That Sinking Feeling (Global Warming)

As we continue to defy the Kyoto Protocol, the islanders of the South Pacific watch anxiously as the rising waters wash away their future. Now they are joining forces to fight the tide

It's possible that Kiribati has failed to make much of an impression on many people. The most easterly island in the world, it reached its apotheosis in popular recognition at the start of this millennium, when wealthy travellers flocked there in order to see the first sun rise on a new century.

The chances are the island will fail to make any impression by 2100. For Kiribati (pronounced Kiri-bas) is one of a group of islands at risk of disappearing beneath the waves over the coming decades as a direct result of dramatic climate change - and the local people are facing a hard battle to have their concerns heard on a world stage.

Kiribati won't be the first casualty of global warming. One islet, Tebua Tarawa, has already disappeared; another, Tepuka Savilivili, no longer has any coconut trees.

Tuvalu, the world's second-smallest nation (after Nauru, which is also in the Pacific), consists of nine coral island atolls, the highest of which is only 12 feet above sea level at its peak. It's not the sort of nation that can generate much of its own greenhouse gases, but its 10,500 inhabitants expect to be among the first to feel the effects of global warming. The coastal line is gradually being eroded by the sea, and the island has been hit by high tides that sweep away trees and roads.

But, the threat of the advancing sea isn't just about being submerged. More immediately, the salt water is seeping into the soil, making it increasingly difficult for the islanders to grow crops. (Farmers have to use tin containers, filled with compost, instead.) In 2002, Tuvalu was hit by a record high tide, which covered much of the island and flooded its airport. The situation is deteriorating rapidly.

For the Tuvalun people, joining forces with similarly threatened people has certainly raised their profile, but their future security is far from being resolved. And despite their fears, most of those involved in their campaign are reluctant to move, although many worry that migration will be their only hope of survival.

"The object of the exercise of 'sustainable development' is to survive on the atolls forever... Sustainability is the idea that we can survive from day to day, and... ever after!" says Ieremia Tabai, a former president of Kiribati, and former chairman of the Association of Small Island States (Aosis).

So Aosis is lobbying the bigger states about the dangers that they - or we - pose to their continued existence. Simply, they want the developed world to slow global warming by reducing the production of carbon dioxide. The problem is that, as typically happens with the politics of small countries against large, nobody seems to be listening.

HE Teburoro Tito, the President of the Republic of Kiribati, likens the current situation to the farmyard. "It is like greedy piglets fighting over their share of milk from their ill mother. Instead of co-operating on how they could help save their mother, they were all carried away fighting for their share, and making their mother even more ill, until all of a sudden they found out that they had lost their mother and there was no more milk to live on.

"Some say that it is nonsense that we take today's standard of living back to the past, just on behalf of the protection of the environment. But saving energy does not greatly affect your living standards. Is wasting energy and living in luxury a highly civilized life? Don't you think that it is rather more civilized to think about the next generation, and the future of the earth, and to act accordingly?"

Fine words, but they have little impact in Washington, where, while the official White House position on climate change agrees with the scientists' findings - that it is happening - the US government is intent on finding ways of reducing the "carbon intensity of its economy" outside of the Kyoto Protocol. Among the things that the US Republican party has objected to about Kyoto is its proposal for "trading" carbon-dioxide emissions: "Why should George Bush pay a billion dollars to the Russian mafia to keep a car plant in Chicago open?" commented one senior figure of the idea.

Whereas Archimedes was able to tell King Hieron "give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth", small islands like those represented by Aosis have found themselves at the short end of the political leverage. They try; but there's something weariness-inducing about the pages of earnest politicking issued by the Small Island Developing States Network (which is intertwined with the Aosis) - not least in the plans for the Mauritius convention "to discuss recommendations for further and successful implementation of the Barbados Programme of Action", or the Concept Paper for the Waste Management Experts Meeting in Havana, Cuba.

Of course, these are important issues. But, when islands are sinking, it's questionable whether this is the way to effect change. And will the delegates be travelling to those meetings by that carbon-dioxide generator, the aeroplane?

Another problem is that even the politically devised systems we have in place to tackle climate change aren't working. When the Kyoto Protocol was being hammered out, Aosis demanded that the industrialised nations cut their carbon-dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2010. The industrialised nations agreed instead to reduce it, under Kyoto, to 95 per cent of its 1990 levels - which would be, by a 30 per cent cut, half what Aosis demanded. However, the US refuses to be bound by the treaty (which is quietly dying a death on parliamentary floors around the world); and the latest data - submitted to a governmental climate change conference in Milan in December - suggests that the combined emissions of Europe, Japan, the US and other highly industrialized countries could grow by 8 per cent from 2000 to 2010. That's about 17 per cent over the 1990 levels.

