Watch out for water vapour climate impact because it amplifies the heat and is potent enough to double the climate warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, researchers have found by using recent NASA satellite data.

Water vapour is known to be Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas, but previously scientists were unsure of  the extent of its contribution to global warming .  Now they have validatied the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change and confirmed that the heat-amplifying effect of water vapour is potent enough to double the climate warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

With new observations, the scientists confirmed experimentally what existing climate models had anticipated theoretically. The research team used novel data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite to measure precisely the humidity throughout the lowest 10 miles of the atmosphere. That information was combined with global observations of shifts in temperature, allowing researchers to build a comprehensive picture of the interplay between water vapour, carbon dioxide, and other atmosphere-warming gases. The NASA-funded research was published recently in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters.

Increasing water vapour leads to warmer temperatures, which causes more water vapour to be absorbed into the air. Warming and water absorption increase in a spiralling cycle.
Water vapour feedback can also amplify the warming effect of other greenhouse gases, such that the warming brought about by increased carbon dioxide allows more water vapour to enter the atmosphere.  “The difference in an atmosphere with a strong water vapour feedback and one with a weak feedback is enormous,” Dessler said.

Climate models have predicted the water vapour feedback, but until now the recording of water vapour at all altitudes in Earth’s troposphere (the layer of the atmosphere that extends from Earth’s surface to about 10 miles in altitude) has only recently been accurate.

This new data set shows that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity.  Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid. And since water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas, the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide.
Specifically, the team found that if Earth warms 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the associated increase in water vapour will trap an extra 2 Watts of energy per square meter (about 11 square feet).  Dessler said. “We now think the water vapour feedback is extraordinarily strong, capable of doubling the warming due to carbon dioxide alone.”

Because the new precise observations agree with existing assessments of water vapour’s impact, researchers are more confident than ever in model predictions that Earth’s leading greenhouse gas will contribute to a temperature rise of a few degrees by the end of the century.

“This study confirms that what was predicted by the models is really happening in the atmosphere,” said Eric Fetzer, an atmospheric scientist who works with AIRS data at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Water vapour is the big player in the atmosphere as far as climate is concerned.”

Technorati Tags: Atmosphere, Carbon dioxide, Climate change, Energy, Greenhouse gas Water Vapour

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The Clean Energy Council is holding its annual conference on the Gold Coast.
Australia has some of the world’s best hot rock assets and some of our wind turbines are three times more efficient than wind turbines operating on the same scale in Europe, and we are the world’s sunniest continent.

“The challenge for Australia is making the transition from its other strength in fossil fuels to these cleaner technologies. We are an incredible position to take advantage of this opportunity.”

My father died over 20 years ago but he spent his last few years in part, designing highly affective windmills.  He was definitely before his time.

It is interesting that while many people are still coming to terms with global warming and there are still doubters, I grew up in a household that hotly debated earth’s resources, water, energy and sustainable living.  I was a teenager when my father gave me a copy of the “Limits to Growth” and my brother and his business partner built the first solar car that ran from Darwin to Adelaide and they timed its arrival to coincide with the first Adelaide Formula One Grand Prix race.  If we weren’t debating sustainability it was the Vietnam War – or what time good daughters got home at night.  The house was always full of vigorous debate.

Technorati Tags: Clean energy, Cleaner technology, Limits to growth, Hot rocks, Solar car, Wind turbines

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The Australian Prime Minister has released a paper about Australia’s plans to spend up to $100 million a year to encourage carbon capture and storage.  Great BUT in my opinion there should be a levy on coal to fund this.

I know many people would like to see all coal left in the ground – it is true carbon sequestration!  In an ideal world that is what I would like to see.

However, the reality is that this is not going to happen because at present the world is too dependent on it.  Let’s face it, Australian coal is cleaner and has a smaller environmental impact than Chinese or Indonesian coal and if we don’t sell the coal, the dirtier coal will be used instead.

Australia has an obligation to lead the way in developing carbon capture and storage technology over the next decades for commercial use because it is the world’s largest coal exporter

Technorati Tags:   Carbon capture, carbon capture and storage, Carbon sequestration, Clean coal, Coal, Coal exporter

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The Advertiser, Adelaide’s daily paper, has finally come out and said what I have been saying since water restrictions were introduced!  Give people a water limit, make them pay extra if they exceed it and let them decide their own water priorities.

My only difference here is to plead for monthly excess water bills so no one blissfully wastes water for a year then is financially embarrassed because they had no idea those long showers and other excesses were serious.

In many gardens, wander old trees are dying – does this really help climate change?  The houses are cracking dreadfully on Adelaide’s heavy clay soils.  Some people are doing all kinds of illegal things with waste water diversion to prevent or reduce the cracking.

The number of fines issued by SA Water to households breaching restrictions has increased by 700 per cent this year compared with last year.

OK we do not need green “English” gardens in the driest state in the driest continent in the world, but it is absurd that householders cannot spend more than three hours a week watering their gardens, but can go inside and stand under their showers for the same time and not incur any penalties.

Draconian restrictions in the “one-size-fits-all” category clearly are not the answer.

Technorati Tags: Excess water, Trees dying, Waste water diversion, Water restrictions

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It is interesting that around Australia parks and sports grounds are parched and yellow and the reason is always “water restrictions”.  In fact a recent study has confirmed what many people have known for years, that it is the quality of the soil that keeps grass green and soft.  Research funded by the City of Sydney and the State Government’s climate change fund has found that ovals could be soft and green with 60 per cent less water than they currently use.

Apparently in Sydney, Victoria Park, next to Sydney University, is probably the city’s most water-efficient. It stays green without anything more than rain because the native clay-loam soil, which holds water much better than processed soils, is largely undisturbed.  Wynyard Park, in the CBD, is one of the city’s most degraded because of its sandy soil and the constant pounding of commuters’ feet.

