All posts for the month January, 2015

Denying The Neverending Heatwave: NASA, NOAA, JMA Show 2014 Broke New Records; But Will Republicans Ever Listen to Science?

If you are younger than 29 years old, you haven’t lived in a month that was cooler than the 20th century average. — Dr. Marshall Shepherd, former President of the American Meteorological Society

* * * * *

Strong global temperature records typically show up in all the major climate monitors. And, despite no El Nino providing an added kick to atmospheric heating, that’s exactly what happened in 2014.

Respectively Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA), NASA and NOAA all showed 2014 as the hottest year in the global climate record. And the departures were all quite strong with JMA showing +0.63 C, NASA showing +0.68 C, and NOAA showing +0.69 C above the 20th Century average — all measures that put the world now in the range of +0.9 C warming since the 1880s.

Not only was this year the hottest on record for the global climate. It was one in many progressively hotter years and decades. The result being that if you were born in 1986, you haven’t experienced one month that has been cooler than the 20th Century average.

(Decadal and yearly warming since 1880 as recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s a brutal warming trend that has propelled us, in just 1 Century, into a time hotter than any in at least 5,000 years and probably 150,000 years. Continued warming at this pace will put us hotter than at any time in 1 million years before mid century and that is without any of the predicted acceleration due to amplifying feedbacks such as Arctic carbon release, loss of Arctic albedo due to snow and ice melt and greening, and loss of the oceans as a global carbon sink. Image source: NOAA and Climate Progress.)

It’s a set of validated evidence that is so obvious as to be incontrovertible.

And yet the climate games and silliness still occur with regularity in the public sphere. In the most recent republican witching hour congressional approval of the Keystone XL pipeline — a piece of infrastructure that will shackle the US to climate-wrecking carbon emissions for decades to come — Bernie Sanders submitted an amendment asking republicans to record their climate change denial for the public record. A denial a majority of republicans, including most major party heads, now attest to, despite what the science is obviously saying.

In an interview with the Guardian, Sanders noted:

“The bottom line is that I think as a nation that we walk down a very dangerous road when the majority party in the United States Congress is prepared to reject science. I think it is important for Republicans to tell their constituents, to tell the American people, and to tell the world whether they agree with the science or not.”

More notably, Senator Jim Inhofe, who currently sits as chairman of the environment and public works committee has publicly claimed that he believes climate change is a hoax. But what Inhofe doesn’t elaborate is why scientists who spend their lives in service to the public, and not to special interests, like the oil, gas and coal companies Inhofe often goes to bat for in Congress, would perpetrate such a hoax. Because if it is a hoax it is broad and all-encompassing — including every major atmospheric sciences body in the world today. In other words, if Inhofe believes NASA put a man on the moon, then why doesn’t he believe the same scientific body on the issue of climate change?

Climate Scientist Michael Mann gave his own very clear take of the new record today on Facebook. Mann noted that the current new record, especially when viewed in context of the fact that we currently see no El Nino but still hit annual heat records, can put to rest the recent false assertions that atmospheric warming has paused.

As ever, Mann provides a very clear assessment:

Based on the collective reports, it is therefore fair to declare 2014 the warmest year on record. This is significant for a number of reasons. Unlike past record years, 2014 broke the record without the “assist” of a large El Niño event. There was only the weakest semblance of an El Niño and tropical Pacific warmth contributed only moderately to the record 2014 global temperatures.

Viewed in context, the record temperatures underscore the undeniable fact that we are witnessing, before our eyes, the effects of human-caused climate change. It is exceptionally unlikely that we would be seeing a record year, during a record warm decade, during a multidecadal period of warmth that appears to be unrivaled over at least the past millennium, were it not for the rising levels of planet-warming gases produced by fossil fuel burning.

The record temperatures *should* put to rest the absurd notion of a “pause” (what I refer to as the “Faux Pause” in Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036/) in global warming.

There is a solid body of research now showing that any apparent slow-down of warming during the past decade was likely due to natural short-term factors (like small changes in solar output and volcanic activity) and internal fluctuations related to e.g. the El Nino phenomenon. The record 2014 temperatures underscore the fact that global warming and associated climate changes continue unabated as we continue to raise the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Mann was joined by lead NASA GISS scientist Gavin Schmidt who pointed out the inexorable global warming of ‘decades and decades.’ Schmidt noted that individual years rankings can be slung about through the forces of chaotic weather. But the trend, Schmidt asserted, was undeniable.

Dr. Schmidt’s research has been critical in understanding the role of both CO2 as the primary governing gas impacting global heating as well as the amplifying heat of additional greenhouse gasses. In the late 1990s and early 2000s Dr. Schmidt provided critical evidence highlighting the atmospheric warming impact of methane, for example.

NASA and Dr Schmidt provide their own brief on the issue which can be viewed here:

Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers, who is now engaged in cutting edge research on the issue of changes in the Jet Stream due to polar amplification, joins the litany of influential scientists in speaking out on the new record. Of the impact of the 2014 high heat mark she plainly states: “Any wisps of doubt that human activities are at fault are now gone with the wind.”

NOAA’s own global analysis this year comes with a near-endless list of record flood and drought events ongoing throughout 2014. I highly suggest you read the report. The language is dry, but the list of record events is staggering, even to someone like myself who is treated to these events on a daily basis. They’re exactly the kind of outlier events that are the upshot of meridional patterns, polar amplification, and the meandering Jet Streams identified by Dr. Francis. A list of extreme instances that propelled 2014 into another record-breaking year for natural disasters, according to Munich Re:

(List of natural disasters in number of instances per year as reported by Munich Re. Image source: Climate Progress.)

The evidence is there. All of it. For any thinking person. The public-serving, and often conservative in their assessments, scientists keep making their warnings again and again like a collective modern Jeremiah. And yet we have one political party whose leaders simply refuse to listen to either facts or even the most basic reason.

So in the face of such blantant and obvious denial of reality by the very people who are supposed to be responsibly leading our country, one must seriously consider the notion of running them out of office. Of stopping their legislative malpractice before it results in ever more serious trouble for us all. And not just for all the sakes of the scientists and those who believe them, but for the sake of the climate change deniers too.

765 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 17, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged Bernie Sanders, cliamte change, Gavin Schmidt, global warming, hottest year on Earth, Hottest Year on Record, Jennifer Francis, Marshall Shepherd, Michael Mann

Posted by robertscribbler on January 17, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/denying-the-neverending-heatwave-nasa-noaa-jma-show-2014-broke-new-heat-records-will-republicans-ever-listen-to-science/

Sea Level Rise, Persistent Drought Sets off Mass Migration and Famine in Pakistan

Both surface water and ground water have become unusable, with the once fertile Indus river basin turning into a desert, as sea water brings sand inland as far as 50 kilometers. — World Bulletin in June of 2014

* * * *

For the cities, towns and villages of Sindh Province along the Indus River in Southeast Pakistan, the seas are rising and the winter rains have failed. It is a place besieged on all sides by climate change. By forces that are killing its children due to malnutrition and turning tens of thousands of its populace into climate change refugees.

(Coastal villages in Pakistan retreat ahead of rising seas. Image source: Ali Murtaza)

Climate Change, Loss of Trees, Loss of Children

A combination of rising temperatures and decimation of local forests due to gum extraction has exacerbated an extraordinary moisture deficit for an already arid region. In early spring of 2014, the impacts to crops resulted in scores of children dying due to malnutrition. By late fall, the famine had returned with increased intensity, resulting in the loss of nearly 300 children in less than three months. A tragic loss that may well have been avoided.

