A Perfect Storm Cometh

Methane Clathrate Bomb Detonating?

2012-01-02T20:29:00.001-05:00

The Methane Clathrate Bomb may be detonating in earnest. Last summer scientists undertook an emergency research cruise in Arctic waters off of Siberia. They found methane emissions from the sea floor - methane clathrates, or methane frozen inside balls of ice - that were as much as 30x bigger than those found just two years earlier. Fields of methane bubbling up from the Arctic sea floor as side as a kilometer, or 0.6 miles, wide. Over half a mile wide!

I will complete this post later, but chew on these images:

November 2010 atmospheric methane:

ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/MAPS/NH/ARCTpolar2010.11._AIRS_CH4_400.jpg

Nobember 2011 atmospheric methane:

ftp://asl.umbc.edu/pub/yurganov/methane/MAPS/NH/ARCTpolar2011.11._AIRS_CH4_400.jpg

An Open Letter re: Occupy Detroit

2011-10-12T15:25:00.000-04:00

Iwant to thank Yusef for responding and sharing some time with me last night.Good conversation.

Aswas noted last night, coming together to break bread, eye to eye, is real; youcan’t hide, pretend, be lost in your own stuff or you can, should, and will becalled on it. This highlights some of the difficulty in dealing with thisOccupy Detroit process here in Detroit in reaching out to those who haveorganized it until now: it’s difficult to get a response.

Twomen talking together is not going to solve the problems inherent in thousandsof people attempting to come together to do good work, nor necessarily resolveanything in the moment. But it does create conditions for honest communicationand perhaps a deeper understanding, partly arising out of give and take in themoment where intellectual and emotional responses interact immediately and thetwo modes are melded in time. E-mail and written communications do not allowfor this.

Racism/~ismsIn Context

Ido not oppose not using “occupy,” but I take a long, long view on all issues.None of what we do is any longer relevant outside of a very long term view. Ido not mean to seem dismissive of the concerns others have on any given issuein any given debate; I very simply see many of the issues that divide us,intentionally or not, as being made irrelevant by larger forces over time. Theclimate and energy issues are so far advanced that designing a survivablefuture is now in a critical response phase. We don’t have time to solve food,race, and economic issues as separate issues. We don’t have time to solve themas integrated issues. We only have time to design a different future. Thebeauty of this is a sustainable future cannot co-exist with racism, classism,ageism or any of the other issues we choose to separate ourselves by. Thesefault lines are largely irrelevant in the sense that a fisherman on a beachworking to repair his net even as a tsunami approaches has chosen to focus onthe wrong thing. You deal with the emergency first, survival second becausethere is no survival if you fail to get through the emergency.

Weare in an emergency.

Climateis changing so much faster than many seem to understand, and fewer stillunderstand the implications of that. We will be living in chaos long before wereach any given milestone because it is the extremes that get you. Long beforethe average temperature is 3C higher than in 1850, ecosystems will be destroyedby the 20 days or more of 100F temperatures of an otherwise livable summer,e.g. Ask Texas. The emergency is already here and mitigating it is amulti-decade process, at best. If the methane deposits in the Arctic havealready begun a self-propagating decline, we may have already lost the battle –and there are signs that is the case.

Theemergency is already here. The scope of that emergency means it is all hands tothe fire hoses and bucket brigades; nothing else is relevant.

Racismis not irrelevant in and of itself. It is relevant to how we got where we are;it is relevant to who we are; it is relevant to our daily lives and ourimmediate futures. But it is not relevant as a primary tool to address theemergency. We cannot undo racism in time frames that equal surviving theemergency. The same can be said for any other divisive issue. It’s a bit likehow our vision works: sometimes to see something most clearly we have to lookslightly to the side. Focusing on racism, or economic justice, food justice, orenvironmental justice, etc., is a focus that makes it more difficult to see thefull extent of the emergency.

Itis this longer term perspective as to what should be dominating ourconversations in order to address the emergency that is behind everything I sayand do. It is this I attempted to share with Yusef last night.

TheUse of Occupy

Asa former teacher of English as a Foreign Language, I can boil teaching languagedown to one simple observation: context is everything. I viscerally respond tothe banishment of words because of a context that is not always applicable. Isit a fight we need to have? If in Detroit the term is so offensive, then Iguess it should be changed, but we have tongues, teeth, a larynx and lungs tocommunicate with. Can the offensiveness of the term not be acknowledged, sensitivityto that be offered, yet still retain the word? Are not the offended under someresponsibility to understand the use in context, and choose not to be offendedwhen no offense is offered? Is this sort of conversation not what communicationis supposed to allow? Is tolerance not the responsibility of all? Frankly, whyshould I not be offended if a person takes offense when I have not offered anyand forces me to abandon language that is otherwise appropriate?

Ouractions are not words. Both sides of any argument about connotation havelegitimate stances: The offended consider the user of a given word to beintolerant, the user of a word not meant to give offense finds those offendedintolerant. Perhaps the tie goes to the former. I mean only to sketch myintellectual ambivalence to the objection to words. I am frustrated thatcommunication cannot allow us to defuse such emotive booby traps.

Buthow does one not accede to a people whose ancestors have been enslaved, who arethe most affected by the current economic slavery? This is obviously a deeperissue than my distaste for not accepting words in their context or the desireto keep a visual/verbal consistency with all the other “occupy” processesevolving. Perhaps in Detroit the time needed to defuse this particular wordbomb is a waste of time. Perhaps this needs to be made clear to the GA ofOccupy Detroit. There are alternatives. Unified Detroit in Solidarity withOccupy Wall St., for example.

Ifthe GA ultimately chooses not to change it (though given the process ofconsensus that is a near impossibility… more on that later), I wonder at whatis lost if what is now called Occupy Detroit is not joined by the people I knowto be doing elegant and important work in this city. If the naming cannot be resolved,what then? If this nascent “movement” should become a vehicle for globalmobilization of the oppressed, and Detroit sits out, what does that mean? Whatare the implications? I come back to the emergency. A survivable future is aglobal solution. It is a systemic solution and if any given part of the systemdoes not achieve sustainability, ultimately the entire system fails.

Ultimately,this kind of discussion is keeping us from focusing on the emergency and atsome point we will have to prioritize or let the world burn and us along withit.

Iam frustrated by the opposition to Occupy Detroit for one very simple reason,that to me is obvious, but what I believe to be obvious is perhaps my ownignorance: The consensus decision-making process, as I understand it, makes thedissenter the most powerful person in the room so long as their dissent islegitimate. It is the decision-making process most likely to address dissentbecause of the ability to block any action given legitimate grounds. This is whyI fail to understand why those of you who would seek to rename or refocusOccupy Detroit choose non-participation and a separate process. You areabandoning your power in the process.

UsingConsensus to Address Your Concerns

Itis very important to the success of consensus to understand the process andhave training in the use of it. At the GA meeting it was clear many did notunderstand the process. E.g., anyone could have chose to apply the “block” toinsist on a fuller conversation about locations. Nobody did, but there wascomplaint about the decision being “rammed” through when, in fact, it had notbeen. Nobody blocked, so it passed. The process functioned as designed. JeffDebruyn left and criticized later. He failed to understand his power to changewhat was happening lay in participation, not disengagement.

TheGA didn’t fail, those who abandoned the process did. Fail is too strong,really, since it seems it was a lack of knowledge of the process that resultedin non-use of its conventions. In fact, those who organized the GA failed, ifanyone did, when they didn’t train the GA attendees sufficiently in process.This supports the critique that Occupy Detroit may be moving too fast. Had theymade training their first agenda item and taken time to walk through at leastthe basics of the process perhaps none would have left feeling the processfailed.

Ihope the Detroit Facilitation guild will engage and believe steps are beingtaken to make it so. A link: Consensus Decision-making

Highlights:

* The input and ideas of all participants aregathered and synthesized to arrive at a final decision acceptable to all.Through consensus, we are not only working to achieve better solutions, butalso to promote the growth of community and trust.

* With consensus people can and should workthrough differences and reach a mutually satisfactory position. It is possiblefor one person's insights or strongly held beliefs to sway the whole group. Noideas are lost, each member's input is valued as part of the solution.

* Consensus does not mean that everyone thinksthat the decision made is necessarily the best one possible, or even that theyare sure it will work. What it does mean is that in coming to that decision, noone felt that her/his position on the matter was misunderstood or that itwasn't given a proper hearing.

* For consensus to be a positive experience, itis best if the group has 1) common values, 2) some skill in group process andconflict resolution, or a commitment to let these be facilitated, 3) commitmentand responsibility to the group by its members and 4) sufficient time foreveryone to participate in the process.

* During discussion a proposal for resolution isput forward. It is amended and modified through more discussion, or withdrawnif it seems to be a dead end. During this discussion period it is important toarticulate differences clearly. It is the responsibility of those who are havingtrouble with a proposal to put forth alternative suggestions.

* The fundamental right of consensus is for allpeople to be able to express themselves in their own words and of their ownwill. The fundamental responsibility of consensus is to assure others of theirright to speak and be heard.

* If a decision has been reached, or is on theverge of being reached that you cannot support, there are several ways toexpress your objections:

Non-support ("I don't see the need forthis, but I'll go along.")

Reservations ('I think this may be a mistake but I can live with it.")

Standing aside ("I personally can't do this, but I won't stop others fromdoing it. ")

Blocking ("I cannot support this or allow the group to support this. It isimmoral." If a final decision violates someone's fundamental moral valuesthey are obligated to block consensus.)

Withdrawing from the group. Obviously, if many people express non-support orreservations or stand aside or leave the group, it may not be a viable decisioneven if no one directly blocks it. This is what is known as a"lukewarm" consensus and it is just as desirable as a lukewarm beeror a lukewarm bath.

Thekey to re-naming Occupy Detroit is to be there. By not being there you arechoosing the last option above, which is also the least desirable. Their use of“occupy” is not your use. They may not see the need to change it because theymay have little or no sense as to whether this is the objection of a few or theobjection of many. Those objecting to the name and speaking from outside theprocess have very little opportunity to affect change within the group. But bybeing in the group, you become one of those who must be heard. Your objectionimmediately achieves validity by your mere presence for you are a co-equalleader of the group. If outside, you have little means to effectively shape thegroup dynamic.

Moreso, there is a name committee. If you are on that committee and can speakpersuasively to your concerns, this issue may be resolved before even taken tothe GA as it is likely a clear, preferably unanimous, suggestion from thecommittee will eventually be adopted by the GA.

Anote on the statement by Yusef and Jenny: Declarations and statements are notreally how consensus is done. Much as Yusef and I meeting face-to-face madediscussion of all this more immediate, more real, more meaningful and moreeffective, such is life in consensus. Rather than presenting a statement, yousit in proximity, look in people’s eyes and speak sincerely and personally ofyour concerns. You have to be there.

Thisis one time when exerting pressure from the outside is the least likely optionto succeed.

OccupyWall St. as a Two-pronged Attack – What About Detroit’s issues?

Thereis no agenda because everything is on the agenda.

Itis vital to building solidarity between those currently critiquing from outsidethe process and those within the process that those outside understand OccupyWall St., et al., is intentionally devoid of specific issues. This does notmean it cannot be successful or that it is not valid. It is the means by whichall voices may join and be heard. If you set an agenda, those whose concernsare not on that agenda have no reason to participate. The “movement” is aboutactivating and motivating, it is about inclusion, it is about coming togetherin one circle to address all issues rather than some people’s issues.

Whenyou ask Occupy Wall St., et al., to specify, you are robbing it of its essenceand its power. It is a consensus model, not a debate, not an election, not awin/lose. Within the group and within consensus, present your issue, ask thatit be addressed, find the means to address it. There is no need to ask for anagenda, your presence puts your issue on the agenda.

Thereis a committee to address specific actions. Perhaps it is the means to bringspecific issues to the fore. Perhaps those meeting Sunday have an opportunityto form a Detroit-specific committee to ensure local issues get supported bythe GA. Whatever the means, there is nothing about the structure of Occupy WallSt., et al., that in any way prevents or interferes with addressinglocation-specific issues. Bring it to the group, ask for support, and you willlikely get actions implemented with the support and assistance of people whootherwise would have been ignorant of the issue you raise.

Makeyour issue everyone’s issue: be there. Thread actions and activities alreadyprogressing in Detroit together via this process. In fact, this sort of processis exactly what Detroit has needed. We talk all the time about silos; we seeself-serving choices; we compete for dollars, attention and people. I thoughtthe People’s Movement Assembly might bring the silos together, but so far have notseen this materialize. If “Whateverthename Detroit” and the PMA merge into oneprocess, then all other processes merge into that, we potentially have a trueDetroit People’s Movement. Directionality doesn’t matter. What does matter isthat the various silos become one silo in which the Food Justice Task Force,e.g., becomes a committee within the whole. The same for the EnvironmentalJustice work, Peace Zones for Life… all of it. Bring ALL voices into oneprocess, prioritize together, implement together.

Imaginesuch a model supplanting the traditional governmental structure of the city! Nomayor, no city council, just neighbors talking to neighbors and sub-groupstaking on challenges. Imagine each neighborhood being a committee within acity-wide whole? And that committee having sub-committees?

Mmm…mm…mm.Tasty!

Isee sustainability breaking out all over!

Thereare some difficulties in applying consensus large-scale… but will leave that tothose more expert than I.

OccupyWall St., et al., Doesn’t Really Get it, Either

AboveI stated the process intentionally has no agenda which means theoreticallysustainability is on the agenda. The problem with that is it relegatessustainability to co-equal status with all other issues. Ecosystem services,however are not an issue, they are the source of life. It is vital ecosystemservices become the lense through which all other issues must be viewed; theyare the litmus test for whether an action is taken or not. If a proposal toaddress racism is not sustainable, it is not a solution to racism. If asolution to economic inequality is not sustainable (e.g., let’s build all thehomeless a new house), it’s not a solution.

Whatevermovement it is that ultimately brings us all together must first and foremostset as it’s primary objective the preservation of the ecosystem. Failure to doso is an existential threat to all biota of the planet. Link: The Law of the Rights of Mother Earth

Lawof the Rights of Mother Earth (Spanish: Leyde Derechos de la Madre Tierra)… "gives the 'Mother Earth' the characterof collective subject of public interest, to ensure their rights".The law defines Mother Earth as follows: "the dynamic living system madeup of indivisible community of all living systems and living beings,interrelated, interdependent and complementary, which share a common destiny.Mother Earth is considered sacred by the cosmovisionsof the indigenous originary campesino nations and peoples."

Iargue it is the preservation of the ecosystem that is *the* all-unifying issue.I also argue that no sustainable system can co-exist with any of the ~isms wework to attenuate. Thus, designing sustainably inherently and automaticallyeliminates all of them. Consensus decision-making acts as a means to attenuateselfishness, divisiveness, self-interest, racism, classism, etc. We simplydesign them all away, solving all problems simultaneously.

Iwill explore the mechanics of this in another post.

Climate Reality Project 24 Hour Live Stream

2011-09-14T20:52:00.000-04:00

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Arctic Sea Ice Predictions Update II

2011-09-03T23:13:00.000-04:00

My Original Predictions

Arctic Sea Ice Extent = 4.2m km2 +/- 0.2m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Area = 2.95m km2 +/- 120k km2
Arctic Sea ice Volume = 5,500 km3 +/-500 km3

Numbers (approximate) @ 8/22:

Arctic Sea Ice Extent = 5.2m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Area = 3.269m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Volume = 6,500 km3

Current Numbers (approximate)

Arctic Sea Ice Extent = 4.5m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Area = 2.994m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Volume = 6,400 - 6,500 km3

Sea Ice Extent
The final 2007 minimum extent compared to the present make it seem doubtful a new extent record will be reached unless we have unusual heat and ideal weather for melt over the next two weeks. From Cryosphere Today:

The NSIDC Extent graph shows '11 tracking '09 very closely with current extent roughly 4.5 - 4.6m sq. km.with 2 - 300k to go to match '07.

If melt continues down to where we see more compacted ice in the images above, a rough estimate of the areas of compact ice in the '11 images correspond well to the '07 extent, so we'll be looking at a near-record or new record, if so.

Melt Factors
The Arctic Oscillation (AO) is mildly positive

and expected to be mildly positive or mildly negative till the middle of the month which should help reduce ice loss. Current sea ice drift patterns seem to encourage ice loss and a possible reduction in extent. The large area of loose ice looks to be moving toward the center of the pack; given how loose it is, it could reduce to 1/4 its current area by rough estimate. The yellow box indicates an area of very little ice, also, appearing to be a place where sea ice goes to die this season. There also is a flow from both of Greenland toward the Fram Strait which would indicate significant transport out of the Arctic Ocean. These patterns can change quickly and may only be significant if they persist.

Air temps where the ice pack is sitting are hovering around 0C. Since sea ice is slightly colder than freezing, there is probably still a net melting effect from air temps. Sea surface temperatures look to be about ice temperature, but warm around the ice. I suspect also under it yet since the water around the ice pack is reading warmer than the ice, but in the area of the pack is reading about ice temp. Sounds like a sampling problem?

Sea Ice Area
This measure is more important than extent for assessing current state of the ice, but is more difficult to measure. Current analyses put ice area at or near the '07 record. The melt season could another 2 - 2.5 weeks. Even with favorable-to-neutral conditions for low melt rates, a new record here is almost a guarantee.

According to Cryosphere Today, ice area is already below 3 m sq km.

Ice area measures the total surface area of the ice excluding areas of water between floes. Given much of the ice around the edges of the main pack is very thinly distributed, and the ice is very thin, we should see enough melt to set a new record. less than 10k sq km /day will take area below 2.9m sq. km.

Sea Ice Volume
Sea ice volume is further from a record than area and extent are...

and this image from Sept 14, 2010 supports this.

PIOMAS does show ice volume already tracking below the '07 minimum.

The PIOMAS models should at least comparable to themselves year-to-year, but there are doubts about the new model as illustrated from comments at RealClimate's thread on Arctic Sea Ice.

I have reservations about the volume numbers and ice thickness models. The piomas version 2 model that was introduced this spring shows considerably higher thickness values. The navy, for example (http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticictnnowcast.gif) reports two to three meter thick ice all around the north pole. Russian and American science vessels recently met at the pole and reported actual thickness of a meter or less.

Neven has info on a report from the Polar Stern as it reached the North Pole.

The first ice thickness measurements confirm this: in 2011 as well as in 2007 most of the ice has an ice thickness of 0.9 m.

A recent post from the polar Stern (in German) speaks of the condition of the ice as being very poor. They are having a very hard time finding ice thick and intact enough to do their research activities.

The graph below from that post illustrates the thinness of the ice. Of course, anyone who has seen footage of Arctic ice, particularly from below, knows it is anything but one large flat ice floe. The ice gets squished together and stacks up in piles and ridges. What is interesting is that old footage used to show large blocks of multi-meter ice that was contiguous. Now images and film I see only shows jumbled up ice, as if the only thick ice exists because of ice motion and not freezing. The spikiness in this graph encourages me to consider this as a serious possibility.

Also, that spikiness is reflected in the images we see of the "cottage cheese" pattern of ice I have discussed earlier in which individual floes are surrounded by what can only be thinner ice.

Unfortunately, the MODIS images have been too cloudy to get a good look at the ice for a while. This radar image gives a fair sense of the ice and with more detail and accuracy than the Cryosphere Today images.

In fairness to PIOMAS, new models take time to calibrate and refine. If the changes they made this year are an improvement, I still think it is certain they are overestimating ice volume for now. Still, lower than 2010? Perhaps not. We didn't have a strong melt this summer.

It's a mixed bag. A probable new record in Ice Area, a slightly possible new record in Ice Extent and a new 2nd lowest Ice Volume. I do think the volume numbers are not highly reliable and the first-had reports do indicate a likely new Ice Volume record, but that would also mean the numbers for 2010 volume were too low or that 2011 numbers are far too high. We may have to wait a year or two to find out.

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Arctic Sea Ice Predictions Update

2011-08-22T00:43:00.000-04:00

Post Content
Arctic Sea Ice Extent, Arctic Sea Ice Area, Arctic Sea Ice Volume, the Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage.

My Original Predictions

Arctic Sea Ice Extent = 4.2m km2 +/- 0.2m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Area = 2.95m km2 +/- 120k km2
Arctic Sea ice Volume = 5,500 km3 +/-500 km3

Current numbers (approximate):

Arctic Sea Ice Extent = 5.2m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Area = 3.269
Arctic Sea Ice Volume = 6,600 km2

Arctic Sea Ice Extent

The green line is roughly the minimum 2007 Arctic Sea Ice Extent; the yellow line indicates a rough guess for minimum 2011 Arctic Sea Ice Extent based on current areas of very low extent sea ice; and the orange and pink hatched areas are the areas of difference between the two years.
Images from UIUC.

This has been an unusual melt season in terms of extent. The area and the volume are tracking at record or near-record levels, yet the ice is very spread out. Obviously this indicates the ice is quite thin relative to historic, or even recent, conditions. Why is it so spread out?

Thinner ice is more prone to breaking up and once a chunk breaks off it will obviously drift.
Without getting too technical, let's say there haven't been strong or persistent weather patterns that moved the ice in any one direction, leaving it to drift into available space.

A brief Dipole Anomaly (2007 conditions) with a high set up in the area of Alaska then dissipated. Had this persisted we should have seen more ice transported out of the Fram Strait and the ice pack compact under a consistent wind regime toward From the Bering Strai/Sea region toward the Fram Strait.

As it stands, my prediction for Extent, just slightly more than for 2007, seems to have been low, and I can't remember why since I wasn't expecting a new record. There is an indication of another Dipole Anomaly setting up which potentially could accelerate movement of ice and ice loss via wind direction and higher temperatures. If a strong Dipole does develop, a new record is well within the range of the possible. The strong caveat comes from how spread out the ice is at this time.

Another consideration is the Arctic Oscillation (AO) which is generally predicted to begin moving toward neutral and possibly go positive by September. A positive AO is associated with cooler temperatures in the Arctic indicating slower, less or no melt is possible.Still, given there are as many as three more weeks of melt season left, we could see a new extent record.

Judge for yourself the state of the ice (Images taken from here.):

Image I

Image II

Image III

Arctic Sea Ice Area

Arctic Sea Ice Area from BPIOMAS.

This is a little more of a statistical analysis. I have looked at current conditions and the past two years and extrapolated. The black bars are the difference in area for this approximate date this season and the prior two compared to the long term mean. The red lines the difference in means for each year at the minimum for each year. As you can see, the anomaly difference can be slight as in 2009 or fairly large for 2010. The blue and green lines on the graph show what the ice area minimum will be if the anomaly right now remains the same, relatively, at the time of the minimum and what it will be if it is somewhere between '09 and '10.

The melt season, like pretty much all natural phenomena, is not linear. Over the past weeks this has been amply illustrated. We've seen Arctic Sea Ice Area decline slow, speed up and even seen the area increase. This pattern is probably more likely as the season comes to an end and the Arctic cools over all. Cooler days may see ice growth while warmer days will see it decline. The ice season also has no clear rhyme or reason; it could end in ten, twenty or thirty days.We are still looking likely to see a new record for ASI Area. This measurement tries to determine the actual area of ice, not ice and open water between floes as extent does, so it is a little less dependent on winds and currents for short term changes, though obviously weather and temperatures do drive changes.

