Climate Watch begins it’s coverage of the UN’s COP 15 climate talks in Copenhagen this evening, when KQED’s This Week in Northern California airs my recently taped interview with former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore. The original 20-minute interview has been “edited for TV,” down to about nine minutes. The full interview is to be posted on This Week’s website.
The interview begins with Gore’s assessment of the upcoming climate conference and then moves on to California’s role, the hype surrounding “green jobs,” controversy over climate science, his new book, and other topics. Regrettably, the interview was recorded before the eruption of the email scandal now known as “Climategate,” so I wasn’t able to get his take on that.
It’s pretty hard to spring anything on Gore. He’s heard every question there is to be asked about a thousand times and has carefully crafted, well-rehearsed answers to all of them. He did seem slightly off-balance when I asked him about FactCheck.org’s conclusions about some of the green job creation hype.
On Monday, our radio and online coverage begins in earnest when the first of Rob Schmitz’ reports from Copenhagen airs on The California Report. Schmitz, KQED’s Los Angeles Bureau Chief, arrives there on Saturday and will be there for the entire two weeks of events and negotiations. He’ll provide radio reports and frequent blog posts, covering–among other things–the appearance of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on “Subnational Day.” In a climate-related media event on Treasure Island this week, Schwarzenegger said his mission in Copenhagen would be to rally governors, mayors, provincial leaders and other subnational players, to continue their own progress toward greenhouse gas emissions and not wait for national governments and international bodies to take action.
Also on Monday, Rob and I will join host Michael Krasny and NASA climatologist James Hansen on KQED’s Forum program. Hansen was the original climate whistle-blower, complaining that the Bush administration was muzzling climate scientists. Hansen has since taken a hard line against the upcoming efforts in Copenhagen, saying that cap & trade is the wrong path to climate intervention (both Gore and Hansen are promoting new books of theirs).
If the electric car was indeed “killed,” as a popular documentary suggested not long ago, the floor at the Los Angeles Auto Show this week would suggest a mass resurrection not seen since Night of the Living Dead. Climate Watch contributor Alison Hawkes reports on some implications for the power grid. Her radio report airs Friday on The California Report.
By Alison Hawkes
Electric vehicles may be few in number over the next few years, despite the hype around the release of off-the-assembly line EV models in 2010. It takes several decades to flip the American vehicle fleet.
Robert Susich offsets his charging with rooftop solar. "This is the way of the future," he says. Photo: Alison Hawkes
But there’s little doubt that EVs are coming, pushed on by anxiety over foreign oil and unexpected spikes in gas prices, growing environmental awareness, and government incentives. Starting at the end of December, EV buyers get a federal tax credit of between $2,500-to-$7,500 per vehicle, depending on the battery size. There are other tax credits for plug-in conversions and even electric motorcycles and electric three-wheelers. Now who doesn’t like a tax credit?
All this may sound promising but energy planners have some serious head-scratching to do as Americans begin switching their transportation fuel from gasoline to electricity.
For starters, how do you avoid building extra power plants? Who pays for infrastructure upgrades to electrical substations and transformers? How do you get EV drivers to charge during off-peak hours when the energy supply is now wasted?
Pacific Gas & Electric’s smart grid director Andrew Tang says utilities have faced similar problems before with the advent of air conditioners in the 1970s and plasma screen TVs in the 1990s. New technologies add to the demand on an already tight energy market. “It’s a form of load growth and we’ve managed to deal with it without having sudden power outages,” says Tang.
But, Tang admits, EVs could bring a heavier strain on the grid than any seen before. One EV can draw as much energy as a house. Put another way, that’s doubling a household’s demand for power. Fortunately, it sounds like the utilities have some time, and capacity, to see how the EV market develops.
