How long can it last?
on the annotated budak blog
Moments of Tanah Merah
on the wonderful creation blog
Pasir Ris
A quick health check and Pool of Surprises on the wild shores of singapore blog
Impact of ZoukOut 2008 on Sentosa's marinelife
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog
Bukit Timah to MacRitchie
on Manoj Sugathan's Wlog
Milky Stork forages with an open wing
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
How I like my tomatoes
on the annotated budak blog
Study shows that even if waves hit island, they will not be life threatening
Liaw Wy-Cin, Straits Times 17 Dec 08;
THE impact of any tsunami, triggered by quakes in the region, on Singapore would be minimal, according to a new two-year study.
Computer simulations used in the study found that it would take an earthquake, in Indonesian or Philippine waters, measuring about 9.0 on the Richter scale to generate a tsunami powerful enough to reach Singapore.
Even then, it would take 10 hours before the first waves hit the island.
By that time, the waves would be no more than 0.7m above the average sea level, reaching no more than 50m inland and at speeds slower than that of normal tides.
From Straits Times PDF.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) commissioned the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to conduct the study in 2006.
The aim of the study was to discover the effects of tidal waves, caused by underwater earth movements, on Singapore.
This was in response to the Indian Ocean tsunami on Dec 26 four years ago, which killed more than 225,000 people. The epicentre of the earthquake that caused the tsunami was in the sea near Indonesia, known as the Sunda Arc.
This area, together with another area called the Manila Trench near the Philippines, was identified as a hot spot for underwater movement which could pose a tsunami threat to Singapore.
Earthquakes in the region usually measure 6.0 to 8.0 on the Richter scale, apart from the massive quake in 2004. There was also one measuring 8.7 in 2005 and only two measuring 8.5 to 9.0 in the 19th century.
The Richter scale goes up to 10 points. Earthquakes measuring about 8.0 occur once a year and can cause serious damage in areas several hundred kilometres from the epicentre.
Earthquakes at 9.0 on the Richter scale have devastating effects several thousand kilometres away and occur once in 20 years.
An earthquake measuring 10 on the Richter scale has never been recorded.
Earlier this month, NTU researchers said they had detected signs of an earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra but could not predict when or where it would strike.
It is, however, unlikely to be as large as the 2004 one.
The shallow waters and land masses around Singapore protect the island from the effects of any tsunami, said Mr Foong Chee Leong, the director-general of NEA's meteorological services.
Even during the 2004 earthquake, there was no record of a rise in Singapore's sea level, he said.
The speed at which any tsunami wave would hit Singapore's shores - at half a metre per second - is slower than the speed of a normal tide, which is 1m to 2m per second, said one of the NUS researchers, Dr Pavel Tkalich.
The study costs $1.3 million and made use of a modified program used in Japanese tsunami warning systems, which are considered among the best in the world.
Six Singapore beaches were identified as potential risk areas: West Coast Park, Labrador Park, Sentosa, the Southern Islands, East Coast Park and Pasir Ris Park.
But these areas pose a limited threat because the nearest residential area from the coastline is about 80m inland and any built- up area was constructed at least 1.25m above the highest tide level of about 1.5m above the average sea level here, said Mr Foong.
Dean of NTU's college of engineering, Professor Pan Tso-Chien, said the only worry would be people on the beach.
'Those in the sea would feel like they are riding a wave, bobbing up and down,' he said.
'The waves, by the time they hit the beach would be less than 1m high, at very low speeds, and (they) wouldn't be able to cause any destruction.'
Response plan in place
Straits Times 17 Dec 08;
EVEN though the risk of a tsunami hitting Singapore is low, beaches here will still be evacuated and the public advised to stay away if the alert is sounded.
This is part of a tsunami response plan drawn up by the National Environment Agency (NEA) and other agencies, including the PUB and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.
The lead time of the 10 hours it would take for the first of any tsunami waves to hit Singapore would provide ample time for a decision to be made on whether to sound the alarm and evacuate beaches, said Mr Foong Chee Leong, director-general of the NEA's meteorological services division.
He said the NEA receives alerts about earthquakes within two minutes of their occurrence.
It would take an hour for data to be analysed to ascertain if a tsunami would be generated and if it would reach Singapore.
Information about when it would do so, its speed, and height of the waves, for example, would also be available within the first hour of the earthquake alert.
Time to analyse the data is necessary to avoid sounding false alarms, said Mr Foong.
The NEA has identified six vulnerable beach areas - West Coast Park, Labrador Park, Sentosa, Southern Islands, East Coast Park and Pasir Ris Park.
In the event of a tsunami heading towards Singapore, advisories would be issued via the media.
The police and the Sentosa Development Corporation would then help to evacuate the public from these areas.
The NEA said the public warning siren will be activated only if the impact is expected to be severe, to avoid alarming the public unnecessarily.
Sheltered from the waves
Two-year study finds that landmasses and shallow waters protect Singapore from tsunamis
Esther Ng, Today Online 17 Dec 08;
IN THE worst-case scenario, waves would lap the waists of beachgoers should a tsunami hit Singapore. And residences would not be affected as flooding is only expected to affect areas less than 50 metres from the shore.
Since the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami caused havoc in the region, Singaporeans have wondered: Would we be as lucky the next time another tsunami struck?
Yes, according to a tsunami study commissioned by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
Even if a magnitude 9 earthquake were to occur in the Manila Trench (a tectonic plate in the South China sea) and the Sunda Arc, north-west of Sumatra island,Singapore would be safe because it is sheltered by relatively shallow waters and landmasses such as Sumatra and Peninsula Malaysia.
“By the time the tsunami waves arrive in Singapore, the wave energy will have largely been dissipated and the impact on Singapore will be minimal,” said Mr Foong Chee Leong, the director-general of the NEA’s meteorological services division.
However, the two-year study conducted by the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, at the cost of $1.3 million, found that some of our beaches are vulnerable to flooding from a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake at the Manila Trench. These are the West Coast Park, Labrador Park, Sentosa and Southern Islands, East Coast Park and Pasir Ris Park.
But the public has little to fear.
“Over the years, much of Singapore’s shoreline has undergone coastal hardening and is protected by sea walls and other reinforcement,” said an NEA spokesman.
“Most of Singapore’s industrial buildings and residences are built in areas which are elevated well above high tide levels. Hence, it is very unlikely for residences along Elias Road, Loyang Besar and the industrial buildings along Loyang Crescent will be affected by a tsunami.”
