US And Russia Ally With Saudi Arabia To Water Down Climate Pledge

The Guardian - Jonathan Watts | Ben Doherty

Move shocks delegates at UN conference as ministers fly in for final week of climate talks

Protesters on Sunday in Katowice, which is hosting the UN climate conference.

Photograph: Sadak Souici/Le Pictorium/Barcroft Images

The US and Russia have thrown climate talks into disarray by allying with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to water down approval of a landmark report on the need to keep global warming below 1.5C.
After a heated two-and-a-half-hour debate on Saturday night, the backwards step by the four major oil producers shocked delegates at the UN climate conference in Katowice as ministers flew in for the final week of high-level discussions.
It has also raised fears among scientists that the US president, Donald Trump, is going from passively withdrawing from climate talks to actively undermining them alongside a coalition of climate deniers.
Two months ago, representatives from the world’s governments hugged after agreeing on the 1.5C report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), commissioned to spell out the dire consequences should that level of warming be exceeded and how it can be avoided.
Reaching a global consensus was a painstaking process involving thousands of scientists sifting through years of research and diplomats working through the night to ensure the wording was acceptable to all nations.

But when it was submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on Saturday, the four oil allies – with Saudi Arabia as the most obdurate – rejected a motion to “welcome” the study. Instead, they said it should merely be “noted”, which would make it much easier for governments to ignore. The motion has not yet been able to pass as a result of the lack of consensus.
It opened up a rift at the talks that will be hard to close in the coming five days. During the plenary, the EU, a bloc of the 47 least developed countries, as well as African and Latin and South American nations, all spoke in favour of the report. Several denounced the four countries trying to dilute its importance.
Rueanna Haynes, a delegate for St Kitts and Nevis, told the plenary it was “ludicrous” not to welcome a report that UN member nations had commissioned two years earlier and to hold up crucial talks over two words.
“It’s very frustrating that we are not able to take into account the report’s findings: we are talking about the future of the world – it sounds like hyperbole when I say it, but that’s how serious it is,” she told the Guardian. “I would say that this issue has to be resolved. This is going to drag out and the success of the COP is going to hang on this as well as other issues.”
Scientists were also outraged. “It is troubling. Saudi Arabia has always had bad behaviour in climate talks, but it could be overruled when it was alone or just with Kuwait. That it has now been joined by the US and Russia is much more dangerous,” said Alden Meyer, the director of strategy and policy in the Union of Concerned Scientists.
He said the shift in the US position would be embarrassing for the country if it persisted. “Donald Trump is the denier-in-chief. He takes a personal interest in dissing scientists,” said Meyer. “But the science won’t go away. The law of thermodynamics can’t be ignored.”
Climate campaigners said the four blocking governments had been overrun by fossil-fuel interests and were trying to sideline the study.
May Boeve, the executive director of the activist group 350.org, said: “Deliberately ignoring the IPCC report would be wholly irresponsible and 350.org stands with the rest of world in condemning these climate deniers … and the vested fossil fuel interests behind them.”
Ministers have only five days to establish a rulebook for the Paris agreement. A wild card is the role of the host nation, Poland – the most coal-dependant nation in Europe – which will chair the final week of the meeting.
“The big challenge now is for the Polish presidency to set aside its obsession with coal, get out of the way and allow full acknowledgement of the IPCC 1.5C report, and its implications for increasing the ambition of all countries, in the conclusion of COP24 later this week,” said Bill Hare, the managing director of Climate Analytics.
As well as acceptance of the report, there are several other potential fights brewing regarding transparency rules for reporting emissions and proposals for wealthy high emitters to provide financial support to poorer nations struggling to adapt.

Links

• Trump on own administration's climate report: 'I don't believe it'
• G20 nations still led by fossil fuel industry, climate report finds
• The 'climate diaspora' trying to save the Paris agreement from Trump
• The Guardian view on climate change: too much, too soon
• Climate change made UK heatwave 30 times more likely – Met Office
• 'Brutal news': global carbon emissions jump to all-time high in 2018
• Beef-eating 'must fall drastically' as world population grows
• 'Our leaders are like children,' school strike founder tells climate summit
• David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon
• World Bank to invest $200bn to combat climate change
• 'We are last generation that can stop climate change' – UN summit 

First-Ever Everest Drill: World’s Highest Glacier More Sensitive To Climate Change Than Expected

OnlineKhabar - Abhaya Raj Joshi 

Scientists who recently completed the first-ever expedition to drill the world’s highest glacier have bad news ahead of the UN climate change Conference of Parties meeting in Poland. Glaciers on the Himalayas, the main source of rivers that sustain billions of people in Asia, may be more sensitve to tempereture rise than expected.
Though a lot of studies have been carried out on the surface of the Khumbu, whose ice is sourced in the Western Cwm of Mount Everest, and other glaciers in the region, nothing was known about what was going on inside ‘the highest glacier in the world’, said Katie Miles, the lead author of a recent paper that described the work carried out by members of the EverDrill Project between 2017 and 2018.

