U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Weren’t Built for Climate Change, [excellent pictures on original] Bloomberg , By Christopher Flavelle and Jeremy C.F. Lin, April 18, 2019
In 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi power plant, Gregory Jaczko, then the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, had to worry about two things: whether radioactive fallout would harm the U.S. and whether a similar accident could befall an American plant. The answer to the first question turned out to be no. The second question preoccupies him still.
The NRC directed the operators of the 60 or so working U.S. nuclear power plants to evaluate their current flood risk, using the latest weather modeling technology and accounting for the effects of climate change. Companies were told to compare those risks with what their plants, many almost a half-century old, were built to withstand, and, where there was a gap, to explain how they would close it.
That process has revealed a lot of gaps. But Jaczko and others say that the commission’s new leadership, appointed by President Donald Trump, hasn’t done enough to require owners of nuclear power plants to take preventative measures—and that the risks are increasing as climate change worsens.
….. After Fukushima, U.S. regulators told operators to calculate their exposure to various flood risks and compare that with what the plant was designed for. Ninety percent of plants had at least one risk exceeding their design.
According to a Bloomberg review of correspondence between the commission and plant owners, 54 of the nuclear plants operating in the U.S. weren’t designed to handle the flood risk they face. Fifty-three weren’t built to withstand their current risk from intense precipitation; 25 didn’t account for current flood projections from streams and rivers; 19 weren’t designed for their expected maximum storm surge. Nineteen face three or more threats that they weren’t designed to handle.
The industry argues that rather than redesign facilities to address increased flood risk, which Jaczko advocates, it’s enough to focus mainly on storing emergency generators, pumps, and other equipment in on-site concrete bunkers, a system they call Flex, for Flexible Mitigation Capability. Not only did the NRC agree with that view, it ruled on Jan. 24 that nuclear plants wouldn’t have to update that equipment to deal with new, higher levels of expected flooding. It also eliminated a requirement that plants run Flex drills………
The commission’s three members appointed by President Trump wrote that existing regulations were sufficient to protect the country’s nuclear reactors. Jaczko disagrees. “Any work that was done following Fukushima is for naught because the commission rejected any binding requirement to use that work,” he says. “It’s like studying the safety of seat belts and then not making automakers put them in a car.”
The commission “is carrying out the Trump deregulatory philosophy,” says Edwin Lyman, head of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The NRC basically did everything the industry wanted.” The two Democratic appointees objected to the NRC’s ruling. “The majority of the commission has decided that licensees can ignore these reevaluated hazards,” commissioner Jeff Baran wrote in dissent. His colleague Stephen Burns called the decision “baffling.” Through a spokesman, the Republican appointees declined to comment.
“Nuclear power is weird—it exists to produce electricity, and at the same time it can’t exist without electricity,” says Allison Macfarlane, who chaired the NRC from 2012 through 2014. Plants need constant power to pump cool water into a reactor’s core; if flooding interrupts that power supply for long enough, as happened in Fukushima, the core can overheat, melting through its container and releasing deadly levels of radiation.
The true risk to U.S. nuclear facilities may be even greater than what the documents from the nuclear commission show. The commission allowed nuclear plant operators not only to perform their own estimates of current flood risk but also to decide what assumptions to make—for example, the maximum likely hurricane speed or how much rain would fall in an extreme storm. (The commission reviews that work.) The commission also rejected a recommendation by their own staff that would require nuclear power plants to update their risk assessments periodically to reflect the advancing threat of climate change.
While plant owners weren’t required to project their future storm surge risk, the Union of Concerned Scientists has done its own estimates for some of those regions. The images included here show that projected increase.
Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station, 35 miles south of Miami, was designed to withstand a storm surge of 16 feet, according to documents submitted to regulators by its owner, Florida Power & Light Co. But the updated storm surge is expected to range from 17.4 feet to 19.1 feet at different parts of the plant. Last year, Florida Power & Light sought permission from regulators to extend Turkey Point’s operating license until 2053.
……….. The Waterford power plant, a half-hour drive up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, was designed to withstand a maximum storm surge of 23.7 feet above sea level, according to documents provided to the NRC by Entergy Corp., which owns the plant. The company told regulators that a combination of storm surge and river flooding would create a maximum surge of 31.8 feet.