Increased aridity in the region can be blamed on a number of factors — all related to human-caused climate change. Gum extraction from Gugral trees has resulted in losses of up to 70 percent from local stands. The loss of these tens of thousands of trees has, in turn, resulted in less water retention kicking off increased aridity. Meanwhile, larger global climate change is resulting in higher temperatures over the region — increasing evaporation rates and further lowering soil moisture content. Glacier loss in the Himalayas has recently pushed a surge of added water down the Indus — which helped to boost development unsustainably. Now glacial outflows are at risk of dwindling, threatening the long-term future of the Indus itself. Finally, the increasing global heat is kicking off alterations in seasonal rain patterns — making the winter rains less reliable.

Sea Level Rise Ruins Coastal Crops, Sets off Mass Migration

The combined factors would be difficult enough for Sindh and its cities to manage. But a final factor appears to be delivering another disruptive coup de grace. As of mid 2014, environmental reports had indicated a mass migration away from Pakistani coastal regions.

(Not a cloud above the once-fertile but now increasingly salt-ridden Indus Delta on 14 January 2014. Image source: LANCE-MODIS.)

Rising seas had resulted in increasing levels of salt water in near-coast aquifers and wetlands. The rising salt levels in soils made irrigation of coastal crops impossible in many regions. Within just a few years, the elevated seas had rendered 1 million hectares of land arid — making it impossible for farmers to grow crops or to raise animals.

According to a June 2014 report by World Bulletin:

Both surface water and ground water have become unusable, with the once fertile Indus river basin turning into a desert, as sea water brings sand inland as far as 50 kilometers.

In addition, saltwater invasions of the Indus river reduced fish stocks. This sudden loss of water useful to agriculture and precipitous fall in fish stocks suddenly put many farmers and fishermen out of work.

By mid 2014, more than 100,000 people had fled the coast. Now, these tens of thousands of jobless farmers and fishermen pack the streets of inland towns — seeking jobs and places to live that simply may not be available.

But what this litany of harsh statistics doesn’t tell is how many of the children lost came from families of those displaced by rising seas.

Sadly, this issue of river deltas losing fertility to the inexorably rising tide is not just a problem for Pakistan. Many of the worlds most productive agricultural zones lie in delta regions. At this point, all are under threat due to speeding sea level rise set off by rising rates of glacial melt. And as we have seen in Brazil, California and Pakistan this year other increasing atmospheric temperatures, climate induced weather pattern changes and deforestation (Brazil, Pakistan) also play a role.

Links:

Rising Seas Force 100,000 Pakistanis From Coastal Homes

Another Child Dies of Famine in Tharparkar Due to Malnutrition

Sindh Region of Pakistan

Famine Hits Thar

Thousands of Trees Lost in Thar

LANCE-MODIS

Glacial Melt Will Reduce Crucial Water Supplies

Hat Tip to Colorado Bob

Hat Tip to Andy in San Diego

Hat Tip to Planet in Danger

75 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 15, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged aridification of delta region, climate change, delta inundation, drought, drought in Pakistan, environment, extreme weather, Flooding Estuaries in Pakistan, global warming, human warming, Indus River Delta, salt water, science, sea level rise, weather, Winter rains fail

Posted by robertscribbler on January 15, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/sea-level-rise-persistent-drought-sets-off-mass-migration-and-famine-in-pakistan/

At 40 Percent Generation, Renewables are Mothballing Coal Plants on the South Australian Grid

Rapid renewable energy adoption by homeowners and grid visionaries resulting in the mothballing of dirty and dangerous power sources. It’s the kind of action that’s absolutely necessary if we’re going to have a prayer in dealing with human-caused climate change. And South Australia is making impressive strides by doing just that.

* * * *

Despite being afflicted with a backwards Federal Government that is radically opposed to the further expansion of renewable energy, Australia continued to make amazing gains in alternative energy adoption this year. Throughout the country, rooftop solar installations surged — spurred on by a combination of high electricity costs, plummeting panel prices, and a grid readily capable of handling renewable energy additions.

Both the upgraded grid and the incentives for home renewable energy use that started this trend can be attributed to earlier and wiser governments. And, as a result, Australia boasts a massive distributed solar capacity with one out of every five homes (19 percent) across the country featuring solar arrays.

South Australia — Smooth Grid Loading, 52 Percent Generation From Renewables on Boxing Day

In South Australia, the story is amplified. This region of Australia features the highest home owner adoption of solar energy in the country — with more than 23 percent of homes equipped to generate solar based electricity. In addition, the grid in South Australia is heavily supported by 1,500 megawatts of wind turbine generated power.

As the wind tends to peak at night and solar peaks at mid-day, South Australian grid operators show few strong peaks in demand. And this makes grid operation quite a bit easier and less taxing on personnel and equipment.

The typical mid-day peak is smoothed out by solar even as wind powers up through the night. The only peak in the system occurs at midnight — when water heaters are programmed to switch on and take advantage of supposedly cheapest times. However, ramping solar energy adoption has tipped this previously intelligent feature on its ear as cheapest times now come at noon with the surge in solar wattage.

As we can see from December 26 figures, grid loading is mostly smooth but for the anomalous midnight peak:

(South Australia December 25-27 grid loading shows that renewables smooth out peak demand curves. Image source: Clean Technica)

On this day, solar energy’s contribution to grid generation surged to 30 percent even as wind dropped off in the heat of the day. Perhaps more impressive was the fact that fully 52 percent of this region’s electricity was generated by renewables — with the lesser portion being derived from coal, gas and imports.

This majority generation from wind and solar flies in the face of renewable energy detractors who have long stated that high loads from wind and solar energy would be too variable to be useful to grid integrators. But the net effect for South Australia is both abundance and smoothing:

(Renewable dominate power generation in South Australia. Image source: Clean Technica)

South Australia’s 1500 MW worth of wind and high solar rooftop penetration resulted in an average of 40 percent of electricity coming from renewables in 2014. A figure that is expected to surge above 50 percent well before 2025.

An upshot of this is that two coal fired plants have been mothballed. These plants will no longer crank out tons and tons of greenhouse gasses. They have been idled, set to pasture by far less harmful energy sources.

Meanwhile, Rob Stobbe, CEO of SA Power Networks notes that he sees no future for large conventional fossil fuel generators. Stobbe’s vision is instead for rooftop solar, storage and renewable-based micro grids served by an operator and integrator like SA Power Networks.

Links:

One out of Every Five Australian Homes Use Solar Energy

Rooftop Solar in South Australia Met 1/3 of Electricity Demand

44 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 15, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change, Renewables, Sustainability

Posted by robertscribbler on January 15, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/at-40-percent-generation-renewables-are-mothballing-coal-plants-on-south-australian-grid/

Unsettling CO2 Spike: Hourly Levels Hit Near 404 PPM on January 13, 2015

Yesterday, at about the same time I was penning this article describing how CO2 levels were likely to exceed 400 PPM for most of 2015, a rather significant and abrupt CO2 spike was taking place at the Mauna Loa Observatory.

For on the evening of January 13, 2015, CO2 levels suddenly rocketed to nearly 404 parts per million.

The sudden upswing was certainly unexpected and rather significant — mimicking only the highest levels during 2014. These spikes came fully four months ahead of typical atmospheric CO2 peaks and seem rather ominous in the graph.

CO2 levels can be variable in the hourly measure. But this inflection was particularly strong — following a very high daily reading of 401.23 PPM on the 12th. Somewhat odd and rather early CO2 increases for 2015. A trend we will have to continue to watch.

Links:

The Keeling Curve

26 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 14, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged climate change, CO2, CO2 Spike January 13 2015, global warming, human warming, The Keeling Curve

Posted by robertscribbler on January 14, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/unsettling-co2-spike-hourly-levels-hit-near-404-ppm-on-january-13-2015/

Dangerously Beyond 350: CO2 to Remain Above 400 PPM For Most of 2015

For 2015, CO2 levels will remain above the dangerous 400 parts per million level for almost 2/3 of the year. A perilous new record for a human-warmed world.

