NASA Earth Observatory

Aerosols—and clouds seeded by them—reflect about a quarter of the Sun’s energy back to space.

For all we know about climate change and the Earth’s atmosphere, it’s amazing how much more there is to learn. Earlier this month, a team of researchers led by University of Colorado’s Roy “Lee” Mauldin III announced the discovery of a brand new atmospheric compound tied to both climate change and human health.

Above certain parts of the earth, they found, the new compound is at least as prevalent as OH, also called the hydroxyl radical, long thought to be the primary oxidant responsible for turning sulfur dioxide, an industrial pollutant, into sulfuric acid. The new compound, it turns out, can play an equally important role. Sulfuric acid contributes to acid rain and results in the formation of aerosols, airborne particulates associated with a variety of respiratory illnesses in humans and known to seed the formation of clouds.

Mauldin made the discovery by investigating background levels of sulfuric acid in atmospheric samples that were not attributable to OH. He inferred that another compound must be responsible for the effect and was able to isolate it through a series of tests. No one else had ever made the connection before.

“As soon as I realized that we were observing a new oxidant, the light clicked on all over the place,” Mauldin said in an interview. “With anything that can produce sulfuric acid, if you can come up with something that occurs on a daily basis, or in this case 24/7, it can affect all sorts of things, including climate and human health.”

In few places is that effect more pronounced than in California. “Aerosols are a major public health problem in the Central Valley,” said Ron Cohen, Director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center at the University of California. In fact, they’re worse in the Valley than just about anywhere else in the country — except maybe Los Angeles.

Mauldin believes that the new compound is emitted more heavily by trees than by man-made sources, meaning it may be less important to aerosol formation above the Central Valley than it is above the Finnish Boreal Forest where field research was conducted. But we don’t know that for sure. Nor do we know precisely how to calculate aerosols’ role in climate change.

In fact, aerosols are one of the least-understood variables in climate models, Cohen said. We do know that aerosols contribute to cloud formation, commonly understood to have a cooling effect on the earth. However, we don’t know whether aerosols are changing the height of clouds, which has complex implications for temperature: low clouds tend to have a cooling effect, while high clouds actually trap heat in the atmosphere. Furthermore, some aerosols reflect heat, while others absorb it.

The new compound offers science a new way of charting the formation of aerosols today as well as an important tool for determining what the atmosphere was like before we came along. Both uses are likely to fine-tune our ability to understand and forecast climate change moving forward. As far as what, precisely, it’ll tell us — well, that remains to be seen.

A rice field in the Sacramento Valley. According to NOAA, rice paddies are a source of methane emissions. Photo: Craig Miller

Despite all the focus on regulating CO2 as a way to combat global warming, a new NOAA study finds that to really put the brakes on climate change, the world can’t ignore the other greenhouse gases.

The study takes an inventory of non-carbon greenhouse gases including methane, which emits from landfills and farms, and nitrous oxide, which primarily comes from soil management and combustion. Per molecule, the study notes that these gases have a stronger muscle for trapping heat compared with carbon dioxide, but they don’t last as long in the atmosphere.

“This study looks at what would happen if society decided to go after the short-lived greenhouse gases, as well as CO2.” said Jim Butler, Director of Global Monitoring at NOAA and author of the study.

Short-lived is a relative term in atmospheric science. Butler said it takes decades for methane to fully run its course in the atmosphere, during which its potential to trap heat is much greater, even though its share in the atmosphere is pennies compared to that of CO2.

Carbon dioxide sticks around much longer, some of it for thousands of years, said Butler.

“CO2 is still the big dog in the fight,” he said.

The warming impacts from all human-based greenhouse gases. At 390ppm, CO2 leads the pack but other greenhouse gases like methane, at 1.8ppm, and nitrous oxide, at 0.3ppm, have a measurable impact.. Table: NOAA

Butler said that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now at 390 parts per million and is responsible for 63% of all greenhouse gas warming influence, as shown in the NOAA chart above.  The study equates this warming influence to the heat generated from nine trillion, 100-watt light bulbs.

Butler likens this persistent heating effect to a hot electric blanket.

“If we cut emissions, the [heat of] blanket would still go up by a bit,” said Butler.  “We can’t turn the blanket back down very fast.”

A graph showing the outcomes between the current emissions trajectory (in red) and a scenario where CO2 and non CO2 greenhouse gases are cut by 80% of 2008 levels (in green). Graph: NOAA

The NOAA scientists graphed the “electric blanket” heating outcomes under different emissions scenarios. Even under the most optimistic scenario, where 80% of all greenhouse gases are cut, the study finds it will take 40 years before the blanket’s thermostat goes down.