PG&E is expecting to support some 250,000 vehicles by 2020, which may not seem like much for a 70,000 square-mile service territory. But they won’t be spread out evenly. The northern California utility is expecting EV drivers to congregate in certain neighborhoods, potentially sending substations and transformers into overload (read: blackouts) if not properly managed. Tang said PG&E did a study of hybrid electric vehicle registration over the last four years and found that Fresno’s portion of hybrids was 2.4 percent, while Berkeley’s was 18 percent. “That’s much more concentration,” says Tang. “We think that’s a fair proxy of what we could have with electric vehicles.”
So the California Public Utilities Commission is now exploring ways to regulate EV’s. The basic question is how to influence consumer behavior so EVs do not add to peak energy demand. No one wants blackouts, and no one wants to build more power plants. One idea bandied about is a differentiated rate system that encourages EV drivers to charge during off-peak hours at deeply discounted prices, called a “time of use rate.” Another idea promoted by the PUC’s independent Division of Ratepayer Advocates is a five-dollar monthly fee on EV drivers that would go into upgrading grid infrastructure, like adding or upgrading local transformers, as needed.
“If electric vehicles need (additional) infrastructure, they should pay for it and not spread the cost across all ratepayers,” says DRA’s deputy director Dave Ashuckian.
EV drivers may bristle at being treated differently than other power users, especially when they feel they’re doing society a favor by switching to a cleaner fuel source. Early adopters may be happy to help optimize the grid. But if EVs go mainstream, energy planners know the public is going to want a more convenient system.
Automated smart metering (you’re not in charge of your charging) may help. The hybrid plug-in Chevy Volt coming next year is supposed to come with a smart meter. But planners eventually foresee public charging stations that will allow EV drivers to juice up quickly (through high-wattage charging equipment) and when they need to, during daytime peak hours. Already some California companies that want in on the emerging charging station business are fighting the idea of PUC regulation of their potential market.
A California PUC staff white paper reported that the benefits of lowered greenhouse gas emissions with an electrified transportation system are realized only when some 76 percent of EV drivers charge off-peak. And only if any extra power demand is met by renewable energy sources – not coal or oil. That’s a tall order.
Ed. Note: One thing EV’s already have going for them: a lobby. This week it was announced that after 16 years, deputy director Eileen Tutt is leaving CalEPA to become executive director of the California Electric Transportation Coalition.
State water officials have announced they are likely to release a record-low allocation of water to cities and farms next year– just five percent of what water contractors have requested. Though still preliminary, it’s the lowest allocation since the State Water Project began delivering water back in 1967.
The announcement may have caught some by surprise, since Department of Water Resources (DWR) data would seem to show reservoirs at higher levels than last year at this time, with major reservoirs at 69% of storage capacity, compared to 57% last year.
When I asked DWR Deputy Director Susan Simms about it, even she was stumped at first. But then she called me back to say that the data includes both federal and state reservoirs, and the state’s storage levels at both Lake Oroville and San Luis Reservoir (shared with the feds) is actually lower than last year (52% and 48% of “normal,” respectively). And, she says, the state has to contend with pumping restrictions to protect both salmon and delta smelt this time around.
DWR Director Lester Snow told reporters this morning that there’s nothing in the recently passed bundle of state water bills that can provide any immediate relief. And if you thought the prospect of increased precipitation from El Nino could save the day, don’t get out the umbrella just yet. David Rizzardo, Chief of the state’s Snow Survey section, estimates there’s only a 50-60% chance of a stronger El Nino kicking in this year. December and January will be the most telling months–but precipitation from El Nino would likely be concentrated in the southern half of the state. Officials say that would provide more “flexibility” in meeting water needs systemwide, but all of California’s biggest reservoirs are located in the northern part of the state.
December water delivery estimates almost always get a boost once it starts snowing. Last year’s initial projection was 15%, and that was later revised upward, eventually to 40 percent. Snow called today’s estimate “very conservative.”
If you think the five percent figure is supposed to scare us, it is. Water officials want to send a message that Californians need to be prepared to conserve. The state’s drought coordinator, Wendy Martin, just returned from a water tour in Australia, where she says she saw water-saving measures in place that California has yet to fully develop: storm water recapture, water recycling, and more. Martin also observed that the Australians now wish that they’d taken the epic drought of the last several years more seriously, sooner.