The last time global CO2 levels averaged above 400 parts per million was more than 3 million years ago during the Pliocene. A period that was just beginning to see the dawn of humankind (Australopithecus emerged about 2.5 million years ago). It was a world of 25-75 foot higher seas. A world where much of Greenland and West Antarctica was ice free. A world that took hundreds of thousands of years to settle into its climate patterns.

(A bad start of 2015 — CO2 levels on January 1st exceeded 400 PPM. Most of the year will see levels in excess of this dangerously high atmospheric value. Image source: The Keeling Curve.)

But the current human tool-using species that is now warming the Earth so drastically would have to wait for about 2.8 million more years and for far cooler climes to develop. And that species would set conditions for a rapid shift to climate states not seen for 3 million years in just decades through a hellish pace of fossil fuel burning. For in just one century we’ve propelled ourselves back to that deep time. Back to a world climate state that is entirely alien to what we, and so many other animals, are accustomed to.

For this year, human fossil fuel emissions will push 2015 to reach or exceed those 400 ppm levels for around 7-8 months running. By 2016, it’s possible that 300 part per million levels — the ones that dominated our environment for most of the 20th Century — will be little more than a melancholy memory as humans face off against a series of increasingly dangerous geophysical changes.

All set off by the inexorable burning of fossil fuels. A malpractice that simply must stop.

An All Too Steep Ramp-up Toward The Hothouse

Current human fossil fuel burning coupled with a few, still somewhat contained, environmental carbon feedbacks are enough to push an annual atmospheric CO2 increase of 2.2 parts per million each year. It’s a pace of initial greenhouse gas heat forcing never before seen in all of Earth’s geological past — even during the greatest global hothouse extinction events. The fruits of dumping 36 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each and every year.

(Rate of carbon emission at more than 30 billion tons of CO2 each year vs the PETM [Note that WeatherUnderground has erroneously labeled CO2 as Carbon in the graph]– which was the most recent hothouse extinction 55 million years ago. It’s enough to push an atmospheric temperature rise on the scale of a mass extinction over the course of decades rather than millenia. It’s also worth noting that with CO2 emissions at 36 gigatons in 2013 [vs the above graph results from 2010] and CO2e emissions just shy of 50 gigatons this trajectory is even steeper than the graph depicts. Image source: WeatherUnderground.)

As a result, if current rates of burning continue or increase, we will see 450 parts per million levels well exceeded within about two decades. And that threshold will undeniably lock in at least 2 C worth of warming together with a growing carbon feedback from the Earth System itself.

484 PPM CO2e For 2015

But this drastic pace of atmospheric greenhouse gas additions doesn’t tell the whole story. For if you add up all the other gasses humans have dumped into the atmosphere, all the methane and HCFs, all the industrial chemicals, you end up with a CO2 equivalent number (CO2e) far greater than the present CO2 measure. And that CO2e measure is set to hit 484 parts per million this year (With a nearly 50 gigaton annual increase in CO2e gasses each year). A level that, if it correlates with past climates, will push warming by 1.9 C this century and 3.8 C after the entire Earth System responds. A level not seen in at least 13 million years.

A rather terrible situation to say the least. For at these levels, even the great ice sheets of Antarctica proper were much reduced and sea levels were 85-120 feet higher than they are today. And continuing to burn begs the very worst hothouse extinction consequences that come from wrecking the world’s oceans.

Very Hard Work to Get Back to 350 PPM

Near the end of the first decade of the 21st Century Dr. James Hansen, former head of GISS at NASA advised the world community that the likely safe level of global CO2 was below 350 parts per million. This assertion flew in the face of some in the international community who were pushing for an established ‘safe’ level of 450 parts per million and below. A level, of course, which would allow for the burning of quite a bit more of the world’s fossil fuel reserves.

But Hansen wouldn’t compromise. He felt it would be a betrayal to future generations. To his grandchildren. To all our grandchildren. So he set the safe limit at 350 parts per million with the caveat that we may need to reduce it further.

In 2008, during the year Hansen set the 350 parts per million level, CO2 levels peaked at around 386 parts per million. For 2015, just 7 years later, levels will peak at around 404 parts per million. A rampant increase directly in the wrong direction.

In order for rates of CO2 increase to begin to taper off, the world simply must stop burning so much in the way of fossil fuels. And even a full cessation of fossil fuel use would still result in some emissions unless both farming and construction were altered to reduce carbon emissions. Beyond this, atmospheric carbon capture through various methods to include fixing carbon capture and storage facilities to biomass generation and other land use and chemical based techniques are the most likely to be effective.

Such a transition and change is as difficult as it is necessary. For the world as we know it simply cannot continue along its current path. Hansen was right and we should have listened 7 years ago. We should have listened in 1988 at his first major climate hearing. But we didn’t. And so valuable time was wasted.

Let’s not make the same mistake in 2015.

Links:

The Keeling Curve

2015 Begins With CO2 Above the 400 PPM Mark

WeatherUnderground

2013 CO2 Emissions Will Set Record High

A Faustian Bargain on the Short Road to Hell: Living in a World at 480 PPM CO2e

Scientific Hat Tip to Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Ralph Keeling

110 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 13, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 350.org, 400 ppm, 484 ppm CO2e, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, Hothouse, Hothouse Extinction, hothouse warming, human warming, James Hansen, Keeling, PETM, Ralph Keeling, science, The Keeling Curve, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on January 13, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/dangerously-beyond-350-co2-to-remain-above-400-ppm-for-most-of-2014/

Sao Paulo’s Reservoirs are Drying Out When they Should Be Filling Up

It’s the rainy season for Brazil. But, thus far, adequate rains have not come.

A persistent high pressure system has lingered over Brazil. A blocking high of the kind that has now become so common with global temperatures spiking to more than +0.8 C above 1880s averages — thickening heat domes and granting these powerful weather systems an ever greater inertia. A set of circumstances that has set off a plethora of very severe droughts ranging the globe since the early 2000s.

During early 2015, Brazil’s own persistent atmospheric block re-strengthened over an Amazon whose water re-circulating abilities have been crippled by a combined deforestation and ever more prevalent wildfires. Ever since late December, the high has warded off cold front after cold front. The result is a terrible extension of the worst drought to impact Brazil in at least 80 years.

(No rain in sight in the NASA MODIS satellite shot for Southeast Brazil on January 11, 2015. During a typical day in January, the wettest month for Sao Paulo, the satellite map should be filled with clouds and storms. Not so for 2014 and 2015. Image source: LANCE-MODIS.)

During December, this dogged weather system kept rainfall totals below average — at about 80 percent typical amounts for that time of year. But by January, the high had strengthened and only very weak rains had fallen over Southeastern Brazil with most other areas remaining dry. Now, drought appears to be re-establishing a strong grip as weather forecasts call for the typically strong January rains to be cut in half.

The ongoing drought has had serious and widespread impacts throughout Brazil — curbing production of everything from soybeans and sugarcane to coffee and cattle. But the worst impact has been to the water supplies of one of Brazil’s most populous regions — the Sao Paulo megalopolis. There, an unofficial water rationing has been in place since early 2014. A rationing that has hit Sao Paulo’s least advantaged residents the hardest.

Key Reservoir Drying Out When it Should Be Filling Up

Over the past six years, water levels for the Cantareira reservoir have been in free-fall. By 2014, an 80 year drought pushed already falling water levels radically lower. As an emergency measure, officials added dead pool volume — a level usually below municipal water inlets — to the reservoirs stated reserves. This move coincided with shifting water levels lower.

