Climate change - we have been warned Editorial New Scientist Print Edition 4 November 06 "The language of economics carries a lot more clout than talk of global temperature change and ocean circulation" CLIMATE change used to be a scientific issue, the preserve of labs and learned conferences. No longer. It has become a major economic and political one, and not before time. Confining discussion about climate change to the language of science has for some time been holding back public debate and political action. Two recent events have contributed to this shift. Last week, the British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett sought to redefine climate change as a global security issue. She argued that changing weather systems lie behind the conflict in Darfur in Sudan, where they are causing pastoralists and farmers to fight over any land where rain falls. "There will be more Darfurs," she warned. Then this week came the Stern report. A former chief economist at the World Bank, Nicholas Stern has produced the first detailed analysis of the impact of climate change and efforts to address it on the global economy (see "Low carbon now"). Stern makes no claim to be advancing climate science: he takes the scientific background off the shelf. His concern is economics, and this means he talks in terms that politicians - and the public - understand. He sees climate change as threatening an economic crisis that would cut living standards by 20 per cent and plunge the world into a recession worse than that of the 1930s. This carries a lot more clout than talk of global temperature change, ocean circulation and atmospheric composition. Disappointing as it may be to the many scientists who have done their damnedest to get the case across about the urgency of tackling global warming, the fact is that they have largely failed. Most politicians are more attuned to economics than to science, and Stern has gone for the political jugular. His report, commissioned by the British government, has also demolished the argument of some economists that it is better to adapt to warming than try to halt it. He points out that the economic damage from climate change in this century alone could be 20 times the cost of solving it for all time. "Economically speaking, mitigation is a very good deal," Stern said when launching the report at the Royal Society in London on Monday. As Michael Grubb of Imperial College London put it: "The Stern review finally closes a chasm that has existed for 15 years between the precautionary concerns of scientists and the cost-benefit views of many economists." Stern even manages to offer a good-news story to combat those who, with supreme selfishness, characterise his report as a blueprint for higher taxes. While there are undoubtedly short-term costs in halting soaring emissions of greenhouse gases, there are also gains - in new jobs, new technologies and new industries. By pulling the right economic levers, the world can combine the pursuit of a low-carbon economy with the pursuit of profit, something many leaders in the UK and elsewhere have already pointed out (see interview with Tony Blair on "'If I see creationism becoming mainstream ... that's when to worry'"). So if you accept the science, and you accept the economics - and by now, let's face it, everyone should - the question is what should we be doing to prevent the scenario that Stern predicts. This is where it gets tricky. We know that humanity can afford to emit only another hundred billion or so tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere before the global economy suffers serious damage. The crucial question is how to ration those remaining pollution rights. Everyone, from the richest to the world's poorest, has to be on board, so an equitable approach is imperative - one based ultimately on the size of populations. The average amount of carbon used by each person across the world is 1 tonne a year, and clearly some of us use a lot more than others. The only fair way forward is to share the quota equally among the global population and then reduce it over the coming century by about 90 per cent. Nations, companies and even individuals would then be able to trade their entitlements, which would encourage the very low-carbon technologies we need to introduce. This is what the world's governments meeting in Kenya next week to resume their negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto protocol should be considering. Having adopted the language of economics, the battle against climate change now needs to find a democratic and an ethical voice. From issue 2576 of New Scientist magazine, 04 November 2006, page 3

No new ice age for western Europe Zeeya Merali New Scientist Print Edition 04 November 2006 FEARS that a shutdown of ocean currents is about to plunge Europe into a mini ice age receded last week. New measurements have failed to show clear evidence that the current is weakening, and models of the North Atlantic show that a shutdown would not occur in the way oceanographers had expected. Currents in the North Atlantic, dominated by the Gulf Stream, carry warm water north from the tropics towards Europe. During the winter, this water warms the westerly winds travelling from America, keeping the climate in western Europe milder than it would otherwise be. The circulation is driven by density differences in the water arising from variations in temperature and salinity. Global warming reduces temperature differences, because higher latitudes warm more than the tropics, and salinity differences could be affected by increased meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet flowing into the sea. Climatologists had feared that together these factors could shut down the North Atlantic circulation altogether. Last year, Harry Bryden at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), in Southampton, UK, heightened fears that the worst was about to happen when he reported what seemed to be a 30 per cent reduction in these currents (New Scientist, 3 December 2005, p 6). His controversial conclusion drew on very few measurements. "The results were based on just five snapshots of the circulation patterns over the past 50 years," says Meric Srokosz, also at the NOC. Now an array of ocean sensors set up in the Atlantic in 2004 is allowing more thorough monitoring to take place, and last week at the Rapid Climate Change Conference in Birmingham, UK, Bryden announced the results from the first year's measurements. "We've got a variable signal, but it's too early to detect any trends," he says. While the measurements are inconclusive on whether ocean circulation is shutting down, climate modellers are emphatic. "The answer is simply no," says Johann Jungclaus at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, who modelled ice sheet effects. "Abrupt climate change initiated by the ice sheet melting is not a realistic scenario for the 21st century." Though global warming will slow ocean circulation, beyond a certain point it does not get worse, Jungclaus says. His conclusion is echoed by a team led by Thierry Fichefet at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, who found that additional freshwater would have very little extra effect on the circulation. "It's a surprising result," says Richard Woods, chief oceanographer at the Hadley Centre for Climate Change in Exeter, UK. "The findings depend strongly on the particular models being used." Not everyone is convinced. Michael Schlesinger at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says the models haven't allowed for the recent discovery that crevasses in the ice sheet can allow water to flow down to the bedrock, providing extra lubrication. It is believed that this could greatly accelerate the melt-rate. From issue 2576 of New Scientist magazine, 04 November 2006, page 13

