Factor climate into national security policy – executive direction by President Obama
For the first time, Obama requires U.S. government to factor climate into national security policy,WP By Juliet Eilperin September 21 President Obama signed a presidential memorandum Wednesday establishing that climate-change impacts must be factored into the development of all national security-related doctrine, policies and plans.
The move signals Obama’s determination to exercise his executive authority during his final months in office to elevate the issue of climate in federal decision-making, even though it remains unclear whether his successor will embrace this approach.
Under the directive, 20 federal agencies and offices that work on climate science, intelligence and national security must “collaborate to ensure the best information on climate impacts is available to strengthen our national security” through the new Federal Climate and National Security Working Group. That group must release a climate change and national security action plan in 90 days. All the relevant agencies must then identify steps to implement it.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, White House officials said this would spur a more specific and focused strategy when it comes to both identifying how different regions of the world would be affected by climate change and how to respond……..https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/21/for-the-first-time-obama-requires-u-s-government-to-factor-climate-into-national-security-policy/?utm_term=.a5aae6b8a2bf
Global atmospheric temperature rise already predicted to be above 1.5 °C
The oil and gas we have already tapped will take us past 1.5 °C https://www.newscientist.com/article/2106758-the-oil-and-gas-we-have-already-tapped-will-take-us-past-1-5c/ By Fred Pearce
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. If the world is to have any chance to halt warming below 2 °C, as agreed at the UN’s climate summit in Paris, we cannot develop any more oil wells, coal mines or gas fields.
In fact, we need to go further and start phasing out existing projects, according to the first study of the likely carbon emissions from current fossil fuel extraction.
As more world leaders this week ratify the Paris Agreement at the UN General Assembly in New York, the study finds that “potential carbon emissions from developed reserves – where the wells are already drilled, the pits dug, and the pipelines, processing facilities, railways and export terminals constructed – will take us just beyond the Paris Agreement’s two degrees Celsius warming limit”
Developed reserves of oil and gas alone, even if coal were phased out immediately, would threaten the agreement’s preferred lower target of 1.5 °C, says the study from Oil Change International, a US think tank that opposes fossil fuels.
But the report’s author, Greg Muttitt, used industry data to calculate that developed reserves of coal, oil and gas will deliver emissions of 941 billion tonnes.
“There is no room in the atmosphere. No new fossil fuel infrastructure should be built,” says Muttitt. “This means no fracking for gas in the UK or any other new country, and a fairly rapid winding down of existing fracking in the US. All energy development needs to be focused on clean energy from now on.”
Energy analysts say that investment in new fossil fuel resources is already waning in the wake of the Paris Agreement.
Anthony Hobley of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, a think tank set up by former investment analysts, said Muttitt’s hopes of an end to investment in new coal mines could be imminent. Coal burning has been in decline since 2013. As a result, the industry was stuck with assets worth $200 billion that had “no prospect of paying back their investment cost if the world is serious about the two-degree ceiling”.
Last year, Goldman Sachs said it believed that, led by China, the world reached “peak coal” production in 2013.
New York congressman questions impact of climate change on nuclear facilities
NY congressman questions impact of climate change on nuclear facilities https://www.snl.com/Interactivex/article.aspx?CdId=A-33809939-10283 By Matthew Bandyk, 9 Sept 16
Citing a recent incident at Entergy Corp.‘s Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts, Tonko questioned the four members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission about what should be done about this potential problem as they testified at a Sept. 9 hearing held by the committee’s Energy and Power and Environment and the Economy subcommittees.Rising water temperatures caused by climate change could force more nuclear plants to shut down, Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., said during a hearing by two subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
On one day this August, the Pilgrim plant had to cut power by 10% as the water the facility pulls in from Cape Cod Bay for cooling hit 75.09 degrees, only the fourth time in the plant’s history that intake water exceeded the NRC’s 75-degree limit, The Boston Globe reported Aug. 11. The other three times all occurred in the summer of 2013.
A scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute told the newspaper that Cape Cod Bay has been getting demonstrably warmer over time and that nuclear plants should consider modifying their intake pipes in response. But Entergy said the hot temperatures that day were an unusual, specific incident caused by winds and tides.
Tonko pointed to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data that found that 2014 was the hottest year on record, and noted that the August Pilgrim incident was not the first time a plant had to be curtailed due to excessive water temperature.
