NZ helps US studies on climate change

By BRIAN FALLOW

While the United States and New Zealand agree to disagree about the merits of the Kyoto Protocol, they are collaborating in efforts to improve the scientific understanding of climate change.

Conrad Lautenbacher, a retired US Navy vice-admiral who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - the US equivalent of Niwa - was in Wellington yesterday to talk to ministers and scientists about New Zealand's role in a more comprehensive global climate observing system.

"We know a lot but there's a great deal of uncertainty left," Lautenbacher said.

"We don't know at what level greenhouse gases should be stabilised. We don't know how much is man-made and how much arises from natural fluctuations. And our observations are inadequate in many areas to understand the transfer of heat in the oceans, which is very important to long-term climate projections."

Only when those comprehensive observations are made can many of the key scientific questions be resolved and an informed choice between competing models of the global climate be made.

New Zealand contributes about $100,000 a year to a 14-nation, US-led project called Argo to scatter 3000 "floats" around the oceans to collect data.

The freely floating devices are designed to sink to a depth of 2000m then rise to the surface over 10 days, collecting information on temperatures and salinity as they go. At the surface they transit that data and their position to NOAA satellites, then repeat the cycle.

Although the need for better climate science is uncontroversial, the same cannot be said for the United States' decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement setting up a cap-and-trade mechanism to curb emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

"I don't think the US position on Kyoto is likely to change," Lautenbacher said, "unless there are some major discoveries or changes to our understanding of the science. But the US has spent between US$18 ($36.2 billion) and US$20 billion ($40.25 billion) over the past 10 years on climate change science and mitigation.

"Today we spend US$4.5 billion a year in this area. So the US is not sitting on its hands." New Zealand is on course to ratify the protocol before Christmas.

The two countries last month announced a bilateral agreement to co-operate on climate change matters.

In addition to the oceanographic work, the co-operation is likely to extend to research in Antarctica and greenhouse accounting in forestry and agriculture.

NOAA

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