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4 january 31, 2011 TheRecord january 31, 2011 TheRecord Climate research Scientists Drill For Insights Under the Salty Dead Sea By David Funkhouser Scientists are drilling deep into the bed of the fast-shrinking Dead Sea, searching for clues to past climate changes and other events that may have affected human history even earlier than biblical times. They have found that the sea has come and gone in the past—a revelation with powerful implications for the current Mideast. Bordering Israel and Jordan, the inland Dead Sea is Earth’s lowest-lying spot on land, with shores some 1,400 feet below ocean level and hyper-salty waters going down another 1,200 feet or more. Beneath it lie deep deposits of salts and sediments fed mainly by Jordan River drainage. The drilling is being conducted by investigators from Israel, the United States, Germany, Japan, Norway and Switzerland. Steven L. Goldstein, professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, one of the project leaders, says that drill cores show that the Dead Sea has dried up at least twice without human intervention over hundreds of thousands of years. “Climate models predict a greater aridity with a warmer climate,” he noted. “Just imagine what this means if a warming climate results in the present day fresh water supply becoming scarcer and scarcer.” Scarce fresh water is an explosive issue in this part of the world; the Dead Sea has been shrinking rapidly as Syria, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority pull virtually all the water from the Jordan River for agriculture and other uses. At its southern end also lie huge evaporation ponds, where Israel and Jordan mine salt. If changing climate further dries the region, pressure on the fresh water supply will increase. Previous research along the Dead Sea’s shores determined that water levels fluctuated with the coming and going of ice ages over the last several hundred thousand years. Surrounding bluffs show higher shorelines; the current sea is more than 800 feet lower than it was during the height of the last glaciation some 20,000 years ago. The main drill site is the deepest part of the sea, in about 1,000 feet of water 5 miles off the Israeli shore. Drilling began Nov. 21 and continued through mid-January when it was suspended for maintenance and repair. It is scheduled to resume in March. The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program is sponsoring the project and covering roughly 40 “This is looking at climate at a very important place in human history.” percent of the $2.5 million cost. The remaining funds come from funding agencies in Israel and the other participating countries, including the National Science Foundation in the United States. Minerals that settle to the bottom of the Dead Sea during annual dry seasons contain uranium that allows researchers to date the sediment layers; dry season minerals alternate with layers of mud formed during the wet seasons. From these deposits, researchers can find evidence of water chemistry, prevailing winds and changing climate, not only year by year, but season by season. At two points, the researchers have already come across levels composed of pebbles, indicating that the middle of the Dead Sea was once a beach. These events could coincide with the end of the last glacial period around 13,000 to 14,000 years ago, and an earlier interglacial period 125,000 years ago. Other levels show evidence of earthquakes, as layers of sediment that normally lie flat are twisted into convoluted shapes. With precise dating, these should form a detailed picture of the ancient history of earthquakes in the region. “An earthquake was almost certainly the source of the biblical story of Jericho, when the walls came tumbling down,” Goldstein says. Information from the sediments could form valuable context for that and other ancient stories. The region is thought to have been the corridor for various human migrations, and is the primary route by which early people spread out from Africa. “This is looking at climate at a very important place in human history,” Goldstein said. The chief Israeli scientists on the project are Mordechai Stein of the Geological Survey of Israel and Zvi Ben-Avraham of Tel Aviv University; others come from the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, the University of Geneva, the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto and the University of Minnesota. The group is hoping to involve scientists from the Palestinian territories and Jordan as well. The team hopes to recover cores of sediment going as far back in time as possible, up to several hundred thousand years ago. David Funkhouser is a science writer at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Above: Sediment cores taken from the Dead Sea indicate the area has dried up at least twice without human intervention. The lake faces new stress now from humans pulling fresh water from the Jordan River, which flows into the sea. Geology Professor Steven Goldstein stands on a drilling rig in the Dead Sea last