“What is the NRC doing to ensure plants will have sufficient water to operate?” he asked the NRC commissioners.
Commissioner Jeff Baran said that while there have been several instances of cooling water getting too hot, the NRC evaluates those on a case-by-case basis.
As for whether or not there is a recurring issue caused by climate change, “I don’t know if we have looked at any particular trend,” NRC Chairman Stephen Burns told Tonko.
“The NRC doesn’t have any studies or rulemaking processes under way that would look explicitly at the effect of climate change on plant operations,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said in an email after the hearing.
In 2014, the NRC signed off on a request from Dominion Resources Inc.‘s Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut to allow it to draw water up to 80 degrees instead of 75. Entergy, however, has not yet asked the NRC for a license amendment request to change its temperature limit.
The NRC recently stepped up its oversight of the Pilgrim plant in response to several unplanned shutdowns at the facility. The shutdown that most grabbed the agency’s attention, however, had nothing to do with high temperatures. After a winter storm in January triggered a shutdown, the NRC found that some backup functions required to depressurize the reactor in case of an unplanned shutdown were not operational at the time of the storm, and that Entergy failed to fix a safety relief valve needed for depressurization.
The NRC regulates the water intake temperature at nuclear plants because high temperatures can hurt the efficiency of a plant’s condenser, which uses water to cool down steam produced by the reactor to turn the plant’s turbine, according to Sheehan. Cooling water is also used for heat exchangers that help key plant systems like emergency diesel generators and the spent fuel pool operate, so there is also a safety element, he said.
Donald Trump, geopolitics, Brexit, and climate catastrophe
Why a Donald Trump Victory Could Make Climate Catastrophe Inevitable, Michael Klare on the forces moving us toward an uninhabitable planet. Mother Jones, MICHAEL KLARE, SEP. 17, 2016 “……., the fate of the planet rests on the questionable willingness of each of those countries to abide by that obligation, however sour or bellicose its relations with other signatories may be. As it happens, that part of the agreement has already been buffeted by geopolitical headwinds and is likely to face increasing turbulence in the years to come.
That geopolitics will play a decisive role in determining the success or failure of the Paris Agreement has become self-evident in the short time since its promulgation. While some progress has been made toward its formal adoption—the agreement will enter into force only after no fewer than 55 countries, accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified it—it has also encountered unexpected political hurdles, signaling trouble to come…….
Great Britain’s astonishing Brexit vote has complicated the task of ensuring the European Union’s approval of the agreement, as European solidarity on the climate issue—a major factor in the success of the Paris negotiations—can no longer be assured. “There is a risk that this could kick EU ratification of the Paris Agreement into the long grass,” suggests Jonathan Grant, director of sustainability at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The Brexit campaign itself was spearheaded by politicians who were also major critics of climate science and strong opponents of efforts to promote a transition from carbon-based fuels to green sources of energy. For example, the chair of the Vote Leave campaign, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, is also chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think tank devoted to sabotaging government efforts to speed the transition to green energy. Many other top Leave campaigners, including former Conservative ministers John Redwood and Owen Paterson, were also vigorous climate deniers.
In explaining the strong link between these two camps, analysts at the Economistnoted that both oppose British submission to international laws and norms: “Brexiteers dislike EU regulations and know that any effective action to tackle climate change will require some kind of global cooperation: carbon taxes or binding targets on emissions. The latter would be the EU writ large and Britain would have even less say in any global agreement, involving some 200 nations, than in an EU regime involving 28.”……..
In his first major speech on energy, delivered in May, Trump—who has called global warming a Chinese hoax—pledged to “cancel the Paris climate agreement” and scrap the various measures announced by President Obama to ensure US compliance with its provisions. Echoing the views of his Brexit counterparts, hecomplained that “this agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use on our land, in our country. No way.” He also vowed to revive construction of the Keystone XL pipeline (which would bring carbon-heavy Canadian tar sands oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast), to reverse any climate-friendly Obama administration acts, and to promote the coal industry. “Regulations that shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and block the construction of new ones—how stupid is that?” he said, mockingly……..
nationalistic exceptionalism could become something of the norm if Donald Trump wins in November, or other nations join those already eager to put the needs of a fossil-fuel-based domestic growth agenda ahead of global climate commitments. With that in mind, consider the assessment of future energy trends that the Norwegian energy giant Statoil recently produced. In it is a chilling scenario focused on just this sort of dystopian future………
Indeed, the future pace of climate change will be determined as much by geopolitical factors as technological developments in the energy sector. While it is evident that immense progress is being made in bringing down the price of wind and solar power in particular—far more so than all but a few analysts anticipated until recently—the political will to turn such developments into meaningful global change and so bring carbon emissions to heel before the planet is unalterably transformed may, as the Statoil authors suggest, be dematerializing before our eyes. If so, make no mistake about it: We will be condemning Earth’s future inhabitants, our own children and grandchildren, to unmitigated disaster…….
