New paper finds warming causes less snow

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds that warmer temperatures cause less snow, and conversely, colder temperatures cause more snow. According to the authors, "Using a simple multivariate model, [increased] temperature is shown to drive these trends by decreasing snowfall almost everywhere." The paper refutes the claims of climate alarmists that global warming causes more snow.

Related:

WWF zealot immediately linked a heavy snowfall event in Moscow, Russia to ‘global warming’

Michael Tobis has bupkis3

Warmist Tobis says heavy snow is agw: calls anyone who mocks ‘clueless’

Journal of Climate 2013 ; e-View

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00528.1

Controls of Global Snow Under a Changed Climate

Sarah B. Kapnick* and Thomas L. Delworth

Princeton University and NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey

NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey

Abstract

This study assesses the ability of a newly developed high-resolution coupled model from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory to simulate the cold-season hydroclimate in the present climate, and examines its response to climate change forcing. Output is assessed from a 280-yr control simulation based on 1990 atmospheric composition and an idealized 140-yr future simulation where atmospheric CO₂ increases at 1% yr⁻¹ until doubling in year 70 and then remains constant.
When compared to a low-resolution model, the high-resolution model is found to better represent the geographic distribution of snow variables in the present climate. In response to idealized radiative forcing changes, both models produce similar global-scale responses where global-mean temperature and total precipitation increase while snowfall decreases. Zonally, snowfall tends to decrease in the low to mid latitudes and increase in the mid to high latitudes.

At the regional scale, the high and low-resolution models sometimes diverge in the sign of projected snowfall changes; the high-resolution model exhibits future increases in a few select high altitude regions, notably the northwestern Himalaya region and small regions in the Andes and southwestern Yukon. Despite such local signals, there is an almost universal reduction in snowfall as a percent of total precipitation in both models. Using a simple multivariate model, temperature is shown to drive these trends by decreasing snowfall almost everywhere while precipitation increases snowfall in the high altitudes and mid to high latitudes. Mountainous regions of snowfall increases in the high-resolution model exhibit a unique dominance of the positive contribution from precipitation over temperature.

New paper finds climate models exaggerate global warming compared to historical data

A paper published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres admits that state-of-the-art climate models exaggerate alleged warming from greenhouse gases, finding the models "overestimate the observed temperature change" in comparison to historical data since 1850. The authors also find the various models have a "large spread" or widely divergent temperature projections. The paper adds to hundreds of other peer-reviewed papers demonstrating the abject failure of climate models

Evaluating adjusted forcing and model spread for historical and future scenarios in the CMIP5 generation of climate models

Abstract: We utilize energy budget diagnostics from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) to evaluate the models' climate forcing since preindustrial times employing an established regression technique. The climate forcing evaluated this way, termed the adjusted forcing (AF), includes a rapid adjustment term associated with cloud changes and other tropospheric and land-surface changes. We estimate a 2010 total anthropogenic and natural AF from CMIP5 models of 1.9 ± 0.9 W m⁻² (5–95% range). The projected AF of the Representative Concentration Pathway simulations are lower than their expected radiative forcing (RF) in 2095 but agree well with efficacy weighted forcings from integrated assessment models. The smaller AF, compared to RF, is likely due to cloud adjustment. Multimodel time series of temperature change and AF from 1850 to 2100 have large intermodel spreads throughout the period. The intermodel spread of temperature change is principally driven by forcing differences in the present day and climate feedback differences in 2095, although forcing differences are still important for model spread at 2095. We find no significant relationship between the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of a model and its 2003 AF, in contrast to that found in older models where higher ECS models generally had less forcing. Given the large present-day model spread, there is no indication of any tendency by modelling groups to adjust their aerosol forcing in order to produce observed trends. Instead, some CMIP5 models have a relatively large positive forcing and overestimate the observed temperature change.

