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Warming Prompts California Water Regulators
William J. Kelly, Energy Meets Climate
Climate change is raising concern about drought and reduced snow pack throughout the West, but in California it has prompted more than concern, forcing water quality regulators to begin reassessing a wide variety of discharge limits and dam operating conditions in light of changing stream flow conditions. The review comes in response to changes that are creating a growing water crisis throughout the West, including drought along the Colorado River and a record low Sierra snow pack last spring.
Dry conditions have reduced flows in streams and rivers and raised temperatures, making waterways unable to assimilate as much pollution and still meet water quality standards aimed at making them fit for fishing, swimming, and drinking.
“The norms we thought were norms may not be norms at all,” said Bill Rukeyser, State Water Resources Control Board public affairs director, explaining the agency’s plan to review standards “over the next few years and in a variety of ways.”
As that review is carried out, it could spell billions of dollars of new expenditures by power generators, sewage treatment plant operators, farmers, drinking water agencies, cities, and a variety of other businesses to meet new water quality requirements.
Climate change has set off “a chain reaction” in the water system that already is spurring operational changes, said Rukeyser. Rapid hydrological changes, he said, are forcing the agency to “think two dozen moves out and not get locked into any certain strategy.”
At the leading edge of the changes wrought by global warming are increased use of recycled water and ground water to make up for a diminishing supply high quality surface water, said Rukeyser.
(16 October 2007)
Coastal planners ready for sea-level rise
Peter B. Lord, Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
By the time today’s babies become elderly, scientists predict that climate change will cause local ocean waters to be at least 3 to 5 feet higher than they are now.
If that happens, South County’s popular barrier beaches will be rolled up against the northern shores of the salt ponds. The sidewalks in Providence’s Waterplace Park will be under water. And coastal salt marshes will be inundated.
This fall, the state agency that regulates coastal development in Rhode Island plans to become one of the first local regulatory agencies in the country to officially recognize the likelihood of sea-level rise and write policies and regulations to prepare for higher water.
The rising waters will require that new buildings in flood zones be constructed at higher elevations, says Grover Fugate, executive director of the Coastal Resources Management Council. He says there should also be changes in the state building code for coastal development and different rules for septic systems. Sewer outfalls and bridges may be affected.
(17 October 2007)
The Single Most Depressing Thing I Have Ever Read
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
Regular readers of Transition Culture will know that I try not to make a habit of presenting depressing or distressing information, but today I will make an exception. Yesterday morning I read Carbon Equity’s The Big Melt report which is basically a review of all the literature and studies looking at what happened to the Arctic ice this summer. It does not make for comfortable reading, and indeed it adds enormous urgency to to need to reduce emissions. It argues that to speak of 2 degrees being a safe threshold is nonsense, that we haven’t yet reached 1 degree, but already the Arctic ice is melting 100 years ahead of when the IPCC predicted it would.
Its other key findings from its executive summary are;
• Climate change impacts are happening at lower temperature increases and more quickly than projected.
• The Arctic’s floating sea ice is headed towards rapid summer disintegration as early as 2013, a century ahead of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections.
• The rapid loss of Arctic sea ice will speed up the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet, and a rise in sea levels by even as much as 5 metres by the turn of this century is possible.
• The Antarctic ice shelf reacts far more sensitively to warming temperatures than previously believed. … [more points follow]
…This is the up-to-the-minute, as-it-happens climate change argument, and it should be very useful to any of you doing Transition work who encounter the “well, it won’t happen in my lifetime” folks. Well it will, and it is, and it is happening so much faster than anyone thought it would. I would class this as essential reading, but not for the faint hearted.
(17 October 2007)
Have We Hit the Critical Climate Tipping Point?
Sharon Astyk, Casaubon’s Book
[I] feel obligated to discuss the question of whether or not irrevocable climate change is upon us, because of the debunking RealClimate gave of Tim Flannery’s analysis here: www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/co2-equivalents/.
Now I should say that I take Flannery’s analysis far less seriously than the article I posted a few days ago, that includes the climate model by Weaver and U Victoria here:
environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12775-zero-emissions-needed-to-avert-dangerous-warming.html. But it is also worth observing that Flannery is not the first person to come to the conclusion that we have already passed the tipping point or will do so in the next few years. While RealClimate is right to point out the relevant excluded distinctions, I’m inclined to believe that Flannery and Weaver are both right.
Why? Because Flannery’s analysis relies on data that the IPCC did not have at the time that its report was compiled. It is not the case that Flannery’s analysis simply excludes negative factors and includes positive ones – his analysis derives in part from the fact that emissions rates are rising far faster than the IPCC ever predicted – than anyone ever predicted. And that factor is enormously significant, and one of the reasons I think RealClimate’s analysis is insufficient. It may turn out that Flannery is wrong, when all the reports are made available, but their flat statement that this is wrong is, I think, far too quick – we are dealing with subjective data analyses, and I don’t think anyone knows that for certain. As one of the commentators on the RealClimate site observes, the negative factors tend to dissipate quickly, while the positive factors tend to linger in the atmosphere, continuing to warm the planet longer than the negatives cool it.
…Whatever your analysis of the data as a whole, it seems clear that the IPCC figures are simply inadequate to the reality of climate change. This is not a slur on the IPCC scientists – the world as a whole, scientist and layperson alike, are struggling to catch up with our own impact. Whether Flannery is correct or not, the reality is that we have to deal with some really inconvenient truths of our own. They are:
1. Climate Change is striking us more immediately than we ever expected. We are probably closer to a tipping point, if we are not there, than anyone knows.
2. We are flying by the seat of our pants here, and no one analyst really knows what’s going on – the most exact tools we have right now are not scientific, but ethical – that is, we cannot risk killing billions of people simply to serve our own convenience.
3. In a sense it doesn’t really matter – we’re not right now doing much of anything. The odds are good that the rich world will continue its practices for some time.
4. But, of course it does matter enormously. It isn’t just the case that at 2 degrees, we’re committed and there’s nothing we can do. The effects of 450 ppm are very different than 600 or 700ppm. We have to stop making personal and industrial emissions. And that means changing – fast and hard.
– Sharon, going back on vacation for real this time…probably
(17 October 2007)