November with a core sample taken from deep below the salty sea between Jordan and Israel. Goldstein is part of a team of researchers drilling to discover clues to past climate change and natural disasters in the region. Adi Torfstein Adi Torfstein Law School’s Gerrard Sees Little Hope for Climate Bill This Year By Bridget O’Brian Now that Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, a leading expert on climate change law is not optimistic about the prospects for meaningful climate legislation in the next two years. “The best we can hope for from this Congress is some energy legislation that would encourage renewable energy and efficiency”—and even that isn’t a sure thing, says Michael Gerrard (CC’72), director of Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law. The center, which was started in 2009, develops legal techniques to fight climate change, trains law students and lawyers in their use, and serves as a clearinghouse for information about the issue. Gerrard was an environmental lawyer for 30 years, most recently at the law firm Arnold & Porter, before becoming the Andrew Sabin Professor of 1 Professional Practice at the law school; he also holds an appointment at the Earth Institute. He sees the fight over climate change focusing on the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection Agency, with Congress attempting to suspend or revoke it or simply to freeze the agency’s funding. Republicans have already introduced legislation to block the E.P.A.’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. The U.S. Supreme Court held in 2007 that the Clean Air Act grants the agency the authority to regulate heat-trapping auto emissions. It was, at the time, a big win for environmentalists. This year, Gerrard and other climate change advocates are awaiting the outcome of a case the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear, Connecticut vs. American Electric Power. It was brought by eight states seeking to force five utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions on the theory 3 20 10 10 21 3 2 1 2 4 1 4 7 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 0 Source: Arnold & Porter and Columbia Center for Climate Change Law Number of Cases 130 120 110 100 Climate Litigation: Filings Other Common Law National Environmental Policy Act Coal Industry Environmentalist 12 9 4 6 1989 1992 1993 1996 1997 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 A chart shows how lawsuits related to climate change have skyrocketed in recent years, with the majority filed by industry seeking to overturn EPA rules 1 3 10 22 Year Filed 3 1 14 32 4 22 15 4 9 8 9 13 96 ( 372 c a s e s a s o f J a n . 5 , 2011 ) that they are a public nuisance. In 2009, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court ruled in favor of the states. This theory could open up liability claims against not only electric utilities, but also a broad swath of industries. It could be the Court’s most important environmental decision since the 2007 case, Massachusetts v. EPA. “This will be very big,” Gerrard says. “We know the four justices who dissented in that case would want to reverse this current case.” He was referring to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. The outcome of the Connecticut case is uncertain in part because Justice Sonia Sotomayor has recused herself due to her involvement in the case at the appellate level, and a 4-4 tie is possible. Gerrard notes that in addition to the Supreme Court action, lawsuits related to climate change have skyrocketed. According to the database of the Center for Climate Change Law, 132 lawsuits were filed in U.S. courts in 2010 compared to 54 in 2009. The majority, 96, were filed by industry firms seeking to overturn the E.P.A.’s regulations concerning greenhouse gas emissions. Just a handful were filed by environmentalists. “Coal-fired plants are the largest single source of greenhouse gases in the United States so the environmental community has launched a campaign to stop the construction of any new coal plants, and it’s been very successful so far,” Gerrard says. Unlike tax or bankruptcy law, there isn’t one statute governing climate change, nor are there specific laws on the books as yet to address climate change. Those difficulties stem from the very nature of climate change. “It involves a broad range of human activities that have a cumulative impact over time and over space all over the world,” says Gerrard. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in any one location will not have a local or immediate effect, but it will contribute overall to the eventual solution of the problem.” Advocates for climate change legislation have their work cut out for them over the next couple years as they contend with a new crop of lawmakers hostile to the idea of regulating emissions. In addition to introducing anti-regulatory bills, House climate change skeptics are expected to launch investigations challenging scientific research on the topic. “The 2012 election could bring a whole new ball game,” says Gerrard. “It could get better, it could get worse.”
