Richard Gayle: Path to Sustainable

Not good news - A Path to Sustainable

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:13:01 GMT

Rapid, accelerating glacier melt:
[Via InvestigateWest]

Really bad news for North American glaciers today in a report in the Los Angeles Times. Global warming has melted glaciers in the United States at a rapid and accelerating rate over the last half-century, increasing drought risks and contributing to rising sea levels, the federal government will report today based on data from a 50-year study of glaciers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, reporter Jim Tankersley writes. The study focused on three benchmark glaciers, the Wolverine and Gulkana in Alaska and the South Cascade Glacier in Washington, which are representative of thousands of other glaciers across the continent.

[More]

Glaciers and their runoff have been a relatively stable source of water, providing a necessary buffer against the fickleness of rainfall. But this buffer is rapidly disappearing. The South Cascade Glacier has lost 25% of its mass since the 50s.

You can read the report online with the somewhat boring title Fifty-Year Record of Glacier Change Reveals Shifting Climate in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, USA.

Look at this series of the South Cascade Glacier:

The USGS has been measuring the net accumulation of snow and the net loss of ice. Of interest are the two coastal glaciers, the Wolverine and the South Cascade. Both require high amount of precipitation to grow because their relatively low elevations opens them up to summer heating. Interestingly because of their locations in Alaska and Washington respectively, they tend to have negatively correlated accumulations.

[More at Path to Sustainable]

Technorati Tags: Environment, Science, Sustainability

Userland Shutdown

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:34:37 GMT

Userland, which has hosted my blog for 7 years, will shut down its servers on Dec. 31. I will see about moving this but anyone reading this here should strat following my other blogs:

A Man With A PhD - essentially this blog but hosted at Wordpress.
A Path to Sustainable - dealing with topics that overlap with some of my work with the Sustainable Path Foundation.
SpreadingScience - my work blog.
Idea Club Blog - my work on Idea Club for Sustainable Path

So please, follow me and my ramblings at these other blogs.

Sulfates make soot worse - Path to Sustainable

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:44:56 GMT

by NoÃ«l Zia Lee

Sulfate lens enhances climate warming properties of atmospheric soot: [Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]

Particulate pollution thought to be holding climate change in check by reflecting sunlight instead enhances warming when combined with airborne soot, a new study has found. [More]

This is pretty important. While soot absorbs heat, sulfates are believed to reflect it. In fact, sulfate levels are used to cool the Earth. Some people have even suggested that we shoot large amounts of sulfates into the atmosphere to reflect back sunlight and help cool the Earth.

[More at Path to Sustainable]

Technorati Tags: Environment, Sustainability

Krugman nails it - Path to Sustainable

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:43:56 GMT

by Photographer Jerry Lee

Paul Krugman's column today exposes the denialism prevalent in many Representatives in Congress.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldnâo[dot accent]t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason âo[per thou] treason against the planet.

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

Greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than predicted. So is sea level rise. Ice cap extent, age and thickness is declining faster. Some models predicting a 4 Â°C rise by century's end now predict 9 Â°C. The deniers have absolutely no credible evidence for why this is happening. They do not attempt to really rebut any of this, something they tried to do 15 years ago when the science was not as strong.

Now they just put their heads in the sand and claim that it is all a conspiracy.

So, in the presence of so much data and so much science pointing to tremendous changes, about 200 Representatives deny it is happening, mostly for political reasons.

[More at Path to Sustainable]

Technorati Tags: Environment

Only Russia is better positioned - Path to Sustainable

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:42:06 GMT

Potential wind power is 23 times current US electricity use: [Via Nature Blogs - All Stories]

When the National Academies of Science recently looked at the potential for renewable energy deployment in the states, its expert panel made some reasonable assumptions, such as limits imposed by manufacturing capacity and the current electric grid. This week, the NAS Proceedings will see the publication of a paper that considers what would happen if we dropped reasonableness from the analysis and calculated what we might achieve if we pushed wind power to its maximal capac... [More]

The name of the paper is Global potential for wind-generated electricity. It is Open Access so anyone can read it. Here is the abstract:

The potential of wind power as a global source of electricity is assessed by using winds derived through assimilation of data from a variety of meteorological sources. The analysis indicates that a net- work of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines restricted to non-forested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20% of their rated capacity could supply > 40 times current worldwide consumption of electricity, > 5 times total global use of energy in all forms. Resources in the contiguous United States, speciï¬[trademark]cally in the central plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current demand for electricity in the United States. Estimates are given also for quantities of electricity that could be obtained by using a network of 3.6-MW turbines deployed in ocean waters with depths < 200 m within 50 nautical miles (92.6 km) of closest coastlines.

