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Tuesday, 26 August 2008 |
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On August 21, 2008, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse convened a panel of Narragansett Bay scientists to comment on the state of the Bay as it is impacted by global climate change. Below is the full text of the Senator's opening statement and the panelists' remarks. Senator Whitehouse's Opening Statement at Environment & Public Works Committee Field Briefing at URI Bay Campus
“Global Warming’s Impacts on Narragansett Bay” August 21, 2008
Narragansett, R.I. - Thank you all for being here today on a very special occasion: an official field briefing before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. As a member of the Committee, it has been my honor and privilege to serve under our Chairman, Senator Barbara Boxer of California. She has been a relentless, passionate, and energetic leader on the subject of global warming, and it is because of her generosity, and the tireless efforts of her staff on the Committee, that we are able to hold this briefing. I am grateful to her for her courtesy. I also sincerely appreciate the generosity of the University of Rhode Island for hosting this briefing on their campus. Finally, I'd like to extend a special thanks to our excellent panel of witnesses, all distinguished members of Rhode Island's scientific and environmental community: Dr. Kate Moran of the University of Rhode Island; Grover Fugate of the Coastal Resources Management Council; Dr. Jon C. Boothroyd, State Geologist; John Torgan of Save the Bay; and Dr. Caroly Shumway of The Nature Conservancy. Each of them has valuable information to share about the impact of global warming on our Ocean State, and I'm proud that their testimony will become part of the official record of our Committee. Five years ago today, tens of thousands of menhaden washed up onto the shores of Greenwich Bay, in the worst fish kill our state had seen in decades. Warmer temperatures led to stratification in the water column, which led in turn to eutrophication and lower dissolved oxygen levels. The fish suffocated as they swam. It was a stark reminder of the vulnerability of our precious Narragansett Bay - and a warning of the consequences of global warming even in our own communities and waterways. Global warming is the most serious threat our environment faces today. And while it will take a global effort to truly solve this crisis, we must begin to take action here at home if we intend to leave to our children and grandchildren an earth as bountiful as the one we inherited from our parents and grandparents. To meet this growing challenge, we must take bold, aggressive action - and we must take that action now - to mitigate the consequences we have already begun to experience and to prevent greater disaster in the future. I'm proud that Rhode Island is tackling global warming head on. Rhode Island participates in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a coalition of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states working together to limit pollution from power plants. Our state legislature is working to pass legislation expanding the use of renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and greening our public transportation fleet. We have adopted aggressive vehicle emissions standards that, once allowed to go into effect, will lower greenhouse gas emissions from new cars in Rhode Island by 30 percent in just the next 8 years. Nationwide, that would be the equivalent of taking 74 million cars off the road for an entire year. Our scientists and universities are on the cutting edge of climate change research - a role I hope they will expand - particularly as to global warming's impact on coastal areas. And innumerable non-profit organizations, several of which are represented here today, are working diligently to protect Rhode Island's unique natural beauty, including our prized bay and coastal areas. The Ocean State is a leader in state efforts to address the impact of climate change because we must be. As the Ocean State, with our 400 miles of coastline, Rhode Island will experience the brunt of global warming, and we must be ready. Today we will hear from some of Rhode Island's foremost experts, who are tirelessly working to prepare our state for the impacts of global warming. These scientists and advocates and the organizations they work for, as well as the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, our state legislators, our universities, and our many committed non-profit organizations are setting an example for other coastal states to follow. But they should not have to confront this challenge alone, so I have authored an amendment to the Climate Security Act that would help provide coastal states the resources to collect the information they need, such as data on projected sea level rise, severe weather, and associated flood risks, particularly improved storm surge modeling and ocean topography data, to prepare for and adapt to global warming. Let me quickly explain how today's proceedings will work: in just a moment, I will introduce each of our witnesses, and ask them to deliver their testimony before the Committee. Under the rules of the Committee, these statements will be limited to five minutes each, though each witness will be given the opportunity to enter more extensive testimony into the official record if they wish to do so. Once each witness has testified, I will have some questions for them. Unfortunately, the Committee's rules do not permit members of the audience to ask questions during the proceedings. Thank you all again for joining us today. source: http://whitehouse.senate.gov The panelist testimony is available only in Word document or PDF format. Click below to download each file. Click here for John Torgan's testimony. Click here for Jon Boothroyd. Click here for Grover Fugate. Click here for Caroly Shumway. Click here for Kate Moran.
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Aug
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Tuesday, 26 August 2008 |
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Almost thirty years ago, on July 10, 1979, a congressional hearing of scientific experts championed a Climate Act, but no new policies were forged. Flash forward to August 21, 2008 -- the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works holds a hearing with climate scientists in Rhode Island, focused upon the impact of climate change on Naragansett Bay. Will positive actions result? As a meteorologist, I am familiar with the weather data, but it is the human aspects of the issue that I find compelling. For me, it was a trip to a grocery store in Holland, many years ago, that brought home the reality of human impact on our environment -- and suggested to me that individuals can take action now, rather than wait for the government to collect more data.