However, to date, there have been no records of earthquakes occurring in Singapore, only weak tremors which are felt occasionally from distant earthquakes off Sumatra. The agency said it will continue to monitor regional seismic activities for possible tsunamis, even though there has been no known records of tsunamis affecting Singapore.
No major impact from tsunamis: NEA study
Noor Aisha, Business Times 17 Dec 08;
THE National Environment Agency (NEA) has confirmed that there is a low probability of Singapore being affected by a tsunami, following a two-year study since August 2006.
The study considered two sources which might trigger tsunami that could affect Singapore: first, undersea landslides near Singapore and, second, seismic zones with the potential to produce great earthquakes of magnitude 9.0 and above.
According to the study, both sources do not pose a major threat as the likelihood of undersea landslides near Singapore is very low.
In addition, simulations by numerical models showed that tsunami triggered by earthquakes along seismic zones capable of producing such large earthquakes are expected to take more than 10 hours to reach Singapore's coast.
The research was jointly conducted by the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University at a cost of $1.3 million.
Nonetheless, in the event of a tsunami, a Tsunami Response Plan has also been developed by the NEA, with the cooperation of relevant agencies like the Singapore Police Force, Maritime Port Authority, Jurong Town Corporation and Sentosa Development Corporation.
We are safe from killer waves
Tsunami waves would be only 50cm tall if they reach S'pore: study
Chng Choon Hiong, The New Paper 18 Dec 08;
FOR Singaporeans who are worried that a tsunami may strike our shores, here's good news: We are safe from killer waves.
A new two-year study has confirmed this.
The height of the tsunami waves if they do reach Singapore will be considerably less than the highest tide (1.5m) here.
In the worst case scenario where the first wave reaches Singapore during highest tide, the water will only move a maximum of 50m inland.
The study, which began in August 2006, was conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
It was commissioned by the National Environment Agency (NEA) in response to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which killed 225,000 people in 11 countries.
The study examines several extreme scenarios (see graphics) of powerful undersea earthquakes and landslides occurring in locations that may result in tsunami waves hitting our shores.
The researchers in the team ran computer simulations to determine the nature of the waves that would hit Singapore under such situations.
The simulations shows that the relatively shallow waters (less than 200m) surrounding Singapore are able to slow down and dissipate the enormous amount of energy carried by these monster waves.
The ample lead time of 10 hours - the estimated time for the waves to reach our shores - allows the authorities to keep track of the event, receive additional information and further improve their confidence on the assessment of the situation, said Professor Chan Eng Soon, Dean of Engineering at NUS.
Unprotected beaches
While the study has found that the impact of a tsunami is likely to be minimal for Singapore, people at unprotected beaches could still be exposed to some risk if the waves do hit us.
The list of unprotected beaches include West Coast Park, Labrador Park, East Coast Park, Pasir Ris Park, Sentosa and the Southern Islands.
Even though Singapore faces no significant threat from tsunamis, NEA has nevertheless developed a Tsunami Response Plan with the cooperation of several other agencies, such as the Singapore Police and Maritime Port Authority.
Competition will help companies increase exposure to investors
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 17 Dec 08;
WHILE most enterprises are finding it difficult to secure financing these days, one investment banking boutique is seeking business plans from companies that need help turning green ideas into reality.
The Clean Energy business plan competition aims to help new companies in Asean that need at least US$1 million ($1.47 million) in seed capital.
“We want to help companies that are looking to expand,” said Mr Frederic Crampe, managing director of ReEx Capital Asia (ReEx).
“There are many opportunities in Asia, but you don’t have support for green businesses as compared to some states in the United States or countries in Europe. We want to give opportunities to people.”
Eleven business plans will be selected to receive free coaching from industry experts in clean energy development to refine their proposals. The companies will then present their proposals to potential investors at the Asia Forum for Clean Energy Financing next March, where the top three winners will be selected.
But winning the competition does not mean that the companies will definitely get funding for their proposals.
“The main aim of the competition is to provide an opportunity for companies to pitch their ideas and increase their exposure to investors. We hope the investors will be interested to follow up on the ideas and invest in them,” said Mr Crampe.
“The companies will also get the benefit of professional coaching to structure their business plans better. A lot of entrepreneurs and businesses will value the exposure.”
The Clean Energy business plan competition is the first of its kind in Asia, said Mr Crampe. It is managed by ReEx, with support from several regional groups active in the clean energy finance sector.
ReEx was set up in Singapore in 2006 to provide financing for green businesses in Asia. Some of the projects that it has financed include a bioplastic plastic company in Singapore and a bio-diesel firm in Laos.
For details, log on to www.cleanenergy-financing.com. Applications close on Dec 22.
James Randerson, guardian.co.uk 16 Dec 08;
Sea level rise due to global warming will "substantially exceed" official UN projections and could top 150cm by the end of the century, according to a report from the US Geological Survey on the risks of abrupt climate change. Such a rise would be catastrophic, seeing hundreds of millions of people affected by flooding.
Many scientists now fear the warming world is on the verge of "tipping points", in which climate change and its effects accelerate rapidly. The science is evolving quickly and the new report updates the most recent findings of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was released in 2007.
Some observers have called for an update of the science before the UN talks on a global deal on greenhouse gases emissions reach their finale in December 2009. The US report considers four scenarios for abrupt change, and delivers bad news on two.
On sea level, the report found models used by the IPCC in 2007 do not take into account recent information on how fast glaciers slide into the oceans, particularly from Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets. The report says the south western states of the US will enter a "permanent drought state".
But the risk of the ocean circulation in the Altantic shutting down – freezing the coasts of America and Europe, as in the film The Day After Tomorrow – is rated as low by the report. It predicts a slowdown of around 25% to 30%. The chance of a catastrophic release of methane from frozen sub-sea stores at high latitudes is also rated low. The report is part of a series by the US Climate Change Science Program, which collates all US federal research on the subject. It was presented tonight at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
The IPCC predicted that sea level would rise by 28cm to 42cm by the end of the century. ,The authors cite a 2007 study by Prof Stephan Rahmstof at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Research which predicted a sea level rise of between 40cm-150cm by 2100. But even this much higher estimate will "likely need to be revised upwards" because it does not fully capture the ice flow processes.
Seas will rise faster than predicted, say scientists
Frank Pope, The Times 16 Dec 08;
Sea levels will rise much faster than previously forecast because of the rate that glaciers and ice sheets are melting, a study has found.
Research commissioned by the US Climate Change Science Program concludes that the rises will substantially exceed forecasts that do not take into account the latest data and observations.
The adjusted outlook, announced at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, suggests that recent predictions of a rise of between 7in and 2ft over the next century are conservative.
