Best of our wild blogs: 24 Dec 10

Punggol shore surprises
from wonderful creation and Singapore Nature

Strange sea slug on Sentosa
from wild shores of singapore

Some urban wildlife
from Urban Forest

Sunbird Nest building?
from Urchin's World

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Acres responds to 'Study on facility to breed large animals for tests'

Room for greater transparency
Straits Times Forum 24 Dec 10;

I REFER to Monday's article ('Study on facility to breed large animals for tests'). The Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) understands the importance of biomedical research, but we hope that the relevant authorities place a stronger emphasis on the welfare of the animals and show greater transparency.

We are encouraged by the comments from the National University of Singapore which stated that 'computer models, cell cultures and research methods that minimise the use of animals are also widely adopted at the university'.

This is indeed in line with the National Advisory Committee on Laboratory Animal Research (Naclar) Guidelines which are based on the principles of the 3Rs - replacement, reduction and refinement.

# Replacement of animals with alternative methods;

# Reduction of the number of animals used; and

# Refinement of projects and techniques used to minimise impact on animals.

We urge other research institution to place more emphasis on these principles, and also the Government to invest in finding more alternatives to animal testing.

According to the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research, Britain's leading medical research charity, alternatives to animal experimentation are now available in virtually every field of medical research.

There is also a need for greater transparency in the industry.

It is mentioned in the article that the 'Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) would not reveal the number of large animals used in research here'. These figures, and other details about the use of animals for biomedical research, should be made available to the public.

As stated by Mr Goh Shih Yong ('Face of AVA on call day and night'; Dec 8), the retired deputy director of corporate communications for AVA, 'it's AVA's culture to be open, we have nothing to hide... It's important for the public to know the truth, and to know what we are doing so that they can then make their decisions based on accurate information... And when you share, you shouldn't hold back, because the vacuums will be replaced by speculation'.

There must also be representatives from animal welfare organisations in Naclar; something which is currently lacking.

Acres hopes for breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases but we also hope that more focus will be placed on finding alternatives to animal testing and, in the meantime, testing is done humanely, with consideration for the welfare of our fellow sentient beings who are experimented on.

Louis Ng
Executive Director
Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres)

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Rules Needed to Protect Endangered Species, National University of Singapore Researchers Say

Charles Q. Choi LiveScience.com Yahoo News 23 Dec 10;

A critical shield for endangered species around the world - an international agreement that keeps tabs on the sales of animals and plants - needs vital reforms if countries actually want to protect wildlife as they want, a group of researchers says.

The worldwide and often illegal trade in wildlife can endanger species, pass infectious diseases across borders and spread destructive, invasive organisms to ecosystems that can't handle them. With 175 member countries, the most important global initiative to monitor and control such traffic is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, known as CITES, which regulates the trade of nearly 34,000 species.

However, serious weaknesses in this initiative have emerged over the years. Urgent changes are needed quickly if world leaders want to preserve Earth's biodiversity into the future, the researchers say.

Trouble in the tropics

For instance, many CITES members fail to monitor and report illegal wildlife trade. Brazil, a key source of illegal animals, does not have a functioning central program to report wildlife confiscations, while the United States, a leading importer of wildlife, lacks a coordinated national authority for monitoring such imports.

In addition, most CITES-listed species occur in the tropics, where governance is often weak and corruption high, the researchers said.

"There is a very well-known ecological trend called the 'latitudinal species gradient,' which basically consists of the inescapable fact that there are many, many more species in tropical areas of the planet," said evolutionary ecologist David Bickford at the National University of Singapore. "If you look across any measure of sociopolitical corruption, there is a similar trend, whereby many, many more countries in the tropics have very high corruption and governance problems that prevent specific kinds of regulations from being effective. International wildlife trade, unfortunately, falls under this rubric."

This lack of regulation ends up harming these countries, and the whole world, Bickford said.

"The sad consequences are that most tropical and poor countries are forfeiting their future for immediate economic benefits," Bickford told OurAmazingPlanet. "In the long run, however, it won't just be those countries that lose - it will be the species driven to extinction, and the rest of humanity who will have fewer resources and a less robust ecosystem from which we ultimately derive almost all of our livelihood needs. This is not a tropical problem - it is a global one."

