February 2002

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CRC NEWS

REMINDER: CRC SEMINAR, 21 FEB - 3PM, CANBERRA:
Visiting Professor, Heinz Rennenberg, Germany, will present 'Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Natural Vegetation' at the CSIRO Discovery Centre (Optus Theatre), Clunies Ross Street, Acton, Canberra (opposite ANU) - 21 February from 3pm. The audience is invited to join Prof Rennenberg afterwards on a
walk through the recently expanded, Climate Change Exhibition, free of charge.MAP:
http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/images/csiro_discoverycentre_map.jpg

CRC MEMBER'S THOUGHT PROVOKING SCIENCE
CRC member, Dr Evelyn Krull (CRC Adelaide) attended the Australian Organic Geochemistry Conference in Hobart in early February where she presented a paper "D13C and D15N dynamics in soils" by Krull and CRC member, Jan Skjemstad (also Adelaide). In so doing, she won a prize for the best and most thought provoking presentation of the conference. Well done Evelyn!

CRC HOSTS: UN INFO DIRECTOR
Our communications area is very pleased to host a visit this month to the Canberra office by Langston James Goree, Director, IISD Reporting Services, United Nations Office, New York. "Kimo" Goree, as he is known, provides a crucial information service for the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), that reaches hundreds of nations and organisations. His office is responsible for much of the authoritative commentary included in our e-Carbon News on the negotiation processes during the annual rounds of talks under the Kyoto Protocol known as "Conferences of the Parties" or "CoPs".

eCARBON NEWS: CHANGES TO SUBSCRIPTION ARRANGEMENTS
Non-CRC subscribers to this service were recently advised that a subscription form is now at
http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/crc/ecarbon/subscribe.cfm All current (non-CRC) list members must re-subscribe online or they will no longer receive eCarbon News Updates after the Feb update. Thank you to most who have already re-subscribed. Recent changes in legislation regarding privacy mean we now only accept new subscribers via the online form. From this month, abridged updates will also be displayed on the crc website under the link "eCarbon News".

NEW CRC COURSE PROPOSED FOR 2002:
The CRC is considering holding a 2 or 3 day course on "PEST" (Model Calibration and Predictive Analysis using PEST) in September 2002. The course will be taught by the author of PEST, Dr John Doherty. Anyone interested in model calibration, parameter optimisation or analysis of model predictive uncertainty should attend this course. Those new to PEST and those with previous experience are likely to benefit by attending. If you're interested, pls call CRC Member, Dr Kema Ranatunga, kema.ranatunga@greenhouse.crc.org.au Ph: 02 6272 5352 Fax : 02 6272 3882.
[The course above is in relation to Project D2: "Carbon Scenario Analysis for Land Management Change" at http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/crc/research/scienceapps_d2.htm]


OTHER NEWS

[Reminder: COP 8, New Delhi, India, 23 October to 1 November 2002 See: http://unfccc.int/wnew/index.html]

US CLIMATE CHANGE: 14 Feb 2002
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020214-5.html

White House Briefings:
(13 Feb): http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020213-7.html
(14 Feb): http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020214-9.html#6

Australia's Response: Env Minister statement: http://www.ea.gov.au/minister/env/2002/mr15feb02.html
US Pew Center Analysis: http://www.pewclimate.org/policy/response_bushpolicy2.cfm

Articles (list not exhaustive):
ENN: http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=6228
ENN: http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=6222
ENN (Suzuki): http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/02/02202002/s_46390.asp
ENN (Reuters, UK): http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/02/02202002/reu_46439.asp
Washington Post: <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12771-2002Feb14.html>
New York Times: <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/15/international/15CLIM.html>
Daily Grist eZine: <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily>
Los Angeles Times: <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000011835feb15.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dscience>
BBC News: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1821000/1821876.stm>

Related Information
Gale Norton,Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior, discussing "New Environmentalism" (Press Club, Feb. 20.)
(RealAudio - requires plug in) at http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/exrad/020220.gnorton.ram
Bush Discusses Global Climate Change (June, 2001): http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html
NOAA page: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s866.htm


WHATS ON THE WEB

This week we feature just one rather lengthy item that, as it says, offers a case study in "the difficulties associated with communicating information about climate change to the public,".

