Record Surge In Atmospheric CO2 Seen In 2016

BBC - Matt McGrath

Emissions from human activities have levelled off but concentrations in the atmosphere continue to grow. Getty Images

Concentrations of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere surged to a record high in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Last year's increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years.
Researchers say a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather phenomenon drove CO2 to a level not seen in 800,000 years.
Scientists say this risks making global temperature targets largely unattainable.
This year's greenhouse gas bulletin produced by the WMO is based on measurements taken in 51 countries. Research stations dotted around the globe measure concentrations of warming gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
The figures published by the WMO are what's left in the atmosphere after significant amounts are absorbed by the Earth's "sinks", which include the oceans and the biosphere.
2016 saw average concentrations of CO2 hit 403.3 parts per million, up from 400ppm in 2015.
"It is the largest increase we have ever seen in the 30 years we have had this network," Dr Oksana Tarasova, chief of WMO's global atmosphere watch programme, told BBC News.
"The largest increase was in the previous El Niño, in 1997-1998, and it was 2.7ppm; and now it is 3.3ppm. It is also 50% higher than the average of the last 10 years."

El Niño impacts the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by causing droughts that limit the uptake of CO2 by plants and trees.
Emissions from human sources have slowed down in the last couple of years according to research, but according to Dr Tarasova, it is the cumulative total in the atmosphere that really matters as CO2 stays aloft and active for centuries.
Over the past 70 years, says the report, the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is nearly 100 times larger than it was at the end of the last ice age.
Rapidly increasing atmospheric levels of CO2 and other gases have the potential, according to the study, to "initiate unpredictable changes in the climate system... leading to severe ecological and economic disruptions".

The British Antarctic Survey Halley base was one of the stations where atmospheric measurements were made. Anthony Dubber

The study notes that since 1990 there has been a 40% increase in total radiative forcing. That's the warming effect on our climate of all greenhouse gases.
"Geological-wise, it is like an injection of a huge amount of heat," said Dr Tarasova.
"The changes will not take 10,000 years, like they used to take before; they will happen fast. We don't have the knowledge of the system in this state; that is a bit worrisome!"
According to experts, the last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago, in the mid-Pliocene Epoch. The climate then was 2-3C warmer, and sea levels were 10-20m higher due to the melting of Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets.
Other experts in the field of atmospheric research agreed that the WMO findings were a cause for concern.

Droughts related to El Niño, such as this one in Colombia, limited the ability of plants and trees to soak up carbon. Getty Images

"The 3ppm CO2 growth rate in 2015 and 2016 is extreme - double the growth rate in the 1990-2000 decade," Prof Euan Nisbet from Royal Holloway University of London, UK, told BBC News.
"It is urgent that we follow the Paris agreement and switch rapidly away from fossil fuels. There are signs this is beginning to happen, but so far the air is not yet recording the change."
Another concern in the report is the continuing, mysterious rise of methane levels in the atmosphere, which were also larger than the average over the past 10 years. Prof Nisbet says there is a fear of a vicious cycle, where methane drives up temperatures which in turn releases more methane from natural sources.

Scientists handling air samples at the Cape Grim monitoring station in Australia. WMO

"The rapid increase in methane since 2007, especially in 2014, 2015, and 2016, is different. This was not expected in the Paris agreement. Methane growth is strongest in the tropics and sub-tropics. The carbon isotopes in the methane show that growth is not being driven by fossil fuels. We do not understand why methane is rising. It may be a climate change feedback. It is very worrying."
The implications of these new atmospheric measurements for the targets agreed under the Paris climate pact are quite negative, say observers.
"The numbers don't lie. We are still emitting far too much and this needs to be reversed," said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment.
"We have many of the solutions already to address this challenge. What we need now is global political will and a new sense of urgency."
The report has been issued just a week ahead of the next instalment of UN climate talks, in Bonn. Despite the declaration by President Trump that he intends to take the US out of the deal, negotiators meeting in Germany will be aiming to advance and clarify the rulebook of the Paris agreement.

