25/07/2017

Solar’s Trillion-Dollar Market: Driven By EVs, Microgrids And Cost Parity For Storage

RenewEconomy - 

Demand for solar is expected to surge over coming years, but its growth rate could effectively double if there is rapid uptake of electric vehicles, and as more companies turn to the technology to save energy costs, and more countries reach solar and storage "parity" with grid prices.
A new report from leading solar analyst Vishal Shah, at Deutsche Bank, says demand for solar is already expected to increase by 10 per cent a year out to 2022, to around 140GW.
But the impact of EVs, solar micro-grids, corporate power purchase agreements and storage parity could see this growth rate more than double, pushing annual demand for new solar power to 250GW by 2022.
Shah says solar is the logical replacement for "liquid fuel generation" – primarily dirty and expensive diesel – which currently accounts for around 405GW of capacity around the world. Given an average capacity factor of 25 per cent, that suggests an addressable market of 1,600GW for the solar industry.
Shah puts the cost of diesel power at around US40c/kWk, around four times the cost of a comparable solar solution. He factors in annual growth demand of 20GW for this market, but concedes that could be conservative.
Corporate demand is about 1GW to 3GW today, but Shah suggests this could grow to 5-10GW a day over the next five to 10 years as companies increase their focus on alternatives to expensive grid power.
He suggests that if self-generation reaches 10 per cent for the global industrial and commercial sectors, and solar accounts for half of the incremental demand, then that could create 350GW incremental demand for solar.
But it is electric vehicles that could provide the biggest step change in forecasts. The widespread adoption of EVs is likely to lift global peak demand by around 2-3.5 per cent, and Deutsche expects at least half of that incremental peak power capacity will be met by solar.
Underpinning the overall growth, however, is the continued fall in the cost of both solar modules and battery storage. Deutsche says solar module prices have declined from 75c/W to 35c/W over the past three years and are set to decline by a further 20 per cent over the next five years.
Improvement in installation and balance of systems costs should drive down solar system costs by another 20 per cent, and Deutsche sees total utility-scale system costs reaching 70c/W by 2022 timeframe.
"At these price points, solar would be cheaper than coal in more markets globally representing 5,000GW of available market potential, in our view.
"Both utility-scale and distributed solar has the potential to represent over 50 per cent of new global capacity additions over the next five years, representing $1 trillion of cumulative investment opportunity."
The countries driving this will not be the traditional markets of Japan, US, China and India, but "rest of the world demand" where solar capacity is currently just 2 per cent of the market, but which could rise five-fold over the next five years.
"We believe over 50 countries are already at grid parity if we compare the cost of solar electricity to prevailing grid prices," the analysts say. And as the graph above shows, some countries such as Australia are already at grid parity for both solar and storage, and the numbers will increase out to 2022 and beyond.
It cites Vietnam, a rapidly growing economy with manufacturing growing at 6 per cent a year, but where industrial customers face peak rates from its new grid of US18c/kWh, as a case where many are considering solar as an alternative because it costs half as much now, and will likely fall to just US6c/kWh by 2022.
Deutsche says that having installed 38GW of power generation in the last 15 years – around 40 per cent of it hydro – and achieving a 98 per cent electrification rate, almost entirely through public funding, it is still facing significant energy security and environmental and health concerns.
 Solar – which has barely registered to date – is expected to be a major source of power generation growth in the country through 2030, with 12GW of expected to be installed by 2030. "This could turn out to be conservative, in our view, given our cost and LCOE forecasts."
Solar is also becoming the preferred source of energy for net energy importing countries like Jordan, Morocco and Pakistan, especially with solar LCOE below current market prices for oil and LNG and at par with natural gas generation. The record low bids for solar in Dubai and mega projects are changing the perception of the technology.

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The World’s Most-Populated City, Shanghai, Just Had Its Hottest Day In Recorded History

Washington Post - Jason Samenow

Children cool off from hot weather in a fountain in Shanghai on Friday. (Aly Song/Reuters)
On Friday, the 24-million-plus inhabitants of Shanghai witnessed the temperature skyrocket to 105.6 degrees (40.9 Celsius), its hottest day ever recorded.
The Chinese city, which has more people than any in the world, has tracked temperatures since 1872.
Friday’s temperature extreme fits into a recent pattern of increasing hot weather.
“Shanghai is getting hotter — the previous record of 40.8 [Celsius] was set only in 2013, and eight of the 12 highest temperatures reached over the past century were recorded in the last five years, according to the city weather bureau,” the AFP reported.
The excessive heat spurred an increase in hospital visits because of heat-related illness, and the city was under a “red alert” — its first this year, and the 13th since China launched a heat alert system a decade ago.
“China has a three-tier early warning system for high temperatures: a yellow warning is issued when high temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius are predicted for three consecutive days, orange indicates a predicted high temperature of 37 degrees Celsius in the next 24 hours, and a red alert is issued when the temperature is forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius within 24 hours,” explained Xinhua.net, the Chinese news agency.
Much of eastern China was under the influence of a large ridge of high pressure — or heat dome. This heat dome may hold in place for the next week, meaning many more days of scorching temperatures.
GFS model shows heat dome positioned over China. (WeatherBell.com)
This record high temperature in Shanghai is one of several all-time heat records set this summer around the Northern Hemisphere:
While these temperatures extremes have occurred, the Earth’s average temperature so far in 2017 ranks second highest in records dating back to 1880.

