Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 27, 2008

Our help needed in coal disaster area!

The article below is crossposted with the author’s permission from Daily Kos.  After you’ve read the post, please consider making a contribution to help the victims.

Our help needed in coal disaster area! Hotlist

by emmasnacker [Subscribe]

Sat Dec 27, 2008 at 10:04:25 AM PST

Once Upon A Time, life was good in Harriman Tennessee. Oh sure, there were some bad air days, but sometimes a young couple would sit on the swing, courtin’ and sparkin’…. After a day’s work, sometimes mom and pop would sit out in the evening light, gently swinging, holding hands and sharing their stories of the day.
No more. Disaster has come to Harriman, and life will never be the same. This swing will not be used again.

sludged swing

This community, we Kossacks, probably know more about this tragic event than anyone but the people who are actually living it. For those who have been absent during the holidays,

On Monday morning Dec. 22 around 1:00 am, the earthen retaining wall around this mountain of coal ash failed and approximately 500 million gallons of nasty black coal ash flowed into tributaries of the Tennessee River – the water supply for Chattanooga TN and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.

That was an initial report. The reality is worse. Much worse. Yesterday, The Baculum King had a recommended diary which discussed just how much so. Tennessee Coal Sludge Spill 3X What Initially Reported

lg sludge

Appalachian Voices Back Porch Blog reports:

App Voices takes flyover of TVA spill

Written by Harvard Ayers
Founding Board Member, Appalachian Voices

Yesterday, Christmas, December 25, 2008, around 4:30 PM, I flew over the fly ash spill at the TVA Kingston Coal Plant located on Interstate 40, about 30 miles west of Knoxville, Tennessee. The pilot of the flight was Jim Lapis of SouthWings flying service from Bristol, Virginia, and the photographer was Dot Griffith of Banner Elk, North Carolina…….snip……Appalachian Voices is currently dispatching a team of water analysts to the spill scene to aid the citizens of the nearby communities. TVA is saying nothing is amiss and the government agencies have apparently not yet arrived.  In addition to our sampling activities, we will do our best to provide whatever medical or other aid we can to people whose drinking water has been contaminated. Both humans and dogs who drank some of the normally pure water supplies near the spill have supposedly become violently ill with bouts of vomiting.

There are some good pictures included in that post. Heartbreaking pictures. How much breaking can the heart take, and still beat?

The Indian name for the Emory River was “Babahatchie”, which means “babbling waters.”
It was a river to raft, back in the day. At her mouth, the Clinch River, one of the most biodiverse bodies that we have in the country.

There will be ample time to grieve the Rivers.

lg truck sludge

And the homes.
wrecked house

Right now, the residents of the disaster area need assistance. The Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA, says move along, nothing to see, we’re cleaning it up, and your drinking water is not affected.
Those drinking it beg to differ. Injury reported as TVA waits for water test results

“We met a man who had been vomiting for the past 12 hours after drinking a couple of pots of coffee made from the tainted water,” said Matt Landon of United Mountain Defense, a Knoxville TN based environmental organization.  “We advised him to go to the hospital.” ……. Begining at 3pm Dec 23, 2008 TVA officials began to visit all of the houses just prior to our visit advising residents to boil their drinking water before consuming it for the next 5 days.

Unfortunately TVA did not inform anyone about the reasons for needing to boil the water and any chemicals that may be present in their water.  The city of Harriman was working 24 hours a day to install a new water pipe in order to provide these residents with cleaner water.  Their current water source was a large spring which may have been contaminated by the spill……..
Meanwhile, TVA waited for water test results before deciding what to do about the massive coal fly ash spill, creeping towards the confluence of the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers near Kingston, TN.  According to a New York Times story this morning, environmental officials are struggling to “assess the damage  in hopes that water supplies were not harmed by heavy metals like lead, mercury and arsenic.”

So residents are not being told that they may be drinking lead, mercury and arsenic. Nice. There are several statements concerning the boiling of this water that claim doing so will only concentrate the toxins. I do not know if this is true, but it seems to make sense. Boiling will destroy bacteria, but it will not destroy heavy metals.

