Stuart Gaffin is a climate researcher at Columbia University and a regular contributor with his blog “Exhausted Earth”; this is a reply to a blog by Holman Jenkins, a Wall Street Journal columnist and member of the WSJ editorial board. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content - the views are the author’s alone.

Mr. Jenkins replies that the clarification of his perplexing column is reiteration of his original sentence “…We don’t really have the slightest idea how an increase in the atmosphere’s component of CO2 is impacting our climate, though the most plausible indication is that the impact is too small to untangle from natural variability…”

He still doesn’t say where his ‘most plausible indication’ comes from except for his reference to some unnamed : “ … many scientists who have pursued empirical results [that] show the human contribution [has] been …maddeningly elusive or indeterminate.”

By contrast, I have no hesitation to say I was referring to IPCC when quoting the 90% confidence attribution of warming to human activities.

With regard to the first part of his dismissal of the present impact of CO2 on our climate, this has been the focus of core IPCC studies for many years and is called the ‘radiative forcing’ of the atmosphere compared to pre-industrial times (e.g. 1750). This is the energy imbalance created in the atmosphere by a factor such as greenhouse gases, aerosols, solar energy, clouds, land use. The resulting bar chart (see figure below) is famous. CO2 dominates the chart and is estimated in 2005 to be contributing a +1.66 Watts/square meter positive imbalance, greater than any other forcing, including solar by five times.

The point is Mr. Jenkins says I misread his statement about science not knowing “…how an increase in the atmosphere’s component of CO2 is impacting our climate …” But I responded directly to this claim when I wrote he is effectively saying we know nothing about how “CO2 affects … Earth’s energy balance” — I was referring to the energy imbalance chart shown above and the +1.66 Watts/square meter forcing.

Also, current warming from CO2 isn’t the only thing we ‘actually care’ about.

Here are at least three other scientific issues and facts about CO2 that will have major implications for society and the environment, even if Mr. Jenkins does not care about them: (i) how high will CO2 levels go if Mr. Jenkins had his way ? 700 ppm ? 1000 ppm ?; (ii) the atmospheric CO2 excess we are creating will last 100’s to 1000’s of years into the future; (iii) as excess CO2 dissolves in the oceans it is acidifying them and will adversely impact marine life worldwide.

Since Mr. Jenkins raises the ‘global warming has stopped’ claim, 2008 was the ninth warmest year on record since 1880 and the 10 warmest years on record have occurred between 1997-2008.

Moreover right now we are in a cool phase of both the 11-year sunspot cycle and also the cool phase of the powerful oceanic El Nino cycle so it’s not surprising that the last few years haven’t broken all-time records. The sunspot and El Nino cycles will turn around and warm again. Meanwhile CO2 and other greenhouse gases continue to grow unabated.

Mr. Jenkins seems strangely unaware that the warming of the 20th century has coincided with 20th century increases in CO2. Also the current rate of CO2 and other greenhouse gases increases are extraordinarily unprecedented during the last 2000 years of human civilization (see figure below), which is no doubt the most important period to consider for modern society.

I called attention to Mr. Jenkins use of “contribution” because it is a peculiar word to use to describe something that is wholly due to human activities, unless you want to leave the door open in reader’s minds that natural emissions are playing a significant role in the observed increases. Skeptics try to confuse the public about this by saying that since natural fluxes of CO2 from the ocean and biosphere are larger than human emissions, our emissions can’t be significant. But these fluxes have been tightly in balance over the last few thousand years as seen from ice core data for example (below). More importantly, Mr. Jenkins still doesn’t fully acknowledge this fact about the cause of today’s CO2 rise.

The Amazon rainforest lost trees and plants in a 2005 drought – shedding carbon equivalent to the weight of 140,000 Eiffel Towers or almost 200 Great Pyramids of Giza.

The drought, one of the worst in the past century, revealed the forest’s unexpected vulnerability to shifting rainfall and a huge role in releasing greenhouse gases – compounding problems such as logging and land clearance to create farmland.