……… One of the largest gaps in storm surge protection is at Dominion Energy Inc.’s Surry Power Station, whose two reactors sit on a peninsula jutting into the James River just north of Norfolk, Va. The plant’s east side, which is most exposed to a potential storm surge, was designed to withstand a wall of water as high as 28.6 feet above sea level, Dominion told regulators. The company found that under current conditions, a storm surge combined with river flooding would bring a surge of as much as 38.8 feet. “
…… Dominion asked the NRC to extend its license for Surry to 2053. The commission has yet to rule on that request.
…….. According to documents provided to the commission by Exelon Corp., which owns Peach Bottom, the plant wasn’t designed for its current flood risk from heavy precipitation, storm surge, ice-induced flooding, or a standing wave called a seiche.
The fight over regulation and climate change comes when the nuclear industry, under pressure from cheap natural gas and still viewed with suspicion by many environmentalists, can least afford it, according to Peter Bradford, a former commissioner. “Anything that increases their costs now threatens their existence,” he says.
…… Macfarlane, the former NRC chairman, says the lesson of Fukushima is that the nuclear industry, including regulators, needs to prepare for seemingly unlikely threats. “Boy, did we misjudge natural hazards,” she says. “If something happens and you don’t learn from it, woe unto you.”https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-nuclear-power-plants-climate-change/
New reporting highlights how the nation’s nuclear power plants are woefully unprepared to handle the growing impacts of the climate crisis.
Despite that threat, says a watchdog, the industry’s regulatory capture means its interests are set to continue to take precedence over public health and safety.
As Bloomberg‘s Christopher Flavelle and Jeremy C.F. Lin laid out Thursday, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) tasked the roughly 60 operating plants in the U.S. with assessing what their flood risks were compared to what flood risks the plants were actually built to withstand.
That was a logical step, given many of the American plants’ proximity to waterways, and the heightened risk of flooding in the face of the climate crisis.
Shortfalls in the assessments were evident.
According to a Bloomberg review of correspondence between the commission and plant owners, 54 of the nuclear plants operating in the U.S. weren’t designed to handle the flood risk they face. Fifty-three weren’t built to withstand their current risk from intense precipitation; 25 didn’t account for current flood projections from streams and rivers; 19 weren’t designed for their expected maximum storm surge. Nineteen face three or more threats that they weren’t designed to handle.
What’s more, those shortfalls may represent a better case scenario, as the NRC allowed the plant operators—not an outside authority—to perform the flood estimates and were not required to assess projected flood risks.
“It’s difficult to come across as an independent regulator and rely on self-assessment” from plants, as Tony Vegel, a Texas-based reactor safety official for the NRC, said previously.
The nuclear industry, as Bloomberg reported, wasn’t interested in facility redesigns to better withstand flood risks. Rather, it wanted
to focus mainly on storing emergency generators, pumps, and other equipment in on-site concrete bunkers, a system they call Flex, for Flexible Mitigation Capability. Not only did the NRC agree with that view, it ruled on Jan. 24 that nuclear plants wouldn’t have to update that equipment to deal with new, higher levels of expected flooding. It also eliminated a requirement that plants run Flex drills.
The three Trump-appointed commissioners did the industry’s bidding and said the existing regulations afforded enough protection. The NRC’s two Democratic commissioners disagreed.
Bloomberg quoted Edwin Lyman, head of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, as saying, “The NRC basically did everything the industry wanted.”
Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear, concurred with that assessment.
Another issue, he told Common Dreams, is that “the commission’s January 2019 voteappears to have violated the federal Administrative Procedures Act by erasing what had been established as mandatory requirements through the agency’s rulemaking process for post-Fukushima flooding preparations at U.S. reactors.”
“The Commission vote,” he said, “inexplicably switched out ‘mandatory’ requirements with ‘voluntary’ initiatives after the public comment period on the final rule was closed. The NRC did not receive a single comment from either the public or the industry to make such a change.”
Gunter also noted that the NRC’s failings didn’t just begin once Trump entered the White House.
For example, he said, “following the Fukushima catastrophe, in 2012 the NRC technical staff unanimously agreed that the agency issue an order to 31 U.S. Fukushima-style GE Mark I and II boiling water reactors requiring operators to install severe accident-capable radiation filters on hardened containment vents.” These vents, he explained, “would allow operators to vent the containment of a severe accident’s extreme heat, pressure, and explosive gases to save the structure while filtering out the release of harmful radiation.”
But in a June 2013 vote, “the commission voted to order the installation of hardened containment vents but without the engineered external radiation filters which industry opposed on cost.” While the NRC “suggested that the filters could be taken up later in a rulemaking process for public comment,” it “abandoned the measure,” said Gunter.
