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Western Antarctic causes scientists most concernWestern Antarctic causes scientists most concernhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3628471.ece?token=null&offset=12 The dramatic destruction of an ice shelf is a mere side show compared to the potential of catastrophic melting elsewhere in Antarctica. The Wilkins ice shelf covers more than 5,000 square miles, is up to 650 feet thick, took more than 1,000 years to form and is on the verge of melting in less than a decade. Almost 200 square miles of the ice shelf in the Antarctic Peninsula shattered into thousands of ice bergs over the last month, mostly on February 28. The rest of the shelf is expected to disappear rapidly in response to rising global temperatures. But while regarded as an impressive effect of global warming its impact on sea level rises is insignificant compared to those that scientists fear will be caused in the Western Antarctic. Climate researchers consider the southern continent to have three distinct regions - the Antarctic Peninsula, the Western Antarctic and the Eastern Antarctic.
They are most worried about the Western Antarctic where the greatest volume of ice has been lost and where there is the potential for sudden, unpredictable and extensive melting leading to rapid sea rises. Loss of ice shelves in the Peninsula is calculated to have little effect on sea levels because they already float in the water. In the Western Antarctic, however, much of the ice shelf rests on rock so when it melts the water runs into the sea and can cause a rise in ocean levels. Warmer ocean temperatures have taken a huge toll on the ice shelves in the Western Antarctic where ice is thinning at a rate of about 6-7 feet a year. “The problem is the Western Antarctic is extremely unpredictable,” said Professor David Vaughan, of the British Antarctic Survey. “At current rates it’s contributing a fraction of a millimetre to sea level rises per year but the potential is there for an acceleration.” He said that while the northern sections of the Antarctic Peninsula have undergone temperature rises of up to 3C in the last 50 years, the quantity of ice there is, by the standards of the rest of continent, small. In the Eastern Antarctic, the biggest region, data is extremely limited and many of the trends identified by researchers are disputed. It is thought to be stable, at least at present, though some researchers believe there are some signs of a slight overall rise in temperatures, particularly in coastal areas. Conversely, measurements at the South Pole suggest that temperatures there have fallen in recent years and snowfall across the Eastern Antarctic is believed to have risen recently. The loss of the Wilkins ice shelf is, nevertheless, a concern for researchers because it is further evidence of the changes global warming is wreaking on the natural world. The rapidity with which it is being destroyed is the biggest surprise and while the coming winter is likely to delay its disappearance it is thought to be unlikely to last more than a handful of summers.“I would be very surprised if there was much of the Wilkins ice shelf left after ten years,” said Professor Vaughan. “I would guess it will last a few seasons but it could be almost instantaneous.” Warmer sea and air temperatures have eaten away at the ice shelf for at least a decade already - since 1998 an estimated 1,000 square miles have melted. An ocean swell caused by a storm several thousand miles away, perhaps from the other end of the world, is believed to have been the “starw that broke the camel’s back” and caused widespread and sudden cracking that broke up a large section. Research is now underway to establish when and where the likely storm took place. Professor Doug MacAyeal, of the University of Chicago in the United States, previously carried out research which demonstrated an iceberg in the Antarctic was broken up by a storm off the Alaska coast. He is now heading an investigation to find out when and where a storm might have taken place to destroy the Wilkins ice shelf. “Generally speaking a storm that could cause the break up is more likely to have taken place thousands of miles away than close by,” he said. With a rise in the intensity of storms believed to be an effect of global warming he said it was possible that a storm which broke up the ice shelf was itself fueled by warmer temperatures. MELTDOWN IN THE MOUNTAINSMeltdown in the Mountainshttp://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/33068 Zurich/Nairobi, 16 March 2008 - The world's glaciers are continuing to melt away with the latest official figures showing record losses, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today. Data The findings come from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), a centre based at the University of Zürich in Switzerland and that is supported by UNEP.