The study predicts that sea level rises will be far higher than the levels that were set out last year by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. The research looked at prehistoric periods when the climate changed dramatically over the course of decades, and evaluated the mechanisms behind such rapid transformation. Rising sea levels were one of the major elements involved in past episodes, along with faster glacial melting, droughts and changes to the Atlantic Ocean’s heat-driven circulation.
The report also concludes that some changes will not be as bad as first thought. It says, for example, that rapid releases of methane stored in permafrost and on the seabed may be less likely than feared.Other forecasts include a severe and permanent drought in the American West. The authors state that they are “among the greatest natural hazards facing the United States and the globe today” and call for “committed and sustained” monitoring of the forces that could trigger abrupt climate change.
Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University and a lead author on the report, to be published in the journal Science, said: “If we don’t monitor the vital signs of the patient, then we’ll never be in a position to advise on the best course of action to take to ward off or prepare for the potentially devastating consequences.”
The Arctic is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world, according to research that suggests the continent may never recover from global warming.
Matthew Moore, The Telegraph 16 Dec 08;
Scientists have detected that autumn air temperatures in the region are higher than expected, due to a phenomena called Arctic amplification under which increased melting of sea ice in the summer accumulates heat in the ocean.
Climate-change researchers had not expected to observe Arctic amplification for 10 to 15 years, suggesting that global warming is more advanced that previously thought.
A study from the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco will show that the phenomena has been taking place for five years and will likely intensify in the future, raising the prospect of ice-free summers in the Arctic.
In parts of the region, such as the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, air temperatures were 7C higher than normal for the season.
Julienne Stroeve of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre, who jointly led the study, told The Independent: "The warming climate is leading to more open water in the Arctic Ocean. As these open water areas develop through spring and summer, they absorb most of the sun's energy, leading to ocean warming.
"In the autumn, as the sun sets in the Arctic, most of the heat that is gained in the ocean during summer is released back into the atmosphere. It is this heat-release back to the atmosphere that gives us Arctic amplification."
The Arctic had been predicted to see ice-free summers by 2070, but many scientists are now predicting it could happen within the next 20 years, according to the newspaper.
Over 2T tons of ice melted in arctic since '03
Yahoo News 16 Dec 08;
WASHINGTON – More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.
More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating.
NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren't complete yet, but this year's ice loss, while still significant, won't be as severe as 2007.
The news was better for Alaska. After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.
In assessing climate change, scientists generally look at several years to determine the overall trend.
Melting of land ice, unlike sea ice, increases sea levels very slightly. In the 1990s, Greenland didn't add to world sea level rise; now that island is adding about half a millimeter of sea level rise a year, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said in a telephone interview from the conference.
Between Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska, melting land ice has raised global sea levels about one-fifth of an inch in the past five years, Luthcke said. Sea levels also rise from water expanding as it warms.
Other research, being presented this week at the geophysical meeting point to more melting concerns from global warming, especially with sea ice.
"It's not getting better; it's continuing to show strong signs of warming and amplification," Zwally said. "There's no reversal taking place."
Scientists studying sea ice will announce that parts of the Arctic north of Alaska were 9 to 10 degrees warmer this past fall, a strong early indication of what researchers call the Arctic amplification effect. That's when the Arctic warms faster than predicted, and warming there is accelerating faster than elsewhere on the globe.
As sea ice melts, the Arctic waters absorb more heat in the summer, having lost the reflective powers of vast packs of white ice. That absorbed heat is released into the air in the fall. That has led to autumn temperatures in the last several years that are six to 10 degrees warmer than they were in the 1980s, said research scientist Julienne Stroeve at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.
That's a strong and early impact of global warming, she said.
"The pace of change is starting to outstrip our ability to keep up with it, in terms of our understanding of it," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the Arctic amplification study.
Two other studies coming out at the conference assess how Arctic thawing is releasing methane — the second most potent greenhouse gas. One study shows that the loss of sea ice warms the water, which warms the permafrost on nearby land in Alaska, thus producing methane, Stroeve says.
A second study suggests even larger amounts of frozen methane are trapped in lakebeds and sea bottoms around Siberia and they are starting to bubble to the surface in some spots in alarming amounts, said Igor Semiletov, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. In late summer, Semiletov found methane bubbling up from parts of the East Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea at levels that were 10 times higher than they were in the mid-1990s, he said based on a study this summer.
The amounts of methane in the region could dramatically increase global warming if they get released, he said.
That, Semiletov said, "should alarm people."
Arctic Ice Volume Lowest Ever as Globe Warms: UN
Robert Evans, PlanetArk 17 Dec 08;
GENEVA - Ice volume around the Arctic region hit the lowest level ever recorded this year as climate extremes brought death and devastation to many parts of the world, the U.N. weather agency WMO said on Tuesday.
Although the world's average temperature in 2008 was, at 14.3 degrees Celsius (57.7 degrees Fahrenheit), by a fraction of a degree the coolest so far this century, the direction toward a warmer climate remained steady, it reported.
"What is happening in the Arctic is one of the key indicators of global warming," Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said. "The overall trend is still upwards."
A report presented by Jarraud at a news conference showed Arctic ice cover dropping to its second lowest extent during this year's melt season since satellite measuring began in 1979.
However, the Geneva-based agency said, "because ice was thinner in 2008, overall ice volume was less than in any other year." It added: "The season strongly reinforced the 30-year downward trend in the extent of Arctic Sea ice."
The dramatic collapse of a quarter of ancient ice shelves on Canada's Ellesmere Island in the north of the Arctic Ocean added to earlier meltdowns, reducing cover in the region from 9,000 square km (3,500 sq miles) a century ago to just 1,000 sq kms.
The WMO said the slight slowdown in warming this year, an increase of 0.31C over the 14C of the base period 1961-90, against an average 0.43C for 2001-2007, was due to a moderate-to-strong La Nina in the Pacific in late 2007.
"This decade is almost 0.2 degrees (Celsius) warmer compared to the previous decade. We have to look at it in that way, comparing decades not years," Peter Stott, a climate scientist at Britain's Hadley Center, which provided data for the WMO report, told Reuters in London.
LA NINA, EL NINO
La Nina is a periodic weather pattern that develops when Pacific sea water cools. It alternates irregularly with the related El Nino -- when the Pacific warms up -- and both affect the climate all round the world.
The WMO report was based on statistics and analyses compiled by weather services among its 188 member countries and specialist research institutions, including government-backed bodies in the United States and Britain.
"Climate extremes, including devastating floods, severe and persistent droughts, snow storms, heat waves and cold waves were recorded in many parts of the world," the agency said. In many of these, hundreds or even thousands of people died.
