The Carbon Briefhttp://www.carbonbrief.orgumbracoen-gb15Daily Briefing | Subsidies for small scale solar face steep cuts**Get the daily briefing in your inbox at 9AM - click here to subscribe**

New NASA videos show stark ice loss from Earth's ice sheets 
NASA yesterday released brand new images showing the pace of ice loss from Earth's two vast ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica. The amount of ice lost from the frozen expanses is accelerating and together have helped raise global sea level by more than 7cm since 1992.      Carbon Brief

Climate and energy news

Subsidies for small scale solar face steep cuts 
The government yesterday announced  plans to cut subsidies for electricity generated from rooftop solar panels by almost 90 per cent. Energy secretary Amber Rudd said that as of January, feed-in tariffs would fall from 12.9p per kilowatt hour to 1.63p and that if the cost to consumers of subsidising clean technologies couldn't be reined in, the scheme may be scrapped altogether, reports  Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The cuts are the latest sign that the government is "diluting support for renewable energy after the exit of their Lib Dem coalition partners," says  The Times. Despite internal documents admitting the changes could result in "significantly lower rates of deployment", a Decc spokesperson insisted that falling costs will make it "easier for parts of the renewables industry to survive without subsidies", reports  The Guardian. Yesterday's decision attracted fierce criticism from green groups, who warn the short-sighted "assault" on solar power could kill off a promising industry. The cost of solar panels would need to fall by more than £800 for home owners to see a return on their initial investment, according to analysis by The Energy Saving Trust reported in  The Telegraph. BusinessGreen has some  more reaction as well as  ten things you need to know about the new feed-in tariff review.  The Financial Times Reuters and  The Daily Mail also have the story.      BBC News 

Extreme Arctic sea ice melt forces thousands of walruses ashore in Alaska 
Thousands of walrus have been forced to come ashore on a remote island off Alaska, scientists report, because of extreme loss of Arctic sea ice. Just as President Obama embarks on a tour to highlight the consequences of climate change in the Arctic, villagers reported seeing animals come ashore in the Chukchi Sea to rest and find food in the absence of sea ice, their preferred habitat. Since 2000, the forced migration of walruses - known as a "haul out" - has become an increasingly regular occurrence, according to US government scientists.  Associated Press and  The Washington Post have more on the story.      The Guardian 

Middle East faces 'extreme' water stress by 2040 
About one-fifth of all countries will experience chronic water scarcity by 2040, with the Middle East the worst affected, according to a new report from the World Resources Institute. Palestine, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates scored five out of five for water stress, based on ratings developed by the US thinktank, with many others moving from "medium" to "high" stress as climate change disrupts temperature and rainfall patterns. A separate  report from the European Drought Agency yesterday confirmed the severe drought experience by swathes of Europe this summer are consistent with scientists' projections for a warming continent, reports  The Guardian. Elsewhere,  BusinessGreen looks at efforts to develop an extreme heat action plan in India, which this year experienced one of its worst heat waves in history.      RTCC 

Obama lauds New Orleans' progress since Katrina, says more to be done 
Visiting New Orleans on Thursday, President Obama heralded the progress the city had made since Hurricane Katrina swept through 10 years ago, but said more needed to be done to tackle poverty and inequality. The city saw devastating flooding after the government was slow to respond to the disaster. "What started out as a natural disaster became a man-made disaster, a failure of government to look out for its own citizens," Obama told reporters.  Time looks at the cities most vulnerable to the next Katrina.      Reuters 

Ocean warming and acidification needs more attention, argues US 
The US government has urged the international community to devote more resources to slowing the impacts of climate change on the oceans, with corals, shellfish and other marine life a particular concern. "We are asking the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] in their next series of reports to focus more on ocean and cryosphere...We need to keep pushing up until the Paris conference and beyond," said David Balton, deputy assistant secretary for oceans and fisheries at the US State Department.       The Guardian

Climate and energy comment

The government can scale back renewables if it wants, but where is its alternative? 
The latest attack on the renewables sector in a bid to cut energy bills is a problem for a government that is supposedly fully committed to the decarbonisation of the British economy, says BusinessGreen's James Murray. If you kill off the feed-in tariff for solar generation and risk taking the distributed energy market down with it, what do you replace it with? The government urgently needs to provide a credible answer to these questions, says Murray.      BusinessGreen 

