UCC Climate Change Research
Workshop
Flash Presentations
University College Cork
May 29th, 2013, 9:00 -13:00
Boole 5, UCC Campus
The Status of Ireland’s Climate, 2012
Dr. Ned Dwyer
Essential Climate Variables of Relevance to Ireland
as defined by the Global Climate Observing System Secretariat
Air Temperature
Mean Surface Air Temperature (1900-2011)
Annual Mean
11 year moving average
1961-1990 Normal
Simple linear trend
1.3
10.6
0.9
0.7
10.2
0.5
0.3
9.8
0.1
-0.1
9.4
-0.3
-0.5
9.0
-0.7
-0.9
1900
Mean Annual Temperature (oC)
Difference (oC) from 1961 - 1990
1.1
8.6
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
Year
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
T mean has increased by approximately 0.8oC over the last 110 years
Ireland’s Climate is changing in line with regional and global
trends…..
…but local patterns are evident. It is essential that Ireland’s
climate observation system is maintained and enhanced to
allow us understand how our climate is changing and how
best to adapt
Dr. Dean Venables
Dept. of Chemistry/ERI
New Approaches To Measuring The Aerosol
Direct Effect In Radiative Forcing
OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF PARTICLES
Field studies: Martins et al., 2009
Wood combustion:
Chen & Bond, 2010
“a large source of uncertainty in the aerosol
radiative forcing estimates is associated with
aerosol absorption.” (IPCC, 2007)
OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF PARTICLES
INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT: Extension to near-UV
Atmospheric chamber
FTIR
Filter
M1
M2
M
M
Iris
Iris
L1
NOx detect.
O3 detect.
L2
CCD
Xe Arc Lamp
Broadband optical cavity spectroscopy (IBBCEAS)
Coupled to simulation chambers
OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF PARTICLES
(a)
3
340 nm
1-nitronaphthalene
2
-1
1
extinction coefficient (10 cm )
400 nm
1-NN added
photolysis
0
60
•
•
2
-3
3
(b)
2
40
20
1
0
0
60
80
100
Time (min)
6
(c)
-5
60 80 100 120
Time (min)
-3
40
Mass concentration (10 g m )
20
3
0
Concentration (10 cm )
Fractional intensity change
OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF NITROAROMATIC AEROSOL
120
118 min
4
99 min
2
94 min
89 min (1-NN gas)
0
320
340
360
380
wavelength (nm)
400
Measure broadband, near-UV extinction spectra of gases & particles
Study optical properties of different aerosol types & how they
change with atmospheric processing
Prof. Graham Parkes
Dept. of Philosophy
The Politics of Global Warming
The Politics of Climate Change:
Philosophical Perspectives
•
•
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1. The Climate
Sciences
2. Climate Scepticism
3. The Promethean
Spirit
4. Engaging China
5. Nature and
Technology
Climate Scepticism
Psycho-social factors: the problem is imperceptible, abstract (far future);
wishful thinking, pre-judgments - social
identity
Economic factors: tackling climate change will restrict growth of GNP
An inconvenient fact:
To stand an 80% chance of preventing a temperature rise of 2ºC
over pre-industrial levels, some 80% of currently owned fossil fuel
reserves will have to be left in the ground -- a loss of some $20
trillion.
•
Political factors: two major obstacles (USA)
•
1. The enormous financial power of the fossil fuel
industries
» to fund think-tanks, lobby Congress, re-elect politicians
•
Carbon-rich nations:
» USA, Russia, China, Australia, Venezuela, Iran, Saudi
Arabia, India, Canada . . .
•
2. The power of the religious Republicans in Congress
» who control the Committee on the Environment, the
Energy Committee, the Science Committee
The Spirit of Prometheus
•
Myth: ‘This never happened, but is always going on.’
•
•
The Titan Prometheus gave us fire stolen from Zeus
and (stolen from other Gods) the techniques of
survival:
•
•
•
•
woodworking, house-building, ship-building,
agriculture, animal husbandry, and mining.
Plato: ‘Prometheus gave humans the survival arts, but
not the political arts.’
Prometheus relieved us of ‘a sense of our death’ and gave us instead ‘blind
hopes’.
The punishment of Prometheus:
Chained to a rock on a mountain-top, his liver is pecked out daily by the eagle
of Zeus.
Celine McInerney
Finance Lecturer
Department of Accounting, Finance and Information Systems
“Financial Market Assessment of Carbon
Liabilities”
Unburnable Carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded assets
•
•
565 – 886 billion tonnes CO2 carbon budget for 20 C scenario (IEA & Carbon Tracker)
2,860 billion tonnes CO2 – Top 200 emitters current fossil fuel reserves (Stern et al.)
