concern such as marine debris, ocean acidification and invasive species have the potential to degrade fragile sanctuary resources and habitats,” said Dan Howard, sanctuary superintendent. “This report provides a baseline for monitoring changes to sanctuary resources and will help us to better understand and respond to these emerging threats.”
Prepared by NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, the peer-reviewed Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary Condition Report indicates that water quality in the sanctuary is generally good due to the sanctuary’s offshore location and distance from major urban population centers. Seafloor habitat quality was rated lower, primarily due to prior impacts from fishing gear that came into contact with the sanctuary’s rocky reef and soft sediment habitats.
The report notes that populations of rockfish, salmon, some seabird species, and leatherback sea turtles that use the sanctuary are depleted, but that fishery closures are helping to rebuild depleted fish stocks.
The report indicates that additional research is needed about contaminants and invasive species. While no maritime archaeological resources have been identified in the sanctuary, only 18 percent of the sanctuary seafloor has been mapped with high resolution tools that could be used to find sunken vessels.
The full sanctuary condition report is now available online. Similar reports are being developed for the other sites in the National Marine Sanctuary System.
Located 42 miles north of San Francisco, Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary is one of 14 marine protected areas managed by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. Designated by Congress in 1989, the sanctuary’s productive waters are a destination feeding area for local and migratory marine life. Its unique rocky undersea thrives with invertebrates and fishes and is surrounded by the softer sediments of the continental shelf.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Cumulonimbus Clouds
Monday, June 15, 2009
Cumulonimbus Clouds
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Stratus Clouds
Saturday, June 13, 2009
May 2009 Precipiation...
Friday, June 12, 2009
A look back at May 2009 temperatures...
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Weekly Drought Monitor - as of June 9th, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Research suggests winds dying down
FROM: USA Today
By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming — the very problem wind power seeks to address.
The idea that winds may be slowing is still a speculative one, and scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East.
"It's a very large effect," said study co-author Eugene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. In some places in the Midwest, the trend shows a 10% drop or more over a decade. That adds up when the average wind speed in the region is about 10 to 12 miles per hour.
There's been a jump in the number of low or no wind days in the Midwest, said the study's lead author, Sara Pryor, an atmospheric scientist at Indiana University.
Wind measurements plotted out on U.S. maps by Pryor show wind speeds falling mostly along and east of the Mississippi River. Some areas that are banking on wind power, such as west Texas and parts of the Northern Plains, do not show winds slowing nearly as much. Yet, states such as Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, northern Maine and western Montana show some of the biggest drop in wind speeds.
"The stations bordering the Great Lakes do seem to have experienced the greatest changes," Pryor said Tuesday. That's probably because there's less ice on the lakes and wind speeds faster across ice than it does over water, she said.
Still, the study, which will be published in August in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Research, is preliminary. There are enough questions that even the authors say it's too early to know if this is a real trend or not. But it raises a new side effect of global warming that hasn't been looked into before.
The ambiguity of the results is due to changes in wind-measuring instruments over the years, according to Pryor. And while actual measurements found diminished winds, some climate computer models — which are not direct observations — did not, she said.
Yet, a couple of earlier studies also found wind reductions in Australia and Europe, offering more comfort that the U.S. findings are real, Pryor and Takle said.
It also makes sense based on how weather and climate work, Takle said. In global warming, the poles warm more and faster than the rest of the globe, and temperature records, especially in the Arctic, show this. That means the temperature difference between the poles and the equator shrinks and with it the difference in air pressure in the two regions. Differences in barometric pressure are a main driver in strong winds. Lower pressure difference means less wind.
Even so, that information doesn't provide the definitive proof that science requires to connect reduced wind speeds to global warming, the authors said. In climate change science, there is a rigorous and specific method — which looks at all possible causes and charts their specific effects — to attribute an effect to global warming. That should be done eventually with wind, scientists say.
Jeff Freedman, an atmospheric scientist with AWS Truewind, an Albany, N.Y., renewable energy consulting firm, has studied the same topic, but hasn't published in a scientific journal yet. He said his research has found no definitive trend of reduced surface wind speed.
One of the problems Pryor acknowledges with her study is that over many years, changing conditions near wind-measuring devices can skew data. If trees grow or buildings are erected near wind gauges, that could reduce speed measurements.
Several outside experts mostly agree that there are signs that wind speed is decreasing and that global warming is the likely culprit.
The new study "demonstrates, rather conclusively in my mind, that average and peak wind speeds have decreased over the U.S. in recent decades," said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University.
