El Niño or Climate Change?

We might have just experienced one of the warmest Christmas in 50 years, accompanied by series of extreme global weather around the world, thanks to El Niño. From record-breaking temperatures over the Christmas holiday in the US (the New Yorkers were complaining that they didn’t get the White Christmas they used to have this year) and forest fires in Australia, to a lacking of snowfall in the Alps which made the skiing condition around the area less desirable, and some of the worst floods ever known in the UK. Study reveals a reciprocal relationship between El Niño effects and impacts of anthropogenic global warming - climate change is likely to intensify the effects and double the occurrences of El Niño in the future in response to global warming, which create more tumultuous weather events around the world that make the effects of climate change even worse. 

The natural phenomenon El Niño, also known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), is caused by warm ocean waters forming in the central and east-central Pacific, which then leads to a chain of climatic events that can cause significant changes to global weather patterns. During a moderate El Niño period (i.e. Modoki El Niño) (see Fig. 1), the eastern margin of the warm pool and the atmospheric convection zone migrate eastwards to just east of the Date Line, whereas the ITCZ locates north of the Equator, leading to a strong anomalous warming in the central tropical Pacific (fall in air and surface pressure) and cooling in the eastern and western tropical Pacific (rise in air and surface pressure). 

Fig.1 Anomalous SST during Modoki El Niño, 

Source: JAMSTEC

During an extreme El Niño (see Fig. 2), the warm pool expands eastward until it covers the entire eastern equatorial Pacific, weakening the equatorial east-west and meridional sea surface temperatures gradient. The oceanic convection then follows the highest SSTs and extends eastward while the ITCZ shifts equatorward, bringing atmospheric convection and anomalous rainfall patterns (> 5mm per day) in the normally dry eastern equatorial Pacific. As such, westerly winds dominate the easterlies and suppress the cool eastern equatorial upwelling (Anomalous El Niño, Nature), thus reinforcing the anomalous high SSTs in the region. 

Fig.2 Anomalous SST during extreme El Niño, 

Source: JAMSTEC

El Niño is certainly not a result of climate change but the latter has the impact to make its effect worse. Under anthropogenic global warming, the eastern equatorial Pacific experiences a faster warming rate and weaker zonal and meridional SST gradients than other parts of the world. Weaker changes in SST gradients assist shifts in convection zones more easily, thus increasing the chances of occurrence of extreme El Niño in the future (see Fig. 4).  

Fig. 3 Multi-model statistics associated with the increase in the frequency of extreme El Niño events.  Multi-model histograms of the meridional SST gradient in the eastern equatorial Pacific for all samples, and for extreme El Niño alone. Blue represents the moderate periods while red indicates climate change periods. 

Source: Wenju Cai et al. 

Fig. 4 Schematic depicting the mechanism for increased occurrences of extreme El Niño under greenhouse warming. Source: Wenju Cai et al. 

Extreme weathers are found more common around the world, mostly as a result of climate change, but also with the warmth reinforcement of the El Niño effect. If climate change is proved to have impact on increasing the occurrence and doubling the effect of El Niño, the world will certainly be expecting more extreme weather and stronger weather contrasts. 

Source: Inkcinct Cartoon

New climate adaptation measures like cooling measures, flood and drought defences, cyclones and typhoons defences should be constantly updated. According to Gail Whiteman, the chair of the Peatland centre for sustainability at Lancaster University, ‘[w]hat may appear to be sufficient to withstand a 1 i  100-year event can become quickly out of date as the incidence of extreme weather ramps up and becomes more unpredictable’. 

COP21 Cartoon

So we all know the countries have finally reach a consensus about environmental protection, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations. But what does the agreement really mean?

The goal of keeping annual global warming below 2 degree celsius by regulating emissions may help to change a little, providing a temporary relief for the world's most endangered species. Yet, global warming is still occurring at a slower pace...

Source: Hill J., Cartoon: Paris Climate Change Agreement

Source: Adcock B., Climate Change Conspiracy

Source: Bjorland H., Environment Cartoon

In face of current terrorist attacks, would the politicians be keen on prioritising environment protection over national security? 