Flashback: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York Sunday February 22, 2004 The Observer Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years Threat to the world is greater than terrorism Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents. 'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.' The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority. The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network. An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions. Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change. Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change. A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch. One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible. Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change. Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.' Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored. 'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson. 'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace. Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated. Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.' Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said. 'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.' So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign. The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence. Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.' Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added. Comment: The Observer writes: "The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority." Well, maybe that is disingenuous. Maybe the leaders of the world know that this is the truth and they have all agreed to pretend to be at odds with each other so as to create wars which will eliminate millions - or billions - of "useless eaters." Or maybe Bush is setting the US up to be the "king of the mountain"? Not only can the US eliminate billions of people, they can then take all their resources for the "chosen people." It's difficult to tell what the liars do or don't know, the only thing that is certain is that it does not look good for most of humanity. And, as Dave McGowan wrote: "Perhaps you are thinking that this type of future is not for you. You'd really prefer something a little different. That's unfortunate, because the future holds very few options. Here's Campbell again, concluding his mini version of Mein Kampf: Another problem is likely to be the residual opposition to population reduction from sentimentalists and/or religious extremists unable to understand that the days of plenty, when criminals and the weak could be cherished at public expense, are over. Acts of violent protest, such as are carried out today by animal rights activists and anti-abortionists, would, in the Darwinian world, attract capital punishment. Population reduction must be single-minded to succeed. "So it appears as though those who fight back against the agenda will likely be summarily executed, while those who passively go with the flow stand about a 95% chance of being killed off anyway. With odds like that, I would think that fighting back might be a good idea. By any means available. And sooner rather than later." Better do a quick re-read of Laura's two recent articles: 94% and Political Ponerology. And again we say: get a copy of The Secret History of The World and How to Get Out Alive. This ain't just an advertisement, either because you can get all the info that is in the book by reading everything on this site. But if you want to have the info available when the system locks down, and if you want it condensed and explicated clearly, get the book. Save yourself (and those you love) some time and grief in the coming "Hard Times."

Flashback: Stark warning over climate change Monday, 30 January 2006, 09:39 GMT Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases may have more serious impacts than previously believed, a major new scientific report has said. The report, published by the UK government, says there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below "dangerous" levels. It fears the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea levels to rise by seven metres over 1,000 years. The poorest countries will be most vulnerable to these effects, it adds. The report, "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change", collates evidence presented by scientists at a conference hosted by the UK Meteorological Office in February 2005. The conference set two principal objectives: to ask what level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is too much, and what are the options for avoiding such levels? Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said the report's conclusions would be a shock to many people. "The thing that is perhaps not so familiar to members of the public... is this notion that we could come to a tipping point where change could be irreversible," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "We're not talking about it happening over five minutes, of course, maybe over a thousand years, but it's the irreversibility that I think brings it home to people." Vulnerable ecosystems One collection of scientific papers sets out the impacts associated with various levels of temperature increase. "Above a one degree Celsius increase, risks increase significantly, often rapidly for vulnerable ecosystems and species," concludes Bill Hare from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research in Germany, who produced an overview of more than 70 studies of impacts on water resources, agriculture and wildlife. "In the one to two degree range, risks across the board increase significantly, and at a regional level are often substantial," he writes. "Above two degrees the risks increase very substantially, involving potentially large numbers of extinctions or even ecosystem collapses, major increases in hunger and water shortage risks as well as socio-economic damages, particularly in developing countries." The European Union has adopted a target of preventing a rise in global average temperature of more than two Celsius. That, according to the report, might be too high, with two degrees perhaps being enough to trigger melting of the Greenland ice sheet. This would have a major impact on sea levels globally, though it would take up to 1,000 years to see the full predicted rise of seven metres. The western half of the much