President Obama to Reduce Methane Emissions

On Friday the Whitehouse announced that the President, will continue to fight against climate change using executive fiat. The next step for the White House climate plan, originally introduced in a speech at Georgetown University in June 2013, is an “interagency methane strategy.” Towards this goal, the Whitehouse is directing federal agencies to clamp down on emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas, though U.S. methane emissions have fallen 11% since 1990.

data from US EPA

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), methane is more than 20 times as effective as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. If you recall it is the greenhouse effect that is expected to increase the sensitivity of the climate to carbon dioxide, methane and the other greenhouse gases. Though in its September 2013 report the IPCC eliminated attempts to estimate the “most likely” sensitivity of the climate to the expected manmade doubling of the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere because according to British climate scientist Nic Lewis “the best observational evidence indicates our climate is considerably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than climate scientists had previously thought.” All the climate models had failed to predict that for the last 15 years there has been essentially no net warming. Global Warming has been having what the IPCC calls a hiatus.

Over the last two hundred and fifty years, the concentration of methane in our atmosphere has increased by 151% to 1.8 parts per million. Methane is the primary component in natural gas, methane is emitted to the atmosphere during the production, processing, storage, transmission, and distribution of natural gas and because gas is often found alongside petroleum which is much more valuable, methane is sometimes vented to the atmosphere rather than captured during oil production. Methane is also produced from the decomposition of human and animal waste as well as garbage and is the major component of landfill gas. Methane is also released from the natural biological process of enteric fermentation which is fermentation that takes place in the digestive systems of animals. In particular, ruminant animals that have two stomachs and eat grasses (cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, and camels) produce and release methane from the microbial fermentation that breaks down the grass and hay into soluble products that can be utilized by the animal. Also, when natural gas and other petroleum products are used as a fuel incomplete combustion releases traces of methane.

Methane emissions come from diverse sources and sectors of the economy, unevenly dispersed across the landscape and not well tracked. These uncertainties have resulted in estimates of current and projected methane emissions by simplified models and rules of thumb for the source of methane emissions. Nonetheless, the estimates below are the best available and the Administration has launched a methane mitigation plan.

The President’s Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions targets reductions in methane emissions from landfills, coal mining, and agriculture, and oil and gas systems that include action on four fronts:

1. Landfills: This summer, the EPA will propose regulation to reduce methane from new landfills and begin the process to tighten the methane standards for existing landfills.
2. Coal Mines: In April 2014, the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management will begin the process of developing a program for the capture and disposal of waste mine methane on lands leased by the Federal government. 
3. Agriculture: In June 2014, in partnership with the dairy industry, the U. S. Department of Agriculture, the EPA and U.S. Department of Energy will jointly release a “Biogas Roadmap” outlining voluntary strategies to reduce U.S. dairy sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25 % by 2020. Maybe the administration will reduce the U.S. consumption of dairy products, beef, buffalo, sheep and goats and thus reduce the herds of rumens. 
4. Oil and Gas: This spring EPA will assess potential sources of methane and other greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry and in the fall of 2014, EPA will determine how best to pursue further methane reductions from these sources. EPA is expected to develop additional regulations if necessary by the end of 2016. Later this year, the Bureau of Land Management will update the rules to reduce venting and flaring from oil and gas production on public lands. In addition the Administration will identify “downstream” methane reduction opportunities. Through the Natural Gas STAR program, EPA will work with the industry to expand voluntary efforts to reduce methane emissions.

One downstream area for reduction of methane is our natural gas distribution systems. In 2012 and 2013 two scientists mapped the gas leaks under Boston and Washington DC using a new, high-precision methane analyzer provided by Picarro installed in a GPS-equipped car. They found that there were approximately 4.3 leaks per mile of street in both cities. Levels of methane in the surface air on some streets exceeded 15 times the normal atmospheric background value.

For some time we have failed to maintain our unseen infrastructure systems as a way to cut costs. We have failed to maintain and upgrade the oil and gas distribution system. Gas distribution companies are well aware of the leaks in the system. The companies calculate the difference between the gas pumped into the distribution system and what is metered at the end user. This is referred to as "lost and unaccounted-for" gas is often a surcharge on customer bills. These leaks are wasteful, dangerous and a significant source of greenhouse gas released into the environment.

