NY Times: Sea Level Rise Becomes REAL for Army Corps

November 11, 2009

New Army Corps Policy Forces Project Designers to Consider Rising Seas

By TARYN LUNTZ of Greenwire

The Army Corps of Engineers must consider the effects of climate change as it draws up plans for flood control, navigation and other water projects under a new agency policy.

The idea is to keep rising seas from swamping major federal investments.

"You don't want to make stupid large investments that are difficult or impossible to undo," said Jeffrey Gebert, the Army Corps' chief of coastal planning in the Philadelphia district and a member of the team that drafted the policy.

In some cases, extra up-front investment could armor projects against worst-case scenarios, the policy's authors say. In others, the corps could leave room for future adjustments.

"If you look at something like a levee in the Sacramento area and say we're going to design it to a certain height, well, if we get a higher sea-level rise, then a levee won't provide 100-year protection anymore," said Kevin Knuuti, engineering chief in the Sacramento district and the lead technical author of the policy. "We can either build it extra-high now, which is expensive and will cost more to design, or maybe we can do things that will make it easier to modify the project in the future, if the need arises."

Planning for future changes in the case of the Sacramento levee, Knuuti said, might mean purchasing extra land to accommodate future widening.

Officials said existing projects also will be evaluated with rising seas in mind.

"There is no grandfathering," said Kathleen White, the corps' senior leader for global and climate change initiatives. "It's going to apply to everything. We are going to have to undergo a large effort to evaluate our projects to see what this guidance may mean to them."

Experts said the policy signals a shift in the culture of corps leaders, some of whom rose in the ranks during a time of growing awareness about rising seas.

"The people who had just joined this corps when we were pushing this idea, 25 years later, they're now the bosses," said Jim Titus, a U.S. EPA researcher who specialized in sea-level rise.

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World Ocean Warmest on Record this Summer

WASHINGTON — The world's in hot water. Sea-surface temperatures worldwide have been the hottest on record over the last three months, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.

Ocean temperatures averaged 62.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the June-August period, 1.04 degree higher than normal for the period.

And for August the world sea-surface average was 62.4 degrees, 1.03 higher than usual, also the warmest for August on record, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said.

The report is based on data back to 1880.

The combined land and water temperature worldwide was 61.2 degrees, third warmest on record for the three-month period. For August it was 58.2 degrees, fourth warmest.

Climate change has been raising the planet's average temperature steadily in recent decades. All of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 1997.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/16/worlds-oceans-warmest-on-_n_289210.html

In hot water: World's ocean temps warmest recorded

By SETH BORENSTEIN (AP)

WASHINGTON — The world's oceans this summer are the warmest on record.

The National Climatic Data Center, the government agency that keeps weather records, says the average global ocean temperature in July was 62.6 degrees. That's the hottest since record-keeping began in 1880. The previous record was set in 1998.

Meteorologists blame a combination of a natural El Nino weather pattern on top of worsening manmade global warming. The warmer water could add to the melting of sea ice and possibly strengthen some hurricanes.

The result has meant lots of swimming at beaches in Maine with pleasant 72-degree water. Ocean temperatures reached 88 degrees as far north as Ocean City, Md., this week.

The Gulf of Mexico, where warm water fuels hurricanes, has temperatures dancing around 90. Most of the water in the Northern Hemisphere has been considerably warmer than normal. The Mediterranean is about three degrees warmer than normal. Higher temperatures rule in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

It's most noticeable near the Arctic, where water temperatures are as much as 10 degrees above average.

Breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land. That's because water takes longer to heat up and doesn't cool off as easily, said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

"This is another yet really important indicator of the change that's occurring," Weaver said.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

At Risk From Rising Seas, Tuvalu Seeks Clean Power (Reuters)

Alister Doyle

OSLO - The Pacific island state of Tuvalu set a goal Sunday of a 100 percent shift to renewable energy by 2020, hoping to set an example to industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gases it blames for rising sea levels.

Tuvalu, a string of coral atolls whose highest point is 4.5 meters (15 ft) above sea level, estimates it would cost just over $20 million to generate all electricity for its 12,000 people from solar and wind power and end dependence on diesel.

"We look forward to the day when our nation offers an example to all -- powered entirely by natural resources such as the sun and the wind," Kausea Natano, minister for public utilities and industries, said in setting the 2020 target.