Call for contributions

At the same time, many CITES members only list animals by their class and not by their species, which can overlook imperiled members of those groups. Also, most CITES data is collected from airports and other easily accessible trade routes, rather than from black markets or public border markets where poaching and illegal wildlife trade usually occurs. A single small-scale trader at an informal border market on the Mekong River in southeast Asia can sell more plants in a single day than reported by CITES over a nine-year period, the researchers noted.

To strengthen the initiative, the researchers call on all CITES members, especially the major wildlife importers, to dramatically increase their contributions to it - as is, the initiative only received $5.2 million annually from 2009 to 2011. The researchers also noted that increased trade levies and penalties for industries and individuals behind such trade should contribute to the initiative's costs, much as how polluters are required to pay for the damage they cause.

"Like so many other seemingly great ideas, this will be very hard to initiate," Bickford said. "For success, all stakeholders will have to agree and 'cheating' the system cannot be tolerated. The time has come for responsibility and integrity to be the precursors of a realistic and sustainable future, and that means that member countries and traders need to step up."

From informal discussions, "I can tell you that there are many parties to the convention that welcome such reform," Bickford said. "These countries would be able to provide leadership and plans for the transitions that need to take place."

Bickford and his colleagues detailed their strategies in the Dec. 24 issue of the journal Science.

U.N. species convention needs urgent reform -study
* Poor data and enforcement placing rare species at risk-study
* Poor monitoring also raises risk of spread of diseases
David Fogarty Reuters 24 Dec 10;

SINGAPORE, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Poor data, minimal funding and lax enforcement are undermining the fight to protect endangered species, raising the risks from the spread of pests and diseases, scientists say in a study made public on Friday.

Destruction of habitats, over-hunting and climate change have already driven the extinction rate for plants and animals to the highest level since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, the United Nations says.

More than a fifth of all mammals and nearly a third of all amphibians are threatened and at risk of extinction, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's benchmark Red List of Threatened Species says.

The new study, conducted by scientists from the National University of Singapore and Britain's Oxford Brookes University, said the main U.N. convention governing trade in endangered species needed urgent reform and a boost in support from member states.

This was crucial to prevent more species from being wiped out by trade but also to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and invasive species into new areas where they can threaten crops and livelihoods.

Key issues were lax enforcement and a lack of data on species being collected and traded, allowing governments either to make poor conservation decisions or corrupt officials to turn a blind eye to illicit trade.

"Data collection at all levels depends on proper species identification, which remains a leading challenge," the scientists, including Jacob Phelps and Edward Webb of the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore, say in the latest issue of the U.S. journal Science.

"Wildlife trade studies are surprisingly few and far between," Phelps told Reuters in an email. "For many species -- not only tigers and rhinoceros, but hardwood trees, primates and birds sold as pets and medicinal plants -- wildlife trade remains a leading threat."

The authors called for an overhaul of the U.N.'s 35-year-old Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates the trade of nearly 34,000 species.

The authors said the secretariat that runs CITES depends on member states to provide data and enforcement. Yet many CITES parties failed to systematically monitor and report international wildlife trade, the authors say.

CORRUPTION RISK

More than half of documented live-animal imports into the United States from 2000 to 2006 were identified only by class, while only about 14 percent were identified to species, they said, opening the door to potentially damaging foreign species.

Other problems were CITES' lack of internal and external checks and balances and the secretariat's annual operating budget of only $5.2 million.

"CITES relies exclusively on country self-reporting, although incentives are high for biased analyses and misreporting, and most CITES-listed species occur in the tropics where governance is often weak and corruption high," the authors say.

Poor data collection also risked massive undereporting of animal and plant trade.

Phelps pointed to a recent visit to a Thai border market along the Mekong river where a trader could sell more CITES-regulated wild orchids in a day than officially reported trade into Thailand from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar over a nine-year period.

"It is very likely that similar under-reporting is occurring for other protected species," Webb told Reuters in an email, pointing to the need for much greater funding, stronger collaboration, better compliance standards and improved data collection and analysis.