In another sign of the NRC’s capture by the nuclear industry The Associated Pressreported last month:
Annie Caputo, a former nuclear-energy lobbyist now serving as one of four board members appointed or reappointed by President Donald Trump, told an industry meeting this week that she was “open to self-assessments” by nuclear plant operators, who are proposing that self-reporting by operators take the place of some NRC inspections.
The battle lines, said Gunter, are clear.
“The essential step forward must address the regulatory agency’s deepening capture by an aging and financially failing nuclear industry,” he said. “We do not have an independent regulator that is heeding its mandate to protect public health and safety first.”
Stanford professor Mark Z Jacobson has said new nuclear plants may cost up to 7.4 times more than wind and solar facilities, with construction times longer by up to 15 years. Such a delay, he said, may see an huge amount of extra carbon emissions from fossil fuel power sources. His verdict comes as China this month set new guaranteed tariffs for nuclear power.
In the study Jacobson – who is also director of the Californian university’s Atmosphere/Energy program – highlights the risk of overestimating nuclear’s ability to reduce global warming and air pollution, as well as its claims about ensuring energy security.
The professor said construction times for new nuclear plants range from 10 to 19 years. “An examination of some recent nuclear plant developments confirms that this range is not only reasonable but an underestimate in at least one case,” he wrote. The paper cites the Olkiluoto 3 reactor in Finland, the Hinkley Point nuclear plan in the UK and Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors in Georgia, among others, as examples of projects for which planning began in the past decade and whose entry into commercial operation is still far from complete.
With new nuclear projects taking so long – and utility scale solar or wind schemes requiring 2-5 years to begin commercial operations – nuclear effectively emits a hundred years’ worth of 64-102g of CO²per kilowatt-hour of plant capacity just from grid emissions during the wait for projects to come online or be refurbished, compared to wind or solar farms.
Jacobson added, a further 2-4 years of plant downtime will have to be factored in to take account of the refurbishment required to ensure nuclear facilities run for their expected 40-year lifetime. “Overall, emissions from new nuclear are 78-178g [of] CO²/kWh, not close to zero,” he wrote. “Even existing plants emit, due to the continuous mining and refining of uranium needed for the plant.”
The professor also highlighted the well-known risks associated with nuclear power such as weapons proliferation, reactor meltdown, radioactive waste, mining-related cancers and land despoilment.
China and its nuclear plans
According to Jacobson, the lengthy delays to realizing China’s nuclear plant investment have effectively been responsible for a 1.3% rise in carbon emissions in the nation between 2016 and 2017, rather than the 3.4% fall claimed by the authorities.
According to the Stanford paper, the capital cost of new nuclear ranges from $6,500-12,250/kW, whereas a new wind turbine ranges from $1,150-1,550/kW. “Dividing the high (and low) capital cost of nuclear per kW by the low (and high) capital cost of wind per kW and multiplying the result by 14 GW gives a range of 58.7-149 GW nameplate capacity of wind that could have been installed and running prior to 2017,” the report stated.
Despite the big difference in costs, China’s National Development and Reform Commission set new guaranteed minimum on-grid electricity tariffs for third-generation nuclear power stations this month. According to Reuters, the Taishan project in Guangdong province was set at RMB0.435 ($0.0649) per kWh, while prices for the Sanmen project in Zhejiang province and the Haiyang plant in Shandong province were set at RMB0.4203 and RMB0.4151 per kWh, respectively.
In a statement provided to pv magazine at the time, Mycle Schneider – a French consultant specializing in nuclear energy – said the new fixed tariffs are in the same range as previous nuclear subsidies. “That is rather surprising as these units were significantly more expensive than the previous reactors and they are years behind schedule and massively over budget,” he said. “[It is] hard to believe that they will be making any money. 435 Yuan [RMB] per megawatt-hour – around 65 U.S. dollars or 58 euro – is about half of the strike price agreed for Hinkley Point C.”
Schneider added PV and wind costs have come down so much China is investing much more in renewables than nuclear. “The bottom line is that it is likely that China will restart nuclear building at some point – the last commercial unit started building in December 2016 – but that the pace will be significantly lower than anticipated, leaving the biggest chunk of new electricity generating capacity to renewables, just like anywhere else but on a bigger scale,” he added. As of July 1, China had 41 operating reactors with a total net capacity of 38 GW.
