The Top 10 Global Warming Stories of 2008

What events, actions, and findings had the most positive or negative impact on the likelihood that the nation and the world will act in time to avoid catastrophic warming?

Since the #1 story is way too obvious to generate any drama, I will start there and then go back and count down from 10 to 2.

1. Team Without Rivals. A year ago, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, desperately warned, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." That means the next president and his cabinet, more than any other group, will determine my future and your future and our children's future, and perhaps the future of the next 50 generations to walk the earth. Fortunately, the American people rejected the old greenwasher and new denier nominated by the Drill, baby, Drill crowd -- and now we will be led by the greenest, most scientifically informed, radical pragmatists in the history of the Republic:

• Obama: "The science is beyond dispute... Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response."


• Why Biden is such an important pick for those who care about the climate


• SOS trumps NSA (Hillary Clinton trumps Gen. Jones)


• Carol Browner to oversee energy and climate at the White House


• Top 5 reasons Chu is a great energy pick -- #1: "It's not guaranteed we have a solution for coal"


• Obama picks a green jobs leader for Labor Secretary: Hilda Solis


• The first green Secretary of Commerce


• For NOAA head, Obama appoints yet another scientist who gets climate


• Obama's strongest message on climate yet: John Holdren to be named Science Adviser

Back to the countdown:

10. Gas Pains. As NOAA reported, levels of methane rose sharply in 2007 for the first time since 1998. Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, especially over the near term. And the tundra has as much carbon locked away in it as the atmosphere contains today. Scientific analysis suggests the rise in 2007 methane levels came from Arctic wetlands. The tundra melting is probably the most worrisome of all the climate-carbon-cycle amplifying feedbacks -- and it could easily take us to the unmitigated catastrophe of 1000 ppm. Though you should also worry that the methane might be coming the underwater permafrost, which is also thawing and releasing methane. Or from the drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires). If methane rises again in 2008 -- and NASA reported another brutally hot year for the Siberian tundra -- then that will probably be among the top three global warming stories of 2008.

9. The Thrilla in Vanilla. OK, it wasn't Ali-Frazier, but Henry Waxman's smackdown of John Dingell for chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was high drama with high consequences. Finally, we have a champion of serious action and strong regulation, someone who gets the dire nature of global warming, in charge of the crucial committee for climate and energy.

8. Ice, Ice maybe not. Everywhere scientists look, ice is disappearing:

• Two trillion tons of land ice lost since 2003, rate of Greenland summer ice loss triples 2007 record


• WMO confirms "Overall [Arctic] ice volume was less than that in any other year"


• Another climate impact comes faster than predicted: Himalayan glaciers "decapitated"


• NSIDC: Arctic melt passes the point of no return, "We hate to say we told you so, but we did"


• The Antarctic ice sheet hits the fan


• Greenland ice loss soars: Bad for you, great for bottled water biz

7. The rise of sea level rise: 1 to 2 meters is the new 1 to 2 feet. This year saw major sea level rise reemerge as one of the biggest threats facing humanity this century from unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions (along with desertification). In 2007, the IPCC had advanced a lowball estimate that explicitly ignored the single most important likely contributor to sea level rise this century -- "future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow." That estimate, embraced (and misrepresented) by delayers like Bjorn Lomborg to argue that climate change was no big thing, was based primarily on data and analysis from before 2006. With all the actual melting ice, with the ice sheets appear to be shrinking "100 years ahead of [the IPCC] schedule," it's no surprise that 2008 saw so many top climate scientists reject the IPCC estimate and warn of far greater rise in the decades to come:

• US Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely "substantially exceed" IPCC projections


• Startling new sea level rise research: "Most likely" 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100


• Sea levels may rise 5 feet by 2100


• Report from AGU meeting: One meter sea level rise by 2100 "very likely" even if warming stops?

6. Clean coal ain't. This was the year Bush and the coal companies mismanaged and underfunded the country's centerpiece carbon capture and storage (CCS) program, 'Nevergen', to death. Most other countries abandoned or slowed down their CCS efforts, while many independent analysts began to express serious skepticism that CCS would be a practical, affordable, and scalable strategy (see "Is coal with carbon capture and storage a core climate solution?"). The industry, however, began a well-funded advertising effort to sell clean coal, with marketing that bordered on Onion-esque self-parody. But a major environmental disaster revealed better than any ad campaign that coal is the dirties of fuels. And the EPA Environmental Appeals Board stopped new coal plants cold by, amazingly enough, realizing that when the Supreme Court ruled carbon dioxide was a pollutant and EPA needed to start regulating it under the Clean Air Act, they meant it -- though the Bush administration tried to reversed that ruling and Congress is trying to reverse that reversal.

