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That shrinking of the sea ice turned into a big story. The Anchorage Daily News had this story about how the lack of ice is affecting walrus (and the people hunting them), and my paper ran this follow up by the AP.
Also, I seem to be on the renewable energy beat lately, covering new projects at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks and the Chena Hot Springs Resort outside the city.
Anyway, I'm taking a bit of a break, for trips up the Dalton Highway, for instance (shown here).
The blog will be back at some point.
Thanks for reading.
Scientists are expecting arctic sea ice to shrink more this year than in any year since they started recording nearly 30 years ago, according to a story today in the NY Times.William L. Chapman, who monitors the region at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and posted a Web report on the ice retreat yesterday, said that only an abrupt change in conditions could prevent far more melting before the 24-hour sun of the boreal summer set in September. “The melting rate during June and July this year was simply incredible,” Mr. Chapman said. “And then you’ve got this exposed black ocean soaking up sunlight and you wonder what, if anything, could cause it to reverse course.”
Ted Stevens is in the news for other stuff these days, but last week he introduced a resolution relating to climate change. The resolution calls for the development of an international framework to manage arctic fisheries created through fish migrations into warming waters and/or easier boat access in newly ice-free waters.
Here's from a news release.
“Although there is much to learn about climate change patterns, the Arctic Ocean and its fish habitats are changing,” Senator Stevens said. “Fish stocks may colonize this ocean in the coming years, and we need to act now to put appropriate international fisheries agreements in place."
Wow. Click here to see the whole release.
OK, I'm back now from a crazy weekend of fishing, trekking, and driving.
NPR keeps doing its stories from around the world, the latest one on the physiological value of the midday siesta. On another scale completely is this story on the potential for massive global changes under a warming climate, like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Eruptions of Pavlof volcano in Alaska, for example, tend to occur during the winter months when, for meteorological reasons, the regional sea level is barely 30cm (12in) higher than during the summer. If other volcanic systems are similarly sensitive then we could be faced with an escalating burst of volcanic activity as anthropogenic climate change drives sea levels ever upwards.
Seems a little on the speculative side, but a good read anyway. The picture is of Augustine Volcano right here in Alaska.
Just a joke, just a joke.
Gov. Palin's subcabinet on climate change met Wednesday in Anchorage and heard from, among others, Luke Hopkins of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly and representatives from the Denali Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and the office of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
The subcabinet spent a good bit of time talking about forming subgroups to address specific issues, including . . .
-research needs (identifying them)
-immediate action (figuring out what to do in Kivalina and Shishmaref, for instance)
-alternative energy and energy conservation
-carbon sequestration
-and policy tracking (weighing in on federal legislation or participating in regional initiatives)
The subcabinet also got an update on the Department of Environmental Conservation's work to refine a state carbon emissions inventory -- the hope is to get it done by the end of the year.
NPR's trip around the world to report on climate change brought a few reporters to Barrow for this story on changes in Alaska.
News-Miner reporter Robinson Duffy wrote this about UA's getting some federal money to study climate change, with comments from UAF wizz Terry Chapin on the importance of local knowledge.
I wouldn't ordinarily criticize another reporter's writing, especially publicly, but this one has got me fired up.
The Anchorage Daily News today ran a story by Peter Porco about a recent USPIRG report tallying temperature data from across the country.
The article is superficial and irresponsible and borders on being inaccurate.
Here are my criticisms.
-Porco sources USPIRG for data that he could have easily checked himself, but throws out there that the cause of increasing temperatures "remains in dispute" without sourcing anyone. The conflict between the journalistic principle of balance (showing both sides of an issue) and the reality of scientific consensus on this issue has been documented. See this study by the Boykoff brothers, who found that press coverage of climate change has contributed to a divergence between scientific understanding of the issue and public perception of it.