Among the disasters was Cyclone Nargis, which killed some 78,000 in Myanmar's southern delta region in early May. In the western Atlantic and Caribbean there were 16 major tropical storms, eight of which developed into hurricanes.
In an average year, there are 11 storms of which six become hurricanes and two become major hurricanes. In 2008, five major hurricanes developed, and for the first time on record six tropical storms in a row made landfall in the United States.
The WMO says the 10 hottest years since global records were first kept in 1850 have all been since 1997, with the warmest at 14.79 C in 2005. Countries have been struggling for years to reach agreement on how to halt the trend.
This month a two-week meeting of leaders in Poznan, Poland, called to prepare a treaty for late 2009 seemed to falter amid rows between rich and poor nations and what some climate campaigners say was lack of will to get things done.
-- Additional reporting by Gerard Wynn and Michael Szabo in London
(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Michael Roddy)
Has the Arctic melt passed the point of no return?
Steve Connor, The Independent 16 Dec 08;
Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before it was predicted to happen.
Climate-change researchers have found that air temperatures in the region are higher than would be normally expected during the autumn because the increased melting of the summer Arctic sea ice is accumulating heat in the ocean. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, was not expected to be seen for at least another 10 or 15 years and the findings will further raise concerns that the Arctic has already passed the climatic tipping-point towards ice-free summers, beyond which it may not recover.
The Arctic is considered one of the most sensitive regions in terms of climate change and its transition to another climatic state will have a direct impact on other parts of the northern hemisphere, as well more indirect effects around the world.
Although researchers have documented a catastrophic loss of sea ice during the summer months over the past 20 years, they have not until now detected the definitive temperature signal that they could link with greenhouse-gas emissions.
However, in a study to be presented later today to the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, scientists will show that Arctic amplification has been under way for the past five years, and it will continue to intensify Arctic warming for the foreseeable future.
Computer models of the global climate have for years suggested the Arctic will warm at a faster rate than the rest of the world due to Arctic amplification but many scientists believed this effect would only become measurable in the coming decades.
However, a study by scientists from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Colorado has found that amplification is already showing up as a marked increase in surface air temperatures within the Arctic region during the autumn period, when the sea ice begins to reform after the summer melting period.
Julienne Stroeve, of the NSIDC, who led the study with her colleague Mark Serreze, said that autumn air temperatures this year and in recent years have been anomalously high. The Arctic Ocean warmed more than usual because heat from the sun was absorbed more easily by the dark areas of open water compared to the highly reflective surface of a frozen sea. "Autumn 2008 saw very strong surface temperature anomalies over the areas where the sea ice was lost," Dr Stroeve told The Independent ahead of her presentation today.
"The observed autumn warming that we've seen over the Arctic Ocean, not just this year but over the past five years or so, represents Arctic amplification, the notion that rises in surface air temperatures in response to increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations will be larger in the Arctic than elsewhere over the globe," she said. "The warming climate is leading to more open water in the Arctic Ocean. As these open water areas develop through spring and summer, they absorb most of the sun's energy, leading to ocean warming.
"In autumn, as the sun sets in the Arctic, most of the heat that was gained in the ocean during summer is released back to the atmosphere, acting to warm the atmosphere. It is this heat-release back to the atmosphere that gives us Arctic amplification."
Temperature readings for this October were significantly higher than normal across the entire Arctic region – between 3C and 5C above average – but some areas were dramatically higher. In the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, for instance, near-surface air temperatures were more than 7C higher than normal for this time of year. The scientists believe the only reasonable explanation for such high autumn readings is that the ocean heat accumulated during the summer because of the loss of sea ice is being released back into the atmosphere from the sea before winter sea ice has chance to reform.
"One of the reasons we focus on Arctic amplification is that it is a good test of greenhouse warming theory. Even our earliest climate models were telling us that we should see this Arctic amplification emerge as we lose the summer ice cover," Dr Stroeve said. "This is exactly what we are not starting to see in the observations. Simply put, it's a case of we hate to say we told you so, but we did," she added.
Computer models have also predicted totally ice-free summers in the Arctic by 2070, but many scientists now believe that the first ice-free summer could occur far earlier than this, perhaps within the next 20 years.
The Telegraph 16 Dec 08;
The last decade has been the warmest on record because of man-made climate change, according to scientists.
Global warming has pushed the world's temperature up by more than 1.26F (0.7C), said the Met Office, as they unveiled figures that show the dramatic effect human influence has had on the Earth's climate.
They predict that this year will be the tenth warmest worldwide since records began in 1850, with a global mean temperature of 58F (14.3C).
This would have been "exceptionally unusual" just a few years ago, but is now "quite normal," say climate scientists.
Dr Peter Stott from the Met Office said: "Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years.
"Comparing observations with the expected response to man-made and natural drivers of climate change it is shown that global temperature is now over 0.7 degrees C warmer than if humans were not altering the climate."
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change have said that a global temperature increase of 1.8F (1C) may be beneficial for some regions, but warned that any more could result in extensive coral bleaching.
They suggest increasing damage if global warming warms between 1.8F (1C) and 5.4F (3C), with rising sea levels and risks of large scale irreversible system disruption.
Today's figures show that in the last eight years alone, the global temperature has risen by 0.36F (0.2C), compared to the average for the previous decade.
They confirm the past decade was the warmest ever recorded. In addition the ten warmest years on record have all occurred in the eleven years since 1997. The warmest, in 2005 was an average of 59F (14.8C).
This year's average global temperature of 58F (14.3C) was 0.56F (0.31C) above the 1961-90 average.
Dr Stott said: "As a result of climate change, what would once have been an exceptionally unusual year has now become quite normal. Without human influence on climate change we would be more than 50 times less likely of seeing a year as warm as 2008."
Dr Myles Allen from the Climate Dynamics group at Oxford University added: "Globally this year would have been considered warm, even as recently as the 1970s or 1980s, but a scorcher for our Victorian ancestors."
The figures are calculated for the World Meteorological Organization by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia.
They use data from more than 3,000 land-based weather stations across the world. They also take into account sea surface temperatures from merchant and naval ships.
This year's warming was more pronounced in the northern hemisphere, which scientists believe is warming faster than the south because a greater proportion of it is land, which reacts faster to conditions in the atmosphere than the sea.
In the north the mean temperature was 0.91F (0.51C) above average and in the south, it was 0.2F (0.11C) above average.
Even though 2008 was hot by comparison to previous decades, climate scientists say this temperatures were down lower than would be expected because of La Nina, a weather phenomenon that typically coincides with cooler global temperatures.