•
40-60% of the market value of top 200 oil and gas companies ($4 trillion market
value & $1.5 trillion debt) at risk as carbon liabilities are not recognised by investors
Lord Nicholas Stern
Conclusion: Markets do not believe politicians will enforce carbon targets
•
•
If markets are right => carbon targets not enforced and temperature will increase by over 30 C
If markets are wrong => politicians enforce carbon targets and 40-60% of energy companies’
value will be wiped out
Summary
•
No accounting standard for carbon liabilities
•
CO2 liabilities not disclosed in accounts
•
Difficult for rating agencies to assess impact
•
Expectation of CO2 market fix increasing cost of capital –
April 16, 2013, following EU parliament rejection of CO2
“backloading” plan utilities shares ↓: Eon 5%, RWE 2%
•
Neither equity nor credit markets pricing in CO2 risk
Areas of Knowledge
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Finance theory on risk and return, portfolio theory
Valuation using Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), Monte Carlo
Modelling financial returns to renewable investors
Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), Weighted Average Cost
of Capital (WACC), Cost of debt (bond pricing), cost of equity –
calculating asset Betas etc.
Options: Black and Scholes, Margrabe spread options, real
options
Financial statement analysis
Energy market models and electricity price forecasting, SEM,
BETTA
Interconnection / Valuation of Interconnectors
Accounting for carbon liabilities
Dr Fiona Cawkwell, Department of Geography, UCC; f.cawkwell@ucc.ie
Earth Observation systems for
Climate Change
Dr Fiona Cawkwell, Department of Geography, UCC; f.cawkwell@ucc.ie
Earth Observation systems for
Climate Change
Dr Fiona Cawkwell, Department of Geography, UCC; f.cawkwell@ucc.ie
Earth Observation systems for
Climate Change at UCC
Courtesy of Dr Brian Barrett
Courtesy of
Dr Brian O’Connor
Courtesy of
Gillian Whelan
FAPAR value
Courtesy of
Dr Brian Barrett
Courtesy of
Stuart Green
Image: Anne, flickr.com, creative commons licence
Wind Energy, CO2 emissions and export
of renewable electricity
Dr. Paul Leahy,
Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Environmental
Research Institute
University College Cork
ERI Climate Change Research Showcase, May 29th 2013
paul.leahy@ucc.ie
Does wind energy mitigate CO2
emissions?
CO2 sources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
CO2 sinks
Turbine manufacture
Transport to site
Soil disturbance
Foundations & site works
Tree felling
Spinning reserve
Other power system effects
Operations & maintenance
Decommissioning
• Displaced CO2
emissions from
fossil fuel
generation
ERI Climate Change Workshop 2013
Does wind energy mitigate CO2
Yes,
emissions?
Indicative wind farm CO2 balance
10
CO2
source
5
lifetime
0
2
2
CO emissions [g CO / kWh]
overwhelmingly,:
but…
CO2
sink
-5
1 year
-10
-15
-20
CO2 emissions are
highly site-dependent
foundations/site works
peat disturbance
turbine manufacture
displaced emissions (1 year)
pre-operational
CO2 abatement: Power
systems are complex -- new
measures and
infrastructure to support
renewables may have
unintended consequences!
operational
ERI Climate Change Workshop 2013
Wind export to Britain: issues to be
resolved
 ‘Greenwire’ project – Element Power (2.5 GW wind)
 `c. 1000 turbines
 ‘EnergyBridge’ project - Mainstream Renewable
Power (3 GW wind)
 c. 1200 turbines
 … both by 2020!
• RES-E generated counts towards UK
renewables target
• CO2 associated with land-use change :
“booked” in Ireland?
ERI Climate Change Workshop 2013
Climate Justice,
Human Rights and
Natural Disasters
Dug Cubie
Irish Research Council New Foundations awards
University College Cork, Ireland
29th May 2013
Post-2015
frameworks
Climate
change
Kyoto
Protocol
MDGs
Sustainable
development
Protection
of Persons
Disaster
risk
reduction
Hyogo
Framework
ILC draft
articles
Disaster
response
Incoherent Broadband Cavity
Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy
(IBBCEAS)
Application to Climate Research
Ranjini Raghunandan
Albert A. Ruth
Physics Department, University College Cork
IBBCEAS
•
Measures the transmission of light intensity through a stable optical
cavity consisting of high reflectance mirrors (R>0.999)
•
•
Allows a significant spectral range to be covered simultaneously
Light sources commercially available, simple, inexpensive and bright
•
IBBCEAS + FT
•
High sensitivity, experimental simplicity
 High spectral resolution
Fiedler, S.E., Hese, A., Ruth, A.A., Chem. Phys. Lett., 371 (2003) 284.
Orphal, J., Ruth, A.A., Opt. Express, 16 (2008) 19232.
The Hydroxyl Radical
The role of nitrogen in OH production
• OH: The most important oxidising
agent in the troposphere!
•
Determines concentrations and
distribution of greenhouse gases and
pollutants
• An important source for CO2
production
• OH + CO
CO2 + H
+ H2O
Lammel, G., Cape, J. N., Chem. Soc. Rev., 25 (1996) 361.
Heard, D. E. Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 57 (2006) 191 .
+
Application of FT-IBBCEAS to the HONO problem
•
Detection of the species’ fingerprints over 3000 cm-1 allows direct comparison of
relative concentrations
•
High spectral resolution


a probe to the reaction chemistry
contribution to spectral databases
Other applications of IBBCEAS
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Chemical Reaction Kinetics
Pollution monitoring
Fundamental Science and Research
Breath Analysis
Combustion Diagnostics
More Information
http://laser-spectroscopy.ucc.ie/