-Porco writes that an AkPIRG woman "admitted" Alaska was not the problem. Bad word. It implies others have come to an agreement that Alaska is not the problem. And, another study just found (with some caveats) that Alaskans emit three times as many greenhouse gases per person as average Americans.
-Porco writes that Alaskans may not mind if it gets warmer. His source? A few bumper stickers. Also, the sentence suggests a lack of understanding of the difference between global warming (that the Earth as a whole is getting warmer) and climate change (the whole host of effects a warming planet will have on weather, precipitation, storms, etc.). That is, climate change is not just about things getting warmer.
-And permafrost is not melting, not any more than a steak melts when you take it out of the freezer. It's thawing.
I'm not sure who Porco is. He's not on the ADN's online masthead. I appreciate his effort to make the story interesting and maybe to play down the gloom and doom with some jokes, but not at the expense of an accurately portraying what's happening.
Ted Stevens recently said the following on his co-sponsoring a bill that would impose a cap-and-trade on carbon dioxide.
(This bill) is not just a flash-in-a-pan, publicity stunt. . . . This is a very modified cap-and-trade concept and it has a balance in it. It is dealing with global climate change rather than a spastic kind of global warming.
I think spastic is considered an offensive word, but aside from that, it looks like Stevens is trying to differentiate between a reasoned, scientifically sound "climate change" and an emotional, irrational "global warming."
I think he might be missing the point. The two terms get used interchangeably, but actually have very different meanings. The simplest explanation I've seen is from Tim Flannery in "The Weather Makers," who writes,
Greenhouse gases are a class of gases that can trap heat near Earth's surface. As they increase in the atmosphere, the extra heat they trap leads to global warming. This warming in turn places pressure on Earth's climate system and can lead to climate change.
And this on the difference between weather and climate:
Weather is what we experience each day. Climate is the sum of all weathers over a certain period, for a region or for the planet as a whole.
Oh, refreshing clarity!
Don't be fooled by the photos! These were taken during the two minutes of sunshine on our 4-hour trip down the Chatanika River yesterday. The rest of the time it rained, drizzled, and poured. We paddled from Long Creek to the state campground at mile 39 of the Steese Highway -- about 10 river miles. The river was low, but full of fun little drops and sweeps around fallen and piled-up trees. There were blueberries along the riverbanks, bright red king salmon getting set to spawn after a thousand-mile trip from ocean, and even a few arctic grayling (the one I caught was about an inch too short).
And now for some actual climate news!
A governor's cabinet and sub-cabinets generally meet privately, but Gov. Palin's newish sub-cabinet on climate change is inviting the public to part of its Aug. 1 meeting. The morning session is not for public testimony, just invited speakers making presentations. A Department of Environmental Conservation spokeswoman said some municipal leaders, including Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho, have expressed a desire to meet with the sub-cabinet, which consists of a bunch of commissioners and a University of Alaska representative.
Anyone wanting to listen in should contact the DEC at 465-5009.
The public notice of the meeting also provides a summary of the sub-cabinet's duties. Governor Palin has formed a Sub-cabinet comprised of several Commissioners to develop a Climate Change Strategy for Alaska. The Strategy will be designed to improve the state’s scientific knowledge about actual and expected effects of climate change, develop appropriate measures and policies to prepare communities for the impacts of a changing climate and develop recommendations on Alaska’s participation in regional and national efforts to curb the causes of a warming climate.
Larry Hartig, commissioner of the DEC, said earlier this month the sub-cabinet had formed some sub-groups (sub-sub-cabinets?) to tasked with specific jobs, including researching options for alternative and renewable energy and working with state and federal agencies about the Alaska villages in need of relocation.
Palin hasn't actually signed the administrative order forming the sub-cabinet, a draft of which has been on her desk for a while.
See the calendar (over on the right) for other stuff going on.
That shrinking of the sea ice turned into a big story. The Anchorage Daily News had this story about how the lack of ice is affecting walrus (and the people hunting them), and my paper ran this follow up by the AP.