To avoid an Eaarth (as both Bill McKibben and the Statoil authors imagine it) and preserve the welcoming planet in which humanity grew and thrived, climate activists will have to devote at least as much of their energy and attention to the international political arena as to the technology sector. At this point, electing green-minded leaders, stopping climate deniers (or ignorers) from capturing high office, and opposing fossil-fueled ultranationalism is the only realistic path to a habitable planet.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/09/donald-trump-brexit-paris-accord-climate-change
Climate change action can be stopped by Trans Pacific Partnership
How TPP threatens our progress on climate change http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-TPP-threatens-our-progress-on-climate-change-9223661.php By Van Jones September 14, 2016
In the past month, wildfires forced tens of thousands of people across California to evacuate their homes. Over the same period, historic floods in Louisiana destroyed or damaged more than 60,000 homes, uprooting families and ruining lives.
This fall, Congress is likely to vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership — an agreement among 12 nations along the Pacific Rim. While billed as a “free trade” deal, most of the TPP is actually about creating new rights for multinational corporations, including the big polluters most responsible for the climate emergency.
Under the TPP, the biggest global firms — including many responsible for offshore drilling and fracking — would be able to sue American taxpayers over laws and regulations that are meant to protect public health and the environment. Rather than suing in regular courts, these corporations would, through the TPP, be able to sue before unaccountable arbitration panels — each panel made up of three corporate lawyers — who could award unlimited cash compensation. Similar rules in other trade deals have already made possible nearly 700 such lawsuits — including efforts to challenge the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline and a moratorium on fracking in Quebec.
What does this mean for California?
TPP would allow multinational corporations that own gas-fired power plants from Alameda County to San Diego County to threaten state restrictions on carbon emissions — including some of the new world-leading standards recently passed in Sacramento. The deal would also vastly increase the number of fracking firms and offshore drilling companies that could challenge our protections.
But it’s not about just dirtier air and water or more susceptibility to climate risks. It’s also about jobs.
Because TPP would threaten a successful California rebate program for green technologies that are made in-state, the deal could result in the elimination of good-paying green jobs in fields like solar and wind manufacturing and energy efficiency. Green jobs employ all kinds of people — truck drivers, welders, secretaries, scientists — all across the state. These jobs can pull people out of poverty while protecting the planet.
Given that California has lost an estimated 413,000 manufacturing jobs since America entered NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, we can’t afford to pass a new trade deal and again undermine people’s livelihoods.
But there’s good news. Labor, environmental and social justice leaders now oppose the TPP, as do both major presidential nominees, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.
Still, some in Washington are scheming to pass the TPP during Congress’s “lame duck” session after the election. While most members of California’s Congressional delegation firmly oppose the deal, some remain on the fence.
As the consequences of climate change get clearer, the case against the TPP gets stronger.
Van Jones is president and founder of the Dream Corps, and is a regular CNN contributor.
Weigh in
You can reach Congress directly by calling (888) 701-6507 and let your representative know that you oppose TPP.
Nuclear power a hindrance, not a help, to climate change action
Is nuclear crucial to climate change targets?, Japan Times, AFP-JIJI, AP SEP 16, 2016 
PARIS – As Britain greenlights its first new nuclear power plant in more than 20 years, experts diverge on the role of nuclear energy in the quest to cap global warming at less than 2 degrees Celsius.The broad challenge in meeting that goal — the cornerstone of the Paris Agreement inked in December by 195 nations — is decarbonizing the world economy as quickly as possible.
“We need a global transition to primarily zero carbon energy sources by midcentury,” said Rachel Cleetus, lead economist and climate policy manager for the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
Along with other think tanks and advocacy groups sounding the climate change alarm, the UCS is not a champion of nuclear power……
Not all climate and energy experts, however, are convinced that nuclear is crucial for keeping a lid on global warming.