At that same meeting, European Union ministers proposed putting off their next meeting, in which they will discuss the release of £30m of relief funds to help "adapt to environmental changes". Aosis members were outraged. "To survive the dry periods we now need desalination plants run by solar energy, but we have no money for that," said Enele Soponga, who chairs the alliance and is also Tuvalu's ambassador to the United Nations. "We need money from the countries that created the emissions."

Even those ministers who had hoped that, by putting off the meeting until May 2005, they might give the Kyoto Protocol some chance to stagger back from the dead - perhaps helped by a favourable (read: Democratic) victory in the US and Russian presidential elections later this year - relented and agreed that they would instead meet again this year.

But the funds haven't been released. And climate change continues to grow apace.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that, at present rates, mean sea levels could rise by up to a metre by 2100. The rise has been attributed to the thermal expansion of the sea, which, in turn, will be boosted by runoff from land-based glaciers. (Sea ice, such as that in the Arctic, does not affect water levels when it melts, because it is already displacing its own weight of water.) Such a rise would mean that, at high tide, water would come up two metres higher than at present.

If the west Antarctic ice sheet were to melt (though there are no signs of this at present), the fall-out would add so much water to the oceans that global sea levels would rise by several metres.

But there are sceptics, notably those running the globalwarming.org website - funded by the right-wing Cooler Heads Coalition, who think that global warming isn't scientifically provable. (Notably, none of the Cooler Heads members lives in any of the threatened island states, or shows any signs of moving there; they're all safely ensconced in the US.)

The CHC argues that adopting Kyoto would damage America's interests, and that the effects about which Aosis have raised the alarm aren't all visible - and those which are can be the reverse of expectations. "New research has shown that sea level [at Tuvalu] has fallen by about 2.5 inches in the last 2 or 3 years," it argues on its website, "an apparently dramatic reversal from the 1.5 inch per year rise experienced throughout the earlier 1990s." It does somewhat spoil its triumphal tone by adding that: "Any potential global warming will actually cause sea levels to drop in the short term." Which surely means that the falling sea levels it reports confirm that global warming is happening.

But the undated page of the CHC's website doesn't identify the source of its research. And studies released by the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project in October 2000 have contradicted this analysis, suggesting instead that while sea levels around Tuvalu dropped in the mid-1990s, they began climbing again in 1998, and have continued to do so. The best studies suggest that global sea levels are rising by between 1mm and 2mm per year. Which doesn't sound significant, until the Monitoring Project scientists point out that "this rate of change is about 10 times more rapid than the average over the previous 3000 years, as determined from the geological record".

But it's not just the rising sea levels that pose a threat to the islanders. Scientists predict that increasing temperatures will cause more tropical storms - the sort that generate higher waves, and which could mean inundation for the low-lying islands.

Mr Tabai says that "mother earth... is silently calling us to stop fighting over our selfish interests and to help her back to recovery. All she is asking, from each one of us, is to care for her the way she cares for us, and to learn to live in harmony with her."

But no words will change the fact that the tide will rise tomorrow on Kiribati, and Tuvalu, and Nauru, and the dozens of other islands. And that tomorrow, it will rise just a little higher than the day before.

While the islanders of Tuvalu live at the mercy of ever-rising waters, the Chinese are battling an altogether different storm that threatens to engulf them. Throughout March and April, huge sand storms blast across the city of Beijing, into Tianjin and onwards, as far as the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Known as "Yellow Dragons", the storms deposit millions of tonnes of sand along their way, choking the sky and submerging the rich topsoil that is so vital in helping the Chinese sustain their local agriculture.

According to Greenpeace, the problem of desertification in this region currently threatens the lives of 400 million people. The economic loss to the country has been estimated at about $6.5bn per year.

As in Tuvalu, one of the major contributing factors to this displacement is global warming. And while Beijing itself is not blameless in its energy consumption, appeals to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, as stipulated at Kyoto, have been met with reticence by the Western world.

Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities have undertaken a massive reforestation scheme in a bid to halt the reach of the dusty winds. The plans include the planting of a "green wall" of trees and plants that will stretch from Beijing to Inner Mongolia. But these efforts will only paper over the cracks. Unless the world takes joint action to curb carbon dioxide emissions and adopt the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, desertification, sea-level rise, floods and droughts will continue to threaten some of most vulnerable nations on earth.

