Eideard

Exports to China rose broadly across the United States last year, the US-China Business Council said in annual report aimed at reducing anti-China trade sentiment in Congress.

“In 2010, exports to China rose 32 percent – faster than export growth to any of the US top five export destinations. Even in states that had a mixed export story over the previous eight years – such as Maine, Wisconsin and Tennessee – exports from congressional districts to China generally rose faster than the rest of the world,” the report said.

China is now the third largest export market for the United States, behind Canada and Mexico. In the decade since Beijing joined the World Trade Organization, US exports to China have risen 468 percent to $91.9 billion, compared to a 55 percent rise in US exports to the rest of the world…

The report examined US Census Bureau county export data for each of the 435 congressional districts represented in the US House of Representatives. It found that exports to China rose last year in 404 districts, a statistic the US-China Business Council hopes will make lawmakers think twice before voting for trade legislation that could prompt Beijing to retaliate…

California, Washington, Texas, Louisiana and Oregon are the five states that export the most to China, so not surprisingly districts in those states showed the biggest sales.

Although US exports to China have boomed over the last 10 years, the US share of that fast-growing import market has actually fallen to 7 percent, from 10 percent in 2000.

The US-China Business Council urged President Barack Obama’s administration to set a goal of raising that back to 10 percent as part of its wider effort to double US exports to more than $3 trillion by 2014.

Overdue. Though that’s true of anywhere that would be a natural export market for the United States.

It’s just that we’ve spent the last 10 years wasting what halo effect we had in Asia as a leading economic and political force. History offered partnership while our politicians and pundits demanded pride and power.

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerating pace, according to a new study. The findings of the study – the longest to date of changes in polar ice sheet mass – suggest these ice sheets are overtaking ice loss from Earth’s mountain glaciers and ice caps to become the dominant contributor to global sea level rise, much sooner than model forecasts have predicted…

The nearly 20-year study reveals that in 2006, a year in which comparable results for mass loss in mountain glaciers and ice caps are available from a separate study conducted using other methods, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes a year on average. That’s enough to raise global sea level by an average of 1.3 millimeters (.05 inches) a year. (A gigatonne is one billion metric tons, or more than 2.2 trillion pounds.) Ice sheets are defined as being larger than 50,000 square kilometers, or 20,000 square miles, and only exist in Greenland and Antarctica while ice caps are areas smaller than 50,000 square km.

The pace at which the polar ice sheets are losing mass was found to be accelerating rapidly. Each year over the course of the study, the two ice sheets lost a combined average of 36.3 gigatonnes more than they did the year before. In comparison, the 2006 study of mountain glaciers and ice caps estimated their loss at 402 gigatonnes a year on average, with a year-over-year acceleration rate three times smaller than that of the ice sheets.

“That ice sheets will dominate future sea level rise is not surprising — they hold a lot more ice mass than mountain glaciers,” said lead author Eric Rignot, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine. “What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening. If present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Our study helps reduce uncertainties in near-term projections of sea level rise.”

Rignot’s team combined nearly two decades (1992-2009) of monthly satellite measurements with advanced regional atmospheric climate model data to examine changes in ice sheet mass and trends in acceleration of ice loss…

The team found that for each year over the 18-year study, the Greenland ice sheet lost mass faster than it did the year before, by an average of 21.9 gigatonnes a year. In Antarctica, the year-over-year speedup in ice mass lost averaged 14.5 gigatonnes…

While this provides one indication of the potential contribution ice sheets could make to sea level in the coming century, the authors caution that considerable uncertainties remain in estimating future ice loss acceleration.

The inherent conservatism of bona fide scientists once again accounts for the element of a “surprising” rate of melting. Not that it means much to pundits or politicians committed to fossil fuel funding. Or, sadly, a populace in general that’s hardly past WW2 in terms of general understanding of science.

The flywheel effect is so strong that even when people are pushed far enough, no longer being able to ignore reality – it will take generations to begin to halt and then reverse the effects of global warming.

Greenland is situated in the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast of Canada. It has stunning fjords on its rocky coast formed by moving glaciers, and a dense icecap up to 2 km thick that covers much of the island–pressing down the land beneath and lowering its elevation. Now, scientists at the University of Miami say Greenland’s ice is melting so quickly that the land underneath is rising at an accelerated pace.

According to the study, some coastal areas are going up by nearly one inch per year and if current trends continue, that number could accelerate to as much as two inches per year by 2025, explains Tim Dixon…principal investigator of the study.