The group spent two seasons (six to eight weeks each) drilling 27 boreholes using a jet of hot, pressurised water to cut into the ice–the longest hole was 192m deep. Photo: Katie Miles

 The group spent two seasons (six to eight weeks each) drilling 27 boreholes using a jet of hot, pressurised water to cut into the ice–the longest hole was 192m deep.
“These boreholes are the deepest, and most spatially extensive achieved to date in the Himalaya using hot-water drilling,” says Miles.
Its internal structure was then documented using a 360-degree camera.

The Khumbu Glacier (Wikicommons)

 Once the boreholes were drilled, the team measured ice temperatures by installing strings of pre-built thermistor sensors linked to data-loggers located at the surface.
The set of equipment was left onsite for six months and collected in November 2017.

Warm ice raises concern

Illustrative long profile of Khumbu Glacier showing the ice temperature values recorded by each thermistor within the three boreholes. From: Nature

 The researchers found that the ice inside the Khumbu glacier recorded a minimum temperature of only −3.3 °C, with even the coldest ice being a full 2 °C warmer than the mean annual air temperature. The temperature recorded suggests that ice inside the glacier may be ‘warm.’
According to Miles, ‘cold’ ice, found in the poles, records below-the-melting-point temperature (around -15 15°C), and it does not melt when the temperature increases slightly–they just become less cold (say around –14°C). But in the case of ‘warm ice'(say around -3°C) found inside the Khumbu glacier, when the temperature increases by 1°C, the ice reaches a temperature of -2°C–perilously close to its melting point.
“It has been shown that air temperature increases are amplified at high elevations, and this study also suggests the same,” says Miles. She says that there is evidence that a global temperature rise of 1.5°C has been predicted to result in a 2.1°C warming across High Mountain Asia. “In the context of the study, such a rise would mean a significant loss of ice mass across the region,” she says.

Miles suggests that if other glaciers in the Himalayas are also experiencing a similar phenomenon, they could be losing mass at a rapid rate. Photo: Katie Miles

Miles suggests that if other glaciers in the Himalayas are also experiencing a similar phenomenon, they could be losing mass at a rapid rate. “If that is happening, then the volume of meltwater will increase until the glaciers lose its mass,” she says. This might result in an increased flow of water downstream. But later on, it may dry up once the ‘peak water’ mark is reached. This will have huge effects on Nepal, a country that is so relient on hydropower.
Miles, however, cautions that the what is happening in Khumbu may not be representative of all glaciers in the Himalayas. Khumbu and many other Himalayan glaciers are covered with debris, which act as a blanket over the glacier. This debris insulates the glacier from warmer air temperatures, reducing melt rates. But the debris gets thinner on glaciers located on higher altitudes.
“These ice temperatures will now be fed into an ice flow model to better predict how the Khumbu glacier will respond to projected climate warming in the future,” she says.
Meanwhile, the Nepali delegation heading to Poland says it will raise the issue of melting glaciers with utmost priority at COP 24. National Climate Change focal person and Joint Secretary Maheshwor Dhakal says, “Melting glaciers will have devastating effects on people living downstream. We will raise the issue with utmost priority at COP.”

This story is part of Onlinekhabar’s coverage on climate change under the 2018 Climate Change Media Partnership, a collaboration between Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Foundation.

Links

• Melting glaciers around Mount Everest may be forming killer lakes
• Climate Change Is Melting Everest
• Warm ice in Mount Everest’s glaciers makes them more sensitive to climate change – new research
• Scientists Have Discovered 'Warm' Ice in The World's Highest Glacier
• Climate change, crowding imperil iconic route to top of Mount Everest
• Going, Going ... Glacier National Park's Iconic Glaciers Are Melting Away

Warm Ice In Mount Everest’s Glaciers Makes Them More Sensitive To Climate Change – New Research

The Conversation - Katie Miles

Katie Miles, Author provided

Often when the topic of glaciers and climate change is discussed, focus shifts to those in Greenland and Antarctica. But there are glaciers elsewhere too, such as in the Himalayas, which play a vital part in supplying water to people who live downstream. Now, our research has found that these glaciers may react more sensitively to predicted future climate change than previously thought, which could lead to them melting at a faster rate.
In 2017 and 2018, our EverDrill research team travelled to Nepal, to measure ice temperatures (using a converted pressure washer) on the Khumbu Glacier. Khumbu, whose ice is sourced in the Western Cwm of Mount Everest, flows down the flanks of the mountain from around 7,000 to 4,900 metres above sea level. Along with many other glaciers in the Everest region and across High Mountain Asia, the meltwater from Khumbu contributes to the water resources of huge populations in the mountain foothills.
We spent two field seasons (six to eight weeks each) drilling boreholes using a jet of hot, pressurised water to incise into the ice. In total we drilled 27 boreholes, ranging between 1-192m deep, across five sites. These boreholes are the first, deepest, and most spatially extensive achieved to date in the Himalaya using hot-water drilling.
Once the boreholes were drilled, we measured ice temperatures by installing strings of pre-built thermistor sensors linked to data-loggers located at the surface. We left them for six months and collected the data on a return trip in November 2017.

