Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 161

Long-Awaited ‘Jump’ In Global Warming Now Appears ‘Imminent’

NASA temperature data dispel the myth of a recent slow-down in long-term warming trend. But there was a big jump in temps during the mid-1990s. Many scientists believe another jump is “imminent.’

We may be witnessing the start of the long-awaited jump in global temperatures. There is “a vast and growing body of research,” as Climate Central explained in February. “Humanity is about to experience a historically unprecedented spike in temperatures.”

A March study, “Near-term acceleration in the rate of temperature change,” makes clear that an actual acceleration in the rate of global warming is imminent — with Arctic warming rising a stunning 1°F per decade by the 2020s.

Scientists note that some 90 percent of global heating goes into the oceans — and ocean warming has accelerated in recent years. Leading climatologist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research explained here in 2013 that “a global temperature increase occurs in the latter stages of an El Niño event, as heat comes out of the ocean and warms the atmosphere.”

In March, NOAA announced the arrival of an El Niño, a multi-month weather pattern “characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.”

How much of a temperature jump should we expect? Last month, Trenberth explained to Living on Earth:

Trenberth says it could mean a rise of two- or three-tenths-of-a-degree Celsius, or up to half a degree Fahrenheit. The change could occur “relatively abruptly,” but then stick around for five or 10 years.

I interviewed Trenberth this week, and he told me that he thinks “a jump is imminent.” When I asked whether he considers that “likely,” he answered, “I am going to say yes. Somewhat cautiously because this is sticking my neck out.”

Trenberth explained that it’s significant the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) “seems to have gone strongly positive” because that is “perhaps the best single indicator to me that a jump is imminent.” During a PDO, he explains, “the distribution of heat in the oceans changes along with some ocean currents.”

The PDO is a “pattern of Pacific climate variability similar to ENSO [El Niño Southern Oscillation] in character, but which varies over a much longer time scale.” While El Niños and La Niñas tend to last only 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain primarily in one phase for a decade or even longer, as this figure from NOAA’s March “Global Ocean Monitoring” report shows:

“The positive phase of PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] index has persisted 8 months since Jul 2014 with PDO index = + 1.6 in Feb 2015.” Via NOAA.

If you compare the PDO chart with the NASA global temp chart at the top, you’ll see that a negative PDO appears to temporarily offset the long-term global warming trend, whereas a positive PDO corresponds to a “catch up” phase (see discussion here). That is one reason, Trenberth explains, that global temperatures seem to look more like a staircase than a ramp (a steadily-rising straight-line or linear trend).

Making things even more confusing, the staircase-shaped rise in temperatures is further modulated by El Niños, which tend to set the record for the hottest years (since the regional warming adds to the underlying global warming trend) and by La Niña years, which tend to be cooler than normal years.

The fact that NOAA projects that the current El Niño could last most of 2015 means we are still on track for what is likely to be the hottest calendar year on record — very possibly beating 2014 by a wide margin (0.1°C).

And record global temps mean extreme temperatures and weather locally. So far this year, “five nations or territories have tied or set all-time records for their hottest temperature in recorded history,” explains meteorologist Jeff Masters.

Antarctica appears to have set its all-time temperature record — 63.5°F (17.5°C) — on March 24 at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. That is “more than 30°F (17°C) above average.” This was actually part of a heat wave since the Antarctic record it broke was set the day before (63.3°F). Also in March, the Chilean desert was deluged by “over fourteen years of rain in one day.”

It was the hottest February on record in California, a full 1°F higher than the second-warmest February on record. And that followed California’s driest January ever recorded. These type of records are not good news.

“So it is a bad year for the Earth and an equally bad year for the politicians, talk show radio ‘scientists’, climate-denial funders, and second rate scientists who told us not to worry,” as climate expert Professor John Abraham told me. “They told us global warming had stopped nearly two decades ago. The problem is, science and climate change marched forward. Perhaps next time we will believe the real scientists.”

Indeed it will be a very bad year for the Earth and for climate science deniers if 2015 proves to be the beginning of the long-awaited temperature jump.

The last time global temps jumped sharply (see top chart), it was during an extended period of positive PDO, from 1992 and 1998. The super El Niño in 1998 at the end of that period set a new global temperature record by a wide margin. That was a high bar for subsequent years to match, which cherry-picking climate science deniers used — with some success — to persuade conservative politicians and media outlets that global warming had paused or slowed down. In fact we have merely been in an extended period of the PDO negative phase, with only occasional switches to a mild positive phase. And that, coupled with some recent La Niñas, gave an appearance of a short-term slowdown in warming in some datasets.

But the NASA chart at the top makes clear there has in fact been no slowdown in warming. Indeed the March study, “Near-term acceleration in the rate of temperature change” makes clear the only “pause” there has been was in the long-expected speed-up of global warming. The rate of surface warming should have started to accelerate in the past decade, rather than stay fairly constant.

The authors warned that, by 2020, human-caused warming will move the Earth’s climate system into a regime of rapid multi-decadal rates of warming. It projected that within the next few years, “there is an increased likelihood of accelerated global warming associated with release of heat from the sub-surface ocean and a reversal of the phase of decadal variability in the Pacific Ocean.”

That would be Trenberth’s imminent jump. And it may be starting now.

The post Long-Awaited ‘Jump’ In Global Warming Now Appears ‘Imminent’ appeared first on ThinkProgress.

California Is Rationing Water Use For First Time Thanks To Climate Change

This pole was supposed to measure snow.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

On Wednesday, California Governor Jerry Brown walked into a meadow in the Sierra Nevada mountains with snow survey chief Frank Gehrke, who carried an extremely tall pole to measure snowpack depth. They wore hiking shoes instead of skis, which signaled a serious problem.