“The long-term necessity of cutting carbon dioxide emissions shouldn’t diminish the effectiveness of short-term action,” said Butler in a press release. “Managing emissions of non-carbon dioxide gases is clearly an opportunity to make additional contributions.”

Photo: Craig Miller

California’s regional planning authorities need to find new ways to get people to leave their cars at home.

Passenger vehicles are the single largest source of greenhouse gases in California, comprising one third of all the state’s emissions.  Senate Bill 375, passed in 2008, is designed to chip away at those emissions by curbing sprawl and encouraging infrastructure that gets Californians to drive less — or at least, not as far.

This week the state Air Resources Board met a milestone (so to speak) in the implementation of the law by sending to California’s 18 regional planning organizations, greenhouse gas reduction targets for cars and light trucks .  Now it will be up to the regions to create their own strategies for linking land use and transportation planning in ways that lure Californians out of their cars.

Mike McKeever  is chair of the committee that advised CARB on the targets. He is also executive director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), the metropolitan planning organization for the region.  He says that SB 375 requires regions to get more “purposeful” about development.

McKeever said the central question that local planners are asking is: “Can you alter your future growth patterns, your urban settlement pattern in a way that reduces the length of auto trips and makes it easier for people to take some of their trips on transit or walking or bicycling or car pooling?”

Planners in Sacramento, San Diego and the Bay Area have some of the most aggressive targets: a seven percent reduction per capita by 2020 and 13-16% by 2035 (compared to 2005 levels). South Coast communities are shooting for an eight percent reduction by 2020, and 13% by 2035.

During the public comment period before the Air Board’s decision, many stepped forward to voice concerns that the targets were too aggressive, and would cause local and regional planners to give up before they even start.  Others expressed fears that the targets would stifle new development and that they would trigger pricing strategies that would increase transportation costs for families.

Danny Curtin, who directs the California Conference of Carpenters says the targets could hobble employment in an already-suffering sector of the economy.

“It’s beginning to look like a ‘smart-growth’ strategy is becoming a no-growth strategy,” said Curtin. “And we’re deeply mired in an unemployment situation. So, at this time, that makes absolutely no sense.”

But advocates of the targets say that they are not designed to stop growth at all, but are designed to motivate regions to be more focused about the kinds of growth they encourage. Regions are charged with creating their own unique “Sustainable Communities Strategies” for meeting the targets in coordination with local governments which, regulators insist, retain control over land-use decisions.

Proponents of the targets cite the public health and environmental benefits to be gained from reducing driving in California, by building affordable communities that are more “walkable” and closer to good public transit, services,  and job centers.

“If we’re serious about climate change, we have to figure out ways for more people to live and work in places where their overall environmental impact is smaller,” said Egon Terplan, regional planning director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR).

“That means that what we spend money on as a region, can’t be on things that encourage driving.  Every time we expand a freeway, we in fact are making it easier for someone to drive.”

The Sustainable Communities Strategy is a new element in the Regional Transportation Plan that each region already updates every four or five years.   It requires the region to identify general locations recommended for growth and development, while also considering land use, transportation, and emissions reductions.  San Diego’s updated plan is scheduled for July of next year, so it will be the first region to apply the new standards under SB 375. Sacramento follows in December of 2011.

Saturday night, on my way home from an interview, I witnessed one of the more interesting orchestrated movements of humanity the world has to offer. I shot this video when I was changing trains at Shibuya station, one of Tokyo’s busiest. The intersection shows how well Japan engineers pedestrian movement–but how well will it engineer its residents’ greenhouse gas emissions?

On Monday, I attended the Asahi World Environment Forum, where all the bigwigs on climate change were in attendance (including Yvo de Boer and Rajendra Pachauri, among others). The surprise visitor was Japan’s Prime Minister-elect Yukio Hatoyama.

Hatoyama makes his climate change pledge. Photos: Rob Schmitz

He told a packed house that Japan will aim to reduce its greenhouse gases by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020.

“In my personal opinion, that’s impossible,” Hidetoshi Nakagami told me last week. Nakagami is President of the Jyukankyo Research Institute and holds a coveted seat on the advisory committee to Japan’s powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, or METI. “Hatoyama’s pledge is pure politics,” he said. “It’s not practical, it’s not possible, and there’s not enough time.”

Nakagami is not a pessimist. He played a large role in creating Japan’s very successful Top Runner program, a 1997 policy that searches for the most efficient model of any given electrical appliance and then makes that model the industry standard, requiring other companies to adhere to it when making new models of the same appliance. The program was one of Japan’s most ambitious energy efficiency measures, and Nakagami had to fight against Japan’s largest companies in order to help craft the policy into law.

