Cave Study Links Climate Change To California Droughts

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110171741.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2009) — California experienced centuries-long droughts in the past 20,000 years that coincided with the thawing of ice caps in the Arctic, according to a new study by UC Davis doctoral student Jessica Oster and geology professor Isabel Montañez.

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The researchers don't know exactly what connects Arctic temperatures to precipitation over California. However, climate models developed by others suggest that when Arctic sea ice disappears, the jet stream -- high-altitude winds with a profound influence on climate -- shifts north, moving precipitation away from California.

"If there is a connection to Arctic sea ice then there are big implications for us in California," Montañez said. Arctic sea ice has declined by about 3 percent a year over the past three decades, and some forecasts predict an ice-free Arctic ocean as soon as 2020.

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First the good news, then the bad news

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/us/13water.html?_r=2

By CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: October 12, 2009

MASONTOWN, Pa. — For years, residents here complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste in their yards. Five states — including New York and New Jersey — sued the plant’s owner, Allegheny Energy, claiming the air pollution was causing respiratory diseases and acid rain.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

“It’s like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead,” said Philip Coleman, who lives about 15 miles from the plant and has asked a state judge to toughen the facility’s pollution regulations. “We can’t escape.”

Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

Much power plant waste once went into the sky, but because of toughened air pollution laws, it now often goes into lakes and rivers, or into landfills that have leaked into nearby groundwater, say regulators and environmentalists.

Officials at the plant here in southwest Pennsylvania — named Hatfield’s Ferry — say it does not pose any health or environmental risks because they have installed equipment to limit the toxins the facility releases into the Monongahela River and elsewhere.

But as the number of scrubbers around the nation increases, environmentalists — including those in Pennsylvania — have become worried. The Environmental Protection Agency projects that by next year, roughly 50 percent of coal-generated electricity in the United States will come from plants that use scrubbers or similar technologies, creating vast new sources of wastewater.

Yet no federal regulations specifically govern the disposal of power plant discharges into waterways or landfills. Some regulators have used laws like the Clean Water Act to combat such pollution. But those laws can prove inadequate, say regulators, because they do not mandate limits on the most dangerous chemicals in power plant waste, like arsenic and lead.

For instance, only one in 43 power plants and other electric utilities across the nation must limit how much barium they dump into nearby waterways, according to a Times analysis of E.P.A. records. Barium, which is commonly found in power plant waste and scrubber wastewater, has been linked to heart problems and diseases in other organs.

Even when power plant emissions are regulated by the Clean Water Act, plants have often violated that law without paying fines or facing other penalties. Ninety percent of 313 coal-fired power plants that have violated the Clean Water Act since 2004 were not fined or otherwise sanctioned by federal or state regulators, according to a Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency records. (An interactive database of power plant violations around the nation is available at www.nytimes.com/coalplants.)

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A 2007 report published by the E.P.A. suggested that people living near some power plant landfills faced a cancer risk 2,000 times higher than federal health standards.

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Please read the rest of the article at the link.

Exotic Timber Plantations Found To Use More Than Twice The Water Of Native Forests

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090915140926.htm

ScienceDaily (Sep. 17, 2009) — Ecologists have discovered that timber plantations in Hawaii use more than twice the amount of water to grow as native forests use. Especially for island ecosystems, these findings suggest that land management decisions can place ecosystems – and the people who depend on them – at high risk for water shortages.

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Waning Pacific Clouds Suggest Global Warming Feeds Upon Itself

This will probably not come as a surprise to climate scientists, since past models of the effects of the increasing CO2 we are producing have mostly underestimated how much warming actually occured. There are various feedback mechanisms such as this, and almost all of the ones that have been occurred have been positive feedback loops such as this.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a6EvbLkU1w6w

By Jeremy van Loon
July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer clouds dot the Pacific skies than a half-century ago, allowing the sun beat to down on the sea and raise temperatures, according to scientists who say the discovery means our planet may heat up more than forecast.

A self-perpetuating cycle, triggered by global warming, has appeared in weather data gathered from 1952 to 2007 over a 3 million-square-kilometer (740,000 square-mile) expanse of ocean off Mexico, Amy Clement of the University of Miami and colleagues wrote in this week’s edition of Science.

Clouds, like forest fires and Arctic permafrost, are studied for their potential to amplify warming. There is still enough mystery in how they function that scientists have said it’s difficult to produce a consensus forecast for temperatures, which in turn may determine the severity of future storms, droughts and Arctic ice melting.

“There’s a wide range of predicted warming for the 21st century,” Clement, a professor of meteorology and oceanography, said in a podcast on the Science Web site. “This study indicates that perhaps we should be giving serious consideration to the high range of future warming.”

Trying to stem climate change, a 17-member group of the Earth’s most polluting nations including the U.S. and China agreed this month to limit the global average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. They couldn´t agree on targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, leaving that for climate treaty talks that are set to conclude in December.

The average global temperature already has risen by about 0.8 degrees, and more than double that in the Arctic.

The researchers studied 18 models used by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Geneva- based clearinghouse for scientific studies were studied. The found only one model, developed by the U.K. Met Office, accurately predicted changes observed in low-level clouds.

The U.K. model projects a 4.4-degree Celsius warming in a scenario where the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles. That forecast was the highest increase among the various models, Clement said.

The latest IPCC report estimated a range of 2 degrees to 4.5 degrees with a doubling of CO2.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere amounts to about 385 parts per million molecules of air, up from about 280 parts per million at the beginning of the industrial age.

Solar Water Heating Pays For Itself Five Times Over

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090309105021.htm

ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2009) — An analysis of the engineering and economics for a solar water-heating system shows it to have a payback period of just two years, according to researchers in India. They report, in the International Journal of Global Energy Issues, on the success of the 1000-liter system operating at a university hostel.

GEORGIA'S WATER CRISIS: THE POWER OF WATER

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2007/11/18/power1118.html

By Ken Foskett, Margaret Newkirk, Stacy Shelton
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/18/07

As the historic drought worsens and the tri-state water battle escalates, Georgia policymakers are all but ignoring the region's biggest water guzzler.

Electric utilities are the single largest users of the region's freshwater. A family of four can use three times more water to power their home than they use to drink, bathe and water their lawn.

In Georgia, electric utilities use 68 percent of all surface water, the single largest user in the state, according to 2000 data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest year available.

If everybody turned off their computers and cubicle lights when they go home at night, that alone would save a lot.