“We’re standing on dry grass,” Brown said. “We should be standing on five feet of snow.”

Standing on that dry land and facing a historic drought, Brown then demanded “unprecedented action.” That action took the form of California’s first-ever statewide mandatory water use restriction. Brown signed an executive order detailing to local water supply agencies how they could cut usage 25 percent from 2013 levels.

Last week Brown signed a $1.1 billion emergency drought relief bill, which could help localities meet the 25 percent water cuts outlined in the executive order. Brown said the order he was issuing was unique in its level of detail — the likes of which he’d “never seen … before.”

It directs the State Water Resources Control Board to implement water savings plans in cities and towns across the state to meet the 25 percent goal. Local water agencies will be changing their pricing structures to limit excess use. Landscaping will change from lawns to drought-tolerant vegetation across 50 million square acres of the state. Consumers can receive higher rebates for efficient appliances. And as desalination plants go up on the coast, urban areas can begin to reduce the drain on reservoirs.

Last year the state failed to achieve a voluntary 20 percent water use reduction, and while officials said punitive fines could be used to enforce the new guidelines, they expected not to have to resort to that.

The drought forcing these responses is now the worst on record.

California’s rainy season typically lasts from October to March, but instead of being flush full reservoirs and a healthy snowpack, the state has entered its fourth consecutive year of drought — the worst in 120 years of state recordkeeping. With the last week’s temperatures averaging more than 10°F hotter than normal, snowpack levels, already at five percent of normal, will continue to shrink at even faster rates. Five percent is less than one-third the previous record low: 25 percent of average set in 2014 and 1977.

“The west continued to cope with much-above-normal temperatures, further depleting already-dire snowpacks and reducing spring runoff prospects over much of the region,” reported the U.S. Drought Monitor on Thursday.

The Monitor noted that the last water year “ended on an abysmal note,” with 10 percent the normal precipitation levels over the last 30 days. It warned that additional precipitation “would likely do little to improve the state’s dire drought prospects.”

Even after the big storms that rolled through the state last December, it needed 11 trillion gallons of water to end the drought, a situation made worse as much of the precipitation fell as rain rather than snow.

The drought monitor map for the week ending on March 31, 2015, released on April 2.

CREDIT: U.S. Drought monitor

In April 2014, at the end of last year’s rainy season, 23 percent of the state was in “exceptional drought” — this year it’s 41 percent.

The snowpack usually supplies 30 percent of California’s water use, and 60 percent of the water needed to help fill the rest of the state’s traditional reservoirs. But water resource managers like Gehrke are essentially telling reservoir operators not to expect water from the snowpack this year.

When it comes to reducing the demand those reservoirs have to meet, the elephant in the room is agricultural water use, which accounts for 80 percent of the state’s yearly consumption. Gov. Brown’s executive order addresses farming mainly in the form of an increased enforcement against illegal water waste.

Big agricultural water consumers “will be required to report more water use information to state regulators, increasing the state’s ability to enforce against illegal diversions and waste and unreasonable use of water under today’s order,” a state press release said.

But large farms will not fall under the 25 percent guideline. The state is likely mindful of keeping food prices from rising more than they have, wary of cutting water allocations to large farms further. But finding ways to cut water use significantly will become more critical for California’s growers, as the drought is likely to get worse, not better.

One big reason is climate change.

When people ask why this drought has been so bad, and how much worse it could get, scientists point to two main factors: lack of rain, and extreme heat. Droughts happen when it does not rain, and they get worse with extreme heat. When half the years are warm, and half are cold, this is less of a problem. But with climate change pushing global temperatures higher and higher, it’s very likely that California has not seen the worst of it.

The climate change connection to this particular drought’s lack of rain may be less direct, though for each degree warmer the atmosphere gets, it can hold four percent more moisture. This means less frequent precipitation events as the air holds more water, though when it does rain, it rains a lot all at once, making it harder for the land to easily soak up the water.

Princeton climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer put it to the New York Times this way: “The rain deficit isn’t clearly connected to climate change, but the planetary warming has made it more likely that the weather would be hotter in California.”

A recent study noted that soil moisture levels are worse than they’ve been for more than a millennium: “the current event is the most severe drought in the last 1200 years, with single year (2014) and accumulated moisture deficits worse than any previous continuous span of dry years.”

The post California Is Rationing Water Use For First Time Thanks To Climate Change appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Typhoons Are Starting Early This Season, And A Big One Is Headed Toward The Philippines

This image taken Tuesday March 31, 2015 shows Typhoon Maysak taken by astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti from the International Space Station.

CREDIT: AP Photo/NASA, Samantha Cristoforetti

Typhoon Maysak killed at least five people and damaged homes in the Chuuk state of Micronesia earlier this week, and now the weakened — but still dangerous — storm is headed towards the Philippines.

On Tuesday, Typhoon Maysak reached super typhoon status, with the Joint Typhoon Warning Center measuring its wind gusts at up to 195 miles per hour and sustained winds at 160 mph. Since Tuesday, the storm has weakened, with winds falling to around 132 mph Thursday, making it the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane.

But the typhoon made history during its time as a Category 5 equivalent storm. Meteorologist and Weather Underground founder Jeff Masters said that Maysak is the third super typhoon on record with such high wind strengths before April 1. Masters wrote on March 30 that Maysak was part of a “record early start to typhoon season in the Western Pacific.”