Links

• Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record
• Carbon Pollution Touched 800,000 Year Record in 2016, WMO Says
• World Meteorological Organization data shows record global carbon dioxide surge
• Climate change: a guide
• A brief history of Earth's CO2
• Global Change Calculator

4 Signs To Watch At COP23

World Resources Institute - Paula Caballero | David Waskow | Christina Chan

UN Climate Change Conference, Bonn, 6-17 November 2017

Two years after the world joined together to forge the Paris Agreement on climate change, representatives from around the globe will convene in Bonn, Germany, on November 6 for the next round of United Nations talks. The summit marks a critical stepping stone for global climate action.
This year’s wave of climate-related natural disasters – hurricanes, floods and wildfires in developed and developing countries alike – drives home the urgency to move full speed ahead at the 23rd Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, known informally as COP23. Increasing public and private investment in the transition to clean energy and transport, in restoring forested areas, and in more sustainable cities demonstrate that significant inroads towards tackling climate change are being made at the national and local level. Countries are also reaffirming their commitment to climate action as a priority – both at home and internationally – including support for the Paris Agreement demonstrated at the G7 and G20 summits and at the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN).

Beethoven statue in Bonn.

Photo by Jeanne Menjoulet/flickr

Steady progress, however, is not enough. Global greenhouse gas emissions need to start coming down quickly, peaking by 2020 and getting to net-zero by 2050, in order to meet the Paris goal of keeping global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and optimally 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels. That means there is a small window of opportunity left to make the low-carbon transition in ways that are economically and technically manageable given the options we have today. COP23 must continue to strengthen an international climate regime that sends the right market signals, reaffirms support for more ambitious and transformational implementation, raises awareness of the growing impacts of climate change, and mobilizes an ever greater number of players to act now before it is too late to avoid the most severe consequences of a changing climate.
Here are four signs to look for at COP23:

1. Tangible and Constructive Progress on Making the Paris Agreement Operational
The implementation guidelines of the Agreement, sometimes referred to as the rulebook, will put the accord fully into motion when finalized at next year’s climate summit in Poland. At Bonn, negotiators need to identify key decision points and the options for resolving them, along with an effective process for crafting clear rules and procedures on a wide range of issues. These include the transparency framework, which includes reporting and review requirements under the Agreement, as well as the ambition mechanism to assess progress and ramp up action every five years.

2. A Strong Foundation for 2018, the First Moment under the Paris Agreement for Countries to Assess Progress and Signal their Readiness to Enhance Action
Enhancing climate action every five years, informed by periodically taking stock of progress and identifying new opportunities for action, is a fundamental premise of the Paris Agreement. COP 23 will set in motion the first of these stocktaking exercises next year during the 2018 facilitative dialogue – now called the Talanoa Dialogue. The dialogue will assess global progress towards meeting the Paris long-term goals, highlight opportunities to step up action, and help spur countries to move forward on enhancing their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 2020.
In addition, events next year such as the Global Climate Action Summit in September 2018, a gathering of states, cities, businesses and others, will also recognize the decisive role that these actors play and encourage even greater action. Other upcoming initiatives like the December climate finance summit organized by French President Emmanuel Macron will contribute to launching 2018 as a year of pivotal change, with a new momentum to put us on track to driving the investment and action needed to achieve a climate resilient future.

3. Heightened Attention to Climate Impacts and Vulnerability, and Concrete, Practical Steps to Help Vulnerable Countries and Communities
As the first small island nation to preside over a global climate summit, the government of Fiji has made protecting the vulnerable a strong focus. Negotiators must agree on how to recognize efforts by developing countries to adapt to increasing climate impacts, evaluate effectiveness and mobilize greater support. That includes finance, as well as technology and capacity building. An important step at COP23 would be to formally link the Adaptation Fund, which has focused on building community-level resilience, to the Paris Agreement. Negotiators also need to provide guidance on how to increase the share of adaptation finance as developed countries scale up finance to meet their commitment to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020. Parties must also do more to address loss and damage from climate impacts, even as they recognize the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.

4. A Growing Wave of Support from Non-state Actors Such as Cities, Businesses and Others
Stakeholders outside the negotiations have emerged as critical partners in the fight against climate change. At COP23, look for businesses, states, cities and others around the world to demonstrate how they are intensifying their efforts, rallying around the Paris Agreement and contributing to national climate goals. The overwhelming support for climate action from within the United States – despite the Trump administration’s efforts to the contrary – is a prime example. States, cities and companies that make up more than half the U.S. economy have declared support for the Paris Agreement. Rather than back away, they are stepping up, and together they have the potential to significantly move U.S. climate action forward.
At climate negotiations last year in Morocco, we witnessed the world’s steely determination to advance climate action despite any obstacles that may arise. COP23 is a time to carry that spirit forward and make concrete progress on structuring the Paris Agreement. Moreover, it is an opportunity to set the stage for 2018, when countries can step up their response to the climate challenge and bequeath a livable world for future generations.