larger Antarctic ice sheet is also causing concern to the British Antarctic Survey, whose head Chris Rapley describes it as a "sleeping giant". Previous assessments had concluded the ice here was unlikely to melt in significant amounts in the foreseeable future; but Professor Rapley says that question needs revisiting in the light of new evidence. Unfeasible targets A key task undertaken by some scientists contributing to the report was to calculate which greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere would be enough to cause these "dangerous" temperature increases. Currently, the atmosphere contains about 380 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, compared to levels before the industrial revolution of about 275ppm. "For achieving the two Celsius target with a probability of more than 60%, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at 450 ppm CO2-equivalent or below," conclude Michel den Elzen from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Malte Meinshausen of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. "A stabilisation at 450 ppm CO2-equivalent requires global emissions to peak around 2015, followed by substantial overall reductions in the order of 30%-40% compared to 1990 levels in 2050." But, speaking on Today, the UK government's chief scientific advisor Sir David King said that is unlikely to happen. "We're going to be at 400 parts per million in 10 years time, I predict that without any delight in saying it," he said. "But no country is going to turn off a power station which is providing much-desired energy for its population to tackle this problem - we have to accept that. "To aim for 450 (ppm) would, I am afraid, seem unfeasible." A rise of two Celsius, researchers conclude, will be enough to cause: * Decreasing crop yields in the developing and developed world * Tripling of poor harvests in Europe and Russia * Large-scale displacement of people in north Africa from desertification * Up to 2.8bn people at risk of water shortage * 97% loss of coral reefs * Total loss of summer Arctic sea ice causing extinction of the polar bear and the walrus * Spread of malaria in Africa and north America But Miles Allen, a lecturer on atmospheric physics at Oxford University, said assessing a "safe level" of CO2 in the atmosphere was "a bit like asking a doctor what's a safe number of cigarettes to smoke per day". "There isn't one but at the same time people do smoke and live until they're 90," he told Today. "It's one of those difficult areas where we're talking about changing degrees of risk rather than a very definite number after which we can say with absolute certainty that certain things will happen." Technological hope On the other question asked at the 2005 conference - what are the options for avoiding dangerous concentrations in greenhouse gas emissions - the report is more equivocal. Technological options do exist, it concludes, such as ways to increase energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and "clean coal" processes. Financial mechanisms which can increase their uptake, such as emissions trading, are also in existence. The big issue is how quickly they will be adopted, and by what proportion of governments. "For all stabilisation strategies, the biggest problem does not seem to be the technologies or the costs, but overcoming the many political, social and behavioural barriers to implementing mitigation options," conclude Bert Metz and Detlef van Vuuren of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. "There is a multitude of potential obstacles, ranging from lack of awareness, vested interests, prices not reflecting environmental impacts, cultural and behavioural barriers to change and, in the case of spreading technologies to developing countries, the lack of an effective enabling environment for new investments."

Flashback: Climate change 'irreversible' as Arctic sea ice fails to re-form By Steve Connor, Science Editor 14 March 2006 Sea ice in the Arctic has failed to re-form for the second consecutive winter, raising fears that global warming may have tipped the polar regions in to irreversible climate change far sooner than predicted. Satellite measurements of the area of the Arctic covered by sea ice show that for every month this winter, the ice failed to return even to its long-term average rate of decline. It is the second consecutive winter that the sea ice has not managed to re-form enough to compensate for the unprecedented melting seen during the past few summers. Scientists are now convinced that Arctic sea ice is showing signs of both a winter and a summer decline that could indicate a major acceleration in its long-term rate of disappearance. The greatest fear is that an environmental "positive feedback" has kicked in, where global warming melts ice which in itself causes the seas to warm still further as more sunlight is absorbed by a dark ocean rather than being reflected by white ice. Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, said: "In September 2005, the Arctic sea ice cover was at its lowest extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979, and probably the lowest in the past 100 years. While we can't be certain, it looks like 2006 will be more of the same," Dr Serreze said. "Unless conditions turn colder, we may be headed for another year of big sea ice losses, rivalling or perhaps even exceeding what we saw in September 2005. We are of course monitoring the situation closely ... Coupled with recent findings from Nasa that the Greenland ice sheet may be near a tipping point, it's pretty clear that the Arctic is starting to respond to global warming," he added. Although sea levels are not affected by melting sea ice - which floats on the ocean - the Arctic ice cover is thought to be a key moderator of the northern hemisphere's climate. It helps to stabilise the massive land glaciers and ice sheets of Greenland which have the capacity to raise sea levels dramatically. Dr Serreze said that some parts of the northern hemisphere experienced very low temperatures this winter, but the Arctic was much warmer than normal. "Even in January, when there were actually record low temperatures in Alaska and parts of Russia, it was still very warm over the Arctic Ocean," he said. "The sea ice cover waxes and wanes with the seasons. It partly melts in spring and summer, then grows back in autumn and winter. It has not recovered well this past winter - ice extent for every month since September 2005 has been far below average. And it's been so warm in the Arctic that the ice that has grown this winter is probably rather thin," he explained. Professor Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, who was the first Briton to monitor Arctic sea ice from nuclear submarines, said: "One of the big changes this winter is that a large area of the Barents Sea has remained ice-free for the first time. This is part of Europe's 'back yard'. Climate models did predict a retreat of sea ice in the Barents Sea but not for a few decades yet, so it is a sign that the changes that were predicted are indeed happening, but much faster than predicted."