“Maysak is the fourth named storm so far in 2015 in the Western Pacific, and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) database shows only one other year since 1945 with more named storms that formed during the first three months of the year — 1965, when there were five named storms,” Masters wrote. “Maysak is already the third typhoon of the year, setting a record for the most typhoons so early in the year.”

This early start, Masters writes, is partially due to warm waters driven by a weak El Niño. But though there’s been an increase in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean over the last several decades — an increase that’s expected to continue as the climate warms and water temperatures in the Atlantic rise — the relationship between climate change and typhoons in the Western Pacific is less clear, Masters told ThinkProgress in an email. Unlike in the Atlantic, water temperatures in the Western Pacific are warm enough to support typhoons year-round, so an increase in ocean temperature may not lead to a longer typhoon season.

In general though, the world should be prepared for more, stronger storms in the future, he said.

“Climate models predict that we will see an increase in the strongest typhoons, hurricanes, and tropical cyclones in the coming decades, and it would not be a surprise to see an increase in those strong storms in months when we are not used to seeing them, due to the increased heat energy in the oceans,” Masters said.

Maysak is expected to weaken further as it travels towards the Philippines, due to the dry air and wind shear it will encounter.

But the storm, which is expected to reach the Philippines over the weekend, will still likely bring flooding and strong winds to the Philippines. Weather Underground writes that, even though Maysak could weaken to the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane by the weekend, “significant impacts are still possible, including flash flooding, mudslides, storm surge along east-facing shores, high surf and coastal erosion.” The storm also could make Easter celebrations difficult for the nation, which is is majority Catholic.

The Philippines is no stranger to typhoons, especially in recent years. In the last decade, the Philippines has experienced five of its 10 most deadly typhoons. In 2012, Typhoon Bopha killed more than 1,000 people and caused widespread damage in the country. And in 2013, Typhoon Haiyan killed 6,300 people in the Philippines, making it the country’s deadliest typhoon in recent history. The storm, which occurred during the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, prompted Philippines delegation head Yeb Sano to make an emotional speech at the talks, imploring country leaders to address climate change.

“We must stop calling events like these as natural disasters,” Sano said in 2013. “It is not natural when people continue to struggle to eradicate poverty and pursue development and gets battered by the onslaught of a monster storm now considered as the strongest storm ever to hit land. It is not natural when science already tells us that global warming will induce more intense storms.”

The post Typhoons Are Starting Early This Season, And A Big One Is Headed Toward The Philippines appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Spain Got 47 Percent Of Its Electricity From Renewables In March

People visit the Santa Coloma de Gramenet cemetery, outside Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Nov. 21, 2008. The city council has installed 462 solar panels on top of the grave niches. The energy they produce, equivalent to the yearly consumption of 60 homes, flows into the local energy grid and is one community’s odd and pioneering nod to the fight against global warming.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Manu Fernandez

Spain is getting the vast majority of its electricity from carbon-free sources, the country’s grid operator reported on Tuesday.

CREDIT: ree.es

According to Red Electrica de Espana (REE), the Spanish peninsula got 69 percent of its electricity generation in March from technologies that produce zero carbon emissions — that is to say, renewable energy plus some of its nuclear power. Nuclear as a whole provided 23.8 percent of the country’s electricity in March, while 47 percent came solely from renewable sources.

Most of the renewable electricity being generated in Spain comes from wind, which alone provided 22.5 percent of the country’s electricity last month. Wind often competes with nuclear for the title of Spain’s top electricity generation source overall — in fact, though nuclear pulled through in March as the top source of electricity, wind has overall provided more electricity to Spain in the entirety of 2015. From January to March, according to REE, wind provided 23.7 percent of electricity generation while nuclear made up 22.7 percent.

Spain has long been a leader in renewable energy, just recently becoming the first country in the world to have relied on wind as its top energy source for an entire year. The country is attempting to use wind power to supply 40 percent of its electricity consumption by 2020, according to CleanTechnica.

At the same time, Spain is also developing other renewable sources of energy, particularly solar photovoltaic. Though it currently only accounts for about 3 percent of electricity generation, Spain’s solar industry is one of the largest in the world, according to Al Jazeera. In 2012, it reported that solar power accounted for almost 2,000 megawatts of energy. Comparatively in the United States, there were 3,313 megawatts of solar photovoltaic installations that same year.

Though the U.S. may have more solar cumulatively, Spain’s solar makes up more more of the smaller country’s electricity use as a whole. In 2013, solar accounted for about 0.2 percent of the net electricity produced in the United States, according to the Institute for Energy Research. That same year, solar accounted for 3.1 percent of Spain’s total electricity, according to REE.

Still, Spain’s renewable energy story has not been all roses. The country’s aggressive goals have been heavily subsidized by its government, and the government has fallen into economic distress as a result. Specifically, the New York Times reported in 2013 that Spain’s tariff deficit had built up a cumulative debt of about €26 billion ($35 billion). Since then, however, the country has slashed its subsidies, putting the bulk of costs back on the power utilities themselves.

The subsidy cuts happened last summer, and since then renewable energy has not significantly grown in the country as a whole. But it has grown substantially in at least one part of Spain — the tiny island of El Hierro, which is nearing its goal to be powered 100 percent by wind and water.

The post Spain Got 47 Percent Of Its Electricity From Renewables In March appeared first on ThinkProgress.

With First Nationwide Fracking Law, Germany Approaches A Ban

CREDIT: shutterstock

On Wednesday, the German cabinet approved the country’s first nationwide fracking law, which would set the “strictest conditions for fracking” according to Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks.

