Global warming: American Meteorological Society says there’s no room for doubt on climate change

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

‘Prudence dictates extreme care’

Global July temperatures were the fourth-warmest on record. Graphic courtesy NASA.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — While there are still a few prominent TV weather announcers who publicly question the overwhelming body of global warming science, the American Meteorological Society has updated its official position on climate change, acknowledging unequivocally “that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities.”

“This statement is the result of hundreds of hours of work by many AMS members over the past year,” said AMS executive director Keith Seitter. “It was a careful and thorough process with many stages of review, and one that included the opportunity for input from any AMS member before the draft was finalized,” Seitter said. The full statement is online at the AMS website.

After describing in detail what’s known about climate change, the AMS statement ends with a poignant warning: “Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.” (more…)

Filed under: climate and weather, Colorado, Environment, global warming | Tagged: , , , , , | 12 Comments »

Climate change: scientists ponder cloud brightening

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Geoengineering idea floated as a way to slow global warming

Could brightening clouds help slow the march of global warming? Photo courtesy NOAA.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — With international efforts to limit heat-trapping greenhouse gases faltering, some scientists say it’s worth at least exploring the concept of creating clouds that might reflect sunlight to counter global warming.

Geoengineering has always had a few proponents, as there are always some people who think that we can engineer our way out of any problem. But many of the ideas floated as possible solutions to global warming are just vague theories at best, with little evidence that they could work.

Now, University of Washington atmospheric physicist Rob Wood describes a possible way to run an experiment to test the concept of cloud brightening on a small scale. His idea is described in a paper published this month in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Wood makes it clear he’s not advocating for geoengineering, but wants to encourage more scientists to consider the idea of marine cloud brightening and even poke holes in it. (more…)

Filed under: climate and weather, global warming | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Global warming: Reservoir drawdowns a factor in atmospheric methane levels

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Reservoir drawdowns appear to have the potential to increase heat-trapping methane in the atmosphere.

Study measures increased methane emissions as reservoir levels drop

By Summit Voice

Lowering water levels in reservoirs may significantly increase emissions of heat-trapping methane gas, according to Washington State University researchers who measured dissolved gases in the water column of Lacamas Lake.

Graduate student Bridget Deemer found methane emissions jumped 20-fold when the water level was drawn down. A fellow WSU-Vancouver student, Maria Glavin, sampled bubbles rising from the lake mud and measured a 36-fold increase in methane during a drawdown.

Methane is 25 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. And while dams and the water behind them cover only a small portion of the earth’s surface, they harbor biological activity that can produce large amounts of greenhouse gases. There are also some 80,000 dams in the United States alone, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Inventory of Dams.

“Reservoirs have typically been looked at as a green energy source,” Deemer said. “But their role in greenhouse gas emissions has been overlooked.” (more…)

Filed under: climate and weather, Dillon Reservoir, Environment, global warming | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Colorado: Coal still king in Summit County energy mix

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

The Four Corners coal power plant. Photo courtesy EcoFlight.org. Click to track Ecoflight state by state.

70 percent of the power for the local area derived from dirty fossil fuels

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Despite small-scale hyperlocal efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the local area still relies on coal to a much larger degree than the national average, according to an online EPA clean energy tracker.

The calculations, based on data from 2009, show that, for Frisco’s 80443 zip code, coal accounts for 67.8 percent of the energy used in the area. The national average is 44.5 percent. (more…)

Filed under: Colorado, energy, Environment, global warming, Summit County Colorado, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Large-scale forest bio-energy creates carbon debt

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Study says nurturing healthy forests does more to curb global warming

Healthy, growing forests are good carbon sinks; converting woody biomass to energy results in a carbon debt that takes 100 years to repay.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — While some logging advocates continue to talk up forest biomass as a green energy source, there’s good reason it isn’t happening on a significant scale. Cutting wood and burning live trees, in whatever form, is just not energy efficient, except perhaps on a modest scale with low-frequency harvests every 50 to 100 years — or on a small, local level, where already dead wood is converted fuel on the spot.

In one of the most recent studies, researchers at Duke and Oregon State universities concluded that maintaining intact forests as carbon sinks does more to curb climate change over the next century than cutting and burning their wood as fuel.