I won't be surprised if we hit the low end of my error bar (2.83m km2) if conditions favor melt. As with extent, whether the Dipole Anomaly develops or the AO goes positive will make a difference, and potentially a large difference.

Arctic Sea Ice Volume

I have tried to mark estimate volume if melt slows (blue line, 5.4 cu. km) or continues the current trend (4.9 cu. km.) Again, it looks like my estimate may have been high, though within my range of error. The areas of low ice extent around the fringes of the main pack ice will be the key here. If we lose most of that and are left with a core of thicker ice as in 2007 we might hit a new volume record, but 2010 volume was extremely low at @4.5 cu. km.

Volume is the most important estimate, in my opinion, because it reflects all the forces affecting the Arctic Sea Ice: irradiance, air temperatures, sea temperatures, weather. It gives an excellent sense of the condition of the ice when there is divergence between extent and volume, for example, because you know the ice must be thinner if extent is higher than the record, yet volume is lower.

Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage is filled with much at this point. Those white specks are the ice floes under the clod cover. The scale here is about 20 km./inch, so there is plenty of room to maneuver, though ice obviously should be treated with great caution.

This image is from the 16th. You can see much of the really small mushy ice has melted away.

I'm not expecting the Parry Channel to clear completely, but it is clearly navigable. The southern route would be safer, but is longer by a good 300 miles.

Northeast Passage


Yellow lines outline clouds, blue lines ice.

This image from the 16th shows the ice more clearly. The ice has thinned considerably compared to the above image.

The key point here is that the both the Northwest and Northeast Passages are opening every year, and earlier each year. This illustrates the effect of thin sea ice. It takes very little energy and bad weather for the ice at the outer reaches of the Arctic to melt out. This year it was extremely early. The Northeast Passage was officially open for ice breaker-guided shipping on June 30th, and open, by my estimate, for traffic soon after that.

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Arctic Sea Ice Predictions

2011-08-03T23:30:00.005-04:00

Updated 8/12/11

3:18 pm ET

UPDATE 8/12/11
Despite the negative AO and high pressure, the Arctic has been pretty cloudy (aren't high pressure systems supposed to be mostly cloud-free?) which is probably helping keep melt moderated, though the rate of melt is typically lower in August than the preceding two months.

The sea ice continues to be spread out like a fan all along the western half of the ice pack. The wind patterns seem to be almost opposite of 2007, which is good, because I think if we had 2007 weather we'd be setting massive new records this season. As per this original post, I'm almost certain we'll see new lows in area and volume. I assume being spread out enhances the melt process due to more ice edge being exposed and warming of the sea water underneath from the insolation. The area marked in red is about the same area, +/-, as 2007.

Arctic Sea Ice from MODIS via arctic.io. The red line is the main ice edge; blue is weak "cottage cheese" ice; black is relatively sparse; and yellow is very spread out ice floes.

The ice area and extent have both resumed a more precipitous drop than during the latter half of July. ASI Extent is falling at a slower rate than in spring, but is falling and looks to intersect 2007 extent if trends hold steady, which they shouldn't, of course. The AO may be turning positive or less negative by the end of the month which should slow melt considerably. Still, there are likely five more weeks of melt season remaining. New records are looking more likely.

ASI Area is heading for two million square km less than the reference period.

ASI Volume appears to be/have been setting new records every day this year.

Here's a another nice graph.

My comments posted at RealClimate prior to July 25th seem to still be accurate:

A. If weather is strongly supportive of ice loss, a 100% chance of new minimum in volume, and 95% chance of new minimum area and 90% chance of new minimum extent.

With a negative AO since I said that - though that's not really strongly negative, more like generally or moderately negative - we've seen significant changes in the ice. I'm certain now there we will see a new ice volume low, and think area is edging upward from 95%. I am a little more doubtful of a new extent low unless the wind direction changes significantly and squashes all the ice together - of course, that would also enhance transport out of the Arctic and into the north Atlantic/Greenland Sea, so not a good thing for the health of the ASI - volume and area are better indicators of future conditions, anyway, so a non-record low extent won't mean much.
.
I'm amazed at how spread out the ice is, though. This just goes to show that predicting ASI is a lot like picking football games for your favorite team, at least for me: picking individual games, particularly against the spread, is hard, but it's relatively easy to pick the overall season.

The original post is after the jump.

Caveats
It is late to be making predictions about the Arctic Sea Ice (ASI) minimums (area, extent, volume), but I always resist doing so earlier in the season because of the large natural variation year to year. The years are getting more volatile. I did say months ago I was expecting to be near or to pass the extent record minimum reached in 2007, and that I was reasonable sure we'd set a new record low for volume if trends continued. Anomalous events are always the easy out on predictions. The rate of melt seems to have slowed significantly during July. The Arctic oscillation went positive and it was cloudier. Will that be enough to prevent a new minimum?

Setting the Context
In the first post in this series, I covered briefly some of the influences on ASI this season, including:

They include the general fact of the dynamics of climate change that the Arctic will warm faster than the rest of the planet, a scenario in which the Arctic is ice-free by 2016 +/- 3 years, the finding that most sea ice melt is from the bottom up because more water from the Pacific and Atlantic is getting into the Arctic Ocean than previously understood (and into fjords and under ice shelves adding to Greenland and Antarctic melt), observations of melting permafrost across the Arctic for a long period of time, the 2007 report of expansion of thermokarst lakes by a factor of three over just a few years and the resulting increase in methane emissions from them, the discovery of plumes of methane bubbling out of the Arctic Ocean floor along the Siberian Arctic continental shelf, an ice assessment aboard a ship that did direct observations that found what was believed to be heavy pack ice was ice that they could steam through at regular speed , and the expectation that the sea ice melt back would have an effect up to 1,000 miles inland.

More immediate to this season, last year's melt season lasted quite late and the growth of ASI remained slow into December in areas. The (perhaps) logical conclusion is that the ice would be thinner this year having less time to grow. Such dynamics do not always hold with ice. It can grow very quickly. In this case, measurements in the spring found 1st year ASI 40cm thinner. It was not surprising to see the rate of ice melt in the spring was as much as 150,000 sq. km/day. Thin ice combined with warm temperatures from a negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) - a pattern of high and low pressure in the Arctic that pushes cold air south and brings more warm air north in the negative phase - was mostly negative from early May to mid-July.

Rotten Sea Ice - Extent
The first surprising significant melt of the ASI occurred in 2005. Certainly it was an anomalous drop, but it is clear the trend is strongly downward. We were in trouble long before 2005!

Of the 26 lows on the graph after 1979:

only ten were larger;
two were about the same;
14 were lower.

Of the large changes on the graph:

five were larger drops than 2005;
the combined decline over 1989 and 1990 was more than twice as large.

That last point is significant, I think. When chaotic and non-linear systems approach a bifurcation, they will begin to wobble. The amplitude of changes increases, becomes sort of slow or sluggish, then jumps to a new state. These are periods of profound change in a system and what comes after will not be the same as what came before. This can be positive, like a natural fire clearing brush, but not killing trees, and resulting in a healthier forest, or it can be the collapse of one system and less complex system following. In the case of the sea ice, it is clearly the latter. All the conditions surrounding the decrease in ice extent lead to less and less ice and an increasingly hotter planet.

It is my non-scientifically tested contention that the period leading up to 1988 and the record global average temperature of that year marked a boundary for the climate system. The decade after that was marked by wildly swinging sea ice extents before settling into a new regime around 1998. That year was the hottest, by far, up to that point, in part due to a strong El Nino. I believe 1998 was a large enough temperature anomaly to break the system out of the wobbling regime and send it into the new state of rapid decline. Notice how the changes from year to year, though in steep decline, occur in a very narrow range compared to the previous decade. Draw a trend line through that graph from 1998 - 2005 and you will see the rate of decline has been much faster since then. But this period may not be the new state, but may have been the quieter time before the real shift to a new state.

Look at this longer graph of ASI Extent. Notice the differences in the periods up to 1952, from 1952 to 2006, then 2007. What changed in 1952? Nuclear bombs, maybe. The particles put into the air from nuclear testing might have blanketed the ice. Also, the world was recovering from WWII and industrial output was climbing. Perhaps most importantly, the signal from Greenhouse Gasses (GHGs

Rotten Sea Ice - Volume

Believe it or not, sea ice volume - how much ice there actually is above and below the water line - is falling even faster than extent is. This actually makes sense. in the fall and winter the only physical limit to ice growth is running out of sea to fill up. The Arctic Ocean does fill up. The winter sea ice maximum is also falling, though, due to decreases outside of the Arctic Ocean where the ice grows in the Pacific between the US and Russia, in the Canadian Arctic and the North Atlantic and Greenland Sea. Though the Arctic Ocean is still filling with ice, this is not a comfort because as each season extent is so low, a majority of the ice is first year ice. Worse, because of the warming planet this ice is getting thinner and thinner so it melts more easily as time goes on.

Expeditions (1, 2) are finding very thin and weak ice where they expected to find solid ice floes and thicker multi-year sea ice is melting away and being transported out of the Arctic. Neven has a nice piece on this with other links, and a newer post on new research on ice thickness. From the paper quote at Neven's:

The fraction of total ice extent made up of multiyear sea ice in March decreased from about 75% in the mid 1980s to 45% in 2011, while the proportion of the oldest ice declined from 50% of the multiyear ice pack to 10%. These losses in the oldest ice now extend into the central Arctic Ocean and adjacent to the Canadian Archipelago; areas where the ice cover was relatively stable prior to 2007...

The paper does go on to say there has been some recovery in multi-year ice since 2007 in some areas, but this doesn't jive with three facts: loss of the perennial ice pack in the central ocean, ice loss north of the Canadian Archipelago and the observed rotten ice. I fear much of this supposed recovery is in the form of what I call "cottage cheese" ice. This is not a scientific term and the whole idea is probably laughable, but I characterize it this way: as ice melts each year, not only is ice lost around the edges, but from all over. The ice pack actually moves around a lot due to winds and currents, etc., so the areas of static ice not actually static. Well, not anymore, because the ice isn't anchored, so the whole thing can move around. Because of this, it also spreads out more and develops more leads and polynyas. obviously, ice with open water all around it will melt faster than ice jammed together with other ice. When the ice freezes in the fall these open areas fill with first year ice. We end up with less contiguous areas of thick ice and more old ice cemented together with young, thin ice. The following two images show what I am trying to describe. As the snow melts away, we then can see the ice below, and see floes of ice in among what appears to be thinner ice.

Notice the ice isn't moving around in these images so much as just deteriorating. Note that the ice in the upper left looks solid, but as you move toward the lower right of the image the individual floes become increasingly visible. in the right image the same gradient applies even though the ice is much more deteriorated. it literally looks like the thin ice between the floes melts away and the larger, older floes then break up and melt away.

I suspect much of the Arctic Sea ice is like this, and, indeed, anywhere you look this is what you see. Maybe this is how it has always been?

Rotten Sea Ice - Slow as You Go
The rapid reduction in ice extent of the spring and summer has given way to much slower reduction in late July and early August.

The image posted further up shows the sea ice off of northeast Greenland during the period the extent loss was slowing dramatically. This is one reason I prefer ice area and ice volume over ice extent. How spread out the ice is isn't as important as how much ice there is, and, can be very misleading. As discussed above briefly, spread out ice is likely more vulnerable to melting because more ice edge, thus area, is exposed, but in terms of communicating the science, a pause in the reduction of extent is seen as a good thing - which it is if it indicates a slower melt process, but is misleading if ice area and volume are both still dropping - and allows us to think the problem is lessening. Here are additional images that balance the idea that slower extent loss is, in this case, is meaningful.


The two images above show rapid deterioration in the western Arctic Ocean from July 25th to July 31.

These two images come show the quality of the ice in the mid western Arctic (between the US and Russia) has changed dramatically from the 25th to the 31st.

Central Arctic Ocean on 7/24 and 7/31 show while ice extent was rapidly slowing actual ice loss appeared to be significant.

That last image is from the central Arctic Ocean. During the week of slowing ASI extent, the middle of the ice pack was deteriorating.

Rotten Sea Ice - Sea Ice Area and Volume
A graph of sea ice area is less dramatic than the graph of sea ice extent:

Notice the line showing 2011 area now shows more area than the 2007 line does, but not as dramatically as the ice extent graph above. However, also note 2011 has been tracking below 2007, thus often setting new record lows for those dates, for most of the year. Again, this indicates to me the overall quality and thickness of the ice has likely been impacted by the late start to freezing, the near- or new record low for the ice maximum set this winter and the early and rapid melt. Recent studies also indicate the instrumental record likely overestimates the amount of older ice as well as thickness. it ever seems the better our science gets, the worse the picture looks.

The University of Indiana site, Cryosphere Today, tracks sea ice area and produces the following graph which can be dynamically linked, but is captured here. (Clicking on the image will take you to the dynamic graph.):

As you can see, there was an excursion about the same time sea ice extent started slowing, but the loss of ice area has already resumed and the difference between the reference period and current area is significantly greater for the same date than in either of the past two years, as illustrated by the black bars. The blue bars indicate the anomaly at the peak of the melt season in September. It looks as if the current difference of 1.715 (black bar for '11) is about equal to the final difference in 2011 (blue bar 2010.) In each of the previous two years the gap only grew over the final five or six weeks of the season. The larger anomaly from '09 to '10 is because '09 was the highest area since '07 while '10 was nearly tied for '07 and '08 for the lowest ever. is one year a trend? Certainly not. in fact, the long-term chart is very noisy with variability.

Looking at the anomalies for this year in relation to last year may be meaningless, but it is striking that we have had record low ice maximums in the winters since 2007. This is not all that strange, either. it's happened many times going back through the record above. I wonder, though if the new regime since 2007 means we must interpret things differently? If the ice really is rotten compared to the pre-'05 and -'07 Big Melts, does it mean such large anomalies indicate more systemic changes? Perhaps not, but I have a hard time ignoring this anomaly in ice area. It's very interesting that the anomaly measured at the beginning of August is essentially the same as that measured at the ice minimum in mid-September in both '09 and '10. If that same relationship holds this year, the sea ice area minimum will be about 2.9 million sq. km.

The PIOMAS chart indicates a very large loss of ice volume over summer 2010, throughout the fall and winter, and particularly into the spring, all setting the stage for significant melt this season depending on weather conditions.

More telling, the PIOMAS daily volume is clearly below 2007. The weather over the next six weeks would have to be hugely anomalous cool, cloudy and calm to avoid a record ASI volume minimum.

Rotten Sea Ice - In Hot Water

We've known for a couple years that warmer water from the Atlantic is infiltrating under the sea ice in the Arctic, Greenland Sea and related fjords/ice tongues/glaciers, but now it appears the ice is feeding on itself. A new study indicates the water from ice melt, colder than the ocean water at the surface, is pushing warmer water up under the sea ice enhancing melt.

What they found was a surprise — a layer of seawater about 200 metres below the surface that was actually colder than when it had been measured by previous expeditions.
“That's counterintuitive,” said Mr. Boxall. “We would expect to see, with global warming, warming conditions generally.”

But when they realized that the colder water was also saltier than they expected, an explanation began to suggest itself.

Mr. Boxall points out that the older sea ice is, the less salt it contains. Ice that's two or three years old already contains very little salt.

Year-old ice, however, remains fairly salty. And when it melts, it produces meltwater that's denser than the relatively fresh water from older ice.

As multi-year ice declines throughout the Arctic, more of the saltier meltwater from younger ice is mixing into the ocean. That colder, denser water sinks more quickly and forces less dense water from deeper in the ocean up to the surface.

Because fresh meltwater is colder than seawater, that means relatively warm water is being forced upwards. And that, said Mr. Boxall, may be part of the reason that sea ice is melting so much faster than anyone thought it would.

The results are preliminary, but it helps explain things. I suspect the finding will be upheld.

Rotten Sea Ice - Rivers, Permafrost, Clathrates and Methane
Another piece of good news that may help explain why the Northwest and Northeast Passages are open every year now is the increased river discharge from the land areas surrounding the Arctic Ocean. Increasing rainfall and snowfall, which later melts and fills the rivers, are leading to warmer water flowing into the Arctic Ocean. This must be having an impact on near-shore ice.

Thermokarst lakes are another sign of a rapidly thawing Arctic. They have been found to be increasing, rapidly increasing methane emissions, which is enhanced by the sea ice melt, which in turn increases GHGs and temperatures... melting more ice. The frightening prospect from methane emissions is that the permafrost holds about 2x the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere. Do the math. We're nearly at 400 ppm CO2 and that is too much.

The warm water flowing into the Arctic from all these sources is very likely (understatement of the century) to be warming the sea bed where the methane clathrates (methane ice) lie. Methane measurements started rising in 2007 after trailing off for nearly a decade. The permafrost and clathrates play a role. The clathrates off of Siberia alone are already emitting as much methane as the rest of the world's oceans combined. There are clathrates in many areas of the oceans, but the Siberian clathrates are especially troubling because clathrates remain stable depending on a combination of temperature and pressure. In the deep ocean, even warm areas of clathrates will remain in place due to the intense pressure. On the continental shelf off Siberia, the ocean is only 50 to 70 meters deep on average. Combine that with the warmer waters and you have a serious problem. Worse, a recent paper found that the End Triassic Mass Extinction was fueled by methane.

Prior to this research, most scientists have believed that the sudden extinction of nearly half of all life forms on the planet was due solely to the emissions from volcanic eruptions that were occurring in what was to become the Atlantic Ocean. Ruhl et al contend that instead, what happened, was that the small amount of atmospheric heating that occurred due to the exhaust from the volcanoes, caused the oceans to warm as well, leading to the melting of ice crystals at the bottom of the sea that were holding on to methane created by the millions of years of decomposing sea life . When the ice crystals melted, methane was released, which in turn caused the planet to warm even more, which led to more methane release in a chain reaction , that Ruhl says, was the real reason for the mass extinction that led to the next phase in world history, the rise of dinosaurs.

This is, hopefully, a long-term issue (but I doubt it.) How does all this affect the melt this year? Methane is a potent GHG. With methane in the sea water and in the air above the sea water, I assume there must be some localized effect on temperature. It seems reasonable to assume ice melt in the shallower areas of the Arctic are affected. Whether this is true, I am not sure, but at this point every tiny positive feedback is one tiny feedback too much.

Rotten Ice - AO and ADA

The lowest ice extent in 2007 was influenced by the weather patterns that year. Global weather patterns are largely effected by various oscillations in the climate system such as the AO, ENSO, PDO, NAO, ADA and other alphabet soup processes. We are concerned with the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the Arctic Dipole Anomaly (ADA).

As noted several times in recent posts, the AO was negative for much of the spring and has now returned to the negative phase (the chart changes daily.) Forecasts are calling for a negative AO through at least mid-August. Recall this indicates higher pressure in the Arctic which should increase cold air flow out of the Arctic as air moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. We should see less cloudiness and higher temperatures while the negative AO lasts. We should see melt rates creep up. We may see above-average melt for August given the state of the ice in the comparative images above.

I can find no information on a current ADA. I assume it simply isn't developing. if that remains true, it argues for less ice being transported out of the Fram Strait and the Nares Strait than might otherwise occur.

Prediction - Review
These are my considerations and/or assumptions. They were covered above well enough and mostly do not bear discussion here:

1. Sea ice thickness is overestimated.

Recent studies indicating overestimation.
Direct observations and measurements from ships and aircraft
Above-average temperatures
Atlantic water influx
Sea ice melt cold layer
Increased river discharge
Clathrate and permafrost melt
Late onset of ice freezing last fall
Early onset of melt this spring
Long-term effects of melt from '07 - '10

2. The climate system is in heavy flux, some of which we do a poor job of accounting for:

Anomalous weather events over the past 12 - 18 months
Late onset freeze and early onset melt
Patterns potentially indicating bifurcations in the climate records, e.g. discussed above
Anomalously high temps despite low solar output
At least a 2:1 ratio of new record high temps vs. record low temps

3. Measurements

Sea ice volume falling faster than extent
PIOMAS ice volume tracking well below 2007
Sea ice extent at or near record lows for much of the last nine months or more
First year sea ice in some areas measured at 40 centimeters thinner than last year
Higher than normal temperatures

4. Possible Influences

Dipole Anomaly - No sign of it developing at this time
Negative AO for all or part of the remaining melt season (4 - 6 weeks)
Positive AO after Mid-August and the remaining melt season (2 - 4 weeks)

Prediction - Caveat
I should make a distinction about what I am referring to as sea ice. As far as I know, ice in the Greenland Sea counts as Arctic Sea Ice, though I am not certain. If so, I disregard this ice as "Dead Ice Floating," i.e., this ice will not return to the Arctic Ocean and has essentially no impact on year-to-year melt. It does, however, likely impact melt on Greenland and discharge from the glaciers there, so long term, there likely is a positive feedback between overall ASI loss and Greenland Sea ice. For the purposes of my prediction, I am thinking of sea ice extent and area excepting the Greenland Sea. of course, the statistics are not kept this way, so it shall have to be determined by analyzing images. Ice volume and area will have to remain locked together with the Greenland Sea numbers.

Prediction - Analysis

This comparison of 2007 vs. 2011 shows the potential for record ice loss this season.

Images from Cryosphere Today showing the sea ice minimum in 2007 and conditions today. The red line indicates roughly the 2007 extent. The black line indicates the maximum melt I think we'll see under a worst case scenario.

The area lying outside the 2007 boundary in the image on the right is "cottage cheese" ice and is so thin it would not seem likely to survive four to six weeks of additional melt season. Based on that alone - and excepting the Greenland Sea - I find it highly improbable we will not see either a virtual tie with 2007 in ASI extent, particularly as we consider the PIOMAS ice volume and the negative AO. if we have a late melt season extending into the third week of September, it would be a miracle to not see a new record low extent. The obvious caveat here is a strongly positive AO which keeps temperatures cooler and the skies cloudy.

(It is worthwhile being cautious given the nearly static ice conditions in some areas of the Arctic over the past month. Though both the northwest passage and Northeast Passage are open, the Northwest Passage almost completely stalled in the Parry Channel. ice did break up significantly, but it was in no rush to vacate. The NWP is open via southerly, and very narrow, channels.)

A technical consideration is the ice area discussed above. I noted that the ratios of ASI Area anomaly remained roughly the same over the past two summers. August is the slowest month for ice melt. it makes sense the slower melt rate would mirror total melt. If this ratio holds, as said above, we will be nearly certain to see a tie for 2007, give or take a little, or a new record area minimum, for the same reasons stated for ice extent. The daily ice volume from PIOMAS very clearly indicates a record low volume is virtually certain.

With regard to ASI Volume, I think we are already locked into a new record. The weather would have to be very favorable to overcome the thinness of the ice given how close the 2007 and 2011 extents already are. With a negative AO in place in the near term, I see the chances of a new record volume to be 95%.

