NOAA On Climage Change

Posted on | December 13, 2009 | Comments Off

Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, will be in Copenhagen as part of the U.S. Delegation from Dec. 13-16. As a member of the president’s science team and head of NOAA, Lubchenco is one of the senior administration officials attending the conference, including President Barack Obama and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. Many of the leading federal climate scientists work within NOAA.

NOAA will play a major supporting role in the U.S. Center. Along with other U.S. scientists and senior administration officials, NOAA scientists will explore the United State’s efforts both domestically and internationally to research, understand and provide tools to respond to the impacts of a changing climate.

The centerpiece of the U.S. Center exhibit space is NOAA’s “Science On a Sphere,” a large globe that displays a wide range of climate, weather and other spatial data around the Earth. On Dec. 8, NOAA’s Sandy MacDonald, Ph.D., will conduct a climate change “spherecast” from Copenhagen that will be viewed live on spheres in select science centers around the world.

NOAA scientists and Department of Commerce officials will also blog and hold web chats from Copenhagen. Lubchenco will also be posting updates and information about COP-15 activities on her Facebook page.

Daily updates from NOAA and the Department of Commerce at will be available on: http://www.commerce.gov/cop15. The State Department Web site has the full program of events: http://www.cop15.state.gov.

This year the events at the conference will be more widely accessible than ever before. The following NOAA presentations will be webcast at https://statedept.connectsolutions.com/uscenter. All times are listed in EST:

Monday, Dec. 7, 3:00 a.m. Arctic: One of the Earth’s Most Rapidly Warming Regions, presented by James Overland, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Monday, Dec. 7, 9:30 a.m. The History and Science of Monitoring Carbon Dioxide and Other Greenhouse Gases, presented by Sandy MacDonald, NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory
Monday, Dec. 7, 5:30 a.m. Ocean Acidification: Impacts of Carbon Dioxide on Marine Ecosystems, presented by Oceana and Richard Feely, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Tuesday, Dec. 8, 9:30 a.m. Global Climate Change Impacts in the U.S., presented by Tom Karl, NOAA National Climatic Data Center
Tuesday, Dec. 8, 12:00 p.m. Extreme Weather and Climate Events in a Changing Climate, presented by Tom Karl, NOAA National Climatic Data Center
Tuesday, Dec. 8, 1:00 p.m. Climate Change Science on a Sphere, presented by Sandy MacDonald, NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory
Wednesday, Dec. 9, 12:00 p.m. The Critical Role of Climate Literacy in addressing Climate Change, presented by Frank Niepold, NOAA Climate Program Office
Thursday, Dec. 10, 10:15 a.m. Climate Change Toolkit: Wildlife and Wildlands Videoconference, presented by EPA and Peg Steffen, NOAA National Ocean Service
Monday, Dec. 14, 4:15 a.m. Climate Services: Providing the Information that People Need for a Changing World, presented by Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator
Monday, Dec. 14 7:00 a.m. Clim’City: An Interactive Informal Educational Network, presented by Ned Gardiner, NOAA Climate Program Office
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 4:15 a.m. Oceans and Ecosystems in a Changing Climate, presented by Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

Environmental Protection Agency: Climate Change Danger!

Posted on | December 11, 2009 | Comments Off

The EPA announced:

“After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people.” [view the whole statement at
http://worldcitizen.net/green/2009/12/08/epa-greenhouse-gases-threaten-public-health-and-the-environment/]

The timing of this announcement at the opening of the Copenhagen Climate Conference makes for an interesting political study. The Copenhagen Climate Conference will require Congress to authorize any agreement on behalf of the United States. Quite a few observers have noted that the lobbyist and special interest groups will prevent any substantial change in policy.

The Executive Branch may have just circumvented Congress through the EPA. Now, the Environmental Protection Agency can pass regulations that could be far more dramatic than the “cap-and-trade” proposals.

A glimpse of things to come might be found in the second sentence of their release, “EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.” The EPA already has proposed massive reductions in green house gases for light-duty vehicles. It is possible that the EPA could step-up the MPG regulations required by automakers or even go so far as to ban CO2 emissions.

The EPA’s 2009 Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report may give additional insight as to what industries are first in line for new regulations:
Energy
Industrial Processes
Solvent and Other Product Use
Agriculture
Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry
Waste

Response To EPA On Climate Change

Posted on | December 11, 2009 | Comments Off

From Wit’s End (in response to http://buylow.com/environment/2009/12/11/environmental-protection-agency-climate-change-danger/)

My understanding is that in addition to Obama and Lisa Jackson, most activists would prefer congressional action rather than having to fall back on the EPA regulations, because that will get bogged down by infinite lawsuits and wind up being less effective.