But the action only bought time for the failing reservoir as month after month of drought continued.

(Water losses from the Cantareira Reservoir since 2009. What this ominous graphic shows is that rainy season failure was not isolated to last year’s epic drought. It is instead part of a six year event that may well represent an ominous trend. Image source: Brazil Water)

By austral spring of 2014 (October), the Sao Paulo water system was again under dire threat. Water levels at the Cantereira reservoir fell to below 6% percent before officials diverted water from other sources and allowed use of water below even already lowered levels. This new arrangement moved water inlets deeper into the drying reservoir. An action that essentially dropped Canteriera outlets to city water supplies into the mud.

These emergency actions by city and water planners added another few percent to the radically diminished water supply. Hopes remained that rains would return with the wet season starting in November and that levels would rise enough to make it through the next summer.

But with rains remaining weaker than normal throughout November and December, water levels kept falling when they should have been rising. By early January, reservoir levels had again fallen to below 7 percent.

On Monday January 5, 2015 the level of Sao Paulo’s Cantariera reservoir was at 6.9% capacity. Today, just one week later, the same reservoir measured 6.5%.

9 Million Facing Lack of Water, Millions More at Risk

In total the Cantareira reservoir serves 9 million residents in Sao Paulo. These are mostly middle and lower class neighborhoods. And if the current weather situation continues, that reservoir could be empty come the start of the dry season in April. Such a situation would force an even more extreme water rationing on a state that has now become famous for water scarcity.

Unfortunately, Cantareira isn’t the only Sao Paulo reservoir under threat. In total, 5 out of 6 reservoirs representing the lion’s share of all water for more than 20 million people are now at 39 percent capacity or below.

The Sistema Alto Tiete — a smaller reservoir serving about 4 million Sao Paulo residents — is not far behind Cantareira. For as of today volume in this reservoir stood at 11.3 percent capacity. A third and fourth reservoir system — Rio Claro and Sistema Alto Cotia — now stand at 27.5% and 30.% capacity respectively. Together these two systems serve another 2 million people. The Guarapiranga reservoir, at 39.2 percent capacity as of 1/12/2015, serves another 4 million people.

A final Sao Paulo reservoir — the Sistema Rio Grande — serves about 2 million residents and remains just above 70 percent capacity.

If current forecasts for January hold and February-March follow present trends, then all these reservoirs with the probable exception of Sistema Rio Grande will be under threat entering the fast approaching dry season. A situation that would put nearly 20 million residents under severe threat of losing municipal water services.

UPDATE:

In addition to Sao Paulo, recent reports show that 93 cities have rationed water services to ever-broadening populations. In total, more than 3.9 million people are estimated to have had their water rationed. In some cases, water has been cut off to broad areas for as long as five days.

This official water rationing began last year. But this year’s rationing is broader in scope with water cut offs, which were at first limited to isolated rural zones, now stretching into larger urban population centers.

As mentioned above with Sao Paulo, this water rationing is occurring during the rainy season when water supplies should be building. However, with rainfall totals for Brazil this summer far less than the historic average and with a continuation of the worst drought in more than 80 years, most reservoirs show dropping levels when they should be filling.

In total, what we see for Brazil is a sad example of what a combination of climate change and deforestation can do to a previously water rich region. Bad management in the face of this crisis and instances of climate change denial are exacerbating an already desperate situation there.

UPDATE:

The Cantareira reservoir fell to 6.4% capacity on 1/13/2015 — a 0.5% loss in just 8 days. System losses at this rate bring the reservoir to zero in about 100 days. However, the current capacity, due to very low level of water outlets may not be fully useable. In addition, rainy ends in April at which point levels would be expected to drop more precipitously.

Links:

Brazil’s Water Supply, Crops Still at Risk

In Brazil, Two Car Washes Have Wildly Different Experiences of the Same Drought

Drought Menaces Brazil’s Coffee Crop

Drought Vamps Up Brazil’s Cattle Prices

LANCE-MODIS

Off-Season Drought Makes 93 Brazilian Cities Cut off Water

Hat Tip to Andy in San Diego

Hat Tip to Colorado Bob

Hat Tip to TodaysGuestIs

A Sao Paulo Resident Vents Frustrations Over Unfair Water Distribution and Mis-Managed Resources

77 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 12, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged 20 Million at Risk, Amazon Deforestation, Amazon Drying, Amazon Fires, Andy, Blocking High Pressure, Brazil drought, Cantareira Reservoir, climate change, Colorado Bob, global warming, Rainy Season Interrupted, Sao Paulo Drought, Water Crisis Brazil, Water Rationing, Water Shortage

Posted by robertscribbler on January 12, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/januarys-rainfall-forecast-cut-in-half-sao-paulos-reservoirs-are-drying-out-when-they-should-be-filling-up/

Jet Stream Re-Mangled: Record Winds Rage Over Scotland As Polar Amplification Ramps Up Yet Again

(Polar Amplification on Friday January 9, 2014 plainly visible in the GFS summary. Another warmer than average day for the Arctic in a warming world. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

For the Arctic, it’s another much warmer than normal day…

Temperature anomalies for the region spiked to 3.55 degrees Celsius above the, already hotter than normal, 1979-2000 average. And a swath of the Arctic Ocean stretching from Greenland to Siberia experienced extraordinary 15-22 C above average temperatures.

It’s another day of Arctic Amplification — the fourth in an ongoing progression this week. Another day of extreme dipole temperature anomalies. And another day of record-setting weather. All symptoms, plain as day, of a world undergoing a fit of rapid, human-induced heating.

Warmth in The High Arctic Drives the Cold Out

Last night, while studying Earth Nullschool, I found a temperature of 27 F near Zemlya — an Island in the Arctic Ocean off Siberia. The night before last, I captured these two pictures — one of a region a few hundred miles south of the North Pole and well north of Svalbard at 22 F and another of the surface temperature near Richmond, Virginia at 20 F.

(Top frame temperature at 85.3 North, 39.2 East. Bottom frame temperature at 36.9 North and 77.3 West. In other words — it’s warmer up north than down south. Image source: Earth Nullschool. Data Source: NOAA, Global Forecast System Model.)

In other words, it was warmer just off Santa’s front porch than it was thousands of miles to the south in Richmond, VA.

In technical meteorological parlance there’s a term for such warm north, cold south temperature variations — dipole. In this case, it’s a cold North American Continent and a warm Atlantic Ocean pushing much higher than average temperatures far into the Arctic.

Jet Stream Re-Mangled — High Amplitude Jet Stream Waves

Such a warm airs surging north forcing cold airs south arrangement can result in some pretty extreme waviness in the Jet Stream. The kind of waviness that Dr. Jennifer Francis has warned is set off by just the kind of Arctic warming we witnessed this week.

And, as we can plainly see in the map below, we have an extraordinary meridional pattern in the Jet Stream occurring in perfect coordination with the current instance of polar heating:

(Last night’s extaordinarily high amplitude Jet Stream pattern. Note the greatly intensified storm track setting Scottland directly into its sights. Image source: Earth Nullschool. Data Source: NOAA, Global Forecast System Model and various.)

I suppose some may call this kind of instance circumstantial. But what a circumstance, especially when one considers the plainly obvious and visible mechanism of the current polar temperature spike, the subsequent southward displacement of warm air from the polar zone, and the related warm air invasion flooding up from the North Atlantic into the heat compromised polar core.

It’s as easy to see as 1,2,3.

This re-arranging of air masses has re-instated the kind of circulation pattern around Greenland we warned about during late November of 2014. A kind of off-center displacement of air masses that shoves cold toward hot and can result in some rather extreme weather.

