9 January 2016, Climate News Network, Ice melt speeds up sea level rise. Scientists have found evidence suggesting that melting icecap water from the interior of Greenland is adding to sea level rise faster than previously realised. Water may be flowing from the Greenland icecapand into the sea more quickly than anybody expected. It doesn’t mean that global warming has got conspicuously worse: rather, researchers have had to revise their understanding of the intricate physiology of the northern hemisphere’s biggest icecap. There is enough ice and snow packed deep over 1.7 million square kilometres of Greenland that, were it all to melt, would cause a rise in global sea levels of about six metres. Climate calculations Since the icecap is melting as the atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide rise, and global temperatures rise with them, as a consequence of the human combustion of fossil fuels, the rate at which summer meltwater gets into the oceans becomes vital to climate calculations. The latest rethink begins not with the pools of water that collect on the surface each summer, or the acceleration of the glaciers as they make their way to the ocean, but with a granular layer of snow just below the surface, called firn. This is old snow in the process of being compacted into glacier ice, and covers the island in a layer up to 80 metres thick. Until now, researchers have understood this firn layer as a kind of sponge that absorbs meltwater and holds it, thus limiting the flow of melting ice into the sea. Read More here
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7 January 2016, ARENA, National bioenergy database to create new opportunities. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) today announced $3 million funding support for the Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation (RIRDC) to undertake a comprehensive biomass for bioenergy assessment. ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said the $6.2 million project would uncover new opportunities and make it easier to develop biomass generation and biofuel projects in Australia. “RIRDC will deliver a national database that brings together data on biomass resources across Australia, providing a clearer picture of where untapped sources of biomass are available,” Mr Frischknecht said. “There is currently no central, national source of data to assist with planning of bioenergy projects and existing local data is incomplete. “Australia’s growing bioenergy industry has cited this lack of reliable information as a significant roadblock to getting new projects off the ground.” RIRDC will work with states and territories to collect data on the location, volumes and availability of biomass for inclusion on the ARENA-supported Australian Renewable Energy Mapping Infrastructure (AREMI) platform. AREMI is a centrally accessible repository for ARENA project information and shares mapping data and information with the renewable energy industry. Mr Frischknecht said the new resource would build on existing work and assist project development and decision making. Read More here
5 January 2016, YALE Climate connections, Managing Climate Information Overload. After more than 15,000 volunteer hours of development, a climate change expert here describes a sophisticated knowledge-management tool to provide ‘actionable’ climate change information to those most needing it … all of us. Many of us over recent years have become all too familiar with the term “too big to fail.” But what about “too big to follow?” That term applies well to the issue of global climate change, where the daily flood of new and worthwhile information and data can easily swamp even the most sophisticated library database information aficionado. What a waste, what a pity. What if policy makers, legislators, educators, and media just plain engaged citizens were more able to gather and digest the vast volumes of authoritative information on the issue, and make it “actionable”? What if we all were able to find that proverbial needle in the haystack that could lead to informed and cost-effective decision making both individually and globally? A pipe dream? Not so fast. ‘If only we knew what we know …’ The recent release of the Climate Knowledge Brokers Manifesto made clear the challenge of the “too big to follow” situation. We’re engulfed by a cacophony of “climate noise.” As John Naisbitt puts it, “we are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” It’s far more than an academic or theoretical concern: Climate-related decision-making is becoming much more important throughout broad segments of society, nationally and internationally. Read more here
4 January 2016, New Matilda, Nuclear And Nonsense: An Insider’s Guide On Making Renewables Work. Renewable energy advocate Terry Leach takes up the fight for an inexhaustible power supply. Geoff Russell’s recent New Matilda article ‘Batteries and Bulldust’ makes the argument that renewable energy can’t displace fossil fuels due to the problems of the intermittency of renewable energy and the difficulty of storing electrical energy. Russell compares the stupidity of Germany’s renewable push to France’s wisdom in generating most of their power from nuclear. Obviously, the superior governance, cheaper electricity and lack of inefficient subsidies results in France consistently outperforming Germany economically. Sadly for the French this isn’t true. Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe. Maybe, just maybe, the Germans aren’t ‘puddle shallow thinkers’. Problems of intermittency and storage of renewable energy are solvable, and the Germans are doing just that. Despite our current government’s opposition, technological development and entrepreneurship means that Australia is well placed to solve those problems here. Intermittent power Firstly, intermittency. Our electricity network is well equipped to cope with intermittency, as it has been built to cope with intermittency of demand. Demand fluctuates on daily, weekly and seasonal bases. We usually have a large proportion of our production capacity sitting idle, waiting for the high demand and price events that justify their economic existence. Like Europe, we have a continental grid, stretching from North Queensland to the West Coast of South Australia. Excess low cost capacity can be sent interstate, which means that demand, and therefore price, is smoothed. Currently we have cheap coal providing our base load capacity. Coal (like nuclear) can’t be ramped up and down quickly and has always needed to be supplemented by ‘dispatchable’ generation. This has historically been provided by gas and hydro. Read More here