Settled science: New study 'shows that atmospheric gases can help clouds form in a way no one had ever considered'

Scientific American reports today, "a new study shows that atmospheric gases can help clouds form in a way no one had ever considered" and, in perhaps the understatement of the year, that "Although scientists may have a better handle on clouds, even they don’t know it all." The uncertainties with respect to clouds greatly exceed the alleged effect of CO2, such as recent papers demonstrating an increase in US sunshine has had 4.4 times more effect than greenhouse gases since 1996 and that an observed decrease in cloud cover alone could account for all global warming observed since the ice age scare of the 1970's.

Organic Gases Help Cloud Formation

Organic gases gases coat aerosolized particles in the atmosphere, enhancing their potential to form cloud droplets. Karen Hopkin reports.

Download MP3

Clouds. They’re fluffy, white, and full of mystery. [Song lyric: I really don’t know clouds at all.] Although scientists may have a better handle on clouds, even they don’t know it all. Because a new study shows that atmospheric gases can help clouds form in a way no one had ever considered. That’s according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Neha Sareen et al, Surfactants from the gas phase may promote cloud droplet formation]

Clouds form when water vapor condenses around dust particles in the atmosphere. But there’s more to the sky than just water and dust. The atmosphere is loaded with trace amounts of a variety of carbon-containing gases.

To see how these organic gases might affect cloud formation, scientists mixed them with aerosolized particles, and then loaded the particles into an experimental cloud chamber. And they found that the gases coat the particles and make them more “soapy,” which enhances their ability to form cloud droplets.

Because clouds reflect incoming sunlight, the findings could lead to better climate models. And maybe another look at clouds. [Song lyric: I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.]

—Karen Hopkin

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]

New paper finds Amazon resilient to climate change due to CO2 fertilization

"The boost to growth from CO2, the main gas from burning fossil fuels [falsely] blamed for causing climate change, was likely to exceed damaging effects of rising temperatures this century such as drought" 

"CO2 fertilization will beat the negative effect of climate change so that forests will continue to accumulate carbon throughout the 21st century''

Related: 

• New paper predicts CO2 fertilization will greatly improve plant productivity by 40-60%
• New paper finds increased CO2 and global warming will increase grain production
• Alarmist claim Amazon will dry up bites the dust: New paper says core of Amazon rainforest will remain stable & rainfall increase

Study: Amazon Forest More Resilient to Climate Change Than Feared

by Reuters  2/6/13

The Amazon rainforest is less vulnerable to die off because of global warming than widely believed because the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide also acts as an airborne fertilizer, a study showed on Wednesday.

The boost to growth from CO2, the main gas from burning fossil fuels blamed for causing climate change, was likely to exceed damaging effects of rising temperatures this century such as drought, it said.

"I am no longer so worried about a catastrophic die-back due to CO2-induced climate change,'' Professor Peter Cox of the University of Exeter in England told Reuters of the study he led in the journal Nature. "In that sense it's good news.''

Cox was also the main author of a much-quoted study in 2000 that projected that the Amazon rainforest might dry out from about 2050 and die off because of warming. Others have since suggested fires could transform much the forest into savannah.

Plants soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it as an ingredient to grow leaves, branches and roots. Stored carbon gets released back to the atmosphere when plants rot or are burned.

A retreat of the Amazon forests, releasing vast stores of carbon, could in turn aggravate global warming that is projected to cause more floods, more powerful storms and raise world sea levels by melting ice sheets.

"CO2 fertilization will beat the negative effect of climate change so that forests will continue to accumulate carbon throughout the 21st century,'' Cox said of the findings with other British-based researchers.

Root and branch 

The scientists said the study was a step forward because it used models comparing forest growth with variations in the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

It estimated that the damaging effects of warming would cause the release of 53 billion tons of carbon stored in lands throughout the tropics, much of it in the Amazon, for every single degree Celsius (1.8F) of temperature rise.

The benefits of CO2 fertilization exceeded those losses in most scenarios, which ranged up to a 319 billion-ton net gain of stored carbon over the 21st century. About 500 to 1,000 billion tons of carbon are stored in land in the tropics.