Flashback: Climate change: The great Atlantic shutdown and the Coming Ice Age New Scientist Print Edition 15 April 06 IS EUROPE'S central-heating system about to break down, causing climate chaos around the world? Late last year, oceanographers reported a sudden and shocking slowdown in the currents of the North Atlantic, a critical part of the vast system of ocean circulation that influences temperatures and weather around the world. A shutdown could cause famine in south Asia, kill off the Amazon rainforest and plunge western Europe into a mini ice age. However, if you live in Europe, don't order that snowcat just yet. The conclusions reported last year have been dismissed by many climate scientists, who say their models show the current will keep going for at least another hundred years or so. So what is really going on? Are changes in ocean circulation about to turn our lives upside down, or is this something only our grandchildren will have to cope with? This vital question is in doubt because the behaviour of ocean currents is still remarkably obscure. On a crude level, the oceans of the world are linked together by a network of currents sometimes called the global conveyor, with warm surface flows connecting to cold deep currents. The conveyor is driven by winds and by a more complicated process called thermohaline circulation - and this is the process that has climatologists worried. As its name implies, thermohaline circulation depends on heat and salt. An offshoot of the Gulf Stream called the North Atlantic Drift flows all the way to the seas off Greenland and Norway. Evaporation makes the water saltier, so as it is chilled by Arctic winds it becomes denser than the waters underneath it and sinks. It then spills back southward over the undersea ledges between Greenland and Scotland to form a slow, cold, undersea river called the North Atlantic Deep Water. This flows all the way to the Southern Ocean, with some water going as far the Indian Ocean, where it gradually wells up again, perhaps a millennium after it sank. The weak link is the sinking process. Climate change is injecting ever more fresh water into the Arctic by increasing river flows and accelerating the calving of icebergs from Greenland. This fresh water dilutes the North Atlantic Drift, reducing its density and making it more buoyant. If the fresh water input reaches a critical rate, around 100,000 tonnes per second, sinking could stop entirely. The northern branch of the conveyor would stop, and warm tropical waters would no longer flow past the west coast of Europe. With that million-gigawatt heat supply switched off, climate models suggest that air temperatures in the region could fall by between 5 and 10 °C, and parts of the US and Canada would suffer too. A switch-off like this is blamed for a cold snap 12,000 years ago called the Younger Dryas, which turned the forests of Scandinavia into tundra. Could it be happening again? That spectre was raised in December by Harry Bryden of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK. His team took a ship from Florida to the coast of North Africa, stopping at 120 points en route to lower a bundle of instruments all the way to the sea floor. The researchers compared their results with similar measurements made at irregular intervals since 1957. According to their analysis, the deep, cold return leg of the circulation has weakened by 30 per cent (New Scientist, 3 December 2005, p 6). If that has slowed, they reasoned, then the northward branch of warm water must have slowed too. In fact, the slowdown seems to have started nearly a decade ago. When the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration made a similar survey of the Atlantic in 1998 it was interested in carbon dioxide levels and did not calculate the flow rate. When Bryden's team did the sums, they found the flow had been relatively steady between 1957 and 1992, dropped off by 1998 and remained low. Bryden's paper prompted some nervous press coverage. "There were alarming stories saying that the sky is falling," says Carl Wunsch, a physical oceanographer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's a complicated story reduced to a fairytale". In fact, Bryden's measurements are not proof of imminent cataclysm. One question mark is whether his team has simply seen short-term fluctuations in the ocean. "The ocean is a very turbulent beast. We tend to assume that at great depth it is quiet, but that's not necessarily so," says Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam in Germany. Wunsch likens it to the vagaries of the weather: "It might get colder for a few days in England, but you don't necessarily say we're entering a new ice age." Bryden, however, thinks his team has found more than a stutter. "If we just had the 1998 data we'd be nervous, but 2004 is similar to 1998," he says. Are the models wrong? There are other reasons to be cautious. Climate models do not predict any substantial slowdown in Atlantic currents until near the end of this century. "It would mean all our models are wrong," says Rahmstorf. Bryden thinks they might well be: "I think if we measure a slowdown, the models will follow." The trouble for Bryden is that not all observations fit in with his conclusions. If less warm water is flowing north, the seas off western Europe ought to be cooler than normal. They are not. In fact, these waters are slightly warmer than a decade ago. And direct measurements of the cold, deep currents that spill southwards over the ledges joining Scotland, Iceland and Greenland do not show a downward trend. Although these currents did slow between 1995 and 2000, they have picked up again. "We are faced with conflicting evidence," says Rahmstorf. How to resolve this conflict? It is possible that Bryden's group has got its physics wrong. Like other groups, the team did not measure flow rates directly, but instead calculated them from measurements of temperature and salinity. Rahmstorf and Wunsch both point out that these calculations rely on assumptions that are far from proven. Or it could be that the currents