More carbon dioxide leads to less clouds

R&D Mag – The warmer the air, the more water can evaporate: a simple relationship familiar to us from everyday life. Researchers from Germany and the Netherlands have now established that this is not always the case: although an increase in the greenhouse gas CO2 makes the climate warmer, it also allows less water to evaporate.

“We wanted to know how the foreseeable rise in CO2 would affect cloud formation in temperate climate zones and what part the vegetation plays in this,” says Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. Working with colleagues from the Max Planck Institutes for Chemistry and Meteorology, the geophysicists made use of, for the first time, a computer model that takes account of the soil, water cycle, atmosphere and growth processes of plants. The model results highlight how local and daily variable processes, through turbulence, can influence the atmosphere on larger scales. more> http://tinyurl.com/bllvx32

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• Climate change: More carbon dioxide leads to fewer clouds (phys.org)
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California city eyes carbon credit revenue from its trees

Per capita anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by country for the year 2000 including land-use change. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Reuters Point Carbon – California‘s seventh-largest city may try to bolster its strained budget by maintaining its 393,000-tree urban forest and selling carbon credits to regulated greenhouse gas emitters in the state’s forthcoming cap-and-trade program.

Planting and maintaining forests in urban areas is one of four ways emitters can offset their greenhouse gas output, according to California’s cap-and-trade regulations. more> http://tinyurl.com/bv5e5ym

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• California city eyes carbon credit revenue from its trees (reuters.com)
• California Cities: Calling Trees “Urban Forests” to Extract New Taxes (nationalreview.com)
• Trial run for cap and trade auction (sfgate.com)
• California Air Board Relents on College Carbon Credits (blogs.kqed.org)
• California Cities: Calling Trees “Urban Forests” to Extract New Taxes (junkscience.com)
• Trial run set for California’s cap-and-trade program to cut emissions (mercurynews.com)
• John Coleman on the California Cap and Trade Law (republicmainstreet.wordpress.com)
• Crown corporation draws taxpayer group’s ire as carbon credit sales plummet (vancouversun.com)
• Programs to Reduce Carbon Emissions (nytimes.com)

Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West

R&D Mag – The least expensive way for the Western United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to help prevent the worst consequences of global warming is to replace coal with renewable and other sources of energy that may include nuclear power, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) researchers.

“Decarbonization of the electric power sector is critical to achieving greenhouse gas reductions that are needed for a sustainable future,” said Daniel Kammen, Distinguished Professor of Energy in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. “To meet these carbon goals, coal has to go away from the region.” more> http://is.gd/PN0ohW

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• Renewable portfolio standards insufficient to meet 2030 GHG emission targets (jcwinnie.biz)
• Advanced power-grid model finds low-cost, low-carbon future in West (physorg.com)

Despite low solar activity, Earth’s energy budget out of whack

R&D Mag – A new NASA study underscores the fact that greenhouse gases generated by human activity—not changes in solar activity—are the primary force driving global warming.

The study offers an updated calculation of the Earth’s energy imbalance, the difference between the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth’s surface and the amount returned to space as heat. The researchers’ calculations show that, despite unusually low solar activity between 2005 and 2010, the planet continued to absorb more energy than it returned to space.

The calculated value of the imbalance (0.58 W of excess energy per square meter) is more than twice as much as the reduction in the amount of solar energy supplied to the planet between maximum and minimum solar activity (0.25 W per square meter). more> http://is.gd/RMiIa8

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• Earth’s energy budget remained out of balance despite unusually low solar activity, study finds (sciencedaily.com)
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How California can hit its mid-century emissions reduction goals

By Kyle Niemeyer – The study was performed by a team from Energy and Environmental Economics, Monterey Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (all located in CA). Its authors took a much more detailed and accurate approach than previous work on the topic.

They built a model that broke down the CA economy into six energy-demand sectors (residential, industrial, transportation, agriculture, and petroleum) and two energy-supply sectors (fuel and electricity). The work also examined some cross-sectorial activities that produce nonenergy greenhouse gas emissions, such as cement production. The backbone of the model, explained in detail in the paper’s 117 pages of supporting material, involved calculating the rollover of infrastructure stocks, like cars, buildings, factories, and coal plants, across their planned lifetimes. It took into account turnover rates, realistic technological progress, and resource availability. more> http://is.gd/lds16p

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• A how-to guide to slashing California’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (eurekalert.org)
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• California energy report says state can slash greenhouse gases by another 80 percent (mercurynews.com)
• The problems with emissions trading (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)