Andrew Porter, a senior associate at URS Australia, which prepared the report. said that “If we start using water more intelligently some of the grounds can be green without any irrigation at all.”  How much water is captured also depends on how deep

The report, which will be used to develop city-wide greenkeeping guidelines, says that most residential gardens use 30 to 60 per cent more water than they need to, even if they are filled with non-native plants.

Interestingly I know that one of my clients, Turf  Solutions in Queensland uses non chemical manures to build up ovals and turf to produce softer (less sporting injuries) and greener ovals with less water.  These guys knew the answers without the need for the study!

When I lived on top of a windswept cliff on southern Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, the land we build our house on was shallow soil on limestone with a PH of 9.5.  It had been part of a barley paddock for years and I was horrified by the soil.  It was hard and dry with little or no sign of life and heaps of noxious weeds and small white snails.  We imported many trailer loads of sheep droppings from under a shearing shed plus 6 of those very large cylindrical straw bales made of nearby barley straw.  We also planted several hundred native trees, shrubs and groundcovers.

By the time we left the soil was teaming with worms and many other crawling things. The trees were several metres high, we had a totally sheltered area in the centre with fruit trees and a raised vegetable garden.  Complete soil transformation.  We only had rainwater in a very low rainfall area.  Even the snail numbers were way down compared with the other side of the fence.  Is this the same story?

Technorati Tags: Climate change, Healthy soil, Greener ovals, Turf Solutions, Water Restrictions

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The International Energy Agency (IEA) says the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit will have to set ambitious carbon-limiting caps and that the energy sector must play a key role in making this possible.  They said that global temperatures are on course to rise by 6C unless radical changes are adopted in the way the world produces energy.

The IEA said that the biggest single contributor to global emissions over the next two decades was likely to be the use of coal – the world’s second- most important fuel after oil, accounting for 26 per cent of energy demand.  AND they said that coal production was set to rise by 60 per cent between 2006 and 2030, with 90 per cent of the increase coming from developing countries. Chinese coal output alone is expected to double. Global demand for the fuel has been growing at nearly 5 per cent per year since 2000, compared with total energy demand growth of about half this level, or 2.6per cent.

WOW do we ever need to develop clean coal technology.  Sure it would be great to ban coal but this is highly unlikely to work given the size of the problem.  In my opinion, coal producers in this country should be levied 10% to go totally to clean coal technology research.

We need a  rapid growth in the use of low-carbon energy – to account for 36 per cent of global energy production by 2030, up from 19 per cent in 2006.

The 6 degree projection was also written up by Catherine Brahic in New Scientist.   This temperature rise is far more than what climate specialists say the environment can cope with.

Technorati Tags: Coal, Copenhagen climate summit, Energy, Global temperatures, International Energy Agency, Oil,

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The true cost of inner-city development is half that of fringe development over 50 years, says a sustainability expert, Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University.  He stated that governments could save $85,000 per block in infrastructure costs with “transit-oriented development” or development along transport corridors.

He stated the obvious, that people cannot afford to live in the outer suburbs and that we need to provide efficient public transport and attractive urban places which encourage people to gather, work and live.

Technorati Tags: Sustainability, Urban development 

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The Australian newspaper reported this week that McGuigan wines, has set up real-time carbon footprint reporting tools after a request from Britain’s Tesco supermarket chain.  Tesco had questioned the company’s carbon savings credentials and asked for data on how “green” its supply chain was.

“Tesco wanted to know what we were doing to reduce our carbon footprint,” Mr Klose from McGuigan’s said.  Next year the company hopes to add more features to its existing supply chain to give customers, especially those located outside Australia, more order tracking visibility.  At the moment the telephone and fax machine are the main communications tools to confirm an order’s status.

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I just read an article in the Melbourne Age recommending that we shed our hang-ups about “eating skippy”.  Kangaroo meat is lean, iron-rich, low-greenhouse-gas meat and roos do less damage to the environment than animals with cloven hooves.

The mind boggles at a bouncy muster however!  The farmers would need to develop very different husbandry methods.  This seems much more sensible though than listening to a lot of people carrying on about vegetarianism.  I guess that group would still be unhappy however.  Heavens above, fruit and vegetables are living things too.  I don’t get vegetarianism.

Apparently in his final report Professor Ross Garnaut’s said that the carbon benefits of eating kangaroo meat could be one of Australia’s great contributions to the global problem.

Interestingly, roo meat is experiencing steady growth. A national report, Consumer Attitudes to Kangaroo Meat Products by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, released in February, found that 58.5% of respondents had tried kangaroo meat and that men were more likely to consume it than women. Sales of roo meat through Coles have increased by 9% over the past financial year.

It’s largely home cooks who are driving the boom.

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Biofuels from non-food crops should be used to enhance Australia’s energy security, not those that come at the expense of food production, says a report by a leading science organisation.   Research by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering found that Generation 1 biofuels, or those that come from basic food stocks such as sugar and wheat, were unlikely to develop into a substantial industry in Australia because of competition for scarce resources, including water and agricultural land for food production.

The report is more optimistic about Generation 2 and Generation 3 biofuels, which are derived from non-food crops and algae. It says that resources to produce these types of biofuels are abundant, although these biofuels are not yet cost competitive.

To make biofuels a more realistic option, the report recommends that the Federal Government establish a national biofuels institute, similar to the Carbon Capture & Storage Institute. It proposes that the Federal Government provide $15 million a year for five years to support research and development.

At present Australia has the capacity to produce “only about 1.5% of transport liquid fuels”. Source is The Age

Technorati Tags: Biofuels, Carbon Capture & Storage Institute, Energy security

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