Source: Chappatte P., Chappatte on the Paris Climate

China Airpocalypse II: Effects on the economy

Apart from the climate and health impacts I have mentioned in my last post, air pollution also  hinders economic growth in China in three ways:

• The cost of air pollution and its negative externalities consumes large sum of national income, which limits government budget on other aspects such as education, public health, infrastructure which helps to increase productivity in the long-term. According to Zhang Gaoli, who is one of the ruling Communist Party’s elite Politburo Standing Committee, environmental degradation has been the cost of decades of breakneck economic growth China. The Chinese government has spent $10.5 billion on efforts to tackle the smog and environmental protection.

• Health is a form of human capital. Increased probability of getting respiratory or cardiovascular diseases triggered by aggravated air pollution reduces the quality and productivity of the country’s human capital. This should lead to a fall in average output per worker, and a slowdown in economic growth. According to Weil’s Growth accounting framework, the economic output Y (also known as the Cobb-Douglas aggregate production function) is expressed in terms of inputs K (capital) and H (labour composite).

1. 
   where A represents level of productivity of the economy, labour composite H depends on education, health and raw bodies. So it gives,
   
   
   where h is per-worker education human capital, v denotes per-worker health human capital, and L marks the number of workers in the economy.
   
   As such, fall in h should reduce labour composite H productivity and final output. This assumption takes health impacts caused by air pollution as the only variable, any health impacts related to chronicle diseases and government intervention on public health are irrelevant in this case. In addition to this, workers have to spend a greater portion of their income to deal with the costs related to air pollution i.e. medical treatments, masks consumption, air filters, etc. As such, workers have a smaller budget on consumption and their ability to increase living standard is reduced.

• The issue of aggravated air pollution has led to closure of schools in various cities, even though it just lasted for a day. In terms of economics, the event reduces students’ opportunity of getting education, and so impacting the quality of potential education human capital, despite it is a one-day closure and should not lead to any significant effect in future economy. But more importantly, the decision made by the city authorities proved that the air pollution problem has now becoming an issue that will affect our daily life routines, industrial production and market operations. This makes the problem difficult to ignore and that the government should take realistic action with a pro-active attitude to gradually reduce the level of hazardous air pollution. 

The causal factors of this hazardous particulate pollution are mainly the overly-expanded manufacturing sector in the economy which a majority of them uses fossil fuel (coal) as their energy source, and the country’s unreasonable modes of energy consumption. In light of China’s growth slowdown, an economic update released by the World Bank suggests an economic reform to a more moderate and balanced economy, by reducing excess capacity in industry and better indigenous capacity for innovation for instance.

The economy is gradually shifting from industry to servicing sector, despite the robust in the latter is relatively weak and immature in sustaining growth. Source: World Bank staff calculations based on CEIC data

Shifting the economy from smoke-stack industries to tertiary servicing is likely to stimulate economy recovery and reduce GHGs emissions. The economic reform are supported by the rise of middle-class, which has a higher preference for services, and a fall in industrial activity due to a buildup of excess capacity (over investment) and decelerating export growth (fall in import demand in the EU market). The reform, however, is a long-term economic solution in regards to the air pollution problem.

Source: World Bank staff calculations based on CEIC data

The government should also start investing in other renewable or cleaner energy sources instead of burning fossil fuels. From a bottom-up perspective, citizens should adapt a more sustainable use of energy. A simple cartoon below illustrates possible solutions to achieve energy-efficiency in our home. 

Source: BBC Bitesize

Here comes the time when the public needs are consistent with the government preference, in the case, air pollution is the most imminent issue that affects both public health and economic growth. The Chinese government has to prioritise its environmental issues over economic stability as the former provides a strong and fundamental foundation for the economy to thrive and sustain.  

China's Airpocalypse

The term ‘China Airpocalypse’ is genuinely adopted to describe the China smog 2015, and has probably gone viral in the internet and climate headlines since the beginning of the year. The nation, the northeastern region in particular, is suffering from climate and health impacts brought by the layer of smog persisted in the troposphere, yet the government seem helpless when dealing with the worsening air quality.  

