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San Francisco, Calif — Arctic sea ice shrank drastically this summer, reaching a record low, largely because warm ocean currents ate away at the base of the ice sheet, new research says. The arctic ice cap melted at an unprecedented rate in mid-2007, losing an area of ice the size of the state of Alaska, US scientists said at a conference this week.

“The average rate of loss of sea ice every summer year to year up to 2006 was equal to an area the size of West Virginia,” or about 62,800 square kilometers (24,250 square miles), said Michael Steele, the senior oceanographer at the University of Washington in Seattle.

However the decrease in ice between 2006 and 2007 “was almost equivalent to the area of Alaska,” or some 1.7 million kilometers (more than 663,000 square miles), Steele further said.

“It was a huge retreat,” said Steele, one of the researchers who discussed the subject at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco, California.

At the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco, some scientists argued yesterday that the end of the perennial ice is near.

“If this trend persists, the Arctic would be ice-free [in the summer] by 2013,” said Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The researchers told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that some of the observations had been astonishing.

“The further you go down this path, the harder it is to get back,” observed Don Perovich from the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. “Things could come back, but basically it’s the fourth quarter and we’re down two touchdowns,” he said, using an analogy from American football.

The big thin
The extent of the sea ice cover fell to a record minimum in September of 4.13 million sq km, beating the previous low mark, set in 2005, by 23%. This was well publicised at the time, but some of the other “Arctic numbers” have not been so widely reported. Scientists say they demonstrate the step changes in environmental conditions in the northern polar region.

Warmth from below
A big driver behind the melt is the current warmth of the waters in the Arctic. In the summer of 2007, Arctic Ocean surface temperatures hit new maximums.

In waters just north of the Chukchi Sea (above Alaska and Eastern Siberia), sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) were 3.5C warmer than the historical average and 1.5C warmer than the historical maximum. SSTs of 4C were recorded.

This warming was probably the result of having increasing amounts of open water that readily absorb the sun’s rays, a phenomenon known as the ice-albedo feedback: less ice means less reflection and more absorption, leading to more warming and more melting.

“Water that is now circulating just 200 meters below the main ice pack is now significantly warmer than it was just five years ago,” said John Walsh of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

New research shows that carbon dioxide, one gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, can be captured as it leaves coal-burning power plants and then permanently sequestered in rock formations thousands of feet below the Earth’s surface.

How Much Time Is Left?
When asked how long the perennial ice might last, many researchers here shrugged their shoulders.

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in February predicts that the summer sea ice may disappear early in the next century.

More at National Snow and Ice Data Center, BBC News.

September 9, 2007, sea ice extent compared to animation of Septembers 1979 to 2006 

BALI, Indonesia — Dec 16, `07 — A UN Climate Change Conference adopted a plan to negotiate a new global warming pact on Saturday, Dec 15, after the United States suddenly reversed its opposition to a call by developing nations for technological help to battle rising temperatures.

The adoption came after marathon negotiations overnight, which first settled a battle between Europe and the U.S. over whether the document should mention specific goals for rich countries’ obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement launches a two-year negotiating process - the “Bali roadmap” - aiming to secure a binding deal at the 2009 UN summit in Denmark.

European and U.S. envoys dueled into the final hours of the two-week meeting over the EU’s proposal that the Bali mandate suggest an ambitious goal for cutting the emissions of industrial nations_ by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

EU Welcomes Agreement

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso: “There is only one planet. Together, developed and developing countries can reach success.”

The European Union welcomes the agreement reached at the UN climate change conference in Bali to start formal negotiations on a climate regime for the post-2012 period and on a ‘Bali Roadmap’ that sets out an agenda for these negotiations.

The conference set an end-2009 deadline for completing the negotiations to allow time for governments to ratify and implement the future climate agreement by the end of 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends.

The decision explicitly acknowledges the findings of the recent scientific assessment by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and recognises that deep cuts in global emissions of greenhouse gases will be required to prevent global warming from reaching dangerous levels.

The conference also took important decisions on several other issues, including launching demonstration projects to reduce deforestation, finalising arrangements for a fund to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, and scaling up financing for transfer of technology to developing countries.

The Bali Roadmap

The conference agreed to launch formal negotiations among the 192 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on action up to and beyond 2012. These formal negotiations replace a process of informal dialogue that has taken place over the past two years. They will involve the United States, which is a Party to the UNFCCC but not the Kyoto Protocol.