A naysayer is Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate scientist in New York who said the results conflict with climate models that show no effect from global warming. He also doubts that any decline in the winds that might be occurring has much of an effect on wind power.
But another expert, Jonathan Miles, of James Madison University, said a 10% reduction in wind speeds over a decade "would have an enormous effect on power production."
Pryor said a 10% change in peak winds would translate into a 30% change in how much energy is reaped. But because the research is in such early stages, she said, "at this point it would be premature to modify wind energy development plans."
Robert Gramlich, policy director at the American Wind Energy Association, said the idea of reduced winds was new to him. He wants to see verification from other studies before he worries too much about it.
Journal of Geophysical Research: http://www.agu.org/journals/jd/
By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming — the very problem wind power seeks to address.
The idea that winds may be slowing is still a speculative one, and scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East.
"It's a very large effect," said study co-author Eugene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. In some places in the Midwest, the trend shows a 10% drop or more over a decade. That adds up when the average wind speed in the region is about 10 to 12 miles per hour.
There's been a jump in the number of low or no wind days in the Midwest, said the study's lead author, Sara Pryor, an atmospheric scientist at Indiana University.
Wind measurements plotted out on U.S. maps by Pryor show wind speeds falling mostly along and east of the Mississippi River. Some areas that are banking on wind power, such as west Texas and parts of the Northern Plains, do not show winds slowing nearly as much. Yet, states such as Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, northern Maine and western Montana show some of the biggest drop in wind speeds.
"The stations bordering the Great Lakes do seem to have experienced the greatest changes," Pryor said Tuesday. That's probably because there's less ice on the lakes and wind speeds faster across ice than it does over water, she said.
Still, the study, which will be published in August in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Research, is preliminary. There are enough questions that even the authors say it's too early to know if this is a real trend or not. But it raises a new side effect of global warming that hasn't been looked into before.
The ambiguity of the results is due to changes in wind-measuring instruments over the years, according to Pryor. And while actual measurements found diminished winds, some climate computer models — which are not direct observations — did not, she said.
Yet, a couple of earlier studies also found wind reductions in Australia and Europe, offering more comfort that the U.S. findings are real, Pryor and Takle said.
It also makes sense based on how weather and climate work, Takle said. In global warming, the poles warm more and faster than the rest of the globe, and temperature records, especially in the Arctic, show this. That means the temperature difference between the poles and the equator shrinks and with it the difference in air pressure in the two regions. Differences in barometric pressure are a main driver in strong winds. Lower pressure difference means less wind.
Even so, that information doesn't provide the definitive proof that science requires to connect reduced wind speeds to global warming, the authors said. In climate change science, there is a rigorous and specific method — which looks at all possible causes and charts their specific effects — to attribute an effect to global warming. That should be done eventually with wind, scientists say.
Jeff Freedman, an atmospheric scientist with AWS Truewind, an Albany, N.Y., renewable energy consulting firm, has studied the same topic, but hasn't published in a scientific journal yet. He said his research has found no definitive trend of reduced surface wind speed.
One of the problems Pryor acknowledges with her study is that over many years, changing conditions near wind-measuring devices can skew data. If trees grow or buildings are erected near wind gauges, that could reduce speed measurements.
Several outside experts mostly agree that there are signs that wind speed is decreasing and that global warming is the likely culprit.
The new study "demonstrates, rather conclusively in my mind, that average and peak wind speeds have decreased over the U.S. in recent decades," said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University.
A naysayer is Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate scientist in New York who said the results conflict with climate models that show no effect from global warming. He also doubts that any decline in the winds that might be occurring has much of an effect on wind power.
But another expert, Jonathan Miles, of James Madison University, said a 10% reduction in wind speeds over a decade "would have an enormous effect on power production."
Pryor said a 10% change in peak winds would translate into a 30% change in how much energy is reaped. But because the research is in such early stages, she said, "at this point it would be premature to modify wind energy development plans."
Robert Gramlich, policy director at the American Wind Energy Association, said the idea of reduced winds was new to him. He wants to see verification from other studies before he worries too much about it.
Journal of Geophysical Research: http://www.agu.org/journals/jd/
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Stratus Clouds
Monday, June 08, 2009
NOAA Biological Opinion Finds California Water Projects Jeopardize Listed Species; Recommends Alternatives
FROM: NOAA
NOAA released its final biological opinion today that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species under the jurisdiction of NOAA’s Fisheries Service.