Ta-da!

And the eco-scam of the year award goes to 10,991 con artists known collectively as the Tuvalu.

That’s the number of con-men, er, people, plopped butt down on the South Seas island of Tuvalu.

Egged on by tweety bird “environmentalists,” the natives have pestered the New Zealand government into accepting each and every one of them as environmental refugees, cast adrift by a sea level rise from mean ‘ol global warming.

Oh, no, here comes...science!

French scientists used data collected by altimeters aboard the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite and found - Gasp! - the sea level has been declining for 50 years. So the Tuvalu island is rising from the ocean, not sinking into it.

Oh, darn. Caught again. No matter. What’s science when there’s a little ‘ol Marxist political agenda to meet, and you need poster boys to drag across the world stage?

In fact, the Tuvalus have destroyed their island paradise. Tuvalu in green-speak means “ecological disaster.” There are no rivers or sources of potable water. Beachheads are eroding or gone because the sand has been removed for building material. The environmentally sensitive natives have burned most of the vegetation for fuel. The soil is sour and poor. There are no mineral deposits and the primary export is complaining.

The natives look restless and need a hand-out.

“Assimilate me!” they cry to the environmental Borg.

To the rescue is the gizzard-chewing socialist New Zealand Prime Minister Helen “Lamb Chops” Clark who smells 10,991 easy votes.

The natives will be moved, lock, stock and whines, and accorded all manner of free welfare - mutton, housing, beer, medical care, clothing, beer, whiskey, lamb chowder, beer, lottery tickets, wool blankets, beer, coddling, weaning and beer - to sit plopped butt down on a New Zealand beachfront, for as long as they vote right.

It’s not known how many years it will take for the Tuvalus to work away and remove New Zealand’s beachheads and, thus, the island socialist paradise itself, but we will keep a sharp eye out in case we spot Tuvalu sails tacking toward America.

Satellite Temperatures — The Long Run

For some, twenty-five years of data doesn’t sound like much for use in establishing long-term trends in global temperature. But, the temperature data collected by NASA satellites corresponds with the time when the potential human impact on climate should have been greatest. It has been collected consistently from samples of the atmosphere over the entire globe. This makes it of great importance. Because the data nearly “cover the earth,” these measurements are unique among existing climate datasets. This also makes them an invaluable tool in assessing the impact of human activity on the global atmosphere. The satellite data now spans a quarter century. Happy anniversary!

The U.S. first began collecting and recording atmospheric temperature data from space platforms on November 16, 1978, a couple of weeks after the successful launch of the TIROS-N/NOAA satellite carried aloft several instruments designed to collect environmental data for the earth. One of these instruments — the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) — was designed to measure the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere by recording the microwave energy emitted by oxygen molecules. Such a measurement is an indication of the temperature of the molecule. These measurements have been made continuously since then using similar instruments subject to various technological improvements and launched aboard various satellites. In each instance, the new instrument became operational before the demise of its predecessor. This allowed for calibration to assure continuity of data.

Temperature observations made from space have one disadvantage; they measure only the average temperature within broad atmospheric layers. For example, a single satellite temperature measurement is made for the atmospheric layer that extends from near earth’s surface up to an altitude of 30,000 feet. The result is a measurement of the lower troposphere. But, MSUs aboard the satellites have a distinct advantage; they are able to take measurements of temperatures from over 95 percent of earth’s surface. They are “blind” only to small regions around the North and South Poles, and in places where mountains protrude through the lower atmosphere (the Himalayas).

The first MSU history of temperature measurements was published in Science in 1990 by Roy Spencer, a microwave expert at the National Atmospheric and Space Administration, and John Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. Their analysis introduced the climatological community to the idea that satellite temperature measurements could be used to monitor global temperature change in the earth’s atmosphere. In the thirteen years since their first publication, the satellite temperature record has grown to be a centerpiece in the global warming debate. This is because it represents the most consistent, widespread, and accurate measurement of global temperature in the lower atmosphere — a region computer climate models predict should warm at the greatest rate due to the build-up of greenhouse gases. Many of us contend satellite measurements provide one the best tools available for assessing the accuracy of global climate models. As a consequence, the data set is controversial.