10 Years Later: Was Warming to Blame for Katrina? 
Remembering the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina when she raged through New Orleans ten years ago, the media is once again asking whether climate change played a role in making the storm worse. While these questions don't always have easy answers, the expectation is that climate change will mean we see the strongest storms happening more often in future, says Andrea Thompson.  Time looks at how storm surge increased the scale of the damage,  The Washington Post explains how it could have been much worse, while  Ars Technica tells the story of 38 NASA employees who rode out the storm to keep the space agency's facilities alive.  Carbon Brief asked hurricane scientists about what lessons have and haven't been learned in the 10 years since Katrina.      Climate Central 

At the Hinkley point of no return, is this a nuclear white elephant? 
As the £24.5bn nuclear power development at Hinkley Point in Somerset is poised to get the green light, The Independent's Tom Bawden says environmentalists are far from alone in opposing the controversial project. With the government agreeing a deal that would guarantee EDF a price of £92.50 per megawatt hour of the electricity it generates up to 2061, some analysts, politicians and rival power companies are "dismissing the project as a colossal waste of money."      The Independent

New climate science

Climate extremes in multi-model simulations of stratospheric aerosol and marine cloud brightening climate engineering 
A new study simulates the climate impact of implementing geoengineering measures to reflect more of the Sun's energy away from the Earth's surface. The results show the measures could reduce global average temperature rise by around 60% under a moderate climate change scenario. The simulations also show extreme temperatures changes that are similar to average changes. Changes to rainfall extremes depend on the type of geoengineering measure, the researchers say, with simulations showing both increases and decreases in the length of dry spells globally.      Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 

Greenhouse gas emissions from the usage of typical e-products by households: a case study of China 
Use of electronic appliances in households accounts for almost 9% of greenhouse gas emissions in China, a new study finds. Use of electronic products has increased with income, and average household emissions in China are now higher than they are in Norway, for example. Potential measures to reduce the emissions of these products would be the development of energy-saving models and a reduction in coal power for generating electricity, the researchers say.       Climatic Change

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Australia 'has world's biggest climate policy gap' under Abbott 

The day we stopped Europe's biggest polluter in its tracks 
The Guardian 

Live Q&A: How can we reach generation 100% renewable? 
The Guardian 

Tokyo Electric's First Wind Farm Starts Running in Central Japan 
Bloomberg New Energy Finance 

Digging into big coal's climate connections 
The Guardian 

North Sea oil: northern exposure 
The Financial Times 

Tropical Storm Erika soaks Caribbean, heads for U.S. East Coast 

The Guardian 

French oil major Total to sell $900m of North Sea assets 
The Financial Times 

White House says Keystone XL pipeline review continues 

New NASA videos show stark ice loss from Earth's ice sheets US space agency, NASA, yesterday released brand new images showing the pace of ice loss from Earth's two vast ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica.



The Greenland ice sheet covers approximately 1.7m square kilometres (660,000 square miles), an area almost as big as Alaska. At its thickest point, the ice sitting on top of the land is more than 3km deep.

Since 2004, Greenland has been losing an average of 303bn tonnes of ice every year, according to NASA data, with the rate of loss accelerating by 31bn tonnes per year every year.

In the animation below, red shows areas that have lost ice, blue shows areas that have gained ice.

Change in the mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet between January 2004 and June 2014, as measured by the GRACE satellite. Source: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio.

The stunning video images above come from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE ) twin-satellite. The satellites orbit the poles, measuring changes to the Earth's land and water masses and work out differences in the planet's gravitational field every 30 days. 


"Greenland's summer melt season now lasts 70 days longer than it did in the early 1970s. Every summer, warmer air temperatures cause melt over about half of the surface of the ice sheet - although recently, 2012 saw an extreme event where 97% of the ice sheet experienced melt at its top layer."

Greenland officially reaches the end of the summer melt season next week, when scientists will be able to say how 2015 has compared with previous years in terms of the speed of ice loss.

Changing ocean currents and temperatures are also melting the Greenland ice sheet from the bottom up, scientists say. A new three-year NASA project called Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG ) aims to get a better handle on how the rate of ice loss compares to surface melting.


Covering nearly 14m square kilometres (5.4m square miles), Antarctica is more than eight times the area of Greenland. The continent is also losing ice, though less quickly than its northern counterpart. Antarctica has lost, on average, 118bn tonnes of ice per year since 2004, compared to Greenland's 303bn tonnes.