The bureau has provisionally accepted NOAA’s recommended changes to its water pumping operations, and said it will begin to implement its near-term elements as it carefully evaluates the overall opinion.
Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food.
Two independent peer review panels were conducted to ensure the opinion is solidly grounded in the best available science. The package was peer reviewed by the CalFed Independent Science Board and the Center for Independent Experts.
“What is at stake here is not just the survival of species but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them,” said Rod Mcinnis, southwest regional director for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “We are ready to work with our federal and state partners, farmers and residents to find solutions that benefit the economy, environment and Central Valley families.”
As part of the final opinion, NOAA’s Fisheries Service has provided a number of ways the bureau can operate the water system to benefit the species, including increasing the cold water storage and flow rates. Such methods will enhance egg incubation and juvenile fish rearing, as well as improve the spawning habitat and the downstream migration of juvenile fish.
Changing water operations will impact an estimated five to seven percent of the available annual water on average moved by the federal and state pumps, or about 330,000 acre feet per year.
Agricultural water use in California is roughly 30 million acre feet per year. Water operations will not be affected by the opinion immediately and will be tiered to water year type. The opinion includes exception procedures for drought and health and safety issues.
In addition, the opinion calls for the bureau to develop a genetics management plan and an acoustic tagging program to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions and pilot passage programs at Folsom and Shasta reservoirs to reintroduce fish to historic habitat.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will mitigate some costs resulting from the opinion’s recommended actions. The Department of the Interior identified $109 million to construct a Red Bluff Pumping Plant that will allow the old Red Bluff Diversion Dam to be operated in a "gates out" position to allow salmon and green sturgeon unimpeded passage. In addition, the Act contains $26 million to restore Battle Creek, a salmon tributary to the Sacramento River.
The water projects included in the opinion are Shasta Dam at the upper headwaters of the Sacramento River, Folsom and Nimbus dams on the American River, and New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River. The opinion also covers the state and federal export facilities in the Delta, the Nimbus hatchery on the American River, and the operations of diversion structures, including the Red Bluff Diversion Dam on the mainstem Sacramento and the Delta Cross Channel gates in the Delta.
The bureau initiated the formal phase of consultation in May 2008 and then cooperated with NOAA’s Fisheries Service throughout the development of the biological opinion and alternative actions in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Departments of Water Resources and Fish and Game.
A copy of the final biological opinion and alternative actions may be found online.
NOAA released its final biological opinion today that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species under the jurisdiction of NOAA’s Fisheries Service.
The bureau has provisionally accepted NOAA’s recommended changes to its water pumping operations, and said it will begin to implement its near-term elements as it carefully evaluates the overall opinion.
Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food.
Two independent peer review panels were conducted to ensure the opinion is solidly grounded in the best available science. The package was peer reviewed by the CalFed Independent Science Board and the Center for Independent Experts.
“What is at stake here is not just the survival of species but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them,” said Rod Mcinnis, southwest regional director for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “We are ready to work with our federal and state partners, farmers and residents to find solutions that benefit the economy, environment and Central Valley families.”
As part of the final opinion, NOAA’s Fisheries Service has provided a number of ways the bureau can operate the water system to benefit the species, including increasing the cold water storage and flow rates. Such methods will enhance egg incubation and juvenile fish rearing, as well as improve the spawning habitat and the downstream migration of juvenile fish.
Changing water operations will impact an estimated five to seven percent of the available annual water on average moved by the federal and state pumps, or about 330,000 acre feet per year.
Agricultural water use in California is roughly 30 million acre feet per year. Water operations will not be affected by the opinion immediately and will be tiered to water year type. The opinion includes exception procedures for drought and health and safety issues.
In addition, the opinion calls for the bureau to develop a genetics management plan and an acoustic tagging program to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions and pilot passage programs at Folsom and Shasta reservoirs to reintroduce fish to historic habitat.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will mitigate some costs resulting from the opinion’s recommended actions. The Department of the Interior identified $109 million to construct a Red Bluff Pumping Plant that will allow the old Red Bluff Diversion Dam to be operated in a "gates out" position to allow salmon and green sturgeon unimpeded passage. In addition, the Act contains $26 million to restore Battle Creek, a salmon tributary to the Sacramento River.
The water projects included in the opinion are Shasta Dam at the upper headwaters of the Sacramento River, Folsom and Nimbus dams on the American River, and New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River. The opinion also covers the state and federal export facilities in the Delta, the Nimbus hatchery on the American River, and the operations of diversion structures, including the Red Bluff Diversion Dam on the mainstem Sacramento and the Delta Cross Channel gates in the Delta.
