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The week in wildlife - in pictures
A newborn Sitatunga calf and an orange-bellied parrot are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Why melting Arctic ice can cause uncontrollable climate change – video report
Arctic scientists have reported that the speed at which the northern ice cap is melting risks triggering 19 climate tipping points, with disastrous consequences. It could also affect ecosystems elsewhere on Earth, perhaps irreversibly. The Arctic Resilience Report says it is crucial to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Continue reading...Government commits £15m to natural flood management
Natural management is ‘vital’ as well as other flood defences says environment secretary, reports The Ends Report
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will spend £15m on natural flood management projects, the environment secretary has announced.
On Thursday, Andrea Leadsom confirmed to parliament that, although flood defences such as concrete barriers are “very important”, natural flood management is “vital” as well.
Is this the beginning of the end for coal?
Canada has joined a growing list of countries phasing out the most polluting fossil fuel and global demand has fallen. Is this the start of a low-carbon energy era or just a blip in coal’s dominance?
This week Canada joined the growing list of major developed countries saying they will phase out coal power.
The announcement comes against the backdrop of global demand for coal falling last year for the first time in nearly two decades, a development that could presage a new era of lower-carbon energy generation – or merely a blip in the long-term dominance of the highly polluting fuel.
Continue reading...Heathrow third runway 'may break government's climate change laws'
Airport expansion plans may breach climate change legislation if other sectors do not make big cuts to emissions, warns Committee on Climate Change
Plans to build a third runway at Heathrow may breach the Government’s own climate change legislation if other sectors do not make big cuts to emissions, an independent advisory body has warned.
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said it had “concerns” over how the Department for Transport (DfT) had presented its case for expanding the hub in relation to greenhouse gas emissions.
Continue reading...Government accused of 'dirty tricks' over controversial fracking report
Ministers deliberately delayed a report showing fracking could affect house prices, health and the environment until after a crucial planning decision, documents reveal
Ministers deliberately delayed a controversial fracking report it was being forced to publish until after crucial council decisions on planning permission, according to newly revealed documents.
The documents also show ministers acknowledged they were open to a charge of double standards, having granted local communities the final say over windfarm applications but overruling fracking decisions.
Continue reading...Berries festoon the quarry reserve
Ketton Quarry, Rutland Withered stems of white bryony lash together clumps of little red globes hanging in garlands, and hedges blush with hawthorn berries
The incoming polar air mass and clear night sky produces this year’s heaviest frost. Water crystallises into bristly masses on every surface. The blazing morning sun rapidly scorches most of it away, but in the deepest still hollows of Ketton quarry the thick, white, dusting endures into the afternoon.
Related: Birds and berries: A fertile feast
Continue reading...Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level
Scientists warn increasingly rapid melting could trigger polar ‘tipping points’ with catastrophic consequences felt as far away as the Indian Ocean
Arctic scientists have warned that the increasingly rapid melting of the ice cap risks triggering 19 “tipping points” in the region that could have catastrophic consequences around the globe.
The Arctic Resilience Report found that the effects of Arctic warming could be felt as far away as the Indian Ocean, in a stark warning that changes in the region could cause uncontrollable climate change at a global level.
Continue reading...Coal? What coal? Reef doing great, say ministers
Minister defends coal industry after call to ban new mines to save reef
Josh Frydenberg says coal ‘vitally important’ after former Great Barrier Reef official calls said its future depended on an end to mining
Josh Frydenberg has defended Australia’s coal industry as “vitally important” days after a former Great Barrier Reef authority chief called for a ban on new mines.
Speaking after a forum on the reef with state and territory ministers in Sydney on Friday, the federal environment minister said other countries would simply “fill the void” if Australia did not export coal.
Continue reading...AGL offering free solar system, or battery storage, to wind farm neighbours
Heads up Barnaby: 300MW solar farm headed your way
Blockchain network disruption coming, and Australia among pioneers
Interest cools at fourth ERF auction as emissions growth continues
Business as usual at Australia’s coal, oil and gas companies
Toyota imports Mirai and refueller to sell hydrogen story to Australia
Please, Donald Trump, don't send climate science back to the pre-satellite era
You can only truly understand the weather by flying above the clouds. NASABob Walker, an adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump, has set alarm bells ringing by recommending that NASA’s climate monitoring programs be axed.
But his dismissal of the “politicised science” at NASA’s Earth Science Division shows an ignorance of the breadth, role and significance of its contributions to society in the United States and worldwide.