Change in the mass of the Antarctic Ice Sheet between January 2004 and June 2014, as measured by the GRACE satellite. Source: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio.

Once again, red in the above animation is shows areas that have lost ice, blue shows areas that have gained ice. As you can see, most of the ice loss is coming from West Antarctica. Since 2004, the rate of ice loss from the region has accelerated by 28bn tonnes each year.

The biggest cause of ice loss is warmer water melting the ice shelves that protrude from the ice sheet over the ocean. As the ice shelves erode, they lose their buttressing effect and the glaciers stacked up behind them are free to flow into the ocean.

The Larsen-B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula collapsed in 2002, releasing more than 3,200 square kilometres (1,250 square miles) of ice in the space of a month, say NASA scientists. Recent research suggests the Larsen-C ice shelf is at risk of following suit.

West Antarctica grabbed the headlines last year when scientists discovered glaciers in the Amundsen bay were already collapsing. The process was likely to be unstoppable, said scientists, potentially adding several metres to sea levels over the course of many centuries.

Change -in -ice -mass

Change in ice mass from West Antarctica between January 2004 and June 2014, as measured by the GRACE satellite. Source: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio.

Sea level rising

As ice on land melts, it raises global sea levels. On top of the contribution from melting ice sheets and glaciers, sea water expands as it gets warmer, raising sea levels further still.

NASA scientists have been measuring the height of the surface of the ocean in detail since 1992, first with the Topex/Poseidon satellite and later with its successors, Jason-1 and -2.

Together with the GRACE satellites and the ARGO network of more than 3,000 ocean sensors, scientists now have a good idea of how sea levels are changing.

Globally, sea level has risen by about 19cm since the start of the 20th century, 7.4cm in the last 20 years alone. About a third of that is from warming water, the rest from melting land ice, say the NASA scientists.

But sea level rise doesn't happen at the same speed everywhere. A third new video from NASA below shows how sea level has changed in different parts of the world since 1992. Red is where sea level has risen, blue is where it has fallen.

How sea level has changed over the last two decades as observed by the Jason series of satellite missions. Source: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Differences in sea level rise from one place to another are largely down to ocean currents and natural cycles such El Niño and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, explains Josh Willis, oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and chief scientist behind the coming Jason-3 satellite mission.

But that looks set to change, he says. Scientists predict meltwater from ice sheets will overtake natural cycles to become the most significant contributor to overall sea level change.

Our Future

So, how much more can we expect sea levels to rise?

Steve Nerem, head of NASA's sea level team, says what we've seen so far from the ice sheets is just the beginning. He says:

"Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it's pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet [91cm] of sea level rise and probably more."

The question is whether it will happen over the course of this century or longer, says Nerem.

This is at the upper end of the range of 52-98cm by 2100 put forward in the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013, assuming emissions stay very high (RCP8.5). But if the ice sheets collapse altogether, we can expect a lot more than that, says Tom Wagner, scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. He says:

"We've seen from the paleoclimate record that sea level rise of as much as 10 feet [3m] in a century or two is possible, if the ice sheets fall apart rapidly."

Scientists have a lot more information about Earth's ice sheets now than they did a decade or so ago.

As well as the GRACE satellites, the Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) ran from 2003 and 2009, using laser pulses to help map changes in the height of the polar ice sheets. ICESat-2 is scheduled for launch in 2017.

The European Space Agency's Cryosat-2 satellite measures how fast glaciers are moving, as well as height of the ice sheet. NASA's Operation IceBridge is a series of airborne surveys aimed at better understand ice thickness across the ice sheets. But there's still more to do, says Wagner:


Daily Briefing | Global sea levels climbed 3 inches since 1992**Get the daily briefing in your inbox at 9AM - click here to subscribe**

Celebrating soils: Why are they so important for our climate? 
A guest post by Pete Smith, professor of soils and global change at the University of Aberdeen, on why soils are so important for producing food and fuel, and keeping ecosystems healthy. "Changes in the climate can affect how much carbon soils store, but understanding the effects is not straightforward," he says. "Putting soils at the centre of environmental, sustainable development and climate policy should be the lasting legacy of the International Year of Soils in 2015."     Carbon Brief