The law, which now heads to parliament for debate, would ban fracking in specified regions “to protect drinking water, health and the environment,” according to the environment and energy ministries. The draft law would ban the use of hydraulic fracturing for drilling processes that are shallower than 3,000 meters, or almost 10,000 feet, and any fracking in nature reserves or national parks.

“This law will enable us to circumscribe fracking so that it no longer represents a danger to people or the environment. As long as the risks cannot be fully evaluated, fracking will be banned,” Hendricks said.

The law, which would be in place for around four years, would allow fracking in certain cases for scientific research as well as exceptional commercial operations that pass a drilling test and get special approval from a committee.

Natural gas in Germany is used mainly for heating, making it harder to replace with renewable sources of energy. Right now Germany gets more than a third of its gas supply from Russia. Last year only 12 percent of the country’s demand was covered by its own supply.

Germany has had a moratorium on fracking since 2011, however there has been consistent pressure from the energy industry to allow some level of the controversial process, which relies on shooting a high-pressure mix of water, sand, and chemicals into underground rock formations to help free up gas.

“It’s a positive signal that extraction of shale gas in Germany is not completely out of the question,” said Markus Kerber, general manager of the Federation of German Industries. “However, the requirements for extracting the gas are completely exaggerated.”

Germany’s neighbors have taken different approaches to addressing the industry. France and Bulgaria have fracking moratoriums in place, while Poland has eagerly pursued the process. Wales and Scotland also recently imposed fracking moratoriums as the countries consider the environmental and health hazards associated with the operations.

Public health concerns over the process include air and water contamination as well as leaking methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to climate change. A link between fracking and minor earthquakes has also been observed in the United States. Increased truck traffic and noise pollution are also concerns harbored by residents in near proximity to the extraction.

While the debate over the merits and pitfalls of fracking plays out throughout Germany, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions fell for the first time in three years in 2014. According to the environmental ministry, the drop came both from the expansion of renewables and a relatively mild winter. Renewable sources accounted for 27.8 percent of power consumption in 2014, up from 6.2 percent in 2000, and carbon emissions dropped 4.3 percent year-over-year. This makes 2014 a big year for Germany’s renewable energy transition, known as Energiewende, which requires the phasing out of nuclear energy by 2022 and reducing GHGs at least 80 percent by 2050.

“The year ended with an unexpected Christmas present: Germany finally got behind energy efficiency and ratcheted up the pressure on utilities to cut emissions more dramatically, which translates into less coal-fired production,” wrote Paul Hockenos, a Berlin-based journalist. “The new program will slash carbon emissions by between 62 million and 78 million tons by 2020. A reduction of 25 to 30 million tons will come by way of energy efficiency.”

The post With First Nationwide Fracking Law, Germany Approaches A Ban appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Russia Lost Forest The Size Of Switzerland Three Years In A Row

In this Aug. 4, 2010 file photo, a fire fighter attempts to extinguish a forest fire near the village of Dolginino in the Ryazan region, some 180 km (111 miles) southeast of Moscow. Wildifres are driving loss of forest cover in Canada and Russia, according to a new report.

CREDIT: AP Photo, File

Canada and Russia have lost an alarming number of trees in recent years, compromising the ecologically rich and carbon-sequestering boreal forests that are native to the regions, according to a new report.

The report, published Thursday by the World Resources Institute (WRI), found that the world’s boreal region has shown the steepest decline in forest cover between 2011 and 2013, with Russia — the country home to the world’s largest area of tree cover — losing an average of 16,600 square miles of tree cover every year. That’s an area, the report points out, that’s larger than Switzerland.

Boreal forests serve as major carbon sinks, so losing the forests is bad news for climate change — though, as the report notes, the light-reflecting land that’s left after forests are removed complicates the climate impact a bit.

CREDIT: World Resources Institute

Most of the tree loss in Canada and Russia can be attributed to forest fires, which the report notes are expected to occur more frequently and become more intense as the climate warms. Nigel Sizer, global director of WRI’s Forests Program, told ThinkProgress that the report didn’t analyze what percentage of the fires that caused the deforestation could be linked to human activity and what percentage couldn’t, but he did say that an increase in fires, including in the northern latitudes, was in line with climate modelling.

He also said that hotter, more intense fires could have an impact on the forests ecologically. Though forests are adapted to deal with — and even thrive after — occasional wildfires, hotter fires could affect the regeneration of trees and could lead to changes in species abundance.

“Much hotter fire is going to kill a lot more of the trees and is going to kill more of the seed stock in the soil as well,” Sizer said. “If you shift the intensity, you end up with different type of forest eventually.”

Some wildfires can be attributed to natural resource development in both Canada and Russia; Because there’s an increased human presence in these areas, Sizer said, the risk of fire also increases. The report also cited logging and insect pests as drivers of the loss of forest cover.

What the report didn’t analyze, however, was the impact of Canadian tar sands development on the region’s forests. But Global Forest Watch data from last year show that more than 20 percent of Canada’s boreal forest region is “now covered by industrial concessions for timber operations, hydrocarbon development, hydroelectric power reservoirs, and mineral extraction.” Vast swaths of Canada’s boreal forests have been cut down for tar sands mining operations, and according to the Sierra Club, none of this land has been “certified as reclaimed” by Alberta, Canada’s government.

The report, which used satellite maps from Google and the University of Maryland, found that globally, the earth’s tree cover loss was slightly lower in 2013 than it was in 2012, but was still 5.2 percent higher than the 2000-2012 average. In total, the earth lost 69,500 square miles of forests in 2013, a chunk about twice the size of Portugal.

