Environment Forum

Floods? Droughts? Wildfires? Hurricanes? Yes, there is a climate change connection

For years, climate scientists were circumspect when asked if a specific bit of violent weather — for example, Hurricane Irene, the late-summer storm that slammed the heavily populated U.S. East Coast — could be blamed in some way on climate change.

“Climate is what you expect,” the scientists would say, “while weather is what you get.” They would often go on to say that while increasingly severe weather and correspondingly serious costs and consequences were forecast in climate change computer simulations, there was no way to directly blame a given storm on human-generated heat-trapping gases in Earth’s atmosphere.

There still is no direct line between a certain amount of warming and a certain storm, wildfire, drought or flood. But there is a “new normal,” detailed by scientists on a new website . Staffed and advised by some of the most well-known climate change experts in the United States and elsewhere, the site says plainly that what the computer models foretold in 2007 is clearly documented to be occurring.

“All weather events are now influenced by climate change because all weather now develops in a different environment than before,” the Climate Communication site noted in an article released days after Irene dumped record amounts of rain on the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

“While natural variability continues to play a key role in extreme weather, climate change has shifted the odds and changed the natural limits, making certain types of extreme weather more frequent and more intense. The kinds of extreme weather events that would be expected to occur more often in a warming world are indeed increasing.”

So what has really changed? For one thing, it’s just plain getting hotter, the Climate Communication scientists say, citing U.S. and global statistics.

Sixty years ago, the number of new record high temperatures in the contiguous United States was about the same as the number of new record lows. Now, the number of new record highs each year is twice the number of new record lows, a sign of a warming climate, these scientists said.

As if 2007 never happened?

If four years is a lifetime in politics, it’s an eternity in climate change politics. Events in Washington this week might make climate policy watchers wonder if 2007 really happened.

At issue is the decision by American Electric Power to put its plans for carbon capture and storage on hold, due to the weak economy and the lack of a U.S. plan to limit emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide. Read the Reuters story about it here.

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS for short, has been promoted as a way to make electricity from domestic coal without unduly raising the level of carbon in the atmosphere. Instead of sending the carbon dioxide that results from burning coal up a smokestack and into the air, the plan was to bury it underground. But that costs money and requires regulatory guarantees, and neither are imminent in the United States. Legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions bogged down on Capitol Hill a year ago and has not been re-introduced.

Sarah Forbes of World Resources Institute called AEP’s decision “a surprise, but not a shock.”

“Given that U.S. climate legislation stalled last summer, companies have less incentive to move forward with CCS, which has proven difficult to advance at scale,” Forbes said in a statement.

Compare that to what happened in 2007. Senators Barbara Boxer, John Warner and Joe Lieberman joined forces that year to focus attention on climate change and were able to shepherd a carbon-limiting bill to the Senate floor the next year, the farthest any such measure has gotten in the United States. Al Gore, the former vice president and perennial climate campaigner, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations’ Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change for bringing climate change to public attention.

On Groundhog Day of that year (why did they pick February 2?) the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment report on what was likely to happen in a warming world. The report forecast more severe weather, worse heat waves, dramatic droughts, wildfires and floods, rising seas and melting glaciers. It also famously said, with 90 percent certainty, that climate change was under way and that human activities contribute to it.

Even everyday weather could pack a $485 billion punch

No question about it: this has been a wild weather year so far in the United States, with record rains, droughts, wildfires and tornadoes. But a new study indicates that even routine weather events like rainstorms and cooler-than-normal days could pack a huge annual economic wallop.

Weather’s effect on all sectors of the U.S. economy may total $485 billion a year, as much as 3.4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, according to research published in the current Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. It is the first study to apply qualitative economic analysis to estimate the U.S. economy’s weather sensitivity.

Mining and agriculture are particularly sensitive to weather influences, with routine variations taking a toll of 14 percent on mining each year — possibly because of changing demands for oil, gas and coal — and farming feeling a 12 percent impact, conceivably because temperature and precipitation affect many crops, the study said.

Other weather-sensitive U.S. sectors include manufacturing (8 percent); finance, insurance and retail (8 percent), and utilities (7 percent). By contrast, wholesale and retail trade had a weather sensitivity of 2 percent, and the service sector felt a 3 percent impact from routine weather variations. The impacts stretch across every U.S. state, researchers found.

“It’s clear that our economy isn’t weatherproof,” said the study’s lead author, Jeffrey Lazo, an economist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.