Katie Miles starts to drill a borehole into Khumbu Glacier in May 2018. Katie Miles, Author provided

The main finding from this research was that the ice was warmer than we expected, with the coldest ice measuring –3.3°C. As the ice is formed on the flanks of Mount Everest, where the mean annual air temperature is –13°C at 7,000 metres elevation, we might have expected the ice to be at this temperature. Our borehole data reveal that this was not the case. Not only was the ice not this cold in our boreholes, but ice temperatures also increased towards the glacier terminus.

Cold and warm ice
Why does it matter that we found warmer ice temperatures than we expected? Glaciologists acknowledge two thermal types of ice: “Cold” ice and “warm” ice. Cold ice is below the melting-point temperature, so when additional heat is applied (from the sun or warmer air temperatures), the ice simply becomes less cold (going from –15°C to –14°C, for example). Warm ice, alternatively, is at the melting-point temperature, so any heat input melts the ice to become water.
In short, this means that Khumbu will respond more sensitively to any future additional heat inputs, such as warming air temperatures. It has been shown that air temperature increases are amplified at high elevations. For example, a global temperature rise of +1.5°C has been predicted to result in a +2.1°C warming across High Mountain Asia and a significant loss of ice mass across the region. As these glaciers melt and recede, their contribution to water resources will initially increase. However, as the volume of ice mass remaining decreases, this contribution will steadily decline. While the timescale over which this might occur is unknown, predictions suggest that “peak water” may be reached as soon as the middle of this century. Our finding of warm ice within Khumbu supports the predicted sensitivity of such glaciers to warming air temperatures.

The Everdrill research team. Katie Miles, Author provided

But it’s not all bad news for the region’s glaciers. First, we don’t know if the temperatures we measured on Khumbu are representative of all glaciers in the area. More measurements are needed on other glaciers to determine this. Second, Khumbu and many other Himalayan glaciers are debris-covered glaciers, which contain a surface layer of rocks and boulders that typically increases in thickness towards the terminus, up to several metres depth. This debris layer complicates the amount of ice surface melt that is produced: where the layer is thick, it acts like a blanket and insulates the glacier from warmer air temperatures, reducing melt rates.
However, this insulation of the lower glacier also results in the location of maximum melt shifting further up the glacier, to where the debris cover is thinner. In this area, the glacier melts by surface lowering, which in an extreme future scenario could lead to the detachment of the lower glacier, forming a new terminus at this higher elevation. While the lower, detached ice would become stagnant, it would still be protected from instant melting by its debris blanket. The new terminus above this would not, and melt rates could increase. Yet, our deepest borehole in this area of surface lowering was 192 metres, and did not reach the bed so the ice thicknesses remains unknown – but it could be that there is plenty of ice left in Khumbu to stop this happening.
These ice temperatures will now be fed into an ice flow model to better predict how the Khumbu Glacier will respond to climate warming and contribute to river discharges in the future. Meanwhile, we are still collecting temperature data to analyse and better understand how the highest glaciers in the world will be affected by climate change.

Links

• Melting glaciers around Mount Everest may be forming killer lakes
• Climate Change Is Melting Everest
• Warm ice in Mount Everest’s glaciers makes them more sensitive to climate change – new research
• Scientists Have Discovered 'Warm' Ice in The World's Highest Glacier
• Climate change, crowding imperil iconic route to top of Mount Everest
• Going, Going ... Glacier National Park's Iconic Glaciers Are Melting Away
• What a century of climate change has done to France’s biggest glacier
• Huge crater discovered in Greenland – here’s how the impact may have wiped out the mammoths
• Why we’re drilling into the world’s highest glacier on Everest with a converted car wash
• A bird’s eye view of New Zealand’s changing glaciers

In Mount Everest Region, World's Highest Glaciers Are Melting, Receding

InsideCimate News - Kunda Dixit, Nepali Times*

In this photo essay, the editor of the Nepali Times describes the dramatic changes underway in the ice and snow of the Himalayan Mountains.