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24/07/2017

Return Of The 'Big Dry' Points To Active And Early Fire Season Across The South

Fairfax - 

Weather patterns delivering an exceptionally dry winter across south-eastern Australia show little sign of breaking up, heightening concerns the coming fire season will be an early and active one.
Fire authorities won't formally release predictions for spring and summer until September. Wet periods in autumn, though, curbed hazard-reduction burning to half the year-earlier totals in NSW and curtailed it in Victoria.
Flammagenitus forms from bushfire smoke. The type of cloud was formerly known as a pyro-cumulus. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
"The next four to six weeks are going to be very important," said Ben Shepherd, an inspector and head of media at the NSW Rural Fire Service.
"Many of the agencies are looking for that opportunity to get out there and start those [hazard-reduction] burns again in earnest" before conditions turn too windy and warm, he said.
Authorities stress a significant rain event could yet push fire risks for the coming season back towards more typical levels but note that there is little sign of such a development.
High-pressure systems have dominated southern Australia, nudging rain-bearing systems south of the continent.
Saturday offered a clear illustration of the set-up. The bureau predicted almost the entire mainland of Australia would be dry. (See chart below.)
The skies have been clear with an unusually wide diurnal temperature range over many regions. Nights were marked by heavy frosts or cold making way for milder than average days.

Big dry
Barring some unexpected instability, July will join last month as among Australia's driest.
Nationally, last month was the second-driest June since standard data began in 1910 with rainfall barely a third of average, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Victoria had its driest June, NSW was the driest in 15 years and the Murray Darling Basin posted its lowest rainfall totals since 1986.
"It very much seems to be centring on the border between Victoria and NSW," Richard Thornton, chief executive of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, said of the rainfall deficits.
Winter-to-date rainfall levels have been "very much below average" for most of southern Australia, bureau data shows. (See chart below).
'Back foot'
Fire authorities are keen to take advantage of the cool and dry conditions to ramp up controlled burns before windy and warmer days make such activities more risky.
Cyclone Debbie's aftermath brought heavy rain to much of the east coast in April, reducing opportunities for hazard-reduction burning. "That really put us on the back foot," Mr Shepherd said.
In a typical year about 56 per cent of controlled burns in NSW are conducted in autumn and 23 per cent in spring.
During autumn, the RFS treated 93,116 hectares to protect 23,171 properties. By area, the tally was less than half the previous autumn's 191,684 hectares involving 27,867 properties.
Forest Fire Management Victoria places less emphasis on the size of area burnt in its hazard-reduction program than the risk. During the year to June 2017, FFMVic crews conducted 351 burns over 113,172 hectares statewide.
"The wet winter and spring conditions proved difficult, however our prioritisation of burns based on risk has resulted in the statewide risk being maintained at 2015-16 levels," said Stephanie Rotarangi, the agency's chief fire officer.

Longer-term trends
The key influence behind this year's relatively dry winter is far to the south. A positive phase in the so-called Southern Annular Mode marks a poleward contraction of the westerly winds belt towards Antarctica.
As the bureau notes, such a phase marked the Millennium drought during the "big dry" from 1997-2010. High-pressure systems that would normally sit further north track across more southerly parts of Australia blocking rain-bearing cold fronts.
In June, average mean sea level pressure readings were at record highs for many parts of southern Australia, including all but one site in South Australia and all but three in Victoria.
As the bureau noted: "Mean sea level pressure over southern Australia has been increasing in winter over recent decades. This pattern is consistent with future climate change projections for the Australian region."
Dr Thornton of the Hazards CRC said that along with trends towards drier winters for southern Australia, warmer-than-average temperatures during July to September are also the new norm.
"It's almost locked in to have above-average temperatures from climate change," he said.
The bureau will update its three-month outlook this coming week. At its most recent projection, the agency said odds were strongly pointing to a drier-than-usual July to September for much of the south of the country. (See chart below.)