are changing in ways that no one has anticipated. There is a vast stretch of ocean between Bryden's measurements at 25° north and the overspill at around 65°. In between, the warm surface current becomes meandering and unstable, and difficult to measure, says oceanographer Tore Furevik of the University of Bergen in Norway. "There are certainly large changes going on beneath the surface of the North Atlantic, but we are still missing too many pieces in the puzzle to get the picture clear," he says. For the moment, this rather unsatisfactory answer is the best we have. Oceanographers and climate scientists agree that thermohaline circulation will slow as the world warms, but most think it will happen later rather than sooner. In its report due next year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is likely to predict a slowdown of at most 50 per cent by the end of this century. This prediction, however, relies on estimates of the freshwater input. While the discharge from Siberian rivers is being monitored, that from Canadian rivers is not. The input from the Greenland ice cap could change too. The glaciers that drain the ice cap are accelerating, and in the past decade the amount of ice they spit into the ocean has doubled. Nobody can predict with confidence what they will do in the coming decades. "At the moment models don't represent the dynamics of Greenland glaciers, which may or may not start moving faster," says Richard Wood of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, UK. What all this means is that even if Bryden is wrong and Atlantic circulation is not yet slowing, a shutdown could still happen sooner than most models predict. Farming hit hard For Europe, the timing of any slowdown or shutdown is critical. If it does happen soon, the weather will certainly get chilly. Average temperatures would be about 5 °C lower, and winters could be as harsh as those in Newfoundland. In bad years the Thames might freeze over, and even in good years farming will be hit hard. On the other hand, if currents hold fairly steady until the late 21st century, the cooling effect of a shutdown would help to mitigate warming. There might be drastic changes in other aspects of the climate - not to mention a relatively rapid rise in sea level around the northern Atlantic (see "Rising waters") - but Europeans might escape much of the warming that occurs elsewhere. Their distant descendants might need those snowcats, though. If greenhouse gases do eventually fall to pre-industrial levels and the world cools down again, there could be a lag of a thousand years before ocean circulation restarts. So Europe still faces the big freeze - just not for a few hundred years. Coming back to this century, other parts of the world face even more serious consequences than Europe. A slowdown in the thermohaline circulation would reduce the transfer of heat from the southern to the northern hemisphere, shifting the Earth's "thermal equator" to the south. "One of the things that really struck us is that rainfall patterns over the whole world change dramatically," says Wood. When he tried artificially switching off thermohaline circulation in one climate model, he found that monsoon rains weaken over India, and parts of central and south America lose half their rainfall. "It would have a huge impact on the climate of those regions," says Wood. He estimates that agricultural productivity in parts of India could fall by 30 per cent. And in the Americas? "If you lose the rain then the rainforest tends to die out." Although all of this is based on an imminent shutdown, which climatologists think very unlikely, even a delayed slowdown could seriously disturb rainfall patterns. Wood's model also predicts that a shutdown would warm the southern hemisphere by 0.2 °C on average - not much, but against a background of rising global temperatures any extra warming will hardly be welcome. In 2004, Brazil was hit by the first ever hurricane recorded in the South Atlantic, perhaps a consequence of rising sea-surface temperatures. Could a slowdown in circulation have contributed? "Theoretically, this is possible," says Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in Philadelphia, "but I think it would be a leap to tie any observed change to thermohaline circulation. It could just be fluke." While the precise effects on the climate remain uncertain, there is little doubt that a shutdown will wreak serious damage beneath the waves, since upwelling waters supply vital nutrients to the phytoplankton that are the basis of ocean food chains. A study last year predicted that the productivity of the world's oceans would fall by a fifth if the Atlantic thermohaline circulation shuts down. There's more. At the moment, the oceans are soaking up a lot of the excess carbon dioxide pouring into the atmosphere. Without the thermohaline circulation, however, surface waters will soon become saturated and greenhouse gases will build up faster still. Any reduction in carbon fixing as forests and ocean ecosystems fail would only compound the effect. A lot therefore depends on what is really happening in the Atlantic. To find out, the UK has launched a project called RAPID, an unprecedented effort to monitor North Atlantic currents. In 2004, on the same voyage that found the controversial signs of a slowdown, Bryden's team planted a series of 22 moorings along a line from Africa to America (see Diagram). Cables fixed to the seafloor tether instrument packages that are constantly measuring ocean properties such temperature and salinity. With continuous measurements now coming in from the Atlantic, it should be possible to distinguish between short-term fluctuations and a longer-term trend. "Soon we'll find what seasonal variability there is and know whether what we said was a 30 per cent slowdown was above the noise level. I'm hoping we'll eventually be able to get 10 years' worth of measurements." Then again, monitoring a single cross section of one ocean might not be enough. "People are obsessed with the North Atlantic and it's only 10 per cent of the ocean," Wunsch