»climate change«

Talking about carbon offsets is en vogue, and Benjamin Lester reports in Science magazine (5.10.2007) how the scientific community addresses the problem of increasing carbon emissions by conference attendees traveling -- mostly by plane -- to the many meetings. Actually, scientist should be more concerned about CO2 emissions released by their (travel) habits. Lester issues travel tips that start with "skip meetings when you can", followed by "ask conference organizers to team with local hotels to reduce linen changes and other waste for conference attendees". Thus far the funny part. Some years ago conference organizers didn't care about the carbon footprint of their meetings. It was merely a private issue of scientists. Now, wind has changed. First, on registration forms you see check boxes for compensation of your CO2 emissions. Second, organizers consider video conferences or a maximum attendance. The reason: Many conferences attract thousands of scientists (Champion is the Neuroscience conference with 35.000 in the year 2005), studies have shown that more than 90 percent of CO2 emissions of a meeting are produced by traveling by plane. One easy step to curb the scientists' emissions is to organize meetings in easy reachable cities with direct flight connections.

This summer probably sees a record in ice shrinking at high latitudes. According to William Chapman of the University of Illinois, the area of floating ice around the North Pole is as small as never before. "The cause is probably a mix of natural fluctuations, like unusually sunny conditions in June and July, and long-term warming from heat-trapping greenhouse gases and sooty particles accumulating in the air," writes Andrew Revkin for the NY Times (10.8.2007).

Scott Borgerson searchs in an opinion piece for the NY Times (8.8.2007) for a compromise for a somewhat Arctic arms race where the Arctic countries like Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada and the U.S. try to claim for territorial-like rights for the Arctic and its resources. Russia has got raised symbolically its flag on the sea floor at the position of the North Pole. Borgerson recommends a similar treaty among countries like the legal framework for the peaceful exploration of Antarctica. "The treaty prohibited nuclear explosions, radioactive waste disposal and military deployments on Antarctica," writes Borgerson.

These are the choices people and their governments have in reaction to the climate report by the IPPC. The leading climate scientists say "that the world was in for centuries of climbing temperatures, rising seas and shifting weather patterns — unavoidable results of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. But their report, said warming and its harmful consequences could be substantially blunted by prompt action," writes Andrew Revkin in his report for the NY Times (3.2.2007).

Gerhard Fitzthum reports at large on the travel pages of FAZ (18.1.2007) about air travel and options to offset for the emissions you cause. He mentions a ranking of agencies that manage offset programmes or schemes by researcher Stefan Gössling of Lund University. Winner is atmosfair from Germany. There's a convenient flight calculator. To offset a trip from Germany to Spain, for instance, will cost you an extra 13 euros.

Greenland is covered by roughly 2 million cubic kilometers of ice. That's enough to rise sea level by 7 meters, writes John Collins Rudolf in the NY Times (16.1.2007). He visits Greenland with a team of scientists and reports on the new phenomenon that ice and glaciers are retreating and give free new islands that were formerly bound to the glacier. Its a dramatic effect of global warming and challenges cartographers which have to redraw maps, "geography is becoming obsolete almost as soon as new maps are created," writes Rudolf. Greenland loses 240 cubic kilometers ice each year, and that's three times the volume of all glaciers of the Alps.

Christian Schwägerl meets the former chief economist of the World Bank Nicholas Stern in a coffeehouse in Berlin and talks about Stern's recent report on the impacts of climate change and how people and economy are affected (FAZ, 25.11.2006). Stern tours at present the world and its capitals explaining the report. The paper has been commissioned by the British government and published on October 30 with a not-yet-seen impact on climate change discussions. Although Stern describes the dramatic consequences of global warming he says to Schwägerl that he's still an optimist. It shall be possible to stabilize the CO2 level in Earth's atmosphere. There are lots of technologies and economic tools around to enable that.

George Monbiot writes in his column for the Guardian (28.2.2006) about climate change and one worrying increasing cause: aviation. In his analysis he comes to the conclusion that greenhouse gas emissions might be curbed in many areas, except aviation. Planes deposit in high altitudes carbon dioxide and water vapour, both greenhouse gases. The run for budget flights, the lack of a tax on aviation fuel, new runways harm the climate, he states. His point is that long-distance travels cannot be turned environmental friendly, in any case. Thus, people have to adjust behaviour. According to Monbiot's experiences, people understand the problem, but don't react to the facts.

As William Broad reports in the NY Times (7.11.2006) there's a dispute among scientists -- involving geologists and paleoclimatologists -- on how much shifting CO2 levels some 150 or 440 million years ago induced climate change events. Surprisingly, there's now lot of data available to study this period in more detail. But scientists disagree whether, for instance, an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is responsible for a then global warming phase. A preliminary conclusion, both sides may draw, is that climate science is more complex than thought.

The dispute shall not distract from the fact (or the present scientific consensus) that today's man-made increase in CO2 levels will yield climate change.

Researchers in Berlin found that global warming not only increases global average temperatures but also the position of the daily temperature maximum and the duration of the warm period during the day. Volker Mrasek reports in Deutschlandfunk radio (10.10.2006) that the daily high already shifted at a reference point near Berlin from 2 to 3 pm. The continuous temperature record at the Potsdam location reaches around 113 years back into the past. If you consider a summer day defined by a temperature above 25 degrees Celsius then it may take today until 1 am to come down under this level, whilst in 1910 it was around 9 pm. Surely, people have to adapt to this change, for instance, by shifting working hours into the morning and taking a Siesta around 3pm, say the scientists.