It’s unclear what exactly Walker means by his comment that “future programs should definitely be placed with other agencies”. Is the plan merely to shuffle the deckchairs – same science, different badge — or is it code for cutting the research observation and monitoring efforts altogether?
If the former, it is hard to see what it would achieve, beyond risking a loss of expertise as other agencies attempt to develop the same capabilities as NASA. But the latter is a frightening prospect, because it would effectively take us back to what climate scientists refer to as the “pre-satellite era”.
The global climate system is, well, global. There are places where there is no one around to take measurements, such as the vast expanses of our oceans, the central desert of Australia, and the Arctic and Antarctic regions. But what happens in these remote areas affects the climate elsewhere; the atmosphere has no boundary and the oceans are linked.
Before satellites, the patchiness of weather and climate observations for much of the globe made it hard to detect the patterns that govern rainfall, temperatures and winds.
Now we have a continuous global view of Earth, courtesy of NASA’s Earth observation satellite program. Cutting this research and returning to the pre-satellite era would leave us ignorant not only of Earth’s climate processes, but also of whether or not our environmental policies are effective.
The value of satellitesFor more than three decades in the early 20th century, the British meteorologist Sir Gilbert T. Walker searched the sparse climate records for patterns that could explain why the Indian monsoon failed in some years. After some laborious number-crunching, he put forward the concept of the “Southern Oscillation”, describing sea-level pressure differences between Darwin and Tahiti in the South Pacific. His Southern Oscillation Index is still used today.
When sea-level pressure is lower in Tahiti than Darwin, it causes wind patterns that bring drought to India and northeast Australia, Walker suggested. But the Southern Oscillation was only part of the story.
Almost half a century later, in the late 1960s, early NASA satellite data provided an unprecedented look at the patterns of clouds above the Pacific Ocean. This helped the meteorologist Jacob Bjerknes to link Walker’s sea-level pressure oscillations with other variables such as wind, rainfall (clouds) and ocean temperature variations right across the tropical Pacific.
Crucially, he identified a low-rainfall zone in the central-eastern equatorial Pacific – of which Walker, with his patchy data, had been completely unaware. The “chain reaction” between the atmosphere and ocean now known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation emerged in part from NASA satellite imagery.
A visualisation of the strong El Niño that developed in 1997, using NASA sea-surface height data from the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite.
NASA
Of course, the holy grail when it comes to El Niño is to forecast events ahead of time, because El Niño is a major factor in bringing droughts and floods to countries bordering the Pacific Oceans. This has huge consequences for millions of livelihoods. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology uses NASA satellite and model data to forecast an impending El Niño three to six months ahead of time, while real-time observations help to assess the impacts once the event actually arrives.
This level of forecasting and monitoring was a pipe dream in the pre-satellite era. The same could be said about a host of other global phenomena – from severe storms, to massive wildfires, to air pollution.
Verifying policy decisionsIf President-elect Trump really needs yet more certainty that human-induced global warming is not a hoax and that the recently enacted Paris Agreement will have a meaningful impact, then one of the best ways to achieve this would be to boost NASA’s Earth Science Division.
NASA satellites recently demonstrated the success of US and European environmental regulations in improving air quality over the past decade. NASA has also been central to monitoring the effectiveness of the Montreal Protocol, the global agreement to safeguard the ozone layer. By keeping a close watch on the size and extent of the ozone hole, NASA has helped to show that it is beginning to recover and that the policy is working.
Our advice to TrumpGilbert T. Walker wrote in 1940:
I think that the relationships of world weather are so complex that our only chance of explaining them is to accumulate the facts empirically.
His present-day namesake and Trump adviser Bob Walker also says “we need good science to tell us what the reality is”. One of President-elect Trump’s best chances of achieving this aim is to continue funding scientists to observe Earth from space.
So our advice to Trump is to look beyond the cheap talk about politicisation and appreciate the importance of the work done by NASA’s Earth Science Division. This is not, as Bob Walker asserts, “politically correct environmental monitoring” (whatever that is), but essential data that are already being used to ensure society’s health and wellbeing.
As for climate change science, the division’s reports on global temperatures are solely based on robust data. What’s being politicised here is not the science but the story that the science tells: that the planet is warming. Let’s not shoot the messenger.
Helen McGregor receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the University of Wollongong. McGregor is a member of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the American Geophysical Union and the Australasian Quaternary Association.
Jenny Fisher receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Department of the Environment, NASA, and the University of Wollongong. Fisher is a member of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the American Geophysical Union.
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