When I got to URI, the auditorium was overflowing to standing-room-only to hear five experts discuss their research and suggest ways to cope with the climate-change impact already observed in Rhode Island -- rising air and water temperature, rising sea level, and more. LIDAR was a frequent buzzword throughout the hearing. There was no explanation of the term, and the audience was not allowed to ask questions, so I can only assume Senator Whitehouse knows what LIDAR is -- it's an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging, a data-collecting device that measures environmental variables over a period of time. LIDAR is similar to radar, but uses laser light instead of radio waves, providing data with much higher resolution and from a wider range than radar. Researchers have used LIDAR for at least the past 12 years with success in collecting high-resolution storm data, primarily in the Midwest, but the technology also has been recently employed to investigate Mars, the Moon, and distant asteroids. LIDAR was discussed by the panelists as a means to create a network of devices that could accurately measure coastal land changes, to conclusively document sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and other ecosystem shifts. This is a sound strategy -- this state-of-the-art equipment is not likely to become obsolete by the time the government could scrape up the funds (which could take one or two years, in the panelists' estimation), and then it would be another three to five years to get the system running and collect data, and then three or four years for scientists to analyze the data and form conclusions. Essentially, the government wants hard data that proves climate impacts are real before they will consider changes in policy. “Congress's reaction to the climate-change forecast 29 years ago was that the scientists were crazy -- alarmists,” Dr. Caroly Shumway said. So here we are, in 2008, listening to more research over the past 30 years, only this time, these scientists say that the climate forecasts made in 1979 now are here. Not just visible in data, but in everyday life. Certainly the government could have acted sooner, but it hasn’t. I was seven years old in 1979, and in my memory of the time, cars sat in driveways and most everyone rode scooters, bicycles or busses to work. Did that 1979 climate hearing make it into the papers back then? For Americans to ponder or disregard? By 1990, I was a teenager on my first trip to Europe, where my older sister and her family were living. My meteorology studies were still in the future, and I was wide-eyed about exploring new cultures and places. Little did I expect a trip to the grocery store in Holland would be a mind-opening and memorable experience. I was ready to jump in the car and go, when my sister burrowed into a closet and handed me several canvas and plastic bags to take to the store. Seriously, I thought to myself -- no, actually, I said out loud -- "This is crazy, what a behind-the-times country!" I remember my sister graciously stating a a brief explanation about waste in the environment. It was somewhat sound and I tried to digest it, but then I learned we had to ride bicycles -- not enough parking to take the car. This was craziness! Could the two of us bike to the store, shop for a family of four, and carry home our groceries? I soon found that supermarkets in Holland are not super-sized like they are here, and neither are the contents. All this was on my mind during the URI climate hearing, and I wondered, were European nations also introduced to the climate research that the U.S. Congress heard, way back in 1979 -- only they paid attention? The scientists at the hearing were given only five minutes to present their research and recommend strategies to curb climate-change impacts upon Narragansett Bay. Five minutes hardly seems fair for these scientists to comprehensively sum up years of research, explain their conclusions and propose strategies. Yet, they all convincingly made important points. As a member of the American Meteorological Society, I had received a copy of "State of the Climate in 2007" just a week before the hearing -- 161 pages of global atmospheric analysis and conclusions. The report reflects a clear consensus that average land temperatures continue rising, with 2007 the warmest year recorded since records began in 1880, an increase of 1.15°F from 2006. Whether these rising land temperatures result from an increasing concentration of greenhouse gasses (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide [CO2], and methane) in the atmosphere is at the heart of the climate-change debate. The globally averaged CO2 concentration, measured at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, rose to 382.7 parts-per-million (ppm) in 2007, which is an increase of about 1.8ppm since 2006, compared to an estimated 280ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere around 1850. The clear concensus of the panelists was that without a reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions, no decrease in the land-temperature trend is forecast, and if the temperatures continue to rise at an accellerating rate, that warrants concern. The combined land and ocean global surface temperature declined in 2007, but it was one of the 10 highest on record. This raised a question for me, which I would have liked to ask the panel -- So if 2007 land temperatures are the highest on record and the global land/ocean temperature decreased, then are polar ice caps melting and cooling oceans at a rate faster, or equal to, the rising of land temperatures? Whether research scientists know the answer to this, or even if it is important, I wasn't able to find out. The panelists said global climate change will affect Narragansett Bay, changing our local weather patterns, coastal geography, ecological environments, and the economy. Prof. Jon Boothroyd said models forecast a three-foot rise in sea level as soon as 2050 or 2100, which would move much of Rhode Island's coast nearly one-quarter to one-half mile inland. Though it was unclear to me how certain that prediction is, perhaps the coastal LIDAR data measuring network that the panelists recommended will help to fine-tune such forecasts with more data. Long-range forecasts cited by the panelists predict temperatures and