Source: Australia Broadcasting Corporation 

Levels of air pollution in parts of the northeastern China hit dangerously high levels, with the concentration of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) - the number of particulates 2.5 microns or less in width within each cubic meter of air - reaching 50 times the recommended safety limit in some regions (IFL Science). Shenyang, a major city in Liaoning Province, has reached a level of 1,400 micrograms of PM 2.5, despite the WHO recommends an average of 25 micrograms or less over 24-hour period listed in its air quality guidelines. Shanghai city’s air quality index (AQI) rose above 300, a level deemed hazardous on most scales and which can have a long-term impact on health, while levels of PM 2.5 reached a record high level of 281 since January, and city authorities have issued a yellow alert advising all elderly, young and sick residents to remain indoor, which includes shut down of school events of the day. Making it sound worse, Beijing issued the capital’s ‘first red alert’ in the face of hazardous pollution levels last week, suggesting restricted vehicles on the roads, heavy vehicles banned and class dismissal. 

The video gives a general picture of how it looks like in China now. 

And I came across this video below the other day, and found it quite interesting how a local artist wished to raise public awareness on the city’s catastrophic air pollution issue by literally vacuuming  dusts in the air using an industrial vacuum, and produced a solid brick using the matter he collected. The fact that shocks me most is that how local people become indifferent to the problem and treat it as part of their daily lives. This may be part of the problem why the Chinese government is so ineffective and inefficient in tackling air pollution issues. 

The China Smog is also recognised as the ‘sulphurous smog’, the same type of smog as the London’s Great Smog in 1952. It results from a high concentration of fine particulate matter including spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) and sulphur oxides, produced by combustion of fossil fuels (particularly coal) during industrial production. The smog can be aggravated by increased humidity and concentration of suspended particulate matter in the atmosphere. 

It is beyond disputes that the air pollution in China is contributing to the region’s, or maybe even the world’s climate change. Apart from the major climate-forcing effect (suspended particulate matter, also known as black carbons (BC), absorbs solar radiation and warms up the atmosphere) and other indirect effects like the surface albedo effect (interaction of BC and ice/snow crystals leads to melting of snow and hence positive climate forcing) and the BC cloud effect (interaction of BC and clouds alters cloud micro physics by changing the number of liquid cloud droplets that may eventually change precipitation patterns) that build upon the major effect (Bond T. C. et al. 2013), these fine particulate matter also cause health impacts that put our lives in imminent danger. 

According to WHO study, combustion-derived aerosols are particularly significant in terms of their health effects, causing respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in particular (Highwood E. J., Kinnersley R. P. 2006). A report from Berkeley Earth shows that air pollution in China contributes 17% of all deaths in China, causing an average of 4,000 deaths each day. The report also illustrates how breathing in Beijing when pollution is at its worst is equivalent to smoking one and a half cigarettes per hour.  

It is important for the Chinese government to seek realistic and effective measures to mitigate its air pollution problem. Quick fixes like cutting down industrial production is nonsense and is not economically feasible, and perhaps investing in greener energy sources and higher energy-efficient production would help reducing GHGs in the long-term. I shall propose any potential economic solution in my next post. 

More on the PBs...

Regarding the last entry on the framework of planetary boundaries (PBs) introduced by Will Steffen (2009), which provides a science-based analysis on the risk that current anthropogenic activities will destabilise, in other words, threaten the resilience of the Earth system to any abrupt environmental change, Steffen has provided an updated version of his PBs analysis in his recent paper: Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet (Steffen et. al 2015). The core concept of PB remains, whilst the framework of it has been modified to conceptualise the substantial risks that human perturbations are imposing to the Earth system at both regional and global scale in a more sophisticated way. 

Source: Steffen W. et. al (2015), Planetary boundaries: Cuiding human development on a changing planet 347 (6223)

Comparing to Steffen’s previous analysis, climate change, stratosphere ozone depletion and ocean acidification are the three PBs remain essentially unchanged, which the latter two remain below safety boundary (see Figure 1). He also combines nitrogen cycle and phosphorus cycle into the planetary boundary of biochemical flows, which phosphorus cycle has drastically increased and reached beyond zone of uncertainty, as compared to previous studies. This gives climate change, biosphere integrity and biochemical flows remain beyond zone of uncertainty, with land-system change in the zone of uncertainty. 