It has been tracking the fate of glaciers for over a century. Continuous data series of annual mass balance, expressed as thickness change, are available for 30 reference glaciers since 1980. Prof. Dr. Wilfried Haeberli, Director of the Service said: "The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight". The Service calculates thickening and thinning of glaciers in terms of 'water equivalent'. The estimates for the year 2006 indicate that further shrinking took place equal to around 1.4 metres of water equivalent compared to losses of half a metre in 2005. "This continues the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past two and a half decades and brings the total loss since 1980 to more than 10.5 metres of water equivalent," said Professor Haberli. During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year. The record loss during these two decades — 0.7 metres in 1998 — has now been exceeded by three out of the past six years: 2003, 2004 and 2006. On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness indicating a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: " "Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year," said Mr Steiner. "There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice," he said. "To an important and significant extent that is already happening—indeed the elements of a Green Economy are already emerging from the more than $100 billion being invested in renewable energies to the responsible investment principles endorsed by 300 financial institutions with $13 trillion-worth of assets," said Mr Steiner. "The litmus test will come in late 2009 at the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen. Here governments must agree on a decisive new emissions reduction and adaptation-focused regime. Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for man oeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away," he added. The WGMS findings also contain figures from around 100 glaciers, of which 30 form the core assessment, found in Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Pacific. Some of the most dramatic shrinking has taken place in Europe with Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier thinning by close to 3.1 metres (2.9 metre water equivalent) during 2006 compared with a thinning of 0.3 metres (0.28 metres water equivalent) in the year 2005. Other dramatic shrinking has been registered at Austria's Grosser Goldbergkees glacier, 1.2 metres in 2006 versus 0.3 in 2005; France's Ossoue glacier, nearly 3 metres versus around 2.7 metres in 2005; Italy's Malavalle glacier 1.4 metres versus around 0.9 metres in 2005; Spain's Maladeta glacier, nearly 2 metres versus 1.6 metres in 2005; Sweden's Storglaciaeren glacier, 1.8 metres versus close to 0.080 metres in 2005 and Switzerland's Findelen glacier, 1.3 metres versus 0.22 metres in 2005. Not all of the close to 100 glaciers monitored posted losses with some thickening during the same period including Chile's Echaurren Norte glacier while others, such as Bolivia's Chacaltaya glacier; Canada's Place glacier; India's Hamtah glacier and the Daniels and Yawning glaciers in the Untied States shrank less in 2006 than they did in 2005. However, for the close to 30 reference glaciers only one (Echaurren Norte in Chile) thickened over the same period. Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest EPA Scrambles To Justify Action http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031304175.html By Juliet Eilperin The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA. EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents. "It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard. The dispute involved one of two distinct parts of the EPA's ozone restrictions: the "public welfare" standard, which is designed to protect against long-term harm from high ozone levels. The other part is known as the "public health" standard, which sets a legal limit on how high ozone levels can be at any one time. The two standards were set at the same level Wednesday, but until Bush asked for a change, the EPA had planned to set the "public welfare" standard at a lower level. The documents, which were released by the EPA late Wednesday night, provided insight into how White House officials helped shape the new air-quality rules that, by law, are supposed to be decided by the EPA administrator. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) questioned in a March 6 memo to the EPA why the second standard was needed. EPA officials answered in a letter that high ozone concentrations can cause "adverse effects on agricultural crops, trees in managed and unmanaged forests, and vegetation species growing in natural settings." The preamble to the new regulations alluded to this tug of war, stating there was a "robust discussion within the Administration of these same strengths and weaknesses" in setting the secondary standard. The preamble went on to say that the decision to make the two ozone limits identical "reflects the view of the Administration as to the most appropriate secondary standard." The effort to rewrite the language -- on the day the agency faced a statutory deadline -- forced EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson to postpone at the last moment a scheduled news conference to announce the new rules. It finally took place at 6 p.m., five hours later than planned. Under the Clean Air Act, the federal government must reexamine every five years whether its ozone standards are adequate, and the rules that the EPA issued Wednesday will help determine the nation's air quality for at least a decade. Ozone, which is formed when pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds released by industry and motor vehicles are exposed to sunlight, is linked to an array of heart and respiratory illnesses. The EPA set the allowable amount of ozone in the air at 75 parts per billion, a level stricter than the current limit but higher than what the scientific advisers had recommended. Carol M. Browner, who served as EPA administrator under President Bill Clinton, also encountered objections from the OMB when she established new ozone standards in 1997. In that instance, the president backed the EPA over White House budget officials. "We did not allow OMB to push us into a decision we were quite certain was outside the boundaries of the law," Browner said in an interview. The Clean Air Act, she added, creates "a moral and ethical commitment that we're going to let the science tell us what to do." Asked for a comment yesterday, EPA spokesman Timothy Lyons said the agency had complied with the Clean Air Act. "The secondary standard we set is fully supported by both the law and the record, and it is the most protective eight-hour standard ever for ozone." When asked about Clement's role, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "The White House sought legal advice from the Justice Department and made its decision based on that advice." The EPA's documents suggest that senior officials and scientific advisers resisted the White House's position. Last year, the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee wrote -- using italics for emphasis -- that it unanimously supported the EPA staff's conclusion that "protection of managed agricultural crops and natural terrestrial ecosystems requires a secondary [ozone standard] that is substantially different from the primary ozone standard. . . ." When the OMB's Susan E. Dudley urged the EPA to consider the effects of cutting ozone further on "economic values and on personal comfort and well-being," the EPA's Marcus Peacock responded in a March 7 memo: "EPA is not aware of any information that ozone has beneficial effects on economic values or on personal comfort and well being." Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in the Clean Air Act, said Dudley's letter to the EPA represents "a misunderstanding of the statute, a misunderstanding of Supreme Court precedent and a misunderstanding of the science as the expert agency understands it." White House Played Role in Smog RuleFrom: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/14/AR2008031400540.html?tid=informbox