We’re entering the best time of year for fans of glaciers. The high-country rivers of ice are getting their annual nourishment from winter’s snows–probably not enough, as Yosemite National Park geologist Greg Stock tells us: “Glaciers are getting about the same amount of snowfall each winter but they’re seeing a lot more melt in summertime because of those warmer temperatures.”
A database called Glaciers of the American West posits that, “Perhaps glaciers are the clearest expression of climate change.” But within that National Science Foundation-funded database can be found a few growing glaciers–curious exceptions that buck the general melting trend. Cherry-picking those exceptions allows some global warming skeptics to suggest we should be preparing for the next ice age (see here and here for examples of this). However, a closer examination of the anomalous glaciers suggests that unique circumstances are more likely at work.
Crater Glacier on Mount St. Helens in southwest Washington State is a dramatic example of a growing glacier. The glacier formed in the shaded recesses of the high elevation crater left by the catastrophic 1980 eruption of the volcano. USGS research hydrologist Joe Walder told us the mass of ice and rock is advancing some 300 feet per year. This time lapse video (file will download) provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows why glaciers are also known as “rivers of ice.”
Another view from above shows how Crater Glacier got squeezed and pushed around when Mount St. Helens reawakened in 2006 and extruded a new lava dome. That the young glacier survived the renewed eruption is remarkable by itself. The fact that the horseshoe-shaped glacier is gaining mass indicates just what a perfect setting Mother Nature created at the volcano. The north-facing crater acts like a catcher’s mitt reaching toward the moist jet stream.
Mount Rainier, also in Washington State, is the most heavily glaciated peak in the Lower 48 states. On Rainier’s east flank, Emmons Glacier is advancing. The National Park Service offers this myth-busting explanation:
“The Emmons Glacier experienced a rock avalanche in 1963, which covered part of the glacier with a layer of rock debris. This debris now insulates the ablation (melting) zone of the glacier from sunlight and warm air temperatures and the melting of the glacier is smaller than from an otherwise clean glacier. Because melting is reduced, but the ice flow is the same, the glacier is advancing. This response has nothing to do with climate change.”
Mount Shasta
Something yet again different appears to be happening at northern California’s Mount Shasta. A research team from UC Santa Cruz documented 50 years of nearly continuous expansion of the two largest glaciers on Mount Shasta. The researchers theorize in the journal Climate Dynamics that Shasta’s glaciers are benefiting from a warming Pacific Ocean. A warmer ocean means more evaporation, and hence more moisture blows over the high peaks near the coast. Because of Shasta’s height, the enhanced precipitation mostly falls as snow, adding to the mass of the glaciers.
Portland State University glaciologist Andrew Fountain says no one has yet explained to his satisfaction why glaciers on peaks immediately to the north and south of Mount Shasta are not likewise growing. It is as if a “snow gun” is aimed directly at Shasta’s 14,162-foot summit. But he doesn’t lose sleep over that issue because Fountain and the other glaciologists who have studied Shasta do not expect the glacial advance to last. Their climate models call for the snow level (elevation) to rise.
“We do expect it to be a temporary phenomenon,” Fountain said. “The modeling done down on Mount Shasta expects the glaciers to retreat within the next decade or so, if they’re not already.”
Tom Banse’s radio feature on the West’s growing glaciers airs Monday morning on The California Report.
Loot from the recent invasion of email servers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in Britain has raised questions about whether scientists who dissent from the prevailing views of climate research are being muzzled by their colleagues.
Snow on Mt. Whitney. Photo: USFS
An interesting example of this arose this week in a report by Richard Harris for NPR’s All Things Considered. It’s worth a listen, if only for the back-and-forth between two climate scientists over snowfall in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains. John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, tells Harris about trouble he’s had publishing research that appears to counter the mainstream view that the Sierra snowpack is endangered. For a response, Harris goes to Philip Mote at Oregon State University, one of the scientists who reviewed Christy’s research.
