Tuna states to workshop key issues

WWF 3 Jul 09;

San Sebastian, Spain - More than 50 member governments of the five regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) managing the world’s declining tuna fisheries agreed today to convene a series of workshops on the crucial and difficult issues of excess fishing capacity, illegal fishing and bycatch of turtles, sharks, juvenile tuna and other marine life.

While encouraged by these plans, WWF is hoping the outcome will not mirror the result of the first meeting of tuna RFMOs in Kobe, Japan in 2007 - which produced a Plan of Action followed by little action.

“Governments have set the right agenda at this meeting but workshops are not going to bring tuna back from the brink.” said Miguel Jorge, Marine Director at WWF International. “Talk is cheap, what we need is action right away.”

WWF warned the meeting that simply capping fishing capacity at current levels would not be an adequate response to the issue of too many tuna boats chasing too few tuna worldwide.

“Fishing capacity has to be reduced to a level set by scientific advice and adherence to the precautionary principle,” Jorge said. “It is vital also that reductions in capacity should not become a cover for freezing coastal and island developing states out of a fairer share of their own fisheries.”

WWF proposed to the meeting that the capacity issue should be addressed following discussions around fair allocation of the resource with particular attention being paid to the aspirations of coastal and island developing states.

The conservation organization also cautioned coastal and island developing states against using this process as carte blanche to ignore the realities of a limited, and in many cases severely depleted global resource.

Principles for determining allocations which give a high priority to conservation need to be developed and debated and agreed upon with the utmost urgency.

WWF also supports the initiative presented by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) to hold a workshop involving industry, RFMO national and other interested scientists to assess the impacts of purse seine fishing on juvenile tunas and non-target species, and determine best practices to reduce the impact of tuna fishing on the marine environment.

WWF is calling on tuna fishing nations not to wait for the results of additional workshops to reducing the number of vessels chasing tuna.

“The best available science already tells us that there are too many boats. Nations can stop building new boats and start scrapping vessels now.” Jorge said.

Most of these nations will be meeting again very soon at the annual meetings of individual RFMOs, and fair and equitable allocation of the tuna resource between developed and developing nations must be the highest priority.

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Fisheries Models Overlook a Spreading Nuisance: Jellyfish

Ben Block, World Watch Institute 6 Jul 09;

A decade ago, swarms of large jellyfish unexpectedly filled the cold waters of the Bering Sea. They clogged nets, attached themselves to fishing lines, and stung the fishermen who hauled in the unintended catch. The area became notorious as "The Slime Bank."

"Area fishermen didn't want to go there because they caught almost entirely jellyfish," said Richard Brodeur, a fisheries biologist with U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who observed the jellyfish bloom that peaked in 2000.

Although jellyfish populations have since declined off Alaska's coasts, swarms of hundreds or thousands of the gelatinous creatures are frequently occurring elsewhere, such as in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Black and Mediterranean. Marine scientists attribute the blooms to a variety of possible factors, including climate change, worsening ocean pollution, and the spread of invasive species.

A surge in research is seeking to understand how these swarms may affect seafood industries, coastal power plants, and tourist-lined beaches. Yet jellyfish still do not receive the attention they deserve, some researchers say.

Most fisheries analysts exclude the creatures from models of marine ecosystems, one of the latest trends in sustainable fisheries management. This exclusion may make it more difficult to predict the effects of jellyfish blooms on fisheries.

"The reality is that the jellies are not even in [most] existing ecosystem models," said Monty Graham, a senior marine scientist at the Alabama-based Dauphin Island Sea Lab. "They completely ignore jellies."

Ecosystem models typically incorporate a broad range of variables in an effort to generate more detailed population predictions. These include data on the diets, reproduction rates, and death rates of all interacting species. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization suggests that fisheries authorities and the fishing industry implement "ecosystem-based approaches" as part of wider climate change adaptation plans, according to the recent State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report.

A global study published in January, led by Graham and Daniel Pauly, a marine scientist at the University of British Columbia, found that only about a quarter of the most popular marine ecosystem models explicitly include gelatinous zooplankton such as jellyfish. And when jellyfish are included, the models often "collapse all things considered gelatinous into a single functional ‘jellyfish' group,'" the study said. By doing so, the models often do not adequately factor the role of jellyfish and related species in the interconnected web of undersea life.

Jellyfish and fish species interact in various ways: some jellyfish eat fish, and some larger fish dine on jellyfish. Species such as herring, sardines, and anchovies have also been known to compete with jellyfish for the same zooplankton meals.

"When managing from an ecosystem level, there is talk about prey and predators of fishes," said Graham, who teaches on the faculty of University of South Alabama. "But it's not just about prey and predator.... Jellyfish can be competitors, too."

Jack Costello, a biology professor at Rhode Island-based Providence College, says the creatures have historically received less attention because most marine research focuses on species preferred by the seafood industry. With the exception of fisheries in East and Southeast Asia, jellyfish have not been captured and consumed commercially.

"Studying the ocean by humans is very much influenced by perception of value," said Costello, who has researched swarms of comb jellies in Narragansett Bay.

The lack of historical data is just one of many factors hampering greater knowledge of jellyfish populations. Studying the secretive creatures can be a challenge in itself - and their sting is merely the beginning.

Juvenile jellyfish, which begin in a polyp stage attach themselves to the seafloor, where they are often hidden under sea grasses - making at least one portion of their life nearly impossible to observe. Once jellyfish mature, captured adults often become tangled messes in research nets. "We really don't have a good way to collect and preserve them in the field," Costello said.