The study in today’s edition of the journal Science (see story here) showed that the forest lost the equivalent of the annual carbon emissions of Europe and Japan during the drought — that’s five billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon stored in vegetation. The drought killed off some trees and slowed growth of other vegetation.

The Great Pyramid weighs perhaps 7.5 million tonnes, the Eiffel Tower 10,000.

The lead scientist of the study, Oliver Phillips of Leeds University, said that one answer could be for governments to consider even deeper cuts in their industrial emissions: the drought shows that people can’t rely on tropical forests to soak up emissions as the Amazon has been at least since the 1980s, a period of good growth ( … at least away from areas being burnt and chopped down).

So what can the world do? Among ideas: plant a tree in your back yard? Give tropical countries more incentives to safeguard the carbon stored in forests?

 (The picture top left, by Rickey Rogers, shows a small community of houseboats left stranded by receding waters near the city of Manaquiri, Amazonas State, in October 2005.)

Last year’s horrendous China earthquake may have big, lingering effects on the atmosphere. Mudslides after the deadly May 12 quake in Sichuan province are likely to trigger a release of carbon dioxide equal to 2 percent of the world’s current carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion, geophysicists say.

“Mudslides wipe away plants and topsoil, depleting terrain of nutrients for plant regrowth and burying swaths of vegetation. Buried vegetable matter decomposes and releases carbon dioxide and other gases to the atmosphere,” according to a statement ahead of a report in American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The gases, along with nitrous oxide, another major greenhouse gas, should spew into the atmosphere over a number of decades, according to the report due out on March 4.

(Reuters picture taken January 23, 2009)

 If you come up with an idea for saving the planet from global warming, you may be the lucky winner of a T-shirt emblazoned with your design.

A group opposed to large-scale intervention in nature to change the climate – such as placing vast mirrors in space to reflect the sun’s rays or fertilising the oceans with iron to promote the growth of algae that soak up greenhouse gases from the air – wants to hear of any zany ideas by April Fool’s Day.

Canada-based ETC Group, which says it works for conservation of ecological diversity and human rights, says the winner of what it calls the “pie-in-the-sky” contest will get a T-shirt and ETC will publish a cartoon of the winning entry on its website.

“The winning submission will be original, ludicrous and contain at least a nano-shred of perverse logic,” ETC says. “Industrialization geo-engineered us into the climate mess in the first place, and some companies and scientists are crazy enough to  think they can geoengineer us out of it,” said Kathy Jo Wetter of ETC Group.

But are all these ideas really so daft?

Proponents of geo-engineering says that short-cut fixes are worth studying in a world where governments are failing to rein in rising emissions of greenhouse gases, from factories, power plants and cars.

And warming already under way could cause far bigger damage — from heatwaves to rising sea levels — than any impact from the novel technologies. The picture at the right shows chimneys at a chemical factory at Tianjin in China.

Serious proposals from scientists include deploying a vast thin metallic barrier between the earth and the sun, with 100 space shuttle flights, or spraying a smoke of tiny polluting particles high in the sky to dim sunlight.

(Volcanic eruptions can, at least temporarily, cool the planet by spewing out smoke that masks the sun — the picture at the top is of the Llaima volcano in Chile last year, taken by Ivan Alvararo. One suggestion in the spirit of ETC’s contest: drop atom bombs down a remote volcano to trigger eruptions: that would fix the climate and help get rid of ageing Cold War stockpiles)

The U.N. Climate Panel, drawing on climate research by about 2,500 experts, advised caution about geo-engineering in a report two years ago. Such technologies “remain largely speculative and unproven, and with the risk of unknown side-effects”, it said.

Who’s right? Is geo-engineering the way to save the planet or a dead end? 