Links

• UN Climate Change Conference 2017 Bonn
• UN Climate Change Paris Agreement
• Paris Agreement Needs Global Support of all Sectors of Society
• Women’s Leadership is Driving Climate Action
• Winners of the COP23 Pacific Photo Competition

Why We're Building A Climate Change Game For 12-Year-Olds

The Conversation - Inez Harker-Schuch | Will J Grant

By the age of 16, most teenagers have already made up their mind about climate change. from www.shutterstock.com 

There is no doubt that we need to teach kids about climate change.
But although the Australian Curriculum embeds climate change into its senior high school program, children are typically aged around 16 before they receive any formal teaching on the topic. We argue that this is too late.
Here’s a possible solution: “CO2peration” is an interactive, online game we developed for children aged 12-14. It teaches climate science in a politics- and emotion-free zone.

CO2peraton - a climate science game for children.

In most countries, the topic of climate change is usually introduced at around the age of 16. Unfortunately, students at this age have largely made up their minds about climate change. Any efforts to teach them about the science may cement those opinions (both for and against) – particularly if it threatens their existing opinion.
This “made up their mind” phenomenon is known as a worldview – and it is the single biggest predictor of an individual’s opinion related to climate change.

Working with 12-year-olds
At the age of around 12, children undergo a rapid developmental change that, over the next 12 years, will take them fully into adulthood.
This change preempts some exciting intellectual developments. It prepares the child for some of the challenges of adulthood - such as building social networks, finding work or becoming financially responsible. It also allows them to start processing complex issues like nuclear energy or social justice.
So around age 12, children’s worldview is still open to change and they can take on board new information in a way that their older selves may not.

Players in CO2peration pursue a science mystery: why is there so much water on Earth? Screen shot from CO2peration. Author provided

Although many communication researchers challenge the notion of “knowledge deficit” whilst communicating with adults (in essence questioning those who emphasise filling gaps in an individual’s understanding), this age group is at a stage when they do need to learn. Why else would they be in school?
Recent research also suggests that we may have dismissed the value of understanding the science of climate change too soon. Specific knowledge relating to climate change – including its physical characteristics, causes and consequences – is an important consideration in opinion development.
Another important element in teaching children about climate science is their emotional well-being: will it alarm them? Climate communicators often use fear appeals and emotional pleas to promote engagement with climate science – often with unintended consequences. Such appeals can polarise an individual’s attitudes, and have been shown to be ineffective or even ethically questionable. How do we get around that?

Focus on science
When we teach children about their gastrointestinal systems, they learn that the stomach exists, the small intestine exists. They accept that these are real without ever having seen these organs inside their own bodies.
Teaching climate science as a series of physical processes and mechanisms establishes a factual foundation - in the same way we learn anatomy. This forms a knowledge foundation that can then, in higher grades, be used to talk about the socio-political aspects – when they are developmentally ready for such discussions.
Eliminating fear appeals gives children an opportunity to be exposed to abstract science without emotional noise. Teaching climate change in this way - as a specific, pure science - may diminish the influence of misinformation they’ll likely encounter at a later age, simply because they’ll understand it better. Research has shown, too, that younger students are less alarmed when learning about climate change than older adolescents.

Starting with a space probe called Messenger, players in CO2peration go on missions to collect samples and data. Screen shot from CO2peration. Author provided

Climate science is quite hard to teach, as textbooks and lectures don’t effectively illustrate the scale and interdisciplinary nature of its features. This is where 3D environments and gaming offer new opportunities.

Teaching in 3D
Although some developers have already identified gaming as a way to explore climate change, none focus on teaching specific climate science.
To fill this gap, we have created a 3D interactive climate science game for 12-year-olds. “CO2peration” turns the player into a particle of sunlight (also known as a photon), and takes them on a journey to find out why we have liquid water at Earth’s surface.
Starting with a space probe called Messenger, players go on fact-finding missions to collect samples and data in order to work out why Earth has a water-rich surface. It’s a scientific mystery that follows some of the pathways that led scientists to realise Earth’s climate is changing. From Mercury to Venus, Earth and Mars, players explore each rocky planet in our Solar System, and experience climate science in an exciting, abstract and empowering way – with no political or social context.