As being one of the core PBs apart from climate change, Steffen has replaced ‘rate of biodiversity loss’ in his previous study by ‘biosphere integrity’, which is an aggregate of genetic diversity and functional diversity. Changes in genetic diversity and functional diversity impose different subsequent impacts on the Earth system, however the long-term concept is to achieve biosphere integrity - the combination of both below safety boundary to guarantee biodiversity and stable Earth system. The former ensures the complexity and long-term capacity of the biosphere to resile from abrupt or gradual environmental changes, while the latter manifests the role of biosphere in Earth system functioning (Steffen et. al 2015). Although a  global decline in species richness (genetic diversity) will not result in impaired functioning of the world’s ecosystem (Brook et. al, 2010), partly because of constant introduction of new species to replace native / generic species, it is arguable that complexity and diversity is key to the integrity and stability of the Earth system, which then improves its resilience (Polis, 1998).  

Source: Polis (1998) Nature 395 (6704), 744-45

Figure 2 shows a food-web complexity on a island in the Gulf of California, which illustrates an interwoven interactions between species in wet El nino years. Marine sources and land plants provide the fuel for an estimated 500-1,000 species  (Polis, 1998). In this case, a complex food web helps to moderate population fluctuations and prevents species loss. Take the spiders from this food web as an example. Spiders relies on a range of feeding sources / prey such as scavenging insects, herbivorous insects, detritivorous insects and so on, and in case there is a reduction in herbivorous insects due to a fire that burns down hectares of land plants, they may shift to consume other resources. As such, having many prey does not only help to secure the consumer’s feeding sources, but also preventing consumers from driving any particular prey to extinction, and so enhancing the diversity and stability within the system. 

Although the new analysis from Steffen provides a more sophisticated framework in explaining the nine PBs, it has its limits and analysis has to be taken further. Firstly, data for the atmospheric aerosol loading is regional (focus on the case study of South Asian Monsoon) and so the predicted boundary shall not be reliable enough to representative at a global scale. To take it further, different regions have their own climate and monsoon system, levels of atmospheric aerosol should then have various impacts on different monsoon system. Secondly, the framework only provides a guidance of decision making in societal development without showing any potential results in the Earth system in the long term. Steffen made his framework of planetary boundary based on the Holocene climatic levels and may not be applicable to today’s development. The Earth system may evolve to a new state that is compatible with the changing climate like how they have been adapted to different climates during the interglacial periods. In addition, technologies advancement and innovations may help to improve biosphere resilience and diversity in the face of climate change. As such, the concern is not about how unstable the Earth system would be, but how destructive an unstable Earth system could be in affecting a human civilisation. 

Meanwhile, Steffen's framework provides a valuable contribution to decision making in charting desirable courses for societal and economic development. 

Climate change on financial agenda - a tragedy of the horizon?

Credit: Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation

It is important that we recognise our financial stability is highly dependent on environmental stability. “The growing international consensus that climate change is unequivocal” said Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, in his speech to the insurance market Lloyd’s of London last month. He reassured his statement with solid research evidence on environmental change (speech by Carney, Bank of England):

• In the Northern Hemisphere the last 30 years have been the warmest since Anglo-Saxon times; indeed, 8 of the 10 warmest years on record in the UK have occurred since 2002
  
• Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are at levels not seen in 800,000 years;
  
• The rate of sea level rise is quicker now than at any time over the last 2 millennia.

Also on insurance industry:

• Since the 1980s the number of registered weather-related loss events had tripled
  
• Inflation-adjusted losses for the insurance industry had increases five-fold to $50 billion (£33 billion) a year

Carney also warned that the current rate of climate change will eventually lead to financial instability in three ways, including physical risks such as increasing insurance claims from natural hazards; liability risks that arise from compensation responsibility; and transition risks caused by revaluation of assets caused by the adjustment to lower-carbon economy, which all ultimately lead to lower standard of living, unless the world’s leading countries are willing to adjust their current and future carbon emissions (speech of Carney, Bank of England).

Climate change is impacting the world economy beyond the field of insurance. Dynamic weather conditions hamper ecosystem services to function properly and therefore create food and water security problems; people are migrating to or investing in countries which are more economic resilient to exogenous shocks such as natural disaster (countries that are prone to natural disasters are likely to experience intensified cases under the impact of climate change), causing global impacts on property assets, international migration and political stability. These all have effects on the world’s financial stability and thus, our living standards and well-being (the guardian).