While Nakagami would like to see a one-quarter reduction in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels in the next decade, he says it’ll cost the average Japanese dearly. When former Prime Minister Taro Aso pledged to cut Japan’s greenhouse gases by 15% of 2005 levels, Nakagami’s institute estimated that the effort would cost each Japanese household, on average, 70,000 yen–a little over USD $700–a year. Even that, says Nakagami, would be a tall order in this economy.

In the end, Hatoyama may not fill this order. His historic pledge, which during his campaign, seemed to have no strings attached to it, now has an important caveat. At Monday’s forum, he told the audience that Japan will embark on this journey as long as other major countries also set similar ambitious targets.

Japan's future hanging in the balance.

After the forum concluded, I walked outside into Tokyo’s rush hour: pedestrians everywhere, taxis speeding by me. I stopped at a Shinto shrine built among enormous glass skyscrapers. In front stood an Omikuji shrine, where believers tie a paper copy of their fortune, with hopes that it’ll come true. Hundreds of paper fortunes rattled in the hot, summer wind. I wondered if one of them was Hatoyama’s.

After two years of study, prodded by a Supreme Court decision, the federal agency finds that CO2, methane, oxides of nitrogen and two other industrial gases should be regulated as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. A sampling of reactions:

Environment California:

“‘Duh’ may not be a scientific term, but it applies here.  Today, common sense prevailed over pressure from Big Oil and other big polluters to deny the obvious in order to maintain the status quo on energy.  EPA has embraced the basic facts on global warming that scientists around the world have acknowledged for years.”

Governor Schwarzenegger:

“While the federal government was asleep at the wheel for years, we in California have known greenhouse gases are a threat to our health and to our environment – that’s why we have taken such aggressive action to reduce harmful emissions and move toward a greener economy. Two years after the Supreme Court declared greenhouse gas emissions a pollutant, it’s promising to see the new administration in Washington showing signs that it will take an aggressive leadership role in fighting climate change that will lead to reduced emissions, thousands of new green jobs and a healthier future for our children and our planet.”

Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma–boldface is his):

“Today’s action by the EPA is the beginning of a regulatory barrage that will destroy jobs, raise energy prices for consumers, and undermine America’s global competitiveness,” Senator Inhofe said. “It now appears EPA’s regulatory reach will find its way into schools, hospitals, assisted living facilities, and just about any activity that meets minimum thresholds in the Clean Air Act.  Rep. John Dingell was right: the endangerment finding will produce a ‘glorious mess.’

The Wilderness Society:

“This finding was expected, but long overdue because the previous administration respected neither the science nor the law. The consequence of this finding is that EPA will now begin the task of reducing these emissions through the permitting process provided by the Clean Air Act. One way or the other, the clear and present danger of endlessly dumping pollutants into the atmosphere must be confronted.  We will either find a way to build a future for our children based on clean energy and sustainable jobs, or we will face a very unsentimental foe unarmed – a climate that makes life unsustainable. The choice is clear, and the new Administration is following the wisest path forward.”

California moved to regulate carbon emissions three years ago, when state lawmakers passed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, also known as AB 32. But many specific regulations required by that law have yet to take effect.

This has been a controversial idea since the Stern Review called attention to the issue in 2006. That report concluded that unless one percent of global GDP was diverted to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, the world could lose up to 5% of  global GDP each year and the total damage could claim as much as 20%.

A set of new reports out of the University of Oregon inserts fresh numbers into the debate. According to researchers, three western states are each likely to lose more than $3 billion a year in climate change-related costs by 2020, if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  By 2080, the projected annual costs range from $9-to-$18 billion for each state.

The reports, which focus on Washington, Oregon, and New Mexico, assume a business-as-usual scenario where both carbon emissions and temperature continue to rise at rates similar to those seen in recent years. Under these conditions, these states (and California, according to the prevalent research) can expect more severe droughts and floods, less snowfall,  more wildfires and habitat loss, and a higher incidence of climate-associated health problems and deaths.

In New Mexico, the study’s authors expect summer temperatures to climb 12.6 degrees above current averages by 2080,  spiking air-conditioning costs, health-care complications, and the state’s death rate.  By 2020, annual climate-related health care costs in New Mexico alone are expected to top $1.3 billion.

California’s temperatures, under business-as-usual scenarios, are widely expected rise between six and ten degrees by the end of century.  Even in a relatively cool state like Washington, health care impacts would make up $421 million, or 32%, of total annual climate-related costs, under this pr0jection.

The study attributed the largest costs (more than $1 billion annually in each state) to inefficient consumption of energy, a projection that might not pan out, given the Obama Adminstration’s focus on green technology and clean energy efforts.

Other costs cited by the study include reduced salmon populations and food production, lost recreational opportunities (sell your snowboard now), and more intense and frequent wildfires and storms.