The bureau initiated the formal phase of consultation in May 2008 and then cooperated with NOAA’s Fisheries Service throughout the development of the biological opinion and alternative actions in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Departments of Water Resources and Fish and Game.
A copy of the final biological opinion and alternative actions may be found online.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Cumulonimbus/Cirrus/Stratocumulus Clouds
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Weekly Drought Monitor - as of June 2nd, 2009
Friday, June 05, 2009
El Niño Watch
FROM: NOAA's CPC
Synopsis: Conditions are favorable for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions during June - August 2009.
ENSO-neutral conditions persisted across the equatorial Pacific Ocean during May 2009. However, sea surface temperatures (SST) increased for the fifth consecutive month, with above-average temperatures extending across the equatorial Pacific Ocean by the end of May (Fig. 1). Accordingly, the latest weekly SST indices ranged between +0.4o to +0.5°C in all four Niño regions (Fig. 2). Subsurface oceanic heat content anomalies (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3) also continued to increase in response to a large area of above-average temperatures (+2° to +4°C) near thermocline depth (Fig. 4). These surface and subsurface oceanic anomalies typically precede the development of El Niño.
From early 2007 through April 2009, enhanced low-level easterly winds persisted near the Date Line, interrupted only briefly by Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) activity. However, during May 2009, both the lower-level equatorial winds were near-average in that region despite the absence of the MJO. Also, suppressed convection expanded westward along the equator from the Date Line to Indonesia. The recent oceanic and atmospheric anomalies are consistent with ENSO-neutral conditions, but also reflect the evolution towards a potential El Niño.
There continues to be considerable spread in the model forecasts for the Niño-3.4 region (Fig. 5). All statistical models predict ENSO-neutral conditions will continue for the remainder of 2009. However, most dynamical models, including the NCEP Climate Forecast System, predict the onset of El Niño during June - August 2009. Current observations, recent trends, and the dynamical model forecasts indicate that conditions are favorable for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions during June - August 2009.
This discussion is a consolidated effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA’s National Weather Service, and their funded institutions. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions are updated weekly on the Climate Prediction Center web site (El Niño/La Niña Current Conditions and Expert Discussions). Forecasts for the evolution of El Niño/La Niña are updated monthly in the Forecast Forum section of CPC's Climate Diagnostics Bulletin. The next ENSO Diagnostics Discussion is scheduled for 9 July 2009.
Synopsis: Conditions are favorable for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions during June - August 2009.
ENSO-neutral conditions persisted across the equatorial Pacific Ocean during May 2009. However, sea surface temperatures (SST) increased for the fifth consecutive month, with above-average temperatures extending across the equatorial Pacific Ocean by the end of May (Fig. 1). Accordingly, the latest weekly SST indices ranged between +0.4o to +0.5°C in all four Niño regions (Fig. 2). Subsurface oceanic heat content anomalies (average temperatures in the upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3) also continued to increase in response to a large area of above-average temperatures (+2° to +4°C) near thermocline depth (Fig. 4). These surface and subsurface oceanic anomalies typically precede the development of El Niño.
From early 2007 through April 2009, enhanced low-level easterly winds persisted near the Date Line, interrupted only briefly by Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) activity. However, during May 2009, both the lower-level equatorial winds were near-average in that region despite the absence of the MJO. Also, suppressed convection expanded westward along the equator from the Date Line to Indonesia. The recent oceanic and atmospheric anomalies are consistent with ENSO-neutral conditions, but also reflect the evolution towards a potential El Niño.
There continues to be considerable spread in the model forecasts for the Niño-3.4 region (Fig. 5). All statistical models predict ENSO-neutral conditions will continue for the remainder of 2009. However, most dynamical models, including the NCEP Climate Forecast System, predict the onset of El Niño during June - August 2009. Current observations, recent trends, and the dynamical model forecasts indicate that conditions are favorable for a transition from ENSO-neutral to El Niño conditions during June - August 2009.
This discussion is a consolidated effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA’s National Weather Service, and their funded institutions. Oceanic and atmospheric conditions are updated weekly on the Climate Prediction Center web site (El Niño/La Niña Current Conditions and Expert Discussions). Forecasts for the evolution of El Niño/La Niña are updated monthly in the Forecast Forum section of CPC's Climate Diagnostics Bulletin. The next ENSO Diagnostics Discussion is scheduled for 9 July 2009.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Alto Lenticular Clouds
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Cumulonimbus Clouds
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
California forests hold one answer to climate change
FROM: Los Angeles Times
The state is a leader in setting up a program to offset heat-trapping emissions by investing in woodlands.