Although reducing GHGs emissions or altering fossil fuel economics suggested in The G20 Seoul Summit Leaders’ Declaration might help to slow down global warming, environmental stability maintenance requires regular management not only on climate change, but also on the other eight Earth systems as well (Earth Systems). Other anthropogenic activities such as deforestation and overfishing are proved to be the drivers of environmental degradation, which also leads to ecosystem services malfunction and environmental change. As such, the world financial institutions should not confine their solution scope only to carbon emissions, but also to take responsibility of their exploitative activities in the wild nature, applying market incentives to environment conservation for instance, before the “recent weather events proved to be the new normal”.

Stable Earth System or safe operating space for humanity

What is environmental stability and why is it important to us? I guess it would be good to have a recap of the nine ‘stable Earth Systems” before going deep into the discussion. 

Credit: Young and Steffen (2009) 

Prior to the Holocene, global climate was very abrupt and unstable, large shifts in a range of globally-important biogeochemical parameters have been associated with planetary-scale ecological change. Not until we arrived the age of Holocene, when these parameters fluctuated within a narrow band, the planet has developed into a safe operating space for humanity.

So how do we define “safe”? The nine planetary boundaries or “Earth Systems” created by a group of scientists from various disciplines - climatologists, ecologists, oceanographers, land-use specialists, hydrologists and others - would have answered the question. With all nine systems are operating below the safe limit, the environment is then considered to be stable and favourable for social and economic development (IGBP Magazine, Issue 74) 

The nine planetary boundaries identified by scientists. The blue circle shows the safe limit for each planetary system. The red wedges indicate the best estimate of the current situation. Three boundaries have already been crossed, including climate change, the nitrogen cycle and biodiversity loss. 
Credit: Rockström et al. (2009) Nature

Does this mean that we can continue to achieve our human needs and desires such as economic growth, as long as these thresholds are not crossed? The evidence so far suggests yes. There are ways to describe such balanced development between socioeconomic development and ecological preservation by the restorationists, including ‘win-win ecology’, ‘reconciliation ecology’, ‘futuristic restoration’, etc., all conclude to one underlying human-centered assumption - human will continue to develop the Earth but will do so in a way that satisfies human needs for resources and beauty while also satisfying the needs of other species. After all, we are striving to create a ‘safe operating space for humanity’ (Allison 2007).

City development and environmental stability

I came across some concept art earlier from a digital artist, Nivanh Chanthara (Chanthara's Space) and found them quite interesting and inspiring, and so they go like this: 

This reminds me of Howl’s Moving Castle, which Howl has built to block himself out from the war outside, and to seek his piece of childhood “Everland”. Are we all not doing the same, consistently encroaching to the undeveloped rural, avoiding the urban and environmentally decaying inner city? 

Inner cities urban problems - overcrowding, pollution, etc. (Pictures from: http://duster132.deviantart.com/)

Chanthara gets his inspiration from the overcrowding inner city of Hong Kong, and that the most astonishing part is that he has never set foot on this piece of land, despite his ability to draw out most of the core urban problems that many Hong Kongers would have agreed. Not surprisingly, these problems (i.e. overcrowding, land-use conflicts, pollution, etc.) apply to all inner cities around the world.

It is quite controversial when we are actively promoting environmental protection and ecological importance while still allowing encroachment into the undeveloped rural for all sorts of anthropogenic activities, in this case, urban encroachment to create more land for development and city expansion, better residence environment, etc. This sounds like yes, we have been doing terrible in urban development in the past, and so we would like to do it right this time, exploiting the environment in a more responsible and sustainable way. However, the inner city will not simply fade away with city expansion, and the city system is likely to repeat itself. 

Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience centre and colleagues suggested in their article ‘A safe operating space for humanity” (Nature, International weekly journal of science) that our civilisation is deeply reliant on environmental stability - ‘as long as society knew what was coming up it could plan for the future’. Advancement in agricultural activities led to rapid increase in global population, which provided the excuse to exploit the environment further for economic and social development. As such, both economic growth or societal stability is based on environmental stability.

Will the city future be what Chanthara has predicted in his artwork? We don’t know. But surely, if we continue to overexploit the environment systems for economic benefits, we will soon subject ourselves to a catastrophic climatic and environmental shift on a global scale, which the environment may become more volatile than ever before or humans may not be resilient enough to inhabit.