says. "There is a danger we're neglecting the rest." For example, there are areas of sinking ocean water around Antarctica that also help to drive the global ocean circulation. "Recent papers have started to suggest there are changes happening in the Southern Ocean," says oceanographer Steve Rintoul, based in Hobart, Australia. Some studies show that the water in some Antarctic seas is getting less salty, for instance, but the picture in the Southern Ocean is even less clear than it is in the Atlantic. "We have to observe this system globally and indefinitely," says Wunsch. "But how the devil do you get governments to do that?" From issue 2547 of New Scientist magazine, 15 April 2006, page 42 Rising waters In the Hollywood disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, the shutdown of the Atlantic circulation somehow results in a giant wave crashing over New York. That is nonsense, of course, but a shutdown of the Atlantic thermohaline current would raise sea levels in the North Atlantic. At present, sinking waters in the Arctic produce a kind of plughole effect, lowering the sea level of this region and slightly raising it elsewhere. If sinking stops, sea levels will fall in the Southern Ocean and rise by up to a metre on some North Atlantic coasts. A group led by Anders Levermann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany has run a simulation that shows northern Norway getting a metre rise by the time the circulation stops altogether, while the UK, north-eastern Canada and the US see rises of up to 80 centimetres (see Map). With global sea levels also rising as the oceans warm up and glaciers melt, these regions face total rises of well over a metre by the end of the century. One NASA study shows that if the sea level was just a metre higher on the New York coast, storm surges that now occur just once in a century would happen almost every year, flooding some low-lying suburbs. In the Thames estuary, planners believe they can handle total rises of up to two metres, but if there is also a large increase in the frequency and ferocity of storms, as some models predict, then an extra half-metre rise from a thermohaline shutdown could mean abandoning some areas to the sea.

Flashback: US suffers world's first climate change exodus: study AFP by Jitendra Joshi August 16, 2006 WASHINGTON - The first mass exodus of people fleeing the disastrous effects of climate change is not happening in low-lying Pacific islands but in the world's richest country, a US study said. "The first massive movement of climate refugees has been that of people away from the Gulf Coast of the United States," said the Earth Policy Institute, which has warned for years that climate change demands action now. Institute president Lester Brown said that about a quarter of a million people who fled the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina a year ago must now be classed as "refugees". "Interestingly, the country to suffer the most damage from a hurricane is also primarily responsible for global warming," he said. The United States is the world's largest consumer of energy, but has refused to sign up to the Kyoto pact aimed at reducing emissions of gases that scientists say are to blame for heating up the Earth. Many environmentalists had expected the first big population shift to come somewhere like the Tuamotu islands in French Polynesia, the world's largest chain of atolls which rise barely metres (feet) from the Pacific. Rising sea levels are part of the problem afflicting low-lying places but, experts argue, so are tropical storms that are mounting in ferocity because of warmer ocean temperatures. Brown said many thousands of people who evacuated last year as Katrina slammed into New Orleans and other populated areas on the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts had no intention of returning. "We estimate that at least 250,000 of them have established homes elsewhere and will not return," he said. "They no longer want to face the personal trauma and financial risks associated with rising seas and more destructive storms. These evacuees are now climate refugees." Many businesses have also deserted the coastal towns left ravaged by Katrina as insurance and other costs soar, the study said. "As rising seas and more powerful hurricanes translate into higher insurance costs in these coastal communities, people are retreating inland," Brown said. "And just as companies migrate to regions with lower wages, they also migrate to regions with lower insurance costs." The study also warned: "The experience with more destructive storms in recent years is only the beginning." The institute said that since 1970, the Earth's average temperature has risen by one degree Fahrenheit, but by 2100 it could rise by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (six degrees Celsius). Rising temperatures could melt glaciers and polar ice caps, raising sea levels and displacing coastal residents worldwide. "The flow of climate refugees to date numbers in the thousands, but if we do not quickly reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions, it could one day number in the millions," Brown said. The institute's study classed "climate refugees" as part of a larger group of people who have been forced from their homes by man-made environmental change such as overgrazing. "Overgrazing destroys the vegetation which leads then to local sandstorms ... we are looking at growing flows of environmental refugees in Africa, for example in Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritania or Kenya," Brown told reporters. Millions of people in northern and western China have abandoned their villages as the land turns semi-arid because of overgrazing, the study said. China is also the second biggest greenhouse-gas polluter after the United States thanks to the voracious rise in coal, gas and oil consumption to power its economic growth. The booming port city of Shanghai could be at risk of flooding from more ferocious typhoons linked to global warming as it is only a metre (three feet) above sea level, Brown said.