Prediction - Numbers
Arctic Sea Ice Extent = 4.2m km2 +/_ 0.2m km2
Arctic Sea Ice Area = 2.95m km2 +/_ 1.2m km2
Arctic Sea ice Volume = 5,500 km3 +/-500 km3

There's a LOT of Greenland Sea ice that was not there in 2007. If that is not included, I'd say new records are certain for area and volume.

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Northwest Passage OPEN

2011-07-31T20:27:00.006-04:00

Updated 8/13/2011
11:23 PM

UPDATE 7: 8/13/11
The southern route of the Northwest Passage is wide open. The first image is a close-up showing the blue open water; the second, due to the clouds, is an infrared image showing the entire NWP. The parry Channel is clearing out enough to be called unambiguously open, too, but given the clods, we'll wait a bit. It has become very navigable, so far as I can tell.

UPDATE 8/13: The image below is roughly outlined by the yellow box above and shows the southern route almost completely clear of ice.

IR image:

UPDATE 6: 8/10/11
The Parry Channel is NAVIGABLE.

The southern route is just gettin' more opener. This image is from 8/7/11.

UPDATE 5 8/4/11
Northwest Passage unambiguously OPEN

UPDATE 4 7/31/11

I'm learning to love the MODIS images as I figure out how to navigate the website. This is a blow-up of a 250m/pixel image from MODIS. I've added a scale estimated using Google Earth for perspective on how much open water there is. The caution is that there is also ice that doesn't show up at this resolution, so interpret as you will.

____________________________________________________

UPDATE 3 7/30/11

The channel continues to clear.

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ORIGINAL POST w/ updates:
Or is that opening? On July 5th I wrote:

I'll be very surprised if both passages are not open by the end of the month, and see a 50/50 chance they will be open in the next two weeks. At minimum, all the ice should be broken up, even if not flushed out, and may be navigable.

With two days to go, I call the Northwest Passage open via one of the southern route variations. The ice in the southern route in the images below is not solid and the resolution on the images is not a lot better than about 1 mile. Certainly, any Arctic-going vessels could make the trip, or with an ice breaker leading the way. I consider it fair to call it open if a ship designed for the area seems likely to pass through. We looked at the southern route before:

The sea ice in the more westerly route is looking like, as I have come to think of it because of the opaque floes with apparently quite thin ice between, as cottage cheese. The thin ice, if my hypothesis is correct, becomes apparent when the pack ice begins to break up. As we can see, there is no solid pack ice remaining along the channel notated below:

The Northwest Passage appears to be navigable as of 7/28/2011.

UPDATE 2 7/29: This is the image for the 29th. No major important changes other than the large pack in the has broken up. Looks a little more passable.

UPDATE 1 7/29: This blow-up of the area marked with the blue line above shows there is some cloudiness obscuring the image. The ice area/coverage is probably no greater than in the areas marked with red lines.

The capture below from The Cryosphere Today for July 28th is based on a minimum 15% ice; less than 15% is shown as clear. While I regard the images above to be more accurate because they are direct images, this image helps clarify the actual extent/area of the ice given the relatively low resolution of the images above which makes smaller ice floes indistinct. (Also note the ice in the main channel seems to be clearing and thinning under the cloud cover.)

Analysis: There is a lot of cloudiness and many cyclonic patterns in the Arctic area of late, I assume at least partially connected to the mildly positive Arctic oscillation. While clouds are said to keep the sun off the ice, thus should reduce melt, the air temperature under a cloudy area often is warmer than a non-cloudy area. While direct sunlight warms surfaces, the air temperature is often colder without cloud cover. If this is accurate, then the combination of warmer air coupled with studies that suggest 2/3 of sea ice melt is due to ocean temperatures, perhaps the cloudiness balances the lack of sunlight.

Cloudiness and cyclonic patterns indicate a certain amount of wind and storminess. I have contended, based on the direct observations reported from ships in the Arctic and from the "cottage cheese" look of the ice as each area begins to disintegrate, that much of the ice in the arctic is much less homogenous than in previous years, particularly pre-2005. I suggest there is a lot of older ice cemented together by very thin 1st year ice, all of which is much more susceptible to melting than pre-2005 ice, especially once it begins to break up.

Perhaps more importantly, a recent article about an upcoming paper noted that the large amount of melting first year ice, being denser, is possibly creating a cold layer of water about 200 ft. below the ice and pushing warmer, less saline water up under the ice, enhancing the rate of melt.

Here's the full southern route on the 27th for reference. The rest of the passage is definitely open.

The Northwest Passage on 7/27/2011.

Feel free to quibble, but bear in mind a ship already made the Northeast Passage with assistance a couple weeks ago, well before I called it open. If they can ship through it, it's open, no? If you do choose to quibble with my analysis, then 1. eat my grits! and 2. don't get too cocky because it will likely be unambiguous soon. And there are still two days before I'll have to eat crow for what I said on the 5th.

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Northeast Passage OPEN

2011-07-27T01:49:00.003-04:00

Updated 7/28

Northeast Passage Open
It had looked through the clouds as if the ice might be encroaching on the shoreline, but the passage looks as open as ever.

July 27 image.

The Northeast Passage is open as of July 27, 2011.

After about a week of being open, but not strictly clear and open water with virtually no ice, but passable, the Northeast Passage is unequivocally open. The last area of coastal sea ice along the Russian coastline has cleared out but for a few wisps of ice, likely due to storms over the area the last couple of days. You can see the two previous threads and images here and here and the source of the image above here.

I was somewhat expecting it to clog up with ice since wind/drift patterns were, according to several sites, blowing toward the coast in the area we've been watching, but instead we have very open water. The ice was very lightly packed in, so it may have melted out. Cloud cover does reduce insolation, but clouds also typically hold heat closer to the surface. I'm assuming this would be true in the Arctic, as well. Regardless, the ice is gone and we have the earliest opening of the Northeast Passage that I am aware of, certainly since the signal of Climate Change kicked in back in 1850 or so.

Why Early Opening Matters
Climate is a non-linear system. Depending on whom you ask, it is, more so, a chaotic system. Both types of systems have the characteristic of large, sudden changes based on small changes in initial conditions. The Arctic Sea ice has been said to be in a Death Spiral by Dr. Serreze, meaning feedback loops and warming have advanced so far they cannot be stopped before the Arctic is ice-free for at least part of the year in the future. Another scientist has posited the Arctic sea ice will be gone in somewhere by 2016 +/- 3 years. That is, Arctic sea ice might be gone in the summer within two years.

Scientists studying Climate Change concluded long ago the poles Arctic and Antarctic would warm faster than the rest of the planet, particularly the Arctic. The Antarctic, because it is a landmass, not an ocean, that is also topped by miles of ice and because of the ozone hole, has circumpolar winds that are quite consistent and keep the continent fairly well isolated from the weather patterns of the rest of the globe. The Arctic, however, is an ocean so there is no high land mass, no towering ice sheet and no ozone hole to keep it isolated by influencing the circumpolar winds. It has circumpolar winds, but they interact much more with the rest of the planet's weather systems.

In fact, the Arctic Oscillation (AO) is, to put it over-simply, is a matter of overall high- vs. low-pressure in the Arctic. When the AO is positive, the winds of the Arctic keep it somewhat isolated like the Antarctic winds. in its negative phase, however, cold air is pushed out of the Arctic and warm air flows in. The Arctic is then warmer than usual and the mid- and high-latitudes are colder than usual. This phenomenon is what gave us our heavy snow and cold temperatures as far south as the southern U.S. border last winter. But that is very bad for Arctic sea ice because it can effect ice growth.

Last fall the Arctic sea ice froze up very late. The combination of the heavy melts the last four years (2007 - 2010 were the four lowest in the record, with 2007 the lowest of all), the slow freeze, the negative AO and fast spring melt this year, and other factors, contributed to thin new ice this year. Since the Northeast and Northwest passages have been opening since, if memory serves, 2007, there is little or no thick multi-year ice in those areas. Bear in mind the Arctic ice pack is always moving, so old ice could move into those areas, and probably has to some extent, but that is a far cry from heavy ice building up, and re-building each season. We now have thin ice over much of the Arctic.

This early opening is meaningful because it is an indication of a potentially large step change in the non-linear ice loss process. That is, it could be a signal that a fundamental shift is taking place and may signal an acceleration of ice loss in the Arctic. And, as the Arctic goes, so goes the planet.

The polar regions act much like your air conditioner does. It has a very noticeable cooling effect. A demonstration of this lies in the measurement of a heat pulse - warming - up to a thousand miles inland when there is rapid ice loss in the Arctic. That helps the permafrost melt faster, which releases more CO2 and methane (CH4) which causes more warming which... You get the idea. We've already spoken of the AO and how it affects the weather where we are. The most frightening aspect of the Arctic melting so rapidly is that the CH4 on the sea floor in the Arctic is already showing signs of destabilizing. Measurements have found columns of CH4 bubbles rising to the surface along the Siberian coast, if this process is accelerating - and it seems virtually all warming measurements are - it means the potential for future warming is much greater than previously believed. Some fear a massive release could start significantly raising temperatures in the time scale of decades rather than centuries. If so, we'd have virtually no hope of stopping devastating warming short of massive, global mobilization to regrow forests, reduce energy consumption and consumption of all kinds drastically, change to renewable energy and many other changes essentially like we were at war... which we are - with ourselves.

Some people, perhaps most particularly climate scientists will consider this post hyperbole. When considered in terms of risk assessment and future planning, think of it this way: you are watching someone overdose on drugs. You aren't sure they will die and you are not sure how soon, if so, but you know it is a very real possibility. What do you do?

Put another way, ifyou knew today that you would have a 10% chance of dying of lung cancer if you stopped smoking today and a 90% chance of dying of lung cancer if you didn't stop, what would you do? In my layman's opinion, if we do not change our behaviors and not only slow or stop emissions, but start reducing the amount of GHGs already in the air, the chance is 100% we will face massive disruptions to our society.

Large Ice Shelf Breaks Free Off Eastern Greenland

2011-07-26T20:46:00.004-04:00

Updated 7/30/11

Huge chunk of the ice shelf breaks off in the area of Bjornegletscher in the Fram Strait area of the Greenland Sea we've been watching to assess sea ice transport out of the Arctic Ocean.

UPDATE: Here's a close-up from the DMI website:

These two chunks of ice are about 80 mi. x 50 mi. total. Yesterday it looked like this:

The total area including the piece that had already broken maybe... 8,000 sq miles, very roughly estimated. I don't yet know if that is a permanent or seasonal ice shelf, so I will update when I know if this is a Big Deal or not.

UPDATE: Fun to watch, but it looks like the shelf is seasonal, at least in recent years.

UPDATE: Hard to see through the clouds. Breaking up. Drifting northeast. The Fram Strait has some interesting currents.

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice - A Layman's Perspective Update

2011-07-25T01:38:00.002-04:00

Updated NEP 7/25, NWP 7/24

Note: RealClimate has a very informative open thread on Arctic Sea Ice that is very much worth your time. There are some excellent comments and great links.

Northeast Passage
UPDATE: Replaced the image with an annotated version; added link to a depth chart for the East Siberian Sea.

Finally, a nearly clear view of the last ice blocking the NEP. (Click for larger image.)

Based on the depth chart found here, it seems hugging the coastline is not a viable option for any large vessels with greater than between 1 - 3 fathoms' draft. This means we can consider the open water open only to vessels with very shallow drafts. All others must go through the ice, but given the 20 mile resolution of this image, that seems realistic, particularly with icebreakers on standby, as would be the case. I wish I had access to someone who navigates the Arctic to see if my thinking is realistic or B.S.

Northwest Passage
UPDATE 7/24 (Scroll down for earlier NWP post.)
It was looking more and more like the southern route of the NWP would open before the northern route, but today it's looking more like a horse race. If you click on the image for a higher resolution you can see significant cracking and deterioration of the ice is occurring in both the main channel and the southern route. The quality of the ice in the southern route appears to be lower than in the northern route. The East-West portion of the southern route is about 350 miles further south than the northern route, so this is not surprising. Passages through the Northwest Passage long ago sometimes had to use the southern route to complete the trip, in fact. If memory serves, the first documented passage of the NWP was through the southern route.

Here I have marked the advance of the ice breaking up for clarity.

And here I've marked the changes since 7/4.

The Northeast Passage

UPDATE 7/23:

This is the clearest image yet of the remaining ice blocking the Northeast passage. The scale at that resolution would indicate the thin slice of open water between the ice and the shore at the top of the image is at least 1 mile wide, though I have no idea of the depth. There's still some cloudiness, but I don't see any great impediment to shipping here. Our Arctic experts may disagree, of course.

UPDATE 7/22:

This image from CryosphereToday does not show ice concentrations under 15% which gives a more realistic view of how open the water is. Here we can see a very clearly open Northeast Passage. I've added outlines of the shore line and ice edge for clarity.

Here's an image showing the full NEP route.

The NE and NW Passages are important because they reduce shipping lanes compared to the Panama Canal by thousands of miles, reducing costs significantly in terms of fuel and shipping costs. Also, the melting of the Arctic Sea Ice opens the possibility of mining the Arctic ocean for natural resources, primarily fossil fuels. This would be a Very Bad Idea. Imagine the effects of a Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Arctic ecosystem. imagine the effects on the ice. Some risks are beyond any monetary value they might bring

__________________________________________________

On July 5th, in a post titled "Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice - A Layman's Perspective", I stated there was a 50/50 chance the Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage would be open within two weeks. Two weeks later, July 19th, the NEP was not open (though it was cloudy and difficult to tell), but the remaining ice was finally breaking up; there was no solid pack ice blocking the NEP that i could see. As of today, July 21st, I consider the Northeast Passage open.

What does "open" mean? First, I write as a layman who has followed the state of the Arctic Sea Ice closely since 2006. Secondly, I write for other laypeople. I don't use a lot of figures, math or calculations, I just present a simple analysis based on systemic analysis. If you can handle the science behind the data, this post isn't aimed at you. I'd like to think my analysis has some unique characteristics and might be useful to very knowledgeable people, but I'm not kidding myself on that score.

Open, in my parlance, means, minimally, you can get through without an icebreaker, either by being careful or because you have a ship designed for Arctic/Antarctic waters. It doesn't necessarily mean Princess Cruises is taking reservations for a passage - though that will be likely possible soon enough.

The Northeast Passage appears to be navigable as of July 21, 2011. This is the earliest opening of the NEP I am aware of, and appears to be the earliest by several weeks.

I have marked the coastline in the image so you can see the open water between the ice and the coast more easily. The last contiguous ice was in the area of the bend, but has broken up. It probably broke up several days ago, but cloudiness made it difficult to make the call. Remember the caveat: The NEP may be open now, but winds and/or currents can close it up again. That said, this is a bit of a Big Deal.

Climate science is primarily about long-term trends. Scientists are reluctant, with good reason, to extrapolate short-term changes to long-term trends. Thankfully, I am not a scientist. This is important because it is a very large downward signal of the long-term trend, in my opinion. Non-linear and/or chaotic systems tend to jump to new states suddenly, sometimes disastrously. For the NEP to open weeks earlier than before, and keep in mind it's only been opening at all on a regular basis over the last handful of years (the NWP and NEP have been navigated in the distant past, but it took, for example, two years to do it as ships waited for leads in the ice to open), and now we see a jump of three weeks?

This indicates to me that all the indicators, and others, discussed previously are definitely helping to increase the rate of ice loss in the Arctic Basin.

There seem to have been three primary effects on the melt process. The Arctic Oscillation peaked in it's negative phase (warmer Arctic) around the 8th of July and started reversing. It has been in a mild positive phase (cooler arctic) for the last week. This may have played a role slowing ice loss in the NWP. At the same time, there appear to have been a number of storms over the area of the NEP which might have accelerated break up of the ice in that area. The basic geography of both obviously plays a part. The NWP is a closed channel with the remaining pack ice in an area between a near-90 degree bend at the western end and a set of islands and a narrowing passage at the eastern end. The NEP is relatively open water and is in the area of the ocean closer to current flowing through from the Pacific. There are large areas of open ocean along the coast on either side of the area we've been waiting to melt out; surely some of this extra energy is affecting the area we have been observing.

Whether some or all of these are actively affecting ice loss is supposition, of course, but each probably plays some part.

The Northwest Passage

The NWP finally started to break up a few days ago. It appeared winds had been pushing ice back into the western end of the channel, packing it together. Faint cracks developed slowly, primarily on the northern or left side of the western end and remained static for over a week. Larger cracks began propagating and now have grown pronounced and cover the entire western half of the remaining ice, as clearly seen in this image from the 20th.

The eastern end of this main channel has been very static, but there is melt along the northern edge.

For perspective, here is the full channel on the 19th:

When I made the original post on the 5th, the southern route seemed static and inactive compared to the main channel. However, since then, there's been a lot of ice broken up and it's beginning to look like the southern route will open first.

With the Arctic Oscillation positive, the circumpolar winds help to keep the ocean somewhat isolated. I have no strong prediction at the moment except that we should expect the process to continue in non-linear fashion with alternating periods of abrupt changes and stable conditions. Judging by conditions during the negative AO, a return to a strongly negative AO might signal speedier disintegration.

Ice-Free Arctic Ocean
Will the Arctic be ice-free this summer? That seems doubtful. However, ice extent is at record lows for this time of year.

A simple continuation of this trend will result in a new record low ice extent. (Ice extent is the area that the ice is spread out over.) A new low ice area should also happen if extent is a record low. (ice area is the actual surface area of the ice itself, not how much of the ocean it covers.) If either of those happen, a new low ice volume (the actual total of ice, as if you were picking it up and measuring it) is virtually certain. We already assume the ice is very thin because of late onset freeze last fall, early onset melt this spring and general conditions since 2007. In fact, even if the lows are not new records for extent or area, but are close to the 2007 minimum, I'd still expect a new record low volume. Remember, the reports that the first year ice this season was measured to be 40 centimeters thinner than last year. For two meter thick ice, that's about 20% thinner.

Here is what I posted to RealClimate regarding sea ice predictions this season:

At this time, I think the weather is too great a variable to be certain we will see a new minimum extent or area, but offer these scenarios. Given the current state of the ice, let me state the obvious:

A. If weather is strongly supportive of ice loss, a 100% chance of new minimum in volume, and 95% chance of new minimum area and 90% chance of new minimum extent.

B. If weather is relatively neutral in impact, drop each by ten percent.

C. If weather is supportive of ice retention, perhaps a 60% chance of new minimum in volume, and 50% chance of new minimum area and 40% chance of new minimum extent.

D. If weather is strongly supportive of ice retention, perhaps a 45% chance of new minimum in volume, and 35% chance of new minimum area and 25% chance of new minimum extent.

I think the ice, overall, is less healthy than most think it is. I think our instruments are not recognizing differences at a high enough resolution causing us to still overestimate the health of the ice. In other words, as stated earlier, there may be lots of thin ice gluing together older ice. Cottage cheese.

I will do another update around the end of this month to check my prediction for both the NWP and NEP likely being open by then.

Cheers

Tracking Arctic Sea Ice Loss via the Fram Strait

2011-07-18T15:01:00.011-04:00

Updated/Edited 7/01/11

NOTE: I corrected the title; you may need to update your bookmark.

Most recent:

Tracking the Fram Strait sea ice is proving. Closer to the coast of Greenland the ice is moving northward, further east it is moving southwest and where the two meet apparently anything can happen. Additionally, the floes change in size and shape rapidly at times, so from day to day it's a bit of now you see it, now you don't. It's been very cloudy since the 27th of July with the result being I've lost track of, or still can't see because of the clouds, almost all the floes I'd numbered. Cryosphere Today has a 42 day loop I like. Their high color loop is here.

The Fram Strait is second only to ice melt in the loss of ice from the Arctic Ocean. In terms of old, thick multi-year ice, it plays a vital role. Ice is lost via the Fram Strait because ocean water flows basically from the Pacific through the Arctic and then out into the Atlantic. This is simplified, but essentially correct.

The Strait is the deepest point through which sea ice can escape into the Atlantic. Looking at an image of the Fram Strait and not knowing the ice you see there in the melt season is moving, not standing still, you would think the ice there hardly melts in the summer. The reality is, it's a conveyor belt of sea ice flowing out of the Arctic Ocean.

One of the more interesting aspects of this is that the ice at the Arctic Ocean side of the straight, where it exits through the strait, often looks like solid pack ice even though ice is obviously moving rapidly out of the Arctic Ocean.

I thought it would be interesting and informative to track the ice flowing through the straight for a while. I've gone back to the 14th to start and will track for a week, at least, longer if it seems useful to continue. I'd like to have an idea of how long it takes ice to get from the opening to the end of the flow of ice. Because of the low resolution, I will be tracking through a small percentage of the ice flowing through the strait. I may add overview images to help get sense of the whole journey.

NOTE: I'd like to make this an animation/slide show. If you know of an on-line site where I can do that and link to it, please let me know.

Enjoy!

Click images to view them at a higher resolution.

Beginning Image:

Day 1: 7/14/11

Day 2: 7/15/11

Day 3: 7/16/11

Day 4: 7/17/11

Day 5: 7/18/11

Day 6: 7/19/11

Day 7: 7/20/11

Day 8: 7/21/11

Day 9: 7/22/11

Day 10: 7/23/11

Day 12: 7/25/11

Day 13: 7/26/11

Day 14: 7/27/11

Day 17: 7/30/11

Day 18: 7/31/11

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice - A Layman's Analysis

2011-07-05T09:37:00.013-04:00

Updated 7/9/11

INTRO

We've had warnings for several years now that the Arctic Sea ice is melting away at a rate that is truly frightening. Multiple lines of evidence support there is cause for concern. They include the general fact of the dynamics of climate change that the Arctic will warm faster than the rest of the planet, a scenario in which the Arctic is ice-free by 2016 +/- 3 years, the finding that most sea ice melt is from the bottom up because more water from the Pacific and Atlantic is getting into the Arctic Ocean than previously understood (and into fjords and under ice shelves adding to Greenland and Antarctic melt), observations of melting permafrost across the Arctic for a long period of time, the 2007 report of expansion of thermokarst lakes by a factor of three over just a few years and the resulting increase in methane emissions from them, the discovery of plumes of methane bubbling out of the Arctic Ocean floor along the Siberian Arctic continental shelf, an ice assessment aboard a ship that did direct observations that found what was believed to be heavy pack ice was ice that they could steam through at regular speed , and the expectation that the sea ice melt back would have an effect up to 1,000 miles inland.

Any one of these issues is a serious problem, but all of them happening at the same time is a signal that the Arctic is destabilizing on a massive scale. Readers unfamiliar with the climate science should note, for example, that the break down of methane clathrates on the sea floor was not expected to begin for a century at least. Just a few percent of these clathrates being released into the atmosphere can give a boost to warming that may leave us powerless to arrest the process. We are playing Russian Roulette with civilization in allowing the Russian Arctic clathrates to dissolve into the oceans and the atmosphere.