MEDIA GOOFED ON ANTARCTIC DATA
San Francisco Chronicle, February 4, 2002
Internet: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/04/MN159039.DTL

GLOBAL WARMING INTERPRETATION IRKS SCIENTISTS
To most people, Antarctica is just a big, dumb block of ice swarming with penguins. But to scientists, Antarctica is one of the emerging puzzles of global warming eesearch. Unfortunately, global warming is such a politically charged, complex issue that scientists have had trouble conveying the complexities through the news media. They complain that coverage of two recent studies seriously misrepresented the meaning and significance of their research. One study showed that while other continents are warming, major parts of Antarctica are cooling. The other demonstrated that the glacial "ice streams" that feed the Ross Ice Shelf in West Antarctica appear to be growing, not shrinking.

To the scientists involved, the studies suggest that the effects of global warming on Antarctica may prove harder to forecast than anticipated. But to their dismay, some newspaper editorial writers interpreted the reports as evidence that the global warming theory itself is in trouble -- even though that was the furthest thing from the scientists' minds.

The screwup offers a case study in "the difficulties associated with communicating information about climate change to the public," said Benjamin Preston, an environmental biologist with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Va., who wasn't involved with the studies. One of the scientists involved in the two studies, Slawek Tulaczyk of the University of California at Santa Cruz, said the latest press misinterpretations leave him "increasingly frustrated" by sometimes-careless media coverage of the global warming issue. Tulaczyk and Ian Joughin of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena reported in the Jan. 18 issue of Science that the movement of the glacial Ross ice streams appears to be slowing, allowing the ice to thicken.

MEDIA ERRORS
In reporting these and the other findings, most science writers got the story about right. Trouble started, though, when the findings were tackled by the newspaper staff members who are typically paragons of caution: editorial writers. A headline over an editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune minced no words about it: "Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming." The editorial sarcastically asked: "Oh dear. What will the doomsayers say now? How will they explain away yet two more scientific studies that clearly contradict the global warming orthodoxy?"

Some media mistakenly equated the phenomenon studied by Joughin and Tulaczyk -- a change in ice flow rates -- with ice melting rates. The mistake contributed to the erroneous belief that the studies constituted, as it were, scientific "tests" of the global warming theory. For example, a headline in the National Post, a Canadian newspaper, declared: "Antarctic ice sheet has stopped melting, study finds."

CLIMATE TRENDS NOT RELATED
Contrary to some news reports, "the ice-sheet growth that we have documented in our study area has absolutely nothing to do with any recent climate trends," Tulaczyk declared, emphasizing those words in an e-mail to The Chronicle. The thickening of Antarctic ice in certain regions -- especially "Ice Stream C" of the Whillans Ice Stream, adjacent to the Ross Ice Shelf -- results from unexpectedly complex internal dynamics of the ice itself. That the ice-flow changes are unrelated to global warming is illustrated by a simple fact: Such changes were occurring long before the Industrial Revolution boosted atmospheric levels of heat-trapping gases. The area with the greatest ice thickening is on an ice stream that stopped flowing about 150 years ago.

"I keep repeating to journalists that climate science is much like economics. Both deal with complex systems," Tulaczyk observed. "Just as a single stock going up or down cannot be interpreted as a reliable indicator of economic recovery or collapse, we have to accept the occurrence of contradictory trends in the global climate."

