Climate Letter #1339

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Carl Campbell
East Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf is found to be at risk of melting.  The Ross is the largest of all shelves, buttressing glaciers that hold enough ice to raise sea level by 38 feet in the event of complete collapse.  According to one of the researchers, “My primary concerns would be that the potential for melting and collapse of the big ice shelves is not being taken seriously enough…..They’re being treated as less important because they are not presently showing much signs of change. But on a 100-year timescale, they have the potential for large changes.”

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https://www.insidescience.org/news/antarcticas-largest-ice-shelf-could-be-risk-melting
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A new report looks at the history of Antarctica’s ice sheet from 34 million years ago.  There have always been significant effects generated by astronomical motions that shift the intensity of solar radiation back and forth from one pole toward the other.  Of particular interest was a period in the mid-Miocene, some 14 million years ago, when there was a concurrence of high atmospheric CO2 and peak radiation at the South Pole.  There is evidence that sea ice completely disappeared, allowing vast amounts of glacial ice to be taken down from the continental surface.  Global temperatures, on average, were three or four degrees C warmer than those of today.
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How intensified land use has transformed the planet over the last three centuries.  A highly detailed new study has found startling changes that go hand in hand with the changes wrought by CO2 emissions.  “Three centuries ago, humans were intensely using just around 5 percent of the planet, with nearly half the world’s land effectively wild. Today, more than half of Earth’s land is occupied by agriculture or human settlements.”  The natural ecology that evolved over eons of time is rapidly disappearing.  The story has comments about future possibilities that emerge from the study.
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China is set to become the world’s renewable energy superpower (Forbes).  A new report foresees profound consequences in the geopolitical world.  Nations like the US that have fallen behind may suddenly need to rethink their priorities for purely economic reasons.  For example, boosting markets for renewable products at home would be of great benefit for the domestic producers who are being overshadowed by the Chinese.
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A report on Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves.  There has been an independent analysis proving a total of 263 billion barrels available for production, which leads the world.  It is also the world’s cheapest to produce, but the Saudis have been in no hurry to do so at full speed like some other countries.  Their production of about four billion barrels per year compares with the world total of 30 billion (which is now a record high).  If climate targets are to be met that number would need to be drastically reduced over the next thirty years.  There is no need for any company or nation to waste money on further exploration for new reserves. or so it seems.
Carl

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