Distribution companies try to prioritize finding and fixing leaks likely to be explosion hazards, where gas is collecting and concentrating and ignore the small losses from deteriorating iron pipe and the deteriorating distribution system in our cities. Natural gas distribution leaks and explosions cause an average of 17 fatalities, 68 injuries, and $133 million in property damage each year, according to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. In 2010 a natural gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno, CA, just south of San Francisco. There was no warning and eight people were killed, 58 were injured and 38 homes, the entire section of a neighborhood, destroyed. In 2011, a leak from an 83-year-old cast-iron main in Allentown, Pa., caused an explosion that killed five people. And just last month a gas explosion killed eight people in East Harlem.

Detecting and reducing gas leaks are critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality in cities and consumer safety, and ultimately saving future generations of consumers from loss of life, property and wasted money. Right now, repairing our infrastructure will be very expensive, but as the pipes that distribute gas (and the other essential utilities of water, sewer, and electricity) continue to age failure will become more frequent. Infrastructure is the foundation of our economy, connecting businesses, communities, and people, making us a first world country-we need to repair and maintain it.

IPCC Releases 5th Climate Report

Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has finally released the much anticipated Fifth Assessment Report on climate change. The summaries that had been previously leaked to the traditional press and been reported in the newspapers (and the IPCC released an official summary on Friday) made the actual release of the report less news worthy. As widely reported the IPCC found that despite the current pause in the increase in surface temperature, the planet is warming and it is “extremely likely that the changes in our climate system for the past half a century are due to human influence.”

As the IPCC points out, confidence in the validity of this finding is based on the type, amount, quality, and consistency of evidence. The type of evidence used in the report were data collected in the past century, mechanistic understanding of the earth’s ecology, climate theory, mathematical models built to forecast the climate, and expert judgment. Observations of the climate system are based on direct measurements and remote sensing from satellites. Global-scale observations from the instrumental era began in the mid-19th century predominately for temperature. More comprehensive data has been collected since 1950s.

In their report the IPCC Working Group cites the overwhelming scientific consensus about the causes and results of climate change, but also calls for further assessments and projections, especially at regional level and in the oceans. Multiple lines of evidence confirm to the authors that the extra heat being trapped by greenhouse gases is warming the Earth’s atmosphere, surface, heating and acidifying the oceans, raising sea levels, and melting ice caps and glaciers. The report states the decade 2001-2010 was the warmest on record, a decade in which more temperature records were broken than any previous decade. However, the average surface temperature has actually not increased in the past decade.

from NOAA

For the period of 1970 to 2000 the median surface temperature as recorded by measurements increased 0.3 ± 0.04°F per year. However, there has been little further warming of the surface of the planet, particularly over the oceans in the most recent 10 to 15 years. The start of the current pause is difficult to pin down precisely. Although 1998 is often quoted as the start of the current pause, this was an exceptionally warm year because of the largest El Niño on record. This was followed by a strong La Niña event and a fall in global surface temperature of around 0.36°F which is equal to the average global warming for an entire decade based on the previous 30 years. It is only really since 2000 that the rise in global surface temperatures has paused. According to the Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) there is still substantial evidence from the other components of the climate system, beyond the global mean surface temperature, that the Earth has continued to warm over the last decade and this evaluation is supported by the scientific consensus in the IPCC Working Group.

Analysis of simulated natural climate variability by the MOHC using the climate models indicates that even with a long term warming rate of 0.3°F per decade, at least two periods without apparent temperature increase lasting a decade would be expected each century. The current pause in global surface temperature rise is not viewed as exceptional, based on those model simulations. The scientists cite two potential mechanisms to explain the recent pause; the first involves changes to the total energy received by the planet (radiative forcing), and the second involves the low frequency variability of the oceans and the way in which the oceans take up heat and store it below the surface in the deeper ocean. It is possible that a pause in surface warming could result from both mechanisms acting together though according to the MOHC radiative forcing by greenhouse gases has continued unabated; that heat is being held in the system but has not manifest as a rise in global mean surface temperature.