Climate research Using Game Theory to Forecast Climate Trends By Melanie A. Farmer Economist Scott Barrett is no fan of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and get climate change under control. Barrett proposes a different approach: tackle the gigantic problem, one piece at a time. “If we break up the problem into smaller pieces we’re more likely to have a dramatic impact in the end,” he says. Lamont-Doherty Researcher: Southwest Headed for Permanent Drought By David Funkhouser The American Southwest has seen naturally induced dry spells throughout the past, but now human-induced global warming could push the region into a permanent drought in the coming decades, according to Lamont-Doherty scientist Richard Seager and others who have been studying the area’s climate. Seager, who focuses on climate variability and climate change, began his work studying droughts by looking into the past using sea surface temperature records gathered by ships plying the oceans in the 19th century. He and colleagues used computer models to recreate a climate history that showed periodic droughts. Focusing on North America, they also used tree rings to look back as far as the Middle Ages, when the Southwest experienced a drought lasting hundreds of years. “You begin to see that there’s a natural cycle of droughts, large and small,” says Seager, the Palisades Geophysical Institute/Lamont research professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “But when you add in the human effects from rising greenhouse gases, we could be pushing subtropical regions like the American Southwest into a permanent state of aridity. There are signs it’s already underway.” In a 2007 paper, Seager and colleagues used computer models to show the Southwest is on the verge of a transition to a more arid climate. And in the December 2010 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Seager and Gabriel Vecchi of NOAA pinned the drying to a drop in winter Barrett, the Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics with a joint appointment in the School of International and Public Affairs and the Earth Institute, is an expert in complex international negotiations. He uses game theory, which analyzes how people make decisions when the desired outcome depends on the choices of other people, to understand how treaties such as Kyoto can get countries to behave differently. He has advised a number of international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Bank, on health, climate and other global issues. The Kyoto Protocol sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries to reduce six greenhouse gases; those targets are set to expire next year. The United States is not a party. Barrett suggests it would be more productive if more agreements were negotiated focusing on individual gases and sectors—and in fact, such proposals are already on the table. For example, the United States, Mexico and Canada have expressed their willingness to reduce hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs, which are used as refrigerants in air conditioners and cooling systems, under an existing treaty, the Montreal Protocol. HFCs are one of the six greenhouse gases in the Kyoto agreement. The Montreal Protocol was adopted “If we break up the problem into smaller pieces we’re more likely to have a dramatic impact in the end.” in 1987 to phase out chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons found in aerosol cans that were destroying the ozone layer. It is considered one of the most successful international agreements. Barrett credits its success to its ingenious design, which incorporates carrot-and-stick incentives. The main “carrot” or reward is a payment to compensate developing countries for the additional costs of phasing out CFCs. The main “stick” is the threat to restrict trade to punish countries that are not party to the treaty. Barrett says these incentives could control HFCs effectively, but would not work if applied across the board to reductions TheRecord January january 31, 2011 31, 2011 5 in the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), because they might spark a trade war. For instance, there would be a political uproar, and possible trade retaliation, if countries in the European Union and Japan restricted trade against the U.S. for not ratifying Kyoto. Rather, he believes CO2 emissions are best limited by focusing on individual sectors such as steel, aluminum, automobiles or electricity. “The logic is partly that you can use the leverage you have for each piece to bring about the greatest amount of change,” Barrett says. “When you throw everything together—like what’s being done in the Kyoto Protocol—you lose that leverage.” Barrett notes that the key problem with the Kyoto Protocol is that it has no meaningful enforcement mechanism. “This whole approach can only succeed if you can enforce what countries agree to do,” he says. “We’ve been unable to figure out how to do that.” As far as he’s concerned, it’s time for a new approach. “There are no silver bullets,” he says about his piecemeal strategy, “but this approach is better than Kyoto. Fortunately, the failure of the Copenhagen negotiations is causing people to be open to new proposals. I think we’re there now.” In 2009, international delegates to a climate summit in the Danish capital failed