In the 2018 edition of the Nuclear Industry Status Report, Schneider revealed nuclear power capacity grew globally by only 1% in 2017 while solar and wind capacity rose 35% and 17%, respectively. The report also recognized solar and wind were the cheapest grid-connected sources of energy. Investments in new nuclear plants, on the other hand, were driven by public support and by nuclear weapon states, according to the paper.
Atomic bombs, Chernobyl,Fukushima—radiation has traveled and frozen all over the world. Global warming is changing that.
Melting could be one of the most important phenomena of the 21st century. Thanks to man-made climate change, Arctic ice levels have hit a record low this year. Among the many profound changes that could stem from ice melting across the world, according to a new study from an international group of scientists, is the release of deeply buried radiation.
The international team studied 17 icy locations across the globe, including the Arctic, the Antarctic, Iceland, the Alps, the Caucasus mountains, and British Columbia. While radiation exists naturally, the scientists were looking for example of human-made radiation. It was common to find concentrations at least 10 times higher than levels elsewhere.
“They are some of the highest levels you see in the environment outside nuclear exclusion zones,” says Caroline Clason, a lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth, speaking in a press statement.
After Chernobyl, clouds of cesium traveled across Europe. Radiation spread without regard for borders, reaching as far as England through rains. But when rain freezes, it takes the form of ice. And within ice, it can lay trapped.
“Radioactive particles are very light so when they are taken up into the atmosphere they can be transported a very long way,” Clason tells the AFP. “When it falls as rain, like after Chernobyl, it washes away and it’s sort of a one-off event. But as snow, it stays in the ice for decades and as it melts in response to the climate it’s then washed downstream.”
What does that response look like? Humanity is starting to find out, Clason says. She points to wild boar in Sweden, who in 2017 were found to have 10 times the levels of normal radiation.
Traces of human-made radiation last a famously long time. Ice around the globe contains nuclear material not just from accidents involving nuclear power plants, but also man’s use of nuclear weapons.
“We’re talking about weapons testing from the 1950s and 1960s onwards, going right back in the development of the bomb,” Clason says. “If we take a sediment core you can see a clear spike where Chernobyl was, but you can also see quite a defined spike in around 1963 when there was a period of quite heavy weapons testing.”
Elements within radiation have different life spans. Perhaps the most notorious of these, Plutonium-241 has a 14 year half-life. [ed. most plutonium isotopes have half-lives of many thousands of years] But Americium-241, a synthetic chemical element, has a half life of 432 years. It can stay in ice a long time, and when that ice melts will spread. There isn’t much data yet on its ability to spread into the human food chain, but Clason called the threat of Americum “particularly dangerous”.
A term popular in science these days is the Anthropocene, which refers to the idea that humans have permanently altered the very core of how the Earth functions as a living ecosystem. Looking for radiation buried within icy soil and sediment could offer stronger proof of those changes.
“These materials are a product of what we have put into the atmosphere. This is just showing that our nuclear legacy hasn’t disappeared yet, it’s still there,” she says.
“And it’s important to study that because ultimately it’s a mark of what we have left in the environment.”
Satellite measurements of the Earth’s ‘skin temperature’ have confirmed that global warming is heating up the planet. The infra-red sensitive system was used to record temperature trends from 2003 to 2017. It showed a warming pattern consistent with other land-based measurements. Dr Joel Susskind, from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, said: ‘Both data sets demonstrate the Earth’s surface has been warming globally over this period, and that 2016, 2017, and 2015 have been the warmest years in the instrumental record, in that order.’
The satellite system, called Airs (Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder), records temperature at the surface of the ocean, land and snow-covered regions. Its findings were compared with station-based data from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Surface Temperature Analysis (Gistemp).
The results are published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Co-author Dr Gavin Schmidt, also from the Goddard Institute, said: ‘Interestingly, our findings revealed that the surface-based data sets may be underestimating the temperature changes in the Arctic. ‘This means the warming taking place at the poles may be happening more quickly than previously thought.’
SBS News, 17 Apr 19 Thousands of activists led by Extinction Rebellion have blocked major roads in London to demand action on climate change, and promised to keep it up a week. Thousands of environmental activists have paralysed parts of central London by blocking Marble Arch, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge in a bid to force the government to do more to tackle climate change.Under sunny skies on Monday, activists sang songs or held signs that read “There is no Planet B” and “Extinction is forever” at some of the capital’s most iconic locations.
Roadblocks will continue night and day at each site and the demonstrators say the protests could last at least a week….
The group is demanding the government declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and create a citizen’s assembly of members of the public to lead on decisions to address climate change. ….
