Ammu posted a comment from the USA after attending a seminar where the experts were saying energy efficiency should be our first goal. By that he means reducing our demand for energy, matching our energy output to demand and a more efficient transformation of the resources we put in into the energy we get out. I would agree with that Ammu. But I don’t agree that we should only expand renewables in a second stage. As you say yourself, we need to combine different aspects at the same time to tackle climate change as quickly as possible. That means setting ambitious targets and creating the political and economic climate to achieve them.
I think US President Obama is starting out on the right track there, with his renewable energy targets. And that brings us to your next point. Schwarzenegger as emperor because of his old-car-scrapping policy? Hm. I think he certainly deserves recognition for what he’s doing in California for the environment and the climate, although we know he’s still struggling to sort out the economic problems he inherited. But then the President gave priority to letting Schwarzenegger and the other state governors move ahead faster than the national administration to implement tougher environmental or climate-protecting legislation when they can.
What I think is really remarkable is Obama’s will to rise above party politics in the interests of the environment and the future of the planet. If he really thought everybody else would do that – especially those in the “opposition” – then he’s pretty idealistic. But since he has the majority to push things through, he can get on with it, even if he is getting impatient with the time negotiations are taking to get his legislation package through.
I’ve been following the British media intensively over the past week or so, while I was braving the “Arctic conditions” (!?) of the British midlands. I got a strong sense that people think the new US administration is prepared to move ahead and opt for innovation much more radically than European governments, which are still too tied up with protecting their traditional car and fossil fuel industries.
So let’s give President Barack Obama a chance Ammu, before we look for another “emperor”. OK?

I am currently speeding through the winter wonderland that the English midlands have become, enjoying the beauty of snow-covered fields, sharp reflections in brooks just tipped with ice,sheep trying to graze on regardless and birds of prey perching, watching out for some of nature’s “frozen food”.
My colleague Judith Hartl introduced me on her science programme as one of those strange people who like going to cold places. Iadmit I like ice and snow, although I’m amazed at how it has brought parts of Britain to a standstill.
My sister reckons I am somehow fighting a lost cause. “Everywhere you go, it’s snowing! How are you going to convince people about global warming?” Well, a lot of people make jokes or semi-serious comments about that in the coldish winter we’ve been having in a lot of places.The British media have been trying to explain to people that this is “just weather”. It’s only the long-term trend that makes climate.
I came across a good summary of the facts in an article by Richard Alleyne, science correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (hardly a paper known for “alternative” views).
He says this is the coldest winter in Britain for 30 years, but the extreme weather proves the effects of global warming. Temperatures for the last 2 months were 1C lower than average, and London had more snow than any time since 1960s. But the fact people are surprised by this shows how the climate has changed over the decades.
A Met Office study going back 350 years indicates UK now gets this extreme weather only every 20 years.
I’ve just come from Shrewsbury, where, as it happens, amongst other things I visited rooms where Charles Dickens stayed while working on the Pickwick Papers. In the neighbourhood is Ironbridge, one of the “cradles” of the industrial revolution.
Back in the pre-industrial Dickens days, cold winters like these would have occurred in Britain on average every 5 years, according to the Met Office scientists. If it wasn’t for global warming, this would be more “normal”, we’d be prepared, and able to cope.On various Arctic trips, the ice blogger has had fewer transport problems than on this one. Can anybody in the Midlands lend me a team of huskies?!

(Huskies raring to take off with their sled in Tromso in January)

(Kongswegen glacier, Svalbard, 2007)

The World Glacier Monitoring Service is based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Their latest summary of results indicates the world’s glaciers are continuing to melt rapidly. The Alps are particularly badly hit, with a much faster melting rate than the world average.

Data from WGMS

WGMS scientist Michael Zemp says 2007 was the 6th year this century with glaciers losing an average of more than half a metre of ice. This means the melting rate has doubled, he says, in comparison with the 1980s and 90s.
The WGMS Director is one of the world’s leading glacier experts. This background info. is worth a read, if you are interested in glaciers and how the information is collected:

Background on glaciers from WGMS Director Wilfried Haeberli

A last look at Arctic Tromsö for this time.

Mind your step?

The Arctic Frontiers conference came to an end in Tromsö on Friday with more presentations and q/a sessions on different aspects of scientific research and findings on the region, from deepsea observatories to melting permafrost and the problems of climate change for indigenous peoples, including reindeer-herders in Arctic areas.
The papers are all available online.
Pick up some scientific papers from Arctic Frontiers

Meanwhile there’s been no stop to developments on climate change in the headlines. President Obama is going full speed ahead with his plans to tackle climate change.

The German government has reached an agreement on a (highly controversial)package to make people scrap their old cars, buy new ones, and – ideally, in theory – reduce emissions.
The German government has also given the go ahead for the iron fertilization experiment in the Antarctic we were discussing before I left for Tromso.
Latest on iron
WWF and others are protesting. There have been some alarming measurements of warming in the Antarctic. The new international Renewable Energies Agency has been launched. And WWF has come up with a new study on the economics of combatting climate change.
The Ice Blogger could blog on all day. Instead, I’ll leave you to check out the links and enjoy a couple of pics of the amazing colours of Arctic Norway from the air.

(No emissions from this one for a while)

Professor Jean-Claude Gascard from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, heads the EU’s Damocles project, identifying the challenges from climate change. He gave a very sobering summary of the state of the Arctic sea ice and confirmed there is virtually no chance of reversing the current warming trend. Only several extremely severe winters could do that, and the scientific community is not expecting that.
Scientists tend to be reluctant to come out with anything they can’t prove, and Prof. Gascard summed up the main elements behind this conviction. Sea ice extent, depths, age and drift are key factors, as well as the air temperature and the number of “freezing degree days”.
By 2002 the ice was at a minimum based on some 50 years of observation. In 2005, there was no “replenishment” of older, multi-year ice exiting the Arctic ocean. This, Prof. Gascard describes as a “tipping point”.
The ice thickness has decreased over a wide area from more than 3 metres 20 or 30 years ago to around 1.5 metres. I remember my trip out on the sea ice in Barrow, Alaska, with Dr. Chris Petrich and the Climate Change College “ambassadors”. I can hear Erika Naga reading out the measurement “1 metre 40”, and the Inupiat telling us how it used to be much thicker.
The ice is melted in various ways: through warmer water from the Atlantic and Pacific underneath, heat from storms and increased radiation from above.
2007 of course was the year that really made everybody wake up. When the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Polarstern went out to set up ice platforms, there was no ice in their target area. The Tara, which has been frozen in and drifting with the ice to compare ice drift with the “Fram” expedition has been drifting three times faster than her predecessor. And the sea ice reached its minimum. 2008 saw almost the same negative record.
Sea ice reflects much more heat back into the atmosphere than water, (albedo effect) which is much darker and absorbs it, exacerbating the warming, in what’s called a “feedback loop”. Again, I was reminded of our trip on the Chukchi Sea with Chris Petrich from the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, who is collecting data on this to be put into global models.
And the number of “freezing degree days” has dropped massively in the last few years.
Professor Gascard’s summary of all this is available online on the Arctic Frontiers site.

And if you have the time and the inclination, have a(nother?) listen to the feature on my trip onto the sea ice with the Climate Change College.

Tromsö today (the days are getting lighter):