The research challenges have resulted in a large knowledge gap about jellyfish and fish interactions. Mike Ford, a NOAA oceanographer, has attempted to measure the growing population of comb jellies off the New England coast over the past two decades. His research has used an alternative approach: peering inside the stomachs of thousands of dogfish, a jellyfish predator. Even after he collects the data, however, its importance is not entirely clear.

"If you look at all the prey a dogfish eats, how significant is the consumption of jellyfish in a dogfish's life? I don't think it has the caloric value of its other prey," Ford said. "We need more studies of dogfish eating jellyfish. It doesn't exist in the literature now."

Research data is improving steadily with advancements in aerial counting, video monitoring, and scuba observations. And despite the ongoing challenges, more regions are including jellyfish in ecosystem models as the data becomes available, according to Tim Essington, a marine scientist at the University of Washington.

"These models always have lots of simplifications and abstractions," Essington said. "You're never going to know every interaction in any system, especially marine."

Brodeur, the biologist at NOAA's Pacific Northwest laboratories, has become the envy of jellyfish researchers. His studies have relied on jellyfish records that Alaskan scientists first gathered in the early 1980s, several years before most fisheries paid much attention to the species. As a result, the Bering Sea has become one of the few ecosystems to include jellyfish in its fisheries models.

"People asked why are we wasting our time studying jellyfish," Brodeur said. "But everything is all related, we're now starting to realize."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

This article is a product of Eye on Earth, Worldwatch Institute's online news service. For permission to reprint Eye on Earth content, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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Indonesia to clean up timber exports

Yahoo News 6 Jul 09;

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia will launch a new system of independent certification for all timber exports to combat widespread illegal logging, the forestry minister said Monday.

From September all timber leaving the country must be certified by an independent body of business and NGO representatives, Malam Sambat Kaban told reporters.

"With the existence of Indonesian timber certification, we hope that export destination countries can better accept (imports) and as a consequence should be better able to enforce laws so that they can handle companies that receive illegal timber," Kaban said.

"There is already (certification in Indonesia) but now those giving the certification are independent, non-governmental bodies," he said.

The certification launch comes amid recent measures by developed nations to stem the inflow of illegally obtained forest products, including a 2008 amendment to the Lacey Act in the United States banning trade in illegally sourced plants and plant products.

Indonesia, with vast tracts of rain forest, struggles with high rates of deforestation and illegal logging, aided by poor law enforcement and widespread corruption.

Kaban himself has been accused of being a soft touch on illegal logging after he wrote a letter of recommendation to a Sumatra court two years ago that helped a wealthy timber baron get off charges of illegally logging billions of dollars worth of trees.

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Some See Beetle Attacks on Western Forests as a Natural Event

Jim Robbins, The New York Times 6 Jul 09;

MISSOULA, Mont. — When Ken Salazar — then a senator from Colorado, now secretary of the interior — called the attack on millions of acres of pine forests by the bark beetle the Katrina of the West, he was expressing the common view of the explosive growth of the beetles as an unmitigated disaster.

But not everybody sees it that way. Some environmentalists and scientists support the beetles. While they acknowledge the severity of the problems the beetles are causing, they argue that the insects, which kill only mature trees largerthan five inches in diameter, are a natural phenomenon, like forest fires, and play a vital ecological role.

“It’s not the end of the forests, and they are not destroyed,” said Diana L. Six, a professor of forest entomology and pathology at the University of Montana here, who has studied the beetle for 16 years, as she walked in a beetle-infected forest near here recently .

“Lodge pole pine evolved to go out with a stand-replacing event, such as fire or beetles, then regenerate really quickly,” she said. “When they hit 80 or 90 years of age all of a sudden the beetles become a player — the trees are big enough for the beetles to attack. They reset the clock on the stand.”

Dr. Gregg DeNitto, a forest health specialist with the Forest Service here, said the beetles were not “an exotic like the emerald ash bore.”

“This is a native insect in a native host, and these are normal biological processes that have happened for millennia,” Dr. DeNitto said.

Nothing can or should be done to halt the spread of the beetle, experts say. After they kill the mature trees, the soil becomes more fertile as nitrogen levels increase, sometimes tripling. The growth rate of surviving trees increases when the infestation ends. After dead trees fall over or burn, grass grows and provides elk habitat, and slightly more diverse forests rise up.

Beetles help by breaking down fallen trees, as well. “They digest the wood and are valuable in terms of nutrient recycling,” said Dr. Ken Raffa, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin who studies the beetles. “And they introduce micro-organisms that further break down the wood.”

Still, it is a grim time for people who work, play and live in the woods. Mountain pine beetles affect nearly 6.5 million acres, an expanse more than 50 percent greater in 2008 than in 2007. If all types of bark beetles are included, the figure is 8 million acres — a level of destruction not seen in 150 years — and the number is expected to grow this year.

The Forest Service’s chief forester, Rick Cables, who oversees the Rocky Mountain Region, told Congress in June that fire in vast acreages of downed timber could burn so hot in places it would bake the soil, causing extreme erosion and runoff, and pollute water supplies to millions of people in the Southwest.

“People in Phoenix and Las Vegas depend on the water, and I have to balance that with an ecosystem trying to reset itself,” Mr. Cables said. Prescribed fire or mechanical thinning of dead trees are being considered to reduce the risk of fire in beetle-killed stands in some watersheds.

There is virtually no research on fires in an outbreak this large. “We’ve never seen this many trees dead on the landscape,” said Dr. Barbara J. Bentz, a Forest Service entomologist. “We don’t know what the ramifications are.”

Both Dr. DeNitto and Dr. Six allow that the current outbreak is not entirely natural. Human intervention in the form of fire suppression and large-scale clear cuts mean that many forests are simultaneously vulnerable.