Extinction Rebellion wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday outlining their demands and asking for face-to-face talks, warning that they will escalate their disruptive actions over the coming weeks unless the government acts.
“Make no mistake, people are already dying,” the letter states. “In the majority world, indigenous communities are now on the brink of extinction. This crisis is only going to get worse … Prime Minister, you cannot ignore this crisis any longer. We must act now.”
Organisers of the protests circulated legal advice to anyone planning to attend, requesting they refrain from using drugs and alcohol, and asking them to treat the public with respect.
London’s police have advised people travelling around the city in the coming days to allow extra time for their journey in the event of road closures and general disruption. …… Extinction Rebellion wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday outlining their demands and asking for face-to-face talks, warning that they will escalate their disruptive actions over the coming weeks unless the government acts.
“Make no mistake, people are already dying,” the letter states. “In the majority world, indigenous communities are now on the brink of extinction. This crisis is only going to get worse … Prime Minister, you cannot ignore this crisis any longer. We must act now.”
Organisers of the protests circulated legal advice to anyone planning to attend, requesting they refrain from using drugs and alcohol, and asking them to treat the public with respect.
DW, 17 Apr 19, In the face of runaway climate chaos, governments around the world are in denial, say the activists hoping to land themselves in jail in defence of our planet — and the survival of our species.Many environmentalists — particularly the major international NGOs — have long argued that frightening people will only put them off engaging with climate protection. If the problem feels too big, we feel hopeless and switch off to think about something else.
But with scientists telling us that the planet’s sixth mass extinction is already underway, and that we have scarcely more than a decade to avert devastating, irreversible climate change, a growing number of activists now believe it’s too late to sugar coat the the truth.
This week, they will be taking to streets around the world in acts of mass civil disobedience, with the message that unless we take immediate action humankind itself faces extinction.
“Emissions are still going up, so we need to disrupt normal life,” says Nick Holzberg, who works full time for Extinction Rebellion in Berlin. “The only way to do that is peaceful civil disobedience.”
State of emergency
Extinction Rebellion first emerged in fall last year, when thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of London. UK “Extinction Rebels” have since occupied bridges over the Thames and stripped off in the British Parliament. And their movement has expanded to 35 countries around the world………
The group is demanding that governments declare a “climate emergency,” to shift into a crisis mode where “business as unusual” is suspended to make climate protection the priority.
More concretely, they want governments to commit to carbon neutrality by 2025 — instead of mid-century as the European Union and many national governments are aiming for. ….
Students across the UK took to the streets on Friday to call for the government to act to tackle the climate change crisis. Protests took place everywhere from Birmingham, to Newcastle and beyond. Jake Woodier, from the UK Youth Climate Coalition, who took part in London, said: “It’s been a really fantastic day, with thousands and thousands of students protesting across the country, and continuing to build the movement.”
A further 30 countries across the globe also held events today. Many shared their experiences over social media. It included activity in New Delhi in India, Istanbul in Turkey and Helsinki, Finland’s capital.
Politicians, broadcasters, scientists and artists showed their support for young activists. David Attenborough was asked about the young people who have been marching all over the world. The Washington Post asked: when you look at that, what do you see, as someone generations ahead of them? Attenborough said: “I mean, strikes are a way of expressing a strong feeling that you have, but they don’t solve it. You don’t solve anything by striking. But you do change opinion, and you do change politicians’ opinions. And that’s why strikes are worthwhile.”
The march in London brought Oxford street to a standstill. Organiser Cyrus Jarvis, 16, a year 11 student from London Academy school in Barnet, North London, said: “The police tried to frighten us with arrests but we just moved on. “We are really sorry for anyone who did have issues because of us, but unfortunately this is what we have to do to get our point across to the government.”
On 22 April, the Guardian is hosting an event with Greta Thunberg and Anna Taylor, from the UK Student Climate Network, with an introduction from Caroline Lucas MP, and chaired by the Guardian’s Zoe Williams. You can find out more about this event here.
Siren sounds on nuclear fallout embedded in melting glaciers https://phys.org/news/2019-04-siren-nuclear-fallout-embedded-glaciers.html, by Patrick Galey, 10 Apr 19, Radioactive fallout from nuclear meltdowns and weapons testing is nestled in glaciers across the world, scientists said Wednesday, warning of a potentially hazardous time bomb as rising temperatures melt the icy residue.
For the first time, an international team of scientists has studied the presence of nuclear fallout in ice surface sediments on glaciers across the Arctic, Iceland the Alps, Caucasus mountains, British Columbia and Antarctica.