Professor Phil Jones at the UEA's Climate Research Unit said: "The most important component of year-to-year variability in global average temperatures is the phase and amplitude of equatorial sea surface temperatures in the Pacific that lead to La Nina and El Nino events." Ends
Yahoo News 16 Dec 08;
GENEVA (AFP) – The past 12 months have been cooler than previous years but longer-term trends show the world is still warming due to climate change, the World Meteorological Organisation said Tuesday.
"The global temperature is likely to rank around the 10th warmest year" on record, WMO Director General Michel Jarraud told a press briefing.
"The trend for warming is still very much there," he said, noting that all the years that have been warmer than 2008 have been during the last 12 years.
The slight dip in 2008 was explained by the moderate-to-strong La Nina that developed in the latter half of 2007, he said.
The effects of El Nino and La Nina -- respectively the warming and related cooling of Pacific sea surface temperatures -- are felt in many parts of the globe. They have been blamed for a lengthy drought in Australia, flooding in the Horn of Africa and Bolivia, and more severe winter monsoons in South Asia in 2006-2007.
Jarraud said both phenomena should be "neutral" in 2009 and should not have a discernible impact on climate.
But he voiced concern that ice in the Arctic Sea dropped to its second-lowest level during the melt season since satellite measurements began in 1979. He noted that 2008 saw many devastating floods, droughts, heatwaves and storms, most notably Cyclone Nargis which devastated Myanmar in May.
He added that it was too early to give any forecasts for 2009 but cited the most recent report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which predicted a 0.2 percent rise in temperature over the next decade.
Earlier this year the WMO said that the ozone hole over Antarctica and the South Pacific was larger in 2008 than the previous year but is not expected to reach the size seen two years ago.
This year is coolest since 2000
Richard Black, BBC News 16 Dec 08;
The world in 2008 has been cooler than at any time since the turn of the century, scientists say.
Cooling La Nina conditions in the Pacific brought temperatures down to levels last seen in the year 2000.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) notes that temperatures remained about 0.3C above the 1961-1990 average.
Computer models suggest that natural cycles may cool the Earth's surface in the next few years, masking the warming impact of rising greenhouse gas levels.
One recent analysis suggested there may be no warming for about the next decade, though other scientists dispute the conclusion.
What is beyond dispute is that 2008 saw temperatures a shade below preceding years.
Using data from two major monitoring networks, one co-ordinated by the UK's Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia (UEA) and the other by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the WMO reports that despite the cooling, 2008 still ranks among the 10 warmest years on record.
At 14.3C, the average temperature for the year was significantly above the 14.0C average for the 1961-1990 period, a commonly used baseline.
Temperatures are about 0.7C above pre-industrial times.
Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the UK Met Office of which the Hadley Centre is a part, suggested that in previous decades 2008 would have stood out as unusually warm.
"Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years," he said.
Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss), which produces its own record of atmospheric temperature, agreed that 2008 was the coolest year since the turn of the century.
But Giss still ranks it as the ninth warmest since 1880.
The warmest of all remains 1998, when exceptionally strong El Nino conditions added to rising greenhouse gas levels sent thermometers to an average of about 14.5C.
"The most important component of year-to-year variability in global average temperatures is the phase and amplitude of equatorial sea surface temperatures in the Pacific that lead to La Nina and El Nino events," observed UEA's Dr Phil Jones.
Millennial warmth
John Christy, a scientist noted for taking a cautious approach to the likely impacts of human-induced climate change, agreed that the Earth's atmosphere had warmed by about 0.4C over 30 years.
His own research team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) measures atmospheric temperatures from weather balloons.
Professor Christy suggested that the trend in the immediate future would be decided by whether conditions in the Pacific veer towards El Nino or La Nina.
"If you look at the 30-year graph of month-to-month temperature anomalies, the most obvious feature is the series of warmer than normal months that followed the major El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event of 1997-1998," he said.
"Right now we are coming out of one La Nina Pacific Ocean cooling event, and we might be heading into another.
"It should be interesting over the next several years to see whether the post La Nina climate 're-sets' to the cooler seasonal norms we saw before 1997, or the warmer levels seen since then."
The effect of El Nino and La Nina conditions are one reason why scientists prefer to average temperatures over 10-year periods, which smoothes out the annual variations and gives a better picture of long-term trends.
On average, the decade from 1990 to 1999 was 0.23C above the 1961-1990 baseline, while in the period 2000-2008 it was 0.40C over, indicating a warming trend.
It is almost certain that the first decade of this century will turn out to have been significantly warmer than the last decade of the last century, notwithstanding the freak El Nino year of 1998.
The question for the next decade or so will be whether natural cycles such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation continue to moderate the warming effect of rising greenhouse gas concentrations.
Business Times 17 Dec 08;
(NEW YORK) From the plains of North Dakota to the deep waters of Brazil, dozens of major oil and gas projects have been suspended or cancelled in recent weeks as companies scramble to adjust to the collapse in energy markets.
In the short run, falling oil prices are leading to welcome relief at the pump for American families ahead of the holidays, with petrol down from its summer record to an average of US$1.66 a gallon, and still falling.
But the project delays are likely to reduce future energy supplies - and analysts believe they may set the stage for another surge in oil prices once the global economy recovers.
Oil markets have had their sharpest-ever spikes and their steepest drops this year, all within a few months. Now, with a global recession at hand and oil consumption falling, the market's extreme volatility is making it harder for energy executives to plan ahead. As a result, exploration spending, which had risen to a record this year, is being slashed.
The precipitous drop in oil prices since the summer, coming on the heels of a dizzying seven-year rise, was a reminder that the oil business, like those of most commodities, is cyclical. 'It's a classic - if extraordinarily dramatic - cycle,' said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of The Prize, a history of the oil business. 'Prices have come down so far and so fast, it's become a shock to the supply system.'
The list of projects delayed is growing by the week. Wells are being shut down across the United States; new refineries have been postponed in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and India; and ambitious plans for drilling off the coast of Africa are being reconsidered.
Investment in alternative energy sources such as biofuels that had flourished in recent years could dry up if prices stay low for the next few years, analysts said. Banks have become reluctant lenders, especially to renewable energy projects that may prove unprofitable in an era of low oil and gas prices.
These delays could curb future global fuel supplies by the equivalent of four million barrels a day within the next five years, according to Peter Jackson, an energy analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. That is equal to 5 per cent of current oil supplies.
One reason projects are being shut down so fast is that costs throughout the industry, which had surged in recent years, are still elevated despite the drop in oil prices. Many companies are waiting for those costs to come down before deciding whether to go forward with new projects.