Climate change would be more damaging for the Amazon if greenhouse gases other than CO2, such as ozone or methane which do not have a fertilizing effect, take a bigger role, the study said.

It did not factor in damaging effects from deforestation, mostly burning to clear land for farms, that is blamed for perhaps 17 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

Brazil has sharply reduced forest losses in recent years. But predictions of a die-back in coming decades had led some people to conclude that there was no point safeguarding trees.

"Some people argued bizarrely that it would be better to  chop them down and use them now,'' Cox said, adding that the new findings meant that reasoning was no longer valid.
    
By underlining the importance of trees for soaking up CO2, the study could also bolster slow-paced efforts to create a market mechanism to reward nations for preserving tropical forests as part of U.N. negotiations on a new treaty to slow climate change, due to be agreed by the end of 2015.

New paper finds natural variability controls CO2 levels, not man

An important new paper published today in Global Biogeochemical Cycles finds that "In contrast to recent claims, trends in the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon [dioxide] cannot be detected when accounting for the decadal-scale influence of explosive volcanism and related uncertainties." In other words, after accounting for the large effect of volcanic eruptions,  ENSO, and other uncertainties upon natural CO2 sinks, trends in the man-made fraction of atmospheric CO2 "cannot be detected." Thus, despite an exponential increase in man-made CO2 emissions, there is no statistically significant trend in the man-made fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere. This further suggests that man is not the primary cause of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, that temperature is responsible for the increase in CO2 levels due to out-gassing. According to the authors, "Our results highlight the importance of considering the role of natural variability in the carbon cycle for interpretation of observations and for data-model intercomparison."

Note man-made emissions are only about 4% of the total CO2 emissions in the atmosphere, and CO2 only represents about 0.04% of the entire atmosphere.

Atmospheric CO2 response to volcanic eruptions: the role of ENSO, season, and variability
Thomas Lukas Frölicher et al

Abstract: Tropical explosive volcanism is one of the most important natural factors that significantly impact the climate system and the carbon cycle on annual to multi-decadal time scales. The three largest explosive eruptions in the last 50 years - Agung, El Chichón, and Pinatubo - occurred in spring/summer in conjunction with El Niño events and left distinct negative signals in the observational temperature and CO2 records. However, confounding factors such as seasonal variability and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) may obscure the forcing-response relationship. We determine for the first time the extent to which initial conditions, i.e. season and phase of the ENSO, and internal variability influence the coupled climate and carbon cycle response to volcanic forcing and how this affects estimates of the terrestrial and oceanic carbon sinks. Ensemble simulations with the Earth System Model CSM1.4-carbon predict that the atmospheric CO2 response is ~60% larger when a volcanic eruption occurs during El Niño and in winter than during La Niña conditions. Our simulations suggest that the Pinatubo eruption contributed 11 ± 6% to the 25 Pg terrestrial carbon sink inferred over the decade 1990-1999 and -2 ± 1% to the 22 Pg oceanic carbon sink. In contrast to recent claims, trends in the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon cannot be detected when accounting for the decadal-scale influence of explosive volcanism and related uncertainties. Our results highlight the importance of considering the role of natural variability in the carbon cycle for interpretation of observations and for data-model intercomparison.

Related:

Single graph demonstrates man-made CO2 is not the driver of global warming

Climate scientist Dr. Murry Salby explains why man-made CO2 does not control climate

New paper finds Greenland Istorvet icecap was smaller than the present 1000 years ago

A paper published today in Quaternary Science Reviews examines fossilized plants at the edge of the Istorvet ice cap in East Greenland and determines the ice cap "was smaller than the present from AD 200 to AD 1025." The ice cap subsequently grew during the Little Ice Age [LIA] and then retreated to the present size significantly larger than was present during the Medieval & Roman warming periods. 

