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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Over 100 corporations, including Shell, Swiss Re, and Unilever, have called for a stable global price on carbon to aid in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/268703-shell-swiss-re-want-unambiguous-price-on-carbon"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/268703-shell-swiss-re-want-unambiguous-price-on-carbon</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>(To do any good, the price will have to escalate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>That is probably taken as understood.)
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Antarctic snail’s shells are dissolving from ocean acidification, threatening the food chain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20461646"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20461646</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>A report confirms that acidification is preventing oysters from forming shells in Puget Sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>U WA will have a new center for the study of acidification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://earthfix.kuow.org/water/article/acid-water-take-toll-on-puget-sound-shellfish/"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://earthfix.kuow.org/water/article/acid-water-take-toll-on-puget-sound-shellfish/</font></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><o:p><font size="3" face="Calibri"> </font></o:p></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>A report to the UN warns that growing methane from melting permafrost threatens to set up a positive feedback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/at-the-edge-of-disaster-20121127-2a5xe.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.smh.com.au/national/at-the-edge-of-disaster-20121127-2a5xe.html</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Lead author Kevin Schaefer of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO, estimated in an article published in 2011 that the point at which methane release from melting
permafrost becomes self-sustaining will come in 2020-2030 unless we reverse warming by that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The new work may shorten that time, though the calculations have not yet been made public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Unfortunately, the results will come too late to be included in the IPCC 5<sup>th</sup> AR, due to begin release next fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMGC42B..01S"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMGC42B..01S</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The urgency demanded by research on Arctic methane has made it the most significant underreported area of climate study, and I am glad to see the many stories which have followed the report to the UN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>When our situation is more widely known, self-congratulation on minor achievements and ads for natural gas will seem as fatuous to most people as they have to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>We face a prodigious challenge and have little time to meet it.<o:p></o:p></font></font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Global sea levels are rising 60% faster than the IPCC estimates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/28/us-coastal-cities-sea-level-rise"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/28/us-coastal-cities-sea-level-rise</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The global sea level rise report:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>
</font></font><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044035/article"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044035/article</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>On differential sea level rise: at some places, such as my home town of Jacksonville, the rate is said in the Guardian article in item 4 to be twice as fast as the global average, but that appears to be based on a misunderstanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Last March’s Climate Central report on differential local sea level rise:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://slr.s3.amazonaws.com/SurgingSeas.pdf"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://slr.s3.amazonaws.com/SurgingSeas.pdf</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>I questioned the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Guardian</i> reporter, Suzanne Goldenberg, about the differential sea level rise for Jacksonville and Savannah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>She replied that the information had come from Benjamin Strauss, and suggested that he might have had in mind article he published in
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Environmental Research Letters</i> last March.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>High tides vary by region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A NOAA study of high tide levels found that the coast from Jacksonville to southern South Carolina has about two feet higher high tides than the average.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The Strauss article: </font></font><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014033/article"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014033/article</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Unless something else turns up, and Goldenberg has promised to pursue the matter, the upshot is that the area from Jacksonville north through the Georgia coast will suffer from an extra two feet of effect from sea level
rise, but not from a doubled rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I shall pass on whatever else I learn on the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Meanwhile planners should allow for local high tide and not just average high tide when calculating the effects of sea level rise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Melting ice sheets are indeed estimated to have a differential effect by coastal area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>The extreme position here comes from the slow wave theory of Germany’s Detlef Stammer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Coriolis force effects and ocean currents will pile up Greenland meltwater on the American East Coast for decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14264-greenland-meltwater-will-take-slow-wave-around-globe.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14264-greenland-meltwater-will-take-slow-wave-around-globe.html</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Stammer’s work is historically based.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>
</font></font><a href="http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2006JC004079.shtml"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2006JC004079.shtml</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>East Coast sea levels are increasing 3-4 times faster than the global average.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span></font></font><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/east-coast-sea-level-rise_n_1624134.html"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/east-coast-sea-level-rise_n_1624134.html</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Coastal planners typically use only global averages, and should probably adapt to local conditions, including tidal variations and differential sea level rise from melting ice sheets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
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