to agree on binding Scott Barrett is an expert in complex international negotiations. action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. precipitation and showed how this is caused by changes in atmospheric circulation and water vapor transports induced by warming temperatures. The warming also shortens the snow season, reduces the snow mass that serves as natural storage for water, and forces an earlier spring melt, disrupting the supply system that waters much of the Southwest—the region from the western Great Plains to the Pacific, and the Oregon border to southern Mexico. That is ominous news for a region that has seen explosive growth in population, land use and water demands in recent decades. A reduction in the flow of important water resources such as the Colorado River will have serious consequences. “I’m curious how the Southwest is going to handle this,” Seager says. He says the natural variations between wet and dry periods are driven mostly by the El Niño/La Niña cycle of sea surface warming and cooling in the Pacific. “The anthropo- Aerial view of Lake Powell in Arizona. The prominent white rings surrounding the edges genic signal is currently small of the cliffs are due to steadily receding water levels. compared to the natural variability,” Seager says. “But you can see it, and it’s consistent with the climate models. It works across the whole subtropics. Right now the human effect is small, but it will become a serious problem in the decades down the road.” Local water system managers want to know how much water will be available in coming years, but Seager can’t offer information that detailed. Still, almost all of the climate models point to a much drier region by around 2050. “You could wait to the middle of the century and say, well, did this happen, or didn’t it happen” Seager says. “But that’s not a very sensible thing to do.” Columbia Ink New Books by Faculty Order and Chivalry by Jesus D. Rodriguez-Velasco University of Pennsylvania Press Knighthood and chivalry are commonly associated with the aristocracy. However, Jesus D. Rodriguez-Velasco, professor of Latin American and Iberian studies at Columbia, is interested in how chivalric orders helped create the urban middle class in 14th century Spain. Rodriguez- Velasco, who teaches medieval and early modern studies, relies on original texts to document the emergence of secular knighthood organizations in the Spanish kingdom of Castile. These organizations had rules that were different from those of military and religious orders for the nobility, and drew their membership from the ranks of city-dwelling commoners. Rodriguez-Velasco argues that these institutions helped define the privileges and political structures of modern Western society. The Gipper by Jack Cavanaugh Skyhorse Publishing Perhaps no sports legend is more enduring than that of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne and his star athlete George “The Gipper” Gipp, a former pool hustler and poker player still regarded by some as the best all-round player for the Fighting Irish. Jack Cavanaugh, a veteran sportswriter whose biography Tunney was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, traces the lives of the two men as they intertwine on the Notre Dame football field in the years leading up to and just after World War I. Cavanaugh, a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, details how Rockne and Gipp helped transform an unknown college football program into a national powerhouse and, in the process, cemented the phrase “Win one for the Gipper” in the popular imagination. The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election by Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz Simon & Schuster Prolific author and Journalism Professor Todd Gitlin takes on the special relationship between the United States and Israel in his latest book, The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election. With co-author Liel Leibovitz, an editor of the online Jewish affairs magazine Tablet, Gitlin suggests that both nations share the conviction they were singled out by God to serve as a beacon to the world. They argue that this shared idea of divine destiny drove both the westward expansion of the United States and the establishment of a modern Jewish state in the biblical land of Israel. A belief in divine election doesn’t necessarily lead to arrogance and bad behavior, they contend; instead, the burden of “chosenness”—if shouldered properly—can offer a path to moral excellence. Importing Democracy By Raymond a. Smith Praeger The United States has always taken pride in being a model of democracy. However, presidential systems are more closely associated with dictatorship and single-party rule in other parts of the world like Latin America and Africa. Raymond A. Smith, adjunct professor of political science, explores whether American democracy might be strengthened by incorporating features of parliamentary systems. Each of the 21 chapters highlights a feature of a foreign nation’s political system that is absent in the U.S. system. Chapters also draw on brief case studies from countries such as Australia, Brazil and South Africa.
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January 31, 2011 - Columbia News - Columbia University

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