AFPBy Kerry Sheridan AFP Yahoo News 5 Nov 11;
The amount of global warming gases sent into the atmosphere made an unprecedented jump in 2010, according to the US Department of Energy's latest world data on carbon dioxide emissions.
"It's big," said Tom Boden, director of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center Environmental Sciences Division at the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
"Our data go back to 1751, even before the Industrial Revolution. Never before have we seen a 500-million-metric-ton carbon increase in a single year," he told AFP.
The 512 million metric ton increase amounted to a near six percent rise between 2009 and 2010, going from 8.6 billion metric tons to 9.1 billion.
Large jumps, measured from C02 emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of burning coal and gas, were visible in China, the United States and India, the world's top three polluters.
Significant spikes over 2009 were also seen in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan.
Some countries, like Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Spain, New Zealand and Pakistan actually showed slight declines from 2009 to 2010, but those nations were uncommon. Much of Europe showed a moderate uptick.
The figures could indicate economic recovery from the global recession of 2007-2008, according to Boden.
"At least from an energy consumption standpoint, companies were back to manufacturing levels that rivaled pre-2008 levels, people were traveling again so emissions from the transportation sector rivaled those of pre-2008," he said.
But the data also raised concerns about the health of the environment.
"This is very bad news," said John Abraham, associate professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering in Minnesota.
"These results show that it will be harder to make the tough cuts to emissions if we are to head off a climate crisis."
The data is derived from United Nations statistics gathered from every country in the world about fossil fuel energy stockpiles, imports, exports and production, as well as energy data compiled by oil giant BP.
"If you know how much of a fuel is consumed and you know the oxidation rate and you know the carbon content of the fuel, you can derive the emission estimate, so it is a pretty straightforward algorithm as far as the calculation," said Boden.
The US team has been calculating the data in the same way over the past two decades, so the hike in 2010 was initially viewed with disbelief by Boden and some if his colleagues.
"We were a bit shocked. Our first reaction was, 'Gee, there must be some problems in the underlying energy data,'" he said.
"Then, when we actually started to explore other data streams, like the population data, like GDP data, and when we started to look at the actual atmospheric data, all of it paints a consistent picture and we believe it."
China alone was the biggest polluter with a spike of 212 million metric tons in 2010 over 2009, compared to 59 million metric tons more from the United States and 48 million metric tons more from India.
"Science tells us that we are driving in a fog headed toward a cliff but are unsure just how far away it is," said climate scientist Scott Mandia.
"Given this warning, it is quite foolish to be stepping on the accelerator."
Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases
Seth Borenstein AP Yahoo News 4 Nov 11;
WASHINGTON (AP) — The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.
The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.
"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases.
It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past.
Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said.
"It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over."
Boden said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change.
India and China are huge users of coal. Burning coal is the biggest carbon source worldwide and emissions from that jumped nearly 8 percent in 2010.
"The good news is that these economies are growing rapidly so everyone ought to be for that, right?" Reilly said Thursday. "Broader economic improvements in poor countries has been bringing living improvements to people. Doing it with increasing reliance on coal is imperiling the world."
In 2007, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees.
Even though global warming skeptics have attacked the climate change panel as being too alarmist, scientists have generally found their predictions too conservative, Reilly said. He said his university worked on emissions scenarios, their likelihood, and what would happen. The IPCC's worst case scenario was only about in the middle of what MIT calculated are likely scenarios.
Chris Field of Stanford University, head of one of the IPCC's working groups, said the panel's emissions scenarios are intended to be more accurate in the long term and are less so in earlier years. He said the question now among scientists is whether the future is the panel's worst case scenario "or something more extreme."
"Really dismaying," Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University, said of the new figures. "We are building up a horrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."
But Reilly and University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver found something good in recent emissions figures. The developed countries that ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas limiting treaty have reduced their emissions overall since then and have achieved their goals of cutting emissions to about 8 percent below 1990 levels. The U.S. did not ratify the agreement.
In 1990, developed countries produced about 60 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, now it's probably less than 50 percent, Reilly said.
"We really need to get the developing world because if we don't, the problem is going to be running away from us," Weaver said. "And the problem is pretty close from running away from us."
Government carbon dioxide info center: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