ASSESSMENT

I've been feeling all season we are going to have a large drop off in ice volume this year and the season so far is backing that up. The sea ice has been growing thinner, and falling in total volume for five or six years without exception. Even as ice extent, how spread out the ice is, seemed to "recover" after 2007, the actual amount of ice has kept falling. This means the ice has been getting thinner and thinner with less and less old ice - thick ice - remaining each year. The old, thick ice is key to avoiding an ice-free Arctic Ocean. It acts as a sort of anchor for new ice each year and reduces the amount of solar insolation by keeping some of the water covered so the sun's energy is reflected back out to space. With less and less of this ice, more and more of the open water is exposed each summer, leading to even more warming of the ocean and the atmosphere as heat is exchanged between them directly, and more so by the transformation of water to ice. There is a large pulse of heat out of the oceans and into the atmosphere each Fall as the sea ice forms. This warm air coming out of the warmed sea water, and combining with the warmer water, is affecting the formation of sea ice causing it to form later than usual, thus having less time to thicken, making it more vulnerable to melting the following summer. As Mark Serreze has stated, a death spiral.

My pessimism this year is based on all the points raised earlier, but key are the findings that the ice was in such poor condition when directly observed; the steady reduction year over year of total ice volume, which indicates the sea water is warmer than expected since 2/3 of ice melt is from below rather than above; the very large losses of old, thick ice; and the very late growth of sea ice last Fall. Some areas of the Arctic and areas of Canada did not cover with ice until December when they would usually be covered with ice by the end of November. The late growth was eventually reflected in a new record low total ice extent in the winter. The ice extent has been, and remains, below the record lows for most of the winter, spring and summer, as reflected in the following graph.

Arctic Sea Ice Extent from the NSIDC. The current extent is just below the extreme lows of 2007. Barring a shift to cold, calm weather for the rest of the melt season, we appear to be headed to a new record low extent, and almost certainly a new record low of total ice volume a new record low of old, thick ice. It's important to note the extent is 3 or 4 standard deviations from the baseline. in terms of the Bell Curve, this is well out on the tail. Statistically, this is a very large deviation, i.e. very abnormal.

The opening of the Northwest and Northeast passages give us a simple proxy for the state of the Arctic Sea Ice. That they are open at all is a large anomaly, that both have been open in recent years is a huge deviation from normal conditions. They are opening for a longer period of time each year. Last summer they were open long enough for two different ships on different expeditions to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean. This year, I expect a new record with both opening this month, and likely by the middle of the month.

An important regional effect comes via the Arctic Oscillation, which in its negative phase tends to disperse cold air to the lower latitudes and brings warmer air into the Arctic. The AO is currently in a negative phase, which may be enhancing the current melt. The nice thing for me? Where I live, we get a fairly direct effect from the AO, which is likely keeping temps from being hot. In fact, I casually track the weather patterns and they seem to have a near-perfect fit to the AO here. We're warm right now, but not hot. I'd rather be hot and have a cooler Arctic, though. And nothing lasts forever. When the AO goes positive, it's going to get very warm.

The Arctic Oscillation Index from the NOAA.

The following images show the western end of the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Archipelago. All the broken up ice and cracks you see in the channel have occurred in about the last week, so break-up seems to be picking up speed. The first image shows the sea ice as it had been, roughly, for weeks. It had slowly been breaking off small chunks and backing away from the open ocean. That process accelerated suddenly after the 27th of June which coincides with the beginning of a steep move into the negative AO, as you can see above. UPDATE: I read somewhere today, probably on Neven's site, that the AO is going more strongly negative for the immediate future with a strong high over the central Arctic Ocean. I would expect this to exacerbate the sea ice melt. July is commonly the month of greatest melt.

Western end of the Northwest Passage 6/27/11

In the image from 6/29, the area of breakup has nearly doubled. Cloud cover prevents us from seeing the condition of the ice further down the channel, but it likely had visible cracks indicating where the next breakups were going to be.

Western end of the Northwest Passage 6/29/11

You can see the area has again nearly doubled just one day later. There are cracks further back which you can see between the obvious last large crack and the thin passage in the upper left of the photo.
As we will see, the breakup continues along those lines.

Western end of the Northwest Passage 6/30/11

Here there is little change as wind and/or currents appear to have pushed the ice to the south, closing the cracks a bit. One of the difficulties in predicting sea ice is that it is inherently unstable and capricious. Winds and currents regularly push the entire Arctic ice floe one direction then another. Thus, it is entirely possible the NWP and NEP could open and close repeatedly during the summer, and be open or closed at different times.

Western end of the Northwest Passage 7/01/11

In the next image we see that the ice appears to be stable - those cracks still haven't opened - but in fact, new cracks beyond the narrow passage at the top have developed and foreshadow significant breakup to come.

Western end of the Northwest Passage 7/02/11

Not much change here....

Western end of the Northwest Passage 7/03/11

but then it all comes apart. I suspect that the breakup will accelerate once the elbow has been turned and the NWP will be opening up not long after. Depending on the weather, of course. Remember, however, the ice is very thin and vulnerable.

Western end of the Northwest Passage 7/04/11

We have to look at the other end of the passage, also. The first image below is the eastern end of the NWP on 6/30. The ice had been stable in that general area for weeks. There are several islands in the channel at this point, and it is where the channel opens up from the narrower passage between here and the open sea further east. I believe the islands played a role in keeping this ice locked in place, but once the ice disintegrates beyond the islands the pace may increase. Note the areas of grayish ice. Those are areas where the ice has already begun to break free and where future breakup can be expected.

Eastern end of the NWP 6/30.

Here we can see the breakup beginning with the little peninsula and some ice to the left of the channel breaking up. Again, note the gray areas.

Eastern end of the NWP 7/2.

Here we see significant cracks forming left and further up the channel in preparation for disintegration.

Eastern end of the NWP 7/3.

And here we now see cracks all across the channel roughly along a line drawn from the corner of the island on the right and upward and over to the islands on the left. I think we can expect significant break up over the next week or two. Perhaps the interplay of the breakups at both ends of the channel will accelerate both.

Eastern end of the NWP 7/4.

UPDATE: The area is showing signs of rapid breakdown just a day later:

The following two images show the full length of the channel. (NOTE: the channel is only part of the NWP.)

NWP along the Canadian Archipelago 6/26.

NWP along the Canadian Archipelago 7/2.

As stated earlier, I consider the NW and NE Passages to be proxies for the Arctic Sea Ice overall. One reason for this is that the oldest sea ice is supposed to be along the Canadian Archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, yet, this passage is opening every year. I'd think the narrow passages would encourage retention of sea ice since it should be difficult for it to flush out. Perhaps this assumption is wrong and the channel acts to accelerate water flow through it. Also, once the ice melted out several years ago, most of the old ice would be gone from the channel with little or no old ice floating around to help refill the channel leaving it vulnerable in subsequent years.

UPDATE: The Northeast Passage ice is showing rapid mass and extent loss, as is much of the Arctic Sea Ice the last couple days. Here's an image from July 8th:

It's looking very much like a race to see whether the NW or NE will open first, but right now it looks like the NEP has a good lead over the NWP.

EDIT: Looks like the supposition of old ice being flushed out was correct:

This image shows ice is not static. Any ice that survives the summer becomes multi-year, thicker ice. The key to rebuilding Arctic Sea Ice is for that to happen year after year. At this point, we are losing too much ice each summer, and because we are losing so much, it moves about more than it used to allowing more old ice to find its way out of the Arctic Ocean or adrift where it will more easily melt. Hat tip to Neven via Tenney.

Perhaps the heat retained by the islands or water flowing off of them plays a role, too. Whatever the case, since it first opened up, it has continued to open each year and I see no reason why it would not continue to do so.

Consistent with this, we have seen new lows in ice volume nearly every year, and 2007 - 2010 have been the four or five lowest years on record for volume and extent since tracking began with satellites in the late '70's. With the continued thinning year after year, the huge loss of old, thick ice, the late freeze last fall/winter, the record ice extent lows over the entire cold season and up to today, and the nearly open NW and NE Passages now, I have a very hard time not seeing a new record low for both extent and volume.

Here is a view of the entire Arctic Ocean, with annotations.

Arctic Sea Ice on 7/3/11. Some areas are obscured by clouds, but are considered open (by me) based on previous observations. Some areas of "open" water contain ice, but not enough to prevent navigation, imo. The NWP and NEP are roughly 70% and 80% open, respectively.

I'll be very surprised if both passages are not open by the end of the month, and see a 50/50 chance they will be open in the next two weeks. At minimum, all the ice should be broken up, even if not flushed out, and may be navigable. (The resolution on these images doesn't give a clear idea of space between ice floes/icebergs.)

UPDATE: The ice bound up along the Alaskan/Canadian coast has moved offshore, opening the passage. This leaves, at least for the moment, only the ice in the Canadian Archipelago between an open and closed Northwest Passage.

The images above were taken from here. It is an interactive image you navigate like Google Earth. you can zoom in and out and drag the image around. You can also double-click anywhere to zoom and center the image at the same time. These images have the highest resolution I have found. Learning to tell clouds from ice takes a little attention in the beginning. Because it is not radar, you can't see areas covered by clouds. I encourage you to explore the sea ice to see for yourself the desperate condition it is in.

PRI-De Family and Community Garden

2010-07-04T14:30:00.000-04:00

Back to the Salem Witch Trials

2010-05-11T12:47:00.000-04:00

Idiot calls for investigation of Michael Mann, whose research has only been proven to be accurate by subsequent research.

To me, it's just another sign of the overwhelming complexity that so many people can be swayed by bullshit and outright lies. When the evidence is staring you in the face, when ice is disappearing all over the planet, temperatures are rising, habitats moving, destructive storms increasing, winters warming... when every sign points to the clear, undeniable evidence and there is, literally ZERO scientific evidence to support any other conclusion, one can only conclude that we prefer our delusions and will defend them at any cost. Or, that those who possess power will lie the world into mass destruction before giving up that power. And that is possible only because it is impossible for the average person to know for certain who is lying and who isn't.

We aren't scientists. It wasn't that long ago that the basic daily lives of scientists was much like that of you and I. We all observed the same world. But now? Now scientists' daily life experiencea are nothing like ours. We have little ability to judge what we are being told is reality, so we are susceptible to the lies and propaganda that power and ideology generate to hold onto the last vestiges of the power and wealth that fossil fuels made possible.

But it is possible to know. Just look around you. And don't pretend to yourself that scientists sit around contemplating separating you from your wallets because some uneducated idiot on the radio, in the newspaper, on TV or in Congress tells you so. For, if you are willing to accept that virtually every climate scientist on the planet is in a conspiracy to control the world, then the whacko is the one in the mirror.

Think about it. For a person to deny climate science due to some conspiracy theory involving virtually every climate scientist, every major science organization, and from every nation on the planet, not only means to do the preceding, but it means it had to start more than a hundred years ago when the problem of green house gases was first identified. And if we are willing to do that, then how does one trust **any other** science? Why should we trust cars or airplanes? They exist because of science. How can you trust doctors? After all, they're paid to treat your illnesses. Maybe they're the ones making us sick! How do we trust our computers? They are how we see and hear all our info an news these days, so they must be filling us with nanobots to control us!

It's time to come back from the era of the Salem Witch trials and re-enter the current century. A letter from climate scientists to you:

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of politicalassaults on scientists in general and on climate scientistsin particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientificfacts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientificconclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. Whensomeone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutelycertain before taking any action, it is the same as saying societyshould never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophicas climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk forour planet. Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basiclaws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature,and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings,scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designedto find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial—scientistsbuild reputations and gain recognition not only for supportingconventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating thatthe scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a betterexplanation. That's what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einsteindid. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeplytested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of "well-establishedtheories" and are often spoken of as "facts."
For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that ourplanet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the originof Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today'sorganisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory ofevolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by thescientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could showthese theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into thiscategory: There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistentobjective evidence that humans are changing the climate in waysthat threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly,on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typicallydriven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effortto provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies theevidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involvethousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensivereports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes.When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there isnothing remotely identified in the recent events that changesthe fundamental conclusions about climate change: (i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations ofheat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washingtondoes not alter this fact.
(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gasesover the last century is due to human activities, especiallythe burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth'sclimate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patternsto change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, includingincreasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologiccycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making theoceans more acidic.
(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatenscoastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies,marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments,and far more.
Much more can be, and has been, said by the world's scientificsocieties, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusionsshould be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned aboutwhat future generations will face from business-as-usual practices.We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediatelyto address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrainedburning of fossil fuels.
We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminalprosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guiltby association, the harassment of scientists by politiciansseeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outrightlies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We canignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope weare lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce thethreat of global climate change quickly and substantively. Thegood news is that smart and effective actions are possible.But delay must not be an option.
P. H. Gleick,^* R. M. Adams, R. M. Amasino, E. Anders, D. J. Anderson, W. W. Anderson, L. E. Anselin, M. K. Arroyo, B. Asfaw, F. J. Ayala, A. Bax, A. J. Bebbington, G. Bell, M. V. L. Bennett, J. L. Bennetzen, M. R. Berenbaum, O. B. Berlin, P. J. Bjorkman, E. Blackburn, J. E. Blamont, M. R. Botchan, J. S. Boyer, E. A. Boyle, D. Branton, S. P. Briggs, W. R. Briggs, W. J. Brill, R. J. Britten, W. S. Broecker, J. H. Brown, P. O. Brown, A. T. Brunger, J. Cairns, Jr., D. E. Canfield, S. R. Carpenter, J. C. Carrington, A. R. Cashmore, J. C. Castilla, A. Cazenave, F. S. Chapin, III, A. J. Ciechanover, D. E. Clapham, W. C. Clark, R. N. Clayton, M. D. Coe, E. M. Conwell, E. B. Cowling, R. M Cowling, C. S. Cox, R. B. Croteau, D. M. Crothers, P. J. Crutzen, G. C. Daily, G. B. Dalrymple, J. L. Dangl, S. A. Darst, D. R. Davies, M. B. Davis, P. V. de Camilli, C. Dean, R. S. Defries, J. Deisenhofer, D. P. Delmer, E. F. Delong, D. J. Derosier, T. O. Diener, R. Dirzo, J. E. Dixon, M. J. Donoghue, R. F. Doolittle, T. Dunne, P. R. Ehrlich, S. N. Eisenstadt, T. Eisner, K. A. Emanuel, S. W. Englander, W. G. Ernst, P. G. Falkowski, G. Feher, J. A. Ferejohn, A. Fersht, E. H. Fischer, R. Fischer, K. V. Flannery, J. Frank, P. A. Frey, I. Fridovich, C. Frieden, D. J. Futuyma, W. R. Gardner, C. J. R. Garrett, W. Gilbert, R. B. Goldberg, W. H. Goodenough, C. S. Goodman, M. Goodman, P. Greengard, S. Hake, G. Hammel, S. Hanson, S. C. Harrison, S. R. Hart, D. L. Hartl, R. Haselkorn, K. Hawkes, J. M. Hayes, B. Hille, T. Hökfelt, J. S. House, M. Hout, D. M. Hunten, I. A. Izquierdo, A. T. Jagendorf, D. H. Janzen, R. Jeanloz, C. S. Jencks, W. A. Jury, H. R. Kaback, T. Kailath, P. Kay, S. A. Kay, D. Kennedy, A. Kerr, R. C. Kessler, G. S. Khush, S. W. Kieffer, P. V. Kirch, K. Kirk, M. G. Kivelson, J. P. Klinman, A. Klug, L. Knopoff, H. Kornberg, J. E. Kutzbach, J. C. Lagarias, K. Lambeck, A. Landy, C. H. Langmuir, B. A. Larkins, X. T. Le Pichon, R. E. Lenski, E. B. Leopold, S. A. Levin, M. Levitt, G. E. Likens, J. Lippincott-Schwartz, L. Lorand, C. O. Lovejoy, M. Lynch, A. L. Mabogunje, T. F. Malone, S. Manabe, J. Marcus, D. S. Massey, J. C. McWilliams, E. Medina, H. J. Melosh, D. J. Meltzer, C. D. Michener, E. L. Miles, H. A. Mooney, P. B. Moore, F. M. M. Morel, E. S. Mosley-Thompson, B. Moss, W. H. Munk, N. Myers, G. B. Nair, J. Nathans, E. W. Nester, R. A. Nicoll, R. P. Novick, J. F. O'Connell, P. E. Olsen, N. D. Opdyke, G. F. Oster, E. Ostrom, N. R. Pace, R. T. Paine, R. D. Palmiter, J. Pedlosky, G. A. Petsko, G. H. Pettengill, S. G. Philander, D. R. Piperno, T. D. Pollard, P. B. Price, Jr., P. A. Reichard, B. F. Reskin, R. E. Ricklefs, R. L. Rivest, J. D. Roberts, A. K. Romney, M. G. Rossmann, D. W. Russell, W. J. Rutter, J. A. Sabloff, R. Z. Sagdeev, M. D. Sahlins, A. Salmond, J. R. Sanes, R. Schekman, J. Schellnhuber, D. W. Schindler, J. Schmitt, S. H. Schneider, V. L. Schramm, R. R. Sederoff, C. J. Shatz, F. Sherman, R. L. Sidman, K. Sieh, E. L. Simons, B. H. Singer, M. F. Singer, B. Skyrms, N. H. Sleep, B. D. Smith, S. H. Snyder, R. R. Sokal, C. S. Spencer, T. A. Steitz, K. B. Strier, T. C. Südhof, S. S. Taylor, J. Terborgh, D. H. Thomas, L. G. Thompson, R. T. Tjian, M. G. Turner, S. Uyeda, J. W. Valentine, J. S. Valentine, J. L. van Etten, K. E. van Holde, M. Vaughan, S. Verba, P. H. von Hippel, D. B. Wake, A. Walker, J. E. Walker, E. B. Watson, P. J. Watson, D. Weigel, S. R. Wessler, M. J. West-Eberhard, T. D. White, W. J. Wilson, R. V. Wolfenden, J. A. Wood, G. M. Woodwell, H. E. Wright, Jr., C. Wu, C. Wunsch, M. L. Zoback

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: petergleick@pacinst.org

Notes

1. The signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but are not speaking on its behalf.
2. Signatory affiliations are available as supporting material at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/689/DC1

Easter Egg Hunt at the GSCG

2010-05-03T10:51:00.000-04:00

We had a great time, as always, hanging out with the Georgia Street Community Collective - and the Easter Bunny. This was Conor's first Easter Egg Hunt.

Thanks to the GSCC for preserving the memory with this beautiful little film. It was filmed at the Georgia Street Community Garden I, Georgia Street Community Orchard, and future Community Store.

Wow! Scientists are REAL PEOPLE!

2010-03-27T01:58:00.001-04:00

Shocking, isn't it? Rhetorical question, of course. OK, so here's the thing about denial of climate change (despite the ice melting, the air warming, the oceans warming, the Arctic melting, the permafrost melting, thermokarst lakes increasing in size and number, habitats moving and leaving behind the fauna and vice-versa, corals dying, methane increasing, CO2 increasing, the fact that the signatures of CO2 show beyond doubt where the CO2 is coming from...), why is Climate Science the only science these people don't trust? Do they attack their doctors and medical science? No. Do they not drive their cars because they don't understand how they work? No. Do they not fly airplanes because aerodynamics is crap? No. Do they refuse their food because Big Ag used genetic science (breeding and GM) to create the food they eat? No. Do they doubt astrophysics? No. Do they doubt chemistry? No. Do they doubt the physics and engineering that keep their boats afloat? No...

Where have we seen this before...? Hmmm.... real head-scratcher, that one...

We've seen it with smoking, for one. And many of the same people, too. (Right, Fred Singer?) Do yourself a favor and watch Naomi Oreskes work on Climate Denialism. Anywho...

This is as good an explanation of Climategate E-Mail Foolishness (a.k.a. The time a bunch of denialists lied about and distorted some irrelevant e-mails ) as you are ever to find. Of course, there are many who will read the following text and determine every evil thing hey ever thought about climate scientists is true.

They will fail to understand, most with malice aforethought, what is being said and choose to reinforce the previously-solidified constructs built up by lies and bullshit. There will be nothing new or interesting in this. It is a fact of the world we live in.

On the off chance lightning strikes and a circuit gets switched, here ya go, from comments at RealClimate:

Kate (#20): I’m afraid to say that a lot of the personal emails between academics in any field are probably not very nice. We tend to be very blunt about what appears to us as ignorance, and intolerant of anything that wastes our time, or distracts us from our work. And when we think (rightly or wrongly) that the peer review process has let another crap paper through we certainly don’t hold back in expressing our opinions to one another. Which is of course completely different to how we behave when we meet one another. Most scientists seem able to distinguish clearly between the intellectual cut and thrust (in which we’re very rude about one another’s ideas) and social interactions (in which we all get together over a beer and bitch about the downsides of academic life). Occasionally, there’s someone who is unable to separate the two, and takes the intellectual jabs personally, but such people are rare enough in most scientific fields that the rest of us know exactly who they are, and try to avoid them at conferences!

Part of this is due to the nature of the academic research. We care deeply about intellectual rigor, and preserving the integrity of the published body of knowledge. But we also know that many key career milestones are dependent on being respected (and preferably liked) by others in the field, such as the more senior people who write recommendation letters for tenure and promotion and honors, or the scientists with competing theories who will get asked to peer review our papers, etc.

Most career academics have large egos and very thick skins. I think the tenure process and the peer review process filter out those who don’t. So, expect to see rudeness in private, especially when we’re discussing other scientists behind their backs with likeminded colleagues, coupled with a more measured politeness in public (e.g. at conferences).

Now, in climate science, all our conventions are being broken. Private email exchanges are being made public. People who have no scientific training and/or no prior exposure to the scientific culture are attempting to engage in a discourse with scientists, and these people just don’t understand how science works. The climate scientists whom they attempt to engage are so used to interacting only with other scientists (we live rather sheltered lives- they don’t call it the ivory tower for nothing), that we don’t know how to engage with these outsiders. What in reality is a political streetfight, we mistake for an intellectual discussion over brandy in the senior commonroom. Scientists have no training for this type of interaction, and so our responses look (to the outsiders) as rude, dismissive, and perhaps unprofessional.

Journalists like Monbiot, despite all his brilliant work in keeping up with the science and trying to explain it to the masses, just haven’t ever experienced academic culture from the inside. Hence his call, which he keeps repeating, for Phil Jones to resign, on the basis that Phil reacted unprofessionally to FOI requests. You don’t get data from a scientist by using FOI requests, you do it by stroking their ego a little, or by engaging them with a compelling research idea you want to pursue with it. And in the rare cases where this doesn’t work, you do the extra work to reconstruct it from other sources, or modify your research approach (because it’s the research we care about, not any particular dataset itself). So to a scientist, anyone stupid enough to try to get scientific data through repeated FOI requests quite clearly deserves our utter contempt. Jones was merely expressing (in private) a sentiment that most scientists would share – and extreme frustration with people who clearly don’t get it.

