We haven’t heard a lot about the iron fertilisation controversy in the Antarctic for a while – at least not in the mainstream media.

(The German research vessel Polarstern, belonging to the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, conducting the research with Indian partners).

– See blog entries of 9.-15-1-2009 for the background –
Are you surprised to hear that the controversial experiment did not produce the desired results? Artificially fertlizing the ocean with iron is not a way to substantially reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere!
It seems the scientists on board the Polarstern were surprised by what did actually happen during the German-Indian experiment.

WWF has just announced the meeting has actually come up with a resolution linking the future of the species to urgent global action on climate change. You might think that’s stating the obvious -but’s its actually an important step forward in building up pressure for climate action.

I’ve just come back from Copenhagen, where I spent a few days with a transatlantic group of journalists and climate change experts (scientists and business people).It was part of a study tour devoted to Energy, Climate and Oceans – Impacts on the Global Economy. One of the people we talked to was Lyyke Fries, the new Danish Climate and Energy Minister, who took over while her predecessor becomes EU Commissioner. “The Copenhagen hangover is over”, she told me, and said she was happy that the Copenhagen Accord was going to be a springboard for the next rounds of negotiations in Bonn and Mexico this year. She was presenting the targets entered on the UN list by the deadline (a flexible one, as UN climate chief Yvo de Boer stressed in January) as a successful step forward. At the same time she admits freely that the EU was sidelined in the creation of that accord and is trying to work out how to regain a prominent position in the climate process. She also refers to the “new world order” emerging, with countries like India, China and Brazil at the forefront.So it’s hard to believe the hangover is really over for Denmark or the EU, to mention but a few.
We also visited the Copenhagen office of Greenpeace. You won’t be surprised to hear that they have a different view of the Copenhagen Accord.
More about that and some of the interesting views put forward by North American experts and journos in the next couple of days.

The science programme Spectrum has an Arctic special this week.
Recommended listening:
Spectrum: Science and Technology

Thank you Dr. Koko Warner for a long and very informative comment on the Ice Blog.
(See comment to last entry. It’s hard to read a long entry like that in the blog comment small print, so I suggest copying and pasting into your usual text editing programme. It’s well worth an attentive read and has more references for further reading).
You certainly give us plenty of food for thought about the implications of climate change in terms of migration and the challenges of developing the mechanisms to cope with them. Let me just quote one section here:
“By 2050 when human population is projected to peak, some 9 billion people will live on Earth. The majority of them will live in urban areas with crushing environmental footprints. Many megacities are located in areas prone to sea level rise.Climate change will visit urban and rural areas alike with incrasingly frequent and violent hazard events. Flooding, intense storms, or droughts (…)Mitigation of greenhouse gases will likely be insufficient to avoid global temperature increases of 2°C or more, making adaptation a necessity at all scales.”

And that brings to me to the “Extreme Weather Congress”, taking place in Bremerhaven, Germany, at the moment. The organiser, Frank Böttcher, draws attention to the fact that climate change is happening far faster than most of the models have been predicting. He calls for a rapid shift to renewable energies.
More about the congress online

At the same time, a group of environment and development organisations have sent an open letter to the heads of the EU countries, warning them not to neglect the climate crisis because of the current financial crisis. They say financial support for the countries hardest hit by climate change is a moral obligation.
With the next round of UN negotiations taking place in Bonn at the end of March and an EU summit meeting earlier next month to agree on the EU’s position for the Copenhagen climate conference at the end of the year and the next UN climate agreement, it’s certainly a good time to launch this kind of initiative. Here’s hoping the open letter will get the attention it deserves.
I’m having a few days off during Germany’s Karneval holiday here. Let me leave you faithful Ice-Blog followers with a link to a marvellous “Climate Time Machine” I’ve found, created by NASA.
NASA climate change site
Click on the Climate Time Machine on the right-hand bar for brilliant visualisation of how key factors such as sea ice, sea level, Co2 emissions and, global temperature have changed in recent history.