|

Flood risks from global warming underestimated.

Byoliveridley

As CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase, plants uptake less water from the soil. Betts’ model indicates that there could be a 6 percentage point increase due to this effect on top of the 11% increase in global water flows due to direct climate effects.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Climate flooding risk ‘misjudged’

Researchers say efforts to calculate flooding risk from climate change do not take into account the effect carbon dioxide (CO2) has on vegetation. Higher atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas reduce the ability of plants to suck water out of the ground and “breathe” out the excess. Plants expel excess water through tiny pores, or stomata, in their leaves. Their reduced ability to release water back into the atmosphere will result in the ground becoming saturated.

Feedbacks, always a problem and hard to predict.

Similar Posts

  • Krugman takes on Climate Change Economics

    Byoliveridley

    Paul Krugman takes on climate change economics, just read the whole damn thing, but I will summarize so you don’t have to wade through 8 pages.

    In what follows, I will offer a brief survey of the economics of climate change or, more precisely, the economics of lessening climate change. I’ll try to lay out the areas of broad agreement as well as those that remain in major dispute. First, though, a primer in the basic economics of environmental protection.

    Magazine Preview – Climate Change – Building a Green Economy – NYTimes.com.

    First off, it is well written, aimed at simplifying the economics of pollution so most people can understand, what you’d expect from him!

    1. Basic Economics and how externalities work, and why free markets alone will never solve moral problems of reducing pollution, or providing health care
    2. How the work of Pigou, a 1920s economist is the basis of all all environmental economics, with a small sidetrack on rabbits! This is well written, it captures the essence of what needs to be done with pollution – Simple prohibition is not enough, imposing a fair cost on the pollution works much better
    3. What are command and control, cap and trade, carbon taxes, and what they do. Krugman prefers cap and trade approaches where there is certainty on the pollution. But he stresses (and this is very important) that it is essential to put additional control elements in place, for example, fuel efficiency requirements for cars in addition to just carbon costs, or severe limits on coal fired power plants
    4. He talks about developed, and developing countries, and how to handle increasing emissions in China, India, etc. He postulates a combined carrot and stick policy, where China and India can trade emission permits with the rich countries. His contention is that since the Chinese economy is less efficient, the costs of cutting pollution in China are likely to be a lot lower. The stick involves the imposition of carbon tariffs on imported goods to Europe and the US if China does not play ball. So, the rich countries pass money to the poorer countries to reduce emissions, but impose taxes if they don’t
    5. He thinks that carbon costs should increase quickly rather than slowly
    6. He compares the costs of action to the costs of inaction, no surprise that the costs of inaction are orders of magnitude larger than the costs of action.

    Of course, he ends with the caveat that the political will to do this is going to be sorely lacking.

    What do I think? While it pretty much encapsulates what I think of as the big picture approach, Krugman hand waves around the many personal changes in consumption, land use, urbanization, localization that all have to occur. All of that is included in “additional command control based changes”. I don’t necessarily believe in Homo Economicus, the rational human who responds to economic incentives. So we will have to, as citizens, agitate forcefully for local actions that set us in the western world up for reduced consumption and increased efficiency. In addition, we have to simultaneously support national level politicians that are serious about climate change and punish the ones that are not, so they can help enact the right national and trans-national policies.

    Anyway, all in all, an excellent read.

  • |

    Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals – A new Resource

    Byoliveridley

    Critical Windows of Development is a timeline of how the human body develops in the womb, with animal research showing when low-dose exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals during development results in altered health outcomes.

    Critical Windows of Development

    This promises to be an easy to use database showing development timelines of infants, and the documented effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals at these timelines. The prime focus is bisphenol A and phthalates at this point in time. The Environmental Health News has more about the program here. It is not out for public consumption yet, so stay tuned…

  • The England Environment Minister Blogs

    Byoliveridley

    http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk/blogs/ministerial_blog/default.aspx

    He seems to write it himself, has comments and all, some of which aren’t very friendly. One of his posts talks about a Carbon ration card, meaning everyone starts off with a set of carbon credits, which you can either use, or sell back to the trading bank so that people who use more carbon can buy more.

