Rooftop Solar Panels in Vacaville. Photo: Craig Miller

1. MIT study finds IPCC underestimated Arctic ice melt

A forthcoming study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology predicts that Arctic ice sheets are melting four times quicker than was forecast in the latest IPCC report. According to the study, the Arctic may be ice-free several decades sooner than 2100, which was predicted by the Fourth Assessment Report. Study authors say the IPCC data did not include forces such as wind and ocean currents that cause ice to break up.

The Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans will publish the study next month, but you can read the full news release at MIT’s website.

2. Americans expect higher oil prices to impact economy and public health

More than two of out three Americans think oil prices will triple in the next five years, damaging the economy and public health. That’s according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, which surveyed Americans about the risks of declining oil production.

This article by the survey’s director, American University professor Matthew Nisbet, explains more.

3. Electric cars with a side of solar panels

San Jose’s SunPower Corporation is serving up a discount on solar panels for Ford Focus Electric car buyers. According to the company, the bundled rooftop panels will provide 3,000 kilowatt hours annually, enough energy to charge the vehicles and provide a little extra for households. Total small-scale solar capacity installed in California is 924 megawatts, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.

Read more at the Contra Costa Times.

4. The latest in solar-power racing machines
Stanford engineering students unveiled the Xenith: the half-million dollar, solar-powered racing machine. Twenty-six solar panels are all that power the 375 pound aerodynamic vehicle, which clocks speeds up to 70 miles per hour. In October, the students will compete the World Solar Challenge, a ten-day, 1,800-mile race across Australia.

Check out the Stanford student’s blog as they prepare for the race.

Well, that all depends on what we do.

Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford says that oil is actually only a second tier concern when it comes to climate change because there’s not enough of it left to sustain CO2 levels at dangerous levels for very long. The real impacts will depend on how we replace oil as it disappears.

“Coal is the big bear on the block,” said Caldeira. “As we approach the end of oil, will we choose coal or will we choose low carbon technologies?”

Coal may be cheap and abundant, as the coal lobby would have us know, but replacing oil with coal-derived fuels would actually increase global CO2 emissions, according to Caldeira. Not only is coal a “dirtier” fuel than oil (coal emits more C02 per unit of energy than oil does), but there are also greenhouse gases emitted in the process of liquification.

Caldeira spoke on Wednesday at the AGU conference about his recent study examining what could happen to the climate if we ran out of oil today. He created two scenarios, one where we replace oil with coal, and one where we replace oil with renewables. Both scenarios assume we continue to use coal for the same purposes that we do today.  Under the oil-to-coal scenario, carbon emissions will actually increase, causing global temperatures to rise three years sooner than predicted under the Intergovernmetal Panel on Climate Change’s A2 scenario, increasing by 3.6 degrees F by 2042 instead of 2045. In his second scenario, where oil is replaced with renewables such as wind, solar, and nuclear, however, the same temperature rise would be delayed 11 years, to 2056.

“Addressing the climate problem means addressing the coal problem,” said Caldeira. “Most future climate change will be the result of burning coal in absence of policy.”