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Southern NSW Farmer Says Changing Climate Is Forcing Him To Move His Flock

ABC News - Adrienne Francis

Mark Horan is a mixed livestock farmer in Braidwood, New South Wales. (ABC News: Mengyang Zhang)
A new climate change report has made some dire forecasts for the survival of threatened species and the future of farming in central and southern New South Wales.
The Hot, Dry and Deadly report by the state's peak environmental organisation, the Nature Conservation Council, is based on peer-reviewed scientific data on the impact of global warming.
It predicts that by 2090 the Southern Tablelands will face temperature increases of nearly four degrees, combined with an almost 50 per cent reduction in annual rainfall.
Some farmers have disagreed with the gloomy prognosis for the impacts upon primary production, citing the success of ongoing innovation
But for mixed livestock farmer Mark Horan, managing a changing climate is business as usual.
Over the past 30 years he has observed a swing from winter to summer dominant rainfall on his farm Bedervale, which is located on the outskirts of Braidwood.
"June has has been very dry, we haven't had good rain for seven to eight weeks," Mr Horan said.
"Where we would normally expect reasonably good winter rain, that's been lacking for a number of years."
Mark Horan says seasonal changes forced him to purchase another property. (ABC News: Mengyang Zhang)
The deteriorating conditions prompted him to move his entire flock of 400 Merino sheep from Bedervale at Braidwood to a new property at Yass, which has a different climate, vastly reducing his feed bill.
"So when things are a bit tight here at the end of the winter, there should be five or six weeks growth over at the other farm."
But he is having to feed hay to his remaining herd of 400 cattle at the Braidwood property.

'Issue for being able to grow food', report suggests
It is farms like Mr Horan's in the Southern and Central Tablelands of New South Wales that could be among the worst affected by climate change, according to the council's report.
"Wheat production is expected to decline by about 11 per cent and sheep meat production by about 13 per cent and beef production by about 3 per cent," Nature Conservation Council campaign director Daisy Barham said.
"So this isn't just an issue for people who care about nature, it's an issue for being able to grow the food that we urgently need as well," she said.
Daisy Barham is the Nature Conservation Council's campaign director. (ABC News: Adrienne Francis)
 The council warned that without a reduction in carbon emissions, the threatened species and sensitive ecosystems could be pushed beyond the brink.
"Many scientists predict that we will lose the koala from many parts of NSW in the next 30 years if we don't act on climate change and the many other threats that they are facing," Ms Barham said.
The council said the ACT was leading the way on renewable energy and it is calling on the New South Wales Government and other community leaders to boost investment in renewable energy.
Mr Horan says too many environmental restraints and regulations could have a detrimental impact on people in the agricultural industry. (ABC News: Mengyang Zhang)
In 2016, clean energy contributed 19.6 per cent to the total energy generated by NSW, according to the State Minister's office.
Mr Horan said he believes the State Government is close to getting the right balance between renewable energy and coal-fired electricity generation.
"We have only now just got to the point where we don't have eight-hour blackouts and I don't think anyone in the country wants to go back to that," he said.
"I can see that there should be concern but from my view, management on my farm means that we can mitigate a lot of that risk."
But there is agreement over the need for continued investment in climate research.
"What could make everybody in farming make better decisions is accurate weather forecasting," Mr Horan said.

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Hot Dry, And Deadly: Impacts Of Climate Change On Nature In NSW

 Nature Conservation Council of NSW


We have so much to lose
Climate change will have profoundly negative impacts on nature in NSW if we do not urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions. NSW has a stunning variety of species and ecosystems, with outstanding rainforests, eucalypt forests and woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, coastal heaths, alpine habitats and arid shrub lands. These ecosystems are home to more than 900 animal species, almost 4,700 plants species, and countless insect and fungi species. Since European settlement, native ecosystems and species in NSW have declined significantly. Almost 40% of native vegetation has been cleared, and what's left is highly degraded. Only 9% is in good condition.
More than 100 species have become extinct since 1788, and over 1000, including 60% of all mammal species, are now threatened with extinction. Key threats are land clearing, habitat fragmentation, invasive species, and changed fire regimes. Human-induced climate change has now been added as a potent part of the mix.

Introduction | Forests | Eucalypt Woodlands | Grasslands | Alpine  | Rivers & Wetlands | Coastal Regions | Marine | Sydney Bushland | Agricultural Lands | What's Driving Climate Change | Conclusions | Full Report
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Forests
Most of the forests in NSW occur in the wetter, more fertile regions between the coast and the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range. Trees are the dominant feature of both forests and woodlands, but in forests they generally grow taller and closer together, providing canopy cover from 30% in open forests to 100% in rainforests. These ecosystems are home to an extraordinary array of birds and animals, including iconic species like the koala, powerful owl, greater glider, and spotted quoll.
Species spotlight
Koalas were so abundant last century they were the basis of a vigorous fur trade that in 1924 saw two million pelts exported from the eastern states of Australia to Europe. Today there are fewer than 36,000 koalas left in NSW, and all but a few populations are declining. Between 1990 and 2010, their numbers in NSW plunged 33%.