The head of the UN’s climate panel finally issued his own statement on the email flap, which was part condemnation of the hackers, part defense of the science and peer review process.
I’ve spent several days dithering over whether to weigh in on the recent email heist from a server at the University of East Anglia in the UK. For those who choose to read it that way, the hacked email originally passed among climate scientists worldwide has, rightly or wrongly, provided those who reject the prevailing climate science with enough radioactive ammo to fill Yucca Mountain.
Some high-profile California researchers figure prominently in the material. In a searchable database of the messages, for example, the name of Ben Santer, a climate modeler at Lawrence Livermore National Lab came up 173 times. Stanford’s Steve Schneider came up 71 times. Both are outspoken defenders of science supporting the human contribution to global warming.
Another scientist quoted or referred to (99 times), Kevin Trenberth, is a name familiar to readers of this blog and listeners to Climate Watch radio coverage. Trenberth is a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO. I’ve interviewed him mostly about the role of the Pacific oscillation known as El Nino in climate patterns. After the decade’s worth of email came to light, I wrote Trenberth for a response. His reply may not be entirely original. Some lines have also been attributed to a spokesman for the university whose servers were invaded. In any case, here’s Trenberth’s response to Climate Watch:
It is a matter of concern that data, including personal information about individuals, appears to have been illegally taken and a criminal investigation is underway. The selective publication of some stolen emails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way. The volume of material published and its piecemeal nature makes it impossible to confirm what proportion is genuine. Many elements have been published selectively on a number of websites. Generally the items are out of context, incomplete and very misleading. Some others are wildly misinterpreted and have a simple explanation.
The material published relates to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and other scientists around the world. Many of the scientists featured in the emails with [Phil] Jones [of East Anglia] have web sites and freely and openly make available their papers, presentations, blogs and other information. Several of the emails document the detailed procedures used in the IPCC AR4 Fourth Assessment report for Chapter 3 (for which Phil Jones and Kevin Trenberth were coordinating lead authors) and other chapters. They actually reveal the integrity of the process and the hard work that goes into such an assessment.
Trenberth then went on to cite some specific “examples of misinterpretations:”
From Kevin Trenberth, interpreted as a failure of computer models:
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”
This refers to the inability of our current observations from satellites and in situ to account for where all the energy has gone. A paper on this is available here:
Trenberth, K. E., 2009: An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth’s global energy. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1, 19-27, doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2009.06.001. [PDF]
This paper tracks the effects of the changing Sun, how much heat went into the land, ocean, melting Arctic sea ice, melting Greenland and Antarctica, and changes in clouds, along with changes in greenhouse gases. We can track this well for 1993 to 2003, but not for 2004 to 2008. It does NOT mean that global warming is not happening, on the contrary, it suggests that we simply can’t fully explain why 2008 was as cool as it was, but with an implication that warming will come back, as it has. In 2008 there was a La Nina event. We now have an El Nino underway.
Kevin Trenberth
Meanwhile, the university’s Climate Research Unit has posted a series of rebuttals. Still, this digital hijacking is disturbing on a lot of levels. Whether you accept the prevailing climate science or consider the email damning evidence to the contrary, it is a distraction from the business at hand in Copenhagen and a public relations train wreck for the IPCC and many of its most eminent contributing scientists. You can bet that it won’t be forgotten when a major climate bill hits the floor of the U.S. Senate for debate, early next year. Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, vocal critic of global warming science, is already calling for an investigation.
On Tuesday the California Air Resources Board put out a sneak preview of the carbon cap & trade system mandated by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). Couched as a “preliminary draft,” the 132-page plan is intended as a broad outline for a final Cap-and-Trade regulation scheduled to go before the board late next year.
As such, the draft lacks a few key components, such as how many allowances the state plans to auction off to industry, versus give away. Air Board chief Mary Nichols says her agency is still waiting on recommendations from an expert committee on how to best handle allowances.
