The Weather Looks Dim

Back when I was in junior high school, I was responsible for recording daily measurements from our school’s weather station and plugging the data into rather unsophisticated weather prediction models to predict the next three days of local weather. Rarely were the predictions accurate beyond 24 hours. With the availability of massive weather databases, super computers and complex algorithms, scientists are increasingly able to now build complex climate models and predict long-term climate change.

That junior weatherman experience helped lead to my interest in understanding solar energy and renewable energy resources. Little did I know that formative weather prediction experience would contribute to my renewed attention forty years later to climate models and predicting the future of civilization.

On March 26th I wrote about the effect of a not well-known phenomenon called global dimming. I feel compelled to return to the subject because of its importance to understanding the very real global emergency that we face. I do so because others and I believe we have less than a decade to make drastic behavioral changes or we will pass the point of no return for saving civilization, as we know it today.

I described global dimming as the reduction of heat from the sun reaching the earth. Look at the accompanying picture of the effect of ocean going vessel exhaust plumes discharging pollution into the Pacific Ocean. It is a small piece of evidence about the direct effect humans have in dimming the sun.

What is the importance of global dimming? It has masked the actual high rate of global warming. It means we have limited time to change our destructive behavior. By we, I mean me, you, our city governments, park districts, state offices and federal bureaucracies, and the nations of the world. This is not a plea worthy of the annual Chicken Little Award. Rather, it is a plea to ask for your deeper understanding of consequences.

In 2006, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS) provided in its scientifically authoritative TV series, NOVA, a revealing portrait of the cause, history and consequences of global dimming and its relationship with global climate disruption. Excerpts and a transcript of the program are now available online. There is also an excellent teacher’s curriculum guide available for hands-on understanding of weather. Take a few minutes to understand your planet.

The Business of Doubt

On Monday the Daily Egyptian printed an editorial by Jonathan V. Last about Al Gore and environmental uncertainty. Since you can’t read Mr. Last’s irresponsible editorial online at the DE website, you need to visit the Philadelphia Inquirer where it is was originally printed.

Thankfully, Jonathan M. Gray, an SIU Associate Professor of Speech Communication, had his rebuttal printed today. I can’t improve upon his analysis other than to note that Mr. Last has previously written:

“Killing the environment will take time. This big ball of mud is pretty resilient. But if we love our planet -- and really, who doesn't? -- then we have to show corporate America how little we care about it. Only then will it be safe to be an environmentalist again.”

Satire? Or just sowing more seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about the problem?

There does seem to be a concentrated effort by well-funded climate change deniers to cast doubt about the seriousness of humanity's disruption of the planet’s ecosystems. At least one group, DeSmogBlog, is taking on the deniers by outing their credibility. They state

“Unfortunately, a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign is poisoning the climate change debate. Using tricks and stunts that unsavory PR firms invented for the tobacco lobby, energy-industry contrarians are trying to confuse the public, to forestall individual and political actions that might cut into exorbitant coal, oil and gas industry profits. DeSmogBlog is here to cry foul - to shine the light on techniques and tactics that reflect badly on the PR industry and are, ultimately, bad for the planet.”

Check it out!

Global Dimming

What’s with that title? Maybe another typo or maybe a reference to the dumbing of the electorate? Hardly.

Global dimming is the reduction of heat from the sun reaching the earth.

You’ve seen the manifestation of the causes of global dimming if you’ve ever flown in a plane or been to a high viewpoint and looked to the horizon where that sickly orange/brown haze hugs the horizon everywhere on the planet.

The dimming isn’t due to some intergalactic light dimmer (rheostat) switch increasing resistance to flow of the sun's energy. The real contributors to global dimming include the products of incomplete fossil fuel (coal, oil, gas) combustion, the black carbon from burning of wood, jet contrails, airborne volcanic ash, and aerosols.

Is global dimming anything to really fret about? Some scientists now consider that the effects of global dimming have masked the effect of faster than predicted global warming and that resolving global dimming may, therefore, lead to increased future planetary temperature rise. Some scientists have postulated that global dimming has...

"contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa, and afflicted 50 million more with hunger and starvation.”

That conclusion was broadcast in the 2005 BBC documentary on climate change that is summarized here. A very extensive discussion of the global dimming is also available.

It’s a topic worth your review. Knowledge is power.

Away We Go!

Such is the original name of the 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma, which later became the popular 1955 movie starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.

Try to imagine that the production was really about the future Illinois.

Based on calculations about global warming, the winter climate of Illinois is now expected to begin looking more and more like that of present day Oklahoma, and in summer it will be closer to that of Texas!

“Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.”

Such is the assessment of a Union of Concerned Scientists report on the results of pending climate change. Their detailed assessment suggests we are in for some wrenching changes.