“It’s been known for several years that climate change is contributing to the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet,” Dixon says. “What’s surprising, and a bit worrisome, is that the ice is melting so fast that we can actually see the land uplift in response,” he says. “Even more surprising, the rise seems to be accelerating, implying that melting is accelerating…”

“During ice ages and in times of ice accumulation, the ice suppresses the land,” Shimon Wdowinski says. “When the ice melts, the land rebounds upwards,” he says. “Our study is consistent with a number of global warming indicators, confirming that ice melt and sea level rise are real and becoming significant…”

One of the study investigators, Yan Jiang says, “We hope that our work reaches the general public and that this information is considered by policy makers.”

Apparently he doesn’t have much experience with American politics.

Santa been smoking the seeds, again!

U.S. online sales are expected to rise 8 percent this holiday season, with mass market retailers who can offer discounts performing best, according to Forrester Research Inc.

The research firm said it expects online retail sales in November and December to reach $44.7 billion this year, up from $41.4 billion a year ago, providing a bright spot to a retail industry that could see total sales fall.

“Despite the lingering effects of the global financial crisis, the online space remains the retail industry’s growth engine,” Forrester said in its report.

Last year, total holiday sales logged their worst performance in nearly four decades after consumers cut back onspending in a global financial crisis. Online sales rose only 5 percent last holiday, breaking a multiyear streak of double-digit gains, according to Forrester.

This year…the National Retail Federation has forecast that total holiday sales will decline 1 percent…

For its part, Amazon forecast that sales during the holiday quarter could far exceed Wall Street’s early estimates.

About the only portion of our family purchases that doesn’t regularly happen online is groceries. If I ever decide to buy a new pickup, I imagine that will be a brick-and-mortar purchase.

That’s about it, folks.

A meltdown of West Antarctica’s ice sheet would raise sea levels by half as much as previously expected, but the impact would still be catastrophic, especially for U.S. coastal cities.

A collapse of the ice sheet, viewed by scientists as more vulnerable than Greenland or East Antarctica because of global warming, would push up world sea levels by 3.3 metres over hundreds of years rather than 5-6 as long estimated.

“The long-term impact of West Antarctica is not be as serious as previously believed,” said Jonathan Bamber, a professor at Bristol University in England who led the study published in the journal Science.

“But 17 million people in Bangladesh alone would be displaced by a sea level rise of 1.5 metres,” he told Reuters. “The consequences for the planet and stability of society as a whole for even a 1-2 metres rise is very, very serious.”

Sea levels off North America would rise more than anywhere else under the new projections, by Bamber and experts at University of Durham in England and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Antarctica’s vast mass exerts a gravitational tug that raises water levels in the Southern Ocean. If that ice were to melt, computer models project that sea levels would rise fastest around North America, while falling in the Southern Ocean.

“Levels on the U.S. seaboards would rise 25 percent more than the global average and threaten cities like New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco,” said Bamber.

I recall a parallel from when I worked in a Louisiana shipyard back in the day. Our know-nothing skeptics who are like the guy who stood out in the noonday sun hitting himself in the middle of his forehead with a 4-pound ball-peen hammer. He would say, when asked “why” – “it feels so good when I stop”!

Now, they can switch to a 2-pound hammer.

That’s right. Ain’t anything different on the outside.

The U.S. government has imposed the first increase in mileage standards for passenger cars and boosted the floor for sport utilities and pickups beginning with model year 2011 vehicles.

The modest increase of less than 1 mile per gallon for the fleet over current targets for the fleet represents an abbreviated approach by the Obama administration as it confronts industry distress and pressure from California and other states to set their own goals.

The standard, which is expected to cost industry $1.4 billion in vehicle design and other changes, would require compacts, sedans and other passenger cars to average 30.2 miles per gallon in combined city/highway driving, up from the 27.5 mpg standard that was established in the late 1970s under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program.

Many passenger cars made by overseas manufacturers already meet or exceed the standard.

Just in case you never noticed.

Toyota Motor Corp expects its 2010 Prius hybrid to get 46 mpg while estimates for the Insight hybrid made by Honda Motor Co is 41 mpg.

Detroit’s efforts to revamp its fleet include the Ford Fusion hybrid sedan, due in showrooms this spring, that gets 41 mpg/city.

I’ll just take a line or two to whine about the lack of a smallish-diesel-powered pickup available in the U.S.. Ford makes ‘em. So does Toyota. Just not for the United States.