By Margot Roosevelt
Reporting from Arcata, Calif. -- Silvery light flickers through the redwood canopy of the Van Eck forest down to a fragrant carpet of needles and thimbleberry brush. A brook splashes along polished stones, through thickets of ferns.
How lush. How lovely. How lucrative.
This 2,200-acre spread in Humboldt County does well by doing good. For the last four years, Van Eck's foresters restricted logging, allowing trees to do what trees do: absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The conservation foundation that oversees the forest then calculated that carbon bonus and sold it for $2 million to individuals and companies trying to offset some 185,000 metric tons of their greenhouse gas emissions.
"Forests can be managed like a long-term carbon bank," said Laurie Wayburn, president of the Pacific Forest Trust, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that oversees Van Eck. Selling offsets, she said, is like "writing checks on the account."
In the struggle over how to address climate change nationally and globally, forests play a major role. "Cap-and-trade" programs set limits on greenhouse gases and allow industries to trade emissions permits among themselves. And they can include provisions for offsetting heat-trapping pollution by investing in woodlands.
Offsets are poised for explosive growth. In the next two years, California is expected to roll out a statewide carbon market that may be expanded to other Western states. Nationally, climate legislation approved by a key congressional committee last week would allow U.S. industries to use offsets worth up to 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, part of which could come from forest projects here and abroad.
A new climate treaty scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December may allow industrial countries to offset emissions with forest-saving projects in Brazil, Indonesia and other developing nations.
Ripe for fraud?
But the carbon commodity business is controversial. Critics fear that poorly regulated offsets could hand a get-out-of-jail-free card to heavy polluters. Should a coal-fired power plant in Nevada avoid slashing carbon dioxide emissions by paying to preserve trees in Oregon? Is this a complex trading scheme ripe for fraud?
To create trustworthy offsets, California's Air Resources Board two years ago set up the nation's first government-sponsored system to quantify and verify carbon. Those rules are being rewritten for possible use by other states.
"Companies having a hard time meeting their carbon emission limits may want to invest in forestry as a way to cut costs," said Mary D. Nichols, the board's chairwoman. "We have hundreds of thousands of acres of forests that can play a role in helping us to prevent global warming."
Forests are central to Earth's climate because, like oceans, they are a carbon "sink." Through photosynthesis, trees absorb carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas that is heating the planet's atmosphere. Allowing trees to grow larger before logging increases the carbon stored in a forest. So do widening the forested buffers along streams and clearing out underbrush to allow more space for trees. Reforesting areas abandoned to brush or destroyed by wildfire would also greatly boost carbon stock.
"California leads the world with regard to the role of forests in combating climate change," said Chris Kelly, California director for the Conservation Fund, a Virginia-based nonprofit that has sold offsets from Mendocino County preserves. "I just had an inquiry from a Canadian buyer who's expecting Canada to move in the direction set by California."
But so far, big timber operators, including Sierra Pacific Industries and Green Diamond Resource Co., have yet to enroll in California's offsets program. Current standards require owners to agree to a permanent conservation easement, a legal agreement that would guarantee carbon-storage measures in perpetuity. Companies have found that too onerous, and as a result only a handful of woodlands have registered, mainly those managed by conservation groups.
For the last 18 months, members of a task force of environmentalists, timber operators and state officials have been locked in contentious negotiations to revise the rules. The new draft, to go before the Air Resources Board next month, substitutes a 100-year contract for the easement, thus allowing development after a century. It also clarifies rules for companies to quantify and verify carbon.
At least one environmental group is uncomfortable with the changes. "By removing the easement, you leave the system open to gaming," said Brian Nowicki, a forest specialist with the Center for Biological Diversity.
"The timber industry wants 'business as usual' practices, like clear-cutting, to qualify for carbon credit."
But groups represented on the task force, including the Environmental Defense Fund, the Nature Conservancy and Pacific Forest Trust, say that century-long contracts and strict accounting rules will guarantee that offsets will be granted only if additional carbon is stored above and beyond conventional forest practices.