The same misunderstandings occur when outsiders look at how we talk about the peer-review process. We’re used to having our own papers rejected from time to time, and we learn how to deal with it – quite clearly the reviewers were stupid, and we’ll show them by getting it published elsewhere (remember, big ego, thick skin). We’re also used to seeing the occasional crap paper get accepted (even into our most prized journals), and again we understand that the reviewers were stupid, and the journal editors incompetent, and we waste no time in expressing that. And if there’s a particularly egregious example, everyone in the community will know about it, everyone will agree it’s bad, and some will start complaining loudly about the editor who let it through. Yet at the same time, we’re all reviewers, so it’s understood that the people we’re calling stupid and incompetent are our colleagues. And a big part of calling them stupid or incompetent is to get them to be more rigorous next time round, and it works because no honest scientist wants to be seen as lacking rigor. What looks to the outsider like a bunch of scientists trying to subvert some gold standard of scientific truth is really just scientists trying to goad one another into doing a better job in what we all know is a messy, noisy process.

The bottom line is that scientists will always tend to be rude to ignorant and lazy people, because we expect to see in one another a driving desire to master complex ideas and to work damn hard at it. Unfortunately the outside world (and many journalists) interpret that rudeness as unprofessional conduct. And because they don’t see it every day (like we do!) they’re horrified.

Comment by Steve Easterbrook — 25 March 2010 @ 6:04 AM

The Loss of Multi-year Arctic Sea Ice Animation

2010-03-23T23:18:00.000-04:00

The loss of thick, multi-year sea ice is the big non-story of the Arctic that should be THE climate story. While the extent each summer is important, very important, because it allows sunlight to get to the water and leave it warmer than before, if the thick ice stayed each year the extent wouldn't matter so much because there would be no way for the ice extent to fall very far, or, at least it would take a lot longer to melt out completely.

Imagine a punch bowl filled with ice. The temp is very cold in the room, say 35 degrees. Now imagine every 30 minutes you alternate adding a cup of 40 degree water or a 3/4 cup of 35 degree water. Imagine how long it would take for the ice to melt.

Now imagine the same punch bowl filled with ice. The temp is 35 degrees. Now imagine every 30 minutes you alternate adding a cup of 40 degree water or a 3/4 cup of 35 degree water, but this time take out the half of the biggest ice cubes and replace them with the same number of ice cubes, but the same size as the smallest ice cubes in the bowl. Imagine how long it would take for the ice to melt now. How long before the water temperature edges closer to 40 than 35?

That's the effect of losing the multi-year ice.

To understand the loss of multi-year ice and the added energy from the sun, when you add the water, add 1/10 of a degree in temp each round to both cups of water.

As the Arctic goes, so goes the planet. It really is that simple. Hope and pray that the winds blow in every and any direction that doesn't push sea ice out of the Arctic Sea, because that's the only thing that's going to slow this train, and possibly even allow some re-growth of thicker ice. A few anomalously cold summers would help, too.

Whew... anyone got a kerchief? It's getting hot in here...

Chopping Down the Cherry Tree - Answers to Climate Change Denial

2010-03-22T12:02:00.003-04:00

Posted here with permission.

Chopping Down the Cherry Tree

The image above shows a cherry tree with 96 red cherries and 4 blue cherries. If somebody asked me or another scientist what type of tree this is I would state:
“It is very likely to be a red cherry tree and I am investigating why there are a few blue cherries that do not appear to fit in.”
Similar statements have been made by scientific experts regarding climate change:
“Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” (IPCC, 2007)
“Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century.” (IPCC, 2007)
The term very likely used by the IPCC means a probability greater than 90%.
A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago of 3,146 Earth scientists showed 96.2% of climatologists who are active in climate research believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures.
For more information about the scientific consensus regarding climate change please see The Scientific Consensus.
So if this red cherry tree is so obvious why do we still have some people trying to tell us that it is a blue cherry tree? This technique is called cherry picking data to support a false claim. A few notable examples of cherry picking appear below.
1) “Global Warming Stopped in 1998” or “There Is Global Cooling”:
If I were determined to show global cooling, I would choose 1998 as a starting point and then 2008 as my ending point. Why? 1998 was a strong El Niño year which caused a very warm signal and 2008 had a strong La Niña which caused a very cool signal. Here is what the four major global temperature plots look like when I “cherry pick” the data:

Global surface and lower troposphere monthly mean anomalies and linear trends between 1998 and 2008

Three of the four global average temperatures indeed are decreasing in their trends (although the actual global mean temperatures are still warmer than the previous decades). So what happens if I start with the year 1999 and end with the year 2009?

Global surface and lower troposphere monthly mean anomalies and linear trends between 1999 and 2009

Simply by shifting our starting point by one year, all four global average temperatures are increasing in their trends! The point made here is that if one cherry-picks a small subset of the data, one can make just about any claim with a nice plot to back it up. The correct way to view global temperature trends is to look at ALL of the data.

Global surface and lower troposphere monthly mean anomalies and linear trends since 1880

For more information please see Global Cooling.

The bottom line is that 20 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past 25 years. The warmest year globally was 2005 with the years 2009, 2007, 2006, 2003, 2002, and 1998 all tied for 2^nd within statistical certainty. (Hansen et al., 2010) The warmest decade has been the 2000s, and each of the past three decades has been warmer than the decade before and each set records at their end.

Looks like a red cherry tree to me!

2) “Arctic Sea Ice Has Been Increasing Since 2007!”

Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent since 1953

The image above from the National Snow and Ice Data Center indeed shows that ice extent has increased from a record low in 2007 but, of course, the long-term trend is steeply downward since the 1970s.
Sea ice extent is just part of the picture. Sea ice thickness has also been measured by declassified submarine records and ICESat satellite measurement.

Northern Hemisphere sea ice thickness submarine & ICESAT combined (Kwock & Rothrock, 2009)

The figure above shows the mean thicknesses of six Arctic regions for the three periods (1958–1976, 1993–1997, 2003–2007). Thicknesses have been seasonally adjusted to September 15. This combined analysis shows a long-term trend of sea ice thinning over submarine and ICESat records that span five decades.

Looks like a red cherry tree to me!

3) “Greenland and Antarctica Are Gaining Ice at Their Centers”

Yes, ice mass is increasing in the centers of both of these ice sheets. However, when one considers the mass of these ice sheets in their entirety, a different picture emerges:

Greenland Ice Mass Loss (Velicogna, 2009)

Antarctica Ice Mass Loss (Velicogna, 2009)

It is quite clear that, overall, Antarctica and Greenland show a long-term loss of ice. John Cook at Skeptical Science has several very good summaries of this research. See: An overview of Antarctic ice trends, An overview of Greenland ice trends, and Why is Greenland’s ice loss accelerating?

Looks like a red cherry tree to me!

4) “The Glacier is Advancing!” (Fill in the blank with your favorite advancer)

There are indeed some glaciers around the world that are advancing. Yes, there are a few blue cherries on our red cherry tree. Let us look at ALL of the glaciers around the world that are being monitored by the World Glacier Monitoring Service.

Mean cumulative specific mass balance of all reported glaciers (black line) and the reference glaciers (red line)

It is quite obvious that glacial mass is rapidly decreasing. So what about the claim that some glaciers are advancing? According to the WGMS, 90% of worldwide glaciers are retreating.

Looks like a red cherry tree to me!

So what are your favorite examples of cherry-picking?

Written by Scott Mandia
February 20, 2010 at 1:46 pm

http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/chopping-down-the-cherry-tree/

2009-12-23T12:39:00.001-05:00

A nice overview of where things stand. Be sure to look through the stories listed and the comments. There's often better stuff there than even in the main post or stories.

Ilargi: For once, I'm afraid, I have to agree with Paul Krugman, himself a highly dysfunctional man in my eyes: the US government is Dangerously Dysfunctional. Only, Krugman, ever eager to be my anti-thesis, -somewhat comfortingly for me- rolls off the rails right away again by claiming that this is a result of party politics, and the blame lies squarely with the party he happens not to like, the GOP. And while I have little sympathy for that particular party, I do know that Krugman's portrayal is false.

Eliot Spitzer and Wiilam K. Black, seemingly honest and (therefore?) marginalized voices, ask to see emails concerning the AIG bailout(s). Therein, they contend, we’ll be able to see what really went on when the world's -then- largest insurer received $180 billion of your money, much of which was transferred at an amazing speed to the likes of Goldman Sachs. Make the emails public and we’ll know, because then "a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom". They actually wrote that.....

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism reacts, and wants more. She thinks we should know why no research was done into all the parties involved, why they could receive money without being scrutinized before, during and after the bail-out process. Yves provides a well-written overview of Goldman Sachs actions that involved parts of the AIG funds. Still, calling for investigations into the matter, with or without emails, and more than a year after the fact, largely misses the crucial points here. Which takes us back to my buddy Krugman.

The AIG decisions were made in Washington. There was another party on the throne, but what difference did that make? The decision-making problems don’t vanish when another party comes to power. That much, we can all agree by now, has been made exceedingly obvious by the Bush to Obama transfer. The reason behind this is that the real rulers stayed in place while the White House changed occupants. The US simply isn't governed by its elected politicians. Or at least not by their ideas and convictions, if, when and where these differ from those of their donors.

If a politician can be elected only when (s)he has enough money (i.e. millions of dollars, and for a president hundreds of millions) to run a campaign, then the resulting policies will be dictated by those who donate that money. And since one dollar equals one vote, the grandma who ate mac and cheese for a week to donate $10 to Obama has no say, while a financial institution that gave $10 million does.

Both parties partake of the exact same largesse, so claiming that one is to blame and the other is not is nonsense. The system itself is broken. And you can't fix it with a bit more openness here or a few published emails there. You can only fix it by separating politics and business, by taking a big old axe and cruelly cutting clear through the umbilical chords so carefully and profitably attended to on K Street. Anything else is mere make believe. Nobody in Washington seeks the truth behind all this. Everybody seeks a story that makes them look good for their voters.

Arnold Kling describes it like this in The Harvard-Goldman Filter:
As to libertarians, certainly in a world with no deposit insurance or government guarantees I could argue against government interference in the structure of private banks. But banks are not private in this country. They are quasi-public institutions [..].

There is a synergy between big banks and big government. Jefferson and Jackson were right. So breaking up big banks fits in with breaking up big government. Which is why we won't see the Progressive elite breaking up big banks.

The trouble in Denmark on Capitol Hill runs much deeper than a vote or an idea. The country is governed by a few hundred enlightened souls who are all for sale, or they wouldn't be where they are. And if a soul does get lost on the Hill and tries to follow his or her conscience, the rest of them will drown it out.

This is not a new issue, though it has rapidly grown more poignant in the past 3 decades. What is new today is that the dysfunctional system has to deal with a crisis that cannot be dealt with as previous crises were: with more growth.

And without growth, what wealth there is has to be redivided, or society as a whole becomes untenable. And yes, redivided it is, but not in a way that would warrant society's continued viability. On the contrary, those who always had much will have more, while those who had least will now have nothing. And I’ve said it before, it's not a political statement to say that if a society doesn't provide a minimum for its poorest, that society must of necessity fail.

Read all the emails you want, investigate all the crooked deals made in the bail-outs. It won’t matter one iota. Once growth is gone, you need to prevent the rich from lobbying themselves into ever and even more riches. because these will have to come from the mouths of the desolate.

Or you can choose not to, but then your society is over and done with. Now, I don’t really think people will think I’m right. When most read that the noughties were the worst decade for stocks ever, as in since the 1820's, almost 200 years, they’ll think: well, it should go up then, shouldn't it?

Who among them concludes that growth may be gone, even if they know it can’t last forever? It was inevitable that they'd still be expecting -nay, even seeing- growth when the world around them is shrinking.

PS: The Financial Times headline "Bank of Japan says it will not tolerate deflation" inspired a good friend to come up with this quote about King Canute, about a millenium or so old. It would be a valuable lesson for many, not in the least the economists and assorted financial types who overestimate governmental powers and good will of many sorts and stripes.
"Henry of Huntingdon, the 12th-century chronicler, tells how Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes; but the tide failed to stop.

According to Henry, Cnut leapt backwards and said "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again."

2009-12-08T19:08:00.000-05:00

This is from RealClimate. The editorial is available from many sources, but I like the comments here showing some of the process behind the editorial. Unlike RC, I do take a very definite position in support of the editorial.

The Guardian’s Editorial
— eric @ 8 December 2009

The following editorial was published today by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like The Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page. The Guardian, the editorial is free to reproduce under Creative Commons.
RealClimate takes no formal position on the statements made in the editorial.
Copenhagen climate change conference: Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generationToday 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.
Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.
The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.
But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time but we can’t afford a replay.”
At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.
Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.
Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world’s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.
Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.
But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.
Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.
Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”.
It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.
The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.

Anti-AGW Conspiracy

2009-12-08T01:20:00.001-05:00

This is a fabulous video. It reveals the foolishness of the denial crowd perfectly.

If you wish to see behind the scenes of a real and ongoing conspiracy, do follow these links:

The American Denial of Global Warming - Naomi Oreskes

ExxonMobile Report: Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

Oreskes on her review of the climate literature from 1999 to 2003:

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

To my knowledge, not much has changed since. The work of even some of the more legit sceptics in no way undermines an anthropogenic forcing of climate change. All the works in this regard either don't undermine the current understanding or are very flawed. The sun's influence, clouds and tropospheric temperatures are all examples. You can check out the rebuttals to those ideas if you go to RealClimate's Wiki page, their index, their Start Here page or, to really understand climate, go to Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming page, which is created from, I believe, his book of the same name. Warning: it's an extensive site, but if you truly, honestly, don't quite get the whole Anthropogenically forced Climate Change thing, you will after reading that site/book.

If it's a conspiracy, it started a VERY LONG time ago. From Weart's website:

In 1896 a Swedish scientist published a new idea. As humanity burned fossil fuels such as coal, which added carbon dioxide gas to the Earth's atmosphere, we would raise the planet's average temperature. This "greenhouse effect" was only one of many speculations about climate, and not the most plausible...

In the 1930s, people realized that the United States and North Atlantic region had warmed significantly during the previous half-century... one lone voice, the amateur G.S. Callendar, insisted that greenhouse warming was on the way...

In the 1950s... new studies showed that, contrary to earlier crude estimates, carbon dioxide could indeed build up in the atmosphere and should bring warming. Painstaking measurements drove home the point in 1961 by showing that the level of the gas was in fact rising, year by year...

A 1967 calculation suggested that average temperatures might rise a few degrees within the next century...

The scientists' claims about climate change first caught wide public attention in the summer of 1988, the hottest on record till then. (Most since then have been hotter.)...

There is zero evidence of conspiracy, and logically it's idiotic to claim it is a conspiracy. However, as the links further up illustrate, not only is there a conspiracy to deny climate change and to prevent action to mitigate it, we actually have proof of this. It's historical fact. I've yet, in three years of trying, to get one of these deniers to even address this, let alone actually acknowledge it.

Hypocrites.

'Nuff said.

James Hansen on Cap n Trade

2009-12-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

Sack Goldman Sachs Cap-and-Trade

            The revolving door between Washington and Wall Street has produced a new scheme to fleece the public. “Cap-and-trade” is the heart of the Obama Administration’s plan to slow global warming and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Permits to emit a “capped” amount of carbon dioxide will be traded on Wall Street by big-time players like Goldman Sachs.
            Cap-and-trade was anointed hero status for helping reduce pollution from power plants, specifically acid rain from the sulfur in coal. Seldom have accolades been less deserved. Indeed, this “success” story is a case of calling black white.
            Here, in essence, is how it worked. Congress passed a law, Title IV of the Clean Air Act, capping sulfur emissions from power plants at 50 percent of 1990 amounts. Utilities reducing emissions more than half could sell excess reductions to other utilities, which then did not need to reduce pollution. Physical changes were simple. Many power plants switched to low-sulfur Wyoming coal and a few installed scrubbers. Sulfur emissions were reduced almost 50 percent in 20 years. Great success? Hardly.
            First, it was like a smoker going from two-packs-a-day to one-pack-a-day. Such a cap imposed by law is a floor, as well as a cap. Physicians for Social Responsibility reported on 18 November that continuing coal emissions are significant contributing factors in four of the five leading causes of mortality in the United States – and the mercury, arsenic and other coal pollutants also cause birth defects, asthma and other ailments. The economic value to the public of further emission reductions exceed the cost by a factor of 25, but so far the floor has prevented greater reduction.
            What is needed is not a cap/floor, but a system designed to wind down the pollution in accord with the public good, not the polluters’ profits. Before defining such a system, let me expose the second, even bigger, whopper in the cap-and-trade gimmick. It is the “horse-trading” that polluters demand before they will allow Congress to pass a cap. Yes, I am sorry to say, in America today, with the role of money in government and a revolving door between Congress and lobbyists, polluters sit astride Congress with such brazen “authority”.
            The horse-trade demanded by polluters before accepting the Clean Air Act was that old power plants be “grandfathered”, avoiding many pollution regulations. These old plants would soon be retired anyway. Wink. Two-thirds of today’s coal-fired power plants were constructed before 1970. Utilities find it highly profitable to keep patching up these old polluting cash cows. Meanwhile, public health continues to suffer.
            These basic problems, the floor on pollution and horse-trading, recur, in spades, in the cap-and-trade scheme hatched by big banks and Washington to slow carbon dioxide emissions and reduce fossil fuel use.
            Cap-and-trade sets a nominal emissions cap by auctioning permits to pollute. This cap is a floor – if emissions went below the cap, permit price would collapse leaving no incentive for further emissions reduction.
         Moreover, the cap is a faux cap, a fiction. The real cap is higher, because of “offsets” – alternatives to emission reductions, such as tree planting on degraded land, avoided deforestation in Brazil, or investments in developing countries. Caps are raised by the offset amount, but offsets are often imaginary or unverifiable. Avoided deforestation, for example, does not reduce demand for lumber or food growing area, so deforestation moves elsewhere. Also, offsets encourage developing countries to retain pollution, so they will have offsets to sell.
         Horse-trading further mars the outcome. House and Senate energy bills legislate continued coal use, making it implausible that carbon dioxide emissions will decline sharply. Copenhagen discussions also are headed down the cap-with-offsets, horse-trading path, even though this approach can never achieve the sharp emission reductions that science demands.
         Let’s define a feasible approach. A successful approach must recognize a fundamental truth: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, their use will continue and even increase. Fossil fuels are cheapest because they are not required to pay for their damage to human health and the environment or for climate impacts on current and future generations.
         “Fee-and-dividend” is a simple solution. A gradually rising carbon fee is collected at the mine or port of entry for each fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas). The fee is uniform, a single number, in dollars per ton of carbon dioxide in the fuel. The public does not directly pay any fee, but the price of goods will rise in proportion to how much fossil fuel is used in their production.
         One hundred percent of the fee should be distributed to the public. Prudent people will use their dividend wisely, adjusting their life style, choice of vehicle, and so on. Those who do better than average will receive more in the dividend than they pay in added costs.
         For example, if the fee were set now at $115 per ton of carbon dioxide it would add one dollar per gallon to the price of gasoline and 8 cents per kilowatt-hour to the price of electricity. Given the amount of oil, gas and coal used in the United States in 2007, that carbon fee yields $670 billion dollars per year. The resulting dividend for each adult legal resident is about $3000 per year or $250 per month. A family with two or more children would receive almost $9000 per year. The dividend would be sent electronically to bank accounts or added to debit cards.
         In reality, the fee probably will be introduced gradually over several years, to minimize waste of infrastructure. By the time the carbon fee reaches $115 per ton utilities are expected to have altered fuel choices, reducing the impact on electric rates to 5-6 cents per kilowatt-hour – and the annual per capita dividend may be only $2000-2500. But given that about 60 percent of the public will receive more in dividend than they pay via increased energy prices, the public is likely to support continued increase of the carbon fee.
         As the fee rises, tipping points will be reached at which various carbon-free energies and carbon-saving technologies are cheaper than fossil fuels plus their fee. As time goes on, fossil fuel use will collapse, remaining coal supplies will be left in the ground, and we will arrive at our clean energy future – free at last from our fossil fuel addiction.
         Economists agree that fee-and-dividend is more efficient and less costly than cap-and-trade. But many economists prefer that proceeds be used to reduce taxes that cause economic inefficiency rather than pay dividends. Their usual suggestion is to reduce payroll taxes, which are regressive.
         A problem with reducing payroll taxes is that half of the people are not on payrolls – being either retired or involuntarily unemployed. Thus a dividend is fairer. As a compromise, I suggest that half the carbon fee be given to legal residents as a monthly dividend, and half used to reduce payroll taxes.
         Need more insight into cap-and-trade? Consider this perverse effect on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a high-efficiency little car. That reduces your emissions, but not your country’s or the world’s. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger SUV. Emissions are set by the cap/floor, not by your actions.
         In contrast, fee-and-dividend has no floor, so every action to reduce emissions helps. Indeed, your action may spur your neighbor to do the same. Such snowballing effects can occur with fee-and-dividend, speeding us toward a pollution-free world.
         More convincing needed? Note that the skilled, secretive trading unit of Goldman Sachs is poised to make billions of dollars off cap-and-trade. Banks and other private equity firms already have more than 100 representatives working the issue. The carbon market is expected to be worth more than a trillion dollars. Wall Street wants the market to be loosely regulated, open to speculators, and to include over-the-counter derivatives. Pretty good chance for that, given the Washington-Wall Street revolving door.
         Where will the banks’ profits come from? All costs of the pollution trading system are extracted from the public, via increased energy prices. And there is no dividend to the public.
         In contrast, fee-and-dividend only requires the government to divide the collected fee by the number of legal residents. The entire collected fee goes to the public. Goldman Sachs does not get one thin dime.

Sustainability and Social Justice: Do the Math

2009-11-23T14:12:00.007-05:00

At the core of everything we might discuss about the future of the planet is population. If you find yourself automatically dismissing the idea of managing population, I have previously discussed population and introduced Dr. Albert Bartlett's excellent presentation on this topic. You can find a link to his work in the sidebar to the right.

Put simply, sustainable populations have always practiced population control. People try to twist this into a huge morality and governmental intervention issue, but it need not be. There are simple solutions that don't require a demagogue or dictator to tell you what you can and can't do. Part of it is education. Part of it is economic stability. Part of it is empowering women to be equals in society.

Part of it is just pulling our collective heads out of our rear ends and/or the sand. I found a pretty simple solution: one child. By choice. No governmental intervention needed. All it took to make that decision was realizing we are in overshoot. It's not complicated. Read on.

(The original source and the writer will hopefully forgive the extensive quoting, but this is worth reviewing. Please do visit the original, linked in the title below.)

Sustainability and Social Justice: Do the Math

Most people I talk to support 'sustainability' and 'social justice' goals.

...we face two serious challenges. Firstly, humanity already over-consumes the biological capacity of the planet. And secondly, humanity suffers from a vast gap between rich and poor.

Free-market fundamentalists... business-as-usual approach fails to account for ecological reality.

Do the math

...Earth's capacity by 30 per cent. This is known as biological 'overshoot'. The UN estimates that most natural services to human societies - forests, fish, fresh water and clean air - decline annually. As human population and consumption grow, our collective overshoot increases.

...the wealthy 15 per cent use about 85 per cent of the resources...
Nature's rules
Start with these facts:

1. Total human consumption = 130% of the Earth's capacity
2. The rich 15% use 85% of the stuff, and the poor 85% use 15% of the stuff
...since the rich 15 use 85% of everything, they use 110 units (130 X 85%). The poor 85, meanwhile, use the other 20 units of stuff.