Under natural conditions a forest is a patchwork of different-age trees, which means the beetles also create a patchwork of dead trees. “If they come up against a young patch, they’ll quit,” Dr. Six said. “If it’s old, they keep on going. But we’ve lost that mosaic, so they keep on going.”

The major human-caused element of the current outbreak, though, is a warmer climate, which has opened new territory to the beetles. And this has caused some experts to view the beetle infestations as unnaturally severe. “The absolute minimum temperatures are 6 to 10 degrees higher now,” said Dr. Steve Running, an ecologist at the University of Montana who is a member of the Internal Panel on Climate Change and is studying the effect of warming on Western ecosystems.

In the 1950s, minimum temperatures were 42 to 47 degrees below zero. The last decade, the minimum was 35 below, with fewer days at minimum. The rise in minimums is important, Dr. Running said, “because at the lower temperatures it only took a couple of nights for the larvae to freeze to death.”

The growing season in the West has also grown longer by two weeks, Dr. Running said, while the precipitation has stayed the same, which translates to a drought. Trees stressed by drought cannot effectively fend off the beetles.

Dr. Six argues that this outbreak is so extreme in duration, intensity and scope that the beetles are behaving like an exotic species in some places and may damage a critical Western ecosystem based around the white bark pine.

High altitudes, where the insects’ life span was very limited, are warming, and the beetles there have gone from a two-year life cycle to one year. There are so many more beetles that in combination with a disease called blister rust, they will probably wipe out white bark pines in many areas.

Dr. Six says she remains amazed at the beetles’ adaptation. “It’s impressive something could evolve such a complicated and effective way of living in the woods,” she said. “It’s awesome.”

When the beetles hatch, they mass for an attack on the next tree by sending out a chemical signal that tells other beetles it is time for an assault. They need to have sufficient numbers to overwhelm the tree, and need to do it within three or four days, or the tree will win. If the beetles lay eggs and they hatch, they eat a nutrient-carrying membrane and kill the tree.

The tree is not that nutritious, though, so the beetles bring carry-out. “They carry fungus from tree to tree in pockets and inoculate the trees with it,” Dr. Six said.

There are so many insects now that some behaviors have changed. They often go after trees that are smaller and younger than trees they have attacked in the past, or after healthy trees. Beetles used to hatch during two weeks in July, Dr. Six said, and “now they hatch beginning in May and go until October.”

“The whole ecosystem is changing,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

While more than 6 million acres in the United States have been affected by mountain pine beetles, the number is 34 million acres in British Columbia. “It’s a continental-scale phenomenon,” said Dan Tinker, a professor of forest and fire ecology at the University of Wyoming, referring to the total of the beetle kills. “We’re all taken aback right now.”

There is no forseeable end to the outbreak, Dr. Six said. “If it’s climate-driven,” she said, “we have to reverse climate change.”

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Region, not range size, dictates the extinction risk of Amazon plants

Journal Watch Online 6 Jul 09;

Just how many plant species are threatened by land development in the Amazon? Scientists have tried to answer that question, but few have accounted for the location of each plant’s habitat range.

Now, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that extinction risk varies wildly depending on the region – and as a result, fewer species may be in danger than we thought.

Past research suggested that extinction rates of Brazilian Amazon tree species could reach 20 to 33 percent, partly because species with small range sizes might easily be wiped out by local development. To investigate further, the authors of the PNAS study analyzed collection records for more than 40,000 Amazon plant species and compared the locations to areas of predicted habitat loss. They found that while some species with small ranges were indeed at risk, others lived in regions that would probably remain undisturbed.

The net result is that only 5 to 9 percent of the analyzed plant species would be in danger of extinction by 2050, they estimate. Since extinction risk is about 50% higher for plants in Brazil’s rapidly developing Cerrado region, the authors say, conservationists should focus their efforts on that area. – Roberta Kwok

Source: Feeley, K.J. and M.R. Silman. 2009. Extinction risks of Amazonian plant species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0900698106

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Home energy saving pays its way

Paul King, BBC Green Room 6 Jul 09;

Despite almost universal awareness of the threat posed by climate change, households are still left feeling powerless to act, says Paul King. In this week's Green Room, he sets out his vision that he believes would kick-start a "refurbishment revolution".

A searing summer heatwave might not seem the most obvious time to talk about how we keep our homes warm during the winter; but the two things are closely related.

Recent temperatures in the UK and elsewhere give an indication of what life will be like much more frequently unless we get to grips with the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Shrinking ice sheets and images of polar bears might attract the headlines.

But it will be premature deaths through heat stroke and respiratory problems, failed harvests, wildfires, social disorder and mass migration that will make climate change a reality for people across the globe.

People have started to get this message. But it is a pretty depressing one, which is not a great spur to action.

Most of us think there is very little we can do; climate change is a global problem, and starting a revolution in our living room is not going to change the world, right?

Wrong.

Home front

In the UK, 27% of carbon dioxide emissions come from the energy we use to heat (and light) our homes.

It is not only carbon that's going out of the window - and for that matter the roof, walls and floor - it is our hard earned money.

But imagine if we could transform our homes from leaky, draughty places that guzzle energy, into more comfortable, brighter, places - warmer in winter and cooler in summer - with smaller bills.

Imagine if we could do that without it costing consumers a penny, or landing a hefty bill at the government's door.

And in the process, also create thousands of new jobs in green home refurbishment.



Unrealistic? Not necessarily.

The UK Green Building Council is demanding that the government - either this one or the next - should introduce a scheme that will kick-start this refurbishment revolution.

It is called "Pay As You Save". It's based on a simple premise: that the cost of installing energy efficiency measures be funded through the future savings made on that household's energy bills.

So how does it work? The majority of home energy efficiency measures pay for themselves over a period of time.