And if you have any ideas (zany or not), try them out below:

California looks ready to get the go-ahead to regulate greenhouse gases from cars, after President Obama on Monday told the EPA to reconsider a Bush administration refusal. California’s top climate official, California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols, last week predicted the okay would be ready to go by May. In the attached video, from the interview last week, she talks about California’s grand plans, which are the most aggressive in the United States.

For Reuters full environment coverage, check our stories here.

It was a disarmingly simple question but, embarrassingly, I didn’t have a clue when first asked that 18 months ago. Even though I’d have to describe myself as a genuine tightwad when it comes to expenditures, I simply had no idea, strangely enough, about how much money my four-person household was spending on electricity — nor how much carbon dioxide was being produced.

Now, after a year of carefully tracking the daily use of electricity, I’ve discovered a bit about when and where power is being used and, in theory, saved — without much pain. It seemed like a no-brainer and it honestly was not hard to cut our consumption by 1,000 kilowatt hours in 2008 to 5,000 kWh — saving about 200 euros and 500 kg of CO2 in the process. There were only minor sacrifices: rigidly turning off “standby” switches and unused lights, pulling plugs on little-used appliances, putting in energy-efficient lightbulbs, using the washing machine sparingly and the dryer only rarely, and replacing an inefficient dishwasher with a low-energy model.

In the past year, we used as little as 4 kWh on some days (in the summer) and as much as 30 on others (in the winter) — although most days were in the 10-to-17 range. Annoyingly, the house “wasted” about 3 kWh per day when we were away on holiday — largely due to the refrigerator, which I’ll be emptying and turning off next time. The 2008 total of 5,000 kWh (which amounted to an electricity bill of about 1,000 euros) isn’t bad for four people (one rule of thumb I’ve seen is 1,500 kWh per person/year) but I’m convinced that usage could be even less (the benchmark of 1,000 kWh per person/year is considered “thrifty”).

So the goal at home for 2009 is to cut electricity consumption by another 1,000 kWh (saving another 200 euros and 500 kg of CO2) to 4,000 kWh. Having a photovoltaic system on the roof (it produced 3,800 kWh that went into the grid) has helped wake me up to the mathematics and economics of power consumption and the goal of producing 100 percent of the electricity we need is now tantalisingly within reach. (The utility has to pay me 49 cents per kWh for the solar power I “export” into their grid while I have to pay 20 cents per kWh for the electricity I “import”.)

My wife was not exactly thrilled at first at my turning-the-lights-off crusade, which she saw as an unhealthy obsession rather than a good habit. But I was eventually able to win her to the cause. It didn’t hurt to promise her the “windfall” profits from the power savings. Saving another 1,000 kWh in 2009 won’t be as easy, I fear. A new A++ fridge (refrigerators are the real power guzzlers in most households) is at the planning stage and perhaps a new energy-saving washing machine, too. They aren’t cheap but they should pay for themselves through energy savings in the long run — and save a lot of CO2 in the process. Closely tracking the amount of gas for heating and diesel fuel used for the car in 2008 proved to be insightful as well: we cut both by roughly a third in 2008 by simply turning down the thermostat and driving less.

The electricity-saving habit (or obsession) might not be the magic solution to climate change. It also might not be as glamorous as high-tech solutions. Having seen myself how much electricity (and CO2) can be saved with relatively minimal disruption, it’s opened my eyes to how large the savings could be on a more global scale.

So, let me ask you: How much electricity do you use each year? And how much do you think you could save this year?

Environmental Protection Agency chief-to-be Lisa Jackson said science would be her guide on policy – and that may mean California is in the driver’s seat on setting new global-warming-style regulations on cars. (Not to mention the nearly 20 other states ready to follow in its footsteps.)

Jackson said she would reconsider whether California should get a waiver from the EPA that would allow it to regulate carbon pollution from cars, the San Francisco Chronicle said. The Bush administration has said no to such a waiver - but Jackson said she would focus on the science.

“She said today ‘I’m going to do it’. I mean, she didn’t say that — but I don’t think the auto industry has any doubt,” Sierra Club chief Carl Pope said shortly after a Senate confirmation hearing for Jackson. “She didn’t have to signal that strongly.”