CONVEYING INFORMATION DIFFICULT
For news media, the problem is an old one: How can writers convey interesting news about subjects like global warming to readers in a simple, easy-to-read way, without oversimplifying the complexities and obscuring the uncertainties? There's a tendency to take the "latest" results -- which may focus on just a tiny aspect of the climate change problem -- and blow them out of proportion. In the other recent study, 13 scientists reported in the Jan. 13 issue of Nature that while other continents have warmed to record-high temperatures in recent years, most of the Antarctic surface has cooled since 1966. Some editorial writers assumed that if Antarctica is getting cooler, then maybe the whole planet is cooling, too. "Is Another
Ice-Age On the Way?" asked an editorial in the Rocky Mountain News.

Contrary to the insinuations, "global warming is real and happening right now," declared Peter T. Doran of the University of Illinois at Chicago, lead author of the Nature paper. He said the cooling trend in Antarctica appears to be a surprising, regional exception to the overall planetary warming -- that's all. Doran emphasized: "Our paper does not change the global (temperature) average in any significant way. . .. Although we have said that more area of the continent is cooling than warming, one just has to look at the paper itself . . . to see that it is a close call.

POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS
"Our analysis suggests that about two-thirds of the main continent has been cooling in the last 35 years," Doran said. "But there is one-third of the continent that has been warming if you remove the (Antarctic) Peninsula. And with the Peninsula included, it shrinks to 58 percent cooling." Why is Antarctica cooling at all? One speculation -- still unproven -- is that the cooling may result from an unexplained change in wind patterns over Antarctica.

Normally, winds make Antarctica warmer than it would otherwise be. That's because winds force the warm upper air down toward the colder, icy ground and because winds compress and warm, like the fabled dry, warm Santa Ana winds of Southern California, as they descend the dome-shaped icy slopes of
Antarctica. In the end, these studies suggest that Antarctica's fate may prove harder to forecast than anticipated. But the temperature trends are hardly grounds for throwing out all the evidence that the planet as a whole is warming.

GROSS OVERREACTION
Observes Robert Bindschadler, an Antarctica expert at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.: "Antarctica is complicated. . . . I am dismayed that the two most recent articles have elicited what I would characterise as a gross overreaction (by news media) to the facts being reported." (He was not connected with the two studies.) Likewise, Tulaczyk said, the press coverage of their work made it "clear to me how hard it is to bring scientific work to public attention. "Our scientific arguments are built on an intricate net of carefully separated facts, theories, and hypotheses," he noted. "In our sentences we weigh whether to use 'is', 'may be', or 'can' as a verb." Yet such cautious scientific wording is often lost when it is translated to newsprint. Doran bluntly advises the public: "If you want the facts, you have to go to the original scientific peer-reviewed literature, and avoid the broken-telephone effect of the
popular press."


NEW PUBLICATIONS

Greenhouse Emissions Growth Slowed Over Past Decade (U.S. Global Change Data and Information System)
A new NASA-funded study shows that the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions has slowed since its peak in 1980, due in part to international cooperation that led to reduced chlorofluorocarbon use, slower growth of methane, and a steady rate of carbon dioxide emissions http://globalchange.gov/#Emissions-Growth

Scientists Describe Century of Human Impact on Global Surface Temperature (U.S. Global Change Data and Information System)
Human activity has affected Earth's surface temperature during the last 130 years, according to a study published this month by the Journal of Geophysical Research. http://globalchange.gov/#Surface-Temperature

"Habitats at risk: Global warming and species loss in globally significant terrestrial ecosystems"
by Malcolm, J.R., Liu, C., Miller, L.B., Allnutt, T. and L. Hansen, WWF, 2002 http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/species_loss.pdf

"Climate Change, Wildlife, and Wildlands Toolkit" (Educational)
The US EPA, in partnership with the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has released an award-winning outreach kit for teachers and interpreters, including rangers at national parks and wildlife refuges, to use when talking with the public about how climate change might affect wildlife and public lands. The kit, portions of which are available online at www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/outreach/orwkit.html To learn about climate change, see the EPA Global Warming Site at www.epa.gov/globalwarming. The site has up-to-date information on the
climate system; greenhouse gas emissions; impacts of climate change; and actions that can be taken at the national, state, local, business, and individual levels.