Some are quite cheap, such as loft and cavity wall insulation or low-energy lighting.

But others are more expensive, such as suspended wooden floor insulation, new A-rated boilers and particularly solid wall insulation.

Most of us put off installing these measures, particularly the more expensive ones, because we do not think we will get the benefit. It just costs too much upfront; and given we move house, on average, every seven years, why bother?

Pay As You Save is designed to address this problem. Firstly, the upfront cost of measures, for example £10,000, is put up by a third party (such as a bank, retailer or local authority), not the consumer.

Next, your home gets its makeover, carried out by trained and accredited builders, and as a result energy usage is slashed by around half.

Then, from the savings on energy bills, a "standing charge" is repaid, every month, until the original lump sum (plus some interest) has been paid off.

Double digits

The trick is to structure the scheme so the householder, or tenant for that matter, starts saving money from day one, and always saves more each month than they pay back.

The other key part of the package that enables this to work is that the monthly charge is attached not to the person, but to the property itself and would be paid off over a period of 25 years.

So when the householder moves on, the home's new occupant continues to repay the charge - and recoups more than that in savings.

Of course, this won't happen overnight.

It will take time to scale up the scheme, to ensure that we have enough trained builders that people can have confidence in, and to establish a network of trusted information providers who can help people access finance and guide them through the process.

But our research shows you could refurbish 50,000 homes next year, double that the year after that, double again the year after that and keep on going until we have refurbished seven million homes by 2020.

We know government is interested - they said this was an "option" in a recent consultation document. We know the opposition parties support the principles of such a scheme.

All that is needed is to get on with it!

Design for life

If you don't believe me, hear it from Mr Grand Designs himself, Kevin McCloud.

The tsar of the designer home reckons this is the next big thing to get worked up about. That's why he is leading the Great British Refurb campaign.

So go to the campaign's website and tell Gordon Brown you'd like to go green, and can he please get that insulation out of his ears.

A few tweaks to legislation are all that is needed; the market will then kick in, supply the money, the workforce and the products - all of which already exist.

We just need a bit of leadership. One thing's for sure; if we don't start a revolution in our living rooms soon, we're all going to cook.

Paul King is chief executive of the UK Green Building Council

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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South Korea unveils massive plan for green growth

Yahoo News 6 Jul 09;

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea Monday unveiled an 84 billion dollar five-year plan to develop environmentally friendly industries and use them as a growth engine for the wider economy.

The plan, approved at a meeting chaired by President Lee Myung-Bak, aims to transform South Korea into one of the world's seven strongest nations in terms of energy efficiency and green technology investment by 2020.

The government will invest 107 trillion (84.4 billion dollars), or 2.0 percent of gross domestic product every year, over the next five years in an effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, Lee's office said.

The scheme will help create up to 1.81 million new jobs and generate about 206 trillion won in economic output, it said.

The government will also boost spending on green technology products such as solar-powered batteries and hybrid vehicles, it said.

Lee called for the public to rally behind the plan.

"Because it will have a great impact on the daily lives of the citizens, I believe every citizen must also participate in the move" towards a greener society, he said.

Asia's fourth largest economy earlier announced a set of measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

They include creating energy-saving versions of products such as personal computers and displays as well as developing energy-efficient IT service networks including high-speed Internet.

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Let clean economy begin, global companies urge government leaders

WWF 6 Jul 09;

Gland, Switzerland - Some of the world’s highest-profile companies today called on G8 leaders meeting in Italy to agree on a global climate deal by the end of 2009 and to set ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions.

Nineteen leading companies – including Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Lafarge, Tetra Pak, Nokia and HP – have partnered with leading global environment organization WWF in a campaign encouraging governments and policy-makers to “Let The Clean Economy Begin.”

“Traditionally, governments give businesses environmental targets,” said Oliver Rapf, Head, WWF Climate Business engagement. “This time, many of the world’s leading companies are already ahead on the issue, and are urging governments to deliver a strong framework to reduce CO2 emissions globally.”

The campaign, which will run across a variety of media, aims to persuade decision-makers at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December to deliver an ambitious, fair and effective agreement to cut global greenhouse gas emissions. This week’s G8 Summit is a vital step along that path.

“The G8 is about successful economies and successful businesses,” said WWF International Director General James Leape. “G8 leaders need to recognise that moving to a low-carbon future is vital and urgent – for the planet, for business, and for the global economy.”

The Climate Savers campaign, said Mr. Leape, focuses on innovation and solutions. “The Climate Savers companies have grown their businesses while cutting their emissions. They have proved that growth and low carbon are more than compatible – they are complementary. The Climate Savers companies are saying to the politicians: ‘We’ve done it – now it’s your turn.”

Some of the world’s top business leaders are supporting the “Let the Clean Economy Begin” campaign with their own statements.

“Reducing your carbon footprint is not only achievable, it’s inspiring,” said Thomas Storey, President, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. Fairmont committed to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% by 2013.

Dennis Jönsson, CEO Tetra Pak said: “Call it clean. Call it green. Or simply call it jobs.” Tetra Pak committed to reduce its CO2 emissions by 10% by 2010.

“Climate responsibility is simple - it’s just good business sense' said Simon Beresford-Wylie, CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks. Nokia Siemens Networks committed to reduce its CO2 footprint by 2 million tons, by improving the energy efficiency of its base stations by up to 40% and by reducing energy consumption in buildings by 6% by 2012 as well as by increasing the use of renewable energy in company operations to 50 percent by 2010.

“By cutting carbon emissions by 15% we’re experiencing positive development on net profits” said Niels Petter Wright CEO Elopak. Elopak committed to reduce CO2 emissions by 15% by 2011.