The study was published two months after world nations agreed on 2020 targets to save nature. Collectively, species provide crucial services to mankind and economies, such as clean air and clean water from forest watersheds and coral reefs and mangroves that protect coastlines. (Editing by Ron Popeski)

(Created by David Fogarty)

CITES: 35 years on, more resources needed
TRAFFIC 24 Dec 10;

Washington DC, USA, 24th December 2010—35 years after it came into force, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) remains highly relevant, but funding remains a principle limitation to the Convention, in particular to strengthen enforcement and the quality of trade data finds a new study published today.

A team of scientists from the National University of Singapore and Oxford Brookes University published their deliberations today in the journal Science on how they believe the effectiveness of CITES could be boosted.

CITES is an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

The paper’s authors note that while credible biological and trade data are core to informing decisions and garnering political will and consensus among CITES Parties “many CITES Parties fail to systematically monitor and report international wildlife trade.”

“The net result is that analysis of available data often remains insufficient to identify species threatened by trade and to detect trade inaccuracies and loopholes,” says Vincent Nijman of Oxford Brookes University, and an author of the Science study.

The collection of trade data only along easily accessed trade routes, such as at airports, is also problematic as it fails to convey the full scale of wildlife trade, say the authors.

To address these, and other issues, the paper calls for a much greater degree of co-ordination among CITES Parties, including initiatives already underway on enhanced data-sharing and analysis, such as the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System, and the planned illegal trade database.

The majority of such proposed solutions depend on enhanced active, sustained, and reciprocal engagement of CITES Parties with external partners, a process the authors recognize would by administratively demanding, costly, and politically challenging.

To meet these requirements, far greater resources are needed: as the report notes “The [CITES] Secretariat operates on meager party donations,” and it calls for “Parties, particularly importing nations, to increase contributions dramatically.”

“After 35 years, the CITES framework remains highly relevant,” says Nijman, “but only through increased resources can the Convention move toward proactive, real-time monitoring and regulation to strengthen wildlife trade enforcement and data quality.”

“These are vital improvements: a strengthened Convention is essential to protect imperiled biodiversity.”

The paper, Boosting CITES by Jacob Phelps, Edward L. Webb, David Bickford, Vincent Nijman and Navjot S. Sodhi is available through the Science website

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Singapore braces for climate change

Evelyn Choo Channel NewsAsia 23 Dec 10;

SINGAPORE: In 2010, climate change made its presence clearly known in Singapore.

Flash floods in particular spared no mercy on the island, leaving Orchard Road as one of the worst-hit areas.

But a massive operation is underway to protect the shopping belt, which is set to go full steam in January.

Flash floods hit Orchard Road not once but twice, resulting in million-dollar losses at the shopping belt.

The public and private sectors then embarked on a slew of preventive measures.

National water agency PUB is spending S$26 million to raise certain stretches of Orchard Road by 30 centimetres.

Work has since got off to a slow but tactical start due to the recent festive period.

Steven Goh, executive director of Orchard Road Business Association, said: "You don't see much progress because PUB has agreed to delay the road-raising works till mid-January.

"We cross our fingers, as major works will only be carried out in mid-January.....the relocation of the bus stop, jacking up of the ERP gantries, and raising of the lamp posts on the road, these are major works."

Outside Orchard, the floods also brought much grievance to low-lying residential areas like Goodman Road.

Lew Chiew Quan, owner of Pureland Marketing, said: "We're doing business around this area and we were quite badly affected. I've heard from my neighbours - who had been here for the past 20 years - (that such floods) had not happened before. I really hope the authorities can look into this matter."

Since the ordeal, PUB says it has brought forward 10 drainage improvement projects. And six of them will start around the first half of 2011.

These include road-raising works at Lorong G Telok Kurau, Lorong H Telok Kurau, Bedok Garden, Bedok Lane, Balmoral Road; old roadside drain improvements around Ang Mo Kio, Everitt Road, Frankel Street, Dunearn Road, Outram Road, Hua Guan Avenue, Tiong Bahru Road; roadside drain improvements at Thomson Road, Derbyshire Road, outlet drains at Sin Ming Road to Braddell Road; drainage improvement works at Goodman Road and Boscombe Road; and roadside drain works at the Bedok South Road area.