It found manmade radioactive material at all 17 survey sites, often at concentrations at least 10 times higher than levels elsewhere.
“They are some of the highest levels you see in the environment outside nuclear exclusion zones,” said Caroline Clason, a lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth.
When radioactive material is released into the atmosphere, it falls to earth as acid rain, some of which is absorbed by plants and soil.
But when it falls as snow and settles in the ice, it forms heavier sediment which collects in glaciers, concentrating the levels of nuclear residue.
The Chernobyl disaster of 1986—by far the most devastating nuclear accident to date—released vast clouds of radioactive material including Caesium into the atmosphere, causing widespread contamination and acid rain across northern Europe for weeks afterwards.
“Radioactive particles are very light so when they are taken up into the atmosphere they can be transported a very long way,” she told AFP.
“When it falls as rain, like after Chernobyl, it washes away and it’s sort of a one-off event. But as snow, it stays in the ice for decades and as it melts in response to the climate it’s then washed downstream.”
The environmental impact of this has been shown in recent years, as wild boar meat in Sweden was found to contain more than 10 times the safe levels of Caesium.
Clason said her team had detected some fallout from the Fukushima meltdown in 2011, but stressed that much of the particles from that particular disaster had yet to collect on the ice sediment.
As well as disasters, radioactive material produced from weapons testing was also detected at several research sites.
“We’re talking about weapons testing from the 1950s and 1960s onwards, going right back in the development of the bomb,” she said. “If we take a sediment core you can see a clear spike where Chernobyl was, but you can also see quite a defined spike in around 1963 when there was a period of quite heavy weapons testing.”
One of the most potentially hazardous residues of human nuclear activity is Americium, which is produced when Plutonium decays.
Whereas Plutonium has a half-life of 14 years, Americium lasts 400. [Ed note: Most plutonium isotopes have very long half-lives, plutonium-239 being one of the shortest at over 24,000 years]
“Americium is more soluble in the environment and it is a stronger alpha (radiation) emitter. Both of those things are bad in terms of uptake into the food chain,” said Clason.
While there is little data available on how these materials can be passed down the food chain—even potentially to humans—Clason said there was no doubt that Americium is “particularly dangerous”.
As geologists look for markers of the epoch when mankind directly impacted the health of the planet—known as the Anthropocene—Clason and her team believe that radioactive particles in ice, soil and sediment could be an important indicator.
“These materials are a product of what we have put into the atmosphere. This is just showing that our nuclear legacy hasn’t disappeared yet, it’s still there,” Clason said.
“And it’s important to study that because ultimately it’s a mark of what we have left in the environment.”
UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH 8 Apr 19, Melting ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic as well as ice melt from glaciers all over the world are causing sea levels to rise. Glaciers alone lost more than 9,000 billion tons of ice since 1961, raising water levels by 27 millimeters, an international research team under the lead of the University of Zurich have now found.
Glaciers have lost more than 9,000 billion tons (that is 9 625 000 000 000 tons) of ice between 1961 and 2016, which has resulted in global sea levels increasing by 27 millimeters in this period. The largest contributors were glaciers in Alaska, followed by the melting ice fields in Patagonia and glaciers in the Arctic regions. Glaciers in the European Alps, the Caucasus and New Zealand were also subject to significant ice loss; however, due to their relatively small glacierized areas they played only a minor role when it comes to the rising global sea levels.
Combination of field observations and satellite measurements
For the new study, the international research team combined glaciological field observations with geodetic satellite measurements. The latter digitally measure the surface of the Earth, providing data on ice thickness changes at different points in time. The researchers were thus able to reconstruct changes in the ice thickness of more than 19,000 glaciers worldwide. This was also possible thanks to the comprehensive database compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service from its worldwide network of observers, to which the researchers added their own satellite analyses. “By combining these two measurement methods and having the new comprehensive dataset, we can estimate how much ice has been lost each year in all mountain regions since the 1960s,” explains Michael Zemp, who led the study. “The glaciological measurements made in the field provide the annual fluctuations, while the satellite data allows us to determine overall ice loss over several years or decades.”
335 billion tons of ice lost each year
The global mass loss of glacier ice has increased significantly in the last 30 years and currently amounts to 335 billion tons of lost ice each year. This corresponds to an increase in sea levels of almost 1 millimeter per year. “Globally, we lose about three times the ice volume stored in the entirety of the European Alps – every single year!” says glaciologist Zemp. The melted ice of glaciers therefore accounts for 25 to 30 percent of the current increase in global sea levels. This ice loss of all glaciers roughly corresponds to the mass loss of Greenland’s Ice Sheet, and clearly exceeds that of the Antarctic.