Therefore:

The average rich person uses 110/15 = 7.333 units of stuff
The average poor person uses 20/85 = 0.235 units of stuff
Dysfunctional? Yes.
Sustainable? No.

Reality bites

...to achieve sustainability and social justice, the rich would have to consume about 1/7 of what they currently consume... the world's poor could increase their consumption by about 4 times.
...we labour under the delusion that we'll make the world 'equitable' by growing... achieve greater wealth. We'll make our economies 'sustainable' by creating 'green' products, hybrid cars, and renewable energy.
If the Earth was an infinite... But the Earth is not infinite.

...if the rich simply cut their consumption in half and the poor could then double their current consumption...:

The average rich person would use 3.67 units of stuff, instead of 7.33. And then, the average poor person could use 0.53 units of stuff (slightly more than double), instead of 0.235. This equation alone would feed the 1 billion starving, and end world hunger.

Our equation for 100 average people would then look like this:

Rich consumption: 15 X 3.67 units of stuff = 55 units of stuff
Poor consumption: 85 X 0.53 units of stuff = 45 units of stuff

Total = 100 units of stuff for 100 average people.

The ratio between the average rich and poor would then be about 7-to-1, far more equitable than the current 30-to-1 ratio...

Growth fundamentalists will grumble... but... We do not get to rewrite the laws of biology and physics for our own convenience...

Two problems remain
...First of all, we currently add 75 million new people to the planet every year... equal to a nation such as France, Germany or Egypt. And then again, every year.

...human population growth pushes us further out over the cliff.

We now face declining oil and fish yields, but few people realise that oil and fish yields per capita peaked in the 1970s, 30 years ago.
...we must stabilise human population.
The second challenge we face is that we share this planet with millions of other species...
We cannot design human culture to devour every last niche of the planet...

Living with natural growth

Growth is not evil, it just isn't permanent. In nature, all growth stops. New organisms may replace the old, but there exist no cases in nature of endless growth. As Dr. Albert Bartlett at the University of Colorado points out, "After maturity, continued growth is either obesity or cancer." In a finite world, we cannot grow ourselves out of overshoot.

...Canadian master selection logger, Merv Wilkinson, ...managed to earn a living for over 50 years selectively logging the forest he grew up in... with more standing timber than the day he started logging...
..."It's simple really: Just cut below the annual growth rate."
- Rex Weyler

Of Crashes, Failures and Bailouts - Round VI

2009-11-22T17:12:00.003-05:00

This video speaks for itself. Who got bailed out? Not you and not me. We are the proud owners of all the debt created by federal policies, deregulation, and outright fraud.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Elizabeth Warren would be an excellent choice to replace Tim Geithner, Larry Summers or Ben Bernanke. In case you distrust Warren as an insider, you should also watch the following (it will help you understand why Americans are so leveraged in debt, why a two-income household is required, and why we've nothing left for Wall Street and the government to drain from us, and so why they are now pawning off their debt on our children... and their children... and their children...)

Iraq, Oil, War, and Presidents and Vice-Presidents... err... Lying Liars... err... War Criminals

2009-07-04T01:37:00.005-04:00

A small aside today via a walk down memory lane. Some things simply should not be forgotten, for they show you where you have been and are likely to go. Energy needs to be out of the hands of big corporations and in the hands of indivicuals, towns, cities and regions.

It wasn't about the oil, except that it was.

A little history lesson first. It saddens me to say Jimmy Carter got the ball rolling with a goodly toss, but he did. Unintended consequences, I suppose, as he was responding directly to a perceived USSR threat. Still... All those years later, this doctrine was considered support for the invasion of Iraq. Being about outsiders and not locals, it's bogus, but slippery slopes are called slippery for a reason. But, really, that's a minor point in all this.

Comes 9/11 and the excuse is laid at the feet of an administration bent on securing oil supplies. Here we need a little history else all looks like mere greed. And G_d knows no American President would ever engage in THAT! It's un-American! Except one did. In 1953.

But there were other issues at work, which I've blogged about before. Namely, Peak Oil. (It's a shame we had to name a simple geological reality. It makes it easier for people to pretend it's something other than simple geology and math, but what'r ya gonna do?) Cheney set it out rather accurately in 1999. (I'm not thrilled about the source, but it's the most complete transcript I've seen of the quote.)

Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year, you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output - just to stand still, just to stay even. This is true for companies as well in the broader economic sense for the world.

A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production.

It's like making a return of 100% interest on investment. It’s like discovering another major field of some 500 million barrels every four months, or finding two Hibernia’s [a major find off Canada] a year.

For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our 71 million barrels a day of oil depletion, and also to meet new demand.

By some estimates, there will be an average of 2% annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with, conservatively, a 3% natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010, we will need in the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day.

So, where is the oil going to come from?
Governments and the national oil companies obviously control about 90% of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.

Many of us knew the invasion was about oil, but many us were not aware of the underlying realities that were driving BuCheney to their ruinous, illegal and immoral war. What I want you to take away from this is the following:

They had the choice to move strongly to alternative energy and chose to butcher, kill, maim, steal and sacrifice American and Iraqi lives instead.

People inside and outside the US government have known about Peak Oil for decades. I have previously written of Admiral Rickover, Jimmy Carter's Sweater Speech and, of course, King Hubbert. This was not a surprise or shock to BuCheney, to anyone who would have reason to know.

The Hirsch Report (2005) is linked in sidebar. It clearly states that waiting until peak production occurs means a huge crisis. Starting mitigation 10 years before means crisis. Starting 20 years before means a possible smooth transition. Well, as I posted not long ago from Tony Erikson, peak is almost certainly past. Any rise back to past levels of production will be short-lived, if they happen at all. Even the IEA admits decline rates are such that we need a new Saudi Arabia every two years or so. And the decline rate will accelerate. Remember: it's simple geology and mathematics.

So, given this, had BuCheney chosen to act on alternative energy instead of wasting time, money and talent on their war of oil theft, we would be in much better shape with regard to our economics, our energy supplies and with GHG emissions.

But don't believe me. Let BuCheney do the talking.

Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves, Industry Execs Suggested Invasion

Friday 03 July 2009
by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report

Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain "a prisoner of its energy dilemma" as long as Saddam Hussein was in power.
That April 2001 report, "Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century," was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the US Council on Foreign Relations at the request of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

In retrospect, it appears that the report helped focus administration thinking on why it made geopolitical sense to oust Hussein, whose country sat on the world's second largest oil reserves.

"Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East," the report said.

"Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments."

The advisory committee that helped prepare the report included Luis Giusti, a Shell Corp. non-executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of British Petroleum; and David O'Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco.

James Baker... Ken Lay... At the time of the report, Cheney was leading an energy task force made up of powerful industry executives who assisted him in drafting a comprehensive "National Energy Policy" for President George W. Bush.

A Focus on Oil
...But Bush's first treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, later described a White House interest in invading Iraq and controlling its vast oil reserves, dating back to the first days of the Bush presidency.

In Ron Suskind's 2004 book, "The Price of Loyalty," O'Neill said an invasion of Iraq was on the agenda at the first National Security Council. There was even a map for a post-war occupation, marking out how Iraq's oil fields would be carved up.

Even at that early date, the message from Bush was "find a way to do this," according to O'Neill, a critic of the Iraq invasion who was forced out of his job in December 2002.

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer later made another discovery: a secret NSC document dated February 3, 2001 - only two weeks after Bush took office - instructing NSC officials to cooperate with Cheney's task force, which was "melding" two previously unrelated areas of policy: "the review of operational policies towards rogue states" and "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." [The New Yorker, February 16, 2004]

By March 2001, Cheney's task force had prepared a set of documents with a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as two charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and a list titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," according to information released in July 2003 under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
...At about the same time as Rodon's trip to Iraq - October 2002 - Oil and Gas International, an industry publication, reported that the State Department and the Pentagon had put together pre-war planning groups that focused heavily on protecting Iraq's oil infrastructure.
Guarding the Oil Ministry
...After US troops captured Baghdad in April 2003, they were ordered to protect the Oil Ministry even as looters ransacked priceless antiquities from Iraq's national museums and stole explosives from unguarded military arsenals.
Unacceptable Options

...helping Iraq under Saddam Hussein extract more oil by easing embargoes...
...The report recommended Cheney move swiftly to integrate energy and national security policy as a means to stop "manipulations of markets by any state" and suggested that his task force include "representation from the Department of Defense."

...the price that has been paid by American troops, Iraqi civilians and the US taxpayers has been enormous.

Cheers

Re: Strassel's Propaganda: The Climate Change Climate Change

2009-06-27T03:19:00.006-04:00

Sorry, folks, but this crap just needed to be responded to and I no longer have the patience nor the respect for these people to even pretend at polite discussion. They lie, they lie and then they lie some more, so this was written quickly and is likely full of typos and poorly articulated. But, hey, they deserve no better than my worst.

The fruits of her poison pen can be found here, if you can stomach it.

Strassel,

Before we get into your bullshit, here's the REAL science, which you didn't mention because, well, you're a propagandist:

From the US gov't, much of it done while BuCheney were in office:
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-3/final-report/default.htm

Copenhagen Synthesis Report (Note to propagandist: REAL science inside. May make your head explode.):
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/files/synthesis-report-web.pdf

And just to make it real simple-like for you:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/14/global-warming-target-2c

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2009/apr/14/climate-change-experts-predictions

My god, are you just bought? Appeal to Authority: Inhofe's list.

Utter bullocks. Of course, you can hide behind this being an "opinion piece" and not an "article" so you can pretend Inhofe is not a bought-and-paid-for shill of Big Oil/Coal, etc., and accept his "list" as meaning something. Only one problem: It's bullshit. Very few climate scientists therein. And virtually none actually DOING or PUBLISHING any science. Just like you cowards: can't compete, so you JUST LIE.

Funny, but you equate seven hundred fools who ARE NOT doing science and many of whom were bought by EXXON, et al., over the two thousand plus climate scientists who did the science behind the IPCC IV report? Are you completely unbalanced? Do you need meds?

And you LIE about it! You present the final WRITERS of the report, 50 or so you say, vs. the 700 when all they did was WRITE UP the paper. That is how science is done! How the hell would 2,000+ people write a single report together? (Lying is bad. You will go to hell! Don't you know? Where does your Christianity get off to?)

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-warming-deniers-47011101

Here's more to consider:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/langswitch_lang/pl

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/12/inhofes-last-stand/langswitch_lang/in

I guess you dumbasses want your title back? To wit:

Most consistently wrong media outlet:
The Australian (runner-up the UK Daily Telegraph). Both comfortably beating out the perennial favorite, the Wall Street Journal - maybe things have really changed there?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/12/2008-year-in-review/langswitch_lang/in

Or how about this pile of manure offered up by Inhofe via Moronic Morano?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/warm-reception-to-antarctic-warming-story/langswitch_lang/in

Let's get to your "science," you criminal against humanity:
Earth is cooling. What a damned fool. ALL of the years in the last twelve have been among the warmest in millions of years. ALL OF THEM. Oh, I know you're using 1998 as your start line because THAT IS THE ONLY YEAR YOU CAN START WITH TO GET A TEN YEAR TREND THAT GOES DOWNWARD. (Actually, you aren't. You have never read ANY of the science. That is obvious. You're just the bought-and-paid-for mouthpiece of the far right willing to lie so your children, should you have any, can die for your ideology because your party affiliation is more important to you than your kids, your country, your G_d.) You're too stupid about science to know a ten year trend is WEATHER not CLIMATE. If you look back over the history of the planet you will see many, many short-term trends embedded in long term trends. Look back through the temp record since 1850 and you will see a number of ten year trends that go opposite of the long-term warming. Why? Natural variability. (Go ahead, look it up. You know you want to.)

As for the piece of shit "paper" you started your rant about? Here's what real scientists have to say about it:

"...First off the authors of the submission; Alan Carlin is an economist and John Davidson is an ex-member of the Carter administration Council of Environmental Quality. Neither are climate scientists. That's not necessarily a problem - perhaps they have mastered multiple fields? - but it is likely an indication that the analysis is not going to be very technical (and so it will prove). Curiously, while the authors work for the NCEE (National Center for Environmental Economics), part of the EPA, they appear to have rather closely collaborated with one Ken Gregory (his inline comments appear at multiple points in the draft). Ken Gregory if you don't know is a leading light of the Friends of Science - a astroturf anti-climate science lobbying group based in Alberta. Indeed, parts of the Carlin and Davidson report appear to be lifted directly from Ken's rambling magnum opus on the FoS site. However, despite this odd pedigree, the scientific points could still be valid.

Their main points are nicely summarised thus: a) the science is so rapidly evolving that IPCC (2007) and CCSP (2009) reports are already out of date, b) the globe is cooling!, c) the consensus on hurricane/global warming connections has moved from uncertain to ambiguous, d) Greenland is not losing mass, no sirree…, e) the recession will save us!, f) water vapour feedback is negative!, and g) Scafetta and West's statistical fit of temperature to an obsolete solar forcing curve means that all other detection and attribution work is wrong. From this "evidence", they then claim that all variations in climate are internal variability, except for the warming trend which is caused by the sun, oh and by the way the globe is cooling.

Devastating eh?

One can see a number of basic flaws here; the complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales, the common but erroneous belief that any attribution of past climate change to solar or other forcing means that CO2 has no radiative effect, and a hopeless lack of familiarity of the basic science of detection and attribution.

But it gets worse, what solid peer reviewed science do they cite for support? A heavily-criticised blog posting..."

There's more there. Read it if you have the fortitude. (Propagandists never do, though.)

Screw it. You're obviously too embedded in your screwed up fantasy of ultra-conservative politics. Since you are too lazy to do any of your own research, here's where your opinions were created FOR you:

http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=13459

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/exxonmobil-report-smoke.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=2

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/denialmachine/video.html

I advocate EcoNuremberg for any and all that have lied, are lying, or will ever lie about the state of the environment, for they are killing us all. May you all rot in jail, or, better yet, be left to fend for yourselves with nothing but your limited wits where Climate Change hits hardest.

Climate Change Denial, Family Style

2009-06-11T00:54:00.004-04:00

So for months, well, years now I've been trying to get my family excited about responding to The Perfect Storm in the only way I know of that addresses all three facets of what we face: Anthropogenicaly-driven Climate Change (ACC, a.k.a. Climate Change, Global Warming), the economic crash and Peak Oil.

I've shared with them my observations and have found, happily they agreed with me! Yay! We all get that things are going chaotic! Yay! Peak Oil is real! Yay! The economy is run by crooks and liars! Yay! Real incomes haven't risen for decades! Yay!

Riiiiing.... riiiing.....riiiing....

Them: Hello?

Me: Hey, it's me. How's it going? (Blah, blah, blah.....) So, hey, bros, Mom, everyone... let's get the hell out of Dodge and set up in such a way that no matter how the future goes, we'll be able to muddle through!

Them: Ya.... er.... not so much, no.

Me: Huh?

Them: Well, sure, kinda sounds nice and all, but heck, we've got things going OK here.

Me: But, um... we can have things even better, and best of all, if things *don't* go to hell in a handbasket our lives will still be better, we can have a thriving business that helps reduce carbon emissions, live in homes that need no energy inputs for heating or cooling, thus save energy, produce goods and services that will always be in demand AND be as self-reliant as is possible. Let's do it!

Them: No, really, we've got things going OK here. And we don't like the cold.

Me: But you can't feed yourselves where you are. The water is running out. You're facing on-going droughts that could last decades.

Them: Avacadoes. We've got avacadoes. And our own water supply.

Me: I love avacadoes! But you can't live on avacadoes, can't sell them if there's no one to sell them to because there's no economy and you can't grow them if there's no water.

Them: Our own water supply.

Me: Cool! Aquifer?

Them: Rain.

Me: Hey, I'm all for water catchment. I think everyone should do it, buuut... the rains are pretty much expected to stop where you are. Even the massive reservoirs around you are having massive drops in level. And what about the temperatures? How hot can your avacadoes go? We're talking HOT ass summers. Even hotter than you've seen. So, sure, you can go in the house, but the avacadoes can't.

Tell you what. You guys stay there, but go in with us on this plan so we have enough resources to establish a place that we can all share if things get too tough where you are.

Them: Thanks, but... mumble mumble mumble.. natural.. mumble mumble..volcanoes.. CO2... mumble mumble...lying scientists....mumble mumble.. Al Gore...mumble mumble mumble... climate models...

Me: Dude, did you just say volcanoes? And you believe the "scientists" who have 1. done no science and/or 2. are bought and paid for or 3. aren't even scientists?

Them: You can't PROVE it!!!

Me: You really have no idea what you're saying, do you? Look, it's absolutely impossible to claim volcanoes do more damage than anthropogenic forcings do. It's flat wrong. It's a denialist talking point that has no grounding in science. Al Gore is not a scientist. That's a red herring. The climate models are wrong? Bull. In fact, their scenarios are underestimating the observable phenomenon to a great degree, so to say because they underestimate change that they don't represent any change is ridiculous. It makes no sense. Instead, you think the people who said there is NO change happening, thus deny ANY warming are more correct than those that underestimated. Seriously, WTF?

Oh, and if you think science, particularly climate science, begins and ends with modeling, then you really don't understand the most basic elements of scientific method.

Them: mumble mumble mumble.. natural.. mumble mumble.. volcanoes... CO2... mumble mumble... lying scientists.... mumble mumble.. Al Gore... mumble mumble mumble... climate models... You can't PROVE it!!!

Me: Prove it? Did you know E=mc2 was only mathematically proven in the last two or three years? ACC is pretty much the most intensively studied phenomenon in human history. There is ZERO doubt about the human factor. There is no debate based in science that is legit. The sun? Debunked. CO2 can't affect climate? Just ass-stupid. It's not us? 280 --> 387. 'Nuff said. Etc. Lying scientists? We have memos in hand showing that denialist organizations such as the Global Climate Coalition lied about ACC. We know for a fact that an organized effort to sow doubt - not disprove, which is an important point - about ACC existed and exists. ExxonMobile, the worst of the worst in this regard, has acknowledged ACC is real and happening and has promised to stop funding denialists' bullshit - though there's some evidence they lied about that, too.

Really, my head is going to explode. Tend your avacadoes. We'll be trying to carve out a way to help stop or slow ACC, deal with Peak Oil and survive should there be collapse of our civil systems, to whatever degree.

We'll leave the renewably powered light on if and when you change your minds.

Love you.

(Click.)

PS. watch the vdeo below. And this space. I might have a post just for you coming soon.

Re: Ten reasons why population control can’t stop climate change

2009-06-10T12:04:00.003-04:00

This is a response to the essay found here:

Ten reasons why population control can’t stop climate change
1. Population does not cause climate change
2. The world is not ’full’
3. Social justice and contraception
4. The climate emergency demands immediate, transformative action now
5. Population arguments wrongly downplay the potential to win
6. Population control is an old argument tacked onto a new issue
7. Arguing for tighter migration restrictions in Australia is a dangerous policy
8. Population control has a disturbing history
9. People in the global South are part of the solution, not the problem
10. Who holds political power is the real ‘population’ issue

My response:

Speaking as a "leftie," Mr. Butler makes the same mistakes that most "lefties" do, and one is akin to the primary mistake that economists make: the invisible hand is invisible for a reason; it doesn't exist. What's best for one is supposed to be what is best for all, but this is never true in specific, thus we have the current economic madness visited upon us. The rich bankers of the world decided they had conquered risk and were far more important to the planet than, say, farmers. So they screwed us all for their own profits.

The same problem exists with regard to population. People will not stop having children "just because." They will do it once they are able to, via services and products not available to many, and once they are (relatively) wealthy. The problem here is, poverty is forever. There is only so much pie and there are always those who take more than an equal portion, particularly in a capitalist system (though we see this in every and any system). This will never change. Now, I would love to see a steady-state economy. I just don't think I ever will.

Thus, Mr. Butler's utopian view of population is a good way to get us all killed.

Mr. Butler's worst offense is to simply ignore three other factors: exponents, energy decline and Liebig's Law of the Minimum. These are all intricately woven together. Mr. Butler may want to look at consumption and population in the U.S. as an example of how not to think about population. Despite large gains in efficiency, the US continues to increase its consumption of energy. Curious! If we have become more efficient, and in some measures much, much more efficient, why has energy use continued to increase? The answer is obvious: population continues to increase. And it always will without some form of population control.

In fact, sustainable societies typically do manage population. One I read of, perhaps in Jared Diamond's Collapse, was a tribe that had lived for thousands of years in the same area. They were able to because they practiced infanticide of ill, weak, malformed babies, sent elderly people off to fend for themselves, practiced birth control and managed sexual behavior. I'm not an advocate of infanticide, forced sterilization, etc., but we must do something.

I recommend listening to Dr. Al Bartlett's lecture on this topic.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/node/461

And here are a few of my thoughts. Recommended readings/listenings, really:

http://aperfectstormcometh.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-exponents-growth-matters-or.html

Energy decline due to falling extraction of our most intensive source of energy, oil, means that per capita energy is falling. Falling energy = falling society. Everything we do takes energy and as the world aspires to the standard of living in the developed nations (at a minimum of ten barrels of oil a year/person, which is about 17 years of oil if we all live the same), that energy demand increases. It overtakes efficiency gains. You simply can't ignore Diminishing Returns.

Even if we move to all-renewables, eventually we run into Liebig's Law of the Minimum. That is, the weakest link. A system is only as robust as its weakest link, and a supply chain is only as long as its rarest resource/raw material. Even now, issues are cropping up with rare earth metals, 95% of which are apparently controlled by China.

Exponents. Energy. Minimums.

Population matters, Mr. Butler, and it is ignorance (non-pejorative sense) on your part that allows you to falsely reassure yourself and your readers otherwise.

Cheers

World Oil Production Forecast - Update May 2009

2009-05-20T10:06:00.006-04:00

The following is a periodic analysis of world oil production conducted by Ace at The Oil Drum. It is a comprehensive report of the state of crude oil, and other petroleum liquids, production. The upshot is:

World crude oil production has likely peaked based on production data as well as socio-geopolitical factors.
The possibility of higher future peaks is constrained by geology (production decline rates) and economics (investment in new oil discovery and drilling due to economic stresses).

I disagree with Ace on one point: I think decline rates are and will be higher than his estimates. Full disclosure: I'm talking out of my arse (somewhat informed gut instinct) while he is doing excellent, ongoing, comprehensive analysis.

My reasons for posting this long article here are two:

I consider this the finest analysis Ace has done to date and
I consider it vital for people to understand the depth and breadth of the challenges ahead.

Enjoy.

Many thanks to Ace and The Oil Drum.

World Oil Production Forecast - Update May 2009

Posted by ace on May 19, 2009 - 10:59pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: colin campbell, iea, jean laherrère, non-opec, oil production forecast, opec, original, peak oil, total liquids [list all tags]

World oil production peaked in July 2008 at 74.82 million barrels/day (mbd) and now has fallen to about 71 mbd. It is expected that oil production will decline slowly to about December 2010 as OPEC production increases while non-OPEC production decreases. After 2010 the resulting annual production decline rate increases to 3.4% as OPEC production is unable to offset cumulative non-OPEC declines. The forecast from the IEA WEO 2008 is also shown for comparison.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) should make official statements about declining world oil production now to renew the focus on oil conservation and alternative renewable energy sources.