"Inter-linkages between the Ozone and Climate Change Conventions and the Issue Management Approach:" United Nations University / Global Environment Information Centre
http://www.geic.or.jp/jerry/designs/web.pdf. This and other reports will soon be also available from the main UNU web site: http://www.unu.edu/ More info: Jerry Velasquez, UNU, jerry@geic.or.jp


SEMINARS & CONFERENCES

(SYDNEY, 25 FEB 2002)
"Tropical Forest Dynamics: New Paradigms for New Forests"
by Prof Robin Chazdon, University of Connecticut, USA.
Biology Builidng E8A, Room 290, Macquarie University, Sydney.
RSVP: Robyn Delves 02 9850 8153 or robyn.delves@mq.edu.au

(MELBOURNE, 27 February)
"The evaluation of clouds in GCMs - Are we doing the best we can ?" by Christian Jakob, BMRC
11:00am, CAR Lecture Theatre, Aspendale, Victoria.
RSVP: Wenju Cai, CSIRO DAR, Email: Wenju.Cai@csiro.au
Abstract: The parameterisation schemes used to represent clouds in General Circulation Models have significantly evolved in their complexity over the last ten years. This increases the demand for a thorough evaluation of their performance. Several techniques ranging from the evaluation of the model climate to single column modelling have been proposed for that purpose. This presentation aims to provide a strategy for an improved, more coherent use of these techniques. An overview over the different techniques is given using examples from the evaluation of the global model of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Advantages and disadvantages of the individual methods are highlighted. The seminar closes by proposing a strategy to join the different techniques into a coherent procedure of cloud parameterisation evaluation.

(CANBERRA, 28 February 2002)
"From Tree Planting to Conservation: British Forestry Policy and the Environment, 1919-1988"
Dr Jan Oosthoek, Department of History, University of Stirling
Day: Thursday.12.30-2.00pm CRES Seminar Room, 5th Floor(Level 6), Hancock Building West, Bldg 43, Biology Place - off Sullivan's Creek Road, ANU
RSVP: nikki@cres.anu.edu.au or 02 6125 4598

Abstract: A formal British forestry policy only came into being with the establishment of the British Forestry Commission in 1919. The task of the Commission was to create and manage forest plantations for the production of timber. As a result large monoculture forest blocks appeared in the landscape, mainly consisting of fast growing conifers. Initially this was meant as a strategic timber reserve to prevent wood shortages in times of war, but later the aim shifted to the commercial production of timber. For
a long time there was no place for issues like nature conservation and the protection of landscape beauty. However, at the start of the 21st century timber production has shifted into the background and nowadays the British Forestry Commission acts more like a nature conservation organisation than a forestry enterprise. This seminar will explore how this remarkable transformation of British State Forestry took place.


(CANBERRA, 28 February 2002)
The ANU Forestry Graduate Seminar & Discussion Series
Forestry Seminar Room 103, Forestry Building, upstairs Series Coordinators; Ingo Heinrich (CRC) (ext. 52623, ingo.heinrich@anu.edu.au)

4.00 pm.: David Forrester (CRC Postgraduate Student) Dynamics of mixed species plantations.
4.30 pm: Linda Selg - Is irrigated agriculture consistent with 'wise use' under the Ramsar Convention? A case study of irrigated cotton production and the Macquarie Marshes MEnvSC candidate; Supervisor: Dr Richard Greene.

5.00 p.m. Guest Speaker: Prof. Rüdiger Mäckel, Dept of Physical Geography, University of Freiburg."Environmental changes and human impact on the landscape development in South-West Germany (Upper Rhine Valley and Black Forest)". This presentation looks at climatic changes and fluctuations in apparent human influences such woodland clearance, settlement and agriculture on the area's palaeoenvironment, from the Neolithic period onwards. During intermittent periods of climatic deterioration, settlement areas were widely abandoned and woodland expanded on open land. Patterns of
land-use intensified during warmer periods such as the Celtic, Medieval and Modern periods. The increased forest clearance, agriculture and altered settlement patterns during these warmer periods led to pronounced erosion and the development of wide-spread colluvial and alluvial sediments.