The decision to launch negotiations sets out a ‘roadmap’ to guide them which includes the key building blocks of a future agreement. These are: enhanced mitigation of climate change by limiting or reducing emissions; adaptation to climate change; action on technology development and transfer; and scaling up of finance and investment to support mitigation and adaptation. Four negotiating sessions are scheduled in 2008, starting in March or April.

The decision explicitly acknowledges the findings of the IPCC’s recent Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), emphasises the urgency of addressing climate change expressed in the report and recognises that deep cuts in global emissions will be required to reach the Convention’s objective of preventing dangerous levels of climate change.

In parallel with the negotiations under the climate change Convention, the 176 parties to the Kyoto Protocol will continue negotiations already under way on new post-2012 emissions targets for developed countries that are in the Protocol. For this negotiating ‘track’ the Bali conference agreed on an intensive work schedule for 2008 to accelerate progress.

A review of the Protocol at the next UN climate conference, in December 2008, will help to inform these negotiations on future commitments by developed countries.

The negotiations under both ‘tracks’ – Convention and Protocol - will be completed at the UN climate change conference to be held at the end of 2009 in Copenhagen. The EU and many other Parties insisted on this simultaneous deadline to ensure a coherent result.

More at UN Bali Reports,  EU.

Know your contribution to climate change
mobGAS will challenge individuals to make small changes to their daily routine in order to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

Brussels — Nov 30, ‘07 — mobGAS is a new mobile phone application available in 21 European languages that allows users to see how their daily choices impact on climate change.

This smart technology, developed by scientists working at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, allows users to see the implications of the choices they make every day, in terms of the three major greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

Information about everyday activities – cooking, transport, lighting, electronic appliances etc. - is put into the application, and calculations made of individual emissions. A user diary of daily, weekly and yearly emissions can be registered on a secure website, allowing a comparison with national and world averages.

The application also includes an animation reflecting the user’s contribution to the Kyoto Protocol target.

Individuals can have a significant impact on reducing emissions. According to recent Eurostat figures, 21% of emissions are related to industrial and associated processes, while 31% are from energy production, 20% from transport, 9% from agriculture and 3% from waste, and the remainder from other sources.

All of this shows that individual behaviour, such as how we travel, the appliances we use or the food we eat, can make a real different to emissions. Lifestyle and consumer choices are a key factor, so it is important that people are aware of the implications of their personal choices.

By downloading the application to a mobile phone – something people carry with them almost all the time – it is possible to make use of quieter moments – travelling on a bus, or waiting for an appointment, for example – to input the data for that day. This could include the means of transport they took, how they heated their house, how long they watched television and what they ate.

From today, mobGAS is being made available free of charge to anyone who is interested. Communication networks and mobile phone producers will also be involved in rolling-out the technology at national level.

This technology will be demonstrated by scientists of the JRC at the EU pavilion during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali from 3 December.

To download the application visit mobGAS

San Francisco, Calif — Nov 27, ‘07 — Google said on Tuesday it plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help drive down the cost of electricity made from renewable energy below the price of coal.

The project, which Google is calling RE<C, using mathematical symbols to denote “renewable energy cheaper than coal,” will be based in Google’s research and development group and is hiring dozens of engineers and targeting investment financing at advanced solar thermal power, wind power, enhanced geothermal systems and other new technologies, Google said.

The Web services and online advertising group will be a big customer for the project, running computers and networks on the electricity and selling back what’s left to the power grid.

“Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades,” Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and president of products, said in a statement.

A gigawatt can power a city the size of San Francisco. An analyst at broker Raymond James noted the entire US solar cell generation capacity at the end of 2006 was only just over half a gigawatt, while 11.6 gigawatts came from wind power.

“We see technologies we think can mature into very capable industries that can generate electricity cheaper than coal,” Page further added, “and we don’t see people talking about that as much as we would like.”

The company also said that Google.org, the philanthropic for-profit subsidiary that Google seeded in 2004 with three million shares of its stock, would invest in energy start-ups.

As part of the initiative, executives at Google.org said they are working with two companies that have “promising, scalable energy technologies.” One of these, eSolar, based in Pasadena, Calif., uses thousands of small mirrors to concentrate sunlight and generate steam that powers electric generators. The other, Makani Power of Alameda, Calif., is developing wind turbines that will run on powerful and generally more predictable winds at high altitudes.

Page, in an interview, said that failing to investigate new businesses could hurt Google more than any potential distraction. “If you look at companies that don’t do anything new,” he said, “they are guaranteed never to get bigger. They miss a lot of opportunities and they miss the next big things.”

