Climate Change Quickens, Seas Feared Up 2 Metres
Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst could raise sea levels by up to 2 metres (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a group of scientists said on Tuesday in a warning to next month’s U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.
In what they called a “Copenhagen Diagnosis”, updating findings in a broader 2007 U.N. climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
“Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations,” a joint statement said, pointing to factors including a retreat of Arctic sea ice in summer and melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.
“Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 metre by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 metres considered an upper limit,” it said. Ocean levels would keep on rising after 2100 and “several metres of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.”
Many of the authors were on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cms (7-24 inches) by 2100 but did not take account of a possible accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica.
Coastal cities from Buenos Aires to New York, island states such as Tuvalu in the Pacific or coasts of Bangladesh or China would be highly vulnerable to rising seas.
“This is a final scientific call for the climate negotiators from 192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in Copenhagen,” Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement.
AMAZON, MONSOON
Copenhagen will host a Dec. 7-18 meeting meant to come up with a new U.N. plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. But a full legal treaty seems out of reach and talks are likely to be extended into 2010.
“Delay in action risks irreversible damage,” the researchers wrote in the 64-page report, pointing to a feared runaway thaw of ice sheets or possible abrupt disruptions to the Amazon rainforest or the West African Monsoon.
The researchers said global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were almost 40 percent higher in 2008 than in 1990.
“Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change,” said Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California.
In a respite, the International Energy Agency has said emissions will fall by up to 3 percent in 2009 due to recession.
The report said world temperatures had been rising by an average of 0.19 Celsius a decade over the past 25 years and that the warming trend was intact, even though the hottest year since records began in the mid-19th century was 1998.
“There have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend,” it said. A strong, natural El Nino weather event in the Pacific pushed up temperatures in 1998. By Alister Doyle, The Star
UN Says Greenhouse Gases In Atmosphere Continue To Increase, Reached Record High In 2008
Greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere reached record highs in 2008, with carbon dioxide levels increasing faster than previously, the U.N. weather agency said Monday.
Levels of greenhouse gases, believed to be responsible for global warming, have been rising every year since detailed records started being kept in 1998, the World Meteorological Organization said.
It follows a trend of rising emissions that began with the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century, the agency said.
The report by the World Meteorological Organization comes as the European Union urged the United States and China on Monday to set targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions at next month’s climate conference in Copenhagen. The European Union said delays by those countries were hindering global efforts to curb climate change.
The gases — carbon dioxide, or CO2; nitrous oxide, N2O; and methane, CH4 — are produced partly by natural sources, such as wetlands, and partly by human activities such as fertilizer use or fuel combustion.
“Concentration of greenhouse gases continued to increase, even a bit faster,” the organization’s chief, Michel Jarraud, told reporters in Geneva.
Carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere — was 385.2 parts per million in 2008, up 2 parts per million from 2007, the World Meteorological Organization said.
The CO2 content in the atmosphere rose slightly faster in 2008 than over the last decade when the growth rate was 1.9 parts per million, Jarraud said.
“It’s significant because what we would like is to see a decrease in the increase,” he said.
Nitrous oxide increased by 0.9 parts per billion over the previous year to 321.8 parts per billion.
Methane concentration in the atmosphere was 1,797 parts per billion, up 7 parts per billion from the previous year.
The year-to-year increase may appear small. But compared to the time before the Industrial Revolution, the levels have increased massively, the World Meteorological Organization said.
Since 1750, CO2 has increased 38 percent, nitrous oxide 19 percent and methane 157 percent, according to WMO.
The agency’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides widely accepted worldwide data on the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
It takes time to see the impact of greenhouse gas emissions because of the long time they remain in the atmosphere, said Oksana Tarasova, a specialist with the organization.
“Even if we stop all the emissions right now, after 100 years, 30 percent of the amount added to preindustrial level will remain in the atmosphere,” she told reporters.
Jarraud said if emissions continue to grow, the world is likely to face the more pessimistic scenarios laid out by climate experts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said if nothing is done to stop emissions, global temperatures could rise as much as 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, triggering droughts, floods and other disasters. By Eliane Engeler, Star Tribune.
Guv’s Climate Panel Is Mostly Cloudy
Gov. Gary Herbert says the scientific jury is still out on climate change and he has promised an honest-to-goodness debate on one of the major policies of our time.