5. 350 is the new 450. Led by the nation's top climate scientist, James Hansen, a number of leading scientists argued that the "old" target scientists have been arguing for -- stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450 ppm -- isn't enough: Stabilize at 350 ppm or risk ice-free planet, warn NASA, Yale, Sheffield, Versailles, Boston et al. In December, America's leading spokesman for climate action, Al Gore, embraced the 350 ppm target.

4. Clean tech shines. While the rest of the financial system melts down, cleantech venture investment hit a record $2.6B in the third quarter. Is that a lot of money? Well, of that $2.6B, some $1.7B went to U.S. companies, which is about three times the comparable annual R&D budget in the Energy Department office I once ran, the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program, which did -- and still does -- the bulk of the federal government clean tech funding. And VCs like Kleiner Perkins ramped up funding while the Bush administration gutted some of the most important research and deployment EERE had.

Some key clean technologies really began to shine in 2008, including perhaps the most important low-carbon energy source, solar thermal baseload, and the most important alternative fuel vehicle, electric cars and plug in hybrids. It should now be clear that all the technology we need to stabilize at 450 ppm (or lower) is here or will be in a few years (see "McKinsey 2008 Research in Review: Stabilizing at 450 ppm has a net cost near zero").

3. Desperate Scientists, Season II. The world's top climate scientists are once again begging for action, with many more going public to warn just how dire a fate we face on our current path:

• Hadley Center: "Catastrophic" 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path


• Climate change is accelerating warns top German scientist


• Study: Water-vapor feedback is "strong and positive," so we face "warming of several degrees Celsius"


• Must-read IEA report explains what must be done to avoid 6°C warming


• Nobel laureate Rowland agrees we are headed to 1000 ppm

2. Conservatives go all in on climate denial and delay. While the grim implications of the science and observational data discussed above have become painfully obvious to everyone else, conservatives simply refuse to accept reality. For instance, even though a very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far -- and even though 2008 was about 0.1°C warmer than the decade of the 1990s as a whole (even with a La-Niña-fueled cool winter) for some deniers, "2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved." Seriously.

The entire conservative movement, including pundits, think tanks, and politicians, now appears willing to stake the future of humanity on their willful ignorance.

• Virtually every conservative in the Senate voted against the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner climate bill even though that bill was inadequate to stopping catastrophic warming.


• James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) believes a cap & trade bill will return GOP to power "in 2010"


• Grover Norquist asserts that calls to take global warming more seriously will be "cheerfully ignored"


• 64% of GOP voters say global warming denier Palin is their top choice for 2012,


• "Several prominent party officials said they believe the GOP's message is fundamentally sound when it comes to energy policy, pointing to that issue as one of the few political bright spots in recent years."


• The Heritage Foundation even opposes energy efficiency


• The American Enterprise Institute is still crazy with denial and delay after all these years


• The Cato Institute believes adaptation is cheaper than mitigation.


• Columns by Charles Krauthammer and George Will and John Tierney have become science-free zones that demand more climate research while inveighing against all serious climate action and against all non-nuclear clean tech.

That's why the deniers are winning, especially with GOP voters or rather only with GOP voters.

If the Obama climate dream team is going to lead the nation and the world into a World War II scale effort to save humanity from self-destruction, they will be waging a difficult two-front war -- against the ever-accelerating reality of climate change itself and against the immovable unreality of "anti-science conservatives."

Comments

[ROWSSC]

10:15 AM on 01/07/2009

Nothing gets the global warming donkeys braying like a little "cold" hard fact...pun intended. The fact that sea ice has dramatically increased in the last two years is undisputable by even the most ardent clingers of the man made global warming myth. Its kind of fun to watch. Sea ice has now reached the same level as 1979, the same year Time magazine posted the story about the new coming ice age. At the time the same people who are clinging to the myth today, had the same answer to stopping it...shut down capitalism...surprise surprise!...excuse me, I need to go put another log on the fire.

[RageCage]

11:50 AM on 01/05/2009

Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834

[MGhamma]

03:35 AM on 01/06/2009

ragecage,That arguement rests on some pretty thin ice.