Regions affected
Coastal regions, Tablelands, Blue Mountains, Snowy Mountains, Western Slopes

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Eucalypt woodlands
Eucalypt woodlands are iconic Australian ecosystems found in an arc from subtropical Queensland to Tasmania, and west to southeast South Australia. While they are found in many areas of eastern NSW, including the coastal and alpine zones, they mostly occur in the wheat-and-sheep belt west of the Great Dividing Range. Trees are the dominant feature of both woodlands and forests, but in woodlands the trees are generally shorter and stand further apart, providing canopy cover ranging from 10% to 30%.
Species spotlight
The regent honeyeater is a small, spectacularly coloured bird with mottled black-and-yellow feathers and a short, curved beak. It lives in temperate woodlands and open forests. Regent honeyeaters can travel large distances on complex migratory courses governed by the flowering of the eucalypt species that they depend on for nectar. The birds were common in woodlands across eastern Australia but there are now only three breeding regions left, including Capertee Valley in the Central West and the Bundarra-Barraba region on the Northern Tablelands.

Regions affected
Northwest, Northern Tablelands, Central Tablelands, Central West, Orana Region, Riverina, South Coast

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Grasslands
Grasslands are found in many regions, from the moist coastal and alpine areas to the hot, semiarid interior of western NSW. These ecosystems are dominated by large perennial tussock grasses, with broad-leaved herbs growing between the tussocks. Many animals forage in grasslands, then shelter in nearby woodlands or shrublands.
Species spotlight
The plains-wanderer is a small, quail-like bird that lives in sparse grasslands in the southwest of NSW. The bird stands 12-15cm tall and weighs up to 95g. Both sexes have yellow legs and bills, and fawncoloured feathers with fine black rosettes. It was once common in semi-arid grasslands on hard red-brown soils in the southwest of the state, but since the 1920s its numbers have crashed and it is now considered extinct in much of its former range.

Regions Affected
Northwest, Southwest, Monaro And Snowy Mountains

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Alpine Regions
The NSW alpine region includes Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, and is characterised by snow-capped mountain ranges, windswept snowgum forests, heathlands, and chilly mountain streams. The region spans 428,832 hectares of the Snowy Mountains in the southeast of the state and is a major tourist destination, attracting more than 1.3 million domestic and international tourists each year for snow sports, hiking, mountain bike riding, and camping in the warmer months. It is also the last refuge for a range of alpine plant and animal communities at altitudes above 1100m, including snow-patch and groundwater commun-ities such as the short alpine herbfields, bogs, and fens.
Species spotlight
The mountain pygmy-possum is a small marsupial that occurs only in the Australian alps. It is listed as endangered, with fewer than 2,600 individuals left in an area of about 10sq/km in Kosciuszko National Park. As moth populations decline in autumn, it supplements its diet with fruits and seeds before hibernating for up to seven months until the moths return.

Regions affected
Snowy Mountains, Mid-North Coast, Ulladulla, South Coast, Central West

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Rivers & Wetlands
Only a small fraction of aquatic ecosystems in inland areas is within the banks of the main channel of the river. More than 90% occurs across floodplains that in the flat western districts may stretch for kilometres after heavy rains, once every 10 years or so. The irregular pulse of flood and drought in inland NSW drives the ecology of the almost 8000km of river and 4.5 million hectares of lakes, billabongs, lagoons, swamps and waterholes. Climate change will further affect wetlands and the rivers that supply water to them through changes to rainfall and increased temperature and evaporation.
Species spotlight
The iconic river red gum is the most widely distributed tree in Australia. In NSW it is most common along rivers and wetlands where it has formed large forests. These ecosystems provide habitat for yellowbellied gliders, squirrel gliders, magpie geese, glossy-black cockatoos and a host of other threatened species. Many of these forests have declined significantly over the past 50 years because of land clearing, logging, increased salinity, and less frequent flooding as many large dams now capture and store peak flows that would have watered these forests.

Regions affected
Northwest, Southwest, Central West, Murray Basin

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Coastal Regions
The 1900km coastline of NSW contains some of Australia's most stunning scenery and diverse ecosystems, from tall eucalypt forests, dunes, swamps, and saltmarshes, to tidal lakes, estuaries, beaches, and rocky reefs. With more than 80% of the state's population living on the strip between the Great Dividing Range and the Tasman Sea, more people will experience the environmental effects of climate change in these regions than elsewhere. Air temperatures are forecast to rise by more than 3°C by 2090 under a high-emissions scenario. This will result in more frequent and longer heat waves and more extreme bushfires that will change the distribution and abundance of species and coastal ecosystems.
Species spotlight
Saltmarshes are found in the upper coastal intertidal zone where there is no strong wave action. They are dominated by stands of salttolerant plants that trap and bind sediments. Crabs, snails, bats, gastropods and even swamp wallabies are part of this complex ecosystem. Saltmarshes play a critical role as nurseries for fish and other marine animals. More than 70% of all fish in Australia's southeast, as well as many other marine species, depend on salt marshes at some stage in their lifecycle.