CREDIT: World Resources Institute

But while global forest cover is decreasing, the report found that things might be looking up for forests in Indonesia, a country that’s historically had high rates of deforestation. Those rates have been so high that 85 percent its emissions come from forest degradation and destruction.

According to the report, in 2013, Indonesia’s yearly loss of tree cover fell to its lowest point in nearly 10 years, and its loss of primary forests — a term that applies to forests that haven’t been cleared in at least 30 years — also slowed. It notes, however, that one year isn’t enough to make a trend, and that a separate 2014 report found that Indonesia’s loss of primary forests increased from 2001-2012.

Still, Sizer called the data on Indonesia “encouraging” and said that, once WRI has figures for 2014 deforestation loss, its researchers will be able to determine whether Indonesia has begun a trend of slowing deforestation.

The WRI report comes on the heels of a study published Monday in Nature Climate Change, which found that despite worldwide deforestation, the globe’s total vegetation has increased since 2003. That’s thanks largely to efforts to plant more trees in China and former Soviet states, and increased plant life in the savanna due to higher levels of rainfall. Sizer said that this study makes sense, even in the context of WRI’s newest report.

“What we’re particularly concerned about is forest loss, so as forests are degraded and cleared, we’re losing biodiversity, losing water services, greenhouse gases are being emitted … and so on,” he said. “This analysis is saying that while were losing forests, at the same time there’s an overall net re-greening taking place … those two things can perfectly well happen at the same time.”

The challenge for scientists, Sizer said, is to determine what a world that’s both greening and losing forest means for climate change.

The post Russia Lost Forest The Size Of Switzerland Three Years In A Row appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Wildfires Are Wiping Out Canada And Russia’s Boreal Forests

In this Aug. 4, 2010 file photo, a fire fighter attempts to extinguish a forest fire near the village of Dolginino in the Ryazan region, some 180 km (111 miles) southeast of Moscow. Wildifres are driving loss of forest cover in Canada and Russia, according to a new report.

CREDIT: AP Photo, File

Canada and Russia have lost an alarming number of trees in recent years, compromising the ecologically rich and carbon-sequestering boreal forests that are native to the regions, according to a new report.

The report, published Thursday by the World Resources Institute (WRI), found that the world’s boreal region has shown the steepest decline in forest cover between 2011 and 2013, with Russia — the country home to the world’s largest area of tree cover — losing an average of 16,600 square miles of tree cover every year. That’s an area, the report points out, that’s larger than Switzerland.

Boreal forests serve as major carbon sinks, so losing the forests is bad news for climate change — though, as the report notes, the light-reflecting land that’s left after forests are removed complicates the climate impact a bit.

CREDIT: World Resources Institute

Most of the tree loss in Canada and Russia can be attributed to forest fires, which the report notes are expected to occur more frequently and become more intense as the climate warms. Nigel Sizer, global director of WRI’s Forests Program, told ThinkProgress that the report didn’t analyze what percentage of the fires that caused the deforestation could be linked to human activity and what percentage couldn’t, but he did say that an increase in fires, including in the northern latitudes, was in line with climate modelling.

He also said that hotter, more intense fires could have an impact on the forests ecologically. Though forests are adapted to deal with — and even thrive after — occasional wildfires, hotter fires could affect the regeneration of trees and could lead to changes in species abundance.

“Much hotter fire is going to kill a lot more of the trees and is going to kill more of the seed stock in the soil as well,” Sizer said. “If you shift the intensity, you end up with different type of forest eventually.”

Some wildfires can be attributed to natural resource development in both Canada and Russia; Because there’s an increased human presence in these areas, Sizer said, the risk of fire also increases. The report also cited logging and insect pests as drivers of the loss of forest cover.

What the report didn’t analyze, however, was the impact of Canadian tar sands development on the region’s forests. But Global Forest Watch data from last year show that more than 20 percent of Canada’s boreal forest region is “now covered by industrial concessions for timber operations, hydrocarbon development, hydroelectric power reservoirs, and mineral extraction.” Vast swaths of Canada’s boreal forests have been cut down for tar sands mining operations, and according to the Sierra Club, none of this land has been “certified as reclaimed” by Alberta, Canada’s government.

The report, which used satellite maps from Google and the University of Maryland, found that globally, the earth’s tree cover loss was slightly lower in 2013 than it was in 2012, but was still 5.2 percent higher than the 2000-2012 average. In total, the earth lost 69,500 square miles of forests in 2013, a chunk about twice the size of Portugal.

CREDIT: World Resources Institute

But while global forest cover is decreasing, the report found that things might be looking up for forests in Indonesia, a country that’s historically had high rates of deforestation. Those rates have been so high that 85 percent its emissions come from forest degradation and destruction.

According to the report, in 2013, Indonesia’s yearly loss of tree cover fell to its lowest point in nearly 10 years, and its loss of primary forests — a term that applies to forests that haven’t been cleared in at least 30 years — also slowed. It notes, however, that one year isn’t enough to make a trend, and that a separate 2014 report found that Indonesia’s loss of primary forests increased from 2001-2012.

Still, Sizer called the data on Indonesia “encouraging” and said that, once WRI has figures for 2014 deforestation loss, its researchers will be able to determine whether Indonesia has begun a trend of slowing deforestation.

The WRI report comes on the heels of a study published Monday in Nature Climate Change, which found that despite worldwide deforestation, the globe’s total vegetation has increased since 2003. That’s thanks largely to efforts to plant more trees in China and former Soviet states, and increased plant life in the savanna due to higher levels of rainfall. Sizer said that this study makes sense, even in the context of WRI’s newest report.