A Risk Map Study of Singapore's coastlines will also commence soon. The project will map out areas being threatened by rising sea levels, which could lead to a high risk of land loss and flooding.

The project, which could take three years to complete, will find out how climate change impacts Singapore's biodiversity and public health.

Besides the floods, there was also trouble offshore.

In May, a tanker collision resulted in an oil spill off the east coast. Although the clean-up was swift, researchers warn of long-term effects on the eco-system.

And up above, the haze was back, with the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) reaching unhealthy levels for the first time since 2006.

This prompted calls to step up negotiations with Indonesia to put in place immediate and enhanced measures to curb the hotspot situation in Sumatra.

Lee Bee Wah, deputy chairman of Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development & Environment, said: "We have more senior residents who (said that) during the haze period, some of them have to go and see the doctor; they have breathing difficulties. I strongly feel that more needs to be done. I hope that our minister will continue engaging their counterparts (in Indonesia)....."

But Foreign Minister George Yeo told Parliament that diplomacy could only do so much.

More recently, Singapore was represented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico.

Although a legally-binding agreement was not reached, the republic said it would continue pushing for energy efficiency. One project is the tapping of solar energy.

Solar panels have already started supplying electricity to HDB flats in some areas.

HDB said that by 2015, 30 precincts will have such solar panels installed under a S$31 million programme, its biggest solar power project to date.

- CNA/ir

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'Ghostly' Saharan cheetah filmed in Niger, Africa

Matt Walker BBC News 23 Dec 10;

One of the world's most elusive cats has been photographed by a night time camera trap, after a year-long search for the animal.

The ghostly image of the Saharan cheetah has excited conservationists, as perhaps fewer than 10 of the cats survive in the deserts of Termit, Niger, where the photograph was taken.

Almost nothing is known of the Saharan cheetah, except that it endures extremely high temperatures and appears to survive without a permanent source of water.

Scientists working for the Saharan Conservation Fund (SCF) took the image as part of the Saharan Carnivore Project, an effort launched in conjunction with the University of Oxford, UK, four years ago to research and document larger predators roaming one of the world's most inhospitable habitats.

SCF researchers, led by John Newby and Tim Wacher, focused their attention on the Niger's Termit Massif and the neighbouring Tin Toumma desert

These areas have become the most important remaining refuges for wildlife in the entire Sahara.

Although conservationists have been working in or around the massif since 2000, they have only observed cheetahs there three times, and the cat has not been photographed.

That was until a camera trap, set by SCF researchers, captured an eerie image of a Saharan cheetah passing by at night.

"The cheetahs of Termit Massif are extremely shy, rarely revealing themselves to researchers and few visitors go there," the SCF's Thomas Rabeil told the BBC.

Saharan cheetahs remain an enigma, even to scientists who specialise in studying rare cats.

For example is it not yet known if Saharan cheetahs are more closely related to other cheetahs in Africa, or those living in Iran, which make up the last remaining wild population of Asiatic cheetahs.

Saharan cheetahs appear to have different colour and spot patterns compared to common cheetahs that roam elsewhere in Africa.

However, "very little is known about the behavioural differences between the two cheetahs, as they have never been studied in the wild," says Dr Rabeil.

"From observations of tracks and anecdotal reports they seem to be highly adaptable and able to eke out an existence in the Termit and Tin Toumma desert."

Experts believe the Saharan cheetah has found a way to survive in a habitat where there is no permanent source of water.

In doing so the animals endure exceptionally high summer temperatures.

Attempts to track Saharan cheetahs also suggest that the cats roam considerable distances in a bid to hunt prey, which might include addax, dama and dorca gazelles or Barbary sheep.

That makes finding and following the cats almost impossible.

"Project personnel have gone to extraordinary lengths to try and observe these animals directly, resorting to extended surveys on camel-back," Dr Rabeil told the BBC.

"On one such eight-day journey recently a cheetah eluded researchers, leaving clearly identifiable tracks behind but changing direction and using the desert geography to maintain its enigmatic, elusive reputation," he said.

Saharan cheetahs are thought to range in six countries: Algeria, Togo, Niger, Mali, Benin, and Burkina Faso.

But the total population may be fewer than 250 mature individuals.