David Bischel, president of the California Forestry Assn., the industry trade group, said he expects more landowners to sign up but cautions, "It is an opportunity in its infancy: When you add up the numbers, it is not a huge source of revenue." MORE ==>>
The state is a leader in setting up a program to offset heat-trapping emissions by investing in woodlands.
By Margot Roosevelt
Reporting from Arcata, Calif. -- Silvery light flickers through the redwood canopy of the Van Eck forest down to a fragrant carpet of needles and thimbleberry brush. A brook splashes along polished stones, through thickets of ferns.
How lush. How lovely. How lucrative.
This 2,200-acre spread in Humboldt County does well by doing good. For the last four years, Van Eck's foresters restricted logging, allowing trees to do what trees do: absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The conservation foundation that oversees the forest then calculated that carbon bonus and sold it for $2 million to individuals and companies trying to offset some 185,000 metric tons of their greenhouse gas emissions.
"Forests can be managed like a long-term carbon bank," said Laurie Wayburn, president of the Pacific Forest Trust, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that oversees Van Eck. Selling offsets, she said, is like "writing checks on the account."
In the struggle over how to address climate change nationally and globally, forests play a major role. "Cap-and-trade" programs set limits on greenhouse gases and allow industries to trade emissions permits among themselves. And they can include provisions for offsetting heat-trapping pollution by investing in woodlands.
Offsets are poised for explosive growth. In the next two years, California is expected to roll out a statewide carbon market that may be expanded to other Western states. Nationally, climate legislation approved by a key congressional committee last week would allow U.S. industries to use offsets worth up to 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, part of which could come from forest projects here and abroad.
A new climate treaty scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December may allow industrial countries to offset emissions with forest-saving projects in Brazil, Indonesia and other developing nations.
Ripe for fraud?
But the carbon commodity business is controversial. Critics fear that poorly regulated offsets could hand a get-out-of-jail-free card to heavy polluters. Should a coal-fired power plant in Nevada avoid slashing carbon dioxide emissions by paying to preserve trees in Oregon? Is this a complex trading scheme ripe for fraud?
To create trustworthy offsets, California's Air Resources Board two years ago set up the nation's first government-sponsored system to quantify and verify carbon. Those rules are being rewritten for possible use by other states.
"Companies having a hard time meeting their carbon emission limits may want to invest in forestry as a way to cut costs," said Mary D. Nichols, the board's chairwoman. "We have hundreds of thousands of acres of forests that can play a role in helping us to prevent global warming."
Forests are central to Earth's climate because, like oceans, they are a carbon "sink." Through photosynthesis, trees absorb carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas that is heating the planet's atmosphere. Allowing trees to grow larger before logging increases the carbon stored in a forest. So do widening the forested buffers along streams and clearing out underbrush to allow more space for trees. Reforesting areas abandoned to brush or destroyed by wildfire would also greatly boost carbon stock.
"California leads the world with regard to the role of forests in combating climate change," said Chris Kelly, California director for the Conservation Fund, a Virginia-based nonprofit that has sold offsets from Mendocino County preserves. "I just had an inquiry from a Canadian buyer who's expecting Canada to move in the direction set by California."
But so far, big timber operators, including Sierra Pacific Industries and Green Diamond Resource Co., have yet to enroll in California's offsets program. Current standards require owners to agree to a permanent conservation easement, a legal agreement that would guarantee carbon-storage measures in perpetuity. Companies have found that too onerous, and as a result only a handful of woodlands have registered, mainly those managed by conservation groups.
For the last 18 months, members of a task force of environmentalists, timber operators and state officials have been locked in contentious negotiations to revise the rules. The new draft, to go before the Air Resources Board next month, substitutes a 100-year contract for the easement, thus allowing development after a century. It also clarifies rules for companies to quantify and verify carbon.
At least one environmental group is uncomfortable with the changes. "By removing the easement, you leave the system open to gaming," said Brian Nowicki, a forest specialist with the Center for Biological Diversity.
"The timber industry wants 'business as usual' practices, like clear-cutting, to qualify for carbon credit."
But groups represented on the task force, including the Environmental Defense Fund, the Nature Conservancy and Pacific Forest Trust, say that century-long contracts and strict accounting rules will guarantee that offsets will be granted only if additional carbon is stored above and beyond conventional forest practices.
David Bischel, president of the California Forestry Assn., the industry trade group, said he expects more landowners to sign up but cautions, "It is an opportunity in its infancy: When you add up the numbers, it is not a huge source of revenue." MORE ==>>
Monday, June 01, 2009
Another photo of storm clouds
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