United Mountain Defense, of Knoxville, looks to be the closest and most active helpers in this disaster. They are purchasing gallons of water at the local Kroger’s, at a $1.39 a jug to distribute to residents.

(photos courtesy of United Mountain Defense)

From an e-mail recieved yesterday:

Hey want to help???

1     You need to begin sending requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, TVA, State of TN, Congressional Hearings, and anyone else you can think of to request public hearings.  United Mountain Defense is mobilizing people here and they are plenty mad.  We are ground truthing to provide accurate info to inform you, the public.  We need your help in bringing the TVA criminals and their crimes into the light.

2     United Mountain Defense needs money to purchase water for these coal impacted residents.  On Dec 24, 2008 United Mountain Defense Volunteers passed out over 50 gallons of water to 30 households.  We are going to deliver more water tomorrow.  We are buying water at $1.39 a gallon at the local Krogers.

3     United Mountain Defense needs general support funds as we are an all volunteer run organization.  We mainly get funds from bake sales, spaghetti dinners, and dance/ house parties.  Any funds you could send would be used for our valuable work only.  United Mountain Defense is a 501c3 non-profit.
You can read what we spend money on and we keep all receipts.

Alright, Thank you for your time.

Till then, Matt Landon Full time volunteer staff person United Mountain
Defense

Contact 865 689 2778  or 865 257 4029

Can we help out with donations to them? I know that the generosity of Kossacks can make a huge difference in times of disaster and need.
There is no way that things will ever be the same for those who have lost their homes to this disaster. And it will be years, perhaps decades before the full implications of health problems come home to roost. But for now, for today, perhaps we can ease the suffering with donations to help get the word out on the ground, to those who may be unaware of the danger in that pot of coffee.

United Mountain Defense
P.O. Box 20363
Knoxville, TN 37920
Please mark check: “For TVA Spill”

Paypal link at bottom of page……

Thank you for reading, and for donations. Please remember to do as Mother Jones encouraged……Pray for the dead. Fight like hell for the living.

sludge sunset

oh you blessed Kossacks! Rec list? I am joyful at the thought that we can indeed help these folks. I was out splitting some wood in my bottom field this morning. In the peace, the quiet. The air smells sweet and wintery warm. And I wondered as I worked, what they are smelling in Harriman.
Thank you all.

Update: More blog press. “EMPTY PROMISE”: The broken federal commitment behind the Tennessee coal ash disaster from Facing South, the online magazine of Institute for Southern Studies.

When Earthjustice Attorney Lisa Evans testified earlier this year before a congressional committee about the looming threat from coal combustion waste, she warned that the federal government’s broken pledge to regulate disposal of the potentially dangerous material threatened the health and safety of communities across the country……..

The federal failure to regulate the waste has put 23 states — including Tennessee — in a special bind, since their statutes have “no more stringent” provisions prohibiting them from enacting standards stricter than those found in federal law. Without federal action, those states can’t regulate coal combustion waste disposal beyond the few obviously inadequate safeguards that now exist.

h/t Shireen, of Virginia Forest Watch

Some “technical” stuff coming out now, from the article linked above..

With regulators’ blessing, TVA was simply putting ash from its massive Kingston plant — where nine burners consume 14,000 tons of coal a day — into a nearby lagoon where it was mixed with water, allowed to settle and then pumped into what’s known as a dredge cell. The company reports that the ash level in the dredge cell at the time of the collapse was unusually high: 55 feet above the water level in the nearby ash pond, with a spokesperson describing the level as “a lot higher than any other internal dredge cell that we have in TVA.”

Should anyone close by want to stir the sludge:

COMMISSION MEETING:

The next meeting of the Roane County Commission will be on Monday, January 12, 2009 at 7:00 o’clock p.m. in the Qualls Commission Room on the 2nd floor of the Courthouse in Kingston.

