Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launched a landmark report on the capture and storage of carbon dioxide this past week. "This essentially will be a textbook on carbon dioxide capture and storage, the first to bring it all together," commented John Bradshaw of Geoscience Australia, one of the report's lead authors. "It is vital that we exploit every available option for reducing their impact on the global climate. Carbon dioxide capture and storage can clearly play a supporting role, said Secretary-General Michel Jarraud of the World Meteorological Organization.

It has been calculated that carbon dioxide capture and storage could reduce the costs of emissions reduction by 30 per cent or more over the next 100 years. Carbon dioxide capture in the power generation sector has the greatest potential. Storage could be underground or at depth in the oceans. At present, storage in geological formations represents the most economical option, resting on considerable experience within the oil and gas industry. As far as injecting captured carbon dioxide into the oceans is concerned, "there are concerns regarding the impact such technologies could have on ocean life and it is known that marine organisms could be harmed" warns the IPCC.

More information

• ENS
• International Herald Tribune
• ABC Science Online

• Summary for Policymakers (0.5Mb), IPCC
• On the Web

Arctic sea ice extent reached a record low in September 2005, with summer ice melt above average for the past four years. "Having four years in a row with such low ice extents has never been seen before in the satellite record. It clearly indicates a downward trend, not just a short-term anomaly," said Walt Meier of the United States National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Colorado.

The spring melting of the Arctic ice began 17 days early this year. The Northwest Passage, through the Canadian Arctic from Europe to Asia, has been completely open this summer, apart from a 60 mile stretch with scattered ice floes. Ted Scambos at NSIDC warns that "feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold. We could see changes in Arctic ice happening much sooner than we thought and that is important because without the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean we have to expect big changes in Earth's weather."

More information

• Guardian Unlimited
• The Australian
• New Zealand Herald

• Sea ice index, NSIDC

Sixty-one per cent of American adults, responding to a recent Harris Interactive Poll, believe that they will feel the effects of global warming within their lifetime. Of those, close to three-quarters reckon they are seeing effects already, amounting to about 44 per cent of the adult population of the United States.

Opinions are mixed regarding the quality of information on climate change. About a third said that they considered the quality to be excellent or good, a third reported the quality as fair, and 28 per cent considered the quality to be poor or terrible. The poll was commissioned by the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies.

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Background

• ENS

• Americans and the World