Observations of ocean heat content and of sea-level rise suggest that the additional heat has rather been absorbed in the oceans. Changes in the exchange of heat between the upper and deep ocean appear to have caused at least part of the pause in surface warming especially in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, the scientists point out the relative cooling influence of La Niña weather events. Since 2000 there have been no major El Niño events and indeed the tropical Pacific has been predominantly in La Niña states. These factors were not predicted in previous versions of the climate forecasting models. Thus, the IPCC cites the need for more research especially in the areas of deep sea temperatures.

IPCC and the scientific consensus have pivoted slightly in their focus to the oceans and sea level rise. The IPCC reports a Working Group consensus that ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the earth’s climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010. Since the early 1970s, glacier mass loss and ocean thermal expansion from warming together explain about 75% of the observed global mean sea level rise the rest is assembly attributed to the rise in sea levels that has been occurring unabated for over 10,000 years. “As the ocean warms, and glaciers and ice sheets reduce, global mean sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than we have experienced over the past 40 years,” said Co-Chair Qin Dahe in the IPCC’s press release.

The IPCC Working Group expects global surface temperatures for the end of the 21st century to likely increase 2.7°F to 3.6°F relative to 1850 to 1900 time period. “Heat waves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the Earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions,” said Co-Chair Thomas Stocker in the press release. Dr. Stocker concluded his comments by reminding us that as a result of our past, present and expected future emissions of CO2, climate change is inevitable, and will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 were to stop today.

Rising Sea Levels and Shrinking Artic Ice

from NASA to see animation click

In mid-August a draft copy of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, and five year report due to be peer reviewed this coming fall then officially released to the public was leaked to Reuters and the New York Times. The media (both print and Internet) was a buzz despite the fact that the IPCC does not do any original research, but merely summarizes the published scientific literature on climate change. Six years ago the IPCC report predicted a maximum of 23 inches of sea-level rise by the end of this century, but according to the New York Times, the new report lays out several possibilities from as little as 10 inches to a maximum of 21 inches by the end of the century.

These estimates of sea level rise are based on the amount of warming experienced by the plant in response to the increase in greenhouse gases that has already occurred. Even if the entire planet stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, the planet would continue to warm. Whatever is going to happen will happen; it is too late to change that. Warming increases sea level in two ways: thermal expansion and the melting of the glaciers and ice caps. When water warms it expands in volume and is expected to contribute a portion of the sea level increase. More than 97% of the Earth’s water is already within the in oceans. The remaining 2.8% of water is the water within the land masses, 2.15% is contained in icecaps and glaciers. The melting of the ice, which has so far been most pronounced in mountain glaciers might increase surface infiltration of water, but the remainder will flow to the oceans increasing sea volume. The big concern is for the future of the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica and what impact the volume of water contained there will have on sea levels.

Last Friday the sea ice minimum analysis produced at NASA’s Goddard space laboratory using satellite data was released. The melting of sea ice in the Arctic reaches its annual minimum, when the ice cap covers less of the Arctic Ocean than at any other period during the year, in the middle of September each year. The good news is that NASA is predicting it is unlikely that this year’s summer low will break a new record. Still, this year’s melt rates are in line with the long term decline of the Arctic ice cover observed by NASA and other satellites over the last several decades. The data record, which began in November 1978, shows an overall shrinking in the size of the Arctic sea ice minimum each summer since 1978 of 14% per decade.

The ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was measured at 2.25 million square miles on Aug. 21. For comparison, the smallest Arctic sea ice extent on record for this date, recorded in 2012, was 1.67 million square miles, and the largest recorded for this date was in 1996, when ice covered 3.16 million square miles of the Arctic Ocean. Though, early summer saw a fast retreat of the sea ice, melting slowed as clouds over the central Arctic kept temperatures cooler than average, and the Arctic experienced mild summer storms. According to Walt Meier, a glaciologist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland: “Last year’s storm went across an area of open water and mixed the smaller pieces of ice with the relatively warm water, so it melted very rapidly. This year, the storms hit in an area of more consolidated ice. The storms this year were more typical summer storms; last year’s was the unusual one.”