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Posted in Climaticide, coal, energy, environment, global warming, health | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 23, 2008

Amy Goodman Interviews Tim DeChristopher on Democracy Now!

Here is a video of an interview that Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! did with Tim. Tim is very eloquent in explaining what inspired him to undertake his act of creative civil disobedience.

A full transcript of the interview can be found at the Democracy Now web site.

See this earlier post for background information:

Hayduke Lives: Tim DeChristopher’s Heroic Act of Creative Civil Disobedience

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Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 23, 2008

Don’t Worry About Climate Change: Leave That Up to Us

Here’s the latest anti-coal ad from the Reality Coalition.

In related news, a US appeals court reinstated an EPA rule to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants and to help states downwind from the plants meet air pollution guidelines.

A top broker in emissions allowances said trading in some pollutants soared on the news. One environmental advocate called the ruling a “holiday gift to breathers.”

Tuesday’s ruling reversed a decision the same court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, made in July to reject the so-called Clean Air Interstate Rule, known as CAIR.

The court found on July 11 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency went beyond its authority to create a trading scheme among utilities to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides at power plants in the East and Midwest.

But the current ruling vacates that earlier decision and leaves the interstate rule in place while the Environmental Protection Agency fixes flaws in the plan.

The court said it was persuaded by arguments by the EPA and others, including environmental advocates, that “allowing CAIR to remain in effect until it is replaced by a rule consistent with our opinion would at least temporarily preserve the environmental values covered by CAIR.”

Spot trading in sulfur dioxide jumped on the news, rising from $148 to $200.

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Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 22, 2008

And Now a Little Bit of Bad News About Coal

Knoxville.biz is reporting on the collapse of a retaining wall at a TVA slurry ash storage pond. Dramatic video of the flooding can be seen at the Knoxville.biz web site.

A retention pond wall collapsed early this morning at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston steam plant, releasing a mixture of water and fly ash that flooded nearly a dozen homes and caused a train wreck.

No injuries have been reported, but one house was swept into the middle of Swan Pond Circle Road and huge piles of wet fly ash cover the roadway.

Officials say 4 to 6 feet of material washed out of the pond and now covers up to 400 acres of land adjacent to the plant.

Some of the material made its way into Watts Bar Lake, which flows past the plant, according to TVA spokesman Gil Francis.

“It’s going to take some time to clean up,” Francis said.

Eight to 10 homes were flooded, and 12 residences in all have been affected by the break.

Although, this leak was relatively small, there have been some very large ones in the past: In 2000, a 2.2 billion gallon coal waste dam failed in Martin County, Kentucky.

Coal–it can be dirty in so many different ways.

Coal sludge Mildred, Pennsylvania

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Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 22, 2008

A Little Bit of Good News About Coal

The Tampa Herald Tribune is reporting that:

Under a deal with state regulators, Progress Energy Florida has agreed to retire two of its four coal-fired units at Crystal River, deemed by environmentalists to be among the dirtiest power plants in the nation.

The two units, which were built in the 1960s, will be retired after the utility builds a nuclear plant in Levy County, 10 miles north of Crystal River. The plant is expected to go on line in 2016.

Retiring the two coal units would cut emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming, by 5.5 million tons a year, said Jeff Lyash, president and chief executive of Progress Energy Florida.

“They are our oldest, most carbon-intensive generating resources,” Lyash said. “We needed to work our way out of dependence on those plants.”

The two units can generate up to 866 megawatts, enough power for 53,000 Florida homes.

In addition, the utility agreed to spend more than $1.3 billion on improvements to its two other coal units at Crystal River. The improvements will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, the chief causes of smog and acid rain, by 90 percent, Lyash said.

This agreement is part of Governor Charlie Crist’s call to reduce Florida’s CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2025. Unfortunately, that goal is too modest to meet the requirements for avoiding the 2 degree Celsius temperature rise that climate scientists say is necessary. Nevertheless, it is a start toward dismantling already existing coal-fired power plants which is an extremely important step. There is a lot of attention focused on stopping new coal-fired power plants, which is vital, but we need to keep in mind, as Jim Hansen reminds us, that we need to stop using coal altogether by 2030. That means shutting down these older plants, which are the most polluting that we have, not only in terms of GHG’s but also conventional pollutants like sulfur dioxide.