ARTICLES & PRESS RELEASES OF INTEREST

(REUTERS, 20 Feb 2002) - Insurers press for climate-change controls USA:
Story by Simon Challis, European Insurance Correspondent London: Having extracted government action on exposure to terrorist attacks, the insurance industry must now press politicians for climate-change controls, one of its leaders said this week. Most scientists say emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases are causing a rise in global temperatures, which in turn are responsible for more frequent natural catastrophes that insurers must pay for. "The threats to our economies and lifestyles from climate change are no less consequential than terrorist threats," Carlos Joly, the chairman of the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) insurance industry initiative, told Reuters in an interview.

U.S. President Bush, while leading a war against terrorism, has been criticised for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol and its mandatory targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and proposes an alternative plan for voluntary reductions. Without a reduction, insurers will be forced to protect themselves by cutting cover, leaving companies and individuals without insurance for the increasing number of weather catastrophes, said Joly. Devastating forest fires in Australia and the U.S., floods in Brazil and Turkey, snow in central and southern Europe and a typhoon in Singapore provided further evidence in 2001 of catastrophic weather events caused by climate change, says Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer. Last year, according to statistics compiled by the World Meteorological Organization, was the second-hottest year since records began in 1860. The hottest was 1998, and nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 1990, it said.

SETTING GOALS At a meeting in Rio de Janeiro next month, members of UNEP's insurance initiative will discuss what measures they have each taken to help tackle global warming and decide what issues they should concentrate on leading up to the September World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Joly expects insurers to come up with a strong statement on the roles of business and government in controlling climate change for the "Rio +10" summit in South Africa, which will discuss how much progress has been made since the ground-breaking "Earth Summit" held in Brazil a decade
ago. But the industry does not speak with one voice. "While most European insurance leaders accept that human action has caused global warming...the U.S. insurers buy into that claim much less," said Joly. The prevailing consensus there on the environment is very different from that in Europe, he acknowledges. That is illustrated by the fact that only two U.S. insurers signed UNEP's October 2001 Statement of Environmental Commitment by the Insurance Industry, compared to eight Russian insurers. But a group of over 80 insurers from across the world have signed the commitment and are sharing their plans and experiences to create a benchmark for ways to tackle environmental problems.

FLEXING THEIR MUSCLES Through their control of vast life insurance and pension funds, insurers are among the world's most powerful investors and can flex their muscles. Joly is also senior vice president of the investment arm of Norway's Storebrand, which, like other insurers, is adopting 'green' investment criteria. Joly said firms are setting up funds to invest in alternative energy companies, such as waste-to-energy producers, or creating products to trade carbon emissions. The key principle, he said, of an investment philosophy in line with UNEP's idea of sustainable development is not to avoid polluting companies, but to choose the most responsible, the "best in class". "You can't live without a chemicals industry, but you want one with processes and products that result in less pollution and toxic impacts." Apart from being investment giants, insurers are also among the biggest real-estate owners, particularly of city centre office buildings, and are beginning to use this power to promote green building practices and energy efficiency in those they run. But while there is now a greater awareness of environmental issues, Joly said the environment is just one concern that managers must deal with in a difficult economic environment. "Its prominence on their agenda has increased during the past decade, but is still not overwhelming. Perhaps it should be more, but that is simply a fact of life," said Joly. Only a major catastrophe - a major oil spill, big fire or devastating storm - would galvanise them to dramatic action, he said.

