‘Clouds’ could make warming worse

Trump’s denial of climate science at odds with world leaders Brown aims to reduce use of fossil fuels

PARIS, July 12, (AFP): Clouds, which act as thermal regulators for Earth, have altered in character and global distribution due to climate change, and could in turn make warming worse, a study said Monday.

A trawl of satellite images has revealed reduced cloudiness in Earth’s temperate mid-latitude zones, which lie between the poles and subtropics in both hemispheres, accompanied by a poleward expansion of the subtropical dry zones.

The tops of clouds everywhere rose higher, according to data that stretched over more than two decades from the early 1980s.

“These cloud changes enhance absorption of solar radiation by the Earth and reduce emission of thermal radiation to space,” said a statement from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, which took part in the study.

“This exacerbates global warming caused by increasing greenhouse gas concentration.”

Clouds regulate Earth’s temperature by reflecting some solar radiation back into space before it can hit the ground, while also acting as a blanket to limit heat loss from the planet at night.

How they are affected by climate change, and how they influence global warming in return, “has been one of the biggest areas of uncertainty for scientists attempting to understand current climate and forecast future trends,” said Scripps.

Satellites originally designed to monitor Earth’s weather are not stable enough to reliably track cloud changes over decades.

But the team figured out a way to “correct” the data by removing confounding factors such as satellite orbit, instrument calibration and the degradation of sensors.

The record revealed clear changes in cloud distribution, which the team then compared to a history of Earth-warming greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

“They concluded that the behaviour of clouds they observed is consistent with a human-caused increase in greenhouse gas concentrations,” said the statement.

There was no similar correlation with other potential influences such as ozone levels, human-created aerosols, or natural changes in solar radiation. SACRAMENTO, California, (AP): California Gov Jerry Brown has launched a campaign to extend some of the most ambitious climate-change programs in the country and ensure his environmental legacy when he leaves office in two years.

The centerpiece of the push is a cap-and-trade program that aims to reduce the use of fossil fuels by forcing manufacturers and other companies to meet tougher emissions limits or pay up to exceed them. The program has been one of the mostwatched efforts in the world aimed at the climate-changing fuels.

The four-year-old program, however, is only authorized to operate until 2020 and faces a litany of challenges, including a lawsuit questioning its legality, poor sales of credits, and lukewarm support among Democratic legislators to extend it.

On Tuesday, the California Air Resources Board will release a proposed blueprint for continuing the cap-and-trade program until 2030, with a vote expected next year.

Supporters credit the strategy — born under previous Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and stemming from other climate change programs initiated under Brown —

Another factor on clouds was two major volcanic eruptions -- the 1982 El Chichon eruption in Mexico and the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which would have had a net cooling effect on the planet for a few years at a time.

Volcanoes spew out sunlight-reflecting ash and dust which have a short-term cooling effect on the planet.

“Barring another volcanic event of this sort, the scientists expect the cloud trends to continue in the future as the planet continues to warm due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations,” said the statement.

WASHINGTON:

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If elected president, Donald Trump would be the only head of state in the world to contend that climate change is a hoax, according to a with helping to cut California’s overall output of emissions by 1.5 percent in its first two years, despite the massive energy demands of the state’s thriving economy.

With Brown set to leave office in 2018, a state appeals court is considering a challenge from the California Chamber of Commerce contending the pollution-credit program is an illegal tax, not a fee.

Environmental groups say the lawsuit and overall uncertainty about the survival of the program are undermining the market for pollution credits. A May auction saw companies buy only one-tenth of the available credits, leaving the state billions of dollars short in projected revenue from the sales.

Meanwhile, groups representing oil interests confirmed last week that they are in direct talks with the Brown administration over cap-and-trade.

California oil companies have long sought to alter or repeal the state’s low-carbon fuel standard. By 2020, those companies would be required to reduce the carbon content of gasoline and other fuels by 10 percent, a significant jump from the current 2 percent.

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The Sierra Club compiled public statements from the leaders of the 195 nations recognized by the State Department. An advance copy of the group’s report, to be released Tuesday, was provided to The Associated Press.

In contrast to public statements by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee calling climate change a “con job” and a “myth,” the leader of every US ally urges action to reduce climate-warming carbon emissions, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan and Canada.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, head of the Earth’s most populous country and the No. 1 global emitter of carbon, has called for eventually phasing out dirty coal-fired power plants and is leading an ambitious national effort to build massive change would reflect a pragmatic approach to the oil industry by Brown, who took office encouraging immediate boosts in oil and gas drilling to spur California’s economy, even as he promoted incentives that would reduce long-term reliance on fossil fuels.

“What you’re seeing now is an allhands-on-deck effort to formulate the most responsible way forward.” said Derek Walker, an associate vicepresident of the Environmental Defense Fund. “They’re talking to the oil industry, talking to environmental groups, to organized labor — they’re talking to everybody.”

Brown has leveraged his position as governor to help draw attention to the battle against climate change. He has set non-binding mandates for increased use of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources in California in the decades to come while signing accords and global support statements aimed at easing climate change.

At home, though, Brown has encountered trouble from moderate Democrats in the state Assembly who last year blocked his plan to slash statewide petroleum use in half within 15 years.

arrays of solar panels and wind turbines.

The regime of reclusive North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un signed on to the Paris accord last year and is implementing a 10-year push to plant new forests as part of a “national effort to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Even the leaders of nations economically dependent on oil production also accept the reality that the world’s climate is warming, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi King Salman.

“Being highly vulnerable to climate change and actions and plans to address it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be engaged in several actions to address climate change and make its development more sustainable,” the Saudi state said in a statement issued last year.