Good news. Now let’s shut down the other two as well.

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Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 22, 2008

Update: Todd Carmichael Reaches South Pole

Expedition Earth has this report that adventurer and DeSmogBlog blogger, Todd Carmichael has successfully reached the South Pole.

I received word this evening from the team at Patriot Hills camp that Todd has become the first American to travel the 600 nautical miles from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole…alone, unassisted and unsupported.

Our suspicions about the lack of contact from Todd these last few days turned out to be true: his backup sat phone had also failed. He was relying solely on his hand-crafted charging system for the satellite tracking device to communicate his position to the outside world (see the posting for day 28).

With no word from Todd since December 19th, these last few days have been particularly nerve wracking for everyone following his progress, for family in Spokane and Philadelphia and for the friends in the more than 58 countries that have logged on to this site.

He has trudged through gale force winds, white out, and bitter cold, completing the last thirty days of the trek on foot after both his ski bindings irreparably broke. He has persevered physically and mentally. But he has arrived at 90 degrees south and we can all now take a deep breath.

Congratulations, Todd! Well done.

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Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 22, 2008

Hayduke Lives: Tim DeChristopher’s Heroic Act of Creative Civil Disobedience

University of Utah student, Tim DeChristopher arrived at the BLM building in Salt Lake City intending to join some 200 other people protesting the Bush administration’s decision to auction oil and gas rights on federal lands near some of our most iconic national parks. Then he had one of those profound insights that change people’s lives forever.

As Tim put it in his online statement:

I have been an environmentalist for most of my life. I have marched, held signs, written letters and spoken to my Congressman. I have built trails and removed invasive species in National Parks. I have educated friends on climate change and donated to a dozen different groups. Countless others have done all these same things for decades in defense of our wilderness and a livable future.

It hasn’t worked. Even with a new administration, we are not on track for a livable future. This has been made clear by James Hanson, Bill McKibben, Al Gore and many others. The legitimate pathways to power have not provided us with the ability to defend the survival of our civilization. Yesterday I decided that the crisis facing us requires more critical action than has been taken in the past. When faced with the opportunity to seriously disrupt the auction of some of our most beautiful lands in Utah to oil and gas developers, I could not ethically turn my back on that opportunity. By making bids for land that was supposed to be protected for the interests of all Americans, I tried to resist the Bush administration’s attempt to defraud the American people.

During the auction, Tim purchased the oil and gas rights to 10 parcels of BLM land around Arches and Canyonlands National Parks for 1.8 million dollars that he doesn’t have. He also drove up the bidding on a number of other parcels that he didn’t purchase.

Eventually, bidders representing oil and gas companies became suspicious and alerted BLM officials who notified Salt Lake City plainclothes policemen (who were already in the room!). Tim was detained, questioned and then released by federal agents, but may face federal charges.

The BLM was offering 131 parcels at the auction on Friday of which it sold 116 including the ones that Tim purchased. The total number of acres offered was 149,000 down from the 360,000 acres that the Bush administration proposed before the public outcry became so great that the BLM scaled back. By the way, the oil and gas rights on those 131 parcels sold for 7.5 million dollars, approximately $57.00 an acre. The price would have been even lower if Tim hadn’t been there bidding. These lands belong to the American people but were being sold-off, at white-sale prices, to Bush and Cheney’s cronies in the Climaticide mafia.

Tim’s actions bore immediate fruit:

BLM official Terry Catlin said the agency didn’t want to reopen the bidding on the parcels DeChristopher snagged unless all interested parties were able to compete for the leases. That means the parcels won’t be available again until at least February — after Obama takes office — during the next scheduled auction.

DeChristopher, who acknowledged upping other bids by about $500,000, said he would be willing to go to jail to defend his generation’s prospects in light of global climate disruption and other environmental threats.