This research could help policymakers figure out whether it makes sense to invest in enhanced forecasts and other strategies to help shield U.S. economic activity from weather impacts, NCAR said in a statement. The study did not calculate any additional costs from extreme weather events because data from these events was not available for the time period of their economic model. They also did not factor in possible impacts of climate change, which is expected to spur floods, heat waves and other severe weather events.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Spectators don rain gear during first round play at the 2011 U.S. Open golf tournament in Bethesda, Maryland, June 16, 2011.)

from Russell Boyce:

Don’t drink the water, even if there is any to drink (Update)

One more picture that caught my eye during the 24 hours news cycle for the World Water Day is the image of hundreds of hoses providing drinking water to  residents of a housing block in Jakarta.  The grubby plastic pipes supplying a fragile lifeline to families seem to represent the desperation that people face when the water supply is cut off.

Hoses used to supply residences with water are seen hanging across a street at the Penjaringan subdistrict in Jakarta March 22, 2010. Residents in the area say that they have had to construct makeshift water supplies for their homes by attaching hoses to pumps bought with their own money, as the government has yet to repair the original water supply which was damaged. March 22 is World Water Day.     REUTERS/Beawiharta

Today, March 22 is World Water Day and Reuters photographers in Asia were given an open brief to shoot feature pictures to illustrate it.  The only requirement I asked of them is that they included in the captions, the fact that while the Earth is literally covered in water, more than a billion people lack access to clean water for drinking or sanitation. At the same time in China 50 million people are facing drought conditions and water shortages and the two stories seemed to tie in with one another.

Looking at the file today three pictures really stuck home to me as to just how enormous the problem of getting clean water to people in the world is.

A boy swims in the murky waters of Manila Bay March 21, 2010. The Earth is literally covered in water, but more than a billion people lack access to clean water for drinking or sanitation as most water is salty or dirty. March 22 is World Water Day.    REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo

Rainy Taiwan faces awkward water shortage

 Chronically rainy Taiwan faces a rare water shortage as leaders ask that people on the dense, consumption-happy island of 23 million finally start changing habits as dry weather is forecast into early 2010. 

Taiwan, a west Pacific island covered with rainforests and topical fruit orchards, is used to rain in all seasons, bringing as much as 3,800 mm (150 inches) on average in the first 10 months of every year. But reservoirs have slipped in 2009 due to a chain of regional weather pattern flukes giving Taiwan too much dry high pressure while other parts of Asia get more storms than normal, the Central Weather Bureau  says.

Deadly typhoon Morakot  in August brought more than half the year’s rain to much of south Taiwan, washing away drought fears as well as a lot of other things. But the three-day storm dumped too much rain at once for much storage or use. Despite the typhoon, southern Taiwan’s anchor city Kaohsiung was 20 mm below average in the first 10 months of 2009, with the typhoon’s contribution about half the 1,747 mm total. Below-average rainfall resumed after the typhoon, the weather bureau said, and the same is forecast through February.

Some reservoirs in south and central Taiwan have hit water-rationing levels, a senior climate researcher told the United Daily News , adding that “southerners had better not go home for the Chinese New Year” in February.

Authorities in Taiwan won’t say when they might ration water or how long Taiwan can get by without more rain. For now they are trying to wash off the spectre of rations by asking ordinary people to make awkward, expensive lifestyle changes. One: Reuse water used for baths or laundry to wash floors. Two: Install low-flush toilets, low-flow faucets  and low-usage washing machines. The island’s Water Resources Agency aims to reduce today’s average per capita water use of 274 litres per day down to 250, said drought prevention director Wang Yi-feng. “We also hope they change and correct their use of water,” Wang said. “To reuse water can save a lot.”

Consumers are likely to consider low-flush, low-flow appliances only when buying new homes or remodeling them, being in a mood already to spend money on updates, said a volunteer surnamed Tsui with the Consumers’ Foundation, Chinese Taipei. “But if you’ve got older equipment, then maybe not. The cost would be unknown.”

((Photos: Low water levels in Taiwanese reservoirs – courtesy of Government water resources agency))

Another reason for angry teenagers – in the shower

Other than pounding on the bathroom door, there is little one can do to get family members (read teenagers) to take shorter showers. But with mandatory water conservation possibly coming down the pipeline in California’s third year of drought,  one Denver-based company said it has the invention that will help households get through these dry times: the Shower Manager.

The Shower Manager can be programmed to run for five, eight or 11 minutes at full flow. After a warning beep it cuts the flow by two-thirds, just enough to rinse. Five minutes have to pass before it can be reset – an eternity in a shower.

One satisfied customer, Lisa J, was quoted by the company as saying her kids ”call it the Shower Nazi.” The Web site claims a family of four (including two teens) can save $400 annually in water and heating costs – compared to the product’s online price of $125.