Climate and energy news

Global sea levels climbed 3 inches since 1992, NASA research shows 
Sea levels worldwide rose an average of nearly 3 inches (8 cm) since 1992, the result of warming waters and melting ice, according to a panel of NASA scientists. In 2013, the IPCC said sea levels would likely rise from 1 to 3 feet (0.3 to 0.9 meters) by the end of the century. The new research shows that sea level rise most likely will be at the high end of that range, said University of Colorado geophysicist Steve Nerem. Sea levels are rising faster than they did 50 years ago and "it's very likely to get worse in the future," Nerem said.  Time said that scientists warn that "we haven't seen the worst of it yet"; ocean currents and weather cycles have actually offset some sea level changes in the Pacific, which means the West Coast could see a huge jump in sea levels in the next 20 years. In the Washington Post, Chris Mooney noted that the "intensive research effort" into sea-level rise "reflects the growing urgency of the topic". He adds: "Recent scientific reports have documented apparently accelerating ice loss from Greenland, and potential destabilization of parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet." Nasa has released a new  data visualisation showing ice mass loss from Greenland since the year 2004 totalling 2,500 gigatons.     Reuters 

Investors fear European energy groups will slash dividends 
The global market turmoil witnessed this week, combining with longer-term trends, continue to impact various sectors. The FT reports how fears that the collapse in oil prices "will force big European energy groups to slash investor payouts have sent yields on their dividends soaring, to the highest levels in almost three decades versus the rest of the stock market". In the UK, the  Telegraph reports that "Tata Steel says it will mothball plant in South Wales with fears for hundreds of jobs as the steel industry suffers another blow". The paper says imports of cheap steel, Sterling's strength and high energy costs in the UK are to blame. And in the US, the  FT reports that a "natural gas glut prompts price warning". It adds: "Hot summer weather has done little to burn off an impending US natural gas glut, prompting warnings of record-breaking inventories and lower prices for the fuel in the year to come."     Financial Times 

Tropical storm Erika strengthens, heads toward Florida 
A tropical storm watch was extended to the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas yesterday as Erika, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, closed in on the Eastern Caribbean and appeared to be heading for Florida, the U.S. National Hurricane Center has said. Erika remained "a very disorganised storm" on Wednesday but had the potential to reach hurricane status near Florida by Monday, the Miami-based government forecaster said. The last hurricane to hit Florida was Wilma in October 2005. Meanwhile, in the week marking 10 years since Hurricane Katrina devastating New Orleans, the  Guardian reports on how the city has launched a "resilience roadmap to tackle climate and social challenges".     Reuters 

What does China's Black Monday mean for the climate? 
RTCC asks analysts: "What does China's economic slowdown mean for emissions, low carbon investment and December's crucial Paris climate summit?" Ailun Yang, China strategist at NGO Climateworks Foundation, tells RTCC that "whenever the economy isn't doing so well, there is always a tendency to make a big supportive package…Very often, those packages will then go into carbon intensive industries". However, Jonathan Grant at PwC says: "The [UNFCCC] negotiations often proceed in isolation of external events, and in many respects ignore short term fluctuations as they are focused on the longer term low carbon transition."     RTCC 

Lord Stern hits out at claims about cost of climate cuts 
Speaking to an audience of ambassadors in Paris, Prof Nicholas Stern, the economist and author of the Stern report, said that it was a false dichotomy to posit growth against climate action. "To portray them as in conflict is to misunderstand economic development and the opportunities that we now have to move to the low-carbon economy," he said. "To pretend otherwise is diversionary and indeed creates an 'artificial horse race' which can cause real damage to the prospects for agreement."     The Guardian 

U.N. chief urges world leaders to speed up climate talks 
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has urged world leaders to look beyond their national interests and make sure a global deal to fight climate change is agreed at talks in Paris this year. "We don't have much time," Ban told a news conference with French Foreign Laurent Fabius, who will preside over the Paris talks. "I hope negotiators and ministers (will) look beyond their national interests which is why I'm asking world leaders to give a clear message to their negotiators that they should accelerate this negotiation." Fabius said he wanted negotiators to whittle down the 80 plus-page draft to just 20 pages by mid-October.     Reuters 