“If that’s what it takes,” he said.

I know that I used this quotation little more than a week ago in a post about the Green Banksy, but it is so appropriate here that I have to repeat it.

“At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, ‘thus far and no further.’ If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, ‘If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behavior.‘ “ Ed Abbey

Tim Christopher got in trouble on Friday not for his bad but for his good (in the truest sense of the word) behavior. In the process he set an example for us all of not only of how to reorient our moral compasses so that they once again point North, but of how to act once we’ve found the direction in which we wish to travel. Bravo Tim!

NOTE: You can contribute to Tim’s legal defense fund at the Center for Water Advocacy, a non-profit public interest law firm.


UPDATE January 7, 2008: Tim, in accordance with the advice of his attorneys, has decided to try and purchase the leases he won at the auction and needs to make a payment of $45,000 by January 9th to maintain his rights. his actions have ispired a huge outpouring of support. If you wish to contribute, click on the link below.

Donate at bidder70.org

You can read Tim’s latest letter here.

Photos Above: 1) Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, 2) Green River Overlook, Canyonlands National Park, 3) Park Avenue, Arches National Park 4) Colorado River, Canyonlands National Park

Photo credits: National Park Service Photo

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Posted in Activism, Bush Administration, climate change, climate science, Climaticide, energy, global warming, Obama administration, Politics, sustaninable energy | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 21, 2008

Japan’s first solar cargo ship–Greenwashing at Sea

The Environmental News Network has reported that Japan has launched the first “partly” solar powered cargo ship. Lest you get too excited, read on:

Auriga Leader, a freighter developed by shipping line Nippon Yusen K.K. and oil distributor Nippon Oil Corp, took off from a shipyard in the western city of Kobe, officials of the two firms said.

The huge freighter capable of carrying 6,400 automobiles is equipped with 328 solar panels at a cost of 150 million yen (S$2.4 million dollars), the officials said.

The ship will initially transport vehicles being sent for sale overseas by Japan’s top automaker Toyota Motor Corp. The project was conceived before the global economic crisis, which has forced automakers to drastically cut production as sales dwindle.

Company officials said the 60,213-tonne, 200m long ship is the first large vessel in the world with a solar-based propulsion system. So far solar energy has been limited to supporting lighting and crew’s living quarters.

The solar power system can generate 40 kilowatts, which would initially cover only 0.2 per cent of the ship’s energy consumption for propulsion, but company officials said they hoped to raise the ratio. [emphasis–JR]

Okay, let’s see, a ship built by an oil company to carry automobiles (I wonder how many of them will be hybrids) from Japan to the United States that produces 0.2% of it’s propulsion from solar panels. If that doesn’t meet the definition of greenwashing I don’t know what does.

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Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 21, 2008

2008 Arctic Sea-Ice Refreeze Trend Line Dropping Below Last Year’s

Take a look at the latest charts from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. After running for several months above the refreeze trend line for 2007-2008, the 2008-2009 line is now poised to dip below last year’s.

As I have already reported, 2008 was the 2nd lowest year for summer sea-ice extent falling just short of the record set in 2007. Moreover, 2008 set a record for lowest sea ice volume. Despite the fact that 2008 was colder than 2007, the sea-ice melt rate for 2008 nearly equaled the previous year. Why did that happen? Well, in 2007 a lot of the ice that melted was multi-year ice. In 2008 after 2007’s record melt a lot of new ice formed in the fall, but it was thin being first year ice. Such ice melts more easily.

Now take a look at the amount of first year ice in 2008 compared with 2007.

The increase in first-year ice is very large, which brings us to the significance of this year’s refreeze trend line. The science-impaired denailist/delayers were getting all excited about this year’s refreeze rate, because, even though it was well below the 1979-2000 average it was above the 2007-2008 refreeze rate. Now, of course they didn’t mention what I’ve just written about first-year versus multi-year ice, but that is precisely the point.