“What we’re particularly concerned about is forest loss, so as forests are degraded and cleared, we’re losing biodiversity, losing water services, greenhouse gases are being emitted … and so on,” he said. “This analysis is saying that while were losing forests, at the same time there’s an overall net re-greening taking place … those two things can perfectly well happen at the same time.”

The challenge for scientists, Sizer said, is to determine what a world that’s both greening and losing forest means for climate change.

The post Wildfires Are Wiping Out Canada And Russia’s Boreal Forests appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Agribusiness Giant Adopts Historic No-Deforestation Policy

A soy field cuts into a forest in Brazil.

CREDIT: Shutterstock

On Tuesday, one of the world’s largest traders of agricultural commodities vowed to help curb forest loss by instating a “No-Deforestation” policy for soy and palm oil in its supply chain.

Archer Daniels Midland’s no-deforestation policy will be the first of its kind to cover soy production outside of the Brazilian Amazon. It also comes at a crucial time for the Amazon rainforest, which is especially affected by soy production and has seen a recent uptick agriculturally-driven deforestation. As of 2012, soybean production had caused the loss of 80 million hectares of forests in the Amazon basin.

Under the new policy, Archer Daniels Midland — known as ADM — will work with the Forest Trust, a non-profit group dedicated to improving the sustainability of company supply chains. The groups will work to map ADM’s supply chain, making sure that none of its soy or palm oil products come from areas where ecosystems are threatened. The company will formally announce the plan, along with more details, on May 7.

Deforestation is a leading driver of climate change. According to Scientific American, loss of tropical rainforests releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the sum total of all cars. Though tropical deforestation is primarily caused by expanding agriculture, ADM’s announcement is just the most recent in a string of commitments by food and agriculture companies to begin ending tropical deforestation.

“ADM has a steadfast commitment to the development of traceable and transparent agricultural supply chains that protect forests worldwide,” the company’s chief communications officer Victoria Podesta said in an emailed statement. “We are confident that our No Deforestation policy is both strong and appropriate for our company. It combines a clear commitment to no deforestation with progressive action focused on our most critical supply chains.”

ADM, based in Chicago but with a market reach that spans six continents, buys all of its soy and palm oil from third parties. And while the palm oil industry has seen remarkable improvement in its deforestation policies — with nearly 96 percent of the market controlled by no-deforestation commitments — the soy industry has lagged behind in adopting similar policies, making ADM’s commitment to ending deforestation in the soy supply chain the first of its kind.

“While there’s still a lot of work to be done to implement these palm oil policies on the ground and to reign in rogue actors, we’re really looking to now spread this transformation to other commodities that drive deforestation in other parts of the world — soy in Latin America being top among them,” Ben Cushing, a spokesman for the advocacy group Forest Heroes, told ThinkProgress.

Over the last decade, Brazil appeared to be making huge strides in curbing deforestation in the Amazon, thanks in large part to pressure exerted by activists on soy and cattle farmers. Instead of cutting down forests to make way for farmland and grazing areas, farmers started to think of ways to make existing farmland more productive. It seemed to be working, with deforestation in Brazil dropping 70 percent between 2005 and 2014.

Part of the slow in deforestation also came in 2006 when major soybean traders — ADM among them — agreed to not buy soy grown on deforested Amazon land in Brazil. Known as the Soy Moratorium, the agreement really did help slow the pace of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon.

But signs suggest that the pause in deforestation is over — and that loss of the Amazon rainforest is spreading beyond Brazil to peripheral countries like Peru and Bolivia, where the Soy Moratorium doesn’t exist. The moratorium also fails to protect other areas of Brazil, like the Cerrado, a vast tropical savanna whose waters feed crucial river basins like the Amazon. And as the world’s growing economy increases the demand for meat, the demand for soy will also increase, because 75 percent of the world’s soy is used as animal feed.

“We’re at a critical juncture now to break the link between agriculture, especially for soy production and deforestation in Latin America,” Cushing said. “The recent progress on palm oil shows that this is possible, and now ADM’s announcement is a major step forward for the soy industry.”

Investor advocacy played a crucial role in encouraging ADM to commit to the policy, with Green Century Capital Management, an environmentally responsible investment company, teaming up with the New York State Pension Fund file a shareholder proposal that raised concerns about deforestation in the company’s supply chain. The New York State Pension Fund, which is the third largest pension fund in the nation, currently holds around 1,795,201 shares of ADM worth around $83.1 million.

“Shareholders are essentially the only stakeholder that corporations are required to respond to,” Lucia von Reusner, Green Century’s shareholder advocate, told ThinkProgress. “As a shareholder we have a unique voice at the board level that other stakeholders don’t have.”

In the past year, Green Century also encouraged Kellogg’s, Smuckers, and ConAgra to commit to purchasing palm oil from sources that don’t contribute to deforestation.

Now, they’ve set their sights on influencing the world’s largest distributors. At the same time that Green Century filed a shareholder proposal with ADM, they filed a similar proposal with Bunge, a direct competitor. So far, von Reusner said Bunge has not responded to the proposal, but she expects that it will head to a board vote near the end of May.

“The fact that ADM has made this commitment has such huge influence over the global agriculture supply chain and global food production,” von Reusner said, noting that it’s difficult for farmers to prioritize long-term sustainability over short-term cost cutting unless large companies use their influence to demand it. “It’s important that these companies that are setting the market are saying that, in addition to a low price, it’s important that our suppliers adhere to sustainable practices.”