Aerial photo of the Istorvet ice cap today, retreated positions shown by dots above from AD 600-1000, and lower limit during the LIA shown by "LIA Limit"

Late Holocene expansion of Istorvet ice cap, Liverpool Land, east Greenland

• Thomas V. Lowell^a, , , 
• Brenda L. Hall^b, 
• Meredith A. Kelly^c, 
• Ole Bennike^d, 
• Amanda R. Lusas^b, 
• William Honsaker^a, 
• Colby A. Smith^a, 
• Laura B. Levy^c, 
• Scott Travis^e, 
• George H. Denton^b

• ^a Department of Geology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45226, USA
• ^b School of Earth and Climate Sciences and the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA
• ^c Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
• ^d Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Oster Voldgade 10, Copenhagen, Denmark
• ^e GCI, 41086 Tiller Road, Soldiers Grove, WI 54655, USA

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.11.012, How to Cite or Link Using DOI

• Permissions & Reprints

---

Abstract

The Greenland Ice Sheet is undergoing dynamic changes that will have global implications if they continue into the future. In this regard, an understanding of how the ice sheet responded to past climate changes affords a baseline for anticipating future behavior. Small, independent ice caps adjacent to the Greenland Ice Sheet (hereinafter called “local ice caps”) are sensitive indicators of the response of Greenland ice-marginal zones to climate change. Therefore, we reconstructed late Holocene ice-marginal fluctuations of the local Istorvet ice cap in east Greenland, using radiocarbon dates of subfossil plants, ¹⁰Be dates of surface boulders, and analyses of sediment cores from both threshold and control lakes. During the last termination, the Istorvet ice cap had retreated close to its maximum Holocene position by ∼11,730 cal yr BP. Radiocarbon dates of subfossil plants exposed by recent recession of the ice margin indicate that the Istorvet cap was smaller than at present from AD 200 to AD 1025. Sediments from a threshold lake show no glacial input until the ice cap advanced to within 365 m of its Holocene maximum position by ∼AD 1150. Thereafter the ice cap remained at or close to this position until at least AD 1660. The timing of this, the most extensive of the Holocene, expansion is similar to that recorded at some glaciers in the Alps and in southern Alaska. However, in contrast to these other regions, the expansion in east Greenland at AD 1150 appears to have been very close to, if not at, a maximum Holocene value. Comparison of the Istorvet ice-cap fluctuations with Holocene glacier extents in Southern Hemisphere middle-to-high latitude locations on the Antarctic Peninsula and in the Andes and the Southern Alps suggests an out-of-phase relationship. If correct, this pattern supports the hypothesis that a bipolar see-saw of oceanic and/or atmospheric circulation during the Holocene produced asynchronous glacier response at some localities in the two polar hemispheres.

---

Highlights

► Deglaciation to the present extent of local ice cap completed by 11,730 cal yr BP. ► Relic plant remains indicate former restricted extent of ice caps in East Greenland. ► Ice cap extents were smaller than present until about AD 1025. ► Local independent Greenland glaciers reached Holocene maximum by AD 1150. ► The Greenland ice sheet may mirror the Holocene growth and decay of local ice caps.

New paper finds tree-ring studies underestimate climate extremes of the past

A new paper published in Nature Climate Change finds tree-ring reconstructions of temperature, such as Mann's infamous hockey stick, "underestimate climate fluctuations of, for example, air temperature," due to data complicated by "the climate of past years and other factors like tree age" and precipitation. "Our results point to uncertainties in the global climate system that were previously not recognized," says David Frank, co-author of the study. 

Understanding Earth's Climate Prior to the Industrial Era

enlarge

Section of annual tree-rings of Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris) from Valais (Sitzerland). The tree-rings consist of thick- and thin-walled cells and can be wide or narrow depending on the weather, species, tree age and site. (Credit: WSL)

Feb. 1, 2013 — Climate signals locked in the layers of glacial ice, preserved in the annual growth rings of trees, or fingerprinted in other so-called proxy archives such as lake sediments, speleothems, and corals allow researchers to quantify climate variation prior to instrumental measurements. An international research team has now investigated hundreds of these proxy records from across the globe and compared them with both simulations of the Earth’s climate and instrumental measurements of temperature and precipitation.