The first ever camera trap photograph of one was only taken last year in Algeria.

More than 50 cheetahs are thought to live there, compared to 10 or fewer in Niger.

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Red Panda trade highlighted

TRAFFIC 23 Dec 10;

Cambridge, UK, 23 December 2010—two recent publications draw attention to the potential threat posed by trade in Red Pandas.

Photo courtesy: P Prokosch / WWF

Red Pandas Ailurus fulgens are the only “true” panda species; they are found in mountainous forests of the Himalayas and adjacent mountain ranges in south-western China, ranging discontinuously from Central Nepal through Bhutan and North-East India (where it is the State animal in Sikkim) and Myanmar, into the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Yunnan, Sichuan and even into the Qingling Mountains in Shaanxi, China.

The attractively coloured fur of Red Pandas has long held an appeal to people, and the animals have traditionally been hunted, for example to make hats and coats worn by the Yi minority in Yunnan Province. Such garments are still worn today, although it remains unclear whether they are from recently taken animals.

Today the Red Panda is afforded national protection throughout its range, and all commercial trade has been banned under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) since 1995.

The species is listed by IUCN as Vulnerable, with an estimated population of fewer than 10,000 fecund individuals.

Two recent publications—Red Panda: Biology and conservation of the first panda by Angela R. Glatston and Sikkim—under the sign of the red panda (PDF, 500 KB) by several authors including Samir Sinha, Head of TRAFFIC India and Roland Melisch, Senior Programme Director with TRAFFIC, both attempt to assess the threat posed by trade to the Red Panda.

The studies find little evidence of ongoing trade in Red Pandas for their fur: only one seizure of panda parts—a shipment of carcasses from Japan to the US in 1995—has been reported by Parties to CITES, while a study of wildlife trade along the Yunnan (China)–Vietnam border in the late 1990s found only one case of a Red Panda fur on sale.

However, Roland Melisch, who wrote a chapter about a preliminary assessment of Red Panda trade in Glatston’s publication said: “Although traditional hunting of Red Pandas for their fur appears to be mostly under control, fur and fur parts of Red Pandas are still occasionally reported as illegally offered and traded in Nepal. Furthermore, a completely new threat was revealed in 2009 when a business traveler visiting Guangdong, China, was offered fresh game meat from a caged Red Panda in a restaurant.”

The scale and potential threat posed by the capture of Red Pandas for human consumption is presently unknown, but the sale of wild meat is widespread in China’s southern provinces, despite government efforts to prevent the sale of protected species.

“International co-operation through wildlife enforcement networks, like SAWEN in South Asia and ASEAN-WEN in South-East Asia, can be an important mechanism for countries to work together to detect and deter illicit trafficking of Asia’s natural heritage,” said Samir Sinha, Head of TRAFFIC India.

“For a species that occurs naturally at low density, even low levels of hunting could pose a serious threat to Red Pandas and is a situation that demands close monitoring,” said Melisch.

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Indonesia and Honduras tilapia swim into seafood guide upgrade

WWF 23 Dec 10;

Gland, Switzerland: Tilapia produced in Indonesia and Honduras is to join the new WWF seafood guide category of “moving towards certification”.

Typical tilapia is currently rated as unsustainable in WWF seafood guides due to issues with harmful environmental effects including chemical use, waste spilling into waterways, risks of disease and escapes and weak regulation of aquaculture in many producing areas.

“The moving towards certification classification was set up to give consumers the ability to identify and support fisheries and fish farms that have signed up to achieve the highest standards of sustainable production,” said Dr Mark Powell, WWF International Global Seafood Leader.

“In some cases, these standards and the mechanisms to administer them are still being established, so we are rewarding producer commitment to sustainability.”

“We advise customers to buy tilapia from Indonesia and Honduras to support leadership in sustainable aquaculture.”

Tilapia is the world’s second most important farmed fish, and Indonesia and Honduras are important suppliers to the demanding US and European markets. Tilapia producers in these two countries have achieved or soon will achieve compliance with the tilapia standards that will be used by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

"The benefits we expect from certification are international recognition of all the efforts we have made in developing a socially and environmentally sound aquaculture model,” said Anne-Laurence Huillery, Sustainability Manager for Regal Springs, the leading tilapia producer in Indonesia and Honduras.