Environmentalists have been pushing for polluters to pay for allowances up front. In an email to me on Tuesday, in anticipation of the draft, Bernadette del Chiaro of Environment California wrote that her group is “slightly disappointed that ARB staff are punting on the issue of auctions. ARB in the scoping plan said they are committed to getting to 100% auctions. I hope the draft rules at least repeat this commitment.”
The draft appears to stop short of an outright commitment, reiterating that “transition to a 100 percent auction was a worthwhile goal.” In a conference call with reporters, Nichols said she anticipates at least a partial auction. Also undetermined is how to deploy the funds that emitters may pay for allowances. Nichols said a $10 per ton price for carbon could produce a two-to-four-billion-dollar pool of money, which could be used for such things as “buying down” utility costs for low-income families or creating incentives for development of renewable energy technology. Nichols declined to project what a cap & trade system would end up costing households in California.
You can download a PDF file of the complete report at the CARB website (under “What’s New). A public meeting is scheduled for December 14 in Sacramento, to get feedback on the Preliminary Draft Regulation released this week.
Also on Tuesday, the Governor’s Office announced that Quebec, one of California’s partners in the Western Climate Initiative for regional carbon trading, has set a target “to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and the introduction of a clean-car emissions standard equivalent to California’s Vehicle Tailpipe Emissions Standards.”
The WCI includes seven western states and four Canadian provinces. Any progress from the state’s WCI partners is welcome at this point, as most have been reluctant to set their intentions into law.
Check out our interactive map of California’s largest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases.
Bristlecone pine in the Inyo National Forest. Photo: US Forest Service
There’s a lot of history packed into a tree with more than 4,000 annual growth rings. Scientists who count them (dendrochronologists) have been able to learn a lot about the drought history of California and the West.
The Great Basin bristlecone pines that grow along the spine of the Sierra are the oldest living things on Earth–older, even, than the giant sequoias. Studying the uppermost trees, around 12,000 ft., researchers stumbled on a strange trend. The trees, legendary for their slow rate of growth, have been growing faster over the last 50 years or so, than at any time in the last three millennia.
If you missed it this week, Malcolm Hughes, one of the study’s lead researchers and a professor of dendrochronology at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research, spoke to NPR’s All Things Considered about the possible cause.
You can see these astonishing trees for yourself in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest of Inyo National Forest–but you might want to wait until spring. The visitor center is not staffed between November and May and winter access is iffy at 10,000 feet. Worse yet, the original vistor center burned down in the fall of last year. The Forest Service is using a temporary (trailer) facility until a permanent one is rebuilt. According to the Forest Service website:
“…the visitor center is being designed to be a model of energy efficiency, utilizing the latest in “green” building practices. According to Bristlecone Pine Forest Manager John Louth, some of the improvements that visitors will see will be a state-of-the art solar power system, updated exhibits addressing the impacts of global warming on the ancient trees, a small research library, a slightly larger theatre room and a fire/intrusion detection & suppression system.”
Carbon addiction is the same as any other in at least one respect: the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. For greenhouse gases, reducing emissions requires knowing what you’re putting out to begin with.
The Conoco Phillips refinery in Rodeo is a relatively small player, as refineries go, at 1.9 million metric tons of CO2 per year. Photo: Craig Miller
It was toward this end that this week the California Air Resources Board released the first comprehensive data on large-scale industrial carbon emissions in the state. Not surprisingly, the top emitters tend to fall into two categories: power plants and oil refineries, with cement manufacturers not far behind.
Individually, major oil refineries have the largest carbon footprint. Two of Chevron’s refineries–in Richmond and El Segundo, BP’s Carson refinery and the Shell refinery in Martinez, all clocked in at more than three million metric tons (tonnes), CO2-equivalent, for 2008.
Use the interactive map below, prepared by Climate Watch intern David Ferry, to locate the largest industrial emitters and see how they sort out by industry (We’ve been having difficulty with embedded maps vanishing from the blog, so if you don’t see the map below, just click on the link to it).
(Click here for a larger map and a list of all the largest emitters.)