Many environmental effects being seen in the country are ‘effectively irreversible, say authors of study.
By Sintia Radu, Staff WriterApril 5, 2019 CLIMATE CHANGE IS ONE of the top threats that people in countries say confronts the world. Global warming is often referenced as a consequence of pollution and human activity. Levels vary across countries, yet a new report is showing a dire concern for one of the largest countries on the planet – Canada.
The North American nation is warming on average at twice the rate of the rest of the world, according to a new scientific report produced by the Environment and Climate Change Canada, the national government agency responsible for coordinating the country’s environmental policies. The average temperature in Canada today is 1.7 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than 70 years ago, according to the report. By comparison, the average global temperature increase during the same period is 0.8 degrees Celsius.
Both past and future warming in Canada is, on average, about double the magnitude of global warming,” say the authors of the report. “Northern Canada has warmed and will continue to warm at more than double the global rate.”
Additionally, the warming produced from carbon dioxide emissions from human activity is “effectively irreversible,” the report’s authors warn.
Among some of the report’s major findings:
Changes in temperature already show in various areas of the country and scientists say they will only intensify.
Precipitation is projected to increase, on average, yet summer rainfall may decrease in particular regions.
The Canadian Arctic and Atlantic Oceans have been the most impacted, with both experiencing “longer and more widespread sea-ice-free conditions”, the report says.
The availability of freshwater is changing, the report says, with the risk of water supply shortages expected to increase in the summer.
The magnitude of climate change in high versus low emission scenarios paint two future scenarios for the country, according to the scientists. If large and rapid warming occurs, Canada’s climate with be severely affected as greenhouse gas emissions will grow. Limited warming may only occur, the report notes, if Canada and the rest of the world work on eliminating carbon emissions early in the second half of the century and on substantially lowering other greenhouse gases
Research for the report began in February 2017 and draws “primarily from existing sources of information that have been peer-reviewed and are publicly available,” the authors say.
The report’s authors also say human influence on climate change is clear. “It is likely that more than half of the observed warming in Canada is due to the influence of human activities.”
Barbara Cecil, Truthout, 8 Apr 19, A global student uprising is underway, with youth worldwide demanding that adults face the climate crisis head on. They need a strong foundation in themselves and adult partnership for the challenges ahead.
Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg became one of the most well-recognized faces of this movement following her speech before world leaders at a UN climate conference in Poland in December 2018, when she said, “Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago.”
Youth leaders like Thunberg are rising up across the globe. I had the privilege of working with a group of them from the United World College of the Atlantic in early March this year when I co-led a retreat in the U.K. with 17- and 18-year-olds. There were six adults in the retreat as well as students from 11 countries. All of the students had been on the front lines of the most recent strike; all of them carry deep questions about their futures. A young woman from the Netherlands named Maura Van der Ark — whom I had met in the Amazon Rainforest two summers ago, as Truthout reporter Dahr Jamail and I conducted research for his book, The End of Ice — had organized the retreat to help fellow students find a solid footing in these times.
These young people were exhausted from overwork, highly pressured to succeed by society’s standards, confused about their pathways into the future, and angry at their planetary inheritance. They were harboring a severe need to slow down, be themselves, reflect, and connect deeply with the Earth, with one another and with supportive, understanding adults. My experiences with them left a deep impression on me…….. https://truthout.org/articles/standing-in-the-fire-with-young-climate-activists/
Regional Fed paper says carbon tax could address the threat
The Fed doesn’t have tools to confront the crisis, paper says
Climate change is becoming increasingly relevant to central bankers because losses from natural disasters that are magnified by higher temperatures and elevated sea levels could spark a financial crisis, a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco researcher found.
“Climate-related financial risks could affect the economy through elevated credit spreads, greater precautionary saving, and, in the extreme, a financial crisis,’’ Glenn Rudebusch, the San Francisco Fed’s executive vice president for research, wrote in a paper published Monday.
“There could also be direct effects in the form of larger and more frequent macroeconomic shocks associated with the infrastructure damage, agricultural losses, and commodity price spikes caused by the droughts, floods, and hurricanes amplified by climate change,’’ according to Rudebusch, who is also a senior policy adviser at the reserve bank.