Cool. It is a thought experiment type of paper but does provide some real direction. And as this figure shows, the US is in pretty good shape: [More at Path to Sustainable]

Technorati Tags: Energy Use, Environment, Science

Warming bigtime up north - Path to Sustainable

Tue, 19 May 2009 22:52:24 GMT

NOAA: Fifth warmest April on record: [Via Climate Progress]

NOAAâo[dot accent]s National Climatic Data Center reported last month: Based on preliminary data, the globally-averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the fifth warmest on record for April, and the January-April year-to-date period tied with 2003 as the sixth warmest on record. lt is worth noting "the El NiÃ±o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) transitioned from a cold phase (La NiÃ±a) to ENSO-neutral conditions during April 2009," which kept things on the coolish side. If we stay neutral (as most models currently predict), it'll get hotter and if go into an El NiÃ±o (as some models predict) then we should be back to setting record temperatures. And no, I donâo[dot accent]t think the monthly data tell us much about the climate. But I know reporting it annoys the deniers. More seriously, it is definitely worth seeing where it is warming [click to enlarge]: [More]

The further north you go, the higher the temperature increase. Higher temperatures may sound nice if you have to deal with a Siberian winter but there is a very good reason to want to keep the far north very cold - methane.There are huge amounts of methane held in the permafrost that will be released if the temperature keeps rising. From Climate Progress:

âo¢ NOAA recently reported: âo[ogonek]Methane levels rose in 2008 for the second consecutive year after a 10-year lull,âo[caron] âo¢ Scientific analysis suggests the rise in 2007 methane levels came from Arctic wetlands (see here). âo¢ Siberia contains probably the worldâo[dot accent]s largest amount of carbon locked away in the permafrost (see here). âo¢ The permafrost is increasingly not so perma (see here). âo¢ Much of that carbon would be released as methane, which is 23 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Release of methane from the permafrost could have a huge effect on climate change as methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide with a global warming potential 25 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100 year timeline. And we have no way of putting it back. [More at Path to Sustainable]

Technorati Tags: Environment

Not so simple - Path to Sustainable

Fri, 08 May 2009 15:46:50 GMT

by jurvetson
Ethanol vs. electricity:

[Via Cosmic Log]

Suppose you take an acre's worth of switchgrass and turn it into ethanol for your flex-fuel car, while your neighbors take their acre's worth and burn it in a power plant to generate electricity for their plug-in hybrid. Which car would go farther?

If you guessed that your car would, you'd be way off. About 7,000 miles off, in fact.

In a study published online today by the journal Science, researchers say using biomass to generate electricity is more efficient for transportation than making biofuels - and might actually do more to cut CO2 emissions as well.

So does that mean bioelectricity is better than bioethanol? Wrong again.

[More]

Solving complex problems requires a whole systems approach, one that synthesizes a large amount of information. It will not be an either-or world but one that fully recognizes the total costs of different approaches.

This paper makes a fine effort to account for the differential costs of two approaches to using plants for fuel - making biofuels from the plants or burning the plants directly to create electricity. Burning them may be better, at least for the amount of miles traveled that could be provided.

[More at Path to Sustainable]

Technorati Tags: Entertainment, Sustainability

It is just lying there - Path to Sustainable

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:51:34 GMT

by alicepopkorn

Energy efficiency vs. neoliberal economics:

[Via Gristmill]

The vast untapped potential for energy efficiency presents a fundamental challenge to the American public's naive economic worldview.

[More]

This is a thought-provoking article. Here is just one sample:

[More at Path to Sustainable]

Technorati Tags: Environment

Richard Gayle: Path to Sustainable

Not good news - A Path to Sustainable

Userland Shutdown

Sulfates make soot worse - Path to Sustainable

Krugman nails it - Path to Sustainable

Only Russia is better positioned - Path to Sustainable

Warming bigtime up north - Path to Sustainable

Sponsored by Sustainable Path Foundation - Path to Sustainable

Not so simple - Path to Sustainable

It is just lying there - Path to Sustainable