Just as last year, much of the 2009 ice cover will be first year ice which will be easily susceptible to melting, and, now, it appears that the refreeze rate for 2008-2009 is about to go below last years rate. (For a possible reason for this, see this post: Changes Taking Place in Arctic Sea-Ice Growth and Melt Cycles)

What does this mean for next summer’s sea-ice melt? Maybe nothing, but allow me to speculate a little. If much of the sea ice come next summer is first year ice and it will be, (and a lot of the rest will be second-year ice), and if this years refreeze trend line does go below last year’s line and stays there so that we start out with a smaller ice extent, and the La Niña pattern that we’ve been having shifts to an El Niño we could easily have a new record for sea ice melt come September 2009. I should point out that the World Meteorological Organization stated in late November that it could not, at this point, make a prediction regarding El Niño-La Niña for spring 2009.

Forecast models are in general agreement that near-neutral conditions will prevail through the remainder of 2008, and that there is no substantial risk of El Niño or La Niña through the remainder of 2008 and indeed into early 2009. However, confidence in projections into early 2009 carry increased uncertainty. Expert interpretation refrains from drawing any robust conclusions at this time about the likelihood of El Niño or La Niña development during the historically favoured time of year of March-May.

So, two of my three if’s may not happen. The refreeze rate may move back up and we may not have an El Niño next year, but if we do we’re going to see a new record for summer sea-ice melt and my guess is that it will be by a big margin. Just another step to a summer-sea-ice-free Arctic, decades before when the IPCC and others said it could happen.

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Posted by: JohnnyRook | December 21, 2008

Swiss Glaciers Going the Way of their Himalayan and Andean Counterparts

More news from the American Geophysical Union meeting. Two new studies show that Swiss glaciers are 1) shrinking and 2) shrinking at an increasingly rapid rate. This means that researchers are observing the same phenomena in the Alps that have already been reported in the Himalayas here and here and in the Andes.

Swiss glaciers are melting away at an accelerating rate and many will vanish this century if climate projections are correct, two new studies suggest.

One assessment found that some 10 cubic km of ice have been lost from 1,500 glaciers over the past nine years.

The other study, based on a sample of 30 representative glaciers, indicates the group’s members are now losing a metre of thickness every year.

Both pieces of work come out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

“The trend is negative, but what we see is that the trend is also steepening,” said Matthias Huss from the Zurich university’s Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology.

The investigators reported that there has been no measured change in snowfall accumulation, which when combined with melt rates, determines a glacier’s mass balance. Rather the melting away of the Swiss glaciers is attributed entirely to a longer melt season resulting from global warming.

In one [study], Daniel Farinotti and his team tried to assess the total volume of ice in Swiss glaciers -1,500 of them, from the mighty Aletschgletscher (the largest glacier in the Alps) to small ice fields that cover less than three square km.

The research used direct measurements where available, and combined this with modelling to estimate ice volumes for areas that are data-deficient.

The assessment found a total ice volume present in the Swiss Alps of about 75 cubic km by the year 1999 (a baseline for the purpose of the study). It is a bigger figure than previously thought.

“However, 1999 is quite some time ago now, so what we did was try to calculate the volume lost since this baseline; and we estimate a figure of 13% – from 1999 to today,” explained Mr Farinotti.

For 2003, remembered for its strong heatwave across Europe, the team estimates that 3-4% of the volume in Switzerland at that time was lost in that one year alone.

Farinotti points out that the largest 50 Swiss glaciers hold 80% of the total ice, which is fortunate since the smaller glaciers will all be gone within a few years. The largest glacier, the Aletschgletscher, is expected to survive until the end of the century.

The Aletschgletscher

The other study by a team lead by Matthias Huss analyzed 4 glaciers over the period from 1900 to 2007. (From the BBC article it appears that the authors may have since expanded their study to some 30 glaciers, but I cannot be certain as I do not have access to the paper as presented at the AGU meeting.)