Climate extremes not always recognized in proxy archives

The scientists learned that these proxy archives provide an incomplete record of climate variation. The annual width or density of tree-rings is not only influenced by temperature while the ring is developing, but also from the climate of the past years and other factors like tree age. This makes it difficult to extract pure temperature signals from these natural archives. Importantly, the researchers found out that proxy data underestimate climate fluctuations of, for example, air temperature over the land surface where large year-to-year variability is common. In contrast, long-term trends in precipitation tend to be exaggerated by the proxy records. These findings indicate that the proxy data often result in a “blurry picture” of climate variation. The researchers were able to conclude from their work that short-term extreme climate events, such as individual years with hot summers, are not well captured by the proxy reconstructions.

Temperature trends can’t be used to understand rainfall

Investigations on the individual factors and processes fingerprinted in tree-ring, ice-core and speleothem records are needed to develop a more accurate history and understanding of the climate system. The authors explicitly warn that proxy records that predominately reflect temperature variation should not be used to make conclusions about precipitation change and vice-versa. "Our results point to uncertainties in the global climate system that were previously not recognized," says David Frank, co-author of this study. He continues: "This might be surprising because we know more about the Earth’s climate now than say 20-years ago. Part of the scientific process is to confront and uncover these unknowns while developing climate reconstructions." There is still a lot of basic research needed to reduce uncertainties about how the Earth’s climate system operated prior to the industrial era and how it may operate in the future.

Spectral biases in tree-ring climate proxies

• Jörg Franke,
• David Frank,
• Christoph C. Raible,
• Jan Esper
• & Stefan Brönnimann

• Affiliations
• Contributions
• Corresponding author

Nature Climate Change

 

(2013)

 

doi:10.1038/nclimate1816

Received

 

14 December 2011 

Accepted

 

07 January 2013 

Published online

 

03 February 2013

Article tools

External forcing and internal dynamics result in climate system variability ranging from sub-daily weather to multi-centennial trends and beyond^1, 2. State-of-the-art palaeoclimatic methods routinely use hydroclimatic proxies to reconstruct temperature (for example, refs 3, 4), possibly blurring differences in the variability continuum of temperature and precipitation before the instrumental period. Here, we assess the spectral characteristics of temperature and precipitation fluctuations in observations, model simulations and proxy records across the globe. We find that whereas an ensemble of different general circulation models represents patterns captured in instrumental measurements, such as land–ocean contrasts and enhanced low-frequency tropical variability, the tree-ring-dominated proxy collection does not. The observed dominance of inter-annual precipitation fluctuations is not reflected in the annually resolved hydroclimatic proxy records. Likewise, temperature-sensitive proxies overestimate, on average, the ratio of low- to high-frequency variability. These spectral biases in the proxy records seem to propagate into multi-proxy climate reconstructions for which we observe an overestimation of low-frequency signals. Thus, a proper representation of the high- to low-frequency spectrum in proxy records is needed to reduce uncertainties in climate reconstruction efforts.

The Inconvenient Truth About Polar Bears

"There are far more polar bears alive today than there were 40 years ago"... "polar bear populations are large, and the truth is that we can't look at it as a monolithic population that is all going one way or another."

by NPR STAFF  February 02, 2013

In 2008, reports of polar bears' inevitable march toward extinction gripped headlines. Stories of thinning Arctic ice and even polar bear cannibalism combined to make these predators into a powerful symbol in the debate about climate change.

The headlines caught Zac Unger's attention, and he decided to write a book about the bears.

Unger made a plan to move to Churchill, Manitoba, a flat, gray place on the Hudson Bay in northern Canada accessible only by train or plane. For a few months out of the year, as the bay starts to freeze, tiny Churchill boasts as many polar bears as it does people.