Regions affected
North Coast, Mid-North Coast, Central Coast, Sydney, Illawarra, South Coast

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Marine
NSW coastal waters support an extraordinary array of species, from whales and seahorses to kelp forests and seagrass meadows. In the Sydney region where the warm northern and cooler southern waters mix, there occurs almost 580 fish species, more than in the whole of the British Isles. Marine ecosystems are under threat from coastal development, nutrient run-off, plastics, overfishing, and invasive species. Now they face severe impacts from climate change.
Species spotlight
Seagrass meadows are among the most productive ecosystems on earth, storing more carbon per hectare than even the Amazon rainforests. Commonly mistaken for algae, seagrasses evolved from land plants to live entirely in seawater, anchoring their roots in the sandy or muddy bottoms of bays that provide shelter from strong waves that damage the plants. Seagrass meadows are a critical part of the marine ecosystem, providing food for turtles and fish, habitat for crabs, molluscs, and sponges, and acting as nurseries for many marine species.

Regions affected
Northwest, Mid-North Coast, Central Coast, Sydney Coast, Illawarra, South Coast

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Sydney bushland 
Sydney is a region of exceptional natural beauty and home to a wide array of ecosystems, from coastal wetlands and open woodlands, to tall forests, upland swamps, and Banksia heathlands. In the estuaries and coastal sandplains, there are fresh and saltwater wetlands. On the sandstone plateaus, habitats range from dry sclerophyll forest to heath. After more than 200 years of agricultural and urban development, most of Sydney's bushland and its native animals have been lost, although much remains, especially on the city's fringes.
Species spotlight
Cumberland Plain Woodland existed across 125,000 hectares of clay soils of Western Sydney from Kurrajong to Picton and was home to more than 450 species of plants and 60 native mammal species, including gliders, brown antechinus, and the New Holland mouse. The woodland canopy is dominated by grey box, narrow-leafed ironbark, thin-leaved stringybark, and spotted gum, while the understorey is generally grassy with herbs and patches of shrubs. Over the past 200 years, these woodlands have been reduced to a few fragmented stands by farming, industry, and housing.

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Agricultural lands 
Agricultural production is included here because threats to farm viability undermine the ability of landholders to be good environmental stewards. The NSW farm sector not only provides food and fibre for millions of people, it manages about 80% of the state, including much wildlife habitat. NSW Department of Primary Industries warns there is a "high" risk that industries, infrastructure, and regional economies will be disrupted by climate change as many crops currently grown cease to be viable in the same location.
Species spotlight
Wheat is the main crop grown in NSW, with the 2013-14 annual harvest more than double the combined volume of barley and sugar cane, the two next biggest. The 6.6 million tonnes harvested in NSW that year made up about a quarter of the national crop, and was worth almost $2 billion. Australia's wheat farmers are possibly the most efficient in the world, with yields trebling last century until the 1990s, when they leveled out.

Regions affected
All regions

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What's driving climate change?
Burning fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and waste all contribute to climate pollution warming the planet, driving extreme weather, and pushing species over the edge to extinction.
NSW releases about four times more greenhouse pollution per person than the global average, and three times the European average. This pollution is accelerating climate change, but there is a lot a lot we can do to reduce it. Our pollution is a direct result of our heavy reliance on coal for electricity generation.
More than 80% of the state's greenhouse pollution comes from burning coal, oil, and gas, while agriculture, industrial processes, and waste make up smaller portions. In addition to our domestic emissions, our coal exports make a huge contribution to global warming. This makes NSW one of the strongest drivers of climate change in the world.

What will it take?
Globally, more than 190 countries have agreed to reduce greenhouse pollution restrict warming below 2°C, and ideally below 1.5°C. To do our fair share in meeting this goal, NSW needs to reduce emissions to zero by 2040 at the latest, and retire our coal-fired power stations by 2030.

Download What's driving climate change
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Conclusions and Actions 

New South Wales is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Our forests, wetlands and coastline are fragile. They are places of natural beauty, of refuge for wildlife, and our life support system.
Despite its fragility, nature is resilient and given a chance, will still have time to secure a bright future. But we must act now.
We have the technology and abundant wind and sun to transform our energy system. In just six hours, the sun gives our deserts more energy than the entire world uses in a year. Harvesting a small portion of that energy just makes sense.
Our farmers and land managers are already feeling the impacts of more extreme weather and changed rainfall. We know how to manage our land to store carbon and boost the resilience of ecosystems in the face of climate change, so, let's get on with it!
Acting on climate change will take a whole-of society response lead by our governments. We are specifically calling on the NSW Government to reform our energy system and upgrade our land management regimes to reduce our contribution to climate change.
We call upon the NSW Government to:

Transform our energy system
  • Source all our power from sun, wind, and water by 2030.
  • Phase out coal and gas-fired power.
  • Help affected workers and communities prepare for jobs with a future.
  • Make sure the transition is fair so everyone, everywhere has access to clean, renewable energy.
Restore our land
  • End native forest logging on public land.
  • Protect native forests, woodlands, and grasslands from inappropriate land clearing.
  • Rule out new coal mines and gas fields in NSW.
Let's act on climate change now