(CSIRO, 19 Feb 2002) - Global climate shift linked to greenhouse
New evidence is emerging that greenhouse gases may have tipped the world into a changed climate pattern, say CSIRO researchers. The scientists are exploring links between a global climate change that began around 1970 and rising greenhouse gas concentrations.Since the mid-1970s, surface waters in
the eastern Pacific Ocean, off the USA and Central America, have been warmer than in the past. Temperatures of the ocean surface in this region have been up to 0.8C greater than they were in the first half of the 20th century.

Dr Wenju Cai and colleague Dr Peter Whetton from CSIRO Atmospheric Research have evidence that the change was caused by warm water in the oceans at high latitudes being carried to the eastern equatorial Pacific by deep ocean currents. The process takes about 30 years. Using CSIRO's global climate model, the researchers have found that higher levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases may be the cause of the climatic shift in the Pacific. Our climate models are matching what we see in the real world," says Dr Cai.
Warmer conditions in the eastern equatorial Pacific are normally associated with El Niño events. These events occur every 2 ? 7 years, and normally lead to lower rainfall in eastern and southern Australia. The last El Niño occurred in 1997. "The change doesn't mean that we will have more El Niño events, but those that do occur may be stronger," says Dr Cai. This finding is in agreement with CSIRO's projections of likely changes to Australia's climate due to the greenhouse effect during the next 100 years. Scientists
project warmer drier conditions for much of the country.

Dr Cai and Dr Whetton published their findings in the international Journal of Climate. Dr Peter Whetton, Ph: 03 9239 4535 (W) 03 9687 7386 (H), email : peter.whetton@csiro.auPaul Holper 0407 394 661 (mob); 03 9239 4661 (W) email: paul.holper@csiro.au

(CSIRO, 18 Feb 2002) Global climate shift linked to greenhouse
New evidence is emerging that greenhouse gases may have tipped the world into a changed climate pattern, say CSIRO researchers. The scientists are exploring links between a global climate change that began around 1970 and rising greenhouse gas concentrations.
http://www.csiro.au/page.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=WarmingUp

(ABC News: 15 Feb 2002) - Bush unveils Kyoto alternative
United States President George W Bush has just unveiled his own plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in place of the Kyoto protocol. The Bush administration withdrew from Kyoto at the start of last year. The Bush plan aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the US by 18 per cent during the
next 10 years. But the President says that will not come at the expense of economic growth. "The Kyoto protocol would have required the United States to make deep and immediate cuts in our economy," Mr Bush said. Businesses will be given incentives the meet the goals, and President Bush says America will
diversify its energy sources, including using more nuclear power, to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. Critics of the plan say it panders too much to the business community.

(ABC News: 15 Feb 2002) - PM unmoved on Kyoto protocol
Prime Minister John Howard has welcomed the United States plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. US President George W Bush has proposed cutting US power plant emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury in an effort to reduce acid rain, smog and general pollution. The Clean
Skies Initiative will also offer incentives to businesses who reduce the rate of growth of greenhouse gases. Prime Minister John Howard says while the plan is a step forward, Australia will not ratify the Kyoto protocol until the United States does. "Our position remains the same and that is we would like to see the Americans and the developing countries in, because self evidently, without them Australia would be hurt," he said.

(UNFCCC, 31 Jan 2002) - Build 21st century economies by cutting greenhouse gases
Bonn/New York - Marking the end of 11 years as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Michael Zammit Cutajar has called on governments to focus on the long-term benefits of creating climate-friendly economies. "It would be naïve to ask governments to put their perceived economic interests aside. I hope, however, that a better appreciation of the costs of inaction and the economic benefits of innovation in technologies and lifestyles will generate a more balanced
economic vision," he said.
http://unfccc.int/press/prel2002/pressrel300102.pdf

(CSIRO, 31 Jan 2002) - Rainforests harvest the skies
Upland rainforests harvest vast amounts of water from the clouds in addition to what falls directly as rain, Australian scientist have discovered.
http://www.csiro.au/page.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=Prcloudstrip2

 

(c) 2002 CRC for Greenhouse Accounting

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