The post Agribusiness Giant Adopts Historic No-Deforestation Policy appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Russia Joins U.S. In Filing International Pledge To Reduce Carbon Emissions

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

CREDIT: AP Images

Turns out the United States was not the only large country to officially submit a carbon reduction pledge to the United Nations on Tuesday.

According to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Russia also submitted a plan saying it could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent of its 1990 levels by 2030. Russia was the fourth-biggest emitter in the world in 2012, putting out 1,802 megatons of carbon dioxide, according to the Global Carbon Project.

With its pledge, the Kremlin joined the U.S., Switzerland, Norway, and the entire 28-member European Union in putting forth commitments to the post-2020 United Nations’ climate agreement — the final talks about which will be held in Paris at the end of 2015.

Russia’s contribution to the international climate agreement was, admittedly, a little strange. Russia’s carbon dioxide emissions today already average 35 percent lower than 1990 levels, according to the Associated Press. Plus, as the blog Carbon Brief pointed out, Russia didn’t actually give a concrete promise to reduce emissions by 30 percent — it merely said it could. The actual commitment it makes, Russia said, would be contingent upon what other countries decide to do at the end of Paris talks.

What’s more, Russia’s calculation that it can reduce its carbon emissions by 30 percent comes partially from how much carbon is absorbed by its forests. And Russia is literally covered in forests — nearly half of the country is forest. As CarbonBrief explains, “This means that, by continuing to manage its forests, Russia knows it will automatically reduce its carbon emissions by 500 million tonnes each year before even thinking about energy efficiency and renewables.”

That inclusion alone has drawn a good deal of criticism. Finland-based climate negotiator Matti Kahra tweeted that counting Russia’s carbon-absorbing forests as actual reductions could mean that the country wouldn’t have to do anything to meet its goal. World Wildlife Fund Russia spokesperson Alexey Kokorin also criticized the forest proposal in comments to Responding to Climate Change, calling the plan “too conservative.”

“Russia should reconsider its climate plans as submitted to the U.N. when the current national economic crisis is past; they should agree to more ambitious mitigation targets for 2025 and 2030,” he said.

Still, the mere fact that Russia submitted a plan was unexpected. The United States has historically been unsure about whether Russia would cooperate in the talks at all — Todd Stern, the State Department’s top international climate negotiator, said as much in November.

“I am hoping we can continue to work in a reasonably constructive way on climate, and we will have to see,” Stern said.

The post Russia Joins U.S. In Filing International Pledge To Reduce Carbon Emissions appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Pick The Winners: Seahorse vs. Sea Otter, Polar Bear vs. Wolverine

Click image to expand. Now updated with Tuesday’s winners: Peregrine Falcon and Sea Turtle!

CREDIT: Dylan Petrohilos

We’ve reached the Elite 8 in March Sadness — ClimateProgress’ educational bracket tournament of animals impacted by climate change and other environmental threats. For whichever animal wins, ClimateProgress will write a feature-length article exploring the story behind what’s ailing your chosen critter, and who is working to save them. Read the rules here.

We’re down to the wire. Yesterday, the speedy Peregrine Falcon overtook the supple Butterfly to become the only winged creature to reach the Elite 8. And Sea Turtle sailed past the Red Knot to clinch the title of our only shelled finalist.

Today, the final two winners of our Paws & Claws and Fins & Flippers divisions will go head to head. And because we’ve reached the next round, we’ll provide a little more information on what’s threatening each animal. Polar Bear, Wolverine, Sea Otter, Seahorse — which two will make it to the Final Four? Only your votes can decide. Vote in the embedded tweets below, on Twitter with the hashtag #CPMarchSadness, or on our Facebook page.

Polar Bear vs. Wolverine

CREDIT: Shutterstock

Polar Bear: The World Wildlife Fund lists climate change as the biggest threat to Polar Bears. That has to do with the loss of sea ice in the Arctic, which threatens not only the polar bear but its main prey — seals — which depend on sea ice to raise their young and rest. That, plus the fact that less ice coverage of the Arctic Sea means bears have less time on the ice to hunt, has put the animals at risk of starvation. Indeed, the number one cause of death for cubs right now is a lack of food, or lack of fat on nursing mothers.

Still, as we noted last time, the climate story behind these iconic bears has become complicated and controversial. In a small number of cases, polar bears have defied the odds, and in those cases their success story has become fodder for conservatives to support their argument that climate change isn’t real. At the same time, most scientists agree polar bears are in danger of extinction as the planet warms.

In addition to climate change, oil and gas exploration in the Arctic is exposing bears to human activity, and putting them at risk of habitat destruction and poisoning via oil spill. This is rapidly becoming a more pressing concern for environmentalists, as the U.S. just gave approval to Shell Oil for it to return to the area for oil and gas exploration.

Wolverine: So far, we’ve talked a lot about how wolverines need it to be cold to survive. They rely on deep, consistent snow in the American West — snow that lasts late into the spring for breeding. So as snowpacks across that area of the country diminish, the overall evidence is stacked heavily against them in the coming decades.

What’s more, the wolverine already neared extinction early last century after hunting and trapping dwindled its numbers even lower than they are today. Now, climate change exacerbates that threat — according to the Center for Biological Diversity, snow melt in the Rockies is occurring about two weeks earlier now than it did in the 1960s and over the next 75 years climate change is projected to wipe out 63 percent of the snowy habitat wolverines they need to survive.

A proposal to put the wolverine on the Endangered Species Act received strong support from five of seven peer reviewers as well as a separate, nine-person independent science panel convened in April to review the science underlying the proposal. Despite this, though, the U.S. has decided against listing the wolverine on the Endangered Species Act — mostly just because of the uncertainty of how bad climate change will be.