While the Fed’s primary policy tools — short-term interest rates and large-scale asset purchases — aren’t designed to address phenomenon like global warming, policy makers may need to take climate-related damages into account when considering the long-term economic outlook, the researcher wrote. “Many central banks already include climate change in their assessments of future economic and financial risks when setting monetary and financial supervisory policy,” he wrote.
‘Fair Question’
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told legislators in February it was a “fair question’’ to ask how the central bank would evaluate the economic impact of climate change and promised to look into it.
Rudebusch, whose bank operates as part of the Fed system but isn’t directed by Powell, suggested lawmakers could promote a transition to cleaner technologies by imposing a carbon tax, which is a fee on emissions. Former Fed chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker in January endorsed a plan to tax emissions and distribute the revenue to U.S. households.
Some pressure is mounting in Congress to take aim at climate change, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledging to take up climate legislation. That effort may not go far in the current political environment, as Republicans control the Senate and the White House. President Donald Trump said during the campaign he opposed taxing emissions and has expressed skepticism that humans contribute to global warming.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/uoo-rrc040519.php UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 5 Apr 19, A new modelling study from the University of Oxford and collaborators has estimated how changing the reflectivity of roofs can help keep cities cooler during heatwaves and reduce heat-rated mortality rates.
Cities are generally a few degrees warmer than the countryside, due to the urban heat island effect. This effect is caused partly by a lack of moisture and vegetation in cities compared with rural landscapes, and because urban building materials store up heat. During heatwaves, daytime temperatures can get dangerously high in cities, leading to serious health effects and increasing mortality risk.
The idea of ‘cool’ roofs is to make roof surfaces more reflective to sunlight (for example by painting roofs a lighter colour) thereby reducing local temperatures.
Scientists used a regional weather model to look at how temperatures changed across the study city of Birmingham and the West Midlands, depending on the extent of cool roof deployment. They looked at the hot summers of 2003 and 2006, and found that the intensity of the urban heat island (the urban-rural temperature difference) reached up to 9oC for Birmingham city.
Previous work has shown that the extra heat associated with the urban heat island is responsible for around 40-50% of heat related mortality in the West Midlands during heatwaves.
This latest study, published in Environment International, suggests that implementing cool roofs across the city can reduce peak daytime local temperatures by up to 3oC during a heatwave. This reduction in temperature could potentially offset around 25% of the heat-related mortality associated with the urban heat island during a heatwave.
The urban heat island effect is most pronounced at night time, because urban materials slowly release their stored heat overnight, however, the biggest benefits of cool roofs were seen to be during the hottest part of the day where sunlight was reflected away. The type of building made a difference too: modifying only half of all the industrial and commercial buildings had the same impact on lowering temperatures as modifying all the high-intensity residential buildings.
Co-author Dr Clare Heaviside, of the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute comments: “Climate change and increasing urbanisation mean that future populations are likely to be at increased risk of overheating in cities, although building and city scale interventions have the potential to reduce this risk.
“Modelling studies like this one can help to determine the most effective methods to implement in order to reduce health risks in our cities in the future.”
How global climate change is already devastating Banglades
Climate change threatens millions of Bangladeshi children, warns UNICEFSBS News A new report shows environmental disasters linked to climate change are threatening the lives and futures of more than 19 million children in Bangladesh, including prompting many families to push their daughters into child marriages., BY CHARLOTTE LAM, 5 Apr 19,
Climate change in Bangladesh could impact the lives of more than 19 million children, according to a new UNICEF report.
The humanitarian agency said on Friday that the country’s flat topography, dense population and weak infrastructure makes it “uniquely vulnerable to the powerful and unpredictable forces that climate change is compounding”.
The report author, Simon Ingram, said the danger was “flooding is extreme and it is almost on an annual basis”.
The report, titled “Gathering Storm: Climate change clouds the future of children in Bangladesh”, showed about 12 million children currently live in and around powerful river systems, which flow through Bangladesh and regularly burst their banks.
A further 3 million Bangladeshi children live in farming communities, which are facing increasing periods of drought.
The report also found a link between climate change and child marriage, child labour and access to education is evident in various parts of Bangladesh.
“Climate change is undoubtedly increasing the number of children who are pushed into the workplace, where they miss out on an education and are terribly exposed to violence and abuse,” UNICEF Bangladesh Child Protection specialist Kristina Wesslund said……….
Mr Ingram said there were already six million climate refugees in Bangladeshi cities, a number that could double by 2050.