Flashback: Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial David Adam, environment correspondent September 20, 2006 The Guardian Britain's leading scientists have challenged the US oil company ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence". The scientists also strongly criticise the company's public statements on global warming, which they describe as "inaccurate and misleading". In a letter earlier this month to Esso, the UK arm of ExxonMobil, the Royal Society cites its own survey which found that ExxonMobil last year distributed $2.9m to 39 groups that the society says misrepresent the science of climate change. These include the International Policy Network, a thinktank with its HQ in London, and the George C Marshall Institute, which is based in Washington DC. In 2004, the institute jointly published a report with the UK group the Scientific Alliance which claimed that global temperature rises were not related to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. "There is not a robust scientific basis for drawing definitive and objective conclusions about the effect of human influence on future climate," it said. In the letter, Bob Ward of the Royal Society writes: "At our meeting in July ... you indicated that ExxonMobil would not be providing any further funding to these organisations. I would be grateful if you could let me know when ExxonMobil plans to carry out this pledge." The letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, adds: "I would be grateful if you could let me know which organisations in the UK and other European countries have been receiving funding so that I can work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public." This is the first time the society has written to a company to challenge its activities. The move reflects mounting concern about the activities of lobby groups that try to undermine the overwhelming scientific evidence that emissions are linked to climate change. The groups, such as the US Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), whose senior figures have described global warming as a myth, are expected to launch a renewed campaign ahead of a major new climate change report. The CEI responded to the recent release of Al Gore's climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, with adverts that welcomed increased carbon dioxide pollution. The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be published in February, is expected to say that climate change could drive the Earth's temperatures higher than previously predicted. Mr Ward said: "It is now more crucial than ever that we have a debate which is properly informed by the science. For people to be still producing information that misleads people about climate change is unhelpful. The next IPCC report should give people the final push that they need to take action and we can't have people trying to undermine it." The Royal Society letter also takes issue with ExxonMobil's own presentation of climate science. It strongly criticises the company's "corporate citizenship reports", which claim that "gaps in the scientific basis" make it very difficult to blame climate change on human activity. The letter says: "These statements are not consistent with the scientific literature. It is very difficult to reconcile the misrepresentations of climate change science in these documents with ExxonMobil's claim to be an industry leader." Environmentalists regard ExxonMobil as one of the least progressive oil companies because, unlike competitors such as BP and Shell, it has not invested heavily in alternative energy sources. ExxonMobil said: "We can confirm that recently we received a letter from the Royal Society on the topic of climate change. Amongst other topics our Tomorrow's Energy and Corporate Citizenship reports explain our views openly and honestly on climate change. We would refute any suggestion that our reports are inaccurate or misleading." A spokesman added that ExxonMobil stopped funding the Competitive Enterprise Institute this year. Recent research has made scientists more confident that recent warming is man-made, a finding endorsed by scientific academies across the world, including in the US, China and Brazil. The Royal Society's move emerged as Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, warned that the polar ice caps were breaking up at a faster rate than glaciologists thought possible, with profound consequences for global sea levels. Professor Rapley said the change was almost certainly down to global warming. "It's like opening a window and seeing what's going on and the message is that it's worse than we thought," he said.