Different companies have different price thresholds for going forward with drilling projects. But across the industry, a price drop this big has 'a dampening effect', according to Marvin Odum, the vice-president for exploration and production for Royal Dutch Shell in the Americas. 'The big uncertainty is how long this economic environment is going to last.'
In today's uncertain environment, a slowdown in spending is inevitable, according to energy executives. Last year, spending on exploration and production amounted to US$329 billion, according to PFC Energy, a consulting firm. That figure is certain to fall.
'We're in remission right now,' said Mr Odum. But once the economy picks up, he said, 'the energy challenge will come back with a vengeance.' - NYT
The economic downturn may not mean a decline in greenhouse gas emissions, writes Adam Vaughan
Adam Vaughan, guardian.co.uk 16 Dec 08;
Environmentalists who hope a slowing global economy will mean big falls in greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be disappointed.
Because despite a gloomy economic forecast for 2009, the annual growth in emissions of 3% is only likely to slow modestly, and may even rise over the long term because of the downturn's impact on global climate talks and the funding of renewable energy projects.
Figures from the UK's Committee for Climate Change suggest even a 1.6% fall in UK GDP - a serious dip - would result in a saving of just 200,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2009. That is a tiny fraction of the UK's projected total of 533m tonnes.
Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, explains: "There's a strong lockstep between GDP and emissions ... You wouldn't get more than a 1% change in emissions unless you had something really dramatic happening, like closing a whole industry down."
Developed countries anticipate the largest falls in emmissions, according to analysts. Deutsche Bank this month predicted 2009 emissions covered by the European carbon trading scheme would drop 10% compared with 2007 levels. US emissions arealso expected to slow next year.
But falls in the developed world are expected to be short-lived. Deutsche Bank's report notes European emissions are likely to rise again in 2010. And Bert Metz, a fellow at the European Climate Foundation and former IPCC co-chair has said: "The recession is not of much significance to the climate problem or how we need to deal with it: it's a small blip." .
Healthy developing world economies are also likely to offset any shrinking from developed economies, according to Abyd Karmali, Merrill Lynch's global head of carbon emissions: "I don't think we'll see a reduction in emissions ... We talk about global recession but the truth is economies in places like China and India are still growing."
Most economists and scientists do agree however that fast-changing economic data makes short-term emissions hard to predict. "The economists don't know what's going on, so why would people looking at emissions know?" says Metz.
Predictions are complicated by unexpected increases in emissions. "Because of the recession, perversely, fuel prices have gone down a lot and that might cancel out some of the savings expected in that sector," says Simms.
Alessandro Vitelli, director of IDEAcarbon, has also suggested similar unplanned rises may occur in the developing world. Newly jobless workers in Brazil, for example, may turn to subsistence farming, increasing the slashing and burning of rainforest.
The economic impact on renewable energy projects could also cancel some anticipated CO2 savings in the next five years. The low price of carbon on trading markets and the low price of coal may combine with a lack of credit and debt-averse developers to halt new wind farms and other green-energy developments.
"What you'll find now is that projects already near completion will probably still come onstream as planned, but those in the planning process are not going to get off the ground for the next two years," says Deutsche Bank's Mark Lewis.
Some hope however may still lie in government policy, which may insulate some cleantech projects from the worst ravages of a global downturn according to Samuel Fankhauser, an author for the Climate Change Committee report.
And poor economic growth may mean less adherence to carbon-cutting rules. One of the downturn's biggest long-term effects on emissions may be its influence on internationally-agreed carbon cuts. The poor economic outlook won some European countries concessions on emissions cuts at the EU summit last week, and others may seek the same at ongoing UN talks working to deliver an international deal.
And while those who support a UN-backed green new deal suggest economic and emissions problems could be solved by a silver bullet - a green energy revolution - such a deal is considered politically unlikely by Simms, Vitelli and others.
In short, as the UN's head of the climate secretariat Yvo de Boer said recently: "It would be a pretty depressing way to make progress - to find that recession was helping the world kick an addiction to burning fossil fuels."
Returning used bottles in exchange for a 10p payment could increase recycling and reduce litter, according to a Government study.
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 16 Dec 08;
Bottle deposits used to be common in the UK 20 years ago but were phased out when plastic bottles and cans became cheap to make and discard.
However, as the UK runs out of landfill it could come back into fashion.
A feasibility study by the Government found that returning drinks containers in exchange for 10p would increase recycling and reduce litter.
But the system would make drinks more expensive for people unable to return to the shop to claim back their deposit. It would also require massive investment in infrastructure and could take funds away from kerbside recycling.
The report by consultants Environmental Resources Management Limited concluded that if the system is introduced it will have to be designed carefully in order to stop drinks manufacturers from designing containers that will be cheaper because they do not have to be part of a scheme.
The Government, which has favoured the idea in the past, is now looking at the report.
Ben Stafford, Head of Campaigns at CPRE, said the study showed the scheme could go ahead.
"The research commissioned for Defra shows that a deposit scheme could have real advantages, and we don't even need to look outside the UK for proof. In Scotland, Irn Bru is still available in refundable glass bottles, and an impressive 70 per cent of these are returned. Each glass bottle returned is cleaned, refilled and sold around five times during its full life."
Mr Stafford said the system could also ease the current situation where councils are unable to sell cans and plastic botttles on for recycling because of the economic downturn. Especially during the festive season people use an extra 750 million glass containers and 500 million cans.
He added: "A deposit of 10 pence a bottle could see UK householders recovering £125 million at Christmas time alone. With the UK only recycling 35 per cent of the 13 billion plastic bottles we use each year, we feel sure a deposit scheme will have a real impact, help to keep the streets cleaner and reduce the annual £500m litter clean-up bill that we all have to pay."
Bill Bryson, the US travel writer and president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), is in favour of the scheme.
He pointed to a recent poll that showed the majority of peopler are in favour of adding 5p to the price of a drink and then receiving it back when the container is returned for recycling. Four in five of the 1,000 people surveyed said they would support a scheme whereby 10 pence was included.
"This public poll proves that such a scheme would have huge support, so we say that now is the time for the Government to take action," he said.
Yahoo News 16 Dec 08;
MANILA (AFP) – Electronics manufacturers are finally taking climate change seriously but have been slow on the uptake, environmentalists said Tuesday.
Companies have been going green by reducing power consumption and the toxic substances in their products but have been "slow to get serious about climate change", Greenpeace campaigner Beau Baconguis said.
Her comments followed the launch of the group's Guide to Greener Electronics, now in its 10th edition.