Fig 1 - World Oil Production to 2012 - click to enlarge (oil includes crude oil, lease condensate and oil sands)

World Oil Production

World crude oil, condensate and oil sands production peaked in 2008 at an average of 73.78 million barrels per day (mbd) which just exceeded the previous peak of 73.74 mbd in 2005, according to recent EIA production data. Production is expected to decline further as non OPEC oil production peaked in 2004 and is forecast to decline at a faster rate in 2009 and beyond due mainly to big declines from Russia, Norway, the UK and Mexico. Saudi Arabia's crude oil production peaked in 2005. By 2011, OPEC will not have the ability to offset cumulative non OPEC declines and world oil production is forecast to stay below its 2008 peak.

My estimate of 1.95 trillion barrels (TB) of total Ultimate Recoverable Reserves (URR) of oil is used to generate the forecast shown by the red line below. If Colin Campbell's estimate of 2.20 TB is used, which is 250 billion barrels (Gb) greater than my estimate due mainly to more optimistic assumptions about OPEC reserves, the peak production date remains at 2008. This shows that an additional 250 Gb of recoverable oil reserves does not change the peak oil date and instead increased production rates occur later as indicated by the green line below. Additional reserves and the related production from prospective areas such as the arctic, Iraq, and Brazil's Santos basin are highly unlikely to produce another peak but should decrease the production decline rate after 2012.

Fig 2 - World Oil Production to 2100 - click to enlarge

World Liquids Production

The definition of oil used by the International Energy Agency (IEA) also includes natural gas liquids (NGL), bio-fuels, processing gains and other liquids derived from natural gas and coal. OPEC NGLs were supposed to cause a significant net increase in world NGLs but this has not happened yet as NGL production is struggling to exceed 8 mbd. According to the EIA NGL data, 2007 production was 7.96 mbd, 2008 was 7.94 mbd and 2009 year to date was lower again at 7.80 mbd. Although bio-fuels production has been growing exponentially, world liquids production has probably passed peak in July 2008 at 87.9 mbd as shown below. In 2008, US ethanol production was 0.6 mbd, Brazilian ethanol production was 0.4 mbd, and bio-fuels production outside the US and Brazil was 0.5 mbd.

The average oil price should stay below $US 80/barrel for the remainder of the year as average demand is forecast to be only slightly greater than supply from July 2009 to December 2009. Furthermore, OPEC is unlikely to cut supply further which reduces the upward pressure on oil prices. Some recent evidence of increased demand is shown by US crude oil stocks dropping from a recent peak of 26.2 days at the end of April down to 25.5 days in early May. However, oil prices could exceed $100 in late 2010 as world liquids production drops further. High volatility of future oil prices is also expected due partly to delays in investment causing future oil capacity additions to decline sharply to 2012.

Fig 3 - World Supply, Demand and Price to 2012 - click to enlarge

Sources of Future Liquids Production

There are many sources of future liquids production but it is highly unlikely that production from these sources will cause liquids production to increase above its July 2008 peak because the cumulative declines from existing crude oil production sources are too great. Key sources of future production are future discoveries. The chart below, from Colin Campbell's newsletter, shows that annual discoveries have been decreasing since the mid 1960s. It also shows that production has exceeded discoveries since 1984 which is clearly unsustainable. Campbell also forecasts future discoveries to be 110 billion barrels (Gb) which is also the number assumed for the forecasts in Fig 2 above.

Fig 4 - World Oil Discoveries and Production, excluding Extra Heavy, Deepwater and Polar Oil - click to enlarge

Jean Laherrere also produced a discovery and production chart below from his 2008 presentation. Future discoveries, represented by the area under the dashed green line, are about 120 Gb being slightly higher than Campbell's estimate. Laherrere's discovery curve includes deepwater discoveries and also indicates that production peaked in 2008. Many of these future discoveries are likely to be either deepwater or in arctic regions. These discoveries may be significant but the time between discovery and first oil can easily be ten years which will probably not change the peak production year of 2008 but should lessen the future production decline rate.

Fig 5 - World Oil Discoveries and Production, excluding Extra Heavy Oil - click to enlarge

The arctic region is prospective for both oil and gas but quantities need to be estimated. Jean Laherrere estimated that the ultimate recoverable oil reserves are about 40 Gb while Colin Campbell estimates 52 Gb. There was a panel presentation at the 2009 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC.09) which discussed arctic energy challenges. One of the speakers was from Wood Mackenzie who confirmed that the arctic was prospective but mainly for gas not for oil. A report by Wood Mackenzie and Fugro Robertson estimated that the arctic will produce only about 3 percent of the world's oil and that arctic oil production, at best, would peak at 3 mbd several decades from now. Future production from the arctic region should help decrease future oil production decline rates but will probably not change the peak oil production year from 2008.

Fig 6 - World Arctic Cumulative Discovery Oil and Gas - click to enlarge

Other regions considered prospective are the US outer continental shelf (OCS) and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). (Please note that the oil production potential of ANWR has also been included in the discussion above of the arctic). At this OTC.09 panel presentation on energy challenges, there was much discussion about allowing further drilling on the OCS and the ANWR. The American Petroleum Institute (API) was represented by its CEO at the panel and the API recently released this ICF report detailing potential reserves and future production from currently restricted areas in the OCS and the ANWR. This report concluded that an additional 1.1 (middle case) to 2.0 mbd (alternative case) of oil production, the majority from ANWR, might be possible by 2030 if drilling was allowed in these restricted areas. This additional production would benefit the US but would not change the peak oil date of 2008.

Fig 7 - US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) - click to enlarge

Canada often states that its oil reserves are almost 180 Gb. However, it is critical that 173 Gb of these reserves relate to oil sands which are not easy to produce. The chart below is from a recent presentation by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and indicates the potential of Canada's total oil production to reach over 4 mbd by 2020. The forecast indicated by the red line in Figure 2 assumes that Canada oil sands production will reach a maximum of 2 mbd. Oil sands production was 1.2 mbd in 2007 and the International Energy Agency (IEA) is forecasting 2009 oil sands production to be slightly greater at 1.34 mbd. David Hughes, a Canadian geologist estimates that oil sands production will stay below 2.5 mbd due to constraints on natural gas, water and diluents. Oil sands production may reach 2.5 mbd but will not change the peak oil year.

Fig 8 - Canada Oil Sands Production Forecast to 2020 - click to enlarge

A promising area of future liquids production is the Santos basin, offshore Brazil. There are technical challenges, explained during a Petrobras OTC.09 presentation, with the pre-salt discoveries such as very high pressures and temperatures but Petrobras is optimistic about the Santos basin, stating that this basin may almost double Petrobras' oil reserves. This implies that the Santos basin could hold as much as 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil. However, it is always important to focus on the potential future production rates in addition to the size of the reserves.

The Tupi field was discovered in November 2007 in the Santos basin and an extended well test (EWT) started in early May at a rate of 15 thousand barrels per day (kbd), to be increased to 30 kbd by the end of 2009. The Tupi EWT will run for about 16 months to better understand the flow characteristics of the pre-salt reservoir. If this EWT performs well, then a pilot test of 100 kbd should start in late 2010. If the pilot test is satisfactory then plans for full scale commercial production would be implemented. However Petrobras CFO expects a long ramp up period with Tupi peaking at over 200 kbd at the earliest in 2017. A Wood MacKenzie analyst predicted that Tupi could peak at around 1 mbd in 2022 which appears significant but Petrobras will need this increased production from the Santos basin to maintain total production at 2 mbd. The reason is that declines from existing offshore fields are about 10% or 0.2 mbd per year as confirmed by the Petrobras CFO. Future production from the Santos basin will benefit Brazil but will probably have only a negligible impact on the world production past 2012 (see Fig 2 above).

Fig 9 - Tupi Field and Santos Basin - click to enlarge

Iraq is perhaps the most promising country in the world for future potential oil production. However, it has not been an attractive country for investment not just because of terrorism but also the lack of petroleum legislation which includes national revenue sharing from the oil fields of the semi-autononous region of Kurdistan. The chart below shows that Iraq's production might reach 8 mbd by 2020 if sufficient investment was available, peace prevailed and satisfactory petroleum legislation was passed. The ultimate recoverable reserves of oil of 130 Gb is based upon Laherrere's 2003 analysis. Colin Campbell had originally forecast 4.5 mbd being reached by 2014 but now has revised that lower to 2.65 mbd in his June 2008 newsletter. In mid May 2009, the former Iraq oil minister said that Iraq's output could reach 4 mbd by 2014 and 7 mbd by 2019 if satisfactory petroleum legislation is passed in 2010. My forecast, shown by the red line in Fig 2, assumes that Iraq will produce 2.7 mbd in 2012. If the former Iraq oil minister's predictions become true then future production may be closer to the green line in Fig 2 rather than the red line. The peak oil year of 2008 would be unchanged.

Fig 10 - Iraq Crude Oil and Lease Condensate Production to 2050 - click to enlarge

The application of advanced technology on existing discoveries is often thought to have potential for increasing production rates and recovery factors. The first production wells developed were vertical then horizontal wells became common practice. Next maximum reservoir contact wells were used for some reservoirs. Finally extreme reservoir contact wells, graphically illustrated below, are being researched by Saudi Aramco in an effort to boost recovery efficiencies. Generally, more horizontal laterals in a production well allows faster extraction of the oil but at the expense of higher production decline rates later. This recent Uppsala University report on decline rates of giant oil fields stated the following:

The important conclusion is that higher decline rates must be applied to giant fields that enter decline in the future. Prolonged plateau levels and increased depletion made possible by new and improved technology result in a generally higher decline rates. Detailed case studies of giant oilfields suggest that technology can extend the plateau phase, but at the expense of more pronounced declines in later years.

In conclusion, this analysis shows that the average decline rate of the giant oil fields have been increasing with time, reflecting the fact that more and more fields enter the decline phase and fewer and fewer new giant fields are being found. The increase is in part due to new technologies that have been able to temporarily maintain production at the expense of subsequent more rapid decline. Growing average decline rates have also been noted by IEA (2008). The difference between using a constant decline in existing production and an increasing decline rate is significant and could mean as much of a difference of 7 Mb/d by 2030.

There are other technologies such as injection to increase pressure in the reservoir. Natural gas, water, nitrogen and carbon dioxide injection can all help to maintain reservoir pressure and production rates. In 2008, Saudi Aramco injected a massive 13.7 mbd of water to maintain reservoir pressure so that 8.9 mbd oil could be produced. Fracing or fracturing the reservoir formation is another technology which can help increase production rates. The fracing can be done by forcing fluid into the formation causing fractures which are held open by special frac sand. Acid can also be used for fracing as the acid can dissolve some of the rock and increase permeability.

New technologies can extract the oil faster but can the recovery factor be increased? Schlumberger has stated that the average recovery factor for all reservoirs is about 35%. This BP study stated that the average global recovery factor is about 30-35% based on 9,000 fields from the IHS Energy database. Conversely, Saudi Aramco stated in its 2008 Annual Review that they are targeting recovery factors of 70 percent partly through the use of reservoir nano-bots known as Resbots. These Resbots would be deployed with the fluids injected into a reservoir to record pressure, temperature and fluid type which could be retrieved later in an effort to increase recovery rates. The OTC.09 Panel Presentation on Technology discussed the importance of technology and one of the presenters believed that technology will allow companies to recover over 3 trillion barrels of oil. It appears that recovery factors can be increased by using new technology but the magnitude of the increase is not clear yet. However, it is unlikely that the improved recovery factors will cause oil production to exceed its 2008 peak.

Fig 11 - Extreme Reservoir Contact Well - click to enlarge

Mexico's Cantarell field is an excellent example of the use of advanced technology to stimulate the production rate, followed later by a steep decline rate. This field once produced over two million barrels per day (mbd) in 2004 and now production is less than one mbd with an annual production decline rate of over 30%. The chart below, from Matt Simmons' OTC.09 peak oil presentation, shows the steep production decline continuing into 2009. In early 2000, Pemex started using the technology of nitrogen gas injection to keep up pressure to increase production rates which was successful. However, production began to decline after 2004 and Pemex drilled horizontal wells in 2006 in an effort to extract more oil. These horizontal wells probably helped to slow the production decline rate. These technologies of nitrogen injection and horizontal wells have helped to keep production rates high. As the impact of these technologies weakens, the annual production decline rate has increased to over 30%. The expanding gas cap in the Cantarell dome continues to intersect more production wells which decreases the production rate leading to an expectation that Cantarell could become uneconomic as early as 2014.

Fig 12 - Mexico Cantarell Field Production Rate - click to enlarge

Implications

The future sources of liquids production discussed above will help decrease the future rate of decline but it is highly unlikely that the 2008 peak will be exceeded because there are not enough countries with increasing oil production able to offset those countries with decreasing oil production. IEA oil supply warnings have been made in late 2008 when chief economist Birol said that the world needs the equivalent of four new Saudi Arabias just to maintain existing production to 2030. In April 2009, IEA's executive director Tanaka said that the world may face a crude oil shortage by 2013. As world oil production declines, consumption must also decline. Consequently, action must be taken now to reduce oil consumption and switch to alternative renewable energy sources. These sources include electricity generation from wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and geothermal sources. Other sources might be ocean energy which includes tidal energy, wave energy, thermal energy and ocean algae biofuels. Ocean thermal energy conversion was the subject of an OTC.09 panel discussion.

The IEA has recently published some recommendations to improve energy efficiency which apply not just to individuals but also to industry. For example, in the transport sector, the IEA is encouraging the use of fuel efficient tires and introducing mandatory fuel efficiency standards for light duty vehicles. In addition, this IEA document, called Energy Efficiency Policy, also encourages energy efficiency by providing links to almost 30 documents containing energy efficiency policies. One of these documents called Saving Oil in a Hurry suggests many conservation actions including increased use of public transit, car-pooling, telecommuting and speed limit restrictions. For further information, the IEA has its own energy efficiency web page. This recent Oil Drum story proposes many oil conservation ideas for individuals such as moving to a walkable neighbourhood and trading in your car for one with better mileage.

There is no simple solution to the problem of declining world oil production. A simultaneous multipronged approach will emerge which not only addresses oil conservation but also the development of alternative renewable energy sources. As oil production declines, a possible solution is to secure long term oil supply contracts ahead of the next oil price shock. China has been securing long term oil supplies from Russia, Venezuela and Iran. As oil remains critical for economic activity there is a high probability that some countries will act more aggressively in securing oil supplies, even to the extent of oil resource wars. In mid May 2009, Russia raised the prospect of war to enforce its claims on Arctic oil and gas riches.

Additional Information Sources

World Oil Production Peaked in 2008, March 17, 2009

Saudi Arabia's Crude Oil Production Peaked in 2005, March 3, 2009

Non OPEC-12 Oil Production Peaked in 2004, February 23, 2009

USA Gulf of Mexico Oil Production Forecast Update, February 9, 2009

Disclosure: The author, Tony Eriksen, has investments in the oil and gas sector. The American Petroleum Institute (API) sponsored the author's attendance to the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC.09) in Houston, Texas on May 4-7, 2009 of which the presentations reaffirmed the author's views on declining world oil production.

Climate Chaos: Adaptation

2009-05-17T12:49:00.003-04:00

The issue of what to do about Anthropogenically-forced Climate Change (ACC. a.k.a. Global Warming) is a big one. It's important to know from what perxpective to start. The following post was made to this thread on The Oil Drum: Europe.

Chris -
the focus on Adaption (to Climate Destabilization) appears to have been growing, both as a vested interests' propaganda tool (to distract effort from and diminish commitments to Mitigation), and also as the result of an honest lack of appreciation of the iterative threat we face.
The latter point seems worth addressing - since there are evident lacunae [gaps] in the discussion.

First, there is the issue that we can only adapt to peripheral changes - e.g. just a couple of metres of sea level rise will swamp the farmland of much of Bangladesh, leading to mega-famine &/or migration, but little if any Adaption.

Second, we can only adapt to changes that we know are coming - e.g. how many more years of intense prolongued summer rains must Britain face before we adapt by giving up growing crops that need the summer sun to ripen ? (Such as Spuds, Oats, Hay, Apples). Again, the outcome of the learning period would likely be mega-famine &/or migration.

Third, given our skill-poverty, food-reserve scarcity and bodily frailty, we can only adapt to changes at an endurable rate that then stop changing at some endurable level - e.g. the increasingly unstable climate we are now seeing reflects recorded GW 30 to 40 years ago; without rapid stringent constraint of further GHG emissions (i.e. massive global Mitigation) there would be little prospect of climate destabilization ceasing to intensify, let alone stabilize at an endurable level, so there would be no credible prospect of humanity successfully adapting to its impacts.

In view of the above, I hope we may agree that for policies of Adaption to be more of a help than an illusory distraction, they must be founded on the absolute priority of achieving rapid stringent global Mitigation ?

A further point that seems zombie-like in its undead status (despite repeated decapitations), is your focus on the excessive fossil reserve figures you remark above generating unreliable projections of pollution output and thus of consequent degrees of warming.

Perhaps it needs saying bluntly - we have pushed airborne GHG levels not only to the point of evident impact on planetary temperature and climate destabilization, but also well past the point of awakening potentially vast postive feedback loops, as well as of starting the accelerating decay of the natural marine carbon sinks.

You know the list of the major loops - albido, permafrost, wildfire, clathates, etc, but it may be worth metioning (again) the earliest such active loop, that was first observed in the early '60s (with CO2 at around 320ppmv) when elevated airborne CO2 caused particular microbes to boom in peat bogs causing the latter to decay on a 6% p.a. rising trend ever since. If this continues, then just this single, minor, loop will emit CO2 equal to our entire 2004 global output by about 2060.

So, to put an elm stake firmly through the heart of this "deficient reserves" fallacy, the actual fossil fuel reserves are now a far greater threat to climate via their impact on accelerating the feedback loops, than were the exaggerated old reserve numbers in their direct emissions potential.

Maybe it is time we of TOD start working on the necessary integrated diplomatic response to PO & CD, rather than leading with one or other ?

Regards,

Backstop

The Perfect Storm World Simulation: Peak Oil, Climate Change, Economic Collapse

2009-05-05T13:42:00.041-04:00

Enough economics for awhile. All two of you, besides myself, that read this blog already know what I think on that. Other facets of The Perfect Storm need some attention. I'd like to look at the big picture with an eye toward solutions.

The problem is simple: Anthropogenically-forced Climate Change (ACC), Peak Oil (PO), economic collapse, etc., are in the early stages of potentially remaking our world in ways we really would like to avoid, but there is almost nothing being done about any of it in any real sense when you consider the massive changes that are needed to deal with all these problems. If you think a bit on how long it takes to change the way a few billion people live, it's clear we have nearly run out of time to find solutions and implement them.

Robert Hirsch, et al., determined in a study done in 2005 that mitigating PO with minimal effects would require starting twenty years before the peak. Starting ten years before would lead to serious issues, but could be done. Waiting until peak would result in serious problems. Peak appears to have come in 2008.

Oops.

Then there's ACC. A recent poll of climate scientists shows they are far more worried about ACC than is generally understood. But for James Hansen, they tend to be pretty quiet and conservative in their pronouncements on climate. This is (intellectually) understandable. They are scientists and are expected to state what they can prove, not what they know to be true. But aren't we past the point of this little luxury? Are not the dire consequences of no action or too little action being taken - a world 2 to 6C warmer - too great to risk? Well, finally some are speaking out... anonymously. (Way to put your necks out there, Profs!)

World will not meet 2C warming target, climate change experts agree
Guardian poll reveals almost nine out of 10 climate experts do not
believe current political efforts will keep warming below 2C
The poll of those who follow global warming most closely exposes a widening gulf between political rhetoric and scientific opinions on climate change .
While policymakers and campaigners focus on the 2C target, 86% of the experts told the survey they did not think it would be achieved.
...60% of respondents argued that, in theory, it was still technically and
economically possible to meet
...global warming of 2C
... But 39% said the 2C target was impossible.
...84 of the 182 specialists (46%) who answered the question said it would reach 3-4C by the end of the century; 47 (26%) suggested a rise of 2-3C, while a handful said 6C or more. While 24 experts predicted a catastrophic rise of 4-5C, just 18 thought it would stay at 2C or under.

Geewillickers... You gotta see some quotes from here:

Climate change experts reveal their hopes and fears
By 2100 I seriously fear there will be civilization collapse and chaos.
We should also be mindful that temperature sensitivity of the planet... has been grossly underestimated... We are in extremely dangerous territory.
Nothing short of a major restructuring of the energy generation system will see us limiting climate change to a 2C rise.

Now, don't you feel all warm and fuzzy? No? It gets worse.

To meet climate goal, cut fossil fuels use: study
The paper, published by the British journal Nature, implies only a revolution in energy use can achieve the aim of limiting warming to less than two degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
To achieve the objective -- embraced by the European Union (EU) and many scientists -- means that only 1,000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) can be emitted between 2000 and 2050, it said.
By comparison, the world has emitted a third of that amount in just nine years.
"If we continue burning fossil fuels as we do, we will have exhausted the carbon budget in merely 20 years, and global warming will go well beyond two degrees," said the study's lead author, Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Berlin.

So, how much carbon have you cut out of your life today? None? Well! We're moving right along, aren't we! Look around you. Other than cuts caused by the recession, do you see people really changing how they use energy?

Paradoxically, PO will both helping us reduce our use of Fossil Fuels and make it harder to do so. To wit:

Crude oil production likely peaked in 2008.
On one hand, the use of oil will fall over the next few decades. On the other, if renewable forms of energy can't replace crude oil, then tar sands and coal will. Both are much greater emitters of CO2 than crude oil is.
Having run out of hands, now use your feet to factor in the economic hit of declining oil production. (In both recessions in the '70's, the percentage drop in crude oil production and the drop in GDP were about the same, e.g.)
As the "recession" begins to abate, the economic hit from PO will most likely stop it in its tracks.
Investments for renewable energies will almost certainly be reduced by the economic crash.

To make matters ever-so-much better, what do Americans think about climate change? Not much.

Only 34% blame humans for global warming
Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.
Forty-eight percent (48%) of all likely voters attribute climate change to long-term planetary trends, while seven percent (7%) blame some other reason. Eleven percent (11%) aren’t sure.
These numbers reflect a reversal from a year ago when 47% blamed human activity while 34% said long-term planetary trends.

If you're feeling like kicking the dog or drinking your way through every bar between you and the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, hold on a second. I have a plan. Really.

Below is an e-mail (modified for this post) I sent not long ago to someone I thought, based on previous work, might be interested in modeling global solutions to The Perfect Storm. Sadly, no response. Maybe someone will stumble across it here and find a kernel of a good idea in it.

Dear X,
My wife and I have had an idea in our minds for quite some time for a massively interactive virtual reality world/MMPRPG/global climate model/global energy model/global economic model: The Perfect Storm World Simulation: Peak Oil, Climate Change, Economic Collapse.