Why is Venus, though further from the sun, hotter than Mercury? Screen shot from CO2peration. Author provided

Players find out why Venus, although further away from the Sun, is hotter than Mercury. They explore, close up, how ice ages occur, and the extraordinary influence of Milankovitch cycles at work (the wobbly, changing orbits of Earth around the Sun). Children build and test 3D greenhouse gas molecules in minuscule infrared activity chambers. They zoom through the layers of Earth’s atmosphere – dodging space junk to discover the role our atmosphere plays in keeping our planet habitable.
Once we have launched the game, the same recruits who helped develop and test the first version of CO2peration (now 13 years old), will be tested again - as well as a new group of 12-year-olds. These tests will use game analytics and player surveys to determine what aspects of our game achieve the learning outcomes, and which areas are the most difficult to understand. We’re also interested to see (from an entertainment perspective) how long and how often players want to play.
Using this feedback, we can improve our game and hopefully create a versatile learning tool to teach children in Australia and the world about climate science.

Note: CO2peration is being tested as part of a PhD at the Australian National University. More information about how to get a copy of the game is available here.

Links

• Our kids need to learn about climate change
• Science curriculum needs to do more to engage primary school students
• Inez Harker-Schuch
• CO2peration—3D climate science game
• Changing the Game on Climate Change
• Why hot weather records continue to tumble worldwide

Queensland Poll To Be Stress Test For Future Of Renewables In Australia

RenewEconomy - Giles Parkinson

Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk

Queenslanders go to the polls in just four weeks – and it seems that there will be more at stake for the renewable energy industry than a now postponed auction of wind and solar and storage projects. It could help decide the future of renewable energy in Australia.
That may seem a big call to make about a state that has only one 20MW solar farm (Barcaldine) to show for its 50 per cent renewable energy target, and which will likely feature the cost of electricity and the future of coal power as one of the principle points of difference.
Queensland has high prices, but it has nothing to do with renewables. The Labor government has had to tell the state owned generators to pull their head in and moderate their business practices, in clear acknowledgement that it is the action of fossil fuel incumbents that are pushing up prices.
But while there are some 2,000MW of wind and solar projects under construction across the state right now, they will not come into play until next year.
And by then, the shape of future investment will be well and truly set, and the fate of another 9,000MW of wind, solar and biomass and a further 6,000MW of storage potential will become clearer.
Queensland is the first of four states that will go to the polls in the next 12 months and three of them – Queensland, South Australia and Victoria – have ambitious renewable energy policies that in the absence of any federal initiative are critical to the future of renewables in Australia.
Queensland has its target of 50 per cent renewables by 2030, Victoria is aiming for 40 per cent by 2025, and South Australia – already at around 50 per cent – has staked its future on the further transition to a decarbonised grid.
The continuation of these policies is seen as crucial in the absence of any federal policy that could provide a signal to build new renewables.
The  renewable energy target – which will result in 23.5 per cent of large scale renewables by 2020 (plus around 4 per cent of rooftop solar) – is nearly met, and the federal government’s new policy, the National Energy Guarantee designed by the Energy Security Board, envisages little or no additions in the following decade, and is being modelled on the assumption that no emission reductions are made beyond 2030.
Hence the dependence on the states.
The two territories also have ambitious policies – but the ACT’s 100 per cent renewable energy target is already contracted, and nothing has been heard from the Northern Territory and its 50 per cent target by 2030 since it commissioned a report earlier this year.
Tasmania, which also goes to the polls in the next year, is near enough to 100 per cent renewables, although it would like to build a Tassie 2.0 pumped hydro scheme to be the “clean energy battery” of the country.
In Western Australia, the new Labor government is slowly removing the shackles on wind and solar imposed by the previous Coalition government, while NSW – despite making positive noises – has no state-based incentives to speak of.
The federal Coalition has defended its new National Energy Guarantee on the basis that it may allow the states to go it alone, although it is not clear to what extent the new reliability obligations will make that easy.
It’s ironic, given that the federal Coalition had branded the state-based Labor targets as “reckless”, but it may not mean a lot if Labor loses power in those states.
In each of these states, the conservative parties remain implacably opposed to any further renewable investment of scale. In Victoria, it voted against the VRET, and in Queensland the LNP  has vowed to build a coal-fired generator in Townsville, even though even the main energy lobby thinks it’s a crazy idea.
Of the states, only the Victoria target is actually legislated, although it was opposed by the LNP.
Queensland has directly supported – through a series of off take agreements and some limited funding – around half of the 2,000MW of solar and wind projects now under construction in the state.
But it has yet to legislate its policy, or provide a solid framework for how the 50 per cent renewable energy target will be achieved, despite commissioning a report last year.
Its recent call for expressions of interest in a tender for 400MW of renewables, including 100MW of storage, attracted more than 110 proposals. But the formal tender will be sidelined pending the election, and if the LNP win the poll, then it won’t go ahead.
The tender underlined the pent-up interest in wind, solar and storage in the state.
The 115 proposals accounted for a total of 9000MW of renewable projects, more than 20 times the capacity sought, and 6000MW of energy storage, including battery storage and several proposals for solar thermal projects of the type built at Crescent Dunes in Nevada and to be built in Port Augusta.
The renewables projects included 2,200MW of wind energy, more than 6,400MW of solar and around 500MW of other renewable energy technologies such as biomass.
The future of the Adani coal project also looms large, although it is difficult to tell the real split between Labor and the LNP on this. The Greens are the only party against Adani, and hope to get three seats. But it is not clear they will win any.
Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has a slim two party preferred lead – 52-48 per cent – over the opposition led by Tim Nicholls, according to recent polls.
But the result will be complicated by the rising popularity of One Nation (up to 30 per cent in some seats), and the return of full preferential voting, new boundaries for many existing seats, four new seats and the fact that it is a single house parliament.
The LNP energy policy page reads as a list of things it hasn’t done – it froze solar tariffs, opposed the carbon price, and has argued against renewable energy incentives. But it does want to build that new coal fired generator in the north. (Listen to this Energy Insiders podcast to hear why that could be a huge white elephant).
“We will make sure Queensland’s energy security is not put at risk so we don’t end up like South Australia with blackouts and industry shutting up shop,” it says.   
The poll date of November 25 means it will be held one day after a COAG meeting due to consider modelling from the Energy Security Board and a possible vote on whether to commission the ESB to do more work on the National Energy Guarantee.
South Australia will go to the polls in March, as does Tasmania, while Victoria heads to the polls in November, 2018.