"While there have been some improvements on toxic and e-waste issues only a small number of companies are really leading on the response to energy and climate change issues," she said
According to the guide mobile phone manufacturer Nokia leads the pack by sourcing 25 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources and has committed to raising the figure to 50 percent by 2010.
Other companies that have committed to renewable energy use include Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC), software giant Microsoft, Toshiba, Motorola and Philips.
Greenpeace assessed the 18 biggest consumer electronics firms in the Philippines and gave half five out of a possible 10 points.
However, only three of the nine companies with five points or better -- FSC, Philips and Sharp -- support the level of cuts in greenhouse gases needed to stave off man-made climate change.
Philips and Hewlett-Packard "got top marks for committing to making absolute reductions in their own greenhouse gas emissions from the product manufacture and supply chain", Baconguis said.
She noted that some firms that gained points for being energy-conscious "are still shirking their responsibilities on toxics".
Those who scored well on the toxic chemical criteria set by Greenpeace for its guide and have products that are free of the worst substances include Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, FSC and Sharp.
Baconguis said Sony Ericsson "outranks Toshiba and Samsung" now that it has "prioritised its commitment to elimination of toxic chemicals in its manufacturing process".
Overall, Motorola, Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Samsung, Nintendo and LG Electronics were still underperforming on climate change.
Baconguis noted that these firms have "no plans to cut absolute emissions from their own operations and (provide) no support for the targets and timelines needed to avoid catastrophic climate change".
She added that gaming console manufacturers like Nintendo and Microsoft had not improved their environmental practices and thus remained at the bottom of the pile.
Yahoo News 17 Dec 08;
PARIS (AFP) – Hurricanes and earthquakes win more headlines but heatwaves claim most lives, according to a survey of mortality from natural threats in the United States, published on Wednesday.
The "death map" says hazard mortality is highest in the US South, where a variety of threats are to blame, followed by the northern Great Plains, where heat and drought are the greatest natural risks, then the Rocky Mountains, where the killers are chiefly winter weather and flooding.
The safest place, in terms of protection against the forces of nature, are parts of the Midwest or cities in the Northeast.
The study is published by an open-access British review, the International Journal of Health Geographics.
Reseachers Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina used geographical and epidemiological data to build a picture of mortality at county level from 11 causes.
Heat and drought accounted for 19.6 percent of total deaths.
This was followed by severe summer weather, where hail, lightning and thunderstorms, accounted for 18.8 percent of deaths; and by severe winter weather, where snow and ice were to blame for 18.1 percent of fatalities.
Earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes were responsible for less than five percent of all deaths from natural hazards combined.
"Over time, highly destructive, highly publicised, often catastrophic singular events such as hurricanes and earthquakes are responsible for relatively few deaths when compare to the more frequent, less catastrophic events," the paper notes.
As for sub-regions, "significant clusters" of high mortality occurred in the lower Mississippi Valley, upper Great Plains and Mountain West, with additional areas in west Texas and the Florida panhandle.
Conversely, big clusters of low mortality are in the Midwest and urbanised Northeast.
The authors say their work seeks to guide emergency planners over how to allocate resources to areas and people most at risk.
The data derives from a database of 3,070 county-sized areas from 1970-2004, from which Hawaii and Alaska was excluded. The period under study did not include 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, which claimed more than 1,500 lives.
"Death map" shows heat a big hazard to Americans
Maggie Fox, Yahoo News 17 Dec 08;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Heat is more likely to kill an American than an earthquake, and thunderstorms kill more than hurricanes do, according to a "death map" published on Tuesday.
Researchers who compiled the county-by-county look at what natural disasters kill Americans said they hope their study will help emergency preparedness officials plan better.
Heat and drought caused 19.6 percent of total deaths from natural hazards, with summer thunderstorms causing 18.8 percent and winter weather causing 18.1 percent, the team at the University of South Carolina found.
Earthquakes, wildfires and hurricanes combined were responsible for fewer than 5 percent of all hazard deaths.
Writing in BioMed Central's International Journal of Health Geographics, they said they hoped to dispel some myths about what the biggest threats to life and limb are.
"According to our results, the answer is heat," Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden of the University of South Carolina wrote in their report, which gathered data from 1970 to 2004.
"I think what most people would think, if you say what is the major cause of death and destruction, they would say hurricanes and earthquakes and flooding," Cutter said in a telephone interview. "They wouldn't say heat."
"What is noteworthy here is that over time, highly destructive, highly publicized, often-catastrophic singular events such as hurricanes and earthquakes are responsible for relatively few deaths when compared to the more frequent, less catastrophic such as heat waves and severe weather," they wrote.
The most dangerous places to live are much of the South, because of the heat risk, the hurricane coasts and the Great Plains states with their severe weather, Cutter said.
The south central United States is also a dangerous area, with floods and tornadoes.
California is relatively safe, they found.
"It illustrates the impact of better building codes in seismically prone areas because the fatalities in earthquakes have gone down from 1900 because things don't collapse on people any more," Cutter said.
"It shows that simple improvements in building codes in high-wind environments like hurricane coasts, and the effectiveness of evacuation in advance of hurricanes, has reduced the mortality from hurricanes and tropical storms," she added.
"So there are some things we are pretty good at in getting people out of harm's way and reducing fatalities."
Cutter said there is no national database on such deaths and this was a first try at getting one together.
(Editing by Will Dunham)
Madeleine Coorey Yahoo News 16 Dec 08;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Angry protests erupted in Australia on Tuesday as environmentalists accused the government of "surrendering" by pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions by only five percent by 2020.
As senior scientists called for deeper cuts, hundreds of people attended a wave of rallies around the country to urge stronger action on climate change or risk the loss of natural treasures such as the Great Barrier Reef.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was elected a year ago on a platform which included acting on climate change as a priority, committed the country Monday to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by five percent of 2000 levels by 2020.
Green groups immediately attacked the plan, which would allow for cuts of up to 15 percent if an international agreement was reached on combating climate change, as a "global embarrassment."
Rudd defended the cuts as "a responsible course of action" necessary for the economy and for dealing with the environmental challenge of climate change.
"The Australian government, given the global financial crisis, makes no apologies whatsoever for introducing responsible medium term targets to bring down our greenhouse gas emissions, capable of being built on in the future more ambitiously," he told reporters in remote Western Australia.
But Greens leader Bob Brown said voters were angry with the policy and his party would attempt to amend the scheme in the Senate to increase the targets to cuts of between 25 and 40 percent from 1990 levels.
"I think it's an appalling and disgusting failure by the Rudd government in their duty to this nation's future," Senator Brown told reporters.