“Illinois’ climate will grow considerably warmer and probably drier during this century, especially in the summer. As a result of these changes, by 2030 summer in llinois may feel more like current-day summer in Oklahoma or Arkansas, while winter may feel like present day Missouri. By 2095 summer climate will resemble that of eastern Texas today with winters that feel like Oklahoma.”

Image an Illinois growing season 2 - 6 weeks longer. Accompanying that longer season may be increases in the frequency of Mississippi River floods, drought, tornadoes and severe storms.

Since 75% of Illinois is used for agriculture, there are likely to be significant shifts in viability and productivity of certain crops. If the crops can survive the expected weather extremes and altered threats from pests, farmers may shift towards wheat production in lieu of corn.

I recommend everyone take the time to review the brief sections of the report listed below:

• Introduction
• Climate Projections
• Agriculture
• Human Health
• Property and Infrastructure
• Recreation & Tourism
• Water Supply & Pollution
• Wetlands and Shorebirds
• Climate Solutions
• Resources & Links

It looks like the future just ain’t what it used to be.

Away We Go! Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!

A Rising Ocean Floods All Economies

The aphorism "a rising tide lifts all boats" refers to the prospect of everyone benefiting from a prosperous economy. If you believe that concept, then you ought to accept that a rising ocean floods all economies.

I recently came across an interesting application of Google Earth mapping applied to the issue of global climate disruption. Most people are aware of the predictions of sea level rise expected this century as a result to melting of polar ice caps. The organization Step It Up 2007 has created an impact video of the effect of sea level rise on New York City – specifically Manhattan Island. Expected flooding there would sink much of lower Manhattan beneath the New York harbor.

You can view the YouTube video now.

One effort of the Step It Up 2007 organization is the Sea Of People project that injects the human element into the sometimes boring statistics of climate education.

We can expect to see similar mapping and community education projects applied to all sorts of environmental impacts: change of growing patterns as the great corn desert plant zone moves northward and other ecosystems disappear to replaced by others, depletion of aquifers, and of course, more visualizations of the disappearance of islands and coastlines all around the world. Stay tuned. It should be a very interesting century.

• EPA Sea Level Rise Map


• UN Observed Climate Trends

BTW, I’d like to talk to any Illinoisans working on interesting applications of mapping systems that improve our knowledge of natural resources or other Illinois spatial data.

Carbondale Signs US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement

Carbondale Mayor Brad Cole has joined other mayors across the US that have signed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement (MCPA). As of February 1, 2007, 393 communities that have signed the agreement have pledged to:

• Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in their own communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;


• Urge their state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol -- 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012; and


• Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system

The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) is the professional membership organization representing the interests of thousands of US cities. On June 13, 2005, the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement was passed unanimously by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The following are some of the downstate members of the USCM: Carbondale, Marion, Cahokia, Centralia, DuQuoin, Edwardsville, Herrin, Mt. Vernon, and Swansea.

The USCM has established their own Mayors Climate Protection Web Site with information for government officials that compliments the primary site sponsored by the City of Seattle. The USCM has also passed the following resolutions calling upon their members to take decisive action to protect the environment.

• Adopting the "2030 Challenge" For All Buildings
• Encourages the Use of Landfill Gas-to-Recovery Technologies
• Encouraging the Use of Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles
• Endorses the increased use of Renewable Fuels
• Promotion of Clean, Renewable Energy Sources
• Establishing a New Municipal Energy Agenda to help Address the Nation's Energy and Environmental Challenges and Improve Local Communities

None of the downstate communities listed above, excepting Carbondale, have signed onto the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. Carbondale has not joined the Cool Cities Campaign, a complementary program to implement action plans to achieve the goals of the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement.

Junk Appointments

Is global warming nothing more than "Junk Science" as Fox News and conservative pundits such as Rush Limbaugh are noted for saying?

Not according to Representative Henry Waxman (Democrat) who stated that "we need to get the facts and rely on federal scientists and agencies to give Congress and the public the true facts about this global threat. Yet the preliminary evidence we're seeing from the White House suggests that the administration may have taken a very different approach. If the documents we have seen so far are representative, it appears that the White House installed a former oil industry lobbyist as the chief of staff for the Council on Environmental Quality and then systematically sought to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from reporting on dangers to health, the environment and the economy."

What's this all about? It seems that the Bush White House appointed Philip Cooney to the position of chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney has been altering environmental reports to suit the Bush administration's tortured view of the environment.

Joining other scientists complaining about improper edits of their reports, NASA climatologist Drew Shindell, testifying on 1/30/2007 before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform Committee cited improper edits by Cooney of his work prior to release to the public. For example, the scientist report said "Changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly the result of human activities.”

Cooney altered the report to say: “A causal link between the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.”

Ah yes, more Newspeak wisdom from the Ministry of Truth:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

~ George Orwell, 1984