Record-Setting Winds over Scotland Last Night

Dr. Francis has also mentioned this resulting heightened severe weather potential in her research. And she can count herself among such visionaries as Dr. James Hansen who warned of ramping storm intensity resulting from a combined polar amplification and melting and softening of the remaining great glaciers in Greenland and, later, Antarctica.

Unfortunately, the more recent polar amplification episode did set off a spate of rather extreme weather in Scotland. The North Atlantic storm track intensified as temperature differentials ramped up. On Tuesday, a 930 mb low bombed out between Greenland and Iceland. Fed by a massive meridional air-flow, this storm soon generated very strong winds raging across the North Atlantic.

By last night, these winds roared throughout Scotland, peaking at 113 miles per hour — a new all-time record for the Northern Isles since wind measures began in 1970.

In a return to the kind of extreme weather that battered the UK for much of the winter of 2013-2014, trees were torn down, power lines unmoored and roads and railways blocked. This, in turn, forced a wide-scale emergency response throughout Scotland after last night’s brutal battering by hurricane force winds. From the BBC:

The storm caused the suspension of all ScotRail trains, although some limited services are now running. More than 46,000 homes are currently without power as the Atlantic jet stream caused gusts of more 100mph (160km/h).

So the observational evidence is pretty clear. Here we have yet another instance where polar heating is driving some rather extreme Jet Stream changes coupled with related instances of record extreme weather. And as human-related warming continues to intensify, we are likely to see far worse instances than today’s minor episode.

Links:

Evidence for A Wavier Jet Stream in Response to Rapid Arctic Warming

Engineers Battle To Re-Open Scottish Rail After 110 mph Winds

Hurricane Force Gusts Cause Disruption to Travel and Power

Global Forecast System Model

NOAA’s National Climate Data Center

Climate Reanalyzer

Scientific Hat Tip to Dr. Jennifer Francis and James Hansen

Hat Tip to commenters JPL and DTLange

131 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 9, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged Atlantic Storm Track, climate change, cold south warm north, environment, extreme weather, global warming, human warming, mangled jet stream, polar amplification, Raging Atlantic Storm Track, Record High Winds in Scotland, science, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on January 9, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/09/jet-stream-re-mangled-record-winds-rage-over-scotland-as-polar-amplification-ramps-up-yet-again/

Denmark Kicking Fossil Fuels Addiction With Record 39 Percent (and Growing) Wind Generation

“We have set a one-of-a-kind world record. And it shows that we can reach our ultimate goal, namely to stop global warming.” — Denmark’s Climate and Energy Minister Rasmus Helveg Petersen.

* * * *

Back in 1971, on the eve of the world’s first global oil shocks, the European country of Demark generated more than 80 percent of its electricity from crude. As the 70s progressed and the nation staggered under rising energy costs and failure to obtain supplies from this limited, exploited, and monopolized fuel source, Denmark began to embark on a campaign for energy independence that was then unprecedented. A campaign to rid itself of a destructive dependence on economically volatile, climatologically destructive, and easily manipulated fossil fuels.

(Offshore wind turbines in the distance. Image source: Urland.)

At the time, Denmark began to turn back to its traditional use of wind — but as a direct source of electricity itself. The country, situated on a peninsula between the North and Baltic Seas is awash in breezes and the ever shifting flows of conflicting air masses. The idea, for Denmark, was to harness this energy as a means to break its dependence on foreign oil and, ultimately, remove fossil fuel use entirely.

At first, the going was slow. Wind energy facility construction moved gradually from test sites to small farms, to the first large utility scale ventures in the late 1980s. At this point, the nascent Vestas as well as the established Siemens had become primary producers of wind turbines on the global market. Steady growth through the year 2000 resulted in Denmark providing slightly more than 10 percent of its electricity from wind, solar and geothermal sources — with wind providing the bulk of this portion.

At this point, economies of scale began to kick in as wind power adoption in Denmark began to expand exponentially. Vestas and Siemens grew concordantly from niche energy players to primary contributors for a rapidly growing global electricity market. By the end of 2014, Denmark supplied more than 39 percent of its energy from wind alone.

The amount of oil used for electricity generation in Denmark now? Less than 3 percent. A staggering success that many, especially those supporting fossil fuel interests, never believed possible.

But despite these amazing achievements, Denmark is still shooting for more, with an ultimate goal of completely kicking a nasty and climatologically destructive fossil fuel habit. For Denmark is now within striking distance of achieving its goal of getting more than 50 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2020 and becoming completely fossil fuel free by or before 2050.

(Global wind energy capacity since 1996. As Denmark pursues independence from fossil fuels — spear-headed by a surge in wind generation — global installed wind capacity continues to increase along an exponential curve. Image source: Commons.)

As Denmark pushes toward and beyond the 50 percent renewables mark, challenges remain. Grid storage and smart grid type energy movement will become more and more important. But, fortunately for Denmark and a number of other rising renewables states (including Germany at 27 percent renewables and California at 23 percent renewables) distributed and centralized storage systems are becoming more accessible. Electric vehicles, with their large batteries which can be utilized for grid storage when plugged in at home or at a smart charging station, are becoming more accessible. In addition, the cost of battery storage for grid applications is rapidly falling in many regions with nearby Germany seeing a 25 percent fall in the cost of battery storage this year alone.

With wind and solar energy now increasingly beating out coal and natural gas generation costs on a cents per kilowatt/hr basis, it becomes easier for responsible-minded governments like Denmark to shift more support to smart grids and storage in order to continue to grow renewable based power systems.

Lastly, the advent of new very large battery factories like those being built by Tesla, Solar City and Byd are likely to continue to drive down battery costs over the next few years — making transition beyond the 30 and 50 percent renewable electric generation milestones much more directly accessible.

It’s a megatrend which, should it become widely adopted and promoted, has the potential to start bending down the fossil fuel emissions curve soon — potentially pushing it to zero by mid century. Something that’s an absolute necessity if we’re serious about dealing with the ramping calamity that is human caused climate change.

Links:

Denmark Sets World Record for Wind Power Production

Germany and Denmark Join UK in Smashing Wind Energy Records

Battery Storage Systems Prices Fall 25% in Germany

Commons

76 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 8, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change, Renewables, Sustainability

Tagged climate change, Denmark, energy independence, global warming, preventing catastrophic climate change, solar, wind, wind energy

Posted by robertscribbler on January 8, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/denmark-kicking-fossil-fuels-addiction-with-record-39-percent-wind-generation-and-growing/

NASA: Melting, Darkening Arctic Ocean Turns Up Solar Heat by 5 Percent

Atop the world lies a thinning veil of ice. A gossamer lid covering a deep, dark Arctic Ocean. It is a reflector screen for incoming solar radiation during the months-long-day of Polar Summer. And a recent NASA study shows that this heat shield is starting to fail.

Ever since the late 1970s an Arctic warming at 2-3 times the rate of the rest of the globe has set off a 13.3 percent decline of sea ice at end summer during each and every following decade. And that cumulative loss is having an extraordinary impact. For the white, reflective ice cover by September has now, on average, fallen by nearly 50%. What remains is a thinner ice cover. One full of holes and interspersed with great and widening expanses of dark water.

Dark water and thinner, less contiguous, ice absorbs more of the sun’s heat. NASA notes that this added absorption can have far-flung impacts:

While sea ice is mostly white and reflects the sun’s rays, ocean water is dark and absorbs the sun’s energy at a higher rate. A decline in the region’s albedo – its reflectivity, in effect – has been a key concern among scientists since the summer Arctic sea ice cover began shrinking in recent decades. As more of the sun’s energy is absorbed by the climate system, it enhances ongoing warming in the region, which is more pronounced than anywhere else on the planet.