Climate Savers companies are leading the way by example. By 2010 they will have reduced their CO2 emissions by 50 million tons over the past decade of action, while creating competitive advantage, increasing shareholder value, and in many cases, increasing profitability.

The programme, established in 1999, has been a trend-setter in demonstrating that absolute greenhouse gas emission reductions do not impede business growth. Current member companies include Johnson&Johnson, Nike, ,Lafarge, The Collins Companies, Sagawa, Xanterra Parks & Resorts, Catalyst, Novo Nordisk, Tetra Pak, Sony, Nokia, Spitsbergen Travel, HP, Nokia Siemens Networks, JohnsonDiversey, Sofidel, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts and Elopak.

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Tropics expanding due to climate change: study

Yahoo News 6 Jul 09;

MELBOURNE (AFP) – Climate change is rapidly expanding the size of the world's tropical zone, threatening to bring disease and drought to heavily populated areas, an Australian study has found.

Researchers at James Cook University concluded the tropics had widened by up to 500 kilometres (310 miles) in the past 25 years after examining 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

They looked at findings from long-term satellite measurements, weather balloon data, climate models and sea temperature studies to determine how global warming was impacting on the tropical zone.

The findings showed it now extended well beyond the traditional definition of the tropics, the equatorial band circling the Earth between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

Professor Steve Turton said that meant the subtropical arid zone which borders the tropics was being pushed into temperate areas, with potentially devastating consequences.

"Such areas include heavily-populated regions of southern Australia, southern Africa, the southern Europe-Mediterranean-Middle East region, the south-western United States, northern Mexico, and southern South America," he said.

"All of (them) are predicted to experience severe drying.

"If the dry subtropics expand into these regions, the consequences could be devastating for water resources, natural ecosystems and agriculture, with potentially cascading environmental, social and health implications."

Turton said tropical diseases such as dengue fever were likely to become more prevalent.

"Some models predict the greatest increase in the annual epidemic potential of dengue will be into the subtropical regions, including the southern United States, China and northern Africa in the northern hemisphere, and South America, southern Africa, and most of Australia in the southern hemisphere," he said.

James Cook University vice-chancellor Sandra Harding said the evidence showed climate change was already affecting wildlife and rainfall in Australia, which is in the grip of its worst drought in a century.

She said studies showed changes to wind patterns meant rain was now being dumped in the ocean south of the continent, rather than over land.

"There is also evidence that many Australian animal and plant species are moving south in an attempt to track their preferred climatic conditions," she said.

"Some won?t make it."

Harding said the world had to get serious about finding solutions to problems caused by climate change in the tropics.

"Tropical climate conditions are expanding and the impact of this expansion is immense because the tropics is a big, complex and important zone of the world," she said.

Tropics are on the move
James Cook University, ScienceAlert 6 Jul 09;

A review of scientific literature released today by James Cook University shows that the Earth’s tropical zone is expanding and with it the subtropical dry zone is extending into what have been humid temperate climate zones.

The authors of the review concluded that the effects of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones were immense, resulting in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications.

Conducted by Dr Joanne Isaac, Post-Doctoral Fellow at JCU’s Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change, with Professor Steve Turton, from JCU’s School of Earth and Environment Sciences, the review looked at scientific findings from long-term satellite measurements, weather balloon data, climate models and sea surface temperature studies.

Professor Turton said that the review - Expansion of the Tropics: Evidence and Implications - encompassed about 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers and reports from scientists and institutions right around the world.

The review found that of particular concern were regions which border the subtropics and currently experience a temperate Mediterranean climate.

“Such areas include heavily populated regions of southern Australia, southern Africa, the southern Europe-Mediterranean-Middle East region, the south-western United States, northern Mexico, and southern South America – all of which are predicted to experience severe drying.

“If the dry subtropics expand into these regions, the consequences could be devastating for water resources, natural ecosystems and agriculture, with potentially cascading environmental, social and health implications.”

The survey reveals that scientific data suggests while these areas could experience an increased frequency of droughts, the expansion of the tropical zone could result in extreme rainfall events and floods to regions which have not previously been exposed to such conditions, and a poleward shift in the paths of extra-tropical and possibly tropical cyclones in the next 100 years.

“A further implication of the expansion of the tropical zone is the possible expansion of tropical associated diseases and pests.”

The review looked at scientific findings in relation to dengue among other tropical diseases and reports that some models predict the greatest increase in the annual epidemic potential of dengue will be into the subtropical regions, including the southern United States, China and northern Africa in the northern hemisphere, and south America, southern Africa, and most of Australia in the southern hemisphere.

The tropical zone is commonly defined geometrically as the portion of the Earth’s surface that lies between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn at 23.5 degrees latitude north and south respectively.

Evidence accumulating

“In general, atmospheric scientists estimate the climatic boundaries of the tropics extend further from the equator to around 30 degrees latitude north and south,” the review reports.

“In recent years a variety of independent studies, employing different methodologies have found evidence for the widening of the topical region, as defined by climate scientists.

“However, while evidence is accumulating for the widening of the tropical belt and shifts in other climatic events, there is still much uncertainty regarding the degree of the expansion and the mechanisms which are driving it.

“For example, across the studies reviewed the estimates of the increase in the tropics vary from 2.0 to more than 5 degrees of latitude approximately every 25 years. That makes the minimum agreed expansion of the Topics zone equivalent to around 300 kilometres.

“This variation of estimates makes predicting future shifts difficult. Estimates for the expansion of the tropical zone in next 25 years (assuming the rate of movement is the same as the past 25 years) range from approximately 222 kilometres to more than 533 kilometres depending on which estimate is used.”

The tropics currently occupy approximately 40 per cent of the Earth’s land surface and are home to almost half of the world’s human population and account for more than 80 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity.