In their paper Determination of the seasonal mass balance of four Alpine glaciers since 1865 [subscription required] published in March of this year in the Journal of Geophyisical Research the authors state that:

The aim of this study is to determine continuous time series of mean specific seasonal mass balance as well as the spatial distribution of mass balance of four well-documented glaciers in the Swiss Alps for the last 142 years. We extend the temporally limited mass balance series to the entire period since 1865, which marked the beginning of instrumental weather observations in Switzerland, and then resolve them into spatially distributed winter and summer balances. This provides a basis for the study of climate-glacier interaction in alpine environments and for the identification of processes that govern the mass balance evolution.

Mass balance of alpine glaciers is dominated by two processes not directly related to one another: Accumulation is due to deposition of solid precipitation and contributes mainly to the winter balance of the glacier surface; ablation is determined by the melting of ice and snow, and dominates the summer balance. Conventional mass balance programs often do not distinguish between the two components [Dyurgerov and Meier, 1999]. However, seasonal values of mass balance provide the best insights to assess the effects of climatic forcing on glaciers.

As it turns out, the period of greatest shrinkage took place not in the last decade but in the 1940’s, which tells us something about climate.

The annual variability of [equilibrium line altitude] ELA (ELA = the altitude on a glacier where the annual addition (accumulation) of mass is exactly compensated by the annual disappearance (ablation) of mass) induces an immediate step change in specific mass balance (b = total mass change divided by glacier area). is considerable. The lowest and the highest ELA values differ by 600 m. Even decadal mean ELAs show variations of up to 300 m between periods of positive and negative mass balances. The mean ELA was slightly higher in Period II [1942-50] than in Period IV [1998-2006]. This implies that the greater mass losses in the 1940s are a climatic signal. The 1940s were warm and dry, whereas the most recent period is even warmer but wetter. The greater mass losses in Period II seem also to be favored by the larger glacier extents, i.e., lower-reaching glacier tongues. Some adaptation of the glaciers to the changed climatic conditions has taken place in the last century enabling the ice mass to be closer to equilibrium with higher ELAs.

“Warmer but wetter” is significant because it is what the climate models predict as warmer global temperatures lead to increased ocean evaporation, which puts more moisture into the atmosphere leading in turn to greater precipitation in some areas (and less in others).

Time series of cumulative mean specific net balance for Aletsch, Rhone, Gries and Silvretta in 1865–2006. Two decadal periods with positive (I, III) and strongly negative mass balances (II, IV) are highlighted.

The authors write in the conclusion:

We demonstrate that the mass balance evolution of four glaciers in the Swiss Alps has undergone significant fluctuations. Two decadal periods of mass gains are found, which are due to less negative summer balances. The general trend since 1865 is strongly negative, however, displaying large differences between neighboring glaciers. The most negative mass balances occurred in the 1940s. This is due to extraordinarily low winter accumulation and high summer temperatures. In future, we plan to extend the spatial coverage of the seasonal mass balance series to more than 20 glaciers in Switzerland in order to shed light on regional differences in high Alpine mass balance evolution. Our results emphasize the need to continue in situ mass balance measurements in seasonal resolution over long periods. We provide a promising method for combining these point measurements with geodetic observations and mass balance modeling to obtain mass balance quantities with high spatial and temporal resolution and extend measured mass balance series back in time.

[emphasis–JR]

Huss points out the long-term significance for us of this glacial shrinking:

Switzerland’s glaciers are iconic but their shrinkage is more than just an issue for the tourists with their cameras; their loss would have profound ecosystem and economic consequences.

“Glaciers store the water in winter and release it in the summer when it is dry and warm when there is more need for water,” added Mr Huss.

“And they can also store it in the wet and cold years and release it in the hot and warm years. That’s an important reservoir.

“In the south-western part of Switzerland, almost all run-off water from glaciers is temporarily stored and used for electricity production. More than half the electricity consumed in Switzerland is produced from hydropower.”

Credits: map and chart above taken from:

Determination of the seasonal mass balance of four Alpine glaciers since 1865

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Posted in Activism, Bush Administration, climate change, climate science, Climaticide, energy, environment, global warming, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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