“We would also anticipate improved market access thanks to the use of the ASC logo and continuous improvement of the industry, with more producers seeking certification and raising consumer awareness."

The recent reclassification of Vietnamese pangasius (also known as tra or Vietnamese catfish) to the new category will see 50 percent of pangasius exports certified to Aquaculture Stewardship Council standards by 2015.

“We expect that the timeline for certification of tilapia from Honduras and Indoneisa will be very short and it will quite possibly be the first aquaculture product certified to the new standards” said Dr Powell

The long running Aquaculture Dialogues convened by WWF released sustainability standards for tilapia in 2009 and pangasius in 2010.

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council, modeled on the Marine Stewardship Council for wild caught fisheries, was established in 2010 and is expected to certify the first sustainable farmed products in 2011.

Certification to ASC standards will cover not just environmental impacts but also social issues such as protection against the use of child labor, forced labor, protection of worker health and safety, and collective bargaining.

WWF publishes consumer seafood guides in 19 countries.

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UNEP Report Highlights Role of Fisheries Subsidies Reform in Ocean Sustainability

Report Focuses on WTO Negotiations and Reforms of Government Fishing Subsidies
UNEP 22 Dec 10;

Geneva, 22 December 2010 – In a new report, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) emphasises the urgency of advancing negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) towards an international agreement to ban harmful government fishing subsidies and to introduce new measures to ensure the sustainability and future viability of the world's oceans.

UNEP's new publication, "Fisheries Subsidies, Sustainable Development and the WTO" is a timely reminder that the clock is ticking and that oceans cannot wait. It reviews efforts to escalate fishing subsidies reform within the global trade body over the last decade, and focuses on the hurdles governments now face to determine which subsidies to stop and which ones to limit.

In addition to providing significant potential economic benefits, fisheries are also an important source of livelihood and food, serving as the main source of protein for nearly a billion people worldwide.

Yet, 80 per cent of the world's commercial fish stocks are depleted or have been fished beyond their biological carrying capacity, and economic losses due to over-capacity and over-fishing have been estimated at US$50 billion per year. Government subsidies have been recognised as one of the primary causes of this excessive exploitation, which in turn has threatened the integrity of the marine environment.

"This is an enormous waste of natural capital and it is threatening food security, development and the marine habitat," said Steven Stone, Chief of UNEP's Economics and Trade Branch. "These harmful fisheries subsidies run contrary to the very ethos of a Green Economy, which promotes investing in the environment as an engine for economic recovery and sustainable growth," he added.

The UNEP publication underscores why government subsidies for the fishing sector must be more transparent and accountable if the rules agreed by the WTO are going to be effective. It outlines several challenges that must be addressed, including defining the scope of the subsidy prohibition, identifying exceptions that will be allowed, ensuring special and differential treatment for developing countries, and establishing fishery management requirements. It also urges all countries to take action to reform their own subsidy practices.

The publication is a comprehensive reference manual which provides a historic overview, synthesis and analysis of key issues regarding fisheries subsidies reform and the current development of fisheries subsidies negotiations at the WTO.

It also contains country experiences from Ecuador, Norway and Senegal, which illustrate the impact of subsidies and reform processes. Accompanying the manual is also a CD-ROM containing additional relevant source material from other organisations.

UNEP has played a leading role in generating policy-relevant analysis and in facilitating effective dialogue for policy-making between the trade and fisheries communities. Currently, the UN organization is assisting by feeding the outcomes of its country studies and international workshops on the impacts of fisheries subsidies into the ongoing WTO negotiations, which will help to ensure that these discussions are consistently based on sustainability criteria.

Notwithstanding the critical phase of the current negotiations and the many questions that need to be resolved, the report illustrates how fisheries subsidies reform has the potential to become one of the most important international efforts to achieve environmental, economic and development coherence at the global level.

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Expect more extreme winters thanks to global warming, say scientists

Steve Connor, The Independent 24 Dec 10;

Scientists have established a link between the cold, snowy winters in Britain and melting sea ice in the Arctic and have warned that long periods of freezing weather are likely to become more frequent in years to come.