The majority of the world’s endemic animals and plants, which are found nowhere else on earth, are found in the tropics and are adapted to the specific climatic conditions found there.

“Thus, the implications of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones are immense and the effects could result in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications,” the review said.

The Vice Chancellor of James Cook University, Professor Sandra Harding, said that the review showed that with the expansion of the tropical zone and the subsequent push towards the poles of the subtropical arid zone, there was an urgent need for more research into the problems and issues encountered in the tropics.

Editor's Note:
Original news release can be found here.
Full review is available here.

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Emerging El Nino set to drive up carbon emissions

David Fogarty, Reuters 7 Jul 09;

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Across the globe an emerging El Nino weather pattern threatens to cause droughts and floods and trigger a spike in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from burning forests.

El Nino is a warming of tropical Pacific waters that affects wind circulation patterns. Its effects on the global climate vary from one event to the next.

Trying to predict how El Nino will be affected by global warming is a major challenge, scientists say, although data shows El Ninos have become more frequent and more intense over the past three decades. The last event was in 2006.

"I don't think there are any studies that are saying El Nino will become less severe but there is disagreement among the climate models on whether they will become more severe or stay steady," said Matthew England of the Climate Change Research Center in Sydney.

Getting the forecasting right is crucial for farmers in planning their crops, and even for the oil industry in assessing storm risks in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Certainly we know from past climates that El Nino intensity has varied. As climate changes, we know that the intensity of El Nino can wax and wane over long time scales," he said.

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said last week an El Nino was almost certain this year and the signs point to one already well underway. A formal declaration could be within days.

(For more details see the bureau's website at: www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/)

One of the biggest threats from El Nino comes from the release of vast amounts of greenhouse gases through the burning of dried out forests.

Scientists say there is very strong correlation between El Nino and drought in Southeast Asia, which has large areas of carbon-rich peat forests.

"People are waiting for appropriate conditions to get rid of the forests," said Pep Canadell of the Global Carbon Project in Canberra.

"So the drier the El Nino the more incentive there is for people to take advantage of those unique conditions," he said. Most of the burning occurs in Indonesia.

SPIKE IN TEMPERATURES

During the very intense El Nino of 1997/98, fires in Southeast Asia released between 2.9 billion 9.4 billion tonnes of CO2, blanketing the region in a choking haze. The smoke equated to between 15 and 40 percent of global fossil fuel emissions and is credited with causing a spike in global temperatures.

By comparison, average annual emissions from forest fires in Southeast Asia between 2000 and 2006 were 470 million tonnes of CO2, while average fossil fuel emissions for the same period in the region were 543 million tonnes of CO2, said Canadell.

Over the past two years, forest fire emissions have plunged because of wet weather.

"I think the next El Nino we have here in Southeast Asia is going to be a big one in terms of emissions," said Canadell, whose project issues annual reports on the planet's "carbon budget."

"The longer it takes for an El Nino to come, the bigger the emissions will be because the more people will be keen in burning because they have been waiting all this time."

The effects of the current El Nino, if confirmed, could already be apparent in the weakening of equatorial trade winds that normally blow strongly east to west and in the amount of cloud in the eastern Pacific.

"As El Nino is developing right now we should start to experience its impacts as we speak," said Harry Hendon, a senior climate scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne.

"Historically our biggest impacts are in the (southern) spring. But we start to see them as early as winter," he said.

SAME BUT DIFFERENT

Normally, warm ocean water is piled up in the Pacific around east Asia causing rain and moisture-laden winds that flow over parts of Australia.

But during El Nino, the warm waters migrate east toward South America, taking the wet weather, often causing floods in Colombia, Ecuador and elsewhere.

It's unclear how intense the next El Nino will be but Hendon said even weak El Ninos can have a dire impact on rainfall in Australia, depending on where the warm water pool was in Pacific.

"El Ninos that are peaking in the central Pacific have a bigger negative impact on rainfall on Australia than El Ninos that peak further east," said Hendon.

Complicating the picture, scientists now know there are at least two types of El Nino, one in which the warm waters pile up against the Pacific coast of equatorial South America, and the other in which warmest of the waters are in the central Pacific.

Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States released a study last week showing that periodic warming of the central Pacific was linked to an increase in Atlantic hurricanes, a finding that could change the way oil firms assess storm risks for operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Previously, El Ninos in general were thought to suppress hurricane activity, but the latest research suggests this is only for episodes where the warmest waters are off the South America.

"The fundamental problem is we don't simulate El Nino very well with our existing climate models," said Hendon. "That makes it a real challenge to run your model for a future climate and see how El Nino will behave."

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

El Nino developing slower, India monsoon to stay weak
Michael Perry, Reuters 7 Jul 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A key measure of El Nino weather patterns eased in June, suggesting the potentially damaging condition may be developing slowly, although India's monsoon will remain weak, Australia's weather bureau said.

An El Nino, which means "little boy" in Spanish, is driven by an abnormal warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, and creates havoc in weather patterns across the Asia-Pacific region.

The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), a key factor in identifying an El Nino that is calculated from monthly and seasonal fluctuations in air pressure between Tahiti and Darwin, eased in June to negative 2 from a negative 5 in May, the bureau said on Tuesday.

A sustained negative SOI often indicates El Nino, a condition that can bring drought conditions to Australia's farmlands, weaken the Asian monsoon critical for Indian crops, stir up storms in the Gulf of Mexico and cause flooding in Latin America.

"Minus 10 is an often used threshold level and it just got to there a few times, but it hasn't been sustained at that level," Sam Cleland, author of the Bureau of Meterology's weekly Tropical Climate Note, said on Tuesday.