water levels higher than ever recorded, and some recent observations indicate the 1979 forecasts may now be our reality. In August 2007, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that the Northwest Passage, a 3,000-mile sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific via the Arctic Ocean and Canadian waterways in the far North, is nearly completely clear of ice, making it navigable for the first time in recorded history. Pacific Ocean salinity is decreasing to the point that Alaska fishermen have observed scallop-shell disintegration upon harvest. Since shellfish need a high concentration of water salinity to develop hardened shells, this is integral to the health of species. Changes in salinity and water temperature in Narragansett Bay are changing ecosystems here by killing eel grass and changing migrating fish patterns, according to Dr. Shumway. John Torgan, representing Save The Bay, said warmer coastal water temperatures have encouraged more frequent algae blooms, forcing beach closures during the busy summer season and resulting in lower beach and tourism revenue. Dr. Kate Moran said tick-borne disease has become more widespread in Rhode Island due to the warmer water and land temperatures. Additionally, she noted that mid-latitude storms (storms that form north of 30° North latitude) and wind patterns will shift poleward as land temperatures and sea levels both rise. I wondered if this scenario could already be having an impact. Tropical Storm Fay seemed to escape the usual West-to-East mid-latitude wind pattern that tends to steer tropical storms away from the U.S. coastline. It took an incredibly long five days for Fay to slide 350 to 400 miles across Florida, pummeling the state with 45 to 55mph winds and an incredible 5 to 12 inches of rain. Grover Fugate, executive director of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, put the scenario in perspective: "The coastal states will bear the brunt of climate change," he said. I am grateful Senator Whitehouse brought the Senate Environment Committee hearing to Rhode Island. The keen environmental interest of Rhode Islanders was made clear to him, by the overflow of supporters and the richness of our local research. Dr. Kate Moran summed up the most critcal element of the hearing for me when she said, "Scientists need to talk more like humans." I took her words to heart. A meteorologist by trade, by nature I am keenly aware of my environment. So I shop with my own grocery bag, bicycling every chance I get, here in Newport, the city by the sea. Susan Genett operates a custom forecast service, RealWeather, in Newport, where she lives, and creates custom weather forecasts for marine, aviation, and film clients. For more info.... click here for a Web site that shows data on carbon emissions in the U.S.
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Aug
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Tuesday, 26 August 2008 |
Click here for the full text of the Senator's opening statement and the printed text of all the testimony from the panel. Found only on NNN!
 Last Thursday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse drew an overflow crowd to the URI Bay Campus when he convened a panel of experts to report on the state of Narragansett Bay and the impact of global climate change on our local ecosystems. The senator represented the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and the event was run like a formal Senate hearing -- each speaker had just five minutes to make a statement, and there were no questions from the floor or the media.
The speakers were Dr. Kate Moran, of URI's Marine Geomechanics Lab; Grover Fugate of the Coastal Resources Management Council; Dr. Jon Boothroyd, state geologist; John Torgan of Save The Bay; and Dr. Caroly Shumway, of the Nature Conservancy. Also, NNN contributor Susan Genett was on the scene, click here to read about her impressions of the event.  Read more:
Click here to see a video of Save The Bay Baykeeper John Torgan's testimony (turn up your sound all the way). Click for local news reports: The Providence Business News, The Providence Journal, The Woonsocket Call. Learn more about the scientists on the panel: A recent slideshow and interview with Dr. Kate Moran via Public Radio International. Grover Fugate is chair of the Coastal Resources Management Council. John Torgan blogs at the Save The Bay site. Jon Boothroyd is a professor emiritus at URI. Caroly Shumway studies aquatic systems at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
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Aug
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Thursday, 21 August 2008 |
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 The sun is still summer-warm, but the season is fading fast, so make the most of your next-tol-last August weekend, and get outside and enjoy our little state. You can get a jumpstart tonight, with Providence Green Drinks. This casual group will gather at City Farm, offering a chance to meet some of your eco-neighbors and enjoy a tour of this amazing place. On Saturday morning, you can try out up to 50 varieties of local tomatoes at Casey Farm's Coastal Growers Market in North Kingstown, during Tomato Tasting Day, from 9 to noon. Check NNN's Community Calendar for more info. Also tonight, URI's art exhibit, Beneath the Bay, wraps up at their downtown campus with an artist's reception from 5 to 9. This excellent exhibit features photographs, paintings, historical artifacts, and more, all exploring some facet of Narragansett Bay. Go to the Gallery Night site for more info.  You can also learn about another local culinary delight -- wild mushrooms -- at Audubon's Fisherville Brook Wildlife Refuge in Exeter, on Saturday morning. A special class from 10 to 1 will take you out searching and end with sample gourmet dishes featuring local fungi. Contact Audubon for more info at 949-5454.
Also coming up soon -- the Waste=Food film on Monday night in Pawtucket, the Bliss Greek dinner on Tuesday in Newport, and also the new Newport Energy Commission will meet that same night. Images courtesy of URI Feinstein Gallery and Audubon Society of RI.
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Got a question about the greener life?
Susan Genett, a meteorologist based in Newport, attended last week's