Which will move on? Vote below.

Who's going to the Final Four? RETWEET for Polar Bear or FAVE for Wolverine #CPMarchSadness http://t.co/ijLMgJzP17 pic.twitter.com/qETIL4jci6

— Climate Progress (@climateprogress) April 1, 2015

Sea Otter vs. Seahorse

CREDIT: shutterstock

Sea Otter: We’ve mentioned that sea otters are threatened by toxic algal blooms, which are exacerbated by climate change. A 2010 study found that a toxin found in blue-green algae called microcystin had killed at least 21 California sea otters. In addition, severe weather can make it difficult for sea otters to forage for and find food. According to the IUCN, this can make it hard for otters “to meet their high metabolic needs, leading to malnutrition or starvation.”

But sea otters’ relationship with climate change goes two ways. The marine creatures also serve as fighters of climate change: their main prey — sea urchins — like to eat kelp, so by keeping the sea urchin population at a sustainable level, they keep kelp forests lush. And kelp forests are good at storing carbon: a study in 2012 found; that the presence of otters helped carbon storage in kelp forests on the West Coast of North American increase by 8.7 million metric tons.

“Right now, all the climate change models and proposed methods of sequestering carbon ignore animals. But animals the world over, working in different ways to influence the carbon cycle, might actually have a large impact,” UC Santa Cruz professor Chris Wilmers, co-author of the 2012 study on otters, said in a statement. “If ecologists can get a better handle on what these impacts are, there might be opportunities for win-win conservation scenarios, whereby animal species are protected or enhanced, and carbon gets sequestered.”

Seahorse: Last time we talked about seahorses, we mentioned their fragile coastal ecosystems — coral reefs and mangroves, which are especially vulnerable to disturbances brought on by warming ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and increased flooding.

We also talked about habitat degradation due to development and pollution. In the U.S. the dwarf seahorse, one-inch-long seahorse, found in seagrass beds in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida and the Caribbean, is threatened with extinction due to decline of seagrass and lingering pollution from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists 49 of 50 species of seahorses as vulnerable or threatened.

But another issue facing seahorses is accidental fishing. Fishermen don’t mean to catch seahorses, but because of warming waters, these once sup-tropical creatures are migrating, and finding their way into nets. As ocean temperatures around Cape Cod and in the Gulf of Maine reach record highs, for example, fishermen have started to notice the common seahorse proliferate their lines and nets.

Which would you like to see in the final four for a chance at a feature story? Vote below.

Who rules the sea? RETWEET for Sea Otter or FAVE for Sea Horse #CPMarchSadness http://t.co/ijLMgJzP17 pic.twitter.com/jS35U3Q7qT

— Climate Progress (@climateprogress) April 1, 2015

***

TOURNAMENT UPDATES:

Day 1 – 3/19: Paws and Claws pt. 1 — Polar Bear vs. Wombat; Tasmanian Devil vs. Pangolin; (voting closed) WINNERS: Polar Bear and Pangolin.

Day 2 – 3/20: Paws and Claws pt. 2 — Lemur vs. Koala; Panda vs. Wolverine (voting closed) WINNERS: Koala and Wolverine.

Day 3 – 3/23: Fins and Flippers — Sea Lion vs. Sea Horse; Penguin vs. Manatee; Walrus vs. Sea Otter; Whale vs. Salmon (voting closed) WINNERS: Sea Horse, Sea Otter, Whale, and Penguin.

Day 4 – 3/24: Horns and Hooves — Elephant vs. Horned Lizard; Rhino vs. Narwhal; Saola vs. Moose; Mountain Goat vs. Reindeer (voting closed) WINNERS: Elephant, Narwhal, Moose, and Mountain Goat.

Day 5 – 3/25: Shells and Wings — Sea Turtle vs. Pelican; Sage Grouse vs. Peregrine Falcon; Oyster vs. Butterfly; Lobster vs. Red Knot (voting closed) WINNERS: Sea Turtle, Falcon, Butterfly, Red Knot.

Day 6 – 3/26: Polar Bear vs. Pangolin; Koala vs. Wolverine (voting closed) WINNERS: Polar Bear, Wolverine.

Day 7 – 3/27: Sea Horse vs. Whale; Sea Otter vs. Penguin (voting closed) WINNERS: Sea Horse, Sea Otter.

Day 8 – 3/30: Elephant vs. Mountain Goat; Moose vs. Narwhal (voting closed) WINNERS: Elephant, Narwhal.

Day 9 – 3/31: Sea Turtle vs. Red Knot; Butterfly vs. Peregrine Falcon (voting closed) WINNERS: Sea Turtle, Peregrine Falcon.

Day 10 – 4/1: Polar Bear vs. Wolverine; Sea Horse vs. Sea Otter (voting NOW OPEN)

Day 11 – 4/2: Elephant vs. Narwhal; Sea Turtle vs. Peregrine Falcon

Day 12 – 4/3: THE FINAL FOUR: TBD

Day 13 – 4/6: THE CHAMPIONSHIP: TBD

PAST ROUNDS:

Round 9: Sweet Sixteen, part 4

Round 8: Sweet Sixteen, part 3

Round 7: Sweet Sixteen, part 2

Round 6: Sweet Sixteen, part 1

Round 5: Shells and Wings

Round 4: Horns and Hooves

Round 3: Fins and Flippers

Round 2: Paws and Claws, part 2

Round 1: Paws and Claws, part 1

The post Pick The Winners: Seahorse vs. Sea Otter, Polar Bear vs. Wolverine appeared first on ThinkProgress.