Cumulatively, electric power generation is California’s biggest emitter, despite the virtual absence of coal-powered plants in the state. The ARB report lists nearly 20 utility or industrial cogeneration plants in the million-plus club. Several plants put out more than two million tonnes, including Dynegy’s gas-fired plant at Moss Landing, the LaPaloma McKittrick plant, Southern California Edison’s Mountainview plant in Redlands, and the L.A. Department of Water & Power’s Haynes Generating Plant.
The federal EPA considers anything above 25,000 tonnes to be a large emitter. But with carbon emissions, “large” is a relative concept. California imports power from other states and we can get a clue to “large” from the carbon output numbers on some of the mostly coal-fired plants feeding the California grid from states like Utah and Wyoming. Some fossil fuel plants in those states weigh in at a hefty six, ten–even 15 million metric tons. Los Angeles still depends on out-of-state fossil plants for roughly half of its electric power.
A few large cement plants are also in the million-plus column. To find out why, listen to Amy Standen’s report for Quest.
Of course, all this careful accounting leaves aside the elephant in the room: transportation, which has a bigger footprint in California than all electrical generation combined, including imports from other states–and is about equal to total industrial emissions.
The industrial tally released this week is subject to revision and will be used to set caps and allowances for the carbon trading (cap & trade) system mandated by the state’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, commonly known as AB-32. There’s more on the emissions report and what it means in Paul Rogers’ story for the San Jose Mercury News.
A Matter of Degree is a survey of attitudes developed by Climate Watch, in partnership with Yale and George Mason Universities.
Keep emotions out of it and meet the uncertainties head-on. Those tips are among the advice offered in a new guide for climate change communicators. Published by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, “The Psychology of Climate Change Communication” is a 54-page guide available on the CRED website that attempts to help educators, journalists, and scientists communicate more clearly about the complicated, politically-charged subject of climate change. The gist? It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. Not that this is an earth-shattering revelation but it’s a good reminder to those tasked with conveying detailed scientific information to a general audience that might not have the time, context, or desire to fully process the message.
From the introduction:
… in order for climate science information to be fully absorbed by audiences, it must be actively communicated with appropriate language, metaphor, and analogy; combined with narrative storytelling; made vivid through visual imagery and experiential scenarios; balanced with scientific information; and delivered by trusted messengers in group settings.
This guide speaks to the messengers. Key recommendations include common-sense strategies such as knowing your audience, getting their attention, and being sure to translate scientific data into concrete experience. The guide also stresses avoiding the overuse of emotional appeals reasoning that while they may work in the short term, they could backfire down the road because people have a “finite pool of worry” and repeated emotional appeals could lead to “emotional numbing” and apathy. Most of these recommendations sound useful for all kinds of communication — not just about climate change.
One point, however, seems especially relevant to climate change; the recommendation to directly and precisely address scientific and climatic uncertainties. In other words, meet the unknowns head-on but keep them in perspective:
Climate science uncertainty often conveys the mistaken impression that scientists are hopelessly confused about this complicated subject, when in fact scientific uncertainties about exactly how much warmer the planet will be in 100 years does not change the very high confidence scientists have that human-made greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet and are likely to continue doing so.
The guide stresses the importance of being very clear about where the uncertainties lie, because they are easy to overstate or understate, which leads to more confusion. A particularly interesting resource is Table 4: Words with Different Meanings to Scientists and the General Public. The table itself is a little confusing, but it gives recognition to the “language barrier” between scientists and “laymen,” a key to getting a clear message across.
A study published last month by the Pew Center for People and the Press found that the percentage of American adults who think that there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades has declined over the past year, from 71% to 57%. The proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, shrank from 47% to 36% in the same period. It’s an indication that those who have taken on the mantle of communicating the current science can use a little help.
Climate Watch begins it’s coverage of the UN’s COP 15 climate talks in Copenhagen this evening, when KQED’s This Week in Northern California airs my recently taped interview with former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore. The original 20-minute interview has been “edited for TV,” down to about nine minutes. The full interview is to be posted on This Week’s website.