Unger packed up his wife and three small kids, and set out with a big bold idea. He wanted to write the quintessential requiem of how human-caused climate change was killing off these magnificent beasts.

In the end, he came away with something totally different, Unger tells NPR's Laura Sullivan.


Interview Highlights

On wanting to write the next great environmental tract

"My humble plan was to become a hero of the environmental movement. I was going to go up to the Canadian Arctic, I was going to write this mournful elegy for the polar bears, at which point I'd be hailed as the next coming of John Muir and borne aloft on the shoulders of my environmental compatriots ...

"So when I got up there, I started realizing polar bears were not in as bad a shape as the conventional wisdom had led me to believe, which was actually very heartening, but didn't fit well with the book I'd been planning to write.

"... There are far more polar bears alive today than there were 40 years ago. ... In 1973, there was a global hunting ban. So once hunting was dramatically reduced, the population exploded. This is not to say that global warming is not real or is not a problem for the polar bears. But polar bear populations are large, and the truth is that we can't look at it as a monolithic population that is all going one way or another."

On moving his family to "Polar Bear Capital of the World"

"We were in this town in northern Manitoba where polar bears literally will walk down Main Street. There are polar bears in this town. People will leave their cars and houses unlocked, and it's perfectly good form just to duck into any open door you can find when there's a polar bear chasing you.

"People use what they call Churchill welcome mats, which is a piece of plywood laid down in front of the door or leaned up against the door with hundreds of nails sticking out so that when the polar bear comes up to pad across your porch, he's going to get a paw full of sharp nails."

On Churchill's strategies for living among bears

"There are definitely polar bears that come into town; there are definitely polar bears that will eat people's dogs. But Churchill has developed an innovative polar bear alert program. The way it works is you dial a phone number — 675-BEAR — if you see a bear, and a bunch of wildlife conservation officers will come by in a truck with a bunch of guns. And they try really hard not to harm the bears, and they kind of scare the bears out of town. They have a progression that they use: First, they will fire firecracker shells; then they move up to rubber bullets; and as a last resort, they'll move up to real bullets.

"They don't want to do that. These are conservation officers so their job is to keep bears safe. Churchill also has a polar bear jail. These are for bears who keep coming into town and can't be hazed out of town. And what they'll do is they will trap these bears and put them in the polar bear jail, which is just a great big decommissioned military building. And they will give them no food, and they're given only snow to drink and then they wait until the bay freezes up. And when the bay freezes up, these bears can be released to go back out on the ice.

"[The bears] don't want to be in town, they're just waiting for the ice to freeze. But if they're a hassle in town, put them in jail, give them a short sentence, and the problem is solved."

On trick-or-treating when polar bears might be lurking around the corner

"Halloween is when you're supposed to go up with lots of food and run around with your kids. So we were up there for Halloween ... and so what they do is when you go out trick-or-treating you go out with somebody who has a gun — whether it's a police officer, or a volunteer or someone from the military. They all come out and they help you go trick-or-treating. Now, they have one rule, which is that kids can't dress in anything white — no princesses, no ghosts — because you don't want to be dressed as something white in the darkness when there's a bunch of guys with guns looking for polar bears."

New study finds wind farms last only 50% of claimed lifetime

A peer-reviewed study finds from actual performance data of wind farms in the UK and Denmark that the life of wind turbines is only about 50% of that claimed by the wind industry. The report finds the performance "of wind farms declines substantially as they get older, probably due to wear and tear" and that "This decline in performance means that it is rarely economic to operate wind farms for more than 12 to 15 years. After this period they must be replaced with new machines, a finding that has profound consequences for investors and government alike."

From the press release of the study:

The Renewable Energy Foundation today published a new study, The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark, showing that the economic life of onshore wind turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 years projected by the wind industry itself, and used for government projections.