In a conference call Tuesday with reporters, Sergey Brin, Google’s other founder and president of technology, said the effort was motivated in part by the company’s frustrating search for clean, cheap energy alternatives.

“It’s very hard to find options that aren’t coal-based or other dirty technologies,” he said. “We don’t feel good about being in that situation as a company. We feel hypocritical. We want to make investments happen so there will be alternatives for us to use down the road.” Both founders declined to specify what the company now spends on energy.

Idealism is hardly new at Google. In their Letter From the Founders before the company’s 2004 initial public stock offering, Page and Brin wrote: “Our goal is to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible. In pursuing this goal, we may do things that we believe have a positive impact on the world, even if the near-term financial returns are not obvious.”

Google does not disclose the energy consumed in powering its online services, but local energy experts say it ranks as one of Silicon Valley’s biggest energy customers.

“As Google grows, we don’t want our core business to be part of the problem. We want to be part of the solution,” said Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm which will direct the energy investments.

Brin said he felt the company would be “hypocritical” not to do something. Google and its founders are big promoters of electric cars and the roof of its headquarters in Mountain View, California, supports a large solar energy installation.

The push comes as oil prices near $100 a barrel and coal, which generates 40 percent of the world’s electricity, faces regulatory and environmental pressures that may boost prices.

Google plans to spend tens of millions of dollars in 2008 on renewable energy development and other efforts. Its initial focus will be solar thermal and enhanced geothermal systems.

Eventually, the company would spend hundreds of millions of dollars in for-profit “breakthrough renewable energy projects.” Hydroelectric and nuclear energy are not part of the project.

Page believes no more than 1,000 researchers worldwide are focused on renewable energy cheaper than coal. “We would really like to get those people in one room and give them resources.” More at Google.

As global warming erodes their world, the residents of Kivalina battle the elements — and now one another.

KIVALINA, Alaska — Nov 25, ‘07 –Alan Zarembo of LA Times reports an in-depth article on an Alaskan island, Kivalina, losing its ground.

“Beneath a moonlit Arctic sky, Joe Swan Jr. and most of his 12-person crew were taking a cigarette break when a dump truck arrived and emptied another load of black sand at their feet.

The backhoe driver, who happened to be his wife, gunned the engine, spewing a diesel haze into the air as she dug into the pile and filled another 2,500-pound sandbag for the sea wall shielding the island from the Chukchi Sea.

The crew has been repairing the $3-million wall almost since the day it was completed in October 2006. They bring more sand. The ocean takes it away.

Kivalina is disappearing, the victim of a warming world and a steady natural erosion that probably began long before the Eskimos settled here 100 years ago.

“You see the white water out there?” Swan said, pointing to some ripples a couple hundred feet offshore. “That’s where the beach used to be.”

When he was growing up here in the 1970s, the ocean would freeze each fall into a slush the thickness of mashed potatoes. Waves from the storms would crash into the ice, not the shore.

Lately, the autumn ocean has been a vast, iceless expanse that leaves the beach vulnerable to waves. The island is now a sliver of sand and permafrost less than 600 feet across at its widest point. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates it will be 10 to 15 years before the ground beneath the clump of clapboard houses washes away.

The prospect of Kivalina’s disappearance has set off its own storm, jarring a place that, like most of global warming’s early victims, has long struggled on the fringes of the planet.

Most of the 400 residents — filled with dreams of a new village with running water, better homes and, perhaps, a chance at a job — want to leave.

The big questions are: To where? And how?

Village leaders have squabbled for years with state and federal officials over relocating, which could cost as much as $250 million. No one has offered to pay.

Residents themselves are divided over where to go. Some want to move to higher ground. Others want to stay on the coast, even at the risk of seeing their new homes eventually disappear to erosion and rising seas.

“We’d love to move — get off this island,” Swan said. There is no heroic battle to stop the advancing water.

“Every time they do something, the surge comes in and destroys all their work,” said tribal administrator Colleen Swan, who walks by the wall every day. “It’s like a bucket that keeps developing holes.”

From the air, the island of Kivalina looks like a giant tadpole. The tail is a barren wisp of sand six miles long. The ocean steadily laps at one side. A silty lagoon fed by two rivers is on the other.

“Kivalina is nothing but fine sand,” said Oscar Swan, 84, as a grandson served him canned sausages for lunch while static buzzed over a citizens band radio.

Located 85 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Kivalina was once an occasional hunting camp for the Eskimos, who moved with the seasons in their constant search for seals, caribou and fish.” More at LA Times. Photo Credits: LA Times.