Green groups threaten to sue US watchdog over fracking quakes 
Environmental groups are threatening to sue the US environmental regulator, alleging it is failing in its duty to tackle a surge in earthquakes that they blame on the American shale revolution. The groups on Wednesday said they were preparing a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency for not curbing the disposal of wastewater by oil companies, a practice that scientists say has triggered a spike in seismic activity.  The Hill and  Inside Climate News also carry the story.     Financial Times

Climate and energy comment

Naomi Klein on climate change: 'I thought it best to write about my own raw terror' 
The Guardian has published a Q&A with the activist author of This Changes Everything. Topics included dealing with "climate denial": "I find it harder to deal with an UN negotiator who knows the science and chooses to do nothing. I find that more troubling than the Heartland crowd."     Oliver Milman, The Guardian 

Hurricane Katrina: New Orleans is still vulnerable - what happened to Obama's climate ambitions? 
Lean looks back 10 years to Katrina and the subsequent period of recovery and resilience building and concludes with some hard words for the current US president: "After shamelessly neglecting climate change during his first term, [Obama] seems to have rekindled some of that old ambition. But, as the increasing vulnerability of New Orleans demonstrates, he is a long way from achieving it."     Geoffrey Lean, Daily Telegraph 

It's the right climate to scrap the Department of Energy and Climate Change 
Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK-based climate sceptic lobby group, argues that DECC should be abolished with its functions being handed over to the Department for Business and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). He says: "The abolition of DECC would be easy pickings...Such a move would be good for cost-effective energy policy, good for consumers and good for the Exchequer."     Benny Peiser, City AM

New climate science

While higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide may boost forest regrowth after wood harvesting, few Earth System models account for the availability of nutrients the trees need to take advantage of that boost, a new study says. Researchers projected global emissions from land use and land use change through the 21st century with and without limited nitrogen. Their results suggest that not considering nitrogen limits could see land use emissions underestimated by 90-150%.     Global Biogeochemical Cycles 

Global climate, energy, and economic implications of international energy offsets programs 
The amount of greenhouse gas emissions from energy generation saved through offsetting schemes are lower than could be achieved through a global carbon price, a new study says. Offsets subsidise the deployment of non-emitting technologies instead of penalising the use of emitting technologies, the researchers say. As a consequence, offsets lower the cost of energy, encouraging greater use of energy rather than its conservation.     Climatic Change

Other stories

Can Geoengineering Save the World's Ice? 
Scientific American 

Alaska Experiences Dramatic Climate Change 
ClimateWire via Scientific American 

Guardian Public Leaders Network 

Teens sue Obama over climate, asking why future generations' rights are not respected 
The Conversation 

French energy giant Total ends coal production 
Energy Live News 

'Targeted punishment' strategy mooted to prevent climate free-riding 

Scientist helps faith communities engage climate change 
Yale Climate Connections 

The Guardian 

Only 45% of Scottish people believe climate change is an 'immediate and urgent' issue 
The Independent 

Charlotte Church sings outside Shell's London HQ in protest at Arctic drilling 
The Guardian 

White House-Koch feud intensifies 
The Hill 

Total to sell $900m of North Sea assets 
Financial Times 

U.S. Shale Gas Production Expected to Fall for First Time, Report Says 
Yale Environment 360

Why are soils so important for our climate? guest post from Prof Pete Smith, Professor of Soils & Global Change at the University of Aberdeen and Coordinating Lead Author of the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) chapter from Working Group III of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report.

From the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta to the 60th birthday of the Birds Eye Fish Finger, there are plenty of reasons to mark 2015 as an important year. But you could be forgiven for being unaware that 2015 is also the UN International Year of Soils.

By putting soils centre stage, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) aims to raise awareness of how important soils are for producing food and fuel, and keeping ecosystems healthy. But soils have also been thrust to the forefront of international science because of climate change.

Globally, the top metre of soils contains about three times as much carbon as in our entire atmosphere. Losing carbon from the soil into the atmosphere can add to climate warming. But if soils can be managed in a way that means they store more carbon, they can help to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and thereby help limit climate change.

Climate impacts on soils

Changes in the climate can affect how much carbon soils store, but understanding the effects is not straightforward. Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns can have both positive and negative implications for soil carbon storage.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, and transfer this carbon into the ground when dead roots and leaves decompose in the soil. Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and warmer temperatures, could give a boost to plant growth on the one hand and decomposition on the other. Whether carbon in the soil increases or decreases depends on the balance between the two.