[dctackett]

05:48 PM on 01/06/2009

I read it... the article states that it's the anomoly that's the same and then confuses it with the actual volume of Sea Ice...

actually if you look at the graph you will see a negative trend in the anomoly...

check this out http://nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html

by the way, that is posted by a blogger with a history of cherry picking "evidence" to prove his point, and it is directed at a loyal fan base of denialists.

for instance, he throws in a comment about polar bear populations increasing, but fails to mention that the increase follows an international ban on polar bear hunting, which was brought on by excessive hunting... also, what is the quality of the data... what kind of records, how thorough was the data collection, etc...?

[MGhamma]

05:53 PM on 01/04/2009

Crickets.

[MGhamma]

02:24 AM on 01/04/2009

Michale, I took some time to check out your "record cold" link, I read the "global warming skeptics take heart in the record cold " article. Did you happen to read that one? The last couple of paragraphs are very interesting. Includes some inconvenient facts that I guess you just conveniently forgot, huh. Got any more links I can check out ? This is fun.

[Michale32086]

05:43 AM on 01/04/2009

Sure, once you can point to your cite where scientists back in 2002 or 2003 accurately predicted the record cold temps of 2008...

By the bi, here is a fun HuffPo commentary to read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html

Michale.....

[MGhamma]

10:47 AM on 01/04/2009

I never claimed that the scientists predicted these record cold temps, and you know it. As for your link, I think Huffpo posted Amblers article to showcase how silly you the denier arguement is. Worked to.

[Photofarm]

11:03 PM on 01/02/2009

And today there is a story that high levels of CO2 will cause massive cooling and the next ice age.

Also, hottest decade was the 1930's, not the current one, but the global warming believers seem to miss the correction that they put out 6 months ago.

Bottom line is that the " climate experts don't have clue what is going on " which becomes quite obvious when you look at all of the facts, and read those scientists that don't fall in line with global warming fanatics.

[MGhamma]

03:01 AM on 01/03/2009

Which scientists Photofarm?

[BlackbirdHighway]

08:42 AM on 01/03/2009

Seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.

None of those were in the 1930s.

Please stop posting lies.

[Michale32086]

07:57 PM on 01/02/2009

@MGhamma

}}}}
the climate scientists predicted this cooling.
{{{{{

They did?? Prove it..

{{{{about this time the fanatic usually runs away...}}}}

}}}}
And what record cold are you refering to Michale?
{{{{

Oh gee whiz.. I dunno..

Maybe THIS record cold...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=D0u&q=record+cold+temps+2008&btnG=Search

Remember.... 2008 will be the remembered as the year that the Human Caused Global Warming(Yet The Planet Is Cooling) religion/myth/con was finally debunked...

Michale.....

[MGhamma]

10:37 PM on 01/02/2009

Nice link Michale. Just more people who can't tell the difference between weather and climate. Go to www.realclimate.com, or www.scepticalscience.com, I think that's right, 2 web sites that actually talk about the science of global warming, if you want proof. I really don't think you will, deniers like you are allergic to actual facts and evidence.

[BrettnCalgary]

01:46 AM on 01/04/2009

Don't forget:

http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

[Michale32086]

01:24 PM on 01/02/2009

@wdw505

}}}}}
then i guess since i am in ohio i will have some beach front property?

i'm ok with that
{{{{{

I am waiting for a DAY AFTER TOMORROW scenario so we can finally get some snow here in Florida!!! :D

Michale.....

[wdw505]

07:53 PM on 01/02/2009

cool

[fumes]

01:17 PM on 01/02/2009

zola77 and bernique can't explain why co2 doesn't control the temperature of a cold clear night lol

[BlackbirdHighway]

02:46 PM on 01/02/2009

There is no reason why they need to. The amount of CO2 in the air now holds in heat, but only a fraction of it. If CO2 rose to 30% of the atmosphere, then it would hold in virtually ALL the heat, and the temperature on Earth would be around 900 degrees. Yes, then it would be the same temp at night!

All of that is irrelevant. Even though only a fraction of the heat is retained, the fact remains that more CO2 holds in proportionally more heat. Most people don't need to wait until the surface temperature hits 900 to be convinced of a basic science fact.

[Michale32086]

03:07 PM on 01/02/2009

And yet, ice core samples PROVE that the rise in temps PRECEDE the rise in CO2..