Tuvalu and many other low-lying atolls in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean fear that rising sea levels could wipe them off the map. They want governments to agree a strong new U.N. deal in Copenhagen in December to slow climate change.

Natano said in a statement that Tuvalu's own efforts to curb the islanders' tiny greenhouse gas emissions "will strengthen our voice" in the negotiations.

A first $410,000 solar system on the roof of the main soccer stadium in the capital, Funafuti, has been generating 5 percent of electricity for the town since it was installed in late 2008.

The installation was led by Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co. backed by Tokyo Electric Power Co. Both are members of the e8, an international non-profit organization of 10 utilities from the Group of Eight industrialized countries.

SOLAR-POWERED SCHOOL

G8 leaders at a July 8-10 summit in Italy promised to help the poor cope with climate change, but have not yet said how much cash or technology they will provide.
"We are hoping to secure assistance from our traditional donor partners and any other funding assistance to achieve (the) ultimate goal" of 100 percent renewable power, Natano said.

Tuvalu says that "king tides" whipped up by more powerful cyclones are already bringing salt water onto crops.

Sea levels rose 17 cm (6 inches) in the 20th century and the U.N. Climate Panel estimated in 2007 they could rise by another 18-59 cm by 2100, and perhaps even more if a thaw of Greenland or Antarctica accelerates.

Tuvalu, a group of atolls covering 26 sq km, aims to expand the e8 project from 40 to 60 kilowatts and extend solar power to outer islands, starting this year with an $800,000 solar power system for a school in Vaitupu funded by the Italian government.

"The plight of Tuvalu versus the rising tide vividly represents the worst early consequence of climate change," said Takao Shiraishi, general manager of Kansai Electric Power Co.

The islands, halfway between Australia and Hawaii, would keep generators as back-up sources of power. Tuvalu's average fuel consumption is 5,000 liters of imported diesel per day.

Tuvalu's annual emissions of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels, are just 0.4 ton per inhabitant against more than 20 per American.

Al Gore's new Talk at TED

Study shows how marine microorganisms affect ocean warming

The Earth's climate system is affected by the world's oceans which have contributed to climate change deceleration by absorbing up to 33% of the human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. But a team of marine researchers from Germany has shed light on how biological factors could also play a role in this process. The results were recently published in the journal PNAS.

Read more HERE

ENVIRONMENT: Coral Reefs Lucky – This Time

MELBOURNE, May 6 (IPS) - Scientists have been surprised by the rapid recovery of coral reefs from mass bleaching on Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef, but they warn that reefs remain particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Read more HERE

Nature: Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C

More than 100 countries have adopted a global warming limit of 2 °C or below (relative to pre-industrial levels) as a guiding principle for mitigation efforts to reduce climate change risks, impacts and damages^1, 2. However, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions corresponding to a specified maximum warming are poorly known owing to uncertainties in the carbon cycle and the climate response. Here we provide a comprehensive probabilistic analysis aimed at quantifying GHG emission budgets for the 2000–50 period that would limit warming throughout the twenty-first century to below 2 °C, based on a combination of published distributions of climate system properties and observational constraints. We show that, for the chosen class of emission scenarios, both cumulative emissions up to 2050 and emission levels in 2050 are robust indicators of the probability that twenty-first century warming will not exceed 2 °C relative to pre-industrial temperatures. Limiting cumulative CO₂ emissions over 2000–50 to 1,000 Gt CO₂ yields a 25% probability of warming exceeding 2 °C—and a limit of 1,440 Gt CO₂ yields a 50% probability—given a representative estimate of the distribution of climate system properties. As known 2000–06 CO₂ emissions³ were 234 Gt CO₂, less than half the proven economically recoverable oil, gas and coal reserves^4, 5, 6 can still be emitted up to 2050 to achieve such a goal. Recent G8 Communiqués⁷ envisage halved global GHG emissions by 2050, for which we estimate a 12–45% probability of exceeding 2 °C—assuming 1990 as emission base year and a range of published climate sensitivity distributions. Emissions levels in 2020 are a less robust indicator, but for the scenarios considered, the probability of exceeding 2 °C rises to 53–87% if global GHG emissions are still more than 25% above 2000 levels in 2020.

Read more HERE