But getting this boost also depends on there being enough water and nutrients to support the extra growth. Drier soils could also limit how well dead plant matter decomposes in the soil, leaving them more at risk of being eroded by the weather.

In other words, changes in temperature and precipitation can be both beneficial and detrimental to soil carbon storage.

Peat -bog

Irish peat bog. Credit: Shutterstock

Regional variations

The impacts of climate on soil carbon also vary depending on the type of soil and where in the world they're found.

Mineral soils are those that contain less than about 5% organic carbon. Recent modelling studies show that mineral soils in some regions will gain carbon, while others will lose it. Overall, climate change is expected to increase carbon storage, however,

But not all soils are created equal.

Peatlands are thick, boggy soils that contain enormous amounts of carbon - about twice as much as the world's forests. These may be more susceptible to climate change. When these soils heat up, or if they become drier, vast quantities of carbon could be lost through erosion.

Similarly, the frozen soils in the Arctic - known as permafrost - are likely to release carbon as they thaw.

Given the complex interactions between temperature and moisture, plant growth and decomposition, and variations between regions and different types of soil, predicting the composite effects of climate change on soils is extremely difficult.


Permafrost in Greenland. Credit: Shutterstock

Limiting climate change

Although soils will be affected by a changing climate, they can also be used to help limit how much it changes.

As soils are such an important carbon store, managing them sustainably can help maintain or increase the amount of carbon they take up. This makes soil management an important option for mitigating climate change.

Potentially, using soils to soak up our emissions could sequester up to around one billion tonnes of carbon per year - and it would be relatively inexpensive.

This idea has come to the fore recently with a suggestion from the French Government to increase soil carbon stocks globally by 0.4% per year. This would be equivalent to adding about 0.2-0.3bn tonnes of carbon to the top 30cm of soils across the world each year.

They intend to propose this at the 21st Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC in Paris in December this year. The idea is backed by the FAO and the US, the French Agriculture Minister said last month.

Whilst this level of sequestration is clearly extremely ambitious, it provides, for the first time, a way to promote soil management to help mitigate climate change on the global stage.

Soil carbon sequestration is not a magic bullet. There are limits to how much carbon soil can take up, and bad management could release it back into the atmosphere. But considering its cost effectiveness and its potential, soil carbon sequestration merits serious consideration.


Daily Briefing | Iran’s oil output plans put focus on Opec strategy’s-oil-output-plans-put-focus-on-opec-strategy/2015-08-26T09:00:00’s-oil-output-plans-put-focus-on-opec-strategy/**Get the daily briefing in your inbox at 9AM - click here to subscribe**

Ten years on from Hurricane Katrina: What lessons have we learned? 
Hurricane Katrina, which wreaked destruction on the southern US 10 years ago this month, went on to become a focus for arguments about the link between climate change and (individual) extreme weather events. Carbon Brief has spoken to some scientists in the field to find out what has and hasn't been learned since 2005.      Carbon Brief 

Russian industry paid to increase emissions under the UN's carbon credits scheme 
The UN's carbon credits scheme could have caused emissions to rise by 600 million tonnes, due to weak regulation and "perverse incentives", says a new study. Russia and Ukraine in particular come under fire for creating more waste in order to destroy it, earning tradable carbon credits in the process.     Carbon Brief

Climate and energy news

Iran's oil output plans put focus on Opec strategy 
Iran intends to accelerate crude production and exports as soon as international sanctions are lifted, putting focus on a worsening oil rout and Opec's strategy to combat low prices. Bijan Zanganeh, Iran's oil minister, said yesterday that the country would increase output by 500,000 barrels a day as soon as restrictions are removed. While the fight for market share between Opec members and non-members is well under way, a tussle within the group is also intensifying, the Financial Times writes.  Reuters also covered the story. Brent oil was trading at about $44 a barrel yesterday, close to 6-1/2-year lows hit this week on global oversupply and worries about the severity of an economic slowdown in China.      Financial Times 

World must face up to cost of carbon reductions, says European climate expert 
Former European commissioner for climate action Connie Hedegaard has urged countries to acknowledge the cost of reducing emissions to fight climate change, and called on politicians to shift away from short-term thinking. "It's extremely important to acknowledge it's not for free to make this sort of change. But neither is continuing business as usual," she said. Speaking at the City of Sydney's CityTalks 2015 yesterday, Hedegaard agreed with Tony Abbott that wind turbines are not "beautiful", but called power plants "visually awful".      Guardian Environment 