At Rudd's Brisbane office, protesters raised a white flag scorning what they saw as his surrender on an issue which Queensland Greens parliamentarian Ronan Lee said would ruin the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu wetlands.
"Mr Rudd is completely surrendering on climate change, he is admitting that he has no plan to genuinely deliver on climate change," Lee said.
Outside Parliament House in the national capital Canberra, about 100 people gathered to reject Rudd's cuts while in Sydney more than 100 demonstrators rallied outside government offices.
"Today's protest is to tell Kevin Rudd that the Australian people didn't vote for five percent," New South Wales Greens lawmaker John Kaye said.
"What they wanted was action on climate change, what they wanted was targets that put Australia as world leaders on climate change and not as losers."
About 70 protesters gathered in Melbourne to vow to fight for higher cuts while in the southern island of Tasmania 15 activists stormed a pulp mill where some chained themselves to equipment to halt production.
In Adelaide, protesters tossed shoes at a Rudd lookalike to display their disgust, copying an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush at a news conference in Baghdad.
The government's independent advisor on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut, has already warned that cuts of 10-25 percent should be introduced and Australia's top climate scientists Tuesday said the cuts did not go far enough.
"I personally would have preferred somewhat bigger cuts," Monash University's Neville Nicholls, who worked on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Andy Pittman, co-director of the climate change research centre at the University of New South Wales and also an IPCC author, said the cuts were a good start but Australia had missed an opportunity to show leadership.
"It needs to be much deeper than that if we want to avoid dangerous, anthropogenic climate change," he said.
Fionnuala Walravens, BBC Green Room 16 Dec 08;
Former UN chief Kofi Annan described the 1989 Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer as "probably the most successful environmental agreement to date". But in this week's Green Room, Fionnuala Walravens considers how the complex interactions of ozone depletion and climate change in the atmosphere are mirrored in the global political debate.
The Montreal Protocol, the international agreement designed to protect the ozone layer, has reached a major crossroads.
Last year's 20th anniversary meeting of the global framework to protect the ozone layer agreed to significantly accelerate the phasing-out of ozone-depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs).
This was applauded worldwide as an historic achievement that could also save billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, because HCFCs are many thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide.
However their likely replacements, the ozone-benign hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), are also potent global warming gases, often more destructive than the HCFCs they are replacing.
Despite this, HFCs are widely marketed by the refrigeration industry as environmentally friendly.
They have also been readily accepted as replacements to ozone depleting gases in many industrialised countries.
As a result, scientists have found atmospheric concentrations of HFCs are increasing at such a rate that by 2015 their emissions will be over 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalence (CO2-eq).
This appears to place the Montreal Protocol directly at odds with the goals of the Kyoto Protocol, which controls emissions of global warming gases including HFCs.
Montreal vs Kyoto
To the bystander, these treaties are heading ominously down very different roads.
As the Montreal Protocol speeds up the phase-out of HCFCs in developing countries, it is clear that serious intervention is needed to ensure that they do not end up in an HFC cul-de-sac.
If action isn't taken, last year's milestone agreement could actually result in increased global green house gas emissions - and certainly we will not see anything like the 12-15 billion tonnes of CO2-eq savings being widely quoted by the United Nations.
So far, the Kyoto Protocol has yet to wake up to the fact that HFC emissions are likely to continue rising considerably in the foreseeable future.
Climate meetings are dominated by the larger debates over deforestation and emissions trading, while the deliberate production of potent greenhouse gases, such as HFCs for refrigeration and air-conditioning, tend to slip under the radar.
The good news is that there are sustainable, climate-friendly, alternatives to HFCs: so-called natural refrigerants like carbon dioxide (ironically), ammonia and hydrocarbons.
Unlike HFCs, they are not man-made and importantly they do not have global warming potentials thousands of times greater than CO2.
Additionally, equipment using these gases is often more energy efficient than those using HFCs, thus delivering a double climate benefit.
Companies producing these natural refrigerants tend to be far smaller than the big chemical giants that produce HFCs and it has been a challenge selling these natural refrigerants to a market resilient to change.
However, the tide may be beginning to turn. Some large multinational corporations are turning their backs on HFCs in favour of natural alternatives.
For example, Unilever has fitted more than 200,000 hydrocarbon chiller units in Europe, Asia and South America, while the Coca Cola Company recently confirmed plans to install 100,000 CO2 bottle coolers by 2010.
It's often the accepted viewpoint that businesses try to discourage governments from adopting more stringent environmental regulations, but the actions of this group of companies clearly demonstrate that big business is sometimes ahead of government policies.
Of course, these businesses are keen to improve their public image, and right now mitigating climate change is probably the most pressing environmental issue in the minds of their consumers.
But the reality is they have cottoned on to the fact that moving away from HFCs is a relatively cheap and simple way of reducing their carbon footprint.
Pulling together
Phasing out HFCs doesn't involve changing lifestyles, it's just a case of changing the refrigerant used and ensuring that technicians dealing with them are trained to do so.
Furthermore, many companies have reported increased energy efficiency of natural refrigerant-based equipment, making the switch more financially attractive.
Despite the HFC problem, it must be acknowledged that the Montreal Protocol has so far proved enormously successful in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, whether intentionally designed to or not.
Ozone-depleting substances, in particular CFCs, are potent greenhouse gases. Over the past 20 years the Protocol has phased out over 95% of their production, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an estimate 135 billion tonnes CO2-eq between 1990 and 2010, and arguably delaying global warming by up to 12 years, according to scientists.
When compared to the Kyoto Protocol's estimated 10 billion tonnes CO2-eq savings between 2008 to 2012, it's clear to see why many have lauded the Montreal Protocol as the "most effective climate treaty to date".
What makes the Montreal Protocol a successful global agreement is that it offers financial assistance towards replacement equipment and chemicals, ensuring that measures can be taken in developing countries.
What it needs to do now is ensure that the HCFC phase-out in developing countries results in the uptake of natural and climate-friendly alternatives, not HFCs.
Consumers can also play a role here by showing business and governments that we don't need HFCs.
As you walk down the cold and frozen aisles of your local supermarket (which by the way account for over half the UK's HFC emissions from refrigeration and air-conditioning), think about asking your supermarket retailer if their refrigeration is HFC-free.
But we also need leadership from the top. The common goal of both the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols is, surely, protection of the planet.
In which case, it is imperative the two start talking about a global phase-out of HFCs and stop pulling in opposite directions.
Fionnuala Walravens is part of the Environmental Investigation Agency's (EIA) global environment campaign team
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
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