Spencer’s and Christy’s satellite record, with the collection and analysis of the data for November 2003, celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary. What we’ve learned in that time is that the MSU data show global-averaged temperature in the lower troposphere to have warmed by about 0.19ºC (0.34ºF). Much of that warming has come since the El Nino of 1998 and is confined to latitudes north of 30ºN. There appears to have been little to no warming in the tropics and southern latitudes.

Figure 1 and Figure 2 are extracted from a recent report by Spencer and Christy. They depict both the 25-year-long global temperature history from the satellites (Figure 1) and the spatial pattern of the 25-year observed temperature trends (Figure 2).

Figure 1. Monthly satellite temperature anomalies from November 1978 through November 2003 (from Spencer and Christy, http://www.uah.edu/News/climate/25years.pdf).

Figure 2. Pattern of temperature change as observed by satellites for the period November 1978 through October 2003 (from Spencer and Christy, http://www.uah.edu/News/climate/25years.pdf).

The satellite data record indicates the atmosphere has warmed up over the last twenty-five years (1) less than the amount calculated using observations taken at the earth’s surface, and (2) much less than the amount calculated by most global climate models, which incorporate observed changes to the atmospheric system (i.e., volcanic eruptions, solar variations, greenhouse gas increases, aerosol changes, etc.). The discrepancy in these measurements casts doubt on what scientists really know about what is going on with regard to “global warming.” It raises three immediate questions: are the climate models functioning correctly, is the satellite data accurate, and/or is there a flaw in the surface observations? As a consequence, Spencer’s and Christy’s analysis of the satellite data is given close scrutiny by several research teams who suggest there are adverse influences on the satellite observations caused by such things as orbital decay, orbital drift, and intersatellite calibration. They claim Christy and Spencer do not properly account for such effects.

On the contrary, Spencer and Christy have carefully addressed each expressed concern and done so in great detail. They have also demonstrated close correspondence between their calculated temperatures and those independently observed using radiosondes to transmit data from the weather balloons that are launched twice daily around the world and used to gather meteorological information for daily weather forecasts. Similar close correspondence has not been demonstrated for alternative representations of Christy’s and Spencer’s satellite data. Therefore, their data remain the de facto standard to beat.

We conclude that the satellite data is all but completely verified and the discrepancy between datasets suggests problems with the surface data, the computer models, or a bit of each. Surface temperature measurements will respond to influences that are not related to large-scale climate changes: things such as urbanization, landscape change, changes in agricultural practices, movement of instrument location, and changing times of observation. There have been many attempts to account for such influences, but most are not easily quantifiable and therefore are difficult to adequately account for. Furthermore, many regions of the earth are sparsely sampled. In regions like the oceans (which comprise most of earth’s surface), observations are extrapolated from a single observation point and are assigned to represent large geographic regions. This less than ideal situation illustrates an inherent and not easily overcome flaw in the surface temperature records.

We also note that in the regions where surface temperature measurements are most plentiful, land areas in the United States, Europe, Russia, China, and Australia, there appears to be greater agreement between the surface measurements and the satellite measurements. This correspondence weakens where measurements are sparser, suggesting that, in calculating large-scale temperature trends (hemispheric or global), the satellite data may better represent real conditions than surface data.

The computer models introduce another source of error. On one hand, if the surface data is proven to be correct, the climate models would indicate the lower atmosphere should warm as fast as, or faster than, the surface. Yet surface temperatures have been observed to be warming faster than temperatures in the lower atmosphere. This fact alone indicates a major problem in the models. Yet, on the other hand, should the surface data prove to contain non-climatic warming elements which, when removed, bring the models more in line with the satellite measurements, only then could one claim the climate models better represent the vertical structure of the warming, but in so doing would be greatly over-predicting the rate of observed warming by about a third or a half. Whichever the case may be, such inaccuracies cast doubt on the veracity and subsequent utility of climate models as a tool for assessing future climate. If the models cannot accurately capture the known behavior of the earth’s climate, they simply cannot be relied upon to make accurate future projections.

In the grand scheme of things, twenty-five years of data represents a tiny fraction of earth’s climatic history. But to anyone who has been involved in the greenhouse debate, those twenty-five years of satellite temperature observations provide a wealth of information. So, in this season of celebration, let’s add a toast for Spencer and Christy’s tireless efforts and to another quarter-century of satellite data collection as fruitful as the last.

References:

Spencer, R.W., and J.R. Christy, 1990. Precise monitoring of global temperature trends from satellites. Science, 247, 1558-1562.

Spencer, R.W., And J.R. Christy, 2003. Global temperature Report, 1978-2003. http://www.uah.edu/News/climate/25years.pdf

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