For many tourists trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp, the trip is an adventure of a lifetime. The thin clear air, stark landscape and ice-tipped peaks pierce the inky sky providing Instagram backdrops.
However, what is stunning scenery to tourists is for climate scientists an apocalyptic sight. They see dramatic evidence all around of a rapidly warming atmosphere.
Visitors returning to the Everest region after many years will notice changes in the landscape: large lakes where there were none; glacial ice replaced by ponds, boulders and sand; the snowline moving up the mountains; and glaciers that have receded and shrunk.



All these features are visible from ground level right from the start of the trek in Lukla. The banks of the Bhote Kosi, part of the river system that drains the slopes of the Himalayas in Nepal and Tibet, still bear the scars of a deadly flash flood in 1985 that washed off a long section of the Everest Trail and the hydropower plant in the village of Thame. The flood was caused by an avalanche into the Dig Tso, a glacial lake.
Further up, near the village of Tengboche, the Imja Khola bears signs of another huge glacial lake outburst flood that thundered down the western flank of Ama Dablam in 1977. And below the formidable south face of Lhotse is Imja Tso, a lake 2 kilometers long that has formed and grown in the last 30 years. It does not exist on trekking maps from the 1980s. All these lakes were formed and enlarged as a result of global warming melting the ice.

Imja Tso, a glacial lake, did not exist on trekking maps 30 years ago. Today it is 2 kilometers long and 1 kilometer wide. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali Times

"When I look at the Nepal Himalaya, we can see this is global climate change impact on fast-forward," said Dipak Gyawali of the Nepali Water Conservation Foundation and the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology

Green and blue meltpools on the North Ama Dablam Glacier, where the vanishing icefall has exposed the eroded bedrock below. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali Times

The Lobuje Icefall is now a hanging glacier, having retreated above the cliff. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali Times

The terminal moraine of the Khumbu Glacier looms 400 meters above Dughla, a rest stop for climbers. This is the debris bulldozed down from Mount Everest and surrounding peaks over millions of years and represents the extent of the glacier's advance in the last Ice Age. Today, the surface ice on the world's highest glacier is all but gone due to natural and anthropogenic warming.

Khumbu Glacier, the world's highest glacier, has retreated as the planet has warmed. Its lower portion is largely covered by debris. Credit: NASA Landsat 8 image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon

For a dramatic glimpse of how global warming is changing the Himalayan landscape, there is nothing like the aerial perspective. The barren beauty foretells of a time when this terrain will be stripped of much of what remains of its ice cover.

The Khumbu Icefall carries debris and ice from the Western Cwm to the Khumbu Glacier, 1,000 meters below. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali Times

The Khumbu Icefall funnels ice from the Western Cwm below Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse to the glacier below. The ice here has receded at an average of 30 meters per year in the past 20 years, but it has also shrunk vertically, losing up to 50 meters in thickness. Everest Base Camp was at 5,330 meters when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest in 1953; today it is at 5,270 meters.

A map shows base camp and how a key climbing route up Mount Everest changed after a deadly avalanche in 2014. Credit: Gregory Leonard, with data by Digital Globe and Mark Fahey/USGS, via NASA

The glacier is also getting flatter: the darker debris makes the ice beneath melt faster near Base Camp, but the thicker layers of boulders and sand further down insulate the ice. Glaciologists say this flatter profile means the ice moves slower, leading to more ponding and more rapid melting of the ice underneath.
The velocity of the glacier is about 70 meters per year at Base Camp, and it slows to about 10 meters per year further below. It's zero at the terminus at 4,900 meters. This means the ice is decelerating as it is squeezed, and the pressure is being released by the melting of the ice mass.

Khumbu Glacier is receding at about 30 meters per year and shrinking: Base Camp is now 50 meters lower than when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed Mount Everest in 1953. Credit: Kunda Dixit/Nepali Times

Researchers monitoring the supraglacial ponds say their area has grown by 70 percent in the past 10 years alone. The ponds are fringed by ice cliffs and caves that accelerate the melting. The melted ice has carved an outflow channel through the left lateral moraine, so there is no large glacial lake on the Khumbu like elsewhere in Nepal.
Scientists conclude that the Khumbu Glacier is not about to vanish, and the Icefall is not going to turn into a waterfall any time soon. However, the permanent ice catchment of the glacier above 6,000 meters could start to deplete under a worst-case scenario of 5 degrees Celsius warming.

*This photo essay was shot and written by Kunda Dixit, editor and publisher of the Nepali Times, and first appeared in that publication. 

Links

• Melting glaciers around Mount Everest may be forming killer lakes
• Climate Change Is Melting Everest
• Warm ice in Mount Everest’s glaciers makes them more sensitive to climate change – new research
• Scientists Have Discovered 'Warm' Ice in The World's Highest Glacier
• Climate change, crowding imperil iconic route to top of Mount Everest
• Going, Going ... Glacier National Park's Iconic Glaciers Are Melting Away