    The principle is simple: there would be a decision about the nation’s
    annual level of carbon emissions, permits/quotas for that level would be issued on a per capital basis (probably for personal food, household energy and travel emissions), and those who spent under the wuota would be able to sell to those who spend above.

    Well put, and in classic blog style, no spellcheck!

    Meanwhile, in the US, we have the chair of the powerful Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works and well known Global Warming denier.

    But coolness and hipness aside, it is refreshing for a minister (secretary, whatever you call them) to communicate in this fashion and be accepting of comments and criticism. We need a few more of these on the other side of the Atlantic (no,  not Antarctica, look West).

  • Perchlorate Coverup?

    Byoliveridley

    Pentagon pressured EPA on perchlorate

    The federal government has been inconsistent and at times intentionally silent on how much perchlorate is safe in drinking water. As a result, environmental groups contend, defense contractors and the government have been indefinitely shielded from cleanup costs while infants and pregnant women are exposed to a chemical that impairs thyroid function and can slow infant brain development.

    Perchlorate is the oxidizing component of rocket fuel that has been proven to interfere with thyroid function at low levels. The defense department is probably the single largest source of localized contamination. So, expecting the EPA (politically appointed head) to regulate the defense department (politically appointed head) is a little naive.

    Industry advocates argue that the science on perchlorate is not precise enough to warrant strong — and extremely costly — remedies.

    Ah, where would we be without the plutocracy-protectionary principle!

  • Lack of science funding risks brain drain, CMAJ editorial warns

    Byoliveridley

    In the Jan. 27 budget, Canada's three research councils collectively had their budgets cut by $147.9 million, or five per cent, the editorial said. Neither Genome Canada nor the Canada Research Chair program, which allows universities and research institutes to attract top scientists from around the world, received any new money.

    In contrast, the U.S. government is pledging $11.9 billion–$13 billion US for scientific research, and the United Kingdom is continuing its investment of 1.7 billion pounds $3.1 billion Cdn for applied health research in 2009/2010, although both countries have been hit hard by the economic crisis.

    The more I read about the Canadian Budget, the more worried I get. Cutting research funds is the easiest way to completely gut scientific talent and nobble Canada for years to come. What takes years to develop will be gone in one year. Cue all the Canadian scientists taking jobs in the US or anywhere else they are available.

    This is disgusting and something must be done. You can read the entire CMAJ editorial here (pdf).

  • Dear American Public Media, Coal is not clean!

    Byoliveridley

    Overheard this morning on The Marketplace morning report…

    “The use of scrubbers have made coal fired power plants much cleaner”

    Umm, this only refers to the scrubbing of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide. Unless some marvelous scrubber has been invented and perfected (top secret, the coal fired power plants don’t want you to know about all the good things they do!) that picks up all the CO2 belching out of those smokestacks, no claim can be made that coal is cleaner.

    Dear Marketplace, your own website says the following:

    KAI RYSSDAL: And it’s official. Carbon dioxide is a pollutant. The Supreme Court says so. The Bush Administration had been arguing the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases

    To argue this from a strictly legalistic standpoint, coal is dirtier now than it has ever been because we finally count CO2 as a pollutant (Yes, I know, Supreme Court only ruled on automobile emissions because that was the case in front of it, but gas is gas!).

    Dear Marketplace, please stop using the words clean and coal in the same sentence unless and until CO2 emissions from coal are scrubbed!

    Update 30Aug07: Apparently (see comments!), NPR does not like the use of the word NPR in the blog title because (and I quote)

    “Marketplace” is not an NPR show. It is produced by American Public Media, a separate company, and has its own news operation”

    True, so it’s not dear NPR anymore, it’s “dear American Public Media”. There, that takes care of that. My point obviously stands, coal is not clean!!