So, how can a rise in CO2 cause a rise in temps when it's the rise in temps that come first??

I understand, thru temporal mechanics that sometimes effect precedes cause.. But I don't think we're quite there yet...

Michale....

[fumes]

07:44 PM on 01/02/2009

pretty powerful stuff ya got there bbh, ever think of insulating your house with it? should work if what you say is true! lol! say bbh, co2's effect is logarithmic, meaning it's increase results in diminishing returns, so it has no real caloric advantage now at .038% of the atmosphere, and more does not produce linear returns. hmm.. sounds like zilch to me there bud.

[fumes2]

09:04 PM on 01/02/2009

Arnie jokes, "zola77 and bernique can't explain why co2 doesn't control the temperature of a cold clear night lol"

That is a good one, Arnie!

[Michale32086]

11:45 AM on 01/02/2009

@sticksnstones

}}}}}
Fortunately for all of us, PE Obama's Cabinet and Agency selections reflect a direct repudiation of your peculiar dismissal of scientific data.
{{{{{

Time will tell.. Remember Obama's stance on FISA?? His principled condemnation of Hamas?? I doubt that President Obama will be the hysterical Left stooge you think he is going to be.

I think, once we see a couple more years of record cold temps, President Obama will know the true facts from the true science...

So tell me, how well did those models predict 2008, eh?? :D

}}}}}
You bring to the table nothing but a bigoted rejection of Al Gore
{{{{{

How can anyone who is logical and rational NOT reject Al Gore?? His "do as I say not as I do" attitude is so pervasive that the only way ANYONE can accept his way of looking at things is by conceding Lenin's remark about "Useful Idiots"....

Michale......

[sticksnstones]

12:15 PM on 01/02/2009

I was hoping, for all of our sakes, that Santa would bring you a new set of talking points. But alas, it wasn't to be. A huge loss for us all.

BTW ... what exactly does FISA and Hamas have to do with this discussion ?? As an indicator of just how Obama will formulate a policy with regard to world climate change by inserting a TOTALLY UNRELATED matter is an incredible stretch. You are truly marginalizing yourself.

I don't have a problem with either the size of Al Gore's house or his travel schedule, if that's what you mean by the " do as I say not as I do " blather. It's irrelevant, and frankly, another form of pen*s envy.

[MGhamma]

01:14 AM on 01/04/2009

Sticks, all Michale has left is old, stale talking points. And he repeats them, word for word.

[wdw505]

11:37 AM on 01/02/2009

today i needed to take the chill off in my house.........but i wanted to do my part for my carbon footprint so i turned off my oil furnace and started my fireplace...........

as i have big feet...........my footprints all should be bigger

[BrettnCalgary]

01:51 AM on 01/04/2009

If you are burning wood, then you are at the least carbon neutral, that's what you denial d0lts can't seem to understand. The planet spent millions of years sequestering carbon, and we are letting it all back out. Yes, lets go back to an ancient sauna atmosphere, we will do great under that. You are too stupid to even realize that your own little sarcastic taunt was an improvement over burning fossil fuels.

[FormerReaganite]

08:12 PM on 01/04/2009

Wood burning is NOT, nor cannot be, considered "carbon-neutral"
And wood smoke is hazardous to health. Read more here:

Carbon Neutral vs. Carbon Offset
http://burningissues.org/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=876

A carbon-based fuel cannot be "carbon-neutral"
http://burningissues.org/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=668&highlight=carbonbased

[Michale32086]

11:37 AM on 01/02/2009

Just so I can make my HCCC library complete, can anyone point me to the predictions for 2008 that were made by the IPCC or whoever??

Thanx

Michale.....

[BrettnCalgary]

01:55 AM on 01/04/2009

I don't recall seeing any comments on weather at

http://www.ipcc.ch/

After all, they aren't a weather prognosticator, they are concerned with climate change.

You did, after all, ask about yearly weather predictions, not climate.

[VikingQuest]

10:48 AM on 01/02/2009

My #1 story for 2008 on global warming is the desperation we are starting to see from those that have joined the GW religion.

My quote of the year was from Ted Turner saying if we don't do somthing now, 20 years down the road we will all be CANABALS . . . yeah . . . ok . . . whatever.

[Michale32086]

11:11 AM on 01/02/2009

This is the best story of 2008...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3982101/2008-was-the-year-man-made-global-warming-was-disproved.html

Michale.....