“In fact, it’s a barrier,” said Tom Burke, chairman of London-based E3G, a climate change think tank. “It takes away capital from things that would deliver faster, cheaper and smarter low carbon electricity systems,” he said. It also runs counter, he added, to a wider trend toward decentralized, flexible power generation.
For climate analyst Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace International, “the only feasible and secure way to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius is a massive swing toward renewables.” A “100 percent” renewable energies revolution is still possible, he insisted.
For Williams, potential climate catastrophe trumps the risks associated with nuclear power — radioactive waste, accidents such as happened in Fukushima and Chernobyl — only with strict regulatory oversight in place.
He highlighted the contrast between gold-standard Switzerland and China, which has 30 nuclear plants built or under construction, and another 20 in the pipeline.
“China has relatively understaffed and undertrained regulatory authorities — that is worrisome,” he said.“Would I live next to a nuclear power plant if I thought that was really important to mitigate climate change? “In the first case (Switzerland) I would, but in the second I wouldn’t.” http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/16/business/nuclear-crucial-climate-change-targets/#.V9yIWVt97Gg
Low Arctic sea ice in 2016 – close to record low level
These Images Show Near-Record Low 2016 Arctic Sea Ice, Climate Central , By Brian Kahn September 15th, 2016 Arctic sea ice is one of the grandaddy’s of climate indicators. And this grandaddy isn’t doing so good these days.This year’s sea ice extent has bottomed out as the second lowest on record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. It continues a troubling trend as rapidly warming air and water eats away at the briny, frozen mantle on the top of the planet.
2016’s Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season in 9 Seconds
This year has been exceptional by many standards. March saw the lowest sea ice maximum ever recorded followed by a string of record low months. The Northwest Passage opened up, allowing a luxury cruise ship to travel from Anchorage to New York. And a freak storm in August turned ice thin and brittle near the North Pole.
Satellites show the last seven months of sea ice and reveal its steep decline this year. The late August breakup is particularly notable. Grist’s Amelia Urry compared the texture of sea ice near the North Pole to curdled milk or an exploded pillow (I’d go with broken glass personally, but to each their own)………
Most of what we tend to talk about with Arctic sea ice comes courtesy of satellites since they’re the most reliable way to monitor such a remote region. Recent research has reconstructed Arctic sea ice data back to 1850 using old ship logs, airplane survey and military records among other sources to provide a longer record than satellite data (though it does come with a little bit more uncertainty). What is certain is that there’s nothing in modern history like the recent string of low Arctic sea ice years we’ve seen.
Sea ice has declined precipitously across the Arctic, but particularly in the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea regions. In the coming decades, sea ice extent is only likely to keep shrinking and could reshape the region’s ecology, economy and ways of life for the plants, animals and people that call the region home. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2016-low-arctic-sea-ice-20702
Marshall Islanders culture threatened: emigration as sea level rises
Lives in the balance: climate change and the Marshall Islands [excellent video]
The numerous atolls that make up the island nation are now regularly swamped due to sea level rise. But as more people flee for the US, many fear their culture will be lost to a country that has already taken so much from them, Guardian, by Oliver Milman and Mae Ryan in Majuro, Marshall Islands, and Springdale, Arkansas, 15 Sept 16
There may be music in the roar of the sea, as Byron eulogized, but the waves can also bring creeping unease. On low-lying fragments of land like the Marshall Islands, the tides are threatening to take away what they previously helped support: life.
Hilda Heine surveys the latest temporary sea wall that cleaves her property from the waves. It has been knocked down twice since February by floods and she frets about her plants that will probably face a salty demise.
Her vista would, sadly, be unremarkable in the Marshall Islands were it not for the policeman languidly guarding the corrugated metal wall – Heine is the president of the Pacific island nation. Here, no one is spared the rising seas.
“I need a better wall, one with rocks,” Heine mutters. Her presidency will probably be defined by climate change. Heine took charge in January and immediately declared a state of emergency over a drought so dire that water was rationed in the capital, Majuro. The nation also faces the existential threat of sea level rise and, with it, the potential exodus of its population.
“The numbers are increasing, of people leaving,” Heine says. “We see that almost every day. It concerns us. I think to a certain extent there are people who are thinking about the sea level rise and they’re wanting to make sure they’re on secure land.”