For years, polar scientists have been warning of signs this powerful amplifying feedback was speeding an already drastic warming for the Arctic environment. Now, a 15 year satellite survey conducted by NASA provides direct evidence that this is indeed the case — with the Arctic now absorbing 5% more incoming solar energy than it did in the year 2000.

(Click Image to Enlarge. Left frame shows summer sea ice fraction change with measures in dark blue showing a greater than 50% loss on average. Right frame shows changes in absorbed solar radiation with most of the Arctic showing a 5 watt per meter squared or greater increase in solar radiation absorption and sections of the Beaufort Sea peaking at 50 watts per meter squared additional solar radiation absorption. Image source: NASA.)

Averaged over the Arctic, the failing summer sea ice and newly revealed dark waters absorb an extra 10 watts per meter squared of solar heat radiation. That extra heat is equivalent to having a 10 watt light bulb burning on every square meter of the Arctic Ocean surface throughout the entire polar summer. Twenty four hours per day, seven days a week for the seasonal period.

In some regions, like the Beaufort Sea near Northern Canada and Alaska, the extra heat absorption is as much as 50 watts per meter squared greater than year 2000 levels. An extraordinary increase in Arctic Ocean heat uptake and, perhaps, one of the chief reasons why higher Latitude ocean surface temperatures have tended to range so high in recent years.

It’s a massive realignment of the Earth’s radiative balance and one that has occurred in only a relatively short period.

NASA scientists are quick to caution that to fully take into account climate variability, the study will need to continue for another 15 years. But when taking into account the massive 35 year drop off in sea ice since 1979, it appears likely that radiative balance changes are even greater than the 15 year NASA study indicates.

(NSIDC sea ice extent losses for Arctic since 1979 showing a 13.3% decadal rate of decline. Image source: NSIDC. Note NSIDC adds a linear trend line. However, historic rates likely show a more rapidly down curving melt progression — see image below.)

Overall, this loss of sea ice and related increased heat absorption has pushed melt season onset times a full week sooner than 1982 onsets 32 years ago. Earlier melt season starts lead to more heat absorption — a classic feedback cycle also recognized in the new NASA report.

In addition, the report links added Arctic Ocean summer heat absorption to loss of older, thicker ice observed throughout the Arctic region. Since 2000, more than 1.4 million square kilometers of 3 meter or thicker ice has melted out of the Arctic Ocean system. That ice has been replaced by coverages of less than 2 meters in thickness — another aspect of amplifying warming feedbacks at play in the Arctic.

Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland, notes:

Having younger and thus thinner ice during winter makes the system more vulnerable to ice loss during the summer melt season.

Whether these amplifying feedbacks will result in ice free summer conditions sooner rather than later is still a matter of some discussion among scientists. Following the 13.3 percent per decade trend puts us at ice free summers sometime around 2030-2035. But the large swings in annual variability could result in an earlier year in which ice free conditions occur. In addition, some scientists assert that amplifying heat feedbacks in the Arctic are enough to result in ice free summers as soon as 2017 to 2020.

To this point it may be worth considering that the 13.3 percent per decade rate may be steepening as is hinted at in the below long term graph:

(Long term melt trend compiled by Larry Hamilton. Image source: Here.)

Regardless of timing, the historic loss of Arctic sea ice is already resulting in dramatic impacts to the Earth’s radiative balance and to the distribution of global surface heat absorption. A circumstance that a number of studies have implicated in changing Jet Stream patterns and enhanced meridional (north to south and south to north) air flows.

Links:

Satellites Measure Increase of Sun’s Energy Absorbed in the Arctic

2014 Melt Season in Review

Arctic Melt Trends

Hat tip to TodaysGuestIs

73 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 7, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Climate Change

Tagged amplifying feedbacks, Arctic Sea Ice Melting, climate change, Earth changes, environment, extreme weather, Geophysical Changes, global warming, human warming, NASA, polar amplification, radiative balance, science, sea ice melt, warming, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on January 7, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/nasa-melting-darkening-arctic-ocean-turns-up-solar-heat-by-5-percent/

2014 Hottest Year on Record Amidst Ocean Heat Spikes and Arctic Wildfires

According to Japan’s Meteorological Agency, 2014 set new inauspicious marks as the hottest year in the global climate record since measures began in 1891.

Temperatures rocketed to 0.27 C above the 1981-2010 average, 0.63 C above the 20th Century average and showed a severe pace of warming of 0.70 C per Century. By comparison, the end of the last ice age featured century scale warming at the rate of 0.04 to 0.05 C every 100 years. So the current rate of warming, according to the JMA measure, is 14-17 times faster. A rapid warm-up driving increasingly severe weather and geophysical changes.

(JMA measure shows 2014 was hottest year on record. Image source JMA.)

NOAA is also expected to show 2014 as hottest year on record. NASA is likely to show 2014 as 1rst, 2nd or 3rd hottest.

2014, according to JMA, was the first record breaker since the super El Nino year of 1998 with 2014 beating out 1998 by 0.05 degrees C. However, the JMA measure also showed that all ten hottest years on record occurred since 1998. Perhaps more telling is the fact that the JMA measure reveals no hiatus in the pace of global atmospheric temperature increase with all years since 1998 at or above the trend line.

Ocean Heat but No El Nino

World ocean surface temperature spikes were the primary driver of the new global surface temperature record with NOAA’s measure showing a majority of months as hottest ever recorded for the world ocean. North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean temperatures were particularly hot — with a West Coast heat pool driving ocean dead zone events and starfish die-offs alike. In this region and off the US East Coast, Ocean temperature anomalies regularly topped 4 degrees Celisus above average. An extraordinary degree of heat that, in some cases, saw tropical fish species heading into Arctic waters for solace from the record warmth.

(Extraordinary Sea Surface Temperature spikes occurred in late August and mid October, with most of 2014 showing extreme ocean heating. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

El Nino threatened throughout much of the year. But despite a warming near the Equatorial Pacific temperature thresholds failed to fully tip into El Nino. An ominous sign considering that El Nino is the hot phase of atmospheric and surface temperature variability — which may mean that the next El Nino will drive a global high temperature departure even more extreme than 2014’s record setting value.

Severe Weather, Climate Extremes During Hottest Year

2014 also featured some of the worst weather on record with the US experiencing extraordinary dipole anomalies coincident with polar vortex collapse events and severe Arctic warming. Across the Atlantic, the UK experienced both its stormiest winter on record and its hottest year on record. A year hotter than any since 1649 for that nation.

Throughout the world severe droughts ravaged wide regions with the US Southwest still in the grips of the worst multi-year drought in 1,200 years. This year’s California drought was the most recent iteration of this severe event featuring a ridiculously resilient high pressure ridge that has continued to rob California of much of its typical seasonal moisture.

Amazon drying and wildfires also made news this year amidst a severe drought gripping the Sao Paulo megalopolis in Southeastern Brazil. The ongoing drought has shut off monsoonal moisture, forced residents to ration water, and threatens to put city water officials in the position of turning to use of mud for municipal water supplies.

Glaciologists identified massive sections of Antarctic land ice that had reached the point of irreversible collapse. Many of these researchers pointed toward an expanding pool of warm bottom water undermining sea facing glaciers as the culprit for this increasingly rapid glacial melt. A set of circumstances that creates a higher risk of more rapidly rising seas.

To this point, the City of Miami began a combined program of installing pumps to rid streets of flooding at times of high tide and has assessed a property tax to begin its efforts to fight the surge of waters set off by human caused climate change. New studies also found high risk areas such as Hampton Roads in Virginia now featured tens of thousands of properties under such serious threat of flooding that only FEMA will provide them with insurance — a number that will continue to increase along with the sea levels (globally at 3.3 millimeters of increase per year but as high as 7-8 mm per year in some regions).