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23/07/2017

2017 Is So Unexpectedly Warm It Is Freaking Out Climate Scientists

ThinkProgress - Joe Romm

"Extremely remarkable" 2017 heads toward record for hottest year without an El Niño episode.
January–June 2017 global surface temperatures (compared to the 20th century average) in Degrees Celsius. CREDIT: NOAA
Normally, the hottest years on record occur when the underlying human-caused global warming trend gets a temporary boost from an El Niño's enhanced warming in the tropical Pacific.
So it's been a surprise to climate scientists that 2017 has been so remarkably warm — because the last El Niño ended a year ago.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported Tuesday that the first half of 2017 was the second-warmest January-June on record for Earth, topped only by 2016, which was boosted by one of the biggest El Niños on record. "As if it wasn't shocking enough to see three consecutive record-breaking years, in 2014, 2015, and 2016, for the first time on record," leading climatologist Michael Mann wrote in an email to ThinkProgress, "we're now seeing near-record temperatures even in the absence of the El Nino 'assist' that the previous record year benefited from."
How January-June temperatures globally rank compared to the 20th century average. CREDIT: NOAA
NOAA climatologist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo told Climate Central, "After the decline of the strong El Niño, I was expecting the values to drop a bit…. This year has been extremely remarkable."
Usually we see global records in years when the short-term El Niño warming adds to the long-term global warming trend (see chart below).
As NOAA noted in its March report, without an El Niño, no month before March 2017 had ever exceeded the "normal" temperature (the 1981–2010 average) by a full 1.8°F (1.0°C).
Global monthly temperature departures (from 1981–2010 average) color-coded by whether the Pacific was experiencing an El Niño (red), a La Niña (blue) or neutral conditions (gray). CREDIT: NOAA
This matters because when a month — or six-month period — sees record high global temperatures in the absence of an El Niño, that is a sign the underlying global warming trend is stronger than ever. The latest NOAA report is "a reminder that climate change has not, despite the insistence of climate contrarians 'paused' or even slowed down," Mann said.
Bottom line: Human-caused global warming continues at a dangerous pace, and only human action to slash carbon pollution can stop it.
 
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‘The Models Are Too Conservative’: Paleontologist Peter Ward on What Past Mass Extinctions Can Teach Us About Climate Change Today

New York - 

Peter Ward is one of the paleontologists responsible for overturning our understanding of most of the Earth's mass extinctions, which, long thought to be caused by asteroid impacts, turned out to have been the result of climate change produced by greenhouse gases (all but the one that killed the dinosaurs, anyway). 
A shipwreck in the Namib desert on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia. Photo: Wolfgang Steiner/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Peter Ward: I wrote an op-ed for the Post, I don't know if they'll publish it. Probably calling Trump a war criminal was a bit much. Anyway how can I help you?

Honestly, what I'd love from you, and what would be most helpful, is if you could first walk me through the analogy you made in that op-ed — exactly how our current situation could lead to the end-Permian Extinction.
My own sense in the short run — strangely enough, the most dangerous thing facing us isn't the extinction scenario, since that's centuries in the future. What scares me more is the economic effect of simple sea-level rise. CNN did a very interesting article some years ago about how much it would cost to retrofit ports around the world for a six-foot sea-level rise. It's literally trillions of dollars. Not only docks, but every airport facing the ocean—Sydney, China, San Francisco especially. Secondly there's the effect on human food. If there's a six-foot sea-level rise, it's astonishing how much food will be wiped out — most rice is in low-lying areas, for instance.

That's in the short term — what about the long term?
The long term is these greenhouse extinctions are devastating. The most recent one was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, and that was caused almost entirely by methane. So the scariest thing we're seeing today is the liberation of methane from higher latitudes, and it's happening far faster than anybody ever predicted. Did you see the news about the Larsen ice shelf? It's starting to break off. I spent four expeditions down there, just to the north of that, and the amount of retreat is huge. The reason this is important is Antarctica has always been used by the naysayers to say, At least in Antarctica we're not seeing retreating glaciers. Well, now we are — we really are.

And it seems as though the IPCC predictions have been relatively on-target on emissions and warming, that the predictions on ice loss have been far too conservative, and things are happening much faster than anybody expected.
Absolutely. One thing about IPCC is that the modelers have yet to figure out how to deal with cloud cover. It's very difficult to predict. As you're going to get more water vapor in the atmosphere, you're obviously going to get more cloud cover. That's where the models are still breaking down. It will take an enormous amount of mathematical work. And if anything the sea-level estimates have been underestimates. More than anything else, the ice sheets really control our fates — and Greenland, of course. If we melt all the ice, we get at least 140 meters and probably more — Greenland is 15 meters by itself. But one of the scariest places on Earth is right off Namibia. When I give a slideshow on global warming and past extinctions, the killer we're seeing is hydrogen sulfide. And right now there is something called the Skeleton Coast off Namibia, and the reason is that we're seeing hydrogen sulfide coming right out of the ocean. The final part of a greenhouse extinction is when that happens worldwide. But the worst place on Earth has to be Bangladesh. They are doomed.