Did you read this??

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091206183705.htm

I swear, it’s the money shot. I haven’t had a chance to visit the websites of the organizations represented, but that’s my homework tonight.

We know something is killing trees – and other plants. It’s probably a bunch of very complicated chemical interactions, I think – not just straightforward cumulative ozone. It’s happening too suddenly to be just ozone. And the reason I think it’s got something to do with nitrogen is the concurrent spreading of certain lichens that just love nitrous oxide.

And it’s obviously also a topic that has been on the sidelines, but recently more bona fide scientists are saying we have to take a look at the other greenhouse gases besides CO2.

Interesting times!

Scientists Fly to the Ends of the Earth

Posted on | November 5, 2009 | Comments Off

Broomfield, Colo. – NOAA scientists took off Saturday on the second phase of a mission that, when complete, will provide a detailed view of how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are distributed globally. Monitoring the increasing levels of greenhouse gases and black carbon aerosols in the atmosphere is crucial to understanding human-caused climate change.

“Missions such as this one are critical to understanding the impacts of greenhouse gases and particulates,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The data collected are also essential to help verify if policies to reduce these heat trapping pollutants are having their intended effect.”

Fred Moore and Ryan Spackman, researchers from NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), took off early Saturday with five NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) instruments on a modified Gulfstream aircraft. Their roller-coaster tour of the planet will take them from pole to pole, dipping and climbing repeatedly between altitudes of 1,000 feet and 47,000 feet. ESRL and CIRES, a joint institute of the University of Colorado and NOAA, are located in Boulder, Colo.

Their flights, planned to continue through December, are part of the HIPPO Mission, a multiagency, multiyear effort to paint a three-dimensional portrait of the atmosphere. HIPPO, for HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations of Greenhouse Gases, is funded and operated jointly by the National Science Foundation, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and NOAA. HIAPER – the High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform – is the NSF’s Gulfstream V aircraft.

Steve Wofsy of Harvard University is leading HIPPO with a team of scientists from NOAA, NCAR, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of Miami, and Princeton University.

“While we have ground-based stations that measure carbon dioxide at specific locations, HIPPO is giving us a view of how carbon dioxide is distributed globally at different altitudes and during different seasons,” said Jim Elkins, Ph.D., a NOAA ESRL atmospheric physicist. The team is pleased with the success of the first phase of HIPPO flights last January, which gathered data in cross-sections of the atmosphere from pole to pole, he said.

Information gathered during these flights will be critical for both climate modelers seeking to understand Earth’s future and policymakers who rely on accurate science for decision-making. This research and decades of greenhouse gas monitoring are part of NOAA’s suite of climate services.

Three more sets of flights are planned over the next two years to fill in additional data during different seasons and from areas where few previous measurements have been made. HIPPO’s second phase will cover the central and eastern Pacific, departing from Colorado with stops in Alaska, Hawaii, Rarotonga of the Cook Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and the Solomon Islands. A fly-over of the NOAA American Samoa observatory is also planned.

NOAA scientists have been monitoring greenhouse gases through a ground-based, global network for nearly 40 years. As these gases move up through different layers of the atmosphere, they may persist for a time or be altered or destroyed in the upper atmosphere. The HIPPO Mission flights will give scientists a clearer picture of the distribution of greenhouse gases throughout the atmosphere.

NOAA scientists designed five instruments for analyzing air samples onboard HIPPO flights. They have the ability to detect and measure more than 30 major and minor greenhouse gases as well as water vapor, ozone, and soot particles.

“We are providing flight planning and weather support, measurements of all greenhouse gases and some carbon isotopes, and in-flight measurement of non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases and black carbon,” Elkins said.

Eric Hintsa of CIRES and Elkins will be flying on subsequent legs of HIPPO phase II. Other scientists involved in leadership, flight planning and overall coordination on the ground are Steven Montzka, David Fahey, Ru-shan Gao, and Karen Rosenlof of NOAA, and Geoff Dutton, Molly Heller, Ben Miller, J. David Nance, Eric Ray, Joshua Schwarz, Colm Sweeney, Jack Higgs, and Sonja Wolter of CIRES.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.