California governor spars with oil industry over climate bill 
The oil industry is selling a "highly destructive" product, California's Governor Jerry Brown said this week as he pushes a bill that would cut the state's oil consumption in half by 2030. The state Senate has already passed the bill, and members of the Assembly are considering it during a session set to end next month.       The Hill 

Court orders Russia to pay compensation for Greenpeace ship seizure 
A court in the Netherlands has ordered Russia to pay compensation for seizing the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise during a protest against an offshore oil platform two years ago, Reuters reports. Moscow has dismissed the ruling as lacking legal authority.      Reuters 

Hi-res models capture West Antarctic ice melt danger 
Scientists have used high-resolution computing techniques to calculate the future of the West Antarctic ice sheet - the fastest-warming place on earth - over the next couple of centuries. The precision mapping of melting glaciers can help predict potentially calamitous effects on sea levels, the scientists say. An estimated 80,000 cubic kilometres of ice could flow into the sea by 2100, rising to 200,000 cubic kilometres by 2200.      RTCC 

For Pope Francis's D.C. visit, environmental rally of up to 200K planned 
Several environmental groups are planning a major climate rally that will draw hundreds of thousands to the Mall on September 24, the day Pope Francis speaks to Congress. It is as yet unclear whether Francis will focus on climate change during any of his public remarks.       Washington Post

Climate and energy comment

Without Saudi support, talk of OPEC emergency meeting is just noise 
Calls for an unscheduled OPEC meeting to address spiralling prices are now more a sign of growing friction within the group than a leading indicator of policy action, write Rania El Gamal and Alex Lawler of Reuters. While Algeria and Iran have suggested the prospect of an emergency meeting, there is no word from Saudi oil officials, and "no one" is willing to cut output, says an OPEC delegate.      Rania El Gamal and Alex Lawler, Reuters 

Here's what happens when you try to replicate climate contrarian papers 
To evaluate the "slim chance" that the 97% expert consensus on human-caused global warming are wrong, a new paper by Nuccitelli and others examines a selection of contrarian climate science research and attempts to replicate their results. The idea is that accurate scientific research should be replicable. The study uncovered some common shared characteristics in the contrarian papers: cherry picking, disregarding known physics, ignoring inconvenient data and 'curve fitting' - taking several different variables, and stretching them out until the combination fits a given curve.      Dana Nuccitelli, Guardian Environment 

Philippines is excluding vulnerable voices from climate consultation 
The Philippines' government is ignoring the people hardest hit by global warming with unambitious and insincere national pledge, argues Renee Karunungan, Advocacy Director of Dakila. The Philippines, one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, opened its consultation on its INDC to civil society on July 24. However "the process of the consultation remains to be questionable", she writes, and at this point the INDC is "clearly unambitious, insincere, not transparent, and non-inclusive."       Renee Juliene Karunungan, RTCC

New climate science

The northernmost embayment of the Baltic Sea, the Bothnian Bay, remained partially ice-free for the first time in the winter of 2014/15, according to newly published data. The researchers found a natural climate cycle known as the North Atlantic Oscillation was in an extremely positive phase that year, resulting in winds vigorously pushing the sea ice to the northeastern end of the bay. However, They also found that sea ice conditions for the period 1985-2015 were unusual compared to any other preceding thirty-winter period since 1720. Based on climate projections, the scientists say they expect a partially ice-free Bothnian Bay will go from being an extremely rare event to a "new normal".      Geophysical Research Letters

Other stories


EU carbon firms on solid auction, energy price rebound 
Carbon Pulse 

The Economist explains: What is El Niño? 
The Economist 

Attorney Hounding Climate Scientists Is Covertly Funded By Coal Industry 
The Intercept 

US environmental agency advising Australia on impact of fracking on water
Guardian Environment 

Katrina's unclaimed dead conjure memories of her ravages 

Climate Change's Overlooked Sociological Side 
Inside Climate News 

Warming tropical oceans could see widespread species loss We have temporarily taken down this article because publication of the paper it discusses has been delayed at short notice by the journal. We've been informed by the paper's author that the delay is to make a minor adjustment to the manuscript and should be solved shortly. At which point we will re-publish our article on this page.