There is a cheaper alternative to promoting — though not enforcing — shorter showers. For $15.50, you can get a shower timer in the shape of a duck, a turtle or a star. One person on flickr showed their duck timing a 3 minute shower, prompting the comment (from a teen?): “Woah! I would have a hard time with three-minute showers.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Mark Blinch (A woman takes a shower in a Toronto gym.)

Water! (gasp) California needs water!

The results are in and no surprise — California’s lean snowpack means a third year of drought for the state whose farms supply about half the nation’s fruit and vegetables.

The state’s survey clocks in at 81 percent of normal water content in the snow, with the state fearing early spring heat could melt the white stuff, leaving fewer reserves later in the summer when they are most needed. Plus a National Marine Fisheries Service report, called a biological opinion, may trigger more conservation measures to protect salmon and steelhead, cutting water left for farms and homes.

Things have improved a tinge since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a drought emergency in February, but the state, eyeing climate change,  is preparing for a dry 2010 and says that statewide storage is about 5 million acre feet below average. Since one acre foot is enough for a household or two for a year, that’s a lot.

Photocredit: Reuters/Lee Celano (A US Forest Service vehicle drives past snow-covered cactus in Joshua Tree National Park, California March 11, 2006)

Overcoming the ‘ick’ factor of wastewater recycling

After an hourlong tour of the world’s largest wastewater recycling plant, where 70 milion gallons of pre-treated sewer discharge is distilled daily to help replenish the underground drinking supply of Orange County, California, I was led to a sink with a faucet. There I was presented with a plastic cup and invited to take a sip.

Crystal clear and utterly tasteless, the sample was refreshing and perfectly safe for human consumption.  Some minerals are actually reintroduced to the water before it’s pumped back out of the ground for general consumer use.

Michael Markus, general manager of the Orange County Water District and the chief engineer behind the plant, assured me that the water exceeds all government drinking standards, even though the state requires the county to put it into the local aquifer — for additional natural filtration — before offering it to the public.

NASA has recently developed a new system for purifying urine and other wastewater for astronauts to drink in space. But this is wastewater recycling for the masses.

The technology has been available for years but was long disparaged by cynics in the media and politics as “toilet-to-tap.”

Now with drought-related water shortages expected to worsen from climate change, even as cities continue to grow, the scarcity and escalating price of fresh surface water has made recycling more economically viable and helped it overcome the “yuck” factor.

The year-old, $481 million Orange County facility, called the Groundwater Replenishment System, produces enough purified water to meet the drinking needs of 500,000 people and is serving as a model for numerous cities across California looking to augment their own aquifer supplies.

Cities in U.S. Southwest face thirsty times

The fast-growing U.S. Southwest has a problem: too many people, not enough water.

But then, what do you expect when you build cities like Las Vegas in the middle of a desert?

My colleagues Tim Gaynor and Steve Gorman have done a story on this, looking at the water woes of Los Angeles and Las Vegas. You can see their report here and other stories from our water package here.

Tim joined the “water warriors” of Las Vegas, city investigators who enforce restrictions on usage; Steve looked at the dire situation in Los Angeles, America’s second largest city.

Tim accompanied waste water investigator Dennis Demera as he followed a tell-tale trickle of water up the dusty concrete gutter to a house in suburban Las Vegas, the United States’ driest big city.

This is one of the violations that we look for,”  Demera said, pointing to a broken sprinkler head in the sparse lawn of the detached home in residential Surfline Drive.

Is the U.S. West going the way of parched Australia?

The drought-induced infernos which ravaged parts of Australia earlier this year may be a harbinger of the water challenges coming to the American West.

 ”Think of that (Australia) as California’s future,” water researcher Heather Cooley of California’s Pacific Institute told my colleague Peter Henderson. You can see his report, part one of our series on water scarcity in the U.S. West, here.

Plush green golf courses in the desert, verdant boulevards in Los Angeles and fountains that dance 20 stories high in Las Vegas are very much part of today’s landscape and life in the American West.  As California author James Powell says: “Add water and you have the instant good life.”

But as the reports in our series show, the region is in for some tough decisions on the water front as urban populations swell, farmland competes for dwindling supplies, and climate change models predict more droughts and floods and a melting of the snowpack so crucial to life in the West.

Yet in a region known for its technological innovation, the U.S. West could also be a leader in  showing the world how to deal with water crisis. Learn more in parts two, three and four of the series, this week.

Photo credit: Reuters/David Becker (The “bathtub ring” grows as water levels drop in Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, Nevada, February 2009 )