The work has been conducted by one of the UK’s leading energy & environmental economists, Professor Gordon Hughes of the University of Edinburgh, and has been anonymously peer-reviewed. This groundbreaking study applies rigorous statistical analysis to years of actual wind farm performance data from wind farms in both the UK and in Denmark.

The results show that after allowing for variations in wind speed and site characteristics the average load factor [performance] of wind farms declines substantially as they get older, probably due to wear and tear. By 10 years of age the contribution of an average UK wind farm to meeting electricity demand has declined by a third.

This decline in performance means that it is rarely economic to operate wind farms for more than 12 to 15 years. After this period they must be replaced with new machines, a finding that has profound consequences for investors and government alike.

Policymakers expecting wind farms built before 2010 to be contributing towards CO2 targets in 2020 or later must allow for the likelihood that the total investment required to meet these targets will be much larger than previous forecasts have suggested. As a consequence, the lifetime cost per unit (MWh) of electricity generated by wind power will be considerably higher than official estimates.

 

 

h/t Tory Aardvark

Obama admin wants to grant permits for wind turbines to kill bald eagles

The Fish and Wildlife Service 

Is Not for the Birds

By ROBERT BRYCE  WSJ.COM  2/2/13

On June 20, 1782, the Continental Congress, after nearly six years of haggling and numerous design changes, finally approved the Great Seal of the United States. In doing so, it made the bald eagle our national symbol. This year, in the name of clean energy, the Fish and Wildlife Service is considering changing federal rules so that a wind-energy developer can be granted an "incidental-take" permit allowing wind projects to kill bald eagles and golden eagles for up to 30 years.

On Jan. 15, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the New Era Wind Farm—a proposed project near Red Wing, Minn.—might kill as many as 14 bald eagles per year. Despite that toll, the agency said the developer of the 48-turbine wind farm could go ahead and apply for an eagle-kill permit. If granted, it could be the first project to get one. At least one other wind-energy concern, Oregon's West Butte Wind Project, also has applied for an incidental-take permit, and others are sure to follow.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said that its estimate for bald eagle kills at the New Era facility was a "worst-case scenario" that "would not damage" the local population of bald eagles. That might be true. Nevertheless, the possibility that federal authorities are willing to issue such a permit once again exposes the double standard at work when it comes to renewable energy.

For years, the wind industry has had de facto permission to violate both the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (which protects 1,000 species) and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Federal authorities have never brought a case under either law—despite the Fish and Wildlife Service's estimate that domestic turbines kill some 440,000 birds per year.

While the wind industry enjoys its exemption from prosecution under these federal wildlife laws, the Interior Department has aggressively brought cases against the oil-and-gas industry. In 2011, the Fish and Wildlife Service filed criminal indictments against three drillers who were operating in North Dakota's Bakken field. One of those companies, Continental Resources, was indicted for killing a single bird (a Say's Phoebe) that is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. This law was adopted in 1918, at a time when several bird species were being decimated by hunters.

Compare the action taken against Continental Resources with the Pine Tree wind project, a three-year-old facility owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Since 2009, nine golden eagle carcasses have been recovered at the project and reported to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Los Angeles Times reporter Louis Sahagun reported on Feb. 16, 2012, that at least six of the birds had been struck by turbine blades. Yet there have been no indictments. Jill Birchell, special agent in charge of law enforcement for the Fish and Wildlife Service in California and Nevada refused to comment on the Pine Tree case, other than to tell me that "it is an ongoing criminal investigation."

Federal law has protected the bald eagle since 1940, the golden eagle since 1962. Violating the Eagle Protection Act can result in a fine of $250,000 and imprisonment for two years. From 1976 to 2007, the bald eagle also was protected under the Endangered Species Act. It got off the federal endangered-species list—among only a handful of animals ever to do so—thanks to decades of conservation efforts, including captive-breeding projects, some of which were sponsored by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Today, there are about 10,000 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. But they are still protected by both the Eagle and Migratory Bird acts.