The idea started from a simple question we, as teachers, asked ourselves: How could we do outreach on the issues of Climate Change, Peak Oil and the Economic Crash - what I call a Perfect Storm? (E.g. my blog is aperfectstormcometh.blogspot.com.) We needed something that would integrate everything we faced, but do it at the personal level and governmental level. We needed a synthesis of both to help get change going since government moves too slowly and grassroots movements alone are not going to manage the massive changes needed - though I think grassroots movements like Transition Towns, the Post-Carbon Institute and the Relocalization movement will be the primary players in the end since the changes start and end with what we do, what we buy, how we live day-to-day.

The answer was an on-line game. Rather, a live modeling project that would both inform people (nearly half of all Americans still have significant doubts about Climate Change and far less know about Peak Oil) about the issues and help find a collaborative solution.From there we brainstormed and by the time we were done had an idea that was so massively beyond our skill sets we knew we were hopelessly over matched. We envisioned something with the following components or characteristics:
- It would be huge, along the lines of MMPRPGs, but necessarily bigger than any before it. This needs to be international in scope since any solutions must also be, and must offer realistic simulations.
- It would include participation of individuals from all levels of society, i.e., gov't. officials and orgs, non-profits, NGO's and, most importantly, the public.
- It would preferably have an interface like virtual reality game.
- It would have real climate models attached, or at least data from models as part of the data so people can see climate effects of their own actions as they happen in the game.
- It would would include energy decline reality.
- It would include other resource constraints (water, fisheries, farming, etc.)
- It would include real-world economic data.
- It would allow for new models of governance, economic systems and societal structures to be tried and tested, such as Steady State economic models (1, 2, 3), barter economies, etc.
- Perhaps multiple runs/games going simultaneously, much like Global Climate Models. Maybe individuals could start up their own runs and people could jump in if they liked the parameters set by the originator?
- Perhaps dummy nodes/agents coded to model the averages for given regions/cities/countries to get the numbers up as high as possible.
Etc.

I started research on what was already out there. The RPG idea was clear enough. Such things as The Sims, SecondLife, World Without Oil, etc., already exist.

My research found possible components for other elements. Purdue University has SEAS. It has been used for gov't simulations before. The software team codes a scenario and real people are agents in the game. There are other nodes (agents) that are run as part of the model and represent people. It's been used for some disaster planning, etc. The goal, of course, is to have millions of real people actually acting in the simulations. They may already have that, but my impression is that only gov't officials and first responders actually participate. It might be a good foundation for the basic structure - or not. I *believe* they have a virtual presentation like an MMPRPG.

A second is the T21 program out of the Millennium Institute.
T21-North America User Interface Released!
Arlington, VA, October 18, 2007
The T21-North America (T21-NA) model user interface was released today. The user interface allows the model to be open, modified and simulated on any Windows-based computer.
The T21-NA model project is a collaboration with Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas-USA and State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry to examine energy issues in the context of an integrated framework that incorporates the relations of the energy sector to the broader economic, social, and environmental framework. The project is part of ASPO-USA’s Global Energy Modeling project.
Their software is a package run by programmers, so far as I can tell. That is, it is not an MMPRPG-, SEAS- or Alternate Reality-style package that real people are involved in; it's based on a few people inputting what they think is important rather than real people acting as they, hopefully, would in reality. I think.
A third choice might be the World3 program used by for Limits to Growth. Delores Garcia is developing/has developed an updated version of this program:
Abstract: An updated systems model of global climate, resources, and energy extending the original World3 (“Limits to Growth”) model by inclusion of climate change and it's interaction with resources and energy. Outcomes are derived for total energy resources, human population, nutrition, consumption, economic activity and other parameters. Long-term outcomes are derived for a 1900 C.E. to 2100 C.E. time sequence, with human population decline.
The weakness here is, of course, that it is not a live simulation, but a model dependent solely on inputs from the programmer. It does, however, represent a good bit of the breadth we need as it includes energy, food production, climate, etc., as noted above, and may be the closest of the three to what we are thinking of.

It may well be that something this complex and wide-ranging needs to be built from scratch. Having worked in the documentation department of a main frame software company, I can appreciate the difficulties encountered trying to integrate software not designed to work together.

As for implementation, I'd be hoping to have this made available world-wide for free so there are no restrictions. Ideally, we'd capture the imagination of some important people and be able to make a big deal of the launch and subsequent modeling with an eye toward 1. raising awareness of how serious the times are and 2. actually modelling a solution or two that might be viable, or at least move us towards some solutions.

This approach also, and perhaps most importantly, takes the policy, research and data input out from behind the closed doors and gilt halls of TPTB and gets them into the hands of the public at large.

Time is short. People need to wake up to the serious problems we face and we need a workable solution yesterday. I believe The Perfect Storm World Simulation: Peak Oil, Climate Change, Economic Collapse can both raise awareness and model possible solution scenarios.
Cheers

Of Crashes, Failures and Bailouts - Round Vb

2009-04-16T01:42:00.004-04:00

I had to rip this off from The Automatic Earth. I'll let Ilargi, and the numbers he's listed, speak for themselves:

Ilargi: I know I wrote about it yesterday, but I have no choice, I must again. The upbeat messages coming from the guys I labeled the Three Stooges, Summers, Obama and Bernanke and Geithner can be their D'Artagnan) were this morning put into a very bright light, and a clear focus, by the arguably worst overall economic numbers to come out of the downturn to date. I would strongly suggest that when they try that again, they take the opportunity to address these numbers while they're at it.

Political capital is not something that is based on, or derived from, rational evaluations. The majority of Obama's popularity doesn't seem to come from people who do much if any analysis of his economic policies; they are simply under his spell or his wife's, daughters' or dog's). What I personally probably like least of all is that the president himself, through his refusal to come clean on economic realities, and to be open to the people about the miserable state the country is in, lends credibility to these asinine tea parties sprouting up, which have as much to do with reality as the commander-in-chief's recent speeches. The more lies and half-truths the White House spreads, the more they empower the forces lining up against them. If you don't tell the truth, Mr. President, they don't need to either. Here's the crunching:
That distant rumbling is no longer far away
Sam Zell, who made billions in the field, says US commercial real estate values are already down 30%. That is at a time when just about everyone still tries not to talk even mention CRE.
Deflation is officially here
The US consumer price index fell at an annual rate of 0.4% in March, the first time since August 1955 prices have decreased on a year-over-year basis.
March retail sales fell 1.1% since February, while wholesale prices fell 1.2%.
US industrial output dropped most since 1945
March output for factories, mines and utilities fell 1.5% in the past month. Industrial production is down 13.3% since the recession began in December 2007 and 12.8% since March 2008.
Output fell at a 20% annualized rate during the first quarter of 2009.
Factory production dropped 1.7% in March; it has fallen 15.7% since December 2007, and 15% in the past 12 months.
Vehicle output is down 34.5% in the past year.
Production of high-tech equipment fell 3.1% for the second month in a row, for a cumulative drop of 22.6% in the past year.
Tax revenues vanish into thin air
As of March - or halfway through fiscal year 2009 - federal tax revenue is 14%, or $160 billion, lower than last year, the Congressional Budget Office reported.
Individual income tax receipts dropped 15% while those for businesses fell a whopping 57%.
Revenue from miscellaneous taxes and fees has fallen by $10 billion, or 12%.
A pinch of irony, anyone?
Local tax collections rose 3.2%, as gains in property taxes (!!) offset falling sales taxes.
David Walker, former comptroller general of the United States, warns taxes will double.
Spend spend faster faster
Government spending levels midway through the fiscal year rose by $480 billion, or 33 percent.
Large increases in how much the federal government spent on Medicaid (up 17%) and "other activities" (up 21%) like unemployment benefits.
The CBO estimates that the annual deficit will spike to between $1.67 trillion and $1.85 trillion. That's nearly four times last year's then-record $455 billion deficit.
Home sweet home
Foreclosure sales had dropped in the second half of 2008 as mortgage companies delayed taking action against delinquent borrowers.
But foreclosure-related filings increased by nearly 6% in February from the month earlier, and were up almost 30% from February 2008.
More than 2.1 million homes will be lost this year because borrowers can't meet their loan payments, up from about 1.7 million in 2008, according to Moody's Economy.com.
And finally, a warning for anyone thinking of applying for Obama's refinance plans:
Ronald Temple, co-director of research at Lazard Asset Management, expects home prices to fall 22% to 27% from their January levels.
Before you sign those papers, ask yourself what the numbers are going to look like once your home has lost another 25%-30% in value. Will it still be worth it to refinance? Don't ever forget that refinancing takes away your right to walk away, forever. It changes non-recourse mortgages into recourse loans. Be very careful with that, it can make you a debt slave for the rest of your life.
I can't wait for the next clown to claim the "shallow recession" is over. Anybody keeping tabs on who says what when about what point in the future? It'll be a gas....

As always, the rest of the posts for today at TAE are worth a read. And don't forget the comments. There's often lots of good stuff there, as well.

Cheers

Of Crashes, Failures and Bailouts - Round V: Blacker Than Ever

2009-04-14T00:42:00.014-04:00

THIS POST IS no longer IN PROGRESS. LAST UPDATE AT 1:31 PM EDT 4/15/09

The following is excerpted from an interview in Barron's (click the title to go to the original) of William Black by Jack Willoughby. What Black says isn't so amazing. Others have said it, and far earlier. I have previously posted comments and links to The Automatic Earth (which is where I found the original article from Barron's), Karl Denninger, Peter Schiff and others saying essentially all the same things. It's that he's the one saying it. William Black has gravitas. He has the pedigree. Those who would dismiss, and have dismissed, the voices in the wilderness noted above, can't so easily do the same to William Black.

There's not really anything new here that wasn't in Of Crashes, Failures and Bailouts - Round IV, but it's all worth repeating just for emphasis.

My comments below the interview.

Barron's: Just how serious is this credit crisis? What is at stake here for the American taxpayer?
Black: ...The scale of fraud is immense...
So you are saying Democrats as well as Republicans share the blame? No one can claim the high ground?
We have failed bankers giving advice to failed regulators on how to deal with failed assets. How can it result in anything but failure? ...Tim Geithner, the current Secretary of the Treasury, and Larry Summers, chairman of the National Economic Council, were important architects of the problems...
So you aren't a fan of the recently announced plan for the government to back private purchases of the toxic assets?
It is worse than a lie. Geithner... is really pandering to the interests of a select group of banks who are on a first-name basis with Washington politicians. The current law mandates prompt corrective action, which means speedy resolution of insolvencies. He is flouting the law, in naked violation, in order to pursue the kind of favoritism that the law was designed to prevent...
...It is like Gresham's law: Bad money drives out the good. Well, bad behavior drives out good behavior, without good enforcement.
...By promoting this notion of too-big-to-fail, we are allowing a pernicious influence to remain in Washington...
Summarize the problem as best you can for Barron's readers.
With most of America's biggest banks insolvent, you have, in essence, a multitrillion dollar cover-up by publicly traded entities, which amounts to felony securities fraud on a massive scale.
These firms will ultimately have to be forced into receivership, the management and boards stripped of office, title, and compensation. First... a Pecora-style fact-finding mission conducted without fear or favor... Then... pursue criminal cases...
What, then, is staying the federal government's hand? Have the banks become too difficult or complex to regulate?
...to do so would force it to put some of America's biggest financial institutions into receivership... these banks are some of the most well-connected in Washington...
Can you explain your idea of control fraud, and how it applies to the current banking and the earlier thrift crisis?
Control fraud is when a seemingly legitimate corporation uses its power as a weapon to defraud or take something of value through deceit.
...These accounting frauds create huge bubbles...
Why then is there so much smoke and so little action?
...The reason we don't see it -- aren't told about it -- is that if they were honest, prompt corrective action would kick in...
You say the evidence of a breakdown in the regulatory structure comes from the fact that America avoided an earlier subprime crisis in the 1990s.
Exactly. Why had no one heard of the subprime crisis back in 1991? Because America's regulators also faced down the crisis early... the problem didn't spread -- because regulators intervened.
What needs to be done?
Well, these international behemoths need to be broken down into smaller units... And a new seriousness must be put into regulation... We just need folks who can enforce the ones already on the books.
The bank-compensation system also creates an environment that leads to mismanagement and fraud... the top 20% get the bulk of the benefits and the bottom 10% get fired... Compensation systems... discourage whistleblowing -- the most common way that frauds are found in America -- because the system draws upon the cooperation of everyone.

This whole thing isn't over. Those in government or the financial industry saying we are past the bottom and will be coming out of recession within months, or maybe the end of the year, are liars or fools. The proof is in the pudding.

Question: How can the recession end when loan defaults - of all kinds and all sectors of the economy - are still raging? Take a look at this Mortgage Reset Chart. We are currently at a lull in resets. They surge again through 2010-2011.

Which brings us to inventory. John Mauldin at Minyanville observes:

No Housing Recovery Lurks in Shadow Inventory
- The Shadow Inventory of Homes
...a strange thing is happening: We're seeing what's being called a "shadow inventory" of foreclosed homes.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:"We believe there are in the neighborhood of 600,000 properties nationwide that banks have repossessed but not put on the market," said Rick Sharga, vice president of RealtyTrac...
A RealtyTrac survey found that only 30% of foreclosures were listed for sale in real-estate listings, like the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). Add in homes that people would like to sell but simply can't find buyers for and must either hold or rent, and the unsold inventory numbers that are public are likely far below actual available homes.
Might some homes in foreclosure be held off the market because banks eventually want to negotiate with the homeowner? Possibly. But other surveys show that anywhere from 30%-40% of homes in the foreclosure process in many areas are actually already vacant. There's no one with whom to negotiate...
...Normally there are about 160,000 homes a year in foreclosure sales. We're now seeing 80,000 a month, or 6 times normal levels, and rising.
Second, lenders could be deferring sales to put off having to acknowledge the actual extent of their losses. "With banks in the stress they're in, I don't think they're anxious to show losses in assets on their balance sheets," one observer said.
Finally, banks may not want to flood the market with foreclosures, driving prices down even more...
But it gets worse.

And it does. He goes on to list some of the things I'm already writing here, and more. You should read the article.

And what about commercial real estate? Prices are crashing and defaults rising as we speak. Credit card debt? Credit lines are being canceled or slashed as banks look to control losses or costs. Being a good risk is now a liability: they earn no interest and/or fees from you if you don't carry a balance, yet have money out to you. Liquidity is at issue. Every bank and financial entity wants cash. They need cash. You lose.

More importantly, as Meredith Whitney has pointed out, credit cards and credit lines have been what enabled many families the flexibility to manage tricky finances. As more restrictions are placed on personal credit, the more families that will be forced into default.

Few doubt the importance of consumer spending to the U.S. economy and its multiplier effect on the global economy, but what is underappreciated is the role of credit-card availability in that spending. Currently, there is roughly $5 trillion in credit-card lines outstanding in the U.S., and a little more than $800 billion is currently drawn upon. While those numbers look small relative to total mortgage debt of over $10.5 trillion, credit-card debt is revolving and accordingly being paid off and drawn down over and over, creating a critical role in commerce in America.
Just six months ago, I estimated that at least $2 trillion of available credit-card lines would be expunged from the system by the end of 2010. However, today, that estimate now looks optimistic, as available lines were reduced by nearly $500 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone. My revised estimates are that over $2 trillion of credit-card lines will be cut inside of 2009, and $2.7 trillion by the end of 2010.

Where is the recovery?

Global trade is still falling as can be seen in import and export numbers around the globe, which also reflects in shipping. Manufacturing - JOBS - will continue to fall in lockstep. Unemployment continues to rise even as extended benefits are running out for those early in the unemployment line. Real unemployment is now just below 20%.

Where is the recovery?

The financial sector is insolvent, but won't admit it. Housing and commercial real estate are so overbuilt squatters are taking over homes everywhere. Where the hell is the recovery supposed to come from? Foreign companies? Foreign countries? The U.S. is the consumption engine of the world. It is 20% or more of the global economy and 70% of that is consumerism. Service industries. In other words, pointless, useless and producing almost zero infrastructure/real capital. Do the math. That's 14% of the global economy that is kitsch and junk. Price/Earnings ratios are shot.

Et-flippin'-cetera.

Where is the recovery?

I call this blog A Perfect Storm Cometh. The financial unwind is only one part. Let's say we do go into recovery within the next six-to-eight months. Growth takes energy. Cheap energy. The densest energy we currently can tap cheaply and easily is oil. However, oil production is falling due to both above ground (non-geological) and below ground (geological) reasons.

The natural decline rate of crude oil production is at over 9% per year. That's over 6.5 million barrels a day. New production each year brings that number down to 6+% or 4.5 to 5 million barrels a day lost each year. Let's put that in perspective. That's a full Saudi Arabia every two years. We aren't finding anywhere near that much oil and haven't for decades. For now, the drop in production because of recession is masking the drop in production due to Peak Oil. Keeping this in mind, the recession **helps** with Peak Oil in the immediate future, but not in the longer term.

The problem is that the recession is not only reducing oil consumption, thus production, as a result of lowered demand, it is cutting future production. New wells aren't being drilled as fast. Old wells aren't being improved with technology. Expensive wells are being shut down while waiting for higher prices. IF a recovery started, it would run into the brick wall of slow-to-recover production and decline. The longer the recession (PC talk for depression, it seems) goes on, the more likely no new peak in production can be hit. The reason is simple: we have produced about half of all oil we can reasonably get to for reasonable prices. The rest is in smaller fields that are harder to reach. Consider my modified haystack analogy.

Imagine a giant haystack. Rather than the proverbial needle, in the hay are ten basketballs, 100 tennis balls and 1000 marbles. (Imagine our magic haystack keeps all objects suspended so they don't all fall to the floor.) The result?

We will absolutely find all of the ten basketballs before we find all 100 tennis balls. Or even a majority.
We will absolutely find all the tennis balls before we find all the marbles.
We will find some of each from the very start.
We will find all the basketballs in the early part of our search, say the first 25 - 40% of total time spent looking.
The basketballs will equal a majority of all balls/marbles by volume.
(Take a look at the Discovery/Production graph at the bottom of the blog.)

We've already found all the basketballs and a bunch of the tennis balls. We're down a few tennis balls and a bunch of marbles. Regarding production, the basketballs are going seriously flat and a bunch of tennis balls are getting flat or are empty. There's a lot of oil, but it's just not going to be possible to increase how fast we can get at it.

Where is the recovery?

Economic impacts? In the two large recessions of the 70's, GDP and oil production reflected one another, falling by similar percentages. In historical terms economic growth, food production and population have all tracked along with oil production. Both GDP and oil production are falling at this time. Again, by similar amounts. (See graphs at the bottom of this blog.)

The historic interplay of oil and economy is also seen in oil prices and recessions. Check out the graph at the beginning of the post below.

Oil Addiction and Recession
Vulnerability to oil prices helped cause this collapse
Poorly regulated real-estate lending wasn’t the only cause of the economic meltdown now gripping the industrial economies. Oil addiction also contributed.
The extraordinary rise in oil prices since 2003 has sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of the US economy (and the Cascadian economy).High oil prices have been a contributing cause of most recessions: Since 1948, “all large oil price increases but two have been followed by recessions,” as Andrew Hoerner and Nia Robinson of Redefining Progress (RP) write (pdf). “Four of the five recessions since 1970 . . . were preceded by big jumps in oil prices.”

Oil prices are now down 4 - 6%. Fourth quarter '08 GDP was falling at an annual rate of around 6%. Coincidence? These two posts discuss the connections between oil prices and the economy.

The oil shock and recession of 2008: Part 1
The oil shock and recession of 2008: Part 2

When, not if (barring a Dark Ages-level global collapse), production declines overtake falling demand, the prices will rocket upward. Again. Price volatility should be the norm, as it has been, now and in the future.

Where is the recovery?

The third part of the Perfect Storm is Anthropogenically-driven Climate Change (ACC.).

Without going into it too far, all of the above have a negative impact on ACC. Obviously, economic limits will affect the building of "green" infrastructure as credit is tight and resources are dwindling. It is important that governments understand that the long term health and safety of their nation and people depends on not losing sight of what happens if we don't successfully transition to sustainable energies and sustainable societies.

It has been reported that climate scientists are privately far more pessimistic about the future than they are letting on. Public pronouncements parrot the 2C warming locked in even if we successfully manage Green House Gas (GHG) emissions this century. Privately, there is talk that 3C or 4C is more likely. This is very bad news, of course, which illustrates that action can't wait, but with the economy crashing and energy decline likely to keep it crashing for the next 5 to 10 years (if renewables don't ramp up, it could last decades), how are we supposed to manage the transition to a low- or no-carbon society?

The answers might be simpler - though not necessarily easy - than one might think: Just say no.

A Perfect Storm Cometh

Methane Clathrate Bomb Detonating?

An Open Letter re: Occupy Detroit

Climate Reality Project 24 Hour Live Stream

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Arctic Sea Ice Predictions Update II

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Arctic Sea Ice Predictions Update

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Arctic Sea Ice Predictions

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Northwest Passage OPEN

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice: Northeast Passage OPEN

Large Ice Shelf Breaks Free Off Eastern Greenland

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice - A Layman's Perspective **Update**

Tracking Arctic Sea Ice Loss via the Fram Strait

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice - A Layman's Analysis

PRI-De Family and Community Garden

Back to the Salem Witch Trials

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

Easter Egg Hunt at the GSCG

Wow! Scientists are REAL PEOPLE!

The Loss of Multi-year Arctic Sea Ice Animation

Chopping Down the Cherry Tree - Answers to Climate Change Denial

This is from RealClimate. The editorial is available from many sources, but I like the comments here showing some of the process behind the editorial. Unlike RC, I do take a very definite position in support of the editorial.

The Guardian’s Editorial

Anti-AGW Conspiracy

James Hansen on Cap n Trade

Sustainability and Social Justice: Do the Math

Sustainability and Social Justice: Do the Math

Do the math

Reality bites

Two problems remain

Living with natural growth

Of Crashes, Failures and Bailouts - Round VI

Iraq, Oil, War, and Presidents and Vice-Presidents... err... Lying Liars... err... War Criminals

Eager to Tap Iraq's Vast Oil Reserves, Industry Execs Suggested Invasion

Re: Strassel's Propaganda: The Climate Change Climate Change

Climate Change Denial, Family Style

Re: Ten reasons why population control can’t stop climate change

World Oil Production Forecast - Update May 2009

The following is a periodic analysis of world oil production conducted by Ace at The Oil Drum. It is a comprehensive report of the state of crude oil, and other petroleum liquids, production. The upshot is:

World Oil Production Forecast - Update May 2009

World Oil Production

World Liquids Production

Sources of Future Liquids Production

Implications

Additional Information Sources

Climate Chaos: Adaptation

The Perfect Storm World Simulation: Peak Oil, Climate Change, Economic Collapse

Of Crashes, Failures and Bailouts - Round Vb

Of Crashes, Failures and Bailouts - Round V: Blacker Than Ever

Current State of the Arctic Sea Ice - A Layman's Perspective Update