In Antarctica, the story is different. Right now, Antarctic sea ice is in the midst of its yearly growing cycle and is heading towards the largest extent on record. Antarctic sea ice reached 7.45 million square miles on Aug. 21. In 2012, the extent of Antarctic sea ice for the same date was 7.08 million square miles. The phenomenon, appears counter-intuitive, and is currently the subject of many research studies. Still, the rate at which the Arctic is losing sea ice surpasses the speed at which Antarctic sea ice is expanding so sea level rise is of great concern to mankind who throughout history has settled along the coast lines.

Administrator Jackson and the EPA and Strong Arm Tactics

In April 2009, the EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson signed a proposed endangerment and a cause or contributes findings for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. If you will recall at the end of the comment period Alan Carlin and John Davidson of the US EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics detailed their concerns about the science underpinning the agency's "endangerment finding" for carbon dioxide. The two said the US EPA accepted findings reached by outside groups, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, "without a careful and critical examination of their own conclusions and documentation." The duo raised questions about what data if any that EPA had used to develop the proposed finding. The EPA dismissed these concerns and barred the two from working in this area in the future.

The hacked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) a collaborator with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the recent revelations from the IPCC provide support for the concerns of Alan Carlin and John Davidson. The US EPA is required to make its own evaluation of the underlying science not depend on the findings of others for its Endangerment Determination and must determine that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health based on the science. Phil Jones, the University of East Anglia scientist and a target of the e-mail hack, acknowledged that there hasn't been statistically significant climate warming since 1995; thought the carbon dioxide level has continued to rise. In an interview with the BBC, he said "the vast majority of climate scientists" do not believe the debate over climate change is settled. Mr. Jones continues to believe in global warming but acknowledges there's no consensus in the scientific community.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) purported to proclaim the final word on Climate Change in 2007, in a 3,000 page report that have been revealed to be less than scientific truth. The IPCC now admits that its prediction that the Himalayan glaciers might disappear by 2035 was a mistake, based on an inaccurate citation to the World Wildlife Foundation. This advocacy group was also the basis for a claim the IPCC has backed away from—that up to 40% of the Amazon is endangered. Now the IPCC has also backed away from the predicted impacts of climate change on agriculture in Africa. The IPCC report mistakenly doubled the percentage of the Netherlands currently below sea level to the dismay of the residents. John Christy, a former lead author of the IPCC report, now says the "temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change." As these fictions have been revealed, the top U.N. climate-change bureaucrat, Yvo de Boer, announced his resignation.

Although the EPA could have delayed until March the announcement of findings, they instead choose to announce their Endangerment Determination in the wake of the disclosure of emails hacked from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU). The emails released revealed some researchers willingness to suppress or massage data, hide weather data and rig the peer-review process to control the publication of scholarly work, the EPA dismissed any questions raised as a the “couple of naysayers,” deniers and dismissed them out of hand. The Endangerment Determination was a political decision and not a scientific finding. The Administration chose the first day of the United Nations global warming conference in Copenhagen as a way to signal full US acceptance of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change determinations. However, support for an accord had eroded and despite the President’s arrival at Copenhagen no accord was reached.

Rather than make an independent determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, the EPA made a political determination and in the process crushed two dedicated employees for the greater political good. Those kinds of actions should not happen in the United States. Administrator Jackson owes and apology to Alan Carlin and John Davidson and the American people. The true shame is that we should be paying attention to the carbon dioxide level in the atmospheres; w e remain ignorant of the true functioning of the climate system. Hiding and distorting data, dismissing other points of view as deniers is not how we will come to understand the climate system. The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) should release the data to the scientific community to allow them to utilize what data we have to further our understanding of the climate system instead of pushing on political agenda. On Monday, the EPA announced that it would comply with the request from Kenneth Cuccinelli, Attorney General of Virginia and several other states to delay regulation of carbon dioxide from point sources. The endangerment determination should be reexamined in light of the recent disclosures.