Links

• Queensland takes lead in Australian renewable energy race
• “Minister for Adani” is back – and pushing for mega coal mine and new coal generator
• Qld renewables tender swamped by 115 projects, 6,000MW of storage
• Australia’s solar juggernaut is coming – quicker than anyone thinks
• NEG will replace electricity markets with Soviet-style state planning

In Antarctica, Two Crucial Glaciers Accelerate Toward The Sea

New York Times - Jugal K. Patel



Two of the frozen continent’s fastest-moving glaciers are shedding an increasing amount of ice into the Amundsen Sea each year.
The Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers are among the most critical in the world. They are currently holding back ice that, if melted, would raise the world’s oceans by nearly four feet over centuries, an amount that would put many coastal cities underwater.

Pine Island glacier

Source: Copernicus Sentinel-1 | Delft University of Technology

Glaciers are essentially long rivers of ice. Just as a river collects water that drains from a specific area, Antarctica’s glaciers collect ice from parts of the great ice sheets that cover the continent. The amount of ice that could flow into the Pine Island glacier and then into the sea would eventually raise the world’s sea level by over a foot and a half.
The animation above shows Pine Island glacier flowing into the Amundsen Sea from 2014 to 2017. Twice in that period, the glacier released an iceberg larger than 100 square miles.
The Pine Island’s flow is accelerating rapidly. Its ice shelf, an expanse of ice that floats on water where the glacier meets the sea, has increased its speed by 75 percent from 1973 to 2010.
“This is a result of the warmer waters in front of them,” said Eric Rignot, a climate scientist at the University of California, Irvine, who has done extensive research on polar ice.
“In some relatively colder years, we know the melt rate slowed down and the glaciers slowed down. On warm ocean years, the glacier moves really fast.”

In the 1980s, Pine Island gained about as much ice as it lost every year. Now, the glacier is out of balance.