Better job prospects and a college education are major pulls, but climate change is now elbowing its way on to the list of considerations. A third of the Marshall Islands’ 60,000-strong population now resides in the US and some of those left behind fret that many more will follow, with the archipelago’s unique culture blemished by each departure. The Marshallese government has openly worried “about massive outmigration in recent years” – a fifth of the population left between 1999 and 2011.
As the seas rise, the pathway to the US could be closing. A compact of free association, which allows Marshallese people to live and work in the US without a visa, ends in 2023 and there are no guarantees it will be extended. Those already living in the US would be able to stay but, if the agreement isn’t extended, those living in the Marshall Islands will be treated like hopeful migrants from any other country……..
In 2014, after five-meter swells inundated Majuro for the third time in a year (historically, something that only happened once every few decades), the US Geological Survey released sobering research that shows that a mix of sea level rise and marauding waves means “many atoll islands will be flooded annually, salinizing the limited freshwater resources and thus likely forcing inhabitants to abandon their islands in decades, not centuries, as previously thought”.
The escape route is there, for now, but it has come at a cost. The option of moving to the US was born from the Marshall Islands’ misfortune of being under US administration during the cold war.
Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted nuclear weapons testing on the islands, peppering Bikini atoll alone with 23 bombs. The largest, known as the Bravo shot, was 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb and vaporized three small islands.
While Bikini was evacuated, the wind blew radioactive detritus on to the inhabited atolls of Rongelap and Utrik. “Within hours, the atoll was covered with a fine, white, powder-like substance,” says Jeton Anjain, who led the eventual evacuation of Rongelap. “No one knew it was radioactive fallout. The children played in the snow. They ate it.”
Cancers, particularly of the thyroid, riddled many of those who came into contact with this radioactivity. But the wounds of dispossession are the ones that run deepest, 70 years on. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/15/marshall-islands-climate-change-springdale-arkansas
Polar bears losing habitat as sea ice melting earlier, and refreezing later
Polar bears losing crucial sea ice: study, Guardian,14 Sept 16 Life-sustaining sea ice needed for hunting, resting and breeding is declining in all 19 regions of the Arctic inhabited by the species Polar bears are losing life-sustaining sea ice crucial for hunting, resting and breeding in all 19 regions of the Arctic they inhabit, a study warned on Wednesday.
As climate change pushes up Arctic temperatures, ice is melting earlier in spring and refreezing later in autumn, a team of researchers reported in the Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.
Satellite data revealed that the total number of ice-covered days across the 19 regions declined at a rate of seven to 19 days per decade from 1979 to 2014, the researchers said.
“Their dependence on sea ice means that climate warming poses the single most important threat to (polar bears’) persistence,” wrote the team……..
Scientists say the Arctic is warming at nearly double the global rate as a result of climate change fuelled by mankind’s burning of fossil fuels, a process that emits heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
With longer iceless periods, polar bears have to swim further and further to find solid ground.
Last year, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said the creatures could see their numbers dwindle by nearly a third by mid-century…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/14/polar-bears-losing-crucial-sea-ice-study-arctic
Extreme drought: the impact of climate change and El Nino on the Amazon rainforest
El Niño, global warming combine to cause extreme drought in Amazon rainforest, Science daily September 14, 2016 Source: Asociación RUVID
- Summary:
- The impact the current 2015/2016 El Niño is having in Amazonia has been revealed by new research. Areas of extreme drought and changes to their typical distribution in the region are among the most evident consequences.
- A study led by researchers at the Global Change Unit at the Universitat de València (UV) shows the impact the current 2015/2016 El Niño is having in Amazonia. Areas of extreme drought and changes to their typical distribution in the region are among the most evident consequences.
- The El Niño effect is part of a cycle of global heating and cooling associated with the changing temperatures of a band of ocean water in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific ocean. Repeating every three to five years, it is one of the main drivers of climate variability. Although its consequences are felt at the global level, its impact on tropical forests — particularly the Amazon rainforests — are considered particularly significant, since this ecosystem is considered one of the planet’s main carbon sinks……
- The study, by researchers at the Universitat de València and published in Scientific Reports, shows how the current El Niño event is associated with an unprecedented heating of Amazonia, reaching the highest temperature in the last forty years and, probably, the last century. Additionally, extreme drought has hit a much larger area of this region than usual and is distributed atypically, with extremely dry conditions in the northeast and unusual wetting in the southeast (something which occurred in 2009/2010, though to a lesser extent).According to the UV scientists, this fact, not observed in the 1982/1983 and 1997/1998 events, implies that, the more the central equatorial Pacific is heated, the more marked the difference between and distribution of the wet zones and areas of extreme drought in the Amazon rainforest………https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160914090454.htm
Brazil’s increase in fires in Amazon region – alarming news
The alarming number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon, Mongabay, 8 September 2016 / Commentary by Natália Girão Rodrigues de Mello
For three months, from September to December 2015, Manaus was engulfed in smoke, resembling Beijing. That was an unusual scene, and an undeniable sign that predatory exploration in the Brazilian Amazon has not yet been properly tackled.