And it's such a densely populated place.
Absolutely. As you know, as the sea level rises, it's like a diving board for storm surge. You're causing storm surge to jump ever farther inland, and that in itself means huge inundation from storm surge — it doesn't have to be the rise to destroy the crops. It's just a bad, bad situation.

Well, walk me through some of the other things you're worrying about. Food seems like one part of the doomsday picture, but what else are you concerned about?
Well, heat. I believe that there are going to be some places that become uninhabitable for humans.

How big a portion of the world's surface do you think that kind of effect will hit?
Certainly Australia. Australia will be deemed uninhabitable. Already Australia — the outback produces not much in the way of crops. But there are kangaroos. I lived in Adelaide, and I've lived through some heat before, but we had 40 degrees centigrade, and 42 and 43 for weeks on end. It really has an effect. You get depressed, you don't want to go procreate because it's too damn hot. You just can't escape it. Everywhere you go on the equator, there is some sort of drug — for the human population to try to get through the day. How do you get through living on the equator? It's so damn miserable. So I think the equator will become uninhabitable. We don't do well in heat.

In your mind, what is our likely warming ceiling — where do you think we're heading, and where do you think the range of uncertainty around that is?
I'm not a modeler, so I'm not the most prescient to do this, but we certainly could hit 5 degrees centigrade in the next century if we consider the status quo path. Coal is still amazingly cheap. Australia still exports coal. Coal continues to be a major problem. The simple fact is, you have 9 billion people, and the standard of living is increasing, so they're all going to want automobiles, they're all going to want steel and iron. And in order to produce that, you need to have sources of energy — huge sources of energy. I don't see wind turbines powering great steel mills. And as India and China become ever greater consumers of consumer goods, this is what's going to drive it, I think.

To me, it's been striking how much the green energy sources are growing and how much the prices are falling — much faster than most prognosticators were predicting a few years ago.
But it's also the case that there are all these warming feedback loops that are already in motion. And if some of them get sped up quickly then there's almost nothing we can do to counteract those effects.
You're absolutely right. I've seen something, maybe as much as 10 percent, maybe as much as 15 percent of carbon may be coming from sources we don't even know about. These methane clathrates may be having a huge significance. They are not being modeled. And we really are going to have unintended consequences and much more rapid heating than even the models say — for the simple reason that the models are highly conservative, too conservative.

We've talked about food, we've talked about flooding and sea-level rise, we've talked about direct heat effects. Are there other sorts of broad categories of things you're worried about?
Disease — one of the great killers that people are not recognizing is dengue fever. Malaria gets all the press, HIV of course. But dengue is increasing. The mosquitoes themselves are obviously speciating and becoming ever more immune to pesticides, because we've had these jumping genes.

Jumping genes?
What people are not really understanding is that genes can jump from species to species very easily. My 19th book, actually, is called Lamarck's Revenge, the story of epigenetics. My unique new take is epigenetics in the history of life. The reason we get these outpourings of new body types in the aftermath of mass extinctions is not Darwinian — it's too slow. Epigenetics occur when there is environmental change. It works for microbes all the way up. And so we can expect much more rapid changes in microbial genetics. I think the mode of evolution is going to switch from this random slow Darwinian to a much more rapid form.

And you mentioned a few minutes ago the runaway effects. Can you walk me through exactly what we should be looking out for, most worried about, on that possible track? How does a runaway greenhouse effect get started on this planet?
Let's say we have a deep ocean basin off California and it's not getting its cold-water oxygen because the surface water isn't water — warm water holds less oxygen than cold water. So any ocean that is warmer is going to be less oxygenated. And once you switch over to zero oxygen, the microbes that were down there, and the anaerobic microbes start taking over. And as these things take over, you get this black sea effect, and it begins spreading out, and more and more of these microbes start producing hydrogen sulfide. So as it starts spreading, it grows — like cancer. Cancer of the deep ocean. They start spilling over the deep basin and start moving up — that's called a chemocline. And we're seeing the first part of this in the Pacific.

Are these effects confined to the ocean?
Well, hydrogen sulfide does come out of ocean. This is why Namibia is so scary.

What else?
One of my Ph.D.s just finished his study on sea-grass die-out. We're losing sea grass globally, and it's a huge economic blow. And it's definitely caused by global warming. Why is it important? Because most seafood spends some time, as juveniles, dining on sea grass. An article on sea grass die-out itself would be huge.

Tell me about your background and how you came to study mass extinctions generally, but also when you came to think of them in terms of our present day.
I was really just a classically trained paleontologist. To me, the mass extinctions were really interesting in terms of what happens after them — we have this dead period, and the recovery fauna is totally different. And that leads to the idea of, Gee, how much longer will the recovery be if we have an extinction now? Impact was key, and king, for the 1980s and 1990s — every one of the big extinctions was attributed to impact. But it became clear that, in fact, no, these were not impact extinctions. We had to invent a new term. I don't know who came up with it first, but I was in there pretty early calling them greenhouse extinctions. And this new paradigm started coming into play. We're even starting to see that KT also has a greenhouse component — because there was warming right at the impact.