About 100 miles southwest of Pine Island, Thwaites glacier is also shedding more and more ice into the ocean.
The amount of ice that could flow into it and then into the sea would increase global sea level by more than two feet.

Thwaites glacier

Source: Copernicus Sentinel-1 | French National Center for Scientific Research

Because Thwaites is about 75 miles wide and isn’t confined to a valley the way Pine Island is, there is potential for much larger releases of ice if the glacier’s flow continues to speed up.
“These two glaciers could easily flow two to three times faster — that’s what the models show,” Dr. Rignot said. “If Pine Island’s shelf were to break up, the glacier would respond by speeding up two to three times.”

Thwaites glacier also veered from equilibrium in the late 1980s, but hasn’t been shedding as much ice as Pine Island.

This year’s ice calving events at Pine Island and Thwaites have not caused significant changes in the region, because the shifts have been in areas that did not provide critical support to the glaciers.
The movement of the ice, however, offers scientists a window into how Antarctic ice shelves might respond to rapid changes and how a runaway disintegration of the hundreds of Antarctic glaciers might look.
“There isn’t a glacier in Antarctica that comes close to the ice discharge to Pine Island and Thwaites,” Dr. Rignot said. “They are the largest discharger of ice in the Antarctic right now.”

Links

• Giant Hole Opens Up In Antarctica As Scientists Look To Find Out What Is To Blame
• More Daytime Images Of The Larsen C Iceberg Have Come In, And They're Amazing
• 'Attacked From Two Sides': Antarctic Sea Ice Hits Another Record Low
• How Antarctic Ice Melt Can Be A Tipping Point For The Whole Planet’s Climate
• The Larsen C Ice Shelf Collapse Is Just the Beginning—Antarctica Is Melting
• Iceberg Twice Size Of Luxembourg Breaks Off Antarctic Ice Shelf

ANU PhD Student Inez Harker-Schuch Launches Game To Tackle Climate Change

Fairfax - Rod Taylor

On Christmas Eve 1974, Australia experienced one of its worst-ever natural disasters when Cyclone Tracy obliterated Darwin.
Inez Harker-Schuch was only three, but she vividly remembers her terror as the world disintegrated around her.

ANU PhD student Inez Harker-Schuch has created a game to help children understand climate change. Photo: Rod Taylor

Sheets of corrugated-iron were flying through the air, and trees were impossibly contorted. "It was as if the world had gone mad with fury", she recalls, "it was the shriek of the wind, the violence and the destruction."
The experience changed her perception of Christmas forever.
"The idea that a cyclone could come on Christmas Eve at midnight to destroy a city was just beyond what anybody could imagine – no-one expected it."

Inez's family were huddled in their house until it started to break-up around them. At the peak of the cyclone, the windows imploded showering them with glass, and they were forced them to flee into their Volkswagen beetle parked under their house.
They watched in disbelief as the neighbour's roof lifted from the house, then blew away. She recalls the flashes of lightning as he sprinted across his yard to join them in the car.
Peak winds on the day can only be estimated because the wind-gauge was destroyed, but it's believed it reached over 240 kmh.
Inez is visibly affected as she tells her story which she still finds traumatic. Everything they owned disappeared: furniture, toys, photographs, mementos - all gone. After the cyclone, they spent the next four years in Darwin living in a cramped caravan parked on a concrete slab, trying to rebuild.
Instead of retreating from the past, it has given Inez ambition to help solve the problem of climate change. I asked her if climate change might be a larger, slow motion version of the same thing, like a scaled-up cyclone?
"I think it's much worse", she says. "It's global – and we know we're walking into this. We also know we can do something about it."
After studying earth sciences in Austria and Denmark, she began teaching environmental science in schools. It was then that she realised conventional teaching methods weren't enough because they were often too static and abstract. She began building on an online 3D computer game called CO2peration that would bring climate science to life.
Players become a photon and go on an adventure through the solar system, learning how climate works. "They uncover the secrets of our little blue, shimmering planet", she says.
"Along the way, there's fun stuff, like shooting space debris from the exosphere, or building your own space probe. Climate is a fascinating thing. We've made it fun."
They tested a prototype of the game on nearly 800 Canberra students, and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. A teacher said the game had managed to engage one of her students who, suffering from ADHD, often struggles to concentrate for longer than a few minutes.
"I've never seen her concentrate on something for so long – but she's been at it for 10 minutes and she hasn't looked up once," the teacher said.
Inez says, "I was pleasantly surprised because the game was only a rough draft. It was a poignant moment. No-one has done this before."
Inez is now working to complete the game as part of her PhD at the ANU. To fund the project she's launched a Kickstarter campaign.
As well as the satisfaction of seeing the game played in schools, she also recalls the first pledge to the campaign. "It was a complete stranger. Someone thought this idea worth giving their money to. Having that person pledge said that people care. And that is what is going to make a difference: people caring".