- The sharp decrease in the annual rates of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon is celebrated worldwide. The trend started in 2005 after a peak in deforestation the year before.
- However, the figures are not so bright when it comes to forest fires, and few people are talking about that.
- The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon is alarming, and that was especially true in 2015, when a sharp increase in forest fires occurred………
- Natural factors alone fail to explain this recent increase, as similar climatic conditions in the past were not associated with the same amount of forest fires.
Forest fires and precipitation are strongly correlated in the Brazilian Amazon; in dry years, more forest fires occur. 2015 was a dry year, but not as dry as 2010 or 2005 were – years when the region faced anomalous droughts. Nevertheless, in 2015, forest fires increased 115.6 percent and 105.5 percent compared to 2005 and 2010, respectively. Hence it is safe to say that the peak observed last year was strongly associated with unregulated anthropogenic activities in the forest.
In the region, using fire in order to clear large areas is a common practice. The expansion of roads, settlements, croplands and cattle ranches has been leading fires to reach ever-wider areas of the forest.
The consequences associated with this issue are vast. They are felt locally, regionally and globally. Forest fires contribute to climate change due to the emission of three greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. As the forest burns, health-damaging gases – carbon monoxide, non-methane hydrocarbons, methyl chloride, and methyl bromide – are also emitted, as well as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and aerosols. VOCs interact with nitrous oxides to form ozone, a phytotoxic gas. Aerosols cause the suppression of cloud formation and the decrease of precipitation efficiency. Moreover, a positive feedback between fire-induced death of trees and increased solar penetration in the forest occurs, resulting in the intensification of successive fires…….https://news.mongabay.com/2016/09/the-alarming-number-of-fires-in-the-brazilian-amazon/?utm_content=buffer4318b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Climate change is a threat to nuclear power, with reactors over-heating and high water demand
Amid climate concerns, nuclear plants feel the heat of warming water , Midwest Energy 
News, Kari Lydersen, 10 Sept 16 Nuclear power proponents say the energy source is crucial to reducing the impact of climate change.
But ironically, “We’ll have to solve global warming if we want to keep using nuclear power,” says Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear safety expert Dave Lochbaum.
That’s because nuclear power plants need large amounts of water for cooling, and overheating can present a major safety risk. As the lakes and rivers that typically supply cooling water become hotter thanks to climate change — and as droughts dry up some water bodies — nuclear power plants face problems, researchers say.
They may need to temporarily shut down or scale back their generation on hot days, which is just when their power is needed most.
This challenge is the focus of ongoing research spearheaded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and also involves the national laboratories at Sandia, Los Alamos and Argonne. Researchers are modeling predictions about population, temperature, electricity demand, precipitation, land use and other factors to predict the water-related stress on power plants.
“You need to have enough water to cool the power plants and have drinking water and water for agriculture and other industries,” said Melissa Allen, a leader of the team effort and a post-doctoral researcher at Oak Ridge’s Climate Change Science Institute.……..
Hitting limits
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets limits on how warm the cooling water can be for each nuclear plant.
The owners of the Millstone plant in Connecticut, Turkey Point in Florida andBraidwood in Illinois have sought and obtained permission from the NRC to increase the maximum temperature limit for their cooling water, Lochbaum noted.
“Millstone uses the Atlantic Ocean, Turkey Point uses a canal system supplemented by water from the Atlantic Ocean, and Braidwood uses river water,” he said. “As global warming increases the temperature of oceans, lakes and rivers, they will hit these limits more often. There are two choices: to reduce power because you can’t exceed those limits. Or do what Turkey, Braidwood and Millstone did — do the homework to get the limit raised.”
Lochbaum analyzes reports from the NRC showing when nuclear plants scale back generation because of warm water.
In June, nuclear plants in Georgia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania scaled back their generation multiple times because of hot temperatures warming their cooling water. The Limerick power plant on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia has scaled back because of high temperatures frequently over the past decade, according to the reports.