Ominous Signs the Permafrost is Starting to Disgorge its Carbon Store

Sections of Siberia and Canada experienced extraordinary warmth during winter and spring of 2014 — setting off severe early season wildfires that raged well into late summer. These megafires continue the trend of recent years in which massive blazes rip through the Siberian tundra region disgorging methane and CO2 laden smoke plumes that then encircle the Northern Hemisphere.

For the Northwest Territories of Canada, this past summer represented its worst fire year ever recorded with massive blazes forming towering pyrocumulus clouds over vast burning regions of Arctic permafrost. A fitting backdrop for the Mordor-like activities of Alberta tar sands extraction.

(Very intense wildfires, some the size of smalls states as seen above in the LANCE MODIS shot from July of 2014, raged through Siberian tundra this summer. For reference the bottom edge of frame is 120 miles. Image source: LANCE MODIS.)

In all, about 1,300 gigatons of carbon are stored in the now thawing permafrost, a region Joe Romm is calling the permamelt (perhaps permaburn is a better term). And a human enhanced warming of the Arctic appears to be speeding that carbon’s rate of release into the atmosphere. An impact that could further accelerate human-caused warming. An ignominious circumstance leading to more record warm years and related global climate extremes to come. One that adds urgency to the need to rapidly transition away from fossil fuel burning and human activities that dump massive volumes of carbon into the atmosphere.

Links:

JMA Global Average Surface Temperatures Reach New Record in 2014

2014 Was The Hottest Year By Far

Met Office Confirms 2014 was Hottest Year on Record for UK

LANCE MODIS

2014’s Unprecedented Arctic Wildfires

The Climate Reanalyzer

54 Comments

by robertscribbler on January 7, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged 2014 hottest year on record, carbon emissions, climate change, environment, extreme weather, global warming, permaburn, permafrost burning, permafrost melt, permamelt, science, tar sands, weather

Posted by robertscribbler on January 7, 2015

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/2014-hottest-year-on-record-amidst-ocean-heat-spikes-and-arctic-wildfires/

World to Oil Producers — We Don’t Want Your Fracking Crude

World oil prices routed to 49 dollars per barrel today amidst weak global demand. It’s a sea change in the oil and energy markets that is now in the process of rattling many previously well established oil ventures to their foundations. A shot across the bow that may well signal the beginning of the end of crude due to a combination of expensive production, competition by renewables and efficiencies, and a widespread recognition of ramping hazards from human-caused climate change.

* * * * *

During the summer of 2014, amidst geopolitical crisis after geopolitical crisis in oil producing regions of the globe, world crude oil prices spiked to near 115 dollars per barrel. Ever since the mid 2000s, global producers had struggled to keep up with demand or to even keep crude + condensate production flat. But as of 2012, deregulated US fracking technology had ruptured large sections of the Dakotas, Texas and a strand from the Virginias through Pennsylvania.

US Fracking Ascendant

US oil production rose by 1 million barrels per day for three years running. By end 2014 US crude production had hit 9.13 million barrels per day. US liquids production, including 1 million barrels per day of biofuel, had spiked to 14.3 million barrels per day — making it the largest liquid fuels producer in the world.

But the US wasn’t the only region benefiting from gains. Russia and Iraq also saw oil production rise even as Saudi Arabia completed construction on a surge production capacity of 2 million barrels per day. And in the oil project pipeline more than 55 million barrels per day of new production was planned through the mid 2020s. All projects banking on continued oil price support in excess of 100 dollars per barrel.

(Fracking Pads stretch as far as the eye can see in North Dakota’s Bakken Formation. Image source: Greenpeace.)

It was an oil faerie tale come true. High prices and surging production combined to push oil asset valuations to levels never before seen. The oil majors, the world’s most profitable companies in the history of humankind, could rest safe in the assurance that this wealth and power base would continue to extend their reign for decades to come.

But, for the oil producers, the drilling and the service companies, and yes, even for the oil majors themselves, there happened to be more than one serpent in this otherwise rather lovely and gratuitous garden.

Declining Demand

From the control rooms of various corporate Death Stars, oil company executives must have felt quite comfortable with their positions. Even to those with fracking, tar sands, and deep offshore production exposure, 115 dollars per barrel was still quite profitable. And, conventional thinking was that the extra fire-water would, even at this price, support global economic growth which would, in turn, bring about more demand.

Past years experience supported this notion with demand rising by more than 1 million barrels per day each year even during times when the price of oil charged to $120 or higher. The 150 dollar price of economic harm set in 2008 was still a ways off and the forecasts called for demand to grow by 1.3 million barrels per day through 2015.

But demand did not perform as expected. Throughout the world economic weakness reigned. In Russia, sanctions imposed by the US bit deep into economic activity. In Europe, austerity measures resulted in stagnating growth. In China, an unwinding housing bubble did its own damage to demand for oil.

In addition, rapid and widespread increases in vehicle fuel efficiency were also drawing down marginal demand for oil. In the US, corporate average fuel efficiency was rising by 2-3 mpg per year. Worldwide, fuel efficiency standards were also rising. Furthermore, an entirely new animal began to appear on the international stage — the zero oil consuming electric vehicle.

By end 2014, more than 250,000 electric vehicles had been sold in the US with 600,000 EV sales worldwide. Compared to hundreds of millions of ICE vehicles roaming the world’s streets, this initial surge in EV adoption seemed small. Yet it was more than enough to instill a nagging worry among oil company supporters and investors. A worry reinforced by China’s late 2014 pledge to put 5 million EVs on its roads before 2020. So it seemed the tiny EV sprig could well grow into a tree that may later topple most of the oil demand base through the next couple of decades.

(Oil corporations’ worst nightmare. Solar charging station with EVs. Image source: Technology Tell.)

And oil companies didn’t need to look to just EVs to find instances of alternative technology drawing down oil demand. Throughout the world island and Middle Eastern nations, for so long dependent on oil-based electricity generation, began to adopt distributed solar systems that were far cheaper than their fossil fuel rivals. Though just 5 percent of global electricity demand still runs on oil, that 5 percent represents upward of 5 million barrels per day of global oil consumption. And eroding that demand in a marginal and sensitive market was beginning to show its impacts.

Throughout the latter half of 2014 demand faltered with growth forecasts winnowed down to 1.1 million, 900,000 and finally 700,000 barrels per day. A near halving of the previous forecast.

The Saudi Gambit

As demand expectations began to fall, so did prices. By September, oil was trading in the 90s and many around the world were looking to OPEC for support. The last time oil went into free-fall OPEC, lead by Saudi Arabia, cut production and prices rocketed back to 100 + dollars per barrel levels. However, this year Saudi Arabia was faced with an upstart US and a resurgent Russia and Iraq. Media outlets in the US were bragging about how North America had unseated the Sauds as the kings of oil production. But these outlets didn’t take into account the essential difference between the cost of North American oil production, which tends to run quite high, and the cost of Saudi production, which is still less than $20 per barrel.

Saudi Arabia must have seen this coming for quite some time as the Kingdom had banked more than 750 billion dollars in oil profits for a rainy day. By late fall, and sitting on this mountain of cash, Saudi Arabia made the then surprising decision to keep pumping oil and to urge its fellows in OPEC to do the same. And so, by November, OPEC’s 30 million barrels per day continued to be delivered.

Combined and surging US, Russian and Iraqi production formed a tsunami of ever cheaper oil competing for a host of unenthusiastic customers. Prices plunged to 65 dollars per barrel by mid December. By today, the price of a barrel in West Texas was 49 dollars, at Brent it was 53 dollars, in the geographically isolated and environmentalist blockaded regions near Alberta barrels traded for less than 37 dollars.