[VikingQuest]

10:37 AM on 01/02/2009

Maybe there is a Global Warming expert that can help me out with a question I have had:

Let's say we start living in huts and never use gas/electricity ever again starting today, what changes with the climate that would be any different and how do you know?

[Michale32086]

11:20 AM on 01/02/2009

It appears that the Human Caused Global Warming(Yet The Planet Is Cooling) didn't come close to predicting the record cold that marked 2008...

Considering the models can't predict anything a couple of years out, how on earth can ANYONE put stock in their 10-20-30 year predictions??

Michale.....

[BlackbirdHighway]

02:54 PM on 01/02/2009

Record cold? 2008 was hotter than 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, or 1999.

Ok, It was cooler than 2007. Is that the record you are referring to? One cool year does not set a new trend. Look at the 5 year moving average of yearly global temperatures. The trend is clearly and solidly up. 2008 was not cool enough to break the trend, or even make a noticeable change in the upward slope.

If 2009 is cooler than 2008, and 2010 is cooler that 2009, then you may have something to talk about, but that hasn't happened yet, and probably won't happen.

[MGhamma]

07:32 PM on 01/02/2009

the climate scientists predicted this cooling. And what record cold are you refering to Michale?

[wdw505]

11:33 AM on 01/02/2009

nice one

[markusmarkus]

08:52 AM on 01/02/2009

My answer to the deniers is, "What if we do little or nothing to amend our damage to the environment, and it turns out we are WRONG?"

[Michale32086]

09:13 AM on 01/02/2009

What if we take steps to cool the planet and then the natural climate cycle occurs and the normal cooling period is made 20 times worse by humankind fracking around with something they barely know anything about??

Michale......

[markusmarkus]

10:17 AM on 01/02/2009

To paraphrase Zbig: "Your logic is amazingly superficial." If our current impact on the environment is zero, then our attempts to mitigate that "impact" will amount to ZERO. Hence, there's is zero chance that we can make the normal cooling period "20 times worse by humankind fracking around with something they barely know anything about."

BTW, what institution granted you a PhD in climatology, Liberty University?

[VikingQuest]

10:40 AM on 01/02/2009

What if we do nothing to stop an astroid from destroying earth and it turns out one is coming at us?

Therefore we should put all our money into an astroid defence system with your logic.

[dan-o]

12:39 AM on 01/02/2009

Whether you believe in global warming or not, it is a good idea to reduce pollution and to minimize our impact on our little world. This can be done with current levels of technology such as Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, efficient diesel and natural gas for powering transportation.

Environmentalists seem to have difficult time in admitting that we will need such things as Nuclear or hydropower. They are unrealistic when they are not willing to consider the expansion of nuclear and the vast majority of people understand this. If they do not present realistic plans for replacing coal then the public will not buy into their fancifull plans.

[Michale32086]

07:01 AM on 01/02/2009

That's been my point as well.

If people want to frame the discussion in the vein of cleaner air and water, then I am there..

If people want to frame the discussion in the vein of ridding our dependency on foreign oil, then I stand shoulder to shoulder...

But if people want to frame the discussion with the hysterical fear-mongering of the "end of the world" or say that we must listen to the con-men tag team of Al Gore and Richard Branson, then sorry.. But that's where I go my own way...

Michale.....

[markusmarkus]

09:04 AM on 01/02/2009

The problems with nuclear power are, of course, many and varied. First is NIMBY. I certainly don't want a nuke plant in my backyard, and I can't blame others who feel the same way. Secondly, is the cost of a nuclear power plant, typically in the 10's of billions of dollars when TOCs (total ownership costs) are considered. Also, raising a large chunk of capital in the current economic climate to actually build the plant siphons $ aways from less polluting projects such as wind farms. Third is time: the time required to perform environmental studies, the time required to get federal, state and local approvals including approval from the federal nuclear regulating authorities. Fourth is quantity. I was reading an interesting article last night on this very subject. The current percentage of this county's electrical power provided by nuclear energy is about 20%. To keep that level - ~20% - constant, we need to build a 1MW nuke power plant every month! Nuclear is just not the panacea it seems.
Hydro-electric power is viable in specific but limited circumstances. It's not viable when a river and the life it carries has to be diverted or channeled. An example of this is the dramatic decrease of several salmon species cause by the building of dams on the rivers in Washington state.