Tell me more about the Permian Extinction, because that's the most dramatic. I wonder what makes it so exceptional and in what ways we can watch out for our heading down that same path.
People always think the intensity of a mass extinction should be related to the extinction — what percentage of creatures were extinct. Increasingly, we're thinking that's a metric, but a more important metric that tells you something about the nature of the devastation is how different is the fauna that comes afterward.

I think people really don't appreciate how much, over the coming decades, nature will be at war with the way that we live.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Look at the storms that are taking place now. You talk about habitability. I've been talking about heat. At what point do hurricanes in the tropics make living there just not worth it? You're being mowed down by these huge number of tornadoes. Sooner or later people are going to get the hell out of Dodge. But this is the sort of storm ferocity that's coming.

And we're sort of used to the idea that parts of the world are more prone to things like hurricanes, as part of the cost of living in the Caribbean or whatever. But it seems like those events are going to become much more common still in those areas, but there are also events that are going to become much more common in all the areas where one might flee to from there. So there's a risk of our running out of safe spaces — nothing is going to be protected from extreme weather.
The best case to look at is in the Philippines. That last couple of typhoons they've had — the ferocity and the increase in those things that's been happening. That's the model for what's coming. It isn't anything [like that] in the Caribbean; as brutal as those hurricanes can be, they have nothing on these typhoons.

Looking at recent weather history, are there things that stand out as harbingers?
Well, with the warming you get less and less snowfall in the winter. And one of the areas that's really being hit hardest right now are the low countries of Europe. Because the Alps used to get all this snow. People think the Dutch worry most about the dikes and the floods. But no longer. The Alps are having ever lower snowfall, and you get these enormous storms, so we're getting an increasing rainfall, and that in itself is a gigantic human problem. Obviously floods — the increased flooding caused by ever more water in the atmosphere is going to be really as bad as storms. We'll get these floods all over the planet. And the problem is twofold: They kill people, but they also wash away the soil.

One thing we haven't really talked about is fresh water and the coming threat there — the water scarcity threat.
Absolutely. I really do think we're going to see … The flash points appear, to me, to be China, India, and Pakistan fighting over the water coming from the Himalayas. Water will be the great fight. Water and food will be the two things that the 21st century will fight over.

How do you see those fights playing out?
It's going to be the haves versus the have-nots, as is always the case. But the places that have the highest rates of human population growth are those where water might be most crucial. Nigeria has a huge growth rate, but it's Tunisia and Egypt and Algeria that give Africa its enormous population growth. These are countries in which waters are being reduced. This is where we have this ever-increasing jihad that is going to be driven not so much by being mad at religion but just trying to get along, and cranky angry people in huge numbers are filling up … Tunisia used to be the granary of Rome — Carthage kept Rome going! I've been to Tunisia, and boy you don't see much wheat there anymore. You see the Sahara moving ever farther north, and reducing crop yields, just as human population is increasing there.

It's all pretty bleak.
Yeah, it is. We need to slow human population growth. But our White House is doing everything it can to make sure climate change happens. It's strange I have a longing for the Bush years — I thought nothing could be worse, but now those are the good old days! The places that are going to be hit hardest by climate change are the places where his voters are — the Midwest, the Dust Bowl states. Which means the anger that elected him is going to continue.

Big-picture question: A while ago, Stephen Hawking made some headlines by saying that in order for humanity to survive we had to figure out a way to colonize at least one planet within 100 years. How reasonable do you find that kind of warning, or how insanely alarmist?
Well, he may be the smartest guy on the planet, but boy, I just think this is inane. My sense of it is, with our technology, we're just too good, we can engineer and keep some part of us alive on Earth. The only way out of it would be a wholesale nuclear exchange. But barring that, a greenhouse world won't kill us all off. If worse comes to worst, we'll have gas masks. But what I would advocate is — just like that seed vault, in Norway, that there should be hundreds of thousands of frozen eggs, human eggs, that are taken off-planet. This could just be an orbiting facility carrying seed stock itself. But colonizing Mars? Why? There's lots of areas that would be easier to put a dome over on Earth than it would be on Mars, because at least you can breathe the air. That alone! Humans will never be able to send off a colony, a breeding colony, to another star system. The only way you could do this is to send fertilized eggs. But one possibility is we are stuck here. And if you look at the Fermi paradox, it could be that lots of organisms are stuck on their planets because the galaxy has not been colonized.
I've been doing these web talks with NASA people. One of the really interesting concepts around the Fermi paradox is the Great Filter — that civilizations rise, but there's an environmental filter that causes them to die off again, and disappear fairly quickly. If you look at planet Earth, the filtering we've had has been in these mass extinctions.

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Lethal Heating is a citizens' initiative