Flashback: Beckett to warn climate change a security threat By Sophie Walker LONDON (Reuters) - Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett will warn Europe on Tuesday to tackle climate change or risk terrorists seizing on famine, water shortages and failing energy infrastructures to threaten global security. In her first major foreign policy speech, to a group of experts in Berlin, Beckett will call on the European Union to lead a global push towards new technologies and renewable energy, warning EU countries are already "dangerously behind the curve". Beckett, according to a text of her speech obtained by Reuters, will cite reduced rainfall in the Middle East as a possible trigger for security problems. "Look at those things that are highest on the European agenda -- strong borders, poverty reduction, the risks of conflict and international terrorism, energy security, jobs and growth," Beckett will say. "Get our response right to climate change and our ability to deal with all of these is enhanced. Get it wrong and our efforts across the board will be undermined." Beckett's speech follows an EU leaders' meeting in Finland last week that focussed on energy policy and urged action on climate change. She will say climate change, with drastically diminishing resources in some of the most volatile parts of the world, has the potential to create a "potentially catastrophic dynamic" in regions already at breaking point. Beckett, a former environment minister, will say the Middle East is a case in point as climate models suggest Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq will be among those countries to see the biggest rainfall reductions in the world. Egypt -- a pivotal country for regional stability -- will suffer a double blow, she will say, as loss of flow from the river Nile and rising sea-levels in the north are set to destroy the country's agricultural heartland. Beckett will urge governments to produce incentives and penalties designed to drive private capital towards a low-carbon world economy. "The greatest security threat we face as a global community won't be met by guns and tanks," she will say. "It will be solved by investment in the emerging techniques of soft power -- building avenues of opportunity that will lead to a low-carbon economy."

Flashback: Climate change cannot be stopped 26/10/2006 10:45:00 FWi Climate change cannot be stopped, so the government needs to develop realistic policies that will slow it down, according to one expert. Speaking at the Tenant Farmers Association's 25th anniversary conference this week, the University of London's Emeritus Philip Stott said media-hype and the lack of a robust energy policy over the past 30 years had been major problems. "We are walking into danger if we think we can stop climate change - we can't, but we can mess up the British economy. Energy security for Britain is a very serious issue and we need a realistic policy that will slow down climate change. But let's not be conned that we can stop it." In terms of the effect on the climate, emitting gases and not emitting gases were equally unpredictable, but politically it is not something that is talked about, Professor Stott said. "Don't be taken in by the current politics around climate change - be very cautious as there are agendas attached. As farmers, the only thing you have to worry about is to adapt. What we want from government policy is flexibility. We don't want to place farming in a straight jacket." Flexibility is particularly important for tenant farmers considering growing energy crops, or going into other long-term energy projects, he noted. More important than climate change, water management will be the number one issue in the future, Professor Stott said, suggesting that some form of pricing mechanism will be needed. "We still treat water as a free good in Britain, and for the past 30 years, we have put-off measures that will help manage water use. We will have to value it for any pricing mechanism to work."

Flashback: Probe into Bush govt climate-change 'gag' 02/11/2006 AP Two US government agencies are investigating whether the Bush administration tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and censor their research, a senator says. Two US government agencies are investigating whether the Bush administration tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and censor their research, a senator says. Democrat Frank Lautenberg said he was informed that the inspectors general for the Commerce Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) had begun "co-ordinated, sweeping investigations of the Bush administration's censorship and suppression" of federal research into global warming. "These investigations are critical because the Republicans in Congress have ignored this serious problem," Lautenberg said. Republicans have controlled Congress for most of Republican president George Bush's five years in office. Lautenberg said the investigations "will uncover internal documents and agency correspondence that may expose widespread misconduct". He added: "Taxpayers do not fund scientific research so the Bush White House can alter it." Kristen Hellmer, a spokeswoman for the White House Council for Environmental Quality, said early today that the administration had supported the scientific process in its approach to studying climate change. "We have in place the most transparent system of science reporting, and claims that the administration interfered with scientists are false," she said. "Our focus is on taking action and making real progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The nearly $2bn (€1.6bn) worth of climate science we publish annually leads the world and speaks for itself." Carbon dioxide and other gases (primarily from fossil fuel-burning) that scientists say trap heat in the atmosphere have warmed the Earth's surface an average one degree over the past century. The White House has committed to reducing the "intensity" of US carbon pollution, a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic growth. But the total US emissions, now more than seven billion tons a year, are projected to rise 14% from 2002 to 2012. In February, Republican Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the Science Committee in the House of Representatives, and other congressional leaders asked Nasa to guarantee scientific openness. They complained that a public affairs officer changed or filtered information on global warming and the "Big Bang" theory of the creation of the universe. The officer, George Deutsch, a political appointee, had resigned after being accused of trying to limit reporters' access to James Hansen, a prominent Nasa climate scientist, and insisting that a web designer insert the word "theory" with any mention of the Big Bang. A report last month in the scientific journal Nature claimed administrators at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration blocked release of a report that linked hurricane strength and frequency to global warming. Hansen had said in February that NOAA has tried to prevent researchers working on global climate change from speaking freely about their work. NOAA has denied the allegations, saying its work is not politically motivated.