The Associated Press
By H. JOSEF HEBERT Friday, March 14, 2008; 4:14 PM
WASHINGTON -- The head of the Environmental Protection Agency rejected suggestions on Friday that the White House forced him to weaken a key part of its new smog requirement after intervention by President Bush. "I made the decision," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson declared, saying he wanted to "set the record straight" on the issue. Documents and e-mails that EPA provided as part of the record on the smog regulation, issued on Wednesday, showed that Bush became personally involved in settling differences between the EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget over a part of the smog rule. The documents show a disagreement between EPA and the OMB, which reviews regulations, on the amount of protection from ozone, or smog, that should be afforded wildlife, farmlands, parks and open spaces. EPA officials had wanted to make the so-called "public welfare" or "secondary" standard stronger than the human health standard, a position also taken by environmentalists and health experts. But the White House insisted on making both standards identical, according to the documents. The issue went to Bush, who sided with his budget office. At the conclusion of a conference call with reporters Friday on a new EPA rule to curb pollution from ships and trains, Johnson said he wanted to "set the record straight" on the issue. "Invoking of the executive order (from the White House) did not deal with the stringency" of the public welfare standard, only "the form" it was to take, said Johnson. "I made the decision on the stringency." The EPA on Wednesday issued a rule that tightened the smog requirements for human health, reducing the allowable concentrations of ozone, or smog, in the air from 80 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion for air to be deemed healthy. The public welfare standard was set at about the same level, though calculated differently. The White House defended Bush's action. "This is not a weakening of regs (regulations) or standards," White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday. "But it was an effort to make the standards consistent. There's no question we have an interest in how federal regs impact communities." Fratto said the new standards are the "most stringent smog standards in history" and that communities will have a hard time meeting them. He described the area where Bush intervened as 'a technical matter' and said he acted on the advice of the Justice Department.
The White House's involvement was first reported by The Washington Post. Susan Dudley, head of OMB's Information and Regulatory Affairs, alluded to Bush's involvement in a last-minute memo to EPA chief Johnson. "The president has concluded that consistent with administration policy, added protection should be afford to public welfare by strengthening the secondary ozone standard and setting it to be identical to the new primary standard," she wrote. It should not be weaker or stronger than the human health standard, the OMB insisted. Although the memo was dated Thursday, it was faxed to the EPA on Wednesday, hours before the agency announced the rule. Parts of the memo were included in the rule's preamble posted on the EPA Web site. "Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of the law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief's expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt," said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private advocacy group. "It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference." Dudley, in a March 6 memo, had questioned the EPA's justification for having a stronger smog requirement for public welfare than for human health. The "public welfare" _ or secondary _ standard is fashioned in a way to protect against long-term harm to the environment. The limits on ozone under this standard are likely to have more impact on rural areas than urban centers. Environmentalists and ecologists have argued that the standard should be more stringent than the human health ozone standard. Last year the EPA staff and a scientific advisory panel on clean air concluded that protection of forests, agricultural lands and the ecosystem requires a "substantially different" ozone standard from the one for protecting human health. In recent weeks the Agriculture Department has weighed in against making the public welfare ozone standard tougher. The department expressed concerns about the impact additional pollution controls might have on agriculture and development of biofuels, especially ethanol. The department made its concerns known to OMB. EPA officials said the need was clear for a different standard for public welfare and that drifting ozone pollution has been found to cause "adverse effects" on agricultural crops, forests and vegetation. Antarctica Ice Loss Faster Than Ten Years Ago
January 14, 2008
The western part of Antarctica is shedding ice much faster today than it was just ten years ago, according to new satellite measurements. The measurements, which surveyed the coasts of nearly the entire continent, suggest that climate models underestimate how quickly Antarctica responds to ongoing global warming, said study co-author Jonathan Bamber of the University of Bristol in England.
Many past studies have tried to estimate how much ice Antarctica is losing. But the new study is the first to show that this loss is accelerating, at least in western Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, the researchers say. As to whether Antarctica will lose or gain ice as global warming proceeds, the measurements disagree with existing climate models that suggest "[the ice sheet] is going to get bigger because of increased snowfall with warming temperatures," Bamber said. "We don't see that. We see the ice sheet losing mass," he said. "So there's a bit of a paradigm shift in what the ice sheet has done recently and what it could do in the future." Scientists are concerned the melting ice will contribute to a dangerous sea level rise.
See the whole story at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080114-antarctica-melting_2.html CO2 output must cease altogether, studies warn Studies: CO2 output must cease altogether Research points to years of warming even with ambitious emission cuts By Juliet Eilperin The Washington Post updated 1:35 a.m. ET, Mon., March. 10, 2008 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23552526/ |
from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004- 2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled.
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