While the new administration is beginning to move on the pledge first made in August, the shape and nature of the forum has yet to crystallize.
Scientists at the state’s leading universities — Utah, Brigham Young and Utah State — have offered to help the governor untangle the technicalities of climate change. So have members of the Blue-Ribbon Advisory Committee on climate change, a multifaceted group that studied the issue for a year and advised former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. on the subject.
But no one has yet received invitations for Herbert’s forum because the organizers haven’t decided who should participate.
“It’s very much in the formative stage,” said Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics and one of the organizers of the event.
And, while it is unclear who will play a big role in the meeting — tentatively slated for April, around Earth Day — what will be up for discussion is certain.
“Science will be the place to start,” said Jowers. “All sides will be presented fairly. That is absolutely the single most important thing.”
Ted Wilson, Herbert’s new environment czar, echoes the idea that balance is essential. As the forum’s lead organizer, he has been fielding ideas about recommended speakers from
science, economics and other disciplines. The panels will include “rainmaker-type featured speakers,” who will not debate, and scientists, who will.
It’s unclear whether the governor’s forum will be a replay of the Legislature’s Public Utilities Committee climate change hearing last month.
The panel invited scientific experts for their input. But it created what some criticized as a false balance by giving equal weight to University of Utah Atmospheric Science Department Chairman Jim Steenburgh, who represented the consensus view of climate scientists, and Roy Spencer. Spencer is an atmospheric scientist from the University of Alabama who has been one of the most vocal skeptics of the prevailing view that humans are largely responsible for global warming.
Wilson said Herbert is interested in getting to the truth in order to form responsible policies.
“This is a governor who wants his departments to do all they can to prepare for the future,” said Wilson, a former Salt Lake City mayor and past director of the Hinckley Institute.
The discussion is expected to be still another step in the evolution of the Republican governor’s handling of a climate change policy to help Utah deal with what scientists expect to be hotter temperatures statewide and deeper droughts in southern parts of the state.
Last summer, Herbert told the Western Governors Association he is not convinced climate science is conclusive and questioned the state’s continued involvement in the Western Climate Initiative, a regional organization focused on responding to global warming.
In a September report released with U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, Herbert said Utah’s economy and people would be devastated by cap-and-trade legislation aimed at coping with climate change. In October, he restated his view that “the debate is raging” about the human impact on climate change.
“Maybe the scientists, maybe they feel good,” he told reporters during a televised news conference. “But they are not getting the word to the public because the public is very confused on the issue.”
Jon A. Krosnick has been studying the disconnect between climate science and personal actions for more than a decade as a professor of communication and political science at Stanford University.
Citing opinion surveys, he said the public overwhelmingly believes that the Earth’s climate is changing, the impact to society will be bad and that government should take action. But they are “not buying” that a disaster is on the horizon, as some scientists suggest.
One reason: The mass-media practice of representing the science as two-sided creates confusion. Another: Scientists do a lousy job of offering plausible solutions for dealing with climate change.
He said a forum based on simply presenting opposing views without providing context is unlikely to clear up the confusion.
“It will increase uncertainty,” Krosnick said, unless organizers also “tell people the prevalence of those views and the preponderance of evidence supporting them.”
More than 70 of the world’s scientific associations have published statements affirming that climate is changing most likely because of human activities and that it is a growing threat to human societies.
Kelly Patterson, a BYU political scientist, said he doubts a single forum like Herbert’s will do much to affect public opinion. On complex issues like climate change, people form their views based on what they see, hear and read in the media, as well as what they learn from associates, he said.
“Rare is the individual who sits down and weighs the evidence,” he said. “In these kinds of situations, people tend to side with trusted sources.” By Judy Fahys, The Salt Lake Tribune
Asia’s Luxury Car Market ‘Picking Up’: Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce said Friday the market for its super-luxury cars was picking up dramatically across Asia as the effects of the global financial crisis recede.
“We’re fast coming out of the financial crisis and China and India look like they will lead the way out in 2010 on a feel-good factor,” Rolls-Royce Asia-Pacific regional chief Colin Kelly said in New Delhi.
“Japan is also expected to have a very good year in 2010. Australia is also looking extremely positive.”