Getting a permit to kill eagles has always been difficult. Indian tribes are allowed to obtain eagle feathers for religious purposes. In addition, some scientific and educational entities can be permitted to possess eagle parts.

The wind-energy lobby has sought such permission for years, insisting that eagle-kill permits ought to last longer than the current limit of five years. Last April the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed, and it published a Federal Register notice saying it planned to extend incidental-take permits to 30 years so as to "facilitate the responsible development of renewable energy."

Although the agency hasn't made a final ruling on the 30-year permit, the proposal has riled environmental groups and several Native American tribes. The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Defenders of Wildlife, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society submitted a joint statement to the Fish and Wildlife Service saying that the 30-year term was too long and that there was a "lack of sufficient baseline population data" on the two eagle species.

An eagle-kill permit "infuriates me," says Daniel Stussy, who owns a 20-acre farm on the border of the proposed New Era Wind Farm in Minnesota. "As a hunter, if I mistook the bald eagle for a Canada goose, a big fine would be the least of my worries. I couldn't even go to town for coffee because I'd be so ashamed."

Kelly Fuller of the American Bird Conservancy has a stronger warning: "If you want to turn the public against the wind industry, building a project that kills a lot of bald eagles will do it."

Mr. Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future" (PublicAffairs, 2010).

New paper finds climate change benefits Chinese agriculture

A paper published today in Global and Planetary Change predicts climate change will result in a significant increase of productivity for Chinese agriculture. According to the authors, "the annual impact of temperature on net crop revenue per hectare was positive," and "climate change may create a potential advantage for the development of Chinese agriculture, rather than a risk." The paper adds to many other peer-reviewed publications demonstrating that warming increases agricultural productivity.

The impacts of Climate change on crops in China: A Ricardian analysis

• Yongfu Chen^a, , , 
• Zhigang Wu^b, , 
• Katsuo Okamoto^c, , 
• Xinru Han^a, , 
• Guoying Ma^a, ,
• Hsiaoping Chien^d, , 
• Jing Zhao^e, 

• ^a College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, P.R. China
• ^b Research Center for Rural Economy, Ministry of Agriculture of China, Beijing 100810, P.R. China
• ^c National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, 3-1-3 Kan'non-dai, Tsukuba, 305–8604, Japan
• ^d Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Tsukuba 305–8686, Japan
• ^e Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia, MO 65211, USA

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.01.005, 

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Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of climate change on China's agricultural production at a cross-provincial level using the Ricardian approach, incorporating a multilevel model with farm-level group data. The farm-level group data includes 13379 farm households, across 316 villages, distributed in 31 provinces. The empirical results show that, firstly, the marginal effects and elasticities of net crop revenue per hectare with respect to climate factors indicated that the annual impact of temperature on net crop revenue per hectare was positive, and the effect of increased precipitation was negative when looking at the national totals; secondly, the total impact of simulated climate change scenarios on net crop revenues per hectare at a Chinese national total level, was an increase of between 79 USD per hectare and 207 USD per hectare for the 2050s, and an increase from 140 USD per hectare to 355 USD per hectare for the 2080s. As a result, climate change may create a potential advantage for the development of Chinese agriculture, rather than a risk, especially for agriculture in the provinces of the Northeast, Northwest and North regions. However, the increased precipitation can lead to a loss of net crop revenue per hectare, especially for the provinces of the Southwest, Northwest, North and Northeast regions.

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Highlights

► This paper assesses the impact of climate change on China's agricultural production at a cross-provincial level using the Ricardian approach, incorporating a multilevel model with farm-level group data. ► The farm-level group data include 13379 farm households, across 316 villages, distributed in 31 provinces. ► Climate change may create a potential advantage for the development of Chinese agriculture, rather than a risk, especially for agriculture in the provinces of the Northeast, Northwest and North regions. ► The increased precipitation can lead to a loss of net crop revenue per hectare, especially for the provinces of the Southwest, Northwest, North and Northeast regions.