The Dresden and Quad Cities plants in Illinois had to scale back because of high water temperatures multiple times over the past five years. The Duane Arnold plant in Iowa and the Monticello plant in Minnesota also reported scaling back generation because of temperatures.
When cooling water is warmer, greater volumes are needed to cool the reactor. Plants also typically need approval from the NRC to increase the amount of water they use for cooling or to install new technology — like larger pumps — in order to deal with warmer conditions.
Such changes cost money, and scaling back generation means less profit.
“With plants in the Midwest and Northeast facing competition from natural gas and so on, it’s difficult to find the money even if you can make the justification that the money [invested in new cooling systems] would pay off in two years,” said Lochbaum……..http://midwestenergynews.com/2016/09/09/nuclear-plants-feel-the-heat-of-warming-water/
Closure of Japan’s nuclear reactors in 2011 did not result in a boom for fossil fuels
Japan’s lurch away from nuclear hasn’t caused fossil fuels to boom http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/japans-lurch-away-from-nuclear-hasnt-caused-fossil-fuels-to-boom/
The emergency shutdown of nuclear reactors hasn’t been an emissions disaster. JOHN TIMMER –
9/10/2016, In the wake of the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, Japan shut down its entire nuclear fleet in order to develop more rigorous safety standards and inspect the remaining plants. As of now, plants are only beginning to come back online.
Given that Japan had recently relied on nuclear for over a quarter of its electricity, the expectation is that emissions would rise dramatically. But that hasn’t turned out to be the case. While coal use has gone up, it hasn’t risen by more than 10 percent. And a heavy dose of conservation has cut Japan’s total electricity use to below where it was at the end of last decade The data indicates that nuclear was playing a decreasing role in Japan’s energy mix even prior to Fukushima, being displaced in part by natural gas and in part by petroleum. By 2012, however, nuclear was mostly gone. Conservation had already dropped Japan’s electricity use below a PetaWatt-hour, and further efforts have turned the drop in electricity use into an ongoing trend.
Fossil fuel use has gone up, but not by as much as might be expected. Coal rose by eight percent, and natural gas (transported in its liquefied form) rose by nine percent. These have largely reversed the expansion of petroleum use that began prior to the meltdown at Fukushima. Non-hydro renewables have also more than doubled their electrical production since that time. Combined with hydroelectric plants, they now provide more electricity than petroleum.
The net result of all of this? Carbon emissions have been relatively flat and have not exceeded the nation’s record year back in 2007
Effect of Global Warming on World’s Ocean Circulation – an unknown quantity
A single Atlantic Ocean current system accounts for up to a quarter of the planet’s heat flux.
For now, everyone awaits more data to see whether the AMOC is slowing down and, if so, what that will mean for the planet
How Climate Change Could Jam The World’s Ocean Circulation, 06 SEP 2016: ANALYSIS Scientists are closely monitoring a key current in the North Atlantic to see if rising sea temperatures and increased freshwater from melting ice are altering the “ocean conveyor belt” — a vast oceanic stream that plays a major role in the global climate system.
Environment 360, by nicola jones Susan Lozier is having a busy year. From May to September, her oceanographic team is making five research cruises across the North Atlantic, hauling up dozens of moored instruments that track currents far beneath the surface. The data they retrieve will be the first complete set documenting how North Atlantic waters are shifting — and should help solve the mystery of whether there is a long-term slowdown in ocean circulation. “We have a lot of people very interested in the data,” says Lozier, a physical oceanographer at Duke University.
A similar string of moorings across the middle of the Atlantic, delving as deep as 3.7 miles from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas, has already detected a disturbing drop in this ocean’s massive circulation pattern. Since those moorings were installed in 2004, they have seen the Atlantic current wobble and weaken by as much as 30 percent, turning down the dial on a dramatic heat pump that transports warmth toward northern Europe. Turn that dial down too much and Europe will go into a deep chill.
Researchers have been worried about an Atlantic slowdown for years. The Atlantic serves as the engine for the planet’s conveyor belt of ocean currents: The massive amount of cooler water that sinks in the North Atlantic stirs up that entire ocean and drives currents in the Southern and Pacific oceans, too. “It is the key component” in global circulation, says Ellen Martin, a paleoclimate and ocean current researcher at the University of Florida. So when the Atlantic turns sluggish, it has worldwide impacts: The entire Northern Hemisphere cools, Indian and Asian monsoon areas dry up, North Atlantic storms get amplified, and less ocean mixing results in less plankton and other life in the sea.