His comments came a day after the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in its latest forecast that emerging market economies China and India were poised to accelerate and Japan’s recession had “bottomed out”.
Kelly was speaking during the unveiling in India of Rolls-Royce’s Ghost model, the automaker’s new lower-cost saloon car, which is due to hit the roads in the country in the second quarter of next year.
The Britain-based carmaker had a bumper year in 2008, when it sold a record 2,012 of its Phantom range worldwide and 200 across Asia, but has suffered this year from the global slump.
Kelly said the company initially expected Asian sales to be down 35 percent this year but would now “do better than we thought” as sales have been picking up in the past few months.
Next year sales would accelerate to “over 400″ cars in the region, he forecast. “We’re going from strength to strength in Asia.”
Sales globally were expected to increase to 2,500 in 2010, up sharply from the current year, when they “will be under 1,000,” said Kelly.
In Asia, China will contribute half of the unit sales next year while India, which is becoming an increasingly key market, will account for 10 to 12 percent, he said.
Rolls-Royce forecasts the Ghost will produce a big leap in sales in India, saying initial interest has been keen. The Ghost, the first model in a new Rolls-Royce series, was unveiled at the Frankfurt auto show last September.
Its on-the-road price in India will be 25 million rupees (535,000 dollars) compared to 35 million rupees for the Phantom.
Kelly said the company expected to sell 50 to 60 Ghosts and up to 15 Phantoms in India in 2010 compared with around 15 Phantoms for this year.
Rolls-Royce, once the car of choice of the maharajas during British colonial rule, re-entered India in 2005 after a break of half a century.
The main buyers in India are self-made business people.
“We used to sell to a lot of maharajas. Now we sell to commercial maharajas,” said Hal Serudin, spokesman for Rolls-Royce Asia Pacific.
The company’s upbeat outlook for India came after US magazine Forbes reported the number of billionaires in the country had almost doubled in the last 12 months to 52, mainly thanks to a surge in stock markets. Yahoo Daily News
Breast Cancer Study ‘Identifies Tumour-Causing Enzyme’
Scientists have identified an enzyme that is crucial for turning breast tissue into tumours, according to a study published in the journal Cell.
The Institute of Cancer Research says blocking the enzyme lysyl oxidase (LOX) reduced the size and frequency of tumours in mice.
They say LOX stiffens collagen, a major component of the supportive tissue in the breast.
A cancer charity said the study added to knowledge about how tumours develop.
The supportive tissue surrounding cancer cells is shaped differently to healthy tissue as well as being stiffer and more fibrous.
These properties have helped doctors to detect breast cancers, but until now scientists have not known what was causing these changes.
‘Clear physical change’
The team at the Institute for Cancer Research, using mice, found that LOX caused the collagen to change in a process known as cross-linking, which makes the tissue more fibrous.
Higher levels of LOX increased the levels of collagen in mammary glands, made the tissue stiffer and correlated with a higher number of tumours invading the breast tissue.
When the team used chemicals or an antibody to block the enzyme, they found collagen in the mammary glands contained fewer cross-links and was less fibrous.
The tissue also contained fewer, smaller tumours and they were less aggressive.
Dr Janine Erler from the Institute of Cancer Research, who led the research, said the study showed that stiffening of the breast tissue controlled by enzymes such as LOX was a key factor in cancer development. These enzymes could be a promising candidate drug target, she added.
“The enzyme triggers a clear physical change in breast tissue and, if we could stop this happening, we expect it would slow the growth of any cancers that did develop and make them easier to eradicate.”
‘Cautiously optimistic’
Professor Valerie Weaver of the University of California in San Francisco, who was also part of the team, said: “This study may also help explain why the rate of breast cancer increases dramatically with age – aged tissues are stiffer and contain higher levels of abnormal collagen cross-links.
“I’m cautiously optimistic. We still have a lot more work to do, but this is certainly exciting.”
Dr Alexis Willett, head of policy at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “This early stage research in cells and mice increases our understanding of how breast cancers develop and grow and suggests that enzymes such as LOX could be a potential target in the treatment of breast cancer.
“The next stage will be to test whether LOX has the same effect in humans, but it is likely to be some time before any potential new treatment is developed.” BBC News