"I don't think we'd make the call just yet that we have an El Nino event in place," he said ahead of the bureau's El Nino update on Wednesday.

Its last report said an El Nino was very likely in 2009 and may be declared in coming weeks. The last El Nino was in 2006.

David Palmer, a meteorologist at private forecasting firm the Weather Company says indicators suggest there is a 60 percent chance of an El Nino developing in August, the month when it usually can be determined whether the weather pattern exists.

"We've been suggesting for some time now that there is an El Nino developing but it is not until August that you can say that for sure," said Palmer.

"If I were a betting man I would be putting my money on it."

But Cleland said the Pacific trade winds, another key El Nino factor, had also weakened in June.

"The equatorial Pacific Ocean continues to develop into a more El Nino like pattern," said Cleland, manager of climate services at the bureau's Darwin office.

"To call an El Nino or not is difficult and it takes a number of parameters over a sustained period. The formal definition of an El Nino often occurs in hindsight," he said.

The last severe El Nino in 1998 killed more than 2,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damages to crops, infrastructure and mines in Australia and Asia. It came in the middle of the Asian crisis that roiled financial markets.

India, one of the world's biggest producers and consumers of everything from sugar to soybeans, is already experiencing a weaker annual monsoon. Its faltering sugar crop has helped drive world prices of the commodity to their highest in three years.

India's monsoon will remain weak according to the latest Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) index, which gauges the eastward progress of tropical rain, Cleland said. It was too early to get a read on the potential intensity of a new El Nino, he added.

"There's no strong indication at this stage of what level of impact this ENSO event could have," he said, adding that some weak El Ninos have had severe impacts on Australia rainfall, while stronger El Ninos have only had marginal impacts.

(Additional reporting by Bruce Hextall)

(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

El Nino "boy child" developing slowly
Rueters 7 Jul 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An El Nino weather pattern that could bring drought to Australia's farms and weaken Asia's monsoons, severely disrupting crop and livestock production, is developing slower, Australia's weather bureau said on Tuesday.

Here are some facts about the El Nino and La Nina weather patterns in the Pacific.

PACIFIC OCEAN

The Pacific Ocean is a huge mass of water which controls many climate features in its region. Its equatorial expanse, far larger than the Indian or Atlantic Oceans, is critical to the development of an El Nino.

In most years relatively cold water moves northward along the west coast of South America, an effect increased by upwelling or rising cold water along the Peruvian Coast. The cold water then flows westward along the equator and is heated by the tropical sun. These normal conditions make the western Pacific about 3-8 degrees Celsius warmer than the eastern Pacific. EL NINO OR BOY CHILD

El Nino translates from Spanish as "the boy-child."

Peruvian fisherman originally used the term -- a reference to the Christ child -- to describe the appearance, around Christmas, of a warm ocean current off the South American coast.

El Nino now refers to the extensive warming of the central and eastern Pacific that leads to a major shift in weather patterns across the Pacific.

El Nino benefits traditional fisheries in Peru and Ecuador, with colder nutrient-rich water from the deeper ocean drawn to the surface near the coast, producing abundant plankton, food source of the anchovy. However, when the upwelling weakens in El Nino years and warmer low-nutrient water spreads along the coast, the anchovy harvest plummets. It was ruined in the four or five most severe El Nino events this century.

In Australia (particularly eastern Australia), El Nino events are associated with an increased probability of drier conditions and severe El Ninos have caused widespread drought, decimating Australia's crops and livestock, and bushfires.

Asia's monsoons are weakened by El Nino and can severely impact vital food production in India and Indonesia.

SOUTHERN OSCILLATION INDEX

The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) gives a simple measure of the strength and phase of El Nino and La Nina.

The SOI is calculated from the monthly or seasonal fluctuations in the air pressure difference between Tahiti in the eastern Pacific and Darwin in northern Australia.

SOI close to zero indicates a normal Pacific weather pattern.

A sustained negative SOI often indicates an El Nino. A negative SOI means the seas around Australia cool, trade winds weaken and feed less moisture onto Australia and Asia.

A positive SOI reflects a La Nina episode. A positive SOI are associated with stronger Pacific trade winds and warmer sea temperatures to the north of Australia, meaning a high chance that eastern and northern Australia will be wetter than normal.

LA NINA OR GIRL CHILD

La Nina translates from Spanish as "the girl-child" and is the meteorological label for the opposite of El Nino.

The term La Nina refers to the extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. La Nina events are associated with increased probability of wetter conditions in the western Pacific, particularly in eastern Australia and Asia.

For the latest report, see: www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/.

Source: Australia's Bureau of Meteorology here

(Editing by Ben Tan)

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Spanish winemakers look to higher ground

Olivier Thibault Yahoo News 5 Jul 09;

MADRID (AFP) – Climate change, which could transform the Iberian peninsula into a semi-desert, is forcing winemakers in Spain to consider moving their vines to higher ground to escape the blistering heat.

Spain, which has more hectares (acres) of vineyard than any other country in the world, "is in the frontline of climate change," said Juan Francisco Cacho, a wine expert at the University of Zaragoza.

The country, already the driest in Europe, is threatened with "Africanisation" of its climate and up to one third of its territory risks "severe" desertification, according to the environment ministry.

Now, the big wineries and the Spanish Wine Federation are looking into a project, called Demeter, aimed at "gathering the knowledge necessary to face the challenge of climate change."

Vines love the sun, as all vintners know well. But too much heat is harmful to the proper ripening of the grapes, said Cacho.

Heat waves rob the grapes of sugar while the elements that give wine its aroma, its consistency and its colour ripen more slowly.