A single Atlantic Ocean current system accounts for up to a quarter of the planet’s heat flux.
Modelers have tried to predict how human-caused climate change might impact the Atlantic current, and how its slowdown might muck with the world’s weather even more. But years of intensive peering at this question haven’t yet provided much clarity.
Now, debate is raging about whether the recent Atlantic slowdown has been triggered by climate change, or is just part of a normal cycle of fast and slow currents. New studies in the last few years and months have come out supporting both prospects. The new data from the north, Lozier and others hope, might help to sort things out.
If the North Atlantic current slows dramatically, then the entire Northern Hemisphere would cool; a complete collapse of the current could even reverse global warming for about 20 years. But the heat that ocean currents fail to transport northwards would make parts of the Southern Hemisphere even hotter. And a cooler north isn’t necessarily good news.
The jury is still out. Weakening is a possibility, but it hasn’t been proven yet,’ says one scientist.
Should the AMOC shut down, models show that changes in rainfall patterns would dry up Europe’s rivers, and North America’s entire Eastern Seaboard could see an additional 30 inches of sea level rise as the backed-up currents pile water up on East Coast shores.
But to pin down what the AMOC is going to do, researchers need to better understand what it’s doing right now. And that is proving tricky. ………
The world had better pay attention NOW – to soaring ocean temperatures
Soaring ocean temperature is ‘greatest hidden challenge of our generation’
IUCN report warns that ‘truly staggering’ rate of warming is changing the behaviour of marine species, reducing fishing zones and spreading disease, Guardian, Oliver Milman. 6 Sept 16, The soaring temperature of the oceans is the “greatest hidden challenge of our generation” that is altering the make-up of marine species, shrinking fishing areas and starting to spread disease to humans, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of ocean warming.
The oceans have already sucked up an enormous amount of heat due to escalating greenhouse gas emissions, affecting marine species from microbes to whales, according to an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reportinvolving the work of 80 scientists from a dozen countries.
The profound changes underway in the oceans are starting to impact people, the report states. “Due to a domino effect, key human sectors are at threat, especially fisheries, aquaculture, coastal risk management, health and coastal tourism.”…..
The scale of warming in the ocean, which covers around 70% of the planet, is “truly staggering”, the report states. The upper few metres of ocean have warmed by around 0.13C a decade since the start of the 20th century, with a 1-4C increase in global ocean warming by the end of this century.
The ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the extra heat created by human activity. If the same amount of heat that has been buried in the upper 2km of the ocean had gone into the atmosphere, the surface of the Earth would have warmed by a devastating 36C, rather than 1C, over the past century.
At some point, the report says, warming waters could unlock billions of tonnes of frozen methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from the seabed and cook the surface of the planet. This could occur even if emissions are drastically cut, due to the lag time between emitting greenhouse gases and their visible consequences.
Warming is already causing fish, seabirds, sea turtles, jellyfish and other species to change their behaviour and habitat, it says. Species are fleeing to the cooler poles, away from the equator, at a rate that is up to five times faster than the shifts seen by species on land.
Even in the north Atlantic, fish will move northwards by nearly 30km per decade until 2050 in search of suitable temperatures, with shifts already documented for pilchard, anchovy, mackerel and herring.
The warming is having its greatest impact upon the building blocks of life in the seas, such as phytoplankton, zooplankton and krill. Changes in abundance and reproduction are, in turn, feeding their way up the food chain, with some fish pushed out of their preferred range and others diminished by invasive arrivals.
With more than 550 types of marine fishes and invertebrates already considered threatened, ocean warming will exacerbate the declines of some species, the report also found…….
Ocean acidification, where rising carbon dioxide absorption increases the acidity of the water, is making it harder for animals such as crabs, shrimps and clams to form their calcium carbonate shells.
The IUCN report recommends expanding protected areas of the ocean and, above all, reduce the amount of heat-trapping gases pumped into the atmosphere.
“The only way to preserve the rich diversity of marine life, and to safeguard the protection and resources the ocean provides us with, is to cut greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and substantially,” said Inger Andersen, director general of the IUCN.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/05/soaring-ocean-temperature-is-greatest-hidden-challenge-of-our-generation
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