Links

• Inez Harker-Schuch
• CO2peration—3D climate science game
• Changing the Game on Climate Change

Oceans Could Offer A Wind-Powered World

Climate News Network - Tim Radford

Deep-water turbines could make a wind-powered world possible, scientists say, generating all the energy human civilisation uses today.

North Atlantic storms could help make a wind-powered world a reality. Image: By Ronnie Robertson via Wikimedia Commons

Two Californian scientists have worked out how to achieve a wind-powered world that provides the entire planet with wind energy without spoiling the view with turbines on every hilltop.

The answer: take wind farming onto the high seas. The force of the winds sweeping across the open ocean would be enough to generate 18 billion kilowatts – which is about the global annual energy demand right now.

The scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that although the best that wind farms on land can deliver is electricity at the rate of 1.5 watts per square metre, the mid-latitudes of the North Atlantic could do much better: up to 6 watts per square metre.

In a calculation that is overtly hypothetical, they evaluate winds as so much kinetic energy to be exploited. Ocean wind speeds are at least 70% higher than wind speeds over land. Surface winds in the North Atlantic can reach 11 metres per second and 13.5 metres a second in the Southern Hemisphere, and these would be enough in theory to take generating rates up to 20 or even 80 watts per square metre.

Renewable world

Research at this level does not answer the world’s energy problems: instead it sets out, once again, the viable possibility of a world driven by renewable energy, rather than the fossil fuels that drive ever-higher greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, and potentially catastrophic global warming and climate change.

And it is one step onwards from a cascade of such thinking over the past few years. In 2013, scientists at the University of Delaware worked out that wind, solar and renewable sources could deliver almost all the energy needs of the United States.

Other groups – including one at Stanford University in the US – have not just backed up this reasoning but extended it, with a roadmap for at least 139 of the 197 nations that in December 2015 resolved to take steps to contain global warming to no more than 2°C by 2100.

“While no commercial-scale deep water wind farms yet exist, our results suggest that such technologies, if they become technically and economically feasible, could potentially provide civilisation-scale power”

But the laws of thermodynamics present practical problems. One of these is that, because energy is always conserved, a wind farm inevitably “saps” the energy of the wind that slams into the turbines, leaving a weaker wind for the next turbine in its path.

So although, in theory, winds could deliver at the rate of 60 to 80 watts per square metre, this “turbine drag” would slow the winds at every stage.

Even so, engineers could look forward to a harvest of 3 to 5 watts per square metre, which is much higher than the best available on land.

Someone had to do the sums. “Are the winds so fast just because there is nothing out there to slow them down? Will sticking giant wind farms out there just slow down the winds so much that it is no better than over land?”, said Ken Caldeira, senior scientist at the global ecology department at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford.

Problems to solve

“The real question is can the atmosphere over the ocean move more energy downward than the atmosphere over land is able to?”

In principle, their answer is: yes, it can. Open ocean wind farms spread across 3 million square kilometres of ocean could in theory harness so much more of the atmosphere’s energy and generate all the power the world needs right now.

That still leaves all the other problems unsolved: the challenge of engineering turbines fit for the open ocean and of catering for seasonal variations in wind energy; of collecting the generated current and delivering it to the world’s cities, and the even bigger problem of the national and global politics involved.  But sophisticated modelling says there is nothing on Earth to prevent it being done.
“While no commercial-scale deep water wind farms yet exist, our results suggest that such technologies, if they become technically and economically feasible, could potentially provide civilisation-scale power,” the scientists write.

Links

• Huge energy potential in open ocean wind farms in the North Atlantic
• Geophysical potential for wind energy over the open oceans
• Climate change threatens empires
• Rising seas may bring more superstorms
• Shock decline in flying insects