An analysis of the ice-free regions of the Arctic Ocean has found that the higher temperatures there caused by global warming, which have melted the sea ice in the summer months, have paradoxically increased the chances of colder winters in Britain and the rest of northern Europe.

The findings are being assessed by British climate scientists, who have been asked by ministers for advice on whether the past two cold winters are part of a wider pattern of climate change that will cause further damaging disruption to the nation's creaking transport infrastructure.

Some climate scientists believe that the dramatic retreat of the Arctic sea ice over the past 30 years has begun to change the wind patterns over much of the northern hemisphere, causing cold, Arctic air to be funnelled over Britain during winter, replacing the mild westerly airstream that normally dominates the UK's weather.

The study was carried out in 2009, before last year's harsh winter started to bite, and is all the more prescient because of its prediction that cold, snowy winters will be about three times more frequent in the coming years compared to previous decades.

The researchers used computer models to assess the impact of the disappearing Arctic sea ice, particularly in the area of the Barents and Kara seas north of Scandinavia and Russia, which have experienced unprecedented losses of sea ice during summer.

Their models found that, as the ice cap over the ocean disappeared, this allowed the heat of the relatively warm seawater to escape into the much colder atmosphere above, creating an area of high pressure surrounded by clockwise-moving winds that sweep down from the polar region over Europe and the British Isles. Vladimir Petoukhov, who carried out the study at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said the computer simulations showed that the disappearing sea ice is likely to have widespread and unpredictable impacts on the climate of the northern hemisphere.

One of the principal predictions of the study was that the warming of the air over the ice-free seas is likely to bring bitterly cold air to Europe during the winter months, Dr Petoukhov said. "This is not what one would expect. Whoever thinks that the shrinking of some far away sea-ice won't bother him could be wrong. There are complex interconnections in the climate system, and in the Barents-Kara Sea we might have discovered a powerful feedback mechanism," he said.

In the paper, submitted in November 2009 but published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Dr Petoukhov and his colleague Vladimir Semenov write: "Our results imply that several recent severe winters do not conflict with the global warming picture but rather supplement it."

Arctic sea ice has been in retreat over recent decades, with record lows recorded in September 2007. The normal recovery of the sea ice during winter has also been affected, especially in the Barents and Kara seas which have seen significant losses of ice cover over the past decade.

Stefan Rahmstorf, professor of physics of the oceans at the Potsdam Institute, said the floating sea ice in winter insulates the relatively warm seawater from the bitterly cold temperatures of the air above it, which can be around -20C or -30C.

"The Arctic sea ice is shrinking and at the moment it is at a record low for mid-to-late December, which provides a big heat source for the atmosphere," Professor Rahmstorf said. "The open ocean actually heats the atmosphere above because the ocean in the Arctic is about 0C, and that's much warmer than the atmosphere about it. This is a massive change compared with an ice-covered ocean, where the ice operates like a lid. You don't get that heating from below.

"The model simulations show that, when you don't get ice on the Barents and Kara seas, that promotes the formation of a high-pressure system there, and, because the airflow is clockwise around the high, it brings cold, polar air right into Europe, which leads to cold conditions here while it is unusually warm elsewhere, especially in the Arctic," he explained.

The scientists emphasised that the climate is complex and there were other factors at play. It is, they said, too early to be sure if the past two cold winters are due to the ice-free Arctic.

"I want to be cautious, but basically in the past couple of months the sea ice cover has been low and so, according to the model simulations, that would encourage this kind of weather pattern," Professor Rahmstorf said.

"The last winter of 2009-10 turned out to be fitting that pattern very well, and perhaps this winter as well, so that is three data points. I would say it's not definite confirmation of the mechanism, but it certainly fits the pattern," he said.

The computer model used by the scientists also predicted that, as the ice cover continues to be lost, the weather pattern is likely to shift back into a phase of warmer-than-usual winters. Global warming will also continue to warm the Arctic air mass, Professor Rahmstorf said.

"If you look ahead 40 or 50 years, these cold winters will be getting warmer because, even though you are getting an inflow of cold polar air, that air mass is getting warmer because of the greenhouse effect," he said. "So it's a transient phenomenon. In the long run, global warming wins out."

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