Spanish vintners must choose between an early harvest that produces wine with the right amount of alcohol but is still "green" or a later one in which the grapes produce a better quality wine but have more alcohol.

"The wineries prefer to wait... So much that the wines produced today are often are 14, 15 or even 16 percent of alcohol compared to 12 previously," said Cacho.

The Demeter project is aimed at "looking into winemaking practices that delay maturation," said Mireia Torres, technical director of the Bodegas Torres winery in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

"We have an experimental area where we analyse the different effects of the viticultural practices in relation to climate," she said.

One possible solution they are exploring is altitude. At a higher level, vines suffer less from the heat, the nights are cooler, which allow the grapes to ripen better.

At Bodegas Perez Pascuas in the northern Ribera del Duero region, three generations of winemakers have come to the same conclusion: "the vines at a higher level mean a better quality wine," said Jose Manuel Perez Ovejas, the grandson of the founder.

The vines are situated at an altitude of more than 820 metres (2,690 feet) and relatively spared from summer heat waves.

"The (Spanish) vineyards are at a maximum of 800 metres above sea level. In 15 years, they will have to plant the vines at between 800 and 1,000 metres and the great winemakers are already buying land at higher altitudes," said Cacho.

Frenchman Lionel Gourgue, a wine expert for the "Vinedos Alonso del Yerro" of the Ribera del Duero region, believes that a shift to higher ground would be just a return of good sense.

"The vine has always been planted on the hillsides... In the 1980s, mistakes were made, and we planted them anywhere."

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Devastation in Zambia as climate change brings early flooding

The Red Cross warns that global warming will lead to more disasters along the Zambezi river basin
David Smith, The Guardian 6 Jul 09;

The ceremony is called Kuomboka, meaning "moving out of the water". Every year the king of the Lozi people journeys from the flooded plains to higher ground. Thousands gather to dance, feast and watch the royal barge rowed by dozens of oarsmen beneath a giant replica elephant.

The Kuomboka is traditionally the cue for local people to follow the king in escaping the rising waters, but the reality of climate change is catching up with this colourful ritual. The most recent flood came too soon and too strong, killing at least 31 people in Zambia's impoverished western province. The devastating aftermath has left people starving and homeless.

"Flooding here is an annual event, but it came earlier than expected and people were caught off guard," said Raphael Mutiku, a public health engineer for Oxfam in Mongu.

The Red Cross recently warned that global warming will lead to more disasters and suffering along the entire Zambezi river basin, where floods have increased dramatically in recent years.

The Zambezi once flooded the plains as predictably as the changing seasons, in late March or early April. But now the great river is less regular and more extreme. The volatile climate – annual rainfall has risen in recent years from 900mm to 1,300mm – is disrupting rhythms that have sustained generations. Crops that should have been harvested in January or February this year were destroyed by flooding that began in November. Even on higher ground, cassava crops were no longer safe.

Thousands of people have been forced to move further inland than ever before without food or sanitation. They have become refugees in their own country, camping in informal settlements accessible only by boat. They cannot grow crops as the land is infertile, they are exposed to malarial mosquitoes and respiratory infections, and are cut off from hospitals and schools.

Lutangu Mulambwa, 25, and his wife Sandra, 17, had to flee their home in a canoe with their 10-month-old daughter, Mulima, and found refuge 15km away. The maize crop on which they depend is lost. "It's totally gone," said Lutangu, sitting outside a shelter improvised from dry reeds. "There is nothing at all we can do for food here to sustain our lives. We are dying of hunger."

Elsewhere in the Kaama settlement, a patch of scrubland where children in torn clothes play in the dirt, Nasilele Sapilo, 70, wondered how she is going to feed her five grandchildren. "We planted maize and pumpkin to sustain us for the whole year but we've lost over three-quarters to the floods," she said. "I move from the low ground every year, but this time the rain was heavy and the houses submerged to roof level."

The family home is 17km away. Nasilele's grandson, Liyiungu, nine, wearing a ragged green jacket and a filthy vest, said: "I don't have soap or schoolbooks – they were swept away by water. I miss my socks and school shoes."

In another village, Liyoyelo, the floods have receded and people were starting to rebuild their lives. The waterline was visible on the wall of a wooden shack. In one corner, a film of brown soil clung to an old vinyl record player.

The village of more than 200 people was now a sprawl of ruined homes and fetid cesspools. Before, people braved the floods and stayed at home, but not this time. "It came in early December and in 12 hours the water filled the yard," recalled Mukelabai Ilishebo. "Our maize was lost and our home destroyed. The blankets and clothes are gone."

Mukelabai, 25, and her family packed all the belongings they could into a canoe and paddled 24km to safety. After four months they came back to find the roof of their home fallen in and the mudbrick walls crumbling away. She added: "We are having to start again. There is no food so we are not eating anything. My husband has no job. I worry about the children."

Elsewhere, at Soola, the settlement resembled even more closely a desolate refugee camp, with shelters fabricated from thatch and reeds and draped with dirty clothes and blankets. Remnants of sweet potato tubers were scattered on the ground. An area where homes used to be was now a muddy wasteland save for a single door, standing like the freak survivor of a shockwave that vaporised everything else.

Masela Kababa, 30, a mother of three young children, said: "There isn't enough food to feed the children. They all have aching joints and eye infections. There's nothing we can do."

She was pessimistic. "This problem is here to stay. I think it will keep happening to the end of time."

Today's report from Oxfam on the human cost of climate change calls on world leaders attending this week's G8 meeting to act now on behalf of those already suffering its consequences.

Raphael Mutiku of Oxfam said: "We have types of catastrophe such as volcanoes and tsunamis, but now our focus is shifting towards climatically induced matters. The question is, how do you respond so you don't see the same crisis next year, and the year after?"

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