Extraordinarily High Price Production

If oil valuations, due to prices consumers appeared willing to pay, were high earlier this year, so were the costs of producing the new oil. Though there was quite a lot of new, unconventional oil out there to replace the slowly winnowing supplies of traditional fuel, that new oil was tough to reach. It required a great expense in broken and poisoned earth. In regions the size of a small country laid waste. Under skies that ever more frequently disgorged extreme droughts and deluges, after a proceeding series of years that have brought ever higher global temperatures, inexorably rising seas, and ever more rapid glacial melt, the environmental and human cost of extracting that unconventional fuel seemed very high indeed. A price that appeared to be rising to the point of an impending mass extinction event for the Earth due to a wrecked climate. A ghastly sacrifice in the name of oil profiteers. One that would include a growing number of human beings together with countless animal species.

(Tar Sands’ hellish landscape of ruined Earth and toxic tailing ponds. Image source Occupy.)

In the North, in Canada, a vast strip mine wasteland reminiscent of Tolkien’s Mordor hosted colossal machinery devouring gigatons of earth and spitting out sun-blocking plumes of smoke, vomiting massive lakes of poisonous water (lethal to any poor bird who happened to land upon its surface and to fish and Canadians down-stream alike), and spitting out billions of tons of corrosive bitumen. In the US, fracking required the near-constant injection of water and chemicals into the earth, wrecking water sources and farmlands, to produce an equally caustic fracked crude. And far off shore, deep ocean drilling leveraged technology equivalent to lunar landers and the most advanced remote operated vehicles all launched from gigantic sea-based platforms.

The cost to continue to expand these ventures ranged between 50 and 110 dollars per barrel of oil extracted. An observation that shows more than a trillion dollars and 40 million barrels per day of planned oil developments through 2025 unprofitable at today’s price of 49 dollars per barrel. An observation that lead a recent Bloomberg analyst to appropriately term the projects ‘Zombies’ during a December assessment of a Goldman Sachs’ report on the matter:

(OMG, Zombies! Goldman Sachs’ report from December showing more than 1 trillion dollars of oil projects at risk under a $50 per barrel oil price regime. Image source: Goldman Sachs and Tom Randall at Bloomberg.)

Putting this investment at risk results in severe instability for global energy markets. The reason is that current oil field decline rates are so extreme that 9 million barrels per day of new production or enhanced recovery from existing wells must come on line every four years just to keep current production flat. Wholesale de-funding of these investments would lead to a rapid drop-off in global oil production in the coming years as rapidly depleting new sources such as fracking and faltering old wells fail en masse.

Notably, almost all new major oil projects are now on indefinite hold pending a return to higher prices. Prices that will almost certainly come at some point due to that raging depletion rate. But the question many are asking is will it come soon enough to prevent massive failures of numerous companies within the unconventional fuels industry?

Even the cost of just maintaining current unconventional production ranges from 35 to 95 dollars per barrel. Far more than the 10-20 dollars per barrel cost of extracting oil from a traditional pressurized oil well. And with current massive price falls to 49 dollars per barrel or less, many companies are now in jeopardy.

Of course, we should probably include trillions and trillions more at risk due to the fact that current oil producers simply must leave most of their caustic product in the ground in order to prevent catastrophic climate change. As a result, the entire oil industry is a zombie at this time.

We Don’t Want Your Fracking Crude!

Compounding the issue of high production cost is a stranding of assets caused by a little televised but widespread phenomena called Blockadia. Perhaps the most visible expression of Blockadia is the ongoing campaign against the Keystone Excel and Northern Gateway Pipelines that have left tar sands oil stranded and dependent upon rail transport in order to access international markets. Even tar sands truck routes and equipment deliveries have been hounded by rampant blockades.

The result is an isolation of Canada’s tar sands that has now driven local prices for a barrel of oil to less than 37 dollars. What this means for Alberta oil is very thin profit margins and no expansion of production whatsoever. If oil strikes below 35 dollars for any extended period, Alberta may be looking at shut-downs over the long haul.

For US fracking the story is similar. From outright bans to constant legal action on the part of communities and individuals, Blockadia has arisen both in the form of protests and in the form of litigation. Even Rex Tillerson, Exxon CEO and funder of some of the most virulent climate change denier hacks in the media sphere, donated money to an anti-fracking campaign aimed at preventing the construction of wells near his multi-million dollar Texas home. Hypocritically, Exxon has funded polluting industries in many disadvantaged and poorer neighborhoods for decades — forcing those without enough monetary muscle to hire troll berserker lawyers to suffer pollution, poisoning and displacement. But turn the tables and Rex likes the fracking crude about as much as the rest of us.

In the end, we are all in what Naomi Klein has called ‘the sacrifice zone.’ A region where the externalities of fossil fuel use become visible and an increasingly violent impediment to daily life and well being. It is for this reason alone that so many pipelines and oil ventures are now under threat of blockade. People are fed up and everyone from moms to scientists to cowboys to Native Americans to activists are willing to put themselves on the line to prevent the worst outcomes of fossil fuel burning. People don’t like being sacrificed or having their children sacrificed for company profits which is the primary reason we don’t want your fracking crude.

Under Threat of Bankruptcy

Sauds’ price war, declining demand, the extraordinary cost of unconventional extraction, and Blockadia now combine to put many oil companies under severe threat. Today, the blood-letting pushed the Dow down by 331 points. Fracking suppliers like United Rentals, which specializes in pumps for hydraulic fracturing, lost 10 percent of its value in just one day. Noble Energy, Diamond Offshore, TransOcean, Anadarko Petroleum, Denbury Resources — all involved in costly unconventional oil extraction — all fell by between 7.8 and 9.5 percent. Baytec, a tar sands player, lost 12.5 percent. Continental Resources, with a large exposure to the US fracking effort, lost 10.7 percent of its valuation. Even energy giants like Chevron and ConocoPhilips fell by more than 4 percent in today’s bloodletting.

Though the US industry has been opaque with regards to risk, given the assessed high costs for both fracking and tar sands and the extremely rapid well depletion rates for fracking, current risks for all US unconventional players are very high. North Sea producers have been more clear in their risks, however, with reports last week identifying 1/3 of oil firms in the offshore region at risk of bankruptcy with oil prices in the range of 55 dollars per barrel.

Even more established companies like Exxon, a company some analysts suspect may be able to prey on weakness in the shale patch, will feel the pinch if oil prices trade in the range of 40-50 dollars per barrel for an extended period with company profits essentially wiped out below 40 dollars.

In short, what we see is that in an over-supplied market high cost producers are very vulnerable to price competition from lower cost producers and from alternatives that can now also increasingly replace base oil consumption outright.

Renewables in the Wings

For it’s not just Saudi Arabia that unconventional oil producers have to take seriously. They are also under existential threat from a combination of rising efficiencies and increasingly cheaper and easy to access renewable energy and electric vehicles.

After this current price fall takes down the marginal producers of fossil fuels that can’t cut it, prices will again rise. Meanwhile, economies of scale will continue to reduce solar panel prices, increase battery storage capacity and economics, and provide electric vehicles at lower costs and ever-greater capabilities.

Within 5-10 years the next price war on marginal oil may well be spear headed by renewables themselves. And that is a good thing, because in order to prevent the very worst impacts of human caused climate change that geological firewater needs to remain where it belongs — in the ground. In other words, there’s good reason not to want that fracking crude.

Links:

Dow Plunges Below 331, Oil Falls Below 50

Bankers See 1 Trillion of Zombie Investments Stranded in Oil Fields

Tar Sands– The Most Destructive Project on Earth

Why My Next Garage Will Be Solar

Market Data

This Changes Everything