Environmentalists see the waiver as one of the biggest issues facing incoming President Barack Obama.

Pope also interpreted her answers as meaning she would move to regulate carbon pollution from stationary power sources. The U.S. Supreme Court said EPA could treat greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming as pollution — but the agency has not under President Bush.

PHOTO: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Many people hope to come back from a wildlife safari with close-up pictures of lions or elephants – this picture below is my best attempt from a search for the largest land animals in Antarctica.

If you look hard you can see a reddish blob at the tip of the thumb — it’s Antarctica’s most aggressive land predator, an eight-legged mite known as Rhagidia.

Pete Convey, a biologist at the British Antarctic Survey (that’s his thumb), says that such tiny creatures evolved in Antarctica over tens of millions of years — they can freeze their bodies in winter in an extreme form of hibernation.

Penguins, seals and whales are the best known animals in Antarctica, but none live year-round on land, where the biggest creature is a flightless midge whose name is ”Belgica antarctica” and who’s about 0.5 cm long.

Global warming could mean problems for some of these tiny creatures if it keeps going — the Antarctic Peninsula where Pete showed us the creatures has warmed by about 3 Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit) over the past 50 years, the fastest rate in the southern hemisphere.

Some other creatures might be able to survive in a warmer climate and threaten mites like Rhagidia.

Pete is a genius at finding the creatures — the second rock he picked up had one of these red mites on it…I picked up about 50 and found none.

Here is Pete on his hunt being filmed by my colleague Stuart McDill of Reuters TV: (for a text story, click here)

 And here’s a much better close-up of a monstrous Antarctic mite, related to Rhagidia:

California is either about to bankrupt all its businesses, or it’s unleashing a green revolution.

Either way, it took a big step toward cutting greenhouse gases on Thursday, when its top air quality regulator, the California Air Resources Board, passed a scoping plan. That sounds deadly dull, we know, but it has excited a lot of people because it means specific targets are being set by the largest U.S. state in the midst of the worst economy almost anyone living has seen.

Some businesses fear they won’t be able to survive the costs. Some feel California will be economically reborn. Check out our story, and don’t be afraid to go to the CARB site and check out the plan itself, along with economic analysis and more.

This week the U.N. leads a new round of global climate talks, in its 14th meeting since the world signed up to the convention on climate change in 1992.

It’s all about replacing the Kyoto Protocol with a more ambitious climate deal from 2013. Kyoto is widely regarded as toothless, but so could be its successor. (For a story, click here)

After all, fighting climate change isn’t easy – it involves limiting emissions of greenhouse gases which are a by-product of everyday essentials from energy to food, from burning fossil fuels and making fertiliser, for example.

But where does that leave Kyoto – a multilateral process which requires unanimity for every decision?

Oxford University’s energy expert Dieter Helm last week compared the entire emissions-cutting effort of Kyoto from its base year 1990 to 2012 to the increase in emissions from aviation alone over the same period.

At the moment Kyoto excludes the United States, which didn’t ratify the pact, and all developing countries, including China and India. And it gave too much emissions headroom in its target for Russia.

So the pact has had no binding effect on four of the world’s top five emitters.
Now 190 countries are meeting in Poznan, Poland, to try and lay the foundations of a new agreement next year on a sharper treaty. What chance have they got?

While Barack Obama could follow Europe with cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the problem is more about changing energy use in developing countries, which they’re worried will curb their economic growth, too.

If you believe U.N. climate scientists, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 to avoid dangerous global warming.

There’s no chance of that on current trends, most scientists and economists say, given that emissions from top carbon bad boy China are rising by about 10 percent a year.
Is it time to shelve the Kyoto process and hand over to a centralised agency, to dish out tough climate medicine?

Or is the climate problem over-blown? Perhaps the world should wait for a new energy breakthrough, like nuclear fusion…