After modeling numerous harvesting and conversion scenarios, the study concluded that it takes more 100 years to repay the carbon debt — the net reduction in carbon storage — incurred by cutting, transporting and burning woody forest biomass. (more…)

Filed under: agriculture, climate and weather, Colorado, energy, Environment, Forest health, global warming | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Report: Large-scale forest biomass energy not sustainable

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Large-scale production could sacrifice forest ecosystem integrity and actually lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions

Forest biomass questioned as fuel source.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Large-scale use of forest biomass for energy production may be unsustainable and is likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions in the long run, according to a new study.

The research was done by the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany, Oregon State University, and other universities in Switzerland, Austria and France. The work was supported by several agencies in Europe and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The results show that a significant shift to forest biomass energy production would create a ubstantial risk of sacrificing forest integrity and sustainability with no guarantee that it would mitigate climate change,” according to the researchers. (more…)

Filed under: Colorado, energy, Environment, forests, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Marine reserves won’t save coral reefs from global warming

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

Healthy coral reefs of St. Croix. PHOTO COURTESY NOAA.

Protected areas help from local impacts, but don’t address overriding global threat of climate change; new study shows reefs within reserves are hit just as hard

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Stating the somewhat obvious, a team of researchers from the University of North Carolina said protected marine areas won’t protect coral reefs from global warming impacts, although the reserves could help provide safe zones where some species could recover from die-offs.

To protect coral reefs from climate change, marine protected areas need to be complemented with policies that can meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions, researchers concluded in a new study published recently online in Global Change Biology.

Richard B. Aronson, Ph.D., professor and head of the biological sciences department at the Florida Institute of Technology, said the study clearly showed that marine protected areas cannot by themselves save coral reefs. (more…)

Filed under: biodiversity, climate and weather, coral reefs, Environment, global warming, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

A small carbon tax on coal could help drive shift to natural gas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

The Mojave generating station, near Laughlin, Nevada. PHOTO VIA WIKIPEDIA AND THE CREATIVE COMMONS.

Harvard study tracks energy use, emissions during the 2009 recession

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — A slight shift in the relative prices of coal and natural gas could pay big dividends in the quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to Harvard researchers who said that, when the United States fell into the 2009  recession, greenhouse gas emissions also fell, by 6.59 percent relative to 2008.

They said that, in the power sector, the recession was not the main cause. Instead, it was a decrease in the price of natural gas reduced the industry’s reliance on coal.

According to the econometric model developed by the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, emissions could be cut further by the introduction of a carbon tax, with negligible impact on the price of electricity for consumers. (more…)

Filed under: air quality, energy, Environment, global warming, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

EPA makes greenhouse gas data more transparent

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Bob Berwyn

New online mapping tools help public pinpoint local sources

A new interactive map is part of the EPA's greenhouse gas reporting program.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Getting a grip on greenhouse gas emissions to curb global warming seems a daunting goal when you look at the big picture. But as with so many other challenging tasks, breaking things down to a manageable scale seems to help.

The EPA took a huge step in that direction this week by releasing a comprehensive greenhouse inventory and reporting tool that identifies specific sources and quantities, for example right down to the Summit County landfill, tabbed in this map as emitting 31,985 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The data is from the nation’s largest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases, which are collectively responsible for billions of tons of climate-disrupting pollution.

The data is easily accessible to the public through the EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting program, breaking down information from facilities in nine industry groups that directly emit large quantities of greenhouse gases, as well as suppliers of certain fossil fuels. (more…)

Filed under: air quality, Environment, global warming, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Environment: Global food demand expected to soar

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Bob Berwyn

Increasing global food production likely to add to greenhouse-gas woes.

Researchers recommend adoption of high-yield practices in developing countries

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY —A doubling of the global demand for food by 2050, the world will likely face create significant new environmental challenges unless agricultural practices change.

Producing the quantities of food needed to meet that demand could add significant amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrogen to the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming and potentially driving